Temporal “Aspects” in Ancient Astrology

Recently I watched a Webinar by Kenneth Bowser on “in mundo aspects” which he had given at the 2022 ISAR conference. In it, he revisits a theme which he wrote about in The Mountain Astrologer in 1996 in which he stated:

“Several terms in contemporary use are huddled under the umbrella of aspects in mundo: mundane conjunctions, squares and oppositions, parans, paranatellontai, mundane aspects and aspects in the mundane sphere. They all refer to that category of aspects which takes the Earth’s equator as the point of reference, hence the Latin word mundo from mundus, that is, “the world.” Accordingly, instead of celestial longitude, which is the argument for aspects in zodiaco, aspects in mundo are generally reckoned in right ascension expressed in time, or less often in degrees of arc without a zodiacal sign attached. Mundane aspects have fallen out of general use because they are regarded as too much of a bother to calculate from scratch, and right ascension has been omitted from most astrological ephemerides for decades.”

The major part of the webinar dealt with several chart examples of prominent individuals whose planets were situated at birth in such a way that at some moment within hours of their nativity those planets would enter into a parantellonta configuration by simultaneously conjoining the meridian and horizon axes. According to Kenneth, the influence of the potential paran configuration is significant even if the planets are not near the Angles at the moment of birth. He writes in his 1996 article:

” the power of the aspect at the birthplace is not diminished because the planets become simultaneously angular later. That the relationship has formed between bodies such that they would be on angles for the birth time and place is what makes the aspect. Moreover, the effect is imprinted on the psyche as with zodiacal aspects; and even though the effect can be diminished by moving to a locale that weakens the aspect, this writer’s experience suggests that mundane aspects effective at the birth parallel are never rendered null and void in terms of the character traits they symbolize, but their circumstance potential is compromised if the native moves away from the places where the planets are strongest.”

Curious about the origin of this idea of hidden or potential parans in the natal chart that would have a powerful influence even though the paran configuration was not in effect at the moment of birth, I searched through several ancient sources (Rhetorius, Porphyry, Antiochus, etc.) to no avail. It may be that such a traditional source exists and I have simply been unable to find it.

What I did find, however, is another type of non-obvious configuration that links planets, is in effect at the moment of birth and presumably can powerfully color the nativity. Antiochus of Athens refers to such configurations as the “temporal differentia, which Antigonus and Phnaes the Egyptian and certain others have recorded, and they named an isosceles triangle of the ascensions of the zoidia” (from page 17 of Robert Schmidt’s translation of the Thesaurus of Antiochus). These are “temporal” or time-based configurations measured in the amount of time it takes for the zodiacal signs to rise to the horizon. In this system, 24 hours = 360 degrees, 8 hours = 120 degrees (a temporal trine), 6 hours = 90 degrees (a temporal square), and so on.

Antigonus gives an example which is repeated by Rhetorius and by Porphyry in their writings. I will summarize the technique from Holden’s translation of Porphyry. Let the Sun be in the 1st degree of Aries, and another planet be in the early degrees of Leo, in a chart cast for Alexandria. Which degree of Leo will be in temporal trine to 0 Aries? The illustration here shows a chart cast for the Sun in the 1st degree of Aries with 0 Aries rising in Alexandria in the year 2022:

Aries rising with Sun in 1st degree of Aries in Alexandria, Egypt in 2022

The rising times of the zodiac signs appear in the center of the wheel. We wish to know the sum of the rising times of the signs from 0 Aries to 0 Leo:

Aries 20.85 + Taurus 24.13 + Gemini 29.80 + Cancer 34.56 = 109.34 degrees, which is less than the 120 degrees in a temporal trine by 10.66 degrees.

The rising time of Leo is 35.69, so to calculate which degree in Leo corresponds to a temporal trine form 0 Aries we multiply the 30 degrees in the sign Leo by the ration 10.66 / 35.69, which equals 8.96 degrees of Leo. Thus, if a planet falls at about 9 degrees of Leo, it will be in temporal trine to the Sun in the 1st degree of Aries.

Following the same method, you can find the temporal sextile and square aspects.

Kurt Cobain Natal Chart

Let’s do a similar exercise with Kurt Cobain’s chart. He appears to have a favorable trine between Jupiter in late Cancer and a Venus/Saturn conjunction in late Pisces. We need to calculate the rising times of the signs between Saturn and Jupiter.

Saturn has 1.27 degrees remaining in Pisces which has a rising time of 15.35, hence 1.27 / 30 x 15.35 = 0.65 degrees to which we must add the rising times of Aries, Taurus and Gemini (15.35 + 19.31 + 27.65 = 62.31), giving a total of 62.96 degrees until the beginning of Cancer.

Jupiter lies at 25.7 degrees of Cancer, which has a rising time of 36.71, thus 25.7 / 30 x 36.71 = 31.45 degrees, which we must add to 62.96 degrees for a grand total of 94.4 degrees measured temporally between Saturn and Jupiter, which is close to a temporal square aspect. Both Claudius Ptolemy and William Lilly commented that sometimes a trine aspect involving signs of short ascension displays the stressful properties of a square.

Modern astrologers rarely consider temporal aspects, but they are part of our tradition and can add subtle nuances which are not apparent from aspects formed along the ecliptic.