Skyscript Astrology Forum

It's interesting to notice that even in later authors like Eleuterio Eleo Zebeleno (XIV) only discrete profections are considered.

That's the last part of a translation by Giuseppe Bezza (in Italian)

http://www.cieloeterra.it/testi.zebeleno/zebeleno.html

I tend to think that whole-sign houses (but mine it's just my hypothesis) don't favor the use of continuous profections, but obviously I don't know.

margherita

thanks everyone for the feedback on this. it is all insightful, informative and educational.

the use of profections, or perfections as lihin points out in his interesting link/s - seems fairly static, much like solar arc directions for example which are criticized for moving everything around in the same aspectual relationship as what is done here with profections.. if something works, go for it. i don't really care what method it is but am most interested in something being of some symbolic relevance.

rumen kolev raised some interesting observations in the revised edition of his "primary directions 1" book in a short update to his book in 2009 that some here might enjoy reading. he wrote the original book in 1997 prior to different texts being made available to alter some of his view perhaps..

here is dr. rumen kolevs comments in a short update from june 2009 :

"in fact, the primary directions are only a part of the revelation of the ancient astro-sophy which was revealed to the prophet En Meduranki in 5500bc and started the golden age itself that derived from 5500bc to around 3500bc.

the primary directions that will be discussed here, are more exactly only a part of the prognostic system of this most ancient astrosophy.
they are one of the smallest ('slowest') levels of the time-fractal of life.
these directions equate 4 minutes to 1 year of life. the higher levels are equating 2 hours to 1 year of life and in the end, 1 day to 1 year of life.

the profections are nothing but degradation of this fractal of 2 hours= 1 year and the same for the progressions.

the difference is that in the Real directions, we turn the whole celestial sphere and watch everything happening there, while we all know how are practiced the profections and the progressions since the greeks.

since the time the tradition went to the greeks, many keys have been lost though the light of the truth still perspires through the pages of the manuscripts written by the hellenistic scholars and philosophers.

the whole teaching of the fractals of time is encoded beautifully in the way the sumerians divide the year and the day ( the 24 hour period).

they are divided the same way! the day is divided in 12 babylonian hours - 6 night and 6 day hours.. each hour is divided in 30 parts. 1 of these is equal to our 4 minutes.. and 1 babylonian hour is equal to 2 modern hours..

the sumerians had unequal system of hour-division. they divided the night in 6 parts and the day too.. so, the length of the day-hour and the night-hour varies with the seasons and the position of the sun..

a roman historian testifies that the babylonians used for prognosis the hours as in the of the equinoctium (that is the same as our modern equal hours).

so now we have two models of the time-fractal to check (with seasonal and with equal, equinoctial hours).

ultimately the historical records point so far back in time as hermes for the source of teaching of primary directions.. Abenragel in the book on Tasyr (translated for the first time in 2009 in spanish) distinguishes between two ways of directing: of hermes(by ascensional times) and of ptolemy (by semi-arcs of horary times)."

it is interesting this idea of 2 hours = 1 year as a symbolic direction.. anyone here work with this and is there a name for it? apparently profections ain't it!!

thanks again for the comments here.

james_m wrote:it is interesting this idea of 2 hours = 1 year as a symbolic direction.. anyone here work with this and is there a name for it? apparently profections ain't it!!

It seems very similar to the variant of profections devised by Abraham ibn Ezra and discussed by Giuseppe Bezza (as mentioned in an earlier post).

Historically speaking, however, Kolev's views are rather fanciful.

Good morning,

Thank you, Ms Margherita, for the useful link. Eleutherius Zebelenus of Elis was a Greek writer, not a Persian as i had mistakenly thought from the title of the translation by Dottore Giuseppe Bezza. It appears that none of his work has yet been translated into English.

For native English speakers unfamiliar with foreign languages, it is often the case that astrological and other very useful works have not been and perhaps will never be translated into English. One not infrequently observes that authors in one language or another 'reinvent the wheel' due to unawareness of work already accomplished in another language.

Dr Rumen Kolev, a resident of Varna, Bulgaria, is in my humble experience one of the most knowledgeable living experts on primary directions and other matters astrological. The software he developed for primary directions includes functions not yet present to my knowledge in any other programmes. His theory of pre-diluvian astrology that became garbled and / or partially lost does not appear less coherent than many other theories. Similar theories including 'lost words' are a publicly well known subject of Freemasonry. They also fit well with the traditional notions of descending cycles of which we are currently in the lowest, the Iron (or Dark) Age referred to in the Hindu tradition as 'Kali Yuga', the subject of a current parallel thread here.

As Professor Gansten has pointed out, the method of perfections explained by Dottore Giuseppe Bozza and Signor Marco Fumagalli at the links above is indeed a realisation of the two hours = 1 year 'key' in clockwise diurnal motion. Although diurnal primary motion is the astronomical phenomenon best known by nearly everyone (day and night, sunrise and sunset), it is, alas, often ignored in modern astrology.

Best regards,

lihin

Martin Gansten wrote:

Mark, I'd be very interested if you could elaborate on the difference between these two latter phases, as it is not clear to me. To my understanding, the main difference is between profection by discrete increments of one sign (per year/month/two-and-a-fraction days) and by continuous motion at a rate of 30 degrees/year.

