Hello Tom,

I had rather hoped we could avoid this but as you are effectively seeking to dismiss my comments as irrelevant, confused, and downright malicious you don't leave me much choice.

This is unfortunate as I actually have a lot of respect for you. I have immensely benefited like many others here from your generousity on other threads by sharing your considerable knowledge and experience. Nevertheless, it seems my way expressing myself seems to ''press your buttons'' as the saying goes. Perhaps the tight square between your Leo Asc/Mars + late Aquarian Mercury(?) and my Scorpio Moon is reflective of our difficulty understanding or accepting each others views at times.

As I am not planning to disappear as a presence on Skyscript any time soon that looks like something we will both need to be aware of in future.

I am perfectly willing to accept your explanation of what your intentions were by posting as you did. I fully accept your comments had a context to them in relation to your post to Kirk.

However, whatever your intention was I still think your example did seem to endorse a particular view to me at least. From your previous posts I understand you use only in-sign aspects in regards to all types of astrology. This is of course consistent with the approach taught by many traditional astrologers. Out-of-sign aspects is therefore not a subject I expected you to be particularly receptive to. Thats not just based on your words on this thread but your comments on previous threads which you based your 'we've been here before' comment on.

Notice, too that the Hellenists might consider a wide separation by degree as an aspect, but that a tight separation that is "out of sign" is not acceptable. So Sun at 1 Aries Jupiter at 29 Pisces are two planets that are not in aspect.

You may not welcome my intervention but I feel it had purpose even if it wasn't directly in line with the theme of the thread you and Kirk were discussing. I remain unclear even now if your use of the term 'separated' referred to separating aspects or not. If the former is the case then I accept that is a slightly different issue. Nevertheless I did think the statement was bound to raise the the subject of whether out of sign aspects were possible to the Hellenistic astrologers. Taken on face value your example implied it wasn't.

I accept this all took place in the context of a discussion with Kirk. However, this thread isn't just a personal chat room between you and Kirk is it?

You go on to state:

Promoting? What I wrote was informational. There is no promotion in this post.

Again my reference was to the above comments on Hellenistic astrology. I accept you were not explicitly seeking to promote a particular view in your example but I felt there was a real risk general readers would reach such a conclusion on the specific issue of out-of-sign aspects in Hellenistic astrology. One can convey a message to others unconsciously and unintentionally. As a highly respected long term moderator on this site all your posts carry enormous weight. Perhaps, I applied a different yard stick to you than a normal posting.

Tom continues:

I was and may still be, of the opinion, that Ibn Ezra was the first major writer to clearly state he supported the idea of out-of-sign aspects. That's it. That others may have done so prior is almost of secondary importance since the idea didn't catch on. There are no other medieval astrologers who use them to my knowledge, but the seed may have been planted here. However, had I been asked, instead of having words put in my mouth, I might have even disregarded that as most contemporary astrologers and their immediate predecessors have never heard of Ibn Ezra. The fact remains that out-of sign-aspects are a shift in thinking about aspects.

Ok I think I see your point here. As for 'putting words in your mouth' well unless I quote you word for word in every post there are clearly going to differences in how people see written communication.

On Ibn Ezra clearly I opened up another theme from where you were going with Kirk I fully accept that. You feel the issue is irrelevant as you were discussing his impact ( or lack) on medieval sources. On the other hand I wanted to explore if he really was the first to put forward this view as you suggested. Your right in historical terms that his contribution seems to have been negligible for some time. However, you had already mentioned the issue of out of sign aspects being excluded in the example of Hellenistic astrology you gave. In that sense I feel the link I made was not unnatural.

Moreover, so what? Am I not permitted to express my own views except in total conformity to exactly what you happen to be stating? I thought going off on slight tangents was the life blood of Skyscript. If Skyscript operated strictly on that basis as you seem to be insisting here you and the other moderators should be challenging a miasma of posts here.

To "choose to ignore" is an accusation of willful misleading. Why not just call me a liar?

