I'm aware that the beginnings of astrology will forever be shrouded in mystery, but I like to think that the ancients came up with those mythological names after studying those objects in the sky as well as astrologically in charts. Personally, I tend to agree. I just wanted to make the simple poin...

The mythological Graeco-Latin names of the planets (e.g., Aphrodite/Venus) are a sort of cultural translations from/correspondences with the original Babylonian deity names (in this case, Ishtar). Naturally there are no absolute one-to-one correspondences between the pantheons of different religious...

Oh dear...

Yes, I do understand Bezza's preferred methodology: it is essentially primary directions, just using a different equation of time. Was there a particular point you wanted to make? Incidentally, if I wanted to demonstrate the predictive value of a technique with claims to great exactitude, I wouldn't...

Question: I understand that in the first quote it turns the houses. But why in the second quote if the Horoscope or ASC is natally at twelve degrees in Leo doesn't fall at twelve degrees in the second year. Instead, he says it falls at 10 degrees of Virgo which is the cusp of the 2nd House? The met...

So he’s counting by sign, not houses; although the mention of “even degrees” is unusual as that usually means ascension degrees, not zodiac degrees. No, it's the other way round: equal degrees (or 'even', as translated here) means degrees on the ecliptic. (Degrees of the region are oblique ascensio...

I don't know Hebrew and can't say what terminology ibn Ezra used, but I know that Giuseppe Bezza advocated his more naturalistic/sophisticated take on profections. As far as I know these were unique to ibn Ezra, although they may be regarded as a natural development of the idea of profecting by quad...

I didn't think using Equal Houses for profections was idosyncratic, don't most of the early texts say to count 30 degrees from the Ascendant, giving 30 degrees for each subsequent house, when calculating them? I'll have to double check my notes/sources. Profecting by 30 equal (ecliptical) degrees p...

Thank you, Jane, for yet another cleaned-up version of an old work! I hadn't read Ferrier's manual before. The combination of predictive techniques outlined in the third part is mostly standard medieval fare, except that by Ferrier's time, directing by position circles (Regiomontanus-style) had beco...

Which sign (tropical) was Venus in? In the chart example you mention. I also wonder, which houses Venus and Saturn rule in the chart? Lecherous/licentious signs are bestial signs (ari, tau, cap) and Venus related signs (lib, pisc, tau again), as far as I can remember. Tropically, Venus was in Aquar...

In contemporary scholarship, most historians who use the term Western astrology do so with full awareness of its multicultural roots, as I do here. Actually, I would dispute that. Most western historians of astrology have only a vague idea (sometimes next to no idea) of the role that India has play...

Thanks, Deb. Venus rising with a sextile from the Moon in the 11th does sound quite positive. But Venus ruling the MC in Sagittarius? Was that a slip of the pen, or do you mean ruling by some minor dignity?