Ruling Principles

Why does planet Venus rule zodiac sign Taurus - and for that matter why does it rule Libra also? I asked myself this question, have asked similar ones many times before, worrying that the allocation of ancient gods to zodiac signs might have originally been a quite arbitrary exercise :-

Ancient astrologer to his apprentice: "Verily verily... The Sun must be ruler of the times when he's at his strongest, (Leo)...our other strong light, Moon must stay by his side(Cancer). So...what've we got left?
Apprentice: Erm...Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, sir.

Ancient astrologer: Oh, let's put 'em in order of their daily motion as we see it, two signs each, outward from Sun and Moon. Fastest mover Mercury must have governorship of signs nearest Sun's and Moon's, so he rules Gemini and Virgo. Next fastest mover, Venus must rule Taurus and Libra. Mars will govern Aries and Scorpio. Slowing down now....Jupiter will rule Sagittarius and Pisces. Now for the coldest and darkest months of the year, Saturn's slow motion leaves it to govern what remains: Aquarius and Capricorn. That'll all fit rather well!"

Ancient astrologers, who were also astronomers in those days, largely ignored an even more ancient allocation of certain gods to a zodiac circle of 12 moths, one month apiece.

There's more erudite and detailed information at Skyscript's article by Deborah Houlding, The Philosophy of Sign Rulership.

The best online article on this topic, best by far in my opinion, is from the late 1990s by Ken Gillman: Twelve Gods and Seven Planets. It's a long, but very good read.

SNIP

THE ALLOCATION of the Signs to the planets appears to have been an exercise in planetary symmetry, without regard for the corresponding natures of the planets or the Signs.

Readers may respond by saying: "OK, so perhaps the initial allocation of planet to Sign did not reflect life experience, but astrologers have been using the scheme for 2,000-years or so, and in the process have made it work."

Have they? Does this rulership scheme really work? Sign rulerships are an essential part of Horary astrology, for instance. Is this branch of astrology as effective as its practitioners claim? We hear of their successes, many of which are often due to planets in the Horary chart being close to angles or to the Moon's next aspects and so not requiring use of the ring-a-rosy rulership system of querent, dispositor, etc. But what of the many failures?

Nearly fifty years ago, a Mr. Ionides, the author of "One Day Telleth Another" (I don't have the author's first name or the book's publisher), suggested the 12-fold division of the ecliptic "was not natural at all, but had been imposed upon Nature by man's belief in them and have so acquired a certain validity." Discussing this, Charles E. O. Carter, an astrologer for whom I continue to have the utmost respect, commented:

In other words, let man believe a thing long enough and strongly enough and Nature, so to speak, accepts it from him. Thought, being essentially and always positive, can work upon the passive anima mundi and mould this to its will.

 If this notion has any basis in fact, then its practical (as well as theoretical) importance would be considerable. We should certainly, in that case, do well to foster in ourselves the highest possible conceptions of the planets....

We should have to distinguish, in the case of such a planet as Neptune, a natural quality and an impressed quality. The former might cover such Neptunian tendencies as poetic inspiration, interest in the occult, and the propensity to states of confusion and involvement, confinement and retirement, none of which appears to have any connection with the mythological Neptune, while the latter would include all relationships with the sea, which would be invested with validity because astrologers, learning that the planet was to be called Neptune, immediately combined to think of it in terms of that god.

The proof would be, what did Neptune Signify in the horoscopes of those who lived before it was discovered? Did only the 'natural' meaning appear, or did what I call the 'impressed' Significance also manifest itself? Because, according to the hypothesis I have, very tentatively, put forward, the latter Significance could not be there.

I know that Neptune was in transit upon King James's ascendant at the time of the Gunpowder Plot, exhibiting the 'treachery aspect' of Neptune, which is not, I think, at all mythological.

Uranus does not convey any distinct mythological conception to the average man, and perhaps that has allowed us to preserve in more or less pure form its natural qualities. But Pluto does most certainly mean something even to those whose studies in mythology have been strictly limited and it is true that most of us are, so to speak, hard at work trying to make him into a planet of death and darkness.

If man's belief makes something so, then surely it will be the belief of the majority of humankind that does. Believers in astrology have been relatively few since the days when a much larger proportion of the world's population believed, and had done so for hundreds of years, in the existence and natures of the Twelve Gods.

The proposal mentioned in that snip, made by C.E.O. Carter, still comes up from time to time in articles attempting to explain why astrology works. I've never quite been able to accept the theory myself, but thinking on it now, I'm wondering if it is actually a form of two-way brainwashing. We are told something is so. We test it, find that sometimes it is so. We start to believe it. We tell others about it. As word spreads, sometimes picking up all kinds of moss and fluff in the process, are we in the process actually forcing certain outcomes through sheer belief? I'm still not convinced that's possible to do, not with regard to astrology's basic principles anyway - perhaps it would work in regard to some of the additional bells and whistles added to the astrological basics at different stages by various schools of thought.

Speaking of other schools of thought relating to zodiac signs and planetary rulership, some believe there are links to Kabballah/Jewish mysticism, and/or to Biblical stories such as that about the 12 sons of Jacob. Indian astrologers have different methods and definitions of signs and rulers, coinciding somewhat, only broadly, with Western astrology. So there are really no hard and fast rules. If it works for you, it works, I guess.

My own miniscule of thought proposes that astrology isn't really about planets themselves at all, they serve only as markers on various sized waves of time/space/atmospheric changes which roll around the universe at different rates. Our zodiac signs are like months on a circular calendar or figures on the face of a watch, helping us to keep track of our human time-lines which will interact with these universal, maybe even inter-universal, rolling waves. At the moment we are born and take our first breath of the atmospheric wave then in session, our personal blueprint begins to form, eventually taking in considerations of distance from, and/or angles to, the rest of the rolling universal waves. There ya go - all sorted!