Skyscript Astrology Forum

Graham F wrote: You mention how Mercury is assigned to the ascendant pivot because it can be both diurnal and nocturnal, yet in the Sect-Mates diagram it only appears as diurnal, because there's nothing in H7. If we put a nocturnal (occidental) Mercury in H7, the whole system would be completely symmetrical, and the Water triplicity could be Mars (night)> Mercury (day)>Venus (coop) (i.e. cadent>pivot> back to succedent, as for Air)
The diurnal triplicities would begin with a light (as ruler of the primary sect of each), and the nocturnal ones with a malefic; the 5 planets would each be used twice and the lights once, and only in leading roles.

The only problem with this is that Mercury doesn't have any dignity by domicile or exaltation in the signs that became associated with water.

Even though one of the implications I drew out in the paper is that the ordering and assignment of the triplicity lords seems to be partially predicated on the placement of the planets in the joys, the arrangement that Ptolemy points out where each of the triplicity lords has a certain amount of dignity in the signs in its triplicity seems to be a little too clean to just be a coincidence. I'm currently thinking that both the joys and the dignities were taken into account at the same time in the formulation of the triplicity lord scheme. For a while I was calling the joys scheme the second Thema Mundi, because while one of the main points of the Thema Mundi is to provide a rationale for the rulership scheme, a large part of the point of the joys may have been to establish the triplicity lord scheme. The Thema Mundi would need to have been established first though, if indeed the joys and triplicity lords are partially based on concepts like domicile rulership that are derived from the Thema Mundi.

Graham F wrote: Just thought that the sequence of elements you propose, although coherent (earth at the bottom, air rising towards fire at the top, water falling from fire towards earth) doesn't corrrespond with the arrangement of the elemental signs in the zodiac: fire angle opposite air, earth opposite water, and the sequence fire-earth-air-water (clockwise) (or VV anti-clockwise). Perhaps this doesn't matter, as we're not initially talking about the signs but the houses, but we do link them to triplcity rulers of the signs. But I wonder if it wouldn't be better to think in terms of the North/East/South/West angles (and triplicities) instead, or simply e.g. the Leo/Scorpio/Aquarius/Taurus triplicites, for example.

I think that the difference is that the joys are supposed to be showing the order of the elements in the cosmos as a whole, whereas the the signs of the zodiac arrange the elements in terms of the contrasting nature of the opposing qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). In that way they are kind of depicting two different things, or two aspects of the same thing perhaps, and for that reason I'm not that concerned about the differences in how the elements are depicted in each scheme.

Graham F wrote: On the Oktotopos/Oktotropos, I think there is still a reasonable argument that there was a full 8 sector division of local space, or perhaps an important temporal 8-fold division of the day+night (4 daytime watches, 4 nightime - this is eveident in the New Testament). Fagan deals with this in a chapter of his book Astrological Origins, summarised in the article mentioned by James:
http://cura.free.fr/docum/02fagan.html
There is also an article by Bill Johnston:
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/aoctobj.htm
and two longer articles by Guinard on the same question, which get a bit convoluting, but have some interesting stuff and are well annotated, all references given:
http://cura.free.fr/10domi1e.html#*
http://cura.free.fr/11domi2e.html#Ref18
I wonder if this Oktotopos arrangement could possibly be the forerunner of quadrant house systems? Spatial if thought of in relation to the angles, temporal, like Placidus, if in terms of 8 "watches", four at night and four in the day.

I read the Fagan article, and it was pretty good initially, although I couldn't figure out for the life of me what his basis was for assuming that the Octatopos was ordered in the opposite direction from the usual house ordering. This was clarified for me in Johnston's article where he points out that Fagan is predicating this assumption on a single word in the Michigan Papyrus. Johnston (who sounds like he is paraphrasing Schmidt toward the end of the paper) tries to dispute this largely on linguistic grounds, although I don't really even think that that is necessary, because all you have to do to disprove Fagan's argument is point out that all of the significations that are ascribed to the Octatopos by Manilius or Antiochus or anyone else later in the tradition eventually were applied to the first 8 signs in zodiacal order from the Ascendant. So, evidently none of the ancient astrologers interpreted the Octatopos as going clockwise, so I'm not sure why we should either.

The direction of the ordering is kind of a separate matter from the question of whether the Octatopos represents a separate 8-fold division of the circle though. My answer to that is still essentially the same though. You have to ask yourself this: if the Octatopos was a separate 8-fold division of the circle into 8-sectors, then why did all of the later astrologers just end up applying those significations to the first 8 whole sign houses? Was this just some sort of historical mistake? From what I can tell, it seems like the Hellenistic tradition gradually moved from more of a sign-based framework for houses early in its history to more of a quadrant-based framework, since we seem to see more of an acceptance of using quadrant houses for general purposes in later authors like Rhetorius and Olympiodorus. It seems somewhat strange to think that instead it went from quadrant to sign-based and then back to quadrant again. The simplest explanation here is that it started of with sign-based houses, and that the Octatopos just represents a set of significations for the first 8 signs. That seems to be the case to me at least.

