ODdOnLifeItself wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 11:53 pm
...can you say a few words about the difference between prime vertical longitude and rationalized semi-arc? Which one shows angularity more precisely? Would rationalized semi-arc be more indicative of aspects (as per Marr) in OA/OD? (or am I seeing this incorrectly in a spatial sense?)
I'm not
sure what you mean by "rationalized semi-arc," but I suspect you mean what I (very casually) call "Placidus mundoscope" and Solar Fire calls Z-Analogue Prime Vertical,
i.e., a proportioning of each planet's semi-arc. Presuming I have the question right:
On the issue of angularity there is going to be very little difference. That is, within close orbs of the angles (horizon and meridian), the values will be nearly identical (as will altitude, for example).
Where their distinctions will be most obvious will be what happens
between the angles (in the same sense that Placidus and Campanus house systems (and other so-called "quadrant house systems") have identical angles and everything different between. The usual geometric biases exist where Campanus tends to push things closer to the horizon and Placidus tends to push things closer to the meridian.
And where this really shows is in mundane aspects! One of the greater discoveries/confirmations we've managed in the last decade is the dead-certain confirmation that conjunctions, oppositions, and squares along the prime vertical are important - probably in every respect as important as ecliptical aspects. This was first documented in mundane astrology (in Sidereal solar and lunar ingresses) where we have hundreds to thousands of examples. About a year ago, I caved in on the abundant single case examples in natal charts and admitted the same is true in natals.
In the ingresses, the most general rule of thumb is that only the aspects of foreground planets "count." The one clear, consistent exception is that Moon aspects - both ecliptical and mundane (PV) - are valid whether foreground or not. This (which probably comes from Moon signifying the layer of mass-mind consciousness or subconscious connection that underlies mundane astrology in general) led to my calling them "universal aspects" or "worldwide aspects." There are scores-to-hundreds of examples where ingresses fail to make their point if these are neglected.
That these close-orbed lunar aspects work as smoothly and reliably mundanely as ecliptically established for me the PV aspects beyond any reasonable doubt. (The PV aspects are location distinctive rather than worldwide.) Though I haven't sorted them out for side-by-side comparison with ecliptical aspects (we don't have the raw numbers to do that reliably), one gets a feeling from looking at one chart after the other (by now, many thousands of ingress charts). The aggregate tabulations in the respective chapters of
Sidereal Mundane Astrology show how Moon aspects credibly describe the kinds of events studied, such as Moon-Sun for leader deaths and crises (among others), Moon-Mercury for transportation catastrophes, Moon-Venus for peace events and "good feeling" events in general, Moon-Mars for the deadliest disasters on record across categories plus coalmine disasters, fires, assassinations, and more, and on down the list.
It would make an even better comparison to segregate the ecliptical and mundane aspects for comparison and that would be a very large (probably half-year) project. The least I can say is that adding the PV aspects doesn't dilute the ecliptical aspects with random dots. They are signal, not noise.
This is aside from the nagging problem with anything dealing with semi-arcs: They don't exist for circumpolar bodies. You can find a prime vertical longitude (and a Campanus house position with it) for any celestial body at all, anywhere on Earth except
exactly at the poles (because there is no way to find an RAMC other than "all RAMCs"), even if you can't calculate Campanus
cusps; but there is no gradated semi-arc position for any planet or other body that doesn't have a semi-arc,
i.e., doesn't (at its current declination) cover the range of horizon-to-meridian.
One other question, what is the clearest way to explain the special considerations, relative to prime vertical longitude and angularity, to astrologers who normally are only looking at ecliptic longitude to gauge angularity?
I suppose that depends on the individual astrologer and what they value most, (One needs to talk to people in their own language, in terms that matter to them.) I think the threshold concept, that allows the point at all, is that - contrary to what the majority of astrologers would like to think - astrology simultaneously operates in multiple frameworks. I don't mean this in an "everything works" sense, merely that multiple coordinate systems give simultaneously important information, with the most extreme and obvious example being that the celestial and terrestrial (mundane) are separate "voices" (what some may call the zodiac circle vs. the house circle). For example, (some) aspects work simultaneously along the zodiac and along the PV.
Astrologers who consider parallels and contraparallels valid (I don't) are already using both an ecliptical and equatorial framework, which are quite independent of each other. They have already allowed (usually without knowing it) that they consider two different independent frameworks to be valid.
If they have a mindset that admits the simultaneous voices of different coordinate systems, then the next most important point is that the weight of evidence seems to show that such things as angularity in a natal chart operates not zodiacally but in another framework that actually (one might say
visibly) makes clear whether a planet is east or west of the meridian or above or below the horizon. (Astrologers who think that the number of planets in each hemisphere or quadrant of a chart should have some urgency about knowing these distinctions for sure, otherwise they have no reliability on that measurement.)
TMSA routinely shows the difference - by simultaneously displaying ecliptical and mundane positions. There are innumerable charts where this makes a big difference. Below is a snippet my lunar return next month relocated to Chicago, where the clustering around Ascendant looks shocking to astrologers not aware of the ecliptical vs. mundane distinction. (This is a picture of the 12th and 1st houses.)
Then again, this is too technical for most astrologers.
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12Cp48-----------+
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|tSa 00Aq06 13°31|
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|rMo 27Aq24 21°17|
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|tNe 00Pi04 27°48|
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|tMo 27Aq24 29°50|
07Pi49-----------+
|tMa 04Pi28 00°09|
|tJu 07Pi25 00°52|
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|tVe 29Pi56 11°37|
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|tUr 20Ar50 22°09|
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01Ta01-----------+