Cast & Chart

Planet

Mercury

classical

A chart describes tendencies in a symbolic tradition. It cannot decide health, money, law, marriage or children.

In an older source

We may not call him either Masculine or Feminine, for he is either the one or other as joyned to any Planet

William Lilly, Christian Astrology, Book I (second edition) (1659)

About this entry

Because Lilly 1659 puts this planet never more than 27 degrees from the Sun, its sign in any chart is the Sun's sign or a neighbor of it. Ptolemy, in Ashmand's 1822 translation, has it alternate between drying and moistening. That pattern of taking on whatever is near runs through both authors, and Lilly carries it into gender and into good and evil as well.

Lilly lists Gemini and Virgo as its houses, 15 degrees of Virgo as its exaltation, Sagittarius and Pisces as detriments and Pisces as its fall. He also gives it about 24 days retrograde at a stretch, which means it appears from Earth to move backward for that time. The motion is an effect of viewpoint, and the calculator simply reports it.

Sepharial 1920 calls it the significator of the mind, and Lilly's portrait runs from the keen learner to the troublesome wit. Warnings about communication and travel during Mercury retrograde are a modern popular habit, and the passages used here are silent on it.

Where this text comes from

Statements credited to an older writer follow the scanned text named here. The modern readings are labeled as modern and come from none of these works.

Our own plain wording. Quoted lines keep the spelling of the scanned source.