Alain de Botton: Astrological Article and Chart

Horoscope and chart of Alain de Botton

Astrological portrait of Alain de Botton (excerpt)

Disclaimer: these short excerpts of astrological charts are computer processed. They are, by no means, of a personal nature. This principle is valid for the celebrities included in our database. These texts provide the meanings of planets, or combination of planets, in signs and in houses, as well as the interpretations of planetary dominants in line with modern Western astrology rules. Moreover, since Astrotheme is not a polemic website, no negative aspect which may damage the good reputation of a celebrity is posted here, unlike in the comprehensive astrological portrait.

Introduction

Here are some character traits from Alain de Botton's birth chart. This description is far from being comprehensive but it can shed light on his/her personality, which is still interesting for professional astrologers or astrology lovers.

N.B.: as this celebrity's birth time is unknown, the chart is arbitrarily calculated for 12:00 PM - the legal time for his/her place of birth; since astrological houses are not taken into account, this astrological profile excerpt is less detailed than those for which the birth time is known.

The dominant planets of Alain de Botton

When interpreting a natal chart, the best method is to start gradually from general features to specific ones. Thus, there is usually a plan to be followed, from the overall analysis of the chart and its structure, to the description of its different character traits.

In the first part, an overall analysis of the chart enables us to figure out the personality's main features and to emphasize several points that are confirmed or not in the detailed analysis: in any case, those general traits are taken into account. Human personality is an infinitely intricate entity and describing it is a complex task. Claiming to rapidly summarize it is illusory, although it does not mean that it is an impossible challenge. It is essential to read a natal chart several times in order to absorb all its different meanings and to grasp all this complexity. But the exercise is worthwhile.

In brief, a natal chart is composed of ten planets: two luminaries, the Sun and the Moon, three fast-moving or individual planets, Mercury, Venus and Mars, two slow-moving planets, Jupiter and Saturn, and three very slow-moving planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Additional secondary elements are: the Lunar Nodes, the Dark Moon or Lilith, Chiron and other minor objects. They are all posited on the Zodiac wheel consisting of twelve signs, from Aries to Pisces, and divided into twelve astrological houses.

The first step is to evaluate the importance of each planet. This is what we call identifying the dominant planets. This process obeys rules that depend on the astrologer's sensitivity and experience but it also has precise and steady bases: thus, we can take into account the parameters of a planet's activity (the number of active aspects a planet forms, the importance of each aspect according to its nature and its exactness), angularity parameters; (proximity to the four angles, Ascendant, Midheaven, Descendant and Imum Coeli or Nadir, all of them being evaluated numerically, according to the kind of angle and the planet-angle distance) and quality parameters (rulership, exaltation, exile and fall). Finally, other criteria such as the rulership of the Ascendant and the Midheaven etc. are important.

These different criteria allow a planet to be highlighted and lead to useful conclusions when interpreting the chart.

The overall chart analysis begins with the observation of three sorts of planetary distributions in the chart: Eastern or Western hemisphere, Northern or Southern hemisphere, and quadrants (North-eastern, North-western, South-eastern and South-western). These three distributions give a general tone in terms of introversion and extraversion, willpower, sociability, and behavioural predispositions.

Then, there are three additional distributions: elements (called triplicity since there are three groups of signs for each one) - Fire, Air, Earth and Water - corresponding to a character typology, modality (or quadruplicity with four groups of signs for each one) - Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable - and polarity (Yin and Yang).

There are three types of dominants: dominant planets, dominant signs and dominant houses. The novice thinks astrology means only "to be Aries" or sometimes, for example, "to be Aries Ascendant Virgo". It is actually far more complex. Although the Sun and the Ascendant alone may reveal a large part of the character - approximately a third or a half of your psychological signature, a person is neither "just the Sun" (called the sign) nor just "the first house" (the Ascendant). Thus, a particular planet's influence may be significantly increased; a particular sign or house may contain a group of planets that will bring nuances and sometimes weaken the role of the Ascendant, of the Sun sign etc.

