Exegesis Volume 2 Issue #27

Exegesis Digest Thu, 15 May 1997

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Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 23:03:58 -0600
From: Dr. Gonzalo Pena Tamez
Subject: Axiom of Beginnings / Gonzo's reply to Francis

>>Dr. Gonzalo Pena Tamez wrote:

>> Ptolemy did not invent the "theory
>> of seeds and beginnings", he only
>> compiled a tradition that is as
>> old as astrology.  

>Frances G. Kostella wrote:

>As far as I can tell, Ptolemy was the originator of this
>particular bit of theory. I may be wrong, and I'd love to find any
>written work that predates Ptolemy that posits the same
>theory.please provide citations, if such exist. I've checked every
>authority I could lay hands on, and I've been unable to find any
>written work that suggests other than that this is Ptolemy's
>contribution to astrology. If I am incorrect, then I would love to
>be corrected as my understanding of the earliest age of astrology
>is incomplete.

In his book Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy, Richard Thompson lets us know that the Jyotish astrologers consider very important the date that in Gregorian calendar corresponds to February 18, 3102 B.C. (meaning about 5,000 years ago) because on that date the hindu astrologers of the time got together in Ujjain, India, to chart the beginning of the Kali Yuga that was commencing on that date. They believed that this chart cast for that particluar moment, since it marked the beginning of an epoch that was to last 4,320,000 years, could be used to read the history of the world through all of this period of more than 4 million years. So this will tell you that the Axiom od Beginnings, as I call it, was well establish since many millenia before Ptolemy was born. These hindu astrologers of 5,000 years ago believed that all this period of more than 4 million years was "in seed" form codified in the map of heavens cast for that time and place. Thompson tells us that on that occasion, the Sun, Moon and all the known planets got together beneath the horizon of Ujjain, adding that the South Node of the Moon was at the Nadir while the North at the Zenith. To quote Thompson: In fact in the Surya Siddhanta, time is measured in days since the start of Kali Yuga on that date and it is assumed that the positions of the 7 planets in their 2 cycles are all aligned with the star zeta Piscium at day zero. This star, which is known as Revati in sanskrit is used as the zero point for measuring celestial longiitudes through al the jyotish shastras.. Then he goes on to inform us that although all schools agree that that is the important date whose map of heavens cyphers the whole Kali Yuga, there are nonetheless differences when it get to the exact time at which this seminal beginning came to happen.

It is well known that vedic astrology goes back at least 8,000 years. To quote now from Jail Maharaj's A Brief History of Astrology: In Bharat, India, records exist today which point clearly to a highly developed knowledge of astrology as far back as about 6,500 B.C. and actual manuscipts are still extant which were written about 3,700 B.C. Some of the originals have been destroyed or lost but actual copies of these originals were made by alter astrologers and these are to be found in the libraries of the Maharajas and in the libraries of certain states in Bharat. Actual, detailed records of astrological science are continuous from about 6,500 B.C. . It is really well known that the main body of these records are simply exemplary collections of actual nativities of real people from those times, along with descriptions of their characteristics based on the relevant horoscopic traits. Needless to say, these charts were cast for the moment these people were born, or even conceived, showing thus that the Axiom of Beginnings was taken for granted more than 7 millenia before Ptolemy was himself conceived. The same author I have just quoted, tells us that a very famous treaty on natal vedic astrology, called the Pita Maha Siddhanta was written by Pita Maha, who lived and wrote this book about 3,000 B.C. On 2,500 B.C., meaning 500 years after Pita Maha, there lived Vashishtth, whom also wrote several extant books on the interpretation of natal charts according to Vedic canon. When it gets to the precision of the calculations done by these ancient practitioners, we must bow our heads with respect because the ancient hindu astronomers and mathematicians were able to figure out the exact length of this cycle of Precession of the Equinoxes several thousand years befoe modern science was able to confirm the correctness of their numbers. Even now, modern astronomers cannot imagine how the ancient hindus were able to accomplish this feat.

