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petosiris wrote:Thank you Konrad, I fully agree with what you are saying.

I am ok with people rejecting this approach as being out of convenience (simply having planets in signs and rising sign) or ignorance of quadrants, but I find it a bit disturbing that Dr Martin Gansten (because I value his linguistic knowledge) says that evidence for whole signs is scantier than for equal houses (this being a historical and linguistic rather than practical matter). Perhaps Martin can clarify his can of worms he opened with his last post, because it is the first time I hear that zoidion can refer to 30 degrees regardless of the ecliptical boundaries. Have you ever encountered such thing in the Hellenistic tradition?
I know of some of Martin's argument on this topic, though I don't think we have ever discussed it in any great depth. I will let him describe it if he feels like doing so, though I am aware that this thread is meandering away from its original topic, and that the moderators here prefer things to be organised in a more coherent manner. I'd be happy to contribute to a new thread on this matter if it so happens that I have anything to offer.
http://www.esmaraldaastrology.wordpress.com

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I found clear reference to whole signs from Nechepso in 5.6 in Kroll (4 in Pingree) in the chapter about monthly profections using the transiting Sun.

Riley translates this as follows:
The King had this opinion about the operative month: determine the distance from the sun’s current position to the moon’s position at birth, then count that distance from the Ascendant. It will be necessary to examine the ruler of the sign where the count stops to see if it is in operative signs, and to make a judgement about the stars in conjunction or in aspect, whether benefic or malefic. (For day births, determine the distance from the moon’s current position to the sun’s position at birth; count that from the Ascendant.) - Valens, Riley translation http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/vet ... entire.pdf
Image with text from the Kroll critical edition of Valens:
https://i.imgur.com/j8yt8Ge.png

The Greek text also refers to operative signs. It also makes no sense for it to refer to equal houses, thus contradicting Martin's hypothesis, simply because it makes no sense for it to say to examine the ruler of the sign and then to see if it is in operative signs - for it will have to use zoidia for signs in the first part of the sentence, but then to an entirely different technical concept in the second part of the sentence. I hope this is not all about Martin wanting to use the word ''sign'' in a non-standard sense. Perfectly good arguments can be made for quadrants without claiming the argument from antiquity.

This is also consistent with Dorotheus, Valens and other astrologers who use mostly angularity by sign throughout their works. It also contradicts those modern astrologers who think that some considered topics by whole signs, but angularity by quadrants, which is nowhere mentioned in the Hellenistic tradition as far as I am aware. After all, the place meanings come from angularity. And it also contradicts Chris Brennan's assumption (that they originate quadrant houses) and confirms my claim that Nechepso and Petosiris used whole signs as their house division, for both topics and angularity.

An example of Dorotheus disregarding equal and quadrant division in favor of whole signs is in the highly corrupt chapter of the ''haylaj''- there the Moon is cadent only in whole signs. I think Holden believed that the chart is dated 44 AD, while Pingree dated it much later as an insertion (4th century if I remember correctly), regardless it considers angularity by whole signs even though it is capable of finding equal and quadrant houses from the sixth degree of Scorpio (there can be scribe error only in the Moon and the Ascendant, somewhat unlikely with the Lot of Fortune being given).

His triplicity rulers technique and those of Valens clearly use whole signs, however one can argue that it is because they did not have the degree of the ascendant and the planets (thus being somehow provisional, although perhaps contradicted by the aforementioned chart). Notice that they consider only whether the ruler is angular, succedent or declining (inoperative), which is Nechepso's operative scheme (for signs=lots=places=configurations?).
I find it a huge leap to say that he was counting them in equal houses, particularly since he had ample opportunity to introduce equal houses and never does in any of his practical examples.
Perhaps all his examples are equal houses, but they all had the ascendant at the first degree.
Last edited by petosiris on Sat Jun 09, 2018 5:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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I agree with Konrad that this is a side-track, and I don't really have a big theory to present; it's more in the nature of an observation and a doubt. So I'll just explain briefly here what I meant and leave it at that for now. Perhaps in future there will be occasion to return to it.

