Heliacal Appearances (Phaseis):Greece/Babylon

[Rumen_Kolev]

'Phasis' (-h pl. -ai Phaseis) comes from the verb 'phaino' (I , according to the Orthodox Church tradition, read it as 'phaeno') which means (in its passive form 'phainomai) 'to appear', 'to be seen' .
So 'Phasis' means simpy 'Appearance'.
In Greek-language Astrology, 'Phasis' means what today is known as Heliacal Appearance.
[[[
From the same verb comes also the english word 'phenomenon'.
In Greek it is written as 'phainomenon -to'
(pronounced in the Orthodox Greek tradition the same way as is pronounced the English word !)
'Phainomenon -to' means 'something that is appearing', 'something that is seen' (present passive participle)
]]]

The heliacal appearances of the planets carried a lot of weight in the Hellenistic Astrology and was a paramount factor to the Babylonians.
I noticed that the researchers into the Hellenistic Astrology became aware of the import of the heliacal phases.

I would like, however, to turn their attention now to one very important question.
The meaning of a planet being 'under the beams' ( ''Yp-augos ) was a practical reality for the Babylonians and was still clear to the Greeks- either as a conception or a fact of reality.
Even some of the Arabs, like Abenragel e.g., clearly stated what this meant.
To be 'under the beams (of the Sun)' meant 'to be invisible to the naked eye'.
This was also known to Alchabitius and to his european commentator John of Saxonia.

The Babylonians could compute the heliacal phases of the planets based on their records of previous appearances and knowledge of the heliacal cycles of the planets id est after how many years do a certain heliacal appearance repeat again.
From the Greeks, Ptolemy tried to compute the phases with a very simple and very inexact algorithm (of arcus visionis) described in the last chapter of the Almagest. The Arabs made their 'zij' tables of visibilities of the planets employing this for 1,000 years !
It gives very inexact results.

The Greek astrologers simplified things further, accepting some limit of nearness to the Sun when they find a planet to be 'under the beams'. They measured this on the ecliptic of course.
Dorotheus put different 'orbs of being under the beams' for different planets.
For Mars he gave 18 degrees and for Mercury 19.
Porphyry said that for a planet to have (any) power its distance from the Sun should be more than 15 degrees...
Doing this though, the Greeks were well aware that this was a rough estimate.
They (Valens, Porphyry, Rhetorius) explicitly talked about the heliacal phases and named them with their proper terms.
'Phasis anatolh -h' was used to denote heliacal rising and 'phasis dytikh -h' for heliacal setting.

The Arabs moved further away from the real sky above Babylonia and Greece.
They seemed, if not to have forgotten the phases, at least to pass them in silence.
But they still talked a lot about a planet being 'under the beams'.
Abenragel gave different orbs not only to the different planets but also as dependent on whether the planet was emerging from the Sun (heliacally rising) in the morning or was disappearing into the Sun ( heliacally setting) in the evening.
For Mars he gave the values of 9 (rising) and 15 (setting) degrees distance from the Sun on the ecliptic and for Mercury he gave 7 degrees both ways.
In later times Argolus gave 17 degrees to all planets as an orb for being under the beams of the Sun and that's it.
Then, just few decades ago, most astrologers have not even heard about this!

Now we have a case.
Here in a most amazing way we can trace how a real omen-experience in Sumero-Babylonia went through Greece, the Arabs, the Medieval Europe and landed in contemporary Horary Astrology almost totaly disappearing from the Natal.
In the way, though, this 'thing' lost a lot of 'real weight'.
From observed reality it became a concept and its real meaning was almost lost in the way and stayed so for few centuries.

In order to put in practice though this 'lost teaching' of most ancient Astro-Sophy we will need to know the exact days of real and observable heliacal appearances of the planets.
Just as they did it in Babylonia and probably some practicing observer-astrologers in ancient Greece.

Whether a planet was visible or not on the birth-day of someone (or something) was, is and will be maybe the most important thing to know about that planet.
Greek authors (Valens) dethroned the ikodespotis (oikodespoths)[=arab Alchocoden] if they found him invisible in this way leaving the nativity an-ikodespotic (genesis anoikodespothtos). Such cases surely were of serious concern.

