A Key to open the Closet of Practice, a Heuretes to find other Truths.

 

Signs of Death.

First of all, the Lord of the Ascendant afflicted in the Eighth: the patient is more mad to be apud inferos, then death is to have him. The man will die, and his life will be cast away absolutely with evil guiadance.

If at the Decumbiture you find the Lord of the Ascendant combust in the Ascendant, pass the same judgement with the former.

If the Lord of the Eighth be in the mid-heaven and afflict the Lord of the Ascendant, the physician will be in a shrewd mistake, and instead of curing go near to kill.

Listen to this, O College of Physicians, let me entreat you to learn the principles of your trade, and I beseech you no longer mistake avarice for wit and honesty. 

The Lord of the Eighth very strong in the Ascendant gives you fair warning that death is a coming. 

A conjunction between the Lord of the Eighth and the Lord of the Ascendant is as mortal a sign as the heavens can show.

It is a very unlucky sign when the Lord of the Eighth is Lord of the House at the Decumbiture, and not much better if the Lord of the House at the Decumbiture be afflicted by the Lord of the Eighth, especially if the Lord of the Eighth be a malevolent.

Such ill beginning of a disease usually proves fatal at the latter end, unless the physician be a very able man.

If the Lord of the Ascendant fall retrograde from the body of the Lord of the Eighth, it gives you a timely warning of death at their next conjunction, unless the Lord of the Ascendant meet the Sun before he meet with the Lord of Death again.

The Lord of the Eighth in conjunction, square or opposition to the Moon at the Decumbiture threatens death, unless there be a reception between them. If the Lord of the Eighth be retrograde or infortunated, you may the more confide in his judgement.

The Lord of Eighth in an angle, especially the Western Angle, the Moon and Lord of the Ascendant being in cadent houses or afflicted by malevolents, death may be feared and that justly too, especially if a malevolent be in the Eighth, or Lord of that House.

The Moon with both Saturn and Jupiter profits not the sick at all, unless Jupiter be much stronger than Saturn, or with the Lord of the Ascendant than either of them.

In such a case, medicines under the influence of Jupiter will do good, because his body is afflicted by so potent an adversary.

This had I from Doctor Reason; neither is it barely to system truth, but a foundation to build other truth upon, a rule for practice, a key to open the Closet of Practice, a heuretes to find other truths by.

The Lord of the Ascendant in the aspects, or with the antiscion of an infortunate in the Eighth, threatens death unless the wholesome beams of Venus and Jupiter help, which if there will be a strong contest between nature and the disease.

The fortunes strive to maintain nature, the infortunates to destroy them. In such a case, look which is strongest, and pass judgement upon the end of the dispute accordingly.

If you find the Moon in like case in an acute disease, or the Sun in a chronical pass the same judgement.

If there be a reception between the Lord of the Ascendant, and the Lord of the Eighth by any aspect, the sick will probably live, and that as I remember I told you before. But the sickness will be long and tedious, and the effects of it lie long in the body, and that I never told you til now. 

The Moon with Saturn and Mars, or the Moon with the one and the Sun with the other, or either of them with one, and the Lord of the Ascendant with the other, or the Lord of the Ascendant with both, gives shrewd suspicions that the sickness is but the prodromus or usherer-in of Death.

The slower in motion the afflicting infortune is, the worse it is, for then the Moon meets him again upon the critical day.

The Lord of the Ascendant in the Seventh or Fourth House and there afflicted, gives warning to the sick man that his dissolution is at hand.

An infortune upon the cusp of the horoscope bids the sick provide for a change. 

Fixed stars of a violent nature speak the same language if they be upon the horoscope.

Those fixed stars are said to be of a violent nature, which are of the nature of Saturn or Mars, as Lanx Australis, the Bull's Eye, the Scorpion's Heart, and some which are of the nature of the fortunes, if authors mistake not their natures, as Algol or the head of Medusa, which is placed in the Buckler of Perseus. The Grecian Astrologers call him the Devil's Head, and yet all the astrologers hold Jupiter and Venus to have a share in this nature. Let it suffice that all hold, and Doctor Experience himself certifies that his conditions are as bad as who is worst. Neither shall he come behind anyone of the fixed stars in doing mischief.

If the Moon be void of course at the beginning of the sickness, and yet afflicted upon a critical day, a good crisis cannot be hoped; an ill crisis may justly be feared, and that not without grounds from sober rules of art.

