"Give Tertiaries a Try" (Garth Allen)

[Jim Eshelman]

Give Tertiaries a Try by Garth Allen
[From American Astrology, February 1970.]

Of contriving new systems of progression there is no end, or so it seems. Hardly a year goes by without somebody coming up with a new directional measure, and there is a great historical scrap pile of in astrology onto which new systems are summarily thrown after their year or so of tentative, tenuous glory. They rightly belong on the pile chiefly because they just didn't work as their originators and boosters at first had hoped they would.

But for every dozen or so failures there emerges a stunning success. The best known of these self-validating successful systems is what is called secondary directions by those who are careful in their use of labels. In fact, the secondary system, which equates one civil day after birth to one tropical year of life, has proven its worth so consistently, most astrologers simply refer to it as "the progressed horoscope" without any qualifying adjective (other than, perhaps, "standard"). [NOTE: I think the rate should be one civil, i.e., mean solar, day to one sidereal year of life. The difference is small, but might become significant in advanced age and, in any case, is a better theory. - JAE]

The primary system of directions is widely ignored, partly because of the rigors of its mathematics, though mainly because it is notoriously impractical in application. In the primaries, moreover, there are built-in flaws which lead an experimenter to doubt the usefulness of the idea that approximately one degree equates to one year of life. After all, not very many crown princes with reliably timed birthcharts succeeded to their thrones according to their primary timetables. And people do have a way of dropping dead without appropriate primary indications in their charts.

Transits have, for the past generation of astrologers at any rate, proved to be the single most reliable technique for "explaining" the experiences and changing moods of the individual. (Under the heading of transits, naturally, we include such transitive mechanisms as lunar and solar returns.) There is no justifiable doubt but what the interactions of transiting and progressing bodies, between themselves and each other in addition to the sensitive points and zones of a natal horoscope, afford the most reliable approach to understanding the past, coping with the present, and anticipating the future.

In 1951 or thereabouts, the German astrologer E.H. Troinski called the attention of his contemporaries to a directional technique he fittingly dubbed tertiary progressions. The gist of his idea struck most astrologers as much too busy, as too overly productive of "indications" to the point where tertiary aspects in a single case seem to come by the bushel. Not many seriously looked into the matter other than to toy around just enough to have their preconception apparently verified. A few, however, most notably the perceptive, steady-keeled English astrologer Edward Lyndoe, probed Troinski's claim deeply enough to find that tertiaries not only had merits, but merits by the bushel. As evidenced by his articles in the years since, Lyndoe prefers tertiaries to the exclusion of even the secondary system - at least secondaries are seldom if ever alluded to in Lyndoe's brilliant offerings.

In his 1960 book Astrology for Everyone, an introductory text for novitiates, Mr. Lyndoe fearlessly introduced the newcomer student to tertiaries from the very outset of study as something elementary and basic - surprising his colleagues more than a little, you can be sure! Without hedging, Mr. Lyndoe declared that "...none of the experts who have conducted research into (Troinski's) system has been able to break it. Under the most rigorous tests it has proved conclusively correct."

Chances are, that if Edward Lyndoe had not taken up the cudgel in the English-speaking astrological world, the tertiary system would have faded into limbo for lack of critical support, ending up on the systems trash heap by default rather than by demerit. After all, its originator had come on like a house afire with extravagant claims and some luridly-phrased prophecies which had the habit of fizzling out. Worse yet, the tertiary system as taught was clumsy to work with, and not very many of the tertiary charts published were genuine tertiaries, they were so badly miscalculated. The tertiary system has had a traumatic childhood, so to speak, worse even than other systems which did not survive less severe maulings by their authors and advocates.

[Jim Eshelman]

Prior to Troinski's brainchild, there had been numerous attempts to find a third basic system of progressing a chart, which could rightly wear the title of "tertiary." Primaries are compressed into only a few hours after birth; secondaries are strewn through days after birth and limited to three months or so at the most; any proposed tertiary time scale could widen the usable interval after birth to months or even years. This logical extension tweaked the curiosities of many serious astrologers over the years.

