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Horatio wrote:Moon IS Void of Course when it is not 'Perfecting/completing' any aspect with Planetary bodies before exiting the sign. Period. There is one exceptions to this rule and I call it 'Change of Heart' rule.

Moon WAS Void of Course when it has not 'Perfected/completed' any aspect at the time of query with Planetary bodies after it entered the current sign. Period. There is one exceptions to this rule and I call it 'Change of Heart' rule.
Horatio, obviously you follow one of the two great directions of defining void of course as it is defined by Ibn Ezra and Frawley, for example.
But what do you call: 'Change of Heart', please?

Johannes

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pankajdubey wrote:
johannes susato wrote:If another planet conjoins the Moon and for example this planet has a smaller orbis, then this planet could be void of course, but the Moon's state could be "not void of course" at the same time.
Whether the state of void of course is given or not has to be investigated for every planet separately, and the state of being void of course (or not being void of course) is always relating only to himself.
The italicised part is very interesting.

You mean there could be a situation between moon and another planet where the moon is not void but the other planet is void ? even when they are within each others sphere of influence by their combined moiety of orbs ?
PD
No, my wording is totally beside the wording that would be correct to reflect my thoughts!
I did not mean "conjoin the Moon" but "being in the same position as the Moon, but INSTEAD of her". Sorry for this totally miscarried wording.

Even with a too small orb to reach the orbs of the planets the planet in question is separating from and applying to, this planet could not be void of course, being in conjunction with the Moon, because he is then totally within orb of the Moon, both stars centers being in the same position in the Ecliptic.

But if we would exchange the stars in a given position it could be that the Moon were, because of her larger orb, not void of course, whereas another star in the same position would be in a state already out of separation and not yet in the state of application and thus just in the state of being void of course.

Johannes

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Thanks for the clarification Johannes.

Ibn Ezra:
If the Moon is moving by itself, [void of course] that indicates any futile thing, and it signifies that any thing which the asker requests cannot possibly occur.
Moon is considered moving by itself- it lacks the purpose and application is a purpose and that is what I do not understand by the term applying to a void


I am not sure what the pre-renaissance astrologers have to say about this,particularly the philosophers type like the hellenistic ones.

PD

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i would like to compliment geoffrey for articulating and summarizing so well what is essentially my own perspective on this conversation.

clinton i am curious if someone can reject anything that lilly has said especially if it doesn't comply with what he did? or is lilly the final word and always will be the final word on any approach to horary astrology?
Clinton Soule wrote:Geoffrey said:
I think that there is a tendency to treat what Lilly says in CA as holy writ and that every word in there is correct and should be used as the foundation of our astrology.

In truth, it would appear more accurate to say that Lilly wrote all those definitions and descriptions in the front of the book as a matter or record, but we need to go to the charts and examples to see how he used these techniques in practice.

Then there is the dilemma - do we do as Lilly said or as Lilly did? Much of the argument about Lilly's horary methods have hinged on this matter.
That is true of all astrology data, Moderne or Traditional.

We look at the documentation of prior writers, pre 1700, and they are holy or sacred as they are from those of the art centurys before us. But as Lilly found in that he rejected much of the prior horary lore, just because men wrote it and believed it does Not nessasarily mean it was the absolute truth.

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Thanks Geoffrey,
Very helpful.

In 500 yrs since Ibn Ezra,moon has found a purpose in doing nothing.No wonder in another 300 years since, masterly inactivity has become an active strategy : )

PD

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I have just been looking at the definitions and use of Void of Course in William Thrasher's "Jubar Astrologicum" printed in 1671. Thrasher (or Thresher) was an astrologer working in the Minories in London (near the Tower of London) and was noted for his patent medicines.

Thrasher defines Void of Course on page 36:

"A planet is void of course when he is separated from a planet, and doth not apply to another planet during his being in that sign."

So far, so good. Nothing here to cause any excitement - this definition is almost word for word what we find in Lilly, or Coley, or Gadbury, or Partridge. But Thrasher goes on;

"Or, as some late artists will have it, being separated from a planet, and doth not apply to another planet until he is free from the orbs of that planet he is separated from."

The interesting thing here is what Thrasher means by "separated" here. Thrasher is obviously using this word to mean that the aspect has perfected and the two planets are now moving apart. He does not mean "separated" in the way Lilly and Coley appear to mean it, which that the two planets are now past the moiety of their orbs. If he did, he would have written, ".... separating from a planet and not applying to another planet until he is free from the orbs of the planet he is separating from."

