Middle-term event timing
Posted: Sat May 13, 2017 1:32 am
Jun 09, 2015
What follows may be the most important discovery I've made in understanding the layered workings of Sidereal solar and lunar ingresses since giving names to dormancy and flow-through.The question I've been seeking to answer for some time is this:
1. We have really good, reliable methods for identifying the date of an event once we have narrowed it to within a few days or weeks. The CapQ and its support techniques give us 97-99% accuracy at the daily level, and the lunar ingress that is Chart of the Week is nearly as powerful When we get into the neighborhood, we can get the week and the day.
2. We are pretty good at seeing the macro, long-term patterns as shown in a Capsolar. The Capsolar is about 88% reliable by itself. If we use the Cansolar as a fallback for dormant Capsolars, this reliability increases further, past the 90% mark.
3. However, getting from the long-term year view down to the daily view has eluded me. I have checked various approaches and found them generally lacking.
I should say that when I first was working on the first edition of Sidereal Mundane Astrology, I had a very clear sense of how this actually works. It's practically chaos theory on a small scale - numerous independent factors flowing in and out of existence, flowing in and out of orb, and (inching one's way through a few hundred events and all their related charts) it became evident that an event manifested at the approximate moment of a best fit. No exact rules, no simplistic formula, but moment seemingly impossible to divine unless one could keep all of the shifting, interfacing tides in mind at once and feel one's way through the currents. I still think this is the basic pattern with which we are dealing, but I've finally found a way that aids the "macro to micro" transition about... 97% of the time!
What Isn't It?
I've worked my way through several layers of possible "event filtering" and have ruled out several things that, however much they might contribute, are simply not adequate to the task.
For example, in the published report, The Master Charts, I explored the question of whether we could simply rely on the "Master Charts" to predict events, using only the Capsolar for the year, the Caplunars for the month, and the CapQ for the day. Was it that simple? No, not at all. The results were quite poor. I moderated the approach by allowing the Cancer charts to fill in when the Capricorn ones had nothing to say (a reasonable approach considering what else we knew), substituting the Cansolar for a dormant Capsolar, the chart of the week (current lunar ingress) for a dormant Caplunar, and the CanQ for a voiceless CapQ. Using this approach, and having a low threshold for measuring "predictability," I found that only three events out of four were predictable, i.e., about 75%. Not good enough.
This means that the simple theory of analogizing these to personal solar and lunar return charts is insufficient. They work differently.
Another factor worth testing was trying to narrow by successive quarters, e.g., seeing a pattern in the Capsolar and then examining the prior and subsequent Cansolar and the individual Arisolar and Libsolar to see if there was a quarter of the year that was a "best fit." Sometimes this seemed really promising but, when the numbers were finally tallied, the results were too vague. There seemed to be a separate factor that could throw things off, that was displacing events on the one hand, or that was needed to sharpen and draw them in on the other hand.
The best fit to date was discussed in the published paper, Timing Events: Testing Two Models. Because the solar ingresses appear to work in a "top-down" fashion (the Capsolar outweighing the other solar ingresses even in their own quarters) and the lunar ingresses work best in a "bottom up" fashion (the weekly lunars significantly outweighing the fortnight and monthly charts), a very high "event fit" was possible by using the highest level non-dormant solar ingress, and the lowest level non-dormant lunar ingress, and then applying what we already know about daily timing. Solar ingresses assessed this way were 97% satisfactory or better (71% very satisfactory). Lunar ingresses were 95% satisfactory (69% very satisfactory).
However, this method has a huge gap in the middle: Short of calculating 52 weekly lunar ingresses per year, and studying them for each location of interest, it has no way to "bridge the middle," to find the general zone in which a distinctive event would manifest.
Clues Along the Way
A couple of significant clues were hovering nearby from the beginning, and became sharper with each year we followed these methods in real life.
