THE SIGN OF THE RAM

  It may seem strange that, in writing these papers on the Twelve Signs, Aries should be chosen among the last three.
  For it is the first sign.
  At least we so regard it now and long have done so, although it was always thus.
  The erudite Maurice Wemyss (The Wheel of Life Vol. V pp 96, 97) tells us Aries was not the first sign in the ancient Egyptian Zodiac and in the Babylonian Zodiac it probably did not become the first sign till the first millennium B.C. and was not measured from the equinox (instead of representing a constellation)
till the time of Hipparchus (2nd Century B.C.)
  But certainly now it is established as the first sign.
  How so?
  Our first impulse might be to assert that we are right and that it has always been the first; our predecessors simply were wrong. That is the simple answer and perhaps the right one.
  On the other hand, there are two possible replies.
  One is, that they were right and we are right because nothing is changeless in Nature and this matter of zodiacal leadership has just altered with the passing of time.
  Again, there is a school of thought among us, rather a new one, I think, that is inclined to the view that most ideas work in Astrology provided the one who puts them into practice believes them, hard enough!
  Thus we have heard it said that equal house division works for those who believe in equal house division and Campanus works for those who believe in Campanus, and so on.
  The same point of view has been put forward in respect to directions.
  It was said of old that faith will move mountains and in this case it seems as if faith will validate astrological ideas!
  Somewhere or other the late Dean Inge, that detester of astrology (about which of course he knew next nothing) wrote that it is not Nature that imposes its laws on man, but man who imposes his laws on Nature.
  Is that perhaps true, at least to some extent?  Some records, as of so called miracles, give colour to this notion.  I for one believe that faith does work.
That is the kind of thing you cannot demonstrate statistically or in any way that would impress a scientist.
  At all events, let us accept Aries as being, at any rate for us, the First Sign.
  As such it is simple in essence though profoundly important.  And perhaps it is because it is essentially simple that I have delayed so long to write about it.  I may have sensed that it would not be easy to talk about it, profitably, for three-quarters of an hour!
  It is taught that in the Fifth World is the essence of Soul, and from that essence the individualized souls come forth "like sparks from a great fire."
  In coming thus to birth the Jivatman is under Aries.
  It is appropriate that the sign should be rules by Mars and be the exaltation of the Sun itself.
  One is familiar with the Greek legend.  Phrixus was to be sacrificed to Zeus but rode away with his sister Helle on the golden-fleeced ram.  Helle fell into the sea since called the Hellespont, but her brother reached Colchis safely and sacrificed the ram, rather ungratefully one would think, to Zeus. Its fleece was hung up by Aeetes, king of Colchis, in the grove of Ares or Mars, which ties in with the Martian rulership.  Afterward the Argonauts sailed in quest of the fleece and, like genuine Grecian pirates, took it away to their homeland.
  In this legend the golden fleece becomes a symbol of that which is sought, and that hardly helps us with our sign Aries, which is the seeker rather than the sought.
  At all events the ram had his reward in being placed in the sky as a constellation.  Not a very conspicuous one, the brightest star being of the second magnitude.  It does however, faintly resemble the profile of a ram's head.
  Now, taking Aries as the first sign and that which symbolizes the individualized soul, we find it easy to affirm that its prime virtue must be courage endowed with energy.  It is the Captain, the Leader; it ventures on the Great Decent into the lower world of manifestation.  This is not a fall in the sense of sin; it is part of the Great Plan.  It involves great risks and Aries, appropriately, never minds taking a risk.  But because it is the exaltation of the Sun, as I read it, the Descent, even if it involves a "fall" in the sense of alienation from the Above, can never end in destruction or the "eternal damnation" of the theologians.  The Sun will always, ultimately redeem its child.

    "Why, ne'er a peevish Boy
     Would break the Cup from which He drank in Joy;
     Shall He that of His own free Fancy made
     The Vessel in an after-rage destroy!"

  It certainly sounds unreasonable!
  Aries, at all events, plunges down into the manifestation with his armour clanging about him.
  The descent is a sacrifice.
  In the myth, the Ram is ultimately sacrificed to Zeus.
