Skyscript Astrology Forum

Helllo lihin,

Reading the last few posts has convinced me to repeat that there is no inclusion of the 'Nechepso' list of strong houses (angular, then following) in the question posed at the outset of this thread, but only the 'Petosiris' list of favourable houses, determined by their 'seeing' (not being in aversion to) the Ascendant by 'Ptolemaic aspects'.

You may find this article by Robert Schmidt useful. Its discusses his view of how the house meanings developed.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/93515915/Facets-of-Fate

He mentions that although the 3rd was left out of the original list of 'favourable' houses according to Petosiris other sources disagreed and added it in. I dont know which sources he is actually referring to on that. I cant personally see what the logic might have been for excluding the 3rd. It aspects the ASC and in its diurnal motion its cadency puts it in the same position as the 9th which is identified as favourable.

I wonder if this may have something to with the relationship of this house to the 4th with its association with death in many early sources? The 3rd house is referred to as the 'shaded place' and 'the place between worlds.' However, since it is also 'the good decline' one might have expected it to make a list of favourable houses. As you state it aspects the ASC by sextile. I can only assume that is precisely why some hellenistic sources did include it in their list of favourable places.

When you have two completely different criteria for assessing places i.e. angularity vs relationship to the ASC there are bound to be inconsistencies. For example, the 8th place is in aversion to the ASC but but intermediate ie succedent in terms of angularity. On the other hand the 9th is cadent but trines the ASC. Hence you see astrological discussions of which is overall less favourable for a planet to be located. The same issue is repeated in comparing the 2nd and 3rd houses.

Although the 2nd is in something of a special position due its proximity to the ASC. In that respect Dykes mentions the view of Dorotheus of Sidon regarding the activity of planets within 30 degrees of the ASC but located in the whole sign 2nd. He seems to suggest that while the topical meaning remains the same the planet partakes of the 'busyness' of the ASC.

From my reading I think Benjamin Dykes essentially follows Robert Schmidt in comparing angularity to strength, activity or 'busyness' while relationship to ASC is more about the topical meaning of a house.

So while the 3rd may be 'favourable' topically (in terms of its associations) due to its sextile to the ASC it is still fundamentally a weak place for planets to express themselves in terms of it falling away from the angle.

Dykes goes on to justify quadrant houses as more suitable for assessing angularity. We do of course see this in hellenistic astrology when they assessed the predominitor or hyleg.

Even Valens found the writings of Petosiris 'cryptic' and seems to have regarded the text by Petosiris quite frustrating and difficult to understand. Yet Valens had the great advantage of having access to a key astrological text now lost to us. I dont personally hold out much prospect of us to getting to the bottom of what motivated Petosiris now on leaving out the 3rd house from his list of favourable places. At best all you will get is well informed speculation.

Mark

Good evening,

Dr. phil. Giuseppe Bezza published the text of a 1999 lecture entitled Caratteri propri ed acquisiti dell?astrologia araba (Proper Characteristics and Acquisitions of Arab Astrology) that, methinks, may well be useful in the context of this thread.

Best regards,

lihin

Good points, Mark!

I think it is revealing to look at the variety of sources indicated by the early authors. As I suggested above, I'm not convinced that Nechepso and Petosiris were actual people; or if they were, that they wrote the materials attributed to them. Attributing one's sources to a king or deity (or being named as a king oneself) was a way to gain authority in Antiquity; just as today we might Robert Schmidt by way of substantiating our claims. However, we can use what the early authors wrote to get a sense of where they thought their material came from.

And a lot of it doesn't point to a rational system.

Dorotheus (Pingree transl., 1st century AD) clearly has an overlay of Islam penned by a later transcriber or translator (familiar w/ Valens! 4:1), who gives praise to the one God and calls Dorotheus "king of Egypt." Dorotheus gives credit to Hermes Trismegistus, the mythical grand-daddy of Hermeticism. The translator inserts (5:1): "He says in this book that he is following the tracks of the learned men who practiced from among the learned of Babylon and Egypt."

