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Hello Cl?lia,

I remember you well from the 2007 PHASE Conclave. I hope that your life is full of good things.

Remember that Fortune and Spirit change places in a day chart and a night chart. So in the example you have used, 331 degrees is Fortune in a night chart; but that means that 331 degrees would be Spirit in a day chart. Similarly, if 84 degrees is Spirit in a night chart, that same position would be Fortune in a day chart, assuming the same Asc.

Check that out. I think you will see that the diurnal and nocturnal calculation amount to the same thing if you perform the reversal for the order of counting and also in the formulae for Fortune and Spirit. They amount to the same thing, unless my eyes (and brain) are playing tricks on me at this hour.

Robert Schmidt

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Robert Schmidt wrote:
...However there is a major difference in his nocturnal calculation.

Algebraically, Chris?s reckoning leads to:

Nocturnal Eros = Asc + 2 (Sun ? Moon) = Fortune + Sun ? Moon.

This would correspond to Fortune?s Lot of Fortune in a nocturnal chart, not Spirit?s Lot of Spirit. I have a hard time understanding how such a formula would relate to Eros at all, since there is nothing in this formula to signify the soul, although I am open to suggestions.
Robert Schmidt
Mr. Schmidt,

What are we to do with Valens statements that frequently Fortune becomes Spirit and vice versa; specifically in the case when Valens says to use the nocturnal formula for fortune only if the Moon was above the horizon? Does this not wreck the symmetry of the lots? How would this square with his views on the lot of Basis as Eros or Necessity?

I hope everything is going OK in Cumberland.

Curt
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

78
Hello Cl?lia,

I remember you well from the 2007 PHASE Conclave. I hope that your life is full of good things.
Hello Bob Schmidt:
Good to know you remember me because I really loved that Conclave and I will never thank you enough for your awesome effort explaining for days and days all that Greek stuff! I?m looking forward to the next Conclave!


Remember that Fortune and Spirit change places in a day chart and a night chart. So in the example you have used, 331 degrees is Fortune in a night chart; but that means that 331 degrees would be Spirit in a day chart. Similarly, if 84 degrees is Spirit in a night chart, that same position would be Fortune in a day chart, assuming the same Asc.
About the calculation:

You are right since I had not switched the diurnal formula. But maybe when I did it wrong it was the right way to open my mind!
I will explain:
If you have a nocturnal chart with Fortune and Spirit still calculated in the right way, i.e. switched, the question is to apply the nocturnal formula of Eros : = Asc + Fortune ? Spirit .
If you have instead a diurnal chart with the lots still calculated you will, in the same way, use them to sought the Eros lot: Asc +Spirit-Fortune.
I don?t think the Fortune and Spirit have to be switched again in nocturnal charts.
Fortune and Spirit in a chart are fixed ( that is the way I understand the problem), and the thing to be switched is the order they will occupy in a formula which uses both Spirit and Fortune.
I think many of you have already posted on favor of the present idea.
The basic point is that the chart is nocturnal or diurnal: it can?t be both. Once you get the right position for Fortune and Spirit you can?t reverse them anymore. If you do it you?ll be walking in circles.

best regards and thank you again:-)

Cl?lia
http://www.astrologiahumana.com

79
Hi Curt,

The Nechepso passage that Valens cites in Book II indicates that we only use the nocturnal algorithm for the Lot of Fortune if the Moon is above the horizon. The Serapio passage that I translated in Definitions & Foundations states that often Fortune becomes Spirit and lists a number of conditions under which this may take place even in diurnal charts, all of which involve situations where one of the lights predominates over the other according to principles other that simple visibility.

I must confess that both these texts have been giving me a headache, both textually and conceptually, so I can by no means provide a glib answer to your question.

I can say that as long as we have a distinct Lot of Fortune and a distinct Lot of Spirit in a chart, we will have a Lot of Eros and a Lot of Necessity and thus a Lot of Basis, which is to state the obvious. So if we encounter one of the qualified scenarios mentioned in the Serapio passage where Fortune becomes Spirit, does Spirit at the same time become Fortune, or is it a chart without a proper Lot of Fortune? If the latter is the case, we certainly would have a problem. But at the time I think the passage simply means that Fortune and Spirit are reversing their roles.

The other problem of symmetry involves frequency. If we follow the instructions of Nechepso to the letter, then the normal diurnal algorithm will be used more frequently than the normal nocturnal algorithm. However, if we look again at the Serapio passage, we see that even when both lights are under the horizon, sometimes the Sun will predominate and sometimes the Moon, which appears to contradict Nechepso. But we also see from this passage that even in a day chart, the Moon may predominate under certain conditions. Consequently, Serapio?s instructions would seem to equalize the frequency with which we use the normal diurnal and nocturnal algorithms.

