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Nixx wrote: Are you and/or Martin suggesting here the Thema Mundi does not have a seasonal rationale?
Right I just edited my previous post to remove Martin's name, just in case I am mis-remembering something of his, or confusing it for something else.

But basically there was a discussion, if I can find it I will, about the modes with regards the sidereal zodiac and I questioned whether we have anything 'turning' (cardinal) with the sidereal zodiac, and he made the point that this could be from the Thema Mundi, where the angles are the cardinal angles. I can't actually remember whether Martin explicitly mentioned the same could be used for the assignation of domicile dignity or not, or whether that was something that just occurred to me at the same time.

But in a more direct answer to what you're asking, no I am not suggesting that the Thema Mundi does not have a tropical/seasonal basis - rather, I'm stating that the Thema Mundi, as a construct, could exist independently of the tropical logic, which is, no doubt, how sidereal astrologers view it, and with that in mind, we have a construct which may not necessarily be tropical in foundation, and which could be used as a way of assigning domicile dignity by allotting the Moon to the first house, and then working from there.

I am not stating that I actively believe that this position is how domicile dignity emerged, merely that it's worth not treating Ptolemy's view on it as being representative of some older rationale for assigning domicile dignity, and instead could be just his own attempts at rationalising why the dignities are as they are, or, rather, start where they do.


Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos 1:17
Since of the twelve signs the most northern, which are closer than the others to our zenith and therefore most productive of heat and of warmth are Cancer and Leo, they assigned these to the greatest and most powerful heavenly bodies, that is, to the luminaries, as houses, Leo, which is masculine, to the sun and Cancer, feminine, to the moon
Of course the closest to the zenith would be Gemini and Cancer. So I think one could argue that he was trying to rationalise a system.

Regarding the wiki quote, it's worth keeping in mind that anyone can edit or alter a wikipedia article. The wiki article is describing the system of domiciles as outlined by Ptolemy, but Ptolemy himself doesn't relate this to the Thema Mundi or indeed mention the Thema Mundi at all.

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Mark wrote: Indeed. One of our former moderators here Yuzuru is from Brazil and he was clear that the normal tropical zodiac worked fine for all the charts he worked with. Similarly, Clelia Romano who posts here is also Brazilian and teaches astrology with the signs in the traditional way. We have also had several Australians here who have reported no problems. Deborah Houlding has also stated that horary seems to work perfectly well when she has visited Australia.

Mark
In addition, Alice Portman, who you mention in a previous post, is another antipodean astrologer convinced that the domicile rulers do not change in the southern hemisphere (I don't think she uses the other dignities too extensively). Just in case your post implies that she is of the same thinking as Maurice McCann.

Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:27 pm
For the traditional astrologer this raises issues about whether the signs should be reversed or alternatively the dignities for the planets in signs should be reversed. The traditional Irish astrologer Maurice McCann suggested the latter. As Alice Portman points out we also need to consider the implications for the lunar nodes.

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Paul wrote:
Therese Hamilton wrote:
India still considers the solstice and equinox points important times to schedule festivals. They are just not aligned with signs of the zodiac.

Paul replied:
I would question this a little. I remember a couple of years ago I was in Thailand and celebrated the Thai new year, Songkran, on Koh Phangan, and was speaking to some locals and I learned that it was the new year as this was the time which indicated that the light and dark balance changes. In other words they were celebrating the spring equinox. When I came home I examined it a bit more and it turns out they're celebrating the beginning of Aries as the spring equinox and using the sidereal zodiac to do it. In addition, many eastern cultures celebrate the "turning north of the sun" (the winter solstice) as the ingress of the sun into Capricorn, but the sidereal Capricorn. I do not think this is as divorced as we may want to think.
Hi Paul,

I'm surprised that this misunderstanding may still exist. The equinoxes and solstices don't align with the beginning of signs in any sidereal zodiac. Sri Yukteswar pointed out that fallacy when he was still alive. (He died in 1936, I believe...) He tried to make astrologers and those who planned festivals realize that the four equinox and solstice points need to be correctly set in the sidereal zodiac. This would place them at this time between 5 and 7 degrees of sidereal signs, depending upon the ayanamsa used to calculate each zodiac.
Therese wrote:
The truth is that now we have the software and data tools to dig fairly deeply into that question. I've made some small beginnings into this question on the sidereal forum. We no longer need to speculate as we have many thousands of birth charts that can be examined.

Paul replied:
I don't think we should turn this into a sidereal vs tropical debate, as you say, we could open a new thread for that.

I don't see how the word "debate" needs to enter zodiac discussions as long as we present actual data and biographies. We can simply sit back and examine astrological principles in light of real life data. The conflict arises when discussion is based on theoretical considerations apart from the lives of real people. If a sign in either zodiac is supposed to mean something, then all we need to do is present birth charts that illustrate that point or concept.
Hence my example above. Songkran is clearly measured using a sidereal zodiac, but the symbolic meaning behind it is tropical.
I'd say that the meaning of the solstices and equinoxes is astronomical rather than "tropical" as such. These are very important turnings in the annual path of the earth around the Sun.
Last edited by Therese Hamilton on Tue Mar 18, 2014 6:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

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Hi Paul,

I see that the days celebrating Songkran in Thailand follow the actual date of the equinox which is observed on the correct astronomical date. So in Thailand the equinox celebration is apparently prolonged into several days of Songkran to celebrate the increasing light of spring.