  Now Zeus is the Demiurgus who by the power of Mind reproduces in the objective worlds the Cosmic Paradigm or Pattern; and the Ram, the individual soul, sacrifices itself in the execution of this Divine Work.
  If the Aries virtue is Courage, so its failing is rashness and thoughtlessness, and a propensity to go to extremes.
  I do not call it a selfish sign, for there is a generosity in all three fire signs.  But it is centered on its own work and is apt to have little patience for others troubles and problems.  To help others too much is to deprive them of the opportunity of being themselves though solving their own problems and overcoming their own difficulties.  And in working out its destiny it may ride roughshod over others' interests.  In extreme cases it may adopt the philosophy summed up in the soldiers' saying "Blow you, Harry; I'm all right."
  Naturally enough, Aries figures pretty prominently among violent criminals for its temper is apt to be short.  But its crimes are usually unpremeditated and neither malicious nor crafty; it strikes those who get in its way.  It is not naturally dishonest, nor unnecessarily cruel.
  Its self-assurance leads to obstinacy.  It is loth to admit a fault.  It finds "I was mistaken" hard words to pronounce.
  It is said to rule England and the English.  This seems to me plausible as regards the Midlands and the North-east but other regions appear to manifest Taurus attributes.  Moreover, for a long time the British have shown a propensity to compromise that is certainly not Martian.
  In the 1066 map there is nothing Aries except possibly the ascendant; in the 1707 figure there is Venus and Neptune only; in the 1801 chart, nothing.
  Nothing in Nature remains stationary; all flows.
  Perhaps-probably indeed-the rulerships of nations and territories changes.
  When we read the old descriptions of some of the signs, notably Scorpio and Capricorn, we think how crude they are and how uncomplimentary and we say
"Mankind has changed since then; we are more civilized; we respond differently."
Then comes the two great wars to show that man is potentially just as brutal and stupid as ever he was.
  Man changes, but perhaps the planets and signs do also; it is not only that they act upon different human material, but probably they have altered their own natures-evolved, in fact.  Why should they not?
  The ancients based their ideas of the planets upon their appearance and apparent behaviour.  Mercury moved quickly and was always turning and twisting into retrogression and then going forward again; therefore Mercurians must be agile, nimble, changeful and not very trustworthy.  Saturn was the slowest of the planets known to them and shines with a dull light, so the natives were sad sad melancholic folk, rather dull of intellect and lethargic.
  Curiously enough, there is something to these attributions, naive though they may seem.
  But sometimes they fall down badly.
  To continue our examination of the connection, real or false, between Aries and our country:
  Aries is not at all prominent in the genitures of our Monarchs.  Indeed, it is conspicuous by its absence in most of them.  George V. is said to have had it rising but even in his case some think the true ascendant is in the Fishes.
  Leo, unquestionably, is the sign emphasized in our royal maps, and this goes back to James II. and his undutiful son-in-law William III.
  Now we have her present Majesty with the Moon in Leo, as has also Prince Philip.  Charles and the new prince both have Leo rising; Princess Ann has the Sun in Leo and so also Princess Margaret.  Queen Victoria and Edward VII. have the Sun in the 1st and 10th; George V. had his ruler in Leo.
  Edward VIII., it is interesting to note, had neither Sun nor Leo prominent, and soon vanished from the throne and public life.
  Like all fire signs, Aries has a religious tendency. But it would favor practicality, not theological argument.  It would probably go to extremes and either be something of a fundamentalist or a militant agnostic.  It would make a good missionary.
  In philosophy it would be pragmatic.  "Truth is what works" is a simple aphorism likely to meet the mental requirements of most Aretians.  The founder of this vigorous school of thought, William James, had both Lights conjoined in Capricorn, and one can understand that this sign might be pragmatic as well as Aries.  But James may have had Aries rising.
  I imagine Aries would be more likely to find a sight of a ghost much more convincing a proof of survival than all the assertions and arguments of theologians and philosophers!
  As for free will and determinism, no one could possibly live a consistently deterministic life, so that problem need bother us no more.  It doesn't work, so it can't be true.
