Declination/OOB

Forgotten Astrology
Declination and Out-of-Bounds Planets

Alexander Kolesnikov

Parallels are important

In the 19th century, Zadkiel wrote in The Grammar of Astrology that “…the zodiacal parallel is of more
importance than any other aspect. The effect of this position is exactly the same as that of a close conjunction,
but more powerful”.

W.A. Bishop-Culpeper, in a paper dated 1899, also emphasised the importance of parallels: “The most
powerful aspect of all is the Parallel of Declination… Then come the Conjunction and Opposition, almost
equal to the Parallel but not quite”.

In the 20th century, Charles Jayne wrote in Parallels: Their Hidden Meaning: “Some charts cannot be
interpreted in their main thrust if declination is omitted”.

And John Willner in his booklet The Powerful Declinations, published in 2014, stated: “My experience has
been that no horoscope is complete without declinations, and an astrologer would miss better than half of
all aspects in natal and progressed charts if they were not included. They provide an enormous amount of
information”.

So, there are several astrologers who believed or believe that parallels are very important. And yet, in the
contemporary astrology there are very few people who are using them, and many experienced practicing
astrologers aren’t even aware of their existence.

But what are parallels? They are the aspects of declination. And what is declination? I’m glad you’ve asked!

What is declination?
At this point, most books and articles about declination and the aspects of declination dive straight into a pile
of technical details and astronomical diagrams. And many, many readers decide that declination is something
very technical and boring, and therefore unnecessary. It’s like, they wanted to watch a TV, and someone came
and started explaining to them the basics of electronics, and what a TV set is made of. Instead of simply giving
them a remote control and explaining briefly which buttons to press to switch it on, to change channels, and
so on.

I believe an astrologer can be happily and productively using declination and the aspects of declination
without immersing her or himself into the tedious technical detail, in the same way they can watch TV without
being an electronics graduate. So let me offer a simple explanation of declination first.

A Simple Explanation
A simple and sufficient explanation of what declination is, would be to say: it’s the second dimension. Like
in geography we use two dimensions, longitude and latitude, to define the location of a city. If we were using
only one dimension, longitude, we could think that Edinburgh in Scotland and Timbuktu in Mali are very
close to each other as they have almost the same longitude, about 3º West.

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However, in mainstream contemporary astrology we do exactly that, we use only one dimension, longitude (it
is called ecliptic or celestial longitude). When we say that someone’s Venus is, say, in 12º 34’ of Taurus, that’s
the longitude of Venus, expressed, as it is customary in astrology, in the signs of the zodiac, their degrees and
minutes. An astronomer would measure the same longitude from 0 Aries and get a value of 42º 34’. But this
is just one dimension. And when you believe that some planet in a natal chart is in conjunction with a fixed
star, the actual distance between them, in the second dimension, can be comparable to the distance between
Edinburgh and Timbuktu.

So, declination is the second dimension that allows us to precisely specify where a planet or some other
celestial body is situated in the sky. Like geographic latitude, it is measured from 0 to 90º and can be North or
South.

If two planets are close to each other in longitude, they make a conjunction. If they are close in declination,
they make a parallel (I will write about the orb of parallel a bit later, but to start with, we can use a 1º orb).
If the declinations of two planets are close to each other by value, but one of them is North while the other
is South, that’s a contraparallel. Some astrologers (including Jeff Mayo, Barbara Watters and Charles Jayne)
believe that parallel is similar to conjunction while contraparallel is like opposition. But there is also a
substantial group of prominent astrologers (including Charles Carter, Ronald Davison, and Sepharial) who
consider parallel and contraparallel as more or less the same aspect. Personally, I believe that there is some
difference between parallel and contraparallel, but it isn’t as big as between conjunction and opposition.

If two planets are close to each other both in longitude and declination, which means they indeed meet in the
sky that is a very strong aspect that some schools of astrology call occultation while others prefer to say it’s a
planetary eclipse.

So that’s a sufficient primer, I believe, on declination and the aspects of declination, for most practical
purposes. What’s left is to show where to find declinations of planets. But that is easy, as all popular
astrological software packages I am aware of do provide this information. Here is, for example, a listing of
planetary positions for Prince Charles, created in Astro Gold software (Figure 1).

