Seiko wrote:

Konrad wrote:

Seiko wrote:First of all, there's no such thing as a reliable technique to determine a person's longevity.

I'm interested as to how you know this when you say you haven't studied Natal astrology.

If it existed, we would know about that. But we don't. Do you? No, you don't. End of story.

Someone somewhere knows something? Yeah, sure. They apparently know all the things we argue about. But they don't want to share with the rest of the world -- nor make a fortune off of their knowledge. Those all-knowing people have high moral standards, they could put Bill Gates to shame in terms of wealth and take over the world but they just don't need that. They prefer to meditate in a mountain cave.

Your arguments with yourself always amuse me. Thanks.

As for longevity, the general techniques work fairly well in most cases. For instance, I studied Hilaj/Alcocoden combinations for a whie and then got my girlfriend to pick 10 random charts of people who were dead and I got 8 of them within two years of their deaths without looking at directions and Returns. Sure there are no hard and fast rules but that is why we are here and why computers cannot do our job. We have to use our experience to find these things. For instance, charts with the malefics in angles and the benefics cadent show shorter lives as does the Hilaj afflicted without the regard of the benefics. Things like this vary the judgement but the hilaj/Alcocoden works well infor a ball-park figure. That is, after all, what we are looking for.

Konrad wrote: Your arguments with yourself always amuse me. Thanks.

You're welcome.

Konrad wrote: Sure there are no hard and fast rules but that is why we are here and why computers cannot do our job. We have to use our experience to find these things. For instance, charts with the malefics in angles and the benefics cadent show shorter lives as does the Hilaj afflicted without the regard of the benefics. Things like this vary the judgement but the hilaj/Alcocoden works well infor a ball-park figure. That is, after all, what we are looking for.

No definite rules = no method. Something always varies the judgement. There's always a human factor. That's why I'm against that kind of practice. But who am I to say that.

It's just funny that when someone dies, people who call themselves astrologers publish that person's chart and explains the connections in the chart that 'lead' to death. They talk about hylegs and alcocodens, they know the number of years each planet gives and so forth. But always post factum. Is there a shortage of dead people to get their hylegs right once and for all?

"There was once a dervish who embarked upon a sea journey. As the other passengers in the ship came aboard one by one, they saw him and - as is the custom - asked him for a piece of advice. All the dervish would do was to say the same thing to each one of them: he seemed merely to be repeating one of those formulas which each dervish makes the object of his attention from time to time.

The formula was: 'Try to be aware of death, until you know what death is.' Few of the travelers felt particularly attracted to this admonition.

Presently a terrible storm blew up. The crew and the passengers alike fell upon their knees, imploring God to save the ship. They alternately screamed in terror, gave themselves up for lost, hoped wildly for succour. All this time the dervish sat quietly, reflective, reacting not at all to the movement and the scenes which surrounded him.

Eventually the buffeting stopped, the sea and sky were calm, and the passengers became aware how serene the dervish had been throughout the episode.

One of them asked him: 'Did you not realize that during this frightful tempest there was nothing more solid than a plank between us all and death?'

'Oh, yes, indeed,' answered the dervish. 'I knew that at sea it is always thus. I also realized, however, that I had often reflected when I was on land that, in the normal course of events, there is even less between us and death.'" - Bayazid of Bistam

"There was once a dervish who embarked upon a sea journey. As the other passengers in the ship came aboard one by one, they saw him and - as is the custom - asked him for a piece of advice. All the dervish would do was to say the same thing to each one of them: he seemed merely to be repeating one of those formulas which each dervish makes the object of his attention from time to time.

The formula was: 'Try to be aware of death, until you know what death is.' Few of the travelers felt particularly attracted to this admonition.

Presently a terrible storm blew up. The crew and the passengers alike fell upon their knees, imploring God to save the ship. They alternately screamed in terror, gave themselves up for lost, hoped wildly for succour. All this time the dervish sat quietly, reflective, reacting not at all to the movement and the scenes which surrounded him.