There are textual passages in Valens, Ptolemy and Firmicus explicitly describing what we would call an equal-house system (with a slight variation in the case of Ptolemy), but I haven't seen a passage explicitly teaching whole-sign houses -- that is, saying, like modern expositions do, something like: 'When Aries is rising, the whole of Aries is the first place; the whole of Taurus is the second place; etc.' I accept that this may well be because it was simply assumed that the reader would understand it that way. But it is not the only possible tacit assumption.

The crucial point is that 'sign' (or, in Ptolemy's case, 'twelfth', which is his usual term for the zodiacal signs) is used in more than one way in the texts. In addition to meaning the 12 pre-defined divisions (Aries, etc.), it is also used as a unit of measurement for any successive 30 degrees. I can't say at present if Valens does this, but there are examples in Ptolemy (III 11) and Firmicus (II 19) -- so no, this is not non-standard usage on my part, though I did take the hint.

As I said, this creates a doubt in my mind as to what any passage using the word 'sign' is actually referring to. At present, I tend to think it needs to be decided on a case-to-case basis. And that's really all I have to say on the matter at present -- I'm not pushing any particular hypothesis here, just observing and wondering.
https://astrology.martingansten.com/

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petosiris wrote: My problem with the ''established communication'' is that it rejects whole signs linguistically, but without any concrete argument. Without calling the X sign culminating and an angle, there is no way for one to accept whole signs, he will see the quadrant division as more ''astronomical'' and the like misdirections.
But isn't this the wrong way to approach this in the first place? Should you instead be looking to see what the authors say and what they do, and then from that infer whether or not they employed whole sign houses? Instead you're rejecting what they actually say because otherwise an article of faith, that they used whole sign houses, may be put on shaky ground?

In any event, the problem that I'm tackling isn't so much whole sign houses, but recognising that the the idea of culminating does not equate necessarily to the whole sign 10th. Culminating has a specific astronomical meaning and in this context several authors, one of which you yourself cite, highlight that confusion can abound when astrologers/astronomers expect the 90º point to be the culminating point, and we can expand on this to say that they may expect the 10th whole sign to be the culminating sign, but this isn't always the case, and technically is only the case for two moments in a given day.

I don't quite see how that would weaken the whole sign houses argument, as much as it would strengthen the need to recognise what is happening astronomically at the whole sign tenth and what isn't.
You probably noticed that Paul rejects whole signs and thinks that it is a mistake and confusion on part of the authors simply because it is not ''culminating'' in his own brain.
On the contrary I don't "reject whole signs" and think it's a mistake on the part of the authors. What I am saying is that we know some people confused their terminology and their astronomy - can we at least agree on this part? We also know that Valens allows for signification of the MC to belong simultaneously to 10th signification as well as affecting another sign should the MC fall into a sign other than the 10th.

It's not about "culminating in my brain", its about culminating in the sky. You have used contradictory terminology repeatedly here, please don't try to imagine that the problem is everyone else's. Several people have tried to help you disentangle the confusion, please stop imagining that it's somehow just me.
If I tell you, ''use the X sign for occupation just because whole signs tell you so'', I am not making much of an argument compared to, ''the X image is culminating in the sense that it is at the nonagesimal''. As a quadrant user, perhaps someone will be able to see it as a valid and coherent system that way?
But Petosiris you cannot be "culminating in the sense that it is at the nonagesimal" because culminating means something distinct from nonagesimal - it feels like you wilfully don't want to understand this point. The point that is 90º clockwise (in the order of primary motion, 270 by zodiacal order) from the ascendant is not culminating, it is the nonagesimal and represents the point of highest altitude of the ecliptic. The confusion may be that you expect the point of highest altitude to culminate, but it isn't. You have Stellarium by the looks of things, play around with it and watch it by turning on the altitude lines.
Jupiter can be at the nonagesimal while the Sun is at the quadrant MC, and although the Sun is clearly at the highest it can be throughout the day (noon), Jupiter can be much higher than the Sun, thus I would argue superior in astronomical sense. I would say that Jupiter is culminating rather than the Sun, and I would be more correct in reality than the one who thinks the Sun is culminating while Jupiter declining.
You would not be correct though, at least not in the english language - you wish to reinvent what the term culminating means, but actually it has a meaning and everyone else seems content to go along with that meaning.