There is a column for longitude, and another

column for declination. You can see that the
declination of Venus is quite close to the
declination of Neptune, so these two planets
are in parallel. The declinations of his Jupiter
and Uranus are also close by value, but Jupiter
is South while Uranus is North, so that’s a
contraparallel.

I like the way Astro Gold displays the aspect

grid; you can see all the aspects at a glance,
both in longitude (in the lower left half of the
grid) and in declination (in the upper right
half). Solar Fire displays a similar grid. Here is
such an aspect grid for Prince Charles (Figure 2
on the next page).

Figure 1: Planetary positions for Prince Charles

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 So, you could easily incorporate the aspects of
declination into your practice. The only possible
difficulty is that you cannot see them in a natal
chart. The chart is flat, while we can imagine
that declination is measured in the direction
perpendicular to the chart.

But now I’d like to say a few words to those

who do want to have a precise definition of
declination.

A Precise Definition (for Technically

Minded)
The precise definition of declination is quite
simple: it’s the distance of the planet from
the celestial equator. It is actually very close
in the way it is measured to the geographical
latitude, which is measured from the equator
of the Earth. And here is a curious fact: we are
using one dimension, the ecliptic longitude,
from one system of celestial coordinates, the
Figure 2: An aspect grid for prince Charles ecliptic system, and the second dimension,
declination, from another system, the equatorial.
We could use the second dimension from the
ecliptic system as well, it is called ecliptic or celestial latitude, and there are aspects of latitude, parallels and
contraparallels, but there are not so many astrologers who are using them. One reason for this is that most
planets are travelling very close to the ecliptic, so their celestial latitudes are quite small. We would have to
use very narrow orbs for the aspects of latitude.

But also, using the celestial equator as a reference line gives parallels of declination a special meaning. It
positions the planets making such aspects similarly relative to the equinoxes and solstices, they are as if
mirroring each other relative to the important axes of the world, 0 Aries – 0 Libra and 0 Cancer – 0 Capricorn.
Parallels of declination are very close to the traditional antiscia. In fact, planets in antiscia will always be in
a parallel of declination, if their celestial latitudes are zero. Charles Jayne classified antiscia as one of three
kinds of parallels of declination.

I believe it was also Charles Jayne who mentioned that since the celestial equator is the projection of the
Earth’s equator, declination and its aspects, measured from the celestial equator, are especially meaningful
when studying worldly events. And indeed, one can notice that aspects of declination are usually valued in
the branches of astrology dealing with real world events, such as astrometeorology and financial astrology.

Regarding the Orbs for Parallels

I used to use 1º as an orb for all parallels and contraparallels, but when I found out that the Magi Society,
which uses the aspects of declination extensively, recommends 1.2º, or 1º 12’, I started using their orb.

However, Charles Jayne reasoned that planets that are close to the equator (i.e., their declinations are
relatively small), move in declination quickly, so their parallels quickly form and quickly separate. On the
other hand, planets that are close to the tropics (i.e., their declinations are close to their maximums) move in
declination very slowly, so they can stay in a parallel or contraparallel for a long time. As a result, when using
the same orb for all planets, in any chart there are more parallels and contraparallels between planets in high
declinations than between those closer to the equator, which might be not fair. So, Jayne suggested that the
orb used for the aspects of declination should depend on the declinations of the planets making the aspect.
It should be substantially bigger for the planets near the equator. As an example, if a planet’s declination is
1º 12’, Jayne recommends an orb of 1º 11.5’, while for a planet in 23º 12’ of declination the suggested orb is
only 0º 10.5’.
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While I admit that Charles Jayne’s reasoning makes sense, I don’t see how we could use his approach to orbs
until software developers will implement his ideas in astrological software.

The best way to demonstrate the value of the aspects of declination

I hope I was able to convince you that it isn’t too difficult to add the aspects of declination to your astrological
toolset, but still, there should be a good reason for you to make the necessary effort. Will I manage to
convince you that these aspects indeed can give you some crucial understanding, otherwise unachievable? Let
me try.

