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GR,


I think a number of people have looked at these texts. Schmidt's advantage seems to be his impressive philosophical nous and his language skills. The article discussed above I did find impenetrable here and there, which I don?t recall experiencing with his writing previously. I have been more interested in his ideas about the metaphysical foundations than the astrological ones.

How can you disagree ? I have a clear memory of the first time I went to Africa and encountered the qualia of the heat there. I don?t think any amount of travel books, TV programmes, paintings or what have you could have prepared me for this. Further, these contexts alter one?s mind and body, so to speak.


I would have thought the context would matter considerably. Perhaps even the astrological context i.e. is one at the time seeking friends or feeling friendly. I think there is some data that we make our ?best? friends earlier in life. Are you asking as a way of explaining to me the answer to this friendly, do you know your Valenistic horoscopy, thought experiment?

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I am attempting to make a semi-systematic study of houses prior to late antiquity and I am just finding the thematic house contents to be "all over the map." In my abundant spare time (!) I am trying to look up the archaeological sources in the academic literature, which cover things like ostraca (inscriptions on ceramics), papyri, and carvings on wood. Otto Neugebauer rocks!

I would welcome any critical feedback on the following.

I think that in Firmicus Maternus Matheseos Librii VIII (4th century), there is a definite attempt to stitch together different traditions or ways of looking at houses into a coherent whole. Depending upon how you want to count them, FM gives three to five different readings of thematic/topical house contents just in the first book. Which is why I wonder whether some of the authors (cf. Valens) either were disorganized, or else stitched together material from different sources; or were themselves emended by a later copyist or translator.

I:xiv-xv, he names only 8 houses, but equally refers to "the cardinal points".

1. Practical and Neutral House Definitions
1. Ascendant, "the House of Life"
2. Expectation of Inheritance and Wealth (no "Gates of Hell")
3. Brothers and Sisters (sisters absent from works cited above, no goddess)
4. Parents (mothers added in), IC
5. Children (not "good fortune")
6. Health (a bit more neutral than the horrible 6th house of others?)
7. Spouse, Descendant
8. Death
9. ? (not given)
10. "The Medieum Caelum is the 10th house from the ascendant, but sometimes also the MC is found exactly in the 11th sign from the ascendant."
11. ? (not given)
12 ? (" ")

What is notable is that these are all very practical meanings and generally neutral in meaning.

2. Spiritual and Geometrical Meanings
Then in section I: xvi, we get a different, spiritual or religious reading for four favourable houses, also defined by the geometrical relation to the cardines. Maybe FM was merely segregating the profane from the sacred. Some other authors didn't see #3 as notably favourable.

3. Dea (goddess)
9: Deus (god)
5. Good Fortune
11. Good Daemon

xvii: Unaspected houses are unfavourable because they do not aspect the ascendant. So we move from the practical to the good/spiritual and geometric to the geometrical and bad spiritual

2. Gate of Hell, or Rising up from the Underworld (i.e., exit-ramp)
8. Casting down into the Underworld (i.e., on-ramp)
6. Bad Fortune
12. Bad Spirit

Why geometry should play such a decisive role in morality (good and evil) is an interesting problem.

3. Eclectic Meanings
Then in section I:xix FM gives a longer discussion of the meaning of the houses, where he sometimes tries to correlate the practical, spiritual, and geometrical. Sometimes no relationship is given. He also throws in additional house meanings not previously mentioned. BTW, it gives a strong sense of an equal house method.

The whole thing is too long to post here, but the highlights are:

1. "life and vital spirit", character, cornerstone of the nativity

2. "increase in personal hopes and in material possessions." (Sounds good, yet this house is weak and called the Gate of Hell because it doesn't aspect the ascendant.)

3. Dea, brothers and friends, travelers. No explanation of connections. weak sextile to Asc

4. (No mention of parents.) IC, family property, substance, possessions, household goods "anything that pertains to hidden and recovered wealth", an underworld association. cf. with 2nd house!

5. Good fortune "because it is the house of Venus", number and sex of children.

6. Physical infirmities and sickness, Bad Fortune "because it is the house of Mars." Usually unfavourable due to inconjunct status

7. "descendent or setting", marriage

8. Epicatafora or casting into Hell (probably of the sun.) Type of death. "No planet rejoices in this house except the moon, and then only in nocturnal charts." Certain waxing moons portend huge riches, glory, and power, however! (So much for geometrical relationships.)

9. House of the Sun God, social class of men, religion, foreign travel.

10. MC, "life and vital spirit" (cf. 1st house), actions, country, home, dealings with others, careers, infirmities of mind.

