Monday, March 19, 2012

Planetary Rulers of Mansions of the Moon?


I had an interesting question about the planetary rulers of the Mansions of the Moon.

In Vedic astrology the 27 nakshatra do have planetary rulers, but this is based on a planetary period sequence, similarly to firdaria. The sequence is Sun, Moon, Mars, North Node, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, South Node and Venus.

A number of traditional Western sources do give planetary rulerships for the Mansions, but each one is different, some use the Chaldean Order, some the days of the week order.

A majority of traditional sources on the Mansions do not provide planetary rulerships and those sources that do, don't agree on the system. The Liber Lunae, Sloane Ms 3826, a mid-Sixteenth Century English source gives a strange sequence of planetary rulerships, that doesn't follow the Chaldean Order or the days of the week. The Liber Lunae Mansions are contained in my Mansions of the Moon Book.

I would have to ask why logically the Mansions of the MOON would even have planetary rulers? Aren't these the Moon's Mansions? This reminds me of the confusion over planetary rulership of fixed stars. Because Ptolemy in Tetrabiblos says that fixed stars "have the nature of" various planets, this has been taken as meaning that the planets rule these fixed stars. Again, logically the fixed stars are in a higher sphere and in fact the fixed stars "rule" the planets.

My view is that having planetary rulerships for everything is like the modern Aries = Mars = 1st house. It is collapsing the nuances of traditional astrology and losing the underlying structure.

Still, there is some support in traditional sources, the problem is which source do you choose and then what does it mean if Mars, for example, "rules" the first mansion? I can see that the designers of Solar Fire were confused because they insist on giving the location of all the planets in Mansions. We can therefore puzzle over the meaning or to my mind, the lack of meaning, of Saturn in the 5th Mansion.

For more info on the Mansions check out my webpage, book,
Mansions of the Moon Mini-Course and Astrological Magic Full Course

3 comments:

Morgan Drake Eckstein said...

The way that I think about this one is that the planet (ruler) is stronger here than otherwise; it is not true rulership. Of course, I could be so wrong.

Christopher Warnock, Esq said...

But why would a particular planet be stronger in a particular Mansion of the MOON? What does any planet, except the Moon, have to do with the Mansions?

Other than "we always use the planets for everything" that is?

Frater VL said...

I don't think the planets have influence on the Mansions of the Moon; since they are specifically lunar spirits.

The problem of associating planets to them is due to the zodiacal influences on the Mansions, but that's wrong.

Many magicians go with the logic saying: oh, if the first mansion corresponds to Aries, then Mars is the ruler of Aries, it also has influence on that mansion, and I repeat...that's wrong.