This whole issue may be of great importance, however, because I do not immediately see why it should be restricted to Fortune and Spirit alone. If we are trying to find the Lot of the Father in a chart from the Sun and Saturn, it may be the case that Saturn does not always predominate in a night chart and maybe even that the Sun does not always predominate in a day chart.

On the other hand, in the back of my mind I have a vague notion that Fortune may be exceptional insofar as we are dealing with the Moon, and the Moon is the only planet that always moves faster than the Sun and can overcome it in this way.

(I cannot resist the temptation to point out that in my last two paragraphs I have used an implicit men/de construction by saying ?on the other hand? without saying in the previous paragraph ?on the one hand?. Nevertheless, the contrast is clearly felt.)

This is another issue that obviously cannot be resolved on the basis of our source texts alone, and I thank you for bringing it up at this time. It will require some deep conceptual thinking.

Robert Schmidt

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Robert Schmidt wrote:The final question I posed in my last post was:

?Now, perhaps the originator of these two lots [Eros & Necessity] intended them to end up in the same place by night and by day; perhaps he did not. To my knowledge this question cannot be resolved on the basis of the surviving sources. So what are we to do? And while we are at it, how do we choose between Valens? versions of these two lots and the versions of Firmicus Maternus (if in fact he did not have the Hermetic versions of these lots instead), who has Spirit and Fortune reversed from the way Valens did it??

Chris Brennan has responded as follows:

?Why does this necessarily have to be viewed as an issue that needs to be resolved or corrected rather than simply a unique property of those lots??

...


However, what I was really getting at with my question is a different approach to resolving issues like the present one. Chris Brennan has emphasized earlier how important it is to have an exact understanding of the texts and tradition as it has come down to us, in order to have a ?baseline? to work from in the future. I totally agree; in fact, I myself have made this same point and used this very same metaphor on numerous occasions. We must indeed make every effort to first understand the texts on their own terms and out of their own presuppositions and not impose our modern thinking on them. I also agree with him that arguments drawn from chart reading experience have little evidential value in resolving apparent ambiguities and even contradictions in the tradition?at least at this stage in our attempt to restore the tradition.

However, I maintain that there is a deeper approach for resolving such problems, one more in accord with the foundations of Hellenistic astrology. For years I have been expressing my view that Hellenistic astrology at its origins was an elaborate and well-ordered system. It could not have been developed through centuries of empirical observation over many centuries; instead, it was a rational construct. By saying this, I do not mean to cast suspicion on its validity. After all, modern science is itself a rational construct.

In a system of concepts and techniques, everything has its place in the overall context of the system and ultimately takes its meaning from that context. If we can understand the principles behind the systematic construction, we can resolve ambiguities and contradictions in the source texts.

...

Consequently, we may say that diurnal Eros is a kind of Lot of Spirit cast out from the primary Lot of Spirit instead of the Hour-Marker, a kind of second derivative from one of the two primitive functions involving the two lights?or, as I like to say, it is Spirit?s Lot of Spirit.

...

Now this line of reasoning leads me to speculate that Eros is a specification of the Lot of Spirit. If we ask what faculty of the soul most moves us to action, I believe that most people would agree it is our faculty of desire: that is, Eros.

(At some point I would dearly love to discuss this issue with Osthanes in the context of the Phaedrus and the two horses. But perhaps I am presuming too much on what I take to be his Platonic predilections, in which I of course partake, and for which methexis all astrologers should strive. Is a well positioned Lot of Spirit and its lord obedient to the commands of nous, the Sun; and is not a more poorly positioned Lot of Spirit and its lord subject to epithumia in the sense of orexis and the Moon?)

...

Here again, we have Spirit?s Lot of Spirit for a nocturnal chart.

By similar reasoning, I find the Lot of Necessity to be Fortune?s Lot of Fortune, or a Lot of Fortune cast out from the primary Lot of Fortune rather than the Hour-marker, and I have no trouble seeing Necessity as a further specification of Fortune.

This is what I mean by conceptual consistency in a system.

...

This is how we can use arguments of conceptual consistency to link texts and help us understand the delineation of astrological factors.

Now, by Chris?s reckoning, the reversal by night would have each lot ending up in exactly the same place. His diurnal Lot of Eros is the same as mine, and reduces to Spirit?s Lot of Spirit. However there is a major difference in his nocturnal calculation.

