The Greater Malefic

In a comment to the Pars Fortunae post, Amanda asks:
“how’s this for f’d up saturn issues:
9-14-66 with Rising: 3Scorpio16
i don’t think i understand the extent of this, as it’s not me, but someone i unfortunately have a massive crush on and oddly care a lot about
do you have any insights? what’s up with that saturine 5th house? with chiron there does that mark abuse? the person has a grand water trine, but is seemingly lacking empathy (or so it seems). they also have a grand (invisible) air trine. didn’t tim mcveigh have something similar?! again, i would LOVE any insights you could provide.”

Since I don’t have a location or time for this chart, I am creating a chart with a 3 degree Scorpio ASC for a middle latitude in the United States.  This yields the following:
Sun       21 Virgo (11th)
Moon    18 Virgo (11th)
Merc     25 Virgo (11th)
Venus    6 Virgo (10th)
Mars     12 Leo (10th)
Jupiter  27 Cancer (9th)
Saturn   26 Pisces (5th)
Uranus   20 Virgo (11th)
Neptune 19 Scorpio (1st)
Pluto       18 Virgo (11th)
Assuming all that is proper, we can proceed…

Even the most rank beginner would be entranced by the Virgo stellium in the eleventh house, which is opposed by Saturn in the fifth (using an eight degree orb for opposition, Saturn opposes Moon, Pluto, Uranus, Sun and Mercury.  Saturn is not well placed in Pisces.  While Pisces is not a sign of detriment or fall for Saturn, given the mutability of the sign (easily the most mutable of the Mutables) and rigidity of Saturn, there will always be navigational challenges with this placement.  In terms of other figures, I don’t see a lot here.  I wouldn’t say there’s a Water Grand Trine, as I use seven degree orbs for trines, and Jupiter is eight degrees off from Neptune.  I’m also not familiar with the “invisible trine” and I don’t really use Chiron in my analyses (I am still reading on asteroids, and I haven’t seen enough coherent theory to feel comfortable including it in my reading…though it does appear to do interesting things in some charts).  However, Neptune and Saturn are in a trine and Jupiter and Saturn are in a trine, so Saturn is in major aspect to all the other planets, save Venus and Mars.

Unlike my own chart, where Saturn sits on the 10th/11th border and openly lords over the rest of the chart, marking himself as dominant, in this chart Saturn dominates (almost) from a hidden perspective–we start to open to others in the fifth house, but it is only a casual type of sharing, not the deep sharing (7th) or public spectacle (10th) that tends to make things harder to hide.  Saturn stealthily exerts his cool influence on the chart, and indeed, there might be “learning to have fun” lessons, or, perhaps, “learning to have fun within boundaries” lessons (the intensity of Pisces and the Scorpio ASC).

However, if I were to speculate as to why this native “is seemingly lacking empathy,” I would actually point to the eleventh house stellium on its own (OK, of course there’s a bit of Saturn here), as this loaded eleventh house means that the native will actually have a bit of an Aquarian character.  As we all know, one of the most typical complaints about the stereotypical Aquarian personality is that s/he is very friendly, but can lack empathy or the desire to achieve deep, personal understanding (preferring, of course, to examine things from the perspective of the global).  It would not surprise me at all if this person did an excellent job at being gregarious, open and sociable (with Mercury in rulership in Virgo, he is probably good at parties because of his wit…though unlike a Gemini Mercury it might take him a bit to warm up) in casual company, but tended to clam up a bit in more intimate situations.  I also wonder about the influence of the Virgonic.  Many people would suggest that a lack of empathy is a quality found in the crabbier or less well-developed Virgos, but I would actually wonder about the way in which the Virgonic desire to serve works here.  Virgos (and really, I believe, Earth signs and Saturn people in general) express affection by serving the needs of the beloved.  They do not necessarily want reciprocation (in fact, for the underdeveloped, reciprocation is bad because it asserts equality between the two, which engenders the fear that one will no longer be needed and will be cast aside–for the assumption, borne out of a type of insecurity often linked with Saturn, but that tends to affect Earth signs more than others in general, is that one is only kept around to be of service), but they do demand gratitude.  If they feel that they are not receiving this gratitude–and gratitude could be considered a type of duty and thus governed by Saturn–they might go very, very cold.

Indeed, I would say the issues presented by Saturn here are compounded by the influence of Aquarius and Virgo, and the real issue is the native’s attitude toward gratitude and service.  Now Saturn has ancient rulership in Aquarius, and the eleventh house energy combined with the influential Saturn does confer a very strong and consistent sense of duty and responsibility, but the way that the native “takes it out” on those who do not share the same rigid conception might cause friction.  Saturn in the fifth only compounds this issue, as he places his great weight on the house most associated with sunniness.  I don’t think there’s anything very sinister here, but I would encourage you to have your friend really work on expressing his feelings about duty and gratitude and see if he reveals any concealed hurt or pain on these issues.

Thanks for your readership and your kind comments.  I hope this is helpful.