Note
Going back to ancient times, astrologers claimed that some men were predisposed to enjoy sex with other men, according to the conjunction of the planets at their time of birth. The sexual inclination, whether homosexual or heterosexual, was thus fixed at birth and part of one's destiny. The words "inclination" and "orientation" of course refer to "direction", hence the common eighteenth-century phrase "unnatural inclination" is equivalent to the modern phrase "homosexual orientation".
Of the Disposition of Men to Modesty, Virtue, or Vice.
The disposition of men only as to modest or vicious habits, depend much upon Mars; for if he be separating from Saturn and Venus, and aided or applying to Jupiter, he inclines men to be modest and decent in their intercourses with the other sex, and disposed oly to the natural use; when he is found with Saturn alone, and he alone, they will be languid, dull, and cold.
Again, if Jupiter and Venus ge configurated to Saturn and Mars, the native will be inclined to acts of venery secretly, but will endeavour to avoid the shame.
If Mars and Venus are alone in aspect together, or if Jupiter bears testimony to them, the native will be openly lascivious, indulging himself in all excesses with women; but if one of these stars be occidental, and the other oriental, in Quartile or [p.182] Opposition, he will then be disposed to both men and women, but not above measure; if both these planets be found occidental, configurated, the native's company should be avoided, for he will burn with unnatural lust after men and boys; if the aspect falls in masculine signs, the inclination is most astonishingly inclined to this very infamous, abominable, and most shocking practice.
Further, if Venus be alone in an occidental place, he will mostly have intercourse with the meanest and most prostituted part of women; but if Mars be alone in this position, he influences the person to have a propensity to married women, eminent ladies and modest, continent amongst the single women. [p. 183]
SOURCE: Astrology. The Wisdom of Solomon in Miniature, being A New Doctrine of Nativities, reduced to Accuracy and Certainty; or, The Art of Determining Future Events by the only True Method, the Radical Figure of Birth, by C. Heydon, Astrophilo, Printed for A. Hamilton, 1792, pp. 182-183.
CITATION: If you cite this Web page, please use the following citation:
Rictor Norton (Ed.), "Astrological Predisposition, 1792",
Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 23 April 2007
<http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/astrolog.htm>.
Return to Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England