Guest guest Posted March 3, 2009 Report Share Posted March 3, 2009 Sari and All, Following up on a past discussion with Sari, I've posted some thoughts on sidereal signs and Aristotle's four qualities along with a few other topics related to polarity. I'm continuing to work on small projects testing the domiciles of signs, and will post something on this later. Right now, as Sari has indicated, there is very little evidence that sidereal exaltations mean anything except that the exalted planets tend to tone the meaning of signs. However, there is more evidence for planets being strong in their own signs for good or ill depending upon the planet. http://users.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm (Article: " New--More on Sidereal Polarity and the Trigons " ) Best, Therese Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 4, 2009 Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 Hi Therese and others, I bought recently an excellent book about the temperament, The Four Temperaments by Randy Rolfe. It's not about astrology, but Rolfe has studied the temperament theory for over thirty years using ancient and renaissance sources, both medical and and literary (Shakespeare, etc.). The book is written in American self-help style, but it contains the best descriptions about the four types I've seen. What comes to the Aristotelian qualities, hot, cold, wet and dry, it's a bit misleading to say that he would have talked about pure qualities. Aristotle cleary stated in " On Generation and Corruption " that Fire is hot, increasingly dry, Earth is dry, increasingly cold, Water is cold, increasingly wet and Air is wet, increasingly hot. So the elements were in a constant state of flux. In Greenbaum's temperament book we can see that Abu Mashar, who lived in the 8th and 9th century, was the first astrologer who put all the system together combining the trigons, qualities and temperaments as we know them today. Though early medieval Arabic astrologers were most likely consciously tropicalists, they used sidereal tables got from Indians with Revati (Zeta Piscium) as the fiducial star http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swisseph.htm#_Toc204425063 . The difference between the sidereal Fagan/Bradley zodiac and the tropical zodiac was about 9,5 degrees in the year 900, so 2/3 of the signs were still aligned. That means that whatever the early medieval astrologers were writing, applies for only one of the zodiacs today, and that zodiac is the true, eternal and unchanging one. Therefore I think we cannot flatly state that the temperaments belong solely to the tropical zodiac, and at the same time say that the tropical zodiac is the one that is moving and changing over time, because in that case, if the temperaments and the accompanying qualities work on today's tropical zodiac, then the medieval astrologes of the 8th and 9th centuries would have written about a brief period in the early 3rd millenium, and that of course makes no sense. There are two options: 1) Temperaments and the accompanying qualities (Fire = hot + dry; Earth = dry + cold; Water = cold + wet; Air = wet + hot) work only on the tropical zodiac, and the tropical zodiac is the one that doesn't change over centuries. It's the true, eternal zodiac. 2) Temperaments and the accompanying qualities work actually better sidereally. So the sidereal zodiac is the one that doesn't change over centuries. It's the true, eternal zodiac. Now back to aforementioned Rolfe's book of temperaments. As you've noticed, for months I've been fluctuating between the tropical and sidereal zodiacs. I've tried to find the answer by statistical studies, but while those studies offer certain observations, there haven't emerged really definitive results. When reading Rolfe's book, I applied those descriptions first on the tropical zodiac. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've started to think that actually it's hard to apply Rolfe's descriptions on the today's tropical zodiac. Let's take melancholic Earth for example. Rolfe's melancholic is a changeable, sensitive, artistic, refined type who needs space and certain distance to other people. There's some echoes of Indian Vata, the saturnine element in Indian astrology (though Vata is usually translated as Air, but on the other hand in Indian astrology Saturn is clearly defined as a Vata planet - in the West Saturn is of course Earthy). This doesn't sound like modern, tropical Earth, but rather like Air. But traditionally Air is not considered as a cold or distant element at all, but warm and moist, sanguine, robust, outgoing and social! Then Rolfe's fiery choleric, the masculine, meat-eating leader type, the big-bellied trade union leader, who works hard and plays hard. Rolfe says that cholerics actually don't get angry easily, but when they do, then the hell is broken! In modern tropical astrology that archetype is considered more earthy than fiery (senses, practicality, enjoying life, efficiency, etc.) And then Rolfe's watery phlegmatic, the ageless, androgynous, fairylike, child-like type. Phlegm is less about emotions and more about needs. These are kind and helpful people with proneness to create dependencies. Dramatic displays of emotion belong rather to airy sanguines. Would you expect dramatic displays of emotion from today's tropical Air? So, it seems that the temperament theory as it's explained in medieval and renaissance astrology could be very timely even today, but it *may* be that it should actually be applied on the sidereal zodiac. But that in turn means that if we try to carry with us the " leaking theory " and the sign / trigon meanings on the tropical astrology applied on the previous signs, we will get quite confused. It's probably better to stick with the traditional meanings for the elements, but on the other hand get rid of the modern, tropical observations with no basis in tradition, like Air as a cold, distant, aloof and intellectual element, Water as an emotional element, Fire as spirited and childishly spontaneous element, etc. Best, Sari - " Therese Hamilton " <eastwest Tuesday, March 03, 2009 8:37 PM Aristotle's Qualities Sari and All, Following up on a past discussion with Sari, I've posted some thoughts on sidereal signs and Aristotle's four qualities along with a few other topics related to polarity. I'm continuing to work on small projects testing the domiciles of signs, and will post something on this later. Right now, as Sari has indicated, there is very little evidence that sidereal exaltations mean anything except that the exalted planets tend to tone the meaning of signs. However, there is more evidence for planets being strong in their own signs for good or ill depending upon the planet. http://users.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm (Article: " New--More on Sidereal Polarity and the Trigons " ) Best, Therese Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 4, 2009 Report Share Posted March 4, 2009 Hi Sari, Many thanks for your long reply, which I'll carefully read a bit later. Right now we are in the midst of a blizzard, and we are all working outdoors to keep from being buried. At this time I only want to say that Aristotle's four qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry) that I wrote about in my article aren't the same as temperament or the four elements (fire, earth, air, water). Those are different topics, so I'll have to take a little time considering your points, Sari. I didn't write about the elements or tempeaments. At the beginning I started to include these, but then realized that they were totally different subjects requiring more study on my part. Perhaps the main point about temperament is that no matter what zodiac astrologers were using when the system was developed, the temperament system remained a part of astrology only among tropical astrologers. India's sidereal system turned totally toward prediction. It would be an interesting study--how and why this complete split happened when in Hellenistic times both east and west had the same astrological foundation. More later, Therese At 03:41 PM 3/4/09 +0200, Sari wrote: >Hi Therese and others, > >I bought recently an excellent book about the temperament, The Four >Temperaments by Randy Rolfe. It's not about astrology, but Rolfe has studied >the temperament theory for over thirty years using ancient and renaissance >sources, both medical and and literary (Shakespeare, etc.). The book is >written in American self-help style, but it contains the best descriptions >about the four types I've seen... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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