One way to attempt this could be by showing

someone’s natal chart and demonstrating how
the aspects of declination reveal important
talents or abilities that are not visible when using
only the aspects of longitude. Charles Jayne
followed this path using the natal chart of Walt
Disney, it is shown in Figure 3.

Neptune in the 10th house looks highly

appropriate for someone who made an
extraordinary career creating beautiful illusions,
but if we use tight 3º orbs for the aspects of
longitude, as I tend to do, Neptune only has one
quincunx with Venus, no any other aspects, so it
looks poorly integrated into the natal chart. And
the Sun remains completely unaspected, which is
strange — Disney was indeed a luminary! A grid
showing the aspects of declination restores the
justice (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The grid of aspects for Walt Disney

Figure 3: The natal chart of Walt Disney.
In it, we can see that Disney’s Sun makes precise
parallels to his Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus,
and a very precise contraparallel to his Neptune.
And Neptune is indeed very well integrated into
the natal chart, as it makes contraparallels to the
Sun, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.

So, yes, it is possible to demonstrate the

importance of the aspects of declination using a
natal chart, but extraordinary examples, like that
of Walt Disney, are rare, and finding talents in
an ordinary natal chart can be a tricky business:
some of them might be not yet discovered, or
sufficiently developed.

In my opinion, the best way to demonstrate

the importance of the aspects of declination
is to look at the non-trivial relationships. By
non-trivial I understand those relationships
where people do something extraordinary to be

Figure 4: The grid of aspects for Walt Disney

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together. They go against the customs and other people’s opinions, they sacrifice their careers, they do things
that appear to be totally irrational, and then “live together happily ever after”. We think astrology should be
able to demonstrate us an appropriate, extraordinary symbolism in such cases, and yet it quite often remains
strangely mute — at least when we only take into account the aspects of longitude.

My favorite example is that of Prince Harry

and Meghan Markle. Just think about it: Harry
is a British prince; I don’t believe he had any
problems whatsoever finding a girl to become
his wife. And yet he chose an American actress,
divorced, 3 years older than him, with a
substantial previous history of relationships. I can
guess the royal family wasn’t very happy about
his choice. And yet he did marry Meghan, and
their relationship is so strong that they decided
to live their own lives, effectively separating
from the royal family. Let’s see what synastry will
tell us about this non-trivial relationship. I will
be using a 3º orb for the aspects of longitude,
and I won’t be using any house cusps in all my
examples, as I believe that they aren’t reliable
without rectification.

The grid of mutual aspects for Harry and Meghan

is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Mutual aspects of longitude between Prince Harry What seems to me almost shocking here is
and Meghan Markle a complete absence of aspects between the
luminaries and the personal planets. I do
remember the old dictum “As above so below”,
and for me the most important things in astrology
are shown by the luminaries, and personal
relationships are hardly possible without contacts
between the personal planets of the partners,
Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Here, we see no
aspects between the luminaries and the personal
planets at all.

As for the other aspects, if we pay attention to

the most precise ones, we’ll find that Harry’s
Sun makes a square to Meghan’s Neptune, and
Meghan’s Sun makes a square to Harry’s Saturn.
There is also a sextile between her Venus and his
Saturn. Can these aspects explain the strength
of their relationship? I don’t think so. But maybe
Harry was simply unlucky and never met a girl
with a better synastry? Here is a grid of mutual
aspects between Prince Harry and Cressida
Bonas (Figure 6). Cressida is an English actress
and model, five years younger than Harry, and
she was in a relationship with him for two years.
Figure 6: Mutual aspects of longitude between
Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas Look at their mutual aspects between Venuses
and Marses! That’s quite a lot of passion. Her
Sun makes a trine to his Pluto and a sextile to his

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Neptune. His Moon makes a square to her Venus. Not bad at all. It appears that synastry between Harry and
Cressida is much better than between Harry and Meghan. And yet, he chose Meghan. Why?

