So I went and changed my mind. I was going to kick off the Zodiacal Work with Aries this week, but since next Monday I'll be posting the text of my Introduction to Enochian Magick talk, I decided that I would post Aries the week after that so I can post all of the zodiacal work in an unbroken 12-week series.
If you are disappointed that Aries isn't up today, though, you can go ahead and take a look at my Angels of the Zodiac presentation from last August. I use Aries as my example, so the Aries post is going to look a whole lot like what I have outlined there, including the sigil on the Kamea and the selection from Liber 963.
Instead, I decided to go ahead and post the Chart Victor calculation, because I have found that knowing your Chart Victor is important when performing any sort of zodiacal operation. In Arabic, the Chart Victor is called Al-Mubtazz which means "the victor" or "the winner." This gets corrupted into English as "almuten," which is what most commercial astrology programs that perform the calculation call it. In simplest terms, for every given chart there is generally one planet that is stronger than all the others. That planet is the Chart Victor.
I originally learned how to perform this calculation from Benjamin Dykes, who found it in among the works of Abraham ibn Ezra. Dykes' book, The Search of the Heart, goes into great detail regarding the application of the method and includes never-before-translated astrological material from the Twelfth Century. This article will cover the calculation and briefly discuss its basic application for zodiacal operations, but if you want to know more I highly recommended picking up a copy of the book for yourself.
The magical application of this method for zodiacal operations has to do with the dignities or debilities acquired by the Chart Victor when it is in the sign with which you are working. Ideally, you want to perform a zodiacal operation for a particular sign when the Chart Victor is the ruler of the sign, or exalted in it. Rulership is the most favorable dignity, followed by Exaltation. You should always avoid performing an operation for a particular sign when the Chart Victor is debilitated in the sign by Detriment or Fall.
The condition of the Chart Victor should be examined along with the application of simple electional timing. That is, you should not perform operations on a void-of-course Moon or when the Moon's final aspect is a square or opposition. If that doesn't make sense, go ahead and review the electional timing article before proceeding further into this one.
To calculate the Chart Victor, you will also need either an ephemeris or some sort of astrology software to generate the chart. I usually just use Astrolog, a freeware astrology program available for most platforms. The website is extremely dated, but the program has been around a long time and does everything you need it to do. You start with a calculation grid, which looks like this:
Next, you cast the chart. I will be casting this one for today, Monday January 9th, 2017, here in Minneapolis, Minnesota at 7:00 AM. Running it in Astrolog, you get the chart show below. You can click to enlarge.
Make a note of the degree of the Lot of Fortune (Fort), which for this chart is 15 Leo. Then, go up to the menu, click Setting, and uncheck Include Minors. That gives you the chart shown below. Again, you can click to enlarge. Aside from the Part of Fortune, we are only concerned with the seven ancient planets shown on the grid and the Ascendant.
The Degree of the Sun is 19 Capricorn. The Degree of the Moon is 9 Gemini. The Degree of Ascendant ("1st House") is 5 Capricorn. We already made a note of the Degree of Lot of Fortune, which is 15 Leo. The Prenatal Lunation is the most difficult of these points to figure out. The Degree of Prenatal Lunation is the degree of the most recent Full or New Moon. Astrolog has a feature that lets you progress the chart backwards that I usually use to figure this out. For this chart, it was a New Moon, with a degree of 7 Capricorn. You don't need to worry about minutes, just degrees.
The planetary day is the day of the week, with the day beginning at sunrise, not midnight. Today is a Monday, but it's before sunrise, so the ruler of the day is the Sun, not the Moon. Magically, until the Sun rises, it is still Sunday.
To calculate the plneatry hour, divide the time between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal parts to get the hours of the day, and the time between sunset and sunrise into twelve equal parts to get the hours of the night. Days begin at sunrise. The first hour of the day is attributed to the planet ruling the day, and the subsequent hours are assigned according to the Chaldean Order.
Saturn --> Jupiter --> Mars --> Sun --> Venus --> Mercury --> Moon
Following the hour of the Moon, the order starts over again with Saturn. While it seems complicated as first, once you do it a bunch, you'll find that it actually is pretty easy. At this point I can almost do it in my head. There are also a number of software programs that you can download to do the calculation for you, and even some websites that will tell you the hours.
Looking at ChronosXP, my planetary hours program, I can see that at 7:00 this morning we are in the hour of Mercury. So this lets you fill in the first column of the grid, like so:
Now we can begin assigning points to the seven ancient planets. To get the Chart Victor, we go though this process a number of times, ascribing points to each planet based on the values that we just determined. First off, we assign 7 points to the Ruler of the Day and 6 points to the Ruler of the Hour. Then, for each of the listed positions, we assign 5 points to the ruling planet, and 4 to the exalted planet for that sign. This is determined by referencing this table:
This is also the table that you use to determine the condition of the Chart Victor in the context of your operation. For example, if you are doing an Aries working, you would not want your Chart Victor to be Venus or Saturn because those two planets are debilitated by detriment and fall, respectively, in Aries.
