Study Notes: Valens Anthology

RohanMenon

Overview of Book 3.

A "table of contents" and overall impresson

Sections
1. The Control
2. The significant degrees of the angles
3. The Vital Sector
4. The Winds of the Stars, their Exaltations and Steps
5. The Sects of the Stars
6. Examples illustrating the previous chapters
7. Another method from Critodemus about hostile places and vital sectors: From the Moon and the Ascendant
8. Hostile Stars and Critical Places - The First Table of Critodemus
9. Winds and Turns
10. The Order of the Terms
11. From the Books of Valens concerning the Numerical Lot and the Length of Life. The same author on the topic of propitious times, with examples
12. The 7 day and 9 day methods for the critical period
13. The Method of New and Full Moons. Conception with Reference to the Ascending Node. Length of Life, with examples
14. How the position of the Sun, the Moon and the Ascendant at the time of conception can be accurately found
15. The Lot of Fortune and its relationship with the topic "Length of Life" with examples. Included are the Minimum Periods of the stars.
16. Critical Years
17. The Mean Years of the Stars


Quick impressions from skimming the book. This is a short book, with lots of calculations related to calculating the length of life. I am personally somewhat skeptical about such procedures actually resulting in a reliable length of life calculation, but I'll learn and try as much of these as possible. In my experience, looking *back* from a known death time, it is always possible to point at some transit or progression or profection or whatever as the cause of death. But the key technique to winnow the astrological wheat from th chaff is *prediction*, which is my touchstone for effective technique.

That said, learning these techniques are not wasted time. If nothing else, a good education in how ancient astrologers thought. They had a sysem, which is more than one can say for modern 'psychological' astrologers.
 

Minderwiz

Just a concluding word on those violent deaths:

From the introduction to the Project Hindsight edition relating to the last three chapters of Book 2:

Remember we talked about these lists of conditions being given without any clear explanation and then likened it to similar types statements in Jyotish. with the conclusion that such statements or aphorisms are of extreme conditions and will only manifest if there's a lot of supporting evidence.and no countervailing tendencies. The degree to which life is moved in that direction depends on other factors in the chart and where there are countervailing tendencies this might be very little or nothing at all but an inward urge to do something that is not actually translated into action (sorry for a little psychobabble). So when we look for evidence in the chart for a violent death we need more than just the conditions laid down by Valens. which are the extreme manifestations. We need other evidence, either from the chart or from a further predictive method - such as those that Valens looks at through the remainder of his work.

Book 3 gives his first approaches to the Length of Life calculations (presumably of this comes out as fairly short, we might look again to see if there's any evidence for violent death in terms of Valens aphorisms. More properly, what Valens is identifying are periods of danger, where life threatening conditions may manifest - High Risk periods. (Morin makes this explicit in his discussion of Primary Directions). Death is not inevitable during the first of these but will probably come during one of them.

So combining High Risk p



There's a lot in Book 3.
 

RohanMenon

That makes a lot of sense Minderwiz

That (aphorisms are extreme etc) is exactly what Jyotish teachers (the good ones) teach their students *today*.


No worries about the "psychobabble" LOL.

Coincidentally enough, I was going through some old Arroyo books, and now I have a minimal classical base, I am able to reject obvious nonsense (e.g: house = sign = planet) and retain (the few) things that are of *potential* value, (e.g: combining aspect nature with cardinality/element patterns. I really should dig into temperaments).

Of course I completely reject the 'chart is map of the psyche' , and so all of the Jung stuff. Still, interesting that I'm able to potentially get much more use out of these after getting a little into classical astrology.

Off topic, but I wonder how much (if anything) of your explorations of "modern" astrology survive in your practice today?

PS: Is there a sentence missing in your post? ("Combining High Risk p")
 

Minderwiz

I think I was in two minds to add that the High Risk periods of Life could be cross referenced to to the violent death indicators, modified for the strength of indication and the two should allow possible predictions.

I know Chris Brennan has identified a connection between ZR periods and death. He's not making any claims, simply noted that he's come across the same patterns several times.

No, there's nothing left of the Modern approach. I tried it three times and hated it each time. But for a reference to Horary, which I followed up, I'd have given up entirely about 10 years ago. I might have spent more time on Dave's Precession correction methods but by the time I went into them I was already heavily into Traditional approaches. Though I did see in Rob Hand's intro to Valens Book 1 a reference that he used precession correction for forecasts. That came in a section where he was discussing Hellenistic Astrologers mixed approach to zodiacs.
 

RohanMenon

No, there's nothing left of the Modern approach. I tried it three times and hated it each time. But for a reference to Horary, which I followed up, I'd have given up entirely about 10 years ago. I might have spent more time on Dave's Precession correction methods but by the time I went into them I was already heavily into Traditional approaches.

Very interesting, Minderwiz.
I'm presently integrating those techniques that did work in my experience into what I'm learning from classical astrology, specifically the Fagan folks's approach to solar and lunar returns. As a matter of fact, i start by sorting the planets by angularity, how close they are to the angles, from closest to farthest, and then get into more 'standard' analysis. Works so far, but who knows how it will hold up (or not) in the future?
 

