It is safe to assume that, so far as these latitudes are 
concerned, Pisces is the hardest sign to write about as an 
ascendant. 
  One would not expect the twelfth sign rising to bring 
prominence or indeed in most cases the desire to be 
prominent. 
  Insofar as it did so it would probably be in limited 
circles.  Thus William Lilly eminent name in our "golden 
succession" but for the most part only known outside the 
astrological world because of his having been the target of 
others' satire. 
  Probably the world of mediums would provide some good 
cases.  But this again is an enclosed sphere of its own. 
  Add to this that in the latitude of London Pisces rises 
and then flies way to Aries in about 53 minutes, as against 
Scorpio with about two and a half hours on the ascendant, so 
that a number of Pisces-rising folk that one will find in 
collections like Notable Nativities will necessarily be 
small. 
  When Pisces rising becomes famous t is, unhappily, apt to 
end rather ignominiously, like President Warren G. Harding: 
"Government investigations...revealed an extent of political 
immorality in Washington such as had no parallel in recent 
times," says the Brittanica; but of Harding himself it says 
"his nature was kindly and genial; and there was general 
confidence in his honesty and devotion to his duties; he was 
regarded as easy going." This is quite a good picture of 
many Pisceans. 
  Another example, Lord Rosebury, who ended broken in health 
and suffering terribly from that Neptunian ailment, 
insomnia. 
  John Aubrey, the antiquary, was described as "a shiftless 
person, roving and maggoty-headed, and sometimes little 
better than crazed.  And being exceedingly credulous," etc. 
  Here again a picture of many natives of the Fishes. 
  "Kindly, genial man, easy-going, credulous"...those 
adjectives all seem apt.  Harding, too, illustrates the 
tendency of Pisceans to get themselves involved in muddles 
for which they are not directly responsible. 
  Sometimes they get caught between two fires, as it were. 
  The Kaiser's mother, a native of the sign, was said to be 
German in Britain and British in Germany and so to have 
pleased neither country.  William Lilly appears to have 
found himself at times siding with the Royalists and then 
again with the Parliament.  However, he ended his days in 
comfort.  One likes to think of him attending once a week in 
Kingston Market and prescribing herbal remedies for the 
poor, free of charge. 
  One would like to imagine Pisces as rarely cruel and 
oftentimes eminently kind and generous.  More of this 
hereafter!  Certainly it is not infrequently thriftless, and 
when in difficulties a parasitic element may arise. 
  If you want a good portrait of our sign in modern 
literature, turn to Wells' Mr. Polly. 
  To begin with, the name is Piscean, for it suggests a 
parrot, and this loquacious bird is certainly Piscean. 
Natives of the sign often look like parrots.  Then he starts 
as a drapers assistant, which is true to type.  He has his 
Jovian stroke of luck and inherits some money.  He fails in 
business on his own and devises a plot to disappear from 
insolvency and a wife who is a ghastly caricature of Virgo. 
He ends his days as a general handyman in an inn by the 
river.  HIs simple kindly nature is all Piscean. 
  Then, of course, there is the immortal Micawber whose 
quick changes from despair..."no man is without a friend who 
has a razor"...to the heights of hopefulness illustrate the 
duality of the sign. 
  Moreover, he is very good at giving excellent advice to 
others but neglecting it himself, and that is characteristic 
of both Jovian signs. 
  In the "Principles" I have given the following occupations 
for Pisces: 
  "Trades connected with cloth and wool, grocery, footwear 
sale and manufacture, the sea, plumbing, the drama, hotels, 
inns, liquor, painting, welfare work, charities, 
nursing"...a fairly long list. 
  But I should have added the Church. 
  Both Jovian signs love sermonizing.  Many of our prominent 
preachers have been Welshmen; and as this country is under 
Gemini Pisces is the natural occupant of the 10th cusp. 
  Dickens gives us the abominable Chadband, with his "flabby 
paw" and his habit of addressing rhetorical questions to 
which he himself gave the answer.  Herein the two signs of 
Jupiter differ: Sagittarius likes an argument; Pisces wants 
to do the talking. 