To culminate suggests or implies that one reaches some peak or climax or height - a point at which you cannot go any more in this direction, you cannot get any higher than this for example. Now in your example the Sun is as high (in altitude) as it can possibly get, it has culminated because it simply cannot go any higher than it is now, it has steadily climbed in the sky and now it has reached the peak/climax and cannot go any higher.

Jupiter on the other hand may be higher than the Sun, but it hasn't culminated because it has not reached its peak/max height, it can still climb ever higher and when it does so and when it reaches the point it cannot go any further but must start to descend, it will have peaked/culminated.

That's what culminating means.

You analogy is instead like saying that there are two people climbing a mounting, one, the Sun is at the very peak of the mountain he is climbing, and the other Jupiter, is 3/4 of the way up his own mountain. According to you, Jupiter is culminating/at the peak, and the Sun is not. Perhaps this will help you see why the term 'culminating' actually has a connotation of reaching a peak or a point at which you cannot go any further in a given direction. In reality the Sun has peaked and must now change course and start to descend, hence has culminated, and Jupiter has not yet done so.


My disagreement with you, then, isn't about whole sign houses, it's about you reinventing what 'culminate' means and appropriating the term outside of what it means astronomically. Now, your argument with me may be because of something I said about whole sign houses, and that's fine, but it's for the most part not the issue that I'm disagreeing with you about.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

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Konrad wrote: I think it is pretty clear that Valens is using whole signs in every section apart from the couple where he explicitly describes Porphyry houses and then equal houses. For me, some of the strongest evidence is found when he talks about houses from Fortune (as he does in 7:5) as I find it a huge leap to say that he was counting them in equal houses, particularly since he had ample opportunity to introduce equal houses and never does in any of his practical examples. It is much less of a convoluted argument to assume he is using what he apparently presents to us in his example charts from the beginning - whole sign houses.
But it's not from the beginning to the end. He explicitly gives us examples of charts not apparently cast in whole sign houses, I've already provided one such example.

He also describes two methods of house division explicitly: equal and porphyry. He does not describe any whole sign method of house division.

So what's going on?

Here's my theory, and you can tell me what you think of it. Valens begins the first portion of his work being as broad as he can possibly be, not only does his chart examples not include a degree for the ascendant, they also don't include a degree for the planets. He's conveying broad principles instead. He then explains how to calculate the exact degree of the Ascendant from the Sun or Moon's degree and various tables. The first step of his calculations suggests to find the sign, and then subsequently the degree.
Once you have the ascendant, you can then calculate the MC via rising times and Valens tells us how to do that. So all you really need is a given set of table with the degree of the Sun and Moon and you can calculate the Ascendant and MC to the degree.

This is very important and seems to be utterly missed by modern commentators who go on to infer that the lack of a degree rising suggests that the authors could not possibly be using a degree based house system. But this is not the case and the evidence cannot be drawn to give that conclusion. Instead, just as if I have your date of birth I will not need to ask your age, it could be that some charts which provide degree positions for the Sun or Moon do not need to record the degree position of the Ascendant or provide any information about the MC because all you need is a set of tables for the given klima and you can do the rest yourself.

A perfect example of the kind of thinking which ignores this information can be seen in Chris Brennan's (impressive) book on hellenistic astrology where he surveys the existing charts.
I'm cutting up the argument not to reword Brennan's argument, but because it spans several pages and people should really buy the book to understand his argument more broadly.
p.370
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence about the persuasiveness of whole signs in the Hellenistic tradition is the fact that while hundreds of horoscopes survive, the vast majority of them only list the sign...and they usually do not mention the exact degree of the Ascendant, nor do they record the degree of the meridian-Midheaven. This point is important because the whole sign system is the only approach where you only need to know the rising sign in order to calculate the twelve houses.
By meridian-Midheaven, he means of course the degree of the MC, not to be confused with the nonagesimal etc.

He goes on to conclude, upon a survey of the horoscopes, that only three horoscopes are included in Greek Horoscopes that include both the degree of the MC and Asc, and therefore:
p.372
it is only these three charts that quadrant houses could have been calculated at all, whereas there are seven charts that could have been used to calculate equal houses
But this way of thinking completely excludes the very methods that people like Valens explicitly set down in order to calculate the Ascendant and MC. It assumes, anachronistically, that ways of calculating houses rest upon principles that contemporary astrologers are familiar with.

