Exaltations in Astrology: Origins and Meaning Explained

Video Description

Discussing a new discovery about the origins of the exaltations in astrology, which helps to explain their original rationale and meaning, with astrologers Benjamin Dykes and Chris Brennan. Last summer Keiji Yamamoto and Charles Burnett released their long-awaited translation of The Great Introduction to Astrology by the 9th century astrologer Abu Ma'shar. This was the first time this text has been translated into English in its entirety. I received my copy on July 30, 2019, and the most interesting thing I found was that Abu Ma'shar frequently cites a lost Greek text attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. This appears to be the same text called the Panaretos that the 4th century astrologer Paulus Alexandrinus drew on for his treatment of seven planets Lots, although Abu Ma'shar shares much more from the text than Paulus did. The most interesting pieces of the Hermes material preserved by Abu Ma'shar is that it contains a set of rationales for the domicile and exaltation schemes that are unique, and it seems to preserve what may be the original conceptual rationales for both of those schemes. The exaltations chapter in particular provides a much more detailed explanation for the exaltations than any I've ever seen, and it is also unique because it provides an astronomical rationale for the exaltations degrees, not just the signs of exaltation and fall. I first talked about this discovery in episode 26 of the Casual Astrology Podcast, which was released on September 18, 2019. I urged Ben to look into it to help confirm the discovery, and over the past several months he worked on his own translation of Abu Ma'shar from the Arabic, which he finished and shared with me on May 8, 2020. Ben was able to confirm that most of the math for the exaltation degrees seems to work out, and so with that confirmation we decided to record this episode to present this discovery and talk about it on May 13, 2020 around 5:15 PM MT. We begin the episode by providing some background information on the text, and then eventually transition into a summary of the arguments presented by the text for how to derive the exaltations of the planets and their degrees. Interestingly, the arguments for the domiciles and exaltations presented by this text are based firmly rooted in the tropical zodiac, and this raises some major questions about previous assumptions that the exaltations had their origins in the sidereal zodiac and the earlier Mesopotamian tradition. The discovery also raises questions about the extent to which Hellenistic astrology, and western astrology in general, partially represents a sudden invention or technical construct that was put together sometime around the 1st century BCE. This is kind of visually intensive episode, and our friend Paula Belluomini made a number of diagrams to illustrate the concepts, so I would recommend watching the video version of the episode if you can. Ben plans to publish his translation of the Great Introduction by Abu Ma'shar sometime in the next few months, and you can get it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1934586528/ This is episode 255 of The Astrology Podcast: https://theastrologypodcast.com/2020/05/16/the-origins-of-the-exaltations-a-new-discovery/ Please be sure to like and subscribe! #TheAstrologyPodcast Timestamps 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:50 New Abu Ma'shar translation 00:07:23 Hermes 00:12:16 Ptolemy 00:15:24 Domiciles and Exaltations math 00:17:50 Planetary joys & Thema Mundi 00:21:05 Exaltation locations 00:24:45 Exaltation degrees 00:28:00 Origins of exaltations 00:29:54 Exaltations, sect, and aspects 00:33:00 Hermetic mandala 00:39:26 Dendera zodiac and exaltations 00:42:50 Tropical Rationale 00:48:00 Chapter V.7: reason for exaltations 00:52:00 Increase/decrease in light paradigm 00:54:03 Sun in Aries exaltation 00:55:14 Moon in Taurus exaltation 00:57:37 Saturn in Libra exaltation 00:59:50 Mars in Capricorn exaltation 01:00:20 Jupiter in Cancer exaltation 01:01:35 Angular houses in Thema Mundi 01:03:00 The excellent places 01:03:51 Death in the 7th house 01:06:34 Venus in Pisces exaltation 01:10:45 Qualities of signs and planets 01:13:34 Mercury in Virgo exaltation 01:21:05 Diagram of brightness of planets 01:23:27 Rationale for degrees of exaltations 01:55:45 Exaltations of the nodes 02:02:27 Additional exaltation commentary 02:19:20 Is the rationale conclusive? 02:26:09 Concluding remarks 02:28:57 Benjamin's course