At the Lodge - 14th July 2003

Lodge Lecture | Party

Lodge Lecture

Astrology of Death

In this talk, firstly I discussed the development of death becoming attached to the 8th house of the chart. From Manilius and his poem written in 0 AD to Firmicus Maternus and his book The Mathesos. I discussed how although the house had a bad reputation from early on in astrological history. Death was not attached to it but rather to the 7th house because that's where the planets descended below the horizon.

I talked about the Myth of Osirus and its links with the sign of Scorpio and the concept of death and rebirth.

Then I looked at two techniques which allegedly predicted the length of life. These techniques were described by Claudius Ptolemy in his Tetrabiblos (Book 3) and Firmicus Maternus in Mathesos. Both were very different. They are also technical, time consuming and most of the time I was tearing my hair out trying to understand them.

Ptolemy uses a system where you need to find the Hyleg (or life giver) in a nativity and then the Alcocoden (the bounded Lord or Planet ruler of the chart) then by primary directions or transits discover how long someone will live as these two points contact or transit each other or malefics.

Ptolemy is good in that he tries to be scientific in his method and explanation. Maternus has a much simpler system. You look at the sign the Moon was in at birth, and states that the chart ruler is the planet, which rules the sign the Moon then moves into. Albeit he does not explain why or how this system developed but just states that it is the correct procedure. You look at this chart ruler and whether it is strong or weak will give you the number of years the native will live and gives a hand table to show these.

I used both methods on several charts, which I showed to the audience. Princess Diana, Princess Margaret, Katherine Hepburn and Queen Victoria. I felt that if the two methods were used together some good results came through. I then discussed Pluto and the other two outer planets. I questioned why we gave Uranus to Aquarius and Neptune to Pisces but agreed with Pluto having ruler ship with the 8th and the concept of death and rebirth, which linked us back to the myth of Osiris.

I then finished my lecture by looking at my chart and using the above systems to see if I needed to contribute to my pension fund or not. The hour went very quickly for me and I enjoyed giving the lecture. Medieval techniques are a joy to both study and use and I hope to do more in the future.

Gill Dorren

Party

Our end of term party was well attended. It was good to welcome new and old faces and share a glass or two of wine and superb food contributed by our committee and members. Our thanks to those of the committee who served the buffet.

We wish you all a wonderful summer and look forward to seeing you on September 22nd for the Carter Memorial Lecture which this year will be given by Darby Costello.

Carole West

Lodge Lecture | Party