Misadventures in Quantifying Essential Dignity

What is the ruler of a sign? Typically astrologers default to the domicile ruler of a sign, and while that is usually sufficient, there is some fine print we’re overlooking most of the time. There are not just domicile rulers, there are also exaltation rulers, trigon lords (triplicity rulers), decan rulers, bound rulers, etc. Depending on what specific degree a planet or point is at, there is potentially a planet that has more rulerships at certain degrees or degree areas than the domicile ruler of the sign. In a preliminary Project Hindsight translation of Rhetorius (which was misattributed to Antiochus of Athens at the time of publication), there is this interesting statement about what a ruler is in astrology:

“Concerning the Ruler – A star is said to be the ruler whenever it should have more relationships of rulership in some one of the zoidia. I mean relationships of house, exaltation, trigon, boundary, phase, or configuration.”

In the footnotes, Robert Hand had this to say about that particular passage:

“This section contains an explicit statement that rulership and disposition are determined by the combined use of multiple dignities, not merely sign rulership as is the general modern practice….There is no evidence that any kind of weighting system was used of the kind used by Arabic and Renaissance European astrologers. Each dignity seems to be considered equal.”

Let’s assume all dignities are equal and should not be weighted in any way. If we take Antiochus’ statement at face value, the ruler of any degree should simply be the one that has more rulerships at that degree. The problem is that there are several degrees where two or (more!) planets can have equal numbers of rulerships. How can you tell what the ruler should be then? Logically, there must be a way to evaluate what the relative value is between dignities.

Even among the dignities themselves are heavily implied hierarchies. For example, there are three trigon lords per sign, a primary, secondary and cooperating trigon. If they’re equal, why do these categories exist? The primary and secondary trigons are also contingent upon the sect of the chart. If they’re equal, why would this need to be determined? What difference would it make if they’re equal?

Another example of this can be seen in the exaltations and exaltation degrees. First of all, only certain signs have exaltation rulers, so fundamentally this is an unequally distributed rulership, suggesting that it is special where it occurs rather than where it doesn’t. Secondly, not only are there signs of exaltation but degrees of exaltation. What would the point be of highlighting a particular degree of dignity if it were not to be considered more important than other degrees in the sign? Even the word ‘exaltation’ bears the connotation of being lifted up high, presumably above others.

Even from the rationales for other rulerships, the domicile ruler is often used as an organizing principle. The exaltations are inextricably based on their relationship to domiciles. The decan rulerships follow descending Chaldean order, but they begin the zodiac not with Saturn the slowest planet, but with Mars, the domicile ruler of Aries. Similarly, the monomoiria use descending Chaldean order, but they begin each sign with the domicile ruler of that sign. While no one is completely sure of the rationale for the Egyptian bounds, the first bound ruler is the domicile ruler a plurality of the time. The elemental decans use the domicile rulers of each element.

It’s not hard to imagine how domicile rulerships overshadowed these other rulerships in practice when they apply to a whole sign regardless of the sect of the chart and oftentimes form the basis of other rulerships. So I think some kind of weighting scheme would be necessary to make sense of them. However, I also know that this is very likely an exercise in folly and futility, because astrological interpretation is not just a matter of counting, but of judgment of all factors together. Notwithstanding that, here is my idea about how different forms of rulership could be weighted.

One approach I can think of that could make some sense would be to assign each rulership some fraction of a domicile rulership based on the number of degrees it occupies or proportion of time a given rulership may be in effect.

