Cazimi, under the sunbeams & combust: the conjunctions of the Sun

Hello again, and welcome back. After some correspondence with a friend  this week I decided to start publishing my own database on astrology. This database has been built up over the last 13 years using the interpretations editor of my computer software.  It has been systematically added to over that time with all of my observations and discoveries and I use this as my raw material when writing an  astral vision of someones birth chart.  It is now so huge that in places I can no longer add to it, the software having reached a limit to its capacity. It represents every aspect of my personal experience with astrology and so in the time intervening between writing my next entry I will be posting bits and pieces of this database for people to use, ignore or think over.  Today I give you some of my thoughts on the general nature of conjunctions with the Sun.

The corona of the Sun is so bright that any planet within about 8° of the Sun will not be seen at all. This is called being ‘combust’. Even beyond that point and up to about 17° away the brightness of the Sun is still overpowering and the planet is faint. This is called being ‘under the sunbeams’. If a planet is right at the core of the Sun, within 0° 17′, then it is utterly consumed and this is called being ‘cazimi’.

So there are really three kinds of solar conjunction – cazimi, combust and under sunbeams – each of which has a somewhat different effect. Planets ‘under the sunbeams’ are said to be mildly debilitated, with this weakness increasing the closer they come to the Sun. So conjunctions between 8-17° still count as conjunctions with the Sun.[1] Closer than 8°, the weakness of the planets is said to increase to a higher degree, which is called being combust.[2] This is considered a more serious weakness implying a restriction of power and strength, as the fierceness of the Sun burns away the principle of the planet. Finally, when in the very core of the Sun at 0° 17’ or less, a planet is cazimi and is briefly strengthened by its contact and union with the solar principle, being reborn and re-forged in its own depth of being and these are conjunctions finding a true alignment between the inner self of the individual and the principle of the planet. They are often described as bestowing some kind of brilliance or genius.

This seems rather unfair since it means that there are no strong solar conjunctions except those which are almost exact, until you realise that the mainstream writings on astrology have a political philosophy which evaluates strength and power purely in material terms. A ‘good’ chart is one that makes us rich easily, ensures our perpetual emotional bliss and provides us with all that we want. The view is materialistic. But with the conjunctions to the Sun, the attachment to materialisation itself is dissolving.

Thus, what is being made combust is the detritus and silt of the planet, the outer material crust which interacts with the physical material world in which power and strength are measured very tangibly and crudely. The power of these planets is not destroyed it is simply being transferred to more spiritual and intangible realms which are sourced within. This transference is made by the fusion of our conscious awareness to and with what the planet represents, by the casting of our inner light upon it in a dazzling illumination of its entire realm and a command of that realm in our own being. The dross burns away in the light of awareness and we see the principle of the planet with brilliant illumination, but within ourselves.

Cazimi, then, leads to the most enchanted state wherein the essential meaning of the planet becomes truly inseparable from our spirit. If the planet is in a superior conjunction with the Sun (on its far side) then the effect will be stronger, because superior conjunctions represent a ‘Full Moon’ stage of the planetary cycle.[3] A cazimi Venus, for example, could easily be a nymphomaniac or ‘sex addict’, for example. It could also be a person with near supernatural charm, grace or insight into the world of feelings. Under the sunbeams a planet is warmed and vitalised and somewhat or completely invisible, meaning it is commanding and infused with our inner light but somehow ‘on the fringes’, lacking in conventional status. It becomes ethereal, alluring, unusual and dreamy. Combust planets are unorthodox and often willfully defy external direction because they are confident in their own inner unique grasp of the planets essential meaning. They are either aloof from or disinterested in the material agenda of the planet concerned but will still display its power radiantly and forcefully but somewhat enigmatically and individually.

Short answer: when a planet becomes non-visible because of the Suns light it becomes less physical and more astral in focus.

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[1] Since Mercury is very often within at least range of being under the sunbeams, the vast majority of people live with something similar, whereas with Venus there is frequently more distance and thus objectivity. This is part of the nature of Mercury – thought is more tightly bound to consciousness than emotion and it is thus more difficult to gain objectivity on its operations.

[2] Astrologers have not concluded whether conjunctions which take place at the end and beginning of signs, causing the aspect to be ‘out of sign’, still count as a combustion or even as conjunctions, but my experience is that they do.

[3] Note that all planets except Mercury and Venus always form superior conjunctions with the Sun, as only Mercury and Venus can form inferior conjunctions. The inferior conjunction is therefore connected with the integration of the poles of the personality, thought and feeling, with the light of our being.  If we were living on Mars, then Earth could also form an inferior conjunction with the Sun, and so on.