Solstitial Gates

Definition

The solstitial gates are the two doorways of soul-passage set at the solstices. One is Cancer, the summer solstice and the Sun's northernmost point, tied to the Moon; the other is Capricorn, the winter solstice, ruled by Saturn. In Porphyry's On the Cave of the Nymphs 20-24, as Greenbaum reports it, these are the gates of the Mithraic cave through which souls were held to descend into and ascend from incarnate life. Mithras himself stands at the equinoxes, midway between the two, ruling over them.

In Tradition

Greenbaum draws the picture from Porphyry's De antro. The two gates are associated with the lights and with Saturn. Cancer pairs with the lights — it is the Moon's own sign and holds the Sun at its summer-solstice height — while Capricorn pairs with its ruler Saturn. Porphyry places Mithras near the equinoxes so as to stand midway between the solstices and govern them. Greenbaum reads the gates as Hellenistic-era Mithraic-astrological doctrine and cross-references the account of soul-descent and soul-ascent that Porphyry takes from Numenius.

In Practice

This is a piece of the cosmology behind the chart rather than a calculation to run, so let it shape how you understand the soul's journey through the zodiac. Picture the wheel as having two great gates at its solstice points. Souls coming down into bodily life pass through the Cancer gate of the Moon; returning souls rise through the Capricorn gate of Saturn. The equinoxes — Mithras's station — hold the balance between descent and ascent. Read it as the imaginative frame Porphyry gives to incarnation, the backdrop against which the lights and Saturn carried their meanings of coming-into-life and passing-out-of-it.

Historical Origin

The doctrine is reported by Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum in The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology (2016), pp. 208-210, drawing on Porphyry's On the Cave of the Nymphs (De antro nympharum) 20-24. That text places the gates of soul-descent and ascent in Cancer and Capricorn and sets Mithras at the equinoxes; Greenbaum cross-references Numenius's account of the soul's passage.

Etymology

Origin: Greek. Meaning: the gates at the solstices (Cancer and Capricorn).

Further Reading

• Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology
• Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs