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Dominion, or the System of 8 Houses
(2/2: Dominion)
by Patrice Guinard, Ph.D.

-- translation Matyas Becvarov --



Note P.G.: This paper regarding what I've called the "DOMINION" is the "best-seller" of CURA. A partial translation (chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7) had been published here (edition No. 2: Dec. 1999). This new and better version is given by Matyas Becvarov to whom I wish to address my warmest thanks. The footnotes, the end of the fifth chapter and the eighth chapter are new. The historical part of the paper (fourth chapter and end of the sixth) had been published in Considerations (Issue XV 3, 2000), the magazine of Ken Gillman, and recently translated in the Italian journal Linguaggio Astrale (No. 122, 2001).
 

Presentation

The 8 Houses (1/2): Space

The 8 Houses (2/2): Dominion
 
 

4. ORIGIN OF DOMINION AND HISTORY OF THE EIGHT HOUSES

"There was in antiquity a system of eight, rather than of twelve, houses."
(John North: Horoscopes and History, 1986)

      The seafarers of antiquity, those tireless nomads of aquatic expanses, were the first to conceptualize the form of space and of the Earth. The winds! The West Wind and the South Wind are different each from the other. No one can venture forth with impunity and without forethought in a particular direction without knowing the properties and qualities of what lies before him. Space is hetereogeneous and living -- in French: vi-vent (i.e. "vivant" (alive), from vi(e) = "life" and vent = "wind"). And it is the Rose, the one formed by the winds with their eight directions, that imposed its form on the minds of these pioneers.[1]

      We astrologers have inherited this conception of space with eight elements, which probably had its origin in the proto-history of astrology. There has been preserved a proclamation of the Assyrian sovereign Sargon II (721-705 B.C.): "Before and after, on all the sides exposed to the eight winds, I opened great portals." [2]  Etruscan diviners, contemporaries of Sargon, likewise used a division by eight. [3]  We know that the divine cosmogonical triad of the Sumerians, AN (Anu) / EN.LIL (Enlil) / EN.KI (Ea) had already been replaced by the Semitic planetary triad Sîn (Moon) / Shamash (Sun) / Ishtar (Venus) before the 14th century B.C., the era in which their emblems appear. We recognize the lunar semi-disc, the eight-armed star of Venus and the solar disc with its four axes and four intercalated solar rays, on a kudurru dating from the time of the Kassite king Melishipak (1188-1174 B.C.). [4]  King observes: "The presence of the emblems of the Sun, Moon and Venus in the form of an eight-armed star covering the top of a boundary stone leads one to think that something of astral nature underpins it." [5]  The representation of Venus, indeed of any celestial body, in the form of an eight-armed seal, attests to a very ancient division of celestial space into eight sectors, as the only known Mesopotamian planisphere appears to show by its division of the celestial sphere into eight distinct zones. [6]  The division of the local sphere into eight sectors existed also in the earliest Chinese astrology, [7]  and the celebrated Mânava-Dharma-Shâstra (The Treatise on the Laws of Manu), a product of the Brahmanic tradition, mentions eight celestial regions. [8]

      Was this natural division of space integrated in Assyrian or Chaldean thought with a proto-theory of the astrological houses, or was this assimilation the fruit of later speculation done by the first Greek astrologers? What is certain is the existence among the Greeks of a system of eight houses that antedates that of twelve houses, as John North points out, whose work on horoscopes is authoritative, particularly with regard to the diverse models for domification among the Greeks and Arabs. [9]  The localization of the houses (either eight or twelve in number) appears very rarely in Greek horoscopes that have been transmitted to us; the most significant examples date from September of 428 A.D. and from October of 497 A.D.! [10]

      The Stoic astrologer Marcus Manilius (48? B.C. -- 20 A.D.) refers to this system of eight places, which ostensibly was given the name octotopos by ancient astronomers. [11]  Manilius, however, seems to confuse the earlier system with the system of twelve places, or at least attempts to synthesize the two systems, the poetic nature of his presentation preventing him from going into any great detail. There results a bipartite text that remains rather obscure. The first part presents the four angles of the heavens and the four intervals that separate them (cf. the Alleau edition, pp. 160-163), and the second part describes the characteristics of the twelve houses (Alleau edition, pp. 164-170). René Alleau's commentary on these passages is as obscure as the translation by the librarian of Ste.-Geneviève in Paris; the London edition of 1697 sheds no more light on the matter. [12]

      Likewise, Firmicus Maternus, around 335 A.D., dedicates the fourteenth chapter of his second book to eight loci (1: life, 2: hope (of riches), 3: brothers and sisters, 4: parents, 5: children, 6: health, 7: partnerships, 8: death), before undertaking an analysis of the twelve houses. [13]  In Book IV he enumerates once again the sources of geniture: "from nature, from physical subsistence, from the race, from the parents, from the siblings, from marriages, from descendents, from the last day of life." [14]  Bouché-Leclercq suggested in 1899 in his polemical survey that the octotopos (or oktotopos) predates the dodekatopos: "There must have existed a neglected tradition that divided the circle of life into eight parts, or into twelve parts of which only eight were considered to be active, and (...) this system may have been understood neither by Manilius nor by Firmicus, both of whom were capable of distortion but incapable of invention." [15]  This anteriority of the system of eight houses seems to be confirmed by the meanings traditionally attributed to Houses I (life) and VIII (death). It is after passage through the eighth house that a new cycle can begin. [16]

      It is possible to detect traces of the octotopos in the few rare fragments that remain to us of the writings of a disciples of Hipparchus, Seraphion of Antioch (ca. 125 B.C.), from the astrologer of Tiberus, the famous Thrasyllos, [17]  and the Athenian Antiochos (2nd century A.D.) The celebrated Indian astronomer-astrologer Varâha Mihira (ca. 505-585), the inheritor of Greek astrology and of Babylonian theories as well, preserved in his Brihat-Samhitâ the theory of eight zones, linked to the eight directions of space and to the Hindu divinities. [18]

      Wilhelm Gundel proposed in 1936 a theory of evolution for the astrological houses with four phases: an initial organization into four quadrants defined by the cardinal points (following each other in the sense of the hands of a clock and symbolic of the four ages of man), an organization into eight sectors of 45 degrees (cardinal quadrants and sectors), an organization into 12 sectors (clockwise), and finally, an organization into 12 sectors arranged counter-clockwise, which gave birth to the systems in current use and was ostensibly invented by Hermes Trismegistos and carried forward by "Nechepso-Petosiris.[19]

