Deb wrote:Hi Margherita,
I'm not sure if you realise this, so sorry if you do and I'm pointing out the obvious. Where Ptolemy says:

By 'oriental' he doesn't mean near the ascendant but 'rising' (or emerging) in the opening stage of a new heliacal cycle - it's comparable to the Moon between New Moon and first quarter Moon.

Yes, in fact. In Ptolemy whatever starts is moist: planet, quadrant, season, age.

This is well explained in Alcabitius (Dikes translation page 66) "the quarter which is from the Ascendant to MC....signifies the beginning of life, sanguine, spring-like "
And obviously "the 4th is senile, phlegmatic, wintry."

So it's obvious that the Ascendant is moist, it's the coldness of water which is warmed by the change of quadrant, but both are moist.

And this is the same order Ptolemy uses: moist, hot, dry, cold.

So the humoral cycle in the quadrants (following diurnal motion) is: dry > hot > moist > cold because it is based on how the prevailing quality of air moderates the planetary effect, whereas the planetary synodic cycles are like life-cycles for the planets.

In fact this is the key point, the Ascendant and the Descendant are reversed in their quality. It's very strange. At least we should notice it does not fit with the rest. Alcabitius saw this, for example, and arranged quadrants as the rest, with a moist ascendant.

Anyway I don't have any solution to this, I just made my mind reading here and there.

I look forward to read your book on phases,

margherita

Hi Margherita

I see your point more clearly now but I don't think the text of Alchabitius can be used as a guide to what should exist in Ptolemy's work, or to suggest that there is an inconsistency in Ptolemy's work based what is written in a much later text. We actually have Ptolemy's work so surely that's the best source of reference for his ideas.

My proposal is that this was not Ptolemaic doctrine, as I think I've shown, but a later modification which arose from the association of the eastern quadrant with youth, and the association of youth with the moist humour. This isn't what Ptolemy did and I suppose that the change was made in the same way the Ptolemaic humoural definitions of the planets were later changed for the sake of a neat pattern (for example Venus, which is a benefic planet because it has a temperate humour according to Aristotelian philosophy, being mainly moistening and a little warming in Ptolemy's text, later became 'cold and wet' in the simplified tables of some Arabian astrologers).

IMO the Ptolemaic system makes a lot more sense and is part of the rationale he used to jusitfy the credibility of the astrology. I haven't looked into this closely before but I will now be interested to check how other well known ancient/Hellenistic astrologers treated the quadrants - I'm pretty sure most talk about the eastern quadrant being dry or 'masculine' which is defined by dryness, but I'm on my laptop today and away from my books so I can't check myself. (Also wary that this thread is about directions, not humours).

Best wishes
Deb

margherita wrote:So it's obvious that the Ascendant is moist, it's the coldness of water which is warmed by the change of quadrant, but both are moist.

And this is the same order Ptolemy uses: moist, hot, dry, cold.

So the humoral cycle in the quadrants (following diurnal motion) is: dry > hot > moist > cold because it is based on how the prevailing quality of air moderates the planetary effect, whereas the planetary synodic cycles are like life-cycles for the planets.

In fact this is the key point, the Ascendant and the Descendant are reversed in their quality. It's very strange. At least we should notice it does not fit with the rest. Alcabitius saw this, for example, and arranged quadrants as the rest, with a moist ascendant.

Anyway I don't have any solution to this, I just made my mind reading here and there.

Hi Margherita,

This is actually a typical example of what I have been trying to say.
Let me explain.

If we look at a horoscope in the form we are used to, then we can observe two things:
1) the signs are displayed in a counter-clockwise order. Aries -Taurus-Gemini-... are set out against the clock.
2) the four angles, Asc-MC-Des-IC are set out in a clockwise direction.

This is already an application of what I described as sky-map vs earth-map. Ascendant and Desc. are coming from the earth map, because we don't get these angles until we have taken a position on the ground.
Earth maps moves clockwise (on NH), contrary to the order of the signs, which belong to sky map.

Now, to these orders of Ptolemy you have brought up.

The first one is easy to understand:
moist - hot - dry - cold
Asc - MC - Desc - IC
morning - noon - evening - night

This is the earth map sequence, and we can easily relate to it because connects directly to what we observe in nature, here on the ground.

