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The students first glance at an ephemeris may make it appear complicated, but it is not nearly so much so as an ordinary railroad time-table. Planets run to the same schedule on Sundays and holidays. The solar system is more reliable than a railroad. Planets are always on time. They obey perfect mathematical laws. There are no strikes, although printers who print ephemerides occasionally make slight errors.
If a planet is scheduled to be at a certain point in space at a given time, you can depend on it. It will be there at exactly that time. This is abstract natural law. If the student is sufficiently patient to give the ephemeris as much time as he gives a timetable before starting on a vacation, he will have no difficulties.
An ephemeris tells you where the planets WERE, where they ARE and where they WILL BE. It deals with past, present and future. It also gives you the position of the Sun, the Moon and the Lunar Node. The last is merely a mathematical point about which we will have much to say later on. In order to locate something, we have to locate it in its relation to something else. That is the only way there is to locate anything.
The astrological ephemeris locates the planets in relation to the zod1ac and in relation to the equator, although only partially in relation to the equator. Remember that the zodiac is a plane of space, and that it is the plane of space of the earth's orbit, which is the same as that of the ecliptic.
The use of the word ecliptic has confused a good many students of astrology who never appear to realize that the plane of the ecliptic is merely the plane of the earth's orbit. This came about when Ptolemy and the early Christians discarded the work of the Greeks, Egyptians, Hindus and Babylonians, and insisted that the earth is the center of the solar system. Thus, in thinking of this plane of space it was considered as the path of the Sun around the earth. It was called the ecliptic. When Copernicus proved that the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians and Hindus were right after all, his work was banned by both the church and the astronomers of the day. The same happened when Kepler discovered the laws of planetary motion. His books were banned by the church in the same manner that the church now bans many books on sex. Dogma and prejudice are a matter of conditioned mental reflexes and demonstrate the dangers contained in the form that orthodox education has taken since the birth of Christ. Modern astronomers still stick to the term ecliptic. Up till now, we have seldom heard one refer to it as the plane of the earth's orbit. Textbooks refer to the ecliptic, but describe it as the "apparent" path of the Sun.
Letters from students have demonstrated an interesting fact. When the student has Sun or ascendant in Capricorn, there is greater difficulty in visualizing the abstract. Capricorn students need to see something concrete. On the other hand, once these students grasp something, they understand it and they remember it. Although learning may be more difficult, they are often better off once they do learn, because they retain. The picture has become more graphic.
Thus, the student with any Capricorn block may do better if he illustrates to himself by the use of material things. You can use a hoop to illustrate a plane in space, two hoops to illustrate two planes in space. Embroidery hoops would be perfect for this purpose, because one fits inside the other. Take two such hoops, one within the other, and then twist one so that looking at them edgewise, they form an Now let one hoop represent the plane of the equator the other the plane of the earth's orbit. The two hoops cross in two places One of these places is the beginning of Aries, while the other opposite there to is the beginning of Libra. You can now take the hoop that repre sents the plane of the earth's orbit and mark it off in twelve divisions around the circle, and these are the twelve signs of the zodiac. A mathematical point that forms the center of both of these circles represents the earth. You can also take a ball and mark off the circles with chalk.
It is an interesting fact that every student of this Course who has had trouble visualizing the abstract has had either Sun or Ascendant in Capricorn. The writer, with Moon in Capricorn, can appreciate this and sympathize with these students, because in his first year in High School, he flunked algebra. To prove that such difficulties can be overcome, he later developed a formula for prime numbers after all the mathematicians had failed in their efforts to find such a formula over a 2500 year period. Let this prove to you that such problems as those of faulty visualization CAN be overcome. When you have difficulties of this sort, you must state them, tell us about them, and not be ashamed of them.
The lower diagram lesson 11, is a picture of that hoop that is to represent the plane of the earth's orbit, looking right through the hoop, not edgewise or at any angle. The little circle in the center is the earth. We have drawn lines from the outer circle to the inner circle. The vertical line running to the top marks off your longitudinal position on the earth.
Coming back to the ephemeris, in addition to giving you the Sidereal Time at Noon or Midnight at Greenwich, the ephemeris tells you THREE things. It tells you where any planet (plus the Sun, Moon or Lunar Node) was, is or will be, along that circle that we call the zodiac. It tells you how far north or south of that circle any body may be. This is known as a planet's celestial latitude. It tells you how far north or south of the other circle (the equator) a body may be. This is termed the planet's declination We will have little use for it.