But how do we compute the real and observable heliacal phases of the planets ?
Well, I have spent more than several years trying to find dependable algorithm and I could not.

The algorithms out there are theoretical [Schaefer, Inklaar] or based on a limited number of babylonian observations 2500 years old (!) [Schoch].

Is this not amazing?!
The modern science and modern Astronomy who take so much pride in themselves and their 'cosmic' age, cannot compute the first day when Jupiter or Mars will appear on the dawn sky!
Well, they cannot compute even the second.
The methods they use [Schoch tables] may give for Mars a tremendous error of several days to several months!

There are no observations of heliacal appearances published in the last 2,000 years and no-one from the institution or lay astronomers observe heliacal events...

This 'horrible' story (for the official modern science) though, deserves a happy-end.
Soon I hope to publish all my own 300 observations that span 10 years and two continents and include them as basis for phases-computation in a computer program.

[Scott_Silverman]

Hey Rumen,
Could you direct me to the passage in Valens where the Oikosdespotes (forgive the spelling) is dethroned if found to be invisible? Thanks. Also, there is always variation of visibility of heliacally rising planets/stars within neighboring regions due to variabilities of atmospheric conditions - so how can this be factored into an algorithm?

[Rumen_Kolev]

Hi Scott,

I do not have, unfortunately, any of the translations of Valens in English.
Should order them one day from Hindsight until they are still available.

I use the edition by Pingree (1986) in Greek.
The passage is the last sentence in book III, chapter first (a)
The sentence starts like 'skopein de dei...'
I will be thankful if you tell me how was this sentence translated in English.
Do you have the translations? Do you have the original text?
Let me know what you got.

Without doubt, a planet that is not visible to the naked eye cannot only be an oikodespoths, but it cannot be of course a doryphoria either (Porphyry).
In short, an invisible planet does not exist! [according to Babylonians and Greeks]

About the atmospheric quality- yes you are right.
It must be factored in.
The quality of the atmosphere on a given place is usually stable in the course of the years as to allow that stars and planets brighter than +1 magnitude to be seen with the same parameters.
I have observed this Scott many times.
So, the planets being generally brighter than +1, they appear and disappear regularly having the same parameters and the babylonians could compute this.

The extinction (thickness) of the atmosphere can be measured very easily and it stays almost the same over the years.
It has some cycle of change but it is not much.
If you compute the thickness of the atmosphere at a given place now, the chances are that it has been the same or very close to that value 15 or 30 years ago.

My algorithm takes in account of course the thickness (the extinction) of the atmosphere.
I hope to put it in this coming version 6.0 of my program Placidus so that at last I can look at a chart and see immediately wheteher a planet is visible or not.

The algorithm of Schoch does not take in account the atmospheric extinction!
It is valid very roughly and only for very transparent atmosphere with extinction of around 0.12.
But Schoch does not take in account also the magnitude of the planets!
All assyriologysts for the last hundred years computed with his algorithm!
I wonder how could they sleep at night!


To compute the atmospheric extinction, you must have observations.
Here is how you do it:
Go in a deep night somewhere in a dark place (the darker the better).
Then observe the clock-time when you will see for the first time a star rising above the horizon.
Get a good watch and a red flash-light.
Choose stars of around +1.5 to 0 magnitude.
Do this with several stars the same night.
(you may first see with a computer program at what time these stars cross the horizon and at what azimuth for orientation)
You must write down:
the place of observation,
the name of the star,
time when you see it with naked eyes for the first time,
the day of observation,
note whether there is light-pollution in the area or the place where the star rises.

