Dirius
Well-known member
Dirius, my understanding of sect is that in the day chart the sun, Jupiter, and Saturn are in-sect. In a night chart, the moon, Venus, and Mars are in-sect. Mercury can go either way, depending upon its location. Sect is another one of those areas where it would be hard to add in the modern outers and stir.
I'd have to grant that point, but how many horary astrologers use this method today? Even so, by this calculation, the modern outers would equally gain light in the same way. But because they are so far from the sun, this probably wouldn't be very time-sensitive.
I was making the point about Mercury, that it is classified by sect according to its visibility in the sky. Mercury is considered of the day sect if it heralds the rising Sun right before dawn, and of the night sect if it sets after the Sun at dusk. This is directly tied to Mercury's visibility in the sky, and the reason for its myth as "herald of the Gods".
And this does not change if Mercury is below earth (and thus invisible), in any given chart.
Thanks. They would say that planets weren't stars like fixed stars, in the same way. The Greek word for "planet" means "wanderer."
OK-- see my point on orbs, in my last post. But also, to follow your line of reasoning, if other things visually seem to give off light, then the naked-eye planets lose their special status-- as planets. The Babylonians actually included a lot of meteorological data in their observations, and Ptolemy picked up on this in his discussion of comets, something I don't see too many astrologers using today.
Dirius, I don't think that, with modern astrologers picking up one or two scientific facts, it's fair to invoke a slippery-slope argument that modern astrologers thereby pick up any and all other scientific facts. I don't think you'd make a case today that planets emit their own light.
I'm not sure who discovered that planets reflect the sun's light, but I think it was Da Vinci (moon) and Galileo in the 16th century. This was still within the period of traditional astrology. I don't think William Lilly wigged out about it.
The geocentric cosmos is at the heart of both traditional and modern astrology. To some extent, astronomers do this today. For example, what is the distance from the earth to Mars? Where in the night sky can we next observe Jupiter?
Well the term wanderer relates to them as stars. From the wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_planet#Planets_in_antiquity
Greek astronomers employed the term asteres planetai (ἀστέρες πλανῆται), "wandering stars", to describe those starlike lights in the heavens that moved over the course of the year, in contrast to the asteres aplaneis (ἀστέρες ἀπλανεῖς), the "fixed stars", which stayed motionless relative to one another.
Regarding comets, they are used by traditional astrologers, but only when they reach a distance that makes them visible from earth, which makes us revolve around the concept of visible light again. They are usually understood to bring forth some great event (depending on the place they are visible), and are more related to Mundane branch. The problem is that this occurance happen every few decades, and only for a few days, so its never really discussed much.
I do accept that little has been written on comets though.
As for the scientific mention, I'm just pointing out that if we are going to use scientific facts to dismiss one concept in astrology, then there is no reason not to use another or all of them. Most scientific discoveries do not agree with astrology. Its not proper to use one to create an argument, but ignore the rest. However I didn't say this about modern astrologers as a group, just pointed out that to Cap's style of debating.
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