Sunday, September 03, 2006
Cosmobiology
The school of astrology known as Cosmobiology was founded in the late 1930s by a German astrologer named Reinhold Ebertin (1901-1988) who was a student of the founder of the Hamburg School of Astrology Alfred Witte (1878-1941).
The main difference between the two schools is that Cosmobiology rejects the hypothetical Trans-Neptunian objects used by the Hamburg School and later Uranian astrologers. Another difference is the significant expansion of Cosmobiology into medical astrology, Dr Ebertin being a physician.
Cosmobiology continued Alfred Witte's later primary emphasis on the use of astrological midpoints along with the following 90° dial , in cosmobiological analysis, planets are inserted into a special type of horoscope often referred to as a 'Cosmogram' (derived from the Uranian 90° dial chart) and delineated
The primary reference/research text for Cosmobiology was first published in 1940 by the German astrologer Reinhold Ebertin. The name of the book is The Combination of Stellar Influences. The original German title is Kombination der Gestirneinflusse. Its foundations were derived largely from the early versions of the "Regelwerk für Planetenbilder" by Alfred Witte, and then further built upon by Ebertin and colleagues.
What is noteworthy about both Cosmobiology and Uranian Astrology are their emphasis on critical analysis and testing by observing more clearly measurable or observable astrological correlations, rather than to simply perpetuate observations or assumptions written in historical astrological texts, a problem leading to widespread criticism of mainstream Classical Astrology.
For this reason, both Uranian Astrology and Cosmobiology are more likely to qualify as sciences, despite widespread historical biases against astrology due to the ambiguities of the still widely-used. Some have speculated that the term "Cosmobiology" was coined specifically to divorce its precepts from the manifold ambiguities of, and subsequent widespread biases against, Classical Astrology.
The origins of the 90° dial have been accounted for in various ways by various people. In the 20th century, according to available documents, the 90° dial was first used by practitioners of Hamburg School astrology, i.e. by followers of the teachings of the innovative astrologer, Alfred Witte. Ludwig Rudolph, one of Witte's most enthusiastic and dedicated students, used the 90° dial in his astrological practice, as did cosmobiologist Reinhold Ebertin. Use of such a tool, or the principles it is based on, prior to the time of Witte, Rudolph, and Ebertin is not impossible, yet it is primarly Rudolph and Ebertin who popularized its usage in recent times.
Thus the 90° dial once again brought the important 8th harmonic angles back into consideration, revealing major personal talents indicated by the natal chart, and major events triggered by solar arc directions and transits, all in a quickly and easily detectable format.
This can be summarized in other words -- each round of the 90° begins with 0° of a cardinal sign (Aries starting at 0°, Cancer at 90°, Libra at 180°, and Capricorn at 270°).
The main difference between the two schools is that Cosmobiology rejects the hypothetical Trans-Neptunian objects used by the Hamburg School and later Uranian astrologers. Another difference is the significant expansion of Cosmobiology into medical astrology, Dr Ebertin being a physician.
Cosmobiology continued Alfred Witte's later primary emphasis on the use of astrological midpoints along with the following 90° dial , in cosmobiological analysis, planets are inserted into a special type of horoscope often referred to as a 'Cosmogram' (derived from the Uranian 90° dial chart) and delineated
The primary reference/research text for Cosmobiology was first published in 1940 by the German astrologer Reinhold Ebertin. The name of the book is The Combination of Stellar Influences. The original German title is Kombination der Gestirneinflusse. Its foundations were derived largely from the early versions of the "Regelwerk für Planetenbilder" by Alfred Witte, and then further built upon by Ebertin and colleagues.
What is noteworthy about both Cosmobiology and Uranian Astrology are their emphasis on critical analysis and testing by observing more clearly measurable or observable astrological correlations, rather than to simply perpetuate observations or assumptions written in historical astrological texts, a problem leading to widespread criticism of mainstream Classical Astrology.
For this reason, both Uranian Astrology and Cosmobiology are more likely to qualify as sciences, despite widespread historical biases against astrology due to the ambiguities of the still widely-used. Some have speculated that the term "Cosmobiology" was coined specifically to divorce its precepts from the manifold ambiguities of, and subsequent widespread biases against, Classical Astrology.
The origins of the 90° dial have been accounted for in various ways by various people. In the 20th century, according to available documents, the 90° dial was first used by practitioners of Hamburg School astrology, i.e. by followers of the teachings of the innovative astrologer, Alfred Witte. Ludwig Rudolph, one of Witte's most enthusiastic and dedicated students, used the 90° dial in his astrological practice, as did cosmobiologist Reinhold Ebertin. Use of such a tool, or the principles it is based on, prior to the time of Witte, Rudolph, and Ebertin is not impossible, yet it is primarly Rudolph and Ebertin who popularized its usage in recent times.
Thus the 90° dial once again brought the important 8th harmonic angles back into consideration, revealing major personal talents indicated by the natal chart, and major events triggered by solar arc directions and transits, all in a quickly and easily detectable format.
This can be summarized in other words -- each round of the 90° begins with 0° of a cardinal sign (Aries starting at 0°, Cancer at 90°, Libra at 180°, and Capricorn at 270°).
A Stock Market Model That "Shoots for the Stars"
When I first began trading more than five decades ago, I was told by one of my mentors that trading was a journey, not a destination. Those words have been emblazoned on my brain since that time. The library I've accumulated over the past years has just about everything published, as well as many things not published, and I’m still learning.