11. Good Daemon, House of Jupiter

12. Bad Daemon, enemies, slaves, defects, illnesses, house of Saturn

(To be continued....)

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(continued from previous post)

4. Interpreting planets in nativities
In Book I: xx FM recapituates the house names, with some similarities and yet some differences* yet again from his previous lists.

1. Life
2. Hope* [cf. "increase in personal hopes" above]
3. Dea (goddess) or Brothers
4. Parents
5. Children (no "good fortune")
6. Health (no "bad fortune")
7. Spouse
8. Death
9, Deus (god)
10 Medium Caelum
11. Good Spirit
12. Bad Spirit.

"Through these names and houses the character of the entire nativity can be found... notice which planets rule the individual houses."

The rest of the section deals with planets' qualities and aspects, in a general way, with the goal of giving a detailed and accurate nativity. There are no more specific house-planet affiliations, however.

5. Planets in Houses
In book III, we can read between the lines, and see further topical meanings of the houses.

In taking the second house as an example, I have underlined meanings consistent with those in Book I.

Saturn [by night??] in the second house "indicates serious illnesses and great reverses of fortune. The native becomes a murderer of his wife and children, a frequent agitator of great public disturbances, and he wastes his maternal and paternal inheritances. He is slow in all his activities and suffers from continuous body afflictions."

Saturn by day in the 2nd "will slowly and gradually provide an increase in income. The natives himselves he makes withdrawn, recluses, poor in mind, always denying that they own anything. Some will get their living from watery professions or business having to do with income."

As expected, Jupiter in the 2nd house is favourable for income, but it is not clear how FM derives "adoption by strangers."

Some of the planets in houses make sense by virtue of the nature of the planets (Venus, for example, indicating women) but not specifically of the houses as given in previous sections.

5. Signs in Houses

The focus in Book 5 is on the angular houses, with the house meanings depending upon the nature of the signs.

6. House favourability according to geometry pops up again in book 6. Despite some mitigating effects noted in previous books for planets in the unaspected houses, here houses 2, 8, 6, and 12 are beyond redemption.

7. Derived Houses, House Lords (too complicated for this time of night!)

As I suggested above, it is possible that FM wrote the organizational scheme he found entirely consistent and logical with the astrology of his day, but there is also a possibility that we are seeing several different strata here, notably because there seem to be several different underlying principles at work in the different sections.

We kind of get a sense of FM as collator in the preamble to Book IV, when he says that he is transmitting material from 8 named astrologers "and all the others knowledgeable in this art." Astrologers named "Orpheus" and "Aesclepias" are probably mythical and hence fictitious; although real people probably wrote under their pseudonyms. "We have collected and edited these theories, compared different opinions, and now present them to all the Romans." Book 8 sure sounds a lot like Manilius!

In Book IV:xviii Maternus notes serious disagreements amongst astrologers in how to calculate the chart ruler, then claims his method is "universally approved"!!

But there is another element here, that Firmicus Maternus alludes to several times. Which is, that some astrological lore was deliberately kept secret, to avoid having it profaned by the unlearned and unwashed (IV: xxii.) Amongst the secret (till now) lore was Nechepso's use of decans to predict illness; and allusions to Greek mystery cults and the secrets of initiates (VII:i, VIII: xxxiii.)

Possibly the lack of explanation and unusual combinations of topics within houses reflect religious mysteries that could not be revealed to the public, or that were misunderstood by non-initiate astrologers.

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Guys

You have to integrate the discovery of Schmidt as a rationale for topic-assignment of the houses.

It's as simple as it is revolutionary :' . It is based on the daymovement which makes certain signs to being 'kentra', which is a pivotpoint.
Two signs are focused on this centre: a sign moving away from it, a sign moving towards it.

This creates housetrio's. The fate of these two signs is that they are bound to this kentron. The second sign moves towards the 1st. Thus it represents hope, but not in the way the 11th does. It represents hope as to 'life', the 11th represents hope as related to the 10th, moving through life.
The 12th sign moves away from the 1st, so it represents that which takes away from life. It's life risks.
And so for the other housetrio's.

Second, these houses have Fate-names. This might actually introduce a seperate way of delineating them. :shock: It's an overall Fateconcept, and it's quite seperate from the delineation of the topics of a house.

When you conflagrate them, you might be missing a point. Read Valens book one of his housedelineations, there you'll see the way he treats not of topics, but of general Fateconcepts. Take note of what he wrties about the 6th place.
Hermes

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Hi Hermes (and all)

It sounds like you consider the basic concept of the meanings that extend from the houses and their diurnal revolution to be some sort of revolutionary discovery of Robert Schmidt, which strikes me as a very odd suggestion. Perhaps I'm confused on that - if not, what part of the above do you see as being unique to his understanding, and not fairly obvious to anyone that has studied a variety of traditional works before or after him?