In his book Prediction in Astrology, Noel Tyl tells us with great deal of detail, how the birth of Alexander the Great was meticulously planned and designed to the exact second by the great astrologer Nectanebus, who was also a magician. Nectanebus prepared Olympias, Alexander's mother, Queen of Macedonia, instructing her as to the esact moment to have intercourse in order to plan for conception with a very rigurous timing. Remember that this is taking place more than 500 years before Ptolemy's birth......To quote Tyl now: As Olympias was in labour with her child, Nectanebus, in his office as astrologer, stood by her side to pick the favorable moment for the birth. All sources agree on this scene and what followed. Nectanebus was studying his astrological tablet and undoubtedly going to the window or terrace to study the sky, waiting for just the right moment to bring into life the world's first hero. Nectanebus held back the child within Olympias to avoid astrological portents that the child would be ugly or unsuccessful. Imagine that incredible scene: this poweful magus, the ecstatic Queen, the incantations and ministrations, the good-like authority of this astrologer as he regulated the moment in time that would identify the person who would change the world !. It is no wonder that there are reports that Alexander was born amid an earthquake, thunder and lightening. . Now doesn't this make it very obvious that Nectanebus was only keenly aware that not all moments have the same potential to germinate. Here you have an astrologer who lived more than 5 centuries before Ptolemy and who sure trusted the Axiom of Beginnings. I am totally sure that if Nectanebus had been wrong in selecting the instant of birth of Alexander the Great, he wouldn't have had what it takes to be able to conquest the whole world with the sword. In his book, Noel Tyl then goes into detailed analysis of the birth chart of Alexander, but that is not relevant to our present discussion.

From the recent restoration of ancient Greek astrology carried out by Project Hindsight, we have learned the rules of natal astrology as practiced by the hellenistic astrologers several centuries before Ptolemy. Of course they based all of their conclusions on factors that depended on the precise minute of birth. Their main systems of Time Lordships was such that changing the instant of birth only 5 minutes was enough to drastically alter the interpretation, since a great deal of their technique was based on the many scores of sensitive points that are called the Lots, or Parts, now better known as the Arabic Parts. These points, like the Part of Fortune or the Lot of Spirit, depend on the Ascendant, and thus on the precise moment of birth. The systems of derived Houses were also anchored to these sensitive points, all so dependant on a punctual commencement or beginning in time. No one doubted that your lot was cast for a lifetime not on the day you were born, but on the precise minute you were born..... and even the precise second you were born, because they used the didekatemorions, that are a 12-fold magnification of all actual motions including Earth's rotation rate. The Greeks knew the exact minute they were born, not because the time of the precise birth was reckoned with that precision (clocks hadn't been invented), but because the factual observation of their lives' facts allowed them to deduce the positions of their sensitive points in their charts.

For the ancient hellenistic astrologers the hyleg was the most important planet of the natal chart, since it is the main indicator of the native's physical vitality and health, as well as the main indicator of the cause of death. There were very precise rules for identifying the Hyleg of a chart, and these rules are highly dependent on the precise minute of birth. Knowledge of the Hyleg was required as well to figure out which planet was the Alchochoden, meaning the planet in the chart that allowed the astrologer to figure out the exact number of years, months, and days that any person was going to live, by linking the Alchochoden planet with either its major, media, or minor years and then adding and substracting years and months depending on the cosmic state and aspects that the Alchochoden planet has at birth. Changing the birth time even 5 minutes will determine that the Alchochoden of the chart is another planet, and thus all the aloted life-span will be entirely different. All this was done according to specific rules. As a matter of fact, just this week, I published a very long article dealing with these methods, analyzed in detail from the stand point of the modern astrologer who, like myself, always tries to see the time and cause of death in a natal chart. My article is long and highly technical, but if you are interested, I could post it here in this mailing lists in installments.

Ancient Egyptian traditions hold that the first cornerstone of the most ancient of all pyramids, Kheops', was set into place when the Moon was at 15 degrees Taurus, an Earth sign, .in the heart of the Fixed Cross of heavens, "to insure that it lasted until the end of the world".

> If you check
>the section of Book 3, Chapter 1 that I quoted before, you will
>find the following a few lines below my final quotation,
>concerning prediction of nativities:
>
>| we shall decline to
>| present the ancient
>| method of prediction,
>| which brings into
>| combination all or most
>| of the stars . . . and
>| furthermore we shall
>| omit it on account of
>| the difficulty in using
>| it and following it.
>
>That seems fairly straightforward, Ptolemy himself states that he
>is not simply compiling and passing on traditions, he is editing
>it and shaping it -- to fit his views of a proper intellectual
>discipline and admits it himself.