Now to the other sequence:
moist - cold - dry - hot

This is what I call the counter-clockwise order, the sequence belonging to sky map (again for NH).
Hot and cold have been swapped, and in terms of the signs we connect it like this:
moist - cold - dry - hot
Aries - Cancer - Libra - Capricorn

Notice how Ptolemy is doing the same as I am doing in my astro directions method: he is swapping hot with cold when he goes from earth to sky map, I am swapping South with North when going from sky map to earth map in my system.

So Ptolemy was also using the sky map vs earth map concept, even though he didn't use those names for it.

Interesting?

handn wrote:I can't go along with all your statements because I think your reasoning has steps in it that I think aren't right in my view. For instance, what you said about clockwise and anticlockwise, and taking those terms down from the observed 3D sky to a flat map, I just don't think you're right in the way you're doing it.

That's OK.
I am not saying that everybody has to agree with my system (in part or in whole), has to drop everything they are doing up to now, bow down and starting using my approach.
I am presenting my approach, and answering to the objections that have been formulated. In most places where I have been up to now that was perfectly OK.

If the materials that are brought on the table do not convince you, then there is no need for you to be convinced.
I am also not convinced if what is brought gives no reason to alter anything in the system.
If that's not fair, then what is?

handn wrote:I understand your frustration but honestly, I don't think that it's out of some kind of misguided weddedness to tradition that people aren't agreeing with your ideas. I can see how it reads that way, but the way I see it is that people already have methods that work, and whilst they're open-minded enough to consider alternatives, there has to be a significant incentive to spend the necessary time and effort, rather than a 'here's a different way, why not try it?' There has to be a compelling reason(s) to spend time testing it. When people are busy and already have methods that work, then 'why not try it?' is very easy to answer.... i.e. 'I'm busy, and the methods I already use are solid and effective'.

That's more or less what I already said a couple of days ago.
It would be naive to expect that everybody will come with positive feedback only, as if a god has come down from the sky.
Only a few people are typically interested in considering or testing new ideas, most people will go on using the traditional methods they are used to, and it is good that way.
Most healthy lines of work do not have everybody in the research department.

But that also doesn't mean that those who do research shouldn't have their say.
I'll keep that for my post to Mark.

Deb wrote:

To blindly apply 'tradition' without fully looking into all implications, that's like pouring fuel into the radiator and hoping that the car will drive.

Throughout this thread there has been insinuations from Danny that anyone who takes the trouble to understand how this has been taught traditionally, and discusses the matter in those terms, is a flat-earth thinker, or rigidly sticks to what someone else said without thinking the matter though.

That's a weird interpretation of what I am saying.
Those who are, in your words 'taking the trouble to understand how...' that are not the people who are 'blindly applying tradition', that are those who are trying to look into all implications.

Looking at my statement and at yours, we are actually saying just the same thing:
We need to take the trouble to understand how, we need to think the matter through, or in my words 'we need to look fully into all implications'.

Never mind that quoted statement came right at the end of a piece where I am presenting my own attempt at 'thinking the matter through' (whether you agree with my presentation is already a different question).

My statement was not an insinuation, it is my opinion. And just yesterday Mark told me that we are free to give our opinion, even if it differs from a moderator's opinion. So?
But on this point your opinion seems to be same as mine: that we need to think the matter through.
So what is the problem in my voicing the same opinion?

Danny wrote:

My statement was not an insinuation, it is my opinion. And just yesterday Mark told me that we are free to give our opinion, even if it differs from a moderator's opinion. So? But on this point your opinion seems to be same as mine: that we need to think the matter through. So what is the problem in my voicing the same opinion?

Hello Danny,

You seem to be confusing two totally different things here. One is the issue regarding your ability to express your opinion on a particular astrological technique. You are of course free to express any opinion you like in a personal description or evaluation of the effectiveness of an astrological technique. Equally, others members are free to completely disagree with you.

However, we also have forum rules which you seem to have missed.

Firstly the general Skyscript forum guidelines:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/read.html

Secondly, the specific forum guidelines for the mundane section.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5239

I am assuming you haven't read these as you have clearly breached the forum rules on a number of occasions. Making negative comments regarding another school of astrology is not allowed here. People come to this forum from all kinds of astrological backgrounds. For the forum to work we all need to exercise respect and restraint whatever our personal views are. You have typified practitioners of traditional astrology, on several occasions here, in quite insulting and patronising terms. That is not acceptable behaviour on this forum. If this continues your posts may be deleted or you may even find your membership of Skyscript suspended. Its much better if we all focus on what we have to offer rather than denegrating other people's outlook we disagree with.

