Hellenistic Astrology

Ronia said:

That's a relief! Thank you! I thought these were for a nocturnal birth, I'm so lost. LOL Back to the beginning of the thread!

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You're a Day birth. The 'Trigon' in question is therefore the Triplicity in which the Sun is placed. Your Sun is in Scorpio,so it's the Water Triplicity. The 'Trigon' rulers are Venus, Mars and the Moon, in that order. For night births the order would be Mars, Venus, Moon (only the first two are reversed).

Oh... Of course! I guess I should be sleeping already since my brain is not supportive. LOL Thank you for the explanation (again!).

Hellenistic approaches to forecasts

This is by way of an introduction to the last stage of the process - examining a person's life and possibly making a prediction about what further events will befall them. The modern approach to this is dominated by the use of Transits and Secondary Progressions, usually as a combination of outer planets for the former and Moon and inner planets for the latter.

Other methods that are currently used include Solar Arcs and examination of Solar (and other) Return charts. In reality none of these are really 'modern', transits were used in Hellenistic times, Solar Returns have some links to Hellenistic Astrology, but are really the development of Arabic techniques and Secondary Progressions are a Seventeenth Century invention, by Placidus, and designed to approximate Primary Directions, which were the main forecasting technique of the time, but involved complex mathematics. Whilst the origins of Primary Directions can be traced back to Hellenistic times, the method was really a development of the Arab and Medieval Astrologers. However virtually none of these methods, apart from Transits were used in Hellenistic times.

Instead the Hellenistic Astrologers used methods that would be familiar to practioners of Jyotish (Indian Astrology), at least in principle. They used Time Lords, or planetary periods - each planet in turn taking ruling a period of your life, sometimes aided by other planets who ruled sub periods, which could be broken down to years, months and days. The difference is that whereas, the dashas, have lasted into the present day, the Time Lord systems, died out in medieval times, as the focus was turned onto Primary Directions, Revolutions (Return charts) and Transits.

There are around 43 different dashas, that are in use. In comparison Delphic Oracle offers 63 Time Lord measures, though if variants are excluded this boils down to about 11 or 12 different systems. To make matters more complicated these methods could be used in conjunction, (allowing a fairly large number of combinations, and a huge number if variants are counted separately). Given that we only have a small fraction of the Hellenistic texts, there may be other systems that we just don't know about.

These Time Lord systems would identify the tone of a period (including sub periods) based on the nature of the planet ruling the period and it's strength and placement in your chart. The precise timing of events would come from the use of transits.

I'm not going to use all 11 major systems, mainly because some are very new to me. Instead I'm going to concentrate on 2 systems, which I have at least some familiarity with. The first is Zodiacal releasing and the second is Profections. The first system was used by Chris Brennan to predict the outcome of the 2012 US Presidential election (which he got right LOL) but also allowed him to predict some twists which other forecasters missed. For those interested in his election predictions you can read more at:

http://politicalastrologyblog.com/


I'll cover the main ways in which the techniques were applied in the following posts

Triplicities and Trigons plus Egyptian Terms/Bounds

I did have a request for a list of the Egyptian Terms or Bounds

Rather than reinvent the wheel, here's a link to Skyscript which has a convenient table in the article.

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/dig3.html

Here's a link to a very interesting article covering the Trigons

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/triplicities.html

For those of you who have downloaded and installed the freebie, Morinus (Traditional Version), you can select Egyptian Terms and the Dorothean Triplicities from the Options/Minor dignities menu.

Planetary Periods

Most of the Time Lord methods make use of Planetary Periods in some form or other. The Hellenistic Astrologers attributed three periods to each planet, however by far and away the most important are the so called lesser or minor periods. These can be directly tied to astronomical events.

These periods are usually related to the synodic cycle with the Sun, that is the period between conjunctions, taken to a whole number of years.

Thus Saturn has a period of 30 years (synodic period 29.46 years)

Jupiter has a period of 12 years (synodic cycle 11.86 yeas)

For Mars the number is 15 years (during 15 years there are 7 conjunctions of Mars and Sun)

For Venus it is 8 years (in exactly every 8 years there are 5 conjunctions of Venus and the Sun)

For Mercury the number is 20 years (in 20 years there are 63 conjunctions of Sun and Mercury)

For the Sun, the number is 19 years - that being the length in whole years of the Metonic cycle between New Moons or Full Moons in the same sign

For the Moon the number is 25 years, there being 309 Conjunctions of Sun and Moon in 25 years.

