Skyscript Astrology Forum

This looks like a case where Dexter looks sinister!

When I look at planets and I would like your feedback on this, before assessing their position (right or left), I will look at many other factors
Rulership/Exaltation/Detriment/Fall
Peregrine
House position, speed, oriental/occidental
Waxing/Waning
Combust
Aspects received and so on

If we have a planet strong by sign and house, I have a hard time believing that another planet will overcome it just by its position.
So my question is 'What is the real place of dexter/sinister in the scenario?'

Could it be in the terminology itself?
Generally, the left is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism".
We have had a good example this year with the Saturn/Uranus square.

Thank you and Happy New Year!
Ouranos

We are looking at a few different questions here. Dima resuscitated the thread by linking to an article in which he tried to resolve a (perceived) conceptual conflict. Without intending any disrespect towards Dima, I then suggested that the conflict doesn't really exist, or at least didn't exist in traditional astrology (this is the Traditional forum, after all), but was the result of a misunderstanding; and we have been going on from there. Whether I'm right or not, that part of the discussion is about clarifying a concept and tracing its historical development: it's something you could do without practising or believing in astrology.

Whether ancient/traditional aspect doctrines are correct or not (that is, whether predictions based on them are consistently substantiated) is a different question, and one that we can't really answer before we have dealt with the former. But:

Ouranos wrote:When I look at planets and I would like your feedback on this, before assessing their position (right or left), I will look at many other factors
Rulership/Exaltation/Detriment/Fall
Peregrine
House position, speed, oriental/occidental
Waxing/Waning
Combust
Aspects received and so on

If we have a planet strong by sign and house, I have a hard time believing that another planet will overcome it just by its position.

With the possible exception of waxing/waning (depending on what you mean by that), all the factors you list were part of ancient astrology and would have been considered by astrologers of any period. Your points can be summarized as zodiacal position (essential dignity), house position, phase with the sun, and aspects, to which we should add sect, especially for the ancient period.

I don't think anyone would argue that one of these factors will cancel out all the others, and the same goes for the dexter/sinister relation: it is one factor among several. Whether it goes at the top, middle or bottom of the list is not discussed anywhere so far as I know, and if it were, opinions would likely be divided, the way they usually are.

Generally, the left is characterized by an emphasis on "ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism" while the right is characterized by an emphasis on "notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism".

As discussed in the Wikipedia article from which these phrases were taken, the associations referred to post-date the rise of horoscopic astrology by about 2000 years, so I don't think they are all that relevant in this context.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%8 ... l_spectrum

ouranos

thanks... happy new year to you as well and to martin too who continues to respond in a thoughtful and informative manner on a regular basis here! i do agree with martins overall position fwiw! but i do want to address your example from most of 2020- 2021 - the saturn-uranus square.... this example as i read it is saturn in the upper and commanding position with respect to uranus - the 10th/1st house relationship is saturn to uranus..

i think this dynamic has played out strongly via the pandemic since 2020... the authorities have pushed a particular game plan and there has been a lot of rebellion from the masses too... it is a real clash of values with many people wanting to go along with the authorities and a smaller but very vocal group opposed to the vaccine passports, vaccines and etc. etc.. on the one hand it seems the pharma corps are cleaning up monetarily and it can be argued that the vaccines haven't really worked as well as people have been led to believe.. i don't want to get into a debate about all this, but i do believe the clash between saturn and uranus in this square has been very pronounced the last 2 years and saturn has maintained the upper hand... it remains to be seen how things will look further down the road...

on a lighter note, here is a video i did of music by a canadian musical icon - gordon lightfoot... it is called impressions of lightfoot, as it is not a tribute but an impressionistic jazz interpretation of his music... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa28HoCcGtU

Loved watching your concert James. A great mix with the voice of Jennifer Scott. Feel good music.
My favorite "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
Jazz is my favorite music, music of the soul (Moon), music where the silences are part of the music.
Along with classical, eternal music.
Happy New Year!

Martin Gansten wrote:Yes, I know exactly what you mean, Michael: the 'casting of rays' (aktinobolia) versus 'beholding'. The casting of rays ('hurling' always sounded unnecessarily dramatic to me!) is a tricky term because it is sometimes used in a broader sense, sometimes in a more restricted one. So not long after speaking of rays going in both directions, Porphyry's Introduction then gives a definition in chapter 24 where the planet on the dexter side (e.g., in Aries) is said to behold the planet on the sinister side (e.g., in Cancer), while the latter casts a ray to the former. Hephaestio (I 16) gives the same definition, explicitly connecting it with domination (the dexter/superior/'beholding' planet dominating the other), and the Rhetorius compilation (chapter 21) also mentions it briefly. But none of these sources mentions a distinction between fast and slow planets.

Thanks for the references! I will check them all out.

