Progressions and Progressed Charts VS External Factors

[Darth MI]

One tendency I notice many in the astrology community (especially modern astrologers) tend to do is point much of the recent personality changes in a persons life and events he experienced is due to minor and Tertiary progressions and/or the progressed charts.

I am wondering where the fine line comes into attributing personality change and recent events to progressions VS freewill, the environment, and other external factors out of the natal chart's control.

I mean what if my progressed charts state I am now in an Earth dominated chart but I instead come out as airy in actual personality because I read a lot and been indulging into intellectualism?

Or what if I become as paranoid as Scorpio? But it is not so much due to progressions but because I had a recent traumatic experience such as witnessing a burglar murder my parents?

Or what if I stopped doing sports and went into art instead. But because I lost my legs in a car accident so I can no longer indulge in sports like the Aries I used to be. So instead I get into more "Piscean" pursuits? Would I even become more Pisces-like in the first place if the accident never happen? Or would I remain the same Aries personality regardless if my ascendant and sun sign both progressed into Pisces if the car accident never happened?



Can external events absolutely overturn what progressions say or at least downplay them?

 

[dadsnook2000]

Obviously

When accidents, choices or interactions with another bring an out-of-prior-life-context event then the chart can appear to no longer apply to the subject or to mirror the subject's life. This is obvious.

What is less obvious is that one can choose to grow beyond or outside of their chart as might be indicated by an astrologer's knowledge of the craft. As Rudolph Steiner noted in his work early in the 1900's, people are beginning to change their expression of their planets. This is to be expected in an ever-complexing society. Mars is not always representing anger, action, surgery, accidents, hurt. Mars on the Ascendant of famous TV game show host (in the U.S.) Bob Barker was expressed on TV as "presence." He was the smoothest speaker and manager of people and control over the flow of the show -- a model for toastmasters the world over. Yet, in his more private life his Mars expressed itself as an animal activist. He personally funded the Green Peace ship so that whales could be protected. He, in effect, personalized his Mars. I've seen this in other charts.

As astrologers we have to grow with our clients, their lives and their challenges. It isn't as easy as it was a few hundred years ago. My opinion.

 

[Ronia]

Progressions do color a personality, quite so, in my experience. Note that by prgressions I mean progressed Moon mostly, Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars, especially when changing sign or forming a tight aspect between each other or with a natal. With progressed Moon it is indeed visible. On a different note if we go by cookbook definitions like the ones you cited about Scorpio or Aries, then it won't be visible indeed because it is way too simplistic and most often untrue. But if you look more carefully, you will see how your personal progressed planetschanging their signs and/or aspects color you ina different way. Accidents areMarsian by nature and would mostly be transits + directions, I don'tsee hpw apersonality background as wide as progressions produce would lead to anything related todoing or not doing this or that. Pluto oftenbrings dramatic endings to oneway of life or another, in all possible ways, as well.By transit.

 

[Minderwiz]

I'm not sure I know what 'personality' is beyond a set of responses to psychological tests - that is it's an academic concept and whether it is innate or learned is the subject of great debate. That it exists is something we all agree on but the theories about what causes it or how it is derived are plentiful. So in a sense the answer to the question depends on which theory of personality you are using and how that theory tries to measured what it perceives as personality.

We can of course observe behavioural changes and we might infer that some of these changes are consequent on a change in personality. There are no doubt some theories of personality that look on it as permanent and behavioural changes are only adaptions of that personality to changes in the environment. I'm not going to explore those possibilites but merely point out that the question is predicated on something that we find difficult to demonstrate to the satisfaction of all.

So I'll modify the question and consider whether behavioural changes might well be signified by progressions or transits of planets. Indeed I could well extend that to other forms of Astrological events such as Directions or the Time Lord systems that show up as dashas in Jyotish or Firdaria in Arabic Astrology.

I think there's enough evidence to show that Astrology can identify such turning points in behaviour and can reasonably accurately characterise the nature of that change by reference to the type of Astrological change involved . Whether those changes are due to changes in the external environment which lead to changes in 'personality' or whether they are the results of spontaneous changes in mental processes, I don't know and really have little interest in discovering (otherwise I'd have become a psychologist).

The other key issue raised is the extent to which the planetary changes 'cause' behavioural change or whether that change can be the product of 'free will'. We've had this discussion before, though I don't think we are going to settle the issue LOL.

We don't have perfectly free will. We have to live and operate within the constraints both physical and societal that surround us. The extent to which we can do that varies according to a number of factors some are 'spiritual' in the earlier meaning of the word, some are familial and of course many are physical. Astrology can give an insight into how well a person will cope with the circumstances of life based on a natal chart. We could call this 'personality' or 'psychology' or simply 'eminence'. At all stages in it's existence, Horoscopic Astrology has tried to do this usually with a good degree of success.