Affliction by Engagement
Affliction by engagement occurs in two forms. In the first form, a star forms a right hex, right square, right trine or is on the right in an opposition with a malefic and both stars are in the same degree. We refer to that as affliction by degree. In the second form, the stars are co-present in the same sign and one star is engaged to a malefic meaning within 3° and has not reached 1° of separation. We call that affliction by contact.
There seems to be some confusion over this so let us review. It is the star on the left that hurls rays at the star on the right. Again, think of one of those car chases in the movies where the good guys are chasing the bad guys who are shooting back at the good guys. Enclosure requires the rays of both malefics from the left or the right or the left and right to land in front of and in back of the target star trapping them. Think of a foot chase and the good guy is cornered, trapped by two bad guys with nothing to intervene and help.
But notice each condition requires both malefics. Here, it only requires one malefic on the left and in the same degree as the afflicted star. For example, Mercury at 6° in Gemini and Mars at 9° in Leo. Yes, Mercury is in a right hex to Mars and is engaged with Mars but a single malefic is just not enough to cause harm. When Mercury and Mars are in the same degree now Mars is physically striking Mercury with its rays which is why it only requires one malefic.
Affliction by Degree
Dean Beard
Here we have Venus at 19° in the Virgo 2nd House in a right sextile to Mars at 19° in the Scorpio 4th House and both in the same degree.
Venus is afflicted.
Afflicted Venus is both domicile ruler and domicile master of the Taurus 10th House and if you followed the rules and did your station-checking like you’re supposed to do then Day-7 (prior to birth) Venus was stationary turning retrograde. What can you say about his career? C’mon people. It ain’t like you haven’t seen this before. Domicile master of the 10th House maltreated and retrograde.
His career crashed and burned. The guy played for a brief time with Elvis Presley. Poor guy couldn’t get his career off the ground because he wasn’t supposed to because his chart said he wasn’t supposed to. We get that some of you still have issues with Determinism but astrology is the original WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”). Astrologers lie. Astrology does not. Follow the rules of astrology and you will arrive at the truth no matter how ugly that truth might be.
Is Sun afflicted by Saturn? No. Sun and Saturn are not in the same degree.
As a reminder, we said “degree.” We didn’t say anything about minutes and we don’t even show minutes. Why not? Greater precision DOES NOT EQUAL greater accuracy in astrology. After all, it’s astrology, not accounting. If we were doing accounting we’d show degrees, minutes and seconds probably down to microseconds.
What is Sun opposition Saturn? A difficult death. Beard died in hospital at age 53. Sun opposition Saturn usually (but not always) means a shortened life-span so be sure to have your Wills & Codicils up-to-date and probably best to have a healthcare directive in place in case you have dementia.
Daryl Dragon
Jupiter at 16° in the Cancer 1st House in a right sextile to Mars at 16° in the Virgo 4th House.
Since they are in the same degree Jupiter is afflicted.
Jupiter is the domicile ruler and master of the Pisces 9th House but Jupiter is only the domicile ruler of the Sagittarius 6th House. The fire trigon rulers Sun and Mars are in the Virgo 3rd House. Since the chart is nocturnal we choose Mars as domicile master of the Sagittarius 6th House.
The 9th House is government and authority, and wisdom and learning, fellowship (your casual friends) on your quest for wisdom, and travel away from home. It’s also divination, astrology, the occult, dreams and visions since it is the House of God. The 3rd House opposite being the lesser government and authority and the House of the Goddess is also dreams and visions.
A recurring theme you will see is the domicile master of the 9th House afflicted indicates issues with the mind. You saw that with Karen Carpenter’s chart not having a domicile master of the Pisces 9th House with Sun present. That may manifest as mental illness, mental defects (epilepsy or schizophrenia) or mental impairment like dementia or in this case, Parkinson’s Disease.
Mars rules the head and is co-present with Sun. You’ll see that theme again when we look at the chart of Princess Grace of Monaco who suffered a stroke. Where is Mars in the phase cycle? Mars is sinking and in a setting phase. Very late in the setting phase since Mars is under Sun’s beams. Use the phase cycles. It will keep you from wasting hours of time on predictive work. This will occur in his late 60’s or early 70’s. In fact, the symbolism of Mars sinking here is in the years leading up to death.
