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spock

Well-known member
observation would seem to be the most valuable asset we have when learning more about astrology. we can learn different astrological methods and we can see for ourselves whether they work for us or not. i think this partly explains why their is such diversity in the astro community.. i see astrology as more art then science, but i am always drawn to those who have a more scientific approach in so far as i think astrological ideas need to be put to the test of statistical analysis..
It depends on what you mean by observation. Since astrology is about correspondences, correspondences are what we should be trying to see. However, it's not as straightforward as you might think. Correspondence implies regularity and thus predictability, but no single observation taken in isolation can establish that the development that coincided with it this time will coincide next time and the time after that. We need multiple observations of the same configuration to see what consistently coincides with it. If it doesn't consistently coincide with "the same thing" we have nothing to predict. Hence if "see[ing] for ourselves" means deciding that a configuration and effect go together if the latter "fits the symbolism" we're fooling ourselves. However, if we decide that they go together after seeing them together again and again we're on much more solid ground. (If it sounds like I have an animus against astrological symbolism, I do. For some thoughts about symbolism, astrological causation, research methodology and much more see my article After Symbolism.)
the work of the french couple - michel and francios gauguelin are a good example of this . i think the work they've done was successful in challenging/upending some of the more traditional approaches to astrology, specifically house systems and the idea of angular, succedent and cadent meaning. to quickly summarize - planets in cadent positions were found to have a direct association with the profession of outstanding individuals in there particular area of expertise..
The fact that the Gauquelin peaks are about 8-9° past the angles has fostered the notion that they're "in" the 12th and 9th houses, but there are problems with this idea. One, the "plus zones" cover the last third of the 1st and 10th houses and the first two thirds of the 12th and 9th, so aren't coextensive with house boundaries. Two, if it were a house relationship there'd be twelve different Mars effects. Instead, there's one Mars effect, call it unlaziness, present when Mars is in a plus zone and absent when it isn't. Three, it's not certain that the Gauquelin peaks really are off the angles. In Recent Advances in Natal Astrology Geoffrey Dean, citing busy-ness in the delivery room, difficulties of fathers in the 1800s in getting and conveying birth info to the authorities, and other factors, suggests the possibility of an average lateness factor in the recording of the birthtimes.* John Addey shows that if the Gauquelin birthtimes (many from the 1800s) are adjusted about thirty minutes the peaks fall right on the angles. Finally, Dean notes that in a study of athletes born after 1945 the peaks were closer to the angles, which suggests to me that an average lateness factor, especially for those born in rural areas, does exist but is getting smaller due to more stringent records creation and keeping practices. What the Gauquelin work has done is show the validity and suggest the effects of the aspects (mostly hard-angle) of certain planets to the subject's birth location.

*Dean later demurs, stating, "However this intriguing explanation is not supported by direct evidence." His interpretation of the two pieces of evidence he cites is, however, unconvincing. That the position of the peaks is unaffected by the precision with which the time was recorded (nearest hour, half-hour, or quarter-hour) is irrelevant, and that registered times hardly differed from hospital times in a study shows only that the fathers rarely erred in passing on the times given them, not that the hospitals got the times right in the first place. Besides, the latter study was from Paris 1923-30 whereas many (most?) of the Gauquelin births were rural and from the 1800s, so it's apples and oranges.
 

waybread

Well-known member
Hi spock-- I've looked at a bunch of charts for illustrious French men born in the 19th or early 20th centuries, as posted in the Astrodienst Astro-DataBank. I was interested in French-born painters, to see how Venus and Neptune stacked up.

