Crisis-Producing Place

KRY-sis pruh-DOO-sing playss

greek: τόπος κρισιμοποιός (topos krisimopoios)

Definition

The Crisis-Producing Place is one of Valens's derived places — a calculated point reckoned, like a Lot, from the spacing between two planets. He introduces it as the point that brings on terrors, dangers, and "chains" — meaning either literal confinement or the figurative binds of debt, recurring illness, and the like. It marks where a life is most liable to reach a hard turning-point.

In Tradition

Valens computes the Place by taking the distance from Saturn to Mars for a day birth, or from Mars to Saturn for a night birth, and measuring that same distance from the Ascendant. A marginal tradition counts it from Mercury instead. He reads it as a marker of crises — a point bearing on terrors, dangers, and "chains." A malefic conjoined to or aspecting it makes the nativity precarious and easily overthrown. A benefic there brings relief or escape. Its effect is sharpest when the overall and yearly time-lords come into force together. He presents it as a doctrine to be confirmed by experience.

In Practice

To find the Place, measure the arc from Saturn to Mars by day, or Mars to Saturn by night, then lay that same arc off from your Ascendant. Read it as a sensitive point for the chart's hard passages — its terrors, dangers, and "chains," whether real custody or the figurative chains of debt and chronic difficulty. Malefics touching it warn that such turning-points may cut deep; benefics promise relief or a way out. Weigh it most heavily when the longer-term and annual time-lords coincide, the moment Valens says its force concentrates.

Historical Origin

The Place is introduced by Vettius Valens, Anthology Book V (chapter 1; in Mark Riley's translation, p. 97), which gives the Saturn-to-Mars (by day) or Mars-to-Saturn (by night) measurement from the Ascendant, names it the source of terrors, dangers, and "chains," and records the marginal Mercury variant.

Etymology

Origin: Greek. Meaning: the place that produces crisis.

Further Reading

  • Vettius Valens, Anthology
  • Chris Brennan, Hellenistic Astrology