First of all, thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to allow me to use your chart for this study. In my last post I was working with the charts of 22 “Intuitive” types (people who use intuition as either their dominant or auxiliary function in the cognitive function stack). I now have 31 to work with, with 10 of those being Ni users and 21 Ne users. I feel that for now I should retract the part of my theory that suggested “Ne” is associated with masculine inner planets (Sun/Mars) contacting outer Uranus and/or Neptune, and “Ni” being associated with feminine inner planets (Moon/Venus) contacting Uranus and/or Neptune. There is still a very high correlation with Ne/Ni users having inner planets in contact with outer planets; but Ni users, so far, have contacts from outer planets to masculine inner planets just as often as feminine inner planets. See my last post (Part 2) for more details on that.
Updated statistics: 84% of my sample of Intuitives have Uranus in contact with a personal planet in their chart (up 3 percentage points from my previous data). 87% have Neptune in contact with a personal planet in their chart (down 9 percentage points from my previous data, but still a significant percentage). 74% have both Uranus and Neptune in contact with a personal planet in their chart.
Moving forward, one of my contributors asked if perhaps contacts to personal planets and Pluto played a role in showing Intuitive types in a birth chart. The results so far: 87% of Intuitive users have an aspect between Pluto and a personal planet in their chart (same rate of frequency as Neptune). As Pluto in astrology is connected with the Underworld (and therefore hidden things), I was curious to see if there is any correlation with birth charts of people with a preference for Ni (Introverted Intuition) and a higher rate of Pluto to personal planet contacts, than for Ne users. Since the previous idea that masculine/feminine personal planet contacts to outer planets correlating with a preference for Ne or Ni is, so far, not true, I wanted to see if maybe it has more to do with the outer planet in question showing a preference for Ne or Ni.
The results so far: Ne Users: 82% of Ne users have contacts between a personal planet and Pluto, 86% have contacts between a personal planet and Neptune, and 91% have contacts between a personal planet and Uranus.
Ni Users: 90% of Ni users have contacts between a personal planet and Pluto, 80% have contacts between a personal planet and Neptune, and only 60% have contacts between a personal planet and Uranus.
Based on my extremely limited sample size for Ni users, there does appear to be a slightly higher occurrence of Pluto/personal planet contacts for Ni users over Ne users, while Ne users more often had contacts from Uranus. I’m hoping this will remain consistent as I gather more participants, because it really would fit the definitions of Ne and Ni so well, with Ne being focused on many possible ideas, and Ni more convergence of many ideas (system-building). Time will tell if this holds up!
Essential Dignities, Planetary Friendships, and role in Dominant/Auxiliary Function
I also got a tip from another person that I should consider essential dignities of planets in this study. The QRD on essential dignities is that planets operate at greater strength or weakness in a birth chart relative to the signs they are placed in. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the most basic part of it anyway. A planet is considered to be operating at its strongest when placed in the sign it rules (Venus in Libra/Taurus, Mars in Aries/Scorpio, etc.). Such a planet is called “in domicile.” A planet is considered to be operating at its weakest when placed in the sign opposite of what it rules (Venus in Aries/Scorpio, Mars in Libra/Taurus, etc.). The second strongest placement for a planet is called “exalted,” and the second weakest placement for a planet is called “in fall;” a planet is in fall when it’s in the opposite sign of where it’s considered exalted.
Beyond that, planets also have planetary “friendships” with each other. When a planet is in a sign ruled by a planet it is “friendly” with, it’s said to have a “friendly” position in the chart. I would consider this less strong than domicile or exalted, but more powerful than in fall or detriment. A planet in a sign ruled by a planet it is “enemies” with is said to have an “inimical” position in the birth chart, which I would consider weaker than in domicile, exalted, or friendly, but still stronger than fall or detriment. Some planets are “neutral” with each other and so planets placed in a sign ruled by a planet it’s neutral with has a neutral position, which is just right in the middle of all possible placements in terms of relative strength.
What does this all mean for MBTI correlations? I first checked to see which planet has the strongest position in each subject’s birth chart. Sometimes, one or more planets would tie for the strongest position, which I also considered (this occurred in 8 charts). Then, I checked to see if the strongest positioned planet aspected the outer planets in the chart.
The results: In 94% of cases, the strongest positioned planet in the birth chart aspect an outer planet. This is true for 95% of the Ne/Ni dominant users (ENTPs, INFJs, and ENFPs were my samples) and 89% of Ne/Ni auxiliary users (INTPs, INFPs, and ENFJs were my samples). Conversely, when I checked to see if the weakest planet by sign position in the birth chart aspected an outer planet, this occurred 58% of the time across all Intuitive user samples. As for the 8 charts with 2 or more planets tied for strongest position, 63% of them had both tied planets aspecting an outer planet. 25% of those charts had two personal planets tied for “first,” but only 1 of them aspecting a personal planet. One of the charts had three personal planets tied, and two of their 3 strongest placed planets had an aspect to an outer planet.
One chart had all five of their personal planets placed in “friendly” position; therefore had no strongest or weakest planet. However, 4 out of 5 of their personal planets were in aspect to all three outer planets.
More research is needed, but so far it does appear that essential dignities and planetary friendships aspecting outer planets do correlate with a preference for intuition. As far as which outer planets contact the strongest placed personal planet, the results were distributed nearly evenly between Uranus and Neptune, at 48% and 45% of the time, respectively, and 35% of the time for Pluto.
A Quick Note on Chart Ruler and Intuitive Users
I also checked how often the chart ruler (ruling planet of the Ascendant) came into aspect with an outer planet. In 74% of cases this was shown to be the case; a weaker rate of occurrence than for planets in the strongest position in the charts.
Summary
- There is still a strong correlation between outer planets Uranus and Neptune in a birth chart aspecting personal planets among Intuitive MBTI types.
- Additionally, there is an equally strong correlation between Pluto aspecting personal planets in the charts of Intuitive MBTI types.
- Former speculation that a preference for Ni or Ne can be determined relative to the feminine or masculine nature of the personal planets in aspect to outer planets no longer appears to be true.
- There is a strong correlation between outer planets aspecting the strongest placed personal planet(s) in a birth chart and preference for Ni/Ne.
More participants are needed!
If you would like to contribute your birth chart for research purposes and also know your MBTI, please Contact me! I am looking for ALL MBTI types, including Sensing types (people who use Si/Se as their dominant or auxiliary function, xSxx letter code).
Astrotomey 