Notes about Ptolemy on Carreer

1 -Ptolemy discuss “carreer” in chapter IV-04, of the “quality of action“. Other astrologers usually called it the significators of profession, or things like that

” The lord of action is apprehended by two methods, from the sun and from the culminating sign. For it will be needful to look both for the planet that has made its morning appearance closest to the sun, and that which is at mid-heaven, particularly when it occupies the application of the moon”

2 – The planet that signifies the carreer will be found by the Sun or the MC:

• Look for the planet that is oriental to the sun (example: if the Sun is cancer, this planet wil be in cancer or gemini, but at least 15 degrees of distance, otherwise would be invisible).
• Look for the planet that is on the MC
• Look for the planet that suffer an application from the moon.

and if the same star occupies both the aforesaid positions, this alone must be employed, and similarly if none occupies one of these places, we must use only the one which occupies the other of the places. And if one planet has made the nearest morning appearance and another is associated with the mid-heaven, and with the moon, we must employ them both, giving preference to the one which by reason of its strength has the greater number of claims to domination according to the scheme which we have already set forth. But if not one is found which either has made an appearance or is at mid-heaven, we must take the lord of the latter region, with reference however to the occasional pursuits of the subject, for persons with such genitures are for the most part inactive.

3 – We will weight the sum of testimonies to reach a conclusion. We may have one planet in the MC, and another planet may be oriental to the Sun and being applied by the moon. We will use both, but we will choose the most important one by the one with more testimonies,

4 – In the case that no planet has this testimonies, we will use the ruler of the MC, but in this cases Ptolemy says that the people rarely has a true profession.

Thus, then, we shall determine the planet that governs action. The quality of the action, however, is to be discerned from the character of the three planets, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, and from that of the signs through which they happen to be passing.

5 – With this procedure, we found the planet that governs action. But the quality of action is to be discerned only from the three planets that essencially describe profession: mars to the military, venus to entertaining and mercury to scribes, modified by the signs they are in. Does this mean that we have any planet can “govern action” but only these three show the quality of this action? For instance, Jupiter can govern action, but doesn´t show the carreer?

For if Mercury governs action, to speak generally, he makes his subjects scribes, men of business, calculators, teachers, merchants, bankers, sooth­sayers, astrologers, sacrificers, and in general those who perform their functions by means of documents, interpretation, and giving and taking. And if Saturn testifies to him, they will be managers of the property of others, interpreters of dreams, or frequenters of temples for the purpose of prophecies and inspiration. If is Jupiter that witnesses, they will be law-makers, orators, sophists, who enjoy familiarity with great persons.

6- Mercury is naturally scribes, teachers, business people, etc. Probably stock brokers, internet-related professions, software developers, accountants, etc. Astrologers are ruled by mercury, and not my uranus. As John Frawley said, we are people of knowledge, not eccentrics. With Saturn we have managers and (strange) interpreters of dreams. Usually a good combination of mercury-saturn, specially with a melancolic temperament, in my experience, gives a strong drive towards philosophy and deeper studies. Mercury with Jupiter gives lawyers (yugh) and people who have the gift of the word.

7- Ptolemy said that we should see the signs but he himself doesn´t give so much detail for each case. For instance, in the example of lawyers, we would expect it to be true if they were both in human signs. One time Steven Birchfield correctly delineated a sports man through a mercury, which were the professional significator, connected with Jupiter in signs of fire. Software programmers seems to have a connection to signs of earth.

If Venus rules action, she makes her subjects persons whose activities lie among the perfumes of flowers or of unguents, in wine, colours, dyes, spices, or adornments, as, for example, sellers of unguents, weavers of chaplets, innkeepers, wine-merchants, druggists, weavers, dealers in spices, painters, dyers, sellers of clothing. And if Saturn testifies to her, she makes them dealers in goods used for pleasure or adornment, sorcerers, poisoners, panders, and those who make their living from similar occupations. If Jupiter testifies, they will be athletes, wearers of the wreath, persons deemed worthy of honours, and men who derive advancement from women.

8 -Nothing strange here. If you have a venusian lord of action, then you will work with venusian things. Nowadays we would also include designers (interior designers, webdesigners, etc), DJs, Photoshop specialists, etc. Venus with saturn as sorcerers and poisoners seem to be a connection between the malefic properties of saturn, and the sedutor nature of venus, but I don´t know if being a poisoner pays well nowadays. I believe these people now work on the fashion industry. Venus with Jupiter as athletes? I really don´t know why. I always think in venus as lay down on the couch and eating grapes.

Mars, in aspect with the sun, makes his subjects those who use fire in their crafts, such as cooks, moulders, cauterizers, smiths, workers in mines; if he is not with the sun, those who work with iron, such as shipbuilders, carpenters, farmers, quarry­men, stone-dressers, jewellers, splitters of wood, and their subordinate workers. If Saturn testifies to him, he produces seamen, drawers of water, tunnelers, painters, gamekeepers, cooks, embalmers. If Jupiter testifies, he produces soldiers, servants, publicans, innkeepers, ferrymen, assistants at sacrifice.

