Clinton Soule and Seiko

Thank you for your information.

Regards

Seiko said:

If the Sun is either the Querent or the Quesited, the combustion is not harmful even without reception. So in the turned chart, the answer is YES. But since the correct option is not to turn the chart, the answer is NO.

Thanks Seiko, I've always loved what your Mars does for the discussions; keep up the fine work!

As Sol is the child of the querant, the 5th, and as you say it's Not harmful!

But by all means do what you want and stick to your own theories.
Because when Lilly wrote "If the question be put regarding another person, you must in this case give the ascendant for the quesited", he was just kidding apparently. Not.

I.E. Precious, adept, and insightful Seiko, I knew this leader of a 9th house religious group who had totally memorized the documents of his faith. Did he understand everything about his 9th house religion?

No, he did Not for he over-looked the teachings on astrology and other things, but he had memorized the data of his 9th house faith's documents despite some of his misunderstandings.

I.E. #2 A Brother of mine went to Turkey where he questioned a few Islamic religious (9th house) leaders about the contradictions of culture and practices of that religion in that country where the many of the Preists said '...many here do not totally understand Islam and the books that the faith comes from...that is why there is so much confusion in Turkish practices of the Moslem faith...'

Seiko, could you cite where this is found in CA, the pages, where many of us can absorb this perplexing method in context of course?

As Astrology is under the 9th house, and Traditionalism is 'sacred', yet I like many here I'm sure, have not memorized all the texts of the Ancients or the writters prior to 1800, yet I want to know, and I'm sure many on this Forum and beyond it's boundarys are interested in what Lilly teaches on this issue.

My own hypothesis is the 7th lord Rx is giving the consultancy pains on this horary as it should.

For us to be in error is like our beloved Lilly misunderstanding Claudius Ptolemy's Table of Essential Dignitys; which most Contemporary Traditionalists have agreed Lilly misunderstood!

Clinton Garrett Soule

Clinton Soule wrote: Seiko, could you cite where this is found in CA, the pages, where many of us can absorb this perplexing method in context of course?

OF PROFIT BY, OR PROFICIENCY IN, ANY SCIENCE &C.

The ascendant, its lord, and the Moon, are for the querent; and the 9th, its lord, or planet therein (if more than one, the nearest to the cusp), for the science.
See whether the lord of the 9th be fortunate or not, oriental, angular, &c. ; and whether he behold the lord of the ascendant with [sxt] or [tri]. If he be a fortune, and aspect the lord of the ascendant, the man has scientific knowledge, and will gain thereby; the more so if there be reception. If the aspect be [squ] or [opp], the man has talent, but shall do no good by it. If an infortune aspect either the lord of the ascendant or 9th, the man has wearied himself, but to no purpose, for he will never attain the knowledge he desires. If infortunes be in the 9th, or its lord afflicted, the party has but little scientific knowledge.
The Moon must also be observed with the lord of the 9th; for if they both apply to fortunes, the man is scientific ; if to infortunes, the contrary.
If the question be put regarding another person, you must in this case give the ascendant for the quesited.

Seiko,

I cannot find your above given quotation in CA; can you help me by giving the page and/or Chapter, please?
Are you paraphrasing Lilly, CA p. 429, 430?

johannes susato wrote:Seiko,

I cannot find your above given quotation in CA; can you help me by giving the page and/or Chapter, please?
Are you paraphrasing Lilly, CA p. 429, 430?

It's not from CA. It's Lilly, though. No paraphrasing, I couldn't do it if I wanted to, I don't speak Ye Old English.

In CA Lilly writes:
"You must give the ascendant to him of whom it is asked, and the 9th house to the Science; [...]"

It says page 430 but since I have a PDF file I cannot guarantee it's the same in the book. The subtitle is "Of Science, Cunning or Wisdome in a man, whether it be true or not."

It's the same thing -- the ASC goes to the quesited.

Seiko wrote:

johannes susato wrote:Seiko,

I cannot find your above given quotation in CA; can you help me by giving the page and/or Chapter, please?
Are you paraphrasing Lilly, CA p. 429, 430?

It's not from CA. It's Lilly, though. No paraphrasing, I couldn't do it if I wanted to, I don't speak Ye Old English.

In CA Lilly writes:
"You must give the ascendant to him of whom it is asked, and the 9th house to the Science; [...]"

It says page 430 but since I have a PDF file I cannot guarantee it's the same in the book. The subtitle is "Of Science, Cunning or Wisdome in a man, whether it be true or not."

It's the same thing -- the ASC goes to the quesited.