  Mind you, I am still speaking of the sign rising, and, as 
I have observed before in this series of addresses, most 
signs do not appear at their best when ascending.  The first 
house is naturally Arietic and certain signs...chiefly 
perhaps the negatives...so not agree very well with this 
mode of expression.  Possibly Pisces rising finds itself 
being hustled.  Lilly himself does not flatter his own sign: 
"an idle, effeminate, sickly sign, or representing a man of 
no action." 
  It is said that an easy life makes for degeneracy.  I 
don't know if this is true.  The Australian aborigines have 
a hard time of it, if any have, but it has not made them 
progressive.  At any rate certain signs seem to thrive on 
being born with silver spoons in their mouths.  Perhaps the 
best Pisceans are those who get comfortable church livings 
on which the do indeed live comfortably and preach 
comfortable, unexciting sermons, without minding much if the 
congregation is comfortably asleep in comfortable pews. 
  In the old days it was argued in this Lodge that England 
was ruled by Pisces. 
  This is too big a problem to tackle here, but a glance at 
the matter does afford some support for this view. 
  You may recall I have always said that Uranus, in 28 
Sagittarius in the 1066 map, was very important to us; and I 
suggest it may have been close to the 1066 midheaven. 
Remember that so careful a student as J. Martin Harvey has 
asserted that he can find no worthwhile evidence whatever 
that William I was crowned at noon. 
  Consider how prominent this area has been in the maps of 
our monarchs. 
  To take recent ones: Victoria, Neptune 28 Sagittarius; 
Edward VII, asc. 28; George V, Jupiter 26; George VI, Sun 
22; Prince Charles, Jupiter 29:54; Elizabeth I Jupiter at 21 
Sagittarius. 
  Note Sir Winston Churchill with Venus at 22 Sagittarius. 
  I propose as a thesis for examination, as ascendant of 
about 22 Pisces. 
  I suppose the worst blow Britain has ever received was the 
American Declaration of Independence.  Neptune was then in 
22:27 Virgo. 
  All through the Napoleonic Wars Pluto was around 21 
Pisces. 
  On August 5, 1914, Venus and Mars were conjoined in 24 
Virgo. 
  On September 3, 1939, Neptune was in 22:35 Virgo. 
  Battle of Waterloo: Mars in 24 Pisces. 
  Of course William's coronation could hardly be the figure 
for Great Britain, and one cannot sweep the 1801 horoscope 
aside.  Nevertheless, the transits to the 1066 chart, as 
proposed, do seem fairly impressive and sufficient to 
warrant further study. 
  The the West of the British Isles is strongly Piscean most 
astrologers would probably admit. 
  One of the keys to Pisces seems to be its relation to what 
has been called Nature's hunger for new forms.  Over against 
this, according to the arcane teaching, there is a principle 
of identity which keeps things what they are, through all 
changes, of that I may say I am still the same man as I was 
fifty years ago, though I may have "changed out of all 
knowledge," as the saying is.  This is related to the 
Italian goddess, Vesta, whose flame burnt perpetually on her 
altar in Rome, tended by the Vestal Virgins. 
  But Pisces is ever changing Proteus who seeks to elude the 
pursuer by changing into all sorts of shapes.  So it is 
difficult to capture Pisces in our mind. 
  So too the typical Pisces loves the sea that is never long 
the same, and, I suspect, clouds have the same fascination 
for him.  He may gaze in wonderment at the shadows of clouds 
racing over the mountain side, but the mountains themselves 
do not attract him. 
  Above all, he is attracted to acting.  Nowadays, I am 
told, the producers go in for "type-casting" or selecting 
for a part some one who is naturally like that sort of 
character.  But the old barn-stormers would have scorned the 
notion; they would maintain that a competent actor should be
able to take Hamlet one night and Falstaff the next with 
equal facility, primed with a certain amount of alcoholic 
refreshment. 