      It is possible that the model of the eight houses was organized in relation with the system of Elements and elemental values, in a relatively distant epoch, one that antedates the first hermetical astrological texts (ca. 250-200 B.C.), perhaps among the Stoics at the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. Perhaps the Stoics, taking up the Platonic torch of the Elements (Fire, Air, Water, Earth) [20]  and ordering them according to the direction of diurnal movement, added to them associated elemental values (dry, hot, wet, cold), the markers of the four characteristics of the progression of the sun (sunrise, apogee, sunset, nadir). What results is a model which would have rivaled the elemental model of the Zodiac (Air = Spring, Fire = Summer, Earth = Autumn, Water = Winter), the symbols of which move opposite the direction of diurnal motion. These two circular organizations, one turning clockwise and the other counter-clockwise, agree if one logically superimposes noon onto the summer solstice. This model may well have been the prototype for a unified theory of the astrological houses and the Zodiacal signs. [21]



      It is also known that the Valentinian Gnostics had established a procession of Eons (immortal essences or energies), that numbered 30; this is the theory of the Plerome, the paradigm of Totality. The 30 eons are divided into three groups: the Ogdoad, the Decad and the Duodecad. Markos of Haeresiarcha (end of the 2nd century A.D.) developed a model that assimilates the Valentinian eons into the operators of astrology: the Ogdoad is formed from the four emanations or primordial eons (the Elements) and the four agents (the elemental values); the Decad is constituted of the seven planets, the "eighth sphere," the Sun and the Moon; and the Duodecad is formed from the twelve Zodiacal signs. [22]  What is remarkable in the author's brief report on his contemporary Irene is not only that the Ogdoad seems to relate to the octotopos, but also that the Gnostics had a kind of foreknowledge about the existence of Uranus and Neptune.

      There is another text from that period, the 2nd century A.D., which is the essential text in this matter, written by an anonymous astrologer, that reveals a system of eight houses or places (loci) which the author attributes to Asclepius: "On the basis of the horoscope one examines all those things which concern life; in the second sector, moving upward, one examines material life; in the third, brothers and sisters; in the fourth, parents; in the fifth, children; in the sixth, misfortune and tribulations; in the seventh, women; in the eighth, destiny and death, which sets an end to life, according to the planets that exercise a dominant influence on their houses ..." [23]

      The eight sectors of approximately 45 degrees, centered on the Angles for four of the sectors in question, follow each other in the direction of diurnal motion. In the dodekatopos the sectors are counted from the Angles, which define the four "points" of reference, and, illogically, follow a course of motion opposite diurnal movement. The triple convergence between the two systems (i.e., the number of houses, their position, and their direction of motion) can be explained by incomprehension of the initial system, from which resulted the rather late development by the Greeks of a distribution into twelve houses, based on the Zodiacal model. This erroneous assimilation deprives sectored space of its specific characteristics and implies a redundancy in the Zodiacal structure. The astrologer Cyril Fagan: "The Greeks made it [the Dodekatopos] synchronize with the signs of the zodiac, commencing with Aries 0°, notwithstanding the fact that the order of the houses runs from west to east, whereas the signs of the zodiac run from east to west. Hence, they are incompatible. One cannot pair off twelve signs and twelve houses when they run in opposite directions." [24]

      The lesson of the octotopos was not forgotten during the Renaissance: Tycho Brahe proposed in 1573 a system of eight houses containing 45 degrees, divided on the basis of the first vertical. [25]  The octotopos is also used in medical astrology by Cardan, by Thomas Finck (1561-1656) in his Horoscopographia (Schleswig, 1591), by the pioneer of English astrology, Christopher Heydon, in his unpublished journals, [26]  and by Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) who associates it with the lunar cycle and with the theory of "critical days" (the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th of the lunar cycle). [27]  More recently, the physician Hans Michel of Nuremberg presented a system of eight houses based on the work of the geophysicist F. Lehner. [28]

    If the idea of eight spatial directions is indeed the original and operative point of departure for the development of a system of astrological houses, it should be possible to find traces of it in the literature of antiquity and in cultural representations.

      The theme of the Ogdoad is recurrent in Egyptian theo-cosmogony: according to Isha Schwaller de Lubicz, the successive cosmogonies of Memphis, Hermopolis and Thebes each admit, according to their own system of organization, the preponderance of four pairs of "Neter," or primordial god-principles. [29]  This interpretation appears to be compatible with Seneca's representation: "The Egyptians posited four elements and made a pairing of each of them." [30]

      The Kaushîtaki Upanishad of India (ca. 600-400 B.C.) puts side by side two series of situations, each one formed from four pairings that illustrate the coincidence of human and divine possibilities. On the divine level, there coexist "he who is in the sun" and "he who is in the moon," and those who reside "in the moonlight" and "in the thunder," "in the wind" and "in space," "in fire" and "in water." These eight stations correspond at the individual level to a new series of four polar pairings: respectively, those who are "in the mirror" and "in the shadow," "in the echo" and "in the sound," "in dream" and "in the body," "in the right eye" and "in the left eye." [31]  Elsewhere the solar symbolism of the wheel is attested far back in Vedic writings and in the Brâhmanas. It is also to be found in architecture: the eight directions, represented by the wheel of the temple of Konarak (near Puri), dedicated to the sun god Sûrya, symbolize the eight solar rays. [32]  In the kemari (the Japanese ball game of the 7th century A.D., but known in China from the 2nd century B.C.), eight players occupy the eight spatial directions and pass among themselves a ball that symbolizes the Sun. [33]

      These examples illustrate that the same archetypal circle has been interpreted in different ways within relatively independent cultures, and contrary to the Zodiac, the model's raison d'être has extended itself through the course of the centuries. It is probable that the organization of space on the basis of eight preceded organization by twelve, which requires more delicate manipulation. With the Zodiac one leaves behind the concrete, the terrestrial, for the abstract, the celestial. The disaffection of sensibility with space (and time) is not of recent vintage: it marks the incapacity of "modern" consciousness, plunged as it is into the kali yuga since 3101, [34]  the 28th year of the 7th Manu, for thinking in terms of space and in terms of moments.
 


