Cabala, Cabalism; also Kabalism, kabalistic. (1) The Cabalists assume that every word of the inspired writings embodies a secret meaning, the key to which only they possess; (2) a summation of the ancient lore accredited to the ancient rabbis of Israel.

 

Cacodemon. An evil spirit; the elemental. A term once employed in connection with the twelfth house, but no longer in use.

 

Cadent. Those houses which fall away from the angles; the 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th houses. Cadent Planets are those which occupy Cadent Houses, and whose influence is thereby weakened. v. Houses.

 

Caduceus. n. The wand of Hermes, or Mercury, the messenger of the gods. A cosmic, sidereal, or astronomical symbol; its significance changing with its application. Originally a triple-headed serpent, it is now a rod with two serpents twined around it, and two wings at the top. As a medical insignia it may appear as a rod surmounted by a ball, representing the Solar orb, and a pine cone, representing the pineal gland. The entwined white and black serpents represent the struggle between good and evil - disease and cure. Another form is the Thyrus, often pictured in the hands of Bacchus. Astronomically, the head and tail represent the Nodes - the points on the ecliptic where Sun and Moon meet in an eclipse. v. Aaron's Rod.

 

Calendar. A system of reckoning and recording the time when events occur; the coordination of the days, weeks, and months of the year with the cycles upon which they are based.

 

The frequency with which astrologers have been known to accept without question a birthdate that a little inquiry would reveal as a Julian date, rather suggests that sometimes we strain at a gnat and swallow a camel: calculating with great care to the hour and minute, cusps and planets' places for a date that is 10 or 11 days in error according to the calendar on which our computations are based.

 

Throughout the centuries the recording of time has been a problem, to the study of which lifetimes have been devoted. To the historian the correct day is important, but to the astrologer the correct hour of the correct day is not only important - it is essential. An aftermath of World War II will probably be an increasing number of contacts with people who have Julian birthdates, and who know so little about astrology that the importance of reimpressing their birthdate upon their memory in Gregorian terms never occurs to them.

 

To render more vivid the problem of the world's calendar makers, there is presented a survey of the manner in which it has been met in different epochs and in remote countries.

 

Fundamentally time is reckoned by the Earth's rotation on its axis with reference to the Sun, a day; by the Moon's revolution around the Earth, a month; and by the Earth's revolution around the Sun, a year. Of mechanical gadgets for recording the passing of time, their number is legion; but their correction always comes from the astronomical observatory.

 

The recurrence of the Vernal Equinox on the same day each year is the one supreme and inflexible necessity - and that we have not even yet fully attained. In astrology, the complexities arising out of a variety of calendars constitute a major problem. The day is universal as a unit of time, but to group days into months, and months into a year, and keep in step with the universe and the seasons introduces serious difficulties. Days do not add up to lunar months, and months do not add up to years, other than through recourse to numerous devices and ingenious compromises.

 

The planets pursue their inexorable courses, wholly unmindful of man's need for a method whereby to determine the places they occupied at a given moment of time. The moment is easy enough to identify when it occurs, but how to record the moment in terminology that will suffice to identify it a century later is a vastly more difficult problem. A study of the various calendars is perhaps the shortest way to an appreciation of the importance of a matter which involves the basic facts with which the astrologer must deal.

 

The Mohammedan calendar is one of the most primitive. It is strictly a Lunar calendar, the year consisting of twelve lunar months, which retrograde through the seasons in about 32½ years. To reconcile the lunar cycle to a given number of complete days, a leap year is introduced on the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 24th, 26th and 29th years of a thirty year cycle, making these years consist of 355 days instead of 354. The names of the months and the number of days are:

 

1, Muharram (30); 2, Saphar (29); 3, Rabia I (30); 4, Rabia II (29); 5, Jomada I (30); 6, Jomada II (29); 7, Rajah (30); 8, Shaaban (29); 9, Ramadan (30); 10, Shawaal (29); 11, Dulkasda (30); and 12, Dulheggia (29 or 30). The years are calculated from July 16, 622 A.D., the day following the Hegira, the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina after an attempted assassination. The beginning of the 46th cycle, with the first day of Muharram, in the year 1351, compares to May 7, 1932 of the Gregorian calendar; continuing:

 

   1365.............. Dec. 6, 1945

   1366.............. Nov. 25, 1946

   1367.............. Nov. 15, 1947

   1368.............. Nov. 3, 1948

   1369.............. Oct. 24, 1949

   1370.............. Oct. 13, 1950

   1371.............. Oct. 2, 1951

   1372.............. Sept. 21, 1952

   1373.............. Sept. 10, 1953

   1374.............. Aug. 30, 1954

 

To find the Gregorian equivalent to any Mohammedan date multiply 970,224 by the Mohammedan year, point off six decimal places and add 621.5774. The whole number will be the year A.D., and the decimal multiplied by 365 will be the day of the year.

 

The Egyptian calendar divided the year into twelve months of 30 days each, with five supplemental days following each twelfth month. Because it ignored the quarter day annual loss, it likewise retrograded through the seasons in 1460 years, hence 1461 Egyptian years are equal to 1460 Julian years. The Egyptian year has been called vague, because at different epochs it has commenced at different seasons of the year.

 

The inadequacy of these calendars, because totally unrelated to the cycle of the seasons, is obvious. The Hindu calendar of India is one of the early lunisolar calendars, wherein the year is divided into twelve months, with an intercalated month bearing the same name, inserted after every month in which there are two lunations, which is about every three years. The year commences about April 11, and is divided into the following months: Baisakh, Jeth, Asarh, Sarawan, Bhadon, Asin or Kuar, Kartik, Aghan, Pus, Magh, Phalgun, and Chait.

 

Another lunisolar compromise is the Chinese calendar, wherein the year begins with the first new Moon after the Sun enters Aquarius. It consists of 12 months, with an intercalary month every 30 months, each month divided into thirds. It dates from 2697 B.C., whereby the Gregorian equivalent of the Chinese year 4647 is 1950 A.D..

 

The Jewish calendar is likewise a lunisolar calendar, which reckons from 3761 B.C., the traditional year of the Creation. The ecclesiastical year begins with the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox, but the civil year begins with the new Moon following the Autumnal Equinox. The years are either defective' of 353 d., regular, of 354 d. or perfect, of 355 d., with an intercalated month on the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th and 19th years of the 19-year Metonic cycle. Each month begins on the new moon -- not the moment of the Lunation but of the new moon's visibility -- allowing some elasticity for bringing certain Festivals on suitable days of the week. The Jewish civil calendar, and its important days, runs thus:

 

1. The so-called October new Moon. Tishri (30 d.). New Year's day, or Rosh Hashanah; containing the Feast of Gedelis; Yom- kippur; Succoth, Hashana Rabba; Shemini-Atzereth; and Simchath- Torah. 2. Heshvan (29 or 30 d.). 3. Kislev (29 or 30 d.) containing Hanaca. 4. Teveth (29 d.); containing the Fast of Teveth. 5. Shevat (30 d.). 6. Adar (29 d. or 30 d.). Ve-Adar (29 d.). An intercalary month on leap years, containing the Fast of Esther, and Purim. 7. Nissan (30 d.); containing Pessach, the first day of the Passover. 8. Iyar (29 d.); containing Lag B'omer. 9. Sivan (30 d.); containing Shevuoth. 10. Tamuz (29 d.); containing the Fast of Tamuz, for the taking of Jerusalem. 11. Av (30 d.) ; containing the Fast of Av, for the Destruction of the Temple. 12. Ellul (29 d.).

 

The current Lunar cycle, the 301st, consists of these comparative years:

5701........ Oct. 3, 1940

5702........ Sept. 22, 1941

5703........ Sept. 12, 1942

5704........ Sept. 30, 1943

5705........ Sept. 18, 1944

5706........ Sept. 8, 1945

5707........ Sept. 26, 1946

5708........ Sept. 15, 1947

5709........ Oct. 4, 1948

5710........ Sept. 24, 1949

5711........ Sept. 12, 1950

5712........ Oct. 1, 1951

5713........ Sept. 20, 1952

5714........ Sept. 1O, 1953

5715........ Sept. 28, 1954

5716........ Sept. 17, 1955

5717........ Sept. 6, 1956

5718........ Sept. 26, 1957

5719........ Sept. 15, 1958

 

The Roman calendar is presumed originally to have consisted of ten months, of a total of 304 days, beginning with Martius and ending with December. Numa added January and February, bringing it up to 355 d., and ordered an intercalary month every second year. The Romans counted backwards from three fixed points in the month: the calends, the 1st; the ides, the 15th of March, May, July and October, and the 13th of other months; and the nones, the 8th day before the ides. Thus the ides of March was March 15th; March 13th was the third day before the ides; March 7th was the nones of March; while March 30th was the third day before the calends of April.

 

Abuse of power by the pontiffs and the many wars of conquest prior to the Christian era finally so disrupted the Roman calendar that after his conquest of Egypt Julius Caesar brought to Rome a Greek astronomer, Sosigines, who with the aid of Marcus Fabius accomplished the first great calendar reform, the Julian calendar, named after himself, which went into effect through the civilized world in 45 B.C., and continued in use until 1582 A.D. These reforms consisted of the following:

 

(1) The equinox was returned to March, by inserting two months between November and December of 46 B.C., creating what was thereafter known as "the last year of confusion." (2) The lunar year and the intercalary month were abolished. (3) The length of the mean solar year was fixed at 365.25 days, the length at which the ancients had figured it. (4) To compensate for the accumulation of these fractions into a day every four years, the extra day was inserted at the end of February, then the last month of the year, making it a "leap year" of 366 days. (5) Renamed Quintilis, the fifth month, after himself, calling it Juli. (6) Evenly distributed the days among the months, 30 days to the even months, and 31 days to the odd months, except February which had 30 days only in leap year. (7) Ordered it to take effect January 1, 45 B.C. However, despite the fact that the Julian calendar went into effect on January 1st, the civil year continued to date from March 25th.

 

The system was slightly disarranged by Augustus, who renamed Sextilis as August, but refusing to be honored by a shorter month than Julius, ordered it increased to 31 days, reducing February to 28 days except on leap years. Hence, to him we owe the irregular arrangement of the 30 and 3i day months, and the poem we moderns must recite in order to tell which are which. He did, however, render one important service, not without its droll aspects, by suspending leap years for some eleven years to correct a 3-day error which had progressively accumulated because the pontiffs had been intercalating every third instead of every fourth year for some 36 years, and this error of from 1 to 3 days in the chronology of the period has never been corrected.

 

Meanwhile the Equinox continued to retrograde. When Julius introduced his reform it fell on March 25th; by 325, the Council at Nicea, it was the 21st; by 1570 it was the 11th. The Venerable Bede had called attention to it in the 8th Century and John Holywood in the 13th. Roger Bacon finally wrote a thesis on calendar reform and sent it to the Pope; and in 1474 Pope Sixtus IV summoned Regiomontanus to Rome to superintend a reconstruction of the calendar, but he died with the task unfinished.

 

A century later Aloysius Lilius, a Verona physician and astronomer and doubtless an astrologer, worked out what he believed to be the exact requirements for a calendar that would keep step with the seasons. After his death his brother presented the plan to Pope Gregory XII, who gathered a group of learned men to discuss it, including Clavius, who later wrote an 800-page Treatise explaining it. Thus it was that after five years of study the Gregorian calendar was put into effect in 1582, instituting the following reforms:

 

(1) Ten days were dropped by ordering October 5th to be counted as October 15th. (2) The length of the solar year was corrected to 365 d. 5 h. 49 m. 12 s. (3) The year was made to begin January 1. (4) The centesimal years were made leap years only if divisible by 400 - thereby gaining the fraction of a day per hundred years that in fifteen centuries had amounted to ten days.

