NEWSLETTERfrom the Astrology Center of America AstroAmericacom

Email Daveastroamericacom

Copyright copy 2013 by David R Roell All rights reserved

August 20 2013

With art by Vera NOW WEEKLYNOW WEEKLY

for the week (all times GMT)A L M A N A C K

20 1818 iexcl Atilde pound21 0145 628rsaquo11 Full MoonVoid

0444 iexcl œ0715 brvbar Aring uml

22 1945 cent ETH sect2302 cent ndash

23 0139 iexcl Auml yen Void0713 iexcl lsquo2237 pound ndash

24 1000 curren Aring ordf2056 pound Acirc cent

25 0250 iexcl Iuml cent0652 cent ETH copy1002 iexcl Aring yen Void1314 iexcl rsquo1817 iexcl Auml cent1947 curren ETH uml2313 pound Atilde copy

26 0059 pound ETH sect1756 curren Atilde uml

Notes

ARCHIVE mdash SubscribeUnsubscribe

ASTROMEDMEDASTRO

A to Z

mdashfrom Encyclopaedia of PsychologicalAstrology by Charles Carter Buy

Extracted amp adapted from AstroAmericarsquosDaily Ephemeris 2000-2020 Buy

Support the Newsletter Become a Sponsor Donate or make a monthy contribution $1000 $2000 $5000 Click to help

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Vivian Robsonrsquos

S T A R O F T H E W E E KIIIII O

OO

OOO

OOO

OOO

OOO

continued pg 7

Vettius Valens Update

TWO or three years ago I promisedI would publish Mark Rileyrsquos excel-lent translation of the Anthologies

of Vettius Valens So what happened Whythe delay

The primary problem was that a book ofthat size some 600 pages with charts andcritical notes takes a great deal of time toprepare While I was in the process the mailorder book biz slumped to such an alarm-ing extent that I found it to be a better use ofmy time to reprint lesser books With ananticipated street price of $60 and withouta lot of sales time spent on Valens could bebetter spent elsewhere

While this is still true it seems as if Ishould get busy and finish the work as itwas very nearly done when I stopped I amfrankly fearful of my Saturn transits thiscoming December

In the interim I have learned a greatmany things about Valens and his book

First that Vettius Valens ldquoof AntiochrdquoRhetorius ldquoThe Egyptianrdquo Dorotheus ldquoofSidonrdquo and other such titles do not refer towhere these people lived but rather wherethey studied These were the ancient equiva-lents of hersquos a Yalie or Vivian Robson BScetc They tell us of his school they give ushis qualifications

Next until the practice died out a fewcenturies ago ancient books were custom-arily cursed that they not be stolen andpassed off as the work of others Thesecurses were two-fold On the one hand asimple ritual was performed on the finalmanuscript On the other the actual wordsof the curse were incorporated into the textsthemselves These were admonition to en-courage the reader in his studies and to cau-tion him to behave himself once the bookhad trained him The slick part is that incopying the book one would accidentallycopy and renew and strengthen the cursethus prolonging its life

William Lillyrsquos Christian Astrologywas cursed in this fashion which is whyfrom its first publication up to 1998 his

Vettius Valens Update

T Tonsils Trouble with these occurs mostoften when Taurus is on the 8th or 6thhouses or under Taurus or Scorpio ris-ing Mars in Taurus the Moon or Venusin Scorpio are almost sure indications oftrouble of this kind Scorpionic afflic-tions often cause nasal obstructions es-pecially when the mutable element isprominent in the horoscope and throat-trouble commonly results in this way

As in the case of adenoids 25O Tau-rus-Scorpio seems the main area oftroubleTravel (Love of) is a manifestation ofthe Jovian love of expansion in all formsNearly all persons with Jupiter or Sagit-tarius prominent have a desire to wanderabout and often to explore (although thisusually connotes an element of Scorpioas well)

In so far as curiosity and the desire tosee things is concerned we shall find theMoon and Cancer strong whilst Marsgives the love of adventure

REGULUS alpha Leonis 0 acirc 01Notes It was one of the four Royal Stars of the Persians in 3000 BCwhen as Watcher of the North it marked the summer solsticeInfluence According to Ptolemy it is of the nature of Mars and Jupiter butmost later authors liken it to Mars only It gives violence destructiveness military honoursof short duration with ultimate failure imprisonment violent death success high and loftyideals and strength of spirit and makes its natives magnanimous grandly liberal generousambitious fond of power desirous of command high-spirited and independentIf Rising Great honour and wealth but violence and trouble sickness fevers acutediseases benefits seldom last favour of the great victory over enemies and scandalIf Culminating Honour preferment good fortune high office under Government mili-tary success If with Sun honour and fortunemdash from Fixed Stars by Vivian Robson Buy