5. THE ORGANIZATION OF DOMINION

"For it is justified, on this point as well,
to listen to the testimony of experience:
as that which before all things forged
the first conviction before the specific reasons."
(Kepler: Harmonices mundi, IV 5)

      Domified space is organized into oriented Sectors or Domains: that is the theory of the astrological Houses. The doubts that subsist in this disputed area of astrology have induced numerous practitioners to abandon it, as was the case with Kepler. In point of fact, astrologers cannot agree on the Houses with regard either to their location, their number, or even their nature, their function or their meaning. Contrary to the Zodiac or the Planetaries, Dominion is nowadays the object of no probing attempts at neuro-psychological correlation that might lead to the formation of a general model or theory. It is possible that new scientific advances, notably in the domain of geomagnetism, might contribute to untangling this confusion.

      The zodiacs (plural) may be defined as geocentric cycles and structuring elements of the planets, of which the Zodiacal signs represent the successive phases: e.g., an annual cycle for the Sun, a mensual cycle for the Moon, a cycle of twelve years for Jupiter (essential to Chinese astrology), a cycle of 165 years for Neptune ... Domification is a dividing up of the celestial sphere, of the different phases of its daily rhythm, a rhythm apparent in the rotation of the earth itself. It conceptualizes the spatial-temporal rootedness of the organism on the surface of the Earth and permits the ordering of successive daily positions of the planets for an observer situated in a specific place on the terrestrial surface. [35]  The Houses are the topocentric divisions of the celestial sphere. It follows that the demarcation of the Houses, dependant on the hour and place of birth of the native, "personalize" a natal chart among a multiplicity of similar charts belonging to a single day.

      The Earth turns upon its own axis from West to East in 24 hours, so that the entire celestial sphere seems during this rotation to move from East to West, including those privileged members of the solar system called planets, the star that holds them in its field of gravity, and the Earth's satellite, the Moon. The daily movement of these bodies describes a sinusoidal curve with four phases, comparable to that which characterizes their Zodiacal movement: from the Ascendant to the Midheaven the celestial body rises above the horizon, from the Midheaven to the Descendant it travels down again, from the Descendant to the Nadir it declines below the horizon, from the Nadir to the Ascendant it rises, but this time below the horizon. These four phases define the diurnal and nocturnal semi-arcs of the body in question. [36]

The daily movement of a celestial body goes through eight successive phases that demarcate eight spatial divisions, eight specific domains, diurnal (positive, open), then nocturnal (negative, closed), according to its position above or below the horizon:

     1. The body rises and passes the Ascendant
     2. It rises above the horizon in the East (to the left of an observer facing south)
     3. It crosses the point of its maximum height (culmination at the Medium Coeli)
     4. It descends again to the West, above the horizon
     5. It sets and passes across the Descendant
     6. It descends beneath the horizon to the West
     7. It reaches its lowest point (crossing the North Angle)
     8. It rises once again, but beneath the horizon, in the East




      The organization of Dominion into eight differentiated sectors arises from a dual principle: the alternation of a diurnal group of four (Houses 1, 2, 3 and 4) with a nocturnal group of four (Houses 5, 6, 7 and 8), and the intercalation of an angular quaternary group (Houses 1, 3, 5 and 7) with a intermediary quaternary group (Houses 2, 4, 6 and 8). In phases 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the daily motion, the body is above the horizon (diurnal sectors); in phases 5, 6, 7 and 8 it is below the horizon (nocturnal sectors). In phase 1, the body rises and becomes visible (Objectivation); in phase 3, it culminates (Individuation); in phase 5 it sets and becomes once again invisible (to the diurnal is joined the nocturnal: Conjoining); in phase 7 it reaches its lowest point (Participation). [37]  The angle AS marks introversion (an attitude of mind turned inward), the angle MC marks extraversion (an attitude of mind turned outward), the angle DS marks exteriorization (the tendency to project outward what is contained within) and the angle of the Nadir represents interiorization (the tendency to bring within what lies outside). [38]

      A formal logic underpins the organization of Dominion. In effect it admits a center of symmetry that opposes the sectors of Conjoining to those of Objectivation, and likewise the sectors of Individuation to those of Participation, and furthermore establishes an axis of symmetry opposing the diurnal sectors to the nocturnal: individuation opposes objectivation, and conjoining opposes participation. In addition, the angular sectors (3, 5, 7, 1), just like the intermediate sectors (8, 2, 4, 6) progress from individuation to objectivation, passing through conjoining and participation, in the direction of apparent daily movement of the body in question.




      The curves derived from the statistical research of Gauquelin demonstrate this distribution. Quite apart from their doubtful interest as a means of validating or invalidating astral reality, they show that the distribution of angular natal positions for certain planets in certain individuals engaged in certain activities gives a characteristic curve, notably for Mars in the case of military persons and sports figures, for Saturn in the case of scientists and for Jupiter in the case of politicians. Despite the exuberance of authors who refer to the work of French astro-statisticians, rare is the one among them who has shown awareness of what in my opinion is the only really valid discovery, made unawares, namely: the presence in the global curves of the eight astrological houses[39]  In the figure which follows, taken from one of the first publications of Michel Gauquelin, [40]  I have added the boundaries of the eight sectors, so that they proceed logically from the pattern made by the sixteen segments of the curve.




     Eight sectors (the four angular zones and the four intermediate zones) arrange themselves in a schema which could well find its explanation in terrestrial magnetism. [41]  I thought earlier that the forward shift in relation to the Angles that appears in sectors 1 and 3 might exist because the sampling of Gauquelin may contain a preponderance of approximated hours, rounded off to the half hour, and that the "natural" tendency of parents is to declare to the civil authorities a birthtime actually later than the precise moment of birth. At present, however, it seems to me that the latitude of the sample charts (southern temperate zone) is also involved, and that one should revisit the calculation of their angles (cf. infra: Domification).

