Hi all
I was reading this post and wanted to share some observations on the topic of the guest-host relationship.
I signed up for this Forum, especially to adress this issue.
This is an excerpt of something I wrote for 'The Tradition' magazine.
I apologize for its length.
Guest-Host relationship
The most basic dignification is being Lord of a Domicile. The Greek term used for that role is:
oikodektor, which is like the steward, the planet that accepts responsibility; it takes it (up)on itself to administer for the sign. This term only and exclusively used for this ruler of the domicile, according to Schmidt.
So it is important to keep in mind that the planets do not rule over a sign, but a planet does have rulership over planets which are located in a sign. But this rulership needs to be understood as serving as a host, the steward, to the visiting planet. That is its responsibility and its function.
So whenever a planet enters a sign there is an ensemble of planets that start performing specific tasks on behalf of the visitor because they are in the service of that sign.
Compare this to visiting a restaurant (the sign). As soon as you put one foot over the threshold, each member of the staff attend to their respective duties, for you, the visitor. The headwaiter bids you welcome and shows you to your table. Another waiter then answers your every beck and call, and serves you your diner, makes sure everything is okay. The cook cooks it for you, the waiter cleans up after you, someone does the dishes, etc. That is the function of the planets in charge of the house you visit, the restaurant, the sign they administer to.
So the best description for this relation between visiting planet and planets having dignity there is the guest-host relationship.
Oikeosis, familiarization
A sign in Hellenistic astrology is called a
zoidion but whenever dignification is addressed it is described as
oikeosis: coming from
oikos, which is dwelling, and
oikeao is ?to domesticate something?, ?to bring it in your household?. Schmidt calls this process familiarization. The signs ?adopt? the planet as it were, they take over and assume (some of) the characteristics of the visiting planet.
What is this familiarization? It is the sign that makes itself familiar to the planet in the sign, but it also makes the planet like itself. According to Schmidt it is the nature of signs, to familiarize themselves with planets that reside in those signs; they familiarize. Meaning, they become in some way like the planet that resides in that sign. They identify themselves with it, which is oikeosis, ?becoming at home with??
Historical familiarization: the table of essential dignities
Now, as a matter of fact there are two versions of this familiarization: a historical one and an actual one.
The historical familiarization of signs and planets, which is over and done with, we now know as
the table of essential dignities of the planets.
We have fixed dispositors associated with each sign. Mars ? with the Ram, Venus ? with the Bull, etc.
This assignment can also be understood as a familiarization process, but one that took place in the hypothetical beginning of the Cosmos, as represented by the Thema Mundi. Planets have modes of rulership and dignity in each sign. Therefore planets do have authority that is delegated or assigned to them by the signs, due to this historical process of familiarization. But it is the authority to administer on behalf of the sign they have familiarized themselves with.
So the planets have (long ago) been taken into the household of the signs and are delegated responsibility. This is what the table of essential dignity represents, the way the planets administer on behalf of a sign, each in a different mode. Each planet therefore has a special function on behalf of the sign, like the staff of the restaurant in our earlier example. Signs have adopted, assimilated, brought into their household, have familiarized themselves with the characteristics of the planets that are called their dignities.
But the signs have obtained the attributes of the planets that we call their dignities only in a secondary sense. These planetary characteristics are neither the first principle nor the defining principle of the signs, but they are the attributes the sign has due to the historical process of familiarization of the signs with these planets. They might be called the accidental significations of the signs due to the planets administering on behalf of them. The essential significations of the signs however, are the qualities and attributes they naturally have: their gender, quadruplicity, triplicity, their typical characteristics (mute/vocal; fertile/barren, etc.) their constellations, certain fixed stars and such. These cannot be explained as coming from or resulting from the dignities of planets in these signs. Signs are their own, they are authentic because they are not based on planets for anything, but because of what they receive as their due from fate/moira. Signs are therefore self-defined. They have their own identifying characteristics, their own first principles: gender, constellations, certain fixed stars, etc.
?Familiarization-as-it-is-happening-now?
This historical familiarization is different from the familiarization taking place when a planet resides in a sign in a birth chart, or when it is transiting through it. And so the other version of oikeao is the familiarization-as-it-is-happening-now, which is represented by the planets in your chart in their various signs, or planets transiting through them. So whenever a planet is in a sign, it is taken into the household of that sign. So the sign takes into its household certain characteristics of the planets that reside in them. But on the other hand, the planet residing there needs to familiarize himself with his sign-environment.
Which is what the native is doing during his/her lifetime, familiarising him/herself with each planet in each sign of his/her chart.
Familiarization, things you are at home with?
