Introduction to Primitive Cabalistic Science

This order was noteworthy to the less enlightened Egyptian, Greek, and Roman philosophers for yet another reason. They had observed that the greatest revolutions here meaning political upheavals or major historical shifts, which fate brings about for the states here on earth, mostly occurred around the time of a conjunction when two planets appear in the same place in the sky or an opposition when two planets are on opposite sides of the Earth of Jupiter and Saturn.

For this reason, I have included short excerpts of world history in the aforementioned table, so that one might judge to what extent these observations of the ancients hold true.

How much weight they placed upon the operations of Saturn and Jupiter is proven by the following stanza from Horace to Maecenas:

Jupiter's protection, shining back against impious Saturn, rescued you and slowed the wings of swift fate — original: "Te Iovis impio tutela Saturno Refulgens, eripuit volucrisque fati Tardavit alas" — from Horace’s Odes (2.17). The poet suggests that the benevolent influence of Jupiter counteracted the perceived malice of Saturn to save his patron Maecenas.

And in the same place, this one:

Whether it be Libra, or fearsome Scorpio that looks upon me—that more violent influence over the hour of birth—or Capricorn, the tyrant of the western wave. original: "Seu Libra seu me Scorpius aspicit Formidolosus, pars violentior Natis horae, vel Tyrannus Hesperiae Capricornus undae." — Horace reflects on which zodiac sign might dominate his horoscope.

They imagined that those countries over which a conjunction or opposition of Saturn and Jupiter was vertical meaning the planets were positioned directly overhead at the zenith were particularly exposed to revolutions, changes, and extraordinary events. In doing so, they considered whether the planets [were] the more prominent [points] located in the Zodiac...