Then go to your computer and post your findings in this forum and I will tell you the next step.


yours rumen

[Rumen_Kolev]

Scott,
Just got something very interesting.
In his book 'Enarratio Elementorum Astrologiae....", published in 1560, Naibod discusses the concept 'combustus' and writes that a planet is combust during the whole time of its invisibility.
He critisizes the 'predominant' view of his time to procalim a planet 'under the beams' if it is less than a cetain fixed number of degrees distant from the Sun.
He then gives tables, much like those of Ptolemy, to compute the days of emergence (heliacal rising) and setting of the planets.
Marvellous!
Naibod was 50 years old when he published the book- just like your age now.
The book is in Latin.
I do not know whether it has translations in any language. Probably not.

yours rumen

[Ken_Gillman]

Rumen:
Robert Schmidt's published translation of the final sentence of Valens III, chapter 1 reads: "And it is necessary to make sure that the apparent ruler should never chance to be setting; for thus again the nativity will be without a dominant planet." I note that Schmidt is moderating one of the threads here and that he may wish to comment on or amend his translation.
Cheers
Ken Gillman

[Rumen_Kolev]

Hi

Thank you for the quote Ken.
The Greek is:
'Skopein de dei mhpote o dokwn oikodespotein upo dusin tyxh kai outw gar palin anoikodespothtos h genesis'

I will try to translate it more literally first:

'It is necessary to watch out that the one who is thought (by us) to rule, is not per-chance after (its) {heliacal} setting, because in this way the nativity is again without a ruler.'

This sentence comes in the end of a chapter where Valens talks about how to find the 'Epikrathtwr' id est the HYLEG and then the OIkodespoths - the Alchocoden. In the end he examines several cases when the nativity turns out to be of a very special class
a Nativity without Oikodespoths, id est a House without a Master.

What Valens says here in more free translation should be:

'We must carefully examine the so-found candidate-Ruler and make sure that he does not happen to be after his heliacal setting , because then the nativity will be again without a Ruler (OIkodespoths ).'

The word used for setting is ('dusis' -h) which was widely used by the Greeks to denote heliacal setting.

Anyway, today it seems is a good day. I finally made the algorithm for computing the heliacal phases of the planets and programmed it into my computer program.
One of the first charts to look at was a chart of a friend of mine who seems to suffer from long streaks of ill-luck, especially related to his wife
He has, it turns out, Invisible Venus although that she is 8 degrees distant from the Sun.

Then I looked at the chart of Hitler and lo, his Mars is Invisible at 16 degrees from the Sun!

yours rumen

[Gary_Caton]

Hi Rumen,

I am extremely interested in this phenomenon which I first became aware of the importance of from listening to Schmidt.

What do you think of the President being inaugurated with so many invisible planets?

now that Jupiter and Mercury have joined Mars in the invisible realm of the Underworld, it is getting a little crowded down there -and a little crazy up here!

The Moon joins these 3 from Jan 24-27 -leaving only Venus and Saturn visible as celestial emissaries.

Eventually Mars births back to visibility around Jan 27, Mercury around Feb 1, and Jupiter around Feb 12.

[Rumen_Kolev]

Hi Gary,

I have not looked at the inauguration chart yet but let me know the exact time and place and the timezone and the asc. at the right moment when Obama will swear in and I will try to look at it and make a 'babylonian analysis'.
There are some quite big traces of this very ancient teaching still in the Indian Astrology.
What I heard by chance once was that in India no-one marries when Venus is invisible ! (do not know details and quotes tough)

Jupiter, Mercury and Mars invisible simply means that these Gods (or aspects of God) will be not in relation with Obama's term- say the clergy and aristocraty, the traders and the military will be Out big time.
Obama will not get the protection of these Gods.
He will have science (Saturn) and the popular love on his side.
Truth and Love.
Saturn also stands for Justice in the Babylonian Tradition.
Saturn of course is also the socially-low working class.

I believe that the first part of his term will be dark and sick times though.

[Rumen_Kolev]

Eventually Mars births back to visibility around Jan 27, Mercury around Feb 1, and Jupiter around Feb 12.

Gary, where from do you take this info ?

[Gary_Caton]

Hi Rumen, thanks for the quick reply -that agrees with my initial intuitive assessment -at least as far as those planets being somewhat inaccessible.

The US Constitution states that the new President takes office at noon on Jan 20 in Washington DC

Those dates of heliacal rise are really estimates based on the planet achieving 15 degrees separation from the Sun -which is how Schmidt defines phasis. I do plan on checking them locally.

btw, notice also in the US election (Nov 4 2008) that vespertine Mars was invisible -which did not bode well for the old soldier (McCain). People were actually saying "where is the John McCain we saw when he said or did such and such" -implying a certain level of invisibilty for his persona in the latter days of the campaign.