One clue as embodied in a question: Why in the world were transits to solar ingress angles to be treated as secondary to quotidian angles? This was a "rule" articulated in Bradley's original articles in 1957, and the statistical breakdowns in SMA supported the idea that, when transits to the ingress angles disagree with quotidian angle contacts, we simply act like the first doesn't exist. It was substantiated in daily timing. (After some particular results with the financial crisis charts, I came to suspect it was generally because shorter-term factors prevail over longer-term factors, and the quotidian crossings are nearly always faster events than transits to the angles.) And, though the generalization holds up in practice, there are also numerous events where transits to Capsolar or Cansolar angles accurately describe an event. There seemed to be a mystery here not yet understood.
Another clue was that transits to the Capsolar or Cansolar ingress or progressed Moon seem extraordinarily possible. Every year or two when, say, Saturn stays many weeks in partile conjunction, opposition, or square to one of these "four Moons," we have weeks or ghastly events, tragic loss of life, a wave of seemingly unrelated killings and more. In practice, I had begun to think that transits to these "four Moons" was one of our best tools, and I recently started a thread on this forum listing contacts to the "four Moons" for the current year. Even though the technique is not location-specific, it is one of the easiest things to watch against the daily news.
Return to Basic Astrology
Recently, I began examining a set of methods that had seemed, all along, to be a theoretically sound way to assess middle-term event timing. These were methods familiar to us from the basic operation of astrology in natal charts. It is no surprise to me, in hindsight, that it performs so well. It is a bit bothersome that it took me so long to zero in on it, because, in hindsight, it seems so obvious.
I can summarize the approach in a sentence: For middle-term timing, use exactly the same techniques we use for daily timing, but without quotidian angles and fast-planet transits.
Notice that this puts a whole different spin on transits to solar ingress angles! Yes, they take a significant backseat to quotidians for daily events... but not for mid-term timing. They are critical to mid-term timing.
Spelling it Out
The exact methods used are these:
1. Outer planet transits to Capsolar and Cansolar angles. (I initially excluded Mars, as moving too fast. I found I needed to include Mars to get the real pizzazz of the technique.) The orb for this is 2°.
2. Transits to the "four Moons," i.e., Capsolar Moon, Cansolar Moon, and their progressions (CapQ and CanQ). The orb for this is 1°. Again, the planets from Mars outward are used.
3. Conjunctions, oppositions, and squares of progressed Capsolar or Cansolar Moon to ingress or progressed planets (using a 1° orb).
That's it. There are some particular behaviors observed ("rules" identified), but, in a nutshell, that's it.
Accuracy
Out of 191 events studied, Capsolar mid-term techniques (hereafter called “Cap Methods”) provided a midrange timing 128 times (68% of the time). Of these, 119 (93%) were satisfactory or very satisfactory scores.
Out of the same 191 events, Cansolar mid-term techniques (hereafter called “Can Methods”) provided a midrange timing 117 times (61% of the time). Of these, 109 (93%) were satisfactory or very satisfactory scores.
Only nine of the 191 events (5%) had neither Cap Methods nor Can Methods provide mid-range timing. 95% of the events had something show using these techniques. If these, 93% of the time each of the individual methods was correct.
At least one of the two produces a “satisfactory or better” score 177 times of the 182 times (97%) that either says anything. This not only shows an almost perfect level of responsiveness, it reminds us of something we have seen previously in Sidereal mundane astrology: Contradictory indications do not contradict each other; rather, they refer to different events, or different aspects of the same event. The practical meaning of this is that, for example, Jupiter contacts concurrent with Saturn contacts will not stop a "bad" event. They are independent of each other.
Other Things Learned
For this mid-range timing, there is no practical difference between the Capsolar and Cansolar. They are equal. One or the other may show the event. Sometimes, when they disagree, it is the Capsolar that "wins," but about as often it is the Cansolar that "wins."
Demonstration: Of 9 events where the Capsolar techniques had an unsatisfactory (or worse) score, the Cansolar techniques had a very satisfactory score four times, and a satisfactory score once - in other words, about half. Similarly, of the 6 times that the Cansolar techniques had an unsatisfactory (or worse) score, the Capsolar techniques had a very satisfactory score all six times.
The various individual techniques - transits to ingress angles, transits to ingress and progressed ingress Moon, and progressed Moon aspects - all seem about equal strength. The proportion of "hits" of each is essentially the same as the mathematically predicted number.
