How Did Pluto and the Outer Planets Get Their Meanings?

In episode 202 astrologers Kenneth Miller and Sam Reynolds join Leisa Schaim and Chris Brennan in the studio to talk about the history behind Pluto’s significations, as well as the meanings of the other outer planets in general.

This discussion is partially based on a paper that Kenneth wrote for the second volume of The Ascendant journal, titled “Pluto’s Weird History: Dumb luck? Dumb note? Dumbbell?”

In the article Kenneth chronicles the development of Pluto’s significations by astrologers after it was discovered in 1930, and the surprising lack of consistency until the mid-1970s.

This ended up being the basis for a sweeping discussion about how astrologers develop interpretive meanings for new celestial bodies, and some of the pros and cons for different approaches.

Sam and Kenneth were in town this week for a planning meeting with the rest of the board of the International Society for Astrological Research (ISAR), which is hosting their next astrology conference here in Denver in September of 2020.

We decided to take the opportunity while they were in town to meet up and get to the bottom of this whole outer planet issue.

This episode is available in both audio and video versions below.

Timestamps

Here are some timestamps for topics covered at different points in the episode:

00:00:00 Intro

00:04:58 Kenneth’s Pluto article in The Ascendant

00:08:43 Sam’s perspective on outer planets

00:14:39 Political issues of outer planets

00:16:03 Brief history of outer planets

00:18:30 Rulership scheme

00:19:25 Indian tradition and outer planets

00:20:27 Shortcoming of traditional astrology criticisms

00:23:48 Thema mundi and masculine and feminine

00:24:40 Does astrology need to adapt to modern society?

00:28:10 The hiddenness of the outer planets

00:31:08 Different views of function of Pluto

00:33:52 Multi-valence of Pluto

00:35:00 The Pluto keyword Sam dislikes

00:40:00 Pluto’s demotion from a planet

00:42:04 Outer planet significations

00:46:07 Therapeutic blaming of the planets

00:47:30 Haphazard naming of outer planets

00:56:57 Robert Hand’s influence

01:04:30 Pluto, Scorpio and the 8th house

01:05:50 Focus on Pluto in modern astrology

01:11:40 Influence of cultural beliefs

01:13:09 Trend in names of new planetary bodies

01:17:10 Lack of modifiers for the outer planets

01:20:12 How to talk about Pluto to a beginner

01:25:10 Octaves and overlap of inner and outer planet significations

01:33:04 Outer planets and profections

01:34:40 Transiting Neptune on the ascendant

01:36:00 Nocebo effect with outer planets

01:37:41 Rise of mythology in 20th century

01:39:40 Synchronicity in naming of planets

01:41:50 Pluto of less importance since its demotion?

01:48:50 Using caution with new discoveries

01:51:52 Keiron Le Grice

01:53:15 Alan White quote about Pluto

01:54:15 Closing remarks

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Transcript

A full transcript of this episode is available: Episode 202 transcript

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