But, my first experience with technical analysis was when I was in graduate school and one of my professors had some large charts of US Steel, Corn, Soybeans and General Motors posted on his office wall. Each day, he'd mark these little bars on his charts with notations. The class was always curious as to why he did this. It would be years before I would understand the significance of his daily ritual.
The purpose of this article is twofold. To:
1. Describe the journey that got me to the point where I am today
2. Stimulate interest in a subject most people either cringe or laugh at when they hear it mentioned -- the A word…ASTROLOGY (and, more importantly, how it relates to trading)
My experience with astrology began in the late 60s when I was studying the works of W. D. Gann, George Bayer, Luther Jenson and Cmmdr. David Williams. It wasn't until 1976, when I was running the commodity department for Drexel Burnham Lambert in California, that my interest in astrology accelerated.
Early one morning, a middle-aged housewife (at the time she was considered middle-aged, but, now, she'd be considered young) came into my office in Beverly Hills and told me that she could trade silver using astrology. Her problem was that she did not have any money, and she couldn't get anyone to believe that she could do this.
After a brief discussion, I suggested opening an account for her that I would trade using her signals, and we would split the profits. The results that followed were nothing short of spectacular. She was right on 19 consecutive signals in the silver market.
A few years later, my good friend and trading partner, Jim Twentyman, and I reconstructed how she was trading. We could accomplish this because her orders were very unusual, to say the least. She would give me an order to buy silver at a certain time of the day (for example, at 7:16 a.m., and to sell it at 10:00 a.m. 2 days later, disregarding price).
Although the results could not be challenged, her methodology had some basic flaws. The first flaw was that she disregarded the fact that silver was in the beginning of the largest bull market of all times, and she only did long positions. The second flaw was that she did not use stop loss orders, and, although the positions would sometimes go dramatically against her, by the time the position was to be liquidated, the market would have recovered for a modest profit.
How I Became Interested in Astrology and Its Relationship to Market Cycles
You have to understand that this was not a shot in the dark for me, this idea of taking positions based on astrology, because I had discovered early on in my trading career that the cycles of the market were related to astrology. I found this out just by looking at lunar phenomena and the eclipses.
Plus, the work that was done by W.D. Gann and Comdr. David Williams catapulted me into the study of cycles. I was fortunate enough to be one of the first proponents of the ideas espoused in James Hurst's book Profit Magic of Stock Transaction Timing and the subsequent charting service called Cyclitech.
Through the years, there have been many references made to astrology and its influence on the stock market. One of the most famous came from one of the most famous men in all of investing, whose name still appears on two of the finest financial institutions in the world. That man was John Pierpoint Morgan (JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley).
One of JP Morgan's most famous quotes was that millionaires do not use astrology in the stock market; billionaires do. Morgan had a full-time astrologer by the name of Evangeline Adams who worked with him throughout his financial career.
The JP Morgan home has been converted into a beautiful museum just north of Rockefeller Center in NYC. In it, Morgan's library, a work of art in itself, has a ceiling featuring a hand-painted celestial reproduction of the heavens with a secret passage into the library from the living quarters, located directly above JP’s birth sign.
The reason I mention some of these things is to try to alert skeptical readers to the fact that a number of very powerful people have examined this particular scientific discipline. Other examples include Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Galileo.
The Origins of the Bradley Stock Market Model and How I Became Familiar with It
My first introduction to the Bradley stock market cycle in 1986 came about as a result of my previous trading for a prominent soybean farmer / trader in southern Indiana. His wife, Dr. Ruth Miller, was a college professor who contacted me several years after her husband’s death to give me some information she thought I would find very useful in my daily charting.
Ruth explained that she had discovered, through many years of study, that the Fibonacci sequence of numbers I use in my daily trading was directly related to the planetary positions of the market. Without doubt, this contact with Dr. Miller has been the single-most profound thing that has ever happened to my trading.
What follows next might sound like a contradiction of terms: I think it's important that readers understand that I am pattern recognition swing trader. And, yet, I use very little astrology in my day-to-day operations in the markets. Primarily, I do short-term swings lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a few days at most. I've never been able to buy a stock, such as Google at $80, and watch it go to $450.
What I have discovered, though, is that the discipline involved in the study of astrology (astronomy) has made me more keenly aware of the harmony in the underlying patterns in everything in the universe, including the markets and, thus, more open to the possibilities for trading those patterns represent. Thus, it was, that I discovered the Bradley Stock Market Model.
Donald Bradley wrote a small pamphlet titled Stock Market Predictions in 1947 and sold it for the astronomical price of $4.00, which in 1947 dollars was quite a bit. Bradley took the 12 planets and gave them a positive or negative rating. From this rating, he produced a sidereal graph that gave a trend for the stock market for the next year, and the next, and the next. In fact, it could go out hundreds of years. The pamphlet had only one year of the stock market (1946), but it illustrated how well the correlation of his model to the actual price pattern worked for that year.
Unfortunately, no one ever followed up for years, and his work fell into obscurity until 1986 when Jim Twentyman and I began looking at the Bradley model. We had all of the stock market data on the NYSE from 1876 (10 years after the civil war) through 1986. A 110-year sample size was statistically accurate enough to test his theory.
