Skyscript Astrology Forum

Just added a modernized version of this text from 1593 to my archive.org page. Sadly there are no chart examples but Part 3 covers Ferrier's use of directions (Regio), Circumambulation through the bounds (although he doesn't call it that), profections, and solar revolutions. Found it interesting that he uses Equal Houses for his profections and directs the profected Asc through the profected 1st at the rate of 2.5 degrees per month, checking transits to any active degree. He also checks the position of SR planets to both the nativity and profected houses.

Part 3 also mentions Firdar (although he doesn't give much credit to the Firdar divsions), as well as a description of how to profect the natal hour ruler (Lord of the Orb method) as well as a similar direction of the SR hour ruler although it's a bit garbled.

Thank you, Jane, for yet another cleaned-up version of an old work! I hadn't read Ferrier's manual before.

The combination of predictive techniques outlined in the third part is mostly standard medieval fare, except that by Ferrier's time, directing by position circles (Regiomontanus-style) had become more popular than the Ptolemaic method of proportional semi-arcs/mixed ascensions. Also, as you say, using equal houses for profection (but quadrant houses for other purposes) is somewhat idiosyncratic. But directing through the terms is just a particular subset of primary directions, just as Ferrier says; the idea of 'circumambulation through the bounds' (a neologism coined by Robert Schmidt) as a separate technique is no older than the 1990s.

Ferrier seems to be saying that all house cusps can be directed through the terms: By the same means you may seek the Separators of the honour, goods, gains, friends, and of other like upon the circles of their positions. If that is indeed what he means, rather than directing the standard Ptolemaic significators (angles, luminaries, and LoF), then that too looks like an innovation, not wholly unlike the practice of Morin, who also used all cusps as significators (although he rejected the terms).

Hi Martin ...

Martin Gansten wrote: Mon Jun 09, 2025 3:18 pm The combination of predictive techniques outlined in the third part is mostly standard medieval fare, except that by Ferrier's time, directing by position circles (Regiomontanus-style) had become more popular than the Ptolemaic method of proportional semi-arcs/mixed ascensions. Also, as you say, using equal houses for profection (but quadrant houses for other purposes) is somewhat idiosyncratic.

I didn't think using Equal Houses for profections was idosyncratic, don't most of the early texts say to count 30 degrees from the Ascendant, giving 30 degrees for each subsequent house, when calculating them? I'll have to double check my notes/sources.

But directing through the terms is just a particular subset of primary directions, just as Ferrier says; the idea of 'circumambulation through the bounds' (a neologism coined by Robert Schmidt) as a separate technique is no older than the 1990s.

True; the name has stuck in my head as a way to differentiate directions along the ecliptic vs those with latitude.

Ferrier seems to be saying that all house cusps can be directed through the terms: By the same means you may seek the Separators of the honour, goods, gains, friends, and of other like upon the circles of their positions. If that is indeed what he means, rather than directing the standard Ptolemaic significators (angles, luminaries, and LoF), then that too looks like an innovation, not wholly unlike the practice of Morin, who also used all cusps as significators (although he rejected the terms).

Hadn't considered that, thank you for pointing it out.

janegca wrote: Mon Jun 09, 2025 8:23 pm I didn't think using Equal Houses for profections was idosyncratic, don't most of the early texts say to count 30 degrees from the Ascendant, giving 30 degrees for each subsequent house, when calculating them? I'll have to double check my notes/sources.

Profecting by 30 equal (ecliptical) degrees per year is definitely standard, but explicitly using equal houses for profection while using a quadrant system for everything else is unusual. I can't recall seeing that explicitly stated anywhere else.

It is, of course, entirely possible to profect by equal degrees even in a chart cast using quadrant houses. You wouldn't then speak of, say, age 33 being a 'tenth-house profection year', but then again, no premodern source that I can recall seeing does that. Rather, if you were born with the Asc and MC in trine or sextile to each other, then the profected Asc would be conjunct the quadrant 10th house cusp at age 32 or 34, respectively.

It is also possible, if less common, to profect actually using quadrant houses, a practice that goes back as far as Valens, although his only example, as far as I recall, concerns the natal Asc in Virgo reaching the MC in Taurus at age 33 (Vett. Val. V 6,70-73, incidentally not understood by Riley).

