Weakness and Strength in astrology

Strength and weakness in astrology.

There are two concepts that are important in western astrology: essencial dignity and accidental dignity. This is the renaissance vocabulary and it is not the best, but is probably the best known version of the concept, so I will stick with it (no need to every astrologer to adopt their own nomenclature just to prove a point!).

Why is this problematic? First because several astrologers commited the crime of giving a number of “points” to each dignity. When arabic astrologers said that rulership is 5, exaltation is 4, we are in a very qualitative ground, one is bigger than the other. As we say today, they are ordinal numbers.

An example is degrees of education. A college degree is inferior to a masters that is inferior to a PHD. But that doesn´t mean that we can give points to each degree: “oh, the average education in the US is 4,72, and in Japan is 5,3″. Neither can we sum the numbers up, divide them, etc. And that was made with the essencial dignities.

Much worse was to give points to accidental dignities and then try to sum accidental and essential dignities as if they were the same thing! That´s I vigorously invite students to completely ignore the table found on Christian Astrology. It is the kind of thing that, first of all, was never used, and it is  filled with conceptual errors.

Essential dignities are connected with quality. For instance, in the horary of a trial, the essential dignity of the parties is related to the quality of their causes, meaning that the planet with most essential dignity is usually the right one. Unfortunately, as in real life, this doesn´t mean, in any way, that the most dignified planet will win!

In contest charts where a judge is not an important factor, like in sports, in which the judge only makes the rules to be followed, the planet with most accidental dignity will always win! He may be a “bad” team, but he got the strength! Essential dignity will make a “good” team, but maybe they are all facing a terrible diarrhea from the breakfast, or their best player is torn because his mother has died. Good team but horrible performance.

This is a really important point, in astrology as in every other scientific field: in our material world, of generation and corruption, accidental dignity usually beats essential dignity any time! Always keep an eye on that!

Thermodynamics vs Kinetics

In a previous life, I was a chemist. In Chemistry, two fields and their disputes can summarize the study of the Physical properties of Chemical reactions: Thermodynamics and Kinetics.Thermodynamics studies reactions in the state of equilibrium. Kinetics studies reactions outside of this state.

In the equilibrium, thermodynamics can say all kinds of important things about the reaction, like the efficiency of the reaction, the energies involved, etc. So much was the success of this kind of theory, that it impeded the development of kinetics for more than a century. The problem obviously is that thermodynamics is the science of reactions in the equilibrium… and only exists the equilibrium when the reaction has ended.

To not extend the matter too much, we can say that thermodynamics studies chemical reactions in a state of perfection that is not the reactions we see in real life. In real life, reactions that thermodynamics say that should happen don´t happen unless the chemist use some helping like catalysts, pressure or heat. This study would be true if reactions were perfect.

But Kinetics studies reactions in the real life. In the real life reactions that should happen don´t necessary will happen and we need to study that. There is another parallel in economics. Economics studies markets always in the state of equilibrium, and like thermodynamics, ignores the states in which the system falls out of equilibrium. So, the markets are always in state of perfect efficiency, unlike real life, where there is problems of distortion in every real market. The economical theory is pretty bad to understand crisis in the system, as the previous crisis shown very clearly. All the models to predict the amount the risk the banks had fall completely wrong because the premises of a system in equilibrium.

Matter and form

The Greeks had the model of Matter and Form. The matter of something, like dogs, is their essential thing that made them dogs, their dogness. But their dogness can manifest in a very big number of actual dogs, the form of this dogness is materialized in a specific form. As the essence is spiritual, we usually disqualify the “form” part, because, after all, it is not essential! Big mistake, because, as in dogs, every dog has the same dogness, but a poodle and a Pitbull are very different in their manifestation of this dogness.

Modern Astrology is a “thermodynamic” field. Besides others problems in technique, their focus on spiritual achievement has made astrologers completely disregard the concept of “strength” of significators. There is no problem in say “psychological” things about my “relationship with money”. But to make predictions in astrology we need an approach that allow us to know the strength in the mundane world. And the concept of the strength of rulers of houses, etc, is one that students who began with modern astrology have a really hard time to understand.

