In Mundo vs Zodiacal Aspects

Mark · Last edited by Mark on Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:29 pm; edited 2 times in total

I have just noticed Tony (aka Anthony) Louis has updated an old thread in the horary forum which discusses aspects in signs of long and short ascension.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1742

It actually seems just as relevent to this forum.

As you will see Tony has just written a short discussion on his website which investigates the fascinating and much ignored topic of in mundo or mundane versus conventional zodiacal aspects in natal charts.

http://tonylouis.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/when-is-a-trine-not-a-trine/

Its worth reading the comments in the earlier link too. Especially those by Deb and of course Tony.

I have always felt this was a neglected part of the astrological tool box. Ironically it seems the ancient astrologers were much more conscious of this than we are today.

Here is an article on the subject of in mundo or mundane aspects by the Ken Bowser that appeared in the Mountain Astrologer in 1996:

http://www.westernsiderealastrology.com/articles/aspects_in_mundo.pdf

Ken Bowser is a siderealist but that obviously has no relevance to the use of in mundo aspects.

Bringing this down to practicalities what astrological software do people recommend for calculating in mundo aspects?

If anyone is up for it I thought this thread might be a good opportunity to discuss mundane vs zodiacal aspects by comparing a few well known charts. Any takers?

Mark
_________________
��As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity�� William Lilly

Martin Gansten

I don't use any kind of non-zodiacal aspects myself, but I think it's important to be clear that there are (at least) three quite different varieties around.

What the ancients used (when they used them) seems to have been aspect angles calculated by oblique ascension. If the point on the celestial equator rising with planet A was 120 degrees distant from the point on the celestial equator rising with planet B, then, by this reckoning, planets A and B were in an ascensional trine.

Much later, in the 16th century, Magini suggested calculating aspect angles in right ascension. I don't know if he was the first, and I don't believe it ever caught on. In this method, the planets' positions are projected directly onto the celestial equator, and if two such projections happen to be 120 degrees apart, then the planets in question are considered to trine each other.

The method most in vogue today (among the few who use non-zodiacal aspects at all) is the one invented by Placidus in the 17th century, which is based on proportional semi-arcs. Every semi-arc is equated to 90 degrees, so that if planet A is exactly on the ascendant, and planet B has gone one-third of the way from the midheaven to the descendant, then planets A and B are considered to form a mundane trine.

margherita · Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 1369 Location: Rome, Italy

I'm very familiar with Placidus aspects because in Cieloeterra they like and use a lot.

I'm not so happy-I mean - but just because I don't like to have tons of aspects in a chart, I like minimal style in everything, astrology included.

On the other hand I use mundane directions ( Placidus aspects too) because it seems to me they work and moreover directions are always very rare.

p.s. new version of Morinus includes a mundane chart, with planets arranged by their mundane position, but the version is buggy, so I've not definitely installed- hope soon it will be fixed.

margherita
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Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

Mark · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:46 pm Post subject:

Margherita wrote:

margherita · Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 1369 Location: Rome, Italy

james_m · Joined: 05 Dec 2011 Posts: 3418 Location: vancouver island

margherita, thanks for pointing that out on solar fire.. i notice there are many options in that window to do with z-analogue - 9 specifically... perhaps one of those other 8 options to do with z-analogue provides what you are looking for? i have solar fire version 7.3.1

also i note astrolabe is selling this.. has anyone worked with this program?
http://alabe.com/placidus.html

Martin Gansten · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:56 pm Post subject:

Mark · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:20 pm Post subject:

Margherita wrote:

Mark · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:36 pm Post subject:

James_M wrote:

james_m · Joined: 05 Dec 2011 Posts: 3418 Location: vancouver island

hi mark,
none of them bring the ascendant into the picture... they give you the changes according to right ascension, but they don't alter the ascendant from 0 aries... sort of like a draconian chart or what they do to look at a chart based on nodes at 0 aries, except in right ascension...

i don't recall trying to do this with the morinus software but i am going to try.. i asked the folks at solar fire about this and they said they had no plans to develop more tools for reading primary directions, but shared the link to those other software programs that do this apparently... would be good to have a 1 astro prog does all!!!

margherita · Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 1369 Location: Rome, Italy

Tom · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:14 pm Post subject:

James M wrote:

Ed F · Joined: 22 Jan 2008 Posts: 301 Location: Ipswich, MA USA

Right. I consider the Placidus program the big daddy for primaries.

