The romance between the sixth and the ninth houses.

Let me introduce you to someone you will be hearing a lot about. Roland G. Fryer Jr. is a 27 year old assistant professor of economics at Harvard. Yes, 27 is young to be any kind of professor anywhere.

My reason for writing about Fryer is because of my interest in the intuition of economics, for lack of a better word, or what happens in the romance between the sixth and ninth houses. One of the best combinations of this I've seen -- statistics and religion, is in the life and genius of Florence Nightingale. I quote here from a book by K. Pearson:

[Of her:]
"Her statistics were more than a study, they were indeed her religion. For her Quetelet was the hero as scientist, and the presentation copy of his Physique sociale is annotated by her on every page. Florence Nightingale believed -- and in all the actions of her life acted upon that belief -- that the administrator could only be successful if he were guided by statistical knowledge.

"The legislator -- to say nothing of the politician -- too often failed for want of this knowledge. Nay, she went further; she held that the universe -- including human communities -- was evolving in accordance with a divine plan; that it was man's business to endeavor to understand this plan and guide his actions in sympathy with it. But to understand God's thoughts, she held we must study statistics, for these are the measure of His purpose. Thus the study of statistics was for her a religious duty."

K Pearson, The Life, Letters and Labours for Francis Galton (1924).

 

I must admit when I first read this quote of Nightingale's, I couldn't fathom finding God in something so small, dare I say so pinheaded, as statistics. I thought of those guys that sit at the intersection with a notebook ticking off cars that pass by. I wonder ... do they do it with stick figures, like this? What a job!

Why? Why would statistics be so important? I think because they are the first cousin to history, the side car to history, the batboy to history.

There is a very fertile relationship between the sixth and ninth houses, a cross-pollination.

Factually observing human behavior, which is a 6th house activity (very small, "Virgo" ), tells us what really happens at that intersecton where the guy is sitting in his baseball cap in a foldout chair. And in the macro it tells us about the evolution of the species just as much as history, an understanding of culture, or the pursuit of religious aspiration. It tells us about the inevitable evolution of the species, the "like it or not" evolution, not the idealistic evolution.

The reason statistics about human behavior are so revealing is because it takes us out of the province of the idealist. What do people really do? We're not asking what they answer that they do on a Gallup poll but rather what they actually go out and do. Working out of the 6th house is sort of like looking through someone's garbage. It might be said that the 12th house is your psychological, familial or cultural closet. Well, the 6th house is your real closet. Your garbage can. Your dump heap. Your toxic waste bin. Man, know thy waste!

If we listen to the old statistician's joke, "I know a man whose feet are in the freezer and whose head is in the oven, who, on average, is quite comfortable", that is the very worst combination of the sixth and ninth houses. It is holding the telescope by the wrong end.

Here's an example of the reality of statistics versus the idealism of expectation or protestation. Do Americans believe in marriage? Yes, of course they do. But wait a minute. Then why don't they ever stay married in droves? People say they believe in marriage but their behavior is quite different than that so what really do they believe? Where are we going with this, we, the Species? Not "Where do we WANT to go?, or "Where SHOULD we go?" but simply (sixth house) where ARE we going regardless of our beliefs if they differ from our actions? The sixth house is about walking it.

So where are we going? Probably no where we haven't already been. Serial monogamy, like the gorillas? Unabashed promiscuity like the chimps? Have you ever wondered why so terribly much was made of the Germans' fidelity by the ancient Romans who scrutinized them across the Rhine? It says much more about the Romans and their view of marriage than the Germans. The Germans seem to have stood out of all tribes everywhere in the ancient world for their fidelity in marriage. Not so, the Romans, cultural progenitors of most of us.

Marriage has almost always been important to the social fabric but "we, the people" act as we please in such matters. We say we eat healthy but in our trash you may find Little Debbie pecan pie wrappers and bourbon botles.

If we are not theologians or moralists, we are interested in this reality because we are not idealists trying to change people, we are sixth house observers standing at the cosmic corner of evolution making marks on our paper . We're trying to get to know this thing that has recently started to walk upright on two feet and read God's mind.

So let's pretend we are visiting the human zoo today, paper in hand, and for the rest of this article be willing to observe ourselves with new eyes.

Every metaphysical system operates on the premise of neutrality or being able to see what is clearly before you. This sounds easy but it's about the hardest thing there is to do and I'm about to give you a terrific example, so stay tuned.

It's what is meant by "becoming invisible" to something, to a situation, so you can feel the way the energy is moving. That way you are (1) safe and can be (2) powerful.

Here's an example of neutrality. I am teaching a class and getting to the part where I talk about sexuality when suddenly someone jumps up and runs out of the room. I can assume that this person is offended and be angry. Or I can simply observe: Jeri just got up and left the room. I will ask her why later.

It turns out Jeri just remembered she left the keys in the trunk of her car and had to make a mad dash to the parking lot. She was sorry to miss some of the lecture.

