Mental Chemistry in the Birth Chart

by Bob Makransky
Life is like bodysurfing: Most of the time, youre just standing there, waiting
for the right wave to come; then when it does come, you have to hurl
yourself into it at precisely the correct moment and ride it to shore. If
youre a little too slow or a little too fast or if it wasnt the right wave
youre left standing right where you were.

Dr. Marc Edmund Jones came up with a simple technique that indicates
whether a person is too slow, too fast, or just right in grabbing and riding
the waves of life.1 He called it mental chemistry, and it is shown by the
combination of two horoscope factors:
1. Whether the Moon is relatively slow or fast in its daily travel;
2. Whether Mercury rises before or after the Sun.

The Moons relative speed shows a natives perceptual capabilities: how a

person processes information, whether his or her perceptions are alert (fast
Moon) or deliberate (slow Moon). The Moons daily travel is simply the
difference between the Moons longitude at midnight (or noon) Universal
Time before birth and its longitude at midnight (or noon) UT after birth.
Because this averages 1310 (13.37) per day, we will define a natives
perception to be alert if the Moon was moving faster than this on the day of
birth and deliberate, if the Moon was moving more slowly than this.

In the words of Al H. Morrison: The fast Moon scans rapidly with a

wide-open search pattern. If there is anything going on, anything new or
unfamiliar, anything different from expectation, it is instantly perceived. In
a complex environment, as most social environments are, there are so
many details and processes to notice that the fast Moon native has his
mind receiving an avalanche of input, fresh data.2

On the other hand, Where the Moon is slow in its apparent motion, the
natives perceptual capabilities are focused, or directed toward observing
whatever the native is motivated to seek, or has been conditioned to pay
attention to, or whatever he fears. Other information is simply not
perceived, not observed. This leaves the mind relatively lightly burdened,
with minimal input of perceived data to process.3

The Moons speed, however, does not merely symbolize how fast
information is gathered and processed; it also describes how people gather
themselves together and gird themselves for action. The natives whose
perceptions are alert move quickly to get on top of a situation: Their
immediate impulse is to attack. They like things to be clear and definite and
aboveboard, so they are nonplused by subtleties. When they have a bee in
their bonnet, they have no patience for any other point of view, nor are
they interested in exploring possible consequences and ramifications
they dont even want to hear about such things. They move by impulse and
instinct; they make up their minds immediately, and once their minds are
made up, they cannot be budged or moved to reconsider. In conflict, they
try to take their opponents by storm, to overwhelm them, to give them no
space in which to move. Their actions and reactions are quick and decisive.

In contrast, natives whose perceptions are deliberate move slowly and

hesitatingly: Their immediate impulse is to draw back. They approach
things by indirection, by outflanking the situation, by bogging things down
and operating under the cover of confusion. Where the alert types act like
sharks, the deliberate types act like octopuses hiding on the bottom and
masking their intentions in a cloud of murk. In conflict, these individuals
refuse to expose themselves but rather outwait their opponents, letting
them make the errors.
The other horoscope factor that makes up a persons mental chemistry is
Mercurys position relative to the Sun at the moment of birth. If Mercury is
located earlier than the Sun in the zodiac so that, at dawn on the
birthday, Mercury has already risen (is in the 12th house) then the
natives attitude is said to be eager. Whereas if Mercury is located later
than the Sun in the zodiac so that, at dawn on the birthday, Mercury is
still beneath the horizon (in the 1st house) then the natives attitude is
said to be certain. (See Table below.) The difference here lies in how people
categorize information, interpret it, and fit it into preconceived patterns,
whether these be individualistic (eager) or conventional (certain). This is a
process of reason or self-consciousness rather than one of knee-jerk
response.
Mental Chemistry Table of Elements
BODY FACTOR TYPE
Moon Fast (moves more than 1310 in 24 hours) Alert
(relative speed) Slow (moves less than 1310 in 24 hours) Deliberate
Mercury Rises before the Sun (earlier in the zodiac) Eager
(relative to the Sun) Rises after the Sun (later in the zodiac) Certain
Note: When the Moon moves at, or very close to, average speed, the alert/
deliberate distinction blurs; likewise, when Mercury is conjunct the Sun, the
eager/certain distinction is of less importance. At these points, therefore,
the Mental Chemistry technique is not as revealing as it is at the extremes.
In the words of Leyla Rael, The Epimethean [certain] Mercury type of
person tends to react to life more cautiously and based on past experience
(either his or her own personal experience or according to traditional,
cultural patterns). But while such a person is at best thorough and
objective, mentally free from many purely emotional prejudices, at worst
he or she can cling almost obsessively to obsolescent ideologies or display
a conservatism bordering on rigidity. The Promethean [eager] Mercury type
of person tends to leap into life with his or her mental antennae fully
extended to receive information. While such a person may be able to act
based on a compelling inner vision of what is possible and at best may
be flexible, prophetic, and responsive to the needs of the moment at
worst he or she may be merely conniving, facile, and crafty, going this way
or that according to his or her own advantage.4