9-Mars with the Sun doubles the meaning of “fire”. You will be a cook, an arsonist or a fireman. Without the sun, carpenters and probably what we would call now engineers. People who work with iron. With Saturn we have professions connected with water? With jupiter we have soldiers (instead of hired killers, for example), inkeepers (probably because mars was the natural ruler of voyages), etc.

Again, when two planets are found to rule action, if Mercury and Venus take the rulership, they bring about action expressed by the arts of the Muses, musical instruments, melodies, or poems, and rhythm, particularly when they have exchanged places. For they produce workers in the theatre, actors, dealers in slaves, makers of musical instruments, members of the chorus, makers of strings, painters, dancers, weavers, and wax-moulders. And again, if Saturn testifies to them, he produces those in the aforesaid callings, as well as dealers in feminine finery. If Jupiter testifies, he produces lawyers, supervisors of counting houses, public officers, teachers of children, leaders of the populace.

10- Apparently you don´t have to work too hard to find the ruler of action at all, since he admits you can have two rulers! Mercury with venus we have music, actors, and artists.

If Mercury and Mars together assume the lordship of action, they produce sculptors, armourers, makers of sacred monuments, modellers, wrestlers, physicians, surgeons, accusers, adulterers, evil-doers, forgers. If Saturn testifies to them, they produce murderers, sneak-thieves, burglars, pirates, cattle­thieves, villains. If Jupiter testifies, they produce men-at-arms, duellists, energetic, clever persons, busybodies, who meddle in others affairs and thereby gain their living.

11 – Mercury with mars we have sculptors… the hability of mercury with the “cutting” part of mars. The same is valid for other “cutters” like surgeons. I am not aware if adulterer was considered a profession in the days of Ptolemy, but the better correspondence would probably be “participant in reality show”.

But if Venus and Mars together dominate action, they produce dyers, perfumers, workers in tin, lead, gold, and silver, farmers, dancers in armour, druggists, physicians who employ drugs in their treatments. If Saturn testifies to them, they produce attendants of sacred animals, those who bury men, mourners, pipers at funerals, fanatics, who resort to wherever there are mysteries, laments, and bloody rites. But if Jupiter testifies, frequenters of temples, interpreters of omens, bearers of the sacred instruments, supervisors of women, interpreters of marriages and matches, making their living by such occupations, and at the same time devoted to pleasure, and reckless.

12 – Ptolemy lost me here. Venus-mars with Jupiter is matchmaking, interesting.

Likewise the specific natures of the signs in which are the rulers of action contribute to the variety of the action. For anthropomorphic signs are of same assistance to all scientific pursuits or those useful to man; the quadrupedal assist in those that concern mines, commerce, building, and carpentry; the solstitial and equinoctial, those that are interpretative, involve barter, or concern measuring, agriculture, and religion; the terrestrial and aquatic, activities in or with liquids, or those that are botanical, or concern shipbuilding, and furthermore burial, or pickling, or salting.

13 – the same that I said before. Human signs for activities that involves wording, reasoning, writing, thinking… quadrupede signs are good for commerce probably because represent the substance that is being traded. For building I don´t have idea. Solsticial signs are cancer and capricorn, Equinoctial are aries and libra. Terrestrial and aquatic are references to the elements of the signs. Maybe with the acquaticous signs, we could include today chemists and pharmaceutics. I have the ruler of the MC in a sign of water and suffered for 4 years in a chemistry major, yugh.

In a special way, again, if the moon holds the place of action, and is moving away from conjunction, together with Mercury, in Taurus, Capricornus, and Cancer, she produces soothsayers, makers of sacrifices, and adepts in lekanomancy ; in Sagittarius and Pisces necromancers and those who can arouse daemons; in Virgo and Scorpio magicians, astrologers, prophets, those who have second sight ; in Libra, Aries, and Leo persons inspired by the gods, interpreters of dreams, and exorcists.

14 – In this paragraph we have all the RPG´s professions that you can choose in World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy! If you have the moon in the MC, watch out.

So, then, the particular species of action will have to be conjectured by such means, through combinations; its amplitude must be discovered from the power of the dominating planets. For when they are rising or angular the actions which they cause are independent, but if they are setting or declining from the angles, subordinate; when beneficent planets overcome them, great, glorious, profitable, unerring, and gracious; but if maleficent planets overcome them, mean, inglorious, profitless, and fallible. With Saturn in opposition, they bring cold and mixtures of colours ; with Mars, temerity and notoriety;’ with both together, utter ruin of action. In general the period of increase or diminution, again, is calculated by means of the position, from time to time, of the planets responsible for the effect relative to the eastern and western angles.

15 – Angular planets have much influence and power. They will show their influence clearly. See the state of the planet, if he is being afflicted by malefics, etc. Afflicted planets will give bad results. The good or bad results can be expected throught the (ascensional times of the planets? – primary directions?).

New stuff and current events

Some news, random toughts and stuff than happens.

1 – my computer is broken, and with it, 30% of my astrological expertise! I have been reduced to using astro.com.

2 -the 6th issue of nehran magazine was released. Not as interesting as last time because they allowed “spiritual” (yugh) astrologers to write “important” things, like “there is no malefics” etc, but is always refreshing to have another approach to astrology than the western.

www.nehran.com/EngJun09.pdf

3 – I put an poll system so people could vote what posts they would like to see, but no one cared untill now…

4- venus and mars are FINALLY ending their extremely unusual 3 months conjunction! Usually an encounter between the two of them last two days, but this one has gone for weeks and weeks. In our horaries, they destroyed a lot of romantic questions, in our electional they were good for doing legal procedures (as one was in dignity and the other in detriment).

