The hanging soul: bipolar disorder and traditional astrology

The bipolar disorder is  is a disorder with periods of depression and periods of elevated mood, which in the humoral system is connected to the vapours of the black bile – the cold and dry melancholia- which predominates and obstructs the brain. Obviously the perfect remedy for this illness are hot oils warming and anointing the head and dissolving the corrupted bile.
Quoting Galen, Maimonides lists 16 signs of the disorder:

Aphorisms about lust

After having examined a little the afflictions of rational soul in the previous post, we can move to the afflictions linked with sexuality, which are grouped in traditional astrology under the file “afflictions of the sensitive soul.”
Andrea Argoli gives a list of aphorisms, very easy to check, to which I added two sample charts, in order to verify their effectiveness.

A case study of “disease of the soul”: Girolamo Cardano

One of the most important chapters of Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos is the one about the mind because, differently from what modern astrologers think, ancients were very attentive  to it, and in the same  time they were able to indicate mental problems or sufferings of psyche.

To test their method, which once and again is Ptolemy method we will use the birth chart of a famous Renaissance astrologer, Girolamo Cardano. So a controversial character could not in fact be forgotten. Cesare Lombroso, the founder of criminology, wrote one of his first works “on Cardano madness”  (( Sulla pazzia di Cardano, pagg. 24. Tip. Chiusi, Milano {Gazzetta Medica Italiana Lombarda, Milano, 1^ ott.). {Gazzetta Medica Italiana Lombarda,  Milano, 1^ ott., 1855). )) where discussed the thin border between between genius and folly.