Copyright copy 2013 by David R Roell All rights reserved

Buy the book Meet the author Headlines graphics book titles amp authors are all clickable So click already Go places

IVYrsquoSGEMOFTHE

WEEKIvy M

G

old

stein

-Jacobso

n1893-1

990

H

continued pg 4

In Memoriam

JAMES HERSCHEL HOLDENOctober 221926 mdash August 14 2013

JAMES Holden who passed onWednesday was the long-time Re-search Director at the American Fed-

eration of Astrologers He was 86 years ofage

From information which he supplied inhis last published work The BiographicalDictionary of Western Astrologers JamesHolden was born on October 22 1926 at 400am in Texon Texas Which at the time wasa brand-new boom-town oil having been dis-covered there on May 23 1923 Whichmeans that Mr Holdenrsquos parents at the timewere wildcatters At its peak in 1933 Texonhad 1200 inhabitants It was never big

Like many young couples Albert and EnaHolden Jamesrsquos parents quickly got awayfrom small boom towns and settled in FortWorth where Holden grew up and where heattended Texas Christian University gradu-ating in 1953 with a Masters in English (histhesis was on William Lilly) and a secondBachelorrsquos in Mathematics in 1960

Holden reports he became interested inastronomy at age 11 and astrology the nextyear Which must have been an all-consum-ing passion to have made William Lilly histhesis project as a grad student

At some point in 1963 or later Holdencame under the influence of Gerhard AngelHouwing (1923-2009) who settled in Dal-las that year Houwing was an Argentinianof German descent a friend of Anthony Nel-son Page and Wendel Polich the developersof the Topocentric house system which likePlacidus which it closely resembles wasdesigned as an aid to Primary Directions

Houwing was influenced by the Austrianastrologer Capt Gustav Schwickert whowas himself an advocate of the astrology ofJean-Baptiste Morin or perhaps Schwickertand Houwing independently discoveredMorin At the time the mid-1940rsquos Morinrsquosgreat work the Astrologia Gallica existedin only as partial translations dating back tothe late 1890rsquos

Morinrsquos astrology differs from that ofPtolemy in that Morin perhaps for the firsttime fully integrated houses and rulershipsinto signs and planets While this appearssimilar to traditional horary astrology theactual details are entirely different I am de-liberately cutting off the discussion of ldquoacci-

dental rulershipsrdquo as Morinrsquos accomplish-ment staggering though it was was alwaysan inherent undeniable part of astrology asa whole It had waited patiently more than1600 years to be discovered I say this be-cause I myself largely reprised Morinrsquos workwithout having read nor studied him I havemet others who have unwittingly done muchthe same I take no credit whatever for myinsights and am happy to be counted amongMorinrsquos students even if technically speak-ing I am not Remember that Morin like mostastrologers made forecasts which I do not

In addition to James Holden amongHouwingrsquos other students was Patti TobinBrittain author of Planetary Powers theMorin Method one of the finest astrologybooks ever written I draw attention to thissmall circle of Dallas-Ft Worth astrologersof the 1960rsquos and lsquo70rsquos as they have single-handedly matured and revolutionized thestudy of this ancient science Using Morinrsquoslong-overlooked techniques we have at lastsynthesized plants and signs and houses bymeans of rulerships resulting in an astrol-ogy of astonishing strength suppleness de-tail and flexibility These techniques are soprecious that we must never lose them Theyare our very soul This history must be pre-served I only wish I did not have to second-guess secondary sources to piece it togetherJames Holden was an integral part of it

JAMES Holden had Pisces rising Wefind Jupiter the ruling planet hidingin Aquarius in the 12th Which is un-

fortunate as Pisces can be scattered and takea great long time to ldquocome togetherrdquo andachieve a focus When the ascendant ruleris itself hidden away in the 12th we have avirtual definition of a late bloomer as well asone who may well deny his importance alto-gether You look at James you see Piscesan agreeable simpleton You then see orrather sense Jupiter in the 12th behind thatand write him off as a nobody Which iftrue was a terrible fate

Chart ruler Jupiter is itself ruled by Sat-urn as Saturn rules Aquarius This takes usto the heart of Holdenrsquos chart the Mercury-Saturn conjunction in Scorpio on his 9th op-posed to the Moon-Mars conjunction in Tau-rus in the third Whenever you see this kindof polarity in a chart two planets in this

IT is widely believed by even the medi-cal profession that the exact moment ofconception cannot be ascertained either

before or after birth which is only half truewe astrologers find it easily after birth be-cause from the birth chart we take the Moonbackward to the Epoch chart that will auto-matically reveal by the Sunrsquos house positionthe approximate time of conception to becorrected for exactitude The Sun is the onlyindicator of Local Mean Time on this planetEarth for all events taking place here

