I don't know the protocol for answering several posts, so let me say in response to Varuna, Martin and Diego that sidereal solar returns are based on the return of the Sun to its natal position, exact to the second of arc, but the angles that result from whatever that time turns out to be have to be directed in RA; so as with most astrological considerations, the ecliptic and equatorial systems are both employed. Modern astrologers have to a significant degree abandoned the equatorial system but the old masters did not. My experience is that the siderealists, in particular, fully embrace the equatorial system.

With regard to vimshottari dasa, I use a geocentric moon although I would be inclined to use a topocentric moon if the native were born with the moon on the horizon but I haven't experimented enough with that notion to know for a fact that topocentric gives better results for a horizon moon.

Regarding the thorny issue of ayanamshas, I'm strongly inclined to let that matter be settled as Bradley did: by observation. That is, the right ayanamsha makes planets angular on time, which is why I can with confidence from experience dismiss Lahiri.

Ken Bowser wrote:With regard to vimshottari dasa, I use a geocentric moon although I would be inclined to use a topocentric moon if the native were born with the moon on the horizon but I haven't experimented enough with that notion to know for a fact that topocentric gives better results for a horizon moon.

Thank you. I personally always correct for parallax. Then there is the issue of whether to calculate dashas by longitude or time (modern authors and software seem always to go for longitude, but the classical texts mention both methods); whether always to use the Moon for finding the starting point (some texts indicate that the ascendant may be used); which kind of year to use (true solar, 360-day or some other variant); etc, etc. So invoking dashas to settle the ayanamsha issue is problematic.

That is, the right ayanamsha makes planets angular on time, which is why I can with confidence from experience dismiss Lahiri.

I'm afraid I'm not really familiar with Bradley's methods. In what way can ayanamsha affect angularity?

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Martin points out that vimshottari dasa can be used both in terms of time and arc which is not a point that would ruffle the feathers of modern siderealists ? we do the same thing in some instances; but if in addition, one can take the moon, the ascendant and perhaps other points of reference as well, it may be possible to make almost any system ?work.? Furthermore one must wonder if time is employed whether the standard should be local apparent time, mean solar time, sidereal time or something else and if all this should be referenced to a year of 354, 360, 365 or 366 days. My point is that vimshottari should work in arc, in mean solar time, in Gregorian calendar reckoning if it can be relied upon as a dependable tool and not as a form of sometimes efficacious exotica. It is true then as Martin states that Vimshottari dasa is problematic for addressing the ayanmasha question. I agree. It?s the least important point among the issues that have at least some merit with regard to the ayanamsha issue. I brought it up because I have never once seen vimshottari dasa using the Lahiri ayanamsha work on time, that is, at a change of dasa; and as a professional astrologer whose bills are paid entirely via astrology, I?m anxious to know what I can depend on as a practical tool. My experience is that vimshottari dasa using the Fagan-allen ayanamsha puts the right dasa and bhukti in play that correspond to what?s happening in somebody?s life.

The more significant ayanamsha issue relates to angularity. First, it?s important to note that all the ancient (western) masters emphasize that angular planets have great power ? more power than planets remote from the angles; and by angles I mean the horizon and meridian, not merely the sign on the ascendant but the degree of the ascendant; and definitely not the tenth from the first but the meridian which is most often in the Indian eighth, ninth, tenth or eleventh equal houses, although at some latitudes, times of the year and sidereal times the meridian can be in the equal house seventh or twelfth houses. A body, either star or planet, is angular if it?s in or near the horizon or the meridian.

Here then is the issue: ingresses don?t happen at the same time if different ayanmashas are employed. I?ll use as an example the sort of thing that Don Bradley (died 1974) would have used in his study to determine what the ayanamsha had to be in order for events to work on time. His determination that Spica, the alpha star in Virgo, was at 29 Virgo 06? 05? for the epoch A.D. 1950.0 was fairly closely corroborated several years later by Peter Huber, independently in 1958 (see earlier post about ?Uber Den Nullpunkt Der Babylonishen Ekliptik?). As far as I know there was no contact between Huber, Fagan and Bradley before Huber?s article appeared although I would expect some afterward (but don?t know that for a fact).

Siderealists use the cardinal ingresses of the sun and moon quite a lot in mundane work. The most important of the cardinals is the ingress into Capricorm possibly because the zero degree of Capricorn is in the neighborhood of the solar apex. The example used here is the Indian Ocen earthquake/tsunami on December 26, 2004 that killed a quarter of a million people. The data for the quake are from the website of the United States Geological Survey. The coordinates of the epicenter of the undersea rupture are 3 N 17? 53? and 95 E 46? 44?. The time of the quake was 0:58:50 GMT on 12/26/2004.