  Aries has the advantage of a tough wiry body, muscular and not prone to corpulence. More prone, I should say, to accidents than to disease.  But it certainly rules the brain, so headaches are frequent and cerebral troubles generally.  I have had three friends with Mars rising, two in Scorpio and one in Sagittarius.  All three have predeceased me, dying of cerebral tumours.  One of them was our old astrological colleague Edgar Bray.  Aries is apt to overwork and probably one would be right in supposing that it is a sign that feels frustration keenly and takes failure badly.  Libra takes life as it comes; Aries tries to alter it, sometimes violently, whence our Aries revolutionaries.
  Of whom the chief is Lenin, with Sun, Mercury, Mars and Neptune in Aries, all squared by Uranus.  He died paralyzed owing to cerebral degeneration, brought on, says the encyclopedia, by long years of excessive work.
  He had the Aries qualities.  Singleness of purpose, hard work, and Spartan simplicity of life.
  Wemyss gives his ascendant as Scorpio.
  Perhaps the most usual features, at least in Britain, are a strong but not particularly large chin, and a firm look in the eyes.  Also the head and shoulders are often carried forward.
  I distinguish three types.
  One is rather handsome and an example would be General Gordon, with whose statue formerly in Trafalgar Square, we are for the most part familiar.
  Then there is the bullet-headed type; and thirdly one that is similar to Scorpio, but less fleshy.  A long aquiline nose and receding forehead.
  Those who watch boxing on TV will find no difficulty in detecting cases in point.
  Now we might, as in previous studies, consider some contrasts.
  It is not difficult to contrast Aries with its opposite Libra.  It is not a case at all of Aries being necessarily selfish, I but it is concentrated on its own objectives and these are all important to it.  It is ready to assail,
verbally or even with physical violence, all who stand in its way.  But it is a mistake to rate it as quarrelsome; it does not go out of its way to attack others.  Generally it is not interested in others, whereas Libra is always
seeking points of contact and trying to widen the scope of its interests.
"Come let us reason together" is a very Libran proposal!
  Aries does not want to listen to others and therefore usually has to learn its lesson the hard way...by experience, bitter or otherwise.
  It is obvious that it is a sign that particularly needs a strong Saturn.  But if it has a prominent but ill-placed Saturn, then it can be very capricious and inconsistent in its actions.
  We have seen in previous studies that it is often illuminating to compare sign under examination with those in quincunx relation to it.  In this case, of course, Virgo and Scorpio.
  It would indeed be difficult to find a greater contrast than that between Aries and Virgo.  Aries and Libra are alike in being cardinal and positive, the difference being in rulers and element.  But Aries is cardinal-positive-fire and Virgo is mutable-negative-earth ...no contact at all.  They are so unlike  that I can hardly imagine two people, one with strong Aries and the other with strong Virgo, ever getting together at all.  In a crowded room one can just see them instinctively drifting to the way...by corners!
  However, there must be plenty of people with Aries rising and satellitia in Virgo, and some of them might seek advice of an astrologer as to occupation.
What should we suggest?
  I should plump for engineering.  Mars like having to do with metals, especially with iron and steel, and Virgo has a gift (often but not always) for the mechanical.
  Then there are some kinds of healing work that might appeal to Aries.  However I have had personal experience of the treatment meted out to patients by a practitioner, now deceased, who had an Aries satellitium.  It was effective but one had to be something of a hero to endure it even unto the last.  The cure was worse than the complaint...or most complaints at any rate!
  Admittedly an harmonious combination of the two signs would be very good indeed.  So also with other quincunx combinations, if one can attain to a concord between them.  But that is not easy.
  Aries and Scorpio exhibit cardinal-fire-positive with fixed-water-negative, so once more there is no contact.  But they are both Martian signs, even if we believe that Mars is gradually vacating this "throne" in favor of Pluto.
  The chief fault of Aries, in practical affairs, is probably impatience.
Virgo is the most patient of signs and Scorpio also can bide its time.  Hence there must be perpetual tensions ...Scorpio, like the natives of Sussex, "won't be druv," and yet, once its goal is established in its mind, it will work to the last ounce.  So too Aries.  But Aries wants quick and obvious results.  If they don't come..."Oh hell! Let's try something else!"
