Skyscript Astrology Forum

RegulusAstrology wrote:. Zoller did not emphasize fixed stars in his instruction on physiognamy.

Zoller is a name just for Anglosaxon world. If he does not emphasize fixed stars it is not important to me, as it is not important what Bezza says if it is not supported by texts. I prefer to follow ancient astrologers.

This is Ptolemy in the chapter about the shape of the body:
"To speak, however, more particularly, all constellations of human form, both those within and those without the zodiac, act in favour of giving a handsome shape to the body, and due proportion to the figure; while those not of human form vary its due proportions, and incline it towards their own shape; assimilating it, in some measure, to their own peculiarities, either by enlarging or diminishing its size, by giving it additional strength or weakness, or by otherwise improving or disfiguring it. Thus, for example, Leo, Virgo, and Sagittarius enlarge the person; and Pisces, Cancer, and Capricorn tend to make it diminutive; and thus, again, the upper and anterior parts of Aries, Taurus, and Leo increase its strength and their lower and posterior parts render it weaker: while, on the other hand, Sagittarius, Scorpio, and Gemini act conversely; for their anterior parts produce greater debility, and their posterior parts greater vigour. In like manner, Virgo, Libra, and Sagittarius contribute to render the person handsome and well-proportioned; and Scorpio, Pisces, and Taurus incline it to be misshapen and disfigured.

The other constellations also operate on similar principles; and all these influences it is necessary to bear in mind, in order that the peculiar properties, observed in their joint temperament, may be so compounded as to authorize an inference therefrom, concerning the form and temperament of the body."

Fixed stars, especially the ones rising at the Ascendant were very important, they make the destiny of the man, as I wrote many times. It's the famous moirogenesis mentioned in Firmicus, who took the the list of stars from Manilius and so on.

So I would check which constellations and stars are rising.

Margherita

Hi
Just a minor note
Herman said that after the last Fulda meeting, the official position of Frawley was that Saturn oriental was really cold and dry.

Best regards

yuzuru wrote:Hi
Just a minor note
Herman said that after the last Fulda meeting, the official position of Frawley was that Saturn oriental was really cold and dry.

This is exactly what I meant.
What Frawley says, Bezza says, Zoller says and so on, without any reference to ancient texts makes me very perplexed.
Margherita

I think the biggest problem in delineating Lincoln't temperament is that we really don't know the exact birh time for sure.
- AstroDatabank gives 6.54 AM which gives 22.05 Aquarius as the Ascendant. The notes tell us that the biographies say "born at sunup" (this is based on midwife's story).
- The database in the Janus program gives 6.57.53 AM which is got simply by putting the Sun right on the Ascendant (23.27 Aquarius rising).
- According to ADB, T. Pat Davis and Manly Palmer Hall have both independently and in different years rectified the same time, 8.36 AM giving 1.58 Aries rising.
- Dr H. gives a rectified time of 3.48.55 AM in his presidential database, and this time gives 29.45 Sagittarius as the Ascendant.

What Frawley says, Bezza says, Zoller says and so on, without any reference to ancient texts makes me very perplexed.
Margherita

With all due respect to those mentioned (who are not responsible for the comments made about them) I want to support your statement Margherita. It is right and proper that people acknowledge innovative or personal suggestions, when there is some use or explanation of that suggestion, but lately I have noticed a lot of astrologers simply quote a modern published author and take some comment or ?rule? for granted simply because the modern published author has said so. I don?t like to see this happening, even when people are quoting what I said (actually it would be nice if my husband and children would think and believe what I told them, just because I said so, but I can only marvel at the odds of that ever happening ).

It?s probably worth a reminder of the quote Culpeper made in his ?Judgement of Disease?, ch.10:

Truly, my own opinion is that many authors invented whimsies, and when they had done, set them down to posterity for Truth; who taking them up without trial, cloathed tradition in plush and left poor reason to go in rags. An author said so; ergo ?tis true, right or wrong?.