The same numbers can be used for months or days. So when looking at months, Saturn's period would be 30 months, or Mars' period would be 15 months.

For calculation purposes this can become quite complicated because the Egyptians used a month of exactly 30 days, giving a 12 month year of 360 days (with 5 intercalary days added to make 365). Factor in the true year of 365.25636 days and manual calculations can be difficult.

However, you can see the results easily using the freebie program Aphesis available for download at:

http://www.tucows.com/preview/285560

This will give you the dates of periods using a modern calendar.

It's a small program and should be easy to install and run, though I know Kalliope has had problems with it. I've run it on 3 computers with three different versions of Windows and I haven't had issues. So try it and see if it runs for you. Then you can double check the periods I come up with and even investigate your own periods.

So in summary the periods are:

Saturn 30 (years, months, days)
Jupiter 12
Mars 15
Sun 19
Venus 8
Mercury 20
Moon 25

And of course, you could just sit back and let me supply the dates for you.

I'm installing the program now but I don't understand how to predict an event as it's too long to say it's going to happen in a Saturn cycle of 30 years, for example... I'll wait to see how you'll use all these and then try to do something myself. Right now I use all SR, transits, progressions (only for the general tone or a general confirmation of possibility) but then I use directions combined with transits to shorten the period to a month or so.

Ronia said:

I'm installing the program now but I don't understand how to predict an event as it's too long to say it's going to happen in a Saturn cycle of 30 years, for example... I'll wait to see how you'll use all these and then try to do something myself. Right now I use all SR, transits, progressions (only for the general tone or a general confirmation of possibility) but then I use directions combined with transits to shorten the period to a month or so.

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Well Aphesis also allows you to look at sub periods down to a few days. I'll take you through it when I do your Stage 4, probably early next week.

Profections

Profections are based on a cycle of 12 years. Your natal chart is incremented by one sign in every year, thus your Ascendant and planets pass through the entire zodiac during thE 12 year cycle. At the end of the 12 years the cycle begins afresh.

In Hellenistic times profections were annual, monthly, daily and indeed hourly. For example when you were born if, your Ascendant was 23 degree 14 minutes Scorpio. On your first birthday, by profection it would shift to 23, 14 Sagittarius, on your second birthday to 23, 14 Capricorn, on your third to 23, 14 Aquarius and so on till on your twelfth birthday it returns to 23, 14 Scorpio.

Using the above example If your Ascendant has shifted to 23, 14 Aquarius, then, using whole sign houses, it will be the affairs of the fourth House of your natal chart that will be highlighted. This does not mean that every 12 years the same fourth house issues come up. The fourth covers a variety of topics. So in one cycle the home may be the focus but in the next it might be your family or parents. Moreover transits can bring shades of difference, even if the same particular areas recur.

By the Seventeenth Century the months, weeks and days of the year were examined by directing the Ascendant (and usually the Sun, Moon, MC and Lot of Fortune) by moving it a rate of approximately 1/12 of a degree per day, such that over the year it moved one whole sign. The aspects made by the profected Ascendant (or planet, identified the key days of the year).

In Hellenistic times the system was different for the months, weeks and days. This was done by dividing the period into 12ths and moving the Ascendant by 1/12 per period. So for example, if we take months, in an Aquarius year, the first month is also Aquarius, the second is Pisces, the third Aries, the fourth Taurus, etc. The count starts at your birthday, so if you were born on July 4th, the month would be 4th July - 3 August, the second would be a Pisces month, from 4th August to 3rd September, and so on.. It's possible to subdivide the month into days, so in an Aquarius year your birthday would by Aquarius Year), Aquarius (Month) Aquarius (Day), the next day would be Aquarius, Aquarius, Pisces.

In essence this focuses attention on the signs and therefore the houses. The affairs of each day are derived from the house of the sign whose day it is. Aspects would relate to the sign ruler both natally and by transit. Similarly transits of the sign might well be important, and something not met in modern Astrology, if the sign/house is empty, it could still be transited by aspect. That means that even if you had no planets in Pisces, during the second month of the year, any transiting planet that cast an aspect into Pisces, could still have an impact. So if Saturn were transiting Virgo, it would cast it's opposition into Pisces, and the affairs of your fifth House would be affected by that aspect (during that month).

