MIN’S PLANETARY AWARENESS TECHNIQUE ©2004 Daniel Joseph Min All rights are free Min’s Free Press Continental Divide, CO Min’s Google-archived digital edition November 21, 2003. First printed edition published by UBCP on July 1, 2004. CONTENTS Ch 1 ............1 Ch 2 ..........10 Ch 3 ..........16 Ch 4 ..........29 Ch 5 ..........36 Ch 6 ..........42 Ch 7 ..........53 Ch 8 ..........66 Ch 9 ..........81 Ch 10 ........97 Ch 11 ......116 Ch 12 ......123 Ch 13 ......136 CHAPTER 1 IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY, be sure you download the freeware program Astrolog ver. 5.41G or greater from the following website http://www.bdcol.ee/astrolog/changed/a541gwin.zip, and Swiss Ephemeris ftp://ftp.astro.ch/pub/swisseph/ephe/. Setup a file using your own timezone and coordinates http://terraserver.microsoft.com/default.aspx, or http://www.topozone.com, http://www.maporama.com/share, http://www.streetmap.co.uk, http://www.mapsonus.com/, etc. E.g., Edgar Cayce was born in a two-room cottage, located behind the Beverly Store near the intersection of Palmyra Pike & LaFayette Road about 7.5 miles SSW of Hopkinsville, Ken- tucky (now Beverly Memorial Lane & Old Palmyra Road); the geographical coordinates (dd:mm:ss) are 87W31:36 36N45:23. You can check this out on the USGS-Microsoft Ter- raserver site, or check out Maporama’s URL for international coordinates; search an address in the UK on http://www.streetmap.co.uk. Or try the “GPS” site on http://www.travelbygps.com. Once you locate your coordinates and timezone, enter this data into the Astrolog “Set Chart Info...” window <Alt+z>, and save that file for future reference. Settings are not really important for this exercise, with the exception of “Aspect Settings...” <Alt+Shift+A> & “Object Settings...” <Alt+j>. Also, set your houses at Meridian <Ctrl+Shift+M>. You can toggle between Null houses by using <Ctrl+Shift+N>. Set your aspect and object settings so that the following defaults appear in the “astrolog.dat” file <Cntl+Shift+)>: ------------------------------------------------------------ -A 7 ; Number of aspects [Change "5" to desired number "7"] -c 4 ; House system [Change "0" to desired system "4" or "14"] ; DEFAULT RESTRICTIONS: -YR 1 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ; Planets -YR 11 20 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 ; Minor planets -YR 21 32 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ; House cusps -YR 33 41 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ; Uranians ; DEFAULT ASPECT ORBS: -YAo 1 5 15.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 ; Major aspects -YAo 6 11 15.0 15.0 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 ; Minor aspects -YAo 12 18 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 ; Obscure aspects ------------------------------------------------------------ The above settings enable all seven aspects by adding 30-degree increments: conjunct (0), semisextile (30), sextile (60), square (90), trine (120), inconjunct (150), & opposition (180). Each aspect is allotted ±15 degrees orb, which allows you to readily identify which planets are closing or acquiring via aspect-orb, else widening or separating, thus indicating the trend of each aspect — either growing or shrinking by horoscopic significance. The three outer planets 2 Chapter 1 Uranus, Neptune & Pluto can be disabled by using the object “Restrictions...” <Alt+r> menu when you chart the “Aspect List” <Alt+l>. But before you do this you’ll need to adjust the “Zo- diac Degree Offset/Ayanamsa”. This is the fun part. Pick a date for calculation using 12:00 noon your local timezone accounting for daylight savings. Each planet is either superior or inferior to the Sun as viewed from Earth. Any planet at or past the far side of the Sun is superior while any planet at or past the near side of the Sun is inferior. These determine the ensigns each planet makes to the Earth. E.g. Mars superior makes the planetary sign “Scorpio”, or purified aspect of Mars. Venus inferior makes “Taurus”, or guilty aspect of Venus. Jupiter superior is “Sagittarius” & inferior is “Pisces”. Saturn supe- rior is “Capricorn” as inferior is “Aquarius”. Mercury inferior is “Gemini” whereas superior is “Virgo”. Venus superior is “Libra” while Mars inferior is “Aries”. Remember, these are synodic aspects or phases of planets to the Earth. As in the summary given above, “Taurus” is the energy exerted by the planet Venus to the Earth, not an arbitrary “sign” up in the sky or in the angle of sun- light in Earth’s tropical seasons. The planetary en- signs are the radial motions and velocities of planets towards or away from the Earth, either accelerating/decelerating. So we see, the planetary ensigns have both direction and magnitude relative to the center of the Earth, as called vectors. These planetary vectors