Robert Zoller and the Trans-Saturnian Planets

Recently I participated in a discussion in an online forum about Robert Zoller’s use of the “modern” planets. This discussion grew out of comments made by Ben Dykes in a 2020 Astrology Podcast commemorating Robert Zoller in which Dykes stated that, as a student of Zoller, he was taught to remove outer planets and asteroids from his astrology charts and to use only the seven traditional planets:

“ ‘What am I really doing astrology for when I can’t rely on some of these things [the outer planets and asteroids] as crutches?’… ‘If I don’t have, let’s say, these outer planets or asteroids and if I’m taking things out of the chart and making it look cleaner and simpler, I’m starting to ask myself what kinds of explanations do I have for what’s happening in the chart?’ So we start to realize and reexamine, what are the tools that we have been relying on and how can we strengthen them and enrich them with traditional concepts, and also in a sense, cleanse ourselves of some addictions that we might have as astrologers. So having more points in the chart does not mean more wisdom, could be another way to put it. So he’s forcing you to rely on wisdom and deeper concepts instead of larding up the chart with points. That was one of the very first things that happened, and it was a really good education and way of reexamining how I thought about astrology.”

The characterization of the outer planets as “crutches” and “addictions” in the above comments, I believe, does not present a full picture of Zoller’s view or use of the modern planets, which clearly evolved over time. I first met Bob in the 1980s at an astrology conference and we spent time chatting about his interest in ancient Latin texts and his efforts to translate Bonatti. Bob was a student of Zoltan Mason in NYC, and it was Mason who introduced him to the work of Morin de Villefranche and encouraged him to read the traditional astrological texts in their original languages. Bob’s study of Morinus profoundly influenced his approach to delineating charts, and he endlessly repeated aphorisms from Morin’s tome, especially from Book 21.

Morinus, who had such a profound influence on Zoller’s thinking, discarded much of traditional astrology as superstitious nonsense. Morin rid his astrology of decans, faces, terms, traditional triplicity rulers (he developed his own system), profections (annual, monthly and daily), and the use of universal signifiers as particular indicators in charts. Zoller, in contrast, worked hard to retrieve and restore what Morinus had thrown in the garbage. Morin, of course, was unaware of the outer planets. Most likely he would have incorporated them into his astrology, probably in the same way he used fixed stars, if he found empirical evidence of their effectiveness.

Interestingly, Zoltan Mason, who was Bob’s teacher, regularly used the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto as co-rulers, respectively, of the signs Aquarius, Pisces and Scorpio. Zoller himself, in his 1981 book Tools and Techniques of the Medieval Astrologers, followed Mason’s lead and combined the use of both the traditional and the trans-Saturnian planets in his experimentation with medieval techniques, mostly those of Bonatti who had learned them from Latin translations of Abu Ma’Shar. Unfortunately, Bob had miscalculated the angles and cusps of his natal chart, which he used extensively in his experimentation with the medieval techniques. His Asc and MC in the 1981 text are almost a degree earlier than the correct values, so his predictions using primary directions are off by about 10 months.

In presenting the length of life technique described by Bonatti, Zoller concludes that his length of life. based on the seven traditional planets, is likely to be about 82 years, but because of the influence of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in his chart, he would need to shorten it to 72 years. Bob was impressed that the 72 years, as calculated using both the traditional and modern planets, agreed with the length of life indicated by the method of William Benham in his book The Laws of Scientific Hand Analysis. In fact, Zoller died at age 72, just one day before his 73rd birthday anniversary. One has to wonder what role the power of suggestion played in his demise.

Robert Zoller’s birth chart cast for 7:59 AM EST in Mount Vernon, Westchester, NY.
In his 1981 text, Zoller mistakenly cast the chart for Sullivan County, NY, which give an Ascendant of 11 Pisces 13′, and he used the incorrect earlier Ascendant degree in his calculation of continuous profections, thus introducing a timing error of about 10 months.
He regarded Pluto in the Placidus 6th house as being determined, as Morin would say, toward illness because of its placement in the 6th. He also stated that the profected Asc at age 2, being at 11 Taurus 13′ in his original calculation of his chart, was square to Pluto in the 6th, correlating with his serious illness just before he turned 2 years of age and his spending his 2nd birthday in an iron lung in the hospital. With the correct chart, the square of the profected ASC to natal Pluto at age 2 is even more exact.

Regarding Zoller’s evolving view of the use of the “modern planets,” Bob said the following in a 2006 interview with Garry Phillipson (italics mine):

“So, the bottom line is, you can do whatever you want to do, and you’ll probably do best following your own opinion and your own light. But my light on this situation in astrology, what I have tried to do, has been to give myself a firm foundation in medieval astrological techniques (which I see as being superior to either Greek or Babylonian astrology or to New-Age astrology) and then make whatever adaptations I feel I have to make to those techniques, such as the inclusion of the use of the modern planets.”