Skyscript Astrology Forum

I have noticed that the tables of essential dignities are altered according to the view of that astrologer.Dorotheus,and Morin for example. I can respect their views and can even appreciate their justifications, but I must admit it confuses me. From everyones own personal experience which table is the most accurate to them?

Thank You. Sometimes it helps to get another persons view and you certainly helped me to put some things into perspective. Have a good day.

Hello! This is a very useful website and I am happy that I found it. I read what is written in this topic and my questions are similar:

I have a question regarding Rulers of Term: What is the system that most astrologers prefer to use today and what system do you prefer? From my own observations and from what I read here, I think it is the Egyptian system.

Same question about the Triplicity Rulers. I see that most programs calculate almuten using the Dorothean system for Triplicity and the Egyptian system for Term. It looks like this is the most widely used combination?

What is the system that most astrologers prefer to use today and what system do you prefer?

The problem with this question is that truth is not determined by number of votes :-)
For example, the answer to your question would be "none". I believe if we get the total number of "astrologers" the majority don?t even know exactly what a "term" is.

From my own observations and from what I read here, I think it is the Egyptian system.

Contemporary astrologers who follow renaissance ones, like Frawley, usually use ptolomy terms. Astrologers who follow medieval and arabic and greek, like Zoller, Birchfield, Dr. H, usually use egyptian. Some, like Warnock, I believe that use different systems depending on natal or horary work.

I personally use egyptian.

Same question about the Triplicity Rulers. I see that most programs calculate almuten using the Dorothean system for Triplicity and the Egyptian system for Term. It looks like this is the most widely used combination?

No, as I said, most astrologers wouldn?t calculate an almuten for their lives ! Most of softwares have options on how to calculate an almuten.

Again, followers of Lilly usually use his triplicities, followers of MOrion use Morin?s triplicities, but followers of greek, arabic, medieval astrology uses dorotheus.

There is also a question about using only the sect triplicity or not. Pre-renaissance astrologers apparently used all three triplicity rulers to calculate almutens and essencial dignity.

Y

yuzuru wrote:There is also a question about using only the sect triplicity or not. Pre-renaissance astrologers apparently used all three triplicity rulers to calculate almutens and essencial dignity.

OK, if the all three triplicity rulers are used there is the question how to divide the authority of the rulership - each to get 3 or only 1 point (because traditionally it's given 3 points to the triplicity ruler).

OK, if the all three triplicity rulers are used there is the question how to divide the authority of the rulership

Good question. Some Arab astrologers, e.g. Al Khayyat, used them this way. If we use the triplicity rulers to determine the state of the native's wealth during his life, he would determine whether the chart was day or night. Let's say it is a night chart and Leo is on the cusp. So the night ruler of fire is Jupiter, the day ruler is the Sun, and the participating ruler is Saturn. In order each planet rules a third of the life. So the native's wealth would be ruled by Jupiter in the first third, Sun in the second, and Saturn in the third. The condition of these planets would determine how the native's financial condition would fluctuate over his life.

As for the points, when determining almuten (as Yuzuru implied, "Why?) the sect ruler would be given all three points. But I'm not sure it was the intent of the Arab astrologers to ignore the other triplicity rulers when determining influence. If the day ruler is in charge in a diurnal chart and the night ruler in a nocturnal chart, what is the point of a participating ruler that is always in effect? If the day ruler has no influence in a night chart and vice versa, it would make the participating ruler more influential than the night ruler in a day chart or day ruler in a night chart. That does not sit well. And then there is the question of being peregrine, if a planet has no dignity in a sign save participating ruler, is it still peregrine as it apparently has some dignity? I don't know.

Tom

We know about the partitioning life and the only sect ruler but...
How to agree every third of life to be influenced by the only one?


Dorotheus and other hellenistic astrologers considered triplicity rulership the most powerful of the essential dignities of a planet.

if the all three triplicity rulers are used there is the question how to divide the authority of the rulership - each to get 3 or only 1 point

+

That I remember, both arabics and medieval astrologers use 3 points each, and not only for the sect ruler.