So as an example, for the first line, Degree of Sun, you allocate 5 points to Saturn, the sign ruler, and 4 points to Mars, the exalted planet. You repeat for the other sets of degrees, yielding this:
Next you look at the Triplicity Lords, which are derived from the sign's element and whether the Sun is above (day) or below (night) the horizon in the chart. Since our example is before sunrise, the chart is considered nocturnal. For each of the sets of degrees, you allocate three points to the planet that is the appropriate Triplicity Lord. This is derived from the following table:
This lets us fill in points for the Triplicity Lords, yielding the grid shown below. Remember that more than one number can be placed in a given square, and when the final calculation is made, those numbers are added together.
For example, Capricorn in the first line is an Earth sign, and this is a nocturnal chart, so for that line the 3 points are given to the Moon.
Next are the Egyptian Bounds, which are derived based on the degree of each sign. For each line, 2 points are awarded to the Bound Lord, according to the following table.
For example, for our first line, the Degree of Sun is 19 Capricorn. Looking across the Capricorn line, we see that 19 falls between 14 and 22, making Venus the Bound Lord. Filling in 2 points each for the Bound Lords yields the following:
Next are the Decan Lords, derived again from the degree of the sign. 0-9 is First Decan, 10-19 is Second Decan, and 20-29 is Third Decan. The Decan Lords each get 1 point, and are derived from the following table:
For example, for the first line, 19 Capricorn is Second Decan. So Mars is the Bound Lord. Filling the rest in yields the following:
Next, we need to allocate points to the planets based on house position. This requires a bit of explanation. In Medieval astrology, whole sign equal houses are used. That is, with the Ascendant in Capricorn, all of Capricorn counts as First House, all of Aquarius counts as Second House, all of Pisces counts as Third House, and so forth. At the time this system was developed, house systems such as Placidus were not used. Rather, the sign boundaries also counted as house boundaries.
Points are allocated to each planet according to its house in the chart as follows:
This yields the following when applied to the grid:
Now we're almost done. The last step is check the positions of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in the chart.
If one of those planets rises between 15 and 60 degrees ahead of the Sun, that planet is given 3 points. Looking at the chart, Saturn rises about 30 degrees ahead of the Sun, so it gets 3 points. If one of those planets rises between 60 and 90 degrees ahead of the Sun, that planet is given 2 points. Looking at the chart, Jupiter rises a little less than 90 degrees ahead of the Sun, so it gets 2 points. If one of those planets rises between 90 degrees ahead of the Sun and the first retrograde station, it is given 1 point. In this chart Mars rises after the Sun, so it does not receive any points.
Filling in the Superiors line with these values and adding all the columns up yields the following:
So the Chart Victors are Jupiter and the Sun. This is actually fairly rare, that two planets will come out exactly the same. But if that is the case, either may be treated as the Victor. Not all commercial astrology programs implement the Superiors rule, so if you are using one of those programs to calculate an almuten, many of them would come up with the Sun.
The best astrological operations you could do with a Jupiter Chart Victor would be for Sagittarius, Pisces, and Cancer. The worst would be Gemini, Virgo, and Capricorn. With a Sun Chart Victor, the best operations would be Leo and Aries, and the worst would be Aquarius and Libra. Having two possible Victors gives you some flexibility, so with this chart the signs come out as shown here.
Perform these: Aries, Cancer, Leo, Sagittarius, Pisces.
Find a better time, if possible: Taurus, Scorpio.
Don't perform these: Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Capricorn, Aquarius.
Now I know on reading through this the first time, you probably are thinking that this is way too complex to use for everyday magical operations. But actually sit down and try doing one. I can run through filling everything out and adding up the columns in about 15-20 minutes, and knowing how to do it has added a surprising amount of depth to my zodiacal operations. So if you just dive into it, rather than deciding that it's just too complicated, I can assure you that it gets easier to do faster than you expect.
If you are disappointed that Aries isn't up today, though, you can go ahead and take a look at my Angels of the Zodiac presentation from last August. I use Aries as my example, so the Aries post is going to look a whole lot like what I have outlined there, including the sigil on the Kamea and the selection from Liber 963.
Instead, I decided to go ahead and post the Chart Victor calculation, because I have found that knowing your Chart Victor is important when performing any sort of zodiacal operation. In Arabic, the Chart Victor is called Al-Mubtazz which means "the victor" or "the winner." This gets corrupted into English as "almuten," which is what most commercial astrology programs that perform the calculation call it. In simplest terms, for every given chart there is generally one planet that is stronger than all the others. That planet is the Chart Victor.
I originally learned how to perform this calculation from Benjamin Dykes, who found it in among the works of Abraham ibn Ezra. Dykes' book, The Search of the Heart, goes into great detail regarding the application of the method and includes never-before-translated astrological material from the Twelfth Century. This article will cover the calculation and briefly discuss its basic application for zodiacal operations, but if you want to know more I highly recommended picking up a copy of the book for yourself.
