← Encyclopedia of Astrology · lesson 107/235
Superior conjunction
A superior conjunction is the meeting of Mercury or Venus with the Sun when the planet lies on the far side of the Sun from Earth. In deVore's words, it is superior "when the Sun is between the Earth and the planet". On the chart it is simply a conjunction of the planet and the Sun; in the sky the planet is as far from us as it ever goes, hidden behind the Sun's glare, and moving direct — forward — at its greatest speed.
It is the counterpart of the inferior conjunction, when the same planet passes between us and the Sun. Every swing of Mercury or Venus round the Sun contains one of each.
What happens in the sky
- Direct and swift. At the superior conjunction the planet is travelling the same way as Earth's line of sight sweeps, so its forward motion and ours add together: Venus moves about 1°15' a day, Mercury up to about 2°. It is as far from any retrograde as it can be.
- Morning to evening. Before it, the planet was a morning star, rising before the Sun; after it, it reappears in the west at dusk as an evening star.
- Far away and small. Venus at superior conjunction is about 1.7 AU from Earth — six times further than at inferior conjunction — and shows a small, full disc, like a full moon seen through a telescope.
- Timing. Mercury makes about three superior conjunctions a year, Venus one every 19 months or so, roughly halfway between its inferior conjunctions.
The outer planets, from Mars to Pluto, only ever meet the Sun this way — with the Sun between us and them — so astronomers sometimes call every outer-planet conjunction "superior", though astrologers rarely use the word for them.
How it is read
Astrologers who follow planetary cycles read the superior conjunction as the planet's full moon: the midpoint and peak of the cycle that opened at the last inferior conjunction. Michael Meyer describes Venus at this point as rapid in motion and outward-turned, the cycle's values ready to be lived in the open rather than reconsidered within. For Mercury it is often read as a moment of clarity, when the thinking that began at the retrograde reaches its fullest, most outward expression before turning, over the following months, toward its next review.
In a birth chart, a Mercury or Venus near superior conjunction is fused with the Sun as at an inferior conjunction, but direct and fast. Many read it as a planet expressed confidently and in step with the will, less given to second thoughts than its retrograde counterpart, though some find it harder to see objectively, being so close to the self.
In the tradition
Lilly scored by closeness to the Sun, not by side: within about 17 minutes of arc a planet is cazimi and strengthened; otherwise within a few degrees it is combust, and within about 15° under the beams. A superior conjunction keeps the combustion but avoids retrogradation, and swift motion was a fortitude in his tables. Because the planet passes so near the ecliptic at this point, cazimi is commoner here than at an inferior conjunction.
What the tradition stresses most is not the side but the direction: whether the planet is approaching the Sun, about to be burnt, or separating from it and coming out of the beams. Both happen at either kind of conjunction, and both are worth noticing.