Figure 7: Mutual aspects between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle,

including the aspects of declination

The aspects of declination give us a definitive answer. Unfortunately, none of the popular astrological
packages (at least those I am familiar with, and as far as I am familiar with them) seem to be able to show a
synastry grid with aspects of declination in it. So, I contacted a Russian software developer Dmitry Potapov,
who is Astroprocessor ZEUS (https://astrozeus.ru/files_en/) is currently at the stage of beta testing (and so can
be installed for free). Dmitry was kind enough to implement the grid I wanted, and here is such a grid for
Harry and Meghan (Figure 7). His Sun is in parallel with her Moon, and her Sun is in parallel with his Moon.
This is something extraordinary indeed. After all, a Sun–Moon conjunction is one of those “classical marriage
aspects”, dating back to Ptolemy, and some astrologers are of the opinion, if you remember, that parallels are
stronger than conjunctions. Here this aspect is mutual. This is a rock-solid foundation for their relationship; I
could even say they were born for each other.

What if we create a similar grid for Harry and Cressida? It is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Mutual aspects between Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas,

including the aspects of declination

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They still have some good aspects, but none of them are between their luminaries. There is definitely a
substantial attraction, but no strong foundation.

Another example of a non-trivial relationship is the one between Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. Being a
king is a lot more than a career, and Edward abdicated the throne in order to be able to marry Wallis, a twice-
divorced American woman. Should we expect to see something unusually powerful in their synastry? Here is
a grid of their mutual aspects of longitude (Figure 9).

Very disappointing, isn’t it? Of the aspects

between the luminaries and the personal planets,
there is only a square between her Sun and his
Mars. Her planets do not aspect his luminaries,
and only her Moon has trines to his Neptune and
Pluto. Looks like astrology is completely unable
to describe the intensity of this relationship. Or
is it?

Let’s have a look at their synastry grid including

the aspects of declination (Figure 10). Here we
see that the partners’ Suns are in an absolutely
precise parallel. It’s like their hearts are together,
very strongly linked to each other. In addition,
his Jupiter and her Venus are in parallels to these
Suns, and there is also a Venus–Jupiter parallel
to complete this extraordinary configuration in
declination, which can well explain the intensity
of the partners’ mutual attraction, completely
incomprehensible from the aspects of longitude
viewpoint.
Figure 9: Mutual aspects of longitude between
Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson

Figure 10: Mutual aspects between Edward VIII and

Wallis Simpson, including the aspects of declination

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Prince Harry’s father, Prince Charles, can also show us an example of a non-trivial relationship. He pretty
much abandoned his young beautiful wife and two kids in order to keep an old relationship with Camilla
Parker-Bowles. Should we be able to see something special in synastry between Charles and Camilla? Here
are their mutual aspects in longitude (Figure 11).

There are some good aspects here, yes. The

partners’ Suns are in a trine, and her Mercury is
in a trine with his Sun. Judging by this, they are
probably good friends. But I believe we should
see something deeper here than just friendship,
shouldn’t we? However, neither the Moons nor
Venuses make any meaningful aspects in this
grid. Yet again, aspects of declination come to
help. But before showing you them, I’d like to
attract your attention to the fact that Camilla has
a very precise applying conjunction between her
Moon and Venus, they are in the same degree,
and her Moon is very strong in Cancer (Figure
12). Such a strong concentration of feminine
energies should probably play an important role
in Camilla’s relationships — but we don’t see
any connections from Prince Charles’ planets to
either her Moon or Venus in longitude.

Figure 12: Natal chart of Camilla Parker-Bowles

Figure 11: Mutual aspects of longitude between prince Now here is a grid of their mutual aspects
Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles including parallels and contraparallels (Figure
13).

Figure 13: Mutual aspects between prince

Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, including
the aspects of declination (Top of next page)

Again, a revelation. We see that Camilla’s Venus

has contraparallels with Charles’ Mars and
Jupiter, as well as parallels with his Uranus and
Pluto. So, it really is an important focus in their
synastry. In addition, her Mars makes a parallel
to Charles’ Pluto. This is indeed a very intense,
powerful relationship, and only the aspects of
declination allow us to understand that.

