Hi Jeremy
I am not saying the degrees have no relevance, I have looked at them myself in my own chart and in my partner's, and I agree wholeheartedly with what your saying. My partner used to drink heavily, and he has Mercury at 25 Leo, I posted the study on another thread it was an alcoholic study on astrodatabank (you will have to check it out if you haven't already, it was really interesting) it listed Carter's astrological theory on the chart significators for alcoholics. I bought his astrological encyclopedia because of the study. Astrodatabank on any study seem to like to count up factors in the chart. The more astrology factors you have the more you are likely to be susceptible to alcohol/violence/being an astrologer etc (or whatever the astrological study may be). Degrees where included in the study as well, they can have relevance included with astrology placements. The overall astrological picture was tallied up and the alcoholics should score higher than the control group.
I compared my partner's chart to the alcoholic study and he scored high. Although I fell into a little doubt with astrology as I found out my partner had given me the wrong birth time
. But luckily he still scored high anyway with his newly changed chart, I compared the score to mine as I am not an alcoholic but I have more Neptune in my chart than my partner so the test was pretty good, as my partner still scored higher for drinking (I think the extra points did come in for his degrees and some fire placements). I am sure astrodatabank did an astrology study will have to double check. The more you look into degrees you start finding you have other degrees like the murderer's degree
. And this may also have relevance used with other chart placements etc, like aspects, and maybe midpoints as well.
I also agree that the Saturn rulership was probably due to it's rulership over Aquarius. Which I never thought of before, so your comment does clarify in my mind why Saturn is related to astrology, and then when Uranus was discovered it became the modern ruler to Aquarius. Two rulers for Aquarius.
P.S I posted the whole Carter astrology indicators, somewhere in this forum. Although it may take a while to dig up. I posted it quite a while ago, I will have a look for it and post it here.