Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune by Chris Bennan

Minderwiz

Barleywine said:
Would you say this is a good place to start with Time Lords or is there a better starting point? (I have the Valens material you sent me a while ago but haven't penetrated far into it yet, and have only seen it touched on briefly in other books on traditional astrology.) I get the gist of it, but what I'm after is sound practical-application guidance that makes it clear how they're used, including examples

For the two techniques Brennan looks at; Annual Profections and Zodiacal Releasing this is an excellent introduction with plenty of examples. However there are a lot more techniques that were used, and these aren't really examined at all. There is reference to the length of life calculations, which could involve the Hellenistic forerunner of Primary Directions, known as Circumambulations. But may other techniques listed in Delphic Oracle just don't get covered. either in the course or in the book. It may be that Chris intends to look at these in a more advanced course and a second book but here he looks at the techniques he finds most useful.


Computer Programs

I have Delphic Oracle, SolarFire, Morinus and Janus. I took advantage of the offer on Delphic Oracle for course members. I quite like it, but then I use Windows and there tend to be bugs in new releases. It's not as polished as SolarFire, for which Chris Brennan has written a Hellenistic Astrology Page, though I think it's not particularly easy to implement unless you have some familiarity with the elements of page design. It took me quite some time to install it from Chris' instructions.

Traditional Morinus is free and it's unsurpassed in it's ability to provide the Lots that you want to use, although you have to enter them all manually. It can do things that other Astrology programs struggle with, if they're not automatically provided. Lots based on other Lots are a case in point. Morinus makes that easy. DO is aimed at Hellenistic Astrology and Medieval Astrology, so you will find it a little difficult to use outside it's design parameters, whereas SolarFire can cope with most things you through at it. and the same goes for Morinus, if you include the full version for Modern Astrology.

PS there now appears to be a native Mac version of Delphic Oracle' but if it's anything like the Windows version it will be very heavy on graphics, so you need a fairly recent computer. I actually prefer DO 8 to DO 9 for general use it's much more stable
 

Petr

It is important to note what Demetra George writes in the foreword of the book.

Much of our study has been collaborative as I also have been writig a book, Ancient Astrology: A practitiones Guide, a step-by-step workbook for the application of Hellenistic techniques to one's own chart. These two books will be companion pieces with some overlaps and some differences, but our hopes are that together they will provide both the theotretical and practcal tools for study of Hellenistic astrology.

Other techniques Time Lords will be discussed there.

An interesting module for calculating Zodiacal Releasing ist in the free program Planetdance :

http://www.jcremers.com/?id=Planetdance
 

Barleywine

It is important to note what Demetra George writes in the foreword of the book.

Much of our study has been collaborative as I also have been writig a book, Ancient Astrology: A practitiones Guide, a step-by-step workbook for the application of Hellenistic techniques to one's own chart. These two books will be companion pieces with some overlaps and some differences, but our hopes are that together they will provide both the theotretical and practcal tools for study of Hellenistic astrology.

Other techniques Time Lords will be discussed there.

An interesting module for calculating Zodiacal Releasing ist in the free program Planetdance :

http://www.jcremers.com/?id=Planetdance

I downloaded Planetdance and took a look at it. Seems it might be a bit buggy. When I switched the house system of my natal chart to Whole Sign Houses from Placidus, instead of putting 0 Scorpio 00 on the 1st House cusp with the Ascendant at 25 Scorpio 06, it put the ascending degree on the cusp, although it had the Descendant correctly set at 0 Taurus 00, and all the other cusps were also correct at zero degrees.

It's going to take me a while to get familiar with it to the point I can explore Zodiacal Releasing.
 

Minderwiz

The best program for ZR is Delphic Oracle, because it not only manages to look at 4 levels, it allows the transits at any point in levels 3 and 4 to be shown, so if a period is going to be busy, it might be possible to time key events.

Curtis Manwaring has also produced a freebie program called 'aphesis,'which does the periods for you but doesn't all any charts to be created. Solar Fire v9x has the ability to tabulate the main ZR periods down to level 4 but it's not as easy to use, mainly because it will only show the level 4 for the current level 3 period and the level 3 period for the current level 2, and the level 2 for the current level 1. It's usable but doesn't integrate with the chart generator. to produce a bi-wheel.

For ZR, I only use Delphic Oracle, because it's easy to move between periods and to also move within periods to find when transits perfect.
 

Petr

I agree. Delphic Oracle is the best.
 

Petr

The best program for ZR is Delphic Oracle, because it not only manages to look at 4 levels, it allows the transits at any point in levels 3 and 4 to be shown, so if a period is going to be busy, it might be possible to time key events.


It is important to realize, that the time values are given in UT. This is reflected in the fourth level. Other programs use zone time. There may be significant differences.
 

foolMoon

This is a great book by Chris Brennan. The first 150 pages of the book is dedicated to the History of Traditional Astrology, and then the rest is about the details of techniques and principles of Hellenistic Astrology. Highly recommended.