My good friend, Neal Michelson of Astro Computing Services, programmed the Bradley model, and we took the data and matched it to those 110 years. (As a side note, Neal's company, Astro Computing, provided the U.S. Navy with all of its vital information for the U.S. fleets.)
As you can see from the small two-year example shown in this article, the results were quite amazing. Over the past 130 years (since 1876), the correlation is better than 70 percent. Remember that this model can be done years in advance. It is one small indication that the planets may have some say in what happens in the markets.
Two Caveats concerning the Bradley Model
Although the Bradley Model shows some excellent correlations between naturally occurring cycles and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, I must mention certain caveats. First, the Bradley Model has a tendency to invert (be a mirror image of) the regular model at certain times during the year. Sometimes, there are as many as three inversions in a year while, at other times, there are no inversions, and the model correlates quite well.
Inversions can be a problem, but they also present an opportunity because the exact Bradley date (calendar date) has a very high probability of being near a significant trend change, plus or minus one day, better than 80 percent of the time.
The second caveat relates to the fact that the Bradley Model is not a trading system; it is a guideline for what the Dow Jones Industrial Average may or may not do between the Bradley dates. Practical experience has shown that, when the Bradley model is working, it behooves the trader to pay attention to the high correlation existing at that time.
However, when it is not correlating, it should be viewed with skepticism. So, it was never meant to be a trading system. In fact, it is still an unproven theory.
My Predictions about the Bradley Model
I will go out on a limb here and make an historical prediction that, sometime within the next five years, a major academic institution will stumble across the Bradley Model, do some empirical research on it and publish its findings. A short time after the publication, the financial news channels and financial press will bring it to the attention of the investing public and take astrology out of the category of voodoo economics.
Finally, the Bradley dates for the remainder of 2006 are listed on the accompanying Dow Jones Industrials 2006 chart. It'll be interesting to see how this correlates with overall market performance and if the Bradley dates do, in fact, have significant turning dates for the remainder of 2006.
By Larry Pesavento, an investment strategist for a large hedge fund (wwww.tradingtutor.com)*Posted: July 7, 2006
But, my first experience with technical analysis was when I was in graduate school and one of my professors had some large charts of US Steel, Corn, Soybeans and General Motors posted on his office wall. Each day, he'd mark these little bars on his charts with notations. The class was always curious as to why he did this. It would be years before I would understand the significance of his daily ritual.
The purpose of this article is twofold. To:
1. Describe the journey that got me to the point where I am today
2. Stimulate interest in a subject most people either cringe or laugh at when they hear it mentioned -- the A word…ASTROLOGY (and, more importantly, how it relates to trading)
My experience with astrology began in the late 60s when I was studying the works of W. D. Gann, George Bayer, Luther Jenson and Cmmdr. David Williams. It wasn't until 1976, when I was running the commodity department for Drexel Burnham Lambert in California, that my interest in astrology accelerated.
Early one morning, a middle-aged housewife (at the time she was considered middle-aged, but, now, she'd be considered young) came into my office in Beverly Hills and told me that she could trade silver using astrology. Her problem was that she did not have any money, and she couldn't get anyone to believe that she could do this.
After a brief discussion, I suggested opening an account for her that I would trade using her signals, and we would split the profits. The results that followed were nothing short of spectacular. She was right on 19 consecutive signals in the silver market.
A few years later, my good friend and trading partner, Jim Twentyman, and I reconstructed how she was trading. We could accomplish this because her orders were very unusual, to say the least. She would give me an order to buy silver at a certain time of the day (for example, at 7:16 a.m., and to sell it at 10:00 a.m. 2 days later, disregarding price).
Although the results could not be challenged, her methodology had some basic flaws. The first flaw was that she disregarded the fact that silver was in the beginning of the largest bull market of all times, and she only did long positions. The second flaw was that she did not use stop loss orders, and, although the positions would sometimes go dramatically against her, by the time the position was to be liquidated, the market would have recovered for a modest profit.
How I Became Interested in Astrology and Its Relationship to Market Cycles
You have to understand that this was not a shot in the dark for me, this idea of taking positions based on astrology, because I had discovered early on in my trading career that the cycles of the market were related to astrology. I found this out just by looking at lunar phenomena and the eclipses.
Plus, the work that was done by W.D. Gann and Comdr. David Williams catapulted me into the study of cycles. I was fortunate enough to be one of the first proponents of the ideas espoused in James Hurst's book Profit Magic of Stock Transaction Timing and the subsequent charting service called Cyclitech.
Through the years, there have been many references made to astrology and its influence on the stock market. One of the most famous came from one of the most famous men in all of investing, whose name still appears on two of the finest financial institutions in the world. That man was John Pierpoint Morgan (JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley).
One of JP Morgan's most famous quotes was that millionaires do not use astrology in the stock market; billionaires do. Morgan had a full-time astrologer by the name of Evangeline Adams who worked with him throughout his financial career.
The JP Morgan home has been converted into a beautiful museum just north of Rockefeller Center in NYC. In it, Morgan's library, a work of art in itself, has a ceiling featuring a hand-painted celestial reproduction of the heavens with a secret passage into the library from the living quarters, located directly above JP’s birth sign.
The reason I mention some of these things is to try to alert skeptical readers to the fact that a number of very powerful people have examined this particular scientific discipline. Other examples include Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Galileo.