  Let us now consider a few strongly Arietic genitures.
  We find, first of all, Charles Baudelaire.
  This is interesting because Virgo rises and the Sun, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in the 8th in Aries.  Thus we have an example, straight away, of a Virgo-Aries-Scorpio natus, the last value appearing in terms of the 8th house.
  The data as given by Andre Barbault, to whom I must again tender my acknowledgments, are: Paris, April 9, 1821, 15 hrs.
  M. Barbault writes "Baudelaire may be considered as the first great 'poet accursed'; he gave the first signal of revolt; he, first, has sought to escape from a society that could not understand him: evasion and revolt." "Each day we take another step down into hell."
  Notice how strong the house influence is here.
  It would seem that the negative ascendant and 8th house values thrust back violently the Aries fire into the soul and forced a zodiacal extrovert to become a domal introvert.  The end was opium, paralysis and poverty, and a name that has come to indicate the macabre, Satanic and unwholesome.
  But Virgo rising gave him a rare delicacy of verbal expression.
  Note the ruler Mercury with Pluto at the end of Pisces and close to Mars in 0 Aries.
  What a horoscope!
  We may consider, side by side with Baudelaire, our own poet Swinburne, who had both lights and also Mercury and Venus in Aries.  It is a great pity that the time of birth is unknown.
  He also wrote "unwholesome" poetry, e.g. Dolores, and was a poet of revolt.
  It is interesting to us that probably his best known poem is the invocation in Atalanta in Calydon:
     "When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces."
  Very appropriate to Aries!
  I do not know if he ever became a drug addict like Baudelaire, but he was certainly fond of alcohol.
  He had Mars conjunction Jupiter, opposed to Neptune in 8 Aquarius.
  Albert Einstein can hardly be called typically Aries since he had only
Mercury and Saturn in that sign.  But again we have the pioneer, the audacious "revolt" from Newtonian physics.
  M. Barbault cites Gambetta as a clear Aries type.  He had Sun-Mercury-Mars-Pluto in this sign and organized the resistance to the Germans after the imperial army had been vanquished. "I is he" says Barbault, "who declared open war on clericalism." This is quite in keeping with Swinburne, who applied the outrageous epithet "carrion crucified" to Jesus.
  Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher of despotism, has ascendant Sun and Pluto in Aries, Sun being within orb of Mars in 3 Taurus.
  One of the most strongly Aries maps on record is that of the murderer Landru, who had Sun and Moon in close conjunction with Jupiter in that sign, preceded by Venus conjunction Neptune, and also Mercury.  He destroyed his victims by fire; motive, avarice, is indicated by the ascending Taurus, with Pluto therein.  I think that the fact that the satellitium was in the 12th house is an indication of possible evil.  As in the case of Baudelaire, the fire element is in an uncongenial house.  Apart from the Aries bodies, Mars and Saturn were in fire also.  Everything except Uranus, Pluto and ascendant in fire.
  Many criminals have an Aries stress.
  In the old days the same could be said of soldiers, but I question whether this is as true nowadays.  Barbault cites Murat and Lannes.
  Napoleon III had two conjunctions in the Ram--Sun-Mars and Mercury-Venus.
Here the adventurous nature of the sign is well illustrated.  He organized several conspiracies and headed a rising against the Pope, which seems again to to indicate a tendency to revolt against certain forms of religion as being a trait of this sign.  Then there was the attempt to interfere in the affairs of the New World which ended in humiliation, and the final catastrophe of Sedan. His nativity may well be compared with that of Bismarck, who trapped him into a disastrous war.
  Among strongly Aries painters we may mention Goya and Van Gogh.
  Among novelists, Emile Zola, who had Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and Pluto.  All these were in the 5th house, sextile Neptune in the 3rd and trine Saturn in the 1st.  The ruler is in Scorpio in the 12th, which seems extremely characteristic of much of Zola's work, described in Chambers' Biographical Dictionary as "appallingly repulsive"; we have already seen, when mentioning Swinburne, that Aries often sounds this note: it appears to love to administer shocks. The same can be said of Goya's horrors.
  Zola also had Venus conjunction Uranus in Pisces, trine his ruler.
  A most powerful geniture!
