Introduction

It is customary, when writing a book on any specialized subject, to begin by describing its general nature and its fundamental axioms.

In the case of sex (gender), we encounter an insurmountable difficulty. Sex (gender) is a manifestation of duality and the pairs of opposites which form the foundation of the universe as we know it.

I do not intend to make a metaphysical study of the subject, but it would be necessary to do so to understand to some extent the concept of gender. Briefly, we can imagine a primordial state of affairs in which time and space are non-existent and there is only some mysterious Universal Consciousness — or perhaps the Absence of Consciousness — as it is postulated in the concept of Parabrahman.

The act of creation, or the birth of evolution, automatically makes duality a necessity — the Creator and the Created.

With the remarkable conservatism of nature, every aspect of life reflects this duality, and the existence of every material object, quality or idea implies also the existence of its opposite. And so we have: night and day, heat and cold, good and evil, black and white, positive and negative, masculine and feminine — and all of these are simply complementary aspects of a deeper unity.

It is useless to expect that Astrology can give an explanation of the differences between the sexes. This is entirely beyond its jurisdiction. It can, however, shed light on the problems of daily life that arise from the existence of these differences. It is with this view of Astrological study that this book is concerned.

The Gender of Astrological Factors

The law of duality and gender is defined, to a certain degree, by the factors which make up an individual horoscope — the planets, the signs, and the houses.

Every factor possesses an influence of a positive or negative kind, and has a defined relationship to one gender or the other: positive factors are masculine in nature, and negative factors are feminine in nature.

This classification is by no means considered an easy one. When one is dealing with the sexual life of an individual or of the subject of a horoscope, however, such studies acquire great importance.

The Planets

There was considerable confusion among the old astrologers regarding the gender of the planets. Most of their disagreements arose from their inability to distinguish between the natural gender of a planet and the gender of the position it occupies in the horoscope.

According to Ptolemy, those planets with a dry influence are masculine and those with a moist influence are feminine. According to Placidus, the masculine planets are "hot and cold," while the feminine ones are "dry and moist."

Among the remaining planets, Venus and Neptune are feminine; Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus are masculine. The recently discovered planet Pluto may, I think, be included among the masculine planets as well.

The planet Mercury cannot be definitively classified under either gender and is usually called the hermaphrodite planet, or the planet that can take on the qualities of both sexes. The nature of Mercury adopts primarily the qualities of the planet with which it forms its strongest aspect, or of the planet that rules the sign in which it is placed.

The masculine planets naturally represent male relatives, friends, and acquaintances, and the feminine planets represent women. I use the word "naturally" because it sometimes happens that a masculine planet represents a woman of very masculine type, and a feminine planet denotes an effeminate man — but these are exceptions that need not concern us at present.

The Signs of the Zodiac

The signs of the zodiac are alternately positive or negative in nature. The positive or masculine signs are the odd-numbered ones: Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, and Aquarius. The negative or feminine are the even-numbered signs: Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, and Pisces.

This in itself appears simple. But when these two factors must be combined, a complex problem can arise — such as the precise gender influence exerted by a masculine planet in a feminine sign, or the reverse.

It is impossible to establish rigid and inviolable rules on this matter, but in the majority of cases the sign has greater importance for determining gender than the planet it contains.

The Houses of the Horoscope

The gender of the houses follows the same rule as the signs: the odd-numbered houses are masculine and the even-numbered ones are feminine.

The four quadrants also carry a gender influence: the south-eastern quadrant, comprising houses 12, 11, and 10, is masculine in nature; the south-western quadrant, or houses 9, 8, and 7, is feminine; the north-western quadrant, or houses 6, 5, and 4, is masculine; and the north-eastern quadrant, or houses 3, 2, and 1, is feminine.

It is much preferable to maintain the general astrological rules that gender depends more on the position of the sign.

The Gender of the Individual

I have no doubt that a more complete knowledge of the subject would eventually enable us to determine gender with certainty, but at present we have no reliable method of judging the physical sex of any given horoscope. The intellectual and psychological gender, however, can be determined.

What we can conclude is that the individual will tend to be masculine or feminine in nature according to the case — and in reality, this applies from an intellectual or psychological standpoint, regardless of the physical sex in which he or she has been incarnated. It is to this conflict between psychological and physical gender that the existence of many of the common sexual deviations is attributed.

According to the theory of the Pre-natal Epoch, gender is decided by the position of the Moon and the Ascendant. This axiom was originally aphorism 51 of Ptolemy, which stated the rule as follows: at birth, where the Moon or the point opposite to it rises or sets, and when the position of the Ascendant or the 7th house is occupied by the Moon.

For many years this axiom was the basis of a simple method of rectifying the birth time, until about 50 years ago when the astrologer Sepharial began to experiment with it and develop it further.

He introduced rules based on the relative positions of the Ascendant and the Moon, and of the Sun and the Moon, which judged whether the period of gestation was longer or shorter than the normal duration of 273 days.

The brilliant and tireless mind of Sepharial turned to other fields of work, and it was left to E.H. Bailey to continue his research in the theory and practice of Pre-natal Astrology and to produce a remarkable work entitled "The Pre-natal Epoch."

The net result of the research of Sepharial and Bailey on the simple Trutine of Hermes was the development of a system of rectification, which is carried out according to many but fixed and definite rules in which the Law of Sex has enormous importance.

Probably no branch of Astrology has ever led to such fierce controversy as the Pre-natal Epoch. But regardless of whether one is fully satisfied with the Laws of the Epoch in their present form or not, an unbiased examination of them is sufficient to convince us that there is a great measure of truth in them.

Certain conclusions drawn by Bailey indicate that the positions of the Moon and Ascendant at the moment of intercourse provide greater variation than their positions at the time of the epoch and at birth.

If the deeper laws governing these wider variations can be formulated, it will be possible to arrange the moment of intercourse in such a way that a child of the desired sex will be born at a predetermined date and time.

Based on Astrology and Sex by Vivian E. Robson (1941), translated and adapted.

Written by Demetra Togka, Astrologer