The Origins of the Bradley Stock Market Model and How I Became Familiar with It
My first introduction to the Bradley stock market cycle in 1986 came about as a result of my previous trading for a prominent soybean farmer / trader in southern Indiana. His wife, Dr. Ruth Miller, was a college professor who contacted me several years after her husband’s death to give me some information she thought I would find very useful in my daily charting.
Ruth explained that she had discovered, through many years of study, that the Fibonacci sequence of numbers I use in my daily trading was directly related to the planetary positions of the market. Without doubt, this contact with Dr. Miller has been the single-most profound thing that has ever happened to my trading.
What follows next might sound like a contradiction of terms: I think it's important that readers understand that I am pattern recognition swing trader. And, yet, I use very little astrology in my day-to-day operations in the markets. Primarily, I do short-term swings lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a few days at most. I've never been able to buy a stock, such as Google at $80, and watch it go to $450.
What I have discovered, though, is that the discipline involved in the study of astrology (astronomy) has made me more keenly aware of the harmony in the underlying patterns in everything in the universe, including the markets and, thus, more open to the possibilities for trading those patterns represent. Thus, it was, that I discovered the Bradley Stock Market Model.
Donald Bradley wrote a small pamphlet titled Stock Market Predictions in 1947 and sold it for the astronomical price of $4.00, which in 1947 dollars was quite a bit. Bradley took the 12 planets and gave them a positive or negative rating. From this rating, he produced a sidereal graph that gave a trend for the stock market for the next year, and the next, and the next. In fact, it could go out hundreds of years. The pamphlet had only one year of the stock market (1946), but it illustrated how well the correlation of his model to the actual price pattern worked for that year.
Unfortunately, no one ever followed up for years, and his work fell into obscurity until 1986 when Jim Twentyman and I began looking at the Bradley model. We had all of the stock market data on the NYSE from 1876 (10 years after the civil war) through 1986. A 110-year sample size was statistically accurate enough to test his theory.
My good friend, Neal Michelson of Astro Computing Services, programmed the Bradley model, and we took the data and matched it to those 110 years. (As a side note, Neal's company, Astro Computing, provided the U.S. Navy with all of its vital information for the U.S. fleets.)
As you can see from the small two-year example shown in this article, the results were quite amazing. Over the past 130 years (since 1876), the correlation is better than 70 percent. Remember that this model can be done years in advance. It is one small indication that the planets may have some say in what happens in the markets.
Two Caveats concerning the Bradley Model
Although the Bradley Model shows some excellent correlations between naturally occurring cycles and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, I must mention certain caveats. First, the Bradley Model has a tendency to invert (be a mirror image of) the regular model at certain times during the year. Sometimes, there are as many as three inversions in a year while, at other times, there are no inversions, and the model correlates quite well.
Inversions can be a problem, but they also present an opportunity because the exact Bradley date (calendar date) has a very high probability of being near a significant trend change, plus or minus one day, better than 80 percent of the time.
The second caveat relates to the fact that the Bradley Model is not a trading system; it is a guideline for what the Dow Jones Industrial Average may or may not do between the Bradley dates. Practical experience has shown that, when the Bradley model is working, it behooves the trader to pay attention to the high correlation existing at that time.
However, when it is not correlating, it should be viewed with skepticism. So, it was never meant to be a trading system. In fact, it is still an unproven theory.
My Predictions about the Bradley Model
I will go out on a limb here and make an historical prediction that, sometime within the next five years, a major academic institution will stumble across the Bradley Model, do some empirical research on it and publish its findings. A short time after the publication, the financial news channels and financial press will bring it to the attention of the investing public and take astrology out of the category of voodoo economics.
Finally, the Bradley dates for the remainder of 2006 are listed on the accompanying Dow Jones Industrials 2006 chart. It'll be interesting to see how this correlates with overall market performance and if the Bradley dates do, in fact, have significant turning dates for the remainder of 2006.
By Larry Pesavento, an investment strategist for a large hedge fund (wwww.tradingtutor.com)*Posted: July 7, 2006
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Alfred Witte....Science Or Superstition?
Alfred Witte---2-Mar-1878, 21:12 LMT, Hamburg -- 4-Aug-1941, 4:01 MET, Hamburg
Alfred Witte was an outstanding German astrologer of the early 20th century and the founder of the Hamburg School of Astrology who wrote over 40 articles as well as the first "Rules for Planetary Pictures". He was also a land-surveyor who worked on the Hamburg airport. In his private life he was an unpretentious, withdrawn man. He was married and had two daughters.
Witte began his career as an astrologer in 1913 when he published his article "Thoughts on Colour, Number, Tone" , where he developed the ideas of Johannes Kepler, his compatriot, an astrologer and mathematician, particularly on the idea of harmony or the music of the spheres. This article discussed the mutual interrelation of planets' vibrations, as well as their relation to other natural oscillations and waves according to the tuning fork principle. But this article only was his first probing step.
Witte began his career as an astrologer in 1913 when he published his article "Thoughts on Colour, Number, Tone" , where he developed the ideas of Johannes Kepler, his compatriot, an astrologer and mathematician, particularly on the idea of harmony or the music of the spheres. This article discussed the mutual interrelation of planets' vibrations, as well as their relation to other natural oscillations and waves according to the tuning fork principle. But this article only was his first probing step.
