Carl Payne Tobey (1902-1980) was one of the few astrologers who strove to validate his astrological claims via dedicated research. Today's post relates to something I noticed when glancing through what he had to say about zodiac sign Gemini in his book Astrology of Inner Space. He was also a mathematician, and sometimes described as an iconoclast - a person who criticizes or opposes widely accepted beliefs and practices. That characteristic originally drew me to his writings. One of his proposals, or speculations, was that, because the ancient system of two "rulers" per zodiac sign didn't sit well with him, in his estimation two planets beyond Pluto - he called them "Y" and "Z" - could provide single "rulerships" for Taurus and Gemini, the two zodiac signs still sharing "rulers", with Libra and Virgo respectively. I'm putting inverted commas around "ruler" because I'm not sure it gives us the exact idea we ought to have. I think it was Robert Hand who once wrote that "ruler" in this context has more to do with the foot-rule kind of ruler than a king or dictator.
Tobey's feelings about "Z" and Gemini began to surface when he noticed that some clients he refers to as "Gemini people" were often mistaken by him as "Pisces people". He kept noticing a definite "compassionate side" in them, something he didn't easily associate with the sign Gemini. I assume he was referring to Sun signs Gemini and Pisces, which leads to my initial wariness of his proposal.
The author goes into too much detail to copy here, but suffice to say that he came to the conclusion that perhaps the true "ruler" or "co-ruler" of Gemini is "Z" - out there in the far distant reaches of our galaxy. He speculated that "Z" could have been in the Watery sign of Pisces at the time he and most of his clients with this puzzling Gemini/Pisces flavour came into the world. "Geminis of my own age seemed very definitely to have the necessary Pisces characteristics."
Tobey then proceeded to take notes about persons born in different years and deduced that by the mid 1960s "Z" must have been close to the end of Pisces, about to enter Aries. He had worked on his file of notes for 30 years, but hadn't mentioned his work on it to others. He then began seeing things in his client "Gemini people" he didn't recognise - again : a restlessness professionally, in marriage, and in many areas of life.
As he ends the chapter :
I'm not sure what to think about "rulerships", there's a recent related post, Ruling Principles, on the topic. Although the two signs per "ruler" thing seemed rather too convenient, it did work most of the time, possibly due to the elemental factor: Aries the Fire/Cardinal side of Mars, Scorpio the Water/Fixed side; Taurus the Earth/Fixed side of Venus, Libra the Airy/Cardinal side, Capricorn the Earth/Cardinal side of Saturn, Aquarius the Airy/Fixed side...etc etc etc. If planets discovered in more modern times were interpreted only when in aspect to personal planets (any of them), things might have remained somewhat clearer, and possibly more reliable. Astrologers will be astrologers, they do love to play around with the pieces, and that's not always a bad thing.
Illustration of astrologer is by Scott Gustafson
(References to Carl Payne Tobey in past posts can be accessed via clicking on his name in my sidebar.)
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).
Tobey's feelings about "Z" and Gemini began to surface when he noticed that some clients he refers to as "Gemini people" were often mistaken by him as "Pisces people". He kept noticing a definite "compassionate side" in them, something he didn't easily associate with the sign Gemini. I assume he was referring to Sun signs Gemini and Pisces, which leads to my initial wariness of his proposal.
The author goes into too much detail to copy here, but suffice to say that he came to the conclusion that perhaps the true "ruler" or "co-ruler" of Gemini is "Z" - out there in the far distant reaches of our galaxy. He speculated that "Z" could have been in the Watery sign of Pisces at the time he and most of his clients with this puzzling Gemini/Pisces flavour came into the world. "Geminis of my own age seemed very definitely to have the necessary Pisces characteristics."
Tobey then proceeded to take notes about persons born in different years and deduced that by the mid 1960s "Z" must have been close to the end of Pisces, about to enter Aries. He had worked on his file of notes for 30 years, but hadn't mentioned his work on it to others. He then began seeing things in his client "Gemini people" he didn't recognise - again : a restlessness professionally, in marriage, and in many areas of life.
As he ends the chapter :
"The data suggests the possibility that "Z" is not too far into Aries as this is written (early 1970s), and that it will be in Aries for the rest of most people's lives. If so, all the new Geminis born after the late 1960s will be an entirely different breed, will be pioneers, and will use their talents in an entirely new way.I half like Carl Payne Tobey's theory, and most of his writings in general, yet as already said, I balk at this "Geminis" label. What immediately sprang to mind as I read chapter XIII was that many people with Sun in Gemini have planets (especially Mercury and/or Venus) in the adjoining sign, Cancer. Cancer, with its emotional sensitivities could be mistaken for a "Pisces feel" could it not? Perhaps Mr Tobey cross-checked the natal charts of his clients for this possibility, and others, such as Moon in a Water sign or Water sign rising or a cluster of planets in a Water sign - but if so, it isn't mentioned in his book.