In 1935 Robert DeLuce, the grand old man of equatorial arcs who insisted that all progression rates are variable by dint of the Sun's apparent right ascension, included in his book Complete Method of Prediction a chapter on what he called "embolismic lunations." (At least he used the word lunation properly - it is a period, not an event.) We do not know if embolismic lunations were his own creation or not, as DeLuce did not mention a source or precedent for the idea. The embolismic system equated synodical months after birth to tropical years, i.e., the first 29.53 days after birth were replicated in the first year of life, the next 29.53 days the second year, and so on. Nice try, anyway. But this did not become the accepted tertiary system as it is known today.

Prior to this, probably back in the 1920s, Elbert Benjamine had conceived of a system of progressions which equated the tropical month of 27.32 days to one tropical year of life. Contrary to rumor, this concept was wholly different from that which Troinski developed. We must be careful, incidentally, not to discredit these earlier ideas until they are systematically researched by unbiased minds; to our knowledge such objective testing has not been reported to date. If either technique should prove valid, it would justifiably bear the name quaternaries.

So just what is Troinski's basic equation that has us so impressed? It is simply that one civil day after birth is equal to one lunar circuit of the zodiac, or 27.32 days of the lifetime [emphasis added - JAE]. The result of this proportioning therefore equates one tropical year of life to 13.36823 civil days after birth.

At first this ratio may seem odd, maybe even a bit zany, but closer consideration of the equation reveals that there is a wondrous interlocking rhythm between secondary and tertiary progressions. In the standard system of progressions, the progressed Moon makers oner circuit of the zodiac in 27.32 years of life. Well, in the tertiary system, the progressed Sun makes one lap of the zodiac in 27.32 years of life! What is more, the chart as a whole - its entire cuspal framework - makes one complete rotation of sideral time in 27.32 years. This interrelationship is intellectually satisfying and fills the bill in a way previous attempts to find a tertiary system did not.

There is such a close meshing of the gears between primaries and secondaries that what is no called "the progressed horoscope" as taught by Alan Leo, Llewellyn George, et al., is actually an amalgam of the two rather than pure secondaries. (Secondaries are pure only when dealt with as quotidians in the sense employed by siderealists.) There is also a beautiful synchronous meshing of the tertiaries with the secondaries. One could even propose, from the circumstance, that any system that is not mathematically compatible in some basic way with known systems is probably too much of a maverick to have validity on its own; but this is just thinking out loud on the writer's part.

[Jim Eshelman]

What has hampered the adoption and refining of Troinski's tertiaries has, no doubt, been the troublesomeness of the published tables used to teach and employ the method. Most buyers of Lyndoe's otherwise superb book have rightly complained that the instructions are too blurry for beginners to follow and indeed we have often been stumped by the need to explain what in blazes the value termed "increment" is all about! Another defect is that the "official" way to cast a tertiary chart makes it a kind of ersatz lunar return - so that the resulting chart is made applicable to the ensuing 27 days when the "next" tertiary chart takes over. This is as bad scientifically as the widespread practice of casting a so-called progressed horoscope for "the progressed birthday" or the "adjusted calculation date" once each year - as though there were something special or magical about those recurrent epochs, which cannot plausibly be the case. Any progression of a chart is logically a continuum, a steady unreeling of features to be recapitulated, an even turning of the celestial wheels.

This shortcoming where tertiary instructions are concerned can be remedied by simple tables which give equivalent intervals of the lifetime for elapsed periods of any given time, or vice versa. Even secondaries are so easily calculated - far more easily than taught by any standard textbook on the market - when all the progressive factors are reduced to the tie-track afforded by use of the Mean Sun as a moving point in the ephemeris. The right ascension of the Mean Sun for noon or midnight ET, as the case may be, is given in that column of your ephemeris wrongly labelled "Sidereal Time." The Mean Sun makes one circuit of the celestial sphere in exactly one tropical year, so that one can think of the 365.2422 days following the moment of birth as just 24 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds of "annual time." The correct scientific term for this sort of reckoning is "Besselian Time."

