There are agreed three methods of time measurement in Directions which will be explained by this chapter. Each of these is explained by Gadbury and I have kept much of the original writing. These include;

§ Ptolemys' Method

¨ Maginus' Method

ª Valentinus Naybode's Method

Ptolemy's Method

Once you have directed your Significator to your Promittor, find the Arc of Direction (which is simply counting of the degrees between the Significator and Promittor). Every degree counted should be allotted 1 year, every minute should be allotted 6 days. This is all that Ptolemy's method consists of therefore I will now give an example explaining how to find a specific date using this method.

To know when the Ascendant (Significator) comes to the conjunction of Mars (Promittor); we find that the Ascendant is placed at 15°15' Aries and Mars is placed at 29°20' Aries. We subtract 29° from 15° and obtain a sum of 14 which is our years. We then take the minutes and subtract 20' from 15' and obtain a sum of 5 and therefore 30 days. Therefore the Ascendant will meet Mars on the 14th year and 30 days after their birthday.

Maginus' Method

Maginus disagreed with Ptolemy's time measurement and thus invented his own. He takes the difference from the right ascension of the Sun at birth (subtracting the lesser number from the greater) and their arc of difference to be their measure of time for a year. The measure of time for a year is 1 degree and 4 minutes. Both the Ptolemy and Maginus methods are not recommended by Gadbury and he after experience further supports the Valentinus Naybode method as superior.

Valentinus Naybode's Method

As with Maginus, Valentinus rejects both Ptolemy's method and Maginus' method and creates another himself. His method allows 1 year, 5 days, 8 hours of time to a degree between the distance of the Significator to Promittor. Gadbury gives a table for making the calculations easier.