At the Lodge - 11th October 2004

Lodge Lecture

Lodge Lecture

We were once again treated to an excellent lecture by Dorian Geiseler Greenbaum, from the US, on temperament in the chart. It was interesting, practical and informative. First of all Dorian described what was meant by the temperament in the chart rather than the personality. That temperament is the innate disposition whereas personality is what you are born with. She gave us a history of the development of this ancient skill from the Greeks through the Medieval period, enlightenment to the Renaissance, giving us the Greek root language of such words as psychology. Mentioning Greek heroes such as Hippocrates and Plato and of course our favourite Claudius Ptolemy.

Temperament in a chart appears to stem from the humours of hot, cold, wet and dry which was developed by the Greeks into the elements and then correlated to the charts as attributes. The four humours which came into the charts were Choleric - represented by the element fire - people would be rash, aggressive, etc. Sanguine - by air, friendly, sociable, popular. Phlegmatic - by water - quiet, slow, obstinate, well padded. Melancholic - introspective, analytical, broody, pessimistic.

Dorian then gave us a system whereas we could work out an individual temperament by 1)The sign of the ascendant 2) Planetary ruler of the ascendant 3)The almuten of the ascendant 4) Sign of the Moon 5) Sign of the Moon's ruler 6) Phase of the Moon 7) Season of birth.

We spend the second half of the lecture looking at the charts of, firstly, the usual suspects, George W Bush (choleric) Tony Blair (sanguine) George Harrison (phlegmatic) and others. Looking at charts which were a mixture too, e.g. Whoopi Goldberg, who was melancholic with an even balance of sanguine and phlegmatic but no choleric. A wonderful informative evening, and we look forward to Dorian's next lecture. You can check this out in more detail on her website

Gill Dorren

Lodge Lecture