Mercury in Scorpio in the Twelfth House

The placement of Mercury in Scorpio indicates you have a need to function at a deep mental level with authenticity and integrity. Much of the behavior and many of the personality characteristics associated with Mercury in Scorpio are a result of this need to mentally perceive the truth about yourself and your environment. Mercury is indifferently placed in Scorpio. The positive aspects of the placement are symbolized by the natural sextile between Scorpio and Mercury-ruled Virgo. However, Scorpio is the Fixed Water sign and both fixity and water are problematic for the air and mutable-associated Mercury, as symbolized by the natural quincunx between Scorpio and Mercury-ruled Gemini.

The Fixed Water of Scorpio pulls the mental energies associated with Mercury to deep places, from which escape to the outer world is difficult. In these deep places, the Mercury-associated functions gain power through access to reality and truth. However, Mercury’s air is challenged to adapt to the flow of Scorpio’s water.  The Mercury functions are naturally more comfortable in the realm of the ordinary and the everyday.

Mercury’s placement in Scorpio suggests that there are certain personality characteristics and qualities with which you identify. Typical Mercury-Scorpio qualities are listed below, with positive qualities listed first and their more negative, or dysfunctional, counterparts listed afterward. These qualities are divided into three categories, corresponding to major Mercury-symbolized functions: intellect, communication and the nervous system.

Insecurities

With Mercury in Scorpio, if you are insecure, your mind is obsessed with being dominated by forces beyond your control. At its extreme, this can turn into a paranoia-like fear. In order to “protect” yourself from being dominated by other people, you constantly search for ways to dominate them. This mental preoccupation with power and control eats away at you and makes you suspicious and fearful.

Mercury in the 12th House:

Mercury in the 12th House is a difficult placement for Mercury, given Mercury’s association with mental forms that are specific, concrete in nature and able to be categorized and known. The 12th House symbolizes those things that are hidden, that are ambiguous, universal and transcendent and for your mind to be focused on this level of existence may be difficult. With Mercury in the 12th House, you may find it difficult to find anything that you can mentally latch on to. You may become confused about what it is you are supposed to learn or know and may question whether there is anything that can be definitely known. This confusion and frustration may cause you to devalue your mental capabilities or to want to avoid mental activity.

Having Mercury in the 12th House, your mental and communicating faculties may appear weak or you may be unaware of the mental side of your personality and psyche. It may seem as if your mental capabilities evaporate or disintegrate. It is only when you consciously face the ambiguities and unknowns of life that you are likely to find your mental strength and be able to develop your mental faculties.

As an individual with Mercury in the 12th House, you may employ your mental and communicative energy to help others once you face the existence of pain and suffering in the world. Grasping the intuitive component of the mind, you may tackle difficult and subtle mental problems once you accept that there are no clear-cut and simple answers. Realizing that there is much in life that is unknown, with Mercury in the 12th House, you may turn your mental energy to uncovering what lies hidden and bringing the undiscovered to the light of knowledge. Coming to grips with the confusion and disorganization that besets you, you may use your mental faculties to gain more organization in your life.

Insecurities

Having Mercury in the 12th House, faced with confusion and doubt and an inability to mentally form a stable world in which your ego can safely reign, if you are inwardly insecure, you will adopt a subconscious defense mechanism to preserve your ego-consciousness from disintegration and collapse. This generally involves the creation of a fantasy world, a mental construct in which your ego can safely operate and within which it is king or queen. With Mercury in the 12th House, you may engage in various subterfuges, directed both at yourself or others, in order to preserve this fantasy. You become an expert at hiding facts and realities. Although your mental world may appear to be falling apart to others, from your own point of view it is something you can grasp onto. One danger with Mercury in the 12th House is that you may grasp onto a fantasy that involves masochism, substance abuse or self-dissipation.

Intellect’s Focus

With Mercury in the 12th House, you are likely to be intellectually interested in exploring the unknown and the mysterious. This may include the mysteries of life and death, the subconscious, the self, religion and mysticism, the problem of good and evil and the reality of phenomena. You may be particularly comfortable, mentally, with problems that are ambiguous and with solutions that are unclear. You may not be willing to be specific and absolute in your ideas and intellectual beliefs and you are more likely to be inclined toward a relativist intellectual perspective. You are less likely to commit to the idea that something is “this way” and more likely to state “these are the possibilities.”

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Article referenced from:

• Gargatholil, Depth Astrology: An Astrological Handbook – Volume 2: Planets in Signs

• Gargatholil, Depth Astrology: An Astrological Handbook – Volume 3: Planets in Houses

Click Here to Access the Complete Depth Astrology Collection with full excerpts.

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