1. Astronomy and the Outer Planets
For most of human history, we have known of only seven ‘wandering stars’ in our solar system: the luminaries (the Sun and the Moon), the Twinkling One (Mercury), Light-Bringer (Venus), The Fiery One (Mars), The Radiant One (Jupiter), and the Shining One (Saturn), on a backdrop of fixed stars.
It was only in 1781, between the American and French Revolutions, that this paradigm was overthrown by Uranus, knowingly discovered for the first time by England’s William Herschel. William, a musician and hobbyist astronomer, spotted Uranus during a routine survey of the sky. Assumed a star by Hipparchus in 128 BC, Uranus was again mislabeled, this time called a slow-moving comet until a consensus of evidence concluded it was indeed a new planet.
William named it after his King George, while other Englishmen argued for Neptune in honor of recent British marine victories; in the end, it was the recommendation of German astronomer Johann Bode that gave us the name Uranus, fitting the myth of Uranus fathering Saturn or Chronos, who fathered Jupiter or Zeus, a pattern recapitulated by the solar system’s nominal order. Uranium’s discoverer Martin Klaproth named it so in support of Bode’s suggestion. In time, the name of the new planet stuck.
Bode’s name has not stuck in the astronomical world, however, though the discovery of Uranus helped validate a 1766 idea he reformulated and popularized in 1772, the Titius-Bode rule. Originally created by German astronomer Johann Titius and added to his translation of a French science book, the rule suggests the planets’ average orbits are at near-regular Fibonacci-like intervals from the sun, each double the distance of the planet before it. The rule suggested a planet should reside between Mars and Jupiter, but most initially found this idea no more than a curiosity before the discovery of Uranus. After, the search was on.
On the first of 1801, Ceres was discovered by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi where Titius first predicted it, for a time becoming our eighth planet. The discovery of other asteroids started a year later, however, diminishing the status of Ceres as a mere member of a newly-conceived asteroid belt. The Titius-Bode rule nonetheless remained popular until the (re)discovery of Neptune in 1846 by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, a planet Galileo once mistook for a star. Its location was not in accordance to the rule and was instead confirmed by Frances’ Urbain Le Verrier, whose calculations explained gravitational anomalies in Uranus’s orbit by predicting the existence and location of Neptune. With American Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto in 1930, again disconfirming Bode’s rule, it was widely abandoned, and astronomical cosmology moved on to study the causal mechanisms that led to the formation of the solar system.
2. Astrology and the Outer Planets
Until the 18th century, Western astrology tracked the movements of seven wandering stars to cast charts and forecast events. Direct observation and visibility were key to interpretation since astrology’s origins as omens. As with the culminating brightness of the Full Moon, the gestating promises of the New Moon, or the obscuring and debilitation of planets under the Sun’s beams, what could be seen bore a symbolic parallel to what was experienced; as above, so below. As astrology grew in complexity and additional systems, predictive techniques, and sensitive points were formulated, the core interpretative fundamentals, laid down before the Common Era, gave the divinatory practice an elegance that seems eternal.
With the discoveries of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, however, these systems have been thrown into some uncertainty. It took many decades for a semblance of consensus to emerge around these planets’ archetypal significance, but today, many a beginner may get the impression these archetypes are as settled as those of the original seven bodies. This misconception is in no doubt related to the disjuncture of the Western astrological lineage during the Enlightenment; through the 20th Century, many Western astrologers worked with little or no reference to traditional astrological knowledge, creating a humanistic and psychologically-focused interpretative system that didn’t so much integrate new astronomical discoveries with old methods as flout the tradition entirely.
With the reclamation of ancient astrological systems and techniques, many are pushing back on all these modern inventions and call for a return to fundamentals. At the most extreme, some question why any celestial body not perceived the naked eye (without light pollution) would symbolize something meaningful for earthly events. Why should these bodies, known for centuries at most, impinge on a system that’s existed for millennia, one in which light and visibility are a central interpretive framework? Uranus and Ceres may be faintly viewed on dark nights when full of the sun’s light, but this rarity, and the totality invisibility of Neptune and Pluto, make them and all other hidden bodies questionable.