      The circular disposition of the Chinese Trigrams called "the succession of the older sky" and traditionally attributed to Fou Hi, the legendary inventor of the Hexagrams of the Chinese Yi King, may well have been a proto-model of Dominion. The eight spatial directions, traditionally associated with the eight winds and symbolized by the eight Trigrams, form a circle of the Winds: LI to the East, TOUEI to the Southeast, K'IEN to the South, SOUEN to the Southwest, K'AN to the West, KEN to the Northwest, K'OUEN to the North and TCHEN to the Northeast. [42]

      TCHEN, LI, TOUEI and K'IEN are called "masculine" [diurnal] due to the solid line at their base; SOUEN, K'AN, KEN and K'OUEN are "feminine" [nocturnal]. What is more, the Trigrams are paired by the central lines according to their structural morphology and their meaning: "The heavens [K'IEN] and the earth [K'OUEN] determine direction. The mountain [KEN] and the lake [TOUEI] join their forces. The thunder [TCHEN] and the wind [SOUEN] activate one another. Water [K'AN] and fire [LI] do not contend with each other. Thus the eight trigrams are married each to another." [43]

      While respecting the polarization common to the organization of the Trigrams and to that of Dominion as well, and while comparing the symbolic meaning of the Trigrams with those of Dominion (cf. infra), we can recognize the following similarities:

TCHEN (Thunder, the Awakener) : Diurnal Objectivation (Communication)
LI (Fire, That Which Attaches) : Diurnal Conjoining (Friendship)
TOUEI (The Lake, The Joyous One) : Diurnal Individuation (Situation)
K'IEN (The Heavens, the Creative One) : Diurnal Participation (Harmony)
SOUEN (The Wind, The Penetrating One) : Nocturnal Individuation (Renown)
K'AN (Water, the Unfathomable One) : Nocturnal Participation (Mystery)
KEN (The Mountain : Immobility) : Nocturnal Objectivation (Knowledge)
K'OUEN (Earth, The Receptive One) : Nocturnal Conjoining (The Couple)




      The result of this is that the succession of the Trigrams in the disposition ascribed to Fou Hi is isomorphic with that of Dominion, through the substitution of an axial symmetry by a centralized symmetry, [44]  and beginning with TCHEN, the first diurnal Trigram. [45]  In such a way the Trigrams could be seen as the symbols, for the most part well interpreted and understood since the remote point of their invention, of the astrological houses, and their organization could be considered a prototype of Dominion.
 


6. THE SEMANTICS OF THE DOMAINS

"The nature of the house is stronger than that of the sign."
(Marcus Manilius : Les Astrologiques)

      It has been known for a long time that the "meanings" attributed to the houses of the Dodekatopos seem to obey a certain logic and seem to suggest a certain systematization: for example, Houses 3 (brothers and sisters) and 11 (friends), artificially associated with the Zodiacal signs Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, and even more artificially with the element AIR, all arise from a common category, that of relationships. Various attempts have been made in this direction, all of them ending in a similar distribution. I have found the same four-part schema repeated at 32-year intervals: in Alan Leo (1913) Houses 1, 5 and 9 are associated with Fire and the Self, Houses 2, 6 and 10 with Earth and the Not-Self, Houses 3, 7 and 11 with Air and Relationships, Houses 4, 8 and 12 with Water and Summation. In the work of Marc Edmund Jones (1945) Houses 1, 5 and 9 are associated with the Self, Houses 2, 6 and 10 with business affairs and concerns, Houses 3, 7 and 11 with relationships, Houses 4, 8 and 12 with compensations and rewards. In the thought of Jean-Pierre Nicola (1977), Houses 1, 5 and 9 are associated with the Subject, Houses 2, 6 and 10 with the Object, Houses 3, 7 and 11 with Relationship, Houses 4, 8 and 12 with Integration. [46]

      Apart from the fact that these distributions delineate, in my opinion, an outmoded system of Houses, i.e. that of the dodekatopos superimposed on the Zodiac [47]  which moves in the direction opposite to diurnal motion, it is clear that they refer to something extrinsic. How, then, could the objects of the sensory world figure in the chart? Kepler, a detractor of the classical theory of the Houses, remarks that the heavens "do not give a man his customs, his history, his happiness, his children, his riches, his wife (...)" [48]  No object of the sensory world can be localized in the chart of a native.

      Even if one announces to the world that the Third House no longer deals with "siblings," but rather with the relationship one may have to them, there nonetheless still subsists an exterior reality that has nothing to do with astral reality. If that were the case, for example, then all those who were born as only children would exhibit a similar configuration in the house of "siblings"! And why should the existence of siblings, an aleatory event of biological nature, show up in the chart of a native whose birth, in certain cases, was previous to that event?

      The Houses cannot indicate schemas of the fulfillment of individual potential exterior to consciousness; they do not relate to exterior phenomena, but rather to states, to interior impulses. The differentiation of symbolic space presupposes diverse fields of organization for the impressionaux. The astral Houses are for consciousness modes of subjective perception of the environment, the relational textures that such perception demarcates in its milieu. They translate the manner in which that perception perceives its relationship to what surrounds it, the manner in which it feels itself linked to its world, its mode of existential insertion, its mode of being in the world. In such a fashion each person constructs his or her own space through one or another of these astral tools.

      Dominion is constituted of four groups containing two Houses each, one diurnal and the other nocturnal. Each of these groups marks a certain degree of openness on the part of consciousness to what surrounds it. I call them Individuation, Conjoining, Participation and Objectivation. The opening of consciousness is greatest in Objectivation, smallest in Individuation. One can define the conditional implications of these diverse relational modes in the world that direct or pilot consciousness. Thus House 3 (diurnal Individuation = the 10th House of the dodekatopos) does not designate profession, trade, or even career, recognition or reputation, but rather the mode of integration of consciousness into the world, the individualized mode, which enervates consciousness into the belief that the search for recognition and social gratification is the evident value that justifies one's existence, nothwithstanding the effective results of actions that the individual may be led to undertake in order to realize those ideals.

      The houses of Individuation[49]  mark a tendency to individualize oneself, to acquire distinctive characteristics, to realize one's potential through means of that which is most particular to the self, most personal, most subjective, to differentiate oneself from one's ambient realities, and even to oppose oneself to everything outside oneself. The individual feels himself to be isolated: he struggles and fights in the battle of competition.

      The Houses of Conjoining (French: "Alligation") [50]  mark a tendency to exteriorize the self, to open to someone outside oneself, to move closer to individual realities or persons, to join oneself with them in a relation of reciprocity, to lose oneself in the relationship and in the transparence of consciousness. The conjoined feels himself linked: he moves in the area of interaction.

      The Houses of Participation mark a tendency to interiorize very divergent realities with a view to establishing interdependence between them, to experience oneself as a living member of an encompassing and organic totality, in resonance with a multiplicity of beings and possessed of an indefinite receptivity to aliveness. The participant feels himself surrounded, absorbed: he is bathed in the sphere of integration.

      The Houses of Objectivation mark a tendency to abstract oneself from the real, to relate it to an exteriority that prolongs and diversifies the phenomena one perceives, to lose all defined identity to the point of becoming the element, among other elements, of a complexity that brings about for each person involved determinate relationships. The objectivated person feels himself subsumed: he abstracts himself in the fabric of incorporation.