Oikos = domicile, defines a kind of space of familiarization, a spatiality, not as physical distance, but as in something that is familiar (which is something close by) or something that is unfamiliar (something you perceive as distant). This is something familiar to astrologers, we know for instance that the Moon by nature is very familiar, whilst Saturn is by nature quite unfamiliar. We can also talk of things, people, events that you are familiar with, or not. This can also be applied to specific topics in the chart, what is familiar to you, what is alien? What are the things you are (un)familiar with? What is near to you or what is far away from you. It is also applicable to signs: Capricorn and Aquarius are familiar with Saturn, Mars with Aries and Scorpio.
Early delineation texts
I had understood what Schmidt put forward with this familiarization concept, forgot about it but was reminded of it again much later when I was reading the Liber Hermetis on the delineation of planets in the several dignities of other planets.
Please read with me in the Liber Hermetis :
When Saturn is in sect in the house of the Moon, or face or degree, he becomes depraved, unless the full Moon is configurated with him; it induces cold diseases of the mother. But it makes the natives neither daring nor rash, travelling with difficulty, being harmed often, rheumatics; it signifies destruction of the patrimony, and separation from the parents, and diseases of the secret places for them, and the injury of the mother, and bodily suffering, either humidities or vexations, and mothers fleeing to the gods on account of the torments made in them.
Dorotheus has the following to say about this :
If Saturn is in the Moon?s house, then he will destroy his mother?s property and rob it in her lifetime, and his mother will be sick, and her limbs will complain of the cold and the black bile and the harsh pain until she shall make a vow for herself to a house of worship.
Abu ?Ali Al-Khayyat:
If you find this same [planet] in the domicile of the Moon, do not doubt that it signifies infirmity for the native and many maladies for his mother; also, it will destroy his mother?s estate during her lifetime.
Isn?t that interesting? One of the main topics addressed here is the mother. Saturn itself is not mentioned at all, but it is quite clear that it is Saturn that is ?doing? things with what the Moon provides as material for Saturn to work with. The Moon serves as the host for Saturn, and it is up to Saturn to do something with the Moon-?stuff?.
We also see that both Dorotheus and Abu ?Ali Al-Khayyat sort of excerpt the delineation the Liber Hermetis gives, but leave out some of the general significations of the Moon proper: her rulership over body and limbs in general of the native, not just his mother?s as these authors would have it. Liber Hermetis also adduces to the Moon as ruling the natives life in general and some of her universal topics (?neither daring nor rash, travelling with difficulty, being harmed often, rheumatics; it signifies destruction of the patrimony, and separation from the parents?).
Quite an eye-opener I think. It also illustrates the principle that it is the sect condition of the visiting planet that determines how able the guest is to give a benefic or malefic turn to the end result. If one likens the visiting planet to a potter, and the domicile ruler as providing the clay, then these delineation texts strongly suggest that it is the ability and skill of the potter that determines the outcome. But one can easily introduce other considerations as well.
I urge the reader to read up on these authors, the use of the guest-host concept is quite clarifying.
Another example.
Liber Hermetis:
Saturn being in sect in the house of Mercury, or the face or the degree, signifies those conscious of hidden secrets, but in manners active publicans, acquisitive of their own interests, great men selfmotivated, and happily having a constant life, and those always increased to greater things, conscious of secret books and celestial things, but idle with respect to behaviour, and constant towards superiors.
But if he is not in sect, it denotes stutterers, deaf people, those who are mute, malevolent men. Many, indeed, when the planet is evilly configurated, are deprived of their voice; [and it denotes] those always thinking about the perverse things which are in their souls, not showing, but having, the behaviours of wild beasts, always bearing ill will, and being fraudulent against all men, or they become conscious of bad things, either highwaymen or homicides, or those conscious of magic, knowing divine secrets, and the things which are in mystic books. However, it is not expedient for them to treat of those things, because they always fall into great dangers, many times indeed they receive evil for good; they become malevolent in their behaviour, [and it denotes] those who endure both chains and detentions, and are held in sacred places, and they recite or expound fables, or by the vexations of daemons they perform operations, they are also in adversities and in labours. But if Saturn or Mars are configurated with Mercury, it causes worse evils and they become fixed, of bad life and of violent death.
Dorotheus:
If Saturn is in Mercury?s house, he will be secretive and will love silence except that he will be reasonable, learned in the secrets of books, and injury will come to him for this reason, and his tongue will not be distinct or clear.
Abu ?Ali Al-Khayyat
And when this same [planet] is in a domicile of Mercury, it signifies that the native will be thrifty and that he will preserve and investigate the different branches of learning and the secrets in hidden books, on which account he will suffer harm. And he will have an impediment and slowness of the tongue. He will have a very bad mental attitude, and men will hate him and say that he has done things that he hasn't done.
What this again illustrates is that it is the planet in the sign that is actually working with/upon the material supplied by the domicile ruler of the sign.
Fascinating.
Any thoughts?