Another way of saying this is that the certain natives need to be sure of
themselves before they act they need to feel that their actions will meet
the approval of their social milieu. Thus, they are restrained and oriented
toward goals and purposes. These natives interpret the world in terms of a
guiding philosophy of social responsibility in which each member must do
his or her own share, and they are scrupulous in observing their part of the
bargain. They play the game by the rules whatever they conceive those
rules to be. They are wary and dutiful, and they put their faith in principle
and obligation.

The eager natives, on the other hand, are unrestrained and

experimentative. They dont need any social authority to sanction their
actions, but rather they follow their inclinations of the moment. They do
what is expedient or convenient rather than what will be thought
praiseworthy by others. They are optimistic and freewheeling and able to
bounce right back whenever life slaps them down.

The Mental Mix

When there is a perceptive alertness combined with a rational certainty
(fast Moon and Mercury rising after the Sun), then the native is quick to
react but possesses a powerful governor on his or her impulses. An
example of this alertcertain type is Abraham Lincoln: He was a shrewd
and opportunistic politician, but his conscience and sense of responsibility
for the consequences of his decisions made him a target for the radicals
and extremists surrounding him.

Contrariwise, when there is a perceptive deliberation combined with a

rational eagerness (slow Moon and Mercury rising before the Sun), then the
native is slow to react but possesses compensatory flexibility and
adaptability. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln as president, is a
good example of this deliberateeager type: He held fast to his principles in
complete isolation but always managed to come out on top first, as the
only Southerner to remain in the U.S. Senate after the secession of the
Southern states and, later, by successfully defending himself against a
trumped-up impeachment.
In both of these cases, there is a healthy balance between the perceptual
and rational faculties: These natives are able to resolutely hold their ground
in the face of confusion and to marshal their resources effectively to deal
with situations as they arise. They are able to grapple directly with the
problems of life and to take things as they come to recognize which
waves are the right waves and to know when to hold back and when to
jump forward.

But when perceptive alertness combines with rational eagerness fast

Moon (alert) and Mercury rising before the Sun (eager) or when
perceptive deliberation combines with rational certainty slow Moon
(deliberate) and Mercury rising after the Sun (certain), then the perceptual
and rational faculties are out of balance. Natives of these types are easily
thrown off their stride or confounded by situations requiring quick
decisions. They dont really pay attention to what is going on around them,
but rather only to their own reactions. The alerteager types become
flustered, and the deliberatecertain types become obstinate. In either
case, these unbalanced natives tend to fall out of synchronization with the
speed of their environment: Alerteager natives move too fast, and
deliberatecertain natives move too slow their suggestions and actions
are inappropriate.
Whereas the balanced types have self-control or an instantaneous analysis
that reacts to sudden changes by stiffening to attention, the unbalanced
types tend to either overreact or underreact alternating between
overweening cockiness and fierce indignation with no middle ground of
calm discernment. Thus, they tend to waste their energies in ineffectual
posturing and are more interested in proving something or making an
impression than working with other people. These natives are too set in
their manner of being, too wrapped up in their own self-images, too self-
satisfied, to make allowances for changing conditions or different types of
people they dont really know how to interact. So, they tend to be
escapists to obsess over a niggling sense of personal privilege rather
than effectively deal with the realities of the situations and relationships in
which they find themselves.