But in mundane? Using the visual astrology of Bernadette Brady, I was thinking of the following approach:

Venus is Ishtar. She doesn´t act, she gives her light to some other player, siding him and giving him power.

Mars is Nergal, god of pestilency, the underworld, war and is the general destructor of order.

Venus is very bright and giving her light to mars, bringing disaster to the world and problems of the kind that mars always bring.

The time of the first conjunction of the two, in 29 degrees of pisces, the epidemy in Mexico forced the governement to close schools, restaurants, museuns, malls and restaurants and to take strong prevencional measures.

After that, things weren´t better, Korea decided to show their muscles. Iran is facing popular disturbance.

But no great disaster came. SAturn (the great king) can´t see the conjunction between venus and mars, so there are a sense of disorder in this two. But Jupiter can see the conjunction. Jupiter is the crown prince, that can be supporter of the King, the heir, or sometimes the prince or general that will overthrown the King. Which of this will Jupiter chose to be?

As Jupiter is in the stars of the Water Bearer, I don´t think he is in his “overthrown” mood, so he helps to hold the line while Saturn is not looking.

In the above picture, you can see that venus is very bright right now (22 june) and that they are both in the stare of Cetus, the big moster from the depths. They will probably bring chaos for some time yet.

5 – you can see that I have put links to several books. Many of them are in Latin, but if possible I linked to books in english and spanish.

6 – you can see in my vodpod musics from the 80s, if you like them, in the widget at the right column, down below, close to the end.

7 – you can donate for Direct Relief International clicking in the widget at the right column.

8 – I will try to post every monday from now on.

Deluge

Mundane astrology is an all but forgotten art. For instance, every time we have an air crash, like the AirFrance accident, we see astrologers running to find the correct event chart of departure. “See? Pluto was on the ascendant!”. “oh, the sabian symbols tells the whole story”.

Well, if you could use electional astrology this way, planes would be falling all over your garden! Besides that, every time you would get out of your house, you would have to drawn a chart to see if nothing horrible would happen to you! If you go out to buy bread with Pluto on the Ascendant, terrorists may take your local shop as hostage!

Ancients had another view of things. Their model would be best described as “wheels within wheels”. The lesser wheels being the triggers of what was promised on the bigger wheels. A lunation will not bring a war, but it may bring it if is triggering a promise on the solar ingress, that activates bad things on the last Jupiter-saturn conjunction.

The method described in “the astrological history of Mashallah” (Kennedy and Pingree) is complex and I would like to give a brief glimpse to the chart below that Mashalah says that brought the deluge.

1 – As we said about “the wheels withing wheels” approach, this chart is not for the moment of the deluge, or event the solar ingress, or eclipse. If for the shift in element, the previous Jupiter-Saturn conjunction to change triplicity.

In this chart, H is the horoscope (in 19 Sagittarius), Saturn is in Scorpio, Jupiter and Mars in Libra, Sun in Aries, Mercury and Venus in Pisces, Moon in taurus.

2 – Notice that is a chart for the moment of the solar ingress when the conjunction happened. Charts of the actual conjunction were not used.

3 – First Mashalah tries to find the Lord of the Year, which is a planet with rights over the Ascendant (rulership, exaltation or even the lesser dignities) which is angular, in a position of power, essentially dignified, aspected by the luminars or by the ruler of the ASC:

“Mashallah said: No planet except Jupiter can be found for the guardianship of this year because it is the lord of the ascendant, and the lord of its triplicity, and the lord of its triplicity is the sun alone and it confers its power upon it, and (it receives power) from Venus because she (venus) is the lord of the domicile of the moon, and she is in her exaltation, and it (the moon) is in the sixth place displaced from its position, and Saturn is in the twelfth, retrograde, and Jupiter and Mars in the eleventh, they will be by division (qisma) in the tenth, both retrograde.”

Meaning that Jupiter is the lord of Year because he is has rulership and triplicity over the ASC (Jupiter has triplicity rights over the signs of fire, like Sagitarius). The other lord of the triplicity of the ASC is the sun, which is also a luminar, applying to Jupiter in Libra, confering even more power to Jupiter to be the Lord of the Year. Apparently venus also gives power to Jupiter, maybe because she is in pisces, a sign ruled by Jupiter and Venus is the dispositor of the moon.

Jupiter is in a place of power: the eleventh whole house (by counting) and it is in the 10th house by quadrant houses systems (by division).

4 – Then he explains why the chart is ominous:

“The retrogression of the three planets indicates, at the transfer of this transit in upper midheaven and a human sign, he spiritual death of the earth in the second conjunction of this transit because the horoscope (…) is a sign having two bodies, so look at the shift of the transit from one triplicity to another.”

