thanks tom,

i agree with you that morins book on solar revolutions is excellent and a very worthwhile read for anyone interested in solar returns/revolutions.. the guy at astrology books of america has always come across as a bit peculiar and somewhat arrogant to me with his authoritarian and high brow attitude, but since he is one of the few where you can get a context for some of these books, i resort to reading his commentary.. i don't always agree with his commentary and sometimes i think he is completely out to lunch.. thanks for your quick take on the Abu Mashar's work via dykes..

There is no doubt that Lehman is a fan of Gadbury. Perhaps she likes Gadbury's style. Perhaps she is a fan of Gadbury because everybody else is a fan of Lilly. Whatever.

There is also no doubt that Gadbury's aphorisms on solar returns figure prominently throughout Lehman's book - But she does test them with her example charts and if they don't hold up, Lehman says so.

Lehman says of Gadbury that he presents a clear, worked out, stand-alone model of solar returns, in contrast (for example) to Abu Ma'shar who worked profections into solar returns, or Morin who used Lunar returns for timing.

And if you count all Gadbury's ouvre, he probably wrote more about solar returns than anybody else.

As for me, I should state for the record that I am fan of Lehman. What one person might call excruciatingly detailed, another might call thorough. I find her approach logical and consistent. But given that we share a Virgo Moon, perhaps I would say that.

Geoffrey

Good evening,

One might recall that until the late Renaissance astrologers were amongst the very best academic minds of their times, several of them genii or even universal genii. Those hoping to find conveniently tinned, pre-digested recipes fit for the marketing of astrology to 12-year-olds will perhaps be heavily challenged and sorely disappointed by the works of authors like Ptolemy, Abu Ma'shar, Al-Biruni, Bonatus etc.

In my humble experience there is neither a way round nor a substitute for careful, diligent reading and prolonged study of the works of such authors, bearing in mind that something is always lost in translation and that, therefore, translation is always to some extent interpretation. Translators like James Holden and Dr Benjamin Dykes have much contributed to help the readers in their attempts to enter into the mind sets of the original authors. In footnotes, the translators often refer to the subtleties of meanings of words, compare and choose amongst alternative readings (the manuscripts were hand-copied over centuries), etc. They even explicitly mention occasions where they are unsure about the original meaning, a true hallmark of humble mastery of the art.

One notices that in 'real astrology' (no pun on the title of a book intended), there is no such thing as a technique or symbol that stands alone, isolated. On the other hand, the interaction of the tools best takes place in a structured, lucid way to avoid confused delineations. Abu Ma'shar's above-referenced book On the Revolutions of the Years of Nativities shines particularly by explaining such interactions. Since modern authors heavily rely on ancient ones, it is in my humble experience more productive to read the ancients first.

Best regards,

lihin

Ile wrote:He was pronounced dead on 01:01 PM PST (his father shot him at about 11:38 AM) on 1 April 1984, just few hours to his next Solar Return which falls in 14:47h (according to Morinus software) on 1 April 1984, but Janus Software and Delphic Oracle give 09:47 at the morning, which would say that Marvin was already in his 1984 revolution (return). [...] I suppose Janus and Delphic Oracle are more precise than Morinus (since both point out to one time), though Morinus is showing the same ascendant degree as DO and Janus.

Actually, the time is the same as well; it's just that Morinus displays UT rather than the local time zone. (The fact that the difference is exactly 5:00 hours is a clue.)

Hi James,

Note: In all of my work I use precession corrected charts and make measurements in right ascension.

I use a combination of techniques when looking for future or past influences in a chart. First, a look at transits to the natal and progressed natal, then the nearest solar or demi-solar return preceding the transit aspect. Next is the nearest preceding anlunar or demi-anlunar (lunar return using the Moon from the solar return) which is always progressed to the date of the coming transit aspect or the past event.

The progressed lunar return with progressed natal, then natal around it (when a natal is available to work with - not the case when doing a chart for an epicenter which falls out in the ocean) is my main tool for interpreting the tone of the time of interest. The determing indicators are planets swept by the progressed angles (within 2? and planets not being swept but making nearly exact aspects (trines or squares within 1?) to to them.

I place eclipse charts from the previous 12 months around the progressed lunar. After that I will do and progress the nearest natal lunar or demi-lunar return and place progressed natal, natal, and eclipse charts around it. Finally, I might progress the previous solar and demi-solar returns to the time of the event and place the eclipse charts and transits around them.