  For alcohol transforms people and transformation is a most 
Piscean word. 
  Naturally the sign has kinship with things that are 
shapeless or change shape or adopt their shape from 
something else, as liquids and gases do when placed in 
containers. 
  But if they have no such containers, psychologically, they 
tend to drift or run away and lose their Vestalian identity. 
Hence, in extreme cases, the Piscean may fall into insanity, 
usually, one supposes, of a pleasant daydream kind.  In mild 
forms one gets unpunctuality as a typical fault, vexatious 
to others but so natural to Pisces that the irate are soon 
disarmed by his bland smile.  Similarly he will make an 
appointment for one place but turn up at another. 
  He is often rather vague about money, too.  He is a great 
borrower.  Please read Charles Lamb's essay "The Two Races 
of Men"...that is, the borrowers and the be-borrowed. 
  "What a careless even deportment hath your borrower!  What 
rosy gills!  What a beautiful reliance on Providence doth he 
manifest, taking no more thought than lilies!  What contempt 
for money, accounting it (yours and mine especially) no 
better than dross!  What a liberal confounding of those 
pedantic distinctions of meum and tuum!" And so forth and so 
on. 
  Charles Lamb was born with the Sun in Aquarius, but one 
must really assert that he must have had Pisces rising, or 
perhaps Mercury and Venus there.  His essays so often have 
Piscean subjects. 
  Pisces, not Aquarius, is your true born Communist, in the 
real sense of the word. 
  And of course there is the other side of the coin...there 
always is. 
  For how many charitable institutions and private 
benefactions is this sign responsible? 
  I suppose the Rockefeller family is most famous for the 
wise use of great wealth, and the original "J.D." had the 
Sun in Cancer in close trine to Uranus in Pisces, denoting 
the setting up of a family tradition. 
  So let us give, as the second Piscean keyword, charity. 
  It is not uncommon to hear Libra and Pisces dubbed as 
wishy-washy signs.  For my part I boldly assert that, as the 
world now is, we could do with more of their easy good 
nature and kindly tolerance. 
  We recall that in the Middle Ages the monasteries were 
also the hotels and hospitals of the people, so now we come 
to the paradox of Pisces...that it is usually so socially 
inclined, and yet it rules the various monastic 
brotherhoods, including, presumably, those vowed to silence. 
  Why? 
  Well, it is obvious from what has been said...and I hope 
accepted by you...that generally Pisces needs a good Saturn, 
lest is dissolves altogether into vagueness and 
formlessness.  So we may take it that those natives of the 
sign who are wise enough to perceive this join the various 
Orders...significant word...where discipline will be applied 
to them and they will live an ordered life and do useful 
work. 
  But what about the anchorite who lives alone in the 
desert? 
  I should say one would have to examine the inner motive in 
each case for adopting this way of life.  But in general I 
am inclined to rule out Pisces here and look rather for a 
Scorpio element at work. 
  As out third keyword I suggest love-of-nature, strong in 
the last two signs. 
  Incidentally this rather confirms the Piscean rulership of 
England.  For our poets abound in nature-lore.  Indeed it 
has sometimes seemed to me that to be an English poet one 
has to be a good botanist and ornithologist.  I have not 
noticed anything like this in such foreign poetry as I can 
claim acquaintance with. 
  From this love of Nature two other Piscean traits emerge: 
a love of natural science and artistic ability, in 
particular music and painting. 
  In the field of Art the sign puts us all heavily in its 
debt. 
  I do not find Pisces strongly tenanted in the poets. 
Perhaps it dislikes the rigid discipline of rime and metre; 
perhaps, for some reason, this value is usually introduced 
through Neptune. 
  However, Edgar Allan Poe, whom one would certainly expect 
to have plenty of the 12th sign, does not disappoint us. 
Born January 19, 1809, he had the Moon, Venus and Jupiter in 
it, close together, and the Sun was at the very end of 
Aquarius, ascendant unknown. 