My Spanish version of Ptoloemy's books, translated directly from the original Greek texts, emphasises once and again that Ptolomy was the great compiler of several centuries of tradition, in astronomy, astrology, physics, music and geography. Of course, he also had his own theories about things, particularly about the dynamics of the planets, as it is well known by any one who knows the history of celestial mechanics. Of course he is editing and shaping Tradition, to the best of his ability. But check now the work of Vettius Valens, contemporary of Ptolomy, whose voluminous work has recently been partly translated into English by Robert Schmidt: the Axiom of Beginnings is simply taken for granted. It is only too obvious that this Axiom is the baby in the bath tub.

>> The chaldeans and babylonians were
>> casting horoscopes for the birth of
>> special children thousands of years
>> before Ptolomy (second century). 

>No, 410BC is the earliest "horoscope" on record (as of 1996),
>little more than a half century before Ptolemy, not the thousands
>of years you claim. All of the historical records that I've been
>able to read about suggest that before the Greeks, what we call
>astrology was more like omen lore than the more organized methods
>we employ. I wouldn't call any pre-Greek astrology
>"genethlialogical astrology" without more proof.

Most clearly then you are choosing to ignore a great body of Vedic astrology, containing literally thousands of genethliacal horoscopes from many millenia ago that even to this date belong to specific lineages that hand them down generation after generation to be recopied and insure their survival.

>Aside from that, the proposition I posted does not make 
>claims about birth charts or the appropriateness of using the
>birth time for a nativity.

Well I just don't see how you can keep genethliacal astrology, if you throw the Axiom of Beginnings over the board. They imply each other. If you change the minute of conceptionm you change the minute of birth, and the appearence of the individual, as well as his specific destiny. I have already written extensively in this list about the chart of conception.

>> Further, I don't think it is a
>> theory, I have always call it
>> Axiom #2 of Astrology, or the
>> Axiom of Beginnings, and it is the
>> most solid undeniable fact of the
>> astrological correspondence
>> between what happens in the world
>> and the state of heavens.

>You're mixing two things that do require being joined,
>correspondence and beginnings. Correspondence, I think, *is* an
>axiom, as we cannot posit astrology without it, and proving it is
>damn hard.

What I call Axiom #1 of astrology simply states the correspondence that exists between the characteristics of the events that occur in the world on the one hand, and the synchronous relations between the heavenly variables on the other. So I am not mixing things. Axiom #1 tells us that such correspondence does exist; while Axiom #2, or the Axiom of Beginnings, goes further into saying that a snap shot of every commencement is the radix or root chart to which we are going to reference any subsequent change in heavens. If you take the snap shot a bit before or a bit after, you are talking about a chart that does not describe neither the person nor his fate.

> Beginnings,
>however, are not *required*. Despite that, the proposition is not
>invalidated by simply calling beginnings an axiom and calling it
>"the most solid undeniable fact". If it is solid and undeniable
>fact, then show the facts that apply rather than all of the
>opinions you show. Simply stating that something is an axiom, does
>not make it an axiom. The fact that some people consider it an
>axiom does not make it an axiom. Only the fact that you cannot do
>astrology without it would make it an axiom (and, to be technical,
>assuming that it is not subject to proof). If you can discard the
>so-called axiom and still do astrology, then the axiom status is
>lost. Axioms can and should be tested if a field of study or
>intellectual endeavor is to grow and change. If it is an axiom,
>then I should not only be unable to prove it, but I should be
>unable to DISPROVE it so easily. 

Jiraffes are not *required* to exist either, yet they still exist. You say that I should show the facts, well, just check your daily transits to your natal Cusps. Every time that a transit or Progression to a natal Cusp explains your daily events, you are proving that the Axiom of Beginnings works. So it is not an axiom because I say it is. Rather, I say it is an axiom because I see that it works every day. Just this week I saw my mother after many months of her not coming to the city where I live....She didn't phone nor write nor anything but, aware of my transits, the day before my mother showed up, I said to my wife matter of factedly that I was going to see my mother the next day. My wife, who always knows my transits, said I was right, my mother was coming tomorrow because transiting Venus was conjuncting my Cusp 4 of the mother and natally Venus is almuten of my 4th, and besides the Lunation in Taurus was progressing to enter my 4th, and besides my Progressed Moon was being conjuncted my transiting Mercury and the transiting Sun was sextiling my natal Moon. Next day my mother knocked at my door, precisely as transiting Venus, my almuten of 4th, was partile conjunct my Cusp 4 of the mother. If the Axiom of Beginnings wasn't a true axiom, my Cusp 4 would not have become afixed at birth time and then I wouldn't have correctly predicted that I was just about to see my mother. If my birth chart's time were wrong by 4 minutes, my mother would have shown up with a day's difference.

