Through astrology, fundamental truths about life, nature and the cosmos are presented to us. We categorize astrology as an occult art. A direct translation of the word “occult” is “hidden,” and we take that as if it means knowledge that needs to be unearthed, exhumed from a deep, dark, concealed place. In my experience, this is rarely the case. The greater truths are always right before us, all around us, hiding, as it were, in plain sight.

I love this quote by the naturalist philosopher Viktor Schauberger, in which he says:

“The majority believes that everything hard to comprehend must be very profound. This is incorrect. What is hard to understand is what is immature, unclear and often false. The highest wisdom is simple and passes through the brain directly into the heart.”

What Schauberger intends to convey is how essentially bound we are, as natural organisms, to truth, that it is as accessible to our ears and hearts as the ground is to our feet. Studying the occult means nothing more than observing the world around us from a mindfulness place. In studying astrology, we learn and experience what all occult sciences ultimately teach us – that all is connected, nothing is without meaning, and that all things are essentially united in each other. Complexity is the device of the mind. What is true is simple and honest, yet easy dismissed when we expect truth to take the form of something more convoluted.

Today I want to give what might be the simplest presentation of my career thus far, and with this topic I find myself more motivated and inspired than I ever was in presenting the quirkier details of this technique or that. Today we explore the astrological 9^th house, a house whose intrinsic mysticism is too often overlooked and, as a result, too often under appreciated.

What life topics are designated to a house is far less important a thing than considering how the connection between a topic and its house was established in the first place. Themes are not simply doled out to the houses as a matter of convenience – “Here, we have the subject of illness, let’s go ahead and put that in the 6^th house since the 1^st through 5^th are taken. And let’s not forget about partners and lovers and those who openly oppose us – we haven’t placed those yet, and the 7^th house is free and open so let’s assign these there.”

It doesn’t work that way. The assignations are not random. There’s fundamental symbology at work in determining a house’s quality and significations. The ancients asked themselves a specific set of questions, the answers to which then aggregate to reveal that house’s intrinsic nature. Examples of these questions might be – is the house diurnal or nocturnal? What aspect, if any, does it form to the ascendant? Is the house angular, succedent, cadent? Is it rising in diurnal motion toward the midheaven, or falling and descending to the lower depths? We then consider which planet’s nature might cause them to joy in that house, if any do at all, and how that connection further shapes that house’s meaning.

But again, over time, we forget to acknowledge the why behind house signification and simply accept the symbolic output – “this topic goes to this house.” Today we will unpack the ninth house, with an aim to put it all back together again.

The associations of the 9^th house will no doubt be familiar to you. We are told, from traditional texts, that this house signifies such things as philosophy, justice and the rule of law, higher education, religion and faith, long distance travel, dreams. What is the common thread between each of these areas of life? What unites them?

Admittedly these have a very strong Jupiterian flare. Straight through the tradition we see that Jupiter is the natural significator for philosophers and clergymen, lawyers and mystics. Lilly, in his Christian Astrology, describes those who are signified by a dignified Jupiter as “magnanimous, faithful, bashful, aspiring in an honorable way at high matters, in all his actions a lover of fair dealing, desiring to benefit all men.” The connection between the 9^th house and Jupiter is easy enough to make.

We might even be tempted to extend that association by saying there’s a flavor of Sagittarius here as well, being Jupiter’s diurnal, fiery domicile. This connection is usually made because Sagittarius is the 9^th sign in the natural order of the zodiac, but this kind of thinking is where modern astrological thinking tends to wander off. Sagittarius and Jupiter start picking up reverse significations, as if by a very bizarre process a house can push its rulerships onto signs and planets. Suddenly Sagittarius picks up 9^th house significations of foreigners, long distance travel, universities and churches.

We see this with the other signs, too. The 2^nd sign, Taurus, gets bundled up with the 2^nd house to signify finances and values, the 11^th sign Aquarius is pushed to govern social groups and friends, and the 12^th sign Pisces becomes associated with self-harm through addictive vices like drugs and alcohol. These are modern ideas, unsubstantiated ones at that if we are to base our understanding on the historical development of house symbolism.

It is true that there are some connections between the houses and the signs, but the scope is limited. Aries and the 1^st house both rule the head, Taurus and the 2^nd both rule the throat, etc. Libra points westward, as does the 7^th house. Capricorn points southward, as does the 10^th house. But that is where these associations begin and end.

