Hi,
here is a quote from Dorotheus( Carmen astrologicum,pag 185,translation of David Pingree,Ed.Astrologic classics 2005)
''This nativity was diurnal...the lords of the Sun's triplicity was Saturn,then Mercury.Saturn was in what folows the cardine of the West(house and Mercury in what follows the cardine of midheaven,so that the native should be wealthy,rich,poweful in business affairs,great in property,seizing eminence and fortune and increasing in them"

All the best

Gerson -

We should officially call the 8H the sunglasses house for the purposes of this forum. Like the ancients intended.

I don't have my Dorotheus handy, but it's not clear that "wealthy, rich, powerful, etc." is applicable to Saturn in the 8H. It could have been intended just to apply to Mercury in the 11H. If the context of that quote shows otherwise, that is fine and tell me so.

But I agree with you on this: the house position for the ancients seemed paramount, often to the exclusion of everything else.

The difficulty I have with this is that it is wrong (c.f. Martha Stewart) and does not reflect the individual's life. Else Martha Stewart's first 30 years would have been superior to the second 30, which they were not.

Thus, the ancients are either:

1. Using another method of assessment they do not mention, or
2. Cherry-picking their examples.

Again, I'd like some practicing Hellenistic types to weigh in on this.

Nina

Hi Nina,you're right.This method used alone seems to fail in several cases,several charts.
All the best
Gerson

Hi, Nina

I always repeat that mantra: "never use any technique as a stand alone"

Charts are always unique, and so no technique can give a proper answer without full delineation.

Yuzuru -

That is a good mantra.

So how would you look at Stewart's chart (or at least the thirds of life)? What other methods would you employ? I just want to know how people make this a workable technique in practice.

Nina

Well, preliminary considerations: I would note that Martha is a very choleric lady! Not something you see in the cameras!

Manners are probably described by Jupiter or saturn...Her persona is covered by that saturn in taurus in the 7th, so probably saturn is lord of manners.

The luminar of the time is sun, which is in his own sign. Benefics are succedent, and we have one malefic angular and other cadent (and dignified).

Moon is in trine to sun, and she is in the 10th of fortuna promising at least some degree of fame!

The triplicity ruler of the sun are either angular or succedent, and they aspect the sun.

The ascendant ruler is dignified and joined to Jupiter and receives a trine from the angular sun.

With only those testimonies I would judge the native to have some degree of eminence. If she was on tv or if how much money she has, I think it is a different problem.

Hi all,

Robert Schmidt wrote recently on the Hellenistic section of the ACT forum about the trigon lords as follows:

In Book II of Valens, where the technique of taking the trigon lords of the sect light is introduced, it is very clear that the first trigon lord has authority over the first part of the native?s life, the second over the second, and the third cooperates with both the first and the second periods. The cooperating lord has nothing to do with a third portion of the native?s life, as is often said in medieval texts. As a matter of fact, Valens has some interesting rules for timing the change-over from the first to the second trigon lord. I believe that if the medieval astrologers had had Valens at their disposal, they never would have claimed such a thing. Dorotheus is somewhat vague on the topic.

Here's the whole discussion: http://actastrology.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=113 .

Hi ,Yuzuru and Tom made interesting contributions.An inportant feature of the chart's delineation would be also note the locations of the Lots.The location of the Lot of spirit shows a prospering place,for exemple.In Martha's chart Spirit in Gemini(by degree calculation),maybe will convert the 8 house in a prospery place.There's a comentary by Robert Schmidt in the book 4 of the anthology,pointing that " the presence of lots seems to be capable of making a poor zoidion prospering".It will be the case in Martha's chart ? I don't know what is his opinion today about the matter.
Jupiter ,becomes active at +-28/29 years old,the ascension times for Gemini at latitude 40 gives 28 degrees 47. At 26 years Martha begun a sucessfull carrer as a stokebroker,then in her 29 year she was working in it.
At 26 years old,her progressed M.C. at 15 virgo is in square with this Jupiter of house 8,and progressed jupiter is in exact sextil with natal M.C.
All the best
Gerson

I leave you all alone for a day, and look at all the replies that pile up!
Thanks so much for taking the time to address my question.

Tom - indeed, my copy of Al-Khayyat is dissolving into a fine powder as well. AFA just put out a new version, so I will be getting that, because I would not be without this fine work.

Thank you for the quotation; I would highlight it but for said dissolution into powder of my copy. I understand your point about being too Virgoesque about this, but the triplicity lords ruling thirds of life is a technique that many of the ancient writers not only discuss, but demonstrate, which leads me to think it was a fairly important concept. I'm thinking of Dorotheus, Valens, and of course Al-Khayyat himself.

My approach tends to be to believe what the ancients say until proven otherwise. That is why I want to get to the bottom of this and see if there is a way this method can work. Your earlier post about the reception makes this work, and I appreciate your indulgent reply.

Gerson - I also wonder if Fortuna or the Part of Spirit turns an inhospitable place into a prosperous one. My guess would be not, as the Lots are not things the way planets are, but I have not investigated this, have no proof, etc. This is something for me to find out as well. If I find some info about this in Valens, I will share with the group.