During the World War I, Witte was summoned to the Russian front, where he tried to forecast moments of artillery bombardment, but suffered a shattering defeat. Having realised the insufficiency of classical methods, he began to search for his own approaches to obtain practical results. Ultimately, he found them, and thus caused a revolution in astrology of the 20th century, in the same way that Kepler in the 17th century, who had discovered the laws of celestial mechanics, created the most precise ephemerides of his era and worked out a new theory of aspects based on music theory. Today few people know that it was Kepler to whom we owe the aspects of 72°, 135°, and 144°, angle analogues of three consonances not used by Ptolemeus -- major third, minor and major sixth. Later, Kepler's contribution to astrology was almost forgotten, and the original musical theory, underlying the new aspects' introduction, was ignored. Seventeen years after Kepler's death, William Lilly, in 1647, in his "Christian Astrology" added the aspects of 30°, 36°, 45° and 108°, corresponding to discordant musical intervals that obviously contradicted the tuning fork principle.
From 1919, Witte, being a member of the Hamburg "Kepler Circle", started lecturing astrology. In his lectures he disseminated his revolutionary views and ideas for the first time. Later, on October 31, 1925 at 9:45:51 PM MET (GMT+1:00) in Friedrich Sieggrün's house (9E57'24" 53N33'04") the Astrologers Union "Hamburg School" (Astrologen-Verein "Hamburger Schule") was founded. It was a precursor of the Hamburg School Astrological Study Group (Astrologische Studiengesellschaft Hamburger Schule E.V.), founded on December 27, 1947 by followers including Wilhelm Beckmann, Conrad, Hellberg, Hermann Lefeldt, Karl Perch, Herbert Pauels, Ludwig Rudolph, Heinz Schlaghecke, Wilms, and Schacht, with the aim of studying of Witte's legacy.
Unlike Kepler, Witte proposed rejecting aspects, and to determine the relations between planets and points according to the formula: a + b = c + d, where a, b, c, d are the planets' coordinates, expressed in absolute degrees. The idea is brilliantly simple, and gives the astrologer a powerful instrument for checking the inner workings of the chart. Different modifications and simplifications of the formulae create "planetary pictures" (Planetenbild) of varying strength. For example, if we suppose that a = b, that is a and b are the same point, then the original formula assumes the following form: 2a = c + d or a = (c + d) / 2. It means that the a point is situated right in the middle between c and d, that is in the "midpoint" (Mittelpunkt) between them. The strongest planetary picture is produced when we suppose that a = b and c = d. Thus, the original formula is reduced to a = c, which means the conjunction between points a and c. The sign of equality in those formulas may not be an equality in the strict mathematical sense; planets may be 360° or 180° apart, yet we still consider them "equal"; thus the a = c formula can signify not only a conjunction, but possibly also an opposition. Witte took into account all midpoints or differences aspecting any given point or planet by 90° or 270°, and today the Hamburg School extends this to include aspects of 45°, 22.5° and even 11.25°.
In the last 70 years, both Witte and his followers have studied all variants of transaction according to the 2a = c + d formula in the most detailed way, describing all midpoints in all combinations with planets and points of the horoscope. At the same time, nowadays there are no fundamental works on the a + b = c + d formula where all four parameters would be different points of the chart, and this question appears to have been neglected. The main and the only well-known book by Witte, "Rules for Planetary-Pictures: The Astrology of Tomorrow" [1] is completely devoted to midpoints. It offers interpretations for every triad of planets and points connected by the condition of 2a = c + d. The short preface to the book discusses the main tenets of the astrological system, based on the six personal points (Individuelle Punkte), which are:
We shall briefly explain this scheme. From a philosophical viewpoint, the assumption is that the world consists of "Ego" (Me) and "non-Ego" (You). If we consider these two opposites at three levels (body, soul, spirit), we shall get six main points, which give us an idea about an individual person and his/her interaction with the world. These six points present us the key to all the forthcoming horoscopes and their analyses. Witte solved the problem of house systems in an even more revolutionary way than the question of aspect systems . He proposed to use an Equal House system, taking six personal points in turn as the starting reference points, and developing six different house systems. He explained the choice of Equal House system by the fact that it was the only natural angle coordinate system, and all the house systems that cannot be reduced to it were to be discarded.
The original character of such an approach is that only the ASC and Moon's Node are taken to be the cusp of the first house of the Equal House system. The corresponding horoscopes are called Ascendant and Node house charts. The coordinates of the Moon and MC are taken to be the cusp of the 10th house and are called Lunar and Meridian horoscopes. The Sun is taken to be the cusp of the 4th house in the Solar horoscope, and 0° Aries is taken to be the cusp of the 7th house in the Earth horoscope. Thus, having six horoscopes, and correctly synthesising the information taken from them, one can describe the complexity of processes existing between man and his environment with great precision.
Besides that, Witte used not only the 360° scale, but its harmonics as well, especially the 90°, where the whole circle is considered to be equal to 90°; and where all the planets situated 90° or 180° from each other form a conjunction on this circle. Harmonic charts made it possible to analyse aspects in an even deeper way with application of the formula a + b = c + d in all its variant harmonics, despite the seeming rejection of aspects. Peculiar to Witte's achievement was an invention of the 360° Dial, that made it easy to draw a horoscope, analyse it in different Equal House systems, and search for the planetary pictures.
