So deeply by the ears and in such a hubbub.

Chapter XII.

How to know whether the disease be in the mind or in the body.

All the aphorisms of my author upon this question are got so deeply together by the ears and in such a hubbub that I know not in the world which way to go about to reconcile them. Every following aphorism thwarts him that goes before; in one he affirms that the Sun, Moon and Ascendant rule the body, and their lords the mind, the very next aphorism affirms the contrary. Most of them contradict one another in such a hideous manner that I was forced to leave their company and search other authors for a resolution of this point, and they conclude that the Sun, Moon and Ascendant signify the body, and their lords the mind. And if this may be taken for truth, the directed aphorisms are these:

The Sun, Moon and Lord of the Ascendant impedited, and their lords safe, show the disease lies in the body and not in the mind.

If their lords be impedited and they safe, the disease lies in the mind, and not in the body.

If both Sun and Moon, and the Ascendant and their lords also be impedited, or the greatest part of them. both body and mind are diseased, and this I confess is something rational.

Saturn generally signifies of melancholy, and by consequence alienation of mind, madness &c., and therefore always when you find him to be significator of the disease, or in the Ascendant, or in the Sixth House afflicting the Lord of the Ascendant or either of the luminaries, the sick is afflicted with care or grief, or something else that's as bad. Be sure the mind suffers for it.

If Jupiter be significator of the disease, it lies in the body, if it lies anywhere; for Jupiter never troubles the mind, unless it be in those monstrous concerns which some make of religion.

It were a good thing when a man is troubled in mind, if an artist could tell the cause of this trouble. That you may do so, make use of these two or three rules; there is enough of them, though these be but few, if you have but wit enough to know by a penny how a shilling is coined, they are these:

If the Sun be author of the distemper, as he may be, if he be Lord of the House Ascendant, Sixth or Twelfth Houses, the distemper comes through pride, ambition, vainglory.

If it be Jupiter, it comes through religion; some idle priest has scar'd the poor creature out of his wits.

If it be Venus, love, luxurious expense, or something else of like nature is the cause.

If Mercury be the afflicting planet, the sick is pestered with a parcel of strange imaginations, and as many vain fears attend him; great vexation, or study, or both is the cause.

Saturn, jealousy, fear &c.

Mars, through anger, contention, violent passion &c.

Luna, care, fear, drunkenness &c.

By these you may find out all the rest, for this is the sum of the business.

Comments

Robert Plot, first Keeper of the Ashmolean, on mysterious circles, from 'The Natural History of Staffordshire' (Oxford, 1686).

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Paul Summers Young

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