Places of Joy -> Places of Sadness?

1
Good morning,

In Hellenistic and Mediaeval astrologies one finds assignments of topical Places of Joy to the visible wandering stars as follows:
  • Kronos - 12th
    Zeus - 11th
    Ar?s - 6th
    H?lios - 9th
    Aphrodit? - 5th
    Herm?s - 1st
    S?l?n? - 3rd
In analogy to Domiciles - Exiles, Exaltations - Falls, one might infer the following Places of Sadness, opposite the Places of Joy:
  • Kronos - 6th
    Zeus - 5th
    Ar?s - 12th
    H?lios - 3rd
    Aphrodit? - 11th
    Herm?s - 7th
    S?l?n? - 9th
However, until now i have not read this in Hellenistic or Mediaeval astrological literature. Would it be an - oft dreaded by many - 'innovation'?

How much sense does it make, if any?

Best regards,

lihin
Non esse nihil non est.

2
It was an innovation that took place at some point in the Medieval tradition. I haven't been able to find any reference to it in the Hellenistic texts, and in point of fact earlier authors like Valens treat the benefics and malefics as being equally positive or negative if they are in the house opposite to their joy.

3
I'm not sure that from the logic one can infer to joys does follow that the opposite place (to the joy of a planet) would be one of sadness.

If we take Venus, for example, it's place of joy being the 5th, we could say it is so because the 5th is among the joyous places she could be, the one she is most analog to according to a specific notion. Still, the 11th could very well be a place joyous to her, while 12th and 6th houses would not.

According to Al-Biruni, planets can be friendly or injurious to one another, and maybe that could help here. He says that Saturn offers friendship only to Mars and asks it from Venus, for example, being hurtfull towards other stars. There is a table showing these about other planets as well, but the reasoning can get mysterious (The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology, pg. 48, Wright translation).

One thing we could look at is how Sun and Moon are opposites, but less opposite among each other than they are to, say, Saturn, or maybe, even Mercury or Mars. There are degrees of compatibility and discrepancy in a chart build that seems not to be absolute, but do seem to follow a gradation, where a star or place is assigned characteristics steaming from how well it fits with a basic foundation, which to me seems to be Lunisolar.
Paulo Felipe Noronha

Related subject

4
Good morning,

More than two thirds of Shaikh Abu'l Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni's superb The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology teach geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, geography and chonology. The Shaikh deemed mastery of these disciplines prerequisite for astrology.

The amities and enmities amongst planets are related to the subject of this thread. Currently i am applying the 'Sadnesses of the Planets' stated above as an hypothesis.

Venus with Joy in 5th, Sadness in 11th, is indeed a useful illustration. Jupiter rejoices in the 11th. Jupiter is an outer planet, Venus an inner. He is of the diurnal sect, She of the nocturnal. The 'friends' of the 11th, 2nd from the 10th, are methinks more related to the outwardly visible social and professional realms than to the inner realms of lust, love, intimacy and beauty characteristic of Aphrodit? and to the pleasures of the 5th. So 'business and professional' friendships of the 11th with their often pecuniary and political motives might seem 'perverted' (for lack of a more fitting word) according to Venereal criteria. Sad.

The inverse applies analogously to Jupiter posited in the 5th.

Of course others will and may vigorously disagree. :)

Best regards,

lihin
Non esse nihil non est.

Prior reference

5
Good morning,

Meanwhile a prior reference has become known to me that explicitly mentions what might be called 'planets' places of sorrow', namely page 160 of Dr. phil. George C. Noonan's useful book Classical Scientific Astrology, first published in 1984:
"A planet is weak and unfortunate for the native when:
...
At the nadir of their joys (see Chapter II)."
Best regards,

lihin
Non esse nihil non est.

6
Chris Brennan wrote:It was an innovation that took place at some point in the Medieval tradition. I haven't been able to find any reference to it in the Hellenistic texts, and in point of fact earlier authors like Valens treat the benefics and malefics as being equally positive or negative if they are in the house opposite to their joy.
Schmidt addressed this issue directly saying that "planets are not bummed out" when opposite their joys.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

Validation?

7
Good night,

As usual in astrology and other subjects opinions vary even amongst 'experts'. Are innovations inherently incorrect or 'evil'?

As far as I know neither assertion has been subjected to thorough testing. Much more or less coherent speculation, little verification.

Best regards,

lihin
Non esse nihil non est.

8
Indeed, Astrology uses a lot of evidence based on the appeal to authority. Given that it is an esoteric art though, how can we blame them?

Also, it would be interesting to see how we can "prove" either statement as being true. How would you plan to do this, lihin?

I am having the same problems with all other statements in astrology, so this investigation will bear many fruits.

Relative validity

9
Good morning,

The only contemporary publishing astrologer to my knowledge who has and is attempting to experimentally validate some of the premises of Mediaeval astrology is Dr H of Regulus Astrology who in another thread here is seeking research assistants. His results have been, as he himself has stated, often mitigated, in certain matters due to lack of statistically sufficient data bases. He has not yet tested for example the Chaldaean confines contrasted to Egyptian and Ptolemaic ones, although Claudius Ptolemy in Tetrabiblos wrote that the Chaldaean confines 'work'. Nevertheless, Dr H's approach seems comparatively coherent.

As in the question of 'Sorrows of the Planets', relying on 'authorities', past and / or present, is often a comfortable approach. In the case of Hellenistic astrology, however, we know that important original source works later quoted in fragments have been lost. We can thus scarcely affirm that works and authors extant today were representative and how, even if some similarities are discovered amongst most of them. It also seems questionable that astrological opinions, schools, etc. were less diverse in antiquity than now.

Personally, i doubt that it is possible for humans to obtain really 'certain' knowledge of anything. At best, relatively reliable hypotheses may be established for common human purposes and tested, based for example on the assumptions of sobriety and the awake mind state. Neither can one categorically exclude the possibility of 'universally true knowledge'. Some sceptics of antiquity recommended to 'suspend judgement' on such matters, a step towards relaxation and enjoyment of life.

My apologies for endulging in philosophy. Concerning contemporary astrology, my impression is that a far too large portion of resources is spent on speculation and a far too small portion on verification.

Best regards,

lihin
Non esse nihil non est.

10
I agree that there is an imbalance between speculation and verification, which is why I am trying to find ways to verify astrological statements.

The problem is that, knowledge, as we know it, is actually the sum of meanings that we attribute to things and phenomena that we observe through our five senses and through what we call intuition.

Hence, if there is a difference between two people's attributed meaning, then they can observe the same phenomenon and disagree with each other.

We can only proceed to verify the claims if we agree on a common meaning for each claim that we want to verify. Hence the use of definitions. Of course, if we want to verify the claims based on another meaning, we would have to conduct another experiment.