Hellenistic Time Lord Procedures

Delphic Oracle has the most complete set of Hellenistic time lord procedures with more display and calculation options than any other program in the world, and this is because it was the first windows program to include procedures found in the Project Hindsight translations. The first algorithms were written in 1997 under the program known as Zodiacal Aphesis (later renamed Zodiacal Releasing) and most of the rest was finished by 2003 under the program named Delphic Oracle. Typical options for display are the Time Lord List, Tree View, Time Graph and Time Wheels. The main display of the time lord list is showing below which by default docks to the right of the main chart view which allows for cross examination of other timing procedures and output to various report formats such as acrobat and rich text (*.rtf).

time lords list

The list of time lord procedures is briefly... (this list doesn't include all variations available but just the basics):

Most time lord procedures such as Circumambulations and various profection methods such as zodiacal releasing can be done from multiple display points such as planets, lots (aka Arabic Parts), etc. There's also the option to add user defined position if it isn't included in the list for some procedures (grayed out in above image) such as Circumambulations (which can also be done through the bounds / terms with various planets and points). Circumambulations are the early precursor to the later development of primary directions found in the Medieval group. It is also possible to automatically generate transits, progressions and other time wheels from these lists and fine tune them with the transit toolbar which sets this program apart in terms of speed and ease of use in research. There's no need to set up separate charts beforehand. All of the above procedures are also availabe in the Time Graph which can be configured to include or exclude any method and set in any order so that your selected methods can be compared next to each other. Line options include line thickness, position and margins and use the same planet colors defined in the Chart Designer to match the overall display design.

Time Lord Options

Because the Greek texts translated by Robert Schmidt contain many inherent ambiguities, the range of options available had to be comprehensive in order to be useful in research which is why Delphic Oracle contains the most advanced set of options available for Hellenistic astrology. Most of these options were invented by either Robert Schmidt, (included by permission) or the author of the software, Curtis Manwaring. This is because most of these methods were not explicitly outlined with a full set of rules and assumptions had to be made about calculations when examples didn't exist (such as whether to loose the bond after 12 major periods which was invented by Curtis Manwaring in 1997 for research in mundane astrology since time spans for cities can span millennia). The range of calculation also makes this program unique and I have allowed for up to 3500 years of calculation for use in mundane astrology. The current list of options for the Hellenistic Time Lord procedures is up to 40+ (not including Primary Directions which would balloon these options exponentially). I have set these up for user defined settings where necessary, each with their own tab in the Time Lord System settings (shown below)...

time lord options

Another pecularity we found in many of the Hellenistic era texts is that when we found examples, some procedures seemed to use a different standard for the length for the year. Schmidt had a theory for this based upon Platonic philosophy that originates from the differences between eidos (form) and hule (matter). Some procedures seemed to use the Egyptian year (minus the epagomenal days) and others what is known as the Solar year. For universal systems which involve predominator like arguments, there was also the issue of where to start the profection (this is based upon the Latin word profectio which means to move forward and does not just refer to the method known as profections). Other options were based upon author styles for how something was to be listed (for instance in Circumambulations whether the rays or the bounds took precedence in power according to Dorotheus or Ptolemy).

Most time lord procedures in Delphic Oracle are also capable of doing divisions down to 4 subdivision levels. In some cases these lower levels are measuring time spans in hours. Because of this, output is listed in UTC format in order to be technically accurate. It's not wise to use local time because one would have to do a time zone lookup for every sub lord transition and time change history has been proven chaotic.

Time Lord Themes

This is found on the General tab of the Time Lord System settings and is primarily used to handle author settings as a group (for primary directions) or for the Time Lords Graph to group certain time lord procedures together in the graph and save these resolution and order settings as a group so that all one has to do to get them back is to double click on the time lord theme. Believe me, you do not want to set these individually every time you switch from one set of settings to another. Clicking on 40 checkboxes every time to switch between different historical authors just isn't practical in terms of time usage so I've invented Themes to save these settings as a group (btw, the medieval procedures although they aren't strictly Hellenistic are also included in this window under Universal Systems). The other use of Time Lord Themes is to group resolution and graph settings in the Time Lord Graph.

time lord themes

time graph themes


 

 

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