I predict things every day for my clients, important things of their concern, and the important landmarks of their future including the time and cause of their death. Every day I advance scores of predictions, recorded in cassettes or in written reports for my clients. For me it is normal that I receive a client that I last saw 3 or 5 years ago, or more, and informs me that I predicted correctly the time his/her mother would die or have a heart operation. Last Friday for example, I received this lady who informed me that 6 years ago I recorded a cassette for her and that 17 important events I had predicted for her in that cassette had already come to happen, all very close to the stated dates. For me, every accurate prediction I make is a confirmation that I am standing on true, firm, axioms. And that includes the tenet that not all instants are equal, when it gets to a commencement.

>Finally, and most importantly, if it is an axiom, and I can
>develop theory statements without it that contradict the theory
>statements drawn from it when it is added, then I must suspect
>that it is not a "absolute" axiom, or is not an axiom, or is
>simply false.

Last Wednesday I received a client who has been coming to see me twice a year for several years now. At the end of the session he paid me twice my fees, and explained to me that he was utterly amazed at the sales in a bakery he opened on a particular date that I selected for him. He said that only 4 months after it was opened, this bakery was yielding more revenues than 6 from the 9 bakeries he owns in town, some of which have been operating for 30 years. I predicted to him that soon this new bakery, opened on an astrologically elected day, will be the number one of his 9 bakeries. The other 8 outlets where opened without astrological advice. If the moment things begin were not important, then elective astrology would be pure nonsense.

>> To even consider tossing out this
>> "theory", is the most ludicrous
>> thing I have ever heard. 
>
>It does seem offensive the first time you encounter the idea, but
>that is often the case with strongly held beliefs such as
>religious beliefs. However, calling the proposition "ludicrous"
>does not invalidate it.

All I am saying is that I have my eyes open and you are telling me that what I am seeing is a theory that we can dispose of. The axiom works for me every day and to me it is ludicrous to consider tossing it out.

> The proposition merely states that PTSB is not REQUIRED
>to do astrology.

For the last 25 years astrology has been my main source of income, either teaching it or applying it in chart reading sessions. I do not give psychological counsel to my clients: I study their charts and paint for them future scenarios based on transits and progressions to their natal charts. Their natal charts depend on the Axiom of Beginnings, because other wise the Cusps change and the rulerships and all mundane significations of the radix points fuzz off beyond usefulness. The fact that standing on this axiom I have predicted thousands of future events to 7,000 filed clients whose records I keep, including an average of a dozen secondary charts per client, usually of important dates of their lives I used for rectification of their Ascendants, and that I keep on paper for each client's case, with extensive anotations that I use for research purposes, is what gives my my conviction that the axioms I use are firm, they are good for predicting. I couldn't do anything without them.

> What is needed to invalidate the proposition is a
>firm disproof of the proposition, such as a proof that PTSB is
>needed for every chart.

I do need the PTSB for every chart. Sorry, I just cannot live without it and thus I am going to cling to it. You can toss it out of your practice if you want. I'll be curious to see where it leads you. Hope you let me know.

>> And let me add that it is not
>> something we accept uncritically:
>> it is something that we check
>> everyday as we practice serious
>> astrology.  I have never read a
>> chart that I have not previously
>> rectified, and when you rectify
>> a chart, working with the
>> stainless steel 2-tips protractor
>> to detect canonic relations
>> between the positions of the
>> transiting planets on important
>> dates of the client's life and
>> the natal chart, you learn to
>> respect the undeniable fact that
>> there is always a particular INSTANT
>> OF INCEPTION when the state of
>> firmament freezes, as it were, to
>> become the radical or root chart
>> with respect to which you are
>> going to measure everything from
>> then on. 
>
>This is an empty statement as far as "being critical" is
>concerned. The statement that you rectify charts and find it
>important does not invalidate the proposition. The fact of
>radicality is not called to question by the proposition. The fact
>that you find a significant "instant" is not under question. The
>use of a protractor, stainless steel or not, or of any
>mathematical techniques of rectification does not invalidate the
>proposition. The proposition does not reject rectification, nor
>does it directly invalidate any mathematical techniques, nor does
>it suggest that the birth chart is invalid for any reason. I
>hardly see how one can justify this "axiom" by way of
>rectification or the fact that a chart is drawn for one particular
> moment. The propositions does not contradict radicality, or the
>fact that charts are drawn for a significant moment. If you remove
>PTSB, the chart is still significant, and the radicality of the
>chart is still there.