In our example conception (epoch) chartopposite the Sun in the 7th House immedi-ately fixes the time as between the 400 amp600 pm cusps by LMT which the cusps al-ways designate It will be around 500 pmbecause the Sun sets earlier in winter so thatin January amp at this latitude the cusp is ear-lier by an hour thus the epoch will be around500 pm See Raphaelrsquos Ephemeris p 41 forthis information

The natal Moonrsquos position is the Ascen-dant in the conception (epoch) chart Find itin the Table of Houses under the birth lati-tude amp take its accompanying Midheaven ampcusps for the conception chart

Going backwards 9 lunar returns (notsolar months) regressed to January 21st 1938for the epoch chart Sun amp planets whichwe take unworked as at noon

The Sun uses even-hour cusps movingforward FROM the one he is nearest or TOthe one he is nearest if midway he uses thecusp he is moving forward TO amp the TIMEwill be according to LMTmdash Astrological Essays 1979 Buy

The Exact Timeof Conception

The Exact Timeof Conception

I

J

J

HST

UDEN

TrsquoS

COR

NERHH

STUD

ENTrsquo

S C

ORNE

RHH

STUD

ENTrsquo

S C

ORNE

RH Part 31

HSTUDENTrsquoS CORNERHwwwAstroAmericacomOrder toll-free 1-800-475-2272

Like what you read These are excerpts Get the complete books from

This is a serialization of Vivian RobsonrsquosA Studentrsquos Text-Book of Astrology

General Principlesof Judgment

mdash A Studentrsquos Text-Book of As-trology by Vivian Robson Buy

continuedmdash

General Principlesof JudgmentDo not get carried away by one position orover-emphasize hastily This is a very com-mon fault among astrologers and is partly dueto the rather dogmatic rules that have to belaid down It is impossible in any one bookto do more than give the influence exertedby a single position and no account can betaken of modifying factors In most casestherefore such statements of influenceshould be received cautiously and not beemphasized unless the rest of the map is inagreement To a certain extent the same re-marks apply to aphorisms a great number ofwhich will be found in the following pagesThese are extremely useful in judging detailsas they are positions that have been found tooccur in a number of maps all of which showthe same peculiarity Some caution is neededin dealing with them however and they mustnot be taken as hard amp fast rules that admitof no exceptions for the general nature ofthe map may be entirely contradictory inwhich case the aphorism would be muchmodified or even contradicted

The most difficult element of judgmentlies in estimating the degree of mental moralor spiritual development of the native whosemap is being studied No rules can be givenfor this for it is either beyond the horoscopeor we have not yet discovered the key andintuition is the only guide unless we know thenativersquos status in life Every planet amp sign actson all planes of existence and must be inter-preted accordingly Every planet is the centreof a radiating force which is absorbed by allthe beings in the universe in proportion to theircapacity and in accordance with their devel-opment or in other words the planetary forceflows through them along the line of least re-sistance

TAKING it for granted that the readerhas thoroughly tested the foregoingprinciples and has found them to be

true in substance and fact let us suppose thathe has money to invest His primary objectwill be to find a market in which he can buyat the lowest price with a fair degree of secu-rity an adequate interest and an opportunityof selling out at an advantage It is in thislatter operation that he may look for his great-est profits First of all he should enquirewhether the security is well founded andreadily dealt in on the open market This in-formation he can get from any broker or bankTo buy cheaply he must find a market whichresponds to the sign through which Saturnlast made transit Having taken up his stockhe will hold it until after Jupiter has madehis transit through the same sign He canthen sell at the highest price that is likely tobe touched during the space of 12 years

It is necessary that before buying stocksearch should be made on the following points

1 That no eclipses occur in the ruling signof the stock during the period for which in-vestment is proposed to be made

2 That no transit of Saturn Uranus orNeptune occurs in that sign during the pe-riod

3 That Jupiter will pass through the signduring the period

He will then buy and hold until after Jupi-ter has made his transit of the sign and sell atthe best price obtainable in the open marketThus he buys after the transit of Saturn andsells after the transit of Jupiter He thus buysat the lowest and sells at the highest taking hisdividends in the meantime So that whether aman is a buyer or seller of stock he has only tokeep his eye upon the major planets and theeclipses and thus secure the best results

Chapter VIHow to InvestChapter VI

How to Invest

T

mdash from Sepharial on Money a compila-tion of three books Buy

242 Venus behind the Sun in the zodiacstrong amp in good aspect with Jupiter indi-cates the wife will be the dominant partner

243 If the Part of Marriage in a manrsquosnativity falls in one of the obeying signs Li-bra Scorpio Sagittarius Capricorn Aquariusand Pisces and in his wifersquos nativity it falls inone of the commanding signs Aries TaurusGemini Cancer Leo and Virgo the wife willrule the husband (Hermes Centiloquy 61)

