Is Pluto an astrological planet?

david starling said:

Looked up the etymology of the word "planet". Turns out, it means "wandering", or "wanderer". Nothing necessarily to do with lights in the Heavens. Is Pluto a "star"? In Modern astrology it's often given "star billing", especially when it's applied to a "Pluto generation" , or is in the 8th House. And, although it's slow moving relative to the other astrological Planets, it does eventually make a full trip through all 12 Signs, and is in that sense, a "wanderer".
Disney's cartoon character "Pluto" is a "video-Star". Pluto, the Planet, is an astrological-Star, which wanders through the astrological Signs to possibly great effect, depending on the rest of the Chart.

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Kaiousei no Senshi said:

Dirius is correct in noting that the fact the outers carry no visible light is a major detriment to their inclusion into the classical framework. Astrology evolved alongside ancient optical theories and these theories still permeate astrological discourse to this day. Planets in aspect are said to "see" or "regard" one another and their light is often considered a transmitter of their influence.

The word "planet" originally evolved from the Greek "planetes aster", or "wandering star" and referred to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn whose motion could be detected against the backdrop of fixed stars that are stable in their relative distance from one another, but all move together as one large group.

Another issue with the outer planets in general is that they lack much of the tools that the classical planets have. This isn't just referring to dignities (though that is a large part of it), but they also lack nature, sect, gender, years, winds, orbs, signatures, etc. This may all seem superfluous or unnecessary, but its significance really cannot be overstated. Without these associations, the outer planets are essentially blank orbs without instruction or meaning.

Finally, there is the issue with the meanings contemporary astrologers have given to them. Mostly they either 1) don't make sense within their own context or 2) are already taken by another planet.

About the first, a lot of the meanings of the planets have been assigned to them based on mythological interpretations or perceived mundane events happening around the time of their discovery. A lot of the mythological meanings are cherry picked and often nonsensical, like Uranus ruling rebellion, but in the myth Ouranos is the tyrannical dictator, not the freedom fighter. The mundane events are definitely cherry picked as there are many important events happening around the world at any given time. Pluto was discovered in 1930 and has taken on an association with nuclear force, but when I hear 1930s I think Great Depression and I've never heard anyone associate Pluto with financial ruination.

About the second, each of the outer planets have significations that are more or less plucked from the classical planets. Uranus's reported instability and recklessness can be found in Mercury and Mars. Neptune's illusions and mysticism can be found in the Moon. Pluto's transformation and general heavy-handedness are the domains of Mercury and Saturn. Not only does this create strange, cross-breed planets, but it makes the classical planets into flat characters when their meanings and significations are much more multifaceted in the tradition.

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david starling said:

There is an oft-repeated claim that the 3 Outermosts have no intrinsic characteristics of their own. In other words, they aren't necessary, because the Tradtional 7 can account for their influence without including them as Sign-rulers. This is patently absurd, in light of the fact that the ancient religions THEMSELVES needed them for their characteristics, apart from the Sun, Moon, and Mercury through Saturn, AND gave them major status. In fact, the "Big Three" for the ancient Greeks were Zeus/(Jupiter), Poseidon/(Neptune), and Pluto.

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Oddity said:

I think you're mixing up modern astrology with traditional again. Trad astrology isn't based in mythology. Read some yourself, you'll see.

If you're curious about the philosophy behind trad, I suggest studying, and meditating upon, both the Greek and Zoroastrian charts of the world. They have quite a lot to say.

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david starling said:

Zoroasterism is the religion of good versus evil, and light versus dark. You're saying none of that is reflected in Zoroastrian astrology? They also firmly believed that the souls of those who served evil would be imprisoned in the Underworld until Ohrmazd, the god of light, triumphed over the god of darkness.

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Oddity said:

I think you're mixing up modern astrology with traditional again. Trad astrology isn't based in mythology. Read some yourself, you'll see.

If you're curious about the philosophy behind trad, I suggest studying, and meditating upon, both the Greek and Zoroastrian charts of the world. They have quite a lot to say.

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Dirius said:

The problem to us is that, in the general view of astrology, many of the things represented by the modern Pluto, are incompatible with most of the traditional teachings.

1) First of all, is what we consider the "aberrations", such as pluto ruling Scorpio (instead of Mars), or ruling sex, death, and the many more things that have been claimed to it. Like we've said in some posts, most of the attributes linked to pluto are borrowed (rather stolen) from other planets; mainly from Mars and Saturn. When we look at the many things pluto represents to modernists, we see it as a weird mix of the other planets.

2) Second, is the way this aberrations are presented to us. No reasoning or explanation behind them. It is "just because". No one explains why pluto does any of these things. No one gives evidence but saying stuff like:"pluto transiting your 2nd house, that is why you have money problems".

3) Third, is the interchangable nature and the many more significations that pluto recieves. Some go from treating pluto as an extreme malefic (associated with violence) or as a good benefic (positive and idealistic changes). It is as if authors on the subject apply anything that crosses their minds into pluto. Seems rather odd that the planet can be both good or bad, and mostly at the authors will. If someone needs to explain something good they use pluto, something bad, they use pluto too. It seems to me that pluto is rather used as a tool to explain things that don't seem to fit into modern astrology.

4) Fourth, as we said many times: the 7 classical planets explain everything. Pluto really adds nothing new. So why use something that can't give us more info?

5) Fifth and final, pluto doesn't reflect light, can't be seen with the naked eye. It is a small asteroid, with many more asteroids like him orbiting the sun. If you are going to use pluto, why not use Europa (jupiter's moon)?
We covered this in the first 3 pages so I won't go much into detail with it.

But pretty much, to us, pluto seems like a perfect solution for ignoring all the other stuff that needs to be accounted for. It seems like an easy solution for modern astrology to explain things that are complicated to explain.

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JUPITERASC said:

As Dirius explains

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SunConjunctUranus said:

****! I had Jupiter's Moon, Europa, in Ascendant! Am I sexually attractive??

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