Friends and Enemies  ·  April 18, 2024, 17:38 GMT
ASTROLOGY WEEKLY
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Friends and Enemies

Friends and Enemies - from Tetrabiblos by Claudius Ptolemy

With regard to friendly dispositions and the opposite, the deeper and more lasting of which we call sympathies and hostilities, and the lesser and occasional acquaintances and quarrels, our investigation will follow this course. In inquiries regarding matters of importance we must observe the places in both nativities which have the greatest authority, that is, those of the sun, the moon, the horoscope, and the Lot of Fortune; for if they chance to fall in the same signs of the zodiac, or if they exchange places, either all or most of them, and particularly if the horoscopic regions are about 17° apart, they bring about secure and indissoluble sympathy, unbroken by any quarrel. However, if they are in disjunct signs or opposite signs, they produce the deepest enmities and lasting contentions. If they chance to be situated in neither of these ways, but merely in signs which bear an aspect to one another, if they are in trine or in sextile, they make the sympathies less, and in quartile, the antipathies less. Thus there come about occasional spells of silence and of disparaging talk in friendships, whenever the maleficent planets are passing through these configurations, and truces and reconciliations in enmities at the ingress of the beneficent planets upon them. For there are three classes of friendship and enmity, since men are so disposed to one another either by preference or by need or through pleasure and pain; when all or most of the aforesaid places have familiarity with each other, the friendship is compounded of all three kinds, even as the enmity is, when they are dissociated. But when the places of the luminaries only are in familiarity, the friendship will result from choice, which is the best and surest kind, and in the case of enmity the worst and faithless; similarly, when the places of the Lots ofFortune are familiar, through need; and when the places of the horoscopes are familiar, through pleasure or pain.


One must observe, of the places in aspect, their elevations and how the planets regard them. To the nativity in which an elevation of the configurayion occurs, whether it is the same sign as the succedant place or the one closest to it, must be assigned the greater authority and direction over friendship or enmity; and to those nativities in which the regard of the planets is more favourable for benevolence and power, we must allot the greater benefit from the friendship and the greater success in the enmity.


In the occasional acquaintances and oppositions that arise from time to time between individuals, we must pay attention to the movements of the planets in each of the nativities, that is, at what times the prorogations of the planets of one nativity reach the places of the other. For partial friendships and enmities take place in these times, prevailing at the shortest up to the completion of the prorogation, and at the longest until same other of the approaching planets reaches the place. Now if Saturn and Jupiter approach each other's places they produce friendships through introductions, agriculture, or inheritance; Saturn and Mars make intentional quarrels and schemings; Saturn and Venus, associaiions through kinsfolk, which, how­ever, quickly cool; Saturn and Mercury make marriage and partnerships for the sake of giving and receiving, trade, or the mysteries. Jupiter and Mars cause associations through dignities or the management of property; Jupiter and Venus friendships through women, religions rites, oracles, or the like; Jupiter and Mercury associations for learned discussion, based upon philosophic inclination. Mars and Venus cause associations through love, adultery, or illegitimate relations, but they are unsure and flourish only briefly; Mars and Mercury produce enmities, noisy disputes, and lawsuits which arise through business or poisonings. Venus and Mercury give associations based upon same art or domain of the Muses, or an introduction by letter or through women.


Now then we must determine the degree of the intensity or relaxation of acquaintances and oppositions from the relation between the places which they assume and the four principal and most authoritative places, for if they are upon the angles or the Lots of Fortune or the houses of the luminaries, their portent is the more conspicuous, but if they are removed from them, they are insignificant. Whether the association will be more injurious or more beneficial to the associates is to be determined from the character for good or bad of the planets which regard the places named.


The special topic or account of slaves and the sympathy or antipathy of their masters to them is elucidated from the hause of the Evil Daemon and from the natural suitability of the planets which regard this place both in the nativity itself and in their ingresses and oppositions to it, particularly when the lords of the sign are either in harmonious aspect to the principal places of the nativity, or the opposite.


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