You cannot render a medical diagnosis using astrology. That is simply not possible or rather it is impossible. Whatever the medical texts were on astrology, they are all corrupted and there’s no way to sort it out. Your interpretation in this instance is that the person will suffer some form of mental impairment in the latter stages of life. Do that and you have done all that is required of you as an astrologer.
Princess Grace
Venus at 28° Libra in the 12th House in a right sextile to Saturn at 28° in the Sagittarius 2nd House. Saturn afflicts by engagement in the same degree. The good news is Venus is domicile ruler and master of the Libra on the 12th House. The bad news is Venus is the domicile ruler of the Taurus 7th House and Saturn is domicile master of the Gemini 8th House.
We previously discussed Mercury as domicile ruler of the 8th House in the 1st House indicates she is indirectly the cause of her own death.
How does her marriage end? We just explained that. It ends in death. Hers.
Jupiter came through for her in the end. Jupiter granted her a peaceful death in spite of the fact Jupiter is retrograde. Once she lost consciousness due to the stroke, she had no idea what was going on and wasn’t feeling any pain. The crash resulted in an additional head injury leaving her in a permanent vegetative state so she departed Earth long before she died. Good ol’ Jupiter.
Affliction by Contact
Rajiv Gandhi
This is an unusual chart notwithstanding the 5-star stellium. Jupiter has Sun as spear-bearer. Moon has Venus. India is the second-most populous country on Earth. Mercury is domicile ruler and master of the Virgo 1st House and Gemini 10th House. Note Mars as domicile ruler of the 8th House in the 1st House.
Recall your house delineation principles: Domicile ruler of the 8th House in the 1st House means that person is indirectly the cause of their own death and that is so very true for Rajiv Gandhi.
If you did your station-checking, Mercury is stationary turning retrograde within 7 days of birth.
What does retrograde mean 100% of the time in 100% of charts no exceptions ever?
Mercury applying to Mars within 3° makes Mercury afflicted but even if Mercury were not afflicted he still would have been kicked out of office by the voters and still involved in numerous scandals and end up being assassinated. Afflicted Mercury only made things worse.
Kurt Cobain
Let’s set up the chart correctly so’s you can read it.
- Virgo 1st House: Mercury domicile ruler and master
- Libra 2nd House: Venus domicile ruler; Jupiter domicile master
- Scorpio 3rd House: Mars domicile ruler and master
- Sagittarius 4th House: Jupiter domicile ruler; Sun domicile master
- Capricorn 5th House: Saturn domicile ruler and master
- Aquarius 6th House: Saturn domicile ruler; NO DOMICILE MASTER
- Pisces 7th House: Jupiter domicile ruler and master
- Aries 8th House: Mars domicile ruler; Jupiter domicile master
- Taurus 9th House: Venus domicile ruler and master
- Gemini 10th House: Mercury domicile ruler and master
- Cancer 11th House: Moon domicile ruler and master
- Leo 12th House: Sun domicile ruler; Mars domicile master
The hierarchy of rulers is:
- House ruler
- Exaltation ruler
- Trigon ruler
- Triplicity ruler
Capricorn and Aquarius are sympathetic signs because they are ruled by the same star but sadly none of the rulers in the hierarchy are located in Capricorn. Otherwise, we would have a domicile master for the Aquarius 6th House.
We’ve explained that no domicile master for any house is a potential disaster and showed several charts demonstrating that:
- Whitney Houston: no domicile master for the Pisces Ascendant. Drowned to death at age 48 from a cocaine-induced heart attack
- Freddie Prince: no domicile master for the Sagittarius 2nd House. Committed suicide at age 22 after being awarded a $6 Million contract from NBC (worth $35 Million in 2025).
- Karen Carpenter: no domicile master for the Pisces 9th House. Died at age 32 from her mental illness, an anorexia-induced heart attack
- Gus Grissom: no domicile master for the Cancer 10th House. Died at age 40 in a tragic fire in Apollo 1 with two other astronauts.
Kurt Cobain dead at age 27.
If you did your station-checking like you’re supposed to do, stationary Mercury in the chart is still stationary on Day+7. No, Mercury is not in “fall.” There’s no such thing as “fall” or “detriment.” Stationary Mercury is not “stronger” just more prominent in the chart. Mercury stands-out and is master of the 1st and 10th House.