One of the reasons we can safely quote a traditional author, here in this traditional forum, is that although astrology adapted and evolved its techniques over the eras, there was usually a resistance to innovate without strong reason, or an obvious need to correct. It was also so much more of an accomplishment to publish a text in the past, so the projects were not entered into lightly, or subject to rapid changes of the author?s mind afterwards. (I am a great fan and admirer of Robert Hand, but imagine if his works survive 1000 years, how many arguments there will be about which are real and which are obviously spurious because his later works use such different methods and perspectives to his earlier ones).

But if we take Lilly as an example, anyone who has studied Lilly?s source texts and realises how full and active his horary experience was, knows just how completely he was engaged in his art, and how deep his knowledge went. He had been studying the subject over many years (passionately, up to 18 hours a day) before he wrote his Christian Astrology. On the basis of this he made a few margin notes, and offered a few new opinions of his own, but usually whilst giving the traditional views recorded by the older sources. By comparison, some modern authors who have published books on horary, admit to getting their methods from the work of just one older author ? maybe someone like Ivy Goldstein Jacobson, and yet they become an ?authority? as soon as they self-publish. It?s a world away!

The same passages of theory that are found in Lilly?s work also appear in Bonatti?s, Zaels, Haly?s, Al-Kindi?s, Ezra?s, etc, etc, so usually, when someone says they disagree with Lilly, they are disagreeing with all these (and many other) ancient sources too. Despite my respect for Lilly's expertise in horary, knowing that Lilly, or anyone else, ?said something? means nothing to me without an explanation of the logic as they presented it. There is actually very, very little in astrology that is truly original to one person; and in fact if it is truly original, then it probably deserves a lot of suspicion

RA wrote: 2. How about planets placed in the 1st house by whole signs which are more than 4-5 degrees away from the Ascendant? Does anyone have examples where these placements matter for temperament?

Errol Flynn (June 20, 1909 at 2:25 AM in Hobart, Tasmania) has Saturn posited in the 12th in the 1st whole sign house within 5 degrees of the Asc and oriental of the Sun. Saturn is in its Fall, and averse to Mars, Asc ruler, sextile the Sun and square the Moon.

You can see it's influence on his appearance (tall, lean, dark) but in reading bios it did not seem to have a strong influence on his temperament; he did have occasional melancholy moments but he was not what anyone would typically describe as a melancholic personality. What I find odd is the contrast between the strength of the physical effect vs the weaker effect on personality/temperament; although, one could argue it had a strong influence on his moral character.

I'm doubtful that accidental conditions can completely override a planet's nature. Saturn is cold and dry, it might be warmed or moistened slightly but not convinced it can be made cold and moist or hot and dry by accident.

I've got Saturn in Sag Rx oriental with essential dignity only by face in the ascendant, and the only thing it seems to have done is made me pale. I'm a redhead, and I've got the stereotypical pallour that goes with it - and I'm short - like the other shortest person in my family within a couple generations was 5'8" and I'm 5'2" (even most of the women in my family are 5'11" - 6'). It doesn't seem to have had a huge impact on my temperament, either.

Occasional moments of melancholy, though never in the depressive sense, never been called choleric either (though some people have suggested I could do with some of that, and I agree). I seem to be mostly sanguine.

I'm smack dab in the middle of Sag, so my birth time would have to be out by about an hour for the ascendant to change.

I think the biggest problem in delineating Lincoln't temperament is that we really don't know the exact birh time for sure.

We don't. Just to fill in some historical blanks: For about 70 years the accepted chart for Lincoln was a rectification used by Luke Broughton. It stood for so long because it was used to, more or less, predict Lincoln's death. Broughton said Lincoln would be in danger in April of 1865 and that is when the assassination took place. However, this was the second time Broughton made such a prediction. I can't find that chart, but it had a Sagittarius ASC. I don't know what Broughton used or whose rectification he used, if he didn't use his own.

Manley Palmer Hall reasoned that Lincoln was born between 8:00 and 10:00 AM because historians who were dead at the time of Hall's rectification (1933) found elderly contemporaries of Lincoln who claimed to recall the time of his birth as, "Around Meetin' House time." Hall then, by process of elimination said Lincoln must have been an Aries rising because he did not appear as one with a Pisces or Taurus ASC. He reasoned Lincoln was born "around 8:50 am," giving him an Aries ASC and the mole on his cheek testified to it. Interestingly Hall thought Lincoln had a Pisces temperament. This was published in the National Astrological Journal and I have a reprint.