In the interest of transparency, I should say that I’m making a loose assertion that this is a modern method of approaching the houses, but truthfully this kind of thinking has been around for centuries and was admonished by Nicholas Culpeper in the 17^th century:

“Some authors hold an opinion that the signs carry the same signification in order that the houses of heaven do, and Aries should signify life, Taurus estate, Gemini brethren and short journeys, you know the rest. Truly, my own opinion is that many authors invented whimsies, and when they had done, set them down to posterity for Truth; who taking them up without trial, clothed tradition in plush and left poor reason to go in rags. An author said so; ergo ’tis true, right or wrong.” (Nicholas Culpeper, Astrological Judgement of Disease, x.iv)

To start to understand how the 9^th house has picked up the signification it has, we should first acknowledge its place in the astrological scheme.

The 9^th house is a diurnal house, meaning it is above the horizon. Diurnal houses are more outwardly expressive, and generally tend to make external imprints rather than internal. To see the distinction here, let’s quickly look at an example: the 3^rd and 11^th houses. Both form a harmonious sextile to the ascendant, and so are supportive houses to the native or querent. The sextile from beneath the earth holds the lunar qualities of connection, things that we come into life with. Siblings are given to the 3^rd house – they are the blood we are born into – as is our immediate community and neighborhood – those things that are implicitly familiar to us. The 11^th house is diurnal, and so holds the solar quality of selection. Friends belong to this house – they are the family that we choose, the people we value and acknowledge as fulfilling some key role in our lives.

The previous example comes from Deborah Houlding’s The Houses: Temples of the Sky, and I think it illustrates the distinction between diurnal and nocturnal houses nicely. We can demonstrate this again by looking at the 4^th and 10^th houses. Both are connected to the ascendant, both angular, but one reflects lunar qualities and the other solar. The 4^th house, the angle under the earth, is connected to our ancestry, from whence we originate, and it speaks to our relationship with the concept of home and family history. The 10^th is the upper angle, where everything is made manifest and visible. It shows where we point our soul’s arrow, where we seek to make our distinguishing mark on this world and differentiate ourselves from our family. You cannot understand the 10^th house without understanding the 4^th, as they mark two vantage points in observing the bearings of one’s life.

Can you see the difference between how houses forming a similar aspect to the ascendant accomplish united tasks, but are somehow modified by their placement above or below the horizon? It’s a simple distinction, seemingly minor, but loaded with implication and derived meaning.

The 9^th house is also revered as a benevolent and beneficial house, the least difficult of the cadent houses, partly because of the trine it casts to the ascendant. Trines are aspects of support, historically described as aspects of “perfect love” and of the nature of Jupiter.

We truly start to see the associations pour in as we consider the classical scheme of planetary joys. Without understanding the joys, it would be difficult to grasp how and why the 9th house is associated with dreams and mysticism, which today many mistakenly assign to the destructive nature of the 12^th house.

The planetary joys form a very old system, and place each of the seven traditional planets in a house that naturally suits their temperament. It seems to me that the house meanings and the assigned joys of the planets evolved together, neither of them being in the position of chicken or egg. Evidence for this is shone in Manilius’s work, Astronomica, one of the oldest astrological texts we have available to us today.

In Astronomica, Manilius assigns marriage to the 10^th house, a result of his assigning Venus her joy in the southern angle. We now associate marriage with the seventh house, though some relation to the 10^th house remains in the form of “status change.”

Manilius also put Saturn in the 4^th house, and the logic there is strong in my opinion. The 4^th is the darkest house. Thrust well beneath the earth, it shows the inner bowels of the ground below us, including the barrenness of mines and caves. The northern direction, toward which the IC points, has long been associated with undesirables and underworld mythology. We still see the influence of Saturn in the 4^th when we consider its association with old age and the elderly.

The problem we have with Manilius’s scheme is that it places nocturnal Venus in the diurnal hemisphere, and diurnal Saturn in the nocturnal. What I’m presenting for you today is the version of planetary joys that is shown in every other work, where Venus is gently arranged in the nocturnal hemisphere and Saturn is elevated to join his diurnal counterparts, the Sun and Jupiter, above the horizon.

In the interest of time, I aim to be brief in explaining the associations of the five planets. Notice the diurnal planets – Saturn, Jupiter and the Sun – are all arranged in the upper hemisphere. Notice too that the benefics Jupiter and the Sun rejoice in houses that form an aspect the ascendant, while Saturn is found in a cadent house.

