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I don't think fixed stars work like this. Stars tend to color the chart, not rule it. On the last mystery chart thread we noted that baseball legend Ted Williams has the royal star Regulus on his MC. This didn't make him a great athlete or even famous. It did tend to give him a presence that magnified or illuminated his accomplishments. He fought the press in public without ever backing down in the firm belief they were his subordinates - which is what the press thinks of their subjects so the conflict is obvious. He even referred to them as "Knights of the keyboards," a term they hated. They weren't mere knights, you know.

Now there are lots of people who have Regulus on the MC and they all aren't famous or demanding and overbearing. But there will be some of that somewhere in the individual even if we never hear of him or her. That's what stars do.

Most astrologers work with stars using their assigned position in the zodiac, i.e. celestial longitude. This works well for stars like Regulus that are on or very close to the ecliptic, but it is less of a factor or should be according to our own rules when a star is far off the ecliptic like Algol. Robson is the best known advocate of the use of longitude when delineating stars in the chart.

Bernadette Brady uses a more visual approach that kind of makes the ancient Greeks the new kids on the block. It dates back to the Babylonians. She notes when a star is on an angle, any angle at any time during the day of birth or 24 hour period from the birth, while a planet is on another angle, any angle. So if Venus is on the ASC when, say, Castor is on the MC (or DSC or IC or even the ASC) Venus and Castor are said to be in paran and a significant relationship between Venus and Castor is formed that will play out in the life.

Brady has come under some criticism for her personal and quite politically correct delineations. Algol, for example is not so much associated with beheading and hanging as it is with "feminine fury." But we must always be fair particularly when someone has put as much effort, energy , and knowledge into her work. Brady also discusses the older delineations with pretty much equal space in her book, Brady's Book of Fixed Stars. While the critics are correct that she does use her own delineations, it is also true that she discusses more traditional ways of looking at the stars.
Her methods are more in line with visual astrology and astronomy, but she incorporates traditional astrology into her chart readings along with star parans.

If you are serious about the stars, I strongly recommend getting a copy of this book and working with it. If you're feeling flush, I believe her fixed star program Starlite is still available - saves you lots of time, but you can work out star positions and parans using only the book.

Enjoy.

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Hi Larxene

Some fixed stars particularly helpful for educational matters would be:

Althalimin (Lambda Aquilae), Beta Corvii, Megrez (Delta Ursa Majoris), Subra (Omicron Leonis)

However, as my source is anything but traditional, actually quite unorthodox, I am not sure if this is of any interest to you.

It's from the description of the various stellar energies in context with the so-called starlight elixirs from Pegasus Products. This information was channelled by the renowned psychic Jon C. Fox. I am sure, this whole thing will sound like some modern esoteric nonsense to some of you, even though using starlight in related ways has a nice tradition.

In my personal experience, Fox' descriptions hold amazingly true in pure astrology, as well. They quite often seem to bear similarity with traditional descriptions (but I didn't undertake any systematic study regarding this).

http://pegasusproducts.com/

There is also the book "Starlight Elixirs and Cosmic Vibrational Healing" by Michael Smulkis and Fred Rubenfeld, containing much information.

If you are looking for some support in a particular educational issue, ingesting a few drops of a fitting elixir regularly for awhile might well do the trick.

In case you would like some additional information on this, it would be helpful to know the topic of the education in question (you could PM me on this, of course, if you prefer).

Cheers
Michael

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Thanks, guys!



Konrad, I assume you mean this?: http://www.cieloeterra.it/eng/eng.testi ... g.379.html

I also have Project Hindsight's translation. I was going through it briefly yesterday; still have not read the delineation part completely, but my guess is stars of the nature of Mercury/Venus should be the first candidates for education. Indeed, Spica and Fomalhaut are both of the nature of Mercury/Venus. Using 379's list, Vega, Deneb and Alphecca also have similar natures, although it must be noted that Vega is more about musical abilities rather than intellectual issues.

Next, my guess is that stars of the nature of Mercury/Jupiter would also assist in education, but with regards to more philosophical topics and the kind of education that deals with humans.



Pankaj and Tom, in the PH translation of Anon 379, there was a note that stated that "paran" is an abbreviation of "paranatello". It seems that it means "co-rising". However, the modern version seems to imply the concept that Tom stated, that of having two stars being on the angles (by degree) at the same time.

Briefly going through The Treatise of the Bright Fixed Stars and The Phases of the Fixed Stars, it's understandable that the modern concept would come to be.



Tom, the modern approach with the fixed stars is intriguing and rather cuts down on the possibility of influence from the fixed stars. I may consider the idea later. I always thought that the fixed stars were used based on their proximity to the sensitive points and planets in the chart in terms of celestial longitude; the issue was with how close the orbs should be.

How does the modern 'paran' approach solve the problem of the fixed stars that are far off the ecliptic (declination >>23.5 or <<23.5)?



Michael, thanks for the resource, though I do prefer traditional sources. I do have some modern esoteric interests though...like teleportation or psychokinesis. :)



I am actually doing an electional chart; I was thinking about whether I can get a fixed star related to education to rise or culminate, to improve the results, since the best date is a little further off than I'd like, and the closer dates produce mediocre results...maybe a fixed star can improve the mediocrity a bit.
Interested in Hellenistic astrology? Visit my blog.

The appearance changes, but the essence remains.

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How does the modern 'paran' approach solve the problem of the fixed stars that are far off the ecliptic (declination >>23.5 or <<23.5)?
I don't think the approach is modern at all. It is visual and that predates the Hellenistic Greeks. I think the definition you cited is being taken too literally. "Co-rising" could easily incorporate at least culmination. Brady would know better than I.

As for solving the problem it uses the rising, culminating, setting and anti-culminating positions at the birth place when the stars are on the horizon, on the MC etc at the birth place. So let's use Algol. Algol is said to be at about 26 Taurus. But at 40 degrees north latitude, about that of New York City, Algol can be spotted on the horizon (at the right time of year) when 0 Aries is on the horizon. So if 0 Aries is on the horizon at birth with Algol and the native also has a planet on the MC in NYC at that time, Algol and the planet are in Paran.

At about 20 degrees north latitude, Algol appears to rise at 5 degrees Taurus.

Parans use rising times and the degree of the zodiac when Algol can be seen. It's not an assigned zodiacal degree. I think Ptolemy drew lines or more correctly circles, from the star to the ecliptic. Don't quote me on that. Me may have used the equator. The point is that the zodiac positions for stars way off the ecliptic are symbolic not actual. This doesn't mean they won't work. But if you stand on a beach near NYC and look at the eastern horizon when 26 Taurus rises, you won't see Algol.

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Larxene wrote:
Michael, thanks for the resource, though I do prefer traditional sources. I do have some modern esoteric interests though...like teleportation or psychokinesis. :)
Talking about teleportation, my best performance so far is a paltry 135 kilometres, plus I had to get on a train in order to go back. :-?