Oh, I'm a badger, MarkC...I'll wait until Deb comes back and then put this one back to the top! It would be nice to have a definitive answer! This recent cluster of transits/aspects has done my head in.

GH

Right. I guess I just don't how understand how you could wonder what the answer to this horary was when you so emphatically said it was 'No' in the one I gave. That's all. They are basically identical so I figured it would be the same. No harm done. I think the 11th house is pretty clear, but I don't use the same house system as most of the people here so it might be in a different house with mine. In the Whole Sign system they would be in the 12th house. But nobody here really uses Whole Sign so that doesn't really matter. I'm beginning to wonder if whole sign or any other really effects the answer. It seems that it would, though. I don't know. Still, hope you wil post your conclusion or even better Deb would post what she thought about it.

In the Whole Sign system they would be in the 12th house. But nobody here really uses Whole Sign so that doesn't really matter.

I have not heard of anyone using whole sign houses for horary before. I would question your choice even if you are trying to be 'hellenistic' in approach. On a practical basis much of horary astrology is about assessing planetary strength by accidental dignity. When it came to judgements like that early Greek astrologers seem to have relied on a quadrant house system (Porphyry) rather than whole sign houses. This house system was first described by the 2nd century astrologer Vettius Valens, in the 3rd book of his astrological compendium known as The Anthology. Have you considered doing horary with Porphyry houses?

I guess I just don't how understand how you could wonder what the answer to this horary was when you so emphatically said it was 'No' in the one I gave. That's all. They are basically identical so I figured it would be the same.

Not basically identical. In your question the moon and all the planets were in a cadent house and the Moon at 25 degrees Virgo...in this question the placements of the planets are much stronger and the Moon is imminently applying...there is less lag period...so there are fewer barriers...apart from that Mercury aspect. Also, that pesky Jupiter did not rule an obviously-connected house in your chart...it ruled the 9th, not the 5th. Small differences can, I think, make all the difference. (Whether or not the answer is different is yet to be decided...)

GH

MarkC wrote:

In the Whole Sign system they would be in the 12th house. But nobody here really uses Whole Sign so that doesn't really matter.

I have not heard of anyone using whole sign houses for horary before. I would question your choice even if you are trying to be 'hellenistic' in approach. On a practical basis much of horary astrology is about assessing planetary strength by accidental dignity. When it came to judgements like that early Greek astrologers seem to have relied on a quadrant house system (Porphyry) rather than whole sign houses. This house system was first described by the 2nd century astrologer Vettius Valens, in the 3rd book of his astrological compendium known as The Anthology. Have you considered doing horary with Porphyry houses?

Really? I didn't know Valens prescribed to this method. Regarding technique I have been under the tutelage of Chris Brennan from Project Hindsight. He uses whole sign with his horary and has been very accurate with his delienations of them. That is why I posed the question about wondering how much it really mattered. But then like I said, it should matter quite a bit when it comes to that. There's a big difference between significators being in the 11th or in the 12th. I will have to ask him why he chooses to use whole sign and then get back to you. I will look into Porphyry on my own though. I'm not above using what works, obviously. Thanks for the insight.

Really? I didn't know Valens prescribed to this method. Regarding technique I have been under the tutelage of Chris Brennan from Project Hindsight. He uses whole sign with his horary and has been very accurate with his delienations of them. That is why I posed the question about wondering how much it really mattered. But then like I said, it should matter quite a bit when it comes to that. There's a big difference between significators being in the 11th or in the 12th. I will have to ask him why he chooses to use whole sign and then get back to you. I will look into Porphyry on my own though. I'm not above using what works, obviously. Thanks for the insight.

I am somewhat surprised Chris is teaching horary at all! Chris wrote a very interesting article not that long ago arguing horary was not strictly found in hellenistic times. Like Robert Schmidt he has taken the view that horary developed later. Chris suggested the part of Dorotheus of Sidon's 1st century text the Carmen Astrologicum relating to horary was full of later insertions. Anyway, this is a big subject and I would not be doing justice to Chris or his article paraphrasing him. Its an excellent piece of research whether you agree with his conclusions or not.