The nocturnal planets – Mars, Venus and the Moon – are all below the horizon together. Venus and the Moon both joy in houses that form an aspect to the ascendant, while malefic Mars remains cadent from it. Mercury is in the 1^st house, where light intermingles with darkness, as it is at the ascendant where a planet emerges from the nocturnal realm into the diurnal realm.

Mercury rejoices in the 1^st house because he delights in pleasures of the intellect – thought and invention, word-craft and oration – and because the house’s connection to daybreak mirrors his own dual nature. On the balance, those born with Mercury in the 1^st house are said to have a penetrating mind.

Venus joys in the 5^th house because it is the house of recreation and enjoyment, procreation and sexual intimacy. Those born with Venus in the 5^th house are likely to have a deep appreciation for romance, and kind and generous children.

Mars delights in the troublesome elements of the 6^th house, all connected to illness and disease and servitude and toil. Mars in the 6^th tends to make good surgeons and doctors, especially when Venus is also placed here.

Jupiter rejoices in the house opposite the Lesser Fortune, Venus. The 11^th house is associated with our benefactors and friends, those who support us in our aims and ambitions.

Saturn rejoices in the malevolency of the 12^th house. Paulus of Alexandria, in his 4^th century text Introduction to Astrology, tells us that those born with Saturn in the 12^th by day live to overcome their adversaries, as Saturn there afflicts the 12^th house of secret enemies.

Having gone ‘round the chart, this brings us back to the two luminaries, and to set the stage for the 9^th house I think it best we start with its opposite – the 3^rd.

The 3^rd house is the joy of the Moon. What you may notice straight away is that we have the two luminaries rejoicing in houses opposite each other. This pattern is shown elsewhere in the scheme of planetary joys: Jupiter and Venus, the two benefics, rejoice in the 11^th and 5^th respectively; Saturn and Mars, the two malefics, in the 12^th and 6^th. Only Mercury occupies a house without an opposite counterpart.

The Sun and Moon were anciently seen as a celestial image of royalty. The Moon signified queens and was herself called Goddess or Dea, the divine spirit of earth, whereas the Sun signified kings, was called God, and represented the divine spirit of the upper regions. Together these two formed a regal pairing, and so the houses of their joy were set opposite each other.

The 3^rd house is a nocturnal house, and will have these familiar associations: writing and reading, communication and schooling, children, neighborhoods, short journeys and travel. Again, it’s very common to see people misappropriating the origin of these house meanings to Gemini, the 3^rd sign of the natural zodiac, or to its ruler Mercury.

This “sign-equals-house” equation is the astrological version of a homophone. The meanings of the 3^rd house originate from the Moon herself. Because of her rapid movement, the Moon was said to be the ‘internuncio’ between the planets, the messenger and agent, the traveler.

The connection to neighborhoods and children and schooling all stem from the lunar function of establishing tribal knowledge. As the planetary body closest to us, the Moon represents that which is common to us all. The kind of education that the 3^rd house signifies is communal, what we all learn together as a cohort in our early, formative years. There is nothing special or unique about this education; everyone participates, everyone contributes. And this might help make sense of why, in historical texts, those signified by the Moon were often called “vulgar”, which when traced back to its Latin root simply means “common” or “ordinary.”

The lunar connection also highlights why short distance travel belongs to this house. Mercury, of himself, has only a loose association with travel. Commerce he governs, but commerce is not given to this house. Medicine and thought and oration too, but these aren’t given to this house either.

Journeys are, however. Why? As hinted at before, this is due to the Moon’s swift movement in our sky. She constantly disconnects from one planet to join to another, a celestial image of what humans do when they go out from one place and head toward another.

And why short travels in particular? Again, this connects back to the lunar qualities of the 3^rd house – communal, common, connected. The affairs of this house do not cause us to venture too far from our tribe, physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually.

Now when we contrast this against the significations of the 9^th house, a similar-yet-distinct dynamic begins form. Remember that the Moon gives the quality of connection, the Sun gives selection. Through the Moon’s influence, the 3^rd house signifies common education that unites us. The 9^th house shows the kind of education wherein we specialize and distinguish our knowledge from those of our peers. The 3^rd house shows travel that is near and familiar to us, the 9^th house shows travel that takes us far from what is familiar, broadens the mind and gives us access to the kind of information and experiences that our tribe cannot claim.

The 3^rd house, through the Moon as the earth Goddess, gives us knowledge from the earth, for dealings with everyday things – how to write, read, communicate. Knowledge of higher things – philosophy, justice, mysticism and spirituality – these come from the Sun God himself, and through him a connection to higher realms of the angelic beings.