To me the big problem was that nearly all of these artists' births prior to around 1920-1930 were rounded to the nearest hour! Given how sensitive the angles are to minute-by-minute time changes, I just found this poor level of resolution to be really problematic. I suspect that a lot of French people were born at home in the 19th century, but even so-- rounding to the nearest hour seems to have been an administrative sort of decision by the recorders' offices.
 

sandstone

Banned
hi spock,

thanks for commenting. i agree with you on the nature of observation, although i never went into as much detail to articulate what you did, i share your view on it.

as for the french birth data, and as waybread pointed out, i too noticed a rounding off of the time from looking at some of the data directly, so any comment on how exactly the planets in the charts of prominent individuals lines up - whether on the angle or in the vicinity of the angle is more speculation given the issue of rounded off times..

on another note, a house system that has gained popularity in the past 10 years or more - whole sign house will put any planet in the sign on the cusp of the ascendant in the same house as the ascendant.. it is a bit like what ptolemy did with the 5 degree into the 12th idea as being essentially 1st house in nature.. these are many of the conundrums astrologers find themselves in when trying to get more solid data to support an astrological premise.. you need to fit the data with a theory on house systems that may or may not be popular in the present time frame.. 12th house becomes 1st house and on and on it goes.

without reading your article, what part of astrological symbolism do you take issue with, or is it just all of it? perhaps i will have to read your article.. thanks again for the comments. - james
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
It depends on what you mean by observation. Since astrology is about correspondences, correspondences are what we should be trying to see.

However, it's not as straightforward as you might think.

Correspondence implies regularity and thus predictability, but no single observation taken in isolation can establish that the development that coincided with it this time will coincide next time and the time after that.

We need multiple observations of the same configuration to see what consistently coincides with it. If it doesn't consistently coincide with "the same thing" we have nothing to predict. Hence if "see[ing] for ourselves" means deciding that a configuration and effect go together if the latter "fits the symbolism" we're fooling ourselves.


However, if we decide that they go together after seeing them together again and again we're on much more solid ground. (If it sounds like I have an animus against astrological symbolism, I do. For some thoughts about symbolism, astrological causation, research methodology and much more see my article After Symbolism.)
Exactly :smile:

The fact that the Gauquelin peaks are about 8-9° past the angles has fostered the notion that they're "in" the 12th and 9th houses, but there are problems with this idea. One, the "plus zones" cover the last third of the 1st and 10th houses and the first two thirds of the 12th and 9th, so aren't coextensive with house boundaries. Two, if it were a house relationship there'd be twelve different Mars effects. Instead, there's one Mars effect, call it unlaziness, present when Mars is in a plus zone and absent when it isn't.

Three, it's not certain that the Gauquelin peaks really are off the angles.

In Recent Advances in Natal Astrology Geoffrey Dean, citing busy-ness in the delivery room, difficulties of fathers in the 1800s in getting and conveying birth info to the authorities, and other factors, suggests the possibility of an average lateness factor in the recording of the birthtimes.*

John Addey shows that if the Gauquelin birthtimes (many from the 1800s) are adjusted about thirty minutes the peaks fall right on the angles.

Finally, Dean notes that in a study of athletes born after 1945 the peaks were closer to the angles, which suggests to me that an average lateness factor, especially for those born in rural areas, does exist but is getting smaller due to more stringent records creation and keeping practices. What the Gauquelin work has done is show the validity and suggest the effects of the aspects (mostly hard-angle) of certain planets to the subject's birth location.

*Dean later demurs, stating, "However this intriguing explanation is not supported by direct evidence." His interpretation of the two pieces of evidence he cites is, however, unconvincing. That the position of the peaks is unaffected by the precision with which the time was recorded (nearest hour, half-hour, or quarter-hour) is irrelevant, and that registered times hardly differed from hospital times in a study shows only that the fathers rarely erred in passing on the times given them, not that the hospitals got the times right in the first place. Besides, the latter study was from Paris 1923-30 whereas many (most?) of the Gauquelin births were rural and from the 1800s, so it's apples and oranges.
I entirely agree that the foundation of a natal chart is an exact birth time - furthermore assuming an accurate astrological interpretation to follow from an incorrect birth time is IMO unrealistic :smile:
 

spock

Well-known member
Hi spock-- I've looked at a bunch of charts for illustrious French men born in the 19th or early 20th centuries, as posted in the Astrodienst Astro-DataBank. I was interested in French-born painters, to see how Venus and Neptune stacked up.