Lastly, there are two other criteria: accentuations (angular, succedent and cadent) which are a classification of astrological houses and types of decanates that are occupied (each sign is divided into three decanates of ten degrees each). They provide some additional informations.

These general character traits must not be taken literally; they are, somehow, preparing for the chart reading. They allow to understand the second part of the analysis, which is more detailed and precise. It focuses on every area of the personality and provides a synthesis of all the above-mentioned parameters according to sound hierarchical rules.

Warning: when the birth time is unknown, which is the case for Alain de Botton, a few paragraphs become irrelevant; distributions in hemispheres and quadrants are meaningless, so are dominant houses and houses' accentuations. Therefore, some chapters are removed from this part.

For all paragraphs, the criteria for valuation are calculated without taking into account angles and rulerships of the Ascendant and of the Midheaven. The methodology retains its validity, but it is less precise without a time of birth.

Elements and Modes for Alain de Botton

Like the majority of Earth signs, Alain de Botton, you are efficient, concrete and not too emotional. What matters to you is what you see: you judge the tree by its fruits. Your ideas keep changing, words disappear, but actions and their consequences are visible and remain. Express your sensitivity, even if it means revealing your vulnerability. Emotions, energy and communication must not be neglected; concrete action is meaningless if it is not justified by your heart, your intellect or your enthusiasm.

Alain de Botton, Fire is dominant in your natal chart and endows you with intuition, energy, courage, self-confidence, and enthusiasm! You are inclined to be passionate, you assert your willpower, you move forward, and come hell or high water, you achieve your dreams and your goals. The relative weakness of this element is the difficulty to step back or a kind of boldness that may prompt you to do foolish things.

Air is under-represented in your natal chart, with only 4.22% instead of the average 25%. Air symbolizes the values of communication, exchanges with others, but also adaptability and flexibility abilities: if you don't get out of your cocoon to talk, to show interest in others, and to socialize, you may have problems understanding others. Because of your lack of flexibility or of your refusal to adapt yourself, you may be suddenly overwhelmed by events. You should get into the habit of talking, of phoning, and of thinking in terms of "mobility, flexibility, adaptability, change" in every circumstance. It will spare you so many troubles!

The twelve zodiacal signs are split up into three groups or modes, called quadruplicities, a learned word meaning only that these three groups include four signs. The Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable modes are more or less represented in your natal chart, depending on planets' positions and importance, and on angles in the twelve signs.

The Mutable mode is the most emphasized one in your natal chart, Alain de Botton, which indicates a mobile character that is curious and thirsty for new experiences and evolution. You are lively and flexible, and you like to react quickly to solicitations, but don't confuse mobility with agitation, since this is the danger with this configuration - and with you, stagnation is out of the question. Security doesn't matter as long as you are not bored. You optimize, you change things, you change yourself... all this in a speedy way.

Dominants: Planets, Signs and Houses for Alain de Botton

The issue of dominant planets has existed since the mists of time in astrology: how nice it would be if a person could be described with a few words and one or several planets that would represent their character, without having to analyse such elements as rulerships, angularities, houses, etc!

The ten planets - the Sun throughout Pluto - are a bit like ten characters in a role-play, each one has its own personality, its own way of acting, its own strengths and weaknesses. They actually represent a classification into ten distinct personalities, and astrologers have always tried to associate one or several dominant planets to a natal chart as well as dominant signs and houses.

Indeed, it is quite the same situation with signs and houses. If planets symbolize characters, signs represent hues - the mental, emotional and physical structures of an individual. The sign in which a planet is posited is like a character whose features are modified according to the place where he lives. In a chart, there are usually one, two or three highlighted signs that allow to rapidly describe its owner.

Regarding astrological houses, the principle is even simpler: the twelve houses correspond to twelve fields of life, and planets tenanting any given house increase that house's importance and highlight all relevant life departments: it may be marriage, work, friendship etc.

