Haly Abenragel (aka Abū l-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Abī l-Rijāl al-Shaybani) was an Arab astrologer of the 10th to 11th century CE who is known for his Kitāb al-bāri’ fī aḥkām an-nujūmm, which was translated by Yehudā ben Moshe into Old Castilian for Alfonso X of Castile in 1254 under the title El libro conplido en los iudizios de las estrellas (The complete book on the judgment of the stars).  A Latin translation of the Old Castilian manuscript was published in Venice in 1485 and became an important source in Renaissance Europe for the understanding of medieval astrology. I am not aware of an English translation of the text, so I’ve been using the Spanish translation of the old Castillian text by Collectivo de Traductores/es y Astrologos/os de la Antigua Corona de Aragón.

In Book IV, Chaper VII Haly discusses “directions” or “atacirs,” and gives several interesting case examples, beginning with: “Ejemplo de un nacido que fue su ascedente Leo y la Luna estuvo con la estrella cárdena [Praesepe], que está en Cáncer. Y cuando el atacir de la Luna llegó al grado del ascendente, cegó aquel nacido al cabo de .XL. años.“

[My translation: “Example of a native whose ascendant was Leo and the Moon was with the star Cardena [Presepe], which is in Cancer. And when the Moon’s atacir reached the degree of the ascendant, that person went blind after 40 years.”] Here, the Moon is the significator which is imagined to be “released” to symbollically travel forward in the zodiac until it reaches the Ascendant degree. In other words, Haly is directing the Moon to the Ascendant degree.

Unfortunately, Haly does not give the data for this chart. To re-create this nativity I looked for charts meeting the criteria he specified. Since Haly died around 1037 or 1040 CE and this native went blind after 40 years, I assumed he was born in the late 900s and went blind before Haly died. This native’s Moon must be near the fixed star Praesepe in the head of the Crab (around 23 degrees of Cancer in the late 900s CE). The site astrologyking.com notes that this area of the constellation Cancer is “popularly termed the Beehive, Manger or Crib, and known by the Chinese under the name Tseih She Ke, Exhalation of Piled-up Corpses. With the Aselli it was the ‘cloudy spot of Cancer’ mentioned by Ptolemy as causing blindness.”

Of the charts between 970 and 997 CE, the best fit seemed to be someone born in Tunisia on April 27, 977 CT around 12:30 pm LMT. Here is such a late 10th century chart with Alcabitius houses which were commonly used at that time:

In this chart, Leo rises. The Moon rules and conjoins the the 12th cusp. The fixed star Praesepe, which signifies blindness and the left eye, conjoins the Moon and the 12th house cusp. The Sun, which signifies the right eye, lies in Taurus near the Pleiades, also traditionally associated with blindness and vision problems. The Sun and the Pleiades in Taurus are in square to Saturn in Leo (Saturn’s detriment) in the 12th house. Venus, which is dispositor of the Sun and the Pleiades, is also is close square to the debilitated Saturn (ruler of the 6th of illness) in Leo in the 12th house.

Calculating his primary directions (direct and neo-converse, without latitude) in Delphic Oracle produces the following:

In a YouTube video, Martin Gansten discusses converse directions, traditional and modern, using Haly’s comments and Luca Gaurico‘s 16th century discussion of a similar chart cast for Rome, Italy. Of note is that Gaurico (1476 – 1558 CE) appears to use the modern method of converse directions in this chart to conversely direct the Asc-degree to the Moon. In other words, as Gansten notes, he calculates the direction of the Asc to the Moon, as if the Moon were descending toward the fixed horizon in the East and the Earth were rotating backward, essentially calculating primary directions pre-birth. This is in contrast to Haly’s original chart in which he directed to Moon to the Asc-degree by allowing the degree of the Asc to rise by primary motion to the natal position of the Moon — a standard “direct” direciton.