Machiavelli + Medieval Anti-Saturn Tips

As promised in Wednesday’s Daily Mystic, here are some medieval anti-Saturn methods and my Machivelliean rave.

Machiavelli:

As befits a bloke who had glamor-casting Neptune exactly on his Midheaven, Niccolo Machiavelli not only has global one-name recognition, that name has become an adjective. The fact that “Machiavellian” generally refers to a person who is conniving, manipulative, and unscrupulous has helped – not hindered – his brand.

You could say he was the most successful sociopath in history but he was not that successful. Machiavelli was a diplomat, Taurean, and philosopher born in 15th Century Florence. He was sent all over the place as an envoy but his non-noble lineage meant he could not rise beyond the middle rank and various aristocrats took his strategic suggestions as their own.

His 8th House Pluto in Virgo aspected practically everything in his chart; it trined his Capricorn Ascendant, Lilith, and Saturn in Taurus, was opposite Mars in Pisces, and squared Mercury in Gemini.

He was a fantastic writer – Mercury in Gemini for the win: witty and eloquent, the square to Pluto in the also-mercurial sign of Virgo compelled epic quotability. Think vast material ambitions, a quick, change-adept mind, abiding interest in power, and a penchant for floating through boundaries it would have been wiser to avoid altogether.

Machiavelli Was Mercurial And Plutonic

He would have been dangerously drawn to secrets, brokering information for influence, prestige, and wealth. The Italian Renaissance was an era of incredible artistic, political, and scientific evolution that co-existed with the most extraordinary corrupt fuqery and violence.  It was ruled – more or less – by two rival dynasties –  the Borgias and the Medicis. Renowned for their extreme money, magnificent taste, and backing of artists such as Michaelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, they were also ultra-ruthless and depraved.

So Machiavelli became post-humously famous for a book called The Prince, which he wrote in exile straight after he was released from a torturous prison ordeal for alleged conspiracy against the just-back-in-power Medicis. Dedicated to Lorenzo Medici, the book was a relentless suck-up to the family – Machiavelli’s maxims included that perjury and deceit were cool if you were aristocratic, the benefits of keeping your subjects poor and faking piety or integrity, how it’s better for people to fear than like you, that the ends justify the means, ‘destroy – don’t wound’ and so on.

It was more like sycophantic insurance to try and avoid being thrown back on the rack by a despotic prick then – say – the Marcus Aurelius Meditations, so how did it become such a brand? It didn’t work for Machiavelli but 500 years later, this slender book of suck-up is a robust best-seller.

Psycho or Not, The Prince Is Still A Best-Seller

The dictator Stalin liked it so much he left little annotations and butter stains all through his copy. Obviously, a classic guide that says ‘do whatever you want because you’re rich, baby‘ is a hit with that sort of person. Mussolini loved it too. Yet Tupac Shakur was a fan, as is Lindsay Lohan:  “I was going out with someone and they said I should read Machiavelli,” she told Tatler magazine. “And I was like: ‘Nah!’ But then I said: ‘Ok, I’ll read it’. Now it is always with me.”

It’s quoted by everyone from sales seminar hype-bros and The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills – Camille Grammar described Kyle Richards – Paris Hilton’s aunt – as “Machiavellic”  – to media maven Tina Brown, who used to recommend all her junior staff read The Prince. It was also a huge influence on Game Of Thrones author George RR Martin.

“Machiavellic” Real Housewives

Machiavelli would have been delighted to have been so pertinent and influential half a millennium after he lived. Tony Blair stayed at his house shortly after he took office – did he commune with Machiavelli’s ghost? A seance? Seriously, this degree of long-term notoriety/fame is super Neptune-Midheaven.

The Midheaven represents Zenith achievement – your brand, reputation, and the legacy you leave. Neptune is nebulosity incarnate: ambiguity swirled around Machiavelli’s pursuit of his ambitions in his lifetime but his philosophy permeates everything.

He died in exile from the city he loved, complaining in private that he felt like he was ‘rotting in the country’ and striving in vain to regain his place in society. Yet 500 years later, his influence is more pervasive than any of his enemies.

Medieval Anti-Saturn Methods

As per the Weds Daily Mystic, the Saturn-Uranus contraparallel is a real pain – it’s particularly tricky for people born in the early 1950s, mid-1960s, 1976/1977, 1988 and 1999/2000. It aggravates your natal Saturn-Uranus conflicts and even if you’re not born with an inbuilt security versus freedom dichotomy, it has been gnarly.

So if you can’t be stuffed doing new age Saturn-whispering – really, who has the time these days? – you could try to antidote the influence via something really old-school. In medieval times they saw Saturn as something to be kept in check – the harbinger of dampness, creaky joints and leaden spirits.

To antidote, you needed Sun and Venusian vibe. You’d think Jupiter – or I would – but the prescription was clear: Gold, sunlight, yellow flowers and Apollonian imagery. For Venus, think roses, pink, sensuality and pleasure. An orgasm a day keeps Saturn away. That really was the thinking.

As Marsilio Ficino wrote in his fabulous vitality guide:

Solar things are: all those gems and flowers which are called heliotrope because they turn towards the Sun, likewise gold, orpiment and golden colors,… amber, balsam, yellow honey,… the swan, the lion, the scarab beetle, the crocodile, and people who are blond, curly-haired, prone to baldness, and magnanimous. The above-mentioned things can be adapted partly to foods, partly to ointments and fumigations, partly to usages and habits. You should frequently perceive and think about these things and love them above all; you should also get a lot of light.

Thoughts?