In your natal chart, Alain de Botton, the ten main planets are distributed as follows:

The three most important planets in your chart are the Moon, Jupiter and Neptune.

The Moon is one of the most important planets in your chart and endows you with a receptive, emotive, and imaginative nature. You have an innate ability to instinctively absorb atmospheres and impressions that nurture you, and as a result, you are often dreaming your life away rather than actually living it.

One of the consequences of your spontaneity may turn into popularity, or even fame: the crowd is a living and complex entity, and it always appreciates truth and sincerity rather than calculation and total self-control.

As a Lunar character, you find it difficult to control yourself, you have to deal with your moods, and you must be careful not to stay passive in front of events: nothing is handed on a plate, and although your sensitivity is rich, even richer than most people's, you must make a move and spare some of your energy for... action!

Jupiter, the planet of expansion, organization, power and benevolence, is quite emphasized in your chart. Like any Jupiterian, you are warm, open, sociable, consensual, active and optimistic. You can use your self-confidence to erase differences of opinion, and you leave the task of analyzing and perfecting things to specialists. Your role, and you know it since you were young, is to gather, to demonstrate your synthesizing and conciliatory mind, and to naturally reap its fruits - power.

You appreciate legality, social order but also order in general. With you as a leader, every plan or human entity can be organized and structured. You excel at supervising. The Jupiterian type is indeed the politician par excellence, and a positive Jupiter in your chart is synonymous with good integration into society, whatever the chosen path.

Is this idyllic picture really perfect? Certainly not: each planet's typology has its own weaknesses. One of yours is pride, like the Solarian, but your will of expansion at all costs may generate a form of exaggeration in everything, endless pleasure, inappropriate self-confidence that could lead you to rough materialism and the thirst for absurd material comfort - in the worst cases, of course.

With Neptune as one of your three dominant planets, you are a secretive and ambiguous person, often confused or unclear about your own motivations! Indeed, you are endowed with unlimited imagination and inspiration, as well as with an extreme sensibility that may turn you into a psychic or a clairvoyant. On the other hand, your impressionability is such that you may have difficulties in separating what is concrete and solid from illusions or dreams.

A mystic, a visionary or a poet, you daydream, like any Neptunian, and you see what few people only can see, all of this being shrouded in aesthetic mists when you are fired with enthusiasm.

A boundless, infinity-loving man like you is inevitably likely to be more vulnerable and easily hurt because of your acute perception of events. In such cases, you are hit full in the face, and you may sink into gloomy daydreamings and dark melancholy.

That said, this mysterious aura definitely gives you an indefinable charm in the eyes of your close friends who are often fascinated by your unique ability to feel and to see what ordinary people can never see!

In your natal chart, the three most important signs - according to criteria mentioned above - are in decreasing order of strength Sagittarius, Taurus and Scorpio. In general, these signs are important because your Ascendant or your Sun is located there. But this is not always the case: there may be a cluster of planets, or a planet may be near an angle other than the Midheaven or Ascendant. It may also be because two or three planets are considered to be very active because they form numerous aspects from these signs.

Thus, you display some of the three signs' characteristics, a bit like a superposition of features on the rest of your chart, and it is all the more so if the sign is emphasized.

Sagittarius, an adventurous and conquering fire sign, is dominant in your chart: you are enthusiastic, enterprising, optimistic, very sociable, and mobile - you have itchy feet, both physically and mentally. Nobody gets bored with you because you are always planning things and suggesting excursions, at least... when you are around and not already gone on a trip! Obviously, so many movements for one man may scare people off, and some of them may even criticize your brutality or your tendency to loose your temper, but you are so warm and genuine, so expansive, isn't this a good thing? And all the more so, since your sense of humour is overwhelming...