I am not suggesting Valens did horary at all. We have no evidence of that from his Anthology. However, according to Robert Schmidt he did use Porphyry houses to assess planetary strength in other kinds of charts. Here is an article by Robert Schmidt on the subject:

http://www.astrology-x-files.com/houses ... ouses.html

Hellenistic purists might argue Porphry houses had only limited uses by Valens. That may be true. However, the hellenistic astrologer has a dilemma if you follow the position of Robert Schmidt and Chris Brennan literally that no horary existed in hellenistic times. Either you avoid horary altogether or you adopt a system consistent with hellenistic practice. A third possibility is to accept that horary developed from an astrological world where quadrant house systems were the norm. Either way a hellenistic house system used to assess planetary strength seems ideally suited for horary in my view. Still, horary is a very practical art. See what you think in some charts.

I am curious how Chris does horary. No planetary orbs I assume and only consider perfections in sign? In practice is it similar to John Frawley's approach?

MarkC wrote:

Really? I didn't know Valens prescribed to this method. Regarding technique I have been under the tutelage of Chris Brennan from Project Hindsight. He uses whole sign with his horary and has been very accurate with his delienations of them. That is why I posed the question about wondering how much it really mattered. But then like I said, it should matter quite a bit when it comes to that. There's a big difference between significators being in the 11th or in the 12th. I will have to ask him why he chooses to use whole sign and then get back to you. I will look into Porphyry on my own though. I'm not above using what works, obviously. Thanks for the insight.

I am somewhat surprised Chris is teaching horary at all! Chris wrote a very interesting article not that long ago arguing horary was not strictly found in hellenistic times. Like Robert Schmidt he has taken the view that horary developed later. Chris suggested the part of Dorotheus of Sidon's 1st century text the Carmen Astrologicum relating to horary was full of later insertions. Anyway, this is a big subject and I would not be doing justice to Chris or his article paraphrasing him. Its an excellent piece of research whether you agree with his conclusions or not.

I am not suggesting Valens did horary at all. We have no evidence of that from his Anthology. However, according to Robert Schmidt he did use Porphyry houses to assess planetary strength in other kinds of charts. Here is an article by Robert Schmidt on the subject:

http://www.astrology-x-files.com/houses ... ouses.html

Hellenistic purists might argue Porphry houses had only limited uses by Valens. That may be true. However, the hellenistic astrologer has a dilemma if you follow the position of Robert Schmidt and Chris Brennan literally that no horary existed in hellenistic times. Either you avoid horary altogether or you adopt a system consistent with hellenistic practice. A third possibility is to accept that horary developed from an astrological world where quadrant house systems were the norm. Either way a hellenistic house system used to assess planetary strength seems ideally suited for horary in my view. Still, horary is a very practical art. See what you think in some charts.

I am curious how Chris does horary. No planetary orbs I assume and only consider perfections in sign? In practice is it similar to John Frawley's approach?

Yes, I agree with everything you said. I do know Chris has said there are hints of it in sources such as Dorotheus of Sidon (c.1st century CE) with his works on Electional astrology (the art of choosing auspicious times to begin endeavors) and event interpretation, but there don't seem to be any specific references to Horary I can't speak directly for him in regards to his exact approach, but from the things I've learned from him directly are that when there is an applying aspect (he does use orbs) then the matter is brought to perfection. He even says the matter is brought to perfection with a square or opposition but with much struggle. I am not under the impression he considers Prohibition, Frustration, Refranation or anything like that in his interpretations.


