It is apparent that astrologers, even in his day, realized the increased strength of planets by
virtue of elevation into the Twelfth, Eleventh and Tenth Houses; but it is also apparent that in
trying to explain it, he attributed this potency to their visible light rather than to gravitation;
hence he deemed it essential that the Sun be below the Horizon, so that the planets might
"rise and shine" ahead of the Sun. In ascribing extreme potency to the visibility of the planets'
rays, he could not know that light itself is only a symptom of energy radiation from the Sun,
and that the octave of visible light eventually would be extended to some 30 octaves of
invisible infra-red and ultra-violet frequencies, charging an ambient magnetic field that
envelops the Earth, and affects the lower Earth as well as the arc of visibility.
The Moon was the problem, for with its faster motion it did not separate from the Sun, but
eventually the Sun caught up with it. Planets mounted to the Sun in one direction, and to the
Moon in the other. Only he stated it more vaguely in saying that oriental and matitudinal
planets ascend to the Sun; occidental and vespertine, to the Moon. That is the reason he gave
the preferential position for a planet, as oriental of the Sun and occidental of the Moon. In
these positions it should find the maximum opportunity to shine before Sunrise, and after
Moonset.
This picture of a satellitium of planets above the horizon guarded on the East by the Sun and
on the West by the Moon, represented an array of power - even though his reasons were
somewhat awry. At that, one might be willing to concede something in order to have a
waxing Moon; but Ptolemy lacked knowledge of the Moon's proper motion, hence was
unable to differentiate between the good qualities of a waxing moon as compared to those
conferred upon a weak Fourth Quarter Moon by virtue of the accidental dignity of elevation.
When it came to the Sun itself, there must be a reason why it too was more powerful in the
quadrant between the Ascendant and the Midheaven, so to it was given another variety of
orientality - that to the Horizon, im mundo. It was more powerful in the three houses through
which it culminated to the Midheaven, but since it must do the same thing in the other half of
the Earth as it descended into the west and proceeded to rise on the other side, the Fourth,
Fifth and Sixth were also oriental Houses. Therefore as regards the Sun, it was oriental "of
the horizon," or im Mundo, in the north-west quadrants as it was in the south-east, and
occidental in the other two quadrants.
It is strange how truth persists in defiance of all efforts to explain it - or explain it away.
Sepharial says a planet is oriental when it rises after the Sun - that one needs only to look at
the Sun in the midheaven and he can see which is the oriental side. He neglects to note that
one has but to picture the Sun at the IC to see that it then becomes oriental on the other side.