Chapter Five

THE MEANING OF THE CROSS

The beginner is now ready to look at the horoscope in its usual form, and to complete his knowledge of the minimum essentials in horoscopic interpretation. He has gained a general sense of the whole chart by his preliminary examination of exceptional cases. These included hemisphere emphasis on the one hand, and the reverse hemisphere-emphasis of singleton planets on the other. In the meanwhile he has acquired a simple, correct and basic knowledge of the twelve houses, the ten planets and the twelve signs; and this he should review, over and over again, until he is sure of every detail of it in his own mind.

The example chart is Elbert Hubbard, the "sage of East Aurora" and a unique and stimulating literary figure, widely known in America at the turn of the twentieth century. The beginner will notice an east singleton Mars in the twelfth house. This is enlightening because of the degree to which this native carved out his own destiny (the eastern hemisphere-emphasis) by means of his own initiative (the Mars emphasis) and the use of the hidden resources in his own personality (the twelfth house emphasis).

As a matter of fact, the influence of the Mars initiative is so direct in Elbert Hubbard's life that a first house position might seem more correct than the twelfth house place which is given. Here is where it becomes necessary for the beginner to concern himself with the degrees and minutes of the signs. Actually Mars is within a single minute of the cusp, and so its position is probably in the first house after all. This means that if Elbert Hubbard were born only five or ten seconds earlier, or if that much of an error in time had been made in recording his birth, or in casting this chart, or in correcting it, the place of Mars by house would be different. For reasons of this sort it is customary to allow a degree or so, perhaps up to five, in judging whether a planet is on one or another side of a line.

The skilled astrologer will usually make whatever changes are necessary to bring a horoscope into exact conformity with the known facts of a given life, and this is the highly specialized "rectification" which comes with years of practice. It is a matter which need never disturb the beginner if he will remember that few charts have been calculated to a high accuracy in minutes, and that birth times are seldom known to a closer point than the nearest five-minute or quarter-hour interval. He can always make reasonable allowances, as he has already been taught to do. In the meanwhile, however, he will see that he must give real attention to the sign positions, both of planets and house cusps, in definite degrees.

Any circle consists of 360 degrees, and hence a sign as a twelfth of a whole circle must consist of thirty degrees. Each house cusp is shown in the degrees of the zodiac to which it corresponds, hence it may be said that a planet is actually seen or written in the house where it is placed, whereas its position in the sign is shown by the degrees as these are written next to the planet's symbol. In older charts the nearest even degree is usually shown, but in modern practice it is customary to show both degrees and minutes for the planets, and usually for the first and seventh houses also. There are sixty minutes in a degree, and these are not the same "minutes" which divide the hour of time. The symbol for degree is (°) and for minute ('). The symbol for hour is (h) and for its minutes (m). The beginner must be sure to note that the degrees of the zodiac run counterclockwise around the circle, and it may help him to realize at the start that the degree which is Aries 30° is also Taurus o°, and so on, depending on the point of view at a given time.

A further "look" at the Elbert Hubbard chart will show that four of the planets are near the major south cusp. Saturn is at Cancer 2°55', which is within a fraction over nine degrees of the cusp at Cancer 12°, and Mercury is a little over a degree farther away at Cancer 1°27'. The sun, at Gemini 28°35', is within thirteen odd degrees of the cusp, since the 1°25' in Gemini, added to the twelve degrees in Cancer, makes the exact distance 13°25'. Venus, at Gemini 19°44', measured in the same fashion, is a little over twenty-two degrees away. The beginner should be very careful at this point to make sure he understands how distance around the circle is measured in signs and degrees. He should remember the normal order of the signs, seeing clearly how each represents a successive thirty degrees in the whole zodiac circle. He should be able to compute the distance with equal ease counterclockwise or clockwise.

