Skyscript Astrology Forum

Ed F wrote:

zoidsoft wrote:There's something else that's been bugging me... it doesn't quite make sense to me to have a mundane direction with aspects that use the zodiac. This seems to me like mixing reference frames. If one uses the zodiac, then it makes sense, but it is a direction in zodiaco. I don't see how one can have aspects in mundo when the aspect points are reduced to some place on the ecliptic.

Likewise.

I think what I have listed as aspects in Mundo are really aspects in Zodiaco with latitude, so I'll switch the labels on the options and refactor objects labeled as mundane.

Eddy wrote:Thanks Martin, it's still quite complicated. Especially when I see that in general 'directing to' is referred to in another way than I would expect.

I think most of the confusion comes down to terminology, including the 'to/from' issue. Earlier authors generally say that they are directing the significator to the promissor, irrespective of which point is moving towards which astronomically speaking.

For example, if the Sun in the 10th house is your significator (e.g. for honours), and you have the square of Saturn in the 12th house and the trine of Jupiter in the 9th house, a traditional author may speak of:
1. directing the Sun to the square of Saturn by direct motion (meaning that the zodiacal degree where the square falls is moved to the position of the Sun);
2. directing the Sun to the trine of Jupiter by converse motion (meaning that the Sun is moved to the position of the zodiacal degree where the trine falls).

I find the classical method quite complicated. Not that I argue it's use but I wonder whether the very first astrologers who thought about primary directions wouldn't have confined themselves just to the angles, or only the Ascendant (since MC was discovered/used only later). This is the easiest method, so perhaps it could be the first in evolution process of the primaries.

No doubt directions to the ascendant were the earliest form of the technique.

I'd say short after the first mention of the Ascendant as a mathematical point in 4 BC (according to Michael Baigent's 'From the omens of Babylon').

I haven't the time just now to hunt for sources, but the ascendant was definitely used much earlier than that, in the 2nd century BCE.

zoidsoft wrote:Should I take out the check box allowing promissors to be directed to aspects of significators?

That rather depends on whether you are using the terms promissor/significator in the traditional sense (determined by astrological function) or in the modern sense (determined by astronomical motion). If the former, then only aspects of promissors are used -- or, to put it more exactly, the aspect points themselves become promissors.

However, if we inquire about some subject matter such as praxis, Valens says we can look to the MC, but also the trigons of the MC as well the 2nd and 6th. Is this not like an aspect of a significator?

I don't think this relates to aspects as such (although, in a whole-sign context, planets in the 2nd and 6th will aspect the 10th by trine).

Ed F wrote:

zoidsoft wrote:There's something else that's been bugging me... it doesn't quite make sense to me to have a mundane direction with aspects that use the zodiac. This seems to me like mixing reference frames. If one uses the zodiac, then it makes sense, but it is a direction in zodiaco. I don't see how one can have aspects in mundo when the aspect points are reduced to some place on the ecliptic.

Likewise.

I can't really see the problem here, but I suspect that may be because we are not using terms like 'mundane' in the same sense. Perhaps defining the terms would be a good place to start?

I think that's a constructive approach.

The definition of mundane position I use (and I do realize it's not the only one) is a characterization of the ascensional state of a point on the celestial sphere: a mapping from such a 2D point to a 1D longitudinal coordinate.

Clearly there are many theories for how to do that, and what points to map. I personally do not see why zodiacal projections should be used as proxies for points with non-zero celestial latitude - other than that is the traditional way of doing it (including the technique of "directing to the terms/bounds).

- Ed

Martin Gansten wrote:

Ed F wrote:

zoidsoft wrote:There's something else that's been bugging me... it doesn't quite make sense to me to have a mundane direction with aspects that use the zodiac. This seems to me like mixing reference frames. If one uses the zodiac, then it makes sense, but it is a direction in zodiaco. I don't see how one can have aspects in mundo when the aspect points are reduced to some place on the ecliptic.

Likewise.

I can't really see the problem here, but I suspect that may be because we are not using terms like 'mundane' in the same sense. Perhaps defining the terms would be a good place to start?

As I have it now in the program, I have a checkbox for Mundane directions and one for Zodiacal directions and the aspect checkboxes when interpreted with the Mundane option I would think should more logically use one of the valid Mundane aspect projection planes, but to use a zodiacal projection plane for the Mundane option does not seem consistent because in this case the only difference between the two becomes reduced to Zodiacal with latitude and Zodiacal without latitude.

The procedure takes the actual planets position in the sky in right ascension and declination, ecliptic latitude and longitude in every instance, but for the case where zodiacal directions are desired, the coordinates for the directions are either taken with latitude or reduced to 0 ecliptic latitude. A mundane bodily position is the same as zodiacal with latitude and if it is the Sun, it is the same regardless (well almost - as long as you disregard the solar barycenter). As I have it now, I don't have any "true" mundane aspects in these arrays:

FMundoRasc[0..7] (as opposed to FZodiacoRasc[0..7]
FMundoDecl[0..7]

0 = conjunction
1 = sinister sextile
2 = sinister square
3 = sinister trine
4 = opposition
5 = dexter trine
6 = dexter square
7 = dexter sextile

So I get the dexter trine of a body by adding 240 degrees to the ecliptic longitude of the planet and use the latitude of the planet as is (Zodiacal Bianchini currently has a bug) and then convert that position to right ascension and declination.

