Origin of Secondary Progressions

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As so often happens, I was looking for one thing and found another. On another thread the question of when secondary progressions were developed came up and I suggested it they may have orignated with Placidus. I found some confirmation of my thought in The Text-Book of Astrology by AJ Pearce. My copy is a replica of the second edition, wich I believe was originally published in 1910. My copy was published by the AFA in 1970.

Pearce devotes a two and one-half page chapter on page 223 to "Secondary Directions." He first notes the then available English translations of Tetrabiblos by Cooper (Latin to English) in 1816 and Ashmand (Greek to English) in 1822. He approves of both and then tells us that previous translations " ... were wretched and misleading, and led to numerous errors on the part of Lilly, Colley, Sibley, Gadbury, White, and others (when they treated on nativities and the method of directing) ..." If the reader can't guess I"ll give a hint: Pearce is not fond of secondary directing and thinks everyone did primaries wrong as well. He then goes on to say:

Placidus most probably would not have regarded secondary directions as of the slightest importance had he not departed from Ptolemy's equation of arcs of primary direction and substituted for it that of adding the arc to the right ascension of the Sun at birth, and then determining in how many days after the birth the Sun reached such R.A., and allowing for each day one year of life, and for every two hours one month:
Pearce then quotes Placidus:
"By some secondary means," wrote Placidus, "the aspects that are made to the luminaries and angles on those days, jointly assist the significators of the primary directions; for this reason, we say, that the days whereon these aspects happen are very powerful in those years which answer to those days on which they depend. From these motions in preference to the rest, appears the true, real, and hitherto unknown foundation f the critical or climacterial (sic)years; for the Moon almost every seventh day is placed in the critical place with respect to her place in the nativity [is square to her natal position -tc]. We call these motions the secondary directions, to distinguish them from the primary and principal, and we are of the opinion that Ptolemy, writing of annual places is to be understood of the places of those motions, and when of the menstrual, hints at the places of the progression."
Pearce then goes on to denigrate secondaries, and explain how Zadkiel I examined the use of secondaries with primaries and found that the secondaries were of little or no use. All of this is quite beside the point, which was to determine where secondaries originated. If Pearce has his facts right, they originated no later than the 17th century with Placidus.

Tom

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Thank you for the post.

When I first studied astrology (modern of course), I was taught (or surmised) that in prediction, progressed planets set the background and transiting planets are the triggers. I thought that both were the techniques used in ancient times.

I could see why the ancients used transits. What you see above you (transit) is what you see below (events on earth, as above so below).

I had this funny thought when I was still a young modern astrologer. I thought the ancients created progression because they must have seen many transits that did not produce any event (I didn't know there were other predictive methods then!). I thought, because they didn't have proper ephemeris, they would look into the sky (literally) everyday after someone important is born (usually the son of a king) for 2-3 moon cycles and noted the positions of the planets. Since one day is translated to one year, a 3 moon cycle observation of the sky after birth would be enough to map a person's progressed planets for a life time (approximately 90 years) and the life of the newly born person could be foretold...

Obviously, it was my own fantasy!!!

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Attitude shifts are always interesting, at least to me. I recall Noel Tyl disparaging primary directions because all the directions of the normal lifespan took place within about 6 hours of the birth. How could that be of value?

Pearce goes the opposite route. He notes with some pride that primary directions show the important events of a normal lifespan within about six hours after birth, but proressions are nothing more than transits formed days after birth. What good are secondaries?

What is of more interest to me is that in Pearce's day, and in Placidus' day and Morinus' day, that these techniques are used with other techniques, not stand alones. Morinus used primary directions with solar returns. Placidus used secondaries with primaries. All were used as part of a system with the natativity as it's base. The nativity shows the promise, the directions/progressions show the broad developmet, the returns show the specifics and the transits are the triggers.

Modern astrology seems to be inching away from progressions and returns and using transits only.

Tom

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Firmicus refers to these in Mathesis. Both kinds of progression are based on angle -- primary on the rotation of the earth and secondary on its revolution around the sun. They are different time rates. Firmicus used progressions and certainly Morin expounds upon them.

I'm not sure what you mean by the Others ie Modern astrologers not using them. Who and what are you referring to when you use this term 'Modern astrologer'.

