We mentioned previously that Elbert Hubbard was the first horoscope in How to Learn Astrology with a full complement of astrological symbology. Sigmund Freud is part of the earlier lessons where Marc Jones uses his “piano key” to highlight what the student should focus on. In a B&W publishing word, the piano keys were a great invention and keeps the eye focused on the points under discussion. For Dr. Freud that was Mars in the Third House.
Gimme a sign
Dr. Jones does not note the houses because he wants the student to get used to eyeballing the chart and determining their temperament type (another one of his inventions) right off. His idea was that you get the birds-eye view of the chart and then zone in for the details. Using that approach with Freud, we notice that he was bundle (all the planets in the south are within 120º) with a lone Mars in the north. This Martial handle transforms the upper group into bucket.
Download the Sigmund Freud chart with glyphs and houses noted.
Jones only uses ten planets for his pattern: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The latter three “have paths of motion in the sky farther from the sun than the earth’s own orbit” while “Venus and Mercury have their paths between the earth and sun.” These ten bodies are placed in the horoscope exactly as they lie in the heavens, as seen from a geocentric (earth or a person centered) point of view, for “by their position in the houses and signs,” lies a correspondence to human affairs and thus supporting the prime of the seven esoteric principles “So above, so below.“
In Freud’s chart, the location of a lone planet in a hemisphere gives it exaggerated influence, on the principle that anything set off by itself has special importance. At times a singleton planet will seem to dominate all the other nine planets and the native’s whole character will have a pointed emphasis because of that singleton’s hemisphere. — Marc Edmund Jones, How to Learn Astrology.
Freud’s Northeastern Hemispheric Bias
For Dr. Freud, this bias is in the north eastern hemisphere of his chart. The corresponding northwestern hemisphere is totally absent, and marked in a darker hue. The planets tend to congregate in the southern hemisphere of his chart and all within 120 degrees from start to finish. Had the errant Mars been part of that group, he would be a bundle temperament type, but as it strikes out in opposition, it is a bucket, which is why the planet Mars in Freud’s chart has such marked importance — it is pioneering the hemisphere of personal identity.
The symbol of Mars is a circle of the Infinite that is ruled by the searching for matter. In practice the glyph is the the circle with an arrowhead jutting forth depicting the need to strike out beyond its harmonic confines and seek. The glyph indicates the impulsive spirit that searches out knowledge (science is the study of knowing), power, & opportunity for its own purposes. Thus Mars has the dual nature: it both constructive and destructive — it destroys what it will re-create it in its own image.
This idea is actually Aristotelian, a Greek philosopher scientist who taught Alexander the Great of Macedonia and whom himself was a student of Plato. Aristotle lived in 384–322 B.C Athens and posited that if something is undifferentiated and formless it becomes transmuted into a new thing that has both form and substance by the search for wisdom¹
So what does Mars mean in Freud’s chart?
Mars the singleton in Freud’s chart means that it is an individual member that is distinct from the others — it is separate and alone. As we said previously, being a solitary planet in a hemisphere makes Mars the most important planet in Dr. Freud’s chart and denotes that like religious reformer Martin Luther he is a reformer concerned with the individual (the northern hemisphere) and not the group. Jones believed that it was solitary effort, the man (or woman) alone was at the zenith of human potential and so individuals who helped and encouraged that idealization, were paragons of personal effort.
As a matter of record, no other man in human history has done as spectacular a job of pioneering in the hidden depths of personality. Thus he gives an excellent dramatization of this planet’s fundamental nature. Moreover, Mars lies in the third house of communication and daily environment, showing that Freud’s pioneer work took place mainly in the affairs of everyday living. What he explored was a practical technique for helping every individual adjust to the various situations they encounter. ——– Marc Edmund Jones, How to Learn Astrology
Footnotes:
- This is how this syllogism works.
- A child goes out to play and bumps himself on a hard thing and gets hurt. He goes home and tells his parents. They do not understand what the hard thing is, so he brings them to the spot and shows them. The hard thing is now transmuted into a form with a tough substance that the parents call “rock.”
- He goes out another day and hits against another hard thing. It is bigger than the first and now he asks his parents “do rocks have different sizes?” and they say “yes.” The child now tells them, he has banged against a “bigger rock.” And so it goes.
