Chapter 2: Astrology's Planets

In the first part, the author describes quickly the planets Saturn, Mars, Jupiter and Venus in an original manner, but keeping the line of traditional astrology. Then, he shows how the ancients used the planets to determine the occupation, the body attributes, the character and quality of soul. The techniques presented are interesting, unusual in modern astrology: for the occupation ancient astrologers selected one planet between Mercury, Venus and Mars, for the body they looked at the position of the Ascendant and the Moon, for the soul they analyzed the position of Moon and Mercury.  

In Chapter 3. Kinship of Planets and the Zodiac Joseph Crane presents the planet's system of rulership and exaltation, triplicities, bounds, decanic faces and dodekatamoria. One can find here tables and examples for every technique.

Chapter 4. Triplicities

The author shows the important place that the system of triplicities have played in ancient astrology. Triplicities is a system of dispositors based on sect, as you can see in this table with the triplicity lords: 

To judge a question about love, for example, an ancient astrologer, would look at the position of Venus and her triplicity lords. The first one (day in a diurnal chart, night in a nocturnal chart) would tell about the first period of life, the second one about the middle years and the participating one about the latter years. The importance of triplicities in Hellenistic astrology is expressed by Dorotheus of Sidon:

"I tell you that everything which is decided or indicated is from the lords of the triplicities, and as for everything of afflictions and distress which reaches the people of the world and the totality of men, the lords of the triplicity decide it."

Crane gives many examples about how to work with triplicities using the charts of Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Tony Blair, Muhammad Ali, Eva Peron, Amy Fisher, Woody Allen, Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Sade.

Chapter 5. Planetary Lords and Determination of the Soul

In this chapter the author explains what an oikodespotes (Hellenistic astrology term) and an almuten (medieval astrology term) mean. Both represent the planet which has more power in a certain part of the zodiac, power measured using not only the ruler, but all the dignities: rulership, triplicity, bound, face. For example, at 2 degrees in Libra in a daytime chart, the lord of the house, Venus, is surpassed by Saturn which is the lord of exaltation, triplicity and bound, so become the almuten. Then, Joseph Crane writes about the determination of the soul in ancient astrology, which was realized by analyzing the oikodespotes of the Moon and Mercury. He gives some detailed examples for this technique using the charts of Wolfgang Mozart, Sigmund Freud, John McCain, Emily Dickinson, George W. Bush, John Kerry, Jerry Garcia, Carl G. Jung.