What do you mean by significator?
A significator is simply something that represents or indicates a person or thing. Having a Rolls Royce is a significator of wealth. In the same sense planets can be natural significators, for example the Moon is a natural significator of the Mother or the Wife. Mars is a natural signifcator of a soldier, Venus is a natural significator of pleasure or sexual activity or young women.
But planets can also have accidental signification. The ruler of your tenth house (the Sun) has automatic signification of career or action. The ruler of your fourth house (Saturn) has automatic signification of your parents (both together) your father, (on his own) or your family in the sense of your extended family including ancestors. The ruler of the Lot of Fortune has signfication about how the external world affects you.
Barkey Foreman said:
Also I would like to know the definition of Lot of Necessity (which is in Virgo). Does that mean I would need to learn about spartan lifestyle somepoint in life?Just my take because Virgo is often seen as the sign of abstinence and self-discipline
Also I already know you stated its a misconception that Parts need to be aspected to a planet order to play any importance but there is a perception that a lot needs power from a planet in order to have any effect. By power from planet, modern astrology states there needs to be hard aspects in order for a Part to even be activated. Most moderns go as far as stating there has to be a conjunction within 2 degrees for the Part to even have any effect on interpretation, other than that its just there and useless to the chart.
But you already emphasize a lot of things such as the houses and even aversions can bring out power from the lot.
I was thinking of adding a short post on the hermetic lots (of which Necessity is one) so I'll answer that question later.
The Lots don't have to be aspected to be important. The Lot is interpreted through the condition of it's ruler and the placement of it's ruler relative to the Ascendant (and often relative to the Lot of Fortune). If the Lot is aspected then the aspect and the planet making it will be taken into account. Having your Lot of Fortune squared by Saturn or Mars means that your luck is likely to be poor, unless the condition of the Lot's ruler is very good. Even then, you will be less lucky than you would have been without the aspect.
Barkey Foreman said:
How do the Greeks view lots?Do they view them as powerful as planets (or at least powerful enough to affect specific subjects like say that would normally be the domian of a planet such as love is ruled by Venus,etc).
Also I notice you seem to imply certain planets and houses are intrinsic negative. There's a perception by modern astrologers every planet and houses have strength and weakness. But I read in traditional astrology some houses like the 8th and planets like Saturn are Malefic. Your interpretations so far match this especially with Saturn. Where did it occur that every house and planet have positives and negatives?How would the Greeks have seen it? What do you think of avoiding anything being malefic by nature in modern astrology and whitewashing it up by adding random positives (8th is house of sex and transformation rather than death, Saturn is house of discipline rather than just being entirely pessimistic,etc).
Firstly Lots are points, that means they don't actually do anything themselves. A Lot can't influence your life. But its ruler can and does. So the Lot of Fortune itself doesn't really do anything. But the ruler of the Lot indicates how well you can deal with, for want of a better word, fate, or what life throws at you. As I said above, aspects to a Lot will be considered by it's the planet that acts. The calculation of the lot tells us which planet has a lead role in the topic ruled by the lot.
Have you read modern Astrological views of Pluto or Neptune? They are not particularly nice planets and for Pluto there's not much good that can be said about it. Malefics are not simply traditional. Indeed I would argue that traditional Astrology is less 'malefic' or 'negative' than modern psychological approaches. The tradition has two planets who tend to signify (but not always) 'bad' things and two planets who tend to signify (but not always) 'good' things. That's a nice balance of 'good' and 'bad' In individual charts, it's possible that there may be more 'bad' than 'good' or vice versa but on the whole there's a balance.
Modern Astrology has two good planets (Jupiter and Venus) and five not so good (or even bad) planets, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The 'bad' may be psychological conditions but I find many modern writers to be very fatalistic, certainly as bad as the worst in the past.
The short answer is that life is made up of events that we see as either good or bad. That does not have to mean there's nothing we can do. There always is, though we are not all as good or as well fated in maximising the best in life.
Barkey Foreman said:
Also how did Greeks view Scorpio?There is a perception the sign of Scorpio and Scorpio influenced charts-especially those dominated by Scorpio and having Scorpio as Asc-is a transformative sign and indication major transformation.
They didn't think in those terms, nor did any Astrologer till the twentieth century. They might well have seen a chart as dominated by Mars or Jupiter or one of the other planets but they would not see as dominating anything. Indeed they made use of parts of a sign as much as they made use of the sign itself. Thus the Bounds or Confines were given particular attention because each was a subdivision of a sign ruled by a different planet. The same is true of Decans. Thus your Ascendant falls in the Decan of the Sun and the Bounds of Mercury. These two planets will add further colour and dimension to your Ascendant, on top of that set by Mars. In short, Scorpio is not monolithic and not all Mars. Mars is the 'steward' the planet responsible for Scorpo but other planets have responsibilities for parts of Scorpio, though they are lesser rulers than Mars.
Concepts such as Progress or transformation (in the modern sense) were alien to Hellenistic thought. Change was usually decay, a falling away from an ideal. Not a movement towards perfection. Transformation was something the gods did to you and it wasn't always nice. You might get transformed into a stag, or a monster or a beautiful woman but this was divine, not you realising your inner goddess.
That's not to deny self improvement. You can improve yourself by learning and knowing more about yourself (but remember this is 2000 years before Jung). As Socrates pointed out, knowing that you were ignorant was at least a positive start