Realize that a planet does not travel in the plane of the earth's orbit but in the plane of its own orbit, and it is not necessarily on that circle, but north or south of it most of the time, although the orbit of Uranus coincides very closely with that of the earth, while the orbit of Pluto differs by 17 degrees. By the use of more embroidery hoops, you could illustrate the planes of the other planetary orbits. Each would have to cross the earth's orbit twice, and these points where these various circles cross are called NODES. Look over a page of your ephemeris. The upper part of the left-hand page gives the position of the Sun and Moon, while the upper part of the right-hand page gives the longitudinal (or zodiacal) position of all the other planets. Positions are given for each day in each year. If you happen to have an ephemeris that is printed in German, although the planetary symbols will be the same, you will have to know the meaning of these words:
STERNZEIT means SIDEREAL TIME
LANGE means LONGITUDE (Zodiacal position)
BREITE means LATITUDE
These are about the only three words in German you need to know.
Now, look down the right-hand page of your ephemeris. You will see the symbol for the sign of the zodiac occupied by any planet at the top of the column devoted to that planet. There is a figure on each side of the zodiacal sign. The figure to the left is the degree, while the figure to the right of the symbol is the number of minutes past that degree. If you look at the ephemeris for April 1st, 1956, you will see that the position of Neptune is given as 29 degrees and 32 minutes of Libra. In the next column, Uranus is given as 28 degrees l4 minutes of Cancer. The zodiacal sign symbol is given only at the top of the page, and not for each day, UNLESS the sign changes down the page, in which case the new symbol of the sign is inserted. If you are looking up some day other than the first day of the month, always watch this, and make sure that the sign does not change as you go down the page. If you still have your ephemeris open to April, 1956, you will see that on the 14th, Mars has reached the last or 29th degree of Capricorn, and on the 15th, the new symbol for Aquarius is given. Mars is 0-Aquarius.
This is really quite simple. It is just a timetable.
On the left-hand page is given the position of the Sun and the Moon, but while the right-hand page gave but one column for each planet, here we have two columns for the Sun and three columns for the Moon. These are headed Longitude, Latitude and Declination. There is no Latitude column for the Sun because the Sun never has any latitude. It is always in the plane of the earth's orbit.
In degrees and minutes, the Declination column tells you how far a body is north or south of the equator plane. The Latitude tells you how far a body may be north or south of the plane of the earth's orbit. For the planets, this same information appears at the bottom of the page In additional columns, and at the extreme right of these columns is shown the zodiacal position of the Lunar Node.
We pointed out that the two points where the hoops cross are called the NODES. Now, if you let one hoop represent the earth's orbital plane and another hoop the Moon's orbital plane, the two points where the hoops cross are the Lunar Nodes. The point where the Moon crosses coming north is called the North Node; the ephemeris gives only the position of the North Node, because the South Node is merely the opposite point in the zodiac. If the North Node is 11 degrees Sagittarius, then the South Node has to be 11 degrees Gemini, because Gemini is opposite Sagittarius in the Zodiac.
If you are going to represent all the planes of the planets plus the plane of the Moon and equator, you will need eleven embroidery hoops.
Note that the position of the Moon changes greatly from day to day. In comparison, the planets move very slowly, but while the Moon is given at 15-Cancer on April 1st, 1956, it is given as 0-Leo on April 2nd. It has moved half a sign. That means that some further calculations are going to be necessary to gain its exact position for a particular time of the day. We will come to that.
Now, let us go back to that chart we drew at the bottom of page14 in Lesson Eleven. That chart showed the position of the earth within the zodiac at the time of the writer's birth on April 27th, 1902, at 10:32 p.m. in New York City. Our next step is to place the planets in that chart.
If we consult the ephemeris for April 27th, 1902, and begin with the slow moving planets, we find that Neptune was 29-Gemini, Uranus 20-Sagittarius, Saturn 27-Capricorn, Jupiter 14- Aquarius, Mars 0-Taurus, Venus 20-Pisces and Mercury 4-Taurus. As we reach the more rapidly moving bodies, we must see how far they travel in a day. For April 27th, 1902, Mercury is given as 4 degrees 30 minutes of Taurus, while for April 28th it is given as 6 degrees and 38 minutes--of Taurus. If we subtract the position of Mercury on the 27th from its position on the 28th, we find that it moved 2 degrees and 8 minutes in 2 hours:
April 28th ...........6 degrees 38 minutes
April 27th ...........4 ............30
____________________________
Motion ................2 ..............8
The planetary positions given are for Noon at Greenwich, which is the equivalent of 7:00 a.m., New York (See Lesson Ten). Thus, the birth is 15 hours and 32 minutes later than 7:00 a.m., New York. This means that Mercury has moved more than a degree during that 15 hours and 32 minutes which is more than half a day; We can add a degree to the position of Mercury for the 27th and make it 5-Taurus.