To me the big problem was that nearly all of these artists' births prior to around 1920-1930 were rounded to the nearest hour! Given how sensitive the angles are to minute-by-minute time changes, I just found this poor level of resolution to be really problematic. I suspect that a lot of French people were born at home in the 19th century, but even so-- rounding to the nearest hour seems to have been an administrative sort of decision by the recorders' offices.
How many French painters did you find? I went to Astrodienst but the data collections I saw were just (clickable) names listed alphabetically. Did you have to separate out the painters by hand, or are they available as a separate database? It would take a seriously large n to get significant results with times rounded to the nearest hour. Of course, that's what sets the Gauquelin work apart, in addition to the rigor of the methodology, large n. At least rounding or birthtime errors won't (well, shouldn't) lead to spuriously significant results. Rather, they even out a distribution and flatten peaks. The implication is, if all the Gauquelin data were accurate to the minute the peaks would be even narrower and taller. It would be nice to see those experiments repeated using more recent data.

No doubt the precision with which birth data was recorded was administratively regulated, but surely it also reflected general cultural attitudes. Such attitudes would affect both the recorders and the fathers appearing before them. To a peasant 10 pm might have seemed pretty precise, as opposed to, say, "the first half of the night." In his section on Gauquelin Dean mentions that "[d]uring 1860-1930 the proportion of birth times registered with some precision in minutes was France 16%, Belgium 18%, Holland 30%, Germany 49%." Perhaps you should be looking for data on German painters. I imagine in all these countries as well as most others record-keeping precision, including birth times, has improved greatly since the late 1800s-early 1900s. It's long been possible to get reasonably accurate data for ultra-famous people, because of the vast amount of scholarship expended on them, but only recently has it become possible to compile large data sets with a large percentage of the times given to the minute.
 

sandstone

Banned
if you look into the gauguelin material more closely you will note that the reason they started with the french data is that the french gov't would allow a citizen not connected by blood as a relative to pay a small fee for the data, unlike so many other countries where you just can't access the data unless you are a family member.. i think this is one of the primary reasons the gauguelins worked with data on french people... after the scientific body couldn't find anything wrong with their statistical data, the only option they had was to say it was no good as it was all from france and that they would have to replicate it thru the same ardous methodology using birth data from other european countries which took them another 20 years or more.. there was much greater difficulty in acquiring this and much greater costs in acquiring it.. this is one of the reasons french as opposed to german data was initially used..

when we move into a world that actually has an interest and open mind to astrology, i am confident it will become easier to get birth data, but for the time being we are still very much in the dark ages with regard to peoples attitudes on astrology generally speaking.
 

waybread

Well-known member
Hi Spock-- Live long and prosper!

If you find a "person of interest" on the Astrodienst Astro-DataBank, and scroll to the bottom of the bio-sketch, you will see how he's been catalogued-- usually in multiple ways. Then you can click on a category of interest. There may be a way to cross-index people for multiple categories, but don't ask me how.

In the case of my looking at the French artists, I had to search beyond French names in the list of artists, as painters with French names might have been born in other countries. I wanted to stick with those born in France, however; on the grounds that France has a long tradition of supporting the fine arts, as well as a long tradition of recording birth times! I came up with a couple-dozen, sticking with the better-known artists as there was more readily available biographical information about them.

It is hard to say what the rounding-to-the-the-nearest hour did to the Gauquelin results. With large samples, maybe there would be little peaks every hour on the hour! Who knows whether births are distributed uniformly or randomly around the clock, anyway?

To the extent that there was some validity to the Gauquelin's data distribution, I thought that progressions might explain why they found planetary strength in cadent houses near the angles. Suppose a boy were born with Mars in the 9th, and at the age of six or seven, Mars progressed to conjunct his midheaven. Suddenly his athletic ability is noted, and he gets extra attention to develop his skills. In contrast, Mars natally situated east of the MC is already past the point of becoming angular by progression, for a very long time.

