The head of the Catholic Church

The image

The picture is of the Pope, the bishop of Rome and the head of the Catholic Church, seen in his office rather than as an individual: robes, a balcony or a throne, a crowd of the faithful, centuries of ceremony behind him. The line names the role alone. We describe it with respect and read it as a symbol of authority, without any judgement on the church or its teaching.

Meaning

Read as a symbol, the head of the church is authority that rests on office and tradition. The person holds a place that existed before him and goes on after him, and much of his power lies in what the office represents. Our keyword is "Spiritual authority", and our keynote says one figure stands at the head of a great religious body. A placement here can be read as a feeling for leadership and responsibility, respect for institutions and the continuity they carry, and an interest in how one person can stand for a whole community of belief. The image can also prompt a question about where authority truly comes from.

Lynda Hill would place a Karmic Condition just behind Sagittarius 30, in the boy with his lawnmower at Sagittarius 29, and a Quest Degree just ahead of it, in Capricorn 1, a tribal chief who insists on being acknowledged. The three pictures move from small domestic duty, to the highest religious office, to a leader at the start of the next sign who demands that his standing be seen.

The opposite degree is Gemini 30, women in bathing costumes on show, our "Display and appraisal". As a reading aid, the pair contrasts two kinds of public presence: bodies shown and judged by onlookers, and a figure whose standing comes from an office and is shown in robes and ritual.

In a chart

A planet or point anywhere from Sagittarius 29°00′ up to, but not including, Sagittarius 30°00′ takes this degree. The rule is to count the degree a position is in from one, so a Moon at Sagittarius 29°41′ reads Sagittarius 30, and so does one at Sagittarius 29°59′. Close to either edge, a small change in the birth time or the ephemeris moves a placement into the next image: into Capricorn 1 after Sagittarius 29°59′, or back into Sagittarius 29 before Sagittarius 29°00′. That is why the chart shows the minute beside the degree. In EsoTerrier's Sabian chart the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant are read first, then the Midheaven and the planets; each placement in Sagittarius 30 carries the image, keyword and keynote above, with Sagittarius 29, Capricorn 1 and Gemini 30 beside it.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Where the image comes from

Recorded by Marc Edmund Jones in Balboa Park, San Diego, in 1925, as the clairvoyant Elsie Wheeler described the picture she saw for an unseen card; one of 360 done in a single day; published by Jones in 1953 sourced

Degree before and after

Sagittarius 29 and Capricorn 1, read beside this degree after Lynda Hill, who calls them its Karmic Condition and its Quest Degree sourced

Degree opposite

Gemini 30, 180° away, offered as a reading aid; it is arithmetic, not a rule of Jones's our construction

A position at Sagittarius 29°00′00″

Our engine, Hill's rule and every calculator we checked read it as Sagittarius 30; the Sabian Assembly's sunrise page reads it as Sagittarius 29. A computed chart practically never lands on it disputed

How the schools read it

Marc Edmund Jones (1953)

Gives the degree a symbol line, a commentary, a one-word keyword and a positive and a negative reading. We quote none of it.

Dane Rudhyar (1973)

Rewords the image and adds a keynote and a commentary of his own, numbering the degrees as Jones did. In copyright to 2068; not used, and the place he gives the degree in his own structure is not shown.

Lynda Hill (1995, 2004)

Uses the symbols as an oracle, with her own commentary, and reads each degree beside the one before and the one after. Her rule and her two names are cited here; her text is not used.

The Sabian Assembly

Jones's own study group serves the 1953 image and keyword of a degree in its oracle, without commentary, on purpose.

EsoTerrier

Our keynote: One figure stands at the head of a great religious body.

Claims about it

• The image line on this page, or on any site, is Elsie Wheeler's own wording.

  false

  What the record shows: Her words survive only as Jones's pencilled notes of 1925. Jones reworded them in 1931 and 1953, Rudhyar in 1936 and 1973, and Hill in her books.

• Reading the degree before and the degree after is part of how the zodiac is built, or of Jones's method.

  false

  What the record shows: It is Lynda Hill's practice, and the two names are hers. We show the two degrees with her name.

• Dane Rudhyar's 1973 lines are the Sabian symbols and free to print.

  false

  What the record shows: They are his rewording, with his own keynotes and commentary, renewed in 2002 and in US copyright to the end of 2068. None of them is used here.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Sagittarius 29: Effort for appearance the degree before, which Lynda Hill reads as its background
• Capricorn 1: Asking to be seen the degree after, which Hill reads as where it is heading
• Gemini 30: Display and appraisal the degree opposite, read beside it as a reading aid
• Sagittarius in the natal chart the sign these thirty degrees belong to