At some point I check natal and eclipse charts around the progressed natal, usually before progressing the solar return charts.

Bob

I tend to agree in principle with Geoffrey that one person's excessive detail is another person's thoroughness. Everybody has their favorite authors and I cannot imagine anyone going wrong reading Lee Lehman on anything. She has her opinions and biases like everyone else, but her opinions and biases are based on years of research. That counts for something.

Geoffrey writes:

or Morin who used Lunar returns

I think this needs a bit of fleshing out and although it starts out as explaining Morin, it actually pertains to many astrologers.

Yes he used lunar returns and I think, but I'm too lazy at the moment to check, Lilly did a bit of the same thing. Morin's system works this way: there is a hierarchy of charts. The nativity is the basis of everything that follows (no one disagrees with this). Next in importance are primary directions. Directions show us when the promise of the chart or potential of the chart is likely to be realized. Once a direction is noted that will perfect in a given year, the astrologer casts the solar return to see the details. If the astrologer wishes to know when in that year the prediction will manifest, he looks to the lunar returns, and last he uses transits for final timing.

This system is not unique to Morin. Instead of using primary directions we could substitute secondary progressions (or solar arcs if we're more modern still). Abu Mashar used profections in pretty much the same manner. So we're not breaking new ground here.

Does it work? Wellllllll Morin gives the fantastic example of the life of Gustav Adolphus, King of Sweden. His works out perfectly. Other examples are not so obvious or so pretty (not pretty for the King; Morin's finest example is of the King's death in a hail of bullets). Other examples I've seen are not so precise. Astrology just isn't that neat. Still Morin's ideas are valid; we just have to work a lot harder to employ them than it seems we will when we work out his examples.

I looked at Gadbury's Life of King Charles again. I haven't looked at it in years. He discusses the nativity and then discusses every solar return for the last 11 years of the King's life. He, too uses primary directions as the broad indicator and solar returns for more precision. Yes his is a propaganda piece, but the astrology, from what I can see, isn't all that bad.

The point is that we go from the most basic, the nativity, to the broad, profections, progressions or directions, to the year in question, solar return, to the month, lunar return, to the day, transit. That seems to be the traditional method.

james_m wrote:thanks everyone for sharing!
hi Ile

what kind of conclusion would you make regarding whether one use the following solar return, or that it has to be the present one? what do you think of relocated solar returns? do you think it is better to relocate or work from the place of birth only? which one would you rely most heavily for with marvin gaye in particular since this is also the example your used on your website?

Hi James,

My experience is not great [like that of some astrologers here on this forum] to make a definitive statements about whether relocated solar return works better or not. In my own practice I use the place of birth, and I'm satisfied.
I haven't much experience with the relocated SR so I don't know, I need to exercise that in order to have more clear judgment on the matter.

It is the same with the thing whether to use the preceding or the following SR where as in the case of Marvin Gaye, they are somehow commingled (Marvin was clearly in the following revolution, that of 1984. What I mean by commingling is that in my opinion, the one from 1983 shows the death).
The SR from 1983 shows several factors of death in that year even though Marvin already entered into the next Solar Return. So I think more experimentation needs to be done on the matter.

Actually, the time is the same as well; it's just that Morinus displays UT rather than the local time zone. (The fact that the difference is exactly 5:00 hours is a clue.) Wink

Thanks Martin
I didn't catched that.

i have read a few of lee lehmans books and i thought they were very good.. i am sure her book on solar returns is good too. i haven't read gadbury but i could probably benefit from reading him as well!

lihin,

i appreciate you're a good cheerleader for the old books and authors... it was wishful thinking on my part, imagining you might summarize what insight or astro ideas of particular value you got from ben dykes translation of Abu Ma'shar as opposed to these general comments you've offered.. oh well!

unique astrology,

thanks for giving me a good overview on your method for doing astrology. it sounds as though it would be suited to mundane astrology more then natal astrology.. transits as a system seem to get a rough ride with the folks that are really into traditional astrology, but i too find them an important window into understanding astrological connections.. for me a solar return is a type of transit chart, especially with regard to the outer planets that don't move all that much over the course of a year.. then there are astrologers like donna cunningham who claim to rely solely on transit data!

the question of to precess or not is an ongoing one for astrologers, but i don't do it myself and think of it mostly for those folks caught up in sidereal astrology.. maybe i haven't fully thought it out, as opposed to making a decision based on expediency.. i find i get enough valuable info without the need to precess the data!

progressing lunar or solar returns is an interesting and somewhat novel idea to my mind as well.. where did you come up with this, or did someone else present it to you at some point and you moved forward with it in a way that you found quite relevant? who else does this type of thing? thanks for your comments as they are very interesting, however opaque they seem to me at this moment!

