Egyptian Terms

[SteveS]

Jim, what do you know of this methodology?

[Jim Eshelman]

Jim, what do you know of this methodology?

Yes. There are two primary systems of Terms, both given by Ptolemy. I've never been able to get anything meaningful out of either of them.

The idea is that these are sub-zones of signs - a few degrees that are characterized by each classical planet. Try something simple like look up your own Sun and Moon terms to see if they describe your character (by themselves, or taken in combination with the sign meanings) - these seem to me to "hit" even less than random expectation. - A different (related) use is that they are considered a kind of dignity (like being in home or exalted sign): If a planet is in its own term, it gets a little more dignity.

Solar Fire will calculate these for you, of course.

Did you have a specific question? I'm curious why you posted this under Mundane Astrology, probably the last area in astrology where there has been a history of their use.

[Jim Eshelman]

To get a list, go to Help in Solar Fire (just press F1 from the main screen) and search for term - there will be a list of help topics. Pick the first one, Terms.

It will give you a list of the two Terms tables.

You can select which one to use in SF by going to Utilities > Almuten Editor. If you click the Options button, you can select which type of Terms to use (among other things).

[SteveS]

Jim wrote:

Did you have a specific question? I'm curious why you posted this under Mundane Astrology, probably the last area in astrology where there has been a history of their use.

No specific question, yet. Attempting to investigate a possible mundane use for them with NYSE. And was curious if they originated in Ancient Egypt the main use was probably mundane. Thanks Jim for the SF instructions with your answer.

[fivesight]

Here's a hint. The Egyptian Terms were not used in any of the resources I could find for character delineation. They were used for measuring the length of time the 5 planets spent as indicators of the primary directions of the Sun, Moon or Ascendant. The idea that they could add or subtract from a dignity score began with later European writers on Horary Astrology, and that idea bled over into Natal astrology as Tropicalists dug up everything they could to try and make sense of their "imaginary" zodiac and the houses.

[Jim Eshelman]

FWIW I've never found them to be of any value whatsoever. It's always possible I've missed something, of course, and we'd be willing to create tests for an explicit claim.

In general, any of the schematic systems I've tested that attempt to divide a sign into sub-parts has failed to produce persuasive statistics and broadly fail to be persuasive in single-case examples. I doubt the signs are divisible in those ways.

But, if you want to provide an explicit thing to test ("Do x, y, z and you will see it matching a, b, c on significantly more than chance occasions") we can create test for it.