Pingree translates their "tracks" as "the science of the stars and their calculation," which they no doubt did; except that if you look at Babylonian and Egyptian societies, their outlook was primarily religious, not scientific in the modern sense. Also, we infer from Ptolemy's (1:20-21) treatment of Chaldean and Egyptian terms that these two traditions didn't always agree. Mr. Pt. himself found both systems to be illogical and unfounded.

Firmicus Maternus (ca. 280-360 CE, 3: preamble and ch. 1, Bram transl.) calls Petosiris and Nechepso, "who approached the very secrets of divinity" "divine men". He attributes the Thema Mundi to them, saying they "followed Aesculapius and Hanubius, who learned their secrets from the god Mercury. Aesculapius may mean the mythical physician of Antiquity, or the pharoah Imhotep. Hanubius sounds an awful lot like the Egyptian god Anubis, one of the psychopomps. FM seems to be working from an actual text, but there is no indication that it was actually penned by Petosiris or Nechepso.

In 4:preamble to a book on the moon, P of F, and chart ruler, FM again traces a lineage from Mercury (probably Hermes Trismegistus) and Hanubius (Anubis?) to Aesculapius to Nechepso and Petosiris. But he also cites "Abram, Orfeus, and Critodemos" and says (as did the Muslim editor of Dorotheus) that his book is an edited compilation of different sources.

Abram was probably the Jewish patriarch Abraham. Jewish tradition ascribes to him an origin in Babylon, and Josephus says he was the founder of astrology. Orfeus was probably the mythical Orpheus, to whom a major mystery cult was dedicated. Critodemos was an actual person, as attested by Pliny and Valens.

So in the matter of houses, the 4th as anciently a house concerning both death and the father makes perfect sense in the context of Egyptian religion. I think this was the mythical great hall where Osiris judged the dead; and the souls who had lived good lives assimilated to The Father. In the 3rd house, the soul incubates in the Mother, arises in the 2nd house of the "casting up from Hell" (Manilius) and then is reborn in the first house.

Anyway, I could carry on in this fashion, but I fear I've already irritated Kirk with too much lecturing. I just wanted to indicate that a lot of Hellenistic astrology wasn't particularly logical, nor did its authors intend it to be, judging from their alleged sources and insistence that theirs was a divinely inspired craft.

Hello waybread

I will pick up your other comments later. However, I wanted to briefly comment on this statement:

Abram was probably the Jewish patriarch Abraham. Jewish tradition ascribes to him an origin in Babylon, and Josephus says he was the founder of astrology.

I dont think this is very likely to be a reference to the biblical Abraham. We have a much more historically credible candidate. In his Anthology Book II ch 28-29 Vettius Valens describes an astrologer called Abraham he clearly holds in very high regard. Indeed Mark Riley suggests Book 29 is largely taken from an older text from the astrologer Abraham.

Its not really at all surprising to find a Jewish astrologer in Ptolemaic Egypt in this period. The history of the Jews of Alexandria dates from the foundation of the city by Alexander the Great, in 332 B.C., when according to Josephus they were present. Alexandria had the largest Jewish population outside Judea. The Jews made up a sizeable proportion of the population of Alexandria with 2 of the 5 city districts predominately Jewish.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/artic ... pt-ancient

Firmicus Maternus is writing almost 200 years later than Valens and in Latin rather than Greek so by his time Abraham the astrologer had probably taken on a legendary reputation.

Mark

waybread wrote:

Nixx, thanks for the passage by Robert Schmidt. Actually there was a lot of highly irrational use of astrology in Antiquity, but this got scripted out-- not only by Ptolemy but also by today's authors looking back at that period.

.

It looks like you are using ''rational'' in the way we would today, not the way a bunch of Middle Platonists circa 100BCE might have done.

What Schmidt appears to be suggesting his research has revealed is that a bunch of them sat down one afternoon got out some pens and paper and said okey dokey amongst all this woo woo stuff, and there woo woo was mighty different to ours, there is something in this star stuff let?s see if we can work it out and if we can life may become more intelligible, pleasurable, worthwhile and so forth. Thus his use of the word ''systematic''.

The ''divine'' side of the pursuit would have appeared logical or rational to them. Planets as representations of Gods were part of this imagined orderly cosmology. The mind of the Demiurge which created this eternal universe was, for them, something which could be understood by analysing the mathematics or codes in nature. At least this is my hazy memory of the Timaeus.