The Capricorn Lunar Ingress that covers this period with respect to the Fagan-Allen ayanamsha began on December 14, 2004 at 7:51:45 am GMT off the coast of Sumatra for the coordinates listed above. All sidereal ingresses that cover the sidereal month are 27.32166 days long. They cover the transit of the moon over the same star twice. The 12/14/2004 Capricorn Lunar Ingress (Caplunar) has 0 Capricorn 17? in the M.C. with the Moon in 0 Capricorn 00? 00?. This is called the ?ecce homo? (?behold the man?) configuration because when it happens to a person, all eyes are on the native for good or ill ? depending on what else is in play ? or, if not a person, ecce homo points to a place that gets a lot of attention during the course of the sidereal month. The mid-heaven of this chart holds 19h 48m 10s of sidereal time. The Right Ascension of the Apparent Moon has 19h 50m 59s, so while the moon appears to be slightly into the western 9th house in terms of its longitude, it is actually slightly east of the meridian but in any case the moon is dead angular, less than three quarters of a degree in RA and 17 minutes in celestial longitude from the M.C. in its detriment, Capricorn. Saturn in this Caplunar is in the I.C. at 7h 52m 42s in its detriment, Cancer. It is more convenient to speak of Saturn in terms of its RAIC: 19h 52m 42s. Saturn is 4m 32s of RA and 1 degree and 5 minutes from the Caplunar I.C. in longitude as this ingress gets underway.

At the moment of the earthquake that produced the tsunami on 12/26/2004 transiting Saturn, which was retrograde, had RAIC 19h 49m 22s which put it only 1m 12s of RA from the Caplunar IC (which is just slightly more than a quarter of a degree). The numbers come from Janus, a very good general purpose astrological program. Using my old version of Solar Fire gives a difference of 32 seconds of RA between transiting Saturn and the I.C. of this Caplunar (because it gives a slightly different moment for the inception of the Caplunar). Thirty-two seconds is almost within the limits of the location uncertainty from the U.S.G.S. for the coordinates of the epicenter. The transiting moon for the quake was 3 Gemini 23? (Fagan-Allen) which was only 8 minutes of celestial longitude from the exact sesquiquadrate to the Caplunar moon and only 28 minutes of celestial longitude from the sesquiquadrate to transiting Neptune, which may be construed as the right symbolism for a water-borne disaster. Furthermore transiting Mars was at the moment of the rupture only 28 minutes of celestial longitude from the quincunx to the Caplunar ascendant using Janus (closer with Solar Fire). The principal player in this, of course, is Saturn. The Saturn-Caplunar Moon opposition through the meridian of the rupture pinpoints the area where the problem lies.

The Caplunar Ingress using the Lahiri ayanamsha began at 6:27:25 am GMT on 12/14/2004. It has nothing angular nor are there any transits to the angles for the quake nor directions of Caplunar angles to planets for the event. The Moon-Saturn opposition is remote from the Lahiri meridian of the quake site. The moon is 18 and a half degrees east of the Lahiri M.C. and Saturn is more than twenty degrees to the west of the Lahiri IC in this Caplunar. The Lahiri Caplunar shows absolutely nothing that suggests the epicenter of this event was ripe for trouble unless one considers that the Sun arrives at the Caplunar MC on the day after the quake, the 27th as significant. But I I don?t see how it is significant since the event was demonstrably on the 26th. Therefore the sun transit of the Lahiri M.C. on the 27th is very likely artifact. The quake was timed by the transit of Saturn into the Fagan-Allen Caplunar I.C. and the lunar configurations with Neptune.
It is just this kind of work that produced a fit between what the ancient Babylonians did and what Bradley and Fagan figured out that they had to have been doing. It is also why when people take issue with Fagan-Allen or try to disparage it as somehow less ?spiritual? (??) than Lahiri, or any of the other Indian ayanamshas, that western siderealists want to know what can be trotted out against it that has some kind of solid basis like the one advanced here.
Ken Bowser
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Right, you are speaking of angularity in sign ingress charts. That will of course vary with the ayanamsha employed. (My only quibble would be that when you say 'siderealists use...', you mean only modern western siderealists -- the Fagan school, in fact.)

Ken Bowser wrote:My point is that vimshottari should work in arc, in mean solar time, in Gregorian calendar reckoning if it can be relied upon as a dependable tool [...] My experience is that vimshottari dasa using the Fagan-allen ayanamsha puts the right dasa and bhukti in play that correspond to what?s happening in somebody?s life.