In the words of Dr. Jones, When the effective set of mind shows the
combination of rational eagerness and perceptive alertness, the life is
usually characterized by an altogether unnecessary impatience. The native
is inclined to stumble over his own toes most of the time, and he is apt to
end up with actions and associations that not only fail to fulfill their promise
but often handicap him very seriously by exhausting every potentiality of
his make-up.5 Basically, what happens is that these natives are overly
intense and pushy. They tend to blow minor issues out of all proportion
and, conversely, to trivialize matters of the greatest urgency and
seriousness. They run around in circles and dont get anywhere. They set
up a myriad of compulsive routines and are greatly annoyed whenever
these are challenged or abrogated by circumstances. They have a fitful,
flighty energy that is never comfortable or in repose; they are constantly
fluttering and fussing about, making this or that unnecessary adjustment to
the environment, to arrange everything neatly so that they can finally relax
but of course, they rarely do. They are constantly preparing for a future
that never comes.
Chemical Imbalance
John Brown affords an extreme example of the alerteager type (see Chart
1): His natal Moon was very fast (1513 per day), and his Mercury was six
days from Greatest Western Elongation, which is as far from the Sun on the
eager side as it can get (earlier in the zodiac).6 Brown was a rabid
abolitionist and the instigator of the Potawatomi massacre in Kansas, where
many innocent people were killed; he then led an abortive attack on the
federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, aimed at fomenting a slave insurrection.
John Brown, likely more than any other single person, made any last-
minute reconciliation impossible between the North and South. He pushed
an already strained situation beyond the point of no return: The John
Brown raid had jangled Southern nerves fatally. It started a chain of
hysteria like the great fear of 1789 in the French Revolution. Rumors of
slave insurrection popped up on every side.... Extremists on both sides
whipped up hostile sentiment between sections.7 The alerteager types
are not so much ignorant of consequences as they are contemptuous of
them. They shoot from the hip, push things to the limit, and stampede
other people with their impatient absolutism.

In contrast, consider the opposite unbalanced type. According to Dr. Jones,

When the reason demands a continual certainty and the perceptivity tends
to be deliberate, the individual is apt to withdraw within himself to an
extent that hardly is to his interest and perhaps indeed to slip off into
altogether abnormal practices and points of view.8 Such deliberatecertain
natives are perverse and contrary. They delight in phlegmatic
wrongheadedness, in controlling things by being in no particular hurry.
They make good diplomats, because they are willing to spend years holding
out for the precise shape of the conference table or the order of seating
around it. They are more concerned with form and decorum than with
substantive issues. They tend to confuse indifference with disinterest,
obduracy with strength, stodgy pride with nobility of spirit. They will not
budge an inch from their inflated sense of dignity and righteousness until
they are completely overwhelmed by events, and then their responses are
usually too little, too late. They tend to be preoccupied with self-
congratulations, gloating with smug pride over a past that never happened.

William Jennings Bryan (see Chart 2) provides a very extreme example of

the deliberatecertain type: His natal Moon was very slow (1147 per day),
and natal Mercury was three days past Greatest Eastern Elongation, which
is as far from the Sun on the certain side as it can get (later in the
zodiac). Bryan is principally remembered today as a thrice unsuccessful
presidential candidate and the butt of defense attorney Clarence Darrows
ridicule during the famous Scopes Monkey Trial; however, Bryan
championed many Populist causes that were later adopted. Still, in typical
deliberatecertain style, he tended to look back rather than forward.
Although he was well versed in the Bible, he was ignorant of many other
topics particularly economics, his supposed specialty. In Theodore
Roosevelts words, Bryan represented a kind of rural Toryism, which
wishes to attempt the impossible task of returning to the economic
conditions that obtained sixty years ago.9 Historian Richard Hofstadter
points out that Bryans problem as a politician was that, despite his
brilliance in focusing the popular sentiment of the times, he always followed
behind his public rather than leading it.10

What counsel can astrology give to these unbalanced natives? This is not
a terrible affliction, nor is it uncommon half of all horoscopes are
unbalanced. These natives are likely quite content with exactly how they
are. They may seek respect more than effectiveness or economy of action.
This counsel is directed more toward the balanced half of the population
who might wonder how to understand and deal with the unbalanced types.
The alerteager natives need to have their quirks indulged; learn to
tolerate their little obsessions and prerogatives that is, be as alert as
they are and thus avoid their tripwires. Conversely, the deliberatecertain
types require a lack of bother or hurry a patience greater than their own.
This will prove to them that you mean business and thus win them over. In
either case, you can get the unbalanced natives attention and cooperation
by outdoing them at their own games: giving them the respect they need,
so that they feel comfortable and can open up and relax into a situation or
relationship. Dealing with the unbalanced types is a good spiritual lesson in
flexibility and agility exactly the qualities needed to catch lifes waves
and ride them rather than get thrashed by them.