Quotidian "Equatorial Ascendant" in Longitude

[Mike V]

Hey all,

Every once in awhile, I see someone make a reference to "Ep/Wp" in a quotidian context, and it's confusing me.

So I have some questions:
1. We measure quotidian angle contacts purely in longitude, right?
2. By "Ep/Wp" in this context, are astrologers referring to the "equatorial ascendant/descendant" points as displayed in Solar Fire?
3. Do conjunctions (or even squares) to those secondary progressed points, in longitude, mean anything?
4. Is there another measuring circle besides longitude that I should be using for any quotidian work?

I've always ignored them and just looked at conjunctions or squares to primary angles. Is there anything important I'm missing here?

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

There's information in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3248
and this one: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3372&p=25290

[Jim Eshelman]

1. We measure quotidian angle contacts purely in longitude, right?

Yes. Except for EP/WP.

Since quotidian angles seem entirely ecliptical, I have no full explanation of this seeming exception (though I have a partial one, below). The EP/WP is only valid in RA. (It's not a mystery why it's only valid in RA, it's a mystery why something only valid in RA i.e. one form of mundane contact, is valid at all in quotidians that otherwise seem only responsive ecliptically).

2. By "Ep/Wp" in this context, are astrologers referring to the "equatorial ascendant/descendant" points as displayed in Solar Fire?

Yes.

3. Do conjunctions (or even squares) to those secondary progressed points, in longitude, mean anything?

No (except by accident). They are only pointers - hints - to where an RA contact may exist.

BTW, the ecliptical square to EP is called the Midequator (ME). The ME and EP are the 10th and 1st cusps (respectively) of the Morinus house system (the proponents of which treat them ecliptically). There is a sound enough theoretical basis for the ME to work ecliptically (and the Morinus EP is the ecliptical square to MC) that I spent a month or two exhaustively checking it in the SMA data set's ingresses and quotidians (and a handful of spot-checked natals). Big fail. It's just not a valid point.

4. Is there another measuring circle besides longitude that I should be using for any quotidian work?

I've always ignored them and just looked at conjunctions or squares to primary angles. Is there anything important I'm missing here?

EP/WP should be taken in RA. (That also means that transits to them need to be precessed and the RA recalculated, though for Capsolar and Cansolars I can ignore that: precession is less than 0°01' for the life of the chart.)


This brings me to my partial explanation of what's going on.

As I've said several times, there are no aspects to angles. Anything that looks like an aspect to an angle is really another angle. What I don't say as often is that sometimes is the same angle but measured differently.

For example, take the Meridian. It is a circle that passes through the Zenith and Nadir and the northpoint and southpoint of the horizon. It's one of the three primary defining circles of the mundane frameworks. We take a planet as being exactly an angle if it's mundanely on this great circle of the meridian. But we get specific angles by looking at it differently. Let's start with the Zenith, the intersection of the meridian and the prime vertical. One kind of "conjunction with the Zenith" is what we call the Midheaven, the intersection of the meridian with the ecliptic. This intersection with the ecliptic defines the MC's longitude, and we take conjunction with the Midheaven mundanely as (upper-end) conjunction with the meridian in PV longitude.

Many (most?) astrologers use the term Zenith and Midheaven interchangeably, and this isn't at all wrong. A conjunction with Midheaven is conjunction with the Zenith measured in prime vertical longitude. But I find it less confusing to distinguish the terms "Zenith" and "Midheaven" so that we can save the former for a different way of measuring its position. Instead of measuring Zenith's position in PV, we measure it in longitude. That means dropping a great circle through the Zenith at right angles to the ecliptic (the same way the longitude of any planet or star is measured). This intersection on the ecliptic is the celestial longitude of the Zenith.

Same point - same angle - two different measuring methods.


With that easier example behind us, let's turn our attention to the Eastpoint. This eastpoint of the horizon is that point due east on the horizon (simple enough). It is also the point where three important great circles meet: In this one spot, the horizon, prime vertical, and celestial equator all cross. This produces three separate answers to the question, "How do you find the square to Midheaven?"