If you think about it, it is arguably irrational to waste time with Horoscopes unless you subscribe to the possibility of the Anima Mundi. After all on the face of it Horoscopy is absurd primitive nonsense irrelevant to what happens here on earth.

Mark, you might be right about Abraham. Thanks for the infill on Alexandria: worth keeping in mind.

Possibly an actual Jewish astrologer named Abram or Abraham wrote astrological texts as Valens describes. It is also possible that specific books written by a (now unknown) practising astrologer were attributed by later authors to the patriarch of Genesis as a way of ramping up their credentials.

We see both sorts of things happening with Firmicus Maternus in my previous post, where mythical "founders" seemingly are mentioned in the same breath as an actual astrologer (Critodemos) known to a contemporary non-astrologer author (Pliny.) I think Aesclepius, Anubis, and Orpheus of mythology are intended, because the mythic healer (memorialized in the constellation Ophichus,) the jackal-headed Egyptian god of embalming, and Orpheus were all associated with the theme of death and the mysteries of resurrection. It fits in well with the Hermetic beliefs of the day.

One fascinating if creepy book I picked up a while back is Betz, ed. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 2nd ed. U. Chicago Press. It gives all kinds of charms and spells that were practiced in Egypt during the 2nd century bc to 5th century AD. Not only does astrology pop in occasionally, but so do biblical figures like Solomon (in the same charm that mentions Hermes Trismegistus and Anubis) the angels of Hebrew lore, the Jewish God (as "Adonaie Sabaoth", and "God of the Hebrews"), Moses, Jacob, and "Abraam". P. 312 has a fragment of instrctions on how to use an astrologer's board.

In support of your final point in your post to me: All kinds of mythological as well as actual figures show up in the magical papyri, including Manetho, philosopher Demikritos, and real though legendary ones like Pythagoras. So any actual Abraham as a mortal author of astrological texts could also have been rendered legendary after his death.

Incidentally, these charms and spells frequently mention a moon goddess, variously Hecate or Selene (78-[92.). Hecate has been associated with the waning moon and darkness, Selene as the divine manifestation of the moon, and Artemis (Diana) as the waxing moon. Hecate was a particular favourite in these texts, which probably accounts for her morphing from a decent-enough goddess in ancient Greece to a patron of black magic.

Nixx, I understand both temporal meanings of the word "rational": then, and now. If we look at "then" there is a big difference between Ptolemy's project of putting astrology on a scientific footing as science existed in his day and the no-nonesense cookbook of Rhetorius (who cites Ptolemy); vs. that of Firmicus Maternus, who comes across as a much more religious individual. I think all of the surviving astrological books could be described as systematic, although again, their idea of the logical organization of ideas seems different from ours.

Some gods of Antiquity were rational, and some weren't. The sceptics found plenty to criticize in the old Greek and Roman religions.

Kirk, just to backtrack to your practical point for a minute: if we really want to practice Hellenistic astrology (vs. a contemporary and streamlined neo-Hellenistic astrology) I think it is beneficial to try to get into the astrologers' mindsets, insofar as this is possible. Many of them thought of astrology as a divine craft, a sacred deposit of faith that they were privileged to share with select, worthy students.

This outlook would probably alter how I read charts for people. How about you?

To me, the problem lies in a current common assumption that the prophet needs to also be a scholar in order to be of a more acceptable grade ? and that the studies of the scholar are sufficient or even necessary for achieving the insight of the prophet.

Ok I think I get you now. Yes you do have a solid point there. The whole Kepler College/Bath Spa phenomena. I suppose that is the current astrological meme. Thirty years ago the fashion was research to prove astrology scientifically and gain social acceptability. Now that that view is pretty discredited so we are now seeking social acceptability by obtaining academic qualifications. There is also an element of competition /hierarchy developing with people setting themselves as more authorative astrologers because of such qualifications. Whatever the place of astrology in the past we are outsiders in this society and degrees are not going to gain us any more respect from the secular mainstream. Moreover, none of this necessarily makes for better astrologers. I prefer the term prognosticator to prophet but I get your drift. Its tricky though if like me your main interest is ancient astrology. You cant really practice that without a fair degree of study into its techniques. I also find study of the social context of early astrology enlightening.

