Getting Pregnant by the stars- what ancient astrologers say

Texts going back to the ancient Greeks, and beyond, talk about Venus and Jupiter being the lesser and greater benefics (the good planets) that will bring children at certain times during a woman’s (or a man’s) life. Here are extracts from the writings of some of those ancient astrologers:

Dorotheus of Sidon

Dorotheus of Sidon (65 CE) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorotheus_of_Sidon

Carmen Astrologicum

Carmen Astrologicum translated by David Pingree: Ascella Publications p 210/11 discusses “the Lot of Transit” with regard to children, Jupiter in certain configurates signifying an abundance of children ….”

Ptolemy

Ptolemy, a Greek astrologer c 120 CE (www.skyscript.co.uk/ptolemy.html) associated Jupiter with fertility – in fact, in the myths that we can read about Jupiter, all his seductions end in divine progeny pointing up the potency of the energy that ancient mythology and astrology attributed to this planet or god!

Paulus Alexandrinus

Paulus Alexandrinus, an astrologer who lived in Alexandria in the 4th Century CE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulus_Alexandrinus) wrote that both Venus and Jupiter (whom he called by their Roman names, Aphrodite and Zeus) and where you found them in the birth chart were important astrological factors to consider when exploring what the birth chart had to say about children in the future of that person.

Johannes Schoener

Johannes Schoener (15th/16th Century) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Schöner (Opusculum Astrologicum translated and edited by Robert Hand (Project Hindsight Latin Tract Vol. IV p 73) “In the Universe … For the gaining of offspring, the Ascendant and Moon should be in signs of many children and in benign aspects of Jupiter and Venus”. Qualifications are also given involving the Moon, the 5th house and Mercury.

William Lilly

William Lilly, http://www.skyscript.co.uk/lilly.html a 17th century English astrologer, wrote in detail about astrology and fertility and drew upon his knowledge of the Arab astrologers of the 12th and 13th centuries as well as his knowledge of the ancient Greeks. He used astrology to answer such questions as: “If one shall have children?” “Whether a woman is withchild or not?” “If male or female?” These questions, in the 1600’s were important to the people of those times when pregnancy testing kits and other medical marvels that we now enjoy, were not yet invented! Lilly writes in his book Christian Astrology, published in 1647, of other contacts that the person “may enjoy a daughter that year”. Lilly made specific claims for the planet Venus and times when it contacted the Sun and Moon in a birth chart showing when in a person’s life they would have children.