I think the rounding of the French birth times had to have been done or at least accepted at the registrar's office, it was just so common. For one thing, most peasants' sons in 19th century France wouldn't rise to the level of eminence to make it into the Gauquelin study, given class barriers to upward mobility. Of course some would, but how many?

The percentages on birth times that you cite are interesting: I am guessing the more accurate times are from the 1920s in France-- that was my recollection.

Actually, a good place to study birth data might be the middle and upper castes of India, as they have such a longstanding tradition of astrology as central to their culture-- unlike in the West. I've noticed that most Indians who ask for chart readings know their birth times to the minute.

sandstone, I think there are some real problems with the Gauquelin studies, such that only the Mars Effect is still viable-- and it might be too slender a peg on which to hang astrologers' truth-claims. See: www.astrology-and-science.com .

It is hard to say how we might use their findings in chart interpretation for ordinary people. I don't recall whether the original studies included women, but I don't think so. If so, not many; and French women born during this period would have faced obstacles to becoming notable in most professions. Also statistics operate at the level of probability. If there is a 75% chance of someone with Mars in the 9th house becoming sports champion, for example, that is probably statistically very significant; yet it doesn't explain the other 25% who have Mars in the 9th yet who don't become athletes. It isn't clear how much of the Gauquelins' work, based on France, would be applicable to very different cultures.
 

sandstone

Banned
thanks waybread.. that mars effect thing has been dragged out every time one talks about the work of the gauguelins which is really too bad, as there work is really top notch as i see it.. but alas, it is much easier to pull something from the net then it is to examine there work more closely.
 

spock

Well-known member
as for the french birth data, and as waybread pointed out, i too noticed a rounding off of the time from looking at some of the data directly, so any comment on how exactly the planets in the charts of prominent individuals lines up - whether on the angle or in the vicinity of the angle is more speculation given the issue of rounded off times..
I was about to say rounded off times shouldn't affect the positions of peaks, since about half each would be rounded to the next and previous hours, but of course if there was a persistent tendency to round forwards that would cause the rounded times to be an average of 30 minutes late. But if rounding was pretty consistently to the nearest hour it wouldn't affect the positions of the peaks, just the effect size (lower).

these are many of the conundrums astrologers find themselves in when trying to get more solid data to support an astrological premise.. you need to fit the data with a theory on house systems that may or may not be popular in the present time frame.. 12th house becomes 1st house and on and on it goes.
If the Mars effect (or the Jupiter, Saturn, etc. effect) is a house effect the four plus zones should correspond to four different effects and there should be eight other plus zones, each exactly 30° in length, for eight other effects. Instead there's a single effect that's "on" in four zones 90° apart and "off" in between, which describes a hard-angle series of aspects. The only question is, what's being aspected? The answer is, the birthplace, or more specifically the person who was born there.

without reading your article, what part of astrological symbolism do you take issue with, or is it just all of it? perhaps i will have to read your article.. thanks again for the comments. - james
Since the symbolism of any given configuration can be made to fit virtually any outcome, astrologers are "right" more often than there are things to be right about. Hence symbolism, along with a multitude of factors and methods, and loose logic (e.g. geo Mars square helio Venus), enables us to think astrology "works for me" even though we actually know very little about the nature and extent of correspondences between earth and the heavens. The first section of After Symbolism indicates how neophytes learn these (heretofore necessary) techniques of self-deception. In the succeeding sections I show how to go about creating a different kind of astrology based on observation rather than word games, and I also give a brief, causal account of how the kinds of astrological effects that I think exist could exist.
 
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JUPITERASC

Well-known member
If the Mars effect (or the Jupiter, Saturn, etc. effect) is a house effect the four plus zones should correspond to four different effects and there should be eight other plus zones, each exactly 30° in length, for eight other effects.