Seiko also wrote:

Unless you are involved, do not turn the chart.

From CAII:

"If a Question be demanded of one absent in a generall way, and the Querent hath no relation to the party; then the 1st house, the Lord of that house and the Moon shall signify the absent party; [...]"

I've been doing some research, trying to get to the bottom of this matter too, and in case anyone happens to be interested, here's what I've found so far: Lilly doesn't always practice what he preaches, and he isn't necessarily consistent with what he preaches.

For instance, on p. 452 of CA II, the question/chart is "Will Prince Rupert benefit from our war, and will he defeat the Earl of Essex?" (paraphrased), Dec. 8, 1642, 9.23 a.m., London, UK (data slightly different from original chart in order to correlate with the original chart). One would assume that Prince Rupert would be given the Asc. since he is the one asked about in a general way and isn't related to the querent, but Lilly assigns the key players in the following way:

1) Prince Rupert is given the 10th house/Mars because "he is a noble man or person of eminence".
2) The Earl of Essex is given the 4th house/Venus because it is the "opposite house to the Prince's".
3) The querent is assigned to the Asc. and its ruler because "he was sympathetic to Parliament [same as Earl of Essex, BTW] and involved himself and his fortune among us".
4) Moon is the 7th ruler.

And Lilly prefaces all the above by saying (paraphrased) : "This question is not explained in the rule books, nor should the astrologer expect particular rules to interpret every question."

And if this weren't confusing enough, he then goes on to p. 473 in CA II and the question/chart, "The time of his excellency, Robert, Earl of Essex, last setting forth into the West", May 24, 1644, 12:29 a.m., London, UK, and here he assigns the Earl of Essex (the very same guy as #2 above) to the 1st house: "Here Aquarius is the ascending sign, well representing Essex's physical appearance, for he was attractive...." Go figure!

So bottom line as far as I can tell is Lilly is so inconsistent and enigmatic on this particular issue that we should take with a grain--or ton-- of salt whatever he says at any given time and not expect to find any hard and fast rules.

Seiko said:

It says page 430 but since I have a PDF file I cannot guarantee it's the same in the book. The subtitle is "Of Science, Cunning or Wisdome in a man, whether it be true or not."

The thing I'm wondering having Not read this document, is was it published or written prior to Lilly's CA either the first printing or the 2nd edition? Or is it something that was written after?

In other words why is Not the contents, it's totality not in CA?

Was it found latter like Kepler's minor aspects to Not be reliable as a method to be put in CA?

Or was this something after the 2nd edition that Lilly may have wished he had put into CA?

Carol, all of us who study CA find a few descrepencys in Lilly's work like the insistence on using the Lord of the hour when occasionally he does not in CA.

But one has to remember Lilly didn't stop with his investigations and thus created his point system because of conflicting testimonys.

If he had lived now he would have been more accurate with computers, and Like Deb said 'about a particular horary where an outer aspect as lord of the matter was the only way she could see it answered', Lilly may have investigated the outers as well. But that Pisces Ascendant of his occasionally leaves all of us bewildered, yet he is the Taurus Sun monumental giant of Western Horary lore!

Clinton Garrett Soule

Carol,

We should take everything with a grain of salt. Lilly was a genius but even the biggest fan of his has to admit that it is impossible to learn everything about everything even if you lived for a 100 years. Look at the theft questions or relationship questions -- he is using different methods as opposed to a 'normal' horary. He determines the sig of the thief we could say by chance -- a peregrine planet in an angle. I'm not arguing if it's the right thing to do or not, but apparently Lilly did a lot of those charts (he talks a LOT about thefts and finding things) so he developed this method. Can you imagine how much time it took to develop this method? He had to save the charts (don't forget it's the Middle Ages) and he had to wait for the resolution then he had to compare charts etc etc

And that was just one small area of human life. How much do you think Lilly was asked about someone's ability to do science? Not a lot, I would think. Maybe, if Lilly would've done a lot of science etc charts, he would develop another method for science questions that would be different from the one presented.

The point of my blah blah blah is, Lilly gave us the basic tools -- well, to be fair maybe a little more than that -- to develop our own methods and ways of doing it. He gave us the alphabet of astrology and showed us how to make certain words but he could've not known all the words even if he wanted to.

That's why it is amusing when people who have done only a number of charts (sometimes only one) regarding the specific question are arguing to the death about who said what and who used that method, and who of the ancients is right.