Thanks for these questions and points. It helping me to think about some parts of the paper more carefully, and some objections that might be raised, which will be useful as I start working on the shorter version.

chris,
an obvious question on the first 8 signs only on the 12, why only the first 8? that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me either..

james_m wrote:chris,
an obvious question on the first 8 signs only on the 12, why only the first 8? that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me either..

I'm not sure what the full rationale is for how they derived the significations for each of the houses at this point in the Octatopos or why they limited it to just the first 8 signs. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a rationale though, but only that we haven't figured it out yet.

Chris Brennan wrote:
The direction of the ordering is kind of a separate matter from the question of whether the Octatopos represents a separate 8-fold division of the circle though. My answer to that is still essentially the same though. You have to ask yourself this: if the Octatopos was a separate 8-fold division of the circle into 8-sectors, then why did all of the later astrologers just end up applying those significations to the first 8 whole sign houses? Was this just some sort of historical mistake? From what I can tell, it seems like the Hellenistic tradition gradually moved from more of a sign-based framework for houses early in its history to more of a quadrant-based framework, since we seem to see more of an acceptance of using quadrant houses for general purposes in later authors like Rhetorius and Olympiodorus. It seems somewhat strange to think that instead it went from quadrant to sign-based and then back to quadrant again. The simplest explanation here is that it started off with sign-based houses, and that the Octatopos just represents a set of significations for the first 8 signs. That seems to be the case to me at least.

well, it doesn't make sense they would leave out 4 signs either.. i don't know enough of the history to comment with any authority, but as you point out above, there are questions that i think remain unanswered and while it might be comforting to think the 8 fold division applied only to the first 8 signs, that doesn't really make much of any sense either.. until further information is made available i think this is an open ended question without a firm answer.. what makes sense to me is that their were 2 competing systems one 8 fold, the other 12.. the 12 fold won out..

Chris Brennan wrote:

Graham F wrote: If we put a nocturnal (occidental) Mercury in H7, the whole system would be completely symmetrical, and the Water triplicity could be Mars (night)> Mercury (day)>Venus (coop) (i.e. cadent>pivot> back to succedent, as for Air)
The diurnal triplicities would begin with a light (as ruler of the primary sect of each), and the nocturnal ones with a malefic; the 5 planets would each be used twice and the lights once, and only in leading roles.

The only problem with this is that Mercury doesn't have any dignity by domicile or exaltation in the signs that became associated with water.
Even though one of the implications I drew out in the paper is that the ordering and assignment of the triplicity lords seems to be partially predicated on the placement of the planets in the joys, the arrangement that Ptolemy points out where each of the triplicity lords has a certain amount of dignity in the signs in its triplicity seems to be a little too clean to just be a coincidence. I'm currently thinking that both the joys and the dignities were taken into account at the same time in the formulation of the triplicity lord scheme.

I presume you mean that only the first two triplicity rulers have to have dignities, as Saturn doesn't in Fire signs, nor Jupiter in Air. Unless you include fall and detriment as "dignities", in which case Mercury has both in Pisces (Saturn has both in Fire, and Jupiter has detriment in Air). And I'm not quite happy about using one arrangement of correspondences between the elements and the 12 places for the signs, and another for the houses, and then expecting the two to correspond. Also, we can't be sure, despite Ptolemy's rationale that you mention, that the domicile rulerships precede the triplicities, can we?
Having said that, I definitely agree that the sequence Moon-Mars-Venus looks more "watery" than Mars-Mercury-Venus. I had thought it would be neater to call the bottom of your diagram "water" and the right hand side "earth", which would solve the problem: Moon, Mars and Venus are all dignified in water, Mars, Mercury and Venus in earth. But that would mean reassigning the traditional triplicity arrangements, and still wouldn't create an arrangement of the element-angles corresponding to the signs.

none of the ancient astrologers interpreted the Octatopos as going clockwise, so I'm not sure why we should either.

I think I agree with you about the order: as Johnston says, that one word "ano" could probably mean different things in different contexts. I thought that root meant "following", in fact. I think it was the analogy with the 8 watches that led Fagan to this: he was seeing the sun moving through the day, clockwise. But the analogy can work just as well or better by conceiving of the angles going through the signs anticlockwise.

You have to ask yourself this: if the Octatopos was a separate 8-fold division of the circle into 8-sectors, then why did all of the later astrologers just end up applying those significations to the first 8 whole sign houses?

Still not sure I can agree with you here: as Fagan points out, it's strange that the 12 house meanings seem to go through life, means of livelihood/family, siblings, parents, children+spirituality, illness, marriage and death, before starting up again with religion/travel, career/honours, earnings/friends and isolation/death again. I looks like they get to the end of the sequence, then start doubling up.