Valens provides one example of calculating the MC which results in an ascendant of 15º Capricorn, and MC at 2º Scorpio. He does this in Book One.

By the end of Book III however, he has covered most of the introductory matters and the uses of tables and so on. He concludes Book III with what I believe to be a very important statement:
Book III (/157K/ 15K;13P.), p.70, Riley
These chapters which I have composed may seem unprofessional because they have been addressed to a youthful audience, my students, in such a way that they might find my introduction to this art comprehensible. In view of this fact, I had wished to revise them for greater accuracy, but I have not had the opportunity because my vision has been troubled and my intellectual capacity has been enfeebled by my deep sorrow for a precious student who has died. May the reader pardon me.
Later, in Book IV, he reminds us of the importance of exact degree positions where he says:
Book IV 11, p.78, Riley
I urge them to observe the position of the stars in degrees when necessary for determinations to the degree, to observe their positions by sign when that level of accuracy is appropriate, so that what is said will have been said truly. ...Consequently, it is necessary to make the determination <of> only after first discovering in which signs or degrees the stars—and particularly the Ascendant—are located
I've already provided an example of where Valens tell us that the the signification of the 10th derives from the MC but affected the 9th sign.

My personal belief then is that many of Valens's examples are deliberately simplified with minimal information to prove only the point he's currently having his students examined - and I think this point is so often ignored. Valens is not writing a textbook of examples of his own client work and the interpretations he provided his client, he's writing a manual for "young students" and he simplifies his examples accordingly so that the method being taught can be understood by example.

However, when we get a bit further into his work, he now advises the student to start being accurate and not long after this we start to get houses by degree.

Whereas before he had imagined the Lots as just being in one or other sign, by the end the Lots have specific degrees. Whereas before the ascendant was just given in this or that sign, now it's listed by degree. And so too for the houses.

For me Valens clearly allows for a rough and ready use of the sign based positions not just for houses but also for planets and for Lots but when it comes to the more advanced methods where such rough and ready examples are not appropriate, he drops them like a hot potato and degree based specificity takes over.

I'm open to the idea that, like with whole sign aspects, Valens allowed signs to be demarcators of influence of some kind, such that having the MC in any sign will mean that the sign has a whole sign conjunction with the MC and anything in that sign, like with any aspect by sign, will be coloured by that aspect. I'm also open to the idea that 'zoidion' can be imagined as any division of the zodiac, though this is much more difficult to prove.
Last edited by Paul on Sat Jun 09, 2018 11:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

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Martin Gansten wrote:I agree with Konrad that this is a side-track, and I don't really have a big theory to present; it's more in the nature of an observation and a doubt. So I'll just explain briefly here what I meant and leave it at that for now. Perhaps in future there will be occasion to return to it.

There are textual passages in Valens, Ptolemy and Firmicus explicitly describing what we would call an equal-house system (with a slight variation in the case of Ptolemy), but I haven't seen a passage explicitly teaching whole-sign houses -- that is, saying, like modern expositions do, something like: 'When Aries is rising, the whole of Aries is the first place; the whole of Taurus is the second place; etc.' I accept that this may well be because it was simply assumed that the reader would understand it that way. But it is not the only possible tacit assumption.

The crucial point is that 'sign' (or, in Ptolemy's case, 'twelfth', which is his usual term for the zodiacal signs) is used in more than one way in the texts. In addition to meaning the 12 pre-defined divisions (Aries, etc.), it is also used as a unit of measurement for any successive 30 degrees. I can't say at present if Valens does this, but there are examples in Ptolemy (III 11) and Firmicus (II 19) -- so no, this is not non-standard usage on my part, though I did take the hint.