This may be less clear-cut than it first seems, as different astrologers may have somewhat different views on what would be the 'right' planetary period for a given event. In my own chart, Fagan-Allen gives results that in my opinion are almost humorously off (even more so when not correcting for parallax): marriage in the period of 12th-house planets, promotions in the period of 8th-house planets, etc. Krishnamurti with parallax, on the other hand, works very well. But there is no point arguing over different experiences.

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I respectfully submit, Martin and Varuna, and I don't mean this sarcastically, that the houses are wildly overemphasized in Indian astrology at the expense of planet combinations and that nakhshatras, dasas and bhuktis have extremely limited value for precision work. They are far too general and thus non-specific with respect to time and place. They constitute the greatest liability in any head-to-head competition between Eastern and Western sidereal astrology. I didn't bring up the matter, however, to assert something that would equate to "denominational superiority," because I have great respect for Indian astrology. Rather there are some people on this forum who never miss an opportunity to disparage the Fagan-Allen school and ayanamaha, usually subtly but nevertheless obviously. I for one, won't take that lying down and had to respond. Furthermore, I would argue that only a collision with another massive body and/or changes to the polar moment of inertia of our molten core could substantially change the rate of precession (and thus the ayanamsha). The changes to the rate of precession over the last century have amounted to, I'm pretty sure, hundreths of a second of arc and that over a period of many years.

I actually agree (to some extent) with several points you make, Ken, though I would state them less emphatically. I do think that houses are somewhat (not 'wildly') overemphasized in Indian astrology. I also agree that dashas are not exactly precision tools, though I would not call them 'extremely limited' in value -- and sometimes it is the broader picture one wants, or at least I do.

But I was a little surprised to see you state that dashas are imprecise and a 'great liability', since you had previously said that:

in my experience, a new dasa (with Fagan-Allen) makes one's circumstances turn on a dime.

My own comments on the dasha issue were motivated by the fact that I had had the opposite experience.

As it happens, I myself do not chiefly do Indian-style astrology, and prefer directions and revolutions to dashas. If pressed to put a label on my practice, I would call it medieval Perso-Arabic -- which of course includes Hellenistic, Byzantine and Indian elements. So a little bit of everything, except 'modern' and 'western'.

I mean turn on a dime in a broad sense the way you do, Martin, i.e.shortly upon the change of dasa, within a few days or a week; just not weeks or months, but I maintain from experience, not pre-judgment that Indian astrology doesn't hold up for precision work with respect to time or place and I gave a good example of it with the Indian Ocean earthquake. An event so big should be staring the astrologer in the face if his methods are invested with merit.

I don't back off my description of houses and house rulers being wildly over-emphasized, especially the supposed unerring goodness of the 5th and the 9th versus the invideous natures of the 8th and 12th. I don't maintain that the positive and negative natures of those houses are without merit. I think they're over-emphasized. In fairness I have found, to my surprise that benefics that rule whole sign angle houses act like malefics. That is impressive because it's unexpected and proves that some of the classic Indian doctrine holds up. When I say that I value Indian astrology, it's not a polite euphemism for the contrary position. I find that it has merit. I find that western sidereal has more.

You are perfectly entitled to your opinions, though I would point out that phrases like 'the supposed unerring goodness of the 5th and the 9th' really are straw men even when speaking of Indian astrology. For the record, I for one would not expect any dasha system or method of direction, etc, necessarily to give marked results within a few days to a week. That sort of precision is what transits are for, in my view.

I have no opinion on the prediction of earthquakes or other aspects of mundane astrology; I haven't studied them.

delete

Good morning,

So-called 'sidereal' but equal sign schools of astrology are, at best, only approximately sidereal because the equal signs are - in most proposed arcs of precession (why unnecessarily use foreign language words?) - nearer the unequal astronomic constellations than a tropical equal sign zodiac.

If one wants real sidereal, then one should investigate the books by e. g. Maria Thun and Dr. med. Editha Torsson who both work(ed) astrologically with the real unequal astronomic constellations.

Within the restricted framework of 'sidereal' equal signs, there is one (and only one as far as i can see) solution that includes each and all of the twelve Alpha constellational stars in the respective equal signs bearing the same names. It has a corridor of about 40' of ecliptical arc and puts Alpha Pisces (Alrisha) in the last degree of the sign of Pisces, Aldebaran and Antares in the 10th degrees of the equal signs of Taurus and Scorpius, Regulus in the 1st degree of Leo and Spica at about 24 Libra. This solution is very similar to the tropical zodiac of Hipparkhos, about 150 BCE.

Best regards,

lihin