The square to Midheaven in prime vertical longitude is the Ascendant, which consists of the entire horizon circle. Ascendant's longitude isn't always (or even usually) square MC, but the Ascendant itself - defined as (the eastern half of) the whole circle of the horizon - is always exactly square the whole Midheaven (defined as one half of the whole circle of the meridian).

The square to Midheaven in celestial longitude is what we normally call "the square to Midheaven." We could correctly call this the Eastpoint (though I've always reserved this term for something else described below, based on Bradley and others' first usage in American Astrology). This ecliptical square to MC (unless I've gotten it backwards in my brain - rethinking it through just in visualization), always 90°00' from MC in celestial longitude, is the intersection of the ecliptic with a great circle passing through Eastpoint at right angles to the celestial equator.

This leaves only the third kind of "square to MC," the one I have called Eastpoint or East Point since Bradley started doing so in the last years of his life, the one that appeared under that name (with a glyph of an E with a circle around it) in the primary canon of Sidereal astrology literature, the pages of American Astrology Magazine. This one is simple in concept but complicated in delivery: It is simply the square to MC along the celestial equator, the point 90° from MC in Right Ascension. In the old days, we told people to calculate it by "adding 6 hours to the Sidereal Time and look up the Midheaven." It is only a marker that infers the approximate celestial longitude of a planet square MC in RA. It's just another way of measuring proximity (different measuring circle) for that same one point that marks the intersection of the horizon, prime vertical, and celestial equator. (Further confusing flash fact: The ecliptical square to MC is the 1st cusp of the Morinus house system.)

The thing is, you can't see this on a horoscope unless you redo the chart in Right Ascension. So we fake it. The point we put on a horoscope wheel is indeed the longitude a planet with 0°00' latitude (i.e., exactly on the ecliptic) would have if it were square the meridian in RA. Thus, it's always accurate for Sun, which always has 0 latitude. But it's not exactly right for any planet that has non-0 celestial latitude.

So... when I see a planet near this point, I hit the Reports button in Solar Fire and compare its RA to the RA EP.


So... now we have enough definitions in place for me to give my partial explanation to maybe why this, measured in RA, is still important in ecliptic-based quotidian angularity.

Forgetting for a moment how contacts to them are measured, there are six points on the celestial sphere that clearly work as angles. These are all intersections of two of the three primary defining circles of the celestial sphere. These are Zenith and Nadir (Meridian-PV intersections), Eastpoint and Westpoint (Horizon-PV), and Northpoint and Southpoint (Horizon-Meridian).

Three angle (or angle-like) pairs are formed by the intersection of these three great circles with the ecliptic (Asc-Dsc, MC-IC, Vx-Av). Normally, for these angles, their entire great circle is the angle, i.e., we measure angularity not by ecliptical conjunction but along the entire horizon, meridian, or prime vertical. Other "angles" do not involve direct intersections of a circle with the ecliptic, so they become ecliptic-anchored by taking their celestial longitude - intersections of the ecliptic with a great circle passing through them - giving us the ecliptical contacts of "squares to Asc, MC, and Vx," i.e., Z-N, EP-WP, SP-NP.

In what initially surprised me, adding the celestial equator to this mix of intersections of horizon, meridian, PV, and ecliptic added nothing. Adding the celestial equator led me down different paths that proved fruitless, such as exploring the Midequator. In a master definition, "angles" seem to be based on these three primary circles (meridian, horizon, and PV) and their direct or indirect expressions through the ecliptic.

For reasons unclear to me, once a chart exists - one it has formed (e.g., in the aftermath of a birth or an ingress) - contacts to these mundane points (Asc-Dsc and MC-IC for sure; evidence on relevance of Vx is so thin that I bypass it for now) shift to working ecliptically. I can make up a theory for this, but then I'd just be making up a theory. Work with the mundane charts, transits to solar ingress angles and planetary crossings of quotidian angles are SO vivid and solid on this point that, observationally, there just isn't any room for me to question it. Since it demonstrably so and, as a bonus, is not abhorrent to intuition, I have to go with it.