  From Barbault's manual on Pisces I venture to cull the 
following: Each case he examines in detail and to his most 
interesting writings I refer all who can read French. 
  J.S. Bach...Mercury, Venus, Neptune. 
  Aristide Briand...Moon, Mercury, Venus and M.C., Sun 
conjunction Neptune.  M. Barbault quotes him as saying, "Why 
did Joan of Arc go to all that trouble to expel the English? 
We should have assimilated them, and then what a race we 
should have produced!" 
  The Pisces love of blending forms! 
  His whole policy was directed to the "United States of 
Europe." 
  Charles the VII of France whom his biographer 
characterised as the "Mysterious"...was a mass of 
contradictions. 
  Victor Hugo...Sun, Mercury, Venus in Pisces.  Neptune near 
ascendant.  Note Les Miserables and  The Toilers of the 
Deep. 
  Latude, who passed 39 years in various forms of 
incarceration under Louis XV, in part due to his own erratic 
behaviour.  He never committed any serious crime, but 
apparently had a trick of arousing suspicion.  Mercury,
Venus, Mars and Jupiter in Pisces.  It seems he had quite a 
gift for making the best of his restricted conditions! 

  Next, Michelangelo, born about 2 in the morning, March 6, 
1475, at Caprese, in Tuscany. 
  Positions: Sun 24 Pisces, Moon 3 Pisces, Mercury 29 
Aquarius, Venus 25 Aries, Mars 18 Pisces, Jupiter 3 
Aquarius, Saturn 18 Cancer, Uranus 14 Scorpio, Neptune 21 
Scorpio. 
  Ascendant is Capricorn, but the degree is only suggested. 
  We must not talk of Pisces as just a good-natured silly 
sort of person when it has produced this supremely great 
sculptor, painter, architect and poet.  Not to mention, in 
our own times, Albert Einstein.  Sun in Pisces is very 
different from Pisces Ascending. 
  In Michelangelo's natus we see at once a most prominent 
and potent grand trine...Mars-Sun in Pisces, Saturn in 
Cancer, Uranus-Neptune in Scorpio near the midheaven. 
  It has been suggested that the grand trine puts people in 
the hands of others and it is said that Michelangelo never 
completed any of his works without interference, save only 
the paintings of the Sistine Chapel.  For one thing, he 
worked for popes, who were apt to die at any time, 
especially in the Middle Ages. 
  Note that all four malefics are involved in the grand 
trine formation and he was a rough unsociable person.  Venus 
being peculiarly weak for so great an artist. 
  Early in life a taunt thrown at a fellow-artist resulted 
in a permanent disfigurement and it is for this reason that 
one feels Saturn may well have been just setting at birth. 
  He was very much a family man.  Not that he ever married, 
but his family were always in his mind.  This agrees with 
ruler in Cancer. 
  Late in life he turned to poetry and wrote sonnets to a 
young Roman noble; then he formed a strong attachment, of a 
purely Platonic kind, to a virtuous widow of high birth, 
charm and mental gifts, Vittoria Colonna. 
  By persuasion he was a Christian Platonist and the fact 
that seven bodies are in the second half of the zodiac 
testify to his essential otherworldliness. 
  He was an indefatigable worker up to the end, dying in his 
90th year. 
  It may be a case when the temperament is better described 
by the M.C.(Uranus-Neptune in Scorpio) than by the ascendant 
and ruler. 
  M. Barbault next cites the musician Maurice Ravel...Sun, 
Moon and Mercury in Pisces; and Renoir...Neptune rising and 
Sun, Mercury and Uranus in the Fishes. 
  He next gives us the King of Rome, Napoleon's only 
legitimate child, who was brought up, after his father's 
downfall, as an Austrian prince, the Duke of Reichstadt, and 
died, age 21, of tuberculosis. 
  The Sun, just leaving Pisces, is square Saturn, and 
Mercury, also in Pisces, is square Neptune. 
  M. Barbault quotes "Between my cradle and my tomb there 
was but a great zero!" 
