Before I get into Saturn in the twelfth house, I want to write out a couple of thoughts about the difference between fears and phobias.

Fear is an emotion and, as an emotion, fear can give us a lot of information. Fear can tell us what is dangerous or risky. It usually carries strong memories that are worth looking into because it we learn how to keep ourselves safe using our past experiences. Fear, because it's a part of how we think, is also intelligent. We grow into and out of fears. What we fear when we are younger may not be what we fear when we get older.

Usually, we're pretty interested in thinking about the things that we are afraid of because we want to understand why we are scared.

Phobias are different from fears in that phobias usually provoke some kind of avoidance. This may not be a big deal. For example, I have a phobia of heights. I don't want to confront that phobia because my legs turn to jelly whenever I even think about mountain climbing. This fear of heights isn't always rational—I'm more scared of stairs than airplanes. It doesn't get in the way of my life too much but it does shape how I behave.

We can usually name our fears because they make sense in the context of our lives. We can't always name our phobias because we live in avoidance of them. Sometimes, we get so used to avoiding our phobias, our avoidance changes the shape of our lives.

Saturn in the twelfth house can feel exactly like this sort of nameless entity—it can feel almost like an unexplicable and undescribable phobia.

The twelfth house is considered to be the place of Saturn's joy. When Saturn is in the twelfth house, Saturn receives accidental dignity. That means that Saturn gets stronger here. The twelfth house is the place of secret fears, of phobias that you didn't even know you were avoiding, and of sorrows that you never gave yourself the chance to lament. The secret fears contained in the twelfth house are very different from known fears.

Of course, Saturn being in the twelfth house is also a wonderful position. When you have Saturn in the twelfth house, you feel bound by your phobias and by your desire to see, understand, and examine them.

Over the years, I've met and talked to a lot of people who are going through twelfth house transits or profections years who are coming to terms with and healing their addictions. The first thing that you have to do when you deal with an addiction, when you're dealing with an unnamed avoidance in your life, is to name the thing that you didn't realize you have been avoiding. The co-signifier of the twelfth house happens to be Venus. Venus's polar opposite or the planet that intensifies Venus, because one is the nocturnal benefic and the other is the diurnal malefic, happens to Saturn.

Saturn in the twelfth house can help you describe your secret fears. It can sometimes intensify the destructiveness of your addictions or your avoidance so much so that you can't keep avoiding the thing because the cost of neglecting yourself becomes too great to bear.

People with Saturn in the twelfth house are always investigating their own behaviors and thinking. They refuse to become attached to anything that destroys them because they can sense the destruction far ahead of time.

I actually find people who have Saturn in the twelfth house in their natal chart to be the most difficult and rewarding people to read for. This is because I find that people with Saturn in the twelfth are so intensely self aware. These people are so adept at the art of examination, they seem to see into every single one of their own behaviors and tendencies.

They can read themselves. And sometimes, not always but just sometimes, their competence at the art of reading themselves like a book will hold them back.

When you are so good at reading yourself, at predicting every one of your behaviors, when you are so practiced at seeing through your every phobia—sometimes you lose the motivation to just go out and try it. You fall into the trap of thinking that you know what will happen. You think that you can predict every lesson before it happens because you're seen it before, you're seen a friend go through it, or you've read about it.

And guess what? One of the biggest issues with allowing your fear to make choices for you is that you don't really know what will happen. You might think that you know what dangers lurk in the path that you've outlined in your head but you really don't. Just because fear helps us create narratives doesn't mean that those narratives are prophecies.

So—a weird placement to have, Saturn in the twelfth house. It's like a phobia of phobias. Your fierce self examination, which you do to avoid self destruction, can also become a pattern of avoidance.

"Yes, I've always had a childhood dream of counseling teens," Saturn in twelfth house says, "but I can't study psychology. I already know that, if I do, I'll just burn out. I've looked into it and done the research. It won't be the outcome that I want. I don't want to be naive. I already know that I'm prone to depression."

Sure. That's probably true—getting a degree in something usually means that your mind gets institutionalized. You probably won't get the result that your seven year old self dreamed about. But there's also a lot of variables at play here. You might be able to take care of yourself and your depression while at school. You don't know who your classmates will be and you don't know who you will meet. You don't know if you're stumble upon something incredible in your learning, something that just happened to make it into your field of study in rebellion of the canon. You don't know if you will find or make a fulfilling kind of path for yourself here. You don't know what can happen until you try.

Your mind is rebellious, even when it's at school. You might be able to trust yourself more than you think you can.

Saturn in the twelfth house people are really smart. They're usually good at predicting outcomes but, just like everyone else, Saturn in the twelfth house can be wrong. Saturn is extremely strong when it is in the twelfth house and Saturn happens to be the planet of long term planning. If someone with Saturn in the twelfth believes that they know themselves before they truly live, then they find that their options becomes fewer and fewer. They can shrink or minimize themselves in anticipation of being humbled.

Saturn in the twelfth house will offer you incredible foresight. It can also offer you a little too much foresight. Your doubts, even your very well studied and thoroughly examined doubts, aren't prophecies. You don't know what will happen. You might have more choices than you think you do.