Question on John Worsdale's Choice of Words. 1 by Tom Over on this website: http://far.orgfree.com If you scroll down a bit you will come upon John Worsdale's First book, Genethliacal Astrology, (1798) not to be confused with the 1828 book of the same name. (NOTE: there are two pdf files associated with him on this row and one of them has nothing to do with him). I'm having a bit of difficulty with some of his phrases. Worsdale, as ever, is talking about predicting death. I'm sort of working on the idea that the same technique can be used to predict other things with some accuracy. He says on page 113 " ... those, who by reason of abundance of evil (in the chart - tc) must speedily perish. " Well what about an abundance of good or middling testimony? That's for later. In his discussion of things to look out for he makes this statement on also on page 113 "If one of the luminaries is angular, and that luminary is the giver of life, and one malefic is joined (conjunct - tc) or opposite or be distant in longitude partily (I believe he means a partile aspect) and according to the figure of equal sides none of the benefics aspecting. ... What is the figure of equal sides? Then on page 114 he states: And if they be not equilaterally configurated (sic), but the two malefics nearly irradiate the places of the luminaries, hurting either of the lights or both, whether the malefics be succeedent or opposite ..." Worsdale apparently did not like to repeat the same words over and over for reasons of style, but the synonyms and/or metaphors he used as substitutes could be obtuse, and this is the sense I'm getting here. I'm guessing the second part of this sentence has to do with the malefics aspecting the lights, but "equilaterally configurated," and "irradiate the places of the luminaries" seems a bit over the top. Could these phrases simply mean "in aspect to" or "in hard aspect to?" Any thoughts on these phrases? I know he used parallels of declination in his 1828 book, perhaps this is what he means. Anyone? Anyone? Quote Mon Nov 30, 2015 4:03 pm
2 by Deb I don't think he means parallels of declination here but uses the phrase "according to the figure of equal sides" to mean what we would call a Ptolemaic aspect, which is supposed to be able to inscribe s shape (aka 'figure') of equal sides within the circle o the zodiac-signs. Quote Mon Nov 30, 2015 7:22 pm
Re: Question on John Worsdale's Choice of Words. 4 by toddcarnes Tom wrote:(NOTE: there are two pdf files associated with him on this row and one of them has nothing to do with him). Thank you for catching that, Tom. I shall correct it. By the way, I just added a link to another of Worsdale's works in which he makes predictions for an 1820 eclipse and discusses the Great Conjunction of 1821 - among other things. Quote Thu Dec 10, 2015 4:28 am
5 by Tom Thank you Todd. Worsdale, for all his crankiness and eccentricities, is an outstanding astrologer. Everything we can find out about him is a plus. Quote Sat Dec 12, 2015 10:15 am