Hmm.. I probably got the idea from Zoller's Lesson 18 Profections & Firdaria; under 'Monthly Profections' he says the profected house for the year represents the 1st month of the year, the following house, the next month, and so on. He uses Alcabitius houses. He goes on to say

Always keep in mind the meaning of the house you are profecting as it relates to the natal, the natal meaning of the profected house for the year and the natal house meanings of the houses corresponding to the months."

Ibn Ezra says something similar in his Book of Nativities and Revolutions p81, equating each month to a sign, but he does not specifically relate them to houses.

assign to each month a sign, and begin counting from the rising degree up to 30 degrees for 30 days and 10 hours. The
month that arrives at a benefic planet will indicate good, and the opposite if it arrives at a malefic [planet].

I switched to Equal Houses from the Asc for profections years back but use the same 1st house = 1st month, 2nd house = 2nd month, etc.

Jane and Martin,
I have a question for you regarding the Profections.
In The Book of Reasons, Ibn Ezra (sorry I don't have the exact ref page) said that the profected ASC is not moving every year of 30 degrees on the ecliptic but that it rises of 30 degrees from the equator which corresponds to 2 Placidian hours.
In the book you mention Jane where Ibn Ezra did not mention specifically Houses, did he say Signs or anything else.
For example, if the 1st House is at 3 degrees and the 2nd House at 25 degrees, the Profected ASC will cover from 3 degrees to 25 degrees in the 1st year of life and the 2nd year of life will start at 25 degrees.
Have you found evidence that the profected ASC is a progression of the signs or could it be a progression from houses. I know that sometimes, some ancient astrologers were talking about "places" for whatever it meant.
This method I am referring to is the one used by Giuseppe Bezza and I have seen many example charts from his website and in some books of Danièle Jay.
Appreciate your feedback,
Ouranos

I don't know Hebrew and can't say what terminology ibn Ezra used, but I know that Giuseppe Bezza advocated his more naturalistic/sophisticated take on profections. As far as I know these were unique to ibn Ezra, although they may be regarded as a natural development of the idea of profecting by quadrant houses (going back, as I said, to Valens and explicitly described by Abū Maʿshar and others), in this case using 'Placidus' houses (described by ibn Ezra 500 years before Placidus).

There is no doubt that Ptolemy and other ancient and early medieval authors (including Valens) were talking about signs as a division of the ecliptic pure and simple (although, as I have argued here, the word zōdion or signum is not necessarily restricted to the named signs beginning with Aries but may designate any 30-degree section of the ecliptic, starting, for instance, with the ascendant, which is precisely the case when profections are understood as a continuous motion). Following a lengthy (for him) description of directions, Ptolemy deals with annual profections in one brief sentence (IV 10, transl. Robbins):

We shall discover the general chronocrators, then, in the manner described, and the annual chronocrators by setting out from each of the prorogatory places, in the order of the signs, the number of years from birth, one year to each sign, and taking the ruler of the last sign.

Incidentally, the phrase translated here as 'of the last sign' is sunteleioumenou zōdiou, more literally meaning 'of the sign being reached at the end'. This exactly matches the meaning of the standard Arabic terms burj al-muntahā or burj al-intihāʾ found in works that were later translated into Latin (in the Indian Tājika tradition, the same Arabic designations were Sanskritized as munthahā or munthā and inthihā or inthā). With full credit to Bezza for first pointing this out, profectio is therefore almost certainly a result of a scribal misreading of perfectio as in 'completion [of a motion]' (the abbreviation ꝑ for per- being interpreted as ꝓ for pro-), although it has later been analysed as being formed from the verb proficio ‘to advance’ or proficiscor ‘to set out’.

Hi Ouranos,

Ibn Ezra says “The fifth [thing to observe] is the end sign, and that is always [counted] in even degrees (zodiacal). And so you will do. In the first year the end sign is from the beginning of the rising degree [counting] 30 degrees until the next sign [and so on).” Epstein, ARHAT, p.79

So he’s counting by sign, not houses; although the mention of “even degrees” is unusual as that usually means ascension degrees, not zodiac degrees.

Dorotheus also says “count from the ascendant a year for each sign” IV.1.1 and Paulus also tells us to count one sign for each year of life starting from the ascendant (Holden ch 31).

Off hand, I can’t think of a reference that says to specifically count by house, except for Zoller, who did use the related house cusps; I’m not sure (without checking) if he he got that from Bonatti or if it was his own approach.

janegca wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 9:47 pm So he’s counting by sign, not houses; although the mention of “even degrees” is unusual as that usually means ascension degrees, not zodiac degrees.