This is highly speculative but will give students something to study and test........."
Illustration of astrologer is by Scott Gustafson
(References to Carl Payne Tobey in past posts can be accessed via clicking on his name in my sidebar.)
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).
Great illustration of the Astrologer with the globe :)
ReplyDeleteDC ~ Glad you said that, because it reminded me I hadn't credited the illustration. I'd found it on a foreign language blog, in a language I didn't even recognise, so couldn't tell if it had been credited there. Meant to go back and find its original source and must have become distracted.
ReplyDeleteI've found its creator and credited now. :-)
Well, from another perspective, maybe Virgo and Libra are with missing rulers. Taurus-Venus and Gemini-Mercury fit well for me. There has been (and still is) much debate about other planets in our solar system that are now extinct or are missing from detection.
ReplyDeleteThere was obviously a planet between Mars and Jupiter that met a fatal blow...now the asteroid belt. Some astronomers believe this region simply never properly formed an individual planet. I would prefer to put ALL of the asteroids into one, rather than utilize each asteroid individually...there are millions of asteroids of various sizes, some larger than Pluto. The asteroids span the entirety of the zodiac plane, so each sign will always have many asteroids transiting through. Gemini is thought to be scattered and manifold...Jack-of-all-trades, so maybe the asteroids as a whole are characteristic of Gemini.
There is a hypothesis that there was once a planet between the Sun and Mercury, which met a fiery conclusion as it spiraled into the Sun. Or perhaps it was knocked out of orbit and collided with the planet that once occupied the asteroid belt.
Pluto has an extremely eccentric orbit, an elongated oval, which at time places Pluto closer than Neptune. Pluto travels through some signs at half the apparent speed than other signs. Perhaps Tobey is interpreting Pluto's reduced speed through Pisces and Aries as more consequential to Taurus and Gemini.
This from Wiki, "Ceres":
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_%28dwarf_planet%29
"The categorization of Ceres has changed more than once and has been the subject of some disagreement. Johann Elert Bode believed Ceres to be the "missing planet" he had proposed to exist between Mars and Jupiter, at a distance of 419 million km (2.8 AU) from the Sun. Ceres was assigned a planetary symbol, and remained listed as a planet in astronomy books and tables (along with 2 Pallas, 3 Juno and 4 Vesta) for half a century.
As other objects were discovered in the neighborhood of Ceres, it was realized that Ceres represented the first of a new class of objects. In 1802, with the discovery of 2 Pallas, William Herschel coined the term asteroid ("star-like") for these bodies, writing that "they resemble small stars so much as hardly to be distinguished from them, even by very good telescopes". As the first such body to be discovered, Ceres was given the designation 1 Ceres under the modern system of asteroid numbering.
The 2006 debate surrounding Pluto and what constitutes a 'planet' led to Ceres being considered for reclassification as a planet. A proposal before the International Astronomical Union for the definition of a planet would have defined a planet as "a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid-body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet". Had this resolution been adopted, it would have made Ceres the fifth planet in order from the Sun. This never happened, however, and on 24 August 2006 a modified definition was adopted, carrying the additional requirement that a planet must have "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit". By this definition, Ceres is not a planet because it does not dominate its orbit, sharing it as it does with the thousands of other asteroids in the asteroid belt and constituting only about a third of the mass of the belt. Bodies which met the first proposed definition but not the second, such as Ceres, were instead classified as dwarf planets (planetoids).
It is sometimes assumed that Ceres has been reclassified as a dwarf planet, and that it is therefore no longer considered an asteroid. For example, a news update at Space.com spoke of "Pallas, the largest asteroid, and Ceres, the dwarf planet formerly classified as an asteroid", whereas an IAU question-and-answer posting states, "Ceres is (or now we can say it was) the largest asteroid", though it then speaks of "other asteroids" crossing Ceres's path and otherwise implies that Ceres is still considered an asteroid. The Minor Planet Center notes that such bodies may have dual designations. The 2006 IAU decision that classified Ceres as a dwarf planet never addressed whether it is or is not an asteroid, as indeed the IAU has never defined the word 'asteroid' at all, preferring the term 'minor planet' until 2006, and 'small Solar System body' and 'dwarf planet' after 2006. Lang (2011) comments, "The [IAU has] added a new designation to Ceres, classifying it as a dwarf planet. ... By [its] definition, Eris, Haumea, Makemake and Pluto, as well as the largest asteroid, 1 Ceres, are all dwarf planets", and describes it elsewhere as "the dwarf planet–asteroid 1 Ceres". NASA continues to refer to Ceres as an asteroid, saying in a 2011 press announcement that "Dawn will orbit two of the largest asteroids in the Main Belt",[43] as do various academic textbooks."