One last example is George Clooney and his

wife Amal. George didn’t abdicate any throne
or sacrificed his career to marry Amal but given
his reputation of an eternal bachelor and his
history of failed relationships, this is still a non-
trivial marriage. The grid of the mutual aspects of
longitude is, again, not very impressive (Figure
14).
Figure 12: Natal chart of Camilla Parker-Bowles

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 Figure 13: Mutual aspects between prince Charles and
Camilla Parker-Bowles, including the aspects of declination

Figure 14: Mutual aspects of longitude

between George and Amal Clooney

Squares and oppositions prevail here, not the best aspects for a relationship. There seems to be a trine between
Amal’s Moon and George’s Venus, which would be certainly helpful, but we don’t know Amal’s time of birth,
her chart was calculated for noon, so we don’t actually know where her Moon is. You already know what we
are going to do next — let’s look at the partners’ mutual aspects in declination (Figure 15).

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 Figure 15: Mutual aspects between George and Amal Clooney, including the aspects of declination

Here we see that George’s and Amal’s luminaries are closely linked. In longitude, their Suns are in a square,
while in declination they are in a precise contraparallel. Such bi-level aspects (formed in both longitude and
declination) are very strong. This particular one might be not the easiest, due to the square, but still, there is a
strong interest between them in each other’s individuality. What’s more important for a long-term relationship
is a parallel between the partners’ Moons. You might remind me that we don’t know Amal’s birth time, so we
don’t know where her Moon is, but that is true for longitude only. In declination, the Moon moved very little
during the day when Amal was born, so no matter whether she was born in the very beginning or the very
end of that day, her Moon will remain in parallel with George’s Moon. We can also see that Amal’s Venus
makes contraparallel and parallel to George’s Sun and Moon, i.e., to his luminaries, which is important and
beneficial.

I hope I was able to convince you that on many occasions the aspects of declination can help us to
understand relationships where the aspects of longitude are not telling much, if anything at all. It’s not always
like this, though. There are relationships where you will find few important parallels or contraparallels
between partners, and the whole story is told by the aspects of longitude. But you never know what the
second dimension will reveal to you, so I urge you to always pay attention to the aspects of declination in
everything you do in astrology, be it synastry, individual work, or forecasting.

And these are not all the gifts offered to us by declination. There’s something else, and I’m going to write about
it next.

Out-of-bounds planets
As far as I am aware of, the idea of out-of-bounds (or simply OOB) planets was introduced and popularized
among astrologers by KT Boehrer. She also did a lot of research in this area, and in her book Declination. The
Other Dimension she offered valuable descriptions of OOB planets, especially the OOB Moon. Steve Forrest
wrote a great article, The Out of Bounds Moon, and it is available online1. Declination in Astrology by Paul F.
Newman is another useful source of information and examples of OOB planets.

Here is the basic idea. The Sun in its journey around the sky can only reach a certain maximal declination,
around 23º 26’2, but many planets can go a bit further than that. The Moon can reach declinations over 28º,
Mercury — almost 26º, Venus — 28º, Mars — sometimes close to 30º, Jupiter and Uranus — just under 24º.
Pluto can go the furthest, sometimes slightly beyond 30º. But Saturn and Neptune never exceed the maximal
declination of the Sun (at least not in the practically meaningful past and future).

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What happens when a planet goes beyond the maximal declination of the Sun, when it becomes an out-of-
bounds planet? If we compare the Sun with the central power, the government, the authorities, an out-of-
bounds planet finds itself out of their reach, as if in a dark forest outside a city. On the one hand, it can be
frightened, vulnerable, lost, unsure where to go or what to do. But on the other hand, it can feel itself free,
allowed to do anything that was previously disallowed, anything it can imagine. That opens a vast array
of possibilities, from committing a crime to doing something extraordinarily good but not matching the
expectations of society.

The Sun also symbolizes the light of reason. Reason usually plays a positive role, but it also can be limiting. It
can be telling us that something isn’t possible, so we shouldn’t even try it. An out-of-bounds planet can make
a person a genius, can help her or him find an unusual solution for a problem that, everyone thought, was
impossible to solve. But it is also possible to go crazy there, in the darkness of the realm outside of reason.

It is typical for a person born with one or more OOB planets to stand alone, outside the crowd, and to reject
things that most others would consider desirable or prestigious.

I find it the most informative in natal astrology when a person has the Moon or a personal planet out of
bounds. OOB Jupiter is also interesting, as Jupiter goes OOB rarely and not for a long time, so is relatively
rare. As for OOB Uranus and Pluto, there are lengthy periods when they go out of bounds, usually for a part of
a year, and so there are whole generations where a substantial part of newborns gets OOB Uranus or Pluto. In
my opinion, these planets are most interesting in mundane astrology, and I will write about them in the next
section.