The magical application of this method for zodiacal operations has to do with the dignities or debilities acquired by the Chart Victor when it is in the sign with which you are working. Ideally, you want to perform a zodiacal operation for a particular sign when the Chart Victor is the ruler of the sign, or exalted in it. Rulership is the most favorable dignity, followed by Exaltation. You should always avoid performing an operation for a particular sign when the Chart Victor is debilitated in the sign by Detriment or Fall.
The condition of the Chart Victor should be examined along with the application of simple electional timing. That is, you should not perform operations on a void-of-course Moon or when the Moon's final aspect is a square or opposition. If that doesn't make sense, go ahead and review the electional timing article before proceeding further into this one.
To calculate the Chart Victor, you will also need either an ephemeris or some sort of astrology software to generate the chart. I usually just use Astrolog, a freeware astrology program available for most platforms. The website is extremely dated, but the program has been around a long time and does everything you need it to do. You start with a calculation grid, which looks like this:
| Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | |
| Degree of Sun | |||||||
| Degree of Moon | |||||||
| Degree of Ascendant | |||||||
| Degree of Lot of Fortune | |||||||
| Degree of Prenatal Lunation | |||||||
| Ruler of the Day | |||||||
| Ruler of the Hour | |||||||
| Houses | |||||||
| Superiors | |||||||
Next, you cast the chart. I will be casting this one for today, Monday January 9th, 2017, here in Minneapolis, Minnesota at 7:00 AM. Running it in Astrolog, you get the chart show below. You can click to enlarge.
Make a note of the degree of the Lot of Fortune (Fort), which for this chart is 15 Leo. Then, go up to the menu, click Setting, and uncheck Include Minors. That gives you the chart shown below. Again, you can click to enlarge. Aside from the Part of Fortune, we are only concerned with the seven ancient planets shown on the grid and the Ascendant.
The Degree of the Sun is 19 Capricorn. The Degree of the Moon is 9 Gemini. The Degree of Ascendant ("1st House") is 5 Capricorn. We already made a note of the Degree of Lot of Fortune, which is 15 Leo. The Prenatal Lunation is the most difficult of these points to figure out. The Degree of Prenatal Lunation is the degree of the most recent Full or New Moon. Astrolog has a feature that lets you progress the chart backwards that I usually use to figure this out. For this chart, it was a New Moon, with a degree of 7 Capricorn. You don't need to worry about minutes, just degrees.
The planetary day is the day of the week, with the day beginning at sunrise, not midnight. Today is a Monday, but it's before sunrise, so the ruler of the day is the Sun, not the Moon. Magically, until the Sun rises, it is still Sunday.
To calculate the plneatry hour, divide the time between sunrise and sunset into twelve equal parts to get the hours of the day, and the time between sunset and sunrise into twelve equal parts to get the hours of the night. Days begin at sunrise. The first hour of the day is attributed to the planet ruling the day, and the subsequent hours are assigned according to the Chaldean Order.
Saturn --> Jupiter --> Mars --> Sun --> Venus --> Mercury --> Moon
Following the hour of the Moon, the order starts over again with Saturn. While it seems complicated as first, once you do it a bunch, you'll find that it actually is pretty easy. At this point I can almost do it in my head. There are also a number of software programs that you can download to do the calculation for you, and even some websites that will tell you the hours.
Looking at ChronosXP, my planetary hours program, I can see that at 7:00 this morning we are in the hour of Mercury. So this lets you fill in the first column of the grid, like so:
| Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | |
| Degree of Sun 19 Capricorn | |||||||
| Degree of Moon 9 Gemini | |||||||
| Degree of Ascendant 5 Capricorn | |||||||
| Degree of Lot of Fortune 15 Leo | |||||||
| Degree of Prenatal Lunation 7 Capricorn | |||||||
| Ruler of the Day Sun | |||||||
| Ruler of the Hour Mercury | |||||||
| Houses | |||||||
| Superiors | |||||||
Now we can begin assigning points to the seven ancient planets. To get the Chart Victor, we go though this process a number of times, ascribing points to each planet based on the values that we just determined. First off, we assign 7 points to the Ruler of the Day and 6 points to the Ruler of the Hour. Then, for each of the listed positions, we assign 5 points to the ruling planet, and 4 to the exalted planet for that sign. This is determined by referencing this table:
| Sign | Rulership | Exaltation | Detriment | Fall |
| Aries | Mars | Sun | Venus | Saturn |
| Taurus | Venus | Moon | Mars | -- |
| Gemini | Mercury | -- | Jupiter | -- |
| Cancer | Moon | Jupiter | Saturn | Mars |
| Leo | Sun | -- | Saturn | -- |
| Virgo | Mercury | Mercury | Jupiter | Venus |
| Libra | Venus | Saturn | Mars | Sun |
| Scorpio | Mars | -- | Venus | -- |
| Sagittarius | Jupiter | -- | Mercury | -- |
| Capricorn | Saturn | Mars | Moon | Jupiter |
| Aquarius | Saturn | -- | Sun | -- |
| Pisces | Jupiter | Venus | Mercury | Mercury |
This is also the table that you use to determine the condition of the Chart Victor in the context of your operation. For example, if you are doing an Aries working, you would not want your Chart Victor to be Venus or Saturn because those two planets are debilitated by detriment and fall, respectively, in Aries.