At this point, Francis, I must confess then that I am at a lose concerning how you can keep assigning high radix charge to certain charts and at the same time toss out the principle validating this assigning of higher radix charge to some charts, namely commencement charts, in the continuum of instants describing the state of the system in time. Why don't you go ahead and explain to us then what this is all about ?.

>> I do this every day and have been
>> doing it for 25 years and I just
>> cannot understand how you can
>> respect the opinion of this
>> Cornelius, who obviously just
>> doesn't know what he is talking
>> about.

>Unlike many astrologers, Cornelius makes a measured, reasoned
>argument and proceeds through all of the difficult parts step by
>step. (And his argument goes well beyond the proposition I put
>forth). Astrologers typically make arguments by demonstrating
>technique and ignoring theory and running away from difficulties,
>and Cornelius should be applauded, I think, for attempting to
>reverse this unfortunate tendency. (When one examines the behavior
>of scientists, one finds that they will examine their theory
>statements when contradictions become unavoidable. I do not
>consider astrology a science in the modern sense of the word, but
>I do think we should be able to look at our theories if they seem
>to be out of kilter.) The more I study his book the more I respect
>I have for him, something which I cannot say for the majority of
>astrologer writers I encounter.

You sure know how to sell a book !. Alright, you make me feel like rushing out to buy it and figure out why it is that you fell for it. Is there a place you can buy it in the web ?

>At no point does Cornelius claim that astrology will not work, in
>fact his claims go in the opposite direction, that when we discard
>this useless limitation we open up our astrology in a new way that
>takes us beyond some prior limitations. However, I am not his
>official spokesman, so perhaps you should read the book before
>stating that it is "obvious" that he is mistaken. This is fairly
>easy to do, and the book is not a long one, nor is it especially
>technical nor difficult, and it is not expensive, I purchased mine
>for $12 a few years ago and think that price dirt cheap for one of
>the few astrology books to even touch the ideas of astrology
>theory in a serious manner. We have thousands of technical
>manuals, and counseling guides, but damn few theory books.

Alright, alright ! I'll buy Cornelius and check it out, as soon as I can find it....

>> That's often the case in births
>> where there were 2 conceptions but
>> only one implantation, or else
>> one of the embryos disimplanted,
>> while the other one remained viable.
>
>A claim that you can see inside the womb with astrology is
>interesting and I hope you'll find a biologist or two to study
>these conjectures

Nah!, it is not top priority to team up with biologists to try convince them of anything. My top priority now, as far as research, is to continue working on my mathematical project to make sense of the numbers that win at any lottery, without statistics nor probability, but with algebra and calculus. The astrologer should be able to predict all future winners of any lottery.

>further (and I'm sure that the skeptic groups like csicop would
>love to put your claim to a rigorous test for validity, like a
>double-blind test) but this claim to see inside the womb does not
>invalidate the proposition. Even if you could prove this claim it
>would not invalidate the proposition as it would simply provide a
>few isolated examples that fit PTSB.

