Anthony Louis - Primary Directions in Astrology: A Primer

Walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actually under the influence of a special of somnambulism, Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot where, now so long ago, Hester Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy . Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850.

In Hawtho rnes story, Hester Prynne underwent public humiliation at a particular spot in town. That spot was indelibly etched into the minds of the townsfolk as signifying the place of Hesters public ignominy, and it could be identified by its specific and enduring relationship to local landmarks. Familiar with these landmarks, her lover Arthur Dimmesdale knew exactly when he had arrived at the spot of Hesters public disgracing. So it is with primary directions.

P rimary directions are based almost exclusively on the movements of the planets across the sky due solely to the rotation of the Earth (diurnal motion). Except for motion of the Moon, the real motion of the planets on their orbits during the time frame under consideration is negligible.

F rom the point of view of an observer on earth, the Sun rises in the east, reaches its highest position at local noon and sets in the west, tracing a circular path or arc in the heavens (the diurnal circle of the Sun). Actually, the Earth rotates on its axis, creating the impression that the Sun and the planets move in circles around the Earth, parallel to the equator. Astrologer Vivian Robson notes that we usually speak of the Sun as moving, because to an observer on the Earth it appears to do so. The inaccuracy is in terminology only.

The same pattern of rising, peaking and setting during the course of a day is true of the planets and the degrees on the zodiac circle. Like the Sun, each planet and point on the ecliptic in the birth chart has its own diurnal circle . As the Earth continues to rotate in the hours after birth, the natal positions appear to move across the sky, eventually aligning with locations which are similarly oriented to the birth horizon and meridian. Such alignments are called primary directions. In the vernacular of 17 th century astrology, Morinus expresses this idea as follows:

directions are made by the revolution of the primum mobile , by which the promittor is transferred to the location of the significator [the primum mobile , the first moved or prime mover, is the outermost rotating sphere in Ptolemys geocentric model of the universe].

The method of primary directions is an ancient technique for identifying periods of time when the events promised in the birth chart are likely to manifest in the life of the native. The use of primary directions dates back to the 1 st century BC. Dorotheus of Sidon mentions them in his 1 st century AD text Carmen Astrologicum . Ptolemy wrote about primary directions in his 2 nd century AD Tetrabiblos where he used them to determine the length of a persons life by equating one degree of arc on the equator with one year of life.

To repeat: t he basic idea behind primary directions is that, at the moment of birth, the positions of the stars and planets in the sky around the natives birthplace mark sensitive spots on the dome of heaven (known is astronomy as the celestial sphere ). Sepharial (1923) describes these sensitive spots associated with planets as follows: the radical imprint of a planet is localized in that part of the heavens it occupied at the moment of birth; andthe radical imprint of the planet remains ever the same, and is to be regarded as entirely distinct from the planet itself, which, of course, moves along its arc in the heavens.