ASTROLOGIA MUNDA - Classical Astrologer Weblog

Book IV – Astrologia Munda
Introduction
Ramesey picks as his prime example something from this book IV in Section II,
Chapter XVIII; «Containing the accidents signified by the Sun when he is Lord
of the Year in any of the twelve signs», he says,
«…they [the ancients] would teach the significations of the Sun in the 12 signs in Annual
Revolutions, when it is impossible for him at such a time to be in any other sign then Aries; and if
the judgement be half yearly, or quarterly in Libra, Cancer, or Capricorn, he must needs be but in
no other.»
The statement in itself is true. The Sun can be in no other sign but Aries in the
annual Revolution unless the sign on the Ascendant was either a cardinal or
mutable sign, in which case you would have either 2 or 4 charts, one for each
half or quarter of the year and the Sun would be in either Aries, Cancer, Libra
or Capricorn! What is quite incorrect is his assumption that the delineations of
the Sun in the 12 signs concerned the Sun only as Lord of the Year of the
annual Revolution. Ramesey is referring specifically to what Guido Bonatti
teaches on this matter. But Guido Bonatti is getting this teaching from Part Five
of Abu Ma’shār’s “On the Great Conjunctions”. Abu Ma’shār however makes
it very clear what he is referring to when he says in the introduction to this
section,
«The fifth part, on how to know the properties of the indications of the planets by themselves,
when they have predominance over the Ascendants of any of the Beginnings, or when they have
lordship of the year or lordship of the time-distribution, or when they, the northern and southern
crossing points 1 or one of the comets, are parallel with each of the signs by mixture 2
.»
It should be clear that he was not speaking of just the planets as Lord of the
Year in the annual revolution! He says these indications are when:
1.) The planet is the predominant planet over the Ascendant of some Beginning
chart. A «Beginning» chart was not just any annual Revolution! A «Beginning»
could have been the Ingress in which the Great Conjunction changed
triplicities. A «Beginning» could have been the time that some ruler acceded to
1
The Moon’s nodes
2
What Abu Ma’shār means by this last sentence is when the Sun is joined to either of the nodes or a
comet in a sign.
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