What Were the "Fail" Events
The events for which these techniques did not provide midrange timing are:
Northridge earthquake
Hindenburg explosion
Pres. Roosevelt death
Moscone-Milk murders
Hiroshima (for Washington)
Tay Bridge disaster
1857 Panic (for New York)
1893 Panic (for New York)
1987 stock market crash (for New York)
These are valuable to see what we might be missing, or to see what other factors should draw our attention.
I've written a breakdown of what is happening in each event and will make it available soon; but you can reconstruct the same path from the current edition of Sidereal Mundane Astrology.
Observation: Three of the events on the list are national financial crises for New York. The Washington charts showed these just fine; only the New York ones failed. It's possible that we simply shouldn't be looking at New York as a center for national-impact financial crises, even when the precipitating events occur there. As a comparison: The Panic of 1857 triggered with transiting Saturn conjunct Capsolar Ascendant for Washington, and transiting Neptune conjunct Cansolar MC, but nothing similar for New York. The Panic of 1893 has transiting Neptune and Pluto square the Cansolar MC for Washington, but nothing of the kind of New York. The 1987 crash, for Washington, had transiting Pluto square the Capsolar MC, but nothing in this set of tools for New York.
The Northridge earthquake of 1994 occurred two days after a new Capsolar, under a devastating Liblunar that was already in force. It may actually be that part of the timing of this was the expiration of the prior (1993) Capsolar which, though it had earthquake-prone factors, also had Jupiter exactly square Midheaven. The better "fit" was to remove the Jupiter. Two days after that happened, quotidians described the violent, frightening event.
Some limits in timeframe narrowing occur when the Capsolar is the actual or effective "ingress of the quarter," since there is nothing against which to compare it. If none of the mid-range methods I'm here describing help (the 5% of the time they fail), we may have to work harder for an answer. For example, the Hindenburg explosion occurred under a dormant Arisolar and Capsolar, with a lethal prior Cansolar. An explosive, fiery Caplunar seems to have been the mid-term timer, as it was for Roosevelt's death and some of the others.
That's the story! Please apply and discuss.
What follows may be the most important discovery I've made in understanding the layered workings of Sidereal solar and lunar ingresses since giving names to dormancy and flow-through.The question I've been seeking to answer for some time is this:
1. We have really good, reliable methods for identifying the date of an event once we have narrowed it to within a few days or weeks. The CapQ and its support techniques give us 97-99% accuracy at the daily level, and the lunar ingress that is Chart of the Week is nearly as powerful When we get into the neighborhood, we can get the week and the day.
2. We are pretty good at seeing the macro, long-term patterns as shown in a Capsolar. The Capsolar is about 88% reliable by itself. If we use the Cansolar as a fallback for dormant Capsolars, this reliability increases further, past the 90% mark.
3. However, getting from the long-term year view down to the daily view has eluded me. I have checked various approaches and found them generally lacking.
I should say that when I first was working on the first edition of Sidereal Mundane Astrology, I had a very clear sense of how this actually works. It's practically chaos theory on a small scale - numerous independent factors flowing in and out of existence, flowing in and out of orb, and (inching one's way through a few hundred events and all their related charts) it became evident that an event manifested at the approximate moment of a best fit. No exact rules, no simplistic formula, but moment seemingly impossible to divine unless one could keep all of the shifting, interfacing tides in mind at once and feel one's way through the currents. I still think this is the basic pattern with which we are dealing, but I've finally found a way that aids the "macro to micro" transition about... 97% of the time!
What Isn't It?
I've worked my way through several layers of possible "event filtering" and have ruled out several things that, however much they might contribute, are simply not adequate to the task.
For example, in the published report, The Master Charts, I explored the question of whether we could simply rely on the "Master Charts" to predict events, using only the Capsolar for the year, the Caplunars for the month, and the CapQ for the day. Was it that simple? No, not at all. The results were quite poor. I moderated the approach by allowing the Cancer charts to fill in when the Capricorn ones had nothing to say (a reasonable approach considering what else we knew), substituting the Cansolar for a dormant Capsolar, the chart of the week (current lunar ingress) for a dormant Caplunar, and the CanQ for a voiceless CapQ. Using this approach, and having a low threshold for measuring "predictability," I found that only three events out of four were predictable, i.e., about 75%. Not good enough.