Mars rules the first sign and thus Commencements in general. The rulers of the Cardinal Cross signs have a lot to say about Commencements. If something commenced, then it commenced, it's called a beginning,. This gets us into a taxonomy of commencements. I have identified various types of beginnings: the "Ideal Single and Punctual" commencement, which seems to be the average in the case of human births. When I rectify a chart I procede by numbered hypothesis: every canonic relation involving a hypothetical natal Cusp of relevancy and a combination of relevant planets from the transits of an important biographical date and the natal chart. The relevancy of course will depend on the particular event under study: if you are analyzing the planets on the wedding day, then Venus/Mars, Moon/Sun or the rulers of the hypothetical horizon will be judged relevant. This relation is then assumed to be partil so that it leads to an equation to be solved for the relevant Cusp in volved to thus obtain the ecliptic longitude of the said hypothetical Cusp which, given Earth's rotation rate and a little arithmetics, becomes the Hypothetical Rectified Birth Time as per Hypothesis FX, where F stands for the letter of that family of hypothesis and X stands for the number of the hypothesis in turn. Thus many canonic relations are detected with the protractor and many hypothesis of several families are compiled. As all these Hypothetical Rectified Birth Times as per all these numbered hypothesis are studied, with a sound statistical eye to decide wisely from the alternative ways to ponder and average them, to obtain the Final Rectified Birth Time, backed by as many converging hypothesis as it was deemed safe and necessary on statistical grounds. The Ideal Single Punctual Commencement, stands as an easy convergence of all canonic hypothesis that converge simply in a very narrow interval that immediately suggest a straight averaging of all of them to obtaing the Average Rectified Birth Time as per N converging canonic hypothesis. Further canonic relations are spotted with the protractor, each leading to its equation and this equation to a hypothetical Cusp longitude which then converts into another Rectified Birth Time as per FX hypothesis and this is assimilated into the accumulated average. If in this fashin 4 or 5 more hypothesis are compiled and it is found that the average does not change any more, then you know you have found the Final Rectified Birth Time. Some times more than one family of hypothesis grows heavier and heavier as more and more hypothesis are accrued. It is clear that there are then more than one attractor points in the ecliptic claiming to be invested as Ascendants. Then I conclude that this person's birth is of another type: Multiple Clustering Commencements. If it is an extreme case of this, then I call it a "Shot gun commencement". I have detected Smeared commencements as well, usually when Neptune is very prominently emphasized: the person has his Ascendant sort of smeared in an interval of ecliptic longitude more than on specific discrete points. Then you have Delocalized Commencements. But now I think you and Cornelius are enforcing a No Commencement type of Commencement, and it is here that I am really at a lose to understand what it is that you may be meaning by this.

>> you cite for example "Horary
>> astrology" but here you have
>> the commencement as equal with
>> the chart of the question, cast
>> for the moment the astrologer
>> understands the question, because
>> that is when the question is
>> delivered. The chart of the
>> question is like a beginning, a
>> real commencement, and thus is
>> doesn't challenge either the Axiom
>> of Beginnings. The chart of the
>> Beginning of the Query, as it is
>> also called, clearly aludes to the
>> fact that you are casting a chart
>> for a beginning, and there you
>> are going to look for your answers. 
>
>You say "as equal with" and "is like a beginning", and "clearly
>alludes to the fact". You need make more confident claims than
>this to dismiss the proposition. Show how a horary question is
>PRECISELY LIKE a birth and how every chart and every bit of
>astrology REQUIRES PTSB in order to work, and then I can withdraw
>the proposition.

OK, let's start by saying that the term Commencement is more universal than birth. Then I say the horary chart, cast for the moment I understand the client's query, is a commencement of my work on this client's case. This is correct, because if I don't have a chart I cannot work on his query, If I understand his query and yet don't cast the query's chart there but until later, say when I get around to sit in my computer to cast a chart, then this chart, cast not for the moment I understood the query but for the moment I was finally able to get to work on the matter, will also have some radix charge, as heavens will show there in that chart that I was too busy to work on this clients but finally I was able to focus on his case. However, this secondary chart, can be seen like a progression of the other chart, the one for the moment I understood the question, which carries a higher radix charge, and is thus better to use. In mathematics you can not do anything without the origin at the crossing of the x axis and the y axis, which in the complex plane stand for the real and the imaginary dimensions making up the complex plane. You just need an origin to referenciate all your measurements to. You can move the origin averywhere you wish: that's the analytic technique called Translation of the Origin. It is conventional. But usually there are better points to set the origen with the very pragmatic criterion that in so doing all the notational codification of the expressions involved are going to be the most simple and elegant to in turn facilitate the algebraic manupulation of the mathematical relations being analyzed and their transformations. So, likewise, Axiom #2 obeys a pragmatic criterion of not complicating things beyond necessity. You can look at things from any chart window you wish, but there is always a better window to look at the landscape, until you find the chart of the real beginning. Once you've found it, no other possible time and moment will allow you to improve your vision.

If what you are saying then is that every instant carries radical charge, I agree with you. But if you are saying that the radical charge is the same for all instants, then I think you are in a grave error. You can agrab a hot pan from any side you want, but it will be better if you grab it by the handle.

> Further,
>the fact is that different astrologers use different rules for how
>horaries are delivered: some use the moment of receipt, some the
>moment the querent sends the question, some the place of receipt,
>some the place of the querent, and so on. There are literally
>dozens and dozens of possible beginnings, and each astrologer
>chooses the method they prefer. Yet, none of these differences
>invalidate horary astrology. 