 

The new calendar was immediately adopted in all Roman Catholic countries, but the rest of the world was slow to accept it. Germany, Denmark and Sweden did not adopt it until 1700.

 

In Anglo-Saxon England the year began December 25th, until William of Normandy, following his conquest of England, ordered it to begin on January 1st, chiefly because this was the day of his coronation. Later England adopted March 25th, to coincide with the date on which most of the Christian peoples of the medieval epoch reckoned the beginning of the year. By edict Constantine later made Easter the beginning of the year, and it continued to be observed as New Year's Day until 1565, when Charles IV changed it back to January 1st.

 

Not until 1752 did Britain finally adopt the Gregorian calendar, suppressing 11 days and ordering that the day following September 2, 1752 be accounted as September 14th. Those who objected to the disruption of the week of festivities with which they were wont to celebrate the New Year, March 25th to April 1st, were sent mock gifts, or paid pretendedly ceremonious calls on April 1st, a custom that survives today in April Fool's Day.

 

The countries under the sway of the Greek orthodox church continued to follow the Julian calendar, and not until 1918 did Russia finally adopt it.

 

Those to whom the calendar is an economic necessity, and who are proposing various calendar reforms designed to facilitate interest computations and achieve uniformity of holidays, find themselves impeded by the requirements of the Ecclesiastical Calendar as set forth by the Council of Nicea, 325 A.D., as follows:

 

(1) Easter must fall on a Sunday; (2) This Sunday must follow the 14th day after the Paschal Moon; (3) The Paschal Moon is that Full Moon of which the Lunation 14 days thereafter falls on or next after the day of the Vernal Equinox; (4) The Vernal Equinox is fixed in the calendar as the 21st of March.

 

It was then provided that if the 14th day after the Paschal Moon falls on a Sunday, the following Sunday is to be celebrated as Easter - to make certain that it did not coincide with the Jewish Passover. Thereby did history again repeat itself, for according to Dio Cassius the Egyptians began the week on Saturday, but the Jews, from hatred of their ancient oppressors, made it the last day of the week.

 

To make Easter a fixed date in the calendar, such as April 8th, the suggestion of which has been advanced, would not only disturb the ecclesiastical calendar, but most of the proposed plans would destroy the continuity of the days of the week and upset the system of planetary hour rulerships which is almost as ancient as the recording of time. The seven days of the week represented the quadrants of the Moon's period in an age when time was reckoned almost entirely by the Moon. Methuselah's great age of 969 years was doubtless that many lunar months, then called years, which if reduced to Gregorian years as we know them would make him around 79 years of age.

 

The all but universal division of the year into twelve months, and of the Earth's annual orbit into twelve arcs, appears to be a recognition of the changes in equilibrium that take place during the traversal of the circuit: a moving body (the Earth) bent into an orbit, by the attraction of a gravitational center (the Sun) which also pursues an orbit around a more remote gravitational center (the center of our Milky Way galaxy). Present astronomical opinion places this center at a remote point in the direction of 0° Capricorn, which is also the direction of the Earth's polar inclination. This suggests that it may not be merely the Earth that oscillates, causing the pole to describe the circle from which results the 25,000-year precessional cycle, but the entire plane of the Earth's motion. This would be analogous to the Moon's intersection of the plane of the Earth's orbit at the Nodes, at an inclination of 5°, thereby producing a three-dimensional motion. The Earth's orbit may even be inclined to the Sun by the amount of the polar inclination making the equinoctial points the Earth's nodes of intersection with the plane of the Sun's orbit.

 

In any event in order that the calendar shall coincide with the seasons it must bear a fixed relationship to the Vernal Equinox, for in the last analysis the unit by which the year is determined is the Earth's orbit as measured from one Vernal Equinox to the next. The few moments of time represented by the discrepancy between a complete circle and the precession of the point of reference is the only figment of time actually thrown away and unaccounted for in any calendar.

 

If we must have calendar reform, it would be far more practical to make the year begin at the Vernal Equinox, and so allocate the days among the months that the first day of each successive month shall coincide approximately with the ingress of the Sun into each sign. This could be accomplished by 12 months of 30 days each, with a 31st day after the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th months, and on leap years after the 12th month; and by making all the 31st days holidays or moratorium days, hence not to be included in any calculations of interest, rent or other legal considerations. The legal year would consist 360 days, and computations be thereby greatly simplified.

 

If some one February were ordered prolonged by 20 days, February 48th to be followed by March 1st on the day of the Vernal Equinox, it would reinstate September to December as respectively the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months, and end the year with February 30th, or on leap years, the 3st. The holidays could readily be celebrated on these moratorium days, and even the Fourth of July could preserve its name and character and still be observed on the moratorium day that preceded the first day of July.

 

There would be no advantage in making Easter a fixed date, and its determination under present rules could still be done as readily as is the date for the Jewish Passover. Such a reform would, however, result in great psychological gain to the peoples of the world. Some claim, on Biblical authority, that the year should begin on the Summer Solstice, and that by dedicating to the Creator the middle of the 3 days when the Sun hangs motionless, the year will divide into 2 halves of equal size, each consisting of 182 days - the first half feminine and the second half masculine.

 

The importance of a New Year point of beginning is to be seen in the manner in which in all ages the advent of the New Year has been celebrated with festivities.

 

Babylon, in 2250 B.C., celebrated New Year at the Vernal Equinox, with an 11-day festival, Zagmuk, in honor of their patron deity, Marduk. The Egyptians, Phoenicians and Persians celebrated it at the time of the Autumnal Equinox. Until the fifth century B.C., the Greeks celebrated it at the Winter Solstice, as did the Romans with a festival dedicated to Saturn - the Saturnalia. To counteract this revelry the early Christians celebrated it in commemoration of the birth of Jesus with prayer and acts of charity. When the year was made to begin on January 1st, Christmas was shifted to December 25th, the octave of New Year's day, the while Pagan Rome made sacrifices to Janus, after whom January was named. Janus, guardian deity of gates, was represented with two faces, watching both entering and departing wayfarers: the going out of the old year and the coming in of the new.

 

Emperors began extorting tribute, strena, by way of New Year's gifts. Henry III of England followed this precedent, a custom which did not become entirely obsolete until the Commonwealth.

 

The Scottish name for New Year's Eve is Hogmany, when the children ran around singing and begging gifts in the form of oaten cakes. The Parsees, Persians who emigrated to India, celebrate Yazdegera with worship of their divinities and visits to their friends to join hands in the ceremony of hamijar. The Druids distributed sprigs of sacred misletoe. On the continent the New Year giving of strenae "for luck" still survives, but in English-speaking countries it has been superseded by the Christmas gift, while the wassail-bowl has now become a bowl of eggnog.

 

Cancer The fourth sign of the zodiac. v. Signs.

 

Cappella. A yellow star, in 20° Gemini, the spectrum of which more nearly than that of any other bright Northern star, resembles the spectrum of our Sun.

 

Capricorn. The tenth sign of the zodiac. v. Signs.

 

Caput Draconis. The Dragon's Head. v. Moon's Node.

 

Cardinal Signs. Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn -- whose cusps coincide with the cardinal points of the compass: Aries, East; Cancer, North; Libra, West; and Capricorn, South. v. Signs.

 

Casting the Horoscope. The term used by astrologers to imply the calculations necessary to be made, prior to the delineation of the nativity. v. Figure.

 

Cataclysmic Planet. Uranus, which combines both teh magnetic and the electric elements, producing sudden effects.

 

Catahibazon. An Arabic term for Cauda Draconis. v. Moon's Node.

 

Cauda Draconis. The Dragon's Tail. v. Moon's Node.

 

Cazimi. An Arabian astronomical term applied to the center of the Solar disc. It is employed to describe a planet located within an arc of seventeen minutes (17') of the Sun's longitude: or by some authorities within half a degree of the Sun's center. It is then said to be "in the heart of the Sun." Older authorities considered that this position fortified the planet as much as combustion debilitates it. In his dictionary, James Wilson scoffed at this "silly distinction," saying that a planet so placed "is undoubtedly in the worst state of combustion." Most modern authorities are inclined to agree with him, although the favorable and unfavorable qualities it imparts vary according to the planet involved. v. Combust.

 

Celestial Sphere. If one pictures the sphere we call the Earth, enlarged to embrace the visible heavens, the resulting concept can be called the celestial sphere. If it is a true sphere, any circle drawn around it can be termed a circumference. To locate any particular circle as a circumference, implies the selection of some point of reference.

 

The Horizontal System. If your particular location on the Earth is selected as your point of reference, the point directly overhead is the zenith. The opposite point, below the Earth, is the Nadir. At right angles to these is a plane which is called the Horizon: the extension to the Celestial circle of the line which, from the point you occupy, intersects earth and sky. These established, you have a Vertical circle running from the Zenith, through a middle point between East and West, to the Nadir; and similar circles running through each degree all around the horizon. The distance of each of these circles from your circle is measured by the arc at which the circles intersect at the Zenith - termed Azimuth. Parallel to the Horizon are Parallels of altitude. These are measured by the arc separating the radius of your horizon from a line drawn from the same center to a given parallel of altitude.

 

The trouble with this system is that a location based upon your position fails to describe the same location as viewed from any other point on the Earth's surface.

 

The Equator System. This takes as a point of reference the diurnal rotation of the Earth around its axis. Extending the North and South poles, you have the North and South Celestial poles. Extending the Equator, you have the Celestial Equator. The Equator is intercepted by Hour Circles, whereby location is indicated in hours and minutes of Right Ascension, measured Eastward from the Zero Circle which passes through Greenwich. Parallel to the Equator are Parallels of Declination, indicated by their angular distance plus, if North of the Equator; and minus if South.

 

With your celestial sphere marked off on this system, it can be seen that the Sun does not travel around this Celestial equator; but instead, its orbit is inclined to that of the Equator some 23.5 degrees. The points at which the Sun's apparent orbit intersects the Equator are the Equinoxes, and the points of greatest separation are the Solstices. (These names have to do with an entirely different but coincidental factor. v. Precession.)

 

The Ecliptic System. The path of the Sun, called the Ecliptic, is based on the annual revolution of the Earth around the Sun. Taking this apparent path of the Sun as a circumference, you have at right angles thereto the North and South poles of the Ecliptic: connected by vertical circles of Longitude measured in degrees Eastward from the Vernal Equinox. Circles parallel to the Ecliptic are measured in degrees of Latitude North or South.

 

Stretching for some 8 degrees on either side of the Ecliptic is a belt in which lie the orbits of all the solar system bodies, each inclined in various degrees to the Earth's orbit. Since Hipparchus (q.v.), the greatest of the ancient astronomers, this belt has been divided into twelve 30° arcs, or signs, measured from the Vernal Equinox; the signs named from the constellations which once coin- cided with these arcs, but which because of the Precession of the Equinoxial point now no longer coincide. The statement that this disproves astrology is sheer ignorance, for no modern astrologer ascribes the sign influences to their background of stars, but to conditions of momentum and gravitation within the earth by virtue of its annual revolution around the Sun. (v. Zodiac; Precession; Galactic Center.) Many of these terms are loosely used by some astrologers, largely because they lack complete astronomical understanding of the factors on which their map of the heavens for a given moment is erected. (v. Map of the Heavens.)