Something like this happened when I was teaching an astrology class during 911. Now, I am an American and a patriot and I was frightened and outraged by what happened in New York on September 11. But I would not automatically assume that "God" is on the side of Americans. That's simplistic. One of my students was upset that I wasn't emotional enough about 911. "What if "God" means for the Arabs to take over the world soon?" I asked. She got madder but honestly, how can someone presume to know such a thing ... certainly not a metaphysician or someone who has studied history. We have no way of knowing God's mind until we become neutral and that is what I was trying to do.

A brief review of history informs us, "one day you're up, the next day you're down". It is not realistic to believe that America will always be on top. In fact, it's absurd. Ask anyone in the United States of Europe. Look at the Roman Empire, the Hapsburg Empire, the German Empire. The Arabs were supreme during the Dark Ages. Why would they not be again? We wait to see God's answer through time.

Naturally I hope I'm always where it's up and not down but perhaps that will not be God's will for me. I await God's will in all matters for it is my will under God to serve, to bloom where I am planted.

Particularly in a crisis, one must stand still, be centered and neutral, so one can feel which way the energy is going. Then, act swiftly and decisively.

If there is one thing I try to teach my metaphysical (spiritual) students it's this principle. Learn to see. Rather, learn to look. This means unlearning a lot of things. Let me explain.

As children, we are heavily indoctrinated with all sorts of things and one of them is what we see and do not see. In families where there is drugs, alcohol and addiction, for example, what you see is never what you really see. You are told how to interpret your environment ... Daddy was "under the weather" this morning, not hungover. Mommie was "feeling sick" last night, not drunk. It wasn't "really" Bubba who stole the things from the garage, it was the drugs that made him do it.

Those are some gross examples. Suppose I'm out cruising and see Dr. Martin, the high school principal, duck into a bar in the seedy side of town. I tell my grandmother [this is a true story] and she tells me, "That wasn't Dr. Martin. Dr. Martin is a married church going man and would never do something like that."

Suppose Daddy tells me it's impossible to find a job these days but plainly Becky's father just got one.

These things eventually convince us that we don't know what we know and didn't see what we saw.

Well, Roland G. Fryer, Jr. is a man who saw what he saw and I'll get to that in a minute. First I'd like you to take a close look at this engraving from an 18th century book about maritime trading. What's everybody doing? We'll see how good your sixth house powers of observation are ... how capable you are of just seeing what you see.

image credit: Bibliothèque Nationale - click to see enlarged
1725 engraving by Serge Daget

This is the offical PBS explanation, from their website.

"Le Commerce de l'Amerique par Marseille, the book this engraving came from, would have been the book for you if you were the captain of an 18th century merchant ship looking for a "how to" on maritime trade.

"The 1764 publication offers information about the trade of tobacco, cotton, indigo, etc., as well as captive Africans and the "precautions to take in buying slaves, and how to transport them to America in good health."

"The book included this 1725 engraving by Serge Daget entitled An Englishman Tastes the Sweat of an African. Accompanying the engraving was a numbered list of descriptions in French, the numbers of which corresponded to those on the image.

1. Negroes displayed for sale in a public market.

2. A Negro Slave being examined before being purchased.

3. An Englishman licking the Negro's chin to confirm his age, and to discover from the taste of his sweat that he is not sick.

4. Negro Slave wearing the mark of slavery on his arm. (1)" [end of quote from PBS]

When you were looking at the picture, how did you explain this? Did you see it but sort of not see it, passing over it unconsciously?

If you even paused long enough to attempt some sort of explanation, you have the makings of a great sixth house person! Sixth house people observe human behavior. They are behaviorists in psychology and economics.

In an article in the New York Times, March 20, 2005 entitled Toward a Unified theory of Black America, it says:

"[Harvard ecconomist Edward L.] Glaeser and [Roland] Fryer, along with David M. Cutler, another Harvard economist, are the authors of a paper that traffics in one form of genetic theorizing. It addresses the six-year disparity in life expectancy for blacks versus whites, arguing that much of the gap is due to a single factor: a higher rate of salt sensitivity among African-Americans, which leads to higher rates of cardiovascular disease, stroke and kidney disease."

 

It further explains:

"Fryer's notion that there might be a genetic predisposition at work was heightened when he came across a period illustration that seemed to show a slave trader in Africa licking the face of a prospective slave. [emphasis mine: do you see how insidious this is, this thing about not seeing what you plainly see? ... incredulous as it seems because we are conditioned not to believe this, it's either that or a kiss!] The ocean voyage from Africa to America was so gruesome that as many as 15 percent of the Africans died en route, mainly from illnesses that led to dehydration. A person with a higher capacity for salt retention might also retain more water and thus increase his chance of surviving.

