social planet
Saturn describes limits that acquire weight over time: duty, scarcity, endurance, structure, age and the consequences of delay.
Saturn is not a shorthand for punishment. It often names the work that cannot be hurried and the authority earned by staying with it.
59 sourced claims: 57 traditional , 1 modern , 1 contested
The chart meaning above and Agrippa's magical names are different kinds of information. Read the Saturn planetary-magic page for its nature, numerical-square intelligence and source-specific angel lists.
Square intelligence: Agiel
Agrippa's first-list angel: Tzaphkiel
In Hermetic Qabalah, Saturn is assigned to Binah (Understanding). Follow the name to see the sources for that place on the Tree.
Saturn describes limits that acquire weight over time: duty, scarcity, endurance, structure, age and the consequences of delay.
Saturn is not a shorthand for punishment. It often names the work that cannot be hurried and the authority earned by staying with it.
Lilly associates Saturn with age, agriculture, boundaries, inherited property, solitude, restraint and difficult or lasting labour.
Historical language is paraphrased rather than silently modernised.
Agrippa says to make Saturn images in Saturn's hour, with the planet rising or well placed. His figures include an old man, dark clothing, a sickle and a staff.
He says these images were made for long life, protection from kidney and stone complaints, greater power, and the holding of land.
Agrippa connects Saturn with old age, melancholy, hidden treasure and things gained with difficulty. He also puts heavy, dark and long-lasting materials under Saturn. These are associations in his book, not a description of everyone born under the planet.
Summarized from Agrippa's account of the planet and the things he places under it.
Agiel
Printed at 45, the square's square total.
Zaphiel [Zaphkiel]
This is Agrippa's first list. He gives another list in the same chapter; neither list names the square intelligences.
Oriphiel
Agrippa gives this alternative name a few lines after his first list. These are not the names printed with the squares in Book II.
Saturn is a ringed gas giant whose long orbit produces a return to its natal longitude in a little under thirty years.
Astronomical description, not an astrological meaning.
| Relation | To | First attested |
|---|---|---|
| Metal | Lead | 175 CE |
| Metal | Gold | 1509 CE |
| Metal | golden Marcasite | 1509 CE |
| Day of the week | Saturday | 211 CE |
| Planet of | Tzaphkiel | 1509 CE |
| Ruled by | Capricorn | 130 CE |
| Attribution of | The World | 1888 CE |
| Planetary angel in Agrippa's first list | Tzaphkiel | — |
Opinions, not this study's and not findings. These were published around 1900 by astrologers writing for a Theosophical readership, and most English astrology since has been reading them. They are quoted rather than restated so the distance stays visible, and each one names its astrologer and its page.
Saturn in the first house, or ascendant, shows melancholy and many sorrows, and if near the ascendant probability of early death; in the second house pecuniary troubles;
Rosa Baughan, The Influence of the Stars, p. 267 — T. Fisher Unwin, London, fourth edition, 1889 · Project Gutenberg, ebook 42889
SATURN in the third house indicates a despondent, slow and laborious mind ; plodding, careful, cautious and fearful. It favours secrecy, and mental pursuits where tact and patience are required, but much depends upon the nativity as to how Saturn in the third house will affect the mind.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 159 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
SATURN in the fifth house denotes hindrance, delay and disappointment in love affairs and causes the native to become attracted to persons who are older and more serious in nature and disposition. If evilly aspected, death of the loved one is probable, or some heavy sorrow in connection with the object of the affections.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 173 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
SATURN in the sixth house is very unfavourable for health and denotes much sickness, which is often the result of circumstances and conditions over which the native has little or no control. It causes sickness through privation and want or neglect, and causes many sorrows and disappointments through the state of the health.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 177 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
Saturn in the seventh house is bad for trade; and in evil aspect to the Moon it shows financial failure.
Sepharial, The Manual of Astrology, p. 100 — W. Foulsham & Co., London, 1898 · The Manual of Astrology, scanned
SATURN in the seventh house shows a faithful partner or marriage to a person older than the native. Saturn is exalted in Libra, and as this sign is equivalent to the seventh house Saturn in the seventh denotes faithfulness and sincerity on the part of the marriage partner. It does not give affection of the demonstrative and emotional order, but it makes love a duty and gives stability to the affections, which become permanent and enduring.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 183 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
SATURN in the ninth house denotes a studious and meditative mental attitude towards all higher thought pursuits. It favours the scientific and philosophical more than the religious mind and often causes the native to investigate astrology, metaphysics, and psychic studies generally.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 203 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
SATURN in the twelfth house denotes one who is very reserved and fond of solitude, with strong inclinations to become a recluse. It is an unfavourable position for all save those who love to work in secret and live by themselves. If much afflicted the native easily makes enemies, and may suffer imprisonment or enforced confinement at some period of his life.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 228 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
Leo's house book does not delineate every planet in every house, and this study refuses any passage whose scan has a word no dictionary holds. Where a house is not listed above, one of those two is why.
Two astrologers, both writing around 1900: Alan Leo, whose How to Judge a Nativity is the only one of these books arranged as a lookup table — a paragraph per planet per house — which is why everybody copied it; and Sepharial, who arranged the same material by the question a reader brings rather than by placement, so only a few of his judgements stand alone well enough to quote.
William Lilly is not here, and not because he was not asked. Christian Astrology (1647) is the most important book in English on the subject and this study holds it as a text already — but every scan of it is long-s blackletter, and the OCR renders the title of its own first book as “An Introduci ion to Aftrologje”. There is nothing in it a reader could trust a quotation from. Ripley's Compound of Alchymy and Anderson's Constitutions get the same answer elsewhere in this study, for the same reason.
Opinions, not this study's and not findings. These were published around 1900 by astrologers writing for a Theosophical readership, and most English astrology since has been reading them. They are quoted rather than restated so the distance stays visible, and each one names its astrologer and its page.
Saturn in Cancer also indicates a religious tendency and an inclination toward study of the deeper sciences.
Max Heindel and Augusta Foss Heindel, The Message of the Stars, p. 253 — The Rosicrucian Fellowship, Oceanside, this printing 1919 · The 1919 printing, scanned
Leo's sign book covers the Sun and the Moon and no other planet, so there is no Mercury in Aries here. Inventing one would be the only way to fill the gap.
Two astrologers, both writing around 1900: Alan Leo, whose How to Judge a Nativity is the only one of these books arranged as a lookup table — a paragraph per planet per house — which is why everybody copied it; and Sepharial, who arranged the same material by the question a reader brings rather than by placement, so only a few of his judgements stand alone well enough to quote.
William Lilly is not here, and not because he was not asked. Christian Astrology (1647) is the most important book in English on the subject and this study holds it as a text already — but every scan of it is long-s blackletter, and the OCR renders the title of its own first book as “An Introduci ion to Aftrologje”. There is nothing in it a reader could trust a quotation from. Ripley's Compound of Alchymy and Anderson's Constitutions get the same answer elsewhere in this study, for the same reason.