Those experienced with ephemerides will have no trouble interchanging the given Mean Sun interval with progressed-time equivalents, the fly in the ointment for the inexperienced being the fact that the "clock dial" for the year commences at 0:00:00 on or about March 22nd each year (not coincidental with the vernal equinox, by the way). There's a gimmick here, however, that can help the newer student keep things straight timewise, and that is to adopt the astronomer's way of specifying time within the tropical year.

The Besselian Year commences at the moment the right ascension of the Mean Sun is 18:40:00, which occurs on or about January 1st of every calendar year. The Besselian Time at this moment is reckoned as 0:00:00, obtained by adding 5:20:00 to the RAMS. If you add this sane constant value, 5:20:00, to any RAMS during the year, you will have the true Besselian Time for any moment during the year. Naturally, one will have converted his own natal RAMS to BT in this same way, in order to be able to find his exact astronomical age at any point during his life. (When using a midnight ET ephemeris, be sure to subtract or add 12:00:00 to the tabulated value in order to obtain the correct RAMS; or else you can convert directly to BT by adding 17:20:00 or subtracting 6:40:00, either way yielding the same right answer.)

Until tertiary-equivalent tables can be published, on-the-ball students can set up their own tables using multiples of the following key values (rounding off products to two significant decimal places in the final tabulation):

Code: Select all

Motion of	Tertiary
Mean Sun	Equivalent
		  h  m  s
One Year	= 0 52 42.3259
One Hour	= 0 02 11.7636
One Minute	= 0 00 02.1961
One Second	= 0 00 00.0366

With practice you'll gradually get the hang of it. For instance, if your astronomical age is 24 years pus 16:42:09 additional movement of the Mean Sun, to find your current tertiary planets, add 21:41:37 to the RAMS of your birth moment and consult the ephemeris for the date and hour after birth that this sum indicates, subtracting 24:00:00, of course, should the sum exceed 24:00:00, etc. When you are about 27 years and 4 months old, you'll find your tertiaries occurring close to your actual first birthday anniversary when you were still in diapers. When you're approaching 55 years of age, your tertiaries will be found close to your second birthday. If you are in your seventies or eighties, you could easily be needing the ephemeris for the third or fourth year following your arrival in life!

Although the angular cusps in tertiary charts are less important than they are in other valid systems, they should still be calculated and checked on conscientiously. This step is surprisingly simple. Just add the amount of time of your totaled "tertiary equivalent" to the sidereal time of your horoscope, and behold, you have your progressed sidereal time - and this way it is continuous rather than subject to a four-minute jerk forward every 27 days.

[NOTE: He is instructing in the "Naibod in RA" method. I disagree that tert angles aren't as important as in other systems - sometimes they may be the primary thing! - and suspect his opinion came from using the wrong rate. Though I hate it being this way, I consistently get be4st results from Solar Arc in Longitude rate - and check both birthplace and locale, as he says next. - JAE]

If you are not near your birthplace, it is always smart to apply the amount to the sidereal time of your locality chart. You remain sensitive throughout your lifetime to the natal framework, of course, but when residing for any length of time at another locality, you are increasingly subject to your new cuspal orientation as well. Perhaps neglect of the locational shift is among the minor reasons for lack of interest in tertiaries. Test this out to your own satisfaction, by all means. I believe you will find that the longer one remains at a given place, the deeper the "engramming" of the locus ingredients become in one's psychic and physical constitution.

[Jim Eshelman]

Now about interpretation. When it comes to using them, tertiaries are in many respects opposites of the secondaries. You will miss the whole point if you scan a tertiary chart with the same mode of thought you customarily bring to a chart. In the secondaries the faster moving bodies, particularly the rapid Moon, are of most importance, whereas in tertiaries the slower moving planets, from Pluto inward, are of greatest consequence - the only exception to this gradation being the Sun's continued centricity of meaning. In fact, I personally use tertiary progressed planets as though they were another set of transiting planets - the slower they move, the stronger they are in the precipitation of moods and events in the native's life. The key to successful application of the tertiary technique is proper emphasis on the heavy planets.