To Mashallah, retrograde planets bring disasters, and in human signs this disasters will affect the humanity. He apparently doesn´t care that retrogrades are universal factors, the same all over the world. As the horoscope is in Sagittarius, a double-bodied or common sign, he is saying that the deluge will not happen in this conjunction. The passage is not clear why Mashalah believes that this will bring the deluge in the next great conjunction, 20 years later:

“And if you see the transit informing ahead of miracles, or death, or nativities of prophets, then consider the ascendant of the year of the shift. If it has two bodies, especially Sagittarius, there will not be anything at the first conjunction, and from the second conjunction the news of the event is made known.If the sign is either fixed or moving, then the time of the event will be at the first conjunction from the shift of the transit. If the moon, it being the lord of the light of the night in this year, had been spoiled, nothing would have remained of the world, but its (the moon) being safe indicates growth and increase (in numbers) after death”.

So, if the ASC of the GC of the shift of triplicity happens in a double sign, the event, be it miracles, death of the birth of a profect, will happen later, in the second conjunction after the shift. But if the sign is fixed or moving (cardinal) then it will happen in the first 20 years soon after the shift of triplicity. I personally would think that a fixed sign would take even longer to happen. As the moon is intact, Mashalah says that this saved the world from complete destruction.

5 -After that, Mashalah writes about the chart of the GC of the year of the Deluge. Again, Jupiter is the Lord of the GC because  it is the lord of the Ascendant (now in pisces) as well as the terms of the ASC, and because both the Sun and venus (exaltation ruler of the ASC) aspect Jupiter. Jupiter is also angular in gemini, with Saturn.

Now Mashallah tell us about the fine-tuning of the timing of the event.

“If it (Jupiter) were not together with it (saturn) in it (the cardine of the earth) and the lord of its house (mercury) in the ascendant, that would indicate that what was previously described concerning death will be in this year, in its fifth month , at the eastern apparition of saturn. Now Jupiter is in cancer and if it were not for the place of Jupiter, and the lord of its house, which is the moon, whose turn is the night, is in the cardines, the event would have occured in the fifth year of the conjunction. But their place (Jupiter and Saturn) being in the cardines it (the event) was hastened, which put it in the fifth month of its first year”

Well, this paragraph is as confusing as they can be, but Pingree says that, at the time of the actual conjunction, Jupiter will be in cancer, and this is the fifth sign from the ascendant. This would normally show 5 years; but as the moon is lord of cancer and is in a cardine, it signifies months. Saturn will have his heliacal rising in the fourth month, when the sun is in cancer, the heliacal rising giving strength to saturn.

I think that is possible that what Mashallah is trying to say is that IF Jupiter were in cancer, instead of gemini, Jupiter would no longer be in a cardine, and he would be disposited by a planet of the nocturnal sect (but also in a cardine), and this would give the timing be of years, and not longer of months. But in the original condition, Jupiter is angular, disposited by a planet on the ascendant, so we give him months.

Muhurta

Electional astrology is the art of choosing the right astrological moment to being any important endeavor.

One of the things that I don´t like is the present state of our knowledge and practice of electional astrology, that we can basically summarize in one single sentence: “do the exact reverse of an horary chart”.

As we explained in previous articles, this concept is wrong in a very important way: when you ask an horary chart, you are asking about the present and future state of affairs of a question. For instance, if you ask “Will, I marry X”, the horary will show if X loves you and if you are coming together or apart.

Now, let´s see the electional situation. You have already set the date of your marriage with X. At 7pm, X loves you and have good character and temperament. But if you start the wedding at 8 pm he is a really bad person and hates you.

Hmmmm.

It is important to notice that there is something called reality. He already is a good or bad person. And he already decided that he loves you or not (as you two are getting married, let´s assume he loves you).

See, electional astrology should be learned not with horary, but with gardening. I try to teach my students to first plant beans looking at the phases of the moon. Just that. It is amazing how ones perception can change by simply looking at the astrological effects of the moon on the little seeds.

So, I was looking for the help of Muhurta, electional astrology in Indian Astrology, for a little help. Not that we should copy it, or base ourselves in it. I think that different systems should have different techniques. But when we lost connection with our astrological foundaments, I think it is important to see how they do it, because our astrologies share common origins.

So, let´s see the 5 main points in the use of Muhurta, from the book “Vedic Astrology in money matters” by Vasudev.

1. Tithi (lunar day)

There are 30 tithis in a lunar month, 15 from New to full, and other 15 from Full to New.

In the waxing phase, the first five tithis are inauspicious, the medium five are, well, medium, and the final five are auspicious. In the waning phase is the opposite: first five are good, final five are bad.

The tithis are also sub-divided in five groups (both in the waxing as in the waning phase – each with 15 tithis):

I)Nanda: 1st, 6th and 11th tithis – exultation and hapiness, coronation, merry making, happy occasions.

II) Bhadra: 2nd, 7th, 12th – pious deeds, gentle life, donation, social works.

III) Jaya: 3rd, 8th, 13th – success, victory, winning, litigation, competition.

IV) Rikta: 4th, 9th, 14th – malefic tithi – no important work should be made.

V) Poorna: 5th, 10th, 15th – good for acomplishments (except the waning 15th day tithi – the 30th)

2. Vaara (Weekday)

Same as in western astrology – Sunday is the day of the sun, Monday the day of the moon, etc. The weekdays are also divided by the same planetary hours.

3. Nakshatras

The Nakshatras is the equivalent of the “lunar mansions” of the western astrology. The 27 nakshatras are equal divisions of the ecliptic.

