Juan wrote: We must keep in mind that the little A. Marr's DOS program was not designed to work for older dates in the case of Pluto. The error this program has in the position of Pluto in this case is rather large:

RIGHT ASCENSION:
correct = 44:59:24
A. Marr's "Astro" = 44:49:26

ah yes. I hadn't noticed. Quite true that error is large. Thanks for noticing, I was getting comfortable with it having an unimportant lack of precision.

By pure coincidence, I opened an/the instructions doc for Astro for the 1st time. It is a bold enough set of text that I saw it straight away.

IMPORTANT NOITCE!
Pay attention: the positions of Pluto in ASTRO are accurate ONLY for the years1900-1999.

My advice...never take time off from the forum, there's too many comments to have time to respond to when you come back!

First things first...

No moving the goal posts. This is a thread about Topocentric Houses. Perhaps a giveaway might be the title, "Topocentric Houses."

I was not aware, when Juan asked me to look into rectifying Jean Sibelius' chart that he was somehow using it as an opportunity to covertly test Polaris. I seriously thought he had some interest in Sibelius and wanted to use his rectified chart (from my point of view, ie. the one promoting Topocentric Houses) in order to look at the INTERMEDIATE CUSPS at events. ie. the only way it's really relevant to a discussion on Topocentric Houses

When I went to Google Earth and put in the given location data, it shows the middle of a rural area in a grove of trees some distance outside H?meenlinna. When I went into Janus, a precursor to using Polaris, I simply put in H?meenlinna (the closest city in my database). If you have some biographical information that he was born at the other (given) coordinates, then I will happily rerun it and see if it changes anything appreciable. [A little background...there is a long, detailed article by Alexander Marr about the importance of accuracy in the birth location. (specifically, the importance of exact minutes lat. & long.) The reason is...we are using a system that DENIES relevancy for any aspects that are over 0? 6', unless it's the conjunction/opposition. If I have a birth location that (to me) appeared to have a 3' error, I am seriously handicapping Polaris' view of ELIGIBLE aspects. Isaac and I were both approached (on a forum) by someone who said they had hundreds of events for themself. We spent a lot of time talking about the particulars, etc...and then went to do the rectification. After having spent much time on the doing and explaining of the rectification, the person later admitted to having (by omission) MISLEAD us on key points. Because I am representing Isaac (somewhat) when I am discussing/demonstrating Polaris, I do all I can to make sure that all data is correct. If you had wanted to do some in-depth test of Polaris specifically, then it would have been better for me if that were stated explicitly (up front) AND to discuss the "conditions" of the test, which probably should happen as its own thread, not as a sudden tangent to a discussion about Topocentric Houses.]

Now, back to the specifics relative to Topocentric Houses and appropriate aspects involving intermediate cusps...

You mentioned the death of Daughter...

The directed Descendant is at 15? 08' 49" Aries.
His Natal 8th House cusp (the topic!!!) is at 15? 07' 15" Aries.

ie. Primary Directed Descendant conjunct 8th Cusp (orb 0? 1.6')

Surely, the one time in his life when his Descendant CAN direct to the 8th House Cusp couldn't have anything to do with a death that happens at the same time. If we cut the circle into 0? 1.6' "chunks", we get 13,500 of them. Surely, with 1/13,500 odds defeated by the directed Descendant being in the same "chunk" as the 8th House Cusp must surely be coincidental. ACK!!!

You also mentioned his own Death...

There is Neptune inconjunct Saturn (orb 0? 1'), which is THE ILLNESS ASPECT. Additionally, Sibelius has a Natal Neptune-Saturn inconjunct as well. [Not to mention how appropriate Neptune-Saturn, which sounds like fluids overflowing boundaries, for someone that had a brain hemorrhage.]

Re: Appropriate planets for Events

We could argue about that until the end of time. I'll only say that the Sun-MC aspect that you are denying as relevant to Marriage is found in the back of the Polaris manual under suitable aspects for Marriage.

Re: "...All aspects have the same weight..."