And who were the "late artists" Thrasher refers to?, Lilly, Coley, Gadbury, Partridge et al were all still alive! Threasher must be talking about some earlier or even ancient source. Can anyone shed light on this? Thrasher was not living and writing in isolation. He cites Gadbury in the book and was living in the same city as Gadbury and Coley and Partridge, so it is hard to imagine that he did not converse regularly with them.

Another notable thing about Thrasher is that he gives actual example charts in his book, like Lilly. And on page 187, we find a chart, "A woman sick, her disease? If curable?", which makes clear what Thrasher means by "separated".

The Moon is at 28 degrees of Scorpio. Mercury is in 21 degrees of Scorpio. Mars is in 3 degrees of Sagittarius. The Moon is separating from Mercury, and at 7 degrees past is still within aspect, as Thrasher makes clear on page 8 where he defines aspects and orbs. Moreover, it is applying to Mars, there being but five degrees to perfect its conjunction.

But on the chart is written, "a ? ?, ad vac, ad ? ?" This would appear to confirm that by "separated", Thrasher means past the perfection of the aspect. But it would also seem that Thrasher takes "apply" to mean "perfect" in the first quote above....?

Geoffrey

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Does late artists mean -the artists who have -of late....implying it was a recent thing like we are redefining VOC here on skyscript

I am not sure which will come out better here, my astrology or English ,worse still-neither.


PD

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Geoffrey wrote:Coley (Clavis Astrologiae Elimata), page 246, end of paragraph II: "...to encourage him to stay, the Moon applyes to a Void of Course."
. . . late or forever living . . .
Lilly, CA, p. 386:
"[...], finding the the Moon separated from voyd of course, and applying to the opposition of Sun, [...]"

Johannes

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pankajdubey wrote:Thanks for the clarification Johannes.

Ibn Ezra:
If the Moon is moving by itself, [void of course] that indicates any futile thing, and it signifies that any thing which the asker requests cannot possibly occur.
Moon is considered moving by itself- it lacks the purpose and application is a purpose and that is what I do not understand by the term applying to a void


I am not sure what the pre-renaissance astrologers have to say about this,particularly the philosophers type like the hellenistic ones.
That application is a purpose, is that your belief or can you explain this or give a quotation, PD?

At least Vettius Valens seems to ignore the void or course Moon (or planets). Do they mention it at all, the philosophers type hellenistic astrologers?

I really wonder who 'found' or mentioned this state the first.

Johannes

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Depends on what you think applying or seperating means.
If applying= it is and seperating = it was then this is description of a state,otherwise it is a purposeful movemt and lack of it is purposeless movement.

Valena does not mention applying or seperating aspects either but uses operative and inoperative places.Maybe,the horary void is an extension of this concept.

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PD raises an interesting philosophical point. These days, we are quite comfortable with the fact that the movements of the planets can be predicted with incredible accuracy for thousands of years into the future. But back in the days when the Babylonians first started to create the first algorithms and ephemerides for the movements of the planets, it would have been a philosophical about-face to accept that the planets - the Gods - did not just move at their own whim and of their own volition. Their movements were predictable and so subject to rules and laws, and the implication was that the Gods themselves were also subject to rules and laws.

And so we see that in the mythology of the Greeks in particular, the Gods are not omnipotent and even Zeus cannot just do anything he likes. This is something that strikes rather an odd note to anyone brought up in an Abrahamic tradition, where the one-and-only God is regarded as all-powerful and almighty.

So, the idea that the planets might actively move around the sky under the whim or direction of a God is an old one, and one which is perhaps reflected somewhat where we say the Moon applies (an active verb) to another planet or star.

And anyway, is it important that the Moon or other light planet might temporarily become void of course before it can apply to another planet?

It is interesting to look at Lilly's definition of 'Translation'. "... when a light planet separates from a more weighty one, and presently joins to another more heavy..."

What does Lilly mean by "presently" here? Today, I might say, "I am presently going down to the shops." By which I would mean that sometime soon I am going down to the shops - perhaps later on today, but not immediately. If I was just about to step out of the door to go down to the shops, I would say, "I am about to go down to the shops." So, with this meaning of "presently" in mind, we might interpret Lilly's "presently" as meaning that the light planet joins to the heavy planet soon so that it makes no other aspect before it does so.

But the older use of "presently" was to mean now, in the present, immediately. And when we read Coley's equivalent definition of Translation, the word he uses is "immediately". So in this context, what does "presently" mean? I would suggest that presently, or immediately, means without an intervening period where the fast planet is void of course. The implication is that if the fast planet goes void of course before it applies to the second slow planet, it loses the ability to transfer the virtue from the first slow planet to the second - it cannot act as "the messenger".

PDs citing of "operative" and "inoperative" places is a nice one, in this context.

Geoffrey