The moon lies almost directly opposite these four planets at the south, a little less than three degrees from the major north cusp. Mars is at the easternmost point of the chart, exactly on the first house cusp, as has been indicated. Jupiter is over at the west angle, less than four degrees from an exact position on the seventh cusp. Pluto is some twenty-five degrees south from this seventh cusp, and Uranus is not quite eighteen degrees farther. Neptune is within a little less than twenty degrees on the northern side. Thus four planets are clustered closely at the south angle, and four are lying not quite as closely at the west. Both the other angles are emphasized by the very close proximity of single planets. This situation in the chart is the astrological configuration known as an "x-cross."

The pattern of the planets here is remarkable in this particular instance for the degree to which they cling to the cusps of the angular houses. They provide a sort of symbolical "crucifixion," or an exceptional case in which the native in a sense is mounted on a "cross" of special strains and stresses. The career of Elbert Hubbard is an excellent dramatization of this unusual emphasis by the house angles, since he consistently felt himself to be in complete rebellion against the existing order of things. His sophisticated attitude gave voice to America's growing protest against mid-Victorian artificiality. The current superficial morality was often a real "crucifixion" of the creative spirit. Hubbard was strikingly sensitive to this shallow sense of values, as is shown by his chart. His Roycroft enterprises at East Aurora, New York, became an expression of every soul's necessity to break the shackles of an uninteresting existence.

The Aspects

The astrological cross indicates the intensification of this "necessity" in an individual native's case, and it now introduces the beginner to the factor of "aspects" in horoscope interpretation. If he will look at the Hubbard chart again, he will see that Mars and Jupiter are opposite each other by less than four degrees of exactness. In other words, if Jupiter were in Aries 10°20', that is, 3°36' farther along, or if Mars were in Libra 6°44', that is, 3°36' back of its present place, these two would be directly across from each other on the circle. This state of relation is known as "opposition," and it exists when any two planets are reasonably close to points opposite from each other in this way.

What is "reasonable" depends on practice and opinion. It might be well for the beginner to consider a deviation from exactness of more than 10° as no aspect at all. Many astrologers, however, allow 12°3o' if the moon is a participant in a given aspect, and 17° if the sun is concerned. The allowable deviation of an aspect from exactness is known as the "orb," or "orb of influence," of the planets involved.

Looking further in the example horoscope, it will be observed that the moon is in opposition to Saturn, Mercury and the sun, but not to Venus, according to the extreme extent of orb suggested. Mercury by itself would not be in aspect to the moon here, since the orb is 13°23', and the moon only permits an extreme orb of 12°3o', but the sun's opposition by less than the 17° allowed carries Mercury into the opposition with it, since Mercury is between the sun and Saturn. This means that there are four oppositions in the chart.

The meaning of an opposition is best approached by going back to the difference between "east" and "west," or "south" and "north." These directions of the compass, first of all, stand contrary to each other; and an opposition is a state of affairs in which two planets, brought to points like east and west, or north and south, likewise stand contrary to each other. Their "contrariety" is not that they cancel each other in any way, since this would violate the principle that nothing properly viewed in a horoscope will contradict anything else determined from the chart, but rather that they challenge each other to an activity of a broader sort. There is at once a tendency to do nothing, and to feel a very great necessity to do something. Superficially the opposition suggests a man who wants to go into both an a la carte and a table d'hôte restaurant, but who like Buridan's ass cannot make up his mind which, and so goes in neither until some agony of indecision gives birth to a better and single "wanting." The opposition aspect always strengthens the native's awareness of a need to act, together with an accompanying sensitiveness to every difficulty involved in making the decision to act.

Elbert Hubbard had great energy under Mars, but his expansive ideas under Jupiter, in opposition to Mars, kept him interested in too many directions. He was never able to build anything more than the relatively local enterprise which gradually disintegrated after his death on the Lusitania. His feelings and great warm public sympathy, under his moon, were continually involved with his sensitiveness to the motives of others under Saturn, as well as with the working of his own mind under Mercury and with his desire to achieve something of enduring worth under the sun; the three planets in opposition to his moon. Thus when he permitted the New York Central Railroad to put out his Message to Garcia on a commercial scale, and decided to be "the Voice of American Business," it is a question whether his really creative conception of his own role had not become confused to the point where he never again was able to give real inner direction to his own efforts.