      The personal pronouns of language illustrate this quadripartition. The "I" (individuation) marks separateness and the affirmation of the separate subject as it meets an indistinct multitude. The "YOU" (conjoining) marks the linking to another person, the putting into perspective of otherness through dialogue, exchange and the permeability of consciousness. The "WE" (participation) marks integration into an organic ensemble that acts as a single unit, distinct from simple association based on serving common interests. "HE," "SHE" and "THEY" (objectivation) mark exteriority and the objectivity of perception. These forms of speech in literaure and in writing in general are often fairly trustworthy indicators of the tendencies of the writers themselves: the "I" of St. Augustine, of Montaigne, of Descartes, the "YOU" of the dialogues of Plato, the "WE" of Heraclitus ...

      Those pronouns called "possessive" do not invariably mark possession, but apply, according to the situation in question, to one or another of the four relational modes: if I call forth the image of my ballpoint pen, my cat purring underneath the table, my state of health, or my text, the possessive indicates, respectively, ownership, relation, integration and interlinking. My ballpoint pen is an object exterior to myself: I use it, I may exchange it for another item of its class, it exists only to serve my needs. My cat is a being with whom I maintain a particular relation: she has her own desires, her own moods, her own tricks, and I have mine. When I speak of my health, I find it difficult to imagine that I speak of anything other than myself. Finally, the text that I am in process of writing is exterior to me, for I must adapt myself to numerous constraints, but at the same time it is, as I mean to develop it, a reflection of my understanding of a particular language and a mode of thought that are not unique to myself: by the act of writing, I inevitably subject myself to the infrastructure of a particular language and to a mental universe that predated my own existence.

      "Individualized" character -- not necessarily synonymous with individual in this mode of thought -- seeks to augment its prestige and to acquire power over the world in which it moves. It conducts its "business" with a view to substantial profit-making, be it material or social. Its mode of acquiring expertise is pragmatic: it aims for concrete results by active transformation of the surrounding world. Its priorities are the effectiveness of action and the utilitarian nature of knowledge. The ontological difference between an individual and his peer, his competitor, is experienced as a function of the separation between consciousnesses. The Self conceives itself as limited and circumscribed by the Not-Self: Fichte. Consciousness feels itself alienated by all otherness or exteriority: Sartre.

      Diurnal, or open, individuation (Situation): the multiplication of experiences for the purpose of leaving one's mark on things, an affirmation of the ego through action, the realization of a project or an enterprise capable of satisfying subjective feelings of power, a permanent exaltation in the pursuit of diverse objectives. Only that which validates power is real.

      Nocturnal, or closed, individuation (Renown): the preservation of one's interests and the closing in upon oneself, the appropriation of energies available in the environment, the constitution and affirmation of oneself in an unequivocal form, assimilation and egocentric reorganization of exteriority. The intellect as a means for personal power.

      The "conjoined" character lives in symbiosis with another person. He constructs his personality through his encounters, through dialogue and exchange. He develops himself under the regard of another person and as a function of that person's reactions. His mode of learning is affective: he believes in trust and the warmth created by someone else's presence. The other is a particular someone: that is the necessary condition for the mutual transformation of consciousnesses. The ontological difference between individuals is felt as an imperfection, an insufficiency on the part of each isolated individual, who is predisposed to the need to find his complement(s). Sociability is only possible within the ambit of consciousnesses who commit themselves: Rousseau. Immediate reality offered to consciousness is not the Self, but the Other: Scheler. [51]

      Nocturnal or closed conjoining (the Couple): the constitution of a protective space that permits relations involving exclusivity and a high emotional charge, visceral adhesion on the closest, most intimate terms, abandon and attention given to the object of one's affections, the simultaneous pouring out of consciousnesses, complete cohabitation for better or for worse. Equivalence of that which is mine and that which is yours.

      Diurnal or open conjoining (Friendship): participation in a communal field of experience of which one preserves the integrity and for which one reserves to oneself the function of organizer, the creation of figures, of roles and scenarios in a convivial space where each person has a given place, wholesome development in the realization of daily reality. Each person plays his part in the human comedy.

      The "participant" aspires toward his essential being and keeps himself distant from his interiority. Immersed in the indeterminate movement of the world around him, he takes part in its smallest variations, its subtlest vibrations. His mode of learning is ethical: he engages awareness of whatever the situation requires, in abandon to the moment and by foregone acceptance of the consequences of his actions. Virtue results from disinterested contemplation informed by an interior necessity. The ontological difference between individuals is a condition a priori to the differential integration of each into the whole. Each being expresses a particular perspective of an harmonious total: Leibnitz. Only intersubjectivity is capable of closing the gap that separates consciousness from the world: Husserl.

      Diurnal or open participation (Harmony): the immediate impregnation of the most subtle realities, openness to the possible and to that which lies outside of time, the search for the right climate to foster growth, integration of the transtemporal atmosphere in which reality is bathed, the contemplation of the ineffable beauty beyond appearances. The world is magical and living in all its parts.

      Nocturnal or closed participation (Mystery): losing oneself through the abandonment of all formal identification, attention given to the improbable, the capacity to transform oneself within a field that is narrow but locally intensified, the spiritualization of consciousness made sensitive to the ineffable. The world is unfathomable and is not what it appears to be.

      The "objectivated" character seeks a knowledge that engages, by means of a single logic, exterior phenomena and those phenomena that impinge on his awareness, and assimilates a knowing capable of liberating him from the egotistical interests that derive from his rootedness in physical existence. His mode of learning is cognitive: it presupposes equivalence of intellect and language for the external world, and it develops by means of abstraction and by reasoning. Ontological difference is ruled by general laws. The real is rational in its entirety: Hegel. The real can be the object of infinite logical analysis: Peirce.

      Nocturnal or closed objectivation (Knowledge): the control of restrictions and of constraints that leads beyond any material or existential dependence. The elimination of artifices, the neutralization of all excitation, the reasoned construction of self and the world. Knowledge liberates from ignorance and agitation.

      Diurnal or open objectivation (Communication): experimentation on the self through implication in a fabric of abstract relations, the multiplication of mediatied relations with the environment, abolition of the ego and of the tragic sense of isolation in regard to the individual. Knowledge moves closer to man.




