Methods for Progressing the Ascendant for the Secondary Progressed Chart
There are multiple accepted ways to progress the Ascendant and define the houses of the Secondary Progressed chart. Astrologers use different methods that result in usually small but in some cases wide differences in the resultant progressed Ascendant. There is no one particular standard method.
Sometimes customers question why they’re seeing different results in different reports, and this page is here to give some context.
Our Progressions report uses the RAMS MC method by default as explained on the order page. Customers can request different methods if they have a preference. With this report, we use the current location to progress the chart, which is less popular than using the birth location. This is because it’s my preferred method, but of course, customers can request that the birth location is used to progress the chart if they prefer.
The Sky Log report is a specialty report that uses Steven Forrest’s techniques and methods and the settings cannot be adjusted. This report uses the Solar Arc MC method of deriving the progressed Ascendant, which is another entirely valid method! We offer a wide variety of reports by different authors since we don’t have rigid ideas of which methods are correct or best.
As an example, I will use the chart for January 1, 2000, at 12:00 PM in New York, New York.
Example Chart: Natal
Progressing the above example chart to the date I am writing this article yields the following slightly different charts using some of the many different methods for deriving the progressed Ascendant, as follows:
Example Chart: Progressed by RAMS MC method
Example Chart Progressed by Solar Arc MC method
Example Chart Progressed by the Naibod Longitude MC method
Note that there are more methods in addition to the three used in the above examples that lead to much wider discrepancies.
Here you can see that the progressed Ascendant varies from 18 to 21 degrees Taurus. It’s not a wide range, but since this factor moves so slowly from year to year, the change of sign and its aspects to planets can vary not only by months but often by years. In other words, depending on the method used, different astrologers could say that for example, the progressed Ascendant enters Gemini in November 2025 (Solar Arc MC), August 2026 (Naibod), or February 2028 (R.A.M.S. MC) and each of them would be technically correct!
Astrologers generally experiment with the different methods to discover the one that works best for them. It’s better when you’re learning astrology to keep an open mind with this and, over time, you may settle on a particular method or choose to concentrate less on the houses and more on the progressed planets’ aspects to the planets and points in the progressed and natal charts.
Further reading:
https://www.forrestastrology.com/blogs/astrology/how-to-calculate-progressed-angles
https://alabe.com/solarfirehelp/index.html?chart_angle_progression_type.htm
https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-27022.html