No, I said all EVENTS have the same weighting. Each particular connection of "planets/points" has a NUMERICAL VALUE assigned to it as to how appropriate it is for a PARTICULAR EVENT. If you're using Jigsaw, then YES, all aspects have the same weight. In Polaris, nothing could be further from the truth.

Re: "I could never accept it as signifying marriage in that context."

As I said, it's so common that it's actually listed as an appropriate aspect in the manual for Marriage. What would your accepting of the aspect actually accomplish? Polaris is not influenced in any way by which aspects you find appropriate, it uses its own database of appropriate aspects as has been empirically noted by Alexander Marr and Isaac Starkman (in writing) over tens of thousands of analyzed events.

Re: "Meaning in Astrology is multi-valent."

Yes, astrology is a symbolic system... each of the symbols have several strata of meaning. It's the same in language in general. If I say, "Juan tried to open a shoestore, but the city put a stone wall in front of him", it has nothing to do with an actual stone wall. The stone wall means an obstacle, an impediment. Astrologically, this sounds exactly like Saturn. Some could argue (endlessly) for other appropriate choices, but I'd still stick with Saturn as being closest thematically.

When we look at events (whether with Transits or some other system), we often have it expressed in many different ways. ie. Just because one person has Saturn conjunct MC at the death of his Father, does not (in any way) imply that someone else will also have Saturn conjunct MC. It could be "spelled" differently. For the other person, it could be Neptune-Sun and be just as connected to the event, but a different spelling of it. Same with Polaris... there are several aspects that ROUTINELY show up at certain types of events. To not include those, would make Polaris think that a particular aspect was irrelevant, when it's repetitive sighting at those events shows that it IS relevant.

Re: Pluto positions in Astro

Documented. Yes, Isaac is aware of that and had informed me of the problems with Pluto in Astro. Polaris calculates everything correctly.

Re: The Bottom Line

Still, all of these "issues" that you raise, Juan; has no impact apparently on Polaris' functioning. Polaris is uninfluencable. ie. if I have a birthtime that I *WANT* Polaris to finish with, I can do nothing to influence Polaris' own independent view of the events/aspects The fact that in many well-observed births, Polaris can merely take the events from that person's life and lead straight to the correct birth time shows that the algorithm and procedures are basically correct as is. If not, then it would be the luckiest program ever written because it can defeat almost infinite odds AGAINST it being able to do what it does with regularity.

Re: The problem of trying to force one technique into the paradigms of other techniques.

As an example...in Primary Directions, it is VERY COMMON for a malefic to contact the 3rd House Cusp at the times of accidents. Now, for someone that only thinks "accidents" can mean Mars and Uranus, they would never see it. Yet, if we take well-documented births and look at times of accidents as evidenced by the reality of their lives, malefics with the 3rd Cusp are very common. Now, do we stick to known symbolism that fits other systems (such as Transits, etc.) and try to apply those strictly to Primary Directions or do we do (what seems much smarter to me and) take well-timed births and empirically witness what aspects show up significantly beyond chance at particular types of events?

The 3rd House Cusp is also "Siblings". From the Polaris manual, at "Birth of Brother", the common aspects are 3rd, IC, or Dsc connected with Mercury and Jupiter. Now, also Sun, Moon, Venus, Node, Uranus and Pluto DO often show up at these events, but with much less frequency...so Polaris rates them LOWER in the weightings. This seems logical.

Again, when Polaris is able to take simply the events of someone's life and determine their birth minute, it has defeated 1/1440 odds in doing so. ie. it's EXACTLY as if 1439 black marbles and one white one were thrown into an opaque bag and someone reached in and grabbed the one white marble. Quite a feat! Every single time that Polaris does a 24 hour search and arrives at the correct time, Polaris has DUPLICATED THIS FEAT. As you should know if you studied probability and statistics, each rectification is mutually exclusive (ie. when YOUR Father dies has no ramification for when some other person was born), so that means we multiply the probabilities.
My particular confidence in Polaris relates to that (witnessing Polaris derive the birthtime strictly from events), but also to the fact that Angles/Cusps supported by Polaris also perform in Secondary Progressions, Progressed Sidereal Solar Returns, etc.