As I said, this creates a doubt in my mind as to what any passage using the word 'sign' is actually referring to. At present, I tend to think it needs to be decided on a case-to-case basis. And that's really all I have to say on the matter at present -- I'm not pushing any particular hypothesis here, just observing and wondering.
First of all, it is necessary to calculate the positions of the Places in degrees: count from whatever point has been determined to be the Ascendant until you have completed the 30° of the first Place; this will be the Place of Life. Then proceed until you have completed another 30°, the Place of Livelihood. Continue in the order of signs. Often two Places will fall in one sign and will indicate both qualities according to the number of degrees each one occupies... - Valens, Riley - http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/vet ... entire.pdf
When he defines equal houses in Book IX, he seems to disagree with what you are saying and he uses non-convoluted terms to express that idea. That is, when he eventually defines equal houses, he does not use your terminology for some reason.

I am not seeing the relevant example in Ptolemy 3.11 translation by Robbins, perhaps you can supply us with a quote.
I accept that this may well be because it was simply assumed that the reader would understand it that way. But it is not the only possible tacit assumption.
I accept that this may well be because it was simply assumed the reader would understand them as equal houses. But it is not the only possible tacit assumption, because they never define equal houses using signs.
Last edited by petosiris on Sat Jun 09, 2018 11:09 am, edited 5 times in total.

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My personal belief then is that many of Valens's examples are deliberately simplified with minimal information to prove only the point he's currently having his students examined - and I think this point is so often ignored.
He is using whole signs well into Book IX, and especially when he reveals his ''keys'' and mystical methods using rising times, planetary years, profections etc. In fact, he gives only signs for his own chart even though he is able to include the degree of the Moon and the Ascendant (having shown his chart as an example in the conception chart, obviously some techniques like this require degrees).
I'm open to the idea that, like with whole sign aspects, Valens allowed signs to be demarcators of influence of some kind, such that having the MC in any sign will mean that the sign has a whole sign conjunction with the MC and anything in that sign, like with any aspect by sign, will be coloured by that aspect.
If you drop whole sign houses, Hellenistic astrology like using only the angles for initiatives, or using derivative houses from Fortune become increasingly shallow and out of place. Hellenistic profections, the houses meanings being related to configurations and whole sign aspects. The whole point of being able tell anything simply through the stars in the signs and the rising sign without any degree, is simply aversive to the idea that quadrants and equal houses are required.

So even though I believe one needs degrees today, we do not know whether the ancients thought that everyone possessed unique rising sign even in the case of twins as can be thought by the following passage:
“But,??? someone will say, “the chronocrators for twins will be the same, since the same stars are located at the same degree-positions!??? I answer that in such nativities, the shift of just the Ascendant alone alters the angles and the fortune and condition of the native, and it occasionally brings his end. - http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/vet ... entire.pdf
Obviously and contrary to this assertion very little changes in terms of the Hellenistic techniques he expounds through the anthology, which could by why someone would argue that this approach is falsified by the existence of twins. Anubio and Ptolemy's rectifications are similarly bogus because they place one ascendant for everyone born within a day. Similarly, even if you calculate the lots by degrees, you will have some minor changes in the grand scheme of the whole sign paradigm (even if you use house divisions I may add).
Instead you're rejecting what they actually say because otherwise an article of faith, that they used whole sign houses, may be put on shaky ground?
I already told you my theoretical and practical reasons for preferring whole signs. If somebody wants to further examine the historical evidence, he can check Chris Brennan's arguments in his book, or simply see the authors for himself such as:
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/vet ... entire.pdf - Valens
https://books.google.bg/books/about/Gre ... edir_esc=y - Neugebauer and Hoesen Greek Horoscopes

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Martin Gansten wrote:
petosiris wrote:
Martin Gansten wrote:I am not seeing the relevant example in Ptolemy 3.11 translation by Robbins, perhaps you can supply us with a quote.
It is III 10 in the Robbins translation, III 11 in Hübner's more recent critical edition.
Ok, I can see your doubt about the passage, and your reading of it now. But you do realize that would imply it rejects whole sign aspects and creates a new zodiac and new ''whole equal before 5 degrees aspects''?

Interesting, Martin. Perhaps the following:
Some, however, employ an order of masculine and feminine signs whereby the masculine begins with the sign that is rising, called the horoscope.
Is simply a tradition that Ptolemy was partly following, which favours equal houses (but beginning five degrees earlier) instead of the zodiac? Maybe someone found the zodiac boundaries artificial and created all this?

