3 body Lots

[Jane Griscti]

Hello Mr Schmidt,

Hope you don't mind some questions on your Hermetic Lots intensive. While I agree that your formulation of the algorithms for the panaretus lots are algebraically correct I'm wondering if they are a description of the ideal vs the reality.

If one considers that, as a rule, people perceive fortune in one of two ways (a) that each person is the author of his own fortune, or (b) that fortune is something that just happens to us. Those that believe they create their own fortune can attempt to do so either directly, and actively, going after what they want or, indirectly, by manipulating events to produce favourable outcomes for themselves. Those who think fortune just happens tend to act according to their perception of themselves as lucky or unlucky or, they act in a manner which they hope will appease the gods of fortune.

Is it possible that the lots with the double Asc's give an indication as to which approach the native is most likely to adopt, at least with respect to the things signified by the lot? The double Asc implies a [i]doubled effort[/] along a specific line; the algebraically correct rendering of the lot stabilizes the lots but experience indicates people are rarely stable in their actions or reactions where fortune or spirit are concerned.

[Gabriel_Rosas]

Hello Ms. Griscti!

I'm not sure how much Mr. Schmidt wants to discuss publicly about the intensives, but I'm sure he'll let us know.

... description of the ideal vs the reality.

Actually, that was a major topic during the last intensive, though it was both a more general discussion on that dichotomy appearing throughout the Hellenistic astrological framework, and a specific look at the Twelfth Parts through this particular lens.

If one considers that, as a rule, people perceive fortune in one of two ways (a) that each person is the author of his own fortune, or (b) that fortune is something that just happens to us.

I think that this is something that might more fruitfully be explored through those two weird variant Lots that appear in Valens (also Firmicus?).

[Robert_Schmidt]

Ms. Griscti has raised an issue that some readers may not be aware of, so let me very briefly summarize it. There is a special collection of lots that I have called “Hermetic lots” because they apparently came from a lost book of Hermes called the Panaretos (“Paragon” or “All-Virtuous”).

These include the Lot of Fortune and the Lot of Spirit, but there are five other such lots, each associated with one of the five remaining planets. Paul of Alexandria gives the algorithms for calculating these lots for diurnal nativities, each of which involves an order of counting and an order of projection of an ecliptic interval from the rising portion, and then he simply says “by night the reverse”. For example, the Lot of Eros is ASC + Aphrodite – the Lot of Spirit. The question is how to perform this reversal—whether to reverse one or both of these two steps, and if only one, which of the two. The problem I noted many years ago is that in the diurnal calculation of the Lot of Eros, for example, the ASC drops out of the calculation altogether leaving us with a three-planet lot whose position is relatively stable during the course of a day and a night. But if we perform the reversal in the ordinary way for a nocturnal nativity—that is, ASC + Lot of Spirit – Aphrodite, we end up doubling the ASC and have a highly fluxional lot that changes position very quickly during the course of a day and a night.

I found this lack of symmetry disturbing for a long time, and at an intensive I gave last November I marshaled a number of arguments as to why I believe that these other five Hermetic lots should always be three-planet lots both by day and by night.

As I understand her, Ms. Griscti is offering a speculation that the instability of the lot according to the other way of calculating it is more in accord with the instability we find in the actions and reactions of most people’s lives. This is the reality of our lives versus the ideal that might be represented by the stable three-planet lots.

At the present time, I do not see her issue in the Hermetic lots per se. Mr. Rosas has given the answer that I would have given, citing two other lots, an alternative Lot of Eros and an alternative Lot of Necessity as found in Valens and Firmicus Maternus (although one of these two authors must have the algorithms reversed), These two alternative lots are functions of the Lot of Fortune, the Lot of Spirit, and the ASC. One of them is always found below the horizon, and the other above the horizon symmetrically across the ASC/DSC axis. Valens calls the one below the horizon the Lot of Basis, and Rhetorius says that this is “the foundation of fortune”.

I believe that it is the purpose of these two lots to address the very issues that Ms. Griscti raises, and divide persons into two broad categories.. I would put it this way: Some people for the most part take action and await the consequences; others for the most part wait for something to befall them and then act in response. Of the two alternative lots I have just mentioned, the one below the horizon, the Lot of Basis, tells under which of these two categories the native falls.

Robert Schmidt

[Jane Griscti]

Hi Mr Schmidt, thank you for responding. I guess, as with most techniques, it boils down to testing. For now, I will use both sets of calculations and keep an eye on the two odd lots as well.

[Jane Griscti]

Deleted two posts I made re: Fortune and Hermetic lot calculations. I made the original posts late at night and they were somewhat garbled, decided I need to take a closer look at the calculations and their inter-connections.