However, it is well to know how to figure these part-day motions with precision. It can be accomplished by the use of logarithms. It is quite easy after you have done it once or twice. In the back of an ephemeris there is always a table of logarithms. It covers two pages at the end of the volume, and in German it is entitled STUNDEN ODER GRADE. You do not need logarithms unless you want extreme accuracy.
A table of logarithms is a simplified method where you merely add or subtract instead of employing multiplication or division. To find out how far a planet moves in a given interval, you first see how far it moves in 24 hours. In this case, Mercury moved 2 degrees and 8 minutes in 24 hours. We want to know how far it moved in the interval between 7:00 am. and 10:32 p.m., or during 15 hours and 32 minutes.
Across the top of the page of logarithms we see the numbers 0 to 23, while down the left-hand side of the page we see the numbers 0 to 60. The numbers across the top represent the hours of a day, while the numbers down the left-hand side of the page represent additional minutes. Thus if you move over to the last column (23 hours) and go down that column until opposite 60 minutes, you have 23 hours and 60 minutes which completes the 24 hours of a day.
However, these figures can also represent degrees and minutes of planetary motion. Thus, our momentary problem may be expressed as follows:
IF MERCURY MOVED 2 DEGREES AND 8 MINUTES IN 24 HOURS, HOW FAR DID MERCURY MOVE IN 15 HOURS AND 32 MINUTES?
All we have to do is look up the logarithms for these two figures and add them together. (Unless you have excellent eyesight, you will need a magnifying glass to see these figures in the table of logarithms.
Take the figure 2 degrees and 8 minutes. Go over to the column headed by 2 at the top, and then go down that column until opposite 8 in the far-left column. You will find the logarithm 1.0511. Note that the ONE to the left of the decimal point is not repeated except at intervals of 5. It belongs there nevertheless. ThIs number in front of the decimal point only appears in the first three columns. After that, there is no number to the left of the decimal point.
Now, we have our first logarithm. Next we want the logarithm for 15 hours and 32 mInutes.
Go across the page to the column headed 15, then down that column until opposite the figure 32 in the left-hand column. We find the figure .1890. These two figures must be added together, thus:
1.0511
.1890
______
1.2401
This newly-attained logarithm is the key to how far Mercury moved in 15 hours and 32 minutes if it moved 2 degrees and 8 minutes in 24 hours. Now all we have to do is find that figure, or the closest figure to it, in the table of logarithms.
You will notice that the last logarithm in the last column is .0000. Going backwards in the table, these logs grow larger and larger. So to find 1.2401, or the closest figure to it, we merely come forward In the table until we reach such a log. We have to come almost to the beginning of the table. In the column headed 1, down the column and opposite the figure 23 in the left-hand column, we find 1.2393. That is as close as we can find, and it is plenty close enough.
The number at the top of the column represents degrees. The number at the left indicates minutes. We found our logarithm under 1 and opposite 23. THEREFORE, MERCURY MOVED 1 DEGREE AND 23 MINUTES. We must add this figure to its position as given in the ephemeris for April 27th. Viz.:
4 DEGREES 30 MINUTES OF TAURUS
1 ..................23
______________
5 .................53
This is the accurate position of Mercury at 10:32 p.m. on April 27th. However, this degree of accuracy is seldom required except in systems of astrology that do not in themselves contain that degree of accuracy in their own calculations, systems that are filled with mathematical errors of far more consequence. Upon general observation and the use of common sense, you could have known that Mercury was in 5 degrees of Taurus.
Next, going to the left-hand page of the ephemeris, we find that the Sun was 6 degrees 17 minutes of Taurus on April 27, 7 degrees, 15 minutes on April 28th. It moved 58 minutes in 24 hours. This means that the Sun always moves about 2½ minutes in an hour, and if you multiply this by 15½ hours, you will get almost 39 minutes, which you can add to 6 degrees and 17 minutes of Taurus, giving you 6 degrees and 56 minutes of Taurus. If you want practice, you can figure this more carefully with logarithms, but the correction does not carry the Sun out of the 6th degree of Taurus anyway.