Likewise, traditionalists reject modern astrology’s reformulation of the rulership scheme of the planets and signs, claiming Saturn’s Aquarius belongs with Uranus, Jupiter’s Pisces with Neptune, and Mars’s Scorpio with Pluto. Whether argued to be full or co-rulers, the outer planet’s far-reaching and slow-moving implications belie the everyday meaning and significations of rulership and domiciles. Further, this whole premise begs the question: what about Mercury and Venus? Shouldn’t some planets become associated with one of their signs, rivaling Uranus, Pisces, and Pluto in stature? Where does that lead us?
Debates about the coherence of outer planet archetypes continue, but the empirical research on the outer bodies is persuasive. For example, the exceptionally rare conjoining of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto coincided with the start of the Axial Age and the transformation of moral law into spiritual philosophy, a Rubicon crossing that fits with these outer planets’ transcendental associations. The United States’ Uranus Returns were predicted to herald paridigm-shattering wars by Luke Broughton and Evangeline Adams, followed by the Civil War and the Great Depression/WWII, respectively.
Further, outer planet behavior seems to fit with classical interpretive principles of light and motion: the visible manifests and actualizes while the invisible is hidden and obscure, and the slower the movement of a celestial body, the less energetic it is. Likewise, the slow, subconscious, subtle, long-lasting correlations of history with outer planet transits suggest they are of a different class than the visible planets, and while their association with signs may often be overstated, their resonance with historical records and empirical predictions and sympathies with classical interpretative principles are worth exploring.
3. Astronomy, Astrology, and the Dwarf Planets
This would all be well and good, save for a recent astronomical revolution that parallels the discovery of Uranus: hundreds of new celestial bodies have been discovered in the past several decades, leading to Pluto’s demotion and Ceres’s elevation to dwarf planet status in 2005. They share this rank with the three recent discoveries of Eris, Haumea, and Makemake, but there are many other known bodies likely to fit in this category as well, with hundreds of others likely out there, nevermind the millions of asteroids.
While astronomers struggle to effectively categorize these new bodies into a coherent astronomical framework, many astrologers are pioneering interpretations of these new bodies. Astrologers seem to agree that asteroids are of a different class of inquiry (following Demetra George’s work), and that any planetary archetype, dwarf or not, requires decades of study and consensus-building, as it was with Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. But at the same time, this process must start somewhere, and I’ve found a few promising methodologies for studying these new bodies:
1) Delineate the celestial body’s discovery chart
Recently discovered dwarf planets have detailed records for delineating their natal charts, providing a guide for conceptualizing their archetypes and applying them in practice. It is worth remembering that astrology is archetypally but not concretely predictive, and therefore a chart is unlikely to reveal too much insight without some application to the real world.
2) Track the celestial body’s mundane transits, ingresses into new signs, and aspects with other bodies
John Varley (1778–1842) tracked the transits of Uranus and found that it brought sudden eruptions when aspecting Mars, something he personally experienced while tracking such a transit: his house went up in flames. Such illustrative events can be tracked for the dwarf planets as well, so long as the significations of the already-busy sky of ten standard bodies and other interpretive systems is not confused for what a newer celestial body may be up to.
3) Study significant historical themes with the celestial body’s cycles
As with the aforementioned Axial Age, Outer Planet transits have had their fingerprints on many events that predate their discovery, and likewise, tracking dwarf planet cycles through history is invaluable. As with tracking their present transits, there’s always a risk of overdetermining their significance, but with sufficient time, energy, and patience, a persuasive account of symbolic importance may emerge.
