I am positive this subject has been discussed in considerable depth about a year or two ago on Skyscript but I cant find the thread anywhere.
Very frustrating.

MarkC wrote:I am positive this subject has been discussed in considerable depth about a year or two ago on Skyscript but I cant find the thread anywhere.
Very frustrating.

I remember because I took part in it! I don't think it was that far back though.

The whole problem with the religion significators is that people start using preconceived notions of what they think religions are and try to apply them to planets. Many westerners see Buddhism and Hinduism as the height of enlightened learning and Islam and Christianity as the least enlightened. Thus to say Venus signifies Islam seems wrong according to that sensibility. Why would Islam be ruled by Venus? They hate women! har har har.

Sometimes you just have to detach yourself from your opinions.

Mithra6 wrote:Thus to say Venus signifies Islam seems wrong according to that sensibility. Why would Islam be ruled by Venus? They hate women! har har har.

Sometimes you just have to detach yourself from your opinions.

I don't want to enter into a religious debate, and moreover we were talking about a famous and quoted text of traditional astrology.

I'm not a Muslim (I'm a catholic by education) but I don't believe Muslims hate women. It's their way to protect them from life, whatever we like or not.

In Italy we have plenty of strangers of very different nationalities and I never saw a Muslim man who sends his wife to work, he prefers to work all day without any help.

On the other hand, I see many people from other areas of the world who send their women to work and they prefer to stay at home.

So I'm not sure the first one hates his wife more than the second...

Margherita

Is there an English version of Picatrix?

I heard about that name of that book in Jim Tester's book. It seems that Marsilio Ficino was inspired by this book.

I think this thread is skating a bit close to the edge personally.

Also doesn't the topic of planetary significators for world religions really belong on the Mundane part of the forum?

Hi Eddy,

Is there an English version of Picatrix?

Yes Ouroboros Press published the first English translation available in two volumes, Ouroborous Press (2002 Vol. 1 and (2008 Vol. 2). However, these were in very limited editions and the first volume is already very rare and reaching fantastic prices in the second hand book market. There have been a few criticisms of the accuracy of the editions too.

The good news is that John Michael Greer and Christopher Warnock are bringing out an entire new English edition next year. Books I & II ( out of a total of 4) are already on sale. If the subject of astrological magic and Talismans interests you its definitely a must have book.

Check the bottom of the page of this link for details:
http://www.renaissanceastrology.com/picatrix.html

Here is a review of the new edition by Nina Gryphon.
http://gryphonastrology.com/blog/2008/1 ... d-warnock/

The Greer/Warnock translation is light years better than the Ourobourous one. It's partial, but you'll get a far better sense of the actual Picatrix from it, and the PDF version is not prohibitively priced.

Gjiada wrote:

Mithra6 wrote:Thus to say Venus signifies Islam seems wrong according to that sensibility. Why would Islam be ruled by Venus? They hate women! har har har.

Sometimes you just have to detach yourself from your opinions.

I don't want to enter into a religious debate, and moreover we were talking about a famous and quoted text of traditional astrology.

I'm not a Muslim (I'm a catholic by education) but I don't believe Muslims hate women. It's their way to protect them from life, whatever we like or not.

Please don't get me wrong. I was being sarcastic! I just see comments like that when the whole significator in religions gets brought up. I've seen Islam singled out quite a bit when it's mentioned Venus is Islam's significator. People forget Islam's history and rich tradition. Some people can only think of Bin Laden.

MarkC wrote:I think this thread is skating a bit close to the edge personally.

Also doesn't the topic of planetary significators for world religions really belong on the Mundane part of the forum?

Probably.

I probably shouldn't have been sarcastic. I forget sarcasm doesn't come across in forums sometimes. I just get a little tired of people generalizing what a religion is "supposed" to be based on what the news is currently saying. We saw that earlier in some comments about Islam.

We have all the traditional lists, and I personally don't have a problem with them.

Chris Warnock's and John Michael Greer's translation is far superior to Ourobouros'. The Ouroboros version was translated from an Arabic copy by an Arab translator who unfortunately didn't understand astrological terms very well. As a result the translation is a bit off.

The books are bound really nicely though.

I think we forget astrological terms can be unique, so if someone doesn't know what to look for, they may not understand the context of the terms. Almuten comes from the Arabic word for "victor" and the word "term" comes from the Latin "terminus" meaning ending or boundary. If you don't know what an almuten or term/bound is astrologically, you can see why it would be confusing. I know The Picatrix has a section on the bounds of Venus in magic, which would read like: "be aware of the endings of Venus".

I know, Steven. I also know that Abu'mashar (did I lend my copy to someone? must have done, because I still can't find it) wrote about how Saturn is Judaism because Christianity and Islam have to accept it at some level (it's the outer boundary, astrologically), but Saturn doesn't accept anything (it doesn't make friends with other planets), then we come down one notch and Christianity is Jupiter because Jupiter receives all, etc., and Venus - I know it was the ingress chart, but I think it also had something to do with Venus having more friends (astrologically speaking) and Islam, like Christianity, is a universal religion.

Mars is heretics and atheists because it really doesn't have much in the way of planetary friends, either, at least if I remember the theory correctly. It made sense when I read it anyway, does anyone have that passage handy?

Hi, Steven


if you have it handy, could you give the reference to this chart by Mashalah ?