are dynamic, not static. A planet’s maximum velocity toward or away from Earth is achieved near maximum elongation east or west of the Sun. Keeping this in mind, open the “Calculation Settings...” <Alt+Shift+S>, and note the user- definable field for the ayanamsa value. You can enter any decimal value from 360 to -360 ecliptic arcdegrees. For now, leave it at 0, and click “Cancel” <Esc>. Toggle your house system to “Null”, and be sure “Show Graphics” <v> is enabled. I recommend temporarily disabling Uranus, Neptune & Pluto to rectify the horoscope by adjusting the ayanamsa accordingly. You can see the position of each planet to the Sun and if it is superior or inferior. For the Moon waxing is superior and waning is inferior; lunar eclipses are near inferior conjunction while solar eclipses are near superior. See? Planets near maximum elongation are at maximum mag- nitude in proportion to their maximum velocity. E.g. if Jupiter is square to the Sun in close orb, then Jupiter is close to maximum strength either superior or inferior, meaning it is very strong in Sagittarius or Pisces, respectively. But, Mercury’s maximum elongation never exceeds about 28 degrees, which is barely approaching semisextile the Sun. So Mercury’s phases of Virgo and Gemini are near maximum radial velocity much closer than square or 90 degrees to the Sun but are always well-under 30 degrees/semisextile. The maximum elongation for Venus never exceeds more than about 47 degrees which is barely in excess of semisquare. For obvi- ous reasons, only the planets far-beyond Earth’s orbit can achieve square plus greater aspects to the Sun. I remind you that each planet’s orbital eccentricity and inclination etc. affect subtle Min’s Planetary Awareness Technique 3 asynchronicity to aspects; but overall, the long-term averages justify using aspect without re- gard to the relatively slight, inconsequential incommensurabilities as such complex orbital elements do introduce into our otherwise simplistic aspect equations. This is readily apparent with Mercury for example, whose orbit is second most eccentric in the whole solar system, about 0.2056 (cf. Pluto at 0.2528), so it’s not uncommon to predict synodic multiples for Mercury and be in error by as much as five or six days, but over the longer term these errata average out, and your long-term predictions for Mercury are re- markably accurate ergo reliable. Venus and Earth, by contrast, have relatively low eccentricity or near-circular sidereal orbits, about 0.0068, & 0.0167, respectively. That means Venus is very predictable, even over the short term. Remember that the long-term synodic, tropical & sidereal multiples are proven by millennia of observation, which calibrated even the ancient ephemeris beyond extrapolated theory, e.g. Babylonians, Mayans etc. Now, we can be content to use simple 15-degree multiples for evaluating planetary aspects acquiring or separating. By always using the Sun as homeplate in our calculations, we become conscious of the solar day and position of the Sun relative to our perpetually-rotating Earth, orbiting the Sun year after year, and century after century. This is fundamental to expanding our awareness of the planets who orbit the Sun sidereally and orbit Earth synodically. There are two distinct, but directly related attunements of awareness: one strictly geocen- tric, without regard to the daily rotation of Earth’s slightly-oblate sphere and two, being the twelve equally-divided meridians of Earth along her terrestrial equator...and where they inter- sect her caelestial equator — which is the ecliptic, the short-term mean Earth-Sun plane. This is best illustrated by the AutoCAD graphic depiction below, showing this in three dimensions: We’ll cover more on the houses in later chapters. But the first reference which is the strictly geocentric is focused on a point in space for every planet, each point at their centers, as calcu- lated by reflected light reaching the Earth’s geocenter. These calculated points in space are therefore coincident with Earth’s own geocenter but unlike Earth’s geocenter, they are referred to the calculated center of each respective planet at considerable distances from the Earth. 4 Chapter 1 This is dependent in turn on the theoretical value of ‘c’ within the near-vacuum of local solar system space. Thus we say “rays of light” as a crown of seven stars diatonically & twelve stars chromatically. To state this another way we are looking out from the computed center of Earth in all directions, viewing reflected light bouncing off planets, compensating for the time it takes for light to reach us; to reach our eyes in fact although during daylight hours we can’t differentiate between such relatively dim light and the majestic brilliance of our Sun at magni- tude 26.8, while in theory reaching us at our Earth’s own geocenter.