strongest planet/thing in chart...

what makes a planet/thing the most important/strongest in a chart....is it the tighest aspect...singleton....stellium...shape or what? and how important really it is and what help it has in helping us to understand the chart?

There's no easy answer to your question because there's no complete agreement amongst Astrologers.

Firstly planets

Traditionally strength (or dignity as it was called) is measured in two main ways. The first lies in the planets position by sign and degree and that is known as Essential Dignity. The most commonly known form of this is rulership - for example Mercury rules Virgo and Gemini - but there are four other forms of dignity besides this, though these are rarely used by many Astrologers. There is also a negative dignity or debility - Thus Venus is in Fall in Virgo and in Detriment in Scorpio. There are some scoring systems for both Essential Dignity and Essential Debility but again they tend only to be used these days by those Astrologers who try to keep traditional methods alive.

The other measure of strength is known as Accidental Dignity and it is based on where the planet appears in the chart layout. Planets at or very near the Angles (Ascendant / Descendant, MC/IC) are usually reckoned to be strong, both traditionally and by modern Astrologers. There are other forms of Accidental Dignity - some Houses are reckoned as 'strong' and others as 'weak' - generally, those that make a major aspect to the Ascendant are seen as strong (even if it's square or opposition) and ones that don't are weak. Thus the sixth, eighth and twelfth houses are traditionally seen as weak placements.

There are accidental dignities relating to the speed at which planets move, where they are in relation to the Sun or whether they are retrograde or not.

Traditionally aspects were only taken into account in terms of strength if a planet was in good aspect (trine or possibly sextile) to Venus or Jupiter or in poor aspect (square or opposition) to Mars or Saturn and only then if the aspect was in the same degree. Modern Astrologers put more emphasis on aspects and how tight they are - possibly because it is much easier to measure angles accurately these days. A number of computer programs will give the aspect a weighting based on how close the angle is, where in the chart the planets lie and the nature of the planets. I tend not to use those weightings because it is not always clear on the contribution of each factor to the weighting - I prefer to do it qualitatively by looking at each factor in turn.

In terms of 'things' much depends on what you mean by 'things' - there are two real possiblities, calculated points such as the Ascendant or MC and non-planetary bodies, such as stars, asteroids, comets, centaur-type objects, Kuyper belt objects, and many more that have been discoved by Astronomy.

The points are not as important as planets except possibly for the Ascendant and MC but can be very useful in analysis. The non-planetary bodies if they have any strength at all have it through Accidental dignity and actually assigning strength to them is a virtually impossible job because there is great disagreement by Astrologers.

Thanks Minderwiz, what a great explanation.

Thanks Mystic_Zyl,

I think this is one of the more difficult areas, especially for beginners because of the various approaches to Astrology. I was recently reading a book by an Astrologer who also practises as a psychiatric counsellor. Although there were some interesting points in the book, she kept referring to 'strong Uranus' or 'strong Neptune', etc without any indication at all on what criteria she had used these terms.

She seemed to assume either that people who had studied Astrology would 'know' or that those who hadn't would take her word for it. She didn't think that some Astrologers would use 'strong' in a different sense than her and might not therefore quite get the point she was making. It makes understanding more difficult, even for the experienced Astrologer.