Now You See Me: Reception, Aversion, Generosity and Why “Sight” is Power in Astrology

Recently, I attended an astrology workshop where the astrologer, delineating charts the audience submitted, mentioned that a participant had two planets in mutual reception. The configuration was Mars in Libra and Venus in Scorpio — both planets in their detriment, but, in the astrologer’s estimation, mitigated by the “reception.”

I have a similar placement — Mercury in Taurus and Venus in Gemini — however, I ceased considering this a mutual reception by definition since the two planets do not form a Ptolemaic aspect. Instead, both planets in my chart, as well as that of the workshop participant’s, are in aversion to the houses that they rule. Hellenistic astrologers considered planets “turned away” from their house of rulership to be difficult placements because the planets could not “see” the houses that they rule — or, in this case, the planet with whom they are exchanging signs. In a way the workshop attendee seemed to hint at this hypothesis when they said that the mutual reception “did nothing for [them]” — but was this a function of the exchange of the two planets being in aversion, or the nature of the exchange itself — the double debility? Let’s dig into this a little further…

Reception: Be Our Guest, Be Our Guest…