 

Vertical Sphere. The circle of observation in which one stands when facing South (probably so termed because it is the observer's horizon raised vertically and projected upon the heavens), is the circle that is presumably subdivided into twelve equal 2-hour segments as it passes over the horizon, which divisions are termed the Houses of a Nativity. On the Equator these Houses are equal in both time and arc, but they become increasingly unequal in arc as one passes N. or S. from the Equator. This results from the declination of the Poles, and the consequent inclination of the Ecliptic to the Equator. The planets which are posited in these signs pass obliquely through the semi-arc of the Ecliptic to the Mid-heaven - not the zenith. Therefore the position which a planet will occupy at some future moment, to which it is desired to direct it, must be calculated by Oblique Ascension.

 

In an effort to reconcile the rising or ascendant moment at which a planet passes above the horizon, with its oblique ascension along the Ecliptic to a mid-heaven point that is on the same longitudinal circle as the Zenith, but a considerable distance removed from it, various attempted compromises have resulted in several different systems of House Division (q.v.). The horizon system appears to yield the correct House positions of the planets in a birth map, but the directing (q.v.) of planets to the positions they will occupy at some future moment, requires the application of Oblique Ascension, both to the planets' places and to the progressed cusps.

 

For a concise classification of the term, note the appended table:

 

THE CELESTIAL SPHERE

Circle of reference   Horizon               Celestial Equator        Ecliptic

Poles                 Zenith                N. celestial pole        Midheaven

                      Nadir                 S. celestial pole        Immum Coeli

Secondary Circles     Vertical circles      Hour Circles             Latitude circles

                      Parallels of altitude Parallels of declination Parallels of Latitude Coordinates           Altitude              Declination              Celes. Latitude

                      Azimuth               Right Ascension          Celes. Longitude

Zero Circle           Vertical c. thru S.   Hour c. thru Ver.        Latit. c. thru V.

                        point                 Equinox                  Equinox.

Direction of first    Through West          Eastward                 Eastward

  coordinate

 

 

Ceres. (1) Daughter of Ops and Saturn; a Roman goddess of growing vegetation, particularly corn. Her day of celebration occurred on April 19th. (2) The first of the Asteroids (q.v.) to be discovered.

 

Chaldaeans. First a Semitic tribe, but later the magi of Babylonia, astrologers and diviners. From among them came "the wise men from the East." We know little of Chaldaean astrology, but some idea of their teachings are to be gleaned from the Chaldaean Oracles. With them Astrology was a religion, but of a far different type from any which has survived to modern times. The Chaldaean priests were famous Astrologers. They held that the world is eternal, without beginning or end; that all things are ordered by Divine providence; and that the Sun, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter are "interpreters," concerned with making known to man the will of God. From the regularity of motions in the heavenly bodies, they inferred that they were either intelligent beings, or were under some presiding intelligence. From this arose Sabianism, the worship of the host of heaven: Sun, Moon and Stars. It originated with the Arabian kingdom of Saba (Sheba), whence came the Queen of Sheba. The chief object of their worship was the Sun, Belus. To him was erected the tower of Belus, and the image of Belus. They did not worship the stars as God, who they thought of as too great to be concerned with mundane affairs; but they worshipped those whom they believed He had appointed as mediators between God and man. Their religion was based upon a belief in one impersonal, universal Principle, but to which they gave no name. To their lesser gods they erected huge temples, of a peculiar construction, specially adapted for star worship. Here they healed the sick, and performed certain magical ceremonies. An inscription on the pedestal of a statue erected to Nebo, reads: "To the god Nebo, guardian of the mysteries, director of the stars: he who presides at the rising and setting of the sun; whose power is immutable, and for whom the heaven was created." In the time of Alexander the Great, 356 B.C., the Chaldaeans alleged that their Astrology had existed 473,000 years.

 

Chaldaean Oracle. An Oracle venerated as highly by the Chaldaeans as was the one at Delphi, by the Greeks. It taught that "Though Destiny may be written in the stars, it is the mission of the divine soul to raise the human soul above the circle of necessity." The Oracle promised victory to any one who developed that masterly will. The Chaldaean teachings with regard to karma and reincarnation, are today found in Theosophy.

 

Changeable Signs. v. Signs.

 

Character. The sublime strength of Astrology is in its delineation of character. As destiny is subservient to character, no prediction should be ventured until the patterns of emotional stimulation and environment are understood. Character is the cumulative result of the aggregate of experience. Daily cosmic stimulation through birth receptivities constitutes a portion of the aggregate of experience. But cosmic stimulation is a conditioning process that determines only the nature of one's reactions, while the reaction takes place only when called into play by some accidental encounter within an environment. Thus environment plus reaction produces an event, and the sum total of events becomes the aggregate of experience - out of which one learns or fails to learn to control reaction, and thereby character evolves.

 

Character of Planets. v. Planets.

 

Characteristics of the Signs. v. Signs.

 

Chart. v. Figure.

 

Chronocrators. Markers of Time. (1) To the ancients the longest orbits within the solar system were those of Jupiter, 12 years, and Saturn, 30 years. Thus the points at which Jupiter caught up with and passed Saturn marked the greatest super-cycle with which they were able to deal. This phenomenon occurred every 20 years at an advance of about 243°. Therefore, for some 200 years or more (exactly 198 years, 265 days) these conjunctions would recur successively in a Sign of the same element. Thereby every 800 to 960 years it would return in Sagittarius, making the Grand Climactic conjunction which marked supreme epochs in the history of mankind. This conjunction made its reappearance in Sagittarius around the commencement of the Christian era, and again in the eighth and sixteenth centuries, bringing periods of great world-upheaval. For this reason Jupiter and Saturn are called the great chronocrators - a word which does not appear in Webster's Dictionary nor the Encyclopedia Britannica, but about which volumes have been written by astrological authorities.

The 20-year conjunctions are termed minims, or specialis; the 200-year cycle, media, or trigonalis - change of trigons; and the 800-year cycle, maxima, or climacteria. In the series there are ten conjunctions in Signs of the Fire-element, ten in Earth, and so on.

Tycho Brahe (in his Progymnasin, Bk. 1) said that all the odd-numbered climacteria: 1, 3, 5, etc., were auspicious, "ushering in signal favors of the Almighty to mankind." Both Kepler and Alsted said that the climacteria would "burn up and destroy the dregs and dirty-doings of Rome." The Star of Bethlehem is frequently presumed to have been a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, possibly reinforced by Mars. The associating of this conjunction with the record of Joshua having commanded the Sun and Moon to stand still, and of Ahab's report that the Sun had retrograded 10°, is probably erroneous, for these more than likely had to do with readjustments of the calendar to correct the effect of precession, as was done in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII ordered the suppression of ten days in order to restore the equinox to its rightful date.

It appears that Daniel utilized the climacteria as the basis of his "Seventy Weeks of Prophecy," wherein he connected the coming of the Messiah with the tribulations to be visited on the Jews (Daniel ix:25). As Daniel was a Chaldean student (Daniel ix:2), it is reasonable to assume that this period of frequent mention was derived by him from the famous Chaldean tables of the Sun, Moon and Planets. These tables are lost to us, but from many historical references we know the Chaldeans employed a Soli-lunar calendar, and so tabulated their dates that 490 lunar years were almost exactly contained in 475 solar years.

If 12 lunations made a lunar year, there would be 5,880 lunations in 490 lunar years. On the Biblical unit of a day for a year, 490 days are 70 weeks - Daniel's Seventy weeks. One-seventieth of the 5,880 lunations, is 84 lunations: about 7 lunar years, or 6 solar years and 9 months-the actual duration of each of Daniel's seventy weeks.

In the ancient Hebrew calendar 12 lunar months totalled 354.37 days - 11¼ days short of a solar year. In 8 years this discrepancy totalled about 3 solar months, which were added every 8 years. In 475 years there would be 59 such additions, of which the intercalated time aggregated 15 years. This, added to 475 solar years, equals 490 lunar years of the Hebrew calendar - to within an error of only 2 days. Thus it is seen that in this period the lunar and solar calendars coincided, making the cycle to which Daniel referred in his Seventy Weeks of Prophecy. (In 475 Julian years are 173495.0 days; in 475 true years, 173490.0 days; in 5875 lunations, 173492.2 days. Thus this ancient Chaldean cycle has a mean value almost exactly midway between that of a Julian year and a true year.)

Comparing this period to the progressive conjunctions of the great chronocrators, it is found that 24 conjunctions occur in 476.635 years, almost the period of 5,880 lunations in which the Sun, Moon, Jupiter and Saturn conjoin at a point advanced about 35 degrees in the Zodiac.

Daniel also mentions a cycle of 2,300 years, which offers confirmation of this inference, in that 116 conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn occur in a period of 2,303.8 years. Furthermore Daniel, at the beginning of his 70 weeks, recounts how in the fourth year of the eighty-third Olympiad (about 444 B.C.) Artaxerxes sent Nehemiah to restore Jerusalem. (It can be inferred that the book of Daniel was not written until some 280 years after this event, for in it Daniel calls to the Jews to hold out against the policies of Antiochus Epiphanes - who flourished about 170 B.C.) We also find that a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction took place in 442 B.C.

(2) In another sense, the word chronocraters has been applied to the Rulers of the Seven Ages of Man (q.v.).

 

Chronos. (1) The original supreme deity, superseded by Zeus. (2) In ancient texts, the planet Saturn (q.v.).

 

Circle. The complete circle of the zodiac, or 360 degrees of 60 minutes each.

 

Circles of Position. Circles intersecting the horizon and meridian, and passing through a star: in terms of which to express the position of the star. Their use is not obsolete. However, Circles of Position were not so used by Ptolemy or Placidus, who measured the distance of every star by its semi-arc.

 

Cities, Sign Rulership. v. Signs.

 

Clairaudience. In occult terminology, the psychic ability to hear sounds or voices regardless of distance. The hearing sense is deemed to be ruled by Saturn; the psychic sense, by Neptune.

 

Clairsentience. An occult term indicating psychic sensitivity; a "hunch" or "that peculiar feeling that something is going to happen." Almost everyone possesses instinctive and intuitive clairsentience to some degree, largely dependent upon the nature of the configurations in which Neptune is involved.

 

Climacterical Conjunction. Said of certain Jupiter-Saturn Conjunctions. v. Chronocrators.

 

Climacterical Periods. Every 7th and 9th year in a Nativity, supposedly brought about through the influence of the Moon in its position in the Radix. The Moon squares her own place by transit every 7th day, and by direction every 7th year; and trines it every 9th day and year. Thus the climacterical periods occur at the ages of 7, 9, 14, 18, 21, 27, 28, 35, 36, 42, 45, 49, 54, 56, and 63 years. The most portentous are those of the 49th and 63rd years, which are doubly climacterical, 7x7 and 9x7. When evil directions coincide these are generally deemed to be fatal. The 63rd year is called the Grand Climacteric, and the general presumption is that more persons die in their 63rd year than in any other from 50 to 80.

 

Climate. The precursors of the modern Tables of Houses. They were calculated for every 30' shortening of the diurnal and nocturnal semi-arc as one proceeds north or south from the Equator.

 

Cold planets. Moon, Saturn. v. Planets, Hot, Slow.

 

Cold Signs. v. Signs.

