What follows is a summary of the major findings by sign and planet frequency and composition. A table of the entire database will be posted on this website shortly.
Working on the assumption that the possibility of a demonstrable effect from these patterns would increase with the "strength" of the configuration, I ranked the database according to tightness of orb, number of planets and duration.
Of the 150 GQs:
All form a circle of 5 quintiles within the maximum 3 degree orb
93 are close enough by orb to form a complete interlacing pattern of 5 bi-quintiles on the interior of the pentagram. These meet the first criteria for strong GQs
25 have 4 bi-quintiles, 27 have 3 bi-quintiles and 5 have only 2 bi-quintiles
21 (including the GQ of October 1, 2004) include 6 planets (meaning there is a tight conjunction on one of the points of the pentagram). These meet the second criteria for strong GQs
3 include 7 planets, also meeting the second criteria for strong GQs.
GQs meeting the third criteria, long duration (i.e. those that last more than a handful of hours), are necessarily non-Moon-dependent, but in almost all cases the Moon conjoins one of the pentagram planets before the pattern breaks.1 The following list of long GQs includes a handful found in the pre-Christian era. An historical examination of the 7th century BCE with this in mind would certainly be interesting:
October 28-29, 1618 (missing Neptune-Pluto bi-quintile)
March 20-26, 952 CE
April 4-10, 190 CE
August 2-5, 74 CE (missing Mars-Saturn bi-quintile)
January 1-2, 302 BCE
March 27-30, 474 BCE
January 11-15, 618 BCE
May 20-23, 626 BCE
August 24-25, 659 BCE (missing Mars-Neptune bi-quintile)
Thus in the present database of 0-2500 CE only the two in 190 and 952 meet all three criteria of complete bi-quintile pattern, multiple planets and long duration. These are the "power" GQs. Undoubtedly the most spectacular find is that of April 4-10, 190. Not only are its orbs less than one degree all around, but on April 8th at 1:28 UT, a partial lunar eclipse took place directly on the point of the pentagram occupied by the Sun. What a masterpiece for the astrological eye!
A glance at the chart below proves that a century is far too short a time to establish a pattern of frequency for so rare a phenomenon. I believe thousands of years, and possibly as much as a Great Year, would be needed to do this fairly, for the simple reason that so many potential GQs never quite reach quintile orb and so never manifest.
Bearing in mind that I am speaking here of the simplest statistic in the study, overall count, the issue becomes increasingly problematic with each attempt at fine-tuning by planet and/or sign. In order to determine, for instance, the likelihood of Pluto in Libra forming part of a GQ, one would have to "beat the odds" often enough to accumulate a reasonably large database of Pluto in Libra. Since in this 2,500 year database there is only one GQ with Pluto in Libra, I rest my case.
This is an extreme example, but one that cannot be ignored in a multi-planet study (unless participants like Neptune and Pluto are excluded!). Hopefully there are statisticians out there who will see a way around this, as perhaps by widening the orbs or examining heavily "quintiled" days for sign/planet frequency. In the absence of actual GQs, a lot of work could be done around multiple golden yods. For instance, although not a single GQ manifested in the fifth century, there was a tremendous amount of quintile activity right around the official fall of the Roman Empire in 418.
For the same reason as above it proved impossible to establish a valid control group. There are too many variables in play to pick 150 days at random to place beside the GQs for comparison. Retrogradation and length of stay per sign per planet would have to be taken into account.
Having said that, it was necessary to establish a basic understanding of "normal" planetary and sign frequency in order to proceed, however tentatively. It occurred to me that the only absolutely consistent factor in GQs during the current database is the presence of the Moon. It seemed reasonable that placing the other planets against a backdrop of lunar cycles would to some extent uncover the cycles of all the planets through the zodiac. I therefore calculated the number of lunations that would occur in 2,500 years and came up with a figure of 30,920. Then I generated a control group for that number of charts spread evenly over 2,500 years. The graph and table on the left below is the result.
Since 100% divided by 12 = 8.333, an even distribution would put approximately that percent in each sign. Sure enough, for the Moon it does, and at the same time it shows the deviation from 8.3 for all the planets. The graph (above left) immediately highlights the elliptical orbit of Pluto, with Mars as the second most erratic. The standard deviation figures in the bottom row of the table tell the rest of the tale. The Sun and Venus, followed by Neptune are quite evenly distributed throughout the signs, with the other five planets showing moderate variation of their length of stay per sign, exactly as one would expect based on the various eccentricities of the planets' orbits.
The graph/table (above right) shows comparative statistics for the 10 planets when the GQs are active. The same general trends are displayed for Moon, Sun, Mars and Pluto, the database presumably being too small to bear out the rest of the comparison. Imperfect as this may be, it gave me a basis from which to work.
1. The only exceptions to this rule that I have uncovered are the two long GQs of January 1-2, 302 BCE and March 27-30, 474 BCE, in which the Moon never participates. Are these empty shells awaiting the breath of life, or can Luna's role be overestimated?
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