Mercury in Gemini

Gemini is the first of Mercury's two houses, and Lilly 1659 calls it the diurnal one, the house for daytime. Ptolemy (Ashmand's 1822 translation) explains the assignment by distance: Mercury never gets more than a sign from the Sun, so he receives the two signs lying on either side of the pair held by the luminaries.

Raphael's Guide of 1877 speaks to this placement plainly, if the blurred symbol is rightly taken for Mercury by its slot in his list: quick and active, with a rare mind for science, a good speaker who delights in art and literature. Heindel 1918, for a Mercury rising in Gemini, adds sharper perception and a talent for writing and speech, and also irritability and a love of change. A rising Mercury needs an accurate birth time; the sign alone needs little more than the date.

Lilly gives Mercury the first seven degrees of this sign as terms and names the air signs as his by night. Adams 1928 thinks the sign so unstable that other planets constantly alter its type, a caution that fits Lilly's own note that Mercury takes on the nature of whatever planet joins him.