Graham

It might be better to remove the part about the 8 signs or houses, since it is intuitively wrong, and will not be accepted by many, therefore detracting from the rest of the essay.

"Aditya is used in the singular to mean the sun...

In the Satapatha Brahmana (later commentary), the number of ?dityas is eight in some passages, and in other texts of the same Brahmana, twelve Adityas are mentioned...

Hymn LXXII of Rig Veda, Book 10, also confirms that there are eight Adityas, the eighth one being M?rtanda, who is later revived back as Vivasv?n..."

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80dityas

Chris
Just thought, concerning the point that Mercury doesn't have a diginity in Water triplicity, that there has been some dissatisfaction with Mercury's exaltation in its own sign. In your very interesting essay "The Questionable origns of the exaltations", you point out that in the five extant Mesopotamian charts which mention specific planets being in their ?secret houses?, Mercury seems to placed in Scorpio. Though you do go on to doubt that the "secret houses" can in fact be equated with the exaltations, it's clear from your article that the jury is still out on this whole question.
graham[/i]

It's probably best to put aside the 8-fold division of the houses, as, clearly, that's not what this paper focuses upon.

Some of the things I found most fascinating from this paper are better realisation that the diurnal half of the chart corresponds to the lot of spirit, with the nocturnal corresponding to fortune. This seems obvious but I never made that connection before. The extension of this being:

Is the house above or below the horizon? If it is above, then itwill have to do with the soul. If it is below, then it will have to do with the body.

I think equating the elements to the position of the joys is the real focus and demonstrating the sequence of the triplicities. But it is good to see more corroboration surrounding the idea that the assignment of the joys helped defined the meaning of the houses, as suggested in Deb's book. I think it's probably fairer to keep a discussion regarding the 8 fold division of the zodiac separate from this so as not to distract from this, as really this paper goes a great way towards giving a very plausible and understandable logic for assignation of the elements and other things which have been something of a mystery with regards our tradition.

Paul wrote:Some of the things I found most fascinating from this paper are better realisation that the diurnal half of the chart corresponds to the lot of spirit, with the nocturnal corresponding to fortune. This seems obvious but I never made that connection before.

Glad to see it wasn't just me.

Chris Brennan wrote:I'm currently thinking that both the joys and the dignities were taken into account at the same time in the formulation of the triplicity lord scheme.

Yes, I thought about that when I read the paper. It seems fairly obvious to me that sect, domiciles and exaltations all go into the making of the triplicity rulers.

Paul wrote:It's probably best to put aside the 8-fold division of the houses, as, clearly, that's not what this paper focuses upon.

Some of the things I found most fascinating from this paper are better realisation that the diurnal half of the chart corresponds to the lot of spirit, with the nocturnal corresponding to fortune. This seems obvious but I never made that connection before. The extension of this being:

Is the house above or below the horizon? If it is above, then itwill have to do with the soul. If it is below, then it will have to do with the body.

I think equating the elements to the position of the joys is the real focus and demonstrating the sequence of the triplicities. But it is good to see more corroboration surrounding the idea that the assignment of the joys helped defined the meaning of the houses, as suggested in Deb's book. I think it's probably fairer to keep a discussion regarding the 8 fold division of the zodiac separate from this so as not to distract from this, as really this paper goes a great way towards giving a very plausible and understandable logic for assignation of the elements and other things which have been something of a mystery with regards our tradition.

The quote I highlighted is interesting.

The manifest is below the horizon and the unmanifest is above the horizon !!
Is this some philosophical version corroborating the primacy of the soul or is my guru Alan Leo.

Paul wrote:Some of the things I found most fascinating from this paper are better realisation that the diurnal half of the chart corresponds to the lot of spirit, with the nocturnal corresponding to fortune. This seems obvious but I never made that connection before. The extension of this being:

Is the house above or below the horizon? If it is above, then itwill have to do with the soul. If it is below, then it will have to do with the body.

Martin concurred with this, and Chris's presentation does indeed make this very helpfully clear. What about the lots of fortune and spirit themselves? The usual argument is about whether of not to reverse them for day/night (the "reversers" usually win the argument), but Chris's clarification makes one wonder if there might not be a third option: fortune could be the one that falls below the horizon, spirit the one above.
Graham

Graham F wrote: Martin concurred with this, and Chris's presentation does indeed make this very helpfully clear. What about the lots of fortune and spirit themselves? The usual argument is about whether of not to reverse them for day/night (the "reversers" usually win the argument), but Chris's clarification makes one wonder if there might not be a third option: fortune could be the one that falls below the horizon, spirit the one above.
Graham

Graham, yes, though I don't believe we have any sources for anyone else adopting this third approach. Instead it made me wonder about an interpretive difference between the lot of, for example, fortune falling in the diurnal hemisphere compared to the nocturnal one.