37
Raymond Scott wrote:
Lu-hun-ga 'The Hired Man' (Aries) was associated with Inanna's husband Dumuzi who took her place in the Underworld after she was killed and was resurrected 3 days afterwards.
She came back home and found Dumuzi to be only one in her household that was not in grief and was even sitting on her throne. She was angry and sent him to take her place in the Underworld.
Dumuzi spends half of the year in Underworld.
Dumuzi was a shepherd god.
I love Gavin White’s books, but unlike Raymond can’t retain what I’ve read without re-reading. But the correlation with Greek myth is interesting here. Following the natural pattern of the planets discovered after Saturn, we have Uranus-Aquarius, Neptune-Pisces and Pluto-Aries. This rulership has been suggested by siderealists of the Fagan school. In western astrology we have the Pluto-Persephone myth where Persephone must spend a portion of each year in the underworld with its ruler Pluto.
The Babylonian Zodiac's 1st sign in the Zodiac was never Martian.
And going back to the Hellenistic assignment of triplicity lords, Aries is not seen as Martian either. The ancient triplicity lords of Aries were the Sun and Jupiter, “royal??? planets. Mars was given to the Cancer (emotional expressive) triplicity.

It’s interesting the Dumuzi was a shepherd god, and in today’s tropical zodiac Taurus (sky area of sidereal Aries) is associated with pastures and rural life. We do see some evidence here that the Hellenistic link with Mesopoamia was formed in the sidereal zodiac rather than the tropical.
Mas-tab-ba-gal 'The Great Twins' was the only Babylonian Zodiac constellation/sign that was association with Nergal who was the deity that connection with Mars.

I don't think that there was any Babylonian Ram constellation.
As far as I know there was no Ram in Mesopotamia.
Gary D. Thompson seems to have disagreements with Gavin White.
I actually like Thompson's site. There is a lot of useful information.
I notice that he has strong disagreements with Rumen Kolev who is a Pan-Babylonian.
Raymond, can you please give a direct link to this section of Thompson’s site?
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

38
Woo Woo wrote:
I'm just moving over to the Vedic approach of the Zodiac but holding onto the ideas I've learnt from the Western.

That just means that there are Sign changes on Cusps.

Doesn't it ?
I know it's late, but I wish we could drop the "Vedic" label for India's astrology. It's not accurate and was invented by astrologers in the 1990s in California, USA. Even today many astrology books published in India still use the term "Hindu" rather than "Vedic." The most accurate term is "Indian astrology."

Yes, sidereal astrology can change signs on cusps, but the interpretation of signs is very different in the sidereal zodiac. You can't transfer tropical Aries to sidereal Aries. If you want to to use tropical observations (not theory) you have to transfer tropical Taurus to sidereal Aries. This is one sign previously as the previous sidereal sign is mostly located in the following tropical sign sky area.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

40
WooWoo wrote:
Are they NOT Vedic Sciences ?
There is no horoscopic astrology in the Vedas. There are Vedic passages that relate to the nakshatras, but not in an astrological context. The majority of scholars, both east and west, believe that horoscopic astrology was imported to India from the west in the early centuries. Even the term "Jyotish" relates primarily to astronomy, not astrology. Here is a direct quote as to the origin of the term "Vedic" for India's astrology. This was an on-line interview with Chakrapani.
Interview:

Charlotte [to Chakrapani]: I understand that you coined the term Vedic astrology.

Chakrapani: Yes. When I came to America, they were calling it Hindu. Swami Muktananda said that was not a proper name for Vedic astrology - it's astrology from the Vedas. It is not about Hindus. The Vedas are for universal knowledge. That is why the term Vedic astrology was coined.

Charlotte: Thank you for confirming that.

By Charlotte Benson
Interview on January 27, 2009

https://acvaonline.org/newsletters/chak ... ew_p1.html
India kept the sidereal zodiac that was in use in the west in the early centuries, but inspired astrologers developed the basic concepts of astrology in creative ways. The nakshatras (lunar mansions) were merged with signs of the zodiac, Dasas were added along with other types of calculations such as shad bala (to note planetary strength). So today India's astrology is very different from western tropical astrology except for the basic foundation of the 12 sign zodiac and traits related to that zodiac.

India did not adopt the four "elements" to zodiac signs. These have been added (incorrectly) by modern day astrologers. This has caused a lot of confusion in interpreting horoscopes.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

41
petosiris wrote:
...so maleficent planets coincide with the autumn and winter tropics, while beneficent planets with vernal and summer tropics, regardless of their heating and cooling power. It is still seasonal schematization. Or would you dispute that the Moon in Taurus with Sun in Aries was the Babylonian New Year?
petosiris: I appreciate the reply and attempt to sustain the seasonal argument for the exaltation of the planets but I still feel it is rather feeble and does not follow clear consistent logic.