In fact, I'll just quote him directly on how he does it. I have an example he used in regards to it, "For example- if a person were to ask me a question about children, like 'will I have children in the next year?? And then I cast the chart and Aries was on the ascendant, and Leo was on the 5th house of children. So, my two significators are Mars, which represents the person asking the question- the Querent, and then the Sun, which represents the Quested, basically children. Since the Sun is the faster moving planet, we look to see if the Sun is making an applying aspect to Mars- if children are coming to the Querent. Basically if I was to see any of the major aspects (conjunction, trine, sextile, square or opposition) forming between the Sun and Mars, then that would be a 'yes'- the querent will have children sometime in the next year. With the square, and especially the opposition, there may be difficulties or problems along the way though. Also, you have to take into account the nature of the planets involved."

He did go on to say that explanation was rather simple and not giving entire justice to the branch, but it was a brief outline.

MarkC wrote:
I have not heard of anyone using whole sign houses for horary before. I would question your choice even if you are trying to be 'hellenistic' in approach. On a practical basis much of horary astrology is about assessing planetary strength by accidental dignity. When it came to judgements like that early Greek astrologers seem to have relied on a quadrant house system (Porphyry) rather than whole sign houses. This house system was first described by the 2nd century astrologer Vettius Valens, in the 3rd book of his astrological compendium known as The Anthology. Have you considered doing horary with Porphyry houses?

Rob Hand has been using whole signs in horary since he made the conversion in the late 90's. He pointed out in his translation of Masha'allah several years ago that there was a rich tradition of using whole sign houses in the early Medieval tradition, and some of the authors who established the fundamental rules of horary in the early Medieval tradition such as Sahl and Masha'allah seem to have largely been whole sign house guys.

When I was testing out the different house systems a few years ago and playing with the idea of whole sign houses I thought that this historical precedence in the early horary tradition was somewhat compelling, at least enough to start experimenting with the approach, and I was rather impressed by the results. I think that it actually helps to make my overall approach to astrology more conceptually consistent, since I'm basically applying the same rules throughout each branch of the tradition that I practice.

Of course, this is my own personal preference, and although it is the way that I practice and teach horary I encourage people to test out the different systems and to see what works best for them.

With respect to the use of Porphyry in Valens, I think that Schmidt was on the right track in initially pointing out this distinction that was being made in the Hellenistic tradition between using whole sign houses for topics and quadrant systems for determining planetary activity, although I don't think that he went far enough at that point in outlining the somewhat restricted usage of quadrant houses in the Hellenistic tradition.

Let me explain what I mean. For the most part virtually every Hellenistic astrology uses whole sign houses for just about everything - topics, angularity, strength, etc.. The only area where almost every Hellenistic astrologer clearly and consistently switches to the quadrant systems is within the context of the length of life technique. That is to say, they all tend to introduce the notion of quadrant houses only when talking about that specific technique, within the context of trying to determine what the predominator ('hyleg') is in a given chart. You can see this for yourself just by reading through some of the major Hellenistic authors and noting when their discussions of the quadrant systems occur.

The issue with Schmidt's initial argument, which has probably been revised by now, is that although they were studying the 'angularity' of a planet relative to the quadrant divisions within the context of the length of life treatment, this does not necessarily mean that they always employed the quadrant systems in order to determine planetary angularity in other areas of the system, outside of the length of life treatment. That is to say, they used quadrant houses in order to gauge planetary angularity within the context of the length of life treatment, but in the context of other techniques they just used whole sign houses in order to gauge planetary angularity.

For example, in book 2 of the Anthology Valens talks a lot about the trigon lords of the sect light, and his main criteria for determining whether or not a native's trigon lords are well placed is to see how angular they area - i.e. angular, succeedent or cadent. Generally speaking angular trigon lords are quite positive, succeedent trigon lords are middling, and cadent trigon lords are seriously depressed unless the domicile lord of the cadent trigon lord is well placed. In all chart examples in which Valens demonstrates this approach he focuses solely on whole sign house placements in order to determine whether or not a planet is angular, succeedent or cadent.

Thus, at least as far as Valens is concerned, outside of the length of life treatment it is the whole sign placements that provide planetary activity or angularity, not the quadrant divisions. Then later in book 3 he introduces 'Porphyry' houses within the context of the length of life treatment and then after he moves on from that topic he never speaks of them or applies them again.