And then there is the question of being peregrine, if a planet has no dignity in a sign save participating ruler, is it still peregrine as it apparently has some dignity?

There was a discussion in the forum some time ago, with Lee Lehman. If I recall (again, the memory), I think she said she would use the sect triplicity and also the out-of-sect triplicity, but not the participant one.

We know about the partitioning life and the only sect ruler but...
How to agree every third of life to be influenced by the only one?

I don?t know if I understand the question. Are you asking how we divide the years between the three ?

I remember that astrojin calculated the years of alchocoden and then divided by three.
Steven Birchfield said sometime that he divided it in "roughly" 25-30 years.
Dr. H says that the periods are customized for every person and should be looked for empirically. And, he adds that after the three periods, there is a final period ruled by the 4th house.

Dorotheus and other hellenistic astrologers considered triplicity rulership the most powerful of the essential dignities of a planet.

I am not familiar with the concept of triplicity being the most powerful dignity for the greeks ! Schmidt says much about the rulership, exaltation and terms. He said that triplicity were "like the winds". could you provide a quote or source ?

Yuzuru

yuzuru wrote:There was a discussion in the forum some time ago, with Lee Lehman. If I recall (again, the memory), I think she said she would use the sect triplicity and also the out-of-sect triplicity, but not the participant one.

In The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology by Al Biruni there's a table on page 47 which indicates that it's just like Tom wrote: the day ruler rules in a diurnal chart along with the participating ruler, the night ruler rules in a nocturnal chart along with the participating ruler. So each sign have two triplicity rulers: the diurnal or nocturnal ruler + the participating ruler. That makes the participating ruler quite influental indeed. Maybe this was the usual practice among the astrologers of the Arabic era?

Except there is little evidence of the participating ruler actually being used - except for the kind of 'Dorothean' technique that breaks periods into three and uses one ruler for each period. Otherwise, the emphasis tends to fall on the main ruler by day and night, with maybe a slight nod to the participating ruler, that?s all. What Al Biruni presents is pretty much the same approach as we find in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. Ptolemy is usually wrongly accused of using only two triplicity rulers, when of course he recognised three like everyone else, but presented them as Al Biruni does here.

Once you isolate one planet as being the 'main' ruler by day or night, then it's just one small snip to omit the participating ruler from the table, since it gets no 'real recognition' within medieval and renaissance technique. Hence you get the 2-ruler table of Lilly, which is faithful to Ptolemy - and that also derives from the 3-ruler scheme, which many astrologers don't realise. When it comes to triplicities, there only is the 3-ruler scheme, the differences are mainly about minor discrepancies within this scheme, and the emphasis we place upon it.

Hi Deb,

For anyone interested here is the thread I started on participating triplicity rulers some time back.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2395

From my reading of her reply Lee Lehman was not suggesting a one size fits all approach to triplicity rulers. In particular she suggested that she had found using a simple day/night ruler for horary and electional work more effective in practical terms. However, she seemed open to using participating rulers in natal work. Her argument being that horary fitted better to a simple set of outcomes while natal charts allowed far more scope for free will and potentiality where participating rulers could be expressed.

To follow a two ruler approach to triplicity in natal work, like the early modern English astrologers, would effectively rule out the whole tradition of Dorothean triplicity rulerships dating from the earliest hellenistic astrology and carried on through the Persian, Jewish, Arab and Latin medieval astrologers like Bonatti. Rather than being an obscure peripheral technique many Arab and medieval astrologers used triplicity rulers as a key technique for identifying the destiny of an individual throughout life. A representative example of this approach being Abu 'Ali Al-Khayat's - 'The Judgement of Nativities'.

As Tom suggests there would be other issues such as the status of planets when considering the almutens, transits or the peregrine nature of planets. For example, Ibn Ezra provides delineation of the houses based on the different triplicity rulers.

