✶ Grand Cross
✶ Grand Cross
Subfolder of: Aspect Patterns · Aspects
Definition: Four bodies forming two oppositions that square each other — a square of squares.
📐 Geometry
- a Opposition c, b Opposition d
- a Square b, b Square c, c Square d, d Square a
Arithmetic test: Bodies near λ, λ+90, λ+180, λ+270. Every leg must be within its own aspect orb (see the linked aspect notes).
🧭 Reading (modern Western usage)
In modern practice this configuration is read as maximum dynamic tension held in balance; often all in one modality (cardinal, fixed or mutable cross). Within Astrology Arith(m)etic, read each leg with the book method — body × aspect × body, coloured by sign and house — and then read the figure as a whole.
🔗 Used in
Sources
- Bil Tierney, Dynamics of Aspect Analysis (CRCS, 1983) — aspect configurations
- Robert Hand, Horoscope Symbols (Whitford, 1981) — aspects and configurations
- Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos (2nd c. CE), Book I — trans. F. E. Robbins, Loeb Classical Library 435 (1940), public-domain text at LacusCurtius: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Ptolemy/Tetrabiblos/home.html