So, what I am getting at here with this rather long winded post is that for all intents and purposes, and despite Schmidt's earlier arguments, pretty much everyone who uses whole sign houses does so uniformly across the board except within the context of the length of life treatment, and this is essentially in line with what we know of the way that the Hellenistic astrologers did things. Of course we still pay attention to the MC and the IC, and there are some other oddities as far as the Hellenistic astrologers are concerned that we still have to work out, but this is the gist of it. I hope this makes sense.

MarkC wrote:
I am somewhat surprised Chris is teaching horary at all! Chris wrote a very interesting article not that long ago arguing horary was not strictly found in hellenistic times. Like Robert Schmidt he has taken the view that horary developed later. Chris suggested the part of Dorotheus of Sidon's 1st century text the Carmen Astrologicum relating to horary was full of later insertions. Anyway, this is a big subject and I would not be doing justice to Chris or his article paraphrasing him. Its an excellent piece of research whether you agree with his conclusions or not.

I am not suggesting Valens did horary at all. We have no evidence of that from his Anthology. However, according to Robert Schmidt he did use Porphyry houses to assess planetary strength in other kinds of charts. Here is an article by Robert Schmidt on the subject:

http://www.astrology-x-files.com/houses ... ouses.html

Hellenistic purists might argue Porphry houses had only limited uses by Valens. That may be true. However, the hellenistic astrologer has a dilemma if you follow the position of Robert Schmidt and Chris Brennan literally that no horary existed in hellenistic times. Either you avoid horary altogether or you adopt a system consistent with hellenistic practice. A third possibility is to accept that horary developed from an astrological world where quadrant house systems were the norm. Either way a hellenistic house system used to assess planetary strength seems ideally suited for horary in my view. Still, horary is a very practical art. See what you think in some charts.

I am curious how Chris does horary. No planetary orbs I assume and only consider perfections in sign? In practice is it similar to John Frawley's approach?

While I do still argue that horary proper didn't exist as a concept in the early Hellenistic tradition, that is not to say that I don't think that it is a viable application of horoscopic astrology or that I don't use it in my own practice. If anything, my interest in getting to the roots of the origins of horary was fueled by my personal interest in that application of astrology and in order to determine why some of the stranger concepts like the considerations before judgement were developed. I'm actually going to be presenting my paper on this topic at the History of Astrology Conference in London in late October if anyone is interested in hearing the argument in full, or perhaps throwing tomatoes at me. Either one will do.

As I outlined in my previous post, I do think that it is still consistent with the Hellenistic and early Medieval traditions to use whole sign houses within the context of horary as the primary means of house division, both for assigning rulers and for determining accidental dignities.

They did use orbs in the Hellenistic tradition, the issue is just that the orbs that they used for degree based aspects (as opposed to sign based ones) were rather tight. The usual statement is that the orb for applying aspects is three degrees for planets and 13 degrees for the Moon. Naturally I tend to use somewhat wider orbs in the analysis of horary charts, although this is partially because my approach to astrology is very much grounded in the Medieval and Modern traditions as well, even if I am able to differentiate between them from time to time.

I guess that like most people I'm more interested in creating a system that works, rather than just trying to stick to any one tradition. When I teach horary it is largely based on early Medieval authors, although when it comes to some of those authors like Sahl and Masha'allah so much of their work is derived from Dorotheus that there aren't a lot of major differences. In fact I tend to think that the way that Masha'allah and especially Sahl practiced horary would have been pretty consistent with the way that someone like Valens would have practiced it, hypothetically.

Hello Chris,

Thanks a lot for joining this discussion. Your post has really helped to clarify your position on this. You have raised many interesting points which I hope to pick up later. My only regret is that your contribution has got rather buried in a thread on a particular horary chart! It really deserves to be a new thread all on its own on the traditional pages.