In a next article I will discuss further why modern astrologers are quick to always dismiss any concept of strength in astrology.

Astrology as a sitcom

Natal astrology and TV shows

The natal chart is like a TV show, be it a sitcom, a procedural or a drama.  TV series usually outlines the main events of the first few years. This is, of course, used more in Drama´s than in procedurals and sitcoms. In a sitcom the characters are always in “suspended time”. They are never really older, and even big important events, like children or marriages, are usually conveniently forgotten when the producers don´t want to adress the topic anymore. But in dramas we have a bigger “arc” of stories that connect the individual episodes.

The main outline of characters and events are usually summarized on the “pitch”, where the creators of a show are trying to sell the pitch to funders and producers.

Traditional astrological lore say that the soul, as in the myth of Plato, choses the life she wants to live, and descends through the planetary spheres, until she incarnates on this material life. I personally always imagined the poor soul facing the 7 archangels and the Three Fates and trying to make a crash course in astrology and trying to make a good living for herself:

“I want to be rich!”

“Ok. I hope you don´t mind being very, very butt ugly”

“What?”

“oh, and your first born will die on a sky accident”

“I didn´t sign for THAT!”

“Yes you did” would answer Gabriel, “read the fine print”.

Frawley one time joked that the soul faces the Three Fates, in their dark cave, in which they are using their Solar Fire: one choses a moment that will reflect the things that the soul chose to live; the second checks for the progressions, solar returns, etc, and the third try to guarantee that she will die at the right time.

But, as I said, a natal chart is like a TV pitch, maybe the soul “sells” a pitch to the Three Fates. After the Three that are One decide to “produce” your life, the project have to descend through seven spheres of management, suffering several batches of reviewing, commenting and “notes” of the Seven Managers.

That might explain why life is usually not what we expect. Too much group thinking and revision. Much of what was initially conceived ends up on the edition table.

Characters and actors

We have characters in sitcoms and in natal astrology. The characters have some qualities, flaws, and relationships with other characters. They usually are not that deep, defined by some standard and mnemonic set of adjectives as “lawyer, idealist, man, rich, cheats on his wife”, or “young, actor, stupid, charming, have problems with his father”.

Let´s use Friends as an example:

• Joey is stupid, a bad actor and he is Chandler´s best friend
• Ross likes Rachel, has a competitive relationship with his sister, and he works on a museum.
• we know that Rachel is shallow, works as a waitress, and she suddenly becomes a  executive in the fashion industry.

The same happens to our natal charts, each of these characters in our natal charts like some of the others, have jobs, flaws, good qualities, and love or hate other characters of this show. The only difference is that all the possible characters can only be played by seven actors !

Let´s say we have the MC on Capricorn. So our saturn have rulership over the affairs of the MC.

Saturn can play any character… in this chart, he is playing the MC, but he could be playing second house. The same way that Tom Cruise could play Hamlet (aham!). I don´t say that he would play it particularly well, and the same goes for Saturn as our actor. In TV as in natal astrology, the physique du rolê is important. For instance we had the luck to never seen John Wayne on a musical, nor Betty Midler doing drama.

As Christopher Warnock noticed, Saturn can also be typecasted, like Leonard Nymoy and Mr Spock. So Saturn will always play things that he signifies essencially, like an older character, with a “doom and gloom” look, a melancholic nature, wears black and play Bach late at night in his piano, etc.

A planet, even when it is not typecasted will try to act the character in their own way, the same way the Joker of Jack Nicholson is not exactly the same as the joker of Heath Ledger.

Story arcs and episodes

Dramas and comedies have different astrological rules.

The sitcom is always at the same point. As the episode ends, the reset button is pressed. We know that Rachel´s new boyfriend will not stick, that Kramer will always attack Seinfeld´s freezer and that the Nanny will not date Mr Sheffield.

Of course, after a time change will happen, but they are few and sparce. The same can be said about happy people.

The life of happy people are tedious and uneventful, that’s the reason of that ancient Chinese curse: “that you may have an interesting life”! Most years are passed, as Frawley said, in the same job, doing the same things, with the same wife, in the same sofa, watching the same soap and drinking the same beer.