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I'm not sure what you mean by the Others ie Modern astrologers not using them. Who and what are you referring to when you use this term 'Modern astrologer'.
I didn't say modern astrologers don't use them, I said they are inching away from them, although my syntax was such that it could easily be misconstrued. I believe they are inching away from techniques like solar returns and progressions. I see more and more emphasis on transits and nothing else. It's all anyone mentions at my astrology club, and the same is true on the various astrology lists. More often than not they are talking about transits to or from the three outer planets. Modern astrologers (and obviously I'm speaking in broad terms; there are specific exceptions) tend to use transits to and from outers almost exclusively in prediction work. Noel Tyl is one example. Another is Sakoian and Aker's book Prediction in Astrology, which I no longer have handy. It is, if I recall correctly, almost exclusively on transits.

Like the term "traditional astrologer," "modern astrolgoer" is not easy to define in a sentence or two. In broad terms this would an astrologer whose basic philosophy, whether he knows it or not, is probably from Alan Leo or Mark Edmond Jones. He has a psychological outlook in delineations, and knows nothing of or doesn't use the tables of dignities, antiscia, reception (to any great extent) or other traditional techniques. Moderns tend to use minor aspects, asteroids, midpoints, and other techniques unknown to astrolgoers of even the 19th century. They use the three outer planets as sign rulers, and rarely go near a fixed star. Ask the astrologer for the ruler of money and astrology. A modern will say, Venus and Uranus respectively; a traditionalist will say Mercury rules astrology and money (medium of exchange); Jupiter rules wealth.

There is less emphasis on prediction, and more on pop psychology in modern astrology. The modern schools of thought were founded by people like John Addey, Alfred Witte, Reinhold Ebertin (similar to Witte), , Marc Edmond Jones, and Dane Rhudyar ( virtually the same as Jones), to name a few. I would consider them all to be modern.

Classical astrologers that post dated Lilly would be, Sibley, Worsdale, the Zadkiels, (Morrison & A.J Pearce), Luke Broughton, and maybe Evangeline Adams to name a few, but I wince a little when I say it. Still others like Aleister Crowley used some traditional techniques and he had some traditional outlooks, but there is too much that I consider modern in his work, so I can't put him in the traditional camp, although Kim will disagree (and so will her daughter whom Kim plays as a trump card when she and I disagree ;-) )

Very roughly the traditional or classical period, in my opinion, ended about 1700. After that, again in my purely personal viewpoint, something is missing. Whether that something is quality, or worldview, I'm not entirely sure, but none of the post Lilly astrologers seem to capture the spirit of the art, or the depth of understanding that is so evident in Lilly's work or the work of Morin, Culpepper, Cardan, or Bonatti. I freely admit this last is a bias of mine, and there will be others who can make intelligent counter arguments.

Obviously this is a highly arbitrary list, as well as a personal outlook; and there is room for disagreement. There are other prominent astrologers I omitted simply because I can't name and catagorize them all. But you asked for my opinion, so there it is.

Tom

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Even in the 17th century astrologers, like Lilly himself, we sometimes see the ending of the tradition in astrology: the worry in being "rational" (not yet the problem of astrology trying to be "scientific"), of not following the older sources, changing them whatever they didn?t agree with them, without even a quote, feeling the right to change whatever that "in my opinion doesn?t work, so I did a system which is better"

All seeds which have grown into our dear 21 century astrology
Y

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For what it's worth - a few years back I was looking at some manuscript journals of Henry Coley (William Lilly's apprentice & heir) in the British Library, and came across this:

"...and the Ascend to the square of Mercury at the very same time according to (?) this (?) way of Direction us'd by Placidus de Titus a monk - about the year 1655."

This occurs in Sloan Ms2280 p.5 - the context is a chart interp. which begins at p.3, "The nativity of Madam Eliz. Hope don by Dr Oznoy Anno 1690" It's handwritten, so the question marks are words which I couldn't figure out.

I don't remember why, but it seemed clear that the form of direction in use was secondary progression, so the point is that , so far as these guys were concerned, Placidus was the Daddy of secondary progressions.

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Secondary progressions are clearly referred to in Anthology of Vettius Valens but the passage is so incrypted to render it gobbledegook. It is not known whether this is deliberate or not but nevertheless they are referred to. It has hard to know what their primary sources were either as it is thought they were some centuries before and nothing has survived intact.