Papretis - Excellent quote; exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Thank you! I see where Schmidt is going with this, but I wonder just how this would have worked out in practice, as in Stewart's chart. Sun - excellent 1/3 of life, Jupiter - excellent 2/3 of life due to aspect to Sun, and then Sun with Jupiter and Saturn (?) - good but also bad last third of life? Blending the planets in the last third might muddy the waters. Again, something worth investigating for me.

Yuzuru - Yes, I was surprised to see so much choler, as well. I've actually never seen her show, but she comes across very regal, not your stereotypical angry choleric, like the Jim Cramer TV persona. Note that both the choleric planets, Sun and Mars, are in very good shape - this is someone using their choler in a constructive way. This is a little technique I learned from John Frawley and have found quite useful.

Nina

ninotchka7 wrote: Papretis - Excellent quote; exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Thank you! I see where Schmidt is going with this, but I wonder just how this would have worked out in practice, as in Stewart's chart. Sun - excellent 1/3 of life, Jupiter - excellent 2/3 of life due to aspect to Sun, and then Sun with Jupiter and Saturn (?) - good but also bad last third of life? Blending the planets in the last third might muddy the waters. Again, something worth investigating for me.
Nina

Well, I may have understood Schmidt point wrongly, but he was talking about a controverse that stated that the participating triplicity ruler is only that, participating. So, you do not divide the person's life in 3 parts, you divide into 2, and then the participating is activated the whole time. And he goes on saying that the medieval astrologers actually understood the technique wrongly, due to lack of access to original material.

Thinking about this I remember Cardan, that said that people born during the night that have all planets below the horizon never see their potential fullfilled (cause they die before it, at least in medieval times)...

I should point that in this chart Saturn does see the Sun, but does not see Jupiter. That could be the key, since Sun and Jupiter have a close relation, but only Jupiter is free from Saturn's evil glance.

I understand your point about being too Virgoesque about this, but the triplicity lords ruling thirds of life is a technique that many of the ancient writers not only discuss, but demonstrate, which leads me to think it was a fairly important concept

I've never been too crazy about the technique. In fact when I first read your post I thought "Why the Sun? Why not Jupiter or the ASC? The answer is the Sun in Stewart's chart is the luminary of sect, but so what? The Sun is the giver of life not the giver of property. And the Moon at night reflects the Sun's light, and the Moon is fertility, which is potential not material.

The idea is at once intimate and vague. What is prosperity and how do we measure it and how do we know the native well enough in order to judge it? We're judging Martha Stewart based on what we believe to be her earnings. Perhaps the first third of her life was the happiest or that she would rate it the best and most prosperous for reasons that have nothing to do with material wealth. Without knowing Martha Stewart personally, we'll never know.

None of these techniques are foolproof and none of them trump all the others all the time. Remember the first thing these astrologers would have done is determine the length of life. This isn't done for morbid curiosity. It's done to put things in perspective. Does this person have the time to accomplish what is in the chart? Showing success late in life when there will be no late in life is useless information regardless of how important the technique is reputed to be.

Secondly and perhaps most importantly there are things in the chart that trump other things; they just don't do it all the time. The trick is to determine what they are. This is why astrology is so difficult (I would argue impossible) to measure scientifically. Yes Saturn in Libra in the 7th can indicate a long marriage, but if the chart shows early widowhood it might not come to be. This does not invalidate the Saturn in the 7th indicating long marriage in every other chart.

My guess is that a medieval astrologer looking at Martha Stewart's chart would have noted lifelong prosperity and ignored the triplicity rulers no matter what they said because of the power of the Sun - Mars trine. He may have moved on to health or children or whatever interested her. However if there was no standout indication about the wealth, one way or the other, then more attention would be focused on them. The triplicity rules are, at best, broad indications that are brought into more focus as the life unfolds and the astrologer would look for that with directions, firdaria, profections, revolutions, ... whatever. The triplicity rulers for any concern are not absolute.

I see the biggest obstacle to understanding these old texts is that our immediate understanding is based on our worldview rather than theirs. Abu Ali didn't have an office where clients dropped in to find out their futures. He was more likely to work for the nobility and with only a few of them. He therefore could and would devote days to a question, whereas the contemporary astrologer only devotes a couple of hours and a sixty to 90 minute interview.

We can see this most clearly in Abu Mashar's work on solar returns. It's been joked that if the astrologer did everything Mashar instructed it would take a full revolution to do one chart. That might be true, but Mashar didn't see very many people. He had the time to tease out the chart's minutiae.

Yes all the ancients recommended the technique, but they also recommended others. They had their own experiences as consulting astrologers in mind when they left their instructions. They couldn't have guessed or circumstances much less figured out how we would interpret their works. Rob Hand doesn't think very many of these works were intended as full blown texts. The expense and difficulty of publishing makes it more likely they were what we would call study guides. This means a lot was left out of the writing that was discussed "in class." This always made sense to me.

Thanks for the tip about getting a new copy of Abu Ali. I'll be ordering mine.

Tom