Les Cahiers du

RAMS

Issue 15 - july 2007

Pluto: "downgraded" from planet to "dwarf" status.

The commentaries on the problem of the downgrading of Pluto made at an astronomical congress held in 2006 lead to some reflections which I will summarise in the seven following points.

1/ The fact that Pluto is in an orbit far removed from the Sun must be taken into consideration as should the fact that it is accompanied by other astronomical bodies which are constantly being discovered and described in increasing numbers.

2/ The causal hypothesis advanced by one French and two American researchers some years ago according to which the planets of the solar system should have an effect on the Sun, remains valid. However much research obviously remains to be done in this field which has now became much less “fashionable” given the great developments in astrophysics.

3/ The theory which I have put forward on several occasions concerning the action of electromagnetic radiation directly on the Earth to explain the nature of astrological phenomena is hardly conceivable for Pluto, be it considered an ordinary planet or a dwarf, given its enormous distance and its very small size. Pluto, it should be remembered, completes its orbit in 248 years.

4/ The "symbolism" of Pluto used by many astrologers is one of violence, danger etc.. This symbolism is much too restricted according to my personal observations. Indeed, although I have not published these results because of their insufficient number from a scientific and statistical point of view, it seems to be well established that Pluto is related to a certain nonconformism and also a sense of research in some, unspecified, field which might be concrete, abstract, moral, etc. These analyses must be continued and will be published when possible.
With regard to "transits" for example, the passage of the erstwhile planet Pluto was Pluton on the Sun , Mars or Venus in their place in a chart : I have a certain number of most interesting cases but not yet enough, so far, to justify publication. However they indicate the possibility of a connection between a transit of the ex-planet Pluto, now relegated to dwarf, and elements of life which are very significant but also very long term because of the time it takes to circle the Sun. It would be necessary, for example, to accumulate five hundred cases, at least, of Pluto on the Sun or Pluto on Mars to make scientific statistical comparisons of the stages in the lives of the five hundred individuals tested. The work - a lot of it - remains to be done.

5/ It is undoubtedly appropriate in this short article, to recall the definition of the zodiac according to astronomers. Convention positions objects, including the` Earth, in orbit around the sun. It is extremely simple as a definition but seldom used clearly in all the current literature relating to Pluto and its demotion. In this conception of the zodiac, it should be considered that in the place of Pluto it is not at all problematic to put "dwarf planet" plus a certain number of other elements; indeed it can be a question of a zone of the sky which remains to be studied from a scientific point of view, both astrophysical and astrological, and is in no way contradictory with the definition of the zodiac given above.

6/I would remind you here of my study on sociability according to the various sections of the 360° of the zodiac. I showed, in irrefutable test on 524 student subjects, each of whom filled in a questionnaire of 630 questions, that the variation in the characteristics of personality does not change brutally from one sign of the zodiac to another, but is progressive and to some extent sinusoidal. Thus there are not just twelve distinct symbolic zones, but twelve stages of progressive evolution (see article RAMS n° 11, 2003). It is with this in mind too that it is necessary to renew study of the zone occupied by the redefined dwarf planet once called Pluto.

7/Thus it is time to take stock of the points outlined here: any opinion of a problem as difficult as the consequences of "downgrading" Pluto in the solar system must necessarily involve precise scientific and statistical research as well as astrophysical research of a causal nature.

S. Fuzeau-Braesch
Docteur d'Etat es Sciences