Hello Martin,

I confess I didn't form this view from any personal research of the primary sources. So I cant offer you the detailed answer you are seeking. Rather, I formed this view from the way Benjamin Dykes presented the subject of profections in the two workshops I have attended where he discussed profections. I recall a handout from the first workshop that explicitly set out the history of profections in this tripartite manner. However, that was 4-5 years ago. Benjamin Dykes has done a lot of translations since that time so it is possible his view might have shifted.

Reflecting on this I think the implication is that the 30 degree non-sign related approach, originally adopted by the Persians, was fixed and not rolling throughout the year. Although there may well have been sub-divisions for monthly, daily profections as with the hellenistic profections. Otherwise, I would agree with you that this would have been indistinguishable from the standard medieval/renaissance approach.

I suspect the answer to this may rely in a close of study of Benjamin Dykes Persian Nativities trilogy. Its one of my regrets that since purchasing these books that I have had little time to work my way systematically through these important works.

Mark

Martin Gansten wrote:

james_m wrote:it is interesting this idea of 2 hours = 1 year as a symbolic direction.. anyone here work with this and is there a name for it? apparently profections ain't it!!

It seems very similar to the variant of profections devised by Abraham ibn Ezra and discussed by Giuseppe Bezza (as mentioned in an earlier post).

thanks martin. i re-read the 2 links and got a bit more from doing that.

here is a footnote to the article that is informative "Ibn Ezra house system was in fact proposed, four centuries later, by Magini and later by Placido, under whose name was eventually known by the English speaking astrologers."


from reading the example given in those links, which i will share again here, my astrosoftware produces different results, that are slightly out of line with the results given in the links..

http://cieloeterra.it/eng/eng.articoli. ... ontri.html

http://www.cieloeterra.it/eng/eng.artic ... zione.html

here is what i get.


anyone have any thoughts on why this differs from the example data given in the links that lihin initially provided?

james_m wrote:

anyone have any thoughts on why this differs from the example data given in the links that lihin initially provided?

I can't understand why all your houses start with 2.24. Bezza's method does not work like that (or maybe I don't understand your picture). As written in the article, the 2 temporal hours of the Ascendant degree should be added to the Ascendant oblique ascension. The Italian programmer who worked on Morinus added to it the option to calculate them.

Or obviously the new Cieloeterra software Phasis does it, even in a wonderful graphical form, see chart of profection http://www.astrophasis.com/index.eng.html

margherita

It is because James has set the house-system to "equal".

Good morning,

As one can study, parts of today's Italy were within the 'central zone' defined by Klaudios Ptolomaios in his Tetrabiblos, Book II, for mundane astrological use. Except for a rupture period a few centuries during the 'dark age' following the conquest of Rome by Germanic tribes, when the Hermetic tradition withdrew towards the East, even to northern Persia, Italy has since antiquity continually basked in its light, at times hidden from ecclesiastical authorities, at times sponsored by them. Even today, orthography aside, most if not nearly all Italian verbs are identical to their Latin counterparts.

Thus, it seems logical to me that Italian astrologers feel themselves more in a continual stream of tradition than in distinct periods like 'Hellenistic, Mediaeval, Renaissance'. Rather than an innovator in a new period, Placido of Titi is seen to have been a superb mathematician-astrologer who actualised some techniques that were potentially in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. Of course there was and is still much debate on who actualised them better, ex. gr. Placido or Johannes M?ller.

Although i personally do not apply it for basic topical delineations, Placido's field system is based on his calculations of mundane diurnal semi-arcs like the equivalent calculations of the perfections. To visualise these, it seems to me that Placido's field system is appropriate.

In my limited knowledge, Phasis software is to date the only programme that allows one to calculate and visualise the root chart and the three mainstay predictive charts of Hellenistic and Mediaeval astrology together, namely:

1. root chart of the event

2. solar revolution

3. perfection

4. primary directions.

One might notice that transits are not amongst the last three. One might also notice that 3 and 4 are based on primary motion in the system applied in Phasis.

Best regards,

lihin

Konrad wrote:It is because James has set the house-system to "equal".

If so there is something wrong. Bezza's method is based on Placidean houses.The Ascendant degree in the first birthday shifts on the 12th house, in the second birthday it shifts on 11th house and so on... but obviously it works only with Placidean houses

margherita

hi margherita,

as konrad mentions, i have used equal house system, which i never thought would become the 'new' focus of this thread when asking my question.. my question is on the "location by degree" of the planets, house systems being an arbitrary choice that astrologers make at their discretion all the time.. back to my question - if someone could tell me why the degree of the planets is different in my chart then what is offered in those links, i would appreciate it.. we can have a conversation on house systems on another thread.. thanks.

james_m wrote:hi margherita,

house systems being an arbitrary choice that astrologers make at their discretion all the time.. .

If you are talking about Bezza's system, the house system is not alternative. These profections are built on Placidean houses.

About planets it is explained in the article: you should convert the hourly distance of the planet in equatorial degrees, calculate the distance from the Right Ascension of the profected MC and convert this oblique ascension/descension in longitude. Please don't ask me an example with number

margherita