Tell me this math thing gets easier

I'm working my way through the AFA correspondence course. Much kudos, it's a really great class. Quite the thing to focus me after a few years of randomness - oh, an astrology book, let's read that, it's fascinating. Oh, life happens, no time to read and study now. Ohhh an astrology book, I must read that, it's fascinating....rinse, repeat. So, I said to myself, self you need something to focus your interest. You want to do astrology???? Okay, let's take an approach here.

The course is great, I'm learning lots and it's doing exactly what I wanted it to do. A reasoned approach - learn this, now learn this, practice, practice, practice. I can follow the math in the lessons. And I know to take the exam, you have to do the math with no helpful forms. That scares me. Having to memorize all those steps....

Someone tell me it gets easier if I just work at it.....

Natal chart math

It does get easier. You will likely soon learn the reasons behind each step. Does the AFA provide a form with the steps listed on it so that you can fill in the numbers? If you are doing it manually you will need books or access to on-line information such as a Table of Houses, an ephemeris, an atlas (the type that lists political divisions, sub-divisions, cities with longitude equivelants, latitude and longitude,etc.) and a calculator.

When you are born at a given time, that time needs to be converted to Greenwich meridian time (add/subtract the time zones in terms of hours east/west to turn birth time into GMT. ** You now have your birth time locally converted to Greenwich Time which is used in your ephemeris.

The interval in time between GMT and noon or midnight (depending upon the ephemeris you are using) needs to have an adjustment called acceleration on the interval. This can be figured or you can use a table. ** This is a minor adjustment that is needed for accuracy but you don't need to understand the spherical geometry and math now.

You will need to add/subtract the longitude equivalent to GMT to find the local Sidereal Time at your location. A table of houses will give you the Asc. and MC values according to the ST as well as the RAMC. ** You need to find just where the zodiac/sky is above your birth location relative to where the zodiac is above Greenwich.

The Table of Houses, using the ST for your location, will list the MC, Asc. and intermediate house cusps for you so you can avoid the math work.

All of these factors are what I remember off the top of my head from the early 1970's. Once you are comfortable using these factors in the sequence and manner shown on the natal chart calculating form you will find it easy to do. It gets really easy later on when you can use a computer. You can always use a computer to compare with your manual calculations. Dave

Dave, thanks SO much for your encouragement. Yes, AFA provides a form to fill in. I do get the logic when I'm doing it. Just the thought of trying to remember it all without a form or instructions for the exam is daunting. I shall keep practicing and trust that it will lodge in my memory banks!

Dave is right it does get easier. When I started there were no computers or even electronic calculators, so it was a question of using published tables plus a pencil and paper. These days computers make life easy and as Dave says you can check your answers using one. I remember checking to computer's answer against my long hand calculations when I first started using one

There are essentially two things you need to do:

Convert your local time of birth into GMT and then to Local Solar Time (that is time by the Sun not by the clock). LST is a very important step because Solar Time is continuous, whereas Time Zones suddenly change by an hour. For example, my birth time was BST, an hour ahead of GMT, at 01:30. That means my GMT birth time was 00:30. I was born at 2 degrees 11 minutes West of Greenwich. That means that when it's midnight in Greenwich, the LST for me is about 10 minutes earlier. This calculation is done using your longitude of birth. Then, using an ephemeris (I'd advise you to buy one, even though they can be found online) work out the zodiacal positions of the planets at your time of birth, expressed in GMT.

That involves calculating the fraction of daily travel that each planet has made since the previous midnight (the time given in the ephemeris) using the midnight positions on the day you were born and on the next day. So if you were born at the GMT equivalent of 6:00 a.m, then each planet will have moved 25% of it's daily travel and you can get the positions accurately for your birth. Dave mentions the acceleration of the interval but as long as you have the correct timings, that is a small adjustment and getting it wrong or missing it out is not a fail reason in itself (though if there are a series of errors it might contribute to it.)