But dramas have a different logic, and what is life without drama? Some astrologers love drama so much that they can´t look at a solar return without predicting death! In fact, the most important sign of an astrologer who is learning the solar return technique is that he is seeing their SR and he is afraid he might die next year!

Dramas follow story arcs. In the first Season of Supernatural, the two brothers look for their father. In the fourth season they are fighting with angels, in the fifth against Lucifer. In Dawson´s creek, first season she loves, he doesn´t. Second they both love. Third he loves, she doesn´t. Fourth she loves another guy… The arcs may follow a rigid structure of a flexible one. In almost all the procedures, Hospital and lawyer´s drama, the focus are on patients, victims and clients, so the arc of character´s development is not always clear but exists.

But even in drama, 80% of the story arcs are uneventful, with some sparse episodes that concentrates all the important changes, either in a character or in the direction of the story.

In the drama we have two questions: one, what is the “general flavour” or the main topic of a story arc. It may be the initial love of Meredith and Derek (yes, I see Grey´s Anatomy for my shame). Or may be the appearece of his wife. The second question is what the main important events that will really change the direction of our opera, and not only maintain business as usual.

In Natal astrology, the job of setting the story arcs is due to the timelords techniques. Modern astrologers don´t use them, but this is a very familiar technique for Hindu Astrologers. Each period of the life has time lords that give their special color to the period. Some of the most used and important time lord procedures are Firdaria, Ages of Man, and directions by terms.

But a timelord will not say the events that really change the flow of the story. This events are shown by primary directions usually.

Some astrologers use techniques to see the theme of an episode, like profections and solar returns, without considering the story arc. Don´t. Buffy can have a fling for vampires, but in season one it will be romantic, pure, innocent and juvenile, and in season six will be desperate, hardcore and almost sadomasochist. The same goes for the relationships of your clients.

Some astrologers also try to use techniques for analyzing an episode, in which, as discussed, there is nothing really happening of importance for the story (Dean and Sam will look for yet another monster, Seinfeld will dump another girlfriend), and then try to find very spectacular effects, life, death and transformation. If there is no testimony from techniques like primary or secondary directions, this will remain just in the astrologers own fantasy.

Top 11 signs you are a troll astrologer

Inspired by Letterman, I tried to put the ten top signs that you are troll astrologer. Most of them are inspired by my recent experiences as an moderator on several forums, as we always have  lots of them. While trolls usually are trying just to create disruption on an internet community, troll astrologers are usually trying to attract attention to themselves.

Number 11 – You have a “secret technique”

For some reason, everybody now has a secret technique that they won´t share, they won´t tell anybody their name, but they want to publish their incredible value.

You will not make public predictions with your fantastic technique, you will not say how it works, but you will publish the incredible results you have had.

If any astrologer ask why don´t you at least prove the power of your secret technique, you will usually act with rage or disdain. My personal favorite answer is “The smart ones will get it and this will open a new door in the field of astrology. For the ones that don’t get it like Tom and Yuzuru, Oh well I guess you’re not ready to learn.”

Number 10 – you go into forums and internet communities with an alias just to praise myself.

You wouldn´t believe how many people subscribe to a forum, and then when they face the disbelief and scrutinity of forum members, suddenly re-appear as a “fan”  always ready to support the oppinions of the main alias! It just “happens” that the fake alias subscribed two days after you…

To show you that people are not just bad astrologers. Sometimes they also have psychological problems.

Number 9 – you have 70+ years of experience in astrology

For some reason, every bad astrologer have low self esteem, and they need to seek validation from everyone, everywhere.

So, if you ask why are they using this particular technique, they will always answer something like “I have been using this technique for 50 years” or something like that.

Does that really impresses anyone? I never got really attracted by this argument. If you can´t prove that your technique works either by logical argument, by sources, or by results, saying that you have used it for a very long time just means that you are getting old.

Number 8 – you have 1 million+ satisfied customers

Same thing. If you are defending your point, I didn´t ask for your customer satisfaction survey! I imagine that McDonalds have millions of satisfied clientes, but I don´t think their opinion is necessary to find out if their burger is made of meat! (which I doubt!)