244 In a womanrsquos horoscope the ruler ofthe seventh house in the ascendant makes herdomineer over her husband and if the rulerof the ascendant is a superior planet amp therising sign is one of the commanding signsshe will be a thorough viragoSurviving Partner

245 The number of years of married lifeis indicated by the number of degrees be-tween the significator of the partner amp theconjunction or aspect of the malefic it nextmeets by direction

246 In cases of a single marriage whenthe Moon is conjoined to one planet onlythe strength of that planet indicates whichpartner will survive If the Moon is strongerthan the planet the wife will die first and ifthe planet is stronger than the Moon the na-tive will die first

247 If the ruler of the ascendant is stron-ger than the ruler of the seventh house thenative will survive his or her partner but ifthe ruler of the seventh house is stronger thepartner will survive

248 The native survives the partnerwhose significator is afflicted by the malefics

249 The native survives the partner whenthe marriage significators are cadent nearviolent fixed stars or in the 2nd house af-flicted by the ruler of the 2nd or 12thfrom Astrology amp Sex by Vivian RobsonBuy

Classified Rulesamp AphorismsClassified Rulesamp Aphorisms

Copyright copy 2013 by David R Roell All rights reserved

James Herschel HoldenOctober 22 1926400 pm CSTTexon TexasPlacidus housesMean node

house opposed by two planets in that houseyou have found the center of the chart oneway or another At worst if the four planetsare outer planets (say Jupiter through Pluto)one may say he lived in interesting times assuch a polarity will play out in warfare or acontest or an external conflict of some sort

When such an outer planet polarity fallsin 3 and 9 the result is often a refugee oneof many Which can be from religious causesWhen in 6 and 12 a victim of an epidemicIn 2 and 8 one who has led an heroic lifemuch despite himself When in 5 and 11part of an hedonistic crowd etc

When personal planets (Mercury VenusMars) enter into the polarized mix the resultare tools the individual can use for his ownpurposes for better or worse As our essen-tial natures are composed of the Sun Moonand ruler of the ascendant when these threeare elsewhere and a strong polarity is alsopresent the individual has a device whichhe can use for purposes of expressing hislunar solar or ascendant energies His abil-ity to do this will depend upon rulerships andaspects that link these two groups Is any ofthis in Morin can anyone tell me Or did Iinvent it myself

And finally when a powerful polarityincludes Sun andor Moon the individualidentifies with it When Sun and Moon areboth part the native is more powerful stillwhile the addition of the ruler of the ascen-dant can make it overwhelming as he canexpress the results with full force in theworld which may or may not be ready for it

As an example of Sun and Moon in apowerful polarity see Goethe and NewtonFor Sun-Moon and ascendant ruler thatrsquoswell me Holden had the Moon and thatrsquosenough

James Holdenrsquos 3-9 polarity was com-posed of planets that were hostile to eachother The opposition forced him to continu-ally change and adjust As the signs are fixedthis was done under a great deal of stressunder a great deal of pressure Holdenrsquos fix-ity meant he did not give up his ideas easilybut give them up and replace them with bet-ter ones he did and did constantly He hadno choice

The results over a lifetime can be sim-ply astounding Once oppositions have beenhammered into a final balance (the end prod-uct of all oppositions especially those infixed signs) the result will withstand loadsthat are infinite And this by definition sincethe stress of oppositions between hostile plan-ets has long since smashed all lesser solu-tions to pieces You may not think such a

person is right and I may not think hersquos rightbut my heavens his results will be stagger-ing in their own right and likely impossibleto deny

ON the mundane side of the chartthe third house we find HoldenrsquosMoon and Mars both in Taurus

The Moon in an earth sign is a bit slowwhereas Mars in Taurus is a blunt force Marsin Taurus goes for the obvious it goes forthe frontal attack It lacks subtlety it lacksfinesse as it is debilitated

The Moon in the 3rd learns by instinctIt does not study it does not memorize itdoes not do rote work The result is an eager(Mars) persistent (Taurus) scholar (3rd)

While the Moon in the 3rd will make onemove about Taurus is perhaps the slowestmoving of all the signs while Mars in Tau-rus is too concerned with the here and nowto think of going anywhere else So it seemsthat Mr Holden stayed put in Ft Worth atleast until retirement when it seems hemoved to Tempe to be near his beloved AFAWhich brings us to the other side of things

Opposite Holdenrsquos Mars-Moon conjunc-tion we find Mercury and Saturn in Scorpioin the 9th Mercury and Saturn in Scorpioare intense and unyielding in their probingcuriosity They will leave no stone unexam-ined and may well overwhelm the generallyabstract world of 9th house philosophy

