The making of an astrologer: Reinhold Ebertin

Before I begin today’s discussion, I would just like to let everyone know that I have been through a very difficult few days dealing with some quite acute life difficulties, and even though I anticipated them (by transit, progression and arc), it did not in the event make them any easier to dispatch; Eris is hardly predictable in the astrology. I am therefore completely off schedule with all my usual obligations, so please bear with me for a short while as I regroup.

In the same way that most civilians have their favourite rock stars, sportsmen and women or writers, it is always insightful to me to understand which persons my fellow astrologers most admire, within the field. For myself I have the utmost respect for Noel Tyl, Donna Cunningham, Liz Greene and most especially, beyond all of these even: Reinhold Ebertin. No astrologer has, in my humble view, so advanced the study as this rather odd and unassuming man, who is as much a pioneer in the field of astrology as Einstein was in his, or Darwin, or any other great luminary of the acceptable face of human understanding.

I first read that bible of insight the CSI, (Combination of Stellar Influences) when I was 13 or 14, it was my grandfather’s copy and he bade me take especial care with it, because it was precious and important, so I knew even then that it was a work of significance, and to this day that judgement has been so often reinforced and underpinned that I do believe that if I could own only one astrological text, Ebertin’s magnum opus would be it. I have since read all his works that are translated into English. “The Influence of Pluto on Human Love Life” is also a very intriguing treatise and shows remarkable insight for such an early exploration on Hades’ themes. “The Cosmic Marriage” is possibly his most accessible work, and contains many useful insights into the indications for matrimonial and romantic aspirants. But it is the CSI which I refer to time and again, so much so in fact, that I can probably quote half of it and I cannot even see a Saturn Pluto contact without thinking “hard labour!” before I think of anything else!

Ebertin the man was born into a difficult time. He was separated from his mother at an early age, although he was reunited with her aged 21 whereupon she taught him much about the study; her own predilections were very much to do with love and affection and this may have been a profound impetus to Ebertin who seemed to gravitate toward such studies himself. He also made a name for himself during the rise of National Socialism, where dissonant ideologies were suppressed, forcing Ebertin – and that other great father of modern astrology, Carl Jung – to alter his approaches accordingly. He worked tirelessly on advancing the earlier studies of Alfred Witte, the founder of the Hamburg School and developing his own system of halfsum correspondences, many of which are profoundly relevant to the diagnosis of medical difficulty. I have an article delineating this astonishing diagnostic tool nearly ready for publication, and I have successfully identified the psychic cause of myriad complaints, from the niggardly to the near fatal using Ebertin’s excellent methods. Ebertin himself called his approach “cosmobiology” a word much underused in the modern study, because it summarises the meeting point of body, mind and soul that Ebertin was himself insistent ought to be the key genesis point of any astrological understanding. I have worked on that same premise ever since and it has not failed me yet.

And so to the astrology itself. Take a moment to look at the shape of the nativity, allow it to move in you a little and you will start to feel that stress manifesting down into Pisces and the easy slingshot of energy up into the precision movement of Mars in Virgo. You can too feel the impetus to build and consolidate around that Capricorn ascendant. So what is most important here?

First, Venus is peregrine. Ebertin married aged 21 and purportedly experienced a consistently happy union, his wife was too an astrologer whom he met at an astrological conference and this tallies well with a love of the different, of unusual Uranian individuals. Even more pertinently Venus is at the halfsum of Sun and Moon, thus it denotes, according to Ebertin (from the CSI):

“Harmonious coordination between spiritual and emotional as well as masculine and feminine dispositions. The power of attraction between the sexes, artistic interests – Friendship between lovers, a marriage of love, a harmonious marriage.”

So this seems clear, Venus is an important factor, it creates an intellectual type of love, a love of ideas, of thinking unconventionally and finding unique solutions, revolutionary solutions, to traditional conundrums, and this describes most aptly Ebertin’s impact on the field of astrological philosophy.

Beyond this, consider Chiron conjunct Jupiter rising in Capricorn. There is always a kind of early difficulty with Capricorn, the conditions are hard at the start and hard-work pays the dividend of eventual emancipation; thus times were hard for the Ebertin family between the wars in Germany, Chiron too speaks of a certain physical sensitivity when it applies to the Ascendant, Jupiter expands that sense also and creates a possibility of ever building compassion and healing ability. Jupiter rules publishing of course, and Chiron is the astrologer; so the mystery elucidates apace. Moon’s only significant aspect is a conjunction to Saturn in its own sign, she must be overpowered there and the separation from mother becomes clear too as a result. Consider that by Solar Arc Saturn applies to Moon sometime between the age of 5 and 6, almost certainly therefore the point of physical separation from her.

Tee squared Mercury tells an intriguing story, fed by implacable energies in the form of Uranus opposition Pluto, there is a need to express that astonishingly difficult transformative upset somehow. The opposition falls across the cusps of the 6th and the 12th, which suggests either an impetus to be suddenly hospitalised, imprisoned, or – most pertinently in an evolved case – to execute esoteric and secret work, as a daily habit. Ceres is on the astrologer’s degree of Pisces and is configured into this same pattern, so he could nurture himself through his astrological work and shining down upon all of this, adding some spark and electrical potency is Sun in Aquarius, also on the astrologer’s degree.

Now on the whole, this is not an easy chart even if Venus gives great power and a mutual reception between Mercury and Neptune gives a gift for communicating the immeasurable. Mercury is itself in a difficult spot in Pisces and it would be this mutual reception which exalted his power of relating so well. Neptune in the 6th speaks to spiritual work and habits while Uranus is itself on the 17-18 degree point of a mutable sign, another astrologer’s indication.

Mars in Virgo in the 8th speaks about an economy of movement, Ed Moses, the greatest 400m hurdler ever to have graced the track had peregrine Mars in Virgo and the 6th, so that gives you some idea of its ambience. I would have loved to have met this great man so I could see for myself how he actually moved and related. Economy, precision, efficiency and here in the 8th, the making of an analytic magus, a true researcher of the profound.

Truly, a great man.

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