Yes, David Pingree did make some errors, unfortunately.

Anyway, it may not surprise you but I don't agree with the Wikipedia definition of the word 'katarche' either. I can't help suspecting that someone has tried to slant an argument with that definition, especially by making comments like this:

Recently, in the late 20th century, some astrologers began to extend the use of the word katarche to interrogations or horary astrology, where a chart is cast for the moment that a question is posed to an astrologer. According to this modern interpretation there is a fluid connection between the notions of electional and horary astrology.

A very subjective opinion being presented as fact .. hmmm.

So I wrote my own explanation of the term and have posted it on this page:

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/gl/katarche.html


But now I have to dash out and when I get back, I have to return to todays original argument (nothing to do with this ... this one really has to wait its turn )

-- But it does strike me as very fitting that the word 'katarche', this 'drawing down' is related to the lower midheaven of the chart.

Your definition on the glossary is very interesting. I take it this was 'one you prepared earlier' in Blue Peter tradition?

Quite thought provoking actually. I do feel that is vital. Once we close down enquiry and think we have all the answers we stop thinking. I also believe we have lost a lot of the spiritual sense that must have surrounded early astrology.

Incidentally, have you read James Holden's new translation of Porphyry's Commentary on the Tetrabiblos and the astrological definitions of Serapio of Alexandria? I suspect that will give us some more clues regarding this issue and many others.

I have just ordered them. I do think James Holden is an amazing person. In his 80's and translating texts quicker than I can read them!

Mark

MarkC wrote:

This thread is getting very interesting.

Could this mean that Horary Astrology started from electional Astrology.
The astrologer was initially a Omen reader,Divinator,deciding the time of or divining the outcome of the sacrifice or an event had taken place at a particular time- i.e inception of an event to inception of an idea(Horary).

Hello Pankajdubey,

In the spirit of free enquiry Deb will not mind me giving this link to this article by Chris Brennan with his view on the origins of horary. Actually, its not strictly Chris Brennan's theory but that of the noted academic David Pingree which Chris Brennan supports. I thought it might be of interest to you especially as this theory postulates that horary astrology was first developed in India and brought to the west much later. A key text used to support this theory is a late 3rd century Indian astrological text entitled the Yavanaj?taka of Sphujidhvaja. The relevat charts discussed in the text were essentially consultation charts. However, David Pingree argued from this could be seen as the origin of the use of interrogations ( ie. horary) in India. Pingree maintained the full development and widespread use of the system of interrogations did not become apparent in India until the 6th century with the works of the well-known Indian astrologer Var?hamihra and especially his son Prithuyasas (c. 600 CE) in his Shatpanchasika.

http://www.chrisbrennanastrologer.com/B ... Horary.pdf

Mark

Thanks MarkC,
Very interesting read.

Indian scholars get very touchy with any suggestion that all Indian astrology was Greek .They may not complain about Indian influences or persian or Arabic astrologers. Martin Gansten may have something to comment about the Sanskrit translations and Yavana influence on Indian astrology. He is currently reseraching later Tajik influences.

I have found 'Shatpanchasika ' to be reasonably accurate in contest and war related horaries.It has no mention of application or seperation,generally uses the quality of the signs as Mutable/Fixed/Movable and human or quadruped signs etc,deanctes or drekkanas are used.

Prasna Marga a text book of Indian Horary Astrology- very famous in Southern part of India- advises an astrolger to note eight type of things before predicting- Omens on the way or at the time of Question are very important.Any astrologer would attempt to predict the past,present and future for their client.It is also quite well know for astrolger beig asked or him asking the client if that the client is thinking of a Living being/Metal/lifeless thing.Maybe,they were for astrologer to work out if he was in sync with heavens before giving a divination.'Prasna Marg' too does not deal with applying or seperating aspects.The Decants are used quite extensively.

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=eUon ... &q&f=false



This is becoming too much off topic but very interesting take on where we belong in the heavenly scheme of things.

Coming back to the topic of where an astrologer belongs to in a horary chart if I am not interested in either consulting him/her or interetsed in his ability to do or teach astrology- I guess, then he is not an an astrologer but just another individual.

PD

Thanks Pankajdubey,

I dont feel too bad going a bit off topic as the original question was well dealt with by Tanit and Deb's subsequent post.

Interesting that the authorship of the work is attributed to a Namboodiri, a Brahmin of Kerala, and written in Kollam 825 (1649 AD) in a place called Edakad near Talasseri, Kerala, South India.