In ancient civilizations, solar deities such as the Greco-Roman Apollo were those in the pantheon responsible for divination, revelations and dreams, visions, meditations. As a result, wisdom and supreme knowledge were given to this house, as well as giving and receiving counsel, and astrology itself.

I want to pause on this for a moment to say that many historical texts argue that astrology is mercurial. I don’t often like to find myself disagreeing with ancient texts, but on this point, I do so gladly. Astrology is only mercurial insofar as it relates to mathematical principles and calculations. Astrology is not unlike the law – there’s the legal code, or the letter of the law, but it is meaningless until a judge takes it upon himself to acquaint himself with the law and interpret its relevance to everyday situations.

Similarly, astrology needs the activation of celestial and earthly symbolism to make it matter. This is the Sun’s role. Each of the planets play their own part – the Moon brings the soul connection between astrologer and client, Mercury the logic and mathematics, Venus the love and emotive concern for those around us, Mars the bravery to say what needs to be said, Jupiter the generosity of spirit, Saturn the deliberation and dedication to the study of astrology. But for all the planets’ unique virtues, they must all channel their contributions through the oracle of the Sun, the divine king of the heavens, the center of our astrological and astronomical scheme. Astrology, to me, is wholly solar, and as such, allows access to something that is wholly divine.

Now I speak of the luminaries’ godhead, but I do so metaphorically. I am not suggesting we take the Sun and Moon up as proper deities in a literal sense, as was the case in millennia past. I am, however, hoping to use ancient belief to paint a picture of how these two houses take on similar yet distinct images of the life experience.

We can see this connection between the Sun as divine and the Moon as material mirrored through another astrological technique: the use of the Part of Fortune, sometimes called the Lot of the Moon, and the Part of Spirit, or the Lot of the Sun. The controversy for their calculation has been quieted in recent years, but I think it’s worth reviving.

There are two competing views for calculating the Part of Fortune, or Fortuna, or the Lot of the Moon: some say that in daytime charts we take the longitude of the Moon, subtract the absolute longitude of the Sun and then cast that off from the ascending degree; and, in night-time charts, we subtract the longitude of the Sun from the Moon and cast that difference from the ascendant. The Part of Spirit, or the Lot of the Sun, would then be whichever formula is left unused.

This makes no sense to me. I concur with Ptolemy (later echoed by ibn Ezra and Lilly) when he explicitly instructed us to take the daytime calculation for both day and night charts. When using the same calculation, Fortuna lies the same distance away from the ascendant as she does from the Sun, essentially plotting the Moon’s phase as a hylegical place by using the ascending degree as a starting point. The lunar symbolism is therefore inbuilt in Fortuna’s calculation.

To reverse the calculation puts the sect light forward instead. This was a popular idea in the Hellenistic tradition which obsessed over sect, and was repeated throughout the medieval texts as authors copied and expounded upon the works that came before them. But we must remember, Fortuna is the Lot of the Moon, the earth goddess Dea. Fortuna is said to signify the body, fortune, and substance, and is even used as a hylegical point in length of life techniques. Anciently these things tied to the material, earthly nature of the Moon. It’s nonsensical to lead off with the sect light; the Sun has nothing to do with these matters. The Lot of the Sun, however, signifies those things that faith, prophecy, religion and good reputation. Do you see how these Parts are meant to connect back to the core tenets of their corresponding luminaries?

A decision to reverse the formula for Fortuna strips the calculation from its philosophical relationship to the Moon, and vice versa for the part of Spirit, and instead tacks these calculations onto the sect light. We then start grasping at straws as we attempt to explain why the Lots of Fortune and Spirit mean what they do when they’re derived from something other than their namesake luminaries.

We don’t have time to discuss this further here, but it is a point I felt worth mentioning as it demonstrates another way astrologers distinguished the role of the Moon and Sun in terms of body and spirit, like how the worldly and the divine are split between the 3^rd and 9^th houses.

Let’s now return to our discussion on the houses. In natal astrology, the 9^th house tells us how the native responds to counsel, to what degree they are inclined toward higher education, whether they feel pulled toward a spiritual path or toward something more material and earthbound, etc.

The sign on the cusp of the native’s 9^th house and the placement of its ruler will tell us what kinds of teachers and gurus we are drawn to, what messages resonate with us best on a spiritual level. As an example, those with the Moon ruling the 9^th house will seek to understand the ways in which all things are connected. Those with Mars ruling the 9^th often look for a religious path that emphasizes taking charge, advancing forward and claiming the self as opposed to allowing the self to dissolve into a collective worldview. These two natives may claim the same religion, but how they would express it couldn’t be more different.