So as an example, for the first line, Degree of Sun, you allocate 5 points to Saturn, the sign ruler, and 4 points to Mars, the exalted planet. You repeat for the other sets of degrees, yielding this:
| Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | |
| Degree of Sun 19 Capricorn | 5 | 4 | |||||
| Degree of Moon 9 Gemini | 5 | ||||||
| Degree of Ascendant 5 Capricorn | 5 | 4 | |||||
| Degree of Lot of Fortune 15 Leo | 5 | ||||||
| Degree of Prenatal Lunation 7 Capricorn | 5 | 4 | |||||
| Ruler of the Day Sun | 7 | ||||||
| Ruler of the Hour Mercury | 6 | ||||||
| Houses | |||||||
| Superiors | |||||||
Next you look at the Triplicity Lords, which are derived from the sign's element and whether the Sun is above (day) or below (night) the horizon in the chart. Since our example is before sunrise, the chart is considered nocturnal. For each of the sets of degrees, you allocate three points to the planet that is the appropriate Triplicity Lord. This is derived from the following table:
| Triplicity | Primary/Day | Secondary/Night |
| Fire | Sun | Jupiter |
| Air | Saturn | Mercury |
| Water | Venus | Mars |
| Earth | Venus | Moon |
This lets us fill in points for the Triplicity Lords, yielding the grid shown below. Remember that more than one number can be placed in a given square, and when the final calculation is made, those numbers are added together.
For example, Capricorn in the first line is an Earth sign, and this is a nocturnal chart, so for that line the 3 points are given to the Moon.
| Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | |
| Degree of Sun 19 Capricorn | 5 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| Degree of Moon 9 Gemini | 5, 3 | ||||||
| Degree of Ascendant 5 Capricorn | 5 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| Degree of Lot of Fortune 15 Leo | 3 | 5 | |||||
| Degree of Prenatal Lunation 7 Capricorn | 5 | 4 | 3 | ||||
| Ruler of the Day Sun | 7 | ||||||
| Ruler of the Hour Mercury | 6 | ||||||
| Houses | |||||||
| Superiors | |||||||
Next are the Egyptian Bounds, which are derived based on the degree of each sign. For each line, 2 points are awarded to the Bound Lord, according to the following table.
| Aries | 0 - Jupiter | 6 - Venus | 13 - Mercury | 21 - Mars | 25 - Saturn |
| Taurus | 0 - Venus | 8 - Mercury | 14 - Jupiter | 22 - Saturn | 27 - Mars |
| Gemini | 0 - Mercury | 6 - Jupiter | 12 - Venus | 17 - Mars | 24 - Saturn |
| Cancer | 0 - Mars | 7 - Venus | 13 - Mercury | 19 - Jupiter | 26 - Saturn |
| Leo | 0 - Jupiter | 6 - Venus | 11 - Saturn | 18- Mercury | 24 - Mars |
| Virgo | 0 - Mercury | 7 - Venus | 17 - Jupiter | 21- Mars | 28 - Saturn |
| Libra | 0 - Saturn | 6 - Mercury | 14 - Jupiter | 21 - Venus | 28 - Mars |
| Scorpio | 0 - Mars | 7 - Venus | 11 - Mercury | 19 - Jupiter | 24 - Saturn |
| Sagittarius | 0 - Jupiter | 12 - Venus | 17 - Mercury | 21 - Saturn | 26 - Mars |
| Capricorn | 0 - Mercury | 7 - Jupiter | 14 - Venus | 22 - Saturn | 26 - Mars |
| Aquarius | 0 - Mercury | 7 - Venus | 13 - Jupiter | 20 - Mars | 25 - Saturn |
| Pisces | 0 - Venus | 12 - Jupiter | 16 - Mercury | 19 - Mars | 28 - Saturn |
For example, for our first line, the Degree of Sun is 19 Capricorn. Looking across the Capricorn line, we see that 19 falls between 14 and 22, making Venus the Bound Lord. Filling in 2 points each for the Bound Lords yields the following:
| Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | |
| Degree of Sun 19 Capricorn | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Degree of Moon 9 Gemini | 2 | 5, 3 | |||||
| Degree of Ascendant 5 Capricorn | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Degree of Lot of Fortune 15 Leo | 2 | 3 | 5 | ||||
| Degree of Prenatal Lunation 7 Capricorn | 5 | 2 | 4 | 3 | |||
| Ruler of the Day Sun | 7 | ||||||
| Ruler of the Hour Mercury | 6 | ||||||
| Houses | |||||||
| Superiors | |||||||
Next are the Decan Lords, derived again from the degree of the sign. 0-9 is First Decan, 10-19 is Second Decan, and 20-29 is Third Decan. The Decan Lords each get 1 point, and are derived from the following table:
| Sign | First Decan | Second Decan | Third Decan |
| Aries | Mars | Sun | Venus |
| Taurus | Mercury | Moon | Saturn |
| Gemini | Jupiter | Mars | Sun |
| Cancer | Venus | Mercury | Moon |
| Leo | Saturn | Jupiter | Mars |
| Virgo | Sun | Venus | Mercury |
| Libra | Moon | Saturn | Jupiter |
| Scorpio | Mars | Sun | Venus |
| Sagittarius | Mercury | Moon | Saturn |
| Capricorn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun |
| Aquarius | Venus | Mercury | Moon |
| Pisces | Saturn | Jupiter | Mars |
For example, for the first line, 19 Capricorn is Second Decan. So Mars is the Bound Lord. Filling the rest in yields the following:
| Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | |
| Degree of Sun 19 Capricorn | 5 | 4, 1 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Degree of Moon 9 Gemini | 2, 1 | 5, 3 | |||||
| Degree of Ascendant 5 Capricorn | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | ||
| Degree of Lot of Fortune 15 Leo | 2 | 3, 1 | 5 | ||||
| Degree of Prenatal Lunation 7 Capricorn | 5 | 2, 1 | 4 | 3 | |||
| Ruler of the Day Sun | 7 | ||||||
| Ruler of the Hour Mercury | 6 | ||||||
| Houses | |||||||
| Superiors | |||||||
Next, we need to allocate points to the planets based on house position. This requires a bit of explanation. In Medieval astrology, whole sign equal houses are used. That is, with the Ascendant in Capricorn, all of Capricorn counts as First House, all of Aquarius counts as Second House, all of Pisces counts as Third House, and so forth. At the time this system was developed, house systems such as Placidus were not used. Rather, the sign boundaries also counted as house boundaries.
Points are allocated to each planet according to its house in the chart as follows:
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th | 10th | 11th | 12th |
| 12 | 6 | 3 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 11 | 8 | 2 |
This yields the following when applied to the grid:
| Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | |
| Degree of Sun 19 Capricorn | 5 | 4, 1 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Degree of Moon 9 Gemini | 2, 1 | 5, 3 | |||||
| Degree of Ascendant 5 Capricorn | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | ||
| Degree of Lot of Fortune 15 Leo | 2 | 3, 1 | 5 | ||||
| Degree of Prenatal Lunation 7 Capricorn | 5 | 2, 1 | 4 | 3 | |||
| Ruler of the Day Sun | 7 | ||||||
| Ruler of the Hour Mercury | 6 | ||||||
| Houses | 2 | 11 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Superiors | |||||||
Now we're almost done. The last step is check the positions of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in the chart.
If one of those planets rises between 15 and 60 degrees ahead of the Sun, that planet is given 3 points. Looking at the chart, Saturn rises about 30 degrees ahead of the Sun, so it gets 3 points. If one of those planets rises between 60 and 90 degrees ahead of the Sun, that planet is given 2 points. Looking at the chart, Jupiter rises a little less than 90 degrees ahead of the Sun, so it gets 2 points. If one of those planets rises between 90 degrees ahead of the Sun and the first retrograde station, it is given 1 point. In this chart Mars rises after the Sun, so it does not receive any points.
Filling in the Superiors line with these values and adding all the columns up yields the following:
| Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Moon | |
| Degree of Sun 19 Capricorn | 5 | 4, 1 | 2 | 3 | |||
| Degree of Moon 9 Gemini | 2, 1 | 5, 3 | |||||
| Degree of Ascendant 5 Capricorn | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | ||
| Degree of Lot of Fortune 15 Leo | 2 | 3, 1 | 5 | ||||
| Degree of Prenatal Lunation 7 Capricorn | 5 | 2, 1 | 4 | 3 | |||
| Ruler of the Day Sun | 7 | ||||||
| Ruler of the Hour Mercury | 6 | ||||||
| Houses | 2 | 11 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| Superiors | 3 | 2 | |||||
| Totals | 22 | 24 | 16 | 24 | 5 | 21 | 7 |
So the Chart Victors are Jupiter and the Sun. This is actually fairly rare, that two planets will come out exactly the same. But if that is the case, either may be treated as the Victor. Not all commercial astrology programs implement the Superiors rule, so if you are using one of those programs to calculate an almuten, many of them would come up with the Sun.
The best astrological operations you could do with a Jupiter Chart Victor would be for Sagittarius, Pisces, and Cancer. The worst would be Gemini, Virgo, and Capricorn. With a Sun Chart Victor, the best operations would be Leo and Aries, and the worst would be Aquarius and Libra. Having two possible Victors gives you some flexibility, so with this chart the signs come out as shown here.
Perform these: Aries, Cancer, Leo, Sagittarius, Pisces.
Find a better time, if possible: Taurus, Scorpio.
Don't perform these: Gemini, Virgo, Libra, Capricorn, Aquarius.
Now I know on reading through this the first time, you probably are thinking that this is way too complex to use for everyday magical operations. But actually sit down and try doing one. I can run through filling everything out and adding up the columns in about 15-20 minutes, and knowing how to do it has added a surprising amount of depth to my zodiacal operations. So if you just dive into it, rather than deciding that it's just too complicated, I can assure you that it gets easier to do faster than you expect.
