Whole sign houses and the MC

[dr. farr]

I think JUPITERASC was referring to the theory of the deferent/epicycle and the "crystalline circles" postulated in Greek astronomy which Ptolemy made the basis of his calculations regarding "motions" (see notes on this subject in, eg, Ibn Ezra's
"Beginning of Wisdom", from the 12th century)

I do believe we now have sufficient material (in English) to get a very good idea of the general nature and practices of non-Ptolemaic Hellenist astrology. We have Valens, Antiochus of Athens, Maternus, Maximus, the "Liber Hermetis", Anubion, Manetho, Sextus Empiricus, Hepaestio of Thebes, Dorotheus of Sidon, Manilius, Paulus Alexandrianus and Olympiodorus, and Rhetorius, all in English translations; and we also David Pingree's 2 volume study of the sanskrit "precis" from 149 AD ABOUT Greek astrology at that early time, ie, the "Yavanajitaka" ("Astrology of the Greeks")

I agree 100% with Waybread that Ptolemy's "project" was to set forth astrological doctrine and practice, upon a "natural logical" (ie, Rationalist) basis, which for the ancient's of the Roman world, meant, to erect a model based on Aristotelian rules of logic-and that is precisely what Ptolemy did, just as, during that same period of time (ie, the beginning of the Piscean Age) Galen did for medicine. Non-Ptolemaic Hellenist astrology was hermetic, mystical, neo-Pythagorean, neo-Platonic, EMPIRICAL (theories were made to match or explain phenomena); Ptolemy erected a consistent RATIONALIST (phenomena were made to match/agree with theories) model, a pure Aristotelian model, just as Galen did with medicine. Non-Ptolemaic Hellenist astrology represented several different "schools" or traditions of thought and practice, each somewhat at variance with the others: Ptolemy wanted to replace this with a single uniform model (based on aristotelian rules of logic) which (he claimed) was consistent with "Nature" and excluding any inputs from non-Rationalist considerations (such as intuition and revelation, which played a major role in the earliest origins of astrology itself) What Ptolemy did for science (Ptolemy named his complete model the "Syntaxis", which included geography, astrology, optics, harmonics) and what Galen did for medicine, was also done by Augustine for the emerging religion of the West, Christianity, in his application of Rationalistic Aristotelianism in the explanation of the Christian doctrines (this was called "scholasticism", and strongly influenced Christian metaphysical thought pretty much up to the 20th century)-in doing this, the more mystical, hermetic-like interpretations of, say Origen (and others), were rejected in favor of Augustinian rationalism (scholasticism founded upon the aristotelian model), just as the empirical/hermetic/neo-Pythagorean-neo-Platonic Hellenistic astrology (perhaps the term "astrologies" would be more accurate) was abandoned for the consistent, logical Ptolemaic aristotelian astrological model, during the Islamic transitional/Medieval/Renaissance times (until the collapse of the Ptolemaic ASTRONOMICAL model, as a result of the work of Copernicus, Isaac Newton and Kepler)

Who do I like? Well, I like them all, however, being a symbolist-esotericist-hermeticist at heart-I prefer the fuzzier, more mystical, more variable, less "logical", empirical, more symbolically oriented ideas and practices of the non-Ptolemaic Hellenists, to the strictly logical aristotelian model presented by Ptolemy: but then, put a gun to my head and say: choose either the Hellenists or the Carter/Sepharial/Hall/Addey Modernists, choose ONLY one group or the other, and I would have no hesitation in choosing-and that choice would be the Modernist authors just mentioned. Thankfully, no one is putting a gun to my head and demanding me to choose one or the other, so, I am very glad to know about the ideas and methods of the non-Ptolemaic Hellenists, and I have found a few important gems in their mix-mosh of instructions, which I would be sorry to be without!

Note to JUPITERASC: I am NOT AN ACADEMIC!!