Primary Directions from Zoller's Course

1
I'm having a difficult time finding a way to "double check" my primary directions calculations. For example Solar Fire's options seem to give very different results than what Zoller calculates in Lesson 20 of primary directions, so I am led to believe that the methods programed in Solar fire are different than those which Zoller uses. I have also tried to check my results against astro.com's calculations and cannot seem to understand why their oblique ascension for the Sun is wildly different from mine. I have no problem doing the calculations by hand, I just want to make sure I am doing them correctly and thus far it seems that Zoller's method, which is derived from Alcabitius and Bonatti, seems not to be what is used by at least these two softwares. I'd be happy to share my calculations step by step if anyone can help me but before I exert all of that effort to put them on the computer I would like to know that there is someone willing to help.

2
I know absolutely nothing about how Bonatti and by extension Zoller taught primary directions, but from my understanding the oldest way to calculate them is Zodiacally through the bounds. I've only seen SolarFire 7 in action, but as I recall it calculated directions "in mundo," taking after Placidus I believe. Perhaps you should try the freeware Morinus program? It has a number of options for calculation which may suit your needs.

3
Thanks I'll check out the Morinus software... my hope is that at the very least I can find a way to check my calculations against something so as to determine if I am indeed doing them correctly... I have to say it is rather frustrating how totally different the results are with slight modifications in the techniques used for directing... but such is life

4
You might want to ask Martin Gansten who is a moderator on this forum. I graduated from his PDDC course a couple of years ago and wrote primary directions into Delphic Oracle based upon his conventions. There are some confusing naming comventions that you should be aware of (such as the definition of direct and converse). Many modern programs define converse directions as motion going against diurnal rotation, but traditionally there was only one motion (diurnal rotation) and the difference between converse and direct is whether the significator (converse) or promissor (direct) was directed in the diurnal rotation. Martin has called the directing against diurnal motion neo-converse and I've named these 3 types as such in my software.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

6
On my research page

http://regulus-astrology.com/research.html

Scroll down to 'III.Prediction' and you will find several helpful files.

First is 'Technical Notes on Primary Directions' which should answer all your questions. I was one of the first to graduate from Zoller's course and wrote this set of technical notes to make the calculation method easier to understand.

http://regulus-astrology.com/pdf/PD%20- ... ctions.pdf

Right under that link is a set of excel files for download which are used to show how to implement the calculations into Excel. There are other links further down the research page which demonstrate the full range of primary directions for the Regulus USA National Horoscope of my design.

Good luck.
Dr. H.
World Class Research in Medieval Predictive Astrology
www.regulus-astrology.com

7
Hi Lazarus,

I don't know if the information was right for you. I postet the link because Rumen Kolev noted to the Zoller-example this:

A RECOMPUTATION OF THE DIRECTION IN BOTH ALGORITHMS
On page 56 Zoller computes the direction. He finds out the Directional Arc to
be 38.736 (38z 44x 11c ). We will not be able to reproduce this result, because
Zoller uses slightly different values for the RA of the points and for the AD of the Sun. Instead we will take the values of the intermediate variables from the program......


So may your problem was this...?
Or if you was looking only for to compare results with "yours" so I think the other programs, which some user posted before, may help... as Morinus (free -program) etc.

Wolfgang

Re: Primary Directions from Zoller's Course

8
Wolfgang wrote:
Hi Lazarus,

may it helps?
http://www.babylonianastrology.com/down ... method.pdf

Wolfgang
It helps a lot, Wolfgang :)
As Kolev says Alcabitius directions are semi arc directions, ie Ptolemaic method, just numbers are arranged in a different way.

In Morinus you can set (following Kolev's example of Zoller chart)
Image
and get like Kolev
?RA -10.0389 =47.5623 - 10.0389= 37.523 = DA of the direction
Image
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

10
I cannot seem to get Morinus to be accurate when I enter the data for a chart... I put in the correct GMT Long Lat etc and it is clearly incorrect when compared with other software... any suggestions? What am I missing?

12
Right now I'm just entering Robert Zoller's birth chart which is Jan 25 1947 Mount Vernon. The GMT is +5 hrs yet in Morinus I only get the correct chart when I set it to -5hrs... perhaps its a glitch