This means that the simple theory of analogizing these to personal solar and lunar return charts is insufficient. They work differently.
Another factor worth testing was trying to narrow by successive quarters, e.g., seeing a pattern in the Capsolar and then examining the prior and subsequent Cansolar and the individual Arisolar and Libsolar to see if there was a quarter of the year that was a "best fit." Sometimes this seemed really promising but, when the numbers were finally tallied, the results were too vague. There seemed to be a separate factor that could throw things off, that was displacing events on the one hand, or that was needed to sharpen and draw them in on the other hand.
The best fit to date was discussed in the published paper, Timing Events: Testing Two Models. Because the solar ingresses appear to work in a "top-down" fashion (the Capsolar outweighing the other solar ingresses even in their own quarters) and the lunar ingresses work best in a "bottom up" fashion (the weekly lunars significantly outweighing the fortnight and monthly charts), a very high "event fit" was possible by using the highest level non-dormant solar ingress, and the lowest level non-dormant lunar ingress, and then applying what we already know about daily timing. Solar ingresses assessed this way were 97% satisfactory or better (71% very satisfactory). Lunar ingresses were 95% satisfactory (69% very satisfactory).
However, this method has a huge gap in the middle: Short of calculating 52 weekly lunar ingresses per year, and studying them for each location of interest, it has no way to "bridge the middle," to find the general zone in which a distinctive event would manifest.
Clues Along the Way
A couple of significant clues were hovering nearby from the beginning, and became sharper with each year we followed these methods in real life.
One clue as embodied in a question: Why in the world were transits to solar ingress angles to be treated as secondary to quotidian angles? This was a "rule" articulated in Bradley's original articles in 1957, and the statistical breakdowns in SMA supported the idea that, when transits to the ingress angles disagree with quotidian angle contacts, we simply act like the first doesn't exist. It was substantiated in daily timing. (After some particular results with the financial crisis charts, I came to suspect it was generally because shorter-term factors prevail over longer-term factors, and the quotidian crossings are nearly always faster events than transits to the angles.) And, though the generalization holds up in practice, there are also numerous events where transits to Capsolar or Cansolar angles accurately describe an event. There seemed to be a mystery here not yet understood.
Another clue was that transits to the Capsolar or Cansolar ingress or progressed Moon seem extraordinarily possible. Every year or two when, say, Saturn stays many weeks in partile conjunction, opposition, or square to one of these "four Moons," we have weeks or ghastly events, tragic loss of life, a wave of seemingly unrelated killings and more. In practice, I had begun to think that transits to these "four Moons" was one of our best tools, and I recently started a thread on this forum listing contacts to the "four Moons" for the current year. Even though the technique is not location-specific, it is one of the easiest things to watch against the daily news.
Return to Basic Astrology
Recently, I began examining a set of methods that had seemed, all along, to be a theoretically sound way to assess middle-term event timing. These were methods familiar to us from the basic operation of astrology in natal charts. It is no surprise to me, in hindsight, that it performs so well. It is a bit bothersome that it took me so long to zero in on it, because, in hindsight, it seems so obvious.
I can summarize the approach in a sentence: For middle-term timing, use exactly the same techniques we use for daily timing, but without quotidian angles and fast-planet transits.
Notice that this puts a whole different spin on transits to solar ingress angles! Yes, they take a significant backseat to quotidians for daily events... but not for mid-term timing. They are critical to mid-term timing.
Spelling it Out
The exact methods used are these:
1. Outer planet transits to Capsolar and Cansolar angles. (I initially excluded Mars, as moving too fast. I found I needed to include Mars to get the real pizzazz of the technique.) The orb for this is 2°.
2. Transits to the "four Moons," i.e., Capsolar Moon, Cansolar Moon, and their progressions (CapQ and CanQ). The orb for this is 1°. Again, the planets from Mars outward are used.