 

Collection of light. When a planet is in aspect to two other bodies which are not within orbs of each other, a collection of light results through the action of the intermediary planet. It denotes that the affairs represented by the two bodies whose light has been thus collected, will be forwarded by a third person, described by the intermediary planet, providing both bodies receive the intermediary in one of their dignities. Used in Horary Astrology. Other authors confine it to a larger planet aspected by two smaller, with the interpretation that if the smaller do not receive the larger in one of their dignities, the intermediary will feel no interest in the affair, nor will it prosper.

 

Colors. In the age when an astrologer presumed to find in a chart the answer to every manner of question that could be propounded he frequently undertook to tell, for example, which cock would win in a cockfight merely by indicating the color associated with the strongest planet in an Horary Figure. It also was considered an index to the coloring of an individual's eyes, hair, and complexion, as well as the clothes he should wear. Thus the following color chart adduced from Wilson, who professed not to take it too seriously:

Sun: Yellow, inclined to purple.

Moon: White, or a light mixture, perhaps spotted.

Mercury: Azure to light blue.

Venus: White and purple.

Mars: Fiery red.

Jupiter: Red and green mixture.

Saturn: Black.

 

To the Signs these colors are attributed:

 

Aries: White and red.

Taurus: Red and citron mixture.

Gemini: Red and white mixture.

Cancer: Green or russet.

Leo: Golden or red.

Virgo: Black with blue splotches.

Libra: Dark crimson, swarthy or black.

Scorpio: Dark brown.

Sagittarius: Olive or light green.

Capricorn: Dark brown or black.

Aquarius: Sky blue.

Pisces: Pure white and glistening.

 

The color of the fixed stars were taken as an index to their nature: as, a star of the color of Mars is of the nature of Mars; and so on. Placidus said the yellow color of the Sun indicates radical heat; the white of the Moon, of passive power and radical moisture; the blue and yellow of Venus and Jupiter, of combined heat and moisture, the moisture predominating in Venus and the heat in Jupiter; the red of Mars, of intemperate heat and dryness; and the lead color of Saturn, of intemperate cold and dryness. Wilson dissents by saying that "whatever blue is the color of, Venus has more of it than Jupiter." v. Signs.

 

Combust. Said of a planet when in extreme closeness to the Sun, the limits variously placed at from 3° to 8°30'. The characteristic effect to which the term applies is probably confined within an arc of 3° and is more pronounced when the planet rises after the Sun. Older authorities, including Milton, have described it as weakening, except in the case of Mars which was said to be intensified. The probabilities are that the effect of the combust condition is to combine the planet's influence more closely with that of the Sun, until it is no longer a physical emotion capable of independent control, but an integral part of that consciousness of Destiny that the Sun imparts. Thus Mercury combust imparts to the mind a capacity for concentration upon what it deems its own destiny, but robs it of its receptivity to distracting or diverting influences. Hence it is no bar to the achievement of its own objectives insofar as the ability to achieve them is within its own powers, but it robs the native of the cooperation of those whom he alienates by his particular species of obtuse deafness to any or all argument that runs counter to his own concepts. Edison and Kant both illustrate this interpretation. Venus combust may take away the strength to achieve, but when in a particularly close conjunction with the Sun it produces the condition sometimes termed nymphomania - described by Bolitho concerning Lola Montez. Mars combust is always the man who fights for what he wants; and so with each planet according to its intrinsic nature.

The distinction is an important one, in that a person with an entirely unaspected Mercury is one who usually develops a complex by way of an escape mechanism, while one whose Mercury is within 5° to 10° of the Sun is seldom afflicted with any manner of mental derangement.

Wilson says "there seems manifest a difference in genius and propensities of natives, according to the distance of their Mercury from the Sun; and that those whose Mercury is combust have little wit or solid judgment, though they will persevere in business and frequently with good success." Also that a good aspect to the Moon, if angular and increasing in light, will in great measure remedy this defect, making one "judicious and penetrating."

It should not be confused with the phrase "under the Sun's beams" which applies to, let us say, the degree of non-combustion, and is perhaps embodied in the doctrine that a planet within the Sun's aura - which extends to 17° on either side - is within orbs of a conjunction therewith. In other words, while the orbs of the planets, with regard to aspects, are variously from 3° to 10° according to the nature of the aspect, the solar orb, by conjunction or opposition, can be as much as 17°.

 

Comets. Erratic members of the Solar system, usually of small mass. Luminous bodies, wandering through space, or circulating around the Sun, and visible only when they approach the Sun. They usually consist of three elements: nucleus, envelope, and tail. The superstitious once considered them to be evil omens. Those pursuing an elongated orbit are periodic and return at fixed intervals. Those with a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit are expected never to return.

 

The astrological significance of comets has been the subject of much study, but so far no definite conclusions have been reached. Suggestion has been advanced that Donate's comet, which made its first appearance of record in June 1858 and attained its maximum brilliancy on October 9th, was a factor in the nativity of Theodore Roosevelt, born October 27, 1858. It is presumed that comets presage history-making events; but operating through individuals whose birth coincides with their appearance, their effects are so delayed as often to be overlooked. Donati's comet was one of the most beautiful of comets. Its tall was curved. The nucleus had a diameter of 5,600 miles.

 

"When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes." - Shakespeare.

 

The year of F. D. Roosevelt's birth was also marked by the appearance of one of the brightest comets of record, which was visible in broad daylight - even at noon.

 

LIST OF PERIODIC COMETS

 

The following lists of comets afford a basis for their further study:

 

Periodic Comets      Period   Distance from Sun* Incl. to Ecliptic  Perihelion Passage

Barnard's (1884) ...  5.40       1.28 - 4.89             5°28'             1906.2

Barnard's (1892) ...  6.31       1.43 - 5.38            31°40'             1905.6

Biela's ............  6.69       0.88 - 6.22            12°22'             1866.1

Brooks's ...........  7.10       1.96 - 5.43             6°04'             1903.9

Brorsen's ..........  5.46       0.59 - 5.61            29°24'             1890.2

Cunningham's .......                                                       1940.9

D'Arrest's .........  6.69       1.33 - 5.77            15°43'             1897.4

DeVico-E. Swift's...  6.40       1.67 - 5.22             3°35'             1901.1

Donati's............5000.                                                  1858.8

Encke's.............  3.30       0.34 - 4.09            12°36'             1905.1

Faye's..............  7.39       1.65 - 5.94            10°38'             1903.4

Finlay's............  6.56       0.97 - 6.04             3°03'             1900.2

Halley's............ 76.08       0.69 -35.22           162°13'             1910.3

Holmes's............  6.87       2.13 - 5.1             20°48'             1899.3

Olters's............ 72.65       1.02 -33.62            44°34'             1887.8

Pons-Brooks's....... 71.56       0.78 -33.7             74°3'              1884.1

Temple's............  6.54       2.09 - 4.90            10°47'             1898.8

Temple's............  5.28       1.39 - 4.68            12°39'             1904.8

Temple-L. Swift's...  5.68       1.15 - 5.21             5°26'             1903.1

Tuttle's............ 13.67       1.02 -10.41            54°29'             1899.3

Winnecke's..........  5.83       0.92 - 5.55            17°                1004.1

Wolf's..............  6.82       1.59 - 5.60            25°15'             1905.3

 

*In terms of Earth's Mean Distance.

 

In terms of Earth's Mean Distance. Cunningham's Comet, first observed in 1940, had a tail of an estimated length of 60 million miles, pointing directly upward. It was of a magnitude of 1.7.

 

Halley's Comet, 1835 and 1910, is the most historic comet. Every appearance has been traced back to 240 B.C.

 

The head of Holmes's Comet had a diameter in excess of a million miles. It is one of the largest of record.

 

The great comet of 1843, which seems not to have been given a name, was apparently a Periodic Comet, with an orbit of 400 years. A tail 200 million miles in length, the longest tail of any comet of record, made it a sight of grandeur. Its perihelion distance, 300,000 miles, was extremely short, and carried it through the Sun's corona.

 

Non-Periodic Comets. Among the records of non-periodic comets are: Great comet of 1729. - The greatest of record, yet details are lacking. Its perihelion distance, approximately 384 million miles, over four times distance of sun to earth, brought it no closer to Sun than Jupiter's orbit, although it did go around the Sun. Had it come as close as the average comet, its splendor would have transcended that of any other comet.

 

De Cheseaux's Comet, 1744 - an unusual comet, six tails - Great Comet of 1811. The largest comet in actual size ever observed, except the 1729 comet of which little is known. The head was 1,125,000 miles in diameter - larger than the Sun. The tail was 100,000,000 miles in length. It was a magnificent sight. Its aphelion-distance was 14 times the distance of Neptune from the Sun. The wine in France was particularly good that season, and for years was famed as "Comet Wine."

 

Great Comet of 1861. Earth passed through the tail which subtended over 100° of arc. At one time the comet was brighter than any star or planet except Venus at its brightest, and a peculiar glow suffused the entire sky. One of the finest, probably the brightest comet. Could be seen in broad daylight, even at noon.

 

Morehouse's Comet, 1908, showed the most rapid variations in appearance - the tail changing so much from day to day that sometimes it could not be recognized as the same comet.

 

Comet 1925a. In perihelion distance it was one of the largest - nearly as far away as Jupiter.

 

Collision with Earth. On June 30, 1908, occurred in Siberia the greatest meteorite fall in historic times. It was probably the head of a small comet. It had no connection with Morehouse's Comet. Another and larger collision caused Meteor Crater in Arizona, but it was pre-historic-probably 40,000 years ago.

 

Commanding Signs. Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo, because they were deemed more powerful by virtue of their nearness to the zenith. The assumption that these command while the other six obey is hardly warranted, even for this reason - since the Earth is actually at the opposite end of each polarity. Actually they might with more reason be termed the "demanding" signs, with Libra to Pisces termed "commanding" signs, with much the same meaning as that contained in the aphorism that "One does not demand respect: he commands it." v. Northern Signs.

 

Common Signs. Those of the Mutable Quadruplicity: Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces; said to be flexible but vacillating.

 

Conception. According to Ptolemy the sex as well as the incidents relating to a child, prior to its birth, may be deduced from the positions of the planets at the time of conception. The entire subject of prenatal cosmic stimulation is a welter of confused theorizing, which as yet lacks confirmation in practice sufficient to bring about any unanimity of opinion.

 

Conceptive Signs. v. Signs.

 

Configuration. (a) Three or more planets in a birth map, that are joined together by aspects, whereby. any stimulation will result in the combined action of all the planets which enter into the configuration. (b) A similar combination of mutual aspects between transitory planets.

 

Conjunction: Conjoined to. Phraseology to indicate the mutual relation of two planets occupying longitudinal positions separated by less than 7°. The exact limits, and the relative strength at different degrees of separation, constitutes a controversial point. Strictly speaking, the conjunction takes place when both occupy exactly the same degree position; although it begins to be operative when they arrive within orbs. v. Aspect.

 

Conjunction, Superior and Inferior. The conjunction of an inferior planet, Mercury or Venus, with the Sun is an inferior conjunction when the planet is between the Earth and the Sun; a Superior Conjunction, when the Sun is between the Earth and the planet.

 

Constellations. Some 90 subdivisions of the heavens, mostly named according to some outline traced among the principal stars within the area. There is no sharp line of demarcation between the various contiguous constellations. Twelve of these groups lie along the ecliptic, and are thus known as the Zodiac of Constellations. At about the commencement of the Christian era, these constellations coincided with the divisions of the ecliptic based on the point of the Vernal Equinox, where the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator. Since at no time did astrologers attribute the influences which repose in the twelve 30-degree arcs of the Earth's annual revolution around the Sun, to the background of stars against which celestial positions are measured, the name of the constellations were appropriated and attached to the zodiac of signs based upon the points of the Equinoxes and the Solstices.