But here James ran into a host of prob-lems For one thing the Moon even in Tau-rus was a lot faster and a lot sharper than

Mercury could ever be in Scorpio The twoplanets opposed the Moon called Mercurystupid as Mercury was stupid I say thiswithout fear of offending the memory of MrHolden as I have Moon and Mercury op-posed and I know exactly how they makeme stupid and always will I myself revel inmy own dumbness my wonderful ability tomiss the bleeding obvious until some thirdparty points it out to me

Mercury is still further addled as in the9th house he is far out of his element A 9thhouse Mercury tends to ignore the detailspresuming them to be unimportant He isaided in this delusion by the Moon itself ashe may rely upon the Moon to bring thosedetails to his attention should need ariseWhich makes him lazy which is often thenet result of fixed signs by the way Cardi-nals may be relied upon to rush off to thenext thing while mutables are generally con-fused

For his part Saturn gets the worse fromMars which rules it While Mars may bedebilitated in Taurus it knows exactly whatto do with Saturn in Scorpio and as the twoplanets Mars and Saturn hate hate hate eachother (Mars and Saturn always hate eachother this is not special to Mr Holden) theiropposition is quite frankly a life or deathstruggle with Mars the ruler of Saturn theinvariable winner

The Moon-Saturn opposition made hima loner with few friends while the Mars-Mercury opposition is argumentative While

O

READ MY BOOKS

Skeet Shooting forAstrologers the firstbook of essays 2007-2010 Oral vs writ-ten Dancing lessonsmore $2495Buy from meBuy from Amazon

Duels At Dawn thesecond book of es-says 2010-11 Timetwins RepublicansThe royals more$2495Buy from meBuy from Amazon

The Triple WitchingHour the third bookof essays 2011-12Astrology under ourfeet Science Lud-wig more $2495Buy from meBuy from Amazon

USE MY EPHEMERISAstroAmericarsquosDaily Ephem-eris 2000-20also for 2010-20Daily positionsincluding decli-nations full as-pectarian Mid-nightBuy from meBuy fromAmazon

At Amazon these books are now searchableoppositions always tend to see both sides ofanything when Mars and Mercury are op-posed there can be debate and argumentmerely for the sake of it

These four planets Moon-Mars Mer-cury-Saturn polarized across the 3rd and 9thhouses resulted in extreme mental (Mercury)and emotional (Moon) instability which isto say a great and powerful and dynamicmind Which was true To understand howdynamic this is a parallel I once heard thatmilitary fighter aircraft are among the leaststable of all planes These craft must be ex-tremely nimble and maneuverable and henceunstable while aloft Up until the advent ofon-board computers the best fighters wereall but unflyable for this reason (And woebetide the modern pilot who loses his on-board computers) So I would hesitate tocross swords with a mind of Holdenrsquos sort Iexpect I would quickly have my head handedto me

Nowhere in his biography can I see train-ing in languages Holden was fluent in atleast Latin Greek and French and whilesome smattering of Latin might still havebeen taught in Texas public schools in the1930rsquos I doubt it would lead to mastery inthe language I have never heard of Greekbeing taught in American public schools notin the 20th century at any rate It was mostlikely Holden who taught himself I doubthe stopped with those three

HOLDENrsquos Sun we find in Librain the 8th Sun in the 8th gives anatural curiosity for the secrets of

the world for the hidden facets of life anddeath itself You stare into that for awhileand mere academic subjects will not frightenyou With Venus nearby and also in LibraHolden never had a fear of death

With Sun and Moon both in signs ruledby Venus with Venus itself in Libra a sign itrules with Venus as co-ruler of his Piscesascendant Venus becomes his final disposi-tor the single planet that rules over all theothers This made him pleasant and agree-able and charming in every respect It kepthis titanic 3rd and 9th house polarities undercontrol

James Herschel Holden it turns out wasa most delightful man He was for manyyears employed by Southwestern Bell Tele-phone Which as it turns out was my fatherrsquosemployer in Kansas I know them well Ireally do not know how many ancient textsMr Holden translated As a strongly cadenthouse person with his chart ruler in the 12thhis translations were all done for his ownamusement and for many years were circu-

lated privately We will likely see one or morepublished posthumously If so we have moreof Mr Holden to look forward to

We very likely have Bob Cooper Execu-tive Secretary of the AFA from 1970 to 2007for discovering and promoting James HoldenCooper has for many years been faulted fora heavy-handed management style but hewas responsible for moving the AFA fromWashington to Tempe AZ He was respon-sible for greatly expanding the number ofbooks published by the AFA as well asstrengthening the AFArsquos underlying member-ship In so many ways the AFA is by far thebest and strongest of all the various astro-logical organizations Bob Cooper is not re-sponsible for all of it but he should get muchmore credit than he does As a PS I wouldhave linked to sites where you could learnmore of Mr Houwing and Mr Cooper butaside from Holdenrsquos own biographical dic-tionary biographies of these men simply donot exist The AFA has long been skillfullyled