The phrase 'casting rays' also occurs in specific contexts like doryphories and (primary) directions, but let's not go there just now.

According to Smoller, European astrologers had gotten the idea from the Arabs - who possibly came up with it by themselves?

I think so, unless there was a pre-Arabic Persian source. Abū Maʿshar certainly made the notion well-known. I think Ben Dykes has written about this, but I don't recall the details (mundane astrology is a field that never interested me much).

If the idea is correct that the Star of Bethlehem was a Jupiter/Saturn conjunction and that the Magi from the East were actually astrologers reading this as a sign for a 'king' (Jupiter) being born in Judaea (Saturn), then this would imply an earlier (probably Chaldean) origin for planetary cycles in astrology. But the way things are, this is all conjecture, of course.

I wonder when other aspects between Jupiter and Saturn were first taken into consideration by mundane astrologers, or other pairings (besides Sun/Moon, eclipses etc.), for that matter.

I understand that this is not exactly your area of expertise, Martin, however, maybe someone else reading this thread has something specific to say about it?

Danièle Jay in “L'Echo d'Hermes no 48 Autumn 2020??? says:
"Ptolemy said (Note1):" Do not neglect the power of the one hundred and twenty (Note2) conjunctions of seven wandering stars, because in them lies the greatest knowledge of what happens in the world of generation and corruption ???.
(Centiloquy, Al-Daya, Sentence L)
***(Note1 “Thanks to the remarkable works of Franco Martorello and Giuseppe Bezza, we know today that the Centiloquium was not written by Ptolemy, but by Ahmad Ibn Yusuf Ibn Al-Daya. It is a collection of a hundred aphorisms, of which the fiftieth here present, which signals the importance of the great planetary conjunctions in the prediction of world events. For Ptolemy, on the other hand, events occur only “according to luminaries (syzygies, eclipses), transits, sunrises (heliacals), and planetary stations.??? (Tetrabiblos, II, Introduction, translation by Nicolas Bourdin).
***Note 2 The aphorism written in Arabic mentions one hundred and twenty conjunctions, while the aphorism translated into the Greek language mentions one hundred and nineteen conjunctions.

For the Ancients, the meeting of Saturn (cold and dry) with Jupiter (hot and humid) must have been something to witness and here is an article on Sky and Telescope website by Contributing Editor Govert Schilling reporting a quintuple conjunction from the Babylonians.

“Ancient Babylonians witnessed unique planetary gathering???.
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https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-n ... gathering/


Jupiter and Saturn’s “Great Conjunction??? is a noteworthy event, but on the morning of March 25, 185 BC, an even grander planetary gathering greeted Babylonian sky watchers.
So you think the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21st 2020 is something special? Think again. Every five centuries on average, not just two but all five naked-eye planets can be seen close together in the sky.
A grand planetary gathering must have intrigued Babylonian sky watchers, who kept track of the motions of celestial bodies for astrological purposes. Dutch astronomer Teije de Jong (University of Amsterdam) and Austrian orientalist Hermann Hunger (University of Vienna) have now identified a small fragment of a clay tablet as a cuneiform description of a "massing of the planets" in 185 BC – the oldest (and only!) report of such an event known so far.
The fragment, known as BM 32562, measures only 36 by 46 millimeters. It describes observations of the morning sky over a period of 10 days at the start of month XII2 in the year 126 of the Seleucid Era, corresponding to 20–30 March, 185 BC.
The clay tablet fragment designated BM 32562
Photo: Yasuyuki Mitsuma; courtesy Hermann Hunger


The closest grouping occurred on March 25th of that year, when Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were positioned within just 7° of each other in the twilight sky in the constellation Pisces. For at least 10 minutes around 5:20 a.m. local time, all five planets would have been visible to the naked eye (a bit earlier, some of them had not yet risen high enough; a bit later, it became too bright to discern Mars and Saturn).
After identifying the events described on BM 32562, de Jong and Hunger discovered that the same “massing of the planets??? is also described on another fragment, BM 46051. According to de Jong, both observers made some errors in the identification of the planets, occasionally mixing up Mercury, Mars and Saturn, which is not that surprising, given their low altitudes above the horizon and their similar brightness at that time (around 1st magnitude).
On the early morning of March 25, 185 BC, Mars and Jupiter were 9 arcminutes apart — not much farther than the 6 arcminutes that will separate Jupiter and Saturn this December 21st. Later that day, during full daylight, the two planets approached each other to within just 1 arcminute. Interestingly, the phrase “last part of the night, it was set towards its inside??? on BM 32562 may indicate that the Babylonian astronomers were aware of this upcoming extremely close conjunction, as this description usually refers to an upcoming occultation of a normal star by the moon.
According to de Jong, the ancient astronomers could very well have made that prediction based on the planetary positions on the previous morning. “The fact that this exact conjunction between Mars and Jupiter appears to have been correctly predicted by the Babylonian scholars is a remarkable achievement and a nice illustration of their astronomical craftsmanship,??? he and Hunger write in their paper in Archive for History of Exact Sciences.