3. Conjunctions, oppositions, and squares of progressed Capsolar or Cansolar Moon to ingress or progressed planets (using a 1° orb).
That's it. There are some particular behaviors observed ("rules" identified), but, in a nutshell, that's it.
Accuracy
Out of 191 events studied, Capsolar mid-term techniques (hereafter called “Cap Methods”) provided a midrange timing 128 times (68% of the time). Of these, 119 (93%) were satisfactory or very satisfactory scores.
Out of the same 191 events, Cansolar mid-term techniques (hereafter called “Can Methods”) provided a midrange timing 117 times (61% of the time). Of these, 109 (93%) were satisfactory or very satisfactory scores.
Only nine of the 191 events (5%) had neither Cap Methods nor Can Methods provide mid-range timing. 95% of the events had something show using these techniques. If these, 93% of the time each of the individual methods was correct.
At least one of the two produces a “satisfactory or better” score 177 times of the 182 times (97%) that either says anything. This not only shows an almost perfect level of responsiveness, it reminds us of something we have seen previously in Sidereal mundane astrology: Contradictory indications do not contradict each other; rather, they refer to different events, or different aspects of the same event. The practical meaning of this is that, for example, Jupiter contacts concurrent with Saturn contacts will not stop a "bad" event. They are independent of each other.
Other Things Learned
For this mid-range timing, there is no practical difference between the Capsolar and Cansolar. They are equal. One or the other may show the event. Sometimes, when they disagree, it is the Capsolar that "wins," but about as often it is the Cansolar that "wins."
Demonstration: Of 9 events where the Capsolar techniques had an unsatisfactory (or worse) score, the Cansolar techniques had a very satisfactory score four times, and a satisfactory score once - in other words, about half. Similarly, of the 6 times that the Cansolar techniques had an unsatisfactory (or worse) score, the Capsolar techniques had a very satisfactory score all six times.
The various individual techniques - transits to ingress angles, transits to ingress and progressed ingress Moon, and progressed Moon aspects - all seem about equal strength. The proportion of "hits" of each is essentially the same as the mathematically predicted number.
What Were the "Fail" Events
The events for which these techniques did not provide midrange timing are:
Northridge earthquake
Hindenburg explosion
Pres. Roosevelt death
Moscone-Milk murders
Hiroshima (for Washington)
Tay Bridge disaster
1857 Panic (for New York)
1893 Panic (for New York)
1987 stock market crash (for New York)
These are valuable to see what we might be missing, or to see what other factors should draw our attention.
I've written a breakdown of what is happening in each event and will make it available soon; but you can reconstruct the same path from the current edition of Sidereal Mundane Astrology.
Observation: Three of the events on the list are national financial crises for New York. The Washington charts showed these just fine; only the New York ones failed. It's possible that we simply shouldn't be looking at New York as a center for national-impact financial crises, even when the precipitating events occur there. As a comparison: The Panic of 1857 triggered with transiting Saturn conjunct Capsolar Ascendant for Washington, and transiting Neptune conjunct Cansolar MC, but nothing similar for New York. The Panic of 1893 has transiting Neptune and Pluto square the Cansolar MC for Washington, but nothing of the kind of New York. The 1987 crash, for Washington, had transiting Pluto square the Capsolar MC, but nothing in this set of tools for New York.
The Northridge earthquake of 1994 occurred two days after a new Capsolar, under a devastating Liblunar that was already in force. It may actually be that part of the timing of this was the expiration of the prior (1993) Capsolar which, though it had earthquake-prone factors, also had Jupiter exactly square Midheaven. The better "fit" was to remove the Jupiter. Two days after that happened, quotidians described the violent, frightening event.
Some limits in timeframe narrowing occur when the Capsolar is the actual or effective "ingress of the quarter," since there is nothing against which to compare it. If none of the mid-range methods I'm here describing help (the 5% of the time they fail), we may have to work harder for an answer. For example, the Hindenburg explosion occurred under a dormant Arisolar and Capsolar, with a lethal prior Cansolar. An explosive, fiery Caplunar seems to have been the mid-term timer, as it was for Roosevelt's death and some of the others.
That's the story! Please apply and discuss.