  The same book of reference says the "mother ideas of Zola's naturalism were heredity and a certain cerebral infirmity."
  "Cerebral infirmity" points at once to Aries, ruling the brain. We spoke of this when dealing with Lenin's end.  But Zola did not die of brain-disease.  He was accidentally suffocated by charcoal fumes, at the age of 62.
  His espousal of the cause of Dreyfus brings out both the courage of Aries and tendency of Sagittarius to advocacy.
  I should mention that the great novelist's ascendant is given in Notable Nativities as Cancer, but M. Barbault cites the official data as 11 hrs. p.m., the time in 1840 being local.
  Whatever Aries does; it does it with might and main.
  Among the reformers who were also martyrs to their convictions we have Savonarola.  Pope Alexander VI tried to stay attacks by offering him the archbishopric of Florence, but he replied that wanted no hat save that of the martyr, reddened in his own blood.  As behoved a fire-sign, he died at the stake.
  Saint Teresa of Avila had the ascendant, Sun, Mercury and Venus in Aries.
  She describes her vision thus: "I perceived near to me, on the left hand, an angel in bodily form.  He was by no means large in size, but small and very beautiful; one recognized, by his blazing visage, one of those spirits of a very exalted hierarchy who are naught but flame and love.  I saw in the hands of this angel a long javelin of gold, the iron point of which was tipped with fire.  Again and again he plunged it through my heart and drove it even unto my bowels; in withdrawing it, he seemed to drag them away with this javelin and left me completely ablaze with the love of God.  This unutterable martyrdom made me taste the sweetest of delights."
  She was another reformer born under the Ram.
  Yes, Aries is a reformer; the trouble is, his reforms seem so often to be aimed at making people more uncomfortable than they need be.
  Saint Teresa was canonized, but in general Aries and Papacy do not seem to get on well together; it has often been a thorn in the side of Rome, as we have seen.
  Martin Luther had the Moon in Aries according to his friend Melanchthon:
Gauricus and Junctinus give different horoscopes, making three in all from which to choose.  Henry VIII. had the Moon in Aries.
  Now as regards marriage, I have not much to go on.  One would certainly expect this sign to be an ardent and rather impatient wooer, but the aim of marriage having been achieved, one would suppose Aries would be inclined to say "Well, that's that!" and turn to some fresh fields to conquer.  I do not mean another amatory field, but something else altogether.
  At this time we naturally have the marriage of Aries very much in mind.  The choice, in the case of Princess Margaret, has certainly been entirely her own, which is characteristic.  In her case let me say that nothing could be better than Venus in Libra in the 7th...and nothing could be worse than having this planet in opposition to Uranus.  One may venture to hope that the "message" of this opposition has already spent itself.  I wonder!
  Similar configurations did not save Annie Besant's wedded life, but in that case marriage was early and the force of this opposition was still to be expended.  Moreover, other afflictions were involved, namely Uranus opposed to Mercury and Sun.  Princess Margaret has some fine aspects, but I feel that the best of these influences will not be felt until the later part of life.
  The application of the Sun to Neptune agrees well with the Piscean elements in Mr. Armstrong-Jones' geniture and its further application to Saturn suggests to me that he may have Aquarius rising.  This, of course, is pure speculation.
  (A correct speculation. See Vol 34, No.4, page 135. Editor)
  M. Barbault mentions Ninon de Lenclos, who had Mercury-Venus-Mars in Aries, near both Lights in Taurus.  This is a pretty primitive combination and we know that the lady prolonged her amorous adventures from the age of 16 to 80, retaining her charms in a manner almost fabulous.  She had among her lovers three generations of the same family.  This indicates an extraordinary Martian vitality working from a strong Taurus base.  I do not think of Aries, in itself, as a voluptuous sign, but Louis XV of France was a voluptuary and he had Venus rising in Aries.  So Aries plus Taurus may not be too good.
  If you ask me, finally, what I like best in the Ram is its frankness, its courage and its down-to-brass-tacks commonsense.  And that covers a good deal.

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© Astrological Lodge Lecture  -§-  28 March 1960
© Astrology Quarterly  -§-  Vol.36/1

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