What do we mean by the quality of somebody’s mind? We are not concerned with measuring how intelligent somebody is in any conventional sense as this would depend on where your concept of intelligence is. What we assess in traditional astrology is a somewhat older view of what constitutes a good mind. In the modern world we talk about things like a criminal mastermind: to the traditional mentality this is just absurd. If you are a criminal, you cannot be a mastermind as your mind is not working properly: if your mind was working properly, you would not be criminal. We do not have this divorced, rampant sense of reason which is destructive.

What we assess is “ratio” in the original sense of the word which is well described by a German theologian, Josef Pieper. He states that ratio, which is the quality of the whole of our mind, would be translated into English by the word reason, however this is limiting: it is much more than that; it is the whole range of our mentality and your ratio is your ability to see the path in front of you and your ability to perceive reality.