Wow Tom! That is a really heavy duty accusation to make and an over emotive one I must say. For the record no I do not think you are a liar or were seeking to intentionally mislead or misrepresent anything. Clearly we are living on different Planets if thats your view of what I was stating.

I accept my terminology was somewhat clumsy here. I accept the implication of 'choosing' on your part does sound rather too premeditated and knowing. My words clearly conveyed an edge I did not intend. Your omission was I'm sure because you were giving a specific example as an illustrative point. You therefore felt no need to cover a diversity of views. Nevertheless, that is a long way from calling your personal integrity into question. At worst I thought you were being over narrow in your approach to Hellenistic astrology. You must have a very poor estimation of me indeed if you seriously think I was implying more than that.

I did think your comments could be easily misunderstood as positing a particular view of Hellenistic astrology in relation to out-of-sign aspects. I also know you have participated in previous threads where you have dealt with lots of counter-views such as Deb's post. In that sense I was making the point that the example you gave seemed to leave out all that diversity of opinion. That doesn't mean you were seeking to deceive or mislead anyone intentionally. On reflection I think a small interjection might have made more sense than the full on post I went for. Still thats with the benefit of a lot of hindsight.

At the time I felt by not representing those views in the discussion people would come away with the idea that out of sign aspects were impossible in Hellenistic astrology. That wouldn't be very hard as Kirk's post indicated many of the leading books around seem to indicate this too. I thought it was important to show there was a significant counter view. If allowed to stand as it was I thought your post would convey a misleading view of out of sign aspects in the tradition. That is really it as far I am concerned. Its very different from calling you a liar or dishonest. I'm really quite upset that you made such an extreme accusation. I do regret you got the impression I was trying to convey something more conspiratorial on your part.

I have no problem with people disagreeing and citing relevant information.

I still consider my comments as having legitimate purpose even if you do not. As I stated previously, I was posting more for the benefit of general readers than trying to initiate a debate with you.

In essence I think of our disagreement here is that I view my posts as relevant and you do not. They may have been irrelevant to the strict confines of your discussion with Kirk but they were relevant, in my view, to the wider readership of this website. If you cannot accept that then I am content to accept that we will have to agree to disagree here and move on.

Anyway, I do think its time to take the heat and our egos out of this discussion and return to why we are here-the art of astrology.

If you want to continue this discussion any further can I suggest you do so on PM or email rather than take up any more space on this for general readers.


Mark

Hi All,

I just wanted to make a meta-comment on this thread, about Ibn Ezra. None of his three other books devoted primarily to nativities exist in any Western language except Latin (I believe). I have them in Latin, and, having just skimmed the likely places where he would have explained his use of out-of-sign aspects, I have not found any statements to that effect. But they may be in an unexpected place. One of these days I or someone else will translate these or at least read them word-for-word, and we will know for sure what else he said about this topic.

The three treatises I'm speaking of are his "On nativities and their revolutions," "On nativities," and "Particular Treatises." If anyone else has them and cares to comment, that's where to look.

Ben

Hello Ben,

Following her translation of The Beginning of Wisdom and The Book of Reasons Meira Epstein does claim to be producing a forthcoming translation of 'The Book of Nativities'. However, its down as being edited by Robert Hand and with his current academic commitments it must be a while off being produced. I am not entirely sure where this stands in relation to the texts mentioned by you. It sounds like it might be the second one or could it be a combination of all three? Thats probably just me getting greedy! If its any help the publication in Hebrew is the ''Sefer Ha'Moladot"

Thats interesting about Ibn Ezra not appearing to mention out-of-sign aspects in those texts. I do remember one source (sorry forgot who) stating that Ibn Ezra contradicted his views on out-of-sign aspects in The Beginning of Wisdom in another publication. I am still trying to figure out where I read that.

Anyway, here is the link to Meira Epstein's website link for her publications:

http://bear-star.com/books.htm

Mark