The Nakshatras are classified in several ways – they can be:

dynamic – suitable for traveling, fine art, trading, opening of a shop, construction, education, medical treatment

violent – surgical operations, inventions, trading of weapons, success over enemies, imprisoning, deceit, etc.

mixed – fiery kind of works and mixed results

fixed – foundations, building of houses, sowing, coronations, entering a house…

gentle – travel, singing, music learning, wearing garments, making friends, copulation…

moveable – conveyance, starting machines, journeys, things that need motion.

pungent – illegal deeds, cheating, agression, training of animals, black magic, incantation, alliance with seat of power, separation of friends…

The strenght of the Nakshatra in the natal chart of client must be judged before using it for the election.

4 – Yogas

The longitude degrees os the luminaries (sun and moon) are added up and then divided by 13 degrees and 20 minutes. Some of these yogas are very malefic and must be avoided.

5. Karana (half lunar day)

It is half of the tithi. It has its own properties benefic or malefic and qualitities (some are good for trading, others for mining, etc)

and at last, the Ascendant

And last, but not least, we have the choice of what the ascendant should be. The ascendant is a very important part: a good asc can revert a otherwise malefic element that the astrologer couldn´t avoid.

But you can see that the rules of muhurta are a very long way from our usual thought process of “let´s do the opposite of horary”.

I believe that when we treat elections like horary, we are like the carpenter who only had a hammer.

Electional astrology and “Bear alarm” systems

I was reading “electional astrology – the art of timing” by Joann Hampar, and I was wondering how many of electional astrology greatest results are ” Bear Alarm”.

I took the “bear alarm” from an episode of The Simpsons:

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm!
Lisa: That’s specious reasoning, dad.
Homer: Why thank you, honey.
Lisa: By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Hmm. How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn’t work; it’s just a stupid rock!
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Hmm… Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

So we have a lot of electional astrology done for things that don´t need any electional astrology and that the default option is taken as “proof” that it was a good election, for instance:

• a car purchased at a used-car dealer
• to pass an examination
• to have a good travel by car
• electional to go for a physical examination
• election to file Tax return
• etc

I am not saying that none of her elections worked (although I confess I have my suspicions about her methods). I am saying that elections, unlike horary astrology, rarely have any kind of clear-cut result that show us if we are in the wrong path or not.

This is because of the principle of reality, we usually don´t know what was the original probability of the event to happen anyway.

Of course we are always worried about “we”, and our problems, but how many cosmetic surgeries happen every day at the hospital without any problems? How many cars are purchased?

How many times did you go out on travel by car and nobody died? How many times did you delivered your Tax without being audit?

The same way that the principle of reality says that you can´t elect something that you don´t stand a chance, you don´t need to elect a time when you already have it almost granted.

For instance, it doesn´t matter how good is my election chart, I will never be able to answer an exam on chinese philosophy. The other side of the problem is that, if I have a good knoledge of chinese philosophy, I don´t know how much my election did helped or not.

For example, an famous astrologer says that she “elected a secure time for her client to fly by airplane”. Well, there is one or two plane accidents every year, so I would say that this is a very safe bet from the astrologer! Every chart you elect is a very safe chart for travel!

Suggestions to avoid the “Bear alarm” problem

Did you have any special result? If you did, then maybe you are really making a probability shift.

Did your recovery from the surgery was a lot faster than the last time? Did the seller sold you the car for a substantial price below the market? Did you traveled a lot quicker than your average speed? Did your tax return came before anyone else?

Did the electional chart give you any qualitative indication that represented the reality of the situation?

For instance, was the sale quick or slow? Did the two parts in the judgment reach an easy agreement or fight to death in court? The flux of evens were in any way similar to the ones showed by the moon?

This and other questionings should be made for us astrologers to really improve the quality of our electional techniques, otherwise we risk to be, as Homer, very happy because our astrology is keeping the Bears at bay.

Electional astrology and the principle of reality

I was thinking about the problems that always arise on the subject of electional astrology.

From all the fields of astrology, electional is likely to be one of the most confused ones, with a lot of nonsense ideas floating around the internet. The problem is that the nonsense doesn´t come, as usual, from lack of technique, but most worrying, from lack of care, to sit down and figure things through.

So I am listing the main problems with electional astrology as it is practiced today. I believe that they come mainly from the non acceptance by astrologers of what I call “the principle of reality”.

Problem 1 – You can´t be elected the Queen of England.

Astrologers always said that you can´t elect anything that is not promised in the natal chart. I would go a step before: “you can´t elect anything that is impossible to happen”

(or at least very very unlikely)

I believe that there is a reality that is beyond and before any electional astrology can exist. The kind of results that we expect are determined by this reality.

If you throw a stone, it will always fall, because of gravity, doesn´t matter the moment that you chose to throw it.

The same way, you can´t elect anything that is not at least likely to happen:

• you can´t elect a proper time for a job that you don´t have the minimum qualification (e.g, president of US, CEO of Microsoft, etc).
• you can´t elect a proper time for marrying a person that hates you and is marrying you because of a contract/pregnancy/visa, etc
• you can´t elect a proper time to begin a treatment for a disease that doesn´t have a cure.