 

The symbology of the constellations along the ecliptic is of interest in that it is probable the astrological significances preceded the naming of the constellations, which were named to symbolize the influences ascribed to the different arcs. The constellations of the Zodiac are:

 

Aries. The ram. It is mentioned by Aratus, in the third century B.C. According to Grecian mythology Nephele, mother of Phrixus and Helle, gave her son a ram with a golden fleece. To escape the evil designs of their stepmother, Hera, Phrixus and Helle mounted the ram and fled. As they reached the sea and attempted to cross, Helle fell into the water and perished - hence, the Hellespont. Arriving in Colchis, Phrixus was received by the King, Aeetes, who sacrificed the ram to Zeus, to whom he dedicated the fleece - later carried away by Jason. Zeus translated the ram into the heavens as a constellation.

 

Taurus. The Bull. A constellation of great antiquity containing two star-clusters: the Pleiades and the Hyades, which are referred to in the Old Testament. The principal star of the Hyades, Aldebaran, is mentioned by Hesiod and Homer. According to the Greeks it was the bull which carried Europa across the seas to Crete, and which Jupiter raised to the heavens. The Hyades, named Ambrosia, Coronis, Eudora, Pasithoë, Plexaris, Pytho and Tycho - after the seven daughters of Atlas - and Aethra, were also transformed into stars by Jupiter, for bewailing the death of their brother Hyas. The central star of the Pleiades, Alcyone, also Ple‹one and Atlas - are stars of the 3rd magnitude. They were the seven daughters of Atlas and Ple‹one, hence half-sisters of the Hyades. They too were said to have been turned into stars for grieving over the loss of their sisters, and the suffering of their father: but another account tells how the sisters met the great hunter Orion in Boeotia, whose passions were so inflamed at the sight of them that he pursued them through the woods for five years, until Zeus translated the lot of them - the sisters, Orion, and his dogs Sirius and Betelguese - into the sky. As the Pleiades rise in mid-May, they are, as daughters of Atlas, the bringer of the fertilizing spring rains which come out of the west; as they set at the end of October, they are, as the pursued of Orion, the forerunners of the autumn storms. To them, Homer, in his Odyssey (XII. 62) probably alluded as the doves that brought Ambrosia from the west to Zeus. That one of the doves was lost while pursuing the wandering rocks, the Planetae, is a reference to the fact that one of the Pleiades, Merope, is always invisible - from hiding her light for shame at having had intercourse with Sisyphus - a mortal. However, all the Pleïades became ancestresses of heroic or divine families, called by the Romans: Vergiliae (probably from ver - Spring).

 

Gemini. The twins. The constellation Gemini contains Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri, twin sons of Jupiter and Leda, associated with Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. The constellation Lupus represents the wolf by whom the twins were suckled in infancy. In other references the twins are identified as Hercules and Apollo, and as Triptolemus and Iasion. With the Arabians -- the twins were a pair of peacocks.

 

Cancer. The crab. It contains a loose cluster of stars, Praesepe, the beehive, visible to the naked eye as a nebulous patch. Aratus mentions it in the third century B.C., and Ptolemy catalogued 13 stars within the area, none brighter than the 3d magnitude. Encyclopaedia Britannica explains the name as possibly due to the fact that at this point the Sun, passing the point of its greatest elongation, apparently retraces its path in a sidelong manner resembling a crab.

 

Leo. The Lion. The Nemean lion, slain by Hercules, and raised to the heavens in his honor, by Zeus. Regulus, the Lion's Heart, also known as Basilicus, is its brightest star, of a magnitude of 1-23. The Leonids are a meteoric swarm which radiate from the area, appearing in November.

 

Virgo. The Virgin. According to different fables she was Justitia, daughter of Astraeus and Ancora, who lived before man sinned, and taught him his duty; and at the end of the golden age she returned to her place in the heavens. Hesiod identified her as the daughter of Jupiter and Themis. Others variously identify her as Erigone, daughter of Icarius; and Parthene, daughter of Apollo. The principal star of the constellation is Spica, a star of the first magnitude, with a very faint companion.

 

Libra. The Balance. It was mentioned by Manetho in the 3d century, B.C. and by Germinus in the 1st Century B.C. It was not mentioned by Aratus, but Ptolemy catalogued 17 stars in the area. It contains the important star Algol, a variable, of a magnitude of from 5 to 6.2, with a period of 2d 7h 51m. Encyclopaedia Britannica finds no explanation for the name beyond the fact that there the days and nights are of equal duration, which would also apply to Aries.

 

Scorpio. The Scorpion. According to a Greek myth Orion boasted to Diana and Latona that he would kill every animal on the Earth. Whereupon the goddesses sent a scorpion which stung him to death. Jupiter then raised the scorpion to the heavens, but later, at the request of Diana, he also raised Orion. The chief star of the constellation is Antares, a reddish star of the first magnitude which has a green companion of the seventh magnitude.

 

Sagittarius. The Archer. The Greeks represented this constellation as a centaur in the act of releasing an arrow; they identified him as Crotus, son of Eupheme, the nurse of the Muses. The constellation contains no notably large stars.

 

Capricorn. The Goat. Literally translated it means a goat with horns. Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe catalogued 28 stars in this area, none of notable size. The ancients sometimes represented it as a goat, at other times only as the forepart of that animal with the tail of a fish. No record is available as to the origin of the term, but Eudoxus mentions it in the fourth century B.C..

 

Aquarius. The Waterbearer. A constellation mentioned by Aratus in the third century B.C. Ptolemy catalogued 47 stars in the area; Tycho Brahe 41. There appear to be no records that appear to connect the name with any of the stars or configurations within the area. The Encyclopaedia Britannica merely says that perhaps it was because the period when it was tenanted by the Sun was the rainy season.

 

Pisces. The Fishes. Sometimes represented by the two fishes tied together by their tails. It is mentioned by Eudoxus in the fourth century B.C., and Ptolemy catalogued 38 stars in the area. In Greek mythology Aphrodite and Eros, surprised by Typhon on the banks of the Euphrates, sought safety in the water and were changed into two fishes; but this is said to be an adaptation of an earlier Egyptian tale. The constellation contains no notably large stars.

 

Listed are all the constellations within 45° on each side of the equator. The month indicated is that in which the constellation is on the meridian at approx. 9 P.M..

 

Andromeda............. Nov.

Antlia................ Apr.

Aquarius.............. Oct.

Aquila et Antinous.... Aug.

Aries................. Dec.

Auriga................ Feb.

Bootes................ Jun.

Caelum................ Jan.

Cancer................ Mar.

Canes Venatici........ May

Canis Major........... Feb.

Canis Minor........... Mar.

Capricornus........... Sep.

Centaurus............. May

Cetus................. Dec.

Columba............... Feb.

Coma Berenices........ May

Corona Australis...... Aug.

Corona Borealis....... Jul.

Corvus................ May

Crater................ Apr.

Cygnus................ Sep.

Delphinus............. Sep.

Equuleus.............. Sep.

Eridanus.............. Dec.

Fornax................ Dec.

Gemini................ Feb.

Hercules.............. Jul.

Hydra................. Apr.

Leo................... Apr.

Leo Minor............. Apr.

Lepus................. Jan.

Libra................. Jun.

Lupus................. Jun.

Lyra.................. Aug.

Microscopium.......... Sep.

Monoceros............. Mar.

Ophiuchus............. Jul.

Orion................. Jan.

Pegasus............... Oct.

Pisces................ Nov.

Piscis Austrinus...... Oct.

Puppis................ Feb

Pyxis................. Mar.

Sagitta............... Aug.

Sagittarius........... Aug.

Scorpio............... Jul.

Sculptor.............. Nov.

Scutum Sobieskii...... Aug.

Serpens............... Aug.

Serpens (Caput)....... Jul.

Sextans............... Apr.

Taurus................ Jan.

Triangulum............ Dec.

Vela.................. Mar.

Virgo................. Jun.

Vulpeculacum Ansere... Sep.

 

Contact. (a) Usually applied to an aspect from a transiting or directed planet to a sensitive degree created by a planet at birth. (b) In a general sense it infers the energy discharge which takes place when an aspect becomes operative.

 

Contra antiscions. Apolo-Edited Definition (Devore's having been inadequately clear in this case): These are the same degees of declination held by stars and planets tenanting Signs on opposite sides of the Aries 0º - Libra 0º axis. They are exactly opposite the antiscion points. For example, the antiscion of 5º Aries is at 25º Virgo, while the contra-antiscion of 5º Aries is at 25º Pisces. To find them recourse may be had to Tables of Declination. v. Parallels.

 

Converse Directions. Those computed opposite to the order of the Signs. Some authorities appear to question the validity of Converse Directions. It is true that in a birth Figure aspects are deemed to be formed only by a faster moving planet to a slower moving; but this does not apply to Directions in which the directed planet aspects all natal planets. If there is any validity in either Directions or Progressions the probability is that they are based upon a moving Ascendant which carries with it the entire Figure. In that event it would make no difference which one of two planets is directed to the other; for whether the one moves forward or the other moves backward, a contact between these two planets will result in either case, and which one is deemed to be the birth planet and which the directed planet is of relatively minor consequence. Since transits are the actual rather than theoretical or symbolic motions of the body of the planets in the order of the Signs, forming aspects to the birth places of planets - their own as well as those of other planets - there can be no such thing as Converse Transits.

 

Coordinate. n. Any of two or more magnitudes that determine position. Latitude and Longitude are coordinates of a point on the Earth's surface. v. Celestial Sphere.

 

Copernican System. From Copernicus, an astronomer of Prussian birth (1493-1543), who was the first to show that all the observed motions of the planets could be explained by a diurnal rotation of the Earth on its axis, and a concept of the Sun as the centre around which the Earth and the other planets revolve. He was partially anticipated by Pythagoras, who taught a heliocentric system of astronomy.

 

Corona. A fringe of light, or halo, surrounding the Sun; visible only during a total Eclipse.

 

Correction. The adjustment of mean to sidereal time, whereby to ascertain the correct right ascension of the midheaven. v. Time.

 

Co-signficator. These are planets and Signs having a kind of rotary signification: thus Aries is a co-significator of all Ascendants, because though it is not the Sign ascending it is the first Sign of the Zodiac, as the Ascendant is the First House in the world.

 

Cosmecology: the ecology of the cosmic. This title was suggested by Harlan T. Stetson, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for a synthesis of the contemporary sciences of astronomy, electro-physics, geology and biology. In his book "Earth, Radio and the Stars" he ventures the remark that some curse apparently inures in the word "astro-" that keeps "astrology, mother of all these sciences, in the scientific dog-house," even though it may be the "lost key." He cautiously suggests that we trace the correlation between changes of a cosmic origin that affect our terrestrial environment, and periods of optimism and depression in the psychology of the human race; also that the ductless glands, controlling our moods and temperaments, respond to penetrating radiations which sooner or later must be discovered.

 

Cosmic. Something vast and systematic, imbued with a sense of magnitude and order. Webster defines cosmical physics as astrophysics.

 

Cosmic Conditioning. Ancient man was convinced that his destiny upon earth was ruled by the divine power that placed the stars in the heavens; that every created thing was a result of this influence; and that the Sun was the active principle of good, and the darkness of evil. The ancient concept was aptly expressed by Cowper, when he wrote:

God moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform.