From Wiki, "Dwarf Planet":
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet
"The term dwarf planet was adopted in 2006 as part of a three-way categorization of bodies orbiting the Sun, brought about by an increase in discoveries of trans-Neptunian objects (objects that are farther away from the Sun than Neptune) that rivaled Pluto in size, and finally precipitated by the discovery of an even more massive object, Eris. This classification states that bodies large enough to have cleared the neighbourhood of their orbit are defined as planets, whereas those that are not massive enough to be rounded by their own gravity are defined as small Solar System bodies. Dwarf planets come in between. The exclusion of dwarf planets from the roster of planets by the IAU has been both praised and criticized; it was said to be the "right decision" by astronomer Mike Brown, who discovered Eris and other new dwarf planets, but has been rejected by Alan Stern, who had coined the term dwarf planet in 1990.
It is estimated that there are hundreds to thousands of dwarf planets in the Solar System. The IAU currently recognizes five: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Brown criticizes this official recognition: "A reasonable person might think that this means that there are five known objects in the solar system which fit the IAU definition of dwarf planet, but this reasonable person would be nowhere close to correct." It is suspected that another hundred or so known objects in the Solar System are dwarf planets. Estimates are that up to 200 dwarf planets may be found when the entire region known as the Kuiper belt is explored, and that the number may exceed 10,000 when objects scattered outside the Kuiper belt are considered. Individual astronomers recognize several of these, and in August 2011 Mike Brown published a list of 390 candidate objects, ranging from "nearly certain" to "possible" dwarf planets. Brown currently identifies eleven known objects – the five accepted by the IAU plus 2007 OR10, Quaoar, Sedna, Orcus, 2002 MS4 and Salacia – as "virtually certain", with another dozen highly likely. Stern states that there are more than a dozen known dwarf planets."
mike ~ Mercury/Gemini works for me too - the dual ruler thing in total works for me. I believe it should have been left as is, but that's just me. Still, I like that astrologers exercise their minds via speculation, it proves that some of them were/are not willing to accept everything, wholesale, left for them by the ancients.
ReplyDeleteI'm leery of asteroid interpretation too. I doubt sufficient research has gone on in that regard. I shall remain minimalist astrology-wise.
;-)
If Tobey was onto something (which I doubt) I think he had in mind some much larger body than any of those discovered and named since he wrote this book. Something which could never be described as "dwarf" or "minor". Maybe it IS out there, along with "Y", but they needn't "rule" any signs.
I remain amazed that astrologers (other than Sun sign speciality astrologers), at times still categorise and label people by Sun sign, as Tobey did. To my mind there's no such creature as "a Gemini", or "a Taurus" or any of the other 12 sign labels. Each of us is a unique mix, sometimes the sign where the Sun was found when we were born isn't the most prominent in our personality, which makes the label meaningless and misleading. I like the description "Gemini-type", "Taurus-type" (for example) much better, and these could apply to someone whose natal Sun was not in the sign of Gemini or Taurus too.
Thanks for the excerpts - all interesting additions.
Maybe the planets don't "rule" any sign! Each planet represents a unique type of energy with positive and negative qualities. Each planet has god-goddess (human-like) features derived from mythology Perhaps several thousand years ago a couple of astrologers thought they could associate a planet with a particular sign's traits or attributes...but, what if that was an error that was perpetuated?! Each sign has a constellation ascribed to it, which is symbolic of an animal with positive and negative qualities...Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius having the human-animal features.
ReplyDeleteThere may be commonalities between planets and signs, but perhaps not enough to truly qualify planets as rulers. I've always thought it strange to have Mercury rule both Gemini and Virgo...or Venus rule both Taurus and Libra...completely different sign descriptions, so why are they sharing the same planet? It's like saying the planet operates differently when comparing co-rulers. The inverse is true as well when we talk of Aquarius ruled by both Saturn and Uranus or Scorpio by Mars and Pluto, or Pisces by Jupiter and Neptune.