Porphyry's explanation for exaltation is more intellectually pleasing than any based on the seasons IMO, but none of the exaltation schemes are fully convincing to me at least. Even within BPHS, the complicated Parashara scheme of exaltations is also found wanting. As I am not an advocate for any of the systems, I cannot debate one over another.

For those unfamiliar with the Porphyry exaltation scheme:
The exaltation signs of diurnal planets trine to one of their own domiciles, while the exaltation signs of nocturnal planets sextile to one of their own domiciles
Diurnal planets: Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn
Nocturnal planets: Moon, Venus, Mars
Mercury is neutral regarding sect.

42
aj - thanks for your last post here.. i too find the exaltation ideas lacking.. they are hit and miss for me.. i was unfamiliar with porpherys description, but it doesn't seem to work with jupiter in the description you give... - correction - i see that it does as well pisces to cancer...moving forward, as opposed to sun leo to aries, and saturn aquarius to libra - moving backward thru the signs..

i have yet to get a copy of chris brennans book - hellenistic astrology.. i would be curious to know how he navigates this topic of exaltation's.. perhaps petosiris could answer this, as i believe they have a copy! i suppose this is also getting away from the topic at hand..

43
AJ wrote:
petosiris wrote:
...so maleficent planets coincide with the autumn and winter tropics, while beneficent planets with vernal and summer tropics, regardless of their heating and cooling power. It is still seasonal schematization. Or would you dispute that the Moon in Taurus with Sun in Aries was the Babylonian New Year?
petosiris: I appreciate the reply and attempt to sustain the seasonal argument for the exaltation of the planets but I still feel it is rather feeble and does not follow clear consistent logic.

Porphyry's explanation for exaltation is more intellectually pleasing than any based on the seasons IMO, but none of the exaltation schemes are fully convincing to me at least. Even within BPHS, the complicated Parashara scheme of exaltations is also found wanting. As I am not an advocate for any of the systems, I cannot debate one over another.

For those unfamiliar with the Porphyry exaltation scheme:
The exaltation signs of diurnal planets trine to one of their own domiciles, while the exaltation signs of nocturnal planets sextile to one of their own domiciles
Diurnal planets: Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn
Nocturnal planets: Moon, Venus, Mars
Mercury is neutral regarding sect.
That is a possible rationale too, but in that case I don't see why Jupiter can't be exalted in Leo instead of Cancer, since Leo too is trine to its domicile, and on top of it, is masculine. Similarly, Sun can be exalted in Sagittarius. Do you know the logic behind those particular assignments?

Ptolemy's explanation is satisfactorily complete, at least.

44
Therese Hamilton wrote:Raymond Scott wrote:
Lu-hun-ga 'The Hired Man' (Aries) was associated with Inanna's husband Dumuzi who took her place in the Underworld after she was killed and was resurrected 3 days afterwards.
She came back home and found Dumuzi to be only one in her household that was not in grief and was even sitting on her throne. She was angry and sent him to take her place in the Underworld.
Dumuzi spends half of the year in Underworld.
Dumuzi was a shepherd god.
I love Gavin White’s books, but unlike Raymond can’t retain what I’ve read without re-reading. But the correlation with Greek myth is interesting here. Following the natural pattern of the planets discovered after Saturn, we have Uranus-Aquarius, Neptune-Pisces and Pluto-Aries. This rulership has been suggested by siderealists of the Fagan school. In western astrology we have the Pluto-Persephone myth where Persephone must spend a portion of each year in the underworld with its ruler Pluto.
The Babylonian Zodiac's 1st sign in the Zodiac was never Martian.
And going back to the Hellenistic assignment of triplicity lords, Aries is not seen as Martian either. The ancient triplicity lords of Aries were the Sun and Jupiter, “royal??? planets. Mars was given to the Cancer (emotional expressive) triplicity.

It’s interesting the Dumuzi was a shepherd god, and in today’s tropical zodiac Taurus (sky area of sidereal Aries) is associated with pastures and rural life. We do see some evidence here that the Hellenistic link with Mesopoamia was formed in the sidereal zodiac rather than the tropical.
Mas-tab-ba-gal 'The Great Twins' was the only Babylonian Zodiac constellation/sign that was association with Nergal who was the deity that connection with Mars.

I don't think that there was any Babylonian Ram constellation.
As far as I know there was no Ram in Mesopotamia.
Gary D. Thompson seems to have disagreements with Gavin White.
I actually like Thompson's site. There is a lot of useful information.
I notice that he has strong disagreements with Rumen Kolev who is a Pan-Babylonian.
Raymond, can you please give a direct link to this section of Thompson’s site?


