Zagata wrote: Actually I have Margheritta and you to thank for this as I learned about it from her website and from her post as well in your forum

Thanks for the kind words.

Yes, heliacal phase is very important and I use too PLSV not the longitude orb.

I altered a little visibility values according Schoch observations, so maybe not all your results are similar to the ones I got.

Mars is still visible, and Mercury is going to the heliacal setting in fact it disappears on June, 26. So in effect it is in heliacal setting, it's very strong.

Mars should be still visible, and not still going under the sun's beams.

So I would say that Mercury is very strong by phase. I'm not surprised because Mercury is another significator for sportmen in traditional astrology. The same for Gemini.

Firmicus: If the planets are located in the house of Mercury or in his terms, the natives are fond of the gymnasium or are athletes in public games

That's from Feraboli comment to Manilius'Astronomica (I have translated for one of my old articles):

Speed depends both of the constellation characteristic and from Mercury?s domicile, the swifter planet in its revolution around the Sun, while agility, lightness, mobility are in agreement with Gemini. The reference to wings and flight can be connected with the opposite sign, Sagittarius, which is winged and showed as a hawk in the dodekaoros. ?..Limbs of a native born with the Ascendant on Lepus, even wingless, participate of the Air of Gemini. It?s not a coincidence that the first three degress of Gemini vocatur Ventus (Liber Hermetis). All the athletic sports are favourite in Mercurial signs, especially Gemini, one of them is Heracles. ?.Mercury well beheld with Lepus makes conjurers and players with ball.

margherita

No doubt that Venus is among prof. significators in Messi?s chart.
Its rising before Sun and exalting in MC sign, in addition its angular in square to MC.
Also it rules 5th, house of sport?s achievements.
But essentially its only in own term, comparably to Mars - in own triplicity, with that many receptions, in trine to MC.
I think effectiveness of Venus undermined here because its ruler Mercury is retrograde and again under Martian influence (Mars?s triplicity and conjunction).
So, Venus isn?t strong enough to assume some artistic field, doesn?t have connection to 9th for lawyer or priest.
In addition to that Mercury ruler AC by being retrograde, afflicted by Mars conjunction and not angular makes harder to succeed in some intellectual profession.

I don't think the ruler of profession is Venus.

It's true that she rules MC by exaltation, but she is in the wrong side of the Sun, she is matutine, and in effect in no phase.

Mercury is vespertine in a night chart, and it's doing an heliacal phase. Moreover it is with Mars, which is an immediate significator for sport.

If I should choose I would take Mercury/Mars.

margherita

margherita wrote:I don't think the ruler of profession is Venus.

It's true that she rules MC by exaltation, but she is in the wrong side of the Sun, she is matutine, and in effect in no phase.

Mercury is vespertine in a night chart, and it's doing an heliacal phase. Moreover it is with Mars, which is an immediate significator for sport.

If I should choose I would take Mercury/Mars.

margherita

Always nice to read you, Margherita.
There's always something to learn or at least the chance to repeat the basic principles, to 'sink' them a bit deeper in the brain, so to speak

Goran

Thanks for the info on the program Zagata. It is a good program. I used to have it on my old computer but forgot about it when I replaced my computer about a year ago. I experimented with visible limits for a while but in the end I decided I work best with the idealised limits. I think there is a symbolic principle attached to a planet being 'under the Sun's beams' when within its traditional orb of 15?, because this orb is partly established by the fact that the Sun rules over 30? in total, the distance of one twelfth of the zodiac. In any case, my understanding is that planets emerging from the Sun's beams increase in potency until they reach an arc of 30? from the Sun, and then they are most potent for the next 30?. And when they set into the Sun's beams they are weakening from 30? before it, and become defined as weak within that distance, though the effect is still intensifying as they draw closer to the Sun. So I see this as a graduating principle rather than one where a planet can be viewed as strong in one degree, but then weak in the next.

Margherita, why do you describe Mars as "very strong", when here it is occidental and in its helical setting? All the authors I am aware of describe a planet that has newly risen as strong, but when they are setting they are described as weak and in the degrees that lead them up to setting they are defined as weakening. I would be very grateful to know where you learned this in case there is something in the traditional literature I've missed.

You are welcome Deb.

Let me first say that I am not any specialist at all in regards to visual Astrology
and actually this program uses an appoximation as far as the number of degrees are concerned. Even the Schoch observations which Margherita mentioned are not 100% correct. The only program that I know of which calculates with the greatest precision possible is Rumen Kolev's Porphyrius Magus. I have thought about buying that program but the thing is that I am not at all yet ready to abandon Medieval Astrology. I will never agree that planets which are invisible (astronomically), even if they are in their own sign or exaltation etc, are not only weak, but virtually non-existent, as Babylonian Astrology suggests.