Instead there's a single effect that's "on" in four zones 90° apart and "off" in between, which describes a hard-angle series of aspects. The only question is, what's being aspected? The answer is, the birthplace, or more specifically the person who was born there.
I'm appreciative of the food for thought spock :smile:

- so, here's a scenario:

"the native" wants their haircut but somehow other matters intrude, until one day everything flows along smoothly and "the native" is hey presto! in an unplanned way, at the hairdressers, having their hair cut (they did not intend having their hair cut that particular day however a phone call to the hairdressers resulted in an available appointment) - would one expect Mars to be in aspect to "the native's" Ascendant/Descendant?
 

sandstone

Banned
spock,
from what i recall the times would have only been rounded off 30 minute type intervals, or even less.. i don't believe they were rounded off to the hour if they knew it was somewhere closer to the 1/2 hour.. i don't recall reading anything about 'rounded off to the hour times' on the data i seem to remember seeing..

i like what you said here >>Since the symbolism of any given configuration can be made to fit virtually any outcome, astrologers are "right" more often than there are things to be right about. Hence symbolism, along with a multitude of factors and methods, and loose logic (e.g. geo Mars square helio Venus), enables us to think astrology "works for me" even though we actually know very little about the nature and extent of correspondences between earth and the heavens<<

however the example you offer is an interesting one in that some astrologers, t pat davis in particular, has done a fair amount of research in this area - all can probably be blown off as subjective - on geo to helio positions.. another astrologer relatively well known - isaac starkman works combining geo and helio positions as well.. neither of these 2 relatively well known astrologers, one still alive would be considered a neophyte either..
 

waybread

Well-known member
sandstone, you can sort of recreate the Gauquelins' data by looking for notable Frenchmen born in the 19th and early 20th centuries on the Astrodienst Astro-DataBank. I came up with a couple-dozen French painters, and found maybe two or three that gave a time other than a round hour prior to the 1920s and 30s. The couple of half-hour times made me think that perhaps the registrars rounded backwards or forwards within 29-minute intervals. But who knows?

I think the assumption that rounding wouldn't matter would have to be tested with a sub-sample. And if memory serves, I don't think the Gauquelins actually looked at the 12 houses in the first instance, but rather 36 sectors. This raises some other interesting issues, because astrologers' preferred house systems vary widely; as will the width of a house for a given native depending upon the birth date and latitude with an unequal house system.
 

sandstone

Banned
waybread,

the gauquelins data lends some strength to the whole-sign house viewpoint.. yes 36 segments, so essentially 3 per each house when thinking 12 house system.. i believe some or a lot of this data is available online as i seem to remember seeing it before on the net..

i think outstanding individuals in their profession having a key connection to a planet is helpful to know.. what is more difficult is with many others who are not outstanding in their profession who for whatever reason haven't been able to go directly into the area best suited to their abilities..

what the data says to me is that planets near an angle over-ride many of the typical associations astrologers make on charts.. it is almost like you can forget about many of the astro techniques, as helpful as they may seem to be, for arriving at a key feature of a person that needs to manifest in the fullest sense.. hopefully they have the luck, resources and ability to make this there profession as they are probably good at it.. most people have to accept something less then this, even if they have a stand out planet in an angle of a chart..

to make the conclusion for example that writers or politicians have a strong moon, doctors as strong saturn, athletes a strong mars and etc etc. suggests to me a planet close to an angle is a key consideration to reading a chart.. of course this is just what valens, ptolemy and many others have said, but as i see it, the gauguelins just re-iterated it thru statistical analysis of outstanding people in the french and european countries.. too bad we are still in the dark ages culturally and our close minded scientific community isn't curious to explore research in this same area of greater breathe..
 

waybread

Well-known member
I don't know if it's an argument for whole-sign houses or not. The problem with whole-signs is that in a high latitude birth you can get the MC in the 8th house or even in the 12th house. One wonders how the Gauquelin study would have fared had they examined cases from Finland.

The Mars effect depicted with what appears to be a whole-sign system (found on Wikipedia on Michel Gauquelin's entry) is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Gauquelin . To suggest that the Gauequelins' work is an argument for whole-sign houses wouldn't hold if their data were problematic.