The only thing I understand to be his unique suggestion, is that the use of quadrant division only served the purpose of assessing planetary strength, whilst the use of whole sign was used to dictate the associated house meaning of the planet. It should be remembered that this was put forward by Schmidt and Hand as an hypothesis only, for which it is admitted that there is no actual proof, only speculative suggestions. I've argued before that this theory doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of how house meanings reflect the diurnal movement of houses that are succeeding to the angles/pivots/centres, placed upon them, or falling from them (cadent). The 10th house takes most of its meaning from the fact that it expresses the symbolic principles of the highest point (ditto the 4th house - MC), not from the fact that it is the 10th house from the ascendant, wherever this falls in regard to the horizon.

I haven't been able to follow this discussion or its development BTW, but in case anyone is still interested in the question of ancient house systems, there have been a number of threads concerning this in the forum over recent years. One link I quickly found (which may have been given before) is: http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4412

My own opinion is that we only know half as much as we should know before we start to assume any sort of clear understanding, or suggest that there is definitive knowledge of the principles of house division in ancient times. When astrologers talk about "modern Hellenistic astrology" we need to be careful not to project onto ancient Hellenistic astrology simplified notions that are not fully and clearly identifiable in ancient texts. For this reason it is important that Robert Schmidt's ideas are properly attributed to him, and for us to know where he has brought attention to an unrealised but fairly uncontroversial point, and where he has brought attention to his own speculative ideas, that are generally accepted within the concept of "modern Hellenistic astrology" but which remain controversial in terms of what we can actually reliably establish about ancient astrology.

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Hi Deb
It sounds like you consider the basic concept of the meanings that extend from the houses and their diurnal revolution to be some sort of revolutionary discovery of Robert Schmidt, which strikes me as a very odd suggestion. Perhaps I'm confused on that - if not, what part of the above do you see as being unique to his understanding, and not fairly obvious to anyone that has studied a variety of traditional works before or after him
Oh come on, give the guy some credit!
Give me the sources that correllate the Fate issue(s) with house meanings the way Schmidt described them.
I've argued before that this theory doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of how house meanings reflect the diurnal movement of houses that are succeeding to the angles/pivots/centres, placed upon them, or falling from them (cadent).
Read his article again then. His arguments are quite convincing, but I keep forgetting that it seems not politically correct to give any author more credit than another.
Hermes

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Hermes wrote:
Oh come on, give the guy some credit!
Give me the sources that correllate the Fate issue(s) with house meanings the way Schmidt described them.
Hello Hermes,

If we are discussing giving credit where it is due you might also want to check out Deborah Houlding's book ' The Houses: Temples of the Sky'. This book first appeared in 1996 and it clearly explained the importance of the Solar diurnal cycle and Egyptian solar mysticism in the development of house meanings. It also set out other acknowledged factors today such as the relationship to the ascendant, the planetary joys and the status of houses as angular, succedent or cadent. Oh and the book counterposed the houses with their opposing house across the chart just as Valens suggested. The book was way ahead of its time. Have you read this book?

Of course there is still much more to be said about this subject with new research appearing all the time. For example the Demotic horoscopes discussed by Waybread and myself show contrasts in house meanings with the Greek horoscopes. This issue hasn't received enough emphasis by contemporary hellenistic astrologers. Moreover, as this thread has demonstrated there is also still a lively debate going on regarding the prevalence and use of quadrant and/or equal houses in ancient astrology. We should all keep an open mind for new insights. I just dont put Robert Schmidt's theories on house meanings on quite the pedestal you seem to. I think Deb's book managed to nail a good proportion of the reasons for the early house associations as far back in the mid 1990's.

When I think that less than a decade ago I thought the Howard Sasportas book on houses was definitive I rather cringe. :oops:


Hermes wrote:
... I must admit, I have probably not fully explained Schmidt's line of thought, but you have to read 'Facets of Fate' for that.
You have also not explained why you think the Thema Mundi contributed to house meanings. I worked through the Thema Mundi hypothetically as an intellectual exercise. That doesn't mean I am convinced by your theory. It is you making this claim so I think you need to set out your ideas in far more detail ( any would be good!) if you are really serious about this claim.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

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Hermes, obviously there is subjectivity built into what people consider to be convincing. Unless you know my mind better than I do, you cannot establish what is convincing to me, no matter how many times you ask me to re-read something. :)

I did state, quite clearly, that it is important to acknowledge the source of theories, as well as establish the difference between writings that popularise ideas, the writings that generate new ideas, and the speculative theories that lie in-between. I therefore asked if you could clarify what you considered to be unique to Robert Schmidt, which led you to describe these house ideas as being his discovery and quite revolutionary. It is possible that I am missing something, but the notion of fate-issues being implicit in house meanings does not strike me as revolutionary. I also know for a fact that most of the ideas in his 1999 article were widely distributed before then. There are different perspectives of course, and different phrases and points made about certain ideas, but I cannot see anything in the article that could be described as a significantly revolutionary discovery, except for the idea he presents that the ancient astrologers used different house division methods for entirely seperate purposes. This presents the notion that quadrant systems of division were used but only to establish the strength of the planet, and not in a way that connected them to the meanings of houses derived by quadrant division.