The reason why I enjoy the program with the heliacal phases is that every time I open it, it reminds me that there is much more especially to a natal chart than what meets the eye. We have the syzygy chart, we have the eclipse chart, we have the conception chart, we have the transits to the conception chart ...and I have not yet mentioned the Hermetic Lots and the Fortune houses!

That is the reason why some topics can be extremely difficult to delineate (by that I mean just from the chart and "blindly" and not after the fact), for example such as the exact profession/s, or the exact manner of death and of course - sexual orientation.

Deb wrote:
Margherita, why do you describe Mars as "very strong", when here it is occidental and in its helical setting? All the authors I am aware of describe a planet that has newly risen as strong, but when they are setting they are described as weak and in the degrees that lead them up to setting they are defined as weakening. I would be very grateful to know where you learned this in case there is something in the traditional literature I've missed.

Not Mars, Mercury.

It is doing a phase in seven days (the limit is taken from Paulus Alexandrinus), in effect the day after.

A phase is very strong, even if the planet is setting, it's a change in the planetary nature of the planet, it changes its primary qualities, its meaning, almost everything.

We do the same when a planet is in its station, we should underline the change in qualities, it's very important.

So, this Mercury in phase is moreover with Mars, so it is perfect for us, Moreover why we should take Venus? Messi is a soccer champion.

If Venus is the ruler of the actions, it does not fit.... It is difficult to think to soccer as a Venusian sport, I think it's the same in UK, not just in Italy.

margherita

Thanks for responding Margherita. I checked again and see I misread you so I apologise for that. You did say this of Mercury, not Mars:

Margherita wrote:Mars is still visible, and Mercury is going to the heliacal setting in fact it disappears on June, 26. So in effect it is in heliacal setting, it's very strong.

However, the way you have written this leaves the impression that you consider Mercury to be strong when setting like this. Or have I misunderstood you again - are you only suggesting that it is the phase that is strong, but not the planet?
I agree that risings, settings and stations are all pivotal points of change, but it seems clear in all authors that the change which occurs when a planet is setting is only to weaken and hinder its effects. Paulus, for example:

Introductory Matters, 14 (Greenbaum p.21): wrote:when making a morning or evening disappearance, or retracing their path or declining, they have weak, unprofitable and insignificant influences.

I can't find a reference to planets making phases "in seven days" in Paulus. Perhaps a later author? I have the Bezza, Greenbaum and Schmidt translations of Paulus, and like the Bezza translation very much, but I only use that for checking certain points, because it's written in Italian. If the point is made in that edition could you let me have the page number? I'm not meaning to trouble you but I'm doing research into the historical definitions of the phases at the moment, so if I have missed this explanation in Paulus it would be very helpful to me if you can show me where to find it.

Thanks
Deb

I think this refers to phasis - see Schmidt.

What, see him personally? I'd be surprised if Schmidt is teaching this differently but without a reference it's easy for him to be misrepresented. I'm only really interested in what the historical authors have written, so Margherita's remark struck me as curious because I'm unaware of any historical author describing a planet as powerful when it is setting or 'pertaining into' setting. I am aware that we have references, for example, The Book of Aristotle (II), that mention 7 days as a time measure for planets being compelled to enter the Sun's beams, but here it is still said that they are "agreed to be useless" as indicators of life, etc.

To suggest that planets are strong when setting goes against the grain of what I have read in numerous works. The principle appears to be clear that planets gain a great boost of potency after emerging out of the Sun's beams and another boost (though not so great) after regaining their direct motion following retrogression. However, going into retrograde, being retrograde, or going under the Sun's beams are events that are consistently described as being weakening phases of the synodic cycle - not just in the Babylonian tradition, but the Hellenistic, Medieval and Renaissance works too.

Sorry to be vague, its not my area. But I used to post a lot on a forum run by the Project Hindsight posse and they used to refer to a 7 day phasis that was a strengthening condition but it may have just been rising rather than setting. It was the 7 day reference that struck a note with me.

I would think they only meant it to refer to the rising. The Greek word phasis and its Latin equivalent phainomena are plural forms of the verb which in its passive tense means to be making an appearance or be seen. So strictly speaking planets are only making a phasis when making their appearances, not when they are dissappearing in their settings.