The OOB Moon seems to be the most important factor in the natal astrology, it shows a person who is in one
or another way unique, unlike everyone else, and has an unusual destiny. If there is another OOB planet in
a natal chart, it usually manifests itself more prominently when the natal Moon is OOB as well. Examples of
people with OOB Moon are Camilla Parker-Bowles, Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Queen
Victoria, Keanu Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey. KT Boehrer, after extensive
research, concluded that on many occasions people with OOB Moon were deprived of motherly love in their
childhoods, on one or another reason. Later, in their adult lives, the OOB Moon people strive to compensate
for this lack of love by achieving success, recognition and wealth. KT Boehrer even called such people “the
millionaires of the zodiac”.

Mercury OOB is thinking “out of the box” and therefore can find unusual solutions for all sorts of problems,
including those related to communication, transportation, commerce, and other areas of life, associated with
Mercury. Elon Musk is a good example here. Less obvious but very interesting examples are Bob Dylan, Tom
Hanks, Henri Matisse. Louis Pasteur had four OOB planets: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Uranus. More
examples: Elvis Presley, Maximilien Robespierre, Donald Trump, Marlene Dietrich. Kirk Douglas has got
Mercury and the Moon OOB, in a precise parallel with each other, as well as OOB Mars. Brad Pitt was born
with OOB Mercury and Mars in a precise parallel.

Venus OOB can make a person unlike everyone else in the realm of beauty, art, taste, attractiveness, love.
Interestingly, those men whom women find especially attractive, often have an OOB Venus. Examples are
David Beckham, Frank Sinatra, Clint Eastwood, Omar Sharif, Al Pacino, Charlie Chaplin, Rodolfo Valentino.
Also, many famous painters, sculptors and musicians were born with OOB Venus: Auguste Rodin, Albrecht
Durer, Yehudi Menuhin, Johannes Brahms. A less obvious example of an OOB Venus person is Winston
Churchill.

Brooke Shields was born with both Venus and the Moon OOB, and she became a child model aged 10.
Catherine the Great also had both Venus and the Moon OOB. She was a patron of arts and famous for having
many lovers. Cher, the “Goddess of Pop” also has the same pair of OOB planets.

Mars OOB can be a sign of an unusual approach or ability when it comes to spending energy. In Magi
Astrology, it’s one of the “Super Sports Champion” factors, but it can also make a person unusually brave or
sexually gifted or having an undefeatable fighting spirit. Examples of people with OOB Mars include Amal
Clooney, Prince Charles, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Walt Disney, Julia Roberts, Greta Garbo, Lady Gaga,

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Martin Luther King, Pablo Picasso, Agatha Christie. Rupert Murdoch was born with OOB Mars, and his Moon
is as far out of bounds as it can be, its declination is 28º S 15’. Larry King was born with OOB Moon, Venus,
and Mars.

People with OOB Jupiter are rare; it took time to find a few of them among celebrities. They typically have an
unusual worldview, or philosophy. Prince Harry is a good example, in the way he charted his life path outside
of the royal family. Karl H. Pribram is another great example: he achieved a breakthrough in understanding of
brain and consciousness with his holonomic model. And the third example I was able to find is Enrico Fermi,
the “architect of the nuclear age”.

It seems to be typical for Russian leaders to have an OOB planet. Mikhail Gorbachev has an OOB Mars, Boris
Yeltsin had an OOB Moon, and Vladimir Putin has both the Moon and Mars out of bounds. In fact, it is quite
rare to see an OOB planet in a natal chart of a country leader or a high-level political figure, Donald Trump
being an exclusion.

OOB Planets in Synastry

I believe OOB planets can be an important factor in synastry. When partners have a conjunction or an aspect
of declination between their OOB planets, it’s like two people met each other in a forest, or in a field, not
in a busy street of a city. They notice each other immediately, and from afar. In this case the orb used can be
increased, this kind of aspect has an enormous power. For instance, David Beckham’s Venus has a declination
of 25º N 16’, while the declination of Victoria Beckham’s Mars is 24º N 58’, so his Venus and her Mars are
both OOB and in a parallel. Both planets are in Gemini, the distance between them is about 7 degrees, but it
doesn’t matter, I would increase the orb in this case and say that they are also in conjunction.