On some of these points, we will likely have to agree to disagree. For instance, Sun-MC aspects appropriateness for Marriage... it's so common it's in the damned manual to be EXPECTED at the event. So to your (paraphrased) "I don't see it", I can only add that Alexander Marr and Isaac Starkman saw it over and over and over again, else it would not be a defining aspect for the event in the manual and built into the database.

Please, Juan, if you have time... give a reading of http://juanestadella.com/Predictive-Ast ... adella.pdf as it will explain many elements of this process (and Polaris) that I quite frankly don't really have the time to hash out in such detail. (well, not and get my "real" work done)

Take care and thanks for the time/attention to Topocentric Houses

James

P.S. If you want to discuss the ins and outs of Polaris, I only suggest that we give its own space in a thread of its own, rather than a tangent on this one...

Neil Armstrong's Mother gave a very specific birth time that Polaris has shown to be correct to within just a very few seconds. I thought that it might prove interesting to just show some of the aspects relative to events... (shared here for its highlighting of intermediate cusps relative to the Topocentric House system)

Birth of Brother

Mercury trine Node (0? 1' orb)
Venus sextile 3rd (0? 4' orb)

Success - Pilot's license

Jupiter trine MC (0? 3' orb)

Graduation

9th square Uranus (0? 6' orb)

Mobilization (military)

Mars square MC (0? 5' orb)
Asc opposite Saturn (0? 10' orb)

Demobilization (freedom from military)

Jupiter conjunct Asc (0? 3' orb)

Marriage

Mars conjunct Jupiter (0? 9' orb)

Birth of Son

Pluto square 5th (0? 1' orb)
Venus opposite Node (0? 2' orb)

Birth of Daughter

IC conjunct Venus (0? 5' orb)

Moon Landing

Mercury opposite Uranus (0? 0' orb)
9th conjunct Moon (0? 6' orb)

Accident

3rd square Mars (0? 4' orb)

Death of Father

Mars inconjunct Saturn (0? 5' orb)
MC conjunct Node (0? 7' orb)

Death of Mother

8th semisquare Uranus (0? 5' orb)

Average orb 0? 4.5'...

There are other relevant aspects as well, but I was interested in giving a sampling of the main ones.

James

Atlantean wrote:I was not aware, when Juan asked me to look into rectifying Jean Sibelius' chart that he was somehow using it as an opportunity to covertly test Polaris.

I think it was clear from previous posts that it was a test on the "olimpian" claim of being able to find the birth time out of 1440 possible minutes using the Topocentric system and Polaris and a list of biographical events.

I am assuming that Polaris simply works with what is accepted Topocentric practice, so my comments refer to that practice, not to a specific program, which from what I gather is a brilliant application.

When I went to Google Earth and put in the given location data, it shows the middle of a rural area in a grove of trees some distance outside H?meenlinna. When I went into Janus, a precursor to using Polaris, I simply put in H?meenlinna (the closest city in my database).

You could have just entered the coordinates manually. Why would you need Google Earth or a city database? Birth in a rural farm in 1865 is not uncommon, and there is a big house in Google Earth at exactly the coordinates that I gave, and a population center only 17" to the west.

If the correct coordinates are so critical, and you modified the ones I gave you, it is logical that you would at least mention it.

Anyway, although it is irrelevent for this specific argument, the house where Sibelius was born has been preserved and restored and is now a museum at the center of Hameenlinna. The exact coordinates are 60N59'47" and 24E27'45".

You mentioned the death of Daughter...
The directed Descendant is at 15? 08' 49" Aries.
His Natal 8th House cusp (the topic!!!) is at 15? 07' 15" Aries.

Interesting. I had discarded house to house contacts, trying to make the number of possible directions reasonable to my mind.

... the Sun-MC aspect that you are denying as relevant to Marriage is found in the back of the Polaris manual under suitable aspects for Marriage.