One more of Witte's innovations of no less importance was four, and later eight transneptunian planets (Transneptuner, TNPs), which are called Uranian planets in the US. The first four planets were calculated by Alfred Witte himself, and the rest were calculated by his student and collaborator, the founder of the Hamburg "Kepler Circle", Friedrich Sieggrün. The first discovered transneptunian was Cupido, the planet of marriage and family. Witte's was concerned with the fact that at the moment of marriage, the directed MC or Moon (meaning the direction of the solar arc, approximately 1° per year) must aspect another planet. And when there was no such planet, Witte made a supposition that this person must have a yet undiscovered planet at this place. While comparing many horoscopes with the known date of first marriage, it was found, that for people of similar age all these "missing" points were situated very close to each other. In this way, the first version of Cupido ephemerides was created. It was followed by other planets: Hades, Zeus, Kronos, Apollon, Admetos, Vulcanus and Poseidon. The table below shows symbols, periods of circulation, key words and concepts, used for their explanation.
I would like to draw special attention of the reader to the fact, that Witte himself actively used only the first four transneptunian planets (Cupido, Hades, Zeus and Kronos), and the other four, calculated by Friedrich Sieggrün, were included together with Pluto in the classical books of the Hamburg School, such as "Rules for Planetary Pictures", only in 1947, six years after Witte's death.
Let us return to the symbolism of transneptunian planets. It is not difficult to notice that the symbol of Cupido is a combination of Venus and Jupiter, the symbol of Apollon is a combination of Jupiter and Gemini, and the symbol of Poseidon is Pisces turned on 90°. It is not casual. Alfred Witte purposed his own unique system of the planetary rulerships of the zodiacal signs. The main idea was that the orbit between Mars and Jupiter, where asteroid belt is located, could be by no means excluded from the number of ruling planets, because there could have been (and possibly were) a planet. That is why the system of rulerships according to Witte looked like this:
The external ruler shows what the sign looks like from the outside, and the internal one shows what happens inside of it. If we extend this scheme logically, the four TNPs, discovered by Sieggrün, will rule: Apollo -- Gemini and Virgo , Admetos -- Taurus and Libra , Vulcanus -- Aries and Scorpio , Poseidon -- Pisces and Sagittarius .
Later, in 1930, when Pluto was discovered, and in 1938, when its first astrological ephemerides were published, this factor had to be included into astrological schemes. Witte had insufficient time to do it since he died in 1941, but his followers, without thinking twice inserted the new planet together with Neptune in Scorpio and Aries , having left the Cupido to rule Libra and Taurus . If Witte were alive, most likely he would reconsider his views, and would qualitatively reform TNPs (their ephemerides and cycles) with the consideration of Pluto. But, unfortunately, his life ended tragically. Hitler, having come to power in Germany, prohibited activity of the Hamburg School, and Witte and his family were threatened by internment in a concentration camp. It lead to his suicide in August of 1941, thus hoping to save his family from repression. The majority of his students were sent to concentration camps, but the most faithful ones carried in their hearts through the hell and flames of World War II the name of innovator astrologer Alfred Witte, and the knowledge of his unique system that is truly revolutionary even today, almost half a century after the death of its author.
As we said above, thanks to those Witte's followers, who stayed alive, the Hamburg School of Astrology was restored. Still, many astrologers who followed the ideas of Witte, were not satisfied by their concrete realisation, and began to develop and supplement the original set of methods of the Hamburg School. The farthest in this direction was Reinhold Ebertin, the father of Cosmobiology, an methodology popular in the US . Having rejected many ideas of Witte, he constructed his system exclusively on harmonics and midpoints, with which he made the techniques much simpler and less divergent from already popular astrological techniques. Due to this, Cosmobiology got much wider dissemination and recognition than the Hamburg School. Richard Svehla and then Hans Niggemann began to popularise Witte's ideas in USA as "Uranian Astrology" or "Uranian System", but later Niggemann also started introducing of changes and corrections which seemed to be valuable to him, and called his techniques "Uranian System of Astrology". As a result, the Hamburg School for a long time left him in isolation and obscurity. Unfortunately, this situation seems to remain today.
Discussing the revolutionary ideas of Alfred Witte, one can not help noticing the archaic level of their practical realisation, both in Hamburg School and in all subsequent branches, which, in fact, did not really bring about anything new. The main drawback of Hamburg School's methods is connected with their attachment to ecliptics, while Witte discussed the idea of six personal points, and of the six horoscopes in indissoluble connection with the necessity to consider them in different planes -- ecliptic, equator, prime vertical, and so on. The middle points and other connections according to the formula a + b = c + d also can not be realized in one single dimension. For example, if we convert the formula 2a = c + d into a - c = d - a, the angle (a - c) may well lie in one plane, and (d - a) may well lie in another one. Harmonic charts are consonances in relation to the original horoscope, and therefore they are a mere technical expedient for a more detailed analysis of aspects in the Keplerian sense.
It is no doubt that Witte consciously simplified the realization of his ideas, for them to be easily applicable -- at his time there were no ordinary calculators, to say nothing about computers! Witte's refined ingenuity in the task of tabulation, simplifying the complex astronomical calculation to the ordinary operations of addition and subtraction, deserve a special mention. Still, we must take into consideration the fact that today, having advanced electronic calculators in the form of computers at our disposal, we can realise his ideas, which, according to his contemporaries, were to turn astrology into a real science in an absolutely new way.
