Basic principles of traditional astrology.
Astrology may be divided into three parts: natal, synastry and prognostic. Natal astrology
interprets natal charts and tries to determine personality, skills, strong and
weak points etc. basing on the place and time of birth. Synastry astrology compares
natal charts of two persons and tries to answer questions like: if these persons can
make a good couple in marriage or business etc. Prognostic astrology tries to predict
future (or at least things like periods of better or worse physical condition etc.)
by comparaison of natal chart with actual planets' positions but not only (one can
use e.g. so-called directions or symbolic shifts of planets).
Natal astrology.
Required data: time of birth (as precisely as possible, the best would be precision
at least 5 min.) and coordinates of the place of birth. Basing on that one can calculate
- positions of planets, the Sun and the Moon (ecliptic longitudes and latitudes and
declinations)
- so-called cusps of houses.
Houses is a method to divide celestial sphere basing on place of birth and local
sidereal time instead of Zodiac. The sky is divided into 12 sectors:
- the cusp of the first sector (ascendant or Asc.) is the point where the
horizont meets with ecliptic [the plane of Earth's orbit] in the East direction (place
where ecliptic ascends above the horizont)
- the cusp of the fourth one (Imum Coeli
or IC) is the point where ecliptic crosses with the opposite meridian (below the
horizont, for the northern hemisphere it is in the north, for the southern one
it is in the south, for the tropical zone it is near the Nadir)
- the cusp of the seventh one (descendant or Dsc.) is the point opposite to
Asc. or the place where ecliptic descends below the horizont
- the cusp of the tenth one (Medium Coeli or MC or Midheaven) is the point
opposite to IC or the points where ecliptic crosses with the local meridian (northern
hemisphere: on South, southern hemisphere: on North, tropical zone: near Zenith).
It is not clear how to determine other cusps - there are a lot of methods, each astrologer
has to chose one of them (or invent another one). To tell the truth I must add that
not all methods assume that Asc. is the cusp of the 1st house or
MC is the cusp of 10th house (there are methods that divide the
ecliptic into 12 equal houses - 30° - starting from Asc. or MC) but these
non-standard methods are not very common. Asc. and MC are thought to be
one of the most important points in the horoscope. Most of astrologers (but not all
of them) think that cusp of house is its beginning.
O.K., if we have positions of planets and houses we can try to interpret them.
We can look at positions in the Zodiac signs (method to divide the Ecliptic
to 12 equal sectors 30° each, starting from the spring equinox point; names of these
signs were taken from names of constellations that were in these places about
2000 years ago - now they are shifted about 30°) and in houses, aspects
between planets (here "planets" mean planets plus so-called Lights or the Sun
and the Moon) and planets to Asc., MC and the Moon N Node (and sometimes to other
points like the Part of Fortune) and some other things. Aspects are differences
of ecliptic longitudes especially if they are near n*30° (great aspects) or n/k*360°
(Kepler aspects) where n and k are integers.
Synastry astrology.
There are compared two horoscopes. One can look if signs where are the Sun, the Moon
and Asc. fit to each other and look at aspects between planets, Lights, Asc. and MC.
Prognostic astrology.
One looks mainly at aspects of planets at the time to positions of planets, Lights, Asc.
and MC in the time and place of birth and their positions in houses in the natal
chart. Apart from actual positions (transits) some astrologers take also
natal positions shifted t*1° forward (t is age in years, some astrologers take other
angles) - so-called directions - or shifted due to rule: 1 day after birth ->
1 year after birth - so-called progressions.
As we see, astrology rules are complicated and based mainly on ecliptic longitudes -
probably because planets and Lights are always close to the ecliptic (only Pluto can
be up to 17° apart, other bodies much less).
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