If I may propose an alternative reading of the passage that (I think) is less convoluted and hopefully plausible in the Greek text. Perhaps Ptolemy is using whole signs from the rising sign only if it the ascendant is before 25 degrees, for after 25 degrees the next whole sign would be more indicative of rising. Is it possible that Ptolemy meant that in the text? Perhaps he is using both, like Dorotheus and Valens imply at certain points.

If he does not use whole signs, perhaps you can explain the rest of the passage talking of aspects to different signs. It is also problematic since Valens and Dorotheus are using whole signs, which is like a radically different approach from this theory (perhaps the zodiac is also related to lots and numbers of which no reasonable explanation can be given).

Btw, Firmicus Maternus uses the signs as boundaries for aspects to the Moon, not the equal houses boundaries (thus he is using whole sign aspects, which I thought Ptolemy was using too). I do not have the text at the moment, but I remember encountering it in the translation by Bram.

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petosiris wrote: He is using whole signs well into Book IX
I think you imagine that I'm arguing that he never uses whole signs or that he drops them completely after Book IV.
What I've been highlighting all this time is that some of the claims for whole sign houses may be exaggerated (we talked earlier about Gauquelin sectors and the extreme latitudes), but also that the idea that the Hellenistic astrologers only used whole signs and that quadrants are incompatible with Hellenistic astrology (a point you make in post Thu May 31, 2018 10:13 pm), is simply untrue. Along the way I've tried to encourage you to use the terminology as it actually is (nonagesimal vs MC debate), but what I'm not trying to suggest here is that whole sign houses are not used at all or they are never used again after Book IV.

In fact my very point has been for some years now that whole signs seemed to be a broad or rough house system analogous to how aspects by sign are a broader or rougher aspect system in comparison to aspects by degree - but just like how astrologers allowed for aspects by degree they also used houses by degree. Particularly equal houses and porphyry. As Porphyry can be imagined as a quadrant division, and we have clear examples of astrologers using that house system (quotes already provided), I reject your hypothesis that only whole signs make sense with hellenistic techniques.
If you drop whole sign houses, Hellenistic astrology like using only the angles for initiatives, or using derivative houses from Fortune become increasingly shallow and out of place.
But do you think I'm suggesting dropping whole sign houses?

Perhaps it would help to realise that I myself use Equal and Placidus regularly. When I argue that hellenistic astrologers used equal and porphyry I am not competing them with whole sign houses - actually if you look more closely at my posts you will see that I'm allowing for the idea that they may be used in conjunction with whole sign houses. I have always read Valens, from the moment that Riley's translation became available to me, in this light. I think Valens is describing a house system whereby you can be rough and broad via whole sign houses or you can be specific via some degree based system.
is simply aversive to the idea that quadrants and equal houses are required.
Emphasis mine, see my arguments above in this post. I am not arguing that ONLY equal and quadrant houses were used by Valens.
I already told you my theoretical and practical reasons for preferring whole signs.
For preferring them yourself, yes, but the arguments and reasons you provide are part of what I'm demonstrating to be incorrect - you base your reasons on some historical awareness of what the ancients did or didn't do, but as I've been trying to show, some of those assumptions are, I believe, questionable.
If somebody wants to further examine the historical evidence, he can check Chris Brennan's arguments in his book
Read my reply to Konrad, what do you make of my point regarding the equal and quadrant houses not needing a degree of the ascendant to be noted? I quote what I believe to be a misguided or ill thought through argument that Chris makes in his book - one which I think is very forgiveable and easy to make, but is nevertheless misguided.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

