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Hi JulieYvonne,

Haven't read the book but now I want to because I checked 5 very difficult years :-cry and every one of those solar returns had one of the troublemaking placements. :shock:

Not exactly a Gauquelin quality study but quite striking in an early stage kind of way.

Tara

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Haven't read the book but now I want to because I checked 5 very difficult years and every one of those solar returns had one of the troublemaking placements
Check also 5 good years and you will probably found that it doesn?t make a lot of sense... too many factors.

According strictly to the criteria above, I would have every 5 years out of 6 as a awful year.
Last edited by yuzuru on Fri Sep 10, 2010 11:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Meu blog de astrologia (em portugues) http://yuzuru.wordpress.com
My blog of astrology (in english) http://episthemologie.wordpress.com

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The book is remarkable in my view because Discepelo states unequivically that having a solar return year which places the natal mars, or the sun, or the ascendent into the 1st, 6th, or 12th house of the solar return portends a year of extreme trouble and trauma.
The probability of this happening in a given year is quite high.

One of the three planetary placements (Mars, Sun, or ASC) alone has a 25% probability of falling into those three houses (1st, 6th or 12th house = 3/12), and then multiply that probability by three. In other words, I think it's about a 75% chance. So everyone has a 25% chance of not having a crummy year? I know some people who seem to never have a crummy year whereas others have one almost every year (as you might expect in some natal birth charts vs. others).

Perhaps in addition to other difficult placements.
Haven't read the book but now I want to because I checked 5 very difficult years and every one of those solar returns had one of the troublemaking placements.
I'd expect that you had some good years where this was the case too though.

Re: Solar Returns

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JulieYvonne wrote:
In any event, since I have been viewing a thread on precessed solar returns for a long spell, I wanted to ask if anyone here has read the (non-precessed) solar return book by Ciro Discepelo, translated from the Italian.

The book is remarkable in my view because Discepelo states unequivically that having a solar return year which places the natal mars, or the sun, or the ascendent into the 1st, 6th, or 12th house of the solar return portends a year of extreme trouble and trauma.
Ciro Discepolo is well known in Italy, because in practice is only subject is the solar return, in particular what he calls "aimed solar return" (his English), i.e. a solar return travel.

He advises his clients to travel in the most impossible places of the world- for example Russia before the Berlin Wall fall (true example) for the moment of the exact solar return, with the goal of moving planets from an house to another.

No other astrologer in Italy can mention solar return (even not "aimed" ones) or organizing a lecture on it without provoking Discepolo wrath.

About his sources he mentions his 30 years of work with them; in practice from what I understood it's just the modern version of Renaissance texts. He has obviously a French background, Morin and between moderns Volguine- who incidentally translated and published in French Francesco Giuntini part of Speculum Astrologiae under the French name of "Trait? des Revolutions Solaires" published in 1960 by Cahiers Astrologiques.

It's a mix of traditional aphorisms (sources never mentioned) with modern stuff like the "aimed" return.

Anyway he has a blog where he writes in English too....

http://cirodiscepolo.blogspot.com/

but the funniest things are in Italian, obviously, :)


About the solar returns I just would say that solar returns in the past were always combined with many other techniques.

The same Morin- Tom? - recommends to use them with directions. So I believe that aphorisms Discepolo uses are effective, yes, but looking just at the solar return is not the complete traditional method.

On the other hand why for a traditional astrologer the 1st, the 6th and the 12th are dangerous for health being obviously the first house the body, and the 6th and the 12th as much as obvious.

margherita
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

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The same Morin- Tom? - recommends to use them with directions. So I believe that aphorisms Discepolo uses are effective, yes, but looking just at the solar return is not the complete traditional method.
The original question wasn?t asked from a traditional perspective, but the point that Marguerita is trying to make is important. Originally, Solar returns were used combined with several techniques, because, let?s face it, when one sees a SR without any frame of reference, one can say whatever they want. That is why using SR with hindsight is usually a dangerous approach.