Because the Gauquelin results appear to match whole sign houses, is this an a priori assumption that whole-sign houses are therefore validated if they fit the Gauquelin curves? This seems like circular reasoning.

I read a couple of the Gauquelins' books back in the 1990s, so my memory of them isn't great. And while I applaud what they attempted, it is only to be expected that a first-run or "beta test" study will have have some flaws in it. These have less to do with their statistical work than with their underlying assumptions and potential biases.

A 36-segment chart would be equivalent to a horoscope based on decans. So it would appear that it is not even the cadent house that signifies, but further, what decan of the house is operative. The Wikipedia "Mars Effect" chart suggests this. Moreover, only the 9th and 12th houses show up strongly-- the third and 6th houses are a wash.

We also don't know what exactly is the independent variable. Is it a relationship to an angle? Is it a position within a particular house? These are going to vary depending upon the house system used, as well as the person's birth data. Cadent houses are cadent only with reference to an angle, so it matters whether we are talking about the cusps of the 10th and 1st houses, or the ASC-MC axis as these will be different in a whole sign system.

In terms of biases and assumptions.... I am reminded of Virgina Woolf's essay, "A Room of One's Own" (1929) in which she pointed out the enormous odds against women and poor men becoming "eminent" as the Gauquelins' defined that term. A 19th century French peasant was highly unlikely to become an "eminent" writer because socio-economic forces would have given him at best only a primary school education. It would be highly unusual for a Frenchman to become an "eminent" doctor in the 19th century unless he came from a professional-class background. 19th century women becoming "sports champions"? The cultural norms against this happening in any but exceptional cases would have been overwhelming.

It just won't do to suggest that criticism of the Gauquelins can be chalked up to close-minded scientists. An astrologer who looks hard at their work can see issues with it! Why don't more astrologers major in statistics?

This isn't to take away from the Gauquelins' path-breaking work, but it is to suggest it had some problems that throw doubt onto the legitimacy of their results.
 
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sandstone

Banned
almost all house systems are based on angles... the exception to this would be where the midheaven or ascendant is treated as a sensitive point in the chart.. placidus which is popular discects the distance from ascendant to midheaven based on the 'time' it takes for planets to rise up from the ascendant and reach the midheaven.. the division is based on 'time' rather then space.. regardless, the dilemma astrologers regularly face is what do they value more - signs or houses? once you have a house system that allows for interception you are essentially ignoring the relationships that exist with planets in a sign to a planet in another sign and instead saying crazy things like this planet is intercepted in the sign of such and such and 5 houses away, while only 1 sign away and on and on it goes...

really the most important ingredient necessary for those learning astrology and or practicing astrology is to understand the basis for all the house systems and see the relativity of them all..

the reason i think treating houses like boxes is a poor approach is that it treats a cusp like a boundary, instead of like the center of the house, or like a crest of a wave... the gauguelin material to my mind seems to support the theory of planets close to angles having greater bearing and significance regardless whether they are in the 12th or 1st box for example.. the reason i believe is that it is not about boxes, but about angles being the center of the house.. as for the whole-sign house and their work giving more support to this, the fact is whole sign treats the sign as a whole, something that is ignored by this 'houses are boxes' mindset..

waybread quote "It just won't do to suggest that criticism of the Gauquelins can be chalked up to close-minded scientists." that is but a part of it and not related to the comment i made on scientists and the cultural values we live in that treats astrology as primarily a joke..

waybread quote "An astrologer who looks hard at their work can see issues with it!" that is true, but one can take issue with many things.. so what? those who engage in trying to negate the work they did don't seem to have astrology's best interests at heart.. i continue to believe there work is one of the directions that need to be explored more.. criticizing it is fine and easy to do too..
 

waybread

Well-known member
I don't think anyone who has read many of my posts can suggest with a straight face that I don't have astrology's best interests at heart!