Usually in astrology you have to fight at every instance with the “free will” maniacs. But in electional they seem to quickly turn into deterministics. How many times I have seen people analyse failed marriages, business, etc, only based on the electional chart?

If two people are complete wrong for each other, futile and lack responsibility and commitment, what are the chances of a good election to really bring a good marriage?

I think that we should look at an electional chart the same way that Augoiedes looks at the “probability shift” that spells and magic should cause:

One of the challenges in putting together the operant field model of magick was devising a scale by which the strength of magical spells could be evaluated. The solution I arrived at was to conceptualize the strength of a spell based on the probability shift that it produces, much as Peter Carroll outlines in Liber Kaos but with some additional variables. This yields a simple numerical formula by which different spells can be compared and analyzed. On my scale a value of 1 represents pure chance, which is the result that would be expected without any magical effect, and the scale can increase arbitrarily as the probability shift increases. A spell that causes an event with a probability of .10 (10%) is rated at 10, a spell that causes an event with a probability of .01 (1%) is rated at 100, and so forth. With this scale the vagueries of “magical power” can be calculated using two variables, the likelihood of the event in question and whether or not the spell succeeded or failed.

I believe that this model makes things easy: you can´t be elected president of US, because the probability of you doing so is almost zero, unless you are already a very public figure in the States. If you were not born on the US, like Schwarzenegger, your chances dropped to complete zero.

But, if you are applying for a job to which you are qualified, a good time for an interview is always a good thing to have. Raising the bar from 70% to 80% is a lot more useful than raising it from 7% to 8%. The amount of “power” is the same, but the base results will determine if you can or cannot reach your goal.

If John already has some feelings for mary, a good time for a first date is more likely to help, but if she thinks he is an ogre, your elective will come to nothing.

The origin of the problem

I think that the origin of this problem, why do people forget so easily the principle of reality is because of a single phrase.

What phrase is that? It is a very powerful but simple phrase: “electional is the exact opposite of horary astrology”.

I know, many important teachers say that, but is a lie, sorry.

Think that way: horary is a divination technique, so the time you cast the charts is mythical by nature. It really IS divine time. Because it is divine time, it can show us the reality of circunstances.

So, if I am ask about my boss, and the ruler of MC is venus in virgo, squared by saturn, I can really say that my boss is no great thing. The divination makes that the ruler of MC represents my boss as he really is.

But the same principle obviously doesn´t work for electional charts! We can see several examples in books about electional astrology, where we read things like “well, we see by the MC ruler that your boss is a dumb-a$$”.

Really? Can the chart of the moment a person starts his job can make the boss an idiot, and two hours later makes it a saint? In other words, can the electional moment change what already is? I would say no.

That´s why is so stupid to try to “change” the horary chart, like people who wait until the moon is no longer void of course so they can ask a horary. Do you want a positive answer, or you want an accurate one?

One further example is from the book by Lee Lehman, the “martial art of horary astrology”. In one example, she uses a technique from horary to see if a married man really told the true, that he had never slept around. In this technique we see if the moon and mercury are afflicted, if the angles are fixed, etc.

But she uses the time he made that statement, not a time for an horary.

Sometimes the difference between an horary and an event can be blurry, but it is important to see that this technique only works for horary… if this technique could work for any single and simple piece of time, the logical conclusion would be that, at some particular times, no one would be allowed to lie. There would be hours and hours with the angles fixed, and moon and mercury in excellent state, where no one could say a lie!

Of course every politician or news caster who tried to make a speech during these miracle times would have choke to death. It would be a nicer world, but I don´t think that is our world.

Horary Test – Will I get the job

This is a horary “mystery chart”. You can put your answer in the comments. I will give the result friday at night.

Question – Will I get the job?

Background – A colleague from my course said that there was an opening in their department at the university. I had an interview with a few coordinators booked in a few days.

Did I get the job?

19/Jun/07
13h39
Bogota Colombia

Note: the houses are in Alchabitius, but you can use whatever system that you want.

Edited: the answer is below, in the commentaries session.

Mars in Aries

Mars entered into Aries this 22 april of 2009, his sign of rulership.

Electional astrology

Mars in the fiery soldier in his fiery domicile, so the general indication is to do haste, energetic, physical things.

The secret of electional astrology is that we usually do things at random or according to the official calendar, which is arbitrary. “Oh, I will start a diet on monday”. Why monday, the lazy day of the moon, and not on a tuesday, day of mars?

Why to start going to the gym on the 1st of the new month? Start now that mars in his warrior-like appearance!

It doesn´t seem like a good time to start relationships! Mars and venus are chasing eachother without ever catching up! Unless you like a “forbid love” or “doomed loved” story, like Romeo and Juliet, etc, I wouldn´t advise this as the proper moment to start a relationship or having a first date.

Of course, these are only preliminary considerations… even when the general significators are in bad shape is always possible to find a non-awful election to do the job.

Natal astrology

Mars is a medium velocity planet, and its transits take about two months at each sign. So, if you have one of the important points in your chart (ASC, MC, Sun or moon) in Aries or Libra, you probably should have a look at it.

Don´t expect great things, transits are only good to trigger other higher scale unfolding of the natal chart (like primary directions, firdar and profections). And yes, I am also including the transits of the modern three Stooges. By themselves they usually only show changes of mood.