Sun/MC and marriage is a very reasonable association, but I can't accept a quincunx as signifying marriage. This means that the nature of the aspect is not being considered or weighted. If I understand you correctly the weighting you mention is given to the symbolic proximity between the nature of the event and the astrological factors involved in the aspect, the nature of the aspect is ignored.

As I said, it's so common that it's actually listed as an appropriate aspect in the manual for Marriage.

Sun/MC is common, a quincunx isn't. By its nature a quincunx is practically and traditionally the opposite of marriage, it is non-marriage.

Juan

Juan wrote:

You mentioned the death of Daughter...
The directed Descendant is at 15? 08' 49" Aries.
His Natal 8th House cusp (the topic!!!) is at 15? 07' 15" Aries.

Interesting. I had discarded house to house contacts, trying to make the number of possible directions reasonable to my mind.

Very interesting, though I'm not sure that the 7th would signify a daughter and is obviously outside the 11' orb mentioned previously. I wonder where the fifth house directs to? Does it come into a tight square with the 11th cusp?

What happens when we examine it with placidus cusps?

Very interesting, though I'm not sure that the 7th would signify a daughter and is obviously outside the 11' orb mentioned previously. I wonder where the fifth house directs to? Does it come into a tight square with the 11th cusp?

One must also note the polivalence here:

Asc oppo 8th
Desc conj 8th

is the same as:

Desc oppo 2nd
Asc conj 2nd

Juan

Ariondys wrote:How about 12 houses + 10 planets + 1 POF + 1 node = 24 points
21,600 / 2 / 24 /24 / 16 = 1.1719

I wanted to calculate this empirically via software:

24 points listed above
aspects of 0,30,45,60,90,120,135,150,180.
all possible arcs of direction from 0 to 180

The result, counting the cumulative number of directions via software, is 9504 possible directions in every horoscope, a rate of 1 direction for every 1'08" of the circumference. Using Naibod's arc this means a rate of 52 directions per year, 1 direction every 7 days, approximately 1 direction for every arcminute of orb that is used.

Juan

Paul wrote:What happens when we examine it with placidus cusps?

converse Asc 30 Asc = Jan 22, 1895

As you can see they are not comparable because the Placidus calculation is done directly trisecting the semiarc of the Asc (under its own declination), while the Topocentric version is done through the pole of the 2nd/8th house cusps.

A true comparison with Placidus in mundo (Topocentric directions are in zodiaco exclusively) semiarc directions requires that we work out a totally different or independent rectification of the originally recorded time.

It is my intention (which I may not be able to fulfill, but which is part of my beliefs or convictions) to show that:

1) Other systems can be equally accurate but yield a different rectified time.

2) Very accurate results can be obtained with an erroneous time.

I want to try it with the Placidus semiarc system "in mundo" at least, trying different time-conversion keys.

I have claimed that results between different systems are non-comparable because they are all based on different choices and assumptions. For example: I personally reject systems where the available factors are allowed to proliferate or multiply without weighting, such as when a conjunction to an angle is given the same weight as one to a house cusp or between house cusps, or a quincunx is weighted the same as a conjunction.

However, having less elements to work with means that larger time/space orbs must be accepted, or that we take what I think is a less naive approach to Primary Directions (and to Astrology) and accept that we are not dealing with isolated events but with organic existential processes or climates that extend over a period of time.

Juan

juan,

i hope you are able to follow thru on your intention here. i happen to agree and share some key elements to your overview. thanks for sharing your perspective. james

Juan wrote: It is my intention (which I may not be able to fulfill, but which is part of my beliefs or convictions) to show that:

1) Other systems can be equally accurate but yield a different rectified time.

2) Very accurate results can be obtained with an erroneous time.

I want to try it with the Placidus semiarc system "in mundo" at least, trying different time-conversion keys.

I have claimed that results between different systems are non-comparable because they are all based on different choices and assumptions. For example: I personally reject systems where the available factors are allowed to proliferate or multiply without weighting, such as when a conjunction to an angle is given the same weight as one to a house cusp or between house cusps, or a quincunx is weighted the same as a conjunction.