Interesting coincidence as 1649 was also the year of the first edition of William Lilly's Christian Astrology. Clearly a good year for horary.

Mark

Kirk wrote:
1647

oops quite right! I think I had the 9 in mind from the reprint in 1659. Still interesting though that two pivotal books in horary in both the western and Indian astrology came so close together historically.

Thanks

Mark

I was just browsing through the forum this morning when I came across this thread, which is interesting since I just posted a video on YouTube a few days ago on this very topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ8Ok8zgtjQ


I would like to make a few brief points in response to statements made earlier in the thread:

As I pointed out in my review of Holden's translation of Rhetorius (http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/2009 ... es-holden/), that passage is not an unambiguous reference to horary, but instead it may simply refer to what we would refer to in modern times as a 'consultation chart', which was widely used in the early Hellenistic and Indian traditions.

Holden's translation of that passage is misleading because he makes it look like Rhetorius explicitly mentions both horary and electional astrology, and he makes a distinction between the two. This is not the case when you look at the Greek though, as Rhetorius only uses one word, katarche, not two. So when you read that passage from Holden's translation you have to realize that Rhetorius only uses one word there, and thus he is only referring to one application of astrology. It is only Holden's mistaken belief that katarche refers to horary and electional that causes him to translate that single term as two separate phrases, but there is no motivation for that in the Greek.

Using Holden's translation, but keeping the single Greek term used, the sentence reads "In katarches it signifies the action of the astrologer..."

The meaning of the sentence, then, hinges upon what the word katarche means in an astrological context. In that context, it almost universally means 'beginning' or 'inception' in English, and it is most commonly used in electional astrology to refer to the symbolic 'beginning' or 'inception' of the venture. This meaning is also clear in Ptolemy during his discussion of conception versus birth (III: 1, pg. 225 in Robbins), when he makes the statement that conception is the 'beginning' (arche) of life, but birth is the 'inception' (katarche). What he is saying is that the physical origin of life begins at conception, but the most symbolically significant moment is the moment of birth, as this is the true 'inception' of life, when the potentiality of the native is able to become fully actualized.


That aside, Mark made the statement earlier that

The relevant charts discussed in the text were essentially consultation charts. However, David Pingree argued from this could be seen as the origin of the use of interrogations ( ie. horary) in India.

I just wanted to point out that Pingree never mentioned consultation charts in his writings. He changed his story suddenly in the 90's, pointing out that the references in Dorotheus were interpolations, and thus that there was no evidence for horary in the Hellenistic tradition besides that, but then he just started saying that it was in the Yavanajataka. The problem with that, of course, is that pretty much all of the material in that section of the Yavanajataka is on consultation charts, and the only parts that aren't had to be reconstructed from later sources. Consultation charts are also in Hephaistio though. The problem is that that isn't horary though. That is a subset of electional/inceptional astrology.

The notion that horary developed out of consultations charts is what I feel was my unique contribution to this whole issue. I was largely building on Pingree's later work in pointing out the lack of references to horary in the Hellenistic tradition, and the corrupted nature of Dorotheus' extant text, but Pingree never explained how horary did develop. I think that the notion that it evolved out of the consultation chart framework, and that that is why the astrologer is still implicated in the horary even later in the tradition, is my unique contribution to the subject.

What is interesting is that after I first published that paper in the NCGR journal, outlining this argument about consultation charts, Ben finished his translation of Sahl and Masha'allah a few months later, and it was in that work that I was able to find tangible evidence that this transition between consultations charts and horary actually took place. See Ben's introduction to Sahl and Masha'allah, pgs. xxxiv-xxxviii, for more on this.

I meant to mention that the term that Holden translates in that sentence as 'action' is 'praxis', which can mean action, but it can also mean 'work', or more broadly the 'result' or 'issue of a business'. 'Praxis' is one of the primary significations associated with the 10th house in Hellenistic astrology, which is how it later came to be associated with one's career or social standing, since it is literally the house of what one 'does'.

Rhetorius is saying that the 4th signifies the 'praxis' of the astrologer because it is the 10th from the 7th. The 7th is only relevant here because the statement is made within the context of the consultation chart. Within that context, Rhetorius is saying that the 4th house pertains to the 'reputation' of the astrology within the context of the consultation chart. If benefics are there then the consultation will result in 'gain and praises' (Holden's translation) for the astrologer, but if the malefics are there then the consultation will result in 'losses and condemnations' for the astrologer.