Some windows show better what you are interesting in seeing, until you find the optimum window, which invariably will be a true beginning, a natural beginning that simplifies things because it is devoid of artificiality. To look at the future of a person, the best windows are the heavens of conception of the heavens at birth time. They signify peak instants of max radical charge.

>> So it is utterly false to
>> state that Horary is an example
>> of astrology working without
>> "the theory of seeds and
>> beginnings", because it is
>> actually quite the contrary !. 
>
>You CLAIM it is contrary and false, please SHOW how it is
>contrary. SHOW how a question is like a birth, show why the
>delivery of a question can be set for a locale different than
>where the question is asked--a nativity is never set for the
>location of the astrologer, it is set for the actual birth, not
>the understanding of the astrologer concerning the birth. Again,
>horary astrology is not natal astrology and is not bound by PTSB
>and, from the point of view I am defending, it invalidates PTSB as
>a universal axiom of astrology

It is more like a commencement than like a birth. Certainly more like a conception, where a sperm and the ovum fuse. A martian and a venusian complemental parity fussing together to create a new being. Here it is the querent meeting with the astrologer. Usually the mars element, the one actively seeking the other, is the querent. That's why we signify him in the Ascendant (Cusp 1, like the first sign, Aries, Mars), and the astrologer is the Venusian pole, the Descendant or Cusp 7, like the 7th sign, Libra, Venus. The true getting together of the 2 poles is really when the query is clear in the head of the astrologer. That is when the information has passed from the querents head into the astrologers head, like when the sperm passes its genetic information into the inside of the ovum. A conception has occurred. A judgment is going to be born now after a period of gestation in the head of the astrologer. That is the true beginning here; that's the natural moment to cast the chart for, unless you want to complicate the story. That's why whatever is going to come out of this union of the querent and the astrologer can be seen in the chart of that particular time. About the place, I think the astrologer's location is the natural choice. There may be several good choices, then you have the case of Multiple Clustering Commencements, or even Shot Gun Commencements, etc., as I pointed out it happens as well in the case of human births. .

> >I restate the proposition thus: 
> >   The so-called "axiom" of beginnings is NOT an 
> >   axiom and can be removed from astrology without harm.

Oh I do think it is an axiom, and a valid one too, that is confirmed every day, and without which I couldn't use astrology as efficiently as with it. It is an axiom by pragmatic convention if you wish, but nonetheless an objective true axiom without which things become a lot more complicated and difficult to handle.

>Horary is the perfect example. The oft-repeated claim that a
>horary is cast "for the birth of a question" is absurd and cannot
>be proven in any manner whatsoever. And I mean PROOF, not a CLAIM
>as if it were proof. Even a reasonable explanation that deals with
>all of the most critical ramifications of mentation as it relates
>to the process of developing questions would be a step in some
>right direction.

The proof is repeated every time that a horary astrologer solves a query for a client from the relations observed in the chart of heavens for the moment the astrologer understtos the question. The moment when Venus and Mars got together, the planets ruling the Ascending and Descending signs will inform you of who the querent is and what he wants, why, etc. and who the astrologer is and to what extent his judgment will be objective and how much and why and everything you may wish to know.

>"Wrong charts" that work do exist. Wishing them away does not make
>them go away, and this is a fact we have to deal with. The
>proposition makes a step in this direction while PTSB cannot admit
>their existence.

As things change in heavens, different moments will come to have certain affinities and resonate with other heavens. These resonances and congruencies between particular charts end their transits and progressions, by the "like likes like" principle and by other principles of seriality and synchhronicity, will tend to manifest as in many werid ways still not studied, some of these ways are what you are calling "wrong charts", but that does not have much to do with what we are talking about and I see no need to challenge the Axiom of Beginnings. Neptune is and will always be making things fuzzy and erasing the contours of clear distinctions for its principle is to blurr identities so they can merge in the undifferentiated whole of the cosmic ocean of no distinctions. When this "wrong charts" phenomenon pops up, you will always find Neptune atop the hierarchy. If you study a Wrong Chart in real depth, it will reveal to you its wrong nature. It might even lead you to the true chart, if you are clever enough and do not succumb to the chant of the sirens.