On that point, no I have not been convinced of the argument, but could be if evidence was presented that demonstrated this to be the case. Currently I am in the opposite position of having seen too much evidence of this not being the case.

I agree that this element of the work proposes an original theory, and I am not sure if it belongs to Schmidt more than Hand, or if one proposed whilst the other popularised, or if it arose as a blending of their thoughts. Wherever or however it originated I find it unconvincing, being unsupported by the evidence, and not persuasive in its logic as far as I'm concerned. That happens to be my position on this - worth no more or no less than anyone else's, but I think I am entitled to hold a position without it being suggested that I keep reading the same article until it changes.

So you understand, I don't object to the theory, nor believe that it cannot be put to good use within an intergrated system that follows the teachings and methods of Robert Schmidt. I only question whether it is an accurate and reliable analysis of ancient technique and believe the coverage on that point (in the last two paragraphs of the second page) lacks caution in failing to differentiate between established information and speculation. Note the first sentence of the penultimate paragraph on the 2nd page - "The Hellenistic astrologers did in fact use a number of different systems for dividing the zodiac into twelve houses. However, these various systems were employed for very different purposes." That reads like a fact, but I have heard Robert Hand speak on this and although he supports the theory, he is more cautious in acknowledging that it is an hypothesis only, and not based on evidence by which there can be a clear demonstration of its use in ancient practice.

Also note that Robert Schmidt proposes new terms by which the theory can be referred to in discussion. "We will call a division used for such purpose a tropical house division ... We will call such a division a dynamical system to contrast it to the topical." This is what we are to call them, not what the ancients called them, because there is nothing to demonstrate that they did indeed conceptualise the issues in this particular way. When new ideas like this get introduced into astrological vocabulary I am actually very keen to ensure they are credited to their originator, and that we remain aware of what terms and what ideas are reliably known to be authentic and those that have been newly introduced, or need a little more testing, analysis and evaluation.
Last edited by Deb on Thu Dec 22, 2011 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Hi Deb
I therefore asked if you could clarify what you considered to be unique to Robert Schmidt, which led you to describe these house ideas as being his discovery and quite revolutionary.
Okay, I've been deep into astrology since 1983, I have read and studied many, many books on all sorts of facets of horoscopy, and astrology (including your book Temples of the Skies). Never before have I read anything that explains Fate in relation to houses the way Schmidt does.

You keep saying there is nothing new for you in all this,
I also know for a fact that most of the ideas in his 1999 article were widely distributed before then. There are different perspectives of course, and different phrases and points made about certain ideas, but I cannot see anything in the article that could be described as a significantly revolutionary discovery,
So again, I ask you, please refer me to the sources you seem to have read that do this.
Hermes

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When I think that less than a decade ago I thought the Howard Sasportas book on houses was definitive I rather cringe.


Well Mark I'm sure you're not the only one who has experienced such things. I will not elaborate further, I will only let you guess what skeletons lurk in my astrological closet.

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I am a little bored of:
Task 59, or 71, or 28 is the - Establishment of Topically Specific Time-Lords for the Issues Associated with each Significator.

Mark mentioned the Sasportas and Houlding books. Both enable someone with limited astrological exposure to play with the ideas. Further, both are critical of each other, largely irrespective of one being more focused on Inner, and the other Outer road map horoscopy. Schmidt, as in this article we are loosely discussing, criticises Houlding and has, at least indirectly, been critical of Sasportas. I think he has been quite clear in saying what came after Hellenistic astrology was often, if not largely, deviations based on misunderstandings or vice versa.

I don?t mind the Zoidon's and the Selene?s, as you can eventually translate these and I think his rationale for using them has merit, but without being able to erect a chart where does one start? I would like to see some detailed interpretations by him, and Co. Surely 25-30 years is enough time to start putting something out there so some of us can assess if these ?fated pivots??, or warps and woofs, are more of a fundamentalist fool?s errand or the holy grail.

Perhaps Hermes might give us 5,000 words on Barack Obama to chew over on one of these bleak wintery nights?