With respect to the original question, the 7th house only applies to the astrologer in the case of a consultation chart, or nowadays more often in the case of a horary, since that is the person that the client or querent is consulting with. The 9th house is generally the place of astrologers otherwise. It is not clear from the original post what the context of the question was though, which would be needed in order to fully answer the question about which house to assign the astrologer to.

Hi Chris

Well I was hoping to avoid discussing your paper directly, because of the fact that I don?t agree with some of the points in it. As I mentioned earlier, I?ll publish my own account of my understanding of the history of horary in time, which has been the motivation for most of the historical research I?ve undertaken since I started as an astrologer. For now I?ll just make a couple of points because I feel I owe you at least some explanation of why I don?t think your paper is reliable as it stands for summarising the historical position.

You say

The meaning of the sentence, then, hinges upon what the word katarche means in an astrological context. In that context, it almost universally means 'beginning' or 'inception' in English, and it is most commonly used in electional astrology to refer to the symbolic 'beginning' or 'inception' of the venture.

Commonly yes, but not exclusively, or even 'almost universally'. I?m not sure who wrote the Wikipedia definition but it seems to offer a biased definition because it implies that the association of the word ?katarce? with horary is a modern invention by Geoffrey Cornelius. But it's surely obvious that?s not the case. The definition needs correcting because it tries too hard to distance the possibility of Katarche being used to describe horary. It overlooks much older examples, such as the fact that this term appears in the interrogational chart dated in Greek Horoscopes (p.143) to the year 475 ?An inquiry about a katarche concerning fear for a journey to Athens?, which the astrologer describes as an ?interrogation/inquiry?, and which is clearly focused on answering a question of concern for a delayed ship (and which refers to the techniques of the ancients).
Before you write the chart off, I understand the argument that Palchus related to the name of the place, not the astrologer, and that the preserved copy of this chart is Byzantine, but I recalculated and checked the details of this chart and several other historical horaries and everything matches, including angles, the hour ruler and all the technical details. So unless we accept the theory that someone later invented a historical horary on a whimsy, for whatever reason we know not, and then ? without the aid of computer or software ? used ancient emphemerides and tables to recreate minute details of minor importance to anyone but the astrologer of the time; then we have every reason to accept the authentic dating of that chart, even if the name of the astrologer is uncertain.

In addition, I know of ancient references to the use of astrology to answer questions of importance, that involved a ceremony of prayer followed by a ritual in which the astrologer scrutinised the sky and marked out the bounds, etc, in order to get the answer from the gods on the question being asked. These are older than the Palchus charts, and I know of comments in other ? currently unavailable texts ? which refer specifically to horary (or if you like consultational charts). Currently I have only been given permission to use the unpublished translations in my course material, although the translator aims to make them public in time.

Anyway, for those and other reasons I think that my definition of katarche is more approprate for its meaning in an astrological context, and that the explanation speaks for itself if people are interested.

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/gl/katarche.html

On your other point about consultation charts:

Consultation charts are also in Hephaistio though. The problem is that that isn't horary though. That is a subset of electional/inceptional astrology ? I think that the notion that it evolved out of the consultation chart framework, and that that is why the astrologer is still implicated in the horary even later in the tradition, is my unique contribution to the subject.

Again, sorry to say but I don?t accept this argument, or think it is a valid or helpful contribution. I realise that this was a later concession to your original argument, but without trying to create a distinction between the horary chart and consultational chart (which doesn?t actually apply in practice) how else were you going to overlook the originally unacknowledged references such as those in Hephaistio? I?m sorry that I can?t agree, but I?ve been a practising horary astrologer for 25 years and its my life passion so I have a serious interest in understanding its origin and development as precisely as I can. The point is that I don?t think you would be able to go through my files and differentiate the charts between horaries or consultation charts. Most of my students who work on them can?t even do that, and sometimes I?m hard-pressed to categorise them under those lables myself. What you seem to have done is aimed to create a totally new definition of ancient horary that makes it different from how it was originally classified ? as simply ?interrogational astrology?.