As a horary astrologer, I find myself surrounded at astrology conferences by those who take an interest in divination, tarot and horary – all 9^th house subjects. Once in New York, I was sat at a table with several horary astrologers, and each of them made certain comments that caught my attention. “I always seem to get property questions,” one would say. “How funny, I get so many relationship questions,” said another. “I wish I got relationship questions, I only ever get approached for questions relating back to career,” said a third.

I made a quick hypothesis, and in a short matter of time the root of these patterns emerged: for the woman who overwhelmingly received property questions, her 9^th-ruler was placed in her natal 4^th house. For the woman who received relationship questions, her 9^th-ruler was placed in the 5^th, with its dispositor in the 7^th. And for the man whose received questions centered on career matters, his 9^th-ruler was placed in the 10^th.

I’ve played with this observation over time, and it seems to hold reasonably well that where the 9^th-ruler is in our chart tells us what areas of life the people around us trust us to give reliable advice. The connection is easier to see when the 9^th-ruler is in succeedent or cadent houses. It can be less obvious when the 9^th-ruler is in an angular house, because these houses have layers upon layers of meaning due to their orientation in the celestial scheme.

The 1^st house shows the self, personal health, rising above adversity, first light. The 9^th-ruler in the 1^st should hearken some connection to these issues, and likewise for the other angles: the 7^th house shows interpersonal relationship and things that attack the self; the 4^th house shows things that are hidden from view, deep down, difficult of explaining; and, the 10^th shows those matters that show our soul’s path, the heights that we aspire to. With a little thought, it should become clearer what the connection is to your 9^th house, the sign on its cusp, its ruler, its sign and the house it is placed in. It might be a neat exercise for you to try at home and with other astrologers around you.

In fact, I thought it might be fun to demonstrate this together using the chart for a well-known individual, whose identity will be revealed in just a few moments. Before we start, I will say that absolutely no element chart selection went into this at any stage. I Googled famous individuals with a specific advisory job, and decided I would use the very first person Google recommended that had a confirmed birth time with a Rodden rating of AA. There was no pulling-of-strings to make this theory work.

For the most part, I am going to avoid everything in this chart not directly linked to the 9^th house, and will approaching this from a classical point of view.

First, we note that Aries is on the cusp of the 9^th house, ruled by the malefic planet Mars. Mars is in the 10^th house in Gemini, in an applying conjunction with 10^th-ruler Venus. This is the chart for an individual who made a career on giving advice of a particular kind. To establish what kind, I look at the other houses being drawn into signification. Mars is in Gemini, with Mercury in the 9^th house. Mercury obviously has something to tell us, and I notice that he rules the 2^nd house of finances. Somehow, we’re getting a picture here of a career in advising and counseling that touches money in some way or another.

But notice that Mercury is retrograde and peregrine, Neptune is on the cusp of the 2^nd house (also retrograde), and Saturn is very near to the degree of the 9^th house. In some quadrant-based systems, Saturn would be bang on the cusp of the 9^th. All of these things considered, there’s an image of corruption with the advice. Can we find that substantiated elsewhere?

In fact, we can. Within the 9^th house we have a Moon applying to a peregrine Sun, dark and combust. Combustion is indicative of secrecy and concealment, and possibly imprisonment. The Moon’s application to the Sun as 12^th-ruler suggests that through the actions of giving counsel and advice, the native will self-implicate and find himself imprisoned, or at the very least, undone by his own actions.

Mars ruling the 9^th, but also ruling the 4^th, being in so manifest a house as the 10^th, gives us reason to believe that this individual’s actions will influence his family and family legacy, either negatively or positively. Scorpio on the cusp of the 4^th shows that every advance forward is accompanied by the sting of a scorpion to the family unit.

Taken alone, these are all very basic interpretations, so basic that I would be embarrassed to rely on these alone in an actual consultation. But notice how they stack and compound; what we see is actually what we get here.

For the grand reveal – this is the chart of Bernie Madoff, one of the most infamous financial advisors who orchestrated perhaps the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history, which led to the financial ruin of thousands of investors. The aftermath of Madoff’s confession and subsequent conviction destroyed his family, even resulting in the tragic suicide of his eldest son, which is shown in the nativity by the Moon’s application to the 12^th-ruler the Sun in the 9^th house. If the 12^th house connection isn’t obvious, the 12^th house is the 8^th from the 5^th, thereby showing the death of children. It isn’t irrelevant that Pluto sits on the cusp of that house as well.