I am not sure how well the general public understands the dating of festivals in relation to astrology or astronomy. The equinox and solstice dates are correct in the Thai holiday calendar. The 2014 Thai calendar is here:

http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/thailand/

Thursday Mar 20 March equinox Season
Sunday Apr 6 Chakri Day National holiday
Monday Apr 7 Chakri Day observed National holiday
Sunday Apr 13 Songkran National holiday
Monday Apr 14 Songkran National holiday
Tuesday Apr 15 Songkran National holiday
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

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Therese Hamilton wrote: I see that the days celebrating Songkran in Thailand follow the actual date of the equinox which is observed on the correct astronomical date.
Hi Therese

I don't want to derail this thread by talking about Songkran, so maybe we should PM if there's any other confusions.

I would just clarify that Songkran is celebrated for three days between 13-15 inclusive, though individual regions may actually in reality celebrate for a few days longer or less than this. Places like Bangkok or ChangMai tend to celebrate for up to a week. However officially it's the 13-15. The term itself, I am told, refers to "a change" and is used to describe an ingress, in this case an ingress into Aries.

Obviously in equinox occurs in reality at around the 20th of March, and Songkran is celebrated about 3 weeks later - when the Sun ingresses into Sidereal Aries.

Of course Thailand has other holidays, but Songkran itself is the historical and cultural new year and, historically, to the turning of the Sun and the equinox.

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It seems obvious that in the design of the Thai calendar, the four astronomical cardinal points were included as well as the Sun's ingress into sidereal Aries to mark the New Year. The other three cardinal points are celebrated as single days, but there are no attached festival days as the Songkran days in the spring.

This emphasizes that the solstice and equinox days have continued to be important in eastern countries as special festival days, but these days are in general not connected to the zodiac as such, at least as astrologers use the zodiac signs in their work. The spring equinox is a single day; the Aries ingress marks the beginning of the new year with an extended festival of several days. I suspect the Aries ingress chart is use for political predictions by astrologers.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

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Nixx wrote:
''The Sun and Moon, the two luminaries, are assigned to the two signs that correspond to the brightest and warmest times of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, Cancer and Leo. The other planets are assigned to signs by halving the zodiac between Cancer and Leo and assigning each planet to one sign on the solar half and each on the lunar half. Mercury is assigned to the two signs next to the luminaries, Gemini and Virgo, because it never travels more than one sign away from the Sun. Venus is assigned to the next two signs, Taurus and Libra, because it never gets more than two signs away. Jupiter and Mars are assigned to their signs Sagittarius and Pisces, and Aries and Scorpio, respectively, in this same way. Finally Saturn is assigned to Capricorn and Aquarius because of the cold and lack of light during this time of the year''
The rulership scheme is based on what some call "sacred geometry". I, too, feel that Ptolemy is trying to give a rationale explanation for it based on simple astronomical and climatological observations of his time. However, this falls a little short from the scheme's deeper implications. From my perspective, in it you find summarized all of astrology's basics (including aspects), and it can be extended to modern rulerships as well (for those of us who accept these). Thus it is for astrology something like Hermes Trismegistos' Tabula Smaragdina for alchemy.

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Paul wrote: [
I am not stating that I actively believe that this position is how domicile dignity emerged, merely that it's worth not treating Ptolemy's view on it as being representative of some older rationale for assigning domicile dignity, and instead could be just his own attempts at rationalising why the dignities are as they are, or, rather, start where they do.
You lost me here and there in your reply.

Focusing on this Para, perhaps this real or mythical 'source' text from the one known as Hermes Trismegistus if found might indicate he rolled a couple of dice and 'divined' the beast. But this seems unlikely since the odds of getting 7 rolls of two dice to fall in a manner which facilitiates this system seems improbable, or he rolled them until he got the result he was after.

You could try and edit Wiki but you might incur the wrath of our RULER here, - http://www.skyscript.co.uk/rulership.html

Martin might well provide an interesting, perhaps a Sidereal- Jyotish, slant on this issue. Bringing human nature in you might expect in the event the rulership system was a Greco-Egyptian construct once the Indians got wind of this, or precission was a more known conundrum, some if not all might have sought to represent it.
Last edited by Nixx on Tue Mar 18, 2014 10:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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James_M
seems like the thread went on a serious detour.
Fair comment.

Perhaps if we avoid any further space discussing the sidereal zodiac here it would be a start.

However, the issue of how seasonal the origin of the domicile rulerships are is relevant I think.

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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Thanks James, fixed it.

I don't see any catastrophic detours,( athough I often find these more interesting for various reasons).

With this Seasonal hypothesis I would be interested in any alternative ideas, Sidereal or otherwise.

If you go with the idea horoscopy is a way into the ''inner workings of the cosmic soul '' (the Schmidt-Greene lens, or pretty much) it might seem odd to think this 'soul' was so devious as to seek to fool people with the need to switch meanings dependent on which side of the equator you were born on, or even switch zodiacs! Then again human history, and behaviour, might suggest a more unpleasant 'soul' energy at play here.