personal planet
Mars shows directed force: the capacity to cut, compete, defend, pursue and act before consensus has formed.
Conflict is one expression of Mars, not its whole meaning. The same placement can describe courage, stamina, technical precision or the clean use of anger.
52 sourced claims: 50 traditional , 1 modern , 1 contested
The chart meaning above and Agrippa's magical names are different kinds of information. Read the Mars planetary-magic page for its nature, numerical-square intelligence and source-specific angel lists.
Square intelligence: Graphiel
Agrippa's first-list angel: Khamael
In Hermetic Qabalah, Mars is assigned to Geburah (Severity). Follow the name to see the sources for that place on the Tree.
Mars shows directed force: the capacity to cut, compete, defend, pursue and act before consensus has formed.
Conflict is one expression of Mars, not its whole meaning. The same placement can describe courage, stamina, technical precision or the clean use of anger.
Lilly’s Mars signifies soldiers, surgeons, smiths, heat, sharp instruments, contention and acts requiring boldness.
Historical language is paraphrased rather than silently modernised.
Agrippa places Mars images in Mars's hour, with Mars rising in a martial face. The figures carry a sword or lance.
He says they were made for courage and success in war or conflict. Some of his examples also use martial force to inspire fear or cause harm.
Agrippa connects Mars with courage, anger and conflict. His Mars list includes fire, iron, sharp plants and fierce animals. Martial images are intended for strength and victory, but the book also allows for harmful uses of that force.
Summarized from Agrippa's account of the planet and the things he places under it.
Graphiel
Printed at 325, the square's square total.
Camael
This is Agrippa's first list. He gives another list in the same chapter; neither list names the square intelligences.
Zamael
Agrippa gives this alternative name a few lines after his first list. These are not the names printed with the squares in Book II.
Mars is the outermost of the rocky planets and the first planet beyond Earth’s orbit in the traditional sequence.
Astronomical description, not an astrological meaning.
These historical opinions were published around 1900 by astrologers writing for a Theosophical readership. They are not this site's conclusions; each quotation names its author and page.
Mars in the first house shows shortness of life and scars on the head or face; in the second poverty and troubles;
Rosa Baughan, The Influence of the Stars, p. 267 — T. Fisher Unwin, London, fourth edition, 1889 · Project Gutenberg, ebook 42889
Mars in the fifth house denotes a very unsettled and inharmonious home life, in which discord and disputes are frequent.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 174 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
Mars in the seventh house when afflicted denotes quarrels and unpleasant conditions in the marriage state.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 187 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
Mars in the eighth house indicates a liability to a violent or sudden death. If much afflicted this is a very evil position, but Mars alone in this house will not kill the native, although the end whenever it comes will be sudden and after an illness of short duration or by shock or accident.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 198 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
Mars in the ninth house denotes an over-enthusiastic nature with regard to religious and philosophical subjects, and tends to destroy reason or to allow impulse and desire to overrule the mind. If much afflicted it gives fanatical, irregular, bigoted or sceptical opinions on religious matters; if well aspected a zealous and enterprising mind.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 204 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
Mars in the twelfth house denotes strange and unfortunate adventures, in which grave dangers to the native are to be apprehended if he is shown to act more from impulse than reason; to decide this the position and aspects of Mercury must be studied.
Alan Leo, How to Judge a Nativity, p. 228 — Modern Astrology Office, London, this printing 1928 · The 1928 printing, scanned
Leo's book does not cover every planet in every house. Passages whose scans could not be read reliably are also omitted.
Two astrologers, both writing around 1900: Alan Leo, whose How to Judge a Nativity is the only one of these books arranged as a lookup table — a paragraph per planet per house; and Sepharial, who arranged the same material by the question a reader brings rather than by placement, so only a few of his judgements stand alone well enough to quote.
William Lilly is not included here. Christian Astrology (1647) is the most important book in English on the subject and appears elsewhere on the site, but the available scans use long-s blackletter, and the OCR renders the title of its own first book as “An Introduci ion to Aftrologje”. There is those scans do not support reliable quotation extraction. The same limitation applies to Ripley's Compound of Alchymy and Anderson's Constitutions elsewhere on the site.