It would seem to me that what I should be doing here is something different because the above case is the same as zodiacal with latitude. For instance, it occurred to me that I could have added 240 in right ascension instead of ecliptic latitude. This would have been an aspect measured along the equator.

All of this is then funneled down into the routine that Ed Falis gave me for Placidian semi arc.

Thanks Martin for the illuminating example. When 'translated' to my modern concept I would use the first one for ecliptic (and using only the angles as significators, instead of Sun, Moon or planets). To my taste the second would fit most to the quadrant systems of mundane (in the modern sense) directions.

Defining mundane in the modern sense I would say that natal positions are connected to Earth and its movement around the axis diurnal rotation. So Earth is 'fixed' and the planets on it. The hours after birth planets rise and set and have their secondary motion included in the directions. Not only do they touch horizon and meridian but they also take the place formerly taken (at birth) by other planets. Problem is to choose which reference system to use in positioning these planets. I only see a handful of possibilities, Campanus, Regiomontanus, Placidus and Meridian. The first three integrate meridian and horizon in one system, the last integrates only the meridian and the horizon is somewhat set to the background (personally I don't have problems with this last feature, but most prefer a primary integration of the horizon).

Other systems for which the construction of the houses depend on a zodiacal expression of the horizon (i.e. the ascendant), can't be used for modern mundane expression of planets with latitude. For example, Equal, Porphyry, Alchabitius, Koch.

Eddy wrote:Thanks Martin for the illuminating example. When 'translated' to my modern concept I would use the first one for ecliptic (and using only the angles as significators, instead of Sun, Moon or planets). To my taste the second would fit most to the quadrant systems of mundane (in the modern sense) directions.

I confess I'm at a loss to understand why moving a point on the ecliptic with the diurnal motion to a position corresponding to that of a natal planet would seem either more or less natural than moving a planet to a position corresponding to that of a natal point on the ecliptic. Both the planets and the ecliptical points move with the same diurnal motion, after all.

I also find it difficult to understand why an astrologer (particularly one interested in traditional techniques) should regard the ecliptic, and therefore the zodiac, as a somehow arbitrary frame of reference, rather than as one of the very fundamentals of our craft. Please correct me, Eddy and Ed F, if I am wrong, but this is how I read some of your comments. Putting directions to one side for the moment, don't you think it matters what sign and degree of the zodiac is on the ascendant of a nativity, or what planets aspect that sign and degree? And if it does matter at birth, why not in directions?

Problem is to choose which reference system to use in positioning these planets. I only see a handful of possibilities, Campanus, Regiomontanus, Placidus and Meridian. The first three integrate meridian and horizon in one system, the last integrates only the meridian and the horizon is somewhat set to the background (personally I don't have problems with this last feature, but most prefer a primary integration of the horizon).

Other systems for which the construction of the houses depend on a zodiacal expression of the horizon (i.e. the ascendant), can't be used for modern mundane expression of planets with latitude. For example, Equal, Porphyry, Alchabitius, Koch.

And in fact no pre-modern astrologer ever tried to use those systems of domification as a basis for directions: houses and directions were two different concerns.

Martin Gansten wrote:...
I also find it difficult to understand why an astrologer (particularly one interested in traditional techniques) should regard the ecliptic, and therefore the zodiac, as a somehow arbitrary frame of reference, rather than as one of the very fundamentals of our craft. Please correct me, Eddy and Ed F, if I am wrong, but this is how I read some of your comments. Puttings directions to one side for the moment, don't you think it matters what sign and degree of the zodiac is on the ascendant of his or her nativity, or what planets aspect that sign and degree? And if it does matter at birth, why not in directions?...

A bit of a rhetorically put question IMO. Note that I mentioned to Eddy that we were starting to get off topic for the forum by taking a "modern" standpoint. While I have an interest in traditional methods, I am by no means a traditional astrologer.

Please don't construct such a strawman position and attribute it me. One can easily regard the zodiac(s) as both fundamental and arbitrary, without slurring its/their importance.

So before I leave "modern" perspectives out of any correspondence on this particular forum, I do feel a need to respond to your accusation(?).

There are several areas of arbitrariness to the definition of the zodiac, just as there are to the definition of a proper mundane frame of reference. The obvious are to do with the 0 point and how frames of different times and locations are to be compared to each other: eg tropical vs sidereal or even tropical unprecessed vs precessed. Less obvious are such matters as whether the earth/moon barycenter is the correct place to measure from vs the location of the event. This matter of "geocentric" (really barycentric) vs topocentric coordinates can push the zodiacal position of the moon back or forth approximately a degree at the horizon. Is that important? Should zodiacal (and mundane) measures be observational or based on relative location? If the former, why aren't we using topocentric apparent positions with guesses as to the effect of refraction? If the latter, why aren't we using topocentric true positions (without the light-time correction)? Instead we astrologers generally use barycentric apparent positions, as though we are observing from a point ~4000 miles beneath the earth's surface and make up a rather weak rationale as to how the determination of the zodiacal degree of the ascendant localizes these coordinates.