Recall the spear-bearing rules. Do we have a star on an angle in its own house or exaltation? Yes, Venus exalted in Pisces in the 7th House.
Do we have a star in its own sign or exaltation in aspect to Venus? Yes, Venus makes a right trine to exalted Jupiter in the Cancer 11th House.
Venus is at Pisces 26°. Jupiter at Cancer 25° hurls a ray right behind Venus landing at Pisces 25°.
Jupiter is spear-bearing for Venus. Neither a spear-bearer nor the star it’s guarding will harm another star but that isn’t the issue here.
Venus applies to Saturn within 3°.
It begs the question: Can a spear-bearer or a guarded star be afflicted or glorified?
We say “yes.”
Spear-bearing is nothing more than an indicator of fame, wealth and power. It is not the only indicator of fame, wealth and power. When a chart has no spear-bearers it does not mean a person cannot be famous. Donald Trump has no spear-bearers, however; he does have Sun as the domicile ruler and master of his Leo Ascendant conjunct the Lot of Exaltation in the Gemini 11th House which is an indicator of fame, power and wealth.
The 9th House is an indicator of mental illness and more likely with passive earth and water signs occupying the 9th House since the passive signs suggest things that happen to you rather than things that you do like the active air and fire signs.
Afflicted Venus as domicile ruler and master of the Taurus 9th House is not going to end well with no domicile master for the Aquarius 6th House. He had a mental illness before he became famous and Jupiter spear-bearing for Venus making him famous only added to the problems he already had.
We’ll look closer at this chart in the Advanced section since it requires the use of derived houses to accurately interpret this chart.
Roger Moore
Sun applying to bodily join Mars within 3° is afflicted. Sun is the domicile ruler and master of the Leo Ascendant.
But, he was James Bond! He was Sir Roger Moore playing James Bond from birth until death? Of course, not. Don’t be silly. If someone is rich and famous it does not logically follow that they also have the perfect most peachy wonderful life. That’s why we read the chart instead of knee-jerking and jumping to conclusions.
For 15 years he could barely put food on the table. He didn’t land his first big successful role as Simon Templar in The Saint until 1962 at which time he was 37 years old. At age 45 he was the oldest play the part of James Bond. Those seven films were hugely successful.
He was married four times. His first two marriages to older women (see Saturn in the 5th House as domicile ruler and master of the Aquarius 7th House). His children from his third marriage disowned him although they eventually reconciled.
Aside from The Saint, his TV series were cancelled or shelved and outside of the Bond-franchise, his films were failures or some instances were marginally successful in Britain but did poorly in the U.S., with the exception of The Cannonball Run where he had a cameo playing James Bond.
He was a disease magnet having every childhood disease one could have, plagued with kidney stones during the filming of the seven James Bond films, diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1993 and died of liver and lung cancer.
We’ll look at Moore’s chart in Zodiacal Releasing. Releasing from Spirit, house-ruler Mercury takes over via Gemini on November 8, 1985 and less than 30 days later on December 3, 1985, Moore announced his retirement. Gemini jumps to Capricorn. When you see a “jump” in a zodiacal releasing table it always indicates a major life event or change.
Roger Moore’s chart has the Water-pourer as the 7th house sign, and as far as I remember Aquarius means something happens only once, so how come Moore married four times?
Hello, Aleksandra, it isn’t just the 7th House sign. We look at where the domicile ruler, master and lord are and we also look at the Lot of Marriage to make that determination. For example, one chart we’ll show you has a Taurus 7th House with Venus in the Cancer 9th.
Were the marriages good? He describes them as good. He was married twice. His wives were not mean evil people. They never cheated on him or anything like that. His first wife was homesick. She wanted to go back to Iowa. He didn’t want to go there. Nobody lives in Iowa except farmers. His 2nd wife, well she said she wanted children but after getting married she didn’t want children and he was pretty mad about that, but no other problems. His Lot of Marriage is not well situate and it’s ruled by a retrograde Mercury and that’s the story of that.
Can a star be doubly afflicted or doubly elevated and if so does that change the significance of what the stars signifies?