The astrologers should come together and compare charts of similar inquiries (like 5 or 10 charts) and see what works and what doesn't. But that's not going to happen. Egos are getting in the way. Just like everyone in the whole world thinks he or she is an above-average driver, everyone who has read a book or two thinks he or she is a professional astrologer.

Seiko wrote:

Lilly was a genius but even the biggest fan of his has to admit that it is impossible to learn everything about everything even if you lived for a 100 years.

I agree. My point was that he often suddenly out of the clear blue goes completely against what seem to be his own 'rules' and never really gives a clue why, so it's pretty hard to say what his 'rules' really are in those cases--intuition? magic? Who knows?

I think Clinton may have hit the nail on the head:

But that Pisces Ascendant of his occasionally leaves all of us bewildered, yet he is the Taurus Sun monumental giant of Western Horary lore!

Carol wrote: I agree. My point was that he often suddenly out of the clear blue goes completely against what seem to be his own 'rules' and never really gives a clue why, so it's pretty hard to say what his 'rules' really are in those cases--intuition? magic? Who knows?

That's the whole point, there are no rules. Look, if you would be asking a bunch of questions about religion and stuff, and something would not add up, maybe you would end up using H9 (for clergy etc) instead of H1 because it would work for you.

Different inquiries, different approaches. No magic.

Like Deb said 'about a particular horary where an outer aspect as lord of the matter was the only way she could see it answered'...

I don't recognise this as the kind of thing I would say, but perhaps it is poorly phrased.

Also, these posts are proposing that Lilly developed and invented methods, like the point-scoring tables, the use of peregrine planets in angles, etc. This is not the case at all, he presented the well established principles of the tradition as he received it. Most of the theoretical introductions in CA are his translations of Latin texts and he notes where, in his experience, he has reason to propose an alternate view. I find that there is very little that does not make good sense in his judgements - if whoever is reading the judgement understands the principles his reasoning is easy to follow. Why should Prince Rupert be given the ascendant in the chart on p.452? He was not the querent and Lilly's introduction explains his choice of signification perfectly well. The question concerns the fate of the Prince so Lilly took the Prince's signification from the 10th house of kings, princes and royal personages (CA p.55).

Lilly's opening remarks on that chart ought to be a mantra for other horary astrologers to follow. In a nutshell: don't expect that simple rules should govern your approach to every chart but combine your knowledge of the rules with good reason, since astrology comes Ate & a Scientia ('from yourself as well as from the science'). His choice of signification is fully justified from the descriptions that follow. He admits that he spent 24 hours studing that chart before he came to his judgement on it - it's a great chart and needs more than a half-hearted reading and a paraphrased summary that misses the point.

Carol, comparing this to the different approach to signification taken in the 'Robert Earl of Essex' chart, you say

Lilly is so inconsistent and enigmatic on this particular issue that we should take with a grain--or ton-- of salt whatever he says at any given time and not expect to find any hard and fast rules.

But the Prince Rupert chart is not an appropriate comparison to the Essex chart on p.473. The former is a horary asked by a supporter of the Parlimentary cause, the latter is a commencement chart, where the ascendant signifies the initiator of the action. As the title of the chart illustrates, the chart is cast for the time that Essex set off with his army. Lilly begins by explaining how the ascending sign "well represents his form and body" - this is a check that he regularly makes, to show that the symbolism is working appropriately. No astrologer should follow techniques or other people's experience slavishly, but every judgement Lilly records is well worth hesitating over.

If astrologers think they are going to get constantly reliable answers with the application of 'rules' that are supposed to be fully consistent, free of contradiction and applicable in all cases, then they will be dissapointed, not just by the fact that such strict rules don't actually exist, or that Lilly doesn't show strict adherence to a mechanical, non-thinking approach which follows a basic template; but that the system itself does not work that way. Horary is not a technique that responds to mere data-input and analysis; nor is it improved by the greater 'accuracy' of computer software. Think about the fact that Lilly studied the Rupert chart for 24 hours before coming to a confident resolution on its meaning. When he gave his judgement, he didn't give it lightly.

The passage that has been attributed to Lilly on p.430 is a paraphrase of the actual text. Probably from the Zadkiel paraphrase, which is not usually recommended because it makes many ommisions and doesn't capture all the points correctly.

Eventually it all boils down to those mechanical and non-thinking ways. The problem or the solution is, things are different for each type of question. If you have dealt with a ton of similar questions, you will eventually come up with some rules or testimonies that work 9 times out of ten.

The hardest part is to come up with those rules or patterns. If there is no foundation, you are not gonna build the house. If rules would change every time you make a chart (for similar inquiries), then the whole thing is useless plain and simple.