OOB Planets in Progression

If a person was born without any OOB planets, her or his planets can still go out of bounds in secondary
progression. I created on my website a simple online calculator (https://www.lunarium.co/calculators/out-
of-bounds/) that allows to quickly define whether a person has natal OOB planets, and which planets and in
which age were becoming or will become OOB in secondary progression. I find that years when personal
planets become or cease to be OOB in secondary progression are often important turning points of life. For
example, my Mercury became OOB when I was 43, and that’s exactly when I decided to become a student at
a Scottish university, which later opened an entirely new perspective in my life.

It can be more difficult to understand what was happening in the lives of celebrities when their secondary
progressed planets changed their OOB status, simply because their biographies available online aren’t very
informative, but I made a calculation for Bill Gates (Figure 16) and then found out that he became number
one on the Forbes 400 list for the first time in 1993,
when he was 38, and that is the age when his
secondary progressed Mercury became OOB.

Out-of-bounds planets in transit

Sometimes transiting planets go out of bounds. I
believe those periods are somewhat similar to the
periods of retrograde motion, in the terms of their
influence on daily life. In my understanding, periods
of retrograde motion are the times when stereotypes
associated with planets are being changed. When
a planet is moving backwards, its old stereotype
has already expired, and we are looking for a new
one. As a result, decisions directed into the future
aren’t reliable at such times, they are not based on
an established stereotype, they are like houses built
on sand. On the other hand, periods of retrograde
Figure 16: The result of calculation made for Bill Gates motion open to us new opportunities: having no

ISAR International Astrologer, April 2022; Vol 51 #1 - Page 31

limiting stereotypes, we are open to ideas that would seem crazy at other times. Something similar happens
when a planet is OOB: it’s on an uncharted territory and so is able to perceive unusual images and ideas,
those that wouldn’t be accepted by the establishment. However, anything created there, out of bounds, might
be too strange or incomprehensible for other people to accept.

OOB Mars
Periods of OOB Mars sometimes attract special attention of astrologers as they are believed to coincide with
uncontrolled outbursts of energy both in nature and society. There can be abnormal destructive weather
conditions, natural disasters, incidents and violence. Such periods are not rare, they happen every year.
Sometimes they are short, less than a month, like it was in January–February 2022, when Mars went out of
bounds for 28 days. Sometimes, they are longer — a couple of months, maybe more. But occasionally Mars
becomes OOB for more than half a year, and these long periods are relatively rare. They are often associated
with some disaster. For example, in 1986 Mars was OOB for 194 days, from March 27 to October 7, and
that was when Chernobyl disaster happened. Next time a super-long Mars OOB period took place in 2001, it
lasted for 188 days from April 15 to October 20. That was the year of 9/11. In 2007/2008 a 203-day long OOB
Mars period coincided with the global financial crisis. And the next such period, 194 days long, will start on
October 23, 2022 and last until May 5, 2023.

I’ve calculated the periods of extreme Mars (i.e., when Mars was or will be either OOB or near the celestial
equator) for the 20th century and the first half of the 21st century. You can see the result of that calculation on
my website (https://www.lunarium.co/articles/extreme-mars/).

OOB Pluto
Periods of OOB Pluto are rare, and they continue for more than a decade. The latest such period started on
February 17, 1938, when Pluto left the bounds of solar influence, and came back on June 3 of the same year.
Then year after year the OOB periods were becoming longer, with culmination in 1944 and 1945 when
Pluto was leaving on December 14 and returning on August 12 of the next year. That lengthy chain of yearly
OOB periods ended on May 28, 1953. Quite interestingly, those years coincided with the raise of totalitarian
regimes in many countries, while the turning point in 1944 was the time when the course of the World War
II was reversed, so to say. Those years (1938–1953) were also the time of major advancements in nuclear
research and in creation of nuclear weapons.