Next we have to put the Moon in this chart. The Moon is a rapidly moving body, and so this correction becomes far more important.
Looking at your ephemeris, you will find that on April 27th, the Moon was at 27 degrees 49 minutes of Sagittarius, but on April 28th, it is given as 9 degrees and 43 minutes of Capricorn.
If the Moon were 9 degrees and 43 minutes past the Sagittarius-Capricorn dividing line on April 28th, it would be 39 degrees and 43 minutes the Scorpio-Sagittarius dividing line, because it is 30 degrees from one dividing line to the next. We know that the Moon was 27 degrees 49 minutes past the Scorpio-Sagittarius dividing line or that far into Sagittarius, so we can deduct one Figure from the other to see how far the Moon moved in 24 hours:
39 degrees 43 minutes
27 ............49
____________
You can simplify this by changing 39 degrees 43 minutes to 38 degrees 103 minutes, which is the equivalent. We have merely taken off one degree from the degree column and added its 60 minutes to the minute column. Then our deduction will appear as follows:
38 degrees 103 minutes
27 .............49
____________
11 " ..........54
The Moon moved 11 degrees and 54 minutes in 24 hours.
How far did it move in 15 hours and 32 minutes:
We have already looked up the logarithm for 15 hours and 32 minutes, and we have found that it was .1890. We look up the logarithm for 11 hours and 54 minutes, and we find that it is .3047. We add these two figures:
.3047
.1890
_____
4937
We turn back to the table of logarithms to find the closest figure to .4937, and we find the figure under 7 degrees and opposite 42 minutes. Thus, the Moon moved 7 degrees and 42 minutes in l5 hours and 32 minutes. We add this to its position on April 27th:
27 degrees 49 minutes Sagittarius
7 ..............42
34 " .........91
There are only 60 minutes to a degree, so we deduct 60 from 91 minutes and add one degree, leaving us 35 degrees 31 minutes, and since Sagittarius has only 30 degrees, we must deduct those 30 degrees, and we find that the Moon had moved over to 5 degrees 31 minutes of Capricorn. We place the Moon in the chart at 5-Capricorn.
This leaves us with one factor to insert, the North Lunar Node. Consulting the last column at the bottom of the right-hand page, we find that the Lunar Node was in the 4th degree of Scorpio. We insert the South Node at the opposite point.
For present purposes, the chart is completely drawn. It is ready to be interpreted. Let's stop there for now.
Some students are going to have trouble with Lessons Ten to Twelve. The mathematical factors are going to scare them, and for that reason we want to discuss your absorption of these facts.
You may never have tried to grasp a very difficult and complicated mathematical formula. You might give up after one look at the symbols. Therefore, we want to give you a little lecture! on grasping things of this kind. Everything that you need to understand and visualize is actually in your mind. That is where you are ultimately going to have to see it. It is all there, and all you have to do is contact it. Every bit of Truth that we know, and this includes all our mathematical formulas and all our natural laws, had to originally come from the mind of someone. We didn't find them out in a field somewhere.
Two mathematicians will reach the exact same conclusions, because they see exactly the same thing in the abstract, but they see it within themselves, subjectively. Yet, they both see the same thing.
In teaching you astrology, we are merely trying to bring out knowledge that is within yourself. It does not always come out easily. Yet it is there and it will come out. When you study a paragraph that is not clear to you, put it away and study it again at another time. Do this numerous times. Ultimately, you will understand, because the picture that we give you will suddenly match a picture that is within your own mind. Understanding is merely the matching of the exterior and the interior pictures. When they finally coincide, you have it. It becomes interesting to note that when understanding does finally come, it often occurs when the planet Venus is in strong aspect, either to planets in the heavens now or to planets in your natal chart.
Don't become discouraged when you do not grasp something immediately. Be patient and willing to keep coming back. Head a paragraph again and again if necessary, but with a time interval between readings. Give your mind an opportunity to "turn over" as we say. The Truth is within yourself, and it is endeavoring to reach the surface, but all sorts of feelings and emotions get in the way, often distorting the true facts before they reach the surface. If it becomes necessary to read a paragraph several times, allow a day between readings. You will find that this makes a terrific difference. Relaxation is also important. You will understand much more quickly if you are relaxed. For this reason, it is almost impossible to grasp things when you are tense.