I do believe that number do show you that your point is powerfull, if your point is marketing for astrologers. If the discussion is about solar returns, chances are that your number of clients really aren´t an important piece of the discussion.

Number 7 – “Your forum is a piece of garbage! No one answers me!”

I know that people think that moderators have super powers, but we really don´t tell forum members to whom they should reply!

If in an active forum, your answers are the only ones not being replied, it is probably because the problem is with you, agree?

Number 6 – when doing a mystery chart, you try to google the answer

Mystery charts are learning tools so astrologers can have a little fun and learn something from other people that are really using the technique, without knowing the real answer.

But you would be surprised how many people try to google the answer to try to brag about how great they are. Jesus, how can you brag if you know you are cheating?!

Number 5 – when doing a mystery chart, you give the answer after it is made public

You wouldn´t believe how many people will give you the answer AFTER the answer is made public!

“Oh, you stupid fools, if you had used (put favorite technique here) you would have got the right answer!”

Well, where were you at the start of the conversation? Please don´t give us the answer after I told you what the answer was!

Number 4 – “I have made thousands of incredible predictions to the day”

I don´t know if there is a technique that can really predict to the day. It may be. But the people that say that they can do that usually are problematic. I don´t know why. Probably it is reafirmation problems again.

Number 3 – you put your own words in some ancient authority and you say that you have “discovered their secret technique”

An “astrologer” in Brazil recently discovered the great secret of the technique of profections by William Lilly (Lilly didn´t invented the profections, but let´s forget all the problems in the text). You know, the great secret lost technique that William Lilly used to predict the Great Fire? Tarot!

Yes, the great secret of profections is that Lilly really was using the tarot! Unfortunately he didn´t write this anywhere, neither bother to say anything to his friends (he probably was protecting his “secret technique”). But we are lucky to finally have the answer revealed.

By the way, don´t miss my article next month on Mountain Astrology: “Bonatti and the I ching”.

Number 2 – “Come my creatures, and praize me”

For some reason, some people think that everybody else is at their services.

“I don´t believe in solar returns, but I will let you prove me wrong”.

Or  start a thread to discuss a topic and they try to manipulate people to do a solar return, for example, and then show them the error on their ways.

Oh, please, great teacher of astrology, show us mere mortals the light!

Number 1 – “it works for me”

How good for you! But if it works only for you, and you don´t care if it will work for others, why are you posting on a community in the first place! Go to an island and make impressive secret predictions to the day!

Is there any other sign of a troll? If you remembered any that I forgot, please put your own sign of trolling (and crazy astrologer) on the comments

A little bit of association

Where there´s smoke, there is always also fire?

In the last few years, in our thinking and in the culture it seems that the “scientific method” is starting to get very mixed with “statistical method”. There is a lot of mistakes in this thinking, of course. And as people feel that “only what is scientific is truth” we start to see things like “the science explains why we do love animals”.

As any animal lover can testify, we don´t need any “scientific” (or in this case, pseudo-scientific) reason to love animals. They are just cute.

My dog, Blanca, looking crazy

We also see every day more and more explanations based on pseudo-evolutionary reasoning. My favorite is that nerds have better sperm.

So I think is unavoidable that astrologers will use statistics more and more. Let´s just hope they will use it properly.

Association and Correlation

When two categorical variables are statistically related (e.g, eye color and hair color) they are said to be “associated”.

When two quantitative variables (e.g. weight and height) are statistically related (with a linear relationship), they are said to be “correlated”.

The word correlation is often used wrongly to express association.

Association is easy. You prove that a certain atribute (e.g. eye color) has  more probability to happen when the person has also another atribute (e.g. hair color). An example of correlation is below.

This example is from Intermediate Statistics for Dummies. A good book, better than a lot of “academic” books that you see around. In this example the poins measure the number of coffe cups sold at football games in Buffallo, New York, at several Temperatures. The straight line that was plotted show that we have a negative slope, meaning that when the temperature rises, the number of coffee cups decreases. The correlation is -0.74, which is  pretty hight for this kind of study. The number is negative because, when temperatures rises, cups decrease, and when temperature lows, number of cups sold increases.