>> Every now and then I have
>> clients whose charts don't seem
>> to work and rectification does not
>> appear possible for the date given
>> ....The last time this occurred
>>
>> the fact that she had never been
>> told about her being adopted. 
>
>That's a nice story, and I applaud your abilities, but it doesn't
>do anything to invalidate the proposition. The question of your
>abilities and skill as an astrologer is not addressed by the
>proposition. 

Like in quantum mechanics you have to get the observer into the picture, in astrology the hability of the practicant is always a main factor, even when the observer is a computer. Give the chart of somebody to one of the good predictive software programs based on progressions and transits and have the machine generate a report. It will be right on the mark quite often, if the natal chart was rectified in order to find and use the true beginning. I have written an article describing how often I have found machine prediction accurate in my experience with clients: recently a lady had a car accident and then she came to read that her report for that day advised her not to go on short journeys. Also recently, a hospital doctor client of mine fell in love with a nurse at the hospital and came to see me for me to tell him whether I advised him to get a divorce and abandon his home and children to start a new life with his new love. I told him that was his decision, but that I could ask the computer to write a report of his synastry with his wife and with the nurse. The commercial software I use for this wrote the reports and he was in a shock when he read how incredible accurate the reports depicted his relation with each of the 2 women. At the start the report told him that he had met Maria, the nurse, in an institution having to do with health (he'd met her at the hospital). It was clear from the reports that he was better off with the nurse and so he went on and asked for a divorce. That's giving the client the information for him to take a decision. Transiting Uranus was trining his Venus while same time squaring his Saturn. Exhilarating new love forcing him to break with traditional marriage and face the consequences of his irresponsability. He's still in the middle of a very sweet and very sour situation...... If his chart had not been rectifies, meaning his true beginning ascertained in accordance with Axiom #2, the machine report would have been way off the mark. So it is a useful Axiom. It is actually more than that, but I will let you call it just that, a useful axiom. Hebrew astrologers always wanted to know the positions of the planets on the day God created the world, because that would allow them to read in that configuration of heavens, all future history of the world. That's just what the hindu astrologer claim to be able to do from the platform of the chart of the onset of the Kali Yuga. We are talking about different traditions that in epochs spanning millenia converged in discovering the true validity of the second grand axiom of the astrological system: the Axiom of Beginnings.

>proposition is not invalidated by a single counterexample where a
>"Seed and Beginning" seemed to be at play, but by demonstrating
>that EVERY chart has a "Seed and Beginning"--every natal chart, or
>horary, or solar chart or you-name-it chart. To counter that claim
>I simply need to show one example where PTSB is not at play, and I
>have provide many one.

No problem in granting that every chart has a seed of beginning: as I said, in mathematics (and astrology is basically mathematics) it is always valid to translate the origen. The idea is where to place the origen so that it simplifies things....experience has shown the astrologers of many different cultures finding out that a true beginning is a true beginning and it sure makes things easier putting your origin there.

>> That proposition is cheer
>> nonsense and it amounts to throwing
>> out the baby with the bathtub water.
>
>I disagree, we lose nothing! We still use birth times, the best
>available, from medical records, or from rectification, or what
>have you. However, we now no longer need to try to fit everything
>into Ptolemy's nice little box.

I don't care whether Ptolemy said this or that, I am not using the Axiom because he said so......I am using it because it shows its objectivity at every step.

>> Fortunately it will never happens
>> because we know better than that.
>
>My perception is the exact opposite. From here it looks like this
>proposition will not only be accepted, but may be embraced as the
>basis for a stronger and more vital astrology for the next
>century. But I have no scientific basis for that claim, only
>astrological ones.... :-)

We just have totally different perceptions then. I see this question also related to the problem of the true fiducial point. The Equinos rules all beginnings....you can move the zero anywhere you wish, but it is better if you leave it at the Vernal Equinox at zero degrees of Tropical Aries. I have found that after checking other fiducials, like the various sidereal ones. I agree that they all work, to some extent. But the Equinox works the best, and thus it is there that I leave my zero.

>A much stronger case needs to be made for keeping PTSB. And even
>if nobody can find it in them to adopt the proposition, I do not
>believe we are damaged by examining our theory.
>
>--fran

Alright Sir, then go ahead and explore its implications. Anyway I'll be checking out this Cornelius theory to see what you are talking about.

Thanks for your kind attention
Most Attentively
Dr. Gonzalo Pena Tamez
Astrologer

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