I've feel slightly uncomfortable with this plan because it does not take into account the debility of the planets. For example, Jupiter might be in the midheaven and get 11 points for house placement, yet the planet might be retrograde in Gemini, which makes it rather weak. So that ought to cost the planet some of the points. Lilly does that, but Lilly takes it to the opposite extreme.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we might not add two more rows to the table - dignity and debility - for the planets (not the lights, for they have already been considered). Dignity should calculate the points for the five planets in the same way as we do for the lights and we might deduct points for debility in the same proportion as we award them for dignity. So, -5 for detriment, -4 for fall, -5 for retrogradation, -4 for being peregrine.
You are welcome to try it that way and see if you get better results. If you do, feel free to share them here. I expect that you would probably need to do multiple tests with identical rituals for (A) the Ibn Ezra method and (B) your revised method. If (B) gives you bigger probability shifts over a reasonable sample size, you might be on to something.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that the method here was the end result of centuries of astrological development in the Arab world, so I would need to see some solid data before I go and rewrite it based on what looks like a pretty pattern. In my opinion that's a big problem in modern magick. Whether or not something seems to make sense, you have to do enough testing to be sure that it actually works.
The decan lords are exactly as i knew them, and i have no doubt now they are the correct version. Thank you for pointing them out to me!
ReplyDeleteGreat. Glad to hear it!
ReplyDeleteI'm so all over the place, and i forgot to ask you an additional question in the above comment, naturally. Sorry for flooding the blog! Do you know where I can find a list of all 360 angels of each degree of the zodiac? I've read about it in another conversation, but I can't remember if you had added such a link, and I also can't find that conversation right now.
ReplyDeleteWhen you last asked, I said that I thought I had seen it somewhere but didn't remember what the source was. That is still the case. The Shem angels will give you half-decans and those are pretty easy to find. Not sure about individual degrees, though. I just am pretty sure it exists somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI even forgot I had asked that before LOL. So sorry! Thanks you!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious what you have recommended if the tie for victor had been two planets with opposing signs of dignity.
ReplyDeleteFor example, if Jupiter and Mercury had tied. Jupiter gives Sagittarius, Pisces and Cancer while Mercury gives Gemini and Virgo. Would Cancer be the only advisable sign then?
Generally I see two victors as inclusive, not exclusive. So you can treat either as the victor, depending on your operation. This would be a situation where you could expect more operations to work better, not less of them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is pretty unusual for two planets to be victors, and even more unusual for those to be opposing planets.
What happens if for instance i would need a good Saturn election, and Mars would come up as Chart Victor for some reason at the time i'm planning the ritual? Because Saturn is in detriment in Mars' domicile, but Mars is exalted in Saturn's domicile.
ReplyDeleteSaturn is in detriment in Cancer and Leo, not Scorpio or Aries. It's in fall in Aries, but neutral in Scorpio.
ReplyDeleteThe ritual you are doing is for Saturn, which rules Capricorn and Aquarius. Mars as the victor would be exalted in Capricorn and neutral in Aquarius, so that should be fine. What you need to look at is the signs ruled by the planet you are working with, not the other way around, and the dignity or debility of the victor in those signs.
So it doesn't matter if Saturn is in fall in Aries, because Mars is exalted in Capricorn. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about timing when it comes to working with the signs. I remember the GD use of the SRP based on the consideration that signs are closer to their triplicities than to the planets. This has made me turn my attention to election times for such operations.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking if it would be better to perform such rituals according to the dignities of the rulers of the triplicity of the sign one wants to work with. In Lilly's system there's two rulers, by day and night, but the day ruler doesn't receive dignity by night and vice versa. In the Dorothean system there's rulers by day and night, along with a participating ruler. All three rulers receive dignity by both day and night.
With this in mind, one would have more options when it comes to selecting better ritual times for the signs. So when calculating the chart victor, one would have three planets to choose from, not one. This gives one a better chance to come up with a chart victor suited for their operation. Not only that, but if one doesn't want to calculate the chart victor because reasons, they can simply observe the dignity of the three rulers in the chart and perform the ritual during the hour of the one that's most dignified.
FYI, I do not include the participating rulers in the attributions here but day and night follow the Dorothean rather than Lilly. There is no special reason for that necessarily, it is just how I learned to do the calculation.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, you can go with some flexibility on chart victor. For zodiacal work, ideally you want a chart victor that is in rulership or exaltation, but if I am following the days and hours properly I will settle for a neutral one. Basically, I just avoid chart victors that are in detriment or fall and everything seems to work okay. And all chart victors, including neutral ones, work better if you combine them with a positive result from simple electional timing.
Oh, and elemental rituals do work better if you have a chart victor matching the tripilicity lord, at least in the Dorothean system. I haven't had a chance to experiment with the Lilly version at this point.
Yes I've noticed you've posted the Dorothean rulers. I only mentioned the participating one as a means of underlining the point of the question.
