Saturn & Mercury

The Liber Fructus or Centiloquim attributed to Ptolemy says, "One skillful in this Science may evade many effects of the Stars, when he knows their Natures and diligently prepares himself to receive their effects." Aphorism 5.

Thus it is not so much a question of getting whatever we want, but adjusting ourselves to the cycles of the Heavens, particularly by being psychologically prepared for their effects.

Another aphorism from the Liber Fructus, "In the election of day and hour, the two Infortunes are very useful and thou must use them as the Physician doth poison, skillfully for the cure of man." Aphorism 10. Thus we do not simply flee from Saturn and Mars, but we must understand them and make use of them when appropriate.

Finally a passage from Montulmo's On the Judgment of Nativities,

"If Saturn is fortunate and the dispositor of the soul and joined
together with a fortunate Mercury...the native will be of subtle and
acute intellect, an inquirer, an investigator of subtle matters, and he
will delight very much in these things...he will be a learned man, and
he will attempt everything which is subtle especially in which there is
immense difficulty...If both planets are unfortunate, the native will be
unhappy, envious, a deceiver and a robber...he will be solitary and will
perform the incantations of demons and always seek after diabolical
matters."

Part 2 (Arhat ed.) page 55. The benefic and malefic qualities are mixed in each planet though the benefic tends to manifest more when the planet is dignified and the malefic when it is debilitated.

So we must pay a price for knowledge of these occult and esoteric matters and that price is a certain amount of isolation and melancholy. As Ficino notes in the first book of his Three Books on Life, both Mercury and Saturn, which rule this sort of contemplative thought and study, are cold and dry, which is the nature of melancholy.

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