Oppositions are usually accounted "bad" in their influence, as is illustrated in Elbert Hubbard's case by the curious turn in his fate. He put commercial business behind him after a considerable success and then, when William Morris awakened him to the possibilities of genuine craftsmanship in the book printing and binding arts, he ended with what from any fair perspective was only another equally successful commercial enterprise. The greater possibilities were lost for the reason already pointed out.

Yet oppositions from another point of view are also "good." It cannot be forgotten that Elbert Hubbard was very successful in both major chapters of his life, according to all the standards by which men ordinarily judge "success," and that his important oppositions had a large part in such a consummation. In other words his "interest in many directions" made him alert to everything going on around him, and his "involved feelings" took the form of a very practical imagination. What is more, his oppositions might have helped him even further. Had he been able to hold to his deeper call, revealing the inadequacies of his generation and showing men how they were in fact "crucified" by the very superficiality of their living, he would have been true to the higher genius of his chart, as this is shown in the basic x-cross. He might then have gone far in a different way, to leave a truly imperishable name behind him.

The Conjunction and Square

Two other "aspects" can now be introduced. First, the "conjunction" is where two or more planets are within "orb" of the same place in the zodiac. A conjunction means that the activities ruled by these planets will operate in definite cooperation with each other. As in the case of the opposition, this is for better or worse.

Elbert Hubbard's Mercury is in conjunction with Saturn; hence his mind and sensitiveness are indissolubly linked. On the one hand he has great insight, but on the other he is at times merely the "wit"; and this often made it hard for others to take him as more than superficially clever or personally delightful. The sun, his will, is also in conjunction with both these planets, so that his driving ambition is all caught up in this same state of affairs, making him unreasonable and even petty when he cannot dominate a situation. In addition, Venus is in conjunction with the sun, so that his satisfactions are involved also, and his happiness is left dependent on the degree to which he can establish the depth of achievement for which Saturn calls. Elbert Hubbard suffers for being less than that of which he is capable.

The "square" aspect is an altogether different sort of relation from anything brought to the beginner's attention thus far. It represents what is almost a side-issue in the consideration, and this is almost exactly its nature as an aspect. In other words, it reveals a tendency to get off into side issues, by one way of explaining it, or it is more accurately a situation when various activities of life are a mutual difficulty to each other, leading to a joint accomplishment that would not be possible to either activity alone; and yet often failing to reach any state of accomplishment and so ending with mere frustration and destructive results.

The aspect is the sort of relation that would exist between the east (or west) point of one hemisphere line, and the south (or north) point of the other. These two lines create the hemispheres with which the beginner started his study. The operation of a square is not unlike what would happen if some situation were worked out as an east-west matter, for example, and then a south-north consideration were to be brought in rather suddenly. A man (first house) and his enemy (seventh) might start on the settlement of their differences when the arm of the government (tenth house) or the hysteria of the families of either or both (fourth) might come on the scene and thoroughly upset the progress of the struggle. However, the intervention of the one class of affairs in the other might work out a much better solution than otherwise possible. The law could offer court arbitration as a peaceful substitute for a duel, and the woman's influence out of the home might change hatred into friendliness. The whole point, of course, is that the square is the great indication in astrology of the bringing of affairs to a point where general revision and new consideration are a necessity in the matter.

The moon in Elbert Hubbard's chart is within 5° of an exact square to Mars. His feelings have a tendency to stimulate his initiative in unimportant matters, on the one hand, and his actual move in starting anything is very apt to stir up some sort of alien emotional response or to confuse the direction of his energy, on the other. This was shown in the great unpredictability of his actions as administrator of affairs of East Aurora. Some transient impulse (the moon) would upset his normal activities (Mars), and the same sort of thing operated also in the square relations of moon and Jupiter, and of both Mars and Jupiter with Saturn, Mercury and the sun.