Here is the link to the paper:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 20-00252-1

Thanks Ouranos, awesome information!

On the aforementioned question of the origin of moiety orbs, I have found this interesting citation in a post from fellow Skyscribe Johannes Susato:

Albiruni (973-1048) as to the beginning of application in THE BOOK OF INSTRUCTION, 490:

"Beginning of application. [...] begins to show its movement towards conjunction, which increases till conjunction is completed. But there is much difference of opinion as to the amount and limits of completion. Some people say that it begins at 5 degrees [...]. Others say 6 degrees, [...]. Others 12 degrees, [...] still others 15 degrees, [...] while others say the average of the respective orbs of the planets in question."

Emphasis my own.

From this we can at least gather that the concept of moiety was already known around 1000 AD.

I like it when they say in the paper...
"Venus? was 8 fingers above Mars; last part of the night,…. [….]"
They used their eyes (visibility) and their hands (for measure).
Something modern astrologers seem to have lost usage of!

Thanks for the al-Bīrūnī reference, Michael. I haven't had time to check, but earlier Arabic-language authors (like Sahl and Abū Maʿshar; not sure about M??sh??ʾall??h) write about orbs too, so there could be the beginning of a moiety technique there. They typically used orbs twice the size of the early modern authors, though (e.g., the Sun has 15 degrees to either side, not 15 degrees in total).

Martin Gansten wrote:Thanks for the al-Bīrūnī reference, Michael. I haven't had time to check, but earlier Arabic-language authors (like Sahl and Abū Maʿshar; not sure about M??sh??ʾall??h) write about orbs too, so there could be the beginning of a moiety technique there.

Hope you can find a moment for checking out the references you have in mind soon. We do need to know!

They typically used orbs twice the size of the early modern authors, though (e.g., the Sun has 15 degrees to either side, not 15 degrees in total).

Who are those early modern authors you mentioned? I encountered two different methods of determining moiety, however, their results are the same.

One consisting of adding the orbs of two planets to each other and dividing their sum by 2 (example: Sun 15 degrees plus Venus 7 degrees, divided by 2, equals 11 degrees), the other ascribing to orbs half those values and simply summing them up (example: Sun 7.5 degrees plus Venus 3.5 degrees, equals 11 ddegrees again.

Not sure if that's what you are referring to, however, I would like to learn more.

Michael Sternbach wrote:Hope you can find a moment for checking out the references you have in mind soon. We do need to know!

I'm sure others have those works on their shelves, too, but I'll try.

Who are those early modern authors you mentioned? I encountered two different methods of determining moiety, however, their results are the same.

Yes, you are right: a moiety or 'average of their respective orbs' would necessarily be the same as assigning 7°30′ to either side for the Sun, etc. (I was thinking of authors like Lilly, e.g., CA p. 107.) The question of half-orbs becomes more pointed when discussing things like a planet being conjunct a cusp or some other point that doesn't have an orb of its own.

The chapter that I quoted before from Abū Maʿshar (Great Introduction VII 5, 9th century CE) actually has a very full discussion of application and separation both by conjunction and aspect, running over several pages and including the concept of moieties as one consideration among others. I'll just quote part of the section on conjunctions here (transl. Burnett):

If one planet conjoins a number of planets in different degrees and is lighter than them, it applies to the nearest planet and the nearest planet ⟨is applied⟩ to it. When the light planet passes the slow one by one minute or less, it separates from it. When a planet separates from another in conjunction and it does not apply to a⟨nother⟩ planet, one of them is in the other’s nature as long as they are in the sign in which they conjoined. The most powerful mixing of their natures is when they are in the same term and they are not separated by more than the quantity of half the body of ⟨the planet⟩ of fewer degrees. When one of them leaves the term in which they conjoined, their mixing becomes weaker. In addition to this, when their separation is more than the quantity of half their bodies, the mixing of their natures is weaker. If another planet meets it at its separation from it before it leaves the term in which they have conjoined or before it separates from the first planet by the quantity of half the body of ⟨the planet⟩ of fewer degrees, the light planet is in the nature of the two planets, i.e. the one separating from and the one applying to it. When it separates from the second planet bodily, its condition with it is like its condition with the first planet from which it had separated. If a number of planets conjoin and they are in the same degree and minute or they are near in degrees, then they share each other’s natures, and each of them remains in the power of the other’s nature until it separates from it by the quantity of half its body. If their conjunction is at the end of the sign, the power of half their bodies is in the sign which follows them. When the lighter of the planets moves to the second sign, it remains in the nature of the other until it is distant from it by the quantity of half its body, but this kind of mixing of their natures is weak.

Edit: the word 'body' as used here is what we today would call 'orb'.