A horary chart and a consultation chart are effectively the same thing when you see clients in person, because they rely upon seeing clients by appointment or having the whole meeting for the purpose of the question. Even Lilly talks about the disputes regarding the timing of the question ? when the astrologer is saluted, or when the querent first steps foot on the astrologer?s property, etc. And there have been many times when I have been the one to tell the querent what the problem is based on what I see in the chart. We had a discussion about this a while back in the forum; that this notion that the querent must state their question precisely is a modern fallicy; but that doesn?t mean we are talking about a separate branch of astrology. If this whole point gets reduced down to a simple conclusion that horary did not exist in classical astrology, then that simple conclusion is wrong. This subject has very ancient roots. As you?ve noted yourself, David Pingree clearly got some points wrong on this, so as great as his reputation was, we still have to be open minded and look at the facts for ourselves.

So anyway, sorry but that?s a quick snapshot of my view, which I realise will need to be elaborated upon in time. This is not something that I want to rush to do, which is why I want to set out my own view of this in my own time, rather than set my own views as an argument against someone else. When I do, please feel free to offer a link alongside your statement of disagreement

I also want to make a quick point to PD:

Indian scholars get very touchy with any suggestion that all Indian astrology was Greek .They may not complain about Indian influences or persian or Arabic astrologers. Martin Gansten may have something to comment about the Sanskrit translations and Yavana influence on Indian astrology. He is currently reseraching later Tajik influences.

I agree with that and don?t believe in a linear development of technique anyway. Even with the Persian influences I think there has to be acknowledgement to the fact that the region covered the geographical area of ancient Mesopotamia. All of these cultures borrowed from and influenced each other. I?m also interested in the work that Martin is doing and would like to know more about your research into the spiritual approach of Indain astrology. Perhaps a new thread?

Hello Chris,

Thanks for clarifying your position. I see Deb has posted a lengthy reply and I am happy to leave this matter to you heavy weights to slug it out.

However, just a few humble questions and points of my own.

On the You Tube video you mention a sub set of hellenistic electional astrology looking at consultation charts from approximately the first century CE. Which texts did you have in mind that demonstrate that? Is this Serapio of Alexandria?

Also on you You Tube Video you state 'the jury is out' on the existence of horary in late hellenistic astrology. I am therefore unclear why you are so emphatic a very late hellenistic source like Rhetorius was not doing something approximating horary? No offence but your jury sounds like its more of a hanging jury rather than hung on this issue.

There are a couple of reasons I am tempted to keep an open mind on this possibility.

Firstly, the classical world had a religious world view that was steeped in divination, oracles and perceived messages from the Gods and Goddesses everywhere. The Delphic oracle is just one of many such examples. Many people in that era believed we lived in a meaningful universe and that communicating with the divine was possible. Indeed didn't Valens talk about the help of his Daemon in allowing him to do his astrology? Just look at the origin of house systems with the perception of universe surrounding the astrologers of good and evil spiritual entities. I therefore find it rather implausible that not a single astrologer in the classical world had the idea of asking questions of the Gods through astrology.

Secondly, I suspect if horary existed it often operated rather more humbly than the kind of elevated astrology left to us by Ptolemy or even Valens. It would have been what I would describe as street level astrology that dealt with every day questions like where a missing cow had gone or who would win at the chariot races. Much of this kind of astrology would have been dealing with very ephemeral , practical considerations. Just as horary astrology today deals with the practical issues like finding love, career , health etc. This kind of astrology may well have been looked down on by the more polished , erudite astrologers. I doubt many of these astrologers wrote books. They were too busy trying to earn a living. Look at astrology today. Even in an age of word processors how many leave books behind? Only a tiny percentage. This would be even more the case in the classical era.

regards

Mark

Thanks for clarifying your position. I see Deb has posted a lengthy reply and I am happy to leave this matter to you heavy weights to slug it out.

Oh but no slugging. I haven't got a slug left in me right now and I'm sure neither Chris nor I wants or has time for that. I won't be adding more to this thread because I've made a few points to explain my position and to state that I have more to add in due time. I'm happy for Chris to explain his view here too.

In fact, I can't even afford to look at this thread again for now. I really need to get back to the work I have in fornt of me, whose deadline crossed quite a while ago!

Responding to Deb's post:

The issue with the Palchus charts is just that Elutherius is someone who is known to have rewritten other texts or 'updated' them to contain material on horary. Therefore he may not be a trustworthy source for those charts. This is the same process that led to the interpolations in Dorotheus, where something is originally about electional or inceptional astrology, but then a word or two gets added in to the sentence to show that that the same principles could also be applied to horary.