Algebraically, Chris?s reckoning leads to:

Nocturnal Eros = Asc + 2 (Sun ? Moon) = Fortune + Sun ? Moon.

This would correspond to Fortune?s Lot of Fortune in a nocturnal chart, not Spirit?s Lot of Spirit. I have a hard time understanding how such a formula would relate to Eros at all, since there is nothing in this formula to signify the soul, although I am open to suggestions.

And according to Brennan?s approach, nocturnal Lot of Necessity would become Spirit?s Lot of Spirit. I cannot see any meaning here either.

This is what I mean by conceptual inconsistency in a system.

In general, Chris?s approach in each case leads to a lot that does not change its position by day and by night, but changes its character from Eros to Necessity or Necessity to Eros with a nocturnal reversal. Does this make sense? Such a lot would have a unique property indeed! But such a lot would be conceptually inconsistent with the entire system of lots.

We do indeed need to examine our source texts with care. We also have to use our minds.

Robert Schmidt


I must admit that I had never put much thought into the rationale underlying the calculations of Eros and Necessity in Valens until now. I have been more focused on Paul's Hermetic lots over the past few years.

I spent a little bit of time working on it for the first time yesterday afternoon after reading Schmidt's post, and then I spent some more time on it this morning, and I found the rationale.

Here is a photo of the sheet of paper I worked it out on this morning:

http://www.chrisbrennanastrologer.com/i ... 010-01.jpg

I apologize in advance for my poor handwriting. I hope that it is still legible and understandable. It should do for now until I can create a diagram on the computer.

I used some of the same principles and approach to work out the calculations here as I did in my paper on Paul's Hermetic lots.

In response to Mr. Schmidt:

I think that in this instance you are overly concerned with how the math works out, so that you are overlooking the symbolic significance underlying the calculations.

Having just worked out what I think is a plausible rationale for this set of lots, I have to say in response to the approach that you advocated above that by subjecting the calculations to your algebraic reductionism you seem to be overlooking the symbolic significance embedded in them.

I would like to point out that my interpretation is consistent with some of the views you expressed about Eros and Necessity, even though I came to it in a different way. For example, the view of Eros as being associated with the faculty of the soul that rouses us to action. Except instead of just being associated with Spirit, as in your construction, in my reconstruction it is actually about Eros' association with the Sun. So its not really ?Spirit?s Lot of Spirit? so much as it is emphasizing the role of the Sun in rousing people to action through desire.

The situation is similar with your statement about necessity being ?Fortune?s Lot of Fortune?. I would agree with this only insomuch as Fortune is generally associated with the the Moon, and the rationale underlying my reconstruction is that the Moon is dominant in both calculations of Necessity. It is not about the calculation being associated with Fortune. It is about the calculation being associated with the Moon.

It is interesting that my reconstruction is also consistent with this offhand remark that you made to Osthanes about Plato's Phaedrus: ?Is a well positioned Lot of Spirit and its lord obedient to the commands of nous, the Sun; and is not a more poorly positioned Lot of Spirit and its lord subject to epithumia in the sense of orexis and the Moon??

My reconstruction also clarifies the question about what to do about Firmicus. It would appear that Firmicus has the corrupted set of calculations rather than Valens (and perhaps Dorotheus), because it makes more sense conceptually to associate Eros with the Sun and Necessity with the Moon, as in Valens. Firmicus would have the reverse. Therefore I would argue that Firmicus or his scribes probably got the calculations reversed somehow. Either that, or he did have the same calculations as Paul for those two lots. This is simply a speculation though.
My website:
http://www.chrisbrennanastrologer.com

82
I was just about to post this when I saw Chris Brennan had replied to my last post. I will make my new post and then take a look at what he has written.

A small but I think important point about the reversal issue.

Instead of looking at the 99% of the lots where reversal means reversal of the order of counting, I think we can equally well look at the 1% whose algorithms by all accounts are not supposed to reverse at all by day and by night.

There is another class of lots, less frequently reported but nevertheless part of the tradition, in which one counts from the domicile lord of a topical place (?whole-sign house?) to that topical place itself and casts out an equal interval from the Hour-marker. (I do not at this time wish to go into the problem of whether that counting is done from planet to a ?cusp? or whether the counting is from image to image, a matter that Osthanes has also brought up). The order of counting does not reverse in these lots. An example is the Lot of Livelihood: Asc + 2nd place - lord of the 2nd.