RohanMenon

Starting Valens Book 3

The first sections seems to be about determining a planet called the 'control'. And the term ruler of that planet is the 'house ruler'.

There is a long list of if-then rules to determine which is the control.
If the Sun and Moon are not angular, then see if either one is in its own sect or triangle, and if both are in their own triangles, take the stronger one.

If neither light is 'configured strongly' then there are a dozen or so rules which seem to be about angularity of the Sun/Moon and the various combinations therof. Sun at MC, Moon at ASC then Moon is the control etc. Most of this seems pretty logical. I suspect doing a Lillyan 'strength analysis' of the Sun / Moon might denote which is the 'control'.

This sentence is puzzling

As can be seen, if the nativity is during the day, the luminaries are not dominant if they are above the earth. The Ascendant will have control and the ruler of its degrees will be the house ruler"

Huh there are rules above this sentence that deal with this situation and the ascendant is *not* the control.

e.g "If the Sun just precedes MC while the Moon is in the Ascendant, the Moon will have control" Given that we use whole sign houses, the Moon can be in the sky in daytime and still be in the Ascendant, and so both luminaries are above the Earth, and the Moon is the control contradicting the idea that the ascendant is the control as in the quoted sentence.

e.g "f the Moon follows MC while the Sun is in [the IX Place of] the God, the luminary which first sends its rays exactly to the Ascendant’s degree-position will have control"


here again this is a day birth with both lights above the horizon. So many of these rules seems to conflict with each other, at least as far as I can see.

No idea what apheta and anareta are. But the terms make an appearance here.
 

Minderwiz

Hellenistic and Medieval Astrology have a similar approach to the length of life and you will find this at a later stage in Lilly Book III on Nativities.

For the Hellenistic Astrologer the process is to determine a planet that is aphetes - anglicised as apheta. The Greek term means releaser, the later Arabic term was translated as Hyleg, the Giver of Life. The aim intention is calculate the length of life either:

(i) by directing this planet, usually Sun or Moo, to a place occupied or aspected by a malefic (either natural or accidental) known as the Destroyer (anareta); or

(ii) once the apheta is found, a particular ruler of the apheta, such as the Bound Lord, (often referred to as the oikodespotes or ruler. rom this a number of years is derived, this may be modified by various factors. This later method is the one that Valens tends to use, though he has variations on the theme.

The Predominator and apheta are both the same. The first term is concerned with its strength and the second with its role in directions or planetary periods.

I'll deal with your question on that sentence in my next post as it's getting late here. But I think there may be a translation error, as the reading in the Project Hindsight version is different.

Basically Valens is setting up a system for deciding whether Sun or Moon is the Predominator. Mostly it will be one or the other but if they are both badly placed, for example in the declines' the 9th and 12th Houses(cadent houses) then either the MC or the Ascendant will become the Predominator. I have a summary of the rules which I can give you.

When you get on to Chapter 2, you will find that we are no longer dealing with Whole Sign Houses
 

RohanMenon

Very useful Minderwiz. Thanks.

the connections to Hyleg and oikodespotes, which I *have* encountered was particularly useful.

I'm entering a week of zero internet access. Will continue these study notes when I get back.
 

Minderwiz

I'll post some more background in the mean time plus a more easy to follow version of those conditions in Chapter 1
 

Minderwiz

Vettius Valens said:
As can be seen, if the nativity is during the day, the luminaries are not dominant if they are above the earth. The Ascendant will have control and the ruler of its degrees will be the house ruler['quote]

I think the Riley translation is missing an 'and'. If it's a day chart and both luminaries are not in dominant positions above the Earth and none of the above conditions apply, then the Ascendant is the Predominator. I agree as it's written it appears that he's saying that if both luminaries are above the Earth they are not dominant. But it should read that they are not in dominant places. But the only such places they could be are in the twelfth, or the ninth, or possibly the eighth. Valens has already talked about both placments in the twelfth or ninth and assigned predomination to the MC in the former and Horoskopos in the latter (MC because the twelfth does not aspect the Horoskopos whereas the ninth does and thus the Horoskopos can't really predominate when it's averse to the Ascendant, but as the twelfth does aspect the tenth it can play that role)
I
've tried to find that sentence in my copy of the Project Hindsight Valens Book III. Following the sentence about the Sun and the Moon both being in the 12th place, declining from the Horoskopos and the MC becoming the predominator it continues

'Whence, if the lights were not to speak with authority, diurnally in the subterraneous hemisphere, the Horoskopos will predominate.'

So the lights are not in a place that is good. both lights may be below the horizon or one of them is (so it could be a night chart with both lights below the horizon).

This still doesn't make matters crystal clear, as Riley is implying that both lights must be above the Horizon, whereas Schmidt simply says they are not able to speak with authority and implies that could include being below the Horizon.

Rob Hand does provide a useful table though which I will summarise. in my next post.