Ile,

thanks for your comments.. i like your mature attitude not wanting to comment on relocated charts as you don't feel you've had enough experience! i can't say that i have worked a lot with solar return data, but i've found the relocated charts to be better then solar returns to the natal position when the person no longer resides at the place of birth.. in morins book 23 on revolutions he certainly relies in a similar manner on these relocated solar return charts.


while i don't know what abu ma'shar has to say in his book that both you and lihin have cited, i believe tom has articulated some of the differences between him and morin that are helpful to know.. actually i quite like what tom had to say at the end of his post so i will quote him here..

Tom wrote:

The point is that we go from the most basic, the nativity, to the broad, profections, progressions or directions, to the year in question, solar return, to the month, lunar return, to the day, transit. That seems to be the traditional method.

i find myself adopting a hodge podge approach to astrology as i continue to explore and learn more about different techniques i am less familiar with.. for the most part the past 10 years i have mostly focused on solar arc data, minor progressions and transit data.. primary directions i am unclear about.. i still can't figure out which ones to use - in mundo, or zodiac, along with the many other options one can choose when doing primary directions..part of the problem is my computer set up and having morinus on one computer and solar fire on the one i mostly use now.. i would like to understand them better and was thinking just yesterday how i could benefit from reading martin ganstens book on pds once again, while also doing more charts from a retrospective angle to see how primary directions played out in peoples life's.. so far i haven't so i have no great confidence on their application. with transits it is easy and really it is pretty easy with many of these other techniques too, but primary directions seem to stand apart..

sorry for the rambling post..

James,

I don't pay much attention to solar returns unless a planet in them has a small orbed aspect to the progressed natal or natal chart.

I do not get significant results using charts which have not been precession corrected. I have been using these charts for 40 years.

I learned how to progress solar returns following Cyril Fagan's instructions but found that they offered few dates during the course of the year when symbolism appropriate to an experience were shown. I wanted more and wondered if the lunar returns could provide an appropriate chart if they were progressed. My first attempts were disappointing. I used the natal Moon and progressed the chart using the expired movement of the Sun since the beginning of the lunar return to the the time of an event. There were some hits but many more misses. It occured to me that since I was dealing with lunar returns perhaps they should be progressed using the movement of the Moon. This produced better results but was still not as consistant as I wanted to see.

Further thinking brought me to wondering if using the anlunars (term coined by Fagan) would yield still better results. This proved to be the case but when events were more than several weeks out from the inception of the lunar return there were many close calls but not within the small orb of 2? I wanted to use. More thinking brought me to use the demi-lunar for those dates and gave the results I wanted but not always for dates in the later part of the year. Quickly came the thought that using the anlunar from the demi-solar might be the answer for those dates as using the demi-anlunar had for dates in the second half of a lunar return month and this turned out to be true.

For years I only read planets within 2? of the progressed angles of these lunar returns but noticed that many times planets in trine or square within 1? to those angles were approriate to the experience and so decided to use them also.

Also learned from comparing precessed charts to non-precessed charts is that non-precessed charts often describe the nature of an experience to be expected by virtue of appropriate symbolism being in the foreground area but no manner of progression that I have tried in order to match them with the time an experience happened produced hits to the symbolism at the time experiences occurred while the progression of precession corrected charts did even though that symbolism might not be in the foreground of the return at it's inception.

Directions for setting up Solar Fire and a complete example (Ingrid Betancourt's rescue) can be viewed and downloaded at this link:

http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f111/ ... etancourt/

There are many more examples in the other albums in that account. Here is the link to the main page:

http://s46.photobucket.com/albums/f111/ ... astrology/

Unique_astrology wrote:

I don't pay much attention to solar returns unless a planet in them has a small orbed aspect to the progressed natal or natal chart.

Nor should you. The fact is, unless we happen to be of particular importance to large groups of people, most years will not be significant. Therefore more solar returns will be ho-hum affairs than significant. Years of significance will show themselves via aspects and the angles. Morin would add reversals, i.e. planets switching places from their position in the nativity.