While Robert Zoller Robert Hand andRobert Schmidt are credited with the currentastrological revival (Hindsight ArhatGolden Hinde etc) it was Holden not thethree Bobs who has sustained that revivalIt was James Holden who had a ready-madeset of translations which the AFA couldquickly and easily put into print Not onlywas the AFA Holdenrsquos ideal publisher thanksto Cooper and his hard work the AFA wasalso an established wholesaler and distribu-tor of the books it printed It could movecopies in other words I envy them Therewould not have been a revival without bothHolden and the AFA That they were well-positioned is almost miraculous

By comparison the translations thatZoller and Hand made for Hindsight weresuppressed after only a few years and havenow been lost for all practical purposesSchmidtrsquos own translations which I have al-ways considered poor are available onlyfrom him and are rarely seen As the yearshave progressed there are now others whohave joined in among them BenjaminDykes and myself as publisher

Holdenrsquos translations are not only sturdythey are available in attractive and inexpen-sive editions It was James Holden the shyretiring cadent mouse-who-roared who formany years led an astrological revival whichmay if we are lucky finally revive the studyof astrology as a whole

Which finally makes for a successful andastonishing life His loss is great his shoesimpossible to fill Looking back on his life

H

READ MY BOOKS

Skeet Shooting forAstrologers the firstbook of essays 2007-2010 Oral vs writ-ten Dancing lessonsmore $2495Buy from meBuy from Amazon

Duels At Dawn thesecond book of es-says 2010-11 Timetwins RepublicansThe royals more$2495Buy from meBuy from Amazon

The Triple WitchingHour the third bookof essays 2011-12Astrology under ourfeet Science Lud-wig more $2495Buy from meBuy from Amazon

USE MY EPHEMERISAstroAmericarsquosDaily Ephem-eris 2000-20also for 2010-20Daily positionsincluding decli-nations full as-pectarian Mid-nightBuy from meBuy fromAmazon

At Amazon these books are now searchableoppositions always tend to see both sides ofanything when Mars and Mercury are op-posed there can be debate and argumentmerely for the sake of it

These four planets Moon-Mars Mer-cury-Saturn polarized across the 3rd and 9thhouses resulted in extreme mental (Mercury)and emotional (Moon) instability which isto say a great and powerful and dynamicmind Which was true To understand howdynamic this is a parallel I once heard thatmilitary fighter aircraft are among the leaststable of all planes These craft must be ex-tremely nimble and maneuverable and henceunstable while aloft Up until the advent ofon-board computers the best fighters wereall but unflyable for this reason (And woebetide the modern pilot who loses his on-board computers) So I would hesitate tocross swords with a mind of Holdenrsquos sort Iexpect I would quickly have my head handedto me

Nowhere in his biography can I see train-ing in languages Holden was fluent in atleast Latin Greek and French and whilesome smattering of Latin might still havebeen taught in Texas public schools in the1930rsquos I doubt it would lead to mastery inthe language I have never heard of Greekbeing taught in American public schools notin the 20th century at any rate It was mostlikely Holden who taught himself I doubthe stopped with those three

HOLDENrsquos Sun we find in Librain the 8th Sun in the 8th gives anatural curiosity for the secrets of

the world for the hidden facets of life anddeath itself You stare into that for awhileand mere academic subjects will not frightenyou With Venus nearby and also in LibraHolden never had a fear of death

With Sun and Moon both in signs ruledby Venus with Venus itself in Libra a sign itrules with Venus as co-ruler of his Piscesascendant Venus becomes his final disposi-tor the single planet that rules over all theothers This made him pleasant and agree-able and charming in every respect It kepthis titanic 3rd and 9th house polarities undercontrol

James Herschel Holden it turns out wasa most delightful man He was for manyyears employed by Southwestern Bell Tele-phone Which as it turns out was my fatherrsquosemployer in Kansas I know them well Ireally do not know how many ancient textsMr Holden translated As a strongly cadenthouse person with his chart ruler in the 12thhis translations were all done for his ownamusement and for many years were circu-

lated privately We will likely see one or morepublished posthumously If so we have moreof Mr Holden to look forward to

We very likely have Bob Cooper Execu-tive Secretary of the AFA from 1970 to 2007for discovering and promoting James HoldenCooper has for many years been faulted fora heavy-handed management style but hewas responsible for moving the AFA fromWashington to Tempe AZ He was respon-sible for greatly expanding the number ofbooks published by the AFA as well asstrengthening the AFArsquos underlying member-ship In so many ways the AFA is by far thebest and strongest of all the various astro-logical organizations Bob Cooper is not re-sponsible for all of it but he should get muchmore credit than he does As a PS I wouldhave linked to sites where you could learnmore of Mr Houwing and Mr Cooper butaside from Holdenrsquos own biographical dic-tionary biographies of these men simply donot exist The AFA has long been skillfullyled