I find that SR are particularly useful when combined with profections and firdaria, and I would invite anyone with interested in traditional astrology to try this approach.
I'm no mathematician but I don't believe it's this straightforward probability wise. People with natal ASC of long ascension will have more solar return years with a natal ascendent, for instance. Long or short ascension also affect the solar return sun placement cycle.
Not exactly, because Tanit is not analysing any particular sign or configuration. It will affect any given solar return sun placement, but on average, it will not affect the probability distribution.

What will do affect the distribution are the lack of independence of the factors analysed. For instance, the position of mars is not independent of the sun. But the spirit here was of giving a rough estimate, not a statistical calculation.
n other words, I think it's about a 75% chance. So everyone has a 25% chance of not having a crummy year?
Again, not exactly. :P Even as a guesstimate, is more correct to say that the chance of NOT having a crummy year would be of (1 - 0.25)^3, which is 0.75x0.75x0.75 = 0.422 = 42%
Meu blog de astrologia (em portugues) http://yuzuru.wordpress.com
My blog of astrology (in english) http://episthemologie.wordpress.com

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JulieYvonne wrote: I know his demonizing of the 12th and 6th house is traditional, but I was surprised at the first house being included. Also, he insists that the 8th is not to be feared nearly as much as these
From a traditional point of view is an obvious point, because we know that according Ptolemy the body is ruled by the Moon and the Ascendant.

For example from Giuntini, the chapter is "Health and illness":

5- The return Ascendant ruler well disposed and in its domicile the native will have good health. But if in the Ascendant he will be strong in the body.

And on the other hand

When the radix or the return Moon is damaged and it is in the place of radix Mars or Saturn, in the return 1st, 6th, and the 12th, foretells an unfavorable disease in the year.

The problem with Discepolo is he does not mention traditional background so it makes no sense for modern astrologers where he puts himself.

I agree with Yuzuru and warmly recommend Giuntini book, which explains how combining chronocrators, firdaria, profections and solar returns. Between the rest for the part of profections Giuntini takes from Vettius Valens, while for solar returns he takes from Albumasar book on revolution of the years.

margherita
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

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About the solar returns I just would say that solar returns in the past were always combined with many other techniques.

The same Morin- Tom? - recommends to use them with directions. So I believe that aphorisms Discepolo uses are effective, yes, but looking just at the solar return is not the complete traditional method.
Just caught this.

Morin specifically, but he is not the only one uses solar returns with other methods. I'll mention what I've learned from him, but keep in mind that he is not the only one who ever said these things.

The natal chart is obviously necessary. The solar return without the natal chart is just a transit chart. We can't argue simultaneously that the nativity is the source of everything in the life and then say, "But we don't need it when we look at the solar return." That's senseless. Sure a planet can rule one thing in the nativity and another in the return, but what it rules in the nativity is affected by what it rules in the return. It does not stand alone.

Morin, like most traditional authors agreed with the primacy of primary directions. When a direction perfected and agreed with things in the solar return, that was strong evidence that the astrologer's prediction would be correct and the event would be very important. The idea is that the cosmic gears need to mesh.

Contemporary astrolgoers can use secondary progressions where Morin and others used primary directions. Morin also used the expression "under the influence of [a particular direction]." To me this means he allowed some leeway and did not just use perfection as the key. If a direction to the MC is close several solar returns should be cast to look for the similarities.

The very best example of how all this works is Morin's treatment of the chart and death (hey this is traditional astrology. We have an obligation to kill off our subjects) of Gustav Adolphus, the King of Sweden. In that example absolutely everything from the nativity to direction to the solar and lunar returns to the transits on the day of his death fit absolutely perfectly. You will live to be 1000 years old and do millions of charts and you will never see anything work as well as this example. But it is a valuable tool to learn the ideas behind the techniques.

Tony Louis' book on Solar Returns is a good overview of various techniques, traditional and modern, including, but not limited to Morin.

Aphorisms:

Aphorisms, the good ones are valuable tools. Many of them, by the best astrolgoers, contain wonderful gems of wisdom. But it must be kept in mind there is an "all other things being equal" warning that is unspoken. All other things are rarely equal. This does not diminish their usefulness, but rather it puts them into perspective.

Tom