Mark

waybread wrote:

Nixx, I understand both temporal meanings of the word "rational": then, and now. If we look at "then" there is a big difference between Ptolemy's project of putting astrology on a scientific footing as science existed in his day and the no-nonesense cookbook of Rhetorius (who cites Ptolemy); vs. that of Firmicus Maternus, who comes across as a much more religious individual. I think all of the surviving astrological books could be described as systematic, although again, their idea of the logical organization of ideas seems different from ours.

Hmm..well I'm left with the impression you may not fully understand Plato's archaic conception of the real is the rational. Mentioning the modern renegade Ptolemy seems a bit queer in this context.

Anyway, I found this at Spark Notes which I thought might amuse Kirk:

''Plato describes the soul as divided into three parts, labeled appetitive, spirited, and rational. He offers this division partly as a way of explaining our psychological complexity and partly to provide a justification for philosophy as the highest of all pursuits, because it corresponds to the highest part of the soul?the rational part. We might feel the pull of these three parts when presented with a bowl of ice cream, a roast we accidentally overcooked ourselves, and a healthy salad. The appetitive part of our soul will crave the sensual pleasures it will derive from the ice cream, the spirited part of our soul will want to eat the charred roast out of a sense of pride in our own work, and the rational part of our soul will want to eat the salad as the healthiest of the three options. In proposing a tripartite soul, Plato acknowledges and seeks to explain the fact that we all experience inner conflict from time to time. We would be justified in seeing this theory as the starting point for psychology. However, Plato?s theory seeks not only to explain inner conflict but also to present the rational part of the soul as superior. Philosophy is essentially the practice of refining and foregrounding our rationality.''

Rational here not secular of course but it does suggest how careful we need to be with throwing in these words willy nilly. The word Rational gets me thinking of Kant and then thoughts of suicide.

Kirk, I have to take exception to what you wrote.

Who is an astrologer? I wear my mantle of hobbyist proudly. I don't take money for chart-readings. Do you? The root of our English word "amateur" is the same as the root word for "amore." The amateur practices a field because s/he loves what s/he does, vs. a job that one might do primarily because s/he needs the money.

Send me a chart to read via a PM, and you can decide whether I read it as a newbie or as a more serious student of astrology.

I really take exception to your idea that astrologers are prophets, which I find hugely arrogant. Really? Have you been deputized by God? (or by whichever deities have singled you out for special insights?)

It is important to distinguish between prediction and prophecy. Astrologers make predictions based upon astrological calculations and principles. In this regard, we are not uniquely different from pollsters, engineers, market analysts, or weather forecasters, who also make predictions based upon data specific to their professions.

I don't think you are claiming psychic abilities or clairvoyance, but if so, that's a different talent than the ability to read horoscopes.

We've all seen enough really bad astrology to be very, very wary of any astrologers claiming the mantle of prophecy.

Plus, you seem to have pasted upon me, a complete stranger, a fear concerning a much larger debate in which I really haven't played a part. Do you feel threatened by academics? Fair enough, but that doesn't mean that lashing out against them by way of me is a sustainable position. Especially not if you think in terms of rigid binary oppositions, in which one is either a scholar or a prophet.

One thing I did pick up in my readings is that some acknowledged prophets of yore were also educated people. The biblical Ezra was a scribe. King Solomon, to whom the Wisdom Literature of the Bible was traditionally attributed, was noted for his vast erudition.

If you wish to practice a highly intuitive creative astrology, that's fine by me. I have never suggested otherwise.

What I am trying to discuss on this particular thread is how the past actually happened, insofar as it can be deciphered.

Having said all this, I have to add that academic historians, behavioural scientists, literary scholars, archaeologists, and others whose fields touch upon astrology do have a high bar for what passes as professional qualifications and scholarship. They aren't going to change merely because practising astrologers who may not have a B. A. degree dislike how they write or find them arrogant.