Correlation is not causation

The biggest mistake that people make (even the ones who should know better) are to confuse correlation with causation (or association with causation). Statistics can´t show relationships of cause-effect.

Let´s see the two examples above. It is obvious and clear that, when the temperature drops, people like to drink more hot beverages. In hot days, people are glad to avoid coffe and drink beer. So, we know that it can´t be the other way around: we don´t expect that people drinking coffee help to lower temperatures. If this was so, we would have a quick fix to global warming.

But this is not an statistical information. This comes from our knowledge and theories about how the World works. For the correlation, it could be just as easily the other way around. Or that the two variables are been affected by a third invisible one.

For instance, we all know that cigarettes cause cancer. We know this because of statical studies. But from the statistical standpoint, you can´t say if the cigarettes are “causing” the cancer, of if people who will develop cancer in their lives happens to love cigarettes! You could even theorize that there is some kind of strange virus (third invisible cause) that creates cancer and a loving for smoke!

In cases where we know before hand that there is only one possibility, it is all plain and easy. But let´s analyse the correlation between market share and publicity. Or between years of study and domestic violence and things get very complicate and ideology becomes very important.

You could say that “the lack of study makes people who have less economical opportunities to avoid domestic violence”

or that “people who suffer domestic violence has less social and psychological support to engage in study and drop out”

or that “people who have less emotional stability and cognitive habilities are likely to drop school and to have abbusive relationships”

You see that any number of causations are always possible. A can cause B, B can cause A, and A and B can be caused by C, etc.

As another example, studies always show that the better business have better employees (in years of education). But we don´t know if it is because the better employees really raises the profits, or because business with better profits can hire better employees.

So remember that, if you have a causal relationship, a correlation or association is likely to appear. But the correlation by itself doesn´t mean that there is causation.

In astrology

And in astrology? In astrology we have an even bigger problem, because we don´t have causal relationship, period. There is no magnetic field that show when you will marriage. There is no gravitational force that leads our horaries to the right answer.

“As above so below” is not a scientific theory, it is a statement about the spiritual nature of the world, where everything is related by spiritual connection.

That´s one of the reasons why hindsight is such a horrible methodology in astrology… you will always find something happening in a natal chart at any given time!

So we see things like “oh, my mars was transiting my ascendent and then my house burst into flames”. If mars had this kind of power, no insurance housing would be available, ever.

“Directed Venus was sesquisquaring with neptune and semi-sextile quiron when I won the lottery”. Ok, but so what?

“Every time that pluto passed through mars of the US chart, a terrible event happened”. Ok, but do this mean that will happen again?

This is not the only problem with hindsight, but it one of the most obvious. As there are no causality in astrology, we can´t eliminate things as easily as we did in the example of coffee and weather.

Astrologers should at least use some simple guidelines when do study with hindsight facts:

1 – Is the simbolism correct? You can´t use venus sesquisquare quiron and say that it “caused” you winning the lottery, just because it happened at the same time. It is not enought. A lot of things at happening at every given time in a chart. The symbolism must be adequate. This is number one sin of people addicted in rectifications.

2 – Is the power of the astrological method enough? A transit of mars through an angle will happen every 6 months give or take. If this could make your house to burst into flames, we would all have  buy  houses under water.

3 – Can we make the same method work in foresight? Sometime ago an astrologer showed that every attack of Al Qaeda could be timed by transits of pluto to the mars of their declaration of “war”. Of course, no further transit of pluto timed anything after that.

So, always remember that just because two things happened at the same time, we have no reason to assume they are connected!

Related topics

• Considerations before judgement
• Considerations before Judgement – part 2
• 5 Differences between modern and traditional astrology
• What is traditional astrology ?

Zombies vs Vampires

In the last presidential election, astrologers from all around the world got out of their caves and made one thing that they rarely do: predictions. So, it is not to wander why only 50% of them got it right…

First of all, as Deborah Houlding commented, there was no need of astrology at all. Good and old common sense could simply tell you what was the favourite. One month before the elections, Obama was already gaining 1:7 in oddscheck. As I said for some astrologers, why don´t put the money were your mouth is?