I would also like to demonstrate the use of the 9^th house in horary, and to do this I am choosing to call on a historical chart – one from Lilly’s case files. Personally, I tire of traditional astrologers falling back on Lilly’s chart work as if he’s the only historical astrologer with charts of value. That said, this is one of the few that I think need to be shown and regularly discussed, because it underlines a few critical points in horary technique: firstly, horary astrology is not fatalistic; secondly, it is not appropriate to limit horary to yes or no questions; and, thirdly, it exhibits how the 9^th house was used to help an astrologer dial into the mind and craftiness of his querent or subject.

In this question, labeled “If attain the Philosopher’s Stone?”, came with this description by Lilly:

“An ingenious man with much seriousness propounded the question above, viz., whether he should obtain the Philosopher’s Stone? Or, that elixir by which such wonders are performed? That there is such a thing I verily believe; that it may be attained I am as confident: but as it is a blessing beyond all blessings upon earth, so I hold, that it is given but to very few, and to those few rather by revelation of the good Angels of God, than the proper industry of man. This question must admit of this manner of proposal; whether the knowledge of the querent is so able, or he so cunning, as to produce to effect by his art what he desires?” (William Lilly, Christian Astrology, pp. 442-443.)

The devil here is in the details. Notice how Lilly mentions that he must approach this question as a matter of divine revelation. Is the querent sufficient in and of himself to produce the Philosopher’s Stone, and if so, will the pathway be revealed to him by the angels of God?

As ever, the querent is shown by the first house, the sign on the cusp of the first house, and its ruler. We have Virgo rising with Mercury as its ruler, an appropriate signification for a student of the occult arts. Mars rules Aries, the sign on the cusp of the 9^th house. Lilly will judge the capability of the querent from the relationship between and disposition of these two planets.

The judgment is simple and straightforward. Mars is in the 12^th house, a strong testimony of its significations remaining hidden from view. Mars is in square to both Mercury and Saturn, all in fixed signs. Mercury has just stationed direct and is very slow in motion, a traditional indication of a sluggish mind. Lilly makes an important note that Mercury squared Mars while retrograde, and will square him again now direct. From this we can judge that this isn’t the first attempt the querent has made at producing the Philosopher’s Stone. He was unsuccessful once, and he will be unsuccessful again.

Lilly urged the querent to desist his attempts as the materials he was using were having a deleterious effect on his body. You can see this from Mercury’s besiegement between 6^th-ruler Saturn, whose excessively cold and dry natured is exacerbated in earthy Taurus, and Mars in the 12^th house, whose excessively hot and dry nature is worsened in the fiery sign of Leo.

The point in showing this chart is the way in which Lilly approached the question. It might have been simple enough to look and see if Mercury was receiving an application from the Moon – the Moon shows the focus of the question, things sought after, and could have suitably signified the Philosopher’s Stone from that perspective. Or, Lilly could have used the 11^th house and its ruler, as this house shows us those things in life we pine after and wish for beyond all else.

Instead, Lilly made use of the 9^th to explore how deep our querent’s capacity for true wisdom was. How close was this querent to the gods? How easily did he convene with angels? The chart shows that the querent’s desperation after an elixir that glorified the material was driving him further from the divine, further from true knowledge and further from celestial wisdom. I don’t aim to demonize the material; it is so important, but it must take its place in the order of things. It is my belief that the Philosopher’s Stone is a metaphor, the prize that comes when we finally find the beauty in growing old, when we rejoice in the lifecycle of Nature herself, and as is so succinctly worded in the Harry Potter books, when we “welcome Death as an old friend.”

I encourage each of you to take some time to look deeper into the 9^th house in your own astrological practice. For the horary astrologers here, how can you use this house differently to help you understand your client’s ability to perform the job or task they intend to undertake? How about the reliability of a surgeon, or financial advisor your client intends to consult? For those working in natal consultations, what does your client’s 9^th house say about their inner relationship to higher power, or to counsel and advice? Are they advantaged by these positions, or hurt by them?

Should such a thing as the Philosopher’s Stone exist, surely it would only reveal itself to those sage souls who have made peace with their own mortality, and have detached themselves from the material in this world. This is the essential meaning of the 9^th house, to choose what is higher, to choose the divine. As astrologers, we’re uniquely positioned to choose the divine each day. When we practice our art, we become roving ambassadors for the 9^th house, the house of the Sun’s joy, and I cannot think of a better honor than that.

Thank you.