The man with Saturn in the ninth house is driven toward a direct experience of what we choose to call God.
As usual Saturn may disguise himself, and one of his favourite presentations when he is in the ninth house is the individual who believes in nothing. This kind of rather compulsive agnosticism or atheism is rarely the outgrowth of logical analysis and a naturally pragmatic or earthy temperament; it is usually linked with fear and a rebellion against an inner urge toward things of a more abstract nature. Sometimes this kind of orientation is linked with an early upbringing of a dogmatic nature and a subsequent disillusionment.
Saturn in the ninth house is often connected with a finely tuned sense of justice and a great sensitivity to the plight of humanity as a group, but there is often a tendency toward depression and lack of hope with this placement, particularly hope in the individual's own future. He may find it difficult to make contact with the flow of his over-all self through
the intuition and is consequently left with a sense of futility and often with a fear of the future. The man with a ninth house Saturn often finds through hard experience that faith in someone else's interpretation of life and of justice does not suffice, and it is often difficult for him to accept any authority, temporal or spiritual, other than himself because he has been severely disillusioned by such authority in the past. This is the first stage of the process of disillusionment and rebuilding connected with Saturn in the ninth house: if the individual persists in his growth, the development of his intuitive perception into the world of meaning guarantees him a much more direct and meaningful authority—himself. There appears to be a definite link between Saturn in the ninth house and an early exposure to religious teachings of a dogmatic kind. Generally this exposure ends in disillusionment later in life. The individual will often follow the characteristic pattern of attempting to crystallise values of an essentially inner and subjective nature into the formal ritual, structure, and uniformity of orthodox religious
ceremony. This becomes his spiritual security, and he relies on this structure for his sense of meaning rather than on any real perception of his own. The higher authority—whether a church or a father—offers a formula by which the rules given form the structure of life, and the individual is expected to cling without question to wthese rules rather than initiating an inner search whereby he can apprehend the laws of life by his own inner authority. Someone else's sincere but otten narrow vision becomes his opinion, and he is trapped within the prison of his own narrow-mindedness. Generally these opinions in the end fail him for they do not stand up to his own life experiences. He is thrown back on his own resources and must begin again to build a different kind of framework for his beliefs. Saturn appears to have affinity with certain of our western religions, or at least with particular aspects or interpretations of them—in particular Catholicism, Mormonism, and Judaism. It is not that these paths are to be criticised, for the outer form of religion is created by man in response to an inner need and perception and any form created is necessary for a period of time. These paths
become problems when they begin to crystallise; and this is often due to their interpretation by well-meaning but unimaginative individuals. What Saturn in the ninth house suggests is not that there is anything fundamentally wrong with one's religion but rather that there is some degree of crystallisation in the interpretation; the form has outlived its usefulness. Saturnian orientation in a religion inclines toward much emphasis on law, structure, guilt. punishment, and the unknowable Will of God with little emphasis on life, quality, inner meaning, or individual growth. It is often the parental interpretation which is the problem. A childhood steeped in the Saturnian kind of morality and belief can be a fruitful source of guilt. It can help to create in the individual a doubt in his own right to decide for himself the inner or spiritual meaning of his life. This is destructive because it stifles growth. This is often the goad which drives the person with a ninth house Saturn deep into the realm of philosophy or psychology so that some kind of solution can be found for the riddle of one's existence.
The prison of a ninth house Saturn is a subtle one, but it is built through loss of hope and faith and an inability to establish the meaningful subjective contact upon which real vision is built. By the denial of this basic need for hope. Saturn suggests the necessity of the individual's finding the needed experience firsthand, without the help of dogma, of groups, guides. or gurus. Nothing except direct experience will suffice. It is in this direction that the opportunity of a ninth house Saturn lies. The entire spectrum of Saturnian camouflage may be observed with Saturn in the ninth house, ranging from the complete skepticism of the rational thinker through the narrow vision of the fanatic to the disciplines and probings of the practical occultist and finally to the muddled and well-meaning gullibility of the man who is willing to believe anything as long as it will give him back his faith. Behind all these costumes stands the inner urge toward a direct spiritual experience and a direct personal acquisition of knowledge which will throw light on the more ambiguous areas of human existence. This is quite a long
way from "conflict with the law", and yet the phrase applies. It is perhaps descriptive of the man who is engaged in a struggle between his own inner convictions and the beliefs and formal trappings which have been handed to him by his engaged in a struggle between his own inner convictions and the beliefs and formal trappings which have been handed to him by his environment. This kind of struggle between inner values and outer opinions always applies to Saturn's placement on the birth chart, and in this position the struggle lies in the realm of the ideas which, when coloured by emotional values, become translated into ideals.
Sagittarian temperament must have an ideal by which he can live; without the dream or the vision at the end of the climb, he cannot find the necessary one-pointedness even to begin. The same situation is true of the person with an emphasised ninth house, and it is particularly true in a specific way of the person with Saturn in the ninth. He also must have an ideal by which to live, but he must also understand the idea behind it, which lies
beyond the plane of emotional aspiration and is more purely a product of the intuition. Without this kind of direct understanding he loses hope and plunges into the kind of depression which is so typical of this Saturnian placement; or he may seek to escape by one of the various expressions of overcompensation. Saturn in the ninth house is often referred to as concurrent with a profound and penetrating mind. The more conscious individual will generally express this quality to a greater or lesser degree. He generally arrives at this point, however, by the long circuitous route, and it is only after he has experienced the opposites that he can be truly free of the crystallising effect that Saturn has on the mind. He has the possibility of finding some very valuable answers to some very broad questions; but he must find them himself without help. Saturn will tolerate no one else's authority. The man with a ninth house Saturn usually finds that he has to be his own priest, pope, and saviour because all moral and ethical values lie within him. It is the fine tightrope between the opposites which he generally is required to walk with an acute sensitivity to the fact that all moral and ethical
values are, in the end, relative and yet that the universe is intrinsically moral in an altogether different sense. While realising that all ideals and concepts are relative because they are only a part of the whole, the responsibility still lies on his shoulders to act in a fashion which serves the growth of the whole. This is a tightrope in a very literal sense. On one side lies the grey purposeless which usually exists side by side with the relinquishment of one's dreams; on the other lies an incessant struggle with anything which symbolises authority. At the end of the rope, successfully crossed, lies a kind of freedom which usually is experienced with the quality that the Sagittarian expresses most easily: joy.
