The individual who is ignorant of astrological forces is a Slave to the Stars and those who possesses such knowledge can attain their highest mental, emotional and spiritual potential. Elbert Benjamine.
It’s a sorry state of affairs. Too many people have the impression, that astrology not only implies a philosophy of fatalism, but that in some manner the birth chart shows in minute detail just what will happen to an individual.
They seem to think that an astrologer looking at a person’s chart can see, as if they were looking in a crystal ball, all there is to know about their future in precise, minute detail.
But such confidence in the astrologer’s ability to perceive the details of life far in advance works to the detriment of astrology, because your birth chart and progressed aspects can give no such precise picture.
Instead, they map energies and trends within your basic character and the times when new energies are added to them which may give them sufficient activity to attract events and influence your behavior. But the particular events attracted and your particular behavior are largely determined by previous environmental influences, and by the environment within which they must now find expression.
Your character consists ten different types of energies which have relative volumes of power as indicated by the planets in your birth chart. They’re harmonious or discordant according to the aspects between the planets and they’re associated with departments of life as shown by the houses the planets rule.
Your character has certain trends but for a trend to develop into specific events it must act upon and react to whatever specific environment is present.
My recent extensive research into the events which have actually occurred in the lives of those possessing almost identical birth charts when they had the same progressed aspect has convinced me that your birth chart does not map specific events but it does map predispositions toward the types of conditions and events which will affect each of the 12 departments of your life.
Progressed aspects map energy releases of definite types during limited periods of time which can be predetermined. These energies during such periods of release, expend themselves in the work of bringing into your life conditions and events of their particular type, harmony or discord, and relating to one or more of the departments of life with which they are associated as revealed by the houses ruled by the planet mapping the energies released.
The advantage of possessing this information is that when a predisposition is recognized, thoughts and feelings and environment may be intelligently selected with the end view of either developing or thwarting that predisposition. And when the period during which a given energy release will be present is known steps can be taken to facilitate it attracting events which are desired rather than those distasteful.
These energy releases which are indicated by progressed aspects cannot be successfully suppressed. But they can be combined with thought energy in the processes of mental alchemy, and they can be conditioned to express more constructively or more disastrously, and they can be diverted to express more through one house ruled be the planets involved than through another, and at times even through one of several events ruled be such a house rather than the others.
A progressed aspect is influenced by your previous conditioning and your environment at the time. But to the extent it is able to influence your life, the event or condition attracted by it will bear the characteristics of the planets involved, and will affect a department of life mapped bp one of the houses they rule.
So, when considering the probable influence of a progressed aspect you must appraise the harmony or discord of the planets involved, both in your birth chart and by progression, and know your previous conditioning by environment and your current environment as offering facilities for one specific event and resistance to other specific events.
Each planet has favorable events which are characteristic of its harmonious aspects, and unfavorable events which are characteristic of its discordant aspects; and your objective is to avoid those which are unfortunate and cultivate those which are fortunate in terms of your character development.
But the most constant factor of the events and conditions attracted by progressed aspects is that each bears the characteristics of the planets involved.
Therefore, I believe, the most satisfactory point of departure for appraising the most probable event to be attracted by a given progressed aspect is to consider the most common characteristic expressions of both planets.
Using these as a base, and giving due weight to your previous conditioning and present environment, you can move to a consideration of how these general characteristics are apt to express through those events which are common to the discordant or harmonious aspect of the planets. And then try to narrow it down to a more probable department of life as indicated by one of the houses involved, and finally to one or more probable specific events.
For such a point of departure, I have endeavored to find three things which can be expected of any progressed aspect to each of the ten planets. It may need revising, but it’s the one I currently use and has the merit of being easily remembered.
Sun: Any progressed aspect of the Sun affects your vitality, significance, and authority.
Moon: Any progressed aspect of the Moon affects your mental attitude, domestic life, and everyday affairs.
Mercury: Any progressed aspect of Mercury affects your intellectual interests, your facility or accuracy of expression, and increases your cerebral activity.
Venus: Any progressed aspect of Venus affects your emotions, your social relations, and your artistic appreciation.
Mars: Any progressed aspect of Mars brings strife, haste, and increased expenditure of energy.
Jupiter: Any progressed aspect of Jupiter affects through abundance, increased optimism, and joviality.
Saturn: Any progressed aspect of Saturn brings work, responsibility and economy or loss.
Uranus: Any progressed aspect of Uranus affects through something sudden, a human agency, and brings change into your life.
Neptune: Any progressed aspect of Neptune increases your imagination, increases your sensitivity, and attracts schemes.
Pluto: Any progressed aspect of Pluto affects through groups, subtle force, and brings coercion or cooperation.
It is easy to memorize these three methods of expression which may be expected of a progressed aspect of each of the ten planets. And from these memorized keywords it is possible to proceed with more confidence, not to predict inevitable specific events, but those which – past conditioning and present environment being given due consideration, as well as the harmony or discord of the energy released by the progressed aspect – are most probable.
Often the result of such a weighing of energy releases against the character will bring to mind several alternative events, any one of which may thus be brought into your life, although it is unlikely all of them will be.
And right here is where you need special education.
Instead of being led to believe that what will happen is either inevitable or is pictured by the progressed aspect, you must understand that a progressed aspect merely maps energies of definite types, which are striving to find expression in a characteristic manner through the behavior and the events attracted.
There are lines of association connecting these energies with certain departments of life, and the energies tend to be harmonious or discordant, but the exact manner in which they will find expression is largely determined be factors well within your control.
Knowing in advance the several alternative events through one of which the energy release of a given progressed aspect most likely will find expression, you can divert the energy into the specific event which you most desire, or if you desire none of them, select some more favorable avenue for its expression.
The fortune-teller deals exclusively with results, and presents them as inevitable. Hermetic astrology, on the other hand, while it considers the probabilities of certain results, is primarily interested in the energies which are the cause of results, whatever those results may be.
It does not consider the events which come into your life as effects which are independent of causes. Instead, believing each event has back of it definite energy releases, it foresees the presence of the energies which tend to cause the different types of events, so that they may be diverted from unfortunate channels to cause more fortunate events.
I recognize that the common avenues of expression for the planetary energy are not inevitable, merely their disposition, and that sometimes they find expression through other channels. And that you can cultivate other channels of expression, and induce the energies to express through them.
To illustrate what I mean consider:
A progressed aspect to the Sun that tends to express through domination can be made to express through significance.
A progressed aspect to the Moon that tends to express through mental instability can be made to express through domesticity.
A progressed aspect to Mercury that tends to express through nervous disorders can be made to express through intellectual activity.
A progressed aspect to Venus that tends to express through unrestrained emotion can be made to express through art or affection.
A progressed aspect to Mars that tends to express through demolition can be made to express through building something.
A progressed aspect to Jupiter that tends to express through surfeit can be made to express through benevolence.
A progressed aspect to Saturn that tends to express through loss can be made to express through systematization.
A progressed aspect to Uranus that tends to express through agitation can be made to express through invention.
A progressed aspect to Neptune that tends to express through fraud can be made to express through idealism.
And a progressed aspect to Pluto that tends to express through coercion can be made to express through cooperation.
Elbert Benjamine presented this talk on progressed aspects on June 26, 1941 before the Third West Coast U.S. Convention of Standard scientific Astrologers in Oakland, California. It’s been remastered to make it suitable for online reading.
Astrology for Aquarius – sharing our knowledge