No, it's the other way round: equal degrees (or 'even', as translated here) means degrees on the ecliptic. (Degrees of the region are oblique ascension, degrees of the right circle are right ascension.) So here ibn Ezra is unequivocally using the standard approach. Bezza unfortunately only refers to 'page 57' of the works of ibn Ezra (presumably a standard Latin edition), so it's not clear in which particular book ibn Ezra proposed a different method; but I think we can safely assume that Bezza didn't make it up.

Off hand, I can’t think of a reference that says to specifically count by house, except for Zoller, who did use the related house cusps; I’m not sure (without checking) if he he got that from Bonatti or if it was his own approach.

I'm not sure if it's in Bonatti, but Abū Maʿshar mentions it (transl. Dykes, Persian Nativities IV, 433–34). It was also part of the teachings that reached India from Perso-Arabic sources; see my translation of the Jewel of Annual Astrology, p. 427.

Martin,

From Giuseppe Bezza on his site...
"This calculation is not correct. Who is familiar with calculations required by the astrological judgements and who is able to weigh up the reliability and effectiveness of a calculation on the base of the theory of motions, understands that the sky which surrounds us can move around the surrounded only through the motion of primum mobile. In support of my thesis I quote just one passage of Ibn Ezra (Opera fo. 57v) in which we are informed that in the calculation of the spaces of "perfection" (that in the Latin version are translated by a calque from Arabic intihâ': "finis", "signum finis"), it is necessary to operate with the tables of the right and oblique ascensions. This statement infers that for those places of the geniture which do not culminate or rise, it will be necessary to use both, or rather the mixed ascensions."

From your quote Martin p. 427

"What Yadava said - By rotating the ascendant of the nativity, it churns the houses'...
and later
..."Or else, the addition of the degrees of the ascendant is used elliptically for the addition of the degrees of the second, third, and other houses. For example, if the birth ascendant is Leo at twelve degrees, that is where the munthaha is for the first year; next, the second house is in Virgo at ten degrees; therefore, in the second year the munthaha is in Virgo at ten degrees. It should be understood in this way in every house."

Question: I understand that in the first quote it turns the houses. But why in the second quote if the Horoscope or ASC is natally at twelve degrees in Leo doesn't fall at twelve degrees in the second year. Instead, he says it falls at 10 degrees of Virgo which is the cusp of the 2nd House?

Thank you,
Ouranos

Ouranos wrote: Sat Jun 14, 2025 8:33 am Question: I understand that in the first quote it turns the houses. But why in the second quote if the Horoscope or ASC is natally at twelve degrees in Leo doesn't fall at twelve degrees in the second year. Instead, he says it falls at 10 degrees of Virgo which is the cusp of the 2nd House?

The method briefly described by Balabhadra is not the same as advocated by Bezza; they are similar only in being based on a quadrant system rather than on equal (ecliptical) degrees.

Balabhadra is assuming a chart with 12 Leo rising and 10 Virgo on the second Porphyry/Śrīpati cusp, and when the native turns 1 year old (and 13, 25, 37 etc.), the profected ascendant would be on that cusp. (Balabhadra doesn't elaborate on whether there is a proportional, continuous motion between birthdays.) It's a very simple technique, and not as naturalistic as the one proposed by Bezza.

Incidentally, Balabhadra's example means that the MC would be at 6 Taurus. This is not possible in India using a sidereal zodiac (which Balabhadra advocates), and even using tropical parameters, it suggests a latitude around 31 N. Unless the figures used are completely random, it thus seems likely that they are based on tropical positions for a more northern location, such as somewhere in Persia, which in turn suggests that the example was borrowed from a Persian/Arabic source.

Martin Gansten wrote: Sat Jun 14, 2025 7:08 am

janegca wrote: Fri Jun 13, 2025 9:47 pm So he’s counting by sign, not houses; although the mention of “even degrees” is unusual as that usually means ascension degrees, not zodiac degrees.

No, it's the other way round: equal degrees (or 'even', as translated here) means degrees on the ecliptic.

Aarrggh...you're right...brain fog..sigh.

I'm not sure if it's in Bonatti, but Abū Maʿshar mentions it (transl. Dykes, Persian Nativities IV, 433–34). It was also part of the teachings that reached India from Perso-Arabic sources; see my translation of the Jewel of Annual Astrology, p. 427.

Thanks for the link