I do not get significant results using charts which have not been precession corrected. I have been using these charts for 40 years.

Whether or not to precess is one of those seemingly endless debates. Anthony Louis does a nice job of discussing this issue in his book: The Art of Forecasting Using Solar Returns.

@james_m: You might be on your way, as I was, to driving yourself crazy with primary directions. In my case I tried to look at everything I could just in case I might be missing something. That didn't work out too well for me. That might have more to do with me than with the technique. I might be at a point where I confuse easily or maybe I was always that way. Directions in mundo add something to the idea of the chart, actual position, that we don't get in zodiac. However if we use directions in zodiac we can direct through the bounds and I think that is an area well worth exploring. Secondary progressions can be used this way as well. I suggest you pick one method and work with it exclusively. If, after a while, it doesn't work out, switch.

As for directing the solar return, Morin discusses this (chapter 15 in volume XXIII, p 106) and gives a table that he attributes to Cardan, but notes: "For it is not surprising that I have sometimes found it to be false, just as Cardan has." Then he gives a different set of tables. Frankly, I find it absurd that our lives are regulated to the degree that we can pinpoint to the day that this or that will happen. If the astrologer can predict within a few days or even weeks, that should be more than good enough. Use any of the tables Morin gives and add the word "approximately" to your prediction. That is probably the best we can do (if that).

unique astrology,

do you work with the 45, or 135 degree aspect? the reason i ask is i note astrologers who do not, have a much harder time finding connections. that said, one could offer up many choices for an astrologer to try in order to be able to see connections that might otherwise not appear. for me a much more interesting challenge for an astrologer is to actually make some sort of prediction based on the knowledge they have from the tools they use. whether this be expressed in the past usa election, or towards some particular person, or activity where charts are available, i think this is the most interesting 'test' of a persons methods..

however we do need to test these methods on people and events from the past and that is the most logical and first line of action in order to strengthen our understanding of these same methods/techniques..

this brings me to the 2nd part of what i would like to talk about which is directed more towards tom. thanks for sharing your work with those links unique astrology.. perhaps we could do an exercise together on some event yet to happen to see if the application of these methods has some real predictive value. what do you think?

tom,

yes, i am finding primary directions a challenge to incorporate. i go over a number of ways of doing them, in mundo or zodiac, direct or converse, the various different keys that can be used - naibod and etc, the various different ways they can be done - semi arc or under the pole and on and on it goes..

if someone who actually claimed to know how to do primary directions would be so kind as to give up regular examples for others to learn by that would be helpful too, but one sees next to nothing of that.. the only person i have seen attempt to use them, outside of what i read in books, is tony louis who gave an example within the last year or 2 that involved the use of pds in zodiac.. since we have next to no astrologers giving relevant examples of there use in real life, one is left to believe very few astrologers are actually using primary directions as they are either equally confused by the options, or due something else worse - they often don't apply! for anyone using primary directions on this site - please do other astrologers a favour and explain some examples if you have the time and patience as i doubt tom and i are the only ones scratching our heads while wanting to work with primary directions more.. another more depressing thought might be that the reason primary directions worked in the past is that they were used as a means to rectify a chart after the fact of seeing some particular primary direction that only made sense within a particular time frame, or ascendant degree of a chart.. this would be shoddy work, but could apply.. the rectification process rears it's ugly head, lol..

with this in mind i ran the primary directions for marvin gaye.. i see next to nothing of relevance for the timing of his death.. is this due the fact we have an inaccurate time of birth for him, or due the fact james_m is a very poor astrologer who just doesn't know how to do primary directions? the closest i can come to getting anything relevant is when i use converse directions.. pd saturn to the square of venus in mundo shows up oct 2 1984.. if one uses the outers one can see converse mars to the square of uranus sept 15 1984.. perhaps i am missing something and another astrologer fluent in primary directions would like to offer some insight..

back to solar returns.. as tom points out - not all solar returns are going to be significant.. how one decides this is a matter of choice and individual method. i think we need to move towards a way of applying these ideas on well known public figures to see what we can come up with. the obvious place is with leaders of countries who are in the limelight and will face important decisions that have relevance for both them and the countries they lead.. anyone want to pick a particular leader who has a verified birth time so we can get going on this?