ReplyDeleteCool! Thank you!
I have never dabbled in astrology and I found this incredibly complicated. I am not even familiar with the astrological terms. At risk of asking a silly question, is the victor at all related to a dominant planet ? I can use an online calculator to do an astrological chart for today and it will show the three most dominant planets. If they are not related, is the dominant planet useful in finding a good or bad time to do an astrological ritual?
ReplyDeleteIt is complicated, and to be clear, I did very effective rituals for many years without it. However, I do find that it helps produce better results.
ReplyDeleteYou can use some astrology software programs to calculate this. It most programs that support the calculation it's called an "almuten." If one of the three dominant planets you are talking about is an almuten, that's your chart victor. It is the same idea as working out the most dominant planet, but I don't know enough about how your software makes its dominant planet calculations to be sure how similar or different they might be.
"Almuten" is an English corruption of the Arabic name for the Chart Victor, Al-Mubtazz, which means "the victor" or "the winner."
Yes, there is an Almuten figuris, its actually different to the dominant planet.
ReplyDeleteIn the sign rulership table, Mercury is listed under Virgo as both the rulership and exaltation. Is that a typo, or does Mercury 10 points due to being counted twice?
ReplyDeleteThat is not a typo, that is the traditional attribution. So if Sun is in Virgo, for example, it gets the 5 points for the Rulership and 4 points for the Exaltation.
ReplyDeleteI checked this chart on a website and while the Moon is in 9th degree of Gemini, the prenatal lunation is 'First Quarter Moon (112°30’)'. How does one get 7th degree of Capricorn in this chart?
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand most of this chart, I can't understand how the points were given to the planets in the house row. If Capricorn is the Asc in this chart, shouldn't Saturn get 12 points? But it got 2. How were the points distributed?
ReplyDelete1. Prenatal lunation only takes into account New and Full Moons. The quarters are ignored.
ReplyDelete2. Sign in house is not taken into account. The house position of the planet is the house position of the planet, not the house position of sign(s) that the planets rule. You ignore the latter for chart victors.
Well I just learned how to get the prenatal lunation of this chart, by progressing it backwards and indeed it comes out as 7Capricorn'59 for the new moon on 29th December. Having to figure out this Almuten calculation is getting easier and easier by the day. However, if our elected time was a day before the new moon, would we still progress our chart backwards all the way to the full moon? Mind you, I haven't run the calculation yet but this is the election I have chosen.
ReplyDeleteYes, that is how it works. Prenatal lunation is always the previous New or Full Moon, regardless of how close the Moon is to the next one.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure whether my eyes deceive me, but I see that for the triplicity points, prenatal lunation being in Capricorn is awarded to Mercury even though Capricorn being an Earth sign, should award 3 points to Moon by night just as in the first row.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that there is an error in the calculation, but I do not have time right now to go through it. This is just a working example, not anything that was used for a practical operation. If it's wrong, I'll fix it when I get a chance.
ReplyDeleteI just did a practice calculation for what I believed would result in a Venus almuten, but it turned out to be the Moon. This occurred because both the hour and day lord were in the Moon. However, by slightly time shifting the ritual by a few minutes and placing the Asc in a different sign, it caused a complete redistribution of all house points and points in the Asc row. Surprisingly, this resulted in even more points being awarded to the Moon, despite the Asc not being in Cancer or Taurus. It appears that having the Asc in the ruling planet's sign may not necessarily strengthen the planet, as one might assume, due to the significant changes in house position points and the rearrangement of the entire Asc row points caused by the change in the Asc sign. Although this time shift only resulted in a mere two additional points, the Moon is still the Almuten for that instance that too in the month of Gemini, Mercury. And it's the points that determine the outcome.
ReplyDeleteYou just learned something new, while I just gained another election :D
I forgot to post this along with my original discovery.
ReplyDeleteIf the Moon is slow i,e below 13° of daily motion, do you still do the ritual? Picatrix says that a slow moon is only good for malevolent workings but refutes itself by also saying that no magick works if the moon is slow.
Yes, small changes in time will give different point values for the chart victor. You have to take into account the whole calculation, not just a couple of the components.
ReplyDeleteI have not found that the speed of the Moon makes much difference for the kind of magick that I do. But then, my methods are also pretty different from what's done in the Picatrix.
I think I may know why. Since our spells start with ceremonial rituals like operant field, MP, GIRP/H, it cuts off some of the bad aspects. Golden Dawn Magic is astral magick. Astral magick only improves all kinds of magick.
ReplyDeleteI consider the ceremonial forms to have at least as much to do with subtle energies than anything astral. Experimentally, I find that casting spells astrally does not work nearly as well as casting them physically, which implies a difference between astral and energetic. But otherwise it probably is something like that - by adding the additional steps of the field and tuning the space, it cuts off some negative aspects.
ReplyDeleteJust had a thought while writing this. The LRP/LRH essentially creates a circle in which the magician works. Picatrix, as I understand it, includes no such construction - but later grimoires do. The circle is generally explained as protective. So maybe that has something to do with why using the forms limits negative aspects.