      The eight Houses arrange themselves in a fairly logical succession. [52]  In Communication and Friendship, the individual seeks to overcome his isolation: he becomes attuned to the world, then joins with other people. In Situation and Harmony, he seeks to overcome his impotence: he establishes himself in society, then opens himself to life in all its diversity. [53]  In the Couple and in Knowledge, he seeks to overcome his incompleteness: he withdraws with the loved one, then with the knowledge he has gained. In Mystery and Renown, he attains the end of his life and seeks to overcome his destiny: he abandons everything and discovers the ineffability of the world, then he is no longer in the world and leaves behind his heritage, his property, and his name.

      The Greek designations for the astrological Houses (The Portal of Hades, Misfortune, the Deity ...) have been abandoned and replaced by simple names, which seems to me a sign of the failure of the twelve-house system at the symbolic level. If one now compares the "meanings" of the twelve houses [54]  with those that I propose in my interpretation of the octotopos, this relative concordance emerges:

1 (dodekatopos): Life = 1 (octotopos) Communication, waking to the world
11 (dodekatopos) Friends = 2 (octotopos) Friendship
10 (dodekatopos) Honors = 3 (octotopos) Situation, career, honors
9 (dodekatopos) Voyages, Revelations = 4 (octotopos) Harmony, spiritual experience
7 (dodekatopos) Marriage = 5 (octotopos) the Couple
6 (dodekatopos) Health, Work, Struggle = 6 (octotopos) Knowledge
4 (dodekatopos) Parents, Origins = 7 (octotopos) Mystery
2 (dodekatopos) Money, Property = 8 (octotopos) Renown, Heritage

      In addition, I have long been disconcerted by the incoherent pairing of the Greek designations of the twelve Houses: Good Fortune (Agathê tuchê) and Misfortune (Kakê tuchê) of Houses 5 and 6, the Good Spirit (Agathos daimôn) and the Bad Spirit (Kakos daimôn) of Houses 11 and 12, the God (Theos) and the Goddess (Thea) of Houses 9 and 3, with the first two pairs linking contiguous houses, the third linking symmetrical houses. I propose the following explanation: Houses 5, 12 and 3 were likely added at a later date, and House 8 probably as well, since its Greek designation is problematic. There must have existed, then, another model of the octotopos that contained, in addition to the four angular houses, only Houses 2 (Aidou pulê = Latin porta inferna, The Portal of Hades or the Infernal Portal), 6 (Kakê tuchê = Latin mala fortuna, Misfortune), 9 (Theos = Latin deus, The God) and 11 (Agathos daimôn = Latin bonus daemon, the Good Spirit) of the final form taken by the dodekatopos. This system is coherent for the following reasons: mala fortuna (Kakê tuchê) and the porta inferna (Aidou pulê) are found below the horizon (to note their feminine and negative nature), deus and bonus daemon are above the horizon; mala fortuna is semantically opposite to bonus daemon as is porta inferna to deus; porta inferna is logically the last house of the sequence, the one which marks passage through death. The following outline gives what is probably the oldest Greek version of the octotopos, and its equivalence to my model of Dominion:

     1. The Marker of Hours (Greek: hôroskopos) = AS = Communication, awakening to the world
     2. The Good Spirit (= House 11 of the dodekatopos) = Friendship
     3. The Midheaven (Greek: mesouranêma) = MC = Situation
     4. The God (= House 9 of the dodekatopos) = Harmony, spiritual experience
     5. The End of Day (Greek: dysis) = DS = The Couple
     6. Misfortune (= House 6 of the dodekatopos) = Knowledge
     7. The Subterranean (Greek: hupgeion) = Nadir = Mystery
     8. The Portal of Hades (= House 2 of the dodekatopos) = Renown, Heritage

      The existence of an octotopos, organized in the diurnal sense, and moving from House 1 (vita, or life) to House 8 (mors, or death) is attested (cf. supra). The existence of this other octotopos, also organized following diurnal motion, seems to me quite probable: moreover, it is completely compatible with Dominion such as I have intuitively imagined it since 1982. There probably exists an antecedent to the other octotopos, which must have appeared only after the assimiliation of the twelve Zodiacal signs into the twelve houses of the dodekatopos, according to the schema that still remains in effect, alas, with most interpreters: Aries/life, Taurus/money, Gemini/siblings ...

Let us take up again the evolutionary schema of Gundel, but this time in six stages:

      Given this brain-twister, i.e. the existence of at least two competing semantic models of the octotopos, and several variants of the dodekatopos, it is hardly surprising that Manilius was not able to orient himself within it. What is certain is that Bouché-Leclercq, 1900 years later, was also not up to the task.
 


7. DOMIFICATION

"These kingdoms have not arisen from outside.
They arise from the four divisions of your heart."
(Bardo Thödol [Tibetan Book of the Dead])

      Some 60 systems of domification (by which term is meant the organization of the astrological houses in the celestial sphere) have been developed. One could in theory imagine many more, considering just a few factors: the number of houses, their position in relation to their points of reference (houses that begin at a certain point or points, or instead are centered on those points), their sequence (following diurnal movement or its inverse), schemas of division (ecliptic, equatorial, or along the horizon, the vertical, or the meridian), the projection (or lack thereof) of division points along the ecliptic ...

      John North has shown that the systems of domification attributed to Campanus (13th c.), Regiomontanus (15th c.) and Placidus (17th c.) are even older. [55]  The great al-Bîrûnî (973-1049) anticipated the "Campanus method." Geoffrey Dean has divided methods of domification into three categories: those which directly divide the ecliptic (e.g the system called "Equal Houses") or which project upon the ecliptic points that derive from another plan of division (e.g. the schema of Jean Morin and those of Campanus and Regiomontanus); those that result from the division of diurnal and nocturnal semi-arcs (e.g. the system attributed to Placidus and that of Walter Koch [1895-1970]); and the topocentric method (1963) of Wendell Polich and Anthony Page. [56]  Another original method, based on several plans of division of the celestial sphere, has been adopted by the Italian astrologer Aldo Lavagnini. [57]

      The systems of division that have proven themselves to be impratical for extreme latitudes seem to me to have disqualified themselves (Placidus, for example), as well as those which in extreme latitudes show too great an alteration in the proportions of the houses (e.g. Campanus). By virtue of the inclination of the ecliptic vis-à-vis the equator, one arrives at dissynchronous times for the rising of the Zodiacal signs in the course of a day. The main difficulty of techniques of domification stems from their desire to delineate the Houses on the ecliptic. I present below an original system of domification, adapted to Dominion, somewhat similar to the little-known system of Lavagnini, while I remain convinced that it is not necessary to project the demarcations of the houses onto the ecliptic. The interest of this system is essentially practical.

