ASTROLOGICAL NOTES—No. 2.
To the Editor of Lucifer.
The ancients assigned to the planets certain signs and degrees, in which they were essentially dignified, being there more powerful for good, and less powerful for evil; these were called their House, Exaltation, Triplicity, Term, and Face. Opposite to the first two were the places where they were essentially debilitated, being there less powerful for good and more powerful for evil; these were called their Detriment and Fall. Whether the latter three dignities have three corresponding debilities has not been stated.
To the seven known planets, the ancients apportioned the twelve zodiacal signs as their respective houses or chief dignity, thus: ☉ ruled ♌, and ☽ ruled ♋, both by day and night; while the remaining ten signs were divided between the remaining five planets, each planet ruling two signs, one by day and the other by night. But when ♅ and ♆ were discovered, the question arose where to place them.
A. J. Pearce, the present editor of Zadkiel’s Almanac, has suggested that, as they were more remote from ☉ than was ♄, they should have the same houses and exaltations as ♄. Raphael dethrones ♄ from ♒, and proclaims that ♅ reigns in his stead. Both these suggestions involve serious difficulties, nor do they settle the question once and for all with regard to any planets which may yet be discovered. It seems unlikely that planets of such diverse natures as ♄, ♅, and ♆ (not to mention any still more distant planets) should all bear equal rule in the same two signs, and to depose ♄ from his throne, pre-supposes a grave error on the part of the ancients, whose teaching on this point has been handed down with complete unanimity from the dim past: necessitating, also, a further process of dethronement, and a further ignoring of the teachings of antiquity, as further planetary discoveries are made.
The first Raphael (the late R. C. Smith) rejected the ancient nocturnal and diurnal division of the Houses and Triplicities, in which he is followed by his successor. It appears to me that it is here that the error, with its consequent difficulties, first arose; and that by observing this distinction, ♅ and ♆ easily find their homes, with room to spare for their yet undiscovered brethren.
It is obvious that Astrology can never become an even approximately perfect science, unless we are able in our calculations to take fully into account the influence of ♅ and ♆. With this end in view, I have been endeavouring, in my leisure moments, to solve the problem. To a certain extent I have been successful; and though I have not yet been able to substantiate all my conclusions as fully as I could wish, yet I deem it is the best interests of the Science to make them now public, that their truth or falsity may be as speedily as possible established by the investigations of astrologers generally.
My conclusions are the following: that the ancient Diurnal and Nocturnal divisions are quite correct, so that if a figure is drawn for any time between sunrise and sunset, the planets which rule by day the signs on the cusps of the houses of the significators must be chiefly, and sometimes exclusively, considered; and vice versâ.
The Houses of the new planets are, I believe, these:
♒, which is the day-house of ♄, is the night-house of ♅.