More recently, however, scientific research is beginning to reveal some of the ways in which Creation's miracles evolve. We know that only a small portion of the Sun's energy radiations are transformed into light and heat, and that other invisible hands supply to all living things the essence that imparts to the cells the ability to multiply by division, and that stimulates the endocrine glands to secrete into the blood stream the hormones to which our emotions react, and whereby each develops an individuality, in response to his own cosmic conditioning.

Thus one might say that God placed the Sun, the Moon, and the planets in the firmament, whereby every living thing would be made "after his own pattern," and thus be distinct and different: thereby introducing into life the difficulties of mutual understanding and self-control which if mastered will produce character, and if not mastered will destroy.

We must recognize that every planetary influence which results from radiation is a reflection from the Sun. It is not a reflection of the Sun, because each reflector has a different chemical constitution which absorbs certain frequencies, and thus imparts to each reflected ray a differently altered spectrum. The Moon and the planets in the signs must be recognized as variants of the Sun influence, all aspects as blending of these variants, and all House positions as our personal relation thereto.

Furthermore, we must eliminate any consideration of the Sun's energy radiations from our appraisal of the sign positions of the Sun, for the Sun is only the sign post whereby to determine the Earth's position in orbit, and conditions of gravitation and momentum inherent in each arc of the orbit.

Sir Isaac Newton insisted on the solidarity of the Solar System, a concept which contemporary physicists have finally confirmed, by likening it to an enlargement of the atom. The Sun is now generally recognized as a central controlling source of positive energy comparable to the proton of positive electricity in the atom, surrounded by planets moving in orbit, comparable to electrons of negative electricity, the number of which determine the nature of the clement of which the atom was formerly believed to be the smallest component. In this concept the Earth-dweller occupies a position in one electron, some ten miles below the surface of a gaseous ocean.

Because of their differing chemical constituents, each reflecting planet absorbs varying frequencies of the Sun's spectrum, and thus the Earth's magnetic field is charged with a constantly changing set of frequency characteristics. The supposition that reflected rays are so weak as to be ineffectual in comparison to the direct rays of the Sun fails in the presence of such evidence as the relative minuteness of the vitamines and hormones to which extreme potency is currently ascribed. One medical textwork on hormones goes so far as to state that if one drop of the hormone contained in a certain gland in the human body were placed in the waters of Lake Eric, the drinking of a glassful of that water would produce death.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that the first day's growth of a newly born infant, in accord with the law of adaptability to cosmic conditioning creates channels of receptivity that will circumscribe for life the individual's capacity for absorption of the several frequencies which comprise the spectrum of cosmic stimulations. This would rule out the prenatal, since prior to birth the blood is conditioned through the maternal receptivities; and an independent existence begins only when the individual is compelled to condition his own blood.

In the light of recent discoveries in Endocrinology it is a reasonable hypothesis that cosmic energy radiation governs the growth and functioning of the Endocrine glands, and the hormones these secrete into the blood stream are the stimulators of the emotions, or are translated by the mind in terms of emotions.

The energy radiations direct from the Sun are probably responsible for the growth and functioning of one portion of the pituitary gland. Whatever gland is stimulated by a planet which aspects the Sun, will be simultaneously incited at every Sunrise and with every transit, thus accounting for the strong influence upon the native's destiny of any planet or planets that are in close aspect to his Sun.

The food that enters the body through the stomach, and the oxygen that is extracted by the lungs, yields the material for making cells; but only the electricity absorbed by direct and reflected radiation from the Sun is able to impart to the cell the state of "livingness" that enables it to grow.

 

Cosmic Cross. Two planets in opposition, each squared by a third planet, resulting in what is termed a T-square or T-cross. A fourth planet, opposing the third and squaring the first two, forms a Grand Cross. The T-square is a dynamic influence; the Grand Cross tends to diffusion.

 

Cosmic Philosophy, or Cosmism. A theory of cosmic evolution originated by John Fiske and advanced by him as an interpretation of Spenser.

 

Cosmic Psychology. The science of diagnosis whereby the maladjustment of the individual to life can be treated by correctional thinking. It does not concern itself with prediction, fortune-telling, life readings, or any other form of appeal to curiosity, mystery or superstition. It deals with reactions developed in the individual by virtue of growth and development during his first day of life, through the law of adaptability to cosmic ray frequencies then present in the Earth's magnetic field; and with experiences resulting from environmental stimulation of a preconditioned pattern of emotional reactions.

The new school of Cosmic Psychologists eliminates from its practice everything that cannot be scientifically justified, applying what remains to an analysis of the psychological conditioning to which the native during his first day of life adjusted himself by the Law of Adaptability to Environment; and the repetition of this cycle on successive days with minor variations, which variations ultimately create new cycles. It discards the entire system of symbolic Rulerships and Dignities, as well as the Progressions; leaving only the Sun, Moon, planets, and the Ascendant and Midheaven, and their inter-relationships and modifications by virtue of Sign and House position and aspects; and the Transits. These embody the three recognized forces, Momentum, Gravitation and Radiation, that condition and stimulate bodily growth and functioning, and mental and spiritual perception. The individual psychological reaction pattern thus represents Effects diagnosed from an identifiable pattern of Causation. While the therapy administered by the medical practitioner or the endocrinologist is based on a diagnosis of Effects and seldom attempts to reason backward to Causes, the Cosmic psychologist diagnoses from Causes, and reasons forward to probable effects in an effort to administer preventative therapy. Thus the Cosmic Psychologist does not treat the disease the patient has, but treats the patient that has the disease. He is not content to palliate, but seeks either to prevent or cure, on the premise that health is a product of right thinking, or as Emerson puts it "A sick man is a rascal being found out."

The Cosmic Psychologists adhere to a code of ethics modeled somewhat after that of Hippocrates, the most revered of physicians and the first Cosmic Psychologist: "I will not give 'readings', 'tell fortunes', or make predictions to satisfy the morbid cravings of the curious, nor will I seek to astound or mystify; but will give consultations only to those who have a problem regarding which they know they need help and seek it; and instead of prophesying a prognosis, I will endeavor to instill the right thinking that will contribute to avoiding or mitigating an unfavorable condition which I see in operation, interpreting such in terms of influences rather than of events, and at all times teaching a philosophy of Free Will and emotional self-control that is the antithesis of Fatalism and Predestination.

"I will not give counsel contrived to assist any person in working injury to or taking unfair advantage of another.

"I will never make an utterance or inference that will reflect in any degree upon any other practitioner; nor will I treat a client of another practitioner, except as called in consultation by such practitioner.

"I will never relax in my efforts to add to my knowledge of the science, to impart it to such as I deem worthy to follow in my footsteps, and to devote my efforts without stint toward the improving of human understandings and personal relationships, and in rendering service to humanity and society.

"And may the Creator who placed the planets in their orbits as His means of guiding the Destinies of men, preserve and sustain me in proportion to the fidelity with which I exemplify the laws I am ordained to teach."

 

Cosmical. Said of the rising or setting of a planet (or a star) when it is near the Sun - hence rises and sets along with it. The opposite of acronycal (qv.).

 

Councillor Gods. A term applied, by the Chaldeans, to the three bright stars in a constellation, which served to mark the position of the ruling planet of that sign, when in the sign. Doubtless employed in an age in which there were no telescopes, to enable the observer to locate the planet when it occupied its own sign, whereby to establish the fact of its current added strength by virtue of attaining to its essential dignity (q.v.). Now ineffective, because of the Precession (qv.), and the availability of the modern Ephemerides.

 

Countries, sign rulerships of. v. Signs.

 

Crepuscule. Twilight. Used in Primary Directions.

 

Crescent. Said of the inferior planets as well as of the Moon, when less than half of the disc is illuminated by the Sun.

 

Critical Days. Those which coincide with the formation, by the Moon, directional or transitory, of each successive semi-square or 45° aspect, to its position at birth; or at the commencement of any illness, operation, or event under Horary consideration. By noting the positions of the Moon at successive crises, aspects thereto will indicate the prognosis. Favorable crises occur at the sextiles of the Moon to its radical place; but the ephemeral aspects it forms while in these positions determine the manner in which the crises will pass, and the eventual outcome.

 

Critical Degrees. v. Moon, Mansions of.

 

Crooked Signs. Taurus, Capricorn and Pisces; and should the Ascendant or Moon be in one of these, and afflicted by the malefics, the native, it is said, will be crooked and imperfect.

 

Crucial Degrees. v. Moon, Mansions of.

 

Culminating. v. Ascendant.

 

Culmination. n. to culminate. v. (a) The arrival of a planet at the Midheaven (M.C.) or the cusp of the Tenth house, by progression, direction, or transit. (b) Sometimes used to indicate the completion of an aspect - the arrival of a planet at the exact degree where a partile aspect becomes platic.

 

Culminator. A swift-moving planet which in transit reaches a critical position, by conjunction or aspect, and thereby precipitates the externalization of a simultaneous state of displaced equilibrium caused by a lingering aspect from a slow-moving planet.

 

Cusp. (a) The imaginary line which separates a Sign from adjoining Signs, a House from its adjoining Houses; (b) an indeterminate but small arc contiguous to the boundary-line between adjacent Signs and Houses, wherein there is uncertainty as to the planet's location at a particular moment, and ambiguity as to the planet's influence in a borderline relationship. A birth planet is stronger when it is on the cusp than when it is in the last degrees of a House. The angular cusps are doubtless the sharpest.

 

Cycle, Of the Sun, 28 years; of the Moon, 19 years. An imaginary orb, or circle, in the heaven; marks the return of the planets to their own places; each of the planets having a cycle, or revolution, of its own.

 

Cycles. When a faster moving planet overtakes and passes a slower moving planet, it forms a conjunction. When this recurs a second time between the same two planets there is evident a first step in a cyclic effect, wherein the second conjunction has occurred after a certain interval of time and space: recurrence cycles of position and relation. After a certain number of recurrences the point of conjunction must eventually return to the approximate beginning point, where it completes a first order recurrence cycle. If there is a small discrepancy between the points of beginning and ending, it is found that after a certain number of first order recurrence cycles, this discrepancy will in effect be carried all the way around the circle, and constitute a second order recurrence cycle. A recurrence cycle of position may be taken in the Sidereal period of the planet in an hypothetical Fixed Zodiac, or in the tropical period of the planet in the moving Zodiac of Precession. Oddly enough, the values of the tropical periods of the major planets, based on the mean rate of Precession, are not usually given, even though we of the West use the Moving Zodiac of Precession in preference to a Fixed Zodiac, and despite the fact that with the outer planets the difference between the tropical and the sidereal periods becomes considerable. These values, in tropical years, are:

 

Jupiter.... 11.858

Saturn..... 29.42

Uranus..... 83.75

Neptune... 163.74

Pluto..... 245.33

 

The hypothetical Fixed Zodiac is measured along the Invariable Plane, to which the Ecliptic has a minimum inclination of 0° and a maximum of 3°6'. Its zero point coincides with the point of beginning of the precessional movement of the Poles of the Ecliptic, but the location of this point has not been determined. Probably it should be the Nodes of intersection of the Invariable Plane with some as yet undiscovered superior orbit. However, one can assume an arbitrary point, and from that point compute both the total precession and its changing rate during a given period. There is some justification for assuming a coincidence of the moving and fixed zodiacs at 28 A.D., less a correction of 281y for lag and lead. Applying to this the true rate of precession during the intervening period yields the year 1906 as possibly the commencement of the Aquarian Age in terms of the Equinox, and 2169 in terms of the Pole.

