Martin Goldsmith Astrology Books

Sample degrees from The Zodiac by Degrees: 8 Sagittarius and 14 Capricorn

8 Sagittarius

In the forge of the gods, a cauldron of molten metals, with the figure of a king rising to the surface.

Inner alchemy; humanity as an unfinished product; forging a unified self out of various components of the personality; things falling together, vs. things falling apart; integrity versus critical flaws of character (Achilles’ heel); intrepid resolve to succeed despite all obstacles; enlisting in some great struggle; surviving the tests of life (suffering); iron-willed self-discipline; power of command (military service); burning desire for deep-rooted personal and social transformation; recognizing the noblest elements in self or society and sacrificing everything else as dross (intolerance of weakness vs. sardonic commentary on human frailty); issues of racial or cultural superiority (bronze age vs. iron age mentalities); creative intensity and concentration; celebrating the birth of a new order.

Examples: Winston Churchill (Sun; military leader, W.W.II); Sidney Poitier (Saturn; Black actor—“Look Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “Lilies of the Field”); Queen Elizabeth I (North Node; inspirational political leader; had a close relation executed for the good of the state); Mark Twain (Sun; author, satirist—Huckleberry Finn, Life on the Mississippi); Ernie Pyle (North Node; folksy war correspondent; alcoholic); Louisa May Alcott (Sun; author—Little Women); Phranc (Saturn; lesbian singer); Toulouse-Lautrec (Jupiter; artist of the Paris demimonde);Gloria Swanson (Uranus; actress—“Sunset Boule-vard”); Heinrich Himmler (Jupiter; head of Nazi S. S.—set up death camps); Gerald Wasserburg (Saturn; geophysicist); Baba Ram Dass (Saturn; guru; suffered a debilitating stroke); Thomas Huxley (Moon; champion of evolutionary theory—“survival of the fittest”); the Ayatollah Khomeini (Jupiter; purist Moslem leader who took over Iran after the fall of the Shah).

14 Capricorn

Freed from a tangle of overgrowth, an ancient monument, covered with hieroglyphics, reveals secrets about human civilization.

Attempts to arrive at the single correct interpretation of underlying reality; language as the basis of one’s reality-picture; defining one’s terms and clarifying one’s meaning; inventing or translating a language; deep vs. superficial readings of reality; cutting through a tangle of attractive myths and illusions to uncover the truth about society; exposure of cover-ups; catching out other people in lies and inaccuracies; pointing out the flaws in a position; coming up with a new formulation that undermines or overthrows an old cultural paradigm; abandoning shaky, outdated positions and building on more solid foundations, vs. dabbling in unsupported speculations; research in physics, genetics, archaeology, history, or linguistics; deciphering vs. encrypting.

Examples: James Spader (Saturn, Venus; actor—“Stargate”—about a giant ring of hieroglyphs that opens a door to Ancient Egypt on another planet); Baron Georges Cuvier (Pluto; groundbreaking comparative anatomist; reconstructed fossil skeletons of extinct animals); Napoleon Bonaparte (Pluto; his expedition to Egypt led to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone); Isaac Newton (Sun; scientific genius; tried to reconstruct ancient history through a study of the Bible); J. R. R. Tolkien (Sun; fantasy writer—Lord of the Rings; invented a language to go with his fantasy world); Louis Braille (Sun; blind organist; invented Braille language for the blind); Sallie Nichols (Uranus; author of a book on the tarot from the Jungian perspective); Gore Vidal (Jupiter; radical political analyst); Ivan Illich (radical critic of American education); Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown (Mars; 4/26/1986); Vanessa Redgrave (Jupiter; radical actress); Arlene Dahl (Jupiter; actress—“Journey to the Center of the Earth”; astrologer); Johnny Depp (Moon; actor—“The Ninth Gate,” and the bush-trimming mutant in “Edward Scissorshands”).