4) Study significant world themes and events around the time of the celestial body’s discovery
Interpreting the Outer Planets through the world themes at the time of discovery has been telling; Uranus emerged during the Enlightenment when secular values and democratic revolution was sweeping the West; Neptune came near the end of Romanticism and the birth of modern psychology studying the mysteries of the mind; Pluto was discovered with the post-God rise of totalitarianism and destructive forces never before imagined. For most of the dwarf planets, this is much more difficult, as the majority of trans-Pluto bodies were discovered in a relatively short time frame, associating them with the same collective themes. Further, we arguably have insufficient distance from their discovered to say what the time period really means in posterity — an astrologer may propose a Saturn cycle for establishing this boundary — which puts all dwarf planets but Ceres outside of the realm of this type of inquiry, for now.
5) Interpret the symbolic significance of physical features and speed of a celestial body
Following basic principles of observational analogy, one can look at the redness of Mars as reflecting its anger and aggression, the rings of Saturn as representing its restriction, or the extreme axial tilt of Uranus as a sign of its eccentricity, examples of celestial analogies that can be made with the dwarf planets. These observations seem less predictive of qualities than affirming what is already known about these bodies, however; couldn’t Mars’s redness reflect a romantic passion, Saturn’s rings its beauty, or Uranus’s axial tilt… ? okay I can’t see past nonconformity. A celestial body’s motion potentially may be more dispositive, as faster moving bodies like the Moon and Mercury both constellate qualities that are quick and transitory, while slow Pluto represents the glacial pace at which the hidden and repressed aspects of society come to light; given most of the dwarf planets are of such slow motion, save Ceres, I would imagine they would be semi-fixed sensitive points
6) Interpret the meaning or myths behind a celestial body’s name
While mytho-poetic astrology is growing in popularity, I’m hesitant to using it, like physical features, as primary bases for unpacking new celestial bodies. For starters, though synchronicity may be at play in their naming by astronomers, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would be poor examples of this, as they seem to align better with Prometheus, Morpheus, and Dionynsis, respectively. The broad symbolism of sky, sea, and underworld fit with the outer planet archetypes, but these connections are clearer in retrospect than they would have been beforehand. It’s also worth remembering that Greek and Roman gods were applied to the planets post-hoc in a process of syncretism, suggesting the gods and their myths are more a reflection of the time, place, and culture of their origins than faithful representations of the planetary archetypes.
4. Prioritizing Celestial Body Research
Given the paralyzing number of new celestial bodies — again, while other five dwarf planets are named, there are many who are unnamed and potentially of great significance — astrologers also consider how to prioritize the study of dwarf planets, preferring to detach from their selection process, opposed to choosing at random or based on personal connection.
Some consider the astronomical features of dwarf planets for this reason, considering their size, mass, and density; this process makes some sense, but emphasizing the physical properties of planets logically leads to considering even classical planets in troubling terms; Saturn’s moon Titan is larger than Mercury, the Moon, and Pluto; does that make it more significant? Saturn itself is the least dense planet; does this make it less impactful? Given the number of ways astronomy and its emphasis on the reductive, causal, and physical has been in opposition to astrology’s emphasis on the emergent, correlative, and symbolic, it seems like astrology should look to methodologies of prioritization more in line with its metaphysically-inclined fundamental principles.
Along these lines, and as a supplement to the above methodologies of interpretation, I humbly put forward the Titius-Bode rule as a tool for prioritizing astrological prominence. Astronomy may view it as a mere incidental emergence of stable orbital resonances, a curiosity of little to no predictive value, but of course it does; astronomy is interested in causal and reductive models of solar system formation. Astrology is not.
The Fibonaccian Titius-Bode rule has been found to correlate with the orbital periods of Jovian and Uranian moons, and even distant solar system structures. Just as the Fibbonacci sequence and its derivative Golden Number is found throughout nature, it is throughout the cosmos as well, extending the ancient recognition of sacred geometry and the harmony of the spheres as significations of the solar system’s divine resonance with worldly events.
Though the rule was discredited with Neptune and Pluto breaking the pattern, I learned from its Wikipedia talk page that Neptune’s orbit is actually at half the predicted interval, while Pluto is at the full-interval distance following Uranus. As WHPratt notes, the asteroid Chiron is also at a half-interval between Saturn and Neptune, a clue to its unlikely astrological popularity. To work with the Bode rule requires acceptance that, beyond the visible planets, celestial bodies at half-intervals may have prominence, like Neptune.