While Robert Zoller Robert Hand andRobert Schmidt are credited with the currentastrological revival (Hindsight ArhatGolden Hinde etc) it was Holden not thethree Bobs who has sustained that revivalIt was James Holden who had a ready-madeset of translations which the AFA couldquickly and easily put into print Not onlywas the AFA Holdenrsquos ideal publisher thanksto Cooper and his hard work the AFA wasalso an established wholesaler and distribu-tor of the books it printed It could movecopies in other words I envy them Therewould not have been a revival without bothHolden and the AFA That they were well-positioned is almost miraculous

By comparison the translations thatZoller and Hand made for Hindsight weresuppressed after only a few years and havenow been lost for all practical purposesSchmidtrsquos own translations which I have al-ways considered poor are available onlyfrom him and are rarely seen As the yearshave progressed there are now others whohave joined in among them BenjaminDykes and myself as publisher

Holdenrsquos translations are not only sturdythey are available in attractive and inexpen-sive editions It was James Holden the shyretiring cadent mouse-who-roared who formany years led an astrological revival whichmay if we are lucky finally revive the studyof astrology as a whole

Which finally makes for a successful andastonishing life His loss is great his shoesimpossible to fill Looking back on his life

H

Copyright copy 2013 by David R Roell All rights reserved

and work as he must now be James Holden can justifiably beproud of his many accomplishments

Here are his books All are in stockAs author

Biographical Dictionary of Western AstrologersHistory of Horoscopic Astrology from the Babylonian Period

to the Modern AgeAstrological Pioneers of America with Robert A Hughes

As translatorPaul of Alexandria - Introduction to AstrologyAbu lsquoAli Al-Khayyat - Judgments of NativitiesBrahy Gustav-Lambert - Confidential Recollections RevealedFirmicus Maternus Julius - MatheseosFive Medieval Astrologers Albumasar Pseudo-Ptolemy Her-

mes Trismegistus Bethen (probably Ibn Ezra) AlmansorMasharsquoallah - Six Astrological TreatisesJean Baptiste Morin Astrologia Gallica Books 13 14 15 amp 19mdashAstrologia Gallica Book 16 The Rays And Aspects of the

PlanetsmdashAstrologia Gallica Book 17 The Astrological HousesmdashAstrologia Gallica book 22 DirectionsmdashAstrologia Gallica Book 23 RevolutionsmdashAstrologia Gallica Book 24 Progressions amp TransitsmdashAstrologia Gallica Book 25 Constitutions of the CaelummdashAstrologia Gallica Book 26 Astrological Interrogations amp

ElectionsPorphyry - Introduction to the Tetrabiblos and Serapio of Al-

exandria - Astrological DefinitionsRhetorius the Egyptian - Astrological Compendium Contain-

ing his explanation amp narration of the whole art of astrol-ogy

In addition at AstroAmericacom you will find James Holdenrsquostranslations of Morinrsquos books here His own books as well as hisother translations can be found here

NEWSLETTERfrom the Astrology Center of America AstroAmericacom

Email Daveastroamericacom

Copyright copy 2013 by David R Roell All rights reserved

book was rare and generally mangled I haveheard from the publisher of the Regulus fac-simile of his great struggle to print his edi-tion of 1985 while the Wiggers edition is sofull of errors as to be completely useless andthis despite her tremendous efforts I myselfremoved this curse which is the only reasonwhy my edition has survived

The curse Valens put on his Anthologiesis extensive as you can find it scattered al-most everywhere It has worn away with timeand neglect but it is still the underlying rea-son why Prof Riley was unable to get histranslation published I would remove it asI removed Lillyrsquos but I have been fatiguedI need the assistance of a female psychic whocan view the curse once I bring it into viewand who can assist in its removal The pro-cess takes only a minute or two and can bedone over the phone If that sounds like youthe world will be eternally grateful

Since I set the book aside two years agoI have been able to work out set of tables forthe first clime from the back of Book VIIIdeally there should be fully worked outtables for each of the seven climes eventhough these longevity tables are probablyof little real use In calculation I was assistedby a brief look at Neugebauer and VanHoesenrsquos Greek Horoscopes of 1959 wherethis is explained

There is however one feature of thetables which Riley quotes in his introductorynotes which is not part of the calculationsHe tells me he is unable to explain it Rileytells me he copied the fragment from an earlysource which had a complete set of tablesWhy did he not copy the complete set oftables Because academics are not workingastrologers They want a good clear textAs they have no interest in actually using itthey of course will not bother with tables perse I think they are surprised we need them

