Dame Detrimentia: A Case of the Antiscia or A Close Shave

Dear Dame Detrimentia,
My girlfriend does astrology. She told me recently that I have an antiscion on the Imum Coeli. My Latin isn’t all that good. Is she trying to tell me that I have dandruff on my elbow?

Flustered in Liverpool

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No dear,
Imum means ‘bottom’ in Latin and so I don’t think your girlfriend is referring to your elbow at all; she would have mentioned your anti-vertex (the joint in your prime vertical ) if she did. But as she is mixing her Latin with her Greek perhaps she is being coy and hinting that you need to stand a little closer to your razor when shaving? Antiscia is the Greek for ‘opposite shadow’ and so I think she is referring to your 5-o’clock beard shadow, which may have exfoliated all the data off her chart when your two Nativities were embracing by Synastry.

Do use your mirror correctly in future when shaving dear Flustered, and then your antiscia will be correctly trimmed: a stubbly or frayed antiscion can be so irritating to those of us with sensitive charts. I rather suspect you have been taking your razor along the malefic Aries/Libra axis of the contrantiscia and not the beneficial Cancer/Capricorn axis of the antiscia.

Now, stand in front of your natal chart and make sure that your software preferences have been set to show your natal planets and sensitive points in their correct Zodiacal placements. Print this page out and pin it to the bathroom wall. Then take a two sided shaving mirror and stand it upright perpendicular to your chart across the solsticial points of the Cancer/Capricorn axis, et Voila! You will immediately see the mirror image or ‘shadow’ of all your planets correctly aligned each by antiscion. You can then adjust your razor blade accordingly.

Do you see in the mirror how it all works out?

By this ‘shadow’ placement:

• your natal Moon at 3* Gemini will have its antiscion at 27* Cancer
• Your natal Sun at 29* Leo will have its antiscion at 1* Taurus
• Your natal Mercury 15* Virgo will have its antiscion at 15* Aries
• Your natal Venus at 23* in Libra will have its antiscion at 7* Pisces
• Your natal Mars at 5* Scorpio will have its antiscion at 25* Aquarius
• Your natal Jupiter at 19* Sagittarius will have its antiscion at 11* Capricorn
• And your natal Saturn at 3* Cancer will have its antiscion at 27* Gemini

They should both add up to 30 degrees you see! And potency is imbued into this relationship because the two degrees so connected have their midpoint upon a solsticial degree, a fact that was stressed long ago by Pythagoras when he first noticed his beard was getting a little moth-eaten.

That master barber of all time Firmicus Maternus tells us that he was taught to shave via the antiscia by Hipparchus in the 2nd century BC, long before electric razors were invented, and my dear friend and contemporary William Lilly will be glad to assist you if you require further help with your personal hygiene routine, because on page 90 – 93 of ‘Christian Astrology’ he gives you a handy little chart that enables novices such as yourself to guide their razors through the signs.

He also reminds us that: “As there are antiscions, which of the good planets we think are equal to a sextile, or trine; so are there contrantiscions, which we find to be of the nature of a square or opposition; and to know where it is, you do no more than observe in what sign and degree the antiscion is, in the sign and degree opposite to that place the contrantiscion is.”

And so I think that what your girlfriend is trying to tell you dear Flustered, is the reason you are finding it so uncomfortably prickly to sit down, is that you should not really have been shaving your Imum Coeli at all! I shall refer you to Dr Nostuabuk who will prescribe some soothing Imum Balm.

Reflectively yours,

Dame Detrimentia (C.E.)
(Caroline Allen)