Now, we want you to take a chart of. the type we have supplied, or if you are experienced, whatever type you employ, and go through all the steps of erecting the same chart that appears on page 8. First, follow the procedure given in Lesson Eleven in order to place the signs of the zodiac around the twelve houses of the chart. When you have taken these three steps, then your chart should exactly match the one on page 8. If it does not, review your steps. Read each lesson again and see how we did it.
It will greatly help if you forget all about those columns in the ephemeris that deal with Latitude or Declination and stick to the columns that deal with Longitude. Just forget those other columns are there. Ignore them.
It may also help if, the first time you draw the chart, you place the planets in the chart exactly as you find them in the ephemeris. This will be only an approximation, but you will have drawn a chart. Then compare it with our chart and see how it differs. After that, draw another chart. Do the whole job over again, and this time you are after accuracy.
Once you have drawn a chart that matches exactly with that on page 8, then you can have more fun, because the next step is to use different data and draw up your own chart from what you know of your time of birth.
There will he cases where you do not know the time of a person's birth, but you do know the day, month and year of birth. Then you cannot draw the kind of a chart we show here. A certain amount of data is lost until the birth time can be determined by some method, but never let it be said that all Is lost. Even when you do not know the time of birth, you still have a vast realm of knowledge that you can take out of a chart of the heavens for that day, because all of the people born within 2 hours will have certain characteristics in common, while other characteristics are different.
There are a few dogmatic old-timers in the field of astrology who will not consider a chart unless the actual moment of birth is known. These people have a lot to learn, and they won't live long enough to learn it. Even when the actual moment of birth is unknown, you can still know the zodiacal position of most of the planets, and this information in itself is of extreme value.
There is a group of astrologers whom we might call precisionists. They insist upon a degree of accuracy that is beyond any practical value. If you wish to evaluate the work of those precisionists, follow their predictions as found in the astrology magazines, and you will usually find that they are consistently wrong. This should be sufficient evaluation of their work. Always remember that if you are going to measure the distance from New York to San Francisco, it Is not necessary to employ a measurement unit of 1/10,000 of an inch. Miles will be good enough for almost any purpose. If you are going to string a telephone wire between the two cities, there will be the need for greater accuracy, but there will be a lot of other things you will have to consider also. You will have to alI for sag between poles.
Follow the procedure given above. If This seems a difficult point in the Course, relax. When you have finally completed the chart of your own birth, make a copy of It. Mail the copy to us. We will check it. If you are making any mistakes we will see them, and we can bring it to your attention.
When you draw up a chart, remember to take the ascendent ONLY or First House Cusp out of the Table of Houses. Place the rest of the zodiac around that chart. Each cusp will have the same number of degrees of a sign as the number of degrees on the Ascendent of First House Cusp. Beware of the so-called "standard" astrology, because it consists of standardized errors.
It is noticeable that the new student often makes his symbols of the planets in the chart very small in order to have them more correct proportionally, while the old student usually employs large symbols. The use of large symbols has its advantages because you see them better. Don't be afraid to use large symbols. You will come to it eventually anyway.
If you will study the chart on page 8 before trying to erect one of your own, you will see that it shows the degree of the zodiac on each of the twelve house cusps Each planet appears in the chart, and beside each planet is the sign and degree occupied by that planet. Uranus Is above the First House Cusp, because it is at 20 Sagittarius. If Uranus were at 23 Sagittarius, we would place it on the other side of the line. Note that Pluto is in the Sixth House because it is at 17-Gemini and has not reached the cusp at 22-Gemini, while Neptune is in the 7th House because it is at 29-Gemini and has passed the 7th Cusp at 22-Gemini. The planets are traveling counterclockwise. Note that we have placed both the North and South Lunar Nodes in the chart only one of which, the North Node, was in the ephemeris. The other is merely placed at the exact opposite point in the chart. This chart is a view of the heavens as they would appear if you were up in the air at a point at right angles to, or 90 degrees of celestial longitude north of the ecliptic or earth's orbit.
The conventional charts, either the Campanus, Regiomontanus or the Placidian, are drawn with the observer of the chart 90 degrees of celestial longitude north of the place of birth. Then, the planets are taken from the ephemeris and placed in this chart, a procedure that is mathematically incommensurable. The planets are not in the positions shown in the chart at all, and all such charts are in error. This applies to all charts used by those calling their work Standard Astrology .
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