At any one time, you could have three houses affected, the annual one in which the profected Ascendant had move, the monthly one and even a daily one. Indeed As the rulers of those three houses would themselves be active, this could double the number of active houses, either by sign or by transit. It is something of a mistake to believe that the Hellenisitic Astrologers, only allowed one house to be active at any one time. But remember the transits would directly related to the house being considered.

Some of the Hellenistic Astrologers, such as Vettius Valens, had quite sophisticated systems of profection, using not only the Ascendant, but the Sun and Moon, planets and event houses (i.e. the topical areas of your natal chart). I'm going to keep it to the simple level using the Ascendant but you should realise that there is much more that could be done with profections.

Order of Business

I'll look at the PNA for Jessyboo next and then do the Stage 3 readings for Ana, and Spiraling

Stage 3 Reading for Ana's Song

Ana's Song said:

Minderwiz, since Ronia's already had a livelihood/career Stage 3 reading, how about looking at my love relationships for my Stage 3? This should be a pretty easy to target and go into detail, rather than for my career?

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Ana you don't know what you got me into LOL. I've spent quite some time reading Adult-Rated Astrology, some of it XXX rating I never knew there were lecherous Signs and Decans but as this is a family site I better be very careful and avoid direct quotes.

So, as you would expect the seventh House is a place to examine and also Venus, plus the Lots of Fortune, Spirit, Eros and Marriage

The Seventh House is ruled by Mercury, whichi is in the second House and is therefore averse to the Horizon. (1st/7th axis). Mercury is in none of his own dignities but is under the Sun's beams. To the right it is sextiled by Jupiter and squared by Saturn and Mars. As Mercury tends to signify destabilising influences this is not a particularly good start to the examination. If we allow this as a Day birth, then at least Saturn should not be a malefic influence, as it is in it's own Exaltation. But Mars,' square is not good and Jupiter's sextile is not really enough to offset the Square from Mars.

That being said the seventh does not receive any squares or oppositions. It's trine by Venus and the Moon from the Right and from Saturn and Mars from the Left. Mars will not be a good influence but a trine is better than a square or opposition. Venus and the Moon will be beneficial and even Saturn is likely to be a reasonable influence. So for the seventh as a whole things are not very stable (through Mercury and Mars) but there are some good affects (through Moon and Venus).

Venus is placed in the third, a cadent House but she is sextiled by Fortune in the Ascendant. Venus is ruled by Saturn, which trines it from it's own Sign of Libra, where Saturn is exalted. There is a mutual reception here by sign, by sign and both planets are in the Bounds of Venus, so there is a definite affinity in this chart.

The third is the House of the Goddess, and Venus here can have gifts of prophecy. Venus is with the Moon, who joys in the House of the Goddess. This conjunction may suggest marriages with someone from the mother's family, though usually Mercury would need to be in aspect.

The trine from Saturn, adds moderation and mercy, and know for good and modest behaviour. The square from Mars, though might indicate some trouble with men, leading to behaviour that is out of character. Which I suppose means you need to be careful in your choices.

The conjunction with the Moon, is said to make the natives, handsome, agreeable and distinguished and offers the opportunity of success. However it's a sign that marriages may be unstable (because of the changeability of the Moon) and therefore require quite a bit of effort to maintain.

The square to Venus from Jupiter, from the right. This is said to bring many friends and is associated with activities that protect women.

Dorotheus advises that we should check the Trigon Lords of Venus when assessing the chances of marriage. If these are in angular or succedent houses the chances of marriage are high.

In your case Venus is in the Air triplicity, so the Trigon Lords are Saturn, Mercury and Jupiter. Saturn and Mercury Are indeed in succedent houses (11th and 2nd) but Jupiter is in a Cadent house(12th). So no guarantee but good prospects.


The next stage is to look at the various Lots.

Your Lot of Fortune is well placed in the first House but its ruler Jupiter is in the twelfth, cadent from it.

Your Lot of Spirit is in the second house, which is a succedent house and is ruled by Saturn, which is in its exaltation and the house of Good Spirit.