Mark

Hello Deborah

Deb wrote:Hi Margherita

I see your point more clearly now but I don't think the text of Alchabitius can be used as a guide to what should exist in Ptolemy's work, or to suggest that there is an inconsistency in Ptolemy's work based what is written in a much later text. We actually have Ptolemy's work so surely that's the best source of reference for his ideas.

My proposal is that this was not Ptolemaic doctrine, as I think I've shown, but a later modification which arose from the association of the eastern quadrant with youth, and the association of youth with the moist humour.

maybe I was not clear, obviously Ptolemy says the Ascendant is dry and the Descendant is wet, no doubt about this.

The point is: it fits in the system Ptolemy describes? And much important, when we judge about a planet in the different quadrants we should follow Ptolemy or Alcabitius?

It's evident that in the beginning of I, 10 Quadripartite Ptolemy puts year=zodiac=life
but then he says Ascendant- ie the beginning of diurnal circle- is dry when he writes two lines above because in all creatures the earliest ages, like the spring, have a larger share of moisture and are tender and still delicate.

I don't want persuade either you or nobody else because the bug in Ptolemy and the difficulty to put together Galen and the Astrologer were discussed in several Medieval and Renaissance commentaries to the Quadripartite, and at the end nobody could solve.

They cannot, and I obviously cannot.

As I told I just follow with great attention your wonderful work, the one of some English speaking authors like Cris Brennan, Martin Gansten and Ben Dykes and others, and Italian ones like Bezza, and then I make my personal opinion. I really learn so much from you all.





margherita

Hi Margherita

I would still have to maintain that Ptolemy's system is correct and logical, and the rest is based on misunderstanding that when the term 'oriental' is used in regard to the planetary cycles it means 'rising' and not 'eastern' in the sense of being near the ascendant. If the planets were experiencing their 'life-cycle' through the angles that argument could be made, but their daily transits are less significant than the cycle they experience through the synodic phases. Alcabitius is equally clear about that. He follows Ptolemy's explanation of the lunar phases and then says (Burnett translation):

"The remaining planets, from the beginning of their easterness [read rising the correct interpretation of the word oriental in this context] to their first station are, in their nature moist: from their first station to their opposition to the Sun their nature is heat: from this place to their second station their nature is dryness; from their second station to their hiddenness, their nature is coldness"
(p.87 of the Burnett, Yamamoto & Yano, Warburg ed., 2004)

Hopefully you can see how the word 'easternness' in the above paragraph gives the wrong context of a word which fundamentally means 'rising' or 'growing'. The mistranslation of that word to mean a direction rather than a state of emergence has generated many misunderstandings in the translation of astrological texts out of one language into another, and still does, because translators often fail to realise its correct astrological meaning.

I also checked Alcabitius' text and didn't find his approach to vary significantly from Ptolemy's. In his description of the angles, for example, I didn't find them to be given the humoral definitions you describe. In ch.I.295 he says:

"Each of these quadrants is divided into three unequal divisions depending othe rising-times of the ascendant... The first of the divisions is the ascendant, whose beginning is on the eastern horizon; then follows the second, then the third, then the fourth. The quadrant which is the ascendant to the midheaven, which consists of the twelfth, eleventh and tenth place, is an eastern, masculine, advancing quadrant; it indicates the beginning of life and is called sanguine and vernal" (p.49)

There is no mention of moisture, dryness, warmth or cold for any of the angular quadrants, although there is clear reference to the cycle of humours in regard to the signs (I.40; p.23), which is how Ptolemy has it. If you have a specific reference otherwise please let me know so I can check, because that doesn't seem to be the case in the Burnett translation.

The sense of this is seen in many related principles, such as the the fact that when the two planets that are mainly moistening (Moon and Venus) make their appearances at their most moistening state, it is just after sunset as they rise above the descendant.

So even though we would normally expect to see that humoral cycle in something that is likened to a life cycle, the humours of the angles are treated differently because there are more important principles to consider - mainly the way that these support the appearances and humours of the planets as defined by phase.