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Read my reply to Konrad, what do you make of my point regarding the equal and quadrant houses not needing a degree of the ascendant to be noted? I quote what I believe to be a misguided or ill thought through argument that Chris makes in his book - one which I think is very forgiveable and easy to make, but is nevertheless misguided.
Paul, I read your replies, that is why I was reminded by some of Brennan's excellent arguments on the topic. About quadrants not needing the actual MC, I would agree with you (Paulus and Valens give arithmetical methods for calculating those). But Chris Brennan is obviously correct that 90%+ of the surviving charts can be calculated using whole signs exclusively. The students of Valens obviously are not going to pick some mathematical tables for the nativities that happened over hundred years before they lived and start calculating their degree positions (because some nativities are dated to around 60 AD and could belong to Critodemus).
Emphasis mine, see my arguments above in this post. I am not arguing that ONLY equal and quadrant houses were used by Valens.
There is not a single technique in Hellenistic astrology that requires an equal or quadrant house division. Most do not even require degrees (probably not mere coincidence).
I reject your hypothesis that only whole signs make sense with hellenistic techniques.
That is fine, but I wonder how much do you actually use Hellenistic techniques in practice. Have you read and tried Hephaistio, Dorotheus, Serapio, Zoroaster and the like on initiatives? (they all use the four whole sign angles and the X as culminating sign)

Almost every author uses some of the the following - whole sign aspects and lots, derivative whole sign houses from those, annual profections (which are always sign per year instead of the medieval degree approach) and transits.

Clearly one will get quite different results if he employs equal or quadrant houses for initiatives, profections, revolutions, transits and the like. The house division problem is the same as the zodiac issue, there is no world where both are equally valid (and between quadrants, equal and whole signs, there is an enormous difference). If the authors (Hellenistic, Persian and Indian) employed whole signs to great effect, then perhaps we should ask ourselves whether their approach is not correct after all, not the least because it is coherent and perfectly reasonable from an astronomical and symbolical approach, contrary to your assertions that it is simply provisional.

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petosiris wrote:But Chris Brennan is obviously correct that 90%+ of the surviving charts can be calculated using whole signs exclusively.
90% might be able to be calculated using whole signs, but exclusively whole signs? No that's not the case, or at least would require a huge amount of additional research to demonstrate that this is the case. But really you've highlighted the problem here, in presenting the information like this we're given the connotation that only whole signs could have been calculated, Brennan explicitly states as much - and that conclusion, as per my previous argument, is flawed.

Now imagine I present it a different way, one I think is more accurate:
100% of the charts can be calculated without requiring any house division at all.

As for the others, nobody has done a study that I'm aware of that has repeated Hand's assertion about Valens and whole sign houses - it's something I intend to start. Additionally, nobody has looked at how many charts could be ascertained with the assumption that the chart was ever used with a house system at all, and if the sun or moon degree is known.
The students of Valens obviously are not going to pick some mathematical tables for the nativities that happened over hundred years before they lived and start calculating their degree positions (because some nativities are dated to around 60 AD and could belong to Critodemus).
See my point earlier about the examples being for students and therefore learning.
There is not a single technique in Hellenistic astrology that requires an equal or quadrant house division. Most do not even require degrees (probably not mere coincidence).
According to you perhaps, but not according to Valens who explicitly highlights the use of quadrant division if not for everything then at least for specific techniques.
That is fine, but I wonder how much do you actually use Hellenistic techniques in practice. Have you read and tried Hephaistio, Dorotheus, Serapio, Zoroaster and the like on initiatives? (they all use the four whole sign angles and the X as culminating sign)
I have used them in practice, that said, I do not consider myself a Hellenistic astrologer - my astrology is broader than Hellenistic astrology.
That said, the implication here seems to be to diminish my points, it's worth reminding you that you don't even need to be an astrologer to discuss points about the history of astrology which is what we're doing here. I've answered this question only as a courtesy. Let's move on from discussing one another to discussing the evidence.
Almost every author uses some of the the following - whole sign aspects and lots, derivative whole sign houses from those, annual profections (which are always sign per year instead of the medieval degree approach) and transits.
Not from the Lots, but from one Lot, Fortune. And I think it's debatable that they all used sign based profections, but that's frankly a matter for another debate that I dont' have the energy to open up here.
For what it's worth, little I'm sure, I use profections by sign myself.
contrary to your assertions that it is simply provisional.
Petosiris do not put words in my mouth please. I have no asserted that, on the contrary several times now I've asserted that whole signs could have been used alongside other house systems without any provision or boundary on that statement given.

I feel you want me to make some other points so you can jump on them and argue them, this is not the first time you've invented a straw man argument for me, but if we're going to get anywhere we have to just stick to what we're actually saying. If you're not sure, ask.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

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