"So it may have been that a slave trader would try to select, with a lick to the cheek, the "saltier" Africans. Whether selected by the slavers or by nature, the Africans who did manage to survive the voyage -- and who then formed the gene pool of modern African-Americans -- may have been disproportionately marked by hypertension. Cutler, a pre-eminent health economist, admits that he thought Fryer's idea was 'absolutely crazy' at first. (Although the link between the slave trade and hypertension had been raised in medical literture, even Cutler wasn't aware of it.) But once they started looking at the data, the theory began to seem plausible."

Let's learn to see what we see. Let's learn to look. It is so much easier to develop your intuition and trust it! Fryer did a terrific job of it. That's why I wanted to write about him and use this example. Evidently Fryer could and did see what he saw and that started him thinking. In a minute you'll see how some others reacted.

This story reminds me of plate tectonics. Here is a diagram from Santa Barbara City College Department of Biological Sciences.

When you look at this, it makes it hard to realize how long we went denying how the puzzle had once fit together, doesn't it? I remember looking at a world map as a kid and seeing all the pieces locked together but I kept it to myself. So many of my observations and perceptions were considered as "absolutely crazy" as Fryer's so I kept my exciting world discoveries quiet!

In college I took an advanced literature seminar on the Arthurian legends including the Grail Quest myths. At last, I thought, a place where I can be smart! I wrote what must have been a very Jungian paper on the first myth we read. It was returned with a B-minus and the comment, "stick to the subject". Imagine how thrilled I was when I finally discovered Jung in my early thirties. That really was the Holy Grail! It was the first time in my life I had encountered another intuitive -- at last, someone who speaks my language.

The problem with being intuitive is that less than 30% of the people in the world have this ability, well, gift. Those who are not intuitive react in various ways. Some think we are stupid, that we are not "thinking" but jumping to conclusions. Others think we make things up or "read into things".

I can hear them now. "Fryer, you're nuts. What makes you think that man is licking that other man. You're projecting."

Or "Fryer, no white man would lick a black man, let alone in those times. Get out of town!"

Plainly, the white man is licking the black man. In all things in life are you willing to see what you see? That's the starting point.

It was Fryer's intuition that came up with the hypothesis. I love economics because it's no Ivory Tower. When someone spends their money it's real. Fryer went from the sixth to the ninth house and back to the sixth to prove his theories.

The sixth house is day-to-day trends, the way money is spent, changes hands, what is considered vauable, what is not.

Fryer is also wondering why black school children don't do as well as white. Is it genetic? [see paper on first two years disparity] He's using money in an interesting way. According to the New York Times, he " recently ran a pilot experiment with third graders at P. S. 70 in the Bronx. If a child achieved a certain score on her reading test or improved by a certain percentage, she got a small prize. In some classrooms, every student competed for herself; in others, each kid was assigned to a group of five. Fryer is trying to find out whether ... individual or group incentives work better. He suspects the latter -- 'because no stigma of being the smartest kid applies.' But the P.S. 70 data was inconclusive.... At P.S. 70, the rewards had been pizza parties or field trips. [Next] time around, Fryer plan[s] to give cash -- $10 per good test for third graders and $20 for seventh graders...."

Fryer also questions the results of naming children distinctively African American names. [see paper]

As I read this, I wonder how come everything intuitives do is so daring, so different. I mean that facetiously. It's cause the other 70% aren't intuitive and don't see what is plainly before them.

This is why I think intuition is on the evolutionary edge of the species. Someday the ratios will be reversed, 70% introverts. Intuition is an alpha characteristic in the 21st century. Look at how links work, how google works, better yet, how google ratings work. They work like intuitives think.

Clearly people are motivated by money. Why not give some to these kids and see what happens? What if other kids outside the test program are jealous? What if we're giving them the wrong message: i.e., education is for its own sake.

Interesting. I had a client who was an idealist working for Spanish language groups around the country. He was a humanitarian. I'm a humanitarian. But he spit on business and more particularly on the very businesses that paid his big fat pay checks.

"Business is fantastic," I said. "People are motivated by money," I said. "If you convince some company that selling to Latinos their way will make them money, they'll break every ethnic barrier so fast it will make your head swim." He has finally had enough experience to come round to my way of thinking.

We must look for the intelligent ways in which the sixth and ninth houses are tied together. At the bottom of the this article is a bunch of references, one of which is about the place where law and economics meets.

It is one of the horrible ironies of life that sadistic Nazi medical experiments resulted in medical knowledge that later on saved innumerable lives. It is bad news that war technology advances all technology. It is quite fascinating that the plague began to appear concurrent with the precession of the equinoxes through Pisces and the birth of Jesus Christ, Jesus being the twelfth house macro and little invisible virus things being the sixth house micro. It is less than ideal that people will do things for money they should do from common sense or decency or to get ahead in the world but that's just the point. Less than ideal is, well, more real.

 

"I could prove God statistically. Take the human body alone—the chances that all the functions of an individual would just happen is a statistical monstrosity." -- George Gallup

 

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Nancy R. Fenn is America's Saturn Return expert.
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Footnotes and Further References:

(1) PBS