      • Domicile ruler: All 12 signs have a domicile ruler which is in effect for all 30 degrees of the sign, so the domicile ruler gets a max value of 30.
      • Exaltation ruler: Exaltations are derivatives from planetary domiciles, which is an indication they should be considered to be of lesser importance than a domicile ruler. A planet in its exaltation still has to answer to the domicile ruler of the sign. It may be an honored guest, but it’s still not the host. While all 12 signs have a domicile ruler, only 7/12 signs have a planet as an exaltation ruler. So it could make sense to say that an exaltation ruler is 7/12ths of a domicile ruler, so it should get a value of 17.5.
      • Exaltation degree ruler: An exaltation degree ruler should get a value of 1 because it’s associated with 1 degree. This has the effect of giving the exaltation ruler a little boost at that degree, which fits with the way we might use this in practice.
      • Trigon lords: Every sign has a primary, secondary and cooperating trigon lord, but which one is which depends on the sect of the chart. Although the trigon lords are representatives for the whole sign, they’re only in power in a particular arrangement for half of the day. Therefore, the primary trigon lord should get a value for half of a sign, 15. The secondary trigon lord should get 2/3rds of 15 which is 10, and the cooperating trigon lord should get the remaining 1/3rd of 15 which is 5. This way, the sum of all the trigon lords equals 30, reflecting their combined rulership of the whole sign while maintaining their respective rank to each other.
      • Bound rulers: Every sign has 5 bound rulers, so each should ideally represent 1/5th of a domicile ruler. However, each bound has varying numbers of degrees, and in some cases the bounds can be larger than a decan or smaller than a 12th part! It would make the most sense to retain the varying degrees of bounds by weighting them in each case according to the percentage of the sign they occupy. That way their combined total can equal 30. While I personally observe the so-called Egyptian (Babylonian) bounds, for this analysis I also included the Ptolemaic and Chaldean bounds.
      • Decan rulers: Every sign has 3 decan rulers, so each should represent 1/3rd of the value of a domicile ruler, so they should have a value of 10 each. I used both Chaldean and elemental sequences of decan rulers, so there are certain decans which stand out due to being ruled by the same planet (Aries 1, 2, Taurus 3, Leo 2, 3, Libra 2, Scorpio 1, Aquarius 2, Pisces 3).
      • Dodekatemoria: Every sign has 12 dodekatemoria, so each has a value of 2.5.
      • Monomoiria: Every sign has 30 monomoiria, so each has a value of 1.

I put this all into a spreadsheet to see which planets came out on top for each degree. Predictably, the domicile ruler wins out most of the time, although at times the exaltation ruler can make a successful challenge against the domicile ruler if it also has other rulerships. There were other surprises, but there was a problem: A planet having no rulership in a sign was represented in the exact same way as if a planet was especially undignified in a sign, such as a planet being in its antithesis or fall. I needed a way to represent not just when a planet had dignity, but also when it was debilitated.

I  realized these concepts needed to apply to the rest of the rulerships as well, not just by sign. For example, Venus in the bounds of Mars of any sign is akin to being in its antithesis since its signs of antithesis are ruled by Mars, and the Moon in the bounds of Mars should be like being in fall because its sign of fall is ruled by Mars. So I created a rubric of deductions based on the indignity a planet would have in a given sign or degree. Essentially, if a planet’s ruler according to each type of dignity is a planet that rules its opposite sign, it gets the full value of that dignity deducted, and if a planet’s ruler according to each type of dignity is a planet that rules the sign of its fall, it gets 7/12ths of the value of that dignity deducted.

I also took into consideration a minor benefit to the planets being in a sign which matched its own sect/gender, traits shared between fire/air signs and earth/water signs. Since there are 4 elements, I figured a value of 7.5 would be added for planets in a sign of its own sect and subtracted if it’s in a sign contrary to sect. So when you put it all in a blender, it looks like this. The graph below is interactive, you can choose which planets you want to be displayed so it’s easier to make sense of, and make comparisons between how sect impacts a planet’s dignity in a sign.

Some weird things pop out when you start playing with this.

  • The Sun has way more going for it in Aries than even Mars!
  • Saturn gives Mercury a run for its money in Gemini, but Mercury makes a similar challenge to Saturn in Aquarius.
  • Jupiter’s got it going on in Leo
  • Mercury is definitely the champ in Virgo
  • Saturn has more authority in Libra than Venus!
  • Mars completely dominates Scorpio, while Jupiter dominates Sagittarius
  • Venus and Mars make an unexpectedly strong showing in Capricorn
  • Saturn seems to have more power in Aquarius than Capricorn
  • Venus and Mars have a huge role to play in Pisces. Especially towards the end, Mars really takes over Pisces

If you’re interested in playing around with values for dignities, feel free to make a copy of the spreadsheet I used to make this graph here. You’re welcome!

2 thoughts on “Misadventures in Quantifying Essential Dignity”

  1. Wow, that must have taken you quite some time! What I also find interesting is that Jupiter has about the same strength in Aries as Mars does. In a night chart he even tops him.

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