Historically, astrology has been used in many different ways. One of the most common kinds, until relatively recently, has been medicinal astrology, which has of course waned with the ascent of modern medicine in the west. Let me be clear, I am not saying that modern western medicine is useless or that medicinal astrology is a sufficient substitute of it, not by a long shot. But it does have something to offer even today, in my opinion, and it won't cost anyone anything, since it is mainly focused on prevention and self-induced placebo - healing yourself, at least in part, merely by changing the state of your mind. Placebo is a real phenomenon, but even though medical science is fully aware of it, it doesn't really try to sufficiently understand and exploit it. That is where ancient medicinal approaches have done most of their homework, and that is where you can find most of their value. If you wish to learn how astrology can help you better understand the connection between your mind and your body, read on.
Your natal chart describes primarily your subjective personality, everything else about you and your life is secondary, including your physique. But there is a link, and the more you understand that link, the better you will become at avoiding malady or recovering from it. Let's start from the undisputable part of it - certain attitudes increase chances of becoming injured or catching a disease, especially recklessness and ignorance. When such attitudes influence behavior, you might dive head first into an unknown body of water, which might be too shallow or too cold, or you don't wash your hands before eating, or any number of risky actions. Since some signs tend to be more reckless or ignorant than others, they may be facing different levels of this kind of risk. But your attitude doesn't even have to lead to behavior in order to make you sick - depression was proven to decrease the efficiency of immune system, while positive attitude was proven to do the reverse. Since some signs tend to be more negatively or positively emotional, they should face different levels of this risk.
These effects have been studied scientifically and are well within the reach of behavioral psychology and conventional medicine. However, if astrology is true, this is only the directly observable surface of how who you are inside affects your health. Every sign can be smart or dumb, happy or sad. That is not what defines a personality at the existential level, level of awareness or consciousness, which can strongly affect how smart or happy anyone will become in their lifetime. On the existential level, your body is a physical manifestation or expression of your personality, and the connection therefore goes much deeper, beyond impulse control or mood. In astrology, each sign is linked to a particular organ or system of organs in your body, which should reflect by their healthiness or unhealthiness the mental equilibrium or disequilibrium of the appropriate aspect of your personality. Depending on which planets you have in which signs and houses, there should be different behavioral, emotional and existential triggers for health or disease of various parts of your body.
Very roughly speaking, in terms of psycho-physical analogies, aries is linked to the head, brain and face (all that defines you as an individual); taurus to the neck, throat and thyroid gland (controlling your food intake and body weight); gemini to the respiratory and nervous system, as well as arms and hands (allowing you to sense and speak); cancer to the digestive system (nurturing your body and keeping you emotionally stable); leo to the heart (center of your vitality); virgo to the liver and skin (protecting your body from toxins and pathogens); libra to the urinary tract (cleansing your body); scorpio to reproductive organs and glands (allowing you to be sexually active); sagittarius to the excretory system and buttocks (allowing you to absorb energy and use it for movement); capricorn to the skeleton and ligaments (supporting your body against gravity or injury); aquarius to the circulatory system (oxygenating your whole body); and finally pisces to your feet (the lowest and least necessary part of the body, but carrying all the weight). Please note that the zodiac is also a continuum - the points in between the signs should correspond to midpoints or combinations of the two neighboring organs or systems.
The general idea is that if you have some planet in some sign in some house, it should describe how some aspect of your overall health tends to work extraordinarily well and/or poorly. All people have all of the organs (ideally), so first you need to distinguish which of them are in your case special, compared to those that are normal. If you simply do not have some sign present in your natal chart, it is likely that the organs or systems related to that sign will be normal - according to what is the most common or average in your ethnic or social group. In other words, since your personality is not especially connected or attuned to them, they will be defined predominantly by external factors. The signs present in your natal chart should define the special areas, because they define your personality, and it is your personality that affects your health from within - growth, organ formation, resistances, regeneration, general metabolism, etc. The planets in houses then show in what specific way (thought, emotion or behavior) the health of any particular part of your body will be affected.
Planets rule parts of human psyche and houses areas of human experience. For example, a planet ruling aries (Mars) is about which decisions you turn into actions, for which you of course need the brain in good working order, while the house of aries rules key arenas for expressing decisive action, such as competition or combat. The first is a better clue to emotional state, the second is a better clue to particular behavior. Simple example would be for instance house of scorpio, which (healthwise) rules sexual arena, meaning that any planet in any sign in it should be about a sex related health issue. The sign will describe the organs affected, while the planet will describe a mental state (which may or may not result into external behavior), serving as a trigger to either improvement or worsening of health.
For example, Sun in scorpio, the sign or the house, would link essential vitality, will to live, to sexuality, making the well being of heart conditional on the level of sexual satisfaction or frustration. The sign in scorpio would make it true more likely from the inside (through thoughts and feelings), while the house of scorpio would make it true more likely from the outside (through activity or circumstance). Unless, of course, you have the sign of scorpio in the house of scorpio, ideally occupied by both Mars and Pluto (rulers of scorpio), in which case it should be the whole package.