The Lord of the Ascendant in Leo or Aquarius impredited by the body of the Lord of the Sixth or Twelfth Houses signifies danger of death.

Both the luminaries afflicted under the Earth carry the same signification. 

It is evil if the Moon be in her detriment or fall at the crisis, though she be not afflicted at all; the time of the crisis is the time of a combat between nature and the disease. 

And if the Moon be weak, she is not able to maintain nature in the combat.

The Sun afflicted by the body, square or opposition or antiscion of a malevolent, it tells the patient the disease will be long and tedious, if not mortal, and bids him provide himself of such a physician as knows how to do something else besides only to tell money.

The Moon opposed to the Lord of the Ascendant be also retrograde or combust shows bitter accidents will fall out to the sick during the time of his sickness; he is a wise physician that can remedy them, but he is wise that can anticipate them.

The Moon in the Fourth House with the body square, opposition or antiscion of Mars soon brings a man to his last inheritance, the grave; she threatens it if she be there no way afflicted, unless she be very strong.

As I have judged by the Moon, so judge by Mars if you find him, for if he being there have any dignities in the Ascendant, he will urge a man as fast to the grave as ever sleep urged him to bed.

Saturn opposite to the Lord of the Eighth House threatens danger enough to the sick.

The Moon in conjunction with Mars in the Fourth House will send the sick to take a supper in another world, though both their fortunes stand and look upon him. 

The Moon in the Ascendant, if you will believe authors, always hurts, and they give some show of reason of it, because there she has most power over the body of the sick.

Yet mine own opinion for the present is that if she be there, and in Cancer or Taurus she will rather help than hinder the sick. If the Moon do heat the Ascendant, as authors say, I suppose the reason to be because Saturn loves it, and then she hates the Eighth and Twelfth Houses by the same rule. And if you will call your wits into examination, they will tell you it is true enough.

If the Moon be in the Ascendant, and the sign ascending of a contrary nature to her, it is a hundred to one if that the sick die not of that disease. And here my author spoke something to the purpose; if the former aphorism made a discord in your brains this, if rightly understood, will reduce them to a harmony.

The Moon applying to the body of the Sun within twelve degrees of the Decumbiture, the sickness comes not so much to terrify your body as to give you warning of your end. 

And the nearer the Moon is to the body of the Sun, the speedier dispatch will death make of the body of his captive.

The Moon besieged by the bodies of the malevolents, posited between the Sun and one of them, the hopes of life are very small or none at all. 

Authors say that if a man or woman fall sick when the Moon is going out of combustion, their sickness will increase till she comes to the opposition of the Sun. And if then she meet with an ill planet, the sick recovers, if not, they die. For mine own particular, I speak no more than I have found by continual experience; I have often found this false, and never true. 

If the Sun and Moon be Lord of the House at the Decumbiture, and behold the Lord of the Eighth, the sickness is sent to proclaim the approach of death.

It is very bad when the Moon carries the light of the Lord of the Ascendant to the Lord of the Eighth, it threatens death, but it does not so in all diseases neither; for example, in such as come and go by fits, as agues, falling sickness, you may make this use of it, that none are fit to make physicians but such as are intimately acquainted with Madam Nature and her eldest son Doctor Reason.

It is extreme bad when the Moon applies to any star in the Eighth, as bad as when she applies to the Lord of the Eighth himself.

The Moon combust in the Eighth in Leo threatens death, says my author; and so the truth is she does if she be combust in any other house or sign, unless she separate from the body of the Sun.

The disease will appear little otherwise than the forerunner of death, if the Moon be in Libra and Jupiter and Venus in conjunction. He that knows anything in physick that he should know, knows the reason well enough.

The Moon with the Pleides and Aldebaran, or with any other violent fixed star, shows danger of death.

The Moon applying to her own modes, namely the Head and Tail of the Dragon, is very bad, but not so bad if she separate from them.

It is very bad when Saturn is in his perigaeon or near it, if the disease come of retention. 

Judge the like by Mars, if the disease be a fever or proceed of choler; and here you have another instructor to teach you knowledge. The nearer a planet is to the Earth, the more stoutly will he maintain and increase the humours he governs. 

It is a very bad sign, if not desperate, if there be an eclipse of either luminary upon a critical day; and if it miss a day of it, it will break no squares in such a case. The time of the eclipse has to my knowledge anticipated the time of the crisis a whole day natural, and proved mortal too, as I had experience in Essex in the latter end of October 1649.