Both Lots are well placed, Spirit has the more strongly placed ruler and is sextiled by Jupiter and squared by Saturn. The Lot of Spirit signifies your mind, soul, intellect. What you choose to do and how you try to influence your environment. Here that is done carefully and firmly and with the very best of intentions.

Other Lots that we can consider are:

Eros - which deals with relationships. These relationships are not just romantic but will included friendships

Marriage - which has obvious connotations of long term relationships

Husband - the marriage partner

The trouble is that the measures of these Lots vary with authors. This is not just a randome or personmal preference but may indicate a different view of the nature of the subject of the Lot. As the Hellenistic periiod lasted over 600 years, it's not surprising that the way in which the Lots were calculated or used, changed over that time period.

I have found the following sets for each of the above mentioned Lots:

Eros

I have found three different measures, giving three different answers :

Two are in Aquarius
One is in Scorpio
One is in Capricorn

This means that three out of the four have Saturn as the ruler. Two lie in the third house, one in the second.

Marriage

There are four different measures of marriage for women

Two of them lie in Virgo - tenth house ruled by Mercury
One lies in Aries, ruled by Mars
One lies in Leo ruled by the Sun.

The one in Aries, seems to give a more contractual or binding view of marriage, as it uses Saturn and Venus. The one in Leo is a more sensual view, using Venus and Mars. The ones in Virgo use the same calculation for day and night and one of them is the day version of the Aries Lot - So I'll use all three

There are two general Lots of marriage, which apply to both men and women

The first falls into Virgo and whilst not at the same degree will effectively be the same as the Virgo Lots for Women above.

The second is in Capricorn and is effectively the same as the Eros Lot in that sign.

Husband

This is the same as the Aries Lot for Marriage above.

Summary

The following sign/houses seem to be relevant to your relationships

Aquarius ruled by Saturn - 3rd House

Capricorn ruled by Saturn - 3rd House

Aries ruled by Mars - 5th House

Virgo - ruled by Mercury 10th House

Leo ruled by the Sun - 9th House

Conclusions

Aries and Capricorn are places, Virgo is angualar amd Leo and Aquarius are caden (though both configured to the Ascendant). The Capricorn Lots are with the Lot of Spirit and so suggest relationships that are more soul or mind based - you are looking for a soul mate. This is emphasiised by Saturn in the house of Good Spirit. The Aquarius Lots are avese to Spirit but are configured to Fortune - Even though both signs are ruled by Saturn, the Aquarius Lots indicted that your desire for relationships is not solely based on the nedd for a soul mate but reflects your more earthly needs as well. Saturn as a unifying force here, keeps the focus on relationships needing to satisfy your soul as well as your body. Though Saturn also gives a practical dimension.

The Aries Lots lie in the House of Good Fortune - which is also associated with Children. Mars is in the House of Good fortune but opposes these Lots that it rules. It this adds a difficulty where children are concerned, it is mitigated by Jupiter trining the Lots and Venus and the Moon sextiling them. There is a clear benefic nature to these Lots In modern terms you love romance, even if it brings the odd difficulty or 'hurt'

The Virgo Lots are ruled by Mercury who also rules the Seventh place. As Virgo is your tenth whole sign house, it's possible that you might seek a work mate as a partner, or someone you meet through work.

The Leo lot returns us to the upper hemisphere and the realms of the Soul. Leo is your ninth House the House of the God. the Sun is rising and it's illumination is going to fill the upper hemisphere with light. Again it seems to emphasise your need for a soul mate. Possibly on an instinctive level here because the Lot of Spirit opposes it as do Venus and the Moon. This Lot is based on instinct rather than mind.

There seem to be many influences on your Love Life, but overall it seems that for you, finding a soul mate is very important, though not to the exclusion of everything else. This could make selecting a long term partner more difficult, , especially given Mercuiry's role as Ruler of the Seventh Place, and it's position under the beams.- - making it difficult to see clearly.

Venus though is not badly afflicted or weak in dignity and sextiles the Lot of Fortune and the Ascendant. The relationship between Venus and Saturn is important in your chart. It not only is the basis of more than one Lot it is one of mutual reception and also by bounds. Saturn rules a number of the Lots and holds promise.