Skyscript Astrology Forum

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Phase 4: Sun is about trine planet. Planet is on its first station about to turn retrograde.

I should point that mars has its first station when it's far away 82 degrees behind the Sun. That trine definition must apply only with saturn and jupiter.

Aside from that detail, well done! I appreciate!!!

Will you post some tips on hellenistic natal delineation?

I believe you meant to say "heliacal" instead of "acronycal" in the following sentences:

astrojin wrote:Phase 8: Planet is 15 degrees from the sun. Planet is making its acronycal setting and sinking into the sun for the first time (no more to be seen rising or setting).

astrojin wrote:Phase 10: Planet turns retrograde up to inferior conjunction with sun. The planet is still an evening star but moving toward the sun (planet's light is getting dimmer).

Phase 11: When planet becomes acronycal setting (the first day that the planet sinks into sun during sun set).

Joseph Crane describes the phase of an acronical rising and setting in Astrological Roots: The Hellinistic legacy (p.175). Dictionaries also provide the same definition: "A celestial body is said to be acronycal when it is opposite the sun. When a star or planet rises as the sun sets, it is said to rise acronycally; and conversely, to set acronycally when it sets as the sun rises".

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Astrojin,
occasional mistakes are understandable in a work of this magnitude!
Thank you again.

I just want to add Joseph Crane's definitions for the sake of clarity:

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...we now can summarize four phases of planets in relation to the Sun:

• A planet is a morning riser when it is to the right of the Sun, ahead in the zodiac, and is visible on the eastern horizon before the Sun rises. [...] All the starry planets can rise in the morning before the Sun: only the Moon cannot. When Mercury and Venus first rise from invisibility in the morning, they are always retrograde.

• Morning planets setting to the Sun include Moon, Mercury, and Venus, and they are also to the right of the Sun, behind in the zodiac. We can see them in the morning just before the Sun rises but soon become invisible under the Sun's beams. They all move more quickly than the Sun in his phase and as they get close to the Sun they sink into invisibility.

• Evening rising planets are also Moon, Mercury, and Venus. These are to the left of the Sun, ahead in the zodiac [?]. Because Mercury and Venus at this time move more quickly than the Sun, they come out from under the Sun's beams, appearing in the west after the Sun goes down. They will increase their distance from the Sun each day.

• Evening planets setting to the Sun: these include all the five starry planets; they are all left of the Sun and behind in the zodiac but under different conditions:
  
  • - Mercury and Venus have gone retrograde and, as the Sun is moving closer, the oncoming Sun's beams swallow them up.
  • - Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are farther in the zodiac than the Sun. Because they move more slowly than the Sun, the Sun moves closer and they are last seen as dim stars at sunset and then no more.

If astrojin won?t get angry for inviting myself in his wonderful ?saga?, I would add some comments.

Please confirm me.

Hi sasha_i,

You are very much welcome!

Hi Igor,

Thank you for typing what Joseph Crane has written in his book. I have a copy of his book and you have saved me from retyping them in this post!

Joseph Crane has done a wonderful book on intro to Hellenistic Practice and his book is certainly one of the texts that I refer to for these posts. What's more important is that he has made the work public so that anybody can spend a relatively small amount of money for intro to Hellenistic astrology.

There is a problem in his explanation of phasing of the planets in his book (at least to a novice and to me when I read it the first time!). When he used "heliacal rising", the "rising" term in the phrase "heliacal rising" means emerging from the sun. But at the same time he also used the term "morning rising" for planets that rise in the morning (before sun rise) where the term "rising" in the phrase "morning rising" refers to the diurnal motion of the planet (and not the emerging from sun). When you put his book and Brady's Book of Fixed Stars (where she also explained the phasing of the star), you cannot but be confused with the way they used the same terms (or at least I was when I first read them).

astrojin wrote:But at the same time he also used the term "morning rising" for planets that rise in the morning (before sun rise) where the term "rising" in the phrase "morning rising" refers to the diurnal motion of the planet (and not the emerging from sun).

This part explains:

Morning planets setting to the Sun include Moon, Mercury, and Venus, and they are also to the right of the Sun, behind in the zodiac. We can see them in the morning just before the Sun rises but soon become invisible under the Sun's beams. They all move more quickly than the Sun in his phase and as they get close to the Sun they sink into invisibility.

So they rise above the horizon before the Sun (the diurnal motion) and set to the Sun in the same time (the direct zodiacal motion of planets). That's the nature of the morning planets setting to the Sun.

Even though I consider myself an independent thinker and I always try to be aware of what I say, after reading Deborah's post I decided not to create any discussion by adding my comments.
I am afraid that in this circumstances what I want to say can be misinterpreted.
So I'll just watch.

I?m sorry you have decided not to comment Sasha because I am sure Astrojin and all of us would have welcomed and appreciated your comments.

I?ve found this thread very interesting. The terms that have been discussed here are very useful to distinguish between our meanings. It is one of those areas that is begging for more clarity so it is good to see these suggestions being explained so clearly. Anciently, astrologers were not so specific or precise, and words that could mean more than one thing were expected to be understood by context. Hence references to planets that are ?rising? or ?setting? often refer to heliacal rising or setting, rather than rising or setting on angles.

I?ll have to add the reference for this comment into the thread the next time I have the book open, but I am pretty sure it is in R. C. Thompsons ?Reports of the Astrologers and Magicians in Nineveh? where we find details of correspondence passing between the king and his astrologer, where the king queries how a planet can do something ?in the morning? when it was obviously observed in the middle of the night. The word for morning was the same as that used for ?ascending? or ?rising?, so these confusions go back a long, long way.

There?s one point that struck me as worth questioning:

The elongation is different for different planets but the Hellenistic astrologers kept things simple by using a standard elongation of 15 degrees for ALL planets (which also happens to be the limits of being under the sun?s beams in Hellenistic astrology).

I doubt it ever met with universal agreement. When Firmicus writes about maturtine and Vespertine definitions, in relation to this sort of ?phasing? he shows that the elongation is set by the distance at which the planet appears or disappears into the light of the Sun. (See Mathesis, Bk. II, IX). So Saturn = 15 degrees, but Jupiter is 12, Venus and Mars 8 and Mercury is 18. Firmicus is 4th century, but he was copying material not inventing it. Since this technique is known to be much older than Hellenistic astrology, and based on observational astrology, I am sure he must have been using older accounts which many others would have been using too. I think it is more likely to be later that the elongation limit became increasingly standardised, (though even in the medieval period ? and in Lilly?s text - we find a lot of varying accounts as to whether it should be set at 12, 15 or 17 degrees).

I?m sorry you have decided not to comment Sasha because I am sure Astrojin and all of us would have welcomed and appreciated your comments.

Thanks Deborah for your kind words. you are a special person.

I learned from my skyscript experience that when things start to burn is better to wait, so that we can regain our normal chatty attitude.
So nothing personal.

I know that some of my ideas seem out of nothing or arbitrary, but as I like to say, I am expressing ideas, even when I repeat what I understand from an astrological text, and I want, in general, people to analyze my ideas and not to try to establish the source of my inspiration.
I have nothing personal either with Schmidt?s theories. I know few things about his theories, and I have some of his translations, but the majority of my greek sources are from translation made by Giuseppe Bezza, who, and now comes a very personal opinion, has a natural gift for doing an elaborated work with glossary of the terms used in his translations, and reference to other authors, even fragments that I couldn?t find anywhere else.

So I?ll just watch your wonderful posts for the moment.