The actual history of the development of house systems is a very interesting topic. The re-publication of D North's classic book: ''Horoscopes and History'' should be helpful to such discussions. I know you have had the benefit of discussing this issue with Ben Dykes in some depth. I look forward to talking to him more about that at his forthcoming workshop after the Astrological Association Conference.

Still I am sure if Deb was here she might take issue with you over the importance of quadrant house systems in early astrology. I know she has a polite disagreement with Robert Hand on this. As she is away at the BLAST conference I thought I better stick up a representative sample of her views on this.

There is, however, a great deal of confusion regarding how the houses were used in ancient times and when quadrant systems such as Porphyry and Placidus were introduced. Passages which were once thought to clearly demonstrate the equal-house method in practice are now taken to be more evident of the use of Porphyry or the whole-sign system; this creates some doubt about whether the equal-house system has any theoretical basis in classical astrology at all, except as a compromise by astrologers who were attempting to align the houses with the angles and either deliberately or ignorantly failed to observe any discrepancies. Ptolemy's stance is often considered critical in matters relating to classical astrology, so his use of the houses is worth exploring in detail, particularly for those who have been persuaded that a return to the simple mechanics of the "whole-sign method" would be a return to the original and purest use of houses.

Deb goes on to consider Ptolemy's possible position on house division in this article:

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/houprob_print.html

She makes the suggestion that Ptolemy's text is not totally consistent with a whole sign approach as Robert Hand has suggested.

Getting back to Porhyry houses is your position that no hellenistic astrologer ever used it other than in the limited way Valens did? One of the problems of most traditional texts is that we often lack any worked chart examples making it often extremely difficult to know what house system is being used. Certainly when he get to the transitional phase of Arab era astrology. There are clearly the exceptions as you have pointed out such as Massah'Allah. I have yet to read my copy of Ben's translation of Sahl so that will be interesting.

I find your comments on hellenistic orbs most interesting. That is pretty much what I concluded reading the texts. Its interesting there was a 13 degree orb for the Moon. That looks like an early example of planetary orbs. I find the 3 degrees of application concept quite powerful in practice. Transits often seem to operate on this basis. I am left wondering about the Sun though?

I will be at the History of Astrology Conference in London but I very much doubt you have to worry about any rotten tomatoes! I am really looking forward to your presentation.

Hi Mark,

Sorry for the lack of response. I'm also heading off to speak at the Blast this week, so I'm a bit distracted at the moment with getting packed and prepared for that.

I'm aware of Deb's stance on Ptolemy and I think that we discussed it at some point in a thread on this forum a while back, although I still respectfully disagree with her when it comes to Ptolemy's use of houses in the Tetrabiblos. I'm hoping that Deb, Hand and I can get together and talk about it a bit this week.

I do want to say really quickly that while I wouldn't try to argue that all other astrologers used other forms of house division in the limited way that Valens does exactly, I do think that they are all pretty consistent in mainly using quadrant houses within the context of the length of life technique. Of course there are some exceptions, even in Valens.

For example in book 5 Valens advocates the use of the MC in addition to the 10th whole sign house, but he also does something really similar to the Medieval style of profections in profecting to the sign of the MC in a 10th house profection year, in addition to the 10th whole sign house, even if the MC isn't in the 10th sign. That is to say, if a person is in a 10th house profection year and the natal MC is in the 9th whole sign house he says that the 9th and the 10th whole sign house would be activated. He doesn't use intermediate cusps in this approach, but it is an interesting sort of middle ground between the pure whole sign approach and the pure quadrant style approach. Later on in book 9 he apparently uses equal houses in order to construct a set of derivative houses.

So, even in Valens there are some exceptions, although he does use the whole sign system consistently in his 100+ chart examples in the Anthology (except of course in the length of life treatment). For the most part the whole sign system seems to dominate much of the early tradition though, and there are still a lot of questions surrounding when exactly whole sign houses stopped being the dominant form of house division.

I look forward to taking this up in another thread when I get back from the conference. It will be good to meet you in October as well.

Hi Chris,

Since you're using my thread, what do you think of the chart I posted? Care to add anything?



GH