Fuss with climes (latitude) and chartsincluding the death charts in Book 2 initiallyled me to believe Valens lived and worked inthe Crimea as that was the simplest expla-nation for all the various loose ends includ-ing the chart for the infant who died at sixmonths and who was set specifically inclime 6 By definition this had to be Valensrsquoown child or that of one of his friends whichas clime 6 in the early narrow Mediterra-nean system was that of Rome and as Valenswas not known there meant that Valens hadgiven his climes in the expanded Ptolemaicsystem that covered the entire planet

This was because I presumed that Valenslike modern astrologers drew his charts from

VETTIUS VALENS his clients who would be local to himAt some point I realized I was wrong and

that Valens like many later Medieval astrolo-gers was actually giving us the charts of thefamous and powerful Valens merely forgotto name them for us The birth and deathcharts for Nero are among those in the book

Which means the infant in question couldwell have been the child of an emperor Oneof Book IIrsquos death charts is mangled as afew chart are in that the exact combinationof planets Valens gives was unknown in hisday If only one planet is out of place theresult is a chart on a particular day and time

If two planets are wrong we could wellhave the Crucifixion itself Of this lucklessindividual Valens says thrown to the lionsAs the early Church was just coming intoprominence in Valensrsquo day he may well haveincluded early Church leaders their birth ordeath charts

Regrettably this means we no longerhave any idea where Valens himself may havelived It is unlikely he lived in Egypt as heis scornful of Egyptians and their ways Fromvarious descriptions in the Books he mostlikely lived in a major port city Of whichthere were many Just not in Rome itself

HELLENISTS have so far glossedover early chart calculations whichI think is a mistake Valens gives

explicit instructions for determining plan-etary placements These are by means ofcounts The starting point in every case isthe end of an Emperorrsquos reign At first I tookValens literally that a count would begin onthe day Augustus died as several do

I was corrected by James Holden that thenext Emperorrsquos official reign began on the firstday of the next year which we know as the28th or 29th of August Which made a lot moresense Setting charts for these starting datesreveals the underlying error in Valensrsquo counts

Valensrsquo many charts had previously beengiven in wheel format by Neugebauer andVan Hoesen in Greek Horoscopes but evenin 1959 they themselves used counts to ob-tain their charts which therefore containsome of the same sort of errors as Valensrsquooriginals had some 1800 years earlier Allpraise to computers

Which brought up the next problem thatValens had no way of obtaining natal ascen-dants He makes this clear by giving us sixor seven different methods for its calculationI tried each of them on my own chart Forthe most part these gave only a sign not adegree Not one method got the sign rightthough several of them were off by only onesign Since Valens in fact gives ascendants

for every one of his charts this may doomall his charts to being approximations

On the other hand Valens gives but onemethod for finding the midheaven Takingthe best of his guesses of my ascendant andusing his instructions I was pleased to dis-cover the Valens MC was off by only 2 de-grees from what a computer would give forthe same combination of clime and ascen-dant That was quite good

In the Anthologies Valens often speaksof the solar and lunar gnomons which is theupright shadow casting part of a sundialEarly on I realized that an obelisk wouldfunction as a sundial and should there bemarks on the ground and should one have asimple set of daily tables one could read theascendant directly from the shadow itself

Which means that sundials can simulta-neously give both time as well as ascendantswhich is most useful But just as Valens doesnot give names for his chart he does not givethis simple and obvious formula Perhapsbecause he presumed it would be understoodand used if at all possible

The lunar gnomon which is presumablythe shadow cast by the Moon at nightpuzzled me until a few days ago I suddenlyrealized that if one had a calendar mdash whicheveryone in fact had mdash and knew the num-ber of days since the last new Moon mdash whichmost people would then another simple setof standard tables would give the daily timesof moonrise and moonset With these as wellas a certain fudge factor (the Moon moves12 degrees in a day the Sun only one) onecould know the time at night from theshadow cast by the moon Like as not ifthere were lines on the ground in front of theobelisk for the Sun there were likely to be aparallel set for the Moon at night Why dowe not know of these lines They have prob-ably all worn away

Elsewhere it was pointed out to me thatpairs of antiscia which are based on the Can-cer-Capricorn axis are actually cast shadowsof equal length from the winter solstice (Cap-ricorn) to the summer solstice (Cancer) andthen back again If the antiscia are the samethe shadows cast on those days (where anti-scia equals days of the year) are the same

By these means I have gradually come torealize that much of Valens is based on simpleobservation

Finally rather than saddle the world witha huge expensive book I have been inspiredto publish the Anthologies in three volumesat prices of $25 or $30 each I just have toget back to it

H