With the Taurus sign so important in your chart, you are constructive, stable, and sensual. Good taste, sense of beauty, manners, and unfailing good sense - all these qualities contribute to your charm and seductive power. Furthermore, if some people criticize your slow pace and your stubbornness, you rightly reply that this is the price for your security, and that you like the way it is - slow and steady....

With Scorpio as a dominant sign, you are a strong and astute person, complicated and passionate, sometimes destructive and intolerant, but strong-willed, tough and daring, sometimes bordering on aggressive. So many qualities and dangers combined in one person! Obviously, this often results in a natural selection of people around you: those who stand up to you or admire you and those who can't bear you anymore! But that is precisely what you want. You are what you are and you are not going to transform yourself just to please. You are too proud and you never dread confrontations, although your way of fighting is secret, like your nature that, mysteriously enough, you are so reluctant to reveal even to your close friends who will never understand you. That said... what a hellish charm you have!

After this paragraph about dominant planets, of Alain de Botton, here are the character traits that you must read more carefully than the previous texts since they are very specific: the texts about dominant planets only give background information about the personality and remain quite general: they emphasize or, on the contrary, mitigate different particularities or facets of a personality. A human being is a complex whole and only bodies of texts can attempt to successfully figure out all the finer points.

The Moon in Taurus: his sensitivity

Amoureux de la nature tout autant que de votre confort, vous êtes Alain de Botton, un épicurien désireux de profiter des belles et bonnes choses de la vie au sein d'un "clan" familial ou amical qui apprécie votre convivialité et votre amabilité. Fidèle, stable, les pieds sur terre, vous êtes quelqu'un sur qui l'on peut compter en toute circonstance. Attaché à votre sécurité affective et matérielle, la jalousie et la possessivité ne vous sont pas étrangères et vous pouvez, bien que de nature plutôt lente, vous montrer très rapidement colérique et agressif lorsque vous vous sentez menacé dans ces domaines. Vous ferez alors preuve d'un entêtement et d'une fureur rares et l'on aura bien du mal à vous faire changer d'avis. Même si vous êtes conscient que votre attitude n'est pas réellement adaptée, vous camperez sur vos positions et garderez une rancune tenace. Vous êtes cependant si sensible à la tendresse et aux marques concrètes d'affection qu'avec quelques cadeaux ou câlins, vous finirez bien par revoir tout en rose...

Mercury in Capricorn: his intellect and social life

Vous avez besoin Alain de Botton de vous concentrer sur un sujet, d'approfondir votre recherche et d'aller au bout de votre raisonnement avec persévérance et détermination. Vous êtes le type même du penseur qui a besoin de temps et souvent même d'isolement pour méditer longuement et laisser son esprit sérieux, méthodique et rigoureux donner sa pleine mesure. Mais vous avez également les pieds sur terre et les idées devront être suivies d'applications concrètes pour susciter votre intérêt, comme par exemple les mathématiques appliquées à la physique. Privilégiant l'essentiel, vous portez un regard lucide sur le monde qui vous entoure même si vous parlez peu et préférez agir avec prudence. On pourra peut-être vous trouver froid et ambitieux mais vos propos seront toujours sincères et empreints de bon sens. Prenez garde cependant à ne pas trop vous fermer aux autres en vous montrant comme quelqu'un de parfois hautain et intolérant...

Venus in Sagittarius and the Sun in Sagittarius: his affectivity and seductiveness