For example, Sun in scorpio, the sign or the house, would link essential vitality, will to live, to sexuality, making the well being of heart conditional on the level of sexual satisfaction or frustration. The sign in scorpio would make it true more likely from the inside (through thoughts and feelings), while the house of scorpio would make it true more likely from the outside (through activity or circumstance). Unless, of course, you have the sign of scorpio in the house of scorpio, ideally occupied by both Mars and Pluto (rulers of scorpio), in which case it should be the whole package.
The complete diagnosis of personality related health risks is naturally quite complex, but there are some simple and straightforward indications as well. Jupiter should signify a strong or easy area, Saturn should signify a weak or difficult area - that should be true generally, not only in regards to health. Similarly, Moon signifies early childhood issues, while Sun signifies issues in adulthood. Less significantly, Venus should relate to adolescence, Mars to adulthood past prime and Saturn to old age. Because each person is a unique individual, this cannot be reduced to a single definitive range of ages - age is here also considered to be partially a state of mind.
Perhaps it is best to line up the signs in a row from the Moon to Saturn and consider them to be a smooth transition or a vector. It should give you some idea what to expect as you grow older - there are many options for degenerative diseases, for example, and while you should take precautions to avoid all of them, astrology should point out where to be extra careful. Conventional medicine can only give you general statistics, which are an average of a small sample selected from a much larger population of unique people. Using astrology, you can start with those and then personalize them, reducing the uncertainties instead of reducing what is special about you.
Perhaps it is best to line up the signs in a row from the Moon to Saturn and consider them to be a smooth transition or a vector. It should give you some idea what to expect as you grow older - there are many options for degenerative diseases, for example, and while you should take precautions to avoid all of them, astrology should point out where to be extra careful. Conventional medicine can only give you general statistics, which are an average of a small sample selected from a much larger population of unique people. Using astrology, you can start with those and then personalize them, reducing the uncertainties instead of reducing what is special about you.
What remains now is to explain how you can actually work on healing yourself from within, depending on what combination of signs you are. Conventional doctor would only tell you something general, like avoid stress or try to be positive. Once again, personalization and deeper qualitative analysis are needed. Each sign has a particular mental poison - to aries it is self-doubt; to taurus it is poverty; to gemini it is apathy; to cancer it is any upsetting emotion; to leo it is shame; to virgo it is anxiety, most chiefly related to imperfection; to libra it is injustice; to scorpio it is sexual deprivation; to sagittarius it is boredom; to capricorn it is irrationality; to aquarius it is inequality; and finally to pisces it is hopelesness.
All of those are bad things to perceive, generally speaking, but they are particular flavors of stress. Each person should be uniquely resistant or susceptible to a combination of these, depending on the combination of planets, signs and houses in his or her natal chart. Each stressor leads primarily to a specific kind of illness or impairment, affecting mainly the area of the body related to the sign susceptible to the stressor. Most easily, the effect would be of a psychosomatic kind, leading to vague chronic symptoms, but it can also lead to immunity suppression or overreaction, or unhealthy behavior. Terminal or genetic diseases and disorders can be related to that psychological process as well, but cannot really be treated psychologically, at least not fully - if anything, they may be psychologically prevented.
All of those are bad things to perceive, generally speaking, but they are particular flavors of stress. Each person should be uniquely resistant or susceptible to a combination of these, depending on the combination of planets, signs and houses in his or her natal chart. Each stressor leads primarily to a specific kind of illness or impairment, affecting mainly the area of the body related to the sign susceptible to the stressor. Most easily, the effect would be of a psychosomatic kind, leading to vague chronic symptoms, but it can also lead to immunity suppression or overreaction, or unhealthy behavior. Terminal or genetic diseases and disorders can be related to that psychological process as well, but cannot really be treated psychologically, at least not fully - if anything, they may be psychologically prevented.
It is precisely the prevention where this approach becomes the most useful. According not only to astrology, it takes time to develop a health risk. If you eat poorly for one day, it will probably not ruin your health. If you keep doing it for years, it will most definitely affect your health. In the most general terms, signs of fire need more movement, signs of water need more love, signs of air need more brain exercise and signs of earth need more material comfort to lead a satisfactory life - being content and therefore healthy in the long term. Health problems according to some interpretations of astrological model also work in crosses - the signs in conflict (three groups of four) are more likely to affect each other negatively when one of them becomes compromised.
The cardinal group (aries, cancer, libra, capricorn) is the complex of pain and nausea; the fixed group (taurus, leo, scorpio, aquarius) is the complex of hormonal imbalance and cardiovascular failure; and the flexible group (gemini, virgo, sagittarius, pisces) is the complex of allergies and neuroses. All of that is of course only orientational, but the more of these perspectives you combine, the fuller picture of human health you get. Ultimately, the main advice derived from astrology would be to know yourselves and be yourselves - discover what's positive and negative for you, and choose positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement as a basic approach to life.
The cardinal group (aries, cancer, libra, capricorn) is the complex of pain and nausea; the fixed group (taurus, leo, scorpio, aquarius) is the complex of hormonal imbalance and cardiovascular failure; and the flexible group (gemini, virgo, sagittarius, pisces) is the complex of allergies and neuroses. All of that is of course only orientational, but the more of these perspectives you combine, the fuller picture of human health you get. Ultimately, the main advice derived from astrology would be to know yourselves and be yourselves - discover what's positive and negative for you, and choose positive reinforcement over negative reinforcement as a basic approach to life.
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