Once you have the planetary positions for your time of birth then you need to plot those on your chart and this means finding your MC and ASC. For that you will need to have the table of houses and the longitude and latitude of the place. The table uses Sidereal Times, so you will need to convert your time of birth to ST. The ephemeris will give you the ST for each midnight and you can either do the calculation by hand or you can use a table which gives you the adjustments you need to make to the midnight ST to get your birth ST. What then follows is a look up in the table of houses and some interpolations to get the MC and ASC for your location.

Final step, draw out your chat wheel, mark the ASC and MC and then draw in the intermediate house cusps using your desired house system. Finish off by plotting the planets at their calculated positions..

Do ALL your charts between now and the exam that way, and keep the computer for presentation. Try doing one and posting your calculations here, just to keep your hand in and get some feedback. Look out for some books that cover the calculation step by step. I used to use Parker's Astrology, or Nick Campion's Practical Astrologer. but there are other books if you can find one still in print, such as John Filbey's Natal Charting.

Back then . . .

Minderwiz, some book/location atlas' have for each city/town the long. and lat. plus the Longitude Equivalent. This saves the conversion to LST from GMT. It all comes out the same. Now, with computers, one doesn't care. But for manual calculations one should make the investment and get all the books and tables one needs. It takes too much time to try and learn on the cheap. Dave

dadsnook2000 said:

Minderwiz, some book/location atlas' have for each city/town the long. and lat. plus the Longitude Equivalent. This saves the conversion to LST from GMT. It all comes out the same. Now, with computers, one doesn't care. But for manual calculations one should make the investment and get all the books and tables one needs. It takes too much time to try and learn on the cheap. Dave

Click to expand...

Totally agree with you Dave. Although programs like Google Earth can give exact latitude and longitude they're of no use in an exam. I started with an old atlas bought for geographical purposes but which did have the co-ordinates of major cities.

That does introduce some error for nearby towns or rural locations but the maps at least provided the lines of latitude and longitude so an approximation could be made.

The thing about doing it manually is that you learn why[/] these steps are necessary and understand how a chart lonks a person or event to the planets.

Y'all are so incredibly helpful - I'm learning a tremendous amount from the two of you. And from everyone else, of course. Thanks for your comments.

rmcfarron said:

I'm working my way through the AFA correspondence course. Much kudos, it's a really great class. Quite the thing to focus me after a few years of randomness - oh, an astrology book, let's read that, it's fascinating. Oh, life happens, no time to read and study now. Ohhh an astrology book, I must read that, it's fascinating....rinse, repeat. So, I said to myself, self you need something to focus your interest. You want to do astrology???? Okay, let's take an approach here.

The course is great, I'm learning lots and it's doing exactly what I wanted it to do. A reasoned approach - learn this, now learn this, practice, practice, practice. I can follow the math in the lessons. And I know to take the exam, you have to do the math with no helpful forms. That scares me. Having to memorize all those steps....

Someone tell me it gets easier if I just work at it.....

Click to expand...

Hi, why would you not just use the software? I know some of the geometry behind the charts, but I almost never calculate anything. I use Kepler 7.0 and it obviates the need to calculate almost anything. A handy trick when you're eyeballing aspects is to look for the same degrees, and when you know your way around the zodiac you know the Ptolemaic aspect.

econdude said:

Hi, why would you not just use the software? I know some of the geometry behind the charts, but I almost never calculate anything. I use Kepler 7.0 and it obviates the need to calculate almost anything. A handy trick when you're eyeballing aspects is to look for the same degrees, and when you know your way around the zodiac you know the Ptolemaic aspect.

Click to expand...

Because you're not allowed to take computers into the examination

rmcfarron said:

I'm working my way through the AFA correspondence course.

Click to expand...

Professional Astrology courses all test to see that the candidate is able to construct a chart using an ephemeris, a table of houses and their understanding of the process and their mathematical skills.