Janus 4 also provides the mundoscope under "alternate coordinate systems" -> "rationalized semiarc".

The Concept program (free) at www.levante.org provides them as the "terrestrial zodiac", and also give several ways of comparing their positions for transits, progressions and primaries. This is my "go to" program, but its interface is clumsy and you will need DOSBOX (free) to run it on most systems.

My AstroFrames program (free) provides these positions in the "table of positions" in the "terrestrial" column. But it only give the positions - no chart wheels. If you use Solar Fire, don't use this program as they interfere with each other.

Isaac Starkman's Polaris, while mainly a rectification program, may include mundane positions in its speculum (though it uses the mundane positions of zodiacal projections for its implementation of primaries).

Following Svarogich (www.levante.org), I view the tropical zodiac and the ascensional positions as distinct, independent frames of reference that we have historically combined (with ideas such as signs of long/short ascension, the use of "oblique ascensions" in primaries, etc).

So, I have no problem with Aries being used to designate the 0 point in the mundoscope, but I would use house meanings rather than sign meanings for these positions. It's a notational convenience I suppose.

I've been working with these positions as a complement to zodiacal positions for about 15 years. My take on them is that the zodiacal positions and aspects show relationships that are solar in flavor between planets and so on, while the mundane positions show conditions for manifestation. So it you have a trine in the zodiac, it will tend towards ease of flow at the level of intention, but if it then turns into a mundane square, there will be difficulties in manifestation. Metaphor: lightning; energy + ground needed to make something happen.

I also find the mundane positions better for timing than the zodiacal, possibly because of their indicating conditions for manifestation.
I use them for transits, secondary progressions and (obviously) for primary directions.

- Ed

james_m · Joined: 05 Dec 2011 Posts: 3418 Location: vancouver island

margherita,

thanks for sharing views on morinus latest for primaries. hopefully a patch comes to fix that as i like the program! solar fire doesn't seem interested in building it's present software to do what kolevs placidus program does which probably explains why they are selling it on there site as a stand along program.

tom,

thanks for sharing your views on rumen kolev's latest version of placidus! i have looked at primary directions for some events that i was very interested in knowing what the connections were, but for the most part i have not used them.. you can get them off solar fire 7.3. that i have, but i can't say i know how they are arrived at. i am interested in kolevs booklets. i recently bought martin ganstens book but have yet to read it.

i wonder where cosmic patterns software is at with primary direction data? i saw a quote from robert hand saying that he thinks they have the best astro software available today and he is not being paid to say this.. if i am going to spend 4-7 hundred on a new astro program, i am tempted to do a thorough study on what they all do for that kind of money. i do like looking at data and doing research, but don't think of myself as virgo so much.. i would definitely skp the trig or doing primaries by hand. i remember doing astrology charts by hand back in the 70's and while i did enjoy doing them by hand, i am really happy software programs do these kinds of calculations for me! on another note i read the thread where astrolabe is in litigation with some over controlling the data on time zones.. that was discouraging to read as i would like to eventually see open source software like morinus... cost is a big consideration for many including myself. thanks again for your comments on this..

hi ed,

we posted at about the same time and i wanted to say i found your comments really interesting.. i don't think you are saying this, but perhaps you could tell me if you are.. regarding the idea of associating manifestation with planets in right ascension as opposed to zodiac position, are you suggesting the zodiac positions are less likely to reveal events in a concrete manner? maybe that is not what you are saying, but it sounds like you might be. thanks!

on 2nd thought ed, perhaps i could provide a feature of my own chart as an example. in zodiac positions my sun/moon is in a 135 aspect.. in right ascension it is in a 120 relationship.. how would you define this difference? i am presently trying to get my head around the differences..

handn · Joined: 02 Nov 2009 Posts: 509