      The houses have equivalent spans on the ecliptic, but they are not equal, and they follow one another according to diurnal movement. They are calculated on the basis of three points: the Ascendant, the Midheaven and the "East Point" (EST), that is to say, the "equatorial Ascendant." To put it another way, it is the zodiacal degree calculated for equatorial birth, or even the point of eastern intersection between the planes of the horizon and the equator. Starting from the median point (M) between the Ascendant and the East Point, one calculates the angular difference (D) between M and the Midheaven. Two cases can present themselves:

1. If D>90°, then the span of houses 2 and 6 is 45° + (D - 90°) / 8, and that of houses 4 and 8 is 45° - (D - 90°) / 8

2. If D <90°, then the span of houses 2 and 6 is 45° - (D - 90°) / 8, and that of houses 4 and 8 is 45° + (D - 90°) / 8.

I choose the divisor 8 because there are eight houses. The angular houses (1, 3, 5 and 7) have a span of 45° each, and house 2 is always located at equal distance from point M and the Midheaven. So for the chart of Paul Valéry: AS = 78° ; MC = 321° ; EST = 56° (approximate values).

78 - 56 = 22, hence M = 56 + (22 / 2) = 67°
D = (360 + 67) - 321 = 106°
D > 90° , from which derives the span of House 2 = 45 + (106 - 90) / 8 = 47°
Midpoint of House 2 = (321° + 67° - 360°) / 2 = 14°
Beginning of House 2 = 14° + (47° / 2) = 37°30
Beginning of House 3 = End of House 2 = 37°30 + 360° - 47° = 350°30
Beginning of House 4 = 350°30 - 45° = 305°30
Beginning of House 5 = 305°30 - 43° = 262°30
Beginning of House 6 = 262°30 - 45° = 217°30
Beginning of House 7 = 217°30 - 47° = 170°30
Beginning of House 8 = 170°30 - 45° = 125°30
Beginning of House 1 = 125°30 - 43° = 82°30


Chart Paul Valéry


      Practically speaking, it is the position of the Sun, and then those of the Moon and an eventual planetary grouping, that determine the quadrant nature of the native. So in the case of Valéery, the Sun, at 70 Scorpio, is in House 6 (Knowledge) and the Moon, at 40 of Gemini, is in House 1 (Communication), the two houses of objectivation. Most often, a particular birthpoint presents one main house and a secondary house. With the assistance of a program for the valorization and hierarchical ordering of astrological operators (planets, zodiacal signs and houses), which operates under DOS and on which I have been working since August 1983 and may make available to the readers of C.U.R.A., I have researched the natal charts of writers whose charts show a particular valorization with regard to the planets and the zodiacal signs (i.e., near predominance of a single sign and a single planet, which is rather rare) in order to illustrate the importance of the sector operator in the chart, and I have collected the following data, which speak for themselves:

Valéry, born 30 October 1871 a 7:00 P.M., Sète, France : Scorpio, Mars, Nocturnal objectivation
Baudelaire, born 9 April 1821 at 3:00 P.M., Paris, France : Aries, Mars, Diurnal participation
Proust, born 10 July 1871 at 11:30 P.M., Paris, France : Cancer, Saturn, Nocturnal participation
Henry Miller, born 26 December 1891 at 12:30 P.M., Brooklyn, New York : Capricorn, Mercury, Diurnal individuation and participation
Freud, born 6 May 1856 at 6:30 P.M., Freiberg (Moravia) : Taurus, Uranus, Nocturnal conjoining

      I maintain that it is impossible to understand these charts without keeping Dominion in mind. The author of the essays of Du vin et du hashish [On Wine and Hashish] (1851) and Les Paradis artificiels [Artificial Paradises] (1860) is a child of the Fourth House. The author of La Soirée avec Monsieur Teste [The Soirée with Mr. Teste] (1896) and the Cahiers [Notebooks], that enormous and unique undertaking of distanced analysis, for whom, alas! (in the opinion of the world in which we live), folly was not strong enough, is a child of the Sixth House. And the concepts of resistance and of transference play a key role in the inter-relational therapy (House 5) which forms the basis of psychoanalysis.
 


8. QUADRIVERSITY AND CULTURES

"Drei haben wir mitgenommen,
Der vierte wollte nicht kommen;
Er sagte, er sei der Rechte,
Der für sie alle dächte."
(Goethe : Faust, 2.2)

      Hindu culture has developed several traits [58]  which pertain directly to the four domains of human activity, those fields of engagement and behavior which also form the four goals of action through which each person is invited to accomplish his humanity. [59]  Individuation urges one to seek artha (interest, success) through material possessions (riches and prosperity) or through social recognition (honors, respectability, celebrity); conjoining urges the search for kâma (love, desire), at one and the same time sensual satisfaction, enjoyment and affection, desire, the realization of happiness; participation involves dharma (duty, virtue) through the virtuous accomplishment of immanent law in each human being; and objectivation involves moksha (salvation, deliverance) which is liberation, freedom from conditioning, release from ignorance and the act of going beyond the other three goals of existence.

      Each of these four end goals of existence (interest, love, virtue, wisdom) demands a specific mode of behavior: realistic in individuation, ritualistic in conjoining, ethical in participation, idealistic in objectivation. Realistic behavior is defined by the propensity to utilize adequate means with a view to deriving benefit from the environment and its present possibilities. Ritualistic behavior is characterized by the imitation of usages and customs, out of respect accorded to the social body and to personal differences. Ethical behavior is marked by the attention brought to bear on the integrity of each person and by the propensity one has to follow one's inclinations, cleansed of all egotistical ends or interests. Idealistic behavior is defined by the care one has to apprehend reality, apart from its contingent manifestations, in a totalistic rationality. [60]

      Max Weber presents a similar concept, equally quaternary, of motivations for action and types of behavior, arranged in a similar hierarchy from the most simple to the most evolved: "strictly traditional" [ritualistic], "strictly affective" [ethical], "rational by value" [idealistic] and "rational by end in itself" [realistic]. [61]