Best wishes
Deb

margherita wrote:It is not exactly like that in the Mediterranean area: morning is very moist and there is dew but around 5-6 p.m. we have the most of the hot because the Sun warmed Earth all day.

Once I read that about a century ago there was more rain yearly in the Mediterranean. Maybe in Ptolemy?s days it was also different or in Alexandria, being close to the desert it?s very different from the rest of the Mediterranean.

margherita wrote:And in every case this is not the point. Ptolemy declares for planetary phases:

(....)

And in the same way seasons and quadrants are moist, hot, dry and cold, in the very same order. So - I'm surely wrong- but if the first quadrant, from Asc to MC is moist and warm, how the Ascendant could be dry?

About two years ago I remember that we discussed the lunar phases and the elements and when I wrote that I preferred a connection of moist with first quarter, hot with full Moon etc, you mentioned in that thread that in the past someone actually did that. I don?t know anymore in which thread this was. To connect the first quarter with a maximum and the full Moon with something decreasing feels a bit strange. Hence, midnight-new Moon, sunrise-first quarter etc. feels better because it connects new Moon with a minimum, full Moon with Maximum etc.

@Mark,
I wasn?t particularly referring to Chinese astrology. Their mansions are very unequal in size and projected on the equator yet using sidereal. I know too little of the Chinese methods but my problem with the ideas of 10,000 plus years ago that there are no written sources of those periods. The oldest sources of the Chinese and most other cultures are of the 3rd millennium BC. About the Neolithic age; there also seem to be constellations in some French caves. Wasn?t there a thread about this once, with pictures etc?

Ch(a)itra. Ah I forgot to place the link. Well it?s a Wikipedia link but I think it?s reasonable
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_calendar#Month_names Compare the months with the names of the Nakshatras in the list above. You will see how the names resemble and it?s always about the opposite Nakshatra.

Something completely different and not relevant here but I just saw it when I left my hotmail. There?s a BBC programme next monday about the discovery of pyramids with satellites http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011pwms Unfortunately I have no tv since a few years, but recently I got some 2nd hand Biggles pockets of which some take place in the Egyptian desert :-).

Deb wrote:The sense of this is seen in many related principles, such as the the fact that when the two planets that are mainly moistening (Moon and Venus) make their appearances at their most moistening state, it is just after sunset as they rise above the descendant.

I understand this logic but when the planets are viewed as in optimal state in their exaltations then when Sun and Venus are exalted (in Spring), in Aries and Pisces respectively, Venus is morning star rising before the Sun.

Deborah/Eddy

Deborah wrote:The sense of this is seen in many related principles, such as the the fact that when the two planets that are mainly moistening (Moon and Venus) make their appearances at their most moistening state, it is just after sunset as they rise above the descendant.

I don't know, as I told you I have the luck I can read Bezza, and I even tortured him while he was eating "spaghetti and pesto" in Genoa. He is very lucky he lives far from Rome, because he would hate me

To be honest I find his quotes and reasoning about this thread more congruent with my logic.

Eddy wrote:About two years ago I remember that we discussed the lunar phases and the elements and when I wrote that I preferred a connection of moist with first quarter, hot with full Moon etc, you mentioned in that thread that in the past someone actually did that. I don?t know anymore in which thread this was. To connect the first quarter with a maximum and the full Moon with something decreasing feels a bit strange. Hence, midnight-new Moon, sunrise-first quarter etc. feels better because it connects new Moon with a minimum, full Moon with Maximum etc.

yes, I remember too. The sanguine temperament to the quarter from NM to 1st quarter is not the only association, for Galen for example the 1st quadrant is cold and moist, not hot and moist.

It would be interesting to know if Ptolemy could read Galen or not, I don't know, but in every case they followed Aristotles.

margherita

Do you have the reference for Galen Margherita?
Perhaps the problem here is that the asc-desc division is more of a hemisphere analysis than a quarterly division.

Deb wrote:Do you have the reference for Galen Margherita?
Perhaps the problem here is that the asc-desc division is more of a hemisphere analysis than a quarterly division.

I was talking about Moon cycle.
About Galen, it should be On the critical days, III,7 tomorrow I will try of finding it, I have the English translation on the other pc.


And yes, I agree with you that this division ASC-Desc should be something else. In fact it fits very well with Ptolemaic chorography, where the Eastern side of the World is very dry and the Western one (the Western Europe) is obviously moist .
margherita