But, in our everyday lives, changes of mood also can be important, so keep a look at mars. Usually a planet has his “peak” when he is close to the point that he is transiting, but pay attention to any changes you felt the day that mars entered aries. This can give clues to his influence.

Horary astrology

Be prepared for horary charts of doomed love, were querent is represented by either mars or venus. Venus is  usually faster than mars, but right now mars has the advantage. Venus is speeding up, but she won´t be able to catch up with mars untill he get out of aries, frustrating most of the love horaries with asc in taurus, scorpio, aries and libra of this period!

In fact, mars and venus will stand close together for the next few months! So this promises to be a hard journey for lovers, as first venus will be exiled in aries, and then when she changes to taurus, it will be mars turn to be exiled!

Mundane Astrology

Venus had her station in 29 Pisces, where she was conjoined by Mars.  Besides that, this conjunction was watched by the moon, who transited this conjunction. This in mundane astrology is usually a very good sign that something will happen. Besides that, there is also the conjunction with star Scheat.

Soon after the conjunction, government of Mexico City decided to take hard actions against the Influenza Porcine, or swine flu. All schools, from kindergarten through universities, are closed, and so are museuns, theaters, etc. At least 15% of the city is closed since friday. People are advised to stay in home, to wash hands often, and to avoid any contact as hand shakes or kisses on the face.

Could this infection be showed by the conjunction of mars and venus in 29th of pisces? If it is I really don´t know. Although when I saw the conjunction I said to myself “hmmm, this will not be good”, but I would never thought in influenza.

We will have other clues depending of the behavior of the virus and comparing it with the movement of venus and mars in the next days and weeks.

Nehran Magazine

As I said before, about the Obama´s inauguration, some rumors were around the internet that because the chart of the inauguration had a moon void of course (the moon was not void really, but that is besides the point), that this was a sign of Obama´s assassination. Well, as Rodney Smith showed, there is no relationship between the death of an american president and the void moon!

But I tried to do a further study and, as I was invited to write an article by Mai, it is now published in the March issue of Nehran magazine, an english-arabic magazine of astrology.

It is just a look between the inauguration charts were a president died (not only by assassination) and the others were a president didn´t. As it is obvious, this is far from a definitive technique. My goal was to look in all inauguration charts available and try to see if there is any real “red flags” that we can use to see if a president will end his term in the U.S.

You can see other images from the magazine here:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4258

You can download the magazine directly here:

www.nehran.com/EngMar09.pdf

This copy is for mobile phones and pocket PCs

www.nehran.com/EngMar09Mob.pdf

And, if anyone is interested, you can also download the arabic version:

www.nehran.com/AraMar09.pdf

The editor said that my article was very well received in the arabic version, so one reason to be glad.

House and double blind

I was watching House the other day. Thirteen was beginning her clinical trial with a new medication, and Cartman discovers that she is taking the Placebo and not the real medicine.

One day I will do a comparation between the methods of CSI and House, but for now, let´s focus on this example

The Experimental Method

One of the great combat horses of the empirical science is the experimental method. It is a very simple thing, but with very good results: you focus on one or two variables, and you keep changing this variables (otherwise they would be names constants). E.g. you have a carbon resistor and you let a electric current go through it. You measure the ohms of the resistor. Then you go and, by instance, change the temperature a little bit, and measure again, and change it again, and again, etc, etc.

It is a very simple method and it is very elegant. In physics. Unfortunately it hardly works in anything else.

Seriously. I have a degree in chemistry. We love science. We love experimentation. We love the “experimental method”. But it really don´t work. Chemical combinations that says in the book that should work, often don´t. Even in chemistry, which is one of the “hardest” sciences, there is a huge degree of art and luck. No two chemical reactions are completely equal, although they often are very similar. In physics an experiment can always be repeated by other physics with the same amount of money. In chemistry we need the money and somebody who have enough experience to make the damn things to work as they should !

If this is how things work in chemistry, is not a huge mystery why, when people tried to use the “experimental method” to everything in life, results were less than impressive. Try to do experimentation in administration, sociology, economy, medicine, and why not, astrology, often shows a lack of knowledge of the limitations of the method, as well as the characteristics of the science in which the experimental method is being applied to. Usually, our “brilliant scientist” is trying to use methods from other sciences, like physics, in another field of knowledge, like education, without minimum regard for the particular conditions, theories and “state of the art” of this discipline.

This “importation” usually is done by a matter of status. It may be done by administrators, educators, astrologers, etc, who want to be seen as “real serious scientists”. So, they think that using the same method as physics, they will one day also get the Nobel prize. As I have a masters in business administration and another in education, well, I can say that I have seen it all !

Clinical trials and control groups

When using the experimental method in medicine, or other sciences, we can´t do the same as we did in our example with the resistor. We don´t have the power to really shift the variables back and forth. What we do instead is to use several subjects and apply the same condition to subjects with different, but known, traits, or to apply different conditions to subjects with the same known trait.

Clinical trials are usually of the second kind. We use a group of people with a known trait (usually the trait is having a disease) and we give them different conditions, by instance, placebo for one  group and medicine for another. The placebo effect is one of those things that is so repeated that we think that we “understood” placebo… but the simple truth that the mind can heal if tricked to do so, was never fully investigated.

