This is all wrong.
Annual Profections
The earliest surviving reference to profections is found in the third book of Astronomica by the Roman poet Manilius.
No such person. That's actually a forgery from the Renaissance period but I'm not surprised people don't know that.
Although Firmicus Maternus (Mathesis, 2.27) states that one should count from the rising sign, he mentions that some astrologers count from the Sun for day births, and from the Moon for night births. This presents additional evidence for counting from other places besides the rising sign based on considerations of predomination.
Maternus was confused and this has nothing to do with profections. No one ever said you can only count from the Ascending Degree.
The Ascending Degree is too generic. It represents your life. Profecting it will not tell you if you're going to be hired/fired, promoted/demoted, gain/lose income or material wealth, get married, have a child, have someone die (other than you), or get involved in a scandal. It will only tell you how the year goes overall for the native. Likewise, the MC Point is too generic. It will only tell you generally overall how the year goes concerning your career, profession, reputation, standing, rank, status, etc.
If you want more specific info about a particular topic, then you have 2 choices:
1) profect the significating star or Lot, meaning profect Jupiter if you want to know about your income/possessions. Profect the significator of your mother if you want to know about her (Venus or Moon or Lot or both). Profect the significators of marriage (Venus, 7th, and Lot) to learn about marriage; or
2) to know specifically about something like income, switch to Porphyry, identify the ruler of the 2nd house using sign, elevation, trigon, bound, phase, configuration, then profect that star.
Claudius Ptolemy in book 4, chapter 10 of the Tetrabiblos also describes annual profections from each of the releasing places he outlines previously in the same chapter.
Nope. Ptolemy was not an astrologer. He was quoting Nechepso, Petrosiris and one or two others but he doesn't have the common decency or honesty to tell you that. We know that because other astrologers quote the same passages and they identify Nechepso, Petrosiris et al as the source.
This is a good read:
Ptolemy was the most important physical scientist of the Roman Empire, and for a millennium and a half his writings on astronomy, astrology, and geography were models for imitation, resources for new work, and targets of criticism. Ptolemy in Perspective traces reactions to Ptolemy from his own times to ours. The nine studies show the complex processes by which an ancient scientist and his work gained and subsequently lost an overreaching reputation and authority.
Ptolemy failed because he relied on Aristotle who was a spectacular failure although a smashing success at causing harm to humanity.
Rhetorius of Egypt in chapter 54 of the Compendium also mentions releasing not only from the Ascendant, but also from the Sun, the Moon, and the Lot of Fortune. A brief passage in CCAG 2.212.30-213.1 mentions Rhetorius in relation to counting from the parents’ lots for that topic.
Nope. Rhetorius was not an astrologer and like Ptolemy he never once cast a chart ever in his life. Rhetorius was quoting other astrologers and had the decency and honesty to tell us he was quoting them. Of course, that assumes Rhetorius actually existed and there's lots of evidence he didn't. It might be a pseudonym.
The summary of Cridodemus (CCAG 8.3.102) mentions briefly that he dealt with the giving over (paradosis) of one planet to another, which sounds similar to the delineations given in Anthology 4.17-24. This does not represent conclusive evidence that Vettius Valens took his delineations for annual profections from Critodemus since the consideration of which planet is imparting to another is also used in the exaltation method of Balbilus, decennials (referred to as the method of dodekatemoria by Valens) and ingresses. Thus the chapters on the effects of the transmissions of the Ascendant, the planets, and the four lots in Valens could be unique to him.
It doesn't require "conclusive evidence." They were Hermetics and Stoics so they all understood the concepts of Form/Matter and Space/Time in the same way.
That's why Ptolemy is a failure because he relied on Aristotle who was neither a Hermetic nor a Stoic and Aristotle's views on Form/Matter and Space/Time have been thoroughly discredited and rejected.
Critodemus emphasizes profections to planets in years which are multiple of 3 for Saturn, 9 for Jupiter, 7 for Mars, 18 for the Sun, 5 for Venus, 8 for Mercury and 13 for the Moon. The rationale behind those numbers is unknown.
The rationale is not unknown to me.
I fully understand it. Suffice to say whoever you are quoting is clueless. Yes, it is a multiple of 3 for Saturn
in some charts but not every chart. It all depends on where Saturn is located in the chart, so it could be a multiple of 5. Or 9. Or 6.
Another method attributed to Hermes (Valens, 4.29) says that one should count from the Sun for mental matters, from the Moon for physical matters and the mother, and from the Lot of Fortune. These texts indicate that approaches to annual profections in the Hellenistic tradition were quite varied and often few starting points were used depending on the topic. Hermes states that one should use the Sothic year, which was equivalent to the year mentioned in Dorotheus.
No, that is not what it indicates. What it does indicate is the Telephone Game. Different approaches were used for different purposes. Some people didn't understand that and falsely assumed they were advocating a different approach.
Monthly Profections
There is even greater difference of opinion when it comes to monthly profections, perhaps partially because of disagreement on what period of time constitutes one month. Manilius states ...
We don't care since he didn't exist. He's a fiction of some unknown Renaissance astrologer.
Most manuscripts of the Tetrabiblos present 28 day monthly profections,...
Nobody cares what Ptolemy says since he was not an astrologer and because his sole purpose and intent was to show how astrology fits the Aristotelian view and it does not.
Paulus and Hephaistio also describe profecting every month from the sign assigned the year, although they do not specify the length of the month. Since Hephaistio specifies that the daily profections are counted every two and one half days, it seems reasonable to make the assumption that he meant a year consisting of 12 months, each comprising approximately 30 days. This variation became the most prevalent one in the Arabic, Medieval and Renaissance traditions.
Hesphastio mostly quotes Ptolemy (and almost verbatim) so that's 10 reasons to ignore what he says. He also quotes Dorotheus.
What few people understand is these predictive methods are based on a 360-day year. A year is actually 365.24 days.
5.25 days over 30 years amounts to 157.5 days so your predictions will be about 4 months off unless you convert the native's age from calendar time to astrology time.
One variant (Valens, 4.29) has a brief passage attributed to Hermes which says to take the distance from the transiting Sun to the Moon at the nativity, and then count the same distance from the sign assigned the year (profected Ascendant).
Wow. Whoever you're quoting has little understanding of what they're reading.
First, this has nothing to do with profections.
Second, the author you're quoting doesn't understand that this is the method Maternus was talking about that the author you're quoting described earlier.
Third, this is simply a Hermetic method of finding the year ruler using the ASC, Sun, Moon and Fortune.
Fourth, the ignorant author you're quoting ignores the fact that when using this method to find the year ruler you must use the Sun and Moon to identify the month. Again, this has nothing to do with profections.
Finally, as part of this method there is a procedure for finding the day and the hour and these are not profections.
Similar calculation is later attributed to Nechepso by Valens (Anthology, 5.4), although it counts from the Ascendant of the nativity instead of the profected Ascendant. Levente László in private communication affirmed that the translation by Robert Schmidt and Mark Riley on the second part of the passage are mistaken.
No, it is Laszlo who is mistaken. In fact, he is so mistaken he doesn't even understand the concept because it has absolutely nothing to do with profections.
Firmicus Maternus (Mathesis, 2.28) does not even mention monthly profections.
He might have been confused. Or, he may have chosen not to mention profections because he preferred another primary method.
An impressive bibliography for sure. Too bad your source didn't understand anything s/he was reading.