Next, in regard to orbs, forget your habitual approach to a chart and pay heed only to those aspects within one or two degrees in most instances. Partilism is one of the key factors in the use of terts - when the tertiary pattern clearly reflects an event already experienced, note how often the telltale contacts fell within only minutes of arc of exactitude. Indeed, it is this striking tendency toward precision that first made me aware of the authenticity of the claims being made by adherents of the new system.

The tertiaries, mind you, are not primary in their action, despite their splendid showing in about 70% of all events one might use to test for validity. That is, they will not show up clearly in all cases tested - so don't surmise that the system is a fiasco when you can't get your own tertiaries to show grandpa's demise or your dog's bout with worms. But buy a car and your terts will show it. Likewise, committing suicide or murder will have appropriate indices. Fall in love, jump in the lake, steal somebody's thunder or virtue - the terts will corroborate it, as a rule, in no uncertain terms. But don't expect a miracle if your transits and secondary progressions already adequately called the turn and named the date of something vital. About 70% of one's outstanding experiences will also be mirrored in the performance of your secondaries also, and the record for transits alone may be somewhere in the same range of reliability. It is plain that you are quite well equipped for the practical application of astrology if you continue to ignore tertiaries in favor of more standard procedures. Tertiaries only enhance knowledge and ability already possessed, they are not a proposed substitute for any technique already established as true.

Examples of the workability of tertiaries are endless, as with any system which really works. They should, as with secondaries, always be considered within the reference frame of both natal and transits, especially the latter. Most psychological or strictly "internal" events are sufficiently reflected in tertiary-to-tertiary aspects, but life's most interesting developments usually command involvement with outside agents, persons and forces, which means that transits will usually be found interacting with the tertiary planets.

In the opening week of February 1952 a great square of Jupiter and Uranus dominated the skies. On tour in Kenya on February 6th, a little lady received word from London that her father, the King, had passed away. There were numerous nearly partile aspects in her tertiary, such as tert Neptune only 0°03' from a perfect square with her radical Saturn, and tert Pluto only 0°12' from an exact trine to her natal Venus. These are surely suitable indices for the event of ascension to the British throne through the death of her father. But it is the connection between the transiting Jupiter-Uranus square and Princess Elizabeth's Sun that really captures the imagination since it catapulted her to the status of world's most prominent feminine figurehead, Sidereally couched, the arrangement is:

Tertiary Sun 16°35' Pisces [I get 16°29']
Transiting Uranus 16°32' Gemini
Transiting Jupiter 17°30' Pisces

Impressive, eh what? As impressive as the fact that John F. Kennedy's tertiary Sun and transiting Saturn were in the same degree on November 22, 1963. [Elsewhere, we've documented that this isn't true - it's probably a calculation error. - JAE] By the way, take particular note of any tert Sun and trans Saturn tie-ups in tertiaries, because they play much the same role as transiting Saturn ad secondary Moon relationships. They aspects, when they occur, weave in and out of partile phase numerous times over several years of the life, due to Saturn's cycle of 29.5 years interacting with the 27.3-year progression cycles. Along with transiting Jupiter square tertiary Mars by only 0°02', the ill-fated daughter in "Challenging Case" from the July 1969 installment of Many Things has the dread pattern of

Tertiary Sun 24°24' Pisces
Transiting Saturn 25°30' Pisces
Tert. Descendant 25°49' Pisces

Here's hoping this writeup has whetted your curiosity about tertiary progression. Someday we hope to print the accurate, tedium-sparing tables which can turn even a dull student into a whiz at tertiaries [Somewhere I have this table he mailed me. We don't need it anymore. - JAE]. In the meantime, do things the old, hard way, but carefully. When you've won the battle of the arithmetic, you'll be in possession of astrology's tertium organum and another wide horizon will open to you.