With with my short term memory problems in connection to my Dyslexia,Dyspraxia,ADHD, I have to constantly re-read stuff before it gets into my long term memory and that goes especially for things that I like which makes me want to hyperfocus and get obsessive with.
I tend to re-read stuff when I post things. It has to do with making sure that I can give the correct information and that things are clearly understood. I will even read stuff while I am typing and put into my own words as best as I can.

My short term memory sucks, but my long term memory is very good.
I got Gavin's book and read it back in fall of 2015.
I loved it so much that I read it a lot.
Of course, I am now a complete Sidereal convert with no intention of going back to being a Tropicalist.
My favorite stuff is definitely the stuff on Gu-la in associated with Ea/Enki.
That's why I got and wear an Ea/Enki pendant along with my Celtic Salmon of Knowledge.

Here is Gary D. Thompson's site.
Even though he looks down on Astrology, I really enjoy his site.
I do appreciate his criticism of things that seem very questionable like Rumen Kolev's ideas.

http://www.members.westnet.com.au/gary- ... ndex1.html

45
Hi Raymond,

Today I took a quick trip to the Solunars Fourm (Jim Eshelman's mundane forum) and noted that members were giving you a hard time when you tried to discuss Mesopotamian astrology. Members on that forum live in an Ivory Tower where the only valid sidereal astrology is spelled with a capital "S" and is limited to concepts introduced by Cyril Fagan and expanded upon by a few followers.

So as others have discovered (including myself), any other discussion is not accepted or tolerated on that forum. They are selling one very limited brand of astrology. This is the attitude that will cause some of these "Sidereal" concepts to die out once the oldsters are gone, which won't be too many years from now.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

46
After many years of reading Archetypical, psychological astrology books, I took a long hiatus with astrology because I have a very strong Chiron/healer and I was involved in the healing arts.

I began writing for a financial website with a forum. A gentleman began a forum on cycles and was posting work that was excruciatingly accurate. he was predicting mundane events to the day, and sometimes location. He was predicting market turns to the day. Unless you are finally with the tradition of financial astrology, I wasn't, you see very few people that can predict market turns with that degree of accuracy.

So I'n paying attention. And I suspect, behind his cycles work is an astrologer. I became friends with him and began to study with him and back into the world of cycles, astrology. I then became aware of other individuals practicing mundane forecasting and were again quite accurate.

Ny eyes were open to area's of astrology, I hadn't been made aware of reading all the sane type of modern astrology books. I even read articles by Horary astrologers, an area I wasn't very much interested in or knew anything about, and one in particular had a track record years long helping people find things and all sorts of stuff.

They all use tropical. however, in sone cases, especially in financial astrology, you do look at sidereal and heliocentric ingresses. So both can be exceeding accurate.

I also learned many techniques and dimensions to market forecasting that I never heard talked about on forums or in books by the most notable astrologists of our tine.

Deep down, I want to know about our journey as soul and to Know Thyself. So I thought, let ne go back to natal and general astrology and look at how to apply what I learned in financial astrology to mundane. I found resources of people, very few, sometimes one book, of people who applied these techniques to natal chart. You know the books with no reviews or one review while the guy teaching at the New Age Institutes get 100 5 star reviews.

I have had readings from pre-eimnent authors and never walked away like I had been seen. It was like they got part but not the important things I needed to know. This is where I concluded. I gotta do it myself.

There are alot of reasons why a tropical reading could be in accurate and a sidereal reading more accurate especially if you have planets on the cusp of houses and the astrologer didn't rectify your chart. None of my astrologists ever bothered with it. Sone, few, find it mandatory to do with every chart.

It's not the only reason why a reading, even from a famous person, doesn't see you.

If you have watched a great astrologer work with tropical, it would never be a question. It's also not a natter of which one? Because both can be deftly used.

Botton line: Both work. Tropical works and there is no dirth of evidence available on the internet in the area's I've mentioned. It will take your breath away. For somebody to switch systems and tell somebody they are another sign without doing any form of rectification, well, I'n not interested in signing anything.

I think too many people hang shingles out before they have done the research. House, sign, planets, aspects wasn't enough for me as a client, and it is not enough for me as an astrologer. It would never work to make money in markets. Markets are nothing but the collective conscious of the group that is being effected by the planetary forces. So if it works on a group level, it has validity on an individual level.

Also, there is historic evidence that tropical was used even before Ptolemy and science is beginning to discover relationships with the Fixed stars that we didnt' know before. All this is available in the public domain and overcoming these questions is part of becoming an astrologer.