  I do not know if these words were spoken of, or by, the 
unhappy youth. 
  Pisces elements afflicted by Saturn...that is a sad 
combination. 
  The next instance is that of Arthur Schopenhauer, the 
philosopher of pessimism.  He was influenced by Eastern 
thought, without understanding its true teaching.  To him 
life was a great hunger, a ravenous insatiable hunger, for 
new forms.  It reaches its climax in man, only to realize 
then its utter futility and purposelessness.  So one must 
extinguish all desire to live. 
  He had Sun, Mercury, Venus and Saturn in the Fishes. 
  It is curious that, though he was a misanthrope, he 
enjoined kindness to animals.  Otherwise he was an 
ill-conditioned creature, mean-spirited and given to self 
pity. 
  Least of all would one suppose our sign to incline to war. 
  However, Washington had the Sun in Pisces.  It is said 
that his chief asset, as a military commander, was a gift 
for camouflage and similar expressions of the art of 
deception in warfare.  But in essence he was true to his 
Taurus ascendant, a country gentleman, devoted to 
agriculture and the development of his landed estates. 
  Admiral Tirpitz, much execrated in the popular press 
during the First Great War, had Mercury, Neptune, Saturn and 
the Sun in Pisces, all in the 1st or 2nd houses.  He seems 
to have been not only very efficient, but also moderate and 
reasonable in his politics, and no lover of "frightfulness." 
  These names, varied as their titles to celebrity are, 
demonstrate what a very talented sign it is and how 
versatile.  There hardly seems to be any field in which some 
one with a strong Piscean element has not shone, and shone 
brilliantly. 
  I suggest that the dominant urge is to escape from the 
limitations of ordinary life, the dull and humdrum, into a 
more colourful world. 
  So one may get the drug addict and alcoholic, the 
day-dreamer and then upwards to the artist, the scientist 
and the mystic,  They are really other worldly, and the 
great ones have helped others to see their visions.  Like 
SAgittarius, the sign is an explorer, but on a vaster scale. 
The Archer aims at a clear target; the Fishes swim towards 
Nirvana and seek to find Reality close at hand. 

"The angels keep their ancient places; 
Turn but a stone, and start a wing! 
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces 
That miss the many-splendoured thing!" 
"Turn but a stone"...the stone of Saturn, undoubtedly!

One constantly finds that symbol of Saturn.  There was the 
stone that was rolled from the sepulchre. 
  There are also Pisceans who are rolling stones! 
  One would like to end here, with a picture of Pisces as 
being a kindly sign, sometimes silly and sometimes a genius, 
but never harsh or cruel. 
  Unfortunately a glance at my list of Criminals, in 
particular murderers, demonstrates another side to this dual sign.
  Nor can I see that any prevailing motive runs through these regrettable 
cases.
  I suppose most crimes are due to one or more of the three Buddhist
Evils...lust, anger and greed.  If we consider anger as being usually due
to resentment, then one can understand the sensitive signs being motivated to revenge 
injured feelings; and also one can suppose that both Jovian signs like easy money. 
  Some of my cases fall under "easy money"...for example in Notable
Nativities we have two highwaymen.  There is No. 56, Mercury, Saturn 
and Venus in Pisces, and No. 540, Venus in Pisces.  The attractions of 
easy money would also explain No. 271, who poisoned grandmother, 
husband and brother for their insurance money.  Moon and Jupiter in Pisces. 
I do not know why No. 71 killed his mother; he had Jupiter and Neptune in 
Pisces. "Boy Murderer," No. 80, had the Moon in 
29 Pisces.  Hosford, a poisoner, had the Sun in the Fishes. 
  Trenkler, who murdered a jeweler and his wife when robbing 
their shop, had Venus in this sign. 
  Hopf, another poisoner for insurance money, had Mercury, 
his ruler, in Pisces. 
  It would seem if one insures one's life it might be wise 
not to tell any Pisceans about it if they are likely to 
benefit by your demise! 
