April 2016 Newsletter
Enclosure by Malefics and Benefics - Clinton and Trump
The Hellenistic aspect doctrine contains a section on maltreatment by aspect, where a planet can be severely injured by another planet so that it has difficulty in bringing forth its positive significations. I will spend a full day teaching these methods during the Hellenistic Astrology Applied Summer Retreat in July. You'll find an introduction to the concepts in this month's newsletter as we look at examples in Hillary Clinton's and Donald Trump's charts.
Hillary’s Maltreated Venus
Let's start with an example of one of these maltreatment conditions, called "enclosure by malefics," in the chart of Hillary Clinton. I use the 8:02 am chart because the newspaper announcement of her birth quoted her mother saying that Hillary was "born in time for breakfast." The chart is set in whole sign houses, which give a strong angular signature with Sun, Venus, and Mercury in the 1st house and Mars and Saturn (along with Pluto) in the 10th house. [Oct 26, 1947; 8:02 am CST; Chicago, IL]
Hellenistic aspects are understood as the seven visual rays that are emitted by each planet and are directed along the 60, 90, 120, 180 degrees angular slopes. Similar to modern astrology, the trine and sextile rays are sympathetic and the square and opposition rays are harsh. When the malefic planets - Mars or Saturn - are one of the planets involved in the square, opposition (and even conjunction), there is the potential for pain, harm, and injury. We are going to look at one of the seven conditions of maltreatment called enclosure by malefics, which the medieval astrologers referred to as besiegement.