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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Hello, Yuzuru. Fascinating stuff about mundane techiques used by ancients. But here we don’t have the locations for these charts – are they missing altogether or you just forgot to mention them?
Thank you and keep up the great work!
Hi, Goran
I always assumed that they were cast for Bagdah, but I looked down on the book and didn´t find anything about it. I will have to look for it closely.
Kennedy and Pingree simply say that the date of the charts were unknown, and they had to reconstruct the time by planetary position, so I don´t believe that there will be any known location either…
Ok, many thanks for the calrification, Yuzuru.
Greetings, Goran