Maybe planets were never intended to rule a sign and planets are simply energy.
mike (again) ~ Lot's to chew on isn't there! :-)
ReplyDeleteI'd assumed the ancients allocated archetypes based on mythology to the then known planets - but equally, maybe they took known planetary manifestations on Earth (known from some even more ancient, and now lost source) and made them into myths to make them easily understood. Then they associated zodiac signs with planets later on, according to similarities perceived.
"Associate" would be a better word than "rule" maybe?
We don't know, we can only surmise, which is half the fun I guess.
I hadn't thought much about Mercury ruling both Gemini and Virgo until I came to the USA and met husband's elder daughter and her husband. She a multiple Virgo-type, including Sun there, he very obvious Gemini-type, &just had a birthday. They've both been in the newspaper/communications biz for most of their working lives.
They are quite different personality-wise, yet there is commonality. Gemini-type is an ideas person, more scattered, eclectic in interests, Virgo-type is organised, meticulous, detail-oriented. Naturally not all Gemini-types and Virgo-types work on newspapers, or even in the communications biz, and I don't personally know enough of either type to see how Mercury's attributes might be part of Virgo's tool-box in other lifestyles. I could imagine a Virgo-type writing complex novels or text books, and enjoying the effort!
Taurus and Libra with Venus, again it's just two types of artiness/beauty isn't it? Earth and Air.
For me the key to the pairs is in the elemental differences - I've always been keen on astrological elements as a reliable guide.
As you say, maybe planets were never intended to "rule". I believe, as stated before, that they act as markers only, markers on some kind of "wave" pattern in time and space about which we are still ignorant.
When in doubt, go sci-fi! ;-)
Twilight ~ When comparing the two signs (Gemini and Pisces), I can see how Gemini energy might *sometimes* come across as being similar to that of Pisces. Both signs can have a fragile, emotionally sensitive, shape-shifting, butterfly-like energy that's hard to define or pin down.
ReplyDeleteAnd their calm demeanor can change in an instant if they're feeling emotionally overwhelmed or boxed in by too much reality. It's like watching a trapped bird frantically beating its wings against whatever prison it finds itself in.
Not always,only sometimes.:)
LB ~ I see what you mean - in theory, about the "lightness" of each. I haven't known many people well of either type, so will keep that in mind for future reference.
ReplyDeleteI did have one grandfather with Sun in Gemini and one with Sun in Pisces,
but because I was too young to assess such things, when they were "at their best", I can't now see any similarity - other planetary placements could have played in to harden what you describe too, as well as their generation having been of a very different stock, who led different lives from the ones we know today.
Twilight ~ I agree. Only sometimes do Gemini and Pisces share a similar quality, though I do think both can be very sensitive to underlying energies - Gemini to thoughts, which they pick up on intellectually or through their hands or nervous systems, and Pisces to spiritual or emotional undercurrents.
ReplyDeleteHowever we get there, picking up on someone's pain could, potentially at least, lend itself to developing a greater sense of compassion for them. Or not.:( Either way, that's what came to mind when I was reading your post.
LB ~ Agreed.
ReplyDeleteThe reason Carl Payne Tobey sensed a Pisces/Gemini similarity in his own generation could have something to do with his own natal chart, though I can't spot anything obvious. He had Venus in Pisces, it was squaring Pluto in Gemini and Uranus in Sagittarius, forming a T-square.
It'd take some detailed research, not practically feasible, because these things tend to be subjective, even using questionnaires, (and anyway, there will not be any of the Pisces-like lot still around), to define whether Sun in Gemini people born with hypothetical planet "Z" in Aries are any different from the earlier crop of Sun in Geminis. They will be slightly different, as we all are generationally, due to the outer planets being differently placed, of course.
Tobey was born with Neptune and Pluto in Gemini. Assuming Neptune rules Pisces, this would give that placement a correspondence to Pisces. Also, Pluto spent 32 years in Gemini and Neptune-Pluto had conjunctions in Gemini in the 1890s...this conjunction happens about every 493 years and would have started a new cycle.
ReplyDeleteNeptune and Pluto are square to Pisces, which would have imparted a particular energy to this planetary placement and conjunction. Neptune and Pluto left Gemini for Cancer, which is square to Aries. Perhaps Tobey was sensing the elements of Pisces and Aries due to the aspects and movements of Neptune and Pisces and their 90* angles to Pisces and Aries.
mike (again) ~ Thanks for that - good explanation indeed! Works for me!
ReplyDelete:-)