So there's the zodiac. Notice how practically nothing to do with its definition has anything to do with diurnal motion? Except when we go to a next level by synthesizing its use with that of some kind of ascensional frame of reference by determining the MC and ASC. And if we accept the importance of the zodiac in traditional primary directions, why aren't we taking secondary motion into account? "Close enough for yeoman's work"? Or mathematics that was just too grueling to be done by hand on a regular basis? (Few of us have the patience of Eddy).

On the other hand, a diurnal frame of reference (which I happen to think is equally important as the zodiac) suffers from the same issues, excepting the 0 point question for the zodiac. It has its own variant, whether to start at 0 Aries RA or some other arbitrary point like the east point. But note that the ecliptic itself has no more relevance here than the diurnal does in the zodiacal frame of reference, so there is no real justification for using 0 Aries as its fiducial other its use in the clumsy calculations of OAs and primaries that have been handed down to us.

This is not to say that the historical syntheses (intentionally plural) of these two frames do not give us important interpretive material. But it is to say that they can be derived independently of each other and stand on their own merits as astrological devices. And that this fact is a very important one going forward in analyzing and synthesizing the body of astrological lore. There are techniques such as the secondary progression of the angles that arise from the synthesis of the two, that make no sense if one is aware of that synthetic origin and thinks about how the techniques were developed. I suspect that if such a stance were more broadly adopted, the so-called house system problem would be quickly resolved as Placidus and its variants in complement to the array of equal house systemsl, probably with whole sign most prominent. Completely different categories of astrological devices.

In this view, directing ecliptic intersects (especially aspects with some arbitrarily determined latitude) to other ecliptic intersects or vice-versa, or mixing with bodies on the sphere is a secondary, synthesized method, and opens itself to the kind of speculative complications both Eddy and Curtis have either pointed out or stumbled over. It's easy to compare the complexity of most presentations of primary directions to the simple one I passed on to Curtis, and most of the complexity is due to either immature mathematics, crufty old calculation methods, or misguided mixing of naturally distinct and independent frames of reference.

When I discovered many decades ago that serious astrologers either didn't know or didn't care about the Moon being below the horizon yet in the 7th or 12th house of a typical quadrant system or vice-versa, I failed to understand it. I continue to fail to understand house placement in such systems (that aspire to model ascension) based on ecliptic intersects relative to those of the house boundaries, and the lack of respect that the mundane view continues to receive in contemporary practice. I continue to fail to understand the kind of ecliptic-centrism that calls Placidus house division at extreme latitudes "distorted" when the main distorion is the insistence on mapping quite rational house boundaries to the ecliptic and using the resulting intercepts as the basis for topical house position.

At least the traditionalists largely recognize the existence of the mundane realm and have a sense of its importance.

Sometimes things do improve over time. We need both the historical and the contemporary views to cut through the crap and move forward.

Regards,

- Ed

Ed F wrote:If the former, why aren't we using topocentric apparent positions with guesses as to the effect of refraction? If the latter, why aren't we using topocentric true positions (without the light-time correction)? Instead we astrologers generally use barycentric apparent positions, as though we are observing from a point ~4000 miles beneath the earth's surface and make up a rather weak rationale as to how the determination of the zodiacal degree of the ascendant localizes these coordinates.

This has been one of my concerns as well. I came from a background in astronomy which came first and I just assumed that charts were always based upon topocentric coordinates (though I didn't know what the word topocentric meant back then - I just assumed that a chart should be based upon where you were actually born, not in the center of the earths core) until sometime in the 80's and then I realized that doing lunar returns that a difference of 1 or even 2 signs skip on the horizon is possible depending upon whether you are using topocentric or geocentric coordinates. Back in the early 70's I used to use Sky and Telescope to place planets in approx position because I really didn't have access to much else at the time and as a child I was unaware of astrological ephemerides. Alex Harvey did have what seemed like a possible explanation for favoring geocentric (but I forgot what that is at the moment).

Should say Axel not Alex above.

Ed F wrote:A bit of a rhetorically put question IMO. Note that I mentioned to Eddy that we were starting to get off topic for the forum by taking a "modern" standpoint. While I have an interest in traditional methods, I am by no means a traditional astrologer.

It wasn't meant as rhetoric, nor as an accusation. I apologize if you took offence (as suggested by your liberal use of adjectives like 'clumsy', 'misguided', 'immature', etc).

I will just say that I have dealt briefly with all the substantive points you bring up in my Primary Directions book; some of them were also discussed by writers of earlier centuries. However, they have not made me want radically to reformulate astrology. Perhaps our minds just work differently. In any case, one point on which we do agree is that such reforming efforts do not belong in this particular forum.