Osthanes has pointed out that a lot marks an image (?sign?) and gives it a topical character in a manner analogous to how the rising portion (?degree?) marks the rising image and gives it a topical character, which also helps establish the topical character of the remaining eleven. For the most part I agree with his point.

Now, I have said that the double reversal I am advocating for the Hermetic lots reduces to the diurnal formula in which all that is reversed nocturnally is the position of Fortune or Spirit in the chart, and there is effectively no reversal of counting at all.

Since this other class of lots and the Hermetic lots both consist of heterogeneous elements?namely a topical place and a planetary lord in the one case, and a lot and a planet in the other?and since lots and topical places are analogous, I believe that this is more evidence that the Hermetic lots should be constructed according to the paradigm of this other class of lots than the normal two-planet lots.

To be more precise: the Hermetic lots according to my interpretation occupy a position between two planet lots and lots consisting of a topical place and its lord. There is a reversal of the position of Fortune or Spirit by day and by night in the manner of normal two-planet lots, but there is no change in the order of counting as is the case with lots composed of a topical place and its lord.

The primary difference between the Hermetic lots and this other class of lots is that the order of counting in the former is from Fortune or Spirit to the planet (certainly in the case of the two Spirit lots, and possibly in the case of the three Fortune lots), and for the others from the planetary lord to the topical place. I believe that this difference is significant and says something about the difference in meaning of these otherwise very similar classes of lots.

Robert Schmidt
Last edited by Robert Schmidt on Thu Aug 12, 2010 4:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Chris Brennan wrote:

?Having just worked out what I think is a plausible rationale for this set of lots, I have to say in response to the approach that you advocated above that by subjecting the calculations to your algebraic reductionism you seem to be overlooking the symbolic significance embedded in them.?

First of all, I only spoke of reductions of algebraic formulas. You must know that ?reductionism? is a pejorative term in the modern world. If you want to speak of the strengths and weaknesses of algebraic formulations in astrology, please start a different thread and I will eagerly be there. This subject has been one of my interests all of my adult life.

If you did not intend this overtone, say so clearly and I will forget this remark so that it does not distract from the conversation going on at present.

I need to say this here because some of the remarks you have made suggest that you do not understand the intent and manipulations of the basic algebraic formulas I have used, all of which can be shown plainly and arithmetically?or as you have said, anachronistically and incorrectly in your paper, ?geometrically?. There is nothing I have said that cannot be just as clearly depicted using visual counting intervals from one planet to another. If you think my remarks are ?artifacts? of the algebra, as your remarks sometimes insinuate, say so plainly and we will have that out.

That said, I thought that I clearly brought out the ?symbolic? significance embedded in Eros and Necessity by speaking of Eros as Spirit?s Lot of Spirit and Necessity as Fortune?s Lot of Fortune.

I have been laboring to understand your response, and before I continue I wish to ask a simple question:

I understand you to say that a diurnal Eros has a different underlying nature than a nocturnal Eros, diurnal Eros being more in accord with reason or a solar principle, and nocturnal Eros being more in accord with the appetites and or a lunar principle. Is that what you meant?

If not, please clarify.

Robert Schmidt

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Robert Schmidt wrote:Chris Brennan wrote:

?Having just worked out what I think is a plausible rationale for this set of lots, I have to say in response to the approach that you advocated above that by subjecting the calculations to your algebraic reductionism you seem to be overlooking the symbolic significance embedded in them.?

First of all, I only spoke of reductions of algebraic formulas. You must know that ?reductionism? is a pejorative term in the modern world. If you want to speak of the strengths and weaknesses of algebraic formulations in astrology, please start a different thread and I will eagerly be there. This subject has been one of my interests all of my adult life.

If you did not intend this overtone, say so clearly and I will forget this remark so that it does not distract from the conversation going on at present.

I didn't mean it pejoratively. It may be a sort of critique, but only insofar as you and I came to much different conclusions about that set of lots, and I think that that is because we are using different approaches to representing the calculations. My sense is that your conversion or "reduction" of the formulas to algebraic notation leads you to focus more on the results of the calculations and the places they end up in in the chart, whereas my approach is focused more directly on the motivating rationale and not so much what that will actually mean as far as where the lots end up in the chart.

That is simply an observation on my part though.

Robert Schmidt wrote: I need to say this here because some of the remarks you have made suggest that you do not understand the intent and manipulations of the basic algebraic formulas I have used, all of which can be shown plainly and arithmetically?or as you have said, anachronistically and incorrectly in your paper, ?geometrically?. There is nothing I have said that cannot be just as clearly depicted using visual counting intervals from one planet to another. If you think my remarks are ?artifacts? of the algebra, as your remarks sometimes insinuate, say so plainly and we will have that out.