The subject of calculating ephemerides of transneptunian planets needs to be explained separately. Witte used in his mathematical calculations for the forward approximation of planet cycles from Mercury to Neptune, including the asteroid belt. As it was found out later, in the region of Neptune this dependence suffers a slight curve, and Pluto is situated closer to the Sun than it could have been guessed earlier through examining the planets up to Neptune inclusive. According to this reasoning, the cycles of the transneptunian planets calculated by Alfred Witte were a little larger than the real ones. To prove it, we shall use the scheme of dependence of the distance from the Sun in astronomical units on the number of the planet:
In conclusion, it's necessary to say that Alfred Witte was one true astrologer who has combined in his works an innovative approach with deep knowledge and understanding of classical astrology at the level of modern sciences such as mathematics, astronomy, and physics. Today his works have not lost their applicability at all, although more than a half a century has passed since the moment of their publication.
Alfred Witte. The Man as the Receiver of the Cosmic Influences
Alfred Witte was a professional surveyor/engineer and astrologer/astronomer who is credited with formulating the basis of what are today called "Uranian Astrology" and "Cosmobiology". Some of the techniques that Witte used in his earlier writings had been used by astrologers before him, yet those techniques lay in obscurity for centuries as other astrological paradigms predominated, and research has led to still further clarification and refinement today.
A centuries-long trend of working with house systems coincided with a number of attempts to find a valid system that put the Ascendant at the first-house cusp and the Meridian at the 10th; this was so problematic that one system after another was developed and discarded. Witte's techniques were sorted and filtered out, one by one, as they were tested for efficacy.
According to a 1924 article by Wilhelm Hartmann, Hamburg School astrologer, professor of astronomy, and superintendent of the Nuremberg Planetarium (Witte, p 279), "Hamburg School Astrology" was first publicly presented as a coherent system at the Second Astrological Congress in Leipzig in 1923 by Friedrich Sieggrün (Witte, 1975, p 298). It is this same Sieggrün who did much to perpetuate the development of Hamburg School techniques through his own publications, including the first known ephemerides of four Transneptunians further beyond those discovered by Alfred Witte.
Witte himself rejected Sieggrün's planets and sought only to validate the first four, named Cupido, Hades, Zeus, and Kronos; perhaps he had already experienced enough resistance from the mindset of the 1920s to his own discoveries, so that presenting four more was too much for him at the time.
Some of Witte's early writings from 1913 indicate that he was studying concepts and techniques of Kepler, including the synchronicity of the color spectrum and the musical scale with the celestial location and composition of the planets. He describes his findings in the first few articles in an anthology published by Rudolph/Witte-Verlag entitled Der Mensch (Witte, 1975, pp 17-25).
Witte emphasized the mathematical interrelationships among the planets above sign or house placement considerations and used the term Planetary Pictures to describe those interrelationships. In an article first published in 1924, Witte (1975, p 165) stated that a planetary picture is formed by three planets, where one of them stands in the middle, at the halfsum (midpoint) of the other two. At the same time, Witte temporarily worked with what he referred to as "sensitive points", which implied the incorporation of a fourth (usually directed or transiting) planetary factor, and research with these was carried on by a number of his students, yet eventually dropped in favor of the far more significant mathematical relationships such as midpoints and angular clusters (the latter of which are in essence much the same as traditional "aspects" or harmonic relationships).
It is most significant for astrology today that Witte (1975, p 255) himself ultimately recommended the trimming away of superfluous techniques, including his experimental "sensitive points" in an information-packed article, praised by master Hamburg astrologer Ludwig Rudolph as one of Witte's master works. (Note that some American astrologers quite erroneously equate sensitive points with the much broader term "planetary picture") (Brummund 2001a). In this article, "Zum Artikel 'Unbekannte Geburtzeit'", written sometime after 1922, Witte summarized the techniques of Hamburg School astrology at that point, and referred to sign rulerships, sensitive points, planetary dignities and detriments, and other non-planetary factors, as redundant techniques to be set aside in favor of the more pertinent, essential, and informative mathematical interrelationships among the planets (i.e. midpoints, and certain angular relationships validating some of the traditional "aspects").
It is this path that has been taken up and developed by leading modern Uranian Astrologers such as Ruth Brummund, author of the Brummund Rulebook, a major Uranian reference text, recently translated into English. [Note that some Uranians not aware of Witte's later comments, or of recent research prioritizing the numerous techniques experimented with, still unknowingly teach and use the old sensitive points (calling them planetary pictures), antiscia, rulerships, and other historical techniques of dubious value.]
Along with Witte's remarkable contribution of the ephemerides for the first four Transneptunians, he wrote of these as though they were very real planets, and stressed that they were not likely to be found by means of the conventional telescope due to their distance from our Sun and the assumption that the colors of the sunlight they reflect to our Earth are either too close to the color of the night sky, or within the ultraviolet sector, so that they are not readily visible; this combined with the likelihood that their composition is of very low density further delays and complicates their detection (Witte, 1975, pp 220-222). Recent research on the formation of proto-planets may begin to explain the nature of the Witte's and of Sieggrün's Transneptunians.