Now, it may very well be that those are genuine charts from the late Hellenistic tradition which exhibit the use of horary. After all, horary does start to show up in the Indian and Persian traditions around this time. But to rest the entire case on those charts, which are from an untrustworthy source, seems like a bit of a stretch to me. Horary was prevalent enough in the later traditions that it would have been just as prevalent and visible in the Hellenistic tradition if it was practiced. The fact that the only evidence for it may me a few 5th century charts from a questionable source speaks volumes.

It is fine if you don't accept that distinction I've made between between horary and consultation charts, although I still maintain that it is a useful conceptual distinction that sheds light on the development of horary out of electional. The material in Hephaistio and in the Yavanajataka is simply about determining what is on the mind of the person who approaches the astrologer at a specific point in time. Long lists of delineation material to determine what a person is thinking about. The crucial piece that is missing from this material that distinguishes it from horary is that there are no rules for determining what the outcome of the thoughts will be, or in other words what the answer to the 'question' is. This, I would argue, is the distinction between horary and a consultation chart. We can agree to disagree on the matter though.

Hi Mark,

MarkC wrote:On the You Tube video you mention a sub set of hellenistic electional astrology looking at consultation charts from approximately the first century CE. Which texts did you have in mind that demonstrate that? Is this Serapio of Alexandria?

I was thinking of the material on determining thoughts in Hephaistio, which is consultation chart material. Since most of book 3 of Hephaistio is derived from book 5 of Dorotheus, I assume that some of that consultation chart material goes back to the first century. That this material probably existed in the 1st century is further confirmed by the existence of consultation chart delineations in the Yavanajataka, accepting Pingree's dating of the 1st century for the Greek original as being accurate.

Also on you You Tube Video you state 'the jury is out' on the existence of horary in late hellenistic astrology. I am therefore unclear why you are so emphatic a very late hellenistic source like Rhetorius was not doing something approximating horary? No offence but your jury sounds like its more of a hanging jury rather than hung on this issue. Wink

I made that comment because I'm open to the possibility that the Palchus charts are legitimate and not corrupted or rewritten. Additionally, with horary showing up in the Persian and Indian traditions around this time, you would think that that would filter over to the late Hellenistic tradition. I said that the jury is still out though because I still haven't seen compelling evidence that horary was definitely being practiced then, aside from the Palchus charts. I'm not emphatic that Rhetorius couldn't have been practicing horary, I'm just saying that it seems to me that the references are to the consultation chart rather than to horary proper. There is nothing particularly 'horary-esq' about the statements, if by horary we mean determining the answer to a question. For me this is an important conceptual distinction.

Firstly, the classical world had a religious world view that was steeped in divination, oracles and perceived messages from the Gods and Goddesses everywhere. The Delphic oracle is just one of many such examples. Many people in that era believed we lived in a meaningful universe and that communicating with the divine was possible. Indeed didn't Valens talk about the help of his Deamon in allowing him to do his astrology? Just look at the origin of house systems with the perception of universe surrounding the astrologers of good and evil spiritual entities. I therefore find it rather implausible that not a single astrologer in the classical world had the idea of asking questions of the Gods through astrology.

I agree with what you are saying here, and I've heard other astrologers express a similar sentiment, but I would just like to be very careful about projecting our own views of astrology and its application backwards in time, and assuming that since something makes perfect sense to us, that it must have made sense to an ancient astrologer as well. Now, I'm not completely averse to making historical inferences like that, and sometimes it can be very useful, but I do want to attempt to avoid being anachronistic as much as possible. What if, hypothetically, the idea didn't occur to anyone?

Secondly, I suspect if horary existed it often operated rather more humbly than the kind of elevated astrology left to us by Ptolemy or even Valens. It would have been what I would describe as street level astrology that dealt with every day questions like where a missing cow had gone or who would win at the chariot races. Much of this kind of astrology would have been dealing with very ephemeral , practical considerations. Just as horary astrology today deals with the practical issues like finding love, career , health etc. This kind of astrology may well have been looked down on by the more polished , erudite astrologers. I doubt many of these astrologers wrote books. They were too busy trying to earn a living. Look at astrology today. Even in an age of word processors how many leave books behind? Only a tiny percentage. This would be even more the case in the classical era.

This is also possible, although I would counter that in this case we would still at least see some of the skeptics or the satirists berating the street astrologers for this practice. They mention every other branch of astrology, but they are strangely silent when it comes to this, the weirdest branch of astrology. Later skeptics such as Pico della Mirandola were not so silent on the matter of horary.