Eventually the buffeting stopped, the sea and sky were calm, and the passengers became aware how serene the dervish had been throughout the episode.

One of them asked him: 'Did you not realize that during this frightful tempest there was nothing more solid than a plank between us all and death?'

'Oh, yes, indeed,' answered the dervish. 'I knew that at sea it is always thus. I also realized, however, that I had often reflected when I was on land that, in the normal course of events, there is even less between us and death.'" - Bayazid of Bistam

"The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."
-- Robert M. Pirsig

"There is no chance and anarchy in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

*smiles knowingly and nods from the cave in the mountaintop abode*

Seiko wrote:

Konrad wrote: Your arguments with yourself always amuse me. Thanks.

You're welcome.

Konrad wrote: Sure there are no hard and fast rules but that is why we are here and why computers cannot do our job. We have to use our experience to find these things. For instance, charts with the malefics in angles and the benefics cadent show shorter lives as does the Hilaj afflicted without the regard of the benefics. Things like this vary the judgement but the hilaj/Alcocoden works well infor a ball-park figure. That is, after all, what we are looking for.

No definite rules = no method. Something always varies the judgement. There's always a human factor. That's why I'm against that kind of practice. But who am I to say that.

It's just funny that when someone dies, people who call themselves astrologers publish that person's chart and explains the connections in the chart that 'lead' to death. They talk about hylegs and alcocodens, they know the number of years each planet gives and so forth. But always post factum. Is there a shortage of dead people to get their hylegs right once and for all?

Yes something varies the rules but it is still within an astrological context. For example, Hilaj gives 82 years but it is enclosed by Mars and Saturn and the Lord of the Asc is in the 12th in the sign of an impedited, out of sect malefic. I can pretty much guarantee that this native will not live 82 years. It then goes to directions and returns to time it.

As for what other people do, that is none of my business, so I don't really concern myself with it. I can also see why people would not publish the expected death time of a famous person without this person's consent. Hell, sometimes I even feel like I'm prying using their charts to learn from.

I don?t have a method to predict the death of a person, though through 2adry progressions and returns you can easily spot "dangerous" years. What I have noticed is impressive longevity in people that have planets in ptolemaic essential dignitiy (esp. rulership).

Have a good one.

Meli

Thanks Melina.

So far we have "hyleg and alchocoden", and "Secondary Progressions plus Returns."

One astrologer here claims about 80% accuracy given a span of +/- 2 years, using hyleg/alchocoden, with 10 trial charts as the sample.

The proponent of seconday progressions looks for "danger years" and then I suppose employs returns for verification and fine tuning.

I know that, among old astrologers, Culpepper and Morin accurately foresaw their personal death, among moderns Lewi and Hough are two that come to mind. None of these disclosed their methods.

Lewi did not use directions or progressions in his work, only transits.

Mozart had a conjunction of Mars-Saturn by primary direction.

Adams "beat the rap" when accused of fortune-telling by telling the judge his son had died an early and watery death. Her method was never disclosed, and it is known that she employed other forms of divination coupled with astrology.

In addition to all of the methods, or indicators, mentioned above, I have seen either in my own work or in proposals by other astrologers, pre-natal eclipses, heavy transits to the 2nd/8th axis and also to the Sun, transiting eclipses, involvement of the lunar nodes ("the light is extinguished"), "life-cycle charts" based on the correspondences between solar arc directions and early-life events (establishing a rhythm of events that determines the length of a life cycle) and others acting as indicators of death.

But my question is not so much concerning the prediction of death, per se, as it is with finding a simple and reliable system for determining longevity. Is this life likely to be short, medium or long? That there is a method of doing this I am quite sure, because such predictions by the old astrologers are on record.

Well I would suggest the Hyleg/Alcocoden method coupled with an analysis of the Lord of the Asc and the Hyleg if you only want something as general as that.

Plus, as I said,essential dignities for planets. Benefics on the 1st or on the Asc also help...