Hubbard's colorful, dramatic and almost erratic career can be traced out through the various combinations of these squares. Like the opposition, they are usually accounted "bad," but their "good" is also evident. They made him an outstanding personality, even if they had no chance to contribute to any superlatively high achievement. The square at its best is an aspect of "construction" or "building." The deflection of influences is illustrated here in more or less destructive cross-purposes, but it will also serve to distribute things into some desired pattern. The stresses and strains of life may be set to the task of supporting a very worthy structure of effort. One purpose of the horoscope is to determine how this can be done in any particular case.

The Quadratures

The beginner has been helped over the first hurdle of the aspects by the use of an example chart in which all the planets are fairly close to the lines of the angular houses, and where for the most part they lie in a basic pattern of opposition, square and conjunction relationships. The relationships have been evident to the eye because the east-west cusps are within less than a 2° deviation from a perpendicular to the south-north cusps. Horoscopes of this convenient sort, however, are not at all common in astrology. The young astrologer will never dare trust the lines of the house-cusps for revealing the aspects among the planets. Consequently, at this point, he must learn the pairs of opposites among the signs as a first step towards a better method for recognizing the planetary relations.

He then proceeds to the naturally square relations among the signs, which establishes them in groups of four. These are the "quadratures." In Elbert Hubbard's chart the signs on the four angular houses are Aries at the west, Cancer at the south, Libra at the east and Capricorn at the north, or the group known as the "cardinal signs"; the first or most important quadrature. The cardinal signs have a very general correspondence to the angular houses.

In similar but very superficial correspondence to the succedent houses, and here placed on the succedent cusps, or the eighth, eleventh, second and fifth houses in that order, are the "fixed signs," Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. In like correspondence to the cadent houses, and placed on the cadent cusps in Hubbard's chart, or the ninth, twelfth, third and sixth, are the "common signs," Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces.

Except when the orb of an aspect permits it to be made across the line of a sign, illustrated in Elbert Hubbard's case by the sun (near the end of a common sign) square to Jupiter (near the beginning of a cardinal sign) , planets in aspect and placed in the same quadrature are conjunction, square or opposition to each other. Knowledge of this fact will spare the student many embarrassing mistakes in the horoscopes where the cusps of the houses might make the planets seem to be in a relation quite different from their actual situation.

The T-Cross

The principal significance of quadrature is revealed in its emphasis by the "cosmic cross" pattern, of which Elbert Hubbard is the x-cross or the more unusual example. The t-cross form is far more common in practice. This is what would appear in Elbert Hubbard's chart if the moon, for example, were in Libra 14° instead of Capricorn 14°, or if Jupiter, Mars or the group at the beginning line of Cancer were similarly found at one of the other legs of the cross; or if any at any one leg had been found outside the square and opposition pattern. It is a stronger and a much more favorable indication on the whole. The reason is that the lack of a fourth leg in the cross prevents the wide diffusion of energies usually indicated by the "x" form, and dramatically illustrated in Hubbard's career.

Cardinal-Sign Emphasis

The "cardinal cross" is the basic type of the three. The example chart is Annie Besant, a famous leader among the Theosophists, and one of the most brilliant women produced by modern England.

The cosmic cross of the "t" pattern gives an overbalanced emphasis of the life according to the quadrature in which it is found. The excess activity is principally directed toward the point of the "short leg," or is revealed by the planet which has only the square or "construction" aspects. In Mrs. Besant's case this is Jupiter, which has exceptionally close squares of less than 2° to Mercury, or mind, and to Uranus, or independence. Thus her enthusiasm is shown as the foundation of her achievements. It is to be noticed that her moon, sun, Venus and Pluto are also included in this cross configuration, so that seven out of ten planets contribute to the tremendous focal power of Jupiter in her house of ultimate ends. Theosophy gave her the definitely all-inclusive or absolute ordering of life which her fourth house required, and the chance to show her rebuilding talent for which Cancer called. Jupiter gave her an organizing leadership on the pattern of Bismarck, in distinction from the more superficial pioneering of Mars, and she eventually made herself Theosophy's best known exponent.