The previous period of OOB Pluto took place in 1774–1795. Those were the years of the American
Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and French Revolution (1789–1799), so they were quite turbulent and
violent. The years 1793–1794 were called by historians “The Reign of Terror”, this is when a series of
massacres and numerous public executions took place. Reading about those times in Wikipedia3, I could see
many parallels with what was happening during the periods of OOB Pluto in the 20th century.

The next similar period is not very far in the future: it will start in 2025, when Pluto will go out of bounds on
August 30, and end on November 16, 2035, with the turning point in 2029.

OOB Uranus
Periods of OOB Uranus are also quite interesting for a researcher. The first such period in the 20th century
was in 1903 – 1907. 1905 was the year of the first Russian revolution, and Einstein published his relativity
theory in the same year. Also, that was the beginning of the Pioneer Era in aviation. The second OOB Uranus
period of the 20th century (1947–1952) overlapped with OOB Pluto period. Perhaps the main technological
achievement of those years was the creation of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery. Interestingly,
the two main materials from which nuclear bombs are made are uranium and plutonium.

The third OOB Uranus period of the 20th century in 1987–1991 coincided with the emergence of personal
computers and the Internet. And the next such period in 2031–2035 will overlap with the coming OOB Pluto
period. Who knows what human genius will create then?

Page 32 - ISAR International Astrologer, April 2022; Vol 51 #1

Conclusions
The use of declination can enrich many branches of astrology, including natal astrology, synastry, and
mundane research. On many occasions, it’s exactly the aspects of declination, or the out-of-bounds status of
planets, that provide convincing answers to difficult astrological questions.

Endnotes:
1. https://www.forrestastrology.com/blogs/astrology/the-out-of-bounds-moon
2. In fact, this value slightly changes over centuries, but you can always find it in the ephemeris for the
appropriate year and month. It’s the obliquity of ecliptic and, according to Raphael’s 51-Year Ephemeris
2000–2050, it is 23º 26’ 17” in April 2022. You will also find this value in the free ephemeris in PDF format
offered by Astro.com website (choose the version with declinations). According to them, in January 1910
ecliptic obliquity was 23º 27’ 07”.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

Biography:
Alexander Kolesnikov comes from a family of a cosmonaut (who later became
a professor) and a medical doctor. His background is in military aerospace
engineering, and he became interested in astrology in the 1980s while still serving
in the Army. He became so captivated that in the 1990 left the Army to become a
full-time student of astrology.

In 1992 Alexander started teaching classes for beginners in the school of his mentor,
in 1993–1994 travelled to many cities of Russia with lectures on astrology and wrote
several articles, and in 1995 came to the UK to teach in the summer school of the
Company of Astrologers and to read a lecture at the Urania Trust.
In 1996 Alexander became involved in a business that prevented him from active
teaching and lecturing, but this is when he began to work on his website and on
free lessons of astrology, sent to thousands of subscribers over email. Based on those free lessons, he wrote a
book "Teach Yourself Astrology", which was originally published in Russia in 2001, and is still in print. Many
contemporary professional astrologers in Russia declare that they started their studies from either Alexander's
book or his free lessons, and that his book was in the beginning of the 2000s the only comprehensible and
comprehensive textbook on astrology written in Russian.

In 2005 Alexander moved to the UK and became a student at Glasgow Caledonian University. He graduated
in 2006 as a Master of Science with Distinction in Enterprise Systems Development, and since then worked
as a Software Developer for various British companies for 12 years. These were the years when he created his
website https://www.lunarium.co.uk, which became quite popular (but currently is being re-created on a new
platform at https://www.lunarium.co). Alexander also created several apps for both iOS and Android, the most
successful of them is iLuna.

In 2018 Alexander moved to Bulgaria. That is where book-writing and lecturing activities became the main
focus of his life again. The original "Teach Yourself Astrology" book was re-published, and after its renewed
success the publisher requested more books. By now nine books were already published in Russia, one of
them in two volumes, and more are being written. One of the future books’ topics is declination and OOB
planets.

Alexander is also teaching online actively. He is conducting webinars, creating courses. He has seven courses
published on Udemy.com. The most successful of them, Astrological Forecasting for Everyone, has got over
4000 students, and more are enrolling every month. In 2021 Alexander spoke at the annual conference of the
Astrological Association of Great Britain.

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