What is it that drops out? Z and N still express through the meridian (we then call them MC and IC), perhaps through the prime vertical (we then call them Vx and Av), and through the ecliptic (squares to Asc). EP and WP (the points that mark the intersection of horizon and prime vertical) still express through the horizon (we then call them Asc and Dsc), perhaps through the prime vertical (we then call them Vx and Av again), and through the ecliptic (squares to MC). NP and SP may express themselves through the meridian (we then call them MC and IC), through the horizon (we then call them Asc and Dsc), and perhaps through the ecliptic (squares to Vx).

We've got all our usual stuff (and even more - a great reason to rely heavily on observation and empirically confirmable information to determine what we actually use).

Here's the stick in the bike spokes, though: Observation makes unequivocally clear that the RA squares to MC (what I call Eastpoint-Westpoint) are important. Removing them from the ingresses and their quotidians drops too many important hits and undoes the nearly 100% accurate hit rate of quotidians to time major mundane events. On Gary Duncan's last visit with Bradley in Tucson, they did a particular study that showed this RA EP behaving far stronger than the square to MC and (in this particular study) actually a little better than Asc for one item they were studying. It's a sound point. Yet it is the only factor measured solely in RA that is known to be important.

Here's my half-explanation of it all: It isn't exactly inconsistent that this angle doesn't work ecliptically in quotidians because it was never an ecliptical point in the first place. It's just an imprecise pointer alerting us to what we may find in a different measuring framework. There is no ecliptical expression of it at all. The only way to revert it to ecliptical expression is to ignore it altogether, and the mundane charts show that would be a mistake.

Also, it is the only angle that arises solely from RA. Even the MC, which arguably could have contacts measured in RA, expresses angularity much more accurately if it's measured in PV longitude. So that makes it one-of-a-kind. It isn't really inconsistent that the only thing of its kind isn't bound to behavior of all the other similar but different things. It's harder to theoretically argue that it is valid at all than it is to argue that it behaves differently from the others, and the evidence is strong that it does actually exist.

I hope that slightly deflated climax was worth plowing through all the rest to get here (or, actually, that all the rest was useful in its own right).

[Jim Eshelman]

I think this is the thread that is as close to a "master thread" on these concepts as exists on the forum:
https://www.solunars.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1496

[Jim Eshelman]

Another anecdote of the importance of the Eastpoint:

I have a project I've been diddling with for a while - may never finish - it might be of interest to one or two people but hardly a best seller . I think I've identified the 27 mundane events from which Bradley originally deduced his exact definition of the SVP (or at least he said there were 27, and I've found exactly 27 events that he publicly examined at that exact point in time). I started writing them up completely ignoring anything we've discovered in the intervening decades and examining them, instead, by the exact rules and point of view that he had in 1956-57 when he did the work. I started writing them up as a small booklet called The Bradley 27.

One of the things ignored in doing this is the Eastpoint. (He only took proximity to the angles and ecliptical squares to Asc and MC.) When working up the events (by "editing down" my longer write-ups from Sidereal Mundane Astrology), one of the more obvious things was that I had to keep dropping / deleting references to EP/WP that were quite exact and exactly descriptive of the events. I could watch the quality of the descriptions fading away as I deleted these. They really are quite important.

[SteveS]

[Mike V]

Jim, thank you for taking the time to write such a full explanation on this topic (and also answer exactly the question that I was driving at). It's always challenging for me to fully wrap my head around visualizing the intersections of these measurement planes, but I think I have a grasp on the underlying concepts.

I'm going to come back to this several more times. Once I start including the ecliptic and celestial equator in my visualization model, it gets really easy to get lost

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

Start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial ... ate_system and then check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecliptic

[Mike V]

Thanks, JSAD. These are helping somewhat

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

Try getting orange or a tennis ball and a sharpie and draw it out. That helps me instead of trying to see the words. Draw out something other than the equinoxes and solstices. (Don't forget the North Star)

[Jim Eshelman]

Marion took styrofoam balls and put rubber bands around them.