And despite some scholars' bloopers with respect to astrology, academics like David Pingree and Otto Neugebauer have contributed translations of traditional astrology materials from the Demotic, Greek, and Latin; as well as a lot of the context in which this work has to be understood. Neugebauer demonstrated that the huge majority of horoscopes cited by Vettius Valens could actually have applied to real people, for example, thus validating Valens's reputation as a practicing astrologers (vs. a theoretician).

I don't ask whether the astrology scholars "believe/d" in astrology or not. Astrology doesn't require some kind of Nicene creed imposed upon True Believers. We should all maintain a healthy sense of critical thinking applied to most things in life. That's how knowledge progresses. IMHO.

Speaking of farmers, we have a large production vegetable garden, and this time of year I have my hands in the dirt digging potatoes and getting the beds ready for winter. So do I pass that test?

Third house, anyone?

Kirk, my small example about applying Hellenistic astrology to someone who had difficulty with his brother addressed your question:

Kirk wrote:
But how could the conclusions that the houses were in flux in late antiquity and that houses were possibly a late development in Hellenistic astrology be of much help today when you have a chart in front of you? How do those conclusions keep away cookbook astrology?

Would you like a different example? More examples? Let's focus on the third house, though.

Are you a professional astrologer yourself? Do you make a living from your astrology?

As I mentioned above, I've been studying applied astrology for about 22 years. How long have you been studying it?

Just curious.

Right, Mark.

I've attempted a bit of a run-down of the third house according to the Hellenistic sources I have on hand. Here is one more:

Ptolemy in Tetrabiblos (Robbins transl.) doesn't use houses much at all. If we look at the first chapters of Tetrabiblos and consider his considerable body of writings as a whole, it seems clear that his project was to get astrology on a more scientific, rational footing-- as these concepts would have been understood in the 2nd century AD.

He has a lot to say about placements in relation to the angles, but what is missing is a catalogue of the topic content of half of the houses. In 3:10 he mentions the 1st (the "horoscope"), the 11th as "called the House of the Good Daemon", the MC (10th), the "house of the God", and the 7th as the "Occident" or West. The 12th is "called the House of the Evil Daemon," not because of a belief in the supernatural, but because heavenly bodies are obscure just above the horizon.

So we are missing 5 of the houses below the horizon, including the 3rd. This suggests to me that either Ptolemy found the 2nd through 6th houses to be mostly unhelpful in chart interpretation, that he found their content illogical, that houses were not entirely used or accepted in the 1st century, or that their mythical/religious content had no place in his rational scheme (as he is not given to the religious overtones of Firmicus Maternus.)

He indicates a rank-order of house favourability: 10th, 1st, 9th, 7th, 11th. "...the whole region below the earth must, as is reasonable, be disregarded when a domination of such importance is considered, except only those parts which in the ascendant sign itself are coming to the light. "Even for such an important topic as children, Mt. Pt says to look at the10th, 11th, or in the opposite signs only if those houses are empty (4:6)

In the matter of brothers, he seems to do a turned house system, where you locate the house of the mother (the moon in a night birth; Venus in a day birth) and then look at the house following, as siblings would be the proceeds of the mother (3:5).

We get a hint of the 3rd with regard to foreign travel, where he says to look at the luminaries, notably the moon, in relation to the angles. When the moon is "declining from the angles" look for foreign travel or a change of location. The direction of travel is shown by the quadrant in which the moon is located. But Ptolemy seems to put north at the top of the chart! "...if the luminaries fall in the lower parts of the eastern quadrants, the travel is to the eastern and southern parts of the world." (4:8 )

So no mention of the Goddess. But in all fairness, Ptolemy isn't taken with male gods either, in his treatise.

waybread wrote:So we are missing 5 of the houses below the horizon, including the 3rd. This suggests to me that either Ptolemy found the 2nd through 6th houses to be mostly unhelpful in chart interpretation, that he found their content illogical, that houses were not entirely used or accepted in the 1st century, or that their mythical/religious content had no place in his rational scheme (as he is not given to the religious overtones of Firmicus Maternus.)

No, the reason is contextual: Ptolemy brings up the houses (or, rather, places, topoi) in the context of determining the hyleg (aphet?s), that is, the main significator of life, which must be located in a place conducive to life; and Ptolemy accepts only the ascendant and the places in an aspectual relationship to the ascendant above the horizon.