For the graph below, I used the most simple Titius-Bode formula for calculating planetary positions, adding four to the next number of the Fibbonacci sequence and dividing by ten, until Saturn, when half-intervals of the sequence were considered (light gray), in addition to some quarter intervals (dark gray).
I included as-of-yet unnamed minor planets that I could find that fit well with the rule; given there’s thousands known this is unlikely an exhaustive list.
So how can this concept help astrology in practice?
What first stands out to me is that all the classical planets are exceptionally close to the predicted distance — Saturn is most off by 0.46 AU, with Mars second-most off by 0.02 AU. Ceres is only 0.03 AU off, while Neptune is off by 0.82 AU and Pluto 0.64 AU. Of the widely-discussed celestial bodies listed, Chiron is least close to its predicted distance at 1.1 AU; for this reason, I haven’t included any body at least as exact as Chiron.
Ceres and Pluto fit within the primary predicted intervals, unlike the other classified dwarf planets, validating Pluto’s continued position as a powerful marker of cycles. Both are the most visible celestial bodies of their respective belts, and both were demoted as the number of sizable bodies in their belts were documented. The obvious mythology tie between these bodies stands out — both in terms of their namesakes, Ceres and Pluto and the myth of Persephone’s descent, and the original Sumerian Myth of Descent in which Inana visiting her sister Ereshkigal, associated with Venus and Mars, respectively.
Why consider Ceres more than the rest of the asteroid belt? It makes up a third of it — Pallas, Vesta, and Hygeia combined are just a sixth — and is likewise hypothesized to be the planetary core that failed to form due to Jupiter’s gravity. Given these factors, the leveling of its importance with the other named asteroids and dwarf planets seems unfair, as it may be with Pluto.
There is a minor planet called Orcus with a complementary orbit to Pluto, a sort of twin. There’s also several other unnamed bodies I didn’t list of roughly the same interval, all in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune. As mentioned above, what sets Pluto as the first discovered of these bodies is its brightness, a fact that shouldn’t be diminished given the symbolic significance of visibility in astrology. Nonetheless, ore study here is needed.
Eris, the dwarf planet credited with and named for overturning astronomical planetary conventions, has attracted significant interest among pioneering astrologers, so I was surprised when it, like the other new dwarf planets, didn’t align with the Titius-Bode Rule. I considered quarter-intervals out of curiousity, and found that Eris is very close to one. Given Eris’s historical significance it merits further study, but even with quarter-intervals in mind, most recently-discovered minor planets do not fit in the Bodes Rule sequence, suggesting they shouldn’t necessarily be a priority.
As mentioned above, Chiron is at a half-interval like Neptune, which suggests there may be some associations to make between these bodies, in addition to Chiron’s orbit crossing Saturn and Uranus suggesting it is a bridge between the visible and invisible planets. The Titius-Bode rule validates the extant interesting in this body above and beyond other asteroids to me.
I was surprised to find there is also a known minor planet at the half-interval after Pluto. It hasn’t been official named but it unofficially goes by Buffy (the Vampire Slayer), and I found it given the mythological name of Cardea as well, goddess of the door hinge and the marking out of spaces. Ovid writes of a nymph named Cranaë who is raped by Janus and given dominion over the door hinge in exchange. Not sure what to make of it, but it seems as fruitful a body to study as Chiron — if only it were readily available in astrological software.
Likewise, the unnamed bodies with orbits close to the full-interval after Pluto are intriguing, but until their transits can be tracked astrologically, there is very little to make of what they may foretell.
5. In Conclusion
There is no shortage of work ahead; while the Titius-Bode rule may be a useful tool for confronting the great number of celestial bodies discovery, astrologers still have a great number of decades of difficult research and debate ahead to fully make sense of what they may mean. In the meantime, we can all accept that there are no easy answers or shorts in this process, and lean on each other in respectful dialogue to help discover the unfolding archetypal complexities of our solar system and our place within it.