Dans votre thème, le Soleil et Vénus sont tous deux en Sagittaire. Sagittaire jusqu'au bout des ongles, vous pensez avant tout indépendance, exaltation sentimentale, esprit de découverte. Adepte des amours sans frontière, vous vous sentez en harmonie avec ceux ou celles qui échappent à vos sens, à votre entendement. Votre partenaire n'a de prime abord rien de commun avec vous ? Qu'importe ! Un couple n'est-il pas le plus merveilleux des creusets pour s'enrichir dans le respect mutuel des différences ? On aurait tort, cependant, de vous croire sens tabou ni référence sociale. Certes, votre ouverture d'esprit et votre spontanéité vous font accepter beaucoup, aimer et cultiver les différences. Mais vous savez mieux que quiconque dépasser les conventions sans les briser, surprendre sans heurter... Paradoxe : vous jouez avec le sens moral sans être amoral. En amour, vous êtes un gangster policé, un gentleman-cambrioleur des coeurs ou une adorable vamp. Reste le point fort d'une telle configuration : une faculté d'évoluer, de donner un élan neuf à votre couple lorsqu'il le faut. Car l'amour est une aventure, et ne saurait devenir autre chose. Rien avec vous n'est figé ou définitif. Et il y a fort à parier que vous ne laissiez pas s'éteindre les passions. Qu'on se le dise, et gare à qui montrera un esprit trop casanier !

Affectivement, vous êtes Alain de Botton, ouvert, franc et spontané et vous vous liez facilement tant votre enthousiasme peut s'exprimer avec jovialité, sans détours et avec un respect des valeurs morales bien établies. Dans certains cas vous pouvez être en opposition avec votre milieu d'origine ou votre famille en raison de votre goût pour la liberté, le dépaysement ou toute forme d'indépendance et d'émancipation. Vos sentiments sont ardents et vous vous emballez assez rapidement mais par contre, cette facilité à vous lier vous prédispose en conséquence à une certaine instabilité ; en d'autres mots, la fidélité n'est pas votre priorité essentielle tant que vous n'avez pas encore rencontré l'âme soeur. Les conditions idéales pour vivre au mieux vos sentiments amoureux sont de vivre en couple avec une certaine mobilité, faire des voyages, profiter du grand air, ressentir à l'intérieur de votre relation amoureuse cette liberté et cette indépendance dont vous avez absolument besoin depuis votre enfance et à ce prix, l'harmonie et la fidélité seront au rendez-vous.

The Sun in Sagittarius: his will and inner motivations

Mars in Pisces: his ability to take action

Votre énergie est distillée d'une façon un peu confuse et aléatoire, Alain de Botton. Ce n'est pas spécialement un handicap mais cela vous empêche un peu de planifier raisonnablement vos actions sur le long terme. Vous êtes un peu fantasque et dispersé, parfois hyperactif et voulant dévorer avec vos grandes dents de requin les obstacles qui se dressent devant vous, mais le plus souvent fuyant tout obstacle par simple facilité et désir de tranquillité. Vous avez horreur de tout affrontement et c'est plus par l'habileté et la souplesse que vous parviendrez à vos fins en vous faufilant adroitement au travers des difficultés que vous rencontrez. Vous possédez  beaucoup d'intuition et d'imagination et ces atouts compensent certainement le manque d'efficacité dont vous faites preuve à cause de votre manque de discipline sur le plan de l'action. Vous êtes de toute façon beaucoup plus efficace si vous travaillez pour une noble cause, en général collective, parfois politique ou spirituelle. Sur le plan sexuel, vous êtes fantasque et inclassable ; vous êtes si changeant et si malléable que finalement, vous pouvez passer d'un extrême à l'autre, généralement en fonction de la personnalité de votre partenaire car votre adaptabilité et votre souplesse sont bien réelles.

Conclusion

This text is only an excerpt from the portrait of of Alain de Botton, which we hope will inspire you to deepen your knowledge of astrology.

Since the birth time is unknown,, these portrait excerpts do not take into account the parameters derived from the time, which means, the domification (Ascendant, astrological houses, etc.). Nonetheless, these analyses remain accurate in any case.

Regarding the sources of the birth data in our possession, kindly note that the pages we publish constitute a starting point for more detailed research, even though they seem useful to us. When the sources are contradictory, which occurs rarely, after having analysed them, we choose the most reliable one. Sometimes, we publish a birth date just because it is made available, but we do not claim that is it the best one, by no means.