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Clelia wrote:I do not have anything against the almuten method: students find it useful because they feel secure by counting, so it is okay in the first contact with medieval astrology.
All right, as a pedagogical tool it sounds acceptable but what about the uncertainties regarding how to count them: non-weighted or weighted, how many points you should assign to different dignities and so on?

To be honest, I try to avoid them because I understand they are rooted in the Ptolemaic notion of predomination (epikrateia) which is firmly based on his naturalistic, Aristotelian world view. To put it simply, planets have different types of familiarities (let's use this instead of Medieval "dignity") with signs and degrees, by domicile, triplicity, exaltation and term, to which one can add configuration. In these ways planets exert various types of influence on a certain degree, and this influence can be added up and eventually the winner takes it all. I don't want to explore the intricate history of victors here but this direct planetary influence sounds untenable to my 21st century mind, neither would I prefer to blend different types of rulership into a muddy mixture.
Clelia wrote:I do not have any book from Nechepsos.
It would be a sensation at Christie's if you had one. :D

To put aside jokes, it's Valens who refers to the lost 13th book of Nechepsos which evidently dealt with the lot of Fortune. Two more books are referenced elsewhere: the 14th on medical astrology and the 15th on astral magic.
Clelia wrote:Are we in the same page?
Sure. As Antiochus reports to us, there was some disagreement on which places should be considered useful and useless. Nechepso told the cardines and the succedents are useful, while Timaeus, referring to Hermes, asserted the ascendant plus the ones configurated to it, except for the 3rd one. This gives seven places (1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11); and, as I said, a similar reasoning can be ascertained in the case of the Asclepian eight-topic system, where the places configured with the ascendant (3, 4, 5, 7) are allotted to family members. This is by no means the same, just the principle is similar.

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Levente Laszlo wrote: right, as a pedagogical tool it sounds acceptable but what about the uncertainties regarding how to count them: non-weighted or weighted, how many points you should assign to different dignities and so on?
Good point! I absolutely agree. The differences are qualitative, even if having too much dignity in a certain point ?counts" a lot, but in another sense, not the numerical one.
To be honest, I try to avoid them because I understand they are rooted in the Ptolemaic notion of predomination (epikrateia) which is firmly based on his naturalistic, Aristotelian world view
.

Intrinsically Aristotle is not so different from Plato: he was a Plato? student for many years, since Plato?s death. And the idea of a predominator in a chart existed also in the Hellenistic system. Ptolemy suggested to count ( but not to differentiate points for each dignity!) in order to find the predominator. Now, to imagine that things happens in earth for the direct physical planetary influence is a rustic way of thinking and I totally agree with you. Ptolemy was a Cartesian author!
To put it simply, planets have different types of familiarities (let's use this instead of Medieval "dignity") with signs and degrees, by domicile, triplicity, exaltation and term, to which one can add configuration. In these ways planets exert various types of influence on a certain degree, and this influence can be added up and eventually the winner takes it all. I don't want to explore the intricate history of victors here but this direct planetary influence sounds untenable to my 21st century mind, neither would I prefer to blend different types of rulership into a muddy mixture
.

I totally agree. The difficulty is to sift the wheat from the chaff, pick good things from the Medieval astrology and discard the things we do not agree. This is especially difficult when you?re teaching. I like Medieval astrology: prediction results work better ( for me, at least) than using Hellenistic astrology, but it is not comfortable to follow some parts and not the others, specially because we are thought against being creative in tradition.
Clelia wrote:I do not have any book from Nechepsos.
It would be a sensation at Christie's if you had one. :D
That was the quote of the day :lol:
To put aside jokes, it's Valens who refers to the lost 13th book of Nechepsos which evidently dealt with the lot of Fortune. Two more books are referenced elsewhere: the 14th on medical astrology and the 15th on astral magic.
To think that there were so many books from Nechepso and are all lost!

Clelia wrote:Are we in the same page?
Sure. As Antiochus reports to us, there was some disagreement on which places should be considered useful and useless. Nechepso told the cardines and the succedents are useful, while Timaeus, referring to Hermes, asserted the ascendant plus the ones configurated to it, except for the 3rd one. This gives seven places (1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11); and, as I said, a similar reasoning can be ascertained in the case of the Asclepian eight-topic system, where the places configured with the ascendant (3, 4, 5, 7) are allotted to family members. This is by no means the same, just the principle is similar.[/quote]
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