I cannot do better than quote a comment from Astrojin in the previous thread:

In Bonatti's (see Liber Astronomiae) and Ibnn Ezra's (see The Book of Wisdom) both use Dorotehan trip rulers. This is because, in their scheme of interpreting houses, each trip ruler of each house gives different meaning or governership of the house e.g. 7th house may govern your spouse, associates and conflicts but using the trip rulers; the in-sect trip ruler of the 7th may govern your spouse, the out-of-sect trip ruler of the 7th governs your conflicts and the participating trip ruler of the 7th governs your associates. This cannot be done if we drop the participating rulership of trip rulers. Some astrologers may argue that we don't have to stick with Dorothean's as long as we have all three trip rulers for each element (which still means we cannot discard the participating trip rulers).

So I cannot completely agree with you when you state:

...there is little evidence of the participating ruler actually being used - except for the kind of 'Dorothean' technique that breaks periods into three and uses one ruler for each period.

First of all that is quite an enormous exception. Certainly in natal work the evidence seems quite strong they were using participating rulers. Of course traditional astrology texts can be frustrating in the lack of worked examples they provide. Are you thinking about this lack of participating rulers in terms of horary particularly or are you making a generalised point here?

One piece of research that seems worth exploring is looking for references to planets being peregrine when they one would not expect this using participating rulers. Thus despite their otherwise debilitated essential dignity Saturn in Aries , Mars in Taurus, Jupiter in Gemini and Moon in Scorpio would never be peregrine under the Dorothean triplicity system.

In the case of Ptolemy's system , I accept the ambiguity of the application of the third participating ruler makes Lilly's two triplicity ruler aproach a pragmatic interpretation. Still , what we call often call 'Ptolemy's' table of essential dignities is surely 'Lilly's' table in terms of only representing two triplicity rulers?

Finally, you state:

When it comes to triplicities, there only is the 3-ruler scheme, the differences are mainly about minor discrepancies within this scheme, and the emphasis we place upon it.

True but in practical terms this does lead to a myriad of ways to work with them. For example:

Three Triplicity Rulers operating

( Day ruler indicated first, night ruler second and participating ruler in brackets)

a) Dorotheus of Sidon's system of Triplicity rulers:

Fire: Sun/Jupiter/ (Saturn)
Earth: Venus/Moon/ (Mars)
Air: Saturn/ Mercury/ (Jupiter)
Water: Venus/Mars/ (Moon)

b) Ptolemy's system of Triplicity rulers:

Fire: Sun/ Jupiter/ (Mars)
Earth: Venus/ Moon/ (Saturn)
Air: Saturn/ Mercury/ (Jupiter)
Water: Venus/Moon/ (Mars)

c) Morin's suggested Triplicity system

Fire: Sun /Mars (Jupiter)
Earth: Mercury/ Saturn (Venus)
Air: Saturn /Venus (Mercury)
Water: Jupiter/ Moon (Mars)


Two ruler approaches ( Participating ruler omitted)


a) Lilly's system of Triplicity Rulers:

Fire: Sun /Jupiter
Earth: Venus/Moon
Air : Saturn/Mercury
Water: Mars /Mars

b) Lee Lehman's simplified version of Dorothean Triplicities

Fire: Sun/Jupiter
Earth: Venus/Moon
Air: Saturn/Mercury
Water: Venus/Mars

That is not counting the other variations other traditional astrologers may have cooked up. You will find a few creative suggestions on the link to the previous thread!

For now, I find Lee Lehman's suggestion very helpful. Thus I use only the night/day Dorothean rulers for horary but bring in participating rulers for natal charts.

In horary terms I suppose the differences are not that dramatic between the Ptolemy/Lilly approach and the Dorothean triplicity system being restricted to the day ruler of the water triplicity being Mars or Venus.

As so often Morin is 'out there' with a very idiosyncratic approach. I do not think his triplicity system has ever been popular with other astrologers.