One russian astrologer tried to predict a surprise victory for McCain one day before the elections. If he did got it right, he was couting on getting the glories, but he didn´t wish to have the burden of failure. Obama´s birth certificate “was obviously a falsification”. If it wasn´t, why would our astrologer have missed it?

Second we had the sad vision of dozens of “rectified” charts for Obama. All of them badly done, obviously, based on a completely fake birth certificate, but I will not get into the merit, because of the number of followers of this person. One can only wonder how many other fake birth chart this person added into astrodatabank as being AA.

As everybody knows, astrologers don´t know how to do rectification, but do it anyway. The result is that we had a lot of “rectifications” changing the time of Obama´s birth in 5-20 minutes, when the true chart had hours of difference. Clinton´s chart was also “rectified”, half the astrologers rectified it to 8am, and the other half to  8pm.

Third we had all that knowleadgeable discussion about “saturn vs uranus” – old vs new. But no one cared to see what happened in other cicles. Barbault is the only modern author that I know that did a serious study, and he didn´t say any correlations of “old vs new”. He says a lot of fights between fascism and right wing movements like nazism (left wing fascism is represented by saturn-neptune).

One famous astrologer had the interesting view that the May of 68 was caused by a past saturn-uranus opposition, showing that my ephemerides (that shows this opposition going on in 66) is clearly wrong. So we can expect a great fight between old and new ideas in 2010.

Of course this same kind of thinking predicted that Bush would loose to Kerry and to Gore, but let´s focused on the ones we got it right.

While astrologers were killing each other, without using any proper astrology, I found an article about a non-astrologer cycle that clearly shows the next president of US: Zombie vs vampires movies. Astrologers, eat your heart out!

In January of 2008, comics blogger Ethan Vasciver wrote that the democrats would win (so, many months before astrologers) based on the success of Thirty days of Night, a vampire movie.

A few years ago, I assembled some graphs and pie charts and came to an amazing realization: You can predict which political party will be in the White House by which is more popular, Zombies and Werewolves, or Vampires and UFOs. If zombies and werewolves are all over television and movies, and are unusually successful, you can expect a Republican administration. On the other hand, if the public has an appetite for bloodsucking vampires or alien abductions and conspiracy theories, you’re either about to endure or are in the middle of a Democratic regime. It’s true and it works. And I’m not sure why.

You can read the article in detail, but some elements for the “zombie-vampire cycle theory” are:

1968’s Night Of The Living Dead – election of Richard Nixon

977’s Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind – Carter

1979’s Dawn of the Dead and 1981’s Wolfen and The Howling , plus Day of the Dead, the Return Of The Living Dead series, Michael Jackson’s Thriller ,The re-Animator,  Deadalive- Reagan.
90-s – Bram Stoker’s Dracula,  Anne Rice´s  Interview with a Vampire,  Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kindred: The Embraced, X-Files, Roswell, etc, – Clinton Administratino.

2000- Underworld,  28 Days Later, Shaun Of The Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, 28 Weeks Later,  Resident Evil,  Marvel Zombies (comics), Walking Dead (comics), Land of the Dead, Diary of Dead – Bush era.

2008- 30 Days of Night, Indiana Jones and Skull of Cristal, Transformers, Star Trek, True Blood, Twilight, Moonlight, Blood ties, Impaler (comics), and of course, vampires vs werewolves in the moon (comics).

Of couse, the tide has not changed entirely. We still have a lot of comics from the zombie era, like the Walking Dead and Marvel Zombies and other pieces of disturbed imagination like zombies of mass destruction.

Why there is a cycle of zombies vs vampires, and werewolves vs Aliens? Beats me. Zombies are raw, powerfull, uncountious putrid matter. Saturn in very corrupted state? Vampire are the undead, supposedly sexy, blase, egotistic, hedonistic, eternally bored, pretensious, individualist. What would be the better profile for them?

Anyway next time you see one of our astrologer colleagues rambling about their perfect system of predicting elections that would work if Obama´s Birth Certificate was real, show them the zombie-vampire system and ask them to try to do better.

And you, what do you think is the better explanation of the zombie-vampire struggle?

Related articles

• Obama´s Inauguration
• Obama oath… again ?
• What the future holds to 2009?
• Jupiter in Aquarius

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?).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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