Help with out of sign aspects.

1
Are they important? example:Sun virgo trine saggittarius saturn.The degrees point to a trine.But the elements do not.Should out of sign aspects be taken seriously?If so how would they be explanied?Does this trine point to a positive blending of Earth and Fire?Or is it meaningless?
A contradiction does not exist in reality. Not In part, nor in whole.

3
Modern astrology gladly uses aspects out of sign. In modern astrology aspects are only geometrical relations, so they use "minor aspects" which are in signs which don?t see eachother.

In Traditional astrology I can?t say for all of it, but I would say that generally aspects out of sign are not considered.

Exceptions are generally with the moon. mashalah use regularly aspects that the moon will use, in the next sign, when she is void of course.
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4
Ibn Ezra was the first traditional authority to unambiguously authorize the use out of sign aspects. Morin uses them now and then. Lilly didn't. I doubt the ancient Greeks did, but I don't know for sure.

Theoretically I think Lilly is on the strongest ground., but that's just me. The idea is that, for example, signs that trine each other are harmonious because they are all of the same element. Therefore a planet in Pisces and a planet in Cancer can work together easily. On the other hand, signs that are square to each other are inharmonious: e.g earth with fire. One attacks the other stands still. So planets in those signs will not work as well together.

Therefore, if we have a planet in late Cancer and another one in early Aries, they cannot work like a trine even though they are nearly 120 degrees apart because the signs are square and do not work harmoniously like planets in trine should.

The difference in philosophy is this: if you allow out-of-sign aspects you find more importance in the number of degrees apart planets are than the signs they occupy. If you do not allow for them, you place more importance on the signs than on the number of degrees. Modern astrology is aspect happy so they allow for out-of-sign aspects. Traditional astrology places less emphasis on aspects (in general - this is not an absolute) and is more likely to agree with Lilly on this point.

Arguments such as the modern one that the sign line cannot prevent the aspect from manifesting are simply saying geometry outranks sign in importance. It's just another way to say the same thing.

Tom

5
Thanks Tom and yuzuru.You too gunhilde because you wanted to help and that alone speaks volumes.I totally agree with that reasoning tom because I never really felt that aspect.It certainly does make more sense that we go more by the astrological side in this regard than the math side.Yuzuru that info about the moon was interesting.Is that from vedic astrology?
A contradiction does not exist in reality. Not In part, nor in whole.

6
No, I don't believe that out of element trines aren't relevant...I have an out of element Sun trine Jupiter (Sun 0 Aquarius, Jupiter 26 Taurus) and most of the descriptions of this aspect describe me well.

7
Hello to all,

What I would like to add to this interesting subject is what I have found in my readings.

First it seems that the ancients didn?t have our strict view about aspects.

They used to see aspects more like a matter of laws of harmony applied to relations between planets, considering certain proportions, intervals different according to the reference level. So it depends a lot on the level that is analyzed (say for example longitude, or altitude, or declinations). to give you a short example: greeks had kata soma: conjunction, kata schema: aspects in degree, kata ton anemone: latitutude, and last aspects by declinations.
Even some phases of the planets were considered as equivalent to an aspect.
Considering the immaterial zodiac, we can relate to 12 division (the main division), but also to the 360 degrees.
So as a conclusion, it depends on the reference point, and how we consider the harmony laws. In the case of zodiacal circle, when we relate to degrees it?s sufficient to relate to degree aspects. Of course we shouldn?t neglect the relations between the signs that contain the planets in aspect, because planets express the qualities of signs, but that?s another problem.
It seems that ancients used also aspects in mundo (considering the circles of houses, or horary circles), although this kind of aspects is less powerfull in my opinion, at least in the case of natal astrology.

In the end a short fragment from Antiochus of Athena: the figure of trigon, quadrature, sextile, or opposition can be established in different manner: the first one and the most important by degrees (moirikos), the second one the temporal aspects (chronike), the third one zodiacal.

8
Ibn Ezra was the first traditional authority to unambiguously authorize the use out of sign aspects. Morin uses them now and then. Lilly didn't. I doubt the ancient Greeks did, but I don't know for sure.
Lilly and most of the English 17th century astrologers did consider aspects over the sign boundary if they were applying within moeity orb. At least in horary. Sue Ward was was the first astrologer to spot this. Maurice McCann has written a short book 'The Void of Course Moon' which discusses the 17th century attitude to this subject. I am less clear about whether this approach spread to natal astrology in this period.

In terms of hellenistic astrology although the general approach was whole sign one of Vettius Valen's charts seems to indicate an out of sign aspect. This may be explained by either being a temporal (mundane) aspect or an aspect by degree close to the sign boundary.

9
Wow. This thread got a lot of replies!

I'll just add for what its worth, Robert Zoller who teaches the medieval astrology course states that in his experience, he has observed they do work and should be considered. I forget the orb he allowed.


RC