However, having less elements to work with means that larger time/space orbs must be accepted, or that we take what I think is a less naive approach to Primary Directions (and to Astrology) and accept that we are not dealing with isolated events but with organic existential processes or climates that extend over a period of time.

Juan

9504 possible directions in every horoscope

18*24*22?
I'll question this.

1 direction every 7 days

Lots of directions, and it looks like static but I'll make a case for less, 1/2 as often. Still, I think it will take time, sleep, and lots of evidence for most analytical thinkers to begin to accept the topocentric system if not the house system. I'm almost up with them - I've had a slight shift* about how I should visualize them; and have probably mistold something in my ramblings.

I find statistics interesting, i'm not trained in it though. I think I can manage a few dice. I worked out the odds for craps one time long ago and arrived at a very sensible answer of 49 1/2% or so. Or using permutations to calculate the odds of a 6/49 lottery to 1 in 13.98M. I have noticed a couple tv shows with some fun statistics that makes clear how tricky they can be sometimes even when they seem simple.

William Shatner's Weird or What... the question posed to an actual statistician. The case is 40 people. the odds that 1 of them will share birthdays with one of the others.

logically, it doesn't sound all that likely. you got 40 people, and 365 days. But the statistician calculates an 89% chance that there will be a shared birthday. (there is 1 + 2 + ... +39 = 780 ways for them pair off)

Statistics gets messy quickly. So i'm sure we're not on target.

On Mythbusters, they empirically did some ball in the cup test. 3 cups, 1 ball. person A selects a cup, person B selects a cup. Then person A looks if the ball is there and counts their hit/miss ratio. If person A finds no ball, then Person B then switches to the cup no one picked and counts the ratio of times they find the ball. It's not 1 in 3. Nor is it a seemingly logical 1 in 2.

It's 2 in 3.

So I know there's always something we might be missing trying to count odds. As we try to multiply out a coincidence factor, we're barely actually doing statistics at all.

However, what if, as the cusps are paired off. That there is not 12 cusps, but 6.

that gives us 18 promittors * 16 aspects * 2 directions = 576 promitting points. Aimed at 18 significators. 365 years and all will have occured 1 time.

576 * 18 / 365 = 28
28/ year?

It sounds logical to me as Im saying it, with some hesitation... let me trying counting a few lists of 1 degree sweeps.

29, 24, 25, 30, 18, 29, 24, 31, 28, 32

well, hopefully that's enough to disqualify the notion I randomly selected timespans that were coincidentally low or high.

Juan wrote:(Topocentric directions are in zodiaco exclusively)

perhaps I am missing something yet... I keep coming up with tidbits that need incorporating. But,

... the difference between a direction with latitude (in mundo) and one without latitude (in zodiaco)

The topo system is both. Planets zodiacal positions as promittors and planets mundane positions as significators. Maybe the language is a barrier because of some novelty.

But if they planets drag right along in their approximate house positions along with progressed houses, isn't that mundo? The tiny stereoskopic effect could be construed as negating it being true mundo, but it's not a huge deal. If one calculated to remove the stereoskopic effect(i'm not super sure if this would require iteration or not) wouldn't that then be mundo?

I took my friend's horoscope, which is verbally stated to me as to the minute. And I'm kind of lazy to gather events, my memory of what they have done besides move house ( progressed moon conjuncted AS -- makes it seem plausible) is desperately feeble.

I do know specific dates for some, shall I call them classic topocentric events, deaths and births and such. 2 daughters.

In both cases, it was 5th house and Venus sextiles. with barely a 1/2 minute adjustment to rectify. AND IC/5th for then 2nd daughter.

Of course, nothing ever happens to me... I can't get a handle on my own primary directions. I moved house when my progressed moon conjuncted my AS too. Can't be THAT far wrong.

I located a death date for a grandfather from an internet database of dead people. But with just 1 such event, well, we know the static from many directions renders this a feeble effort.

I'd rather trust the asteroids named Shane and Gary on my 3rd cusp and 4th cusp which cleverly match my brother and father respectively. (koch 3rd) asteroid for Mary, (mother) is on my south node(conjunct MC +4). That would've been just too much for it be on my midheaven... lol