Marco Fumagalli

The profection encounters

Phos 19, december 2009.
English translation by Margherita Fiorello

 In the astrological inquiry about "future times", namely the events following the birth, the method of profection has a key role. Directions are based on the "day = year" analogy and the diurnal motion of the sphere, from the moment of the birth; in the returns we consider the yearly motion of the Sun, which returns - every year - on its initial degree. The encounters between significators and promissors, the progression of the terms, the ingresses of the stars and their condition in the return, constitute the framework for the judgment, but it is the profection which gives full meaning to the rest of the figures. The rulership that planets acquire by the motion of the horoscope, the passage of the "spaces of profection" on the places of the stars in the nativity or in the return are an indispensable interpretative key of the future times.

The exact method of these profected places has been thoroughly reassembled by Giuseppe Bezza[1]: the horoscope degree does not move along the ecliptic at the rate of one sign per year, but along the circle of the hours, clockwise, one house per year. It is meaningful that it was the same Ibn Ezra, who stigmatized Alcabitius house system[2] favouring a temporal division, felt obliged to specify that profections should be calculated «secundum domos», according the houses[3], working with the «right degrees and the ascensions of the signs»[4]. Working with ascension degrees, both right and oblique, signifies calculating distances not along the ecliptic, as surely the greatest part of the astrologers did, but along equator, ie in the diurnal motion. At the current level of knowledge Ibn Ezra's voice sounds isolated, but this does not mean he is not saying the truth: time already proved him right about the house system[5].

Because this one too, as the direction, is founded on the motion of the sphere, the profection calculated in this way, could be called a mundane direction of the horoscope degree, according the temporal equivalence house=year[6]. The results of this method are surprising, not only for the correct position of the profectional space of the year taken as a whole but as we will see for the progressive motion that significator covers inside this space. Let's see more closely.

Let's consider as example the same chart used in the mentioned article, to which we address the reader for a comprehensive view of the facts[7]. This is the geniture[8] of a girl raped by a group of young people, during the eighteenth year of life. In the figure of nativity there arises 2°24 Taurus and culminates 17°27 Capricorn. In the return for 1975 there arises 27°29 Gemini, culminates 2°23 Pisces and Venus is the Lord of the Year. The profection space of the horoscope (sign of the year) falls almost entirely in Libra and besides Venus in the return makes its ingress in the sign of the year, obtaining an absolute rulership. Now, if we calculate Venus profection[9] for the eighteenth year (figure 1) we see that it moves from 29° Aries to 27° Taurus, and that in this space we find the radical Mars, at 21°57 Taurus.

Figure 1 - Venus profected space in the eighteenth year

The mere presence of Mars in Venus profected space, taken as a whole, is significant enough and can be added to the many observations we can read in the text[10]. But now let us stop to consider a fact: when we say that in the eighteenth year the profected Venus progresses from 29° Aries to 27° Taurus, we mean that at the beginning of this year (21st November 1975) the last degree of Aries passes on the radical Venus' hourly circle, while the horoscope degree has arrived to the VIII place and 6°05' Libra is rising (figure 2a),

Figure 2a - Horoscope and Venus profection
at the beginning of the eighteenth year

and we mean that at the end of this year (21st November 1976) the horoscope degree was passing on the cusp of the VII place, giving rise to the opposite degree, 2°24 Scorpio, allowing 27 Taurus to pass on the Venus circle. (figure 2b).

Figure 2b - Horoscope and Venus profection
at the end of the eighteenth year

Now, if we imagine that this passage does not happen with a sudden change but gradually, from this derives that the whole profected figure will continuously move during the year, without any interruption, as for directions: the degree of the horoscope crossing the seventh house, will give progressively rise to all the degrees between 6° Libra and 2°24 Scorpio, and will allow all the degrees from 29° Aries to 27°Taurus to pass on Venus.

But how calculating the times of these passages, namely the motion of the profection during the year? It's easy: ascribing to the profected motion of the horoscope proportional parts of the house, instead of the whole two hours’house. In order to calculate the profection of the beginning and of the end of the eighteenth year, we should add 5 and 6 double diurnal temporal hours to the oblique ascension of the horoscope, carrying the degree 2°24 Taurus firstly on the cusp of the VIII and then on the cusp of the VII place; if on the other hand we add 5.5 double temporal hours (equivalent to 11 diurnal hours) we will get the rising degree when that degree is in the half of the VII place and this profection will correspond to 17 years and 6 months, namely the 21st May 1976. At the horoscope there will arise 19°11 Libra and 13° Taurus will pass on Venus. (figure 3)

Figure 3 - Horoscope and Venus profection
at the middle of the eighteenth year

After having established the principle, let's calculate Venus profection for the date of the girl rape, on the 30th August 1976.

The time from the birth is 17 years and 282 days, equivalent to 17.773 years. So the fraction of the year (or of the house) we should add is 0.773. So we have:

OAP = OAB + 5.773 (2 DTH)
OAP = OAB + 11.546 DTH

where OAP is the oblique ascension of the profected horoscope, OAB is the oblique ascension of the horoscope at birth (18°.909) and DTH the diurnal temporal hour[11] of the birth horoscope (16°.884). So we have:

OAP = 18°.909 + 194°.943 = 213°.852.

Under the pole of the nativity, this oblique ascension is equivalent to the rising of 26°27' Libra, so we can already say that Venus is the Lord of the Year in the day of the event. Venus is in the descending hemisphere and in order to calculate its profected degree, we should firstly calculate its oblique descension under its pole (ODHCp), relative to the angles of the profected chart. Since Venus is in the quadrant between MC and the West, we subtract its hourly distance (HD) in equatorial degrees, from the right ascension of the profected MC:

ODHCp = MCpRA - 15HD

MCpRA is OAP - 90° = 123°.852, and the hourly distance HD of Venus, which remains the same of the birth chart, is 4.213. So we have:

ODHCp = 123°.852 - 63°.195 = 60°.657.

Under Venus pole (32°.49) this oblique descension corresponds to 21°07' Taurus. This means that profected Venus, in its progressive path during the 18th year, on the 30th August 1976 reached 21°07 Taurus (figure 4). Since Mars is at 21°57' Taurus in the birth chart, we can say that, in the day of the event the profected Venus meets natal Mars degree.

Figure 4 - Horoscope and Venus profection
in the day of the event: 30th August 1976

There is almost a degree for a perfect match, which in a direction would be roughly an year; in profections, on the other hand times are faster and one degree is about 12 days. In this case days are 11: Mars degree reaches Venus on 10th September 1976[12].

Figure 5 - Venus profection on 10th September 1976

This encounter, which we can call "profection encounter" in this nativity is the most precise temporal correspondence with the given event.

We had the opportunity to consider these encounters in many nativities, both by conjunction and opposition[13], and not just for what concerns natal degrees, as in the example we have considered above, but even for what concerns return degrees[14]. So, like the encounters in direction, even if they are not enough to determine an event if they are not confirmed by other figures, however they should be added - sometimes decisively, to the other elements of the judgment we already know.



Of the seven examples we will propose, the first six are referred to profection encounters of the horoscope in the year of the death. In the examples no.1, 2 and 3 the encounter takes place in the nativity, in the examples no. 4, 5 and 6 in the return. For each of these genitures we report just a scheme of the profected sign of the horoscope, with degrees and dates of the encounters, and some notes on the direction and the return.

In the geniture no.7, to which we give extra space, we will see two encounters of profection of the Lights, together with many accurate and powerful figures, which make of this nativity a classical example of "exuberance of corruption" in charge to all the main aphetical significators.

We have chosen some genitures which time is credited to be reliably assessed, except for the no.6, which is definitely uncertain but which offers much food for thought. All the figures show an anaeretic encounter by direction, whereby we have slightly rectified the birth time, to which we can add a quite precise profection encounter[15]. On the ground of the past experience, the latter can be considered effective within three zodiacal degrees, before and after the encounter, As we told that according this motion one degree is equivalent to about 12 days, this means that when during the year the profection passes through the degree of a star in the nativity or in the return, this figure starts to show its full force about a month before of the precise encounter and retains it for the next month.

In conclusion, the profection encounters, absent in the literature so far known, are an important step forward in the astrological technique concerning the future times, made possible by the reconstruction of profections according the laws of diurnal motion. As we will see more extensively in the last example, these encounters are part of a broader context, where the final judgment - especially about life - depends always on the astrologer's careful attention and experience.



1.
Claudio Arrau
2.
Giosue Carducci
3.
Jim Morrison
4.
Samuele Lorenzi
5.
Luigi Pirandello
6.
Michael Jackson
7.
Philippe Noiret



[1]   G. Bezza, La «profezione». Come si calcola, come si interpreta, in Linguaggio Astrale n. 104, September 1996. English translation in this site: The profection, how it should be calculated, how it should be interpreted.

[2]   Liber de rationibus tabularum. Ed. José M.a Millas Vallicrosa, El libro de los fundamentos de las Tablas astronómicas de R. Abraham Ibn 'Ezra, Madrid-Barcelona 1947, p. 159-161. The chapter Il modo di dividere il modo diurno in dodici parti has been translated by Giuseppe Bezza in Arcana Mundi: Antologia Del Pensiero Astrologico Antico (Milano: Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli, 1995), p. 202-205. See also the article by Alain G. Cablais, A proposito dell'antichità della domificazione placidiana, in «Schema, rivista trimestrale di ricerca e di documentazione dell'astrologia classica», no.2, 1986 and in www.cieloeterra.it/articoli.cablais/cablais.html

[3]   Abrahe Avenaris Iudei Astrologi peritissimi in re iudiciali opera: ab excellentissimo Philosopho Petro de Abano post accuratam castigationem in latinum traducta, Venetiis 1507, fo. 40vb: «Et iterum non obliviscaris respicere domum finis, que est accepta secundum domos». The Latin word finis translates the Arabic intiha, "end", "arrival", which in the astrological literature is referred to perfectio, "completion", ie to the profection (cf. G.Bezza op.cit.). See also Abraham Ibn Ezra, The Book of Reasons, ed. S. Sela, Leiden-Boston 2007, p. 239: «the terminal house, bet ha-soph, is the place that <the revolution> reaches at the end of the year».

[4]   Ibid., fo. 58r.

[5]   Ibn Ezra house system was in fact proposed, four centuries later, by Magini and later by Placido, under whose name was eventually known by the English speaking astrologers.

[6]    The horoscope degree moves one house per year, progressing by two of its temporal hours, diurnal above the horizon, nocturnal below. This distance between two houses according the double temporal hour is exactly the one we find in Alcabitius house system, the same Ibn Ezra correctly criticized. Each house in fact should be distant from the following one two of its temporal hours, not two temporal hours of the horoscope, because every point of the sphere has its own path of domification from the rising to the setting and for this reason it is not possible domifying using a single motion true for all the points. Going on using an increment of  two temporal hours  of the horoscope is equivalent to move the sphere, directing and "domifying"  only the horoscope. This movement is nothing else than the profected motion of the horoscope, which peculiarity is its differing from direction just in a different temporal analogy. Therefore profections, conceived in the right way, are embodied in a framework of a coherent system, which is inclusive of directions, aspects and house system, which laws are always the ones of the diurnal motion.

[7]   Giuseppe Bezza's article about profection can be read in english in this site:
http://www.cieloeterra.it/eng/eng.articoli.profezione/profezione.html

[8]    Villalago (AQ), 41°56’ Nord, 13°50’ Est, 21st November 1958, h. 3:20 pm, 14:20 UT.

[9]   Venus profection has not been mentioned in Bezza's article, which considers the five Ptolemaic significators of future times: horoscope, Sun, Moon, POF and MC. Nevertheless, the profection of the Lord of the Year, as far as the period of time in which it maintains the rulership, is often indicative of important events, and should be considered, in my opinion, only second to the one of  horoscope and the Lights.

[10]  We can notice that Sun, keeping Venus under its beams, is going to the opposition of the horoscope by direction during the year of the rape, while Mars and Venus have recently reached the same hourly distance by the motion of both.

[11]  The profection remains above the horizon so we can use diurnal temporal hours throughout the calculation.

[12]  It would precisely arrive to Mars degree on 30th August 1976 if the birth was eight minutes later, at 14h28m UT. 

[13]  According the present experience, conjunctions and oppositions are the more powerful figures than the rest. This is true in directions too, adding mundane parallels and antiparallels.

[14]  The ingress (epémbasis) of a malefic of the return on the profected degree of a aphetic significator is very strong and can be compared to an anaeretical encounter. Profection encounters in the return are more peculiar than the ones in the birth chart, because the latter follow a cycle that repeats itself every twelve years, while the former show a peculiar and specific event of that moment. The words of the anonymous Byzantine author, talking about the ingresses of the stars in the year return in the places of the direction, can be considered valid for the profected places too: «It is not necessary to consider the ingresses of all the stars, but just the chronocrators' ones or the ones of the star which applies and which rules the terms. Says in fact Ptolemy, when these stars rule on the years and the ingresses (epembáseis) the foretold event is pure and not commingled. And us, on the base of a constant verification, showed that these ingresses have a great effectiveness on the events, not only when the stars reach the main places of a geniture, but even in the place of the year by direction. And the great Ptolemy too agrees in the second, third, and fourth book of Apotelesmatikà» (Judgments on the ingresses of the planets, CCAG I, Bruxelles 1898, pages 195-202, re-edited in: Dorotheus Sidonius Carmen Astrologicum ed. Pingree pp. 379-383).
  Beyond encounters in the nativity and in the return we can observe a third type of profected encounter: the one between the profected degree and the direction degree (see Jim Morrison example, where the profected horoscope reaches the same degree of the directed Moon). Even if we should acknowledge some strength to this type of encounter too, it's weaker than the other two, because it takes place by two parallel motions of the sphere, without any link with the real sky in a given moment. In this it can be compared to the encounter of direction by rapt simultaneous motion of both promissor and significator and, like that, seems to have a secondary role when compared to the rest of the figures.

[15]  When it is possible it is always preferable rectifying the birth chart of a few minutes by the direction, but, as far as the nature of the profection encounter is very similar to a direction, nothing prevents using it in the same way when there are no other possibilities, or when this allows a smaller rectification when there are other directions maintaining their effectiveness. Obviously we did not do this in this research, because its goal is showing the precision of the profection encounter, and it is not licit in a demonstration starting from the point we want to prove. However, it's my opinion that the profection encounters, being often important for the definition of times during the year, can just for this reason be useful for the birth time rectification too.

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