But I don't view astrology as "my mother, right or wrong." There's no Nicene creed or loyalty oath. Nor should there be. It's sort of like if Mum is an alcoholic or has maxed out her credit card, the kids need to (a) recognize that there is a problem and be straight with Mum about it; and possibly (b) help get her life on a better footing if she is able to listen to them.

With astrology of any description, I think we have to approach it with some discernment, and figure out the differences between the good and not-so-good. Astrology doesn't get weaker because we diagnose its problems. We shouldn't ignore them. If we just close our eyes and ears to any problems due to some misguided loyalty, we only further contribute to the widespread societal belief that "astrology is primarily a joke."

But here's the thing about the Gauquelins and the angles. With a whole sign or equal house system-- as you know-- the MC/AC axis are merely sensitive points buried somewhere within a house. And these sensitive points could be anywhere from one to three houses off the so-called angular houses dpending upon the person's birth circumstances. With an unequal house method, the MC is always going to start the 10th house; and the AC, the first house. Well, this discrepancy could matter a lot depending upon how one interprets the angles and houses according to the Gauquelin findings, because the peaks of the Gauequelin chart could vary in terms of which house they fall into. In an unequal house system, they might not be in cadent houses at all; which would have a lot to say with how we interpret them Gauquelin-wise.

It matters greatly, at least in the interpretation of the Gauquelins' findings in terms of chart interpretation whether someone has Mars in the 9th or the 11th house.

Maybe they addressed this problem somewhere in their work. Anyone?

Also, time and space apply to all house systems. "Distance" is a spatial concept.
 

sandstone

Banned
I don't think anyone who has read many of my posts can suggest with a straight face that I don't have astrology's best interests at heart! - i don't think anyone did either..

But I don't view astrology as "my mother, right or wrong." nor do i. There's no Nicene creed or loyalty oath. Nor should there be. It's sort of like if Mum is an alcoholic or has maxed out her credit card, the kids need to (a) recognize that there is a problem and be straight with Mum about it; and possibly (b) help get her life on a better footing if she is able to listen to them. absolutely..

With astrology of any description, I think we have to approach it with some discernment, and figure out the differences between the good and not-so-good. Astrology doesn't get weaker because we diagnose its problems. you are preaching to the choir.. We shouldn't ignore them. If we just close our eyes and ears to any problems due to some misguided loyalty, we only further contribute to the widespread societal belief that "astrology is primarily a joke." are you closing your eyes and ears or suggesting i am?

But here's the thing about the Gauquelins and the angles. With a whole sign or equal house system-- as you know-- the MC/AC axis are merely sensitive points buried somewhere within a house. this is technically incorrect..the mc is a sensitive point in w-s or equal house system,whereas the ascendant axis forms the backbone to both these house systems.. it is the reverse in midheaven based systems which you appear unfamiliar with here. And these sensitive points could be anywhere from one to three houses off the so-called angular houses dpending upon the person's birth circumstances. the angles are the angles, regardless of the type of house system one uses.. being square the ascendant is not the same as on the midheaven, or on the midheaven angle necessarily.. you appear to not understand thi based on your following comment here - With an unequal house method, the MC is always going to start the 10th house; and the AC, the first house. Well, this discrepancy could matter a lot depending upon how one interprets the angles and houses according to the Gauquelin findings, because the peaks of the Gauequelin chart could vary in terms of which house they fall into. In an unequal house system, they might not be in cadent houses at all; which would have a lot to say with how we interpret them Gauquelin-wise. it does matter what house system the gauguelins were using and this is where it could be very interesting.. aside from this 36 house system they used it may have been built onto placidus, which would embrace the many conflicts astrologers regularly find themselves in with regard to house systema. when they were doing the research placidus was the de facto house system in use by the majority in the west.

It matters greatly, at least in the interpretation of the Gauquelins' findings in terms of chart interpretation whether someone has Mars in the 9th or the 11th house.

Maybe they addressed this problem somewhere in their work. Anyone?

Also, time and space apply to all house systems. "Distance" is a spatial concept.

see my bolded comments..
 
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