Planetary Influences on the Signs
The influence of the each planets on the signs is made manifest through an urge or need ruled by that planet that we feel compelled to express in some form or function. Each of the planets falls within one of their own triplicities, namely, "benefic," "malefic," or "neutral."
Jupiter and Venus are benefic planets. Jupiter is known as the "greater fortune" and Venus as the "lesser fortune." The Sun and Moon are also both considered benefic planetary influences. These planets, well placed in an individual’s chart, eases troubles and smoothes the way for success.
Mars, Saturn, and Uranus are known as malefics. This doesn’t mean that they are evil planets, but only that their energies are challenging, restrictive, and limiting.
Mercury, Neptune, and Pluto are neutral planets. Their influence is good when they are well aspected with other planets, and malefic if badly aspected.
Distinctions should be made between the different ways in which signs and planets manifest their energy. The signs correspond to parts of the body and psyche. The twelve signs together represent the sum total of physical and psychological functioning. Their expression is moderated by the placement of the planets and their rulerships over the signs. Thus, a planet channels, interferes with, intensifies, harmonizes, or effects in some way according to the nature of the planet, the sign it is in and has rulership over.
Sun: Your Ego Structure
The Sun rules character, individuality, power and authority. It is hot, dry, masculine, inflammatory, and electric. It signifies influence and high office. It rules hope, courage, generosity, benevolence, and aspirations and represents rulership and honor.
Moon: Your Personal Life
The Moon rules domestic and maternal instincts, emotions, memories, and outward expression of our feelings. It is cold, moist, feminine, and fruitful. It governs the stomach and breasts, and rules reproduction, domestic and maternal instinct, growth, and publicity.
Mercury: Your Mental Life
Mercury is rules the mind, objective sight, perception and expression, and has dominion over communication, travel, and trade. It is neutral, changeable, cold, and moist. It governs the nervous system and intellectual perception. It rules handwriting, study, literature, and journalism as well as sight, imitation, and the power to learn and teach others.
Venus: Your Love Nature
Venus rules love and affections, the sense of touch, art, pleasure, and luxury. It is feminine, passive, warm, moist, fruitful, and benefic. It rules the throat and veins, revels in the finer aspects of the mind as expressed through the arts, as well as through grace, beauty, and adornment. It inclines towards refined amusement, sympathy, and compassion. Venus rules marriage, love, music, flirtatiousness, entertainment, and sociability.
Mars: Your Energy
Mars rules energy, force, action, muscle, enterprise, initiative, competition, desire, the sense of taste, and accidents. It is hot, dry, masculine, inflammatory, and malefic. It governs the head, face, and muscular system. It signifies strength and activity, and rules determination, work, war, and the desires as well as construction and destruction.
Jupiter: Your Values
Jupiter rules benevolence, expansion, optimism, and confidence in the meaning and purpose of life. It is hot, moist, moderate and temperate. It governs the blood, liver, and thighs. It rules reason and judgement. Being a benefic, its tendency is toward creature comforts and success and is called the "greater fortune."
Saturn: Your Obligations
Saturn rules discrimination, reserve, delay, sorrow, solidification, and the sense of hearing. It is cold, hard, earthly, masculine, and malefic. It governs the bones in general, knees and spleen in particular. It is solemn, cautious, and binding. Saturn rules structure and organization and is contractive, cohesive, cooling and sustaining.
Uranus: Your Search For Freedom
Uranus rules inner sight (clairvoyance), intuition, surprise, adventure, ingenuity, originality and invention. It is cold, dry, airy, positive, electromagnetic, occult, extreme, erratic and rash. It governs the aura and intuitive perception and rules invention, investigation, reforms, revolution, and rebellion.
Neptune: Your Spiritual Aspirations and Ideals
Neptune rules feeling without physical contact (psychometry), psychism, perversion. Neptune is cold, moist, neutral, negative, and neurotic. It governs spirit perception and mediumship. It rules secret, mysterious, questionable, and obscure matters as well as idealism and the aesthetic arts. As such, it rules not only the psychic faculty, but the sea, serums, narcotics, and all mysteries.
Pluto: Your Need For Fundamental Change
Pluto is concerned with the underworld, the afterlife, poison, and death. It has affinity with interests related to rejuvenation, regeneration, transformation, metamorphosis; the spirit world, subconscious mind and the conscience, metabolism, chemicalization, and assimilation. Also, chemistry, alchemy, refining processes, poisonous fumes, lethal drugs, and volatile oils and and vapors used for energy and power. It rules the conscience, subconscious activities, and stern, incorruptible judges.