It should also be pointed out that Witte was well aware of the search by LeVerrier and other astronomers for Pluto and further planets beyond Neptune (Witte, 1975, p 23); and Witte was mocked when Pluto's existence was ascertained, while Witte's planets were yet to be verified by conventional means, and were rejected as failed attempts to sight Pluto. In addition, it was assumed that Pluto's distance from the Sun was so close to that of Cupido's that they could not possibly both exist, and Witte was likewise ridiculed for this.
However, new discoveries once again vindicate Witte, for while Pluto is a small, dense physical body, many astronomers now believe that it is not a part of the harmonic sequence of planets in accord with Newton's laws, but likely a comet or centaur that fell into orbit beyond Neptune in a relatively recent period, or only one of several small regional planetoids with eccentric orbits.Alfred Witte would be delighted to know that the idea of Transneptunian planets is today no longer considered wild speculation; and those who have utilized Witte's Transneptunians (assessed by him via precise observation and analysis) in astrological work are content to be no longer casually dismissed as "unscientific".
How exactly Witte made his Transneptunian discoveries is still somewhat mysterious. Historical Hamburg School documents recently obtained from Ruth Brummund indicate that Witte regularly studied the night sky with a telescope in his room, and that he worked with a sort of pre-computer-age calculating device. Witte, being a professional surveyor/engineer was quite capable at mathematics, yet at the same time, he was what many would describe as a genius; and like other geniuses and inventors, crossed the boundaries beyond establishment science into the realm of metaphysics in attempts to search for explanations for the realities he encountered.
These are the comments Alfred Witte wrote in 1924 and 1925 about the nature and visibility of the Transneptunians: "The outgoing emanations of the Sun have, at the distance of Neptune, such a low level of density that their vibratory rate reflects as a greenish-blue color. The greater the distance from the Sun, the finer and smaller these swirling emanations are, according to the law of capillarity (ed.: which, according to Witte, accounted for the correspondence between the color spectrum and planetary distance from the Sun). (Witte 1975, p 220). "Of the etheric rays which surround the Sun, the smallest particles radiate outward from the midpoint of our solar system so that, at the distance of Cupido the low-density mass corresponds with a light blue color. At the next step of the sequence these emanations should consist of even finer particles, and thus at the distance of Hades resemble an indigo blue color" (Witte 1975, p 220),
and "Though it is possible that the conjectured planet Cupido, in spite of the faintness of its reflected light, might be sighted with the telescope; one cannot count on sighting the following planet Hades with the telescope, since its indigo blue color is obscured by the color of the evening sky. The colors of the next two planets, Zeus and Kronos, reflect the vibratory rates of the colors violet-blue and lavender-grey to us on Earth. Only through photographic exposures made with plates which record ultraviolet rays would one be able to visibly verify these Transneptunian planets ascertained by mathematical calculations." (Witte 1975, p 222)
What Witte did not suspect is that today we have the technology to detect planetary bodies in these regions, and that at the dawn of the 21st century, information from the Transneptunian regions is being relayed to the Earth, bit by bit, which may confirm or clarify Witte's observations. Today's astronomical discoveries indicate that the Transneptunians are likely of increasingly gaseous and subtle composition as we move outward from our Sun. There are also indicators that the outermost Transneptunians are likely to reflect additional light from a neighboring solar system.
Friday, September 01, 2006
What Solar Arc directions are and how they work.
Solar arc is one of the best predictive techniques in astrology. Solar arc is defined as the difference between the position of the progressed Sun and natal Sun, one degree of solar arc being equal to one year of life.Solar arc directed planet makes an aspect, to a natal planet, some event is likely to occur, when there is a transit activating the point as well.
In ancient metaphysical texts we find references to the idea that a day is considered to equate symbolically with a year. The daily motion of the Sun is significant not only for indicating daily trends, but also for yearly trends, on the next level. In Winter, daylight lasts for a shorter period of time, and the Sun's apparent movement around the Earth is slightly more than the average 60 minutes of arc in a 24-hour period. Keeping in mind that the apparent daily motion of the Sun is taken to equate with one year of solar arc, the average monthly motion is determined by dividing 60 minutes of arc by 12; thus 60 ÷ 12 = 5. And this implies that in the average 30-day month, one minute of solar arc is equal to 6 days, since 30 ÷ 5 = 6.
Hello World...!!!...by astrostocktrader
I am a mixing between Uranian astrologer and Cosmobiologist, from what I have learned with these two systems. I have found my most usedful techniques, may it be a few mixed ideas that difference from the other traditions astrologers.Many astrologers, maybe most of them used the 360-degree chart and house systems. But for me, I am familiar with the 90-degree chart and used the technique so call …midpoint..it is the relationship between the planets which founded centuries ago by Alfred Witte, the founder of Uranian system, Hamburg School of Astrology.Reinhold Ebertin, the founder of Cosmobiology began his research about midpiont and the method of earlier Hamburg School. Later, Mr. Ebertin said that Cosmobiology does not recognize any house system. I think it’s a long tory to tell you here…In Uranian system, the transneptune planets which is Cupido, Hades, Zeus, Kronos, Apollon, Admetos, Vulcanus, and Poseidon are used…But I am not use the transneptune planets in my work, for what reason of my mixing method like I tell you on the first place. But I used the most famous method of the Uranian system call Solar Arc…as the core of my prediction.Cosmobiology determined the Sun and the Moon and the 8 planets(Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturm, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) and also the MC and ASC as well. Cosmobiology used the Koch system and the Midpoints of the above planets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
