johannes susato wrote: Hi PFN, my intention was not at all to criticize Yuzuru's (nor your's now!) choice of terms and I think he knows that or else I would abologize.

Oh, I did not feel you were criticizing at all. Actually, if it sounded like that, sorry, I'm no native speaker, and sometimes I use harsh terms for lack of "soft" ones in my lexical "bag".

. . . it did not sound like that really. But me too being no native speaker, I for my part didn't want to 'overlook anything' perhaps harming . . .

Martin Gansten wrote:

My attraction to primary directions can be compared with falling in love with a very attractive mysterious woman. Unfathomable and giving me doubts if she's the good one to rely on. Often giving it up, trying to forget her and going for the transits only.

This made me laugh. Don't throw yourself away on the transits; they will break your heart, rarely turning up when they promised to, and not delivering the goods when they do show up. The mysterious lady will prove more rewarding in the end.

Thanks Martin for the encouragement. I will keep trying to understand Lady Primary . However I do strongly agree with Deb on the real effect of transits. On the other side I agree with you that often transits don't give what they seem to promise. But on this I can comment that this seems to be the same with other prediction techniques like secondary progressions.

Deb wrote:Like an artist drawing a picture you start with the broad outlines (firdaria & planetary periods), then you get the main details (primary directions, profections, etc) and then when you have a year that shows a particular theme, you narrow down the timing by transits, lunations or progressions.

In some cases I can find some 'accumulation' of 'hits' in different techniques when an important period in my life started.

I'll come and take transit lessons with you, Deb!

It will have to be a 2-day course - the calculation is so complex

If one has to calculate transits without an ephemeris and only with the (Keplerian) planetary theories, the Primary directions will turn out to be the easy calculable method.