I'm simply saying that, in this instance, I get the sense that by converting the calculations to that format that you may be missing some other properties that are motivating their construction, of which their location in the chart is only a byproduct. Given the number of subtle components of the Hellenistic system that you have been able to work out at this point, I have no doubt that you would have noticed the same pattern that I did in this set of lots at some point if you had really tried, but I think that you didn't because of the way you are approaching it. There is no need to take that pejoratively, because it is simply an honest critique, and it is not meant to be antagonistic.

Robert Schmidt wrote: I have been laboring to understand your response, and before I continue I wish to ask a simple question:

I understand you to say that a diurnal Eros has a different underlying nature than a nocturnal Eros, diurnal Eros being more in accord with reason or a solar principle, and nocturnal Eros being more in accord with the appetites and or a lunar principle. Is that what you meant?

If not, please clarify.

No, I don't think that I went that far in trying to make a distinction between the diurnal and nocturnal formulas. All I was able to show was that the author attempted to correlate Eros with the Sun, and Necessity with the Moon. I'm not sure that based on that that it would be correct to say the nocturnal and diurnal formulas of the same lot have different natures. I don't see a distinction being made beyond the basic association between the two luminaries, although I haven't probed much beyond what is on that sheet of paper. If I need to write it out more formally and more clearly though then I can.
My website:
http://www.chrisbrennanastrologer.com

85
I just programmed Valens versions of the lots of Eros and Necessity according to both Schmidt's and Brennan's interpretation into Delphic Oracle 5. What is interesting is if you set the animation to 1 hour, Schmidt's version of the lots always have Fortune and Necessity on the same side of the horizon whereas Brennan's version will not maintain that correlation. In other words, the animation switches for Eros and Necessity to the opposite side of the horizon take place when Spirit and Fortune switch sides, whereas the Brennan version of the lots have a steady motion in opposing directions.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

86
To Chris Brennan:

Putting aside Eros and Necessity for the moment, do you maintain that lots generally speaking change their nature by day and by night in such a way that this calls for different delineations?

While I am waiting for your answer to that question, let me repeat my central point. Your reckoning in the case of Eros and Necessity leads to a lot that does not change its position by day and by night, and retains its name, either Eros or Necessity, but changes its character from Eros to Necessity or Necessity to Eros by night.

This is not analogous to what happens with Fortune and Spirit. There the same point in the chart changes both its name and its character in a nocturnal chart with the same interval between the lights.

What would be analogous to what you are doing is to first calculate a diurnal Lot of Spirit. By night you would continue to call this the Lot of Spirit, but really it would have the character of the Lot of Fortune.

You have not responded directly to this argument, but instead have pursued your symbolic associations. The main reason I brought up this issue of the Valens lots was to show that that the word reversal does not always refer to the order of counting. I think we need to get this point settled.

I see why you wish to side-step my characterization of Eros as Spirit?s Lot of Spirit and Necessity as Fortune?s Lot of Fortune (although this is clearly and unequivocally what they are in diurnal charts, only the nocturnal characterizations being in dispute), because this is what reveals the absurdity of your account in the nocturnal case. Instead, you evidently want to understand Eros as somehow directly deriving from the Sun, taking a detour around Spirit, and Necessity from the Moon with a detour around Fortune.

Your rationale for the lots leads you to say that Eros is more associated with the Sun and Necessity with the Moon. I on the other hand am claiming that Eros is a specification of Spirit in relation to Fortune, and Necessity is a specification of Fortune in relation to Spirit. There is a big difference. In the Platonic context I was alluding to earlier, there is a higher Eros that is certainly more associated with the Sun, but there is a lower Eros that is more associated with the Moon. It is not Eros itself that is more associated with the Sun.

You cannot take out this intermediate step. Eros and Necessity are derived from lots, not from planets. Just as Spirit is a specification of the Sun directed at one of its multiple significations, so Eros is a specification of Spirit directed at one of the numerous faculties that human beings possess?namely, love that involves desire.

Robert Schmidt
Last edited by Robert Schmidt on Thu Aug 12, 2010 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

87
Actually the above is only true with Schmidt's version when the lights are within 90 degrees of each other, when greater than 90 degrees (either waxing or waning), Eros pairs up with Fortune and Necessity with Spirit on opposing sides of the horizon.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC