When is a planet really ‘cazimi’

In March of 2021 several astrological sites posted articles about the supposed upcoming phenomenon of Venus being ‘cazimi’ on March 26th at 5 Aries 50 in the tropical zodiac. The word ‘cazimi’ comes from an Arabic term meaning ‘in the heart of the Sun’. The conjunction of Venus with the Sun on 26 March 2021 was NOT an example of Venus being cazimi because Venus was 1 degree 21 minutes of latitude below the ecliptic and did not overlap the body of the Sun. I first became aware of the importance of paying attention to planetary latitude in classical astrology when I read Pingree’s translation of Dorotheus back in the late 1970s.

William Lilly defined ‘cazimi’ as the center of a planet being less than 17 minutes of arc from the center of the Sun. This definition makes sense because the Sun has an angular diameter of about half a degree, or more precisely, between 31′27″ and 32′32″. Thus, half the diameter of the Sun as seen from Earth measures between 15’44” and 16’16”, so that the center of a planet lying within this range of distance from the Sun will generally overlap with the body of the Sun, that is, when the center of the planet is less that 17′ from the center of the Sun. If we take into account atmospheric refraction, the body of the Sun can appear to have an angular diameter of 34′ of arc, so that cazimi would extend to about 17′ from the center of the Sun.

Unfortunately, Lilly did not clarify that being cazimi applies to distance from the Sun in both ecliptic longitude and latitude, making the ‘cazimi’ status of a planet an extremely rare occurrence. Most commonly a planet which conjoins the Sun in longitude does not overlap the body of the Sun in latitude, and thus is not cazimi (in the heart of the Sun).

According to William Lilly, a cazimi planet, which lies in the heart of the Sun, thereby becomes strongly fortified and beneficial as a result of its increase in fortune (CA 300). Followers of Lilly who are not aware that the definition applies to both ecliptic longitude and latitude are often surprised that supposedly ‘cazimi’ planets in horary charts do not confer much benefit to the querent. Over the years in several horary chart in which significators appeared cazimi I was disappointed that the beneficial implications of a cazimi planet did not manifest in the outcome of the chart, until I realized that I had been ignoring the latitude of the significator and only considering its close conjunction with the Sun in ecliptic longitude.

The 13th century astrologer Guido Bonatti, whom Lilly loves to cite, makes the definition quite clear: “And when the planet is with the Sun in one degree, so that there are 16’ or less between them, both by latitude and longitude (which rarely happens), it is said to be united, and then it is made strong, because it is said to be in the Sun’s forge, that is, in his heart.” (Ben Dykes translation of Liber Astronomiae, 2007, p.211)

Bonatti’s definition basically means that to be cazimi, the center of the planet must lie within the body of the Sun. We moderns tend to underestimate the remarkable observational skills of our astrological forebears. If the ancients had our modern telescopes, they might well have illustrated their definitions of cazimi with a diagram like the following from NASA:

Cazimi Venus from https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/gallery/2004-2012-transit-paths.html

The accompanying text from the NASA site goes as follows:

“A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun.

Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pairs of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years. This month’s transit is the bookend of the 2004-2012 pair. The first occurred on June 8, 2004. This second one will occur on June 5, 2012.

After 2012, the next transits of Venus will be in December 2117 and December 2125.”

Putting Bonatti’s text into modern language, we can say that a ‘cazimi’ Venus is a transit of Venus across the Sun. As the NASA site clarifies, such transits of Venus across the body of the Sun are extremely rare. “They occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with pair of transits eight years apart separated by long gaps of 121.5 years and 105.5 years.” There was a cazimi Venus in 2004, paired with one in 2012, with another pair which will occur in December of 2117 and 2125. There was not a transit of Venus across the Sun in March of 2021 despite what some astrological sites may have claimed. You can’t believe everything you read in print. Thus, if you’ve been reading very tight conjunctions of planets with the Sun as the planets being cazimi, without taking into account latitude, you’ve been misinterpreting horary charts and giving misleading information to your clients.

Venus transiting the Sun, in NASA’s sense, refers to the inferior conjunction of Venus with the Sun, during which the body of Venus becomes visible to observers on Earth in an awe-inspiring way. (As an aside, Bruce Scofield in his book How to Practice Mayan Astrology, notes that newsworthy events, which correlate with the inferior conjunction of Venus, are “often characterized by impulsive human errors that lead to a levelling or crash of some sort.” This sounds a lot more like Venus being combust than her being cazimi, which is a rare occurrence.) Does the idea of ‘cazimi’ also apply to Venus at its superior conjunction with the Sun if the body of Venus is completely hidden by the body of the Sun and, in a sense, is super-combust and most impossible to see from Earth?

If we take Bonatti’s definition seriously, then we may also need to rethink the definition of combustion. As you can see in the NASA image, once Venus lies outside the disk of the Sun is it completely obscured by the Sun’s rays and is combust, even if it exactly conjoins the Sun in ecliptic longitude. Thus, planets very near the Sun are combust unless they happen to overlap the body of the Sun in both longitude and latitude. If such is the case, the Venus/Sun conjunction of 26 March 2021 occurred with Venus combust the Sun because the center of Venus was 1 degree 21 minutes distant from the center of the Sun in latitude at the time of the exact conjunction in longitude.

The following diagram comes from an article posted at the harvard.edu site. It lists the inferior conjunctions of Venus from 1961 to 2023, together with the latitude of Venus during each inferior conjunction. It is readily apparent that the only two such conjunctions in which the body of Venus transits the body of the Sun occur in 2004 and 2012. On all the other dates Venus is combust the Sun in latitude during its inferior conjunction with the Sun. Note that on several of the dates, Venus is a full 8 degrees or more away from the center of the Sun in latitude and may not even meet the definition of being combust the Sun.

Addendum (7 July 2021): Lyuben Meshikov brought to my attention an article by Patrizia Nava about cazimi in which she reaches similar conclusions:

IN THE HEART OF THE SUN
The role of latitude in the definition of cazimi
Presented at KIA Conference, Kolkata, January 1st, 2018

A google search also revealed a copy of this article online at https://www.astro.com/astrology/ivccn_article180927_e.htm#_ftn6

It looks like Patrizia Nava has had the same experience with horary charts. Significators that appear cazimi are often disappointing in their outcomes for the querent. The issue is probably that we are not taking latitude into account and thus labeling planets as cazimi when they are really combust.