The pleasures of astrology...
A debate arose among some colleague astrologers about whether masturbation is a house 5 or a house 12 matter.
I did not participate in the alleged delightful exchange so I will offer some thoughts after the fact, here in the safety of my website. I don’t mind being excommunicated but burning at the stake is something I don’t want to repeat this lifetime. Once a sorcerer, always a sorcerer…
In Astrology the issue of significators is ideally solved by thinking in terms of “essence” or the “essential meaning” or “essential quality” of phenomena.
This is something I learned from master John Frawley and I believe to be one of the most important abilities in astrology.
Let’s get straight to the point: Except perhaps for pathological cases, the essence of masturbation is pleasure.
Therefore it is a house 5 matter. It is a sexual act. Pleasure is not a house 12 matter.
Yet, like with anything in life, if you do too much of what is not good, or too little of something that may be good for you, you risk harming yourself. Just like alcohol or smoking cannabis are a house 2 matter; if you take too much of them they will expand into or become a house 12 matter.
This applies to any activity. Whether it is alcohol, drugs, sports, money, power, security, food, coffee, or sex makes no difference.
So, can masturbation be a house 12 matter?
Well, if you have followed the reasoning above, you must agree that of course, it can. But that is neither automatic nor primary or essential; and certainly not a matter of belief or dogma.
As should always be the case in any astrological inquiry, it depends on the context. Issuing some general blanket “rule” that it IS a sin to everybody may be acceptable in some communities, but it is bad astrology.
Before it may become house 12 any type of pleasure is house 5.
If pleasure is misused it may then become house 12. But then, as common sense and proper technique would lead us to do, we are no longer analyzing the pleasure and we will be analyzing its abuse. The object of inquiry is different and so the house signification is different.
Finally, if one concluded that masturbation is a house 12 matter without going through an analytical process similar to the one I just outlined, I would bet money that one is biased by one’s upbringing, education, and social or religious conditioning, and very likely some degree of trauma and fear, which again, are house 12 in action.
It is difficult or impossible to discuss this subject with someone who believes sexual pleasure to be a sin and is unable or unwilling to engage in a dispassionate analysis of it from a different perspective; specifically, from the perspective of “essence”.
In that case, I can only admonish the poor sinner unworthy of some fun: beware of letting beliefs and fears bias astrology; which again, you guessed it, is house 12 in action.
Astrology, especially horary astrology, is about describing things as they are in life, not about overlaying belief onto life.
Well, we can overlay our beliefs, there is no astro-police stopping us.
But in doing so we are defeating the purpose of astrology itself which is ideally, to inform and enlighten us (rather than justify our fears). And help us break free from the limitations of House 12, regardless of the form they may take.