In the case of Thirteen and Cartman, as it is a work of fiction, there are obviously a lot of mistakes. In the episode, the nurse tells Cartman that Thirteen is in the Placebo group because her medicine has no smell. Well, to a study to be “double-blinded” means that no one knows what each pacient is taking ! You can´t have the nurses knowing what pacients are in the placebo group because their attitudes toward the patients can hugely affect the placebo effect ! Not only that, but there will be effects on the patients as well. I remember that the first tests with anti-HIV medication were greatly criticized: it was discovered that desperate pacients would exchange medication between each other, in the hope of being given at least 50% of the true medicine !

In reality is unethical to give placebo to patients with life threatening diseases, and I don´t think this kind of study is done anymore. What is done instead is to give to one group the new drug, and to the control group (not placebo group) a regular drug, used as the standard for the treatment of the disease.  This makes it hard to prove the “pure effect” of the drug, but in the long run we are only interested in proving that the new drug is better than the standard treatment. No need to give water to patients to prove that !

Control groups and astrology

Astrologers who think that “one day astrology will be recognized as a science” usually do statistical research looking for “signatures”. But you see few to no researches using control groups.

The reason is obvious. Astrologers are usually so worried about finding the yes, that will hardly bother to look for the “no” as well.

I will first focus on case studies with a control group, then will say a little word about control groups in statistical research.

A good example would be http://www.astrology-reading.com.au/USA_Presidents_who_died_in_office.html. He predicted a few months ago, the somewhat unlikely prediction that Bush would be killed in october (who would care to kill Bush in october of his last term is beyond me).

Note that I am not claiming that his astrology is “bad” or in any way analyzing his astrological reasoning. What I ask you to see is his method, in which he looks for:

• transits of the outer planets to the angles of the chart of the US (the one he uses) for the times the US presidents died in office
• uses the solar return to the chart of the US for the times the US presidents died in office
• aparently uses other factors, like eclipses, also for the times the US presidents died in office

Well, you probably already know to where I am going… we see no indication that he ever bothered to create a control group ! There are 8 presidents who died in office, but almost 40 who didn´t!

Our goal is not to see what configurations were present in the death of the presidents, but to see which configurations were present when they died which weren´t present in the control group! Without this knowledge, we could as well use the moon in taurus as an important factor to know when a president will die !

I remember a “study” about suicide, in which the “researcher” concluded that uranus in scorpio was a significant factor to suicide. As his sample was composed by people in their middle twenties to thirties, I was not surprised by this brilliant conclusion ! If he bothered to have used a control group, he would have seen that several people who were born during the 7 years that Uranus stood in scorpio didn´t bother to kill themselves.

Statistical research and control groups.

There are two cases in statistical research.

One of them is the comprovation of hypothesis. You have a clear and concrete hypothesis that you want to see if it is rejected or not (a hypothesis can never be proved!). E.g. “do people who commit suicide have more probability of having an angular mars in their natal charts?”).

You take a very large group of people and then compare it to a control group. Then you say yes or no. This is serious research, and most often than not, very frustrating.

The second type of research is the “go fishing” approach. You thrown the line and wait to something to bite. Anything at all. No a priori hypothesis of any kind. This is messy and usually shows very poor research.

As the researcher will accept absolutely ANYTHING that has a significant difference between the test and control group, then he is bound to find something ! He will accept a mars angular, but also a pluto angular, a quiron sextile fortuna, ceres biquintile Cupid, absolutely anything can be found.

In this kind of research the researcher will always be happy because he made “several important discoveries”. Astrologers who use this method, don´t feel bad about yourselves. This is quickly becoming the standard in social sciences research for researchers who don´t care about their research but wants to publish something with not so much of an effort!

If you are using a “go fishing” approach, I would suggest a 20-80 approach. You take both your test group and your control group and divide them into a two parts. One part have the two 80% splits. You use them to find your “go fishing” rules. You can´t use any data of the 20% split.

AFTER you have generated a rule, you then go and try to use this rule in the 20% split (remember that the 20% split is formed by 20% of the test group and 20% of the control group). Then you can test your rule in this fresh sample, because it wasn´t used to create your rule.

But be prepared to cry when all your beautiful correlations suddenly starts to colapse and vanish !

Ethics

Astrology, unlike medicine or sociology, has no presumption of causality. So, if relationship is such a difficult thing to prove through experimentation, even more so in astrology.

No matter how many events you have in your sample, you can never be totally sure that the event will repeat itself !

I have a coming article about the death of US presidents based on the inauguration charts. I can´t claim that it can work for foresight untill I have tested this method for, I don´t know, possibly centuries, as we don´t know when another death will happen.

So it is always sound advice to tell your readers that only because your research showed this and this, it doesn´t mean that will happen in the future ever again.

Or, in the case of the author of the article quoted, he removed the article in which he predicted Bush´s death. For some coincidence, it seems to just have vanished. Luckily, I was kind of expecting that, so I saved his article if anyone is interested.

Some years waaaay back, I wrongly predicted that Queen Elizabeth would die. Well, Queen is strong and alive. But my prediction is still open in the same forum for the world to see. There is no shame in getting it wrong, if you learn from your mistakes.