  Gerard Dupriez, who murdered both his parents, had Mars in 
4 Pisces, exactly on cusp 4! 
  Traffen the child murderer, had Sun and Venus in Pisces. 
  R. Buckham, N.N., No. 332, executed for a double murder by 
shooting, had Moon in Pisces. 
  Trailanus Marinengus, described by Gauricus as a criminal 
more cruel than Nero, had Venus and Uranus in Pisces. 
Curiously enough he had Uranus in the 16th degree, and Nero 
himself had that planet in exact opposition...16th of Virgo. 
But of course Gauricus knew nothing about Uranus. 
  I think this is enough in the way of a Piscean Rogues' 
Gallery, except that I might mention a farm labourer, a 
German, who is supposed to have killed dozens of people in 
out-of-the-way places.  He had Moon in 29 Pisces, a degree 
already mentioned in connection with the Boy Murderer. 
  According to Adraino Carelli, Tamerlane had the Moon in 
this degree, to which he ascribes "an overstressed sense of 
self"..."great ambitions, strong desires, fiery passions," 
but also "a deep righteousness," which sounds a little 
contradictory. 
  I don't know whether Tamerlane was any worse than dozens 
of other ruffians whose ambitions have afflicted mankind. 
  Of course, most of these criminals have heavily afflicted 
maps, but it surprises me that these afflictions vented 
themselves in cruel murders.  One would have liked to think 
that Pisces is more often victim than perpetrator of crimes. 
  But Astrology is full of surprises and puzzles. 
  That's why we love it so much. 
  How dull it would be if we knew all the answers! 
  A few words should be added about the alleged exaltation 
of Venus in Pisces. 
  Without denying that this is often an idealistic and 
gentle influence, it is not favourable for marriage in the 
usual sense, so far as males are concerned, at any rate.  I 
suspect that it indicates weak sexual impulse and it often 
indicates a bachelor or one with little interest in women. 
Possibly there is an active imagination and a "dream-bride," 
that I do not know. 
  For my part I would much rather see Venus in Cancer. 
  Mars in Pisces appears rather often in astrologers' 
nativities.  It is on the whole a kindly Mars but not a 
strong one.  It is apt to be governed too much by the 
emotions and to shirk drastic action when this is avoidable 
but to be desired.  The love of animals is often pronounced. 
  As it has been said that Saturn in Capricorn is just too 
much Saturn, so perhaps Jupiter in Pisces is too much 
Jupiter.  But it should give success in some of the various 
Piscean occupations.  Charles II had this positions and he 
was a kindly man.  Among his more respectable interests was 
one in boating, and he must have liked fishing too, since an 
attempt was made to assassinate him when pursuing this sport 
at Chelsea. 
  I have already expressed my sympathy for those 
with Saturn in Pisces.  Millions are born whilst the planet 
is in the sign and one cannot suppose they are all doomed to 
misfortune.  Nevertheless, I believe most of them will 
encounter, in some form or other, the essential contrast 
between the sign and the planet. 
  Uranus, Neptune and Pluto remain so long in the same sign 
that probably the effects are general rather than 
particular, except when there is special prominence in the 
map.  One would think Uranus is not well placed here, 
Neptune is, and Pluto, well, it would be difficult to say. 
  In the world we are passing through a Plutonian age, 
following on the discovery of the planet in 1930.  But if we 
study the chapter on mundane epochs in my little work 
"Political Astrology" we find that a Piscean period ought to 
begin about 1980. 
  The last such age was the 180 years prior to the 
establishment of the Roman Empire by Caesar Augustus, a time 
of confusion and corruption, military despotism and 
plutocracy. 
  Only the younger of you, dear listeners, will be here to 
see whether man makes a better use of his opportunities, or 
whether history will repeat itself. 
  A great deal may depend upon the map for the exact moment 
the period begins. 
  And that we do not know, nor are we likely to know it in 1980. 

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© Astrology Quarterly  §  Vol.35/2 1961

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