I always thought that the full operant field was equivalent to a protective circle one would spent hours drawing on the ground and now whenever I think of doing a spell without it, knowing how much I have read on magicians suffering horribly from just a conjuration, gives me the creeps. Later grimoires like Key of Solomon, one of the best grimoires, do include circles but also include protective daggers, rings, triangles, thwarting angels and I've yet to meet a KoS practitioner that has had a negative return. However, these grimoires expect a negative spirit to come through the working, not a spell manifesting negatively.
ReplyDeleteBy adding the additional steps of the field and tuning the space, it can cut off even that.
If the chart victor for an instance is say Venus but it is squaring both Moon and Jupiter, what is the next step? To skip the Venus operation entirely or to select the next planet with the most points? If the 2nd planet is also in negative aspects with one or more planets, then should the 3rd strongest planet be chosen and so on? Or can one not do a zodiacal or elemental ritual instead to skip the bad aspects of Venus. This article warns to watch out for negative aspects.
ReplyDelete2nd, what if the difference between the victor and the planet in 2nd place is just one point.
Aspects like that for the chart victor are only relevant if you are working with that planet, and it has nothing to do with that planet being the chart victor. It has to do with avoiding working with planets that are in negative applying aspects.
ReplyDeleteIt's not clear that the number of points each planet gets is relevant to the calculation. The calculation is just intended to find the strongest one. Even if the difference is one point, the victor is still the victor. But it also is true that in that situation, you likely can tweak the timing in some way to get the victor you want.
I'm not clear how you would use what you propose in terms of a specific operation. I mean, the operation is either related to the planet that's the victor, or it isn't. You mention Venus - let's say you want to do a love spell and Venus is the victor, followed by Mercury with the next most points. You wouldn't want to do a Mercury operation for a love spell, so switching from a Venus operation to a Mercury is not going be helpful.
So I would look at doing a zodiacal or elemental operation if I couldn't find a good time where the planet I want to work with was free of negative aspects. Jumping from one planet to another only makes sense if the problem you're working with is the sort of thing that more than one planet can be appropriate for. And even so, if you switch planets but do the operation at the same time, the victor doesn't change.
Okay, I understand now. So, if we want to work with a desired planet, it's important that the aspects are not negative, regardless of whether it's the victor. In other words, if the planet we choose is already in a negative aspect at the chosen time, there's no point in doing the almuten calculation. Several times now, I have wasted time doing almuten calculations only to realize that my chosen planet was in a negative aspect. It taught me to put the aspect consideration on the first step of the calculation, not the last.
ReplyDelete'So I would look at doing a zodiacal or elemental operation if I couldn't find a good time where the planet I want to work with was free of negative aspects.'
Astrologers would call this a suicide because of the afflicted planet but not me because 90% of magicians outside of lodge magick don't work with the signs or elements anyway.
Yes, that is correct. Negative aspects on the chart victor will not affect the operation unless the victor is the planet that is being worked with.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why astrologers would consider switching to elemental or zodiacal operations when a specific planet is badly aspected "a suicide." That really doesn't make sense to me.
Let's say you are trying to work a love spell and Venus is badly aspected. If you switch to zodiacal, you can use a power like Cancer - casting enchantments - to draw a partner to you. Cancer is ruled by the Moon, so it has nothing to do with Venus. I don't see why astrologers would find anything wrong with that.
Scott, when calculating for Enochian Princes, should the victor be the hour or the day? So for Friday I want to charge Prince Bagenol for a task...if the Victor is 1st = VENUS, 2nd = MOON is that okay? Or does it HAVE to be one or the other?
ReplyDeleteThanks!
The chart victor is just the chart victor. It does not matter what planet is second, third, etc. For Enochian princes you can go with the day or the planetary sub-aspect for the Prince (since they differ from the day). Either will work.
ReplyDeleteI have been learning a lot about traditional methods of charting an election. Mars is now in Capricorn (+4), a sign of exaltation. So for a Scorpio election, we would want to make Mars as strong as possible. We also have an option to strengthen it using the 2nd decan of Capricorn (+1), which is ruled by Mars. Doing it at night would place it in its sect. Now for the Moon and Asc/MC, this is where it gets confusing. Currently the Moon is in Scorpio - a sign of its fall - but the Moon in Capricorn may also be used. Both cases strengthen the Scorpio election. Picatrix magicians say not to use an afflicted Moon such as Scorpio or Capricorn but of course for a Scorpio working, we would need to use it.
ReplyDeleteSince Mars is in Capricorn, do we put the Moon in Scorpio or Cap?
As for the Asc/MC, should it also be Scor or Cap? Scor is uninhabited by any planet, whereas Mars is in Cap. Picatrix magicians say that the planet needs to be in either the Asc or MC during its hour because that is how it opens the curtain to our world.
I would run chart victors for the two and go with whichever one was strongest. Same for planet on the MC, since that will change the house points.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if that lines up with the Picatrix rules because I don't know them all off the top of my head, but that is what I would try if these were the options I was choosing between.