A cardinal cosmic-cross indicates a life fundamentally concerned with the critical or vital issues of human experience. If the person is important enough, his career is irrevocably linked with the broad crises of a nation, a movement or an age. Annie Besant came to a position of leadership in Theosophy when it was torn by many dissentions. It has already been seen how Elbert Hubbard, with an x-cross in this cardinal quadrature, became an outstanding voice in the cultural crisis of the nineties, or the general rebellion against mid-Victorian conservatism.

Common-Sign Emphasis

The common signs are the ones which support or underlie the cardinal group, and in that respect they resemble the cadent houses. A common cosmic-cross indicates a focus of experience not so much in the vital issues as in the background of life. This is an emphasis on the well-being or common interest of the individuals who make up the general culture. Common signs in consequence chow a concern over people, and over distinctly personal or intimate relationships, in contrast with the more impersonal or critical focus of the cardinal group. The example chart is Emerson.

This is an excellent illustration of common sign emphasis, because of the wide spirit of practical humanism which Emerson voiced in all his lectures and writings, and because of the new awakening in social sensitiveness to which he gave a wide stimulus in his friendships and through his more indirect influence. The sun is the key planet in this t-cross. Emerson's dynamic concept of life revealed a limitless opportunity to all men, through the sun's place in the seventh house, and an unquenchable inner enthusiasm, through the planet's position in Gemini. The chart is interestingly akin to those of Shakespeare and Sir William Hamilton because the cross is made possible by Pluto's discovery in 1930. Emerson's contribution was not only in advance of his own age, but also beyond his own understanding of its full significance in his own lifetime.

If a person is important enough, a common cross irrevocably links him with the living personality of a nation, a movement or an age. Emerson was unquestionably a central figure in the stirring towards a reconstitution of American life which Elbert Hubbard dramatized somewhat differently at its point of great .crisis under the pattern of a cardinal sign emphasis. The contrast between these men affords valuable and additional light on the nature of both quadratures.

Fixed-Sign Emphasis

The fixed signs are the ones which order the cardinal group, reaching out ahead of them on the analogy of the succedent houses. This means a focus of interest in patterns and principles, or in more abstract or remote possibilities. A fixed cosmic-cross indicates a fundamental concern with ideas, or with the intangible and "value" side of life. The example chart is the elder J. P. Morgan.

This is an excellent illustration of fixed sign emphasis because Morgan centered his career in the financial realm, where ideas and values are manipulated, and where transactions are made out of such intangible things as stocks, bonds and the like. Saturn is the key planet in this horoscope, so that the focus of the life is through its sensitiveness. This becomes the financier's very special "instinct" for dealing with intangibles. Saturn lies in the fourth house, accentuating his concern over such established assets as the capital investments, plants and equipment of a corporation, and in Scorpio, which indicate his outstanding capacity for creating financial and business structures in American society.

If a person is important enough, a fixed cross irrevocably links him with the establishment of the values, or the patterns of motives and belief, in a nation, a movement or an age. Morgan, more than any other figure, has remained the ideal type of American financial genius. He represents the whole modern concept of sheer financial power, or economic exploitation. Another man may represent a finer turn in the events which through Emerson and Hubbard, typically at least, marked the rise of a strictly American everyday philosophy, but in any case the elder Morgan's life excellently illustrates the real nature of a fixed-sign emphasis.

Summary

In summary, what has the beginner learned in this fifth chapter? He has been introduced to the degrees of the zodiac by which position in the signs is indicated. He has been shown how to use these in determining the aspects; specifically the oppositions, conjunctions and squares. He has been told how to apply the test of "orb," or to find whether an aspect is close enough to have any influence.

He has been given the chart of Elbert Hubbard in the usual form. He has seen through this example how life is patterned in the symbolism of the horoscope, and how the native becomes thwarted as well as stimulated or aided by the conditions of his experience. He has been shown the difference in meaning among the three aspects so far presented, and it has been pointed out how these aspects may work for good or bad, depending on the native's direction of his own life.

He has been introduced to astrological quadrature. He has learned that cardinal signs have principal correspondence to the critical issues in life, common signs to the personal affairs of people, and fixed signs to the relations and activities of ideas in both individual and group situations.