 

Jupiter Cycle. The ancients noted these first and second order recurrence cycles in connection with the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, which they termed the great chronocrators, because of the way the cycles subdivided time into large units of hundreds of years, and the economic and political evolution which followed in step with these advancing cycles.

 

Jupiter conjoins Saturn in 19.859 years at an advance of about 123 degrees. After three conjunctions, 59.577 years, it recurs at a mean advance of 8.93° - the first order recurrence cycle of Jupiter-Saturn. With this 9-degree advance every 60 years, in 40 conjunctions the advance moves around the circle and in 794.37 years returns to within 0.93° of the starting point - the second order recurrence cycle. This 1° discrepancy would thus locate a third order recurrence cycle in 360 times 800 years, roughly speaking, a period too far in excess of recorded history to be useful as a frame of reference.

 

The first order recurrence cycle of Jupiter-Saturn, 59.577 years - all values are mean values, based on mean motions - is probably the 60-year cycle of which the ancients spoke so much: the period of "social lag," or the time between the introduction of a new invention or social innovation (Uranus), and its adoption and spread on the institutional level of organized society (Jupiter-Saturn). The second order recurrence cycle of these two planets is the Great Mutation cycle which meant so much in the Mundane Astrology. of the ancients. More recent is the discovery of a cycle of this length by a modern non-astrological historical investigator, Dr. J. S. Lee, who with the aid of Lin Yutang and Dr. Hu Shih, one of China's great scholars, studied the incidence of civil conflict in China from 1100 B.C to 1930 A.D. His graph of the amount of civil conflict in five-year intervals from 230 B.C. to 1930 A.D. reveals an 809-year cyclic interval from the Chin Dynasty of 221 B.C. to the Sui Dynasty of 589 A.D.; followed by a 779-year cyclic interval from this Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty of 1368 A.D. Averaging Bogy and 779y gives a mean value of 794y, which would end the third cycle about 2.159 A.D. In the first half of each cycle, other than for two short-lived peaks of violence the country was completely peaceful and prosperous, with unity prevailing. In the second halves there are 5 peaks of violence and no interval of sustained peace. The start of each of the three cycles was marked by great building and engineering activities: in the Chin, by the Great Wall and huge palaces; in the Sui, by the Grand Canal and huge palaces; in the Ming, by the rebuilding of the Great Wall and several systems of canals. Notable, astrologically, is the fact that the first Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in a Water Sign, Scorpio, occurred 3 years before the Chin Dynasty, 18 years before the Sui Dynasty and 3 years before the Ming Dynasty. The change of clement, in this case from Air to Water, was anciently termed the Trigonalis, and deemed to be of prime political and economic import. According to Ralph Kraum, the conjunction of 1365 occurred on November 1, at 7° Scorpio. Dr. Lee has thus confirmed, regarding the Jupiter-Saturn rhythm, that when the conjunctions are in Water and Fire, all is well; while in Earth and Air' all is not so well. Thus it can be inferred that in the first half, Jupiter predominates; and in the second half, Saturn. This indicates that the astrological study of the broader influences which affect the rise and fall of civilization is best approached through recurrence cycles of position and relation of the major planets.

 

Pluto Cycles. The application of Bode's Law roughly coincides with the distances of the planets from the Sun; except in the case of Neptune, where it breaks down entirely. However, D. E. Richardson, of the Armour Research Institute, as noted in Popular Astronomy for January 1945, has discovered a formula which accurately yields the planetary distances. The only discrepancy of over 0.1 per cent between distance values computed from this formula, and the observed values, occurs in the case of Pluto. Furthermore, his formula confirms what Wilson found from a study of medieval records as to the knowledge of the ancients, viz., that there are 13 orbits in the Solar System: one within the orbit of Mercury (Vulcan), and two beyond the orbit of, Pluto. According to this formula the planet next beyond Pluto should have a mean distance of 74.2 astronomical units, and a sidereal period of 640y; the outermost planet, 137.4 A.U., and 1608y. The mean values in tropical years would then be 625y and 1515y.

 

Recent discoveries by certain outstanding non-astrological investigators are interesting, even if as yet speculative, in the fact that they check with the periods of the two planets which there is some reason to believe lie beyond the orbit of Pluto. Studies of the Culture Cycle, by Jean Bradford, and by Petry, the great Egyptologist, indicate a period of about 1500 years as the duration of a Culture: subdivided into 6 culture -- phases of about 250 years each, in each of which certain psychologically different basic components receive special emphasis. She has correlated recognizable physiological differences with endocrine imbalance, based on the work of Dr. Berman, recognized endocrinologist, revealing wherein both the psychological and the physiological characteristics of a culture-phase display a different sense of Space, dimensional in nature.

 

The work of Dr. Ellsworth Huntingdon of Yale, outstanding geographer, climatologist and cyclologist, indicates a cycle of about 640 years in the migrations of peoples.

 

Clearly these suggest a Pluto cycle, of a sidereal period of 247.7 years, or 245 1/3 tropical years, the interpretations of which agree with certain conclusions reached by Dane Rudhyar, astrological student of cultures and civilizations, concerning the Pluto period and its correlation with the style of a period. The sidereal period of the planet next beyond Pluto correlates to the Migration cycle of Dr. Huntingdon. The 1500-Year Culture period of Bradford and Petry correlates to the tropical period of the hypothetical outermost planet. Since in all Culture-cycles, Mrs. Bradford finds that changes of phase occur in years divisible by 250, it is notable that close to these dates Pluto is at its perihelion (13°+) - its nearest point to the Sun. Its next perihelion passage will be in 198g, 11 years before her date. The first perihelion passage of this epoch was 8 A.D., 8 years after her date. This is highly significant, since Pluto is nearer to the Sun than Neptune during nearly 5 years before and after its perihelion pas- sages. Thus, as Rudhyar has suggested, Pluto "fertilizes" Neptune once in each cycle by crossing within its orbit. It is also of interest to note that Neptune's aphelion nearly coincides with Pluto's perihelion. Thus of all planetary orbits theirs are the most singularly related.

 

Neptune Cycle. We have found no study which has discovered Neptune's recurrence period of 164 years. In any case this would be rendered difficult by the fact that 3 cycles of Neptune are nearly equal to 2 cycles of Pluto. Their recurrence of relation, a cycle of aspect that is known as the synodic cycle, has a mean value of 492 1/3 years, although now and for a long time to come it is nearer 493½ years. It also develops that the Culture-phases alternate - one centripetal, and next centrifugal - yielding a double cycle of about 500 years: probably the Neptune-Pluto cycle, wherein every 247 years they are alternately in conjunction or opposition. From this we deduce that the outer planets exert a powerful influence on Civilization. According to the analyses of Mrs. Bradford, the first 1500 years of each Culture-Cycle is predominantly extrovert; the next 1500 years, predominantly introvert: a double cycle of a value of roughly 3,000 years. This can be related to the 3,100-year period of 3 conjunctions of the two outermost planets, in which time they return not only to the same relation, but also to nearly the same position in the Zodiac. Even the single Neptune-Pluto cycle of nearly 500 years finds Neptune and Pluto in nearly the same position.

 

Since five revolutions of Pluto nearly equal two revolutions of the planet next beyond Pluto, the difference (5 - 2 = 3) gives the number of conjunctions they will make in their cycle of 1,230 years. Mrs. Bradford finds that the first 4 of the 6 phases of a single Culture cycle, or 1,000 years, develop the four basic psychological elements of human nature (Jung): the emotional; imaginative (also called the intuitive); rational (intellectual); and sensate (sensory)-in that order. During the fifth phase the preceding four are integrated, the quintessence (quintus, the fifth) of the experience of the Culture is distilled, developing what we term a complete Civilization. Politically this may be an Imperium or Empire; such as the Roman Empire; which was the fifth, and later the sixth phase, of the Grecian Culture. As Mrs. Bradford's five phases equal 1,250 years, approximately the period of Pluto's position and relation recurrence with the planet just beyond it, it appears to indicate that her study is actually an observation of the effects of the cycles of the four outermost planets - even though she herself is not an astrologer. According to her deductions the Atlantic Culture of Northern Europe and North America is now about to leave its fourth phase to pass into the fifth; the second or introvertive half of the double Culture-Period of the Mediterranean Culture (the Greco-Roman in the extrovert cycle, and the Catholic and Latin Europe in the introvertive) should end its final phase this Century; and the North Asian or Slavic Culture, which includes most of Russia, is ending the final phase of its extrovert cycle and about to pass into its introvert cycle. This final phase is a barbaric period of great physical vitality, and its "conversion" into the first phase of the introvert Culture period is always concurrent with a vital and major religious development. This suggests that the next religious renascence, in the latter part of this century, will be an especially vital one for the Slavic peoples.

 

The intimacy of the relationship of the orbits of Neptune and Pluto can be seen in this comparison:

 

Neptune ......... 163.74 ty. x 3 revolutions = 491.22 ty.

Pluto ........... 245.33 ty. x 2 revolutions = 490.66 ty.

   Synodic cycle, mean value ...................492.33  y.

 

Uranus Cycle. The researches of modern astrologers indicate the renewing and revolutionary character of the Uranus period of 83¾ tropical years, and the Neptune period of 163¾ tropical years; and confirm the long-established significance of the Saturn period of 29½ years, and the Jupiter period of 11 6/7 years. But it is from a consideration of the synodic periods and the cycle of recurrent aspects between two of them, that, interesting conclusions can be deduced as to their sociological significance. Thus the Uranus-Neptune first order recurrence period is that of I conjunction - 171.403 years. In the past 2,500 years the effect of the Uranus eccentricity has reduced this to an average value of some 171.0 years. This is especially significant when compared to a cycle in the history of Civilization, found by Dr. Raymond F. Wheeler, of the University of Kansas, who also is not an astrologer and is therefore free of any bias in favor of a cycle of a particular astronomical length. He gives its length as 170 years, only 0.6 per cent less than that of the Uranus-Neptune cycle. He finds that it marks broad changes in the pattern of society, and is accompanied by social upheavals - typical of all Uranian influences. He attributes the cycle to climatic changes, but at least one investigator of climatic cycles finds no confirming evidence in a climatic cycle of that duration.

 

Further, regarding the second order recurrence cycles of Uranus-Neptune in the Fixed and Moving Zodiacs, after 21 conjunctions they return to a point about 6° short of their initial place in the Zodiac of Precession. The fascinating thing is that this takes place in 3,599.46 years - the 3,600-year period which the ancient Chaldees referred to as the real and original Saros cycle. Thus it can be estab- lished that in 7,209y, only ten years after the next Uranus-Neptune recurrence in 7,199y, there will be a Jupiter-Saturn recurrence. Therefore the double Saros is a compound recurrence cycle of the four innermost major planets. If we divide this into 12 subperiods we find a significant change of aspect pattern every 600 years: Jupiter and Neptune advancing 8, Saturn 5, and Uranus 2 Signs - which 600-year period is the equally famous Naros cycle of the Chaldees. In addition, the Sun, Moon and Mars recur in the same position and relationship at the end of 6 Centuries. Therefore since Jupiter-Neptune remain in the same aspect, both advanced 240° in the Naros period, one may consider this a Jupiter-Neptune dominated cycle, that has to do not with political economy (Saturn-Uranus) but with religion and philosophy. Neptune indicates the mystical aspect: the revelation of a higher universal and mystical reality through the medium of some great spiritual teacher. Jupiter represents this development on the level of social institutions as an organized religion and ritual, which becomes widespread-the expansiveness of Jupiter. These Naros milestones are marked by the following historical dates:

 

  576 B.C., the birth of Buddha (Buddhism), Mahavira (Jainism),

       Pythagoras, and the activity of Lao-Tze (Taoism).