Dr. H outlined his methodology in his book A Manual of Rectification.

Tom

Olivia wrote:I've got Saturn in Sag Rx oriental with essential dignity only by face in the ascendant, and the only thing it seems to have done is made me pale. I'm a redhead, and I've got the stereotypical pallour that goes with it - and I'm short - like the other shortest person in my family within a couple generations was 5'8" and I'm 5'2" (even most of the women in my family are 5'11" - 6').

hello Olivia.
I believe we should consider Saturn if it means something in the chart.
Is it the ruler of the Ascendant? Is it aspecting the Moon or the ascendant ruler? Is it in an angle?

If it is not in these condition who cares if it is oriental or occidental? We should not take into consideration all the planets, but Moon and Ascendant which signify the body and planets aspecting them in agreement with their phase and quadrant.
This is Ptolemy. Then there are slightly differences because Lilly for example takes into consideration the Sun - Ptolemy does not mention it. Anyway I understand many REnaissance astrologers did, so we are still into tradition.

But if we should consider all the planets for me it's the wrong method, or better said it's not the traditional one.

The same if the shape of the body does not correspond to the chart. Nobody till Renaissance and more would say that a pale and fatty man was a melancholic, to do an example.

Margherita

One criticism of natal astrology in the 20th century and current time is that it's all about ME, that 'me' being the chart native. Planets, signs and houses all describe primarily, or even only, the chart native. But what about other people in the chart native's life? What about the circumstances, environment and conditions that s/he is located in? When rectifying a chart aren't they just as important? With that in mind it's worth looking at the 7th house and the spouse indicated thereby.

With Abe Lincoln comes Mary Todd Lincoln. She was a feisty one. As a young and relatively upper class woman in her backwater regional society she knew how to talk politics with the men folk and she loved doing it. She was bright, vivacious and edgy, but being a woman at that time and place she couldn't apply those qualities outside the home. She had a sharp tongue and knew how to use it ? hysterical shrieks, if necessary. As a married woman she shopped. What might you do when you move to Washington DC because of your husband's elected position? - You might shop. And your husband dutifully pays the bills. That is the Lincoln story. There is important information here for us to use. After Abe was killed she followed her already active trajectory and worked her way more completely into insanity.

So, we give Abe Lincoln Sagittarius rising, with Mutable Gemini on the Desc. It's ruler Mercury is in Mutable Pisces. Oh, could be. But it's so dull, too Mutable-sign soft and diffused. Where's the punch, edge and pizazz of Mary Todd Lincoln?

Let's try Capricorn on the ASC with the spouse indicated by Cardinal Cancer on the DESC., it's ruler, the Moon, in detriment in Capricorn and so tightly square Mars in his Libra detriment. Is anyone now starting to feel the presence of edgy, hysterical and emotionally manipulative Mary?

Why do so many chart rectifiers ignore the elements of the complete life and get their noses stuck in the events of temporal time lines?

Oh well. We aren't going to agree.

Her ruler in Lincoln's chart is in a dual sign, his detriment and fall.

I think taking Mercury's detriment and fall in Pisces as a stand-alone factor to describe her mental/emotional state is a good example of how essential dignities are too easily over-used now. Otherwise, there really isn't all that much more to say about Mercury. And were her problems truly (thinking here of Ptolemy) mental/of the rational mind and related to Mercury or more emotional/irrational mind and related to the Moon?

But if we give her Cancer by way of Lincoln's chart having Capricorn rising we have a Capricorn Moon in detriment that is tightly square Mars which is also in detriment. A suffering Moon is square a suffering malefic. Both the Moon and Mars are angular ? especially with Whole Sign houses. From what I've heard and read about her there wasn't so much Mutable sign fuzziness and confusion with her as Cardinal sign intensity and crisis. She as wife is tied in with him and his murder by way of the first house Moon square the 10th house Mars. The Mars link is where the action is. Mercury sitting there in Pisces just doesn't do it for me.

Of course, if he had Taurus rising this is all neither here nor there.