   15 A.D., the Mission of Christ (Christianity).

  625, the Hegira of Mohammed (Mohammedanism).

 1225, St. Francis (Vital for Catholicism).

 1825, birth of the Bab and Baha'ullah (co-founders of Bahaism)

       and of Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science).

 

Observe that in each case there is the factor of revelation through a specific Teacher, and the expansion of the resultant religion to a considerable number of followers. In tile case of Confucius, the element of revelation thus appears to have been absent.

 

The recurrent Uranus-Neptune conjunctions in the Fixed Zodiac are also of vital significance: a cycle of 25 in 4,285.1 years. This is almost exactly one-sixth of a Precessional cycle, just as the 600-year Naros is one-sixth of the 3,600-year "Saros" cycle; and both are of vital spiritual import. This means that the start of each Precessional Age, one-twelfth of the complete cycle of Precession, is alternately marked by a conjunction or opposition between these two planets, all occurring at almost the same place in the Fixed Zodiac!

 

Actually the Mean Precession is 25,694.8 years. Six recurrence cycles of Uranus-Neptune in the Fixed Zodiac, or seven in the Moving Zodiac, equal 25,710.48 years, at an advance of 7½°; and 32 recurrence cycles of Jupiter-Saturn in the Moving Zodiac equal 25,717.8 years, at an advance of 15°. Therefore the period of Precession is a compound recurrence cycle of the four innermost major planets, in both the Fixed and the Moving Zodiacs: hence its great importance. If we divide the Precession by 12, as previously we divided the 7,200-year original Saros cycle by 12, we obtain the basic 2,143-year rhythm which marks off the Ages; the Pisces or the Aquarian. At the end of one such Age, Neptune is in the same place in the Fixed Zodiac; at the end of two, Neptune and Uranus are at the same place; at the end of three, Neptune and Jupiter are at the same place; at the end of four, Neptune, Uranus and Saturn are at the same place; but the end of 12 brings them all back at the same time and place. Clearly then, one must consider, in the order of their relative importance: first Neptune, then Uranus, Jupiter, and finally Saturn. Once again the universalism and mysticism of Neptune turn up in the association of religions with each Precessional Age; but also Uranus as the renewer and changer.

 

Saturn Cycles. The remaining synodic cycle of major planets in adjacent orbits is that of Saturn-Uranus. Two conjunctions, 90.72 years, complete a first order recurrence cycle, in which time they have advanced 30 degrees and 1½ minutes of arc in the Zodiac of Precession. The period from a conjunction to an opposition, or the reverse, of Jupiter and Saturn is 9.93 years; of Saturn and Uranus, 22.68 years. The 9.93 year period has been identified as a component in the Sunspot cycle, and by Edgar Lawrence Smith in the Business cycle. The 22.68 year period has been identified by Dr. Abbott as the basic period of variation in the Solar constant -- radiation: given by him as 22.3 years. It has also been found to be a Weather cycle, as has one-third of it; twice, and four times -- which coincides with the first order recurrence cycle of Saturn-Uranus. Thus the correlations of the three inner major planets appear to deal with Weather, Economics and Politics; i.e., the more concrete phases of human life and environment.

 

The significance of the Saturn-Uranus cycle for the political economy appears clear, especially at and near their cyclic oppositions. The opposition of 1692 Was immediately preceded by the first demo- cratic revolution: Britain's Glorious Revolution of 1688 and 1689. The next opposition, of about 1736, was marked by the War of the Polish Succession. The opposition of 1783 followed the American Revolution. (Uranus was discovered when opposition to Saturn, in 1781.) The opposition of 1829 was followed by revolutionary upheavals which started in France and spread throughout Europe in 1830. The opposition of 1874 followed the first Communist revolu- tion, the Paris Commune of 1871. The opposition of 1919 followed the Russian Revolution of 1917. The next opposition will come in 1965.

 

Dr. Lee found that 540 Years after the start of each Chinese Cycle the country became split between North and South, and the capital was shifted from North to South. Two of his cycle dates are 3 years later than the Jupiter-Saturn Mutation conjunctions, hence the split occurs 543 years after the Mutations. The second order recurrence cycle for Saturn-Uranus is 1,088.72 years, or 24 conjunctions. Half of this 's 544.36 years. At the end of 544 1/3 years there has been a conjunction in each of the 12 Signs and Saturn-Uranus are exactly 180¼º from their initial position: thus the shift of 180° suggests the "split" of China. Adding 544 1/3 to the conjunction of 1365 gives us 1919; but actually, because of the eccentricities of the Saturn-Uranus orbits, they did not reach the oppositions to the places they occupied at the beginning of the cycle, until late 1911 or early 1912, which marked the Revolution of October 10, 1911 that brought into being the Republic and caused the capital to be shifted from Peking south to Nanking, and later led to the split between the Communist North and the Kuomintang South. In this, Dr. Lee appears to have identified the significance of the second order cycles of Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus; Mrs. Bradford, to have identified the meaning of the first order cycles of Neptune-Pluto and the two trans-Pluto planets postulated by the Richardson formula; and Professor Wheeler to have identified the importance of the first order Uranus-Neptune cycle. It should be mentioned as the best work on the Uranus-Neptune cycle by an astrologer, Margaret Morrell under "Research" in American Astrology Magazine, in April, May and June of 1939.

 

A study of the vast and vital subject of planetary cycles thus illuminates other cycles, such as the Naros and the Precessional Ages, the existence of which have been long traditional but whose full meanings have not always been clear. The prime importance of these two cycles is in the fact that they involve the two planets of the "creative minority": the bearers of Culture (Uranus-Neptune), of "institutional society," and of the "established and conventional" (Jupiter-Saturn). As a result, in both cases we have the combination and interaction of the two different psycho-social levels which represent the process of "civilization": the creative vs. the practical. The most perfect illustration of this was the start of the Mission of Jesus at the age of 30, in 25 A.D.)., at the Full Moon of April 1 of that year, in Libra opposing the Sun in Aries, Saturn with the Sun and Jupiter with the Moon, close to the Equinox, the intersection of the Equator and Ecliptic, hence on the same level. Squaring this was Neptune in Capricorn opposing Uranus in Cancer, near the line of intersection of the Invariable Plane and the Ecliptic, the other and universal level of Christ. Thus one can consider the Crucifixion to be the archetypal pattern of the conflict of the universal, intangible and creative against the local, institutional and concrete. Organized society always denies and persecutes its creative redeemers, whether they be artists, true statesmen, inventors or teachers.

 

At the 25 A.D. grand cross, Mars conjoined the Sun and opposed the Moon, indicating the Naros cycle, a recurrence cycle of the Sun, Moon and Mars. Only once in 180,000 years, a sub-race in Theosophy, does a Naros date coincide with the start of a cycle of Precession of the Pole, as it did in 25 A.D. Count back one Naros cycle to Buddah, and you find a different and equally rare configuration: for in the 570s (577 to 574 B.C.) the three "creative" planets - Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - were in a close conjunction, which occurs once in about 120,000 years. The fact that this fell in Taurus is striking, since tradition states that Gautama Buddha was born, was illumined under the Bo tree, and died, in each case at a Full Moon in May - with the Sun in Taurus. Thus the advent of Buddha correlated to the other great celestial event in the recent millennial history of Man, and as a result was followed by the most intellectually and spiritually creative Century in the recorded history of Civilization - 575 B.C. to 475 B.C. Truly a study of planetary cycles casts much light on the evolution of Society. v. Invariable Plane. -- CHARLES A. JAYNE, JR.

 

These Solar recurrence periods with respect to the Equinox assume a mean rate of precession of 25,694.8y, as given by Stockwell: all the planets moving at mean motion. Variations will result in consequience of: (a) eccentricities and obliquities of planetary orbits; (b) the distorting effect, in a geocentric frame of reference, of the Earth's motion and position; (c) variation in the motion of the Equinox -- 0° Aries; and (d) slight variations due to periodic perturbations. The greatest variations will occur in the Uranus-Pluto first and second order recurrence cycles in the moving zodiac.

 

The synodic period of a recurrence cycle is the time between two successive conjunctions of the same two planets. The Remainder indicates the number of degrees in advance at which the second conjunction takes place. A first order recurrence cycle is, in effect, a series of a given number of conjunctions, at the end of which a conjunction recurs on approximately the same degree as at the beginning of the cycle. The remainder of a first order cycle then becomes the unit of a second order cycle, which after a given number of recurrences is repeated still more exactly upon the degree at which it commenced its second order cycle.

 

v. Cycles - Tabulated Data

 

Cycles - Tabulated data. (Apolo's reconstructions of the original Devore tables.)

 

Tabulated data regarding cycles discussed, are as follows:

 

.............................................Remainder, in Degrees

....................Number of....Tropical....Zodiac of.....Fixed

..................Conjunctions....Years......Precession....Zodiac

Jupiter-Saturn.  Synodic period - (2 x 9.93Y) 19.8593y

 

...First order.......  3 ......... 59.5779  +  8.930862 +  8.096148

...Second order...... 40 ........ 794.3723  -  0.9184

                      43 ........ 853.9503              -  3.9553

                      46 ........ 913.5282              +  4.1408

 

Saturn-Uranus.   Synodic period - (2 x 22.68) 45.36306y.

 

...First order........ 2 ......... 90.72613 + 30.0225   + 28.7553

...Second order...... 24(a)..... 1088.7136  +  0.5411

                      26 ....... 1179.4397              -  1.1064

 

Uranus-Neptune.  Synodic period - 171.4030y.

 

...First order........ 1 ........ 171.4030  + 16.8520   + 14.4505

...Second order...... 21 ........3599.463   -  6.108

                      25 ........4285.075               +  1.26

 

Uranus-Pluto.    Synodic period - 127.2794y.

 

...First order........ 2 ........ 254.2794  + 13.13298  +  9.57037

...Second order...... 27 ....... 3432.774   -  2.7047

                      37 ....... 4704.1689              -  2.948

 

Neptune-Pluto.   Synodic period -(2 x 247y) 492.3280y.

 

...First order........ 1 ........ 492.3280  +  2.4444   -  4.4555

...Second order..... 147 ......72,372.25    +  0.3

                      81 ......39,878.6                 +  0.46

 

(a) After 12 conjunctions, there is a separation of 180.25°.

 

In the last 2,500 years the Uranus-Neptune first order synodic period has averaged approx. 171.Oy; that of Neptune-Pluto, 493.5y, and it will become slightly longer.

 

The two hypothetical outermost planets indicated by the application of the Richardson formula, which are identified as X and Y, appear to answer to the following calculations:

 

.....................................Revolutionary Period, in Years

....Planet....Distance from the Sun......Tropical......Sidereal

....Pluto............39.4574 AU...........245.33.........247.7

....Planet X.........74.2 AU..............625............640.

....Planet Y.......1374 AU...............1515..........11608.

 

Their first order recurrence cycle has been approximated, as follows:

 

....Cycle...Number of Conjunctions...Tropical Years...Synodic Cycle

...Pluto-X.................3..............1230............410y

...X-Y.....................3..............3183...........1061.3y