      The perspective unique to each system of thought, even within a single culture, necessarily shows up in one or another of these relational frameworks. Let us remain within the context of India for a moment, where four principal currents inform metaphysics. In Brahmanism (conjoining), salvation is attained by reunification with the brahman, that unique essence present in every being and with which each being may join in the form of the Self (atman). In Jainism (individuation), the monad of life (jiva), a spiritual essence unique and particular to each being, is thought to be completely separate from karmic materiality (a-jiva) from which one separates oneself through successive reincarnations. In Buddhism (objectivation), universal emptiness (sunyatta) explains the illusion (maya) of phenomena, which are artifacts of the consciousness that perceives them, and from which the individual can liberate himself through extinction (nirvana). In Hinduism (participation) the first, last and eternal conceptual framework of India, salvation is completely dependent upon intentionality and is obtained by disinterested action and by the renouncement of its benefits. [62]  Vishnu has four arms and manifests through a theoretically infinite number of avatars that regenerate the world. Whether one disciplines oneself through exercise (yoga), or allows oneself to be consumed in the experience of the moment (bhoga), it matters little. The four paths lead to the same end: artha, kama, dharma and moksha are one and the same path. [63]

      Similarly, within the various schools of pre-Buddhist China, four principal currents show themselves: the School of Laws which teaches the art of legislation and administration (individuation), The School of Denominations which teaches the logic and the art of designations (objectivation), the Taoist tradition (participation) which teaches autonomy and detachment from the world, and the School of Social Good of Confucius and Mö Tseu (conjoining), mistakenly conflated up to the time of the Han Dynasty "under a common name (jou-mö)". [64]

      This division into four parts (quadripartition) can even be found within a single school of thought. In the Bardo Thödol, the famous Tibetan Buddhist treatise, the succession of the four "Buddhas" following the appearance of Vairocana (the master of all objects of knowledge) shows the four-fold nature of points of view and paths to wisdom: through conjoining with Vajrasattva Aksobhya (representing wisdom "like a mirror"), through objectivation with Ratnasambhava (representing the wisdom of equanimity), through individuation with Amitabha (representing discriminative wisdom), and through participation with Amoghasiddhi (representing the wisdom of "he who can accomplish all things"). [65]

      Greek philosophy sought to render account of movement and of multiplicity in the phenomenal world -- to examine "agitation" as it would be called in Chinese thought, or "exteriority" in Hindu metaphysics -- but it also turned its attention to the origin of the phenomenal world, through the concepts of Principle (Heraclitus, Zeno of Cittium), Model (Pythagoras, Plato), Foundation (Parmenides, Aristotle), and Cause (Democritus, Epicurus). These archetypal forms of beginning were crystallized in the four great currents of Greek thought, which have steered the destiny of Occidental philosophy for two millenia. [66]

      For Plato (conjoining), the temporal world was created in the image of an ideal world, which is transtemporal and to which the soul was linked at some point in the past, a connection it has forgotten, but to which it returns, indirectly, through reminiscence. Hence the sensory world, the second world, does not exist as its own prime, but rather as a function of its dependence on the intelligible world. Desire (eros) is the aspiration toward that which complements, toward the lost half (as in the myth of androgyny) which exists in fact only in the original world. The Model is the ultimate arbiter of the resemblance of copies to their ideal archetype.

      In the thought of Aristotle (individuation), each part of the world is autonomous and sufficient unto itself. Everything can be understood on the basis of its present substance, of what exists, of "being-in-action," particularized and in the moment, a completed individuality (entelechy), be it organic or inorganic. Reality can be conceived of in multiple ways and presupposes the absolute transcendance of an original motive force, God, who created the world without subsequent intervention in it, and whose existence has no direct moral consequence. He is the Foundation that legitimizes every individual phenomenal manifestation.

      Epicurus (objectivation) anticipates an integral materialism applied to the totality of phenomena. The world is strictly substance, composed of atoms, infinite in number, with defined properties. A limited number of laws pertaining to the weight and nature of these particles suffices to account for material movement, human desire and passions, and the diversity of languages and cultures. The Cause is the a priori condition for an explanation in extenso of phenomenal, natural and cultural reality.

      In the philosophy of Zeno (participation), the penetrability of matter presupposes the existence of a unifying force, the "breath" (pneuma), which is intrinsic to corporeal substance. The World is One, an immanent organism, living and divine in part, uniformly shot through with life and with spirit, eternally regenerated. Everything works together within a cosmic sympathetic resonance. The Principle explains the common origin of phenomenal multiplicity which derives from it and from the universal harmony that arises within it.

      The neo-Platonist Damascius (ca. 462-538), the last giant of philosophy in the Greek language, coordinates the three rival theories of the author of Timeus and Parmenides, and reserves the final word for the Model -- even if the latter still sets tongues wagging -- within the framework of a syncretist metaphysics of the One, which is the quintessential archetype of the philosopher's view of the world, the three modes of which are pure matter as the undifferentiated substance of the All-in-One (close to the Stoic worldview), the procession toward multiplicity as the vector of plurality for the All-in-One (close to the Epicurean atom), and the conversion toward the One as a vector of composition, or the Unified (close to the entelechy of Aristotle). [67]

      The quaternary appears in philosophy in various forms which illustrate the quadriversity of points of view, as in the exercise of matrix-based reason. Johann Fichte, for example, notes the absolute separation of four forms of consciousness which translate the absolute diversity of objects (objectivation), the unity and identity of the subject (individuation), the morality of action proceeding from the pure subject (participation) and the unity or equivalency of the subject-object (conjoining). [68]

      Maurice Merleau-Ponty distinguishes four phases of perception (auditive): "an objective sound that resonates outside myself in the instrument" (objectivation), "an atmospheric sound between the object and my own body" (participation), "a sound that vibrates within me as if I had become the flute" (conjoining), and a sound that "disappears and becomes an experience (...) of the modification of my entire body" (individuation). [69]

      The sectorial quaternary renders account of an axiology: the practical values (the Strong, the Useful, the Efficient ..), the affective values (the Beautiful, the Agreeable, the Beloved ...), the ethical values (the Good, the Just, the Virtuous ...) and the cognitive values (the True, the Exact, the Logical ...). The practical values privilege the Self and its interests; the affective values presuppose the capacity of opening toward another person; the ethical values demand attention to all people and to each person in particular; the cognitive values privilege abstract analysis of the relations between beings. This quaternary also begins the I Ching, where it is introduced by the first hexagram Khien (= K'IEN): yuan (initial cause) -- heng (free expansion) -- li (good) -- tsheng (perfection): "The initial cause [energy] is what is most primordial in the good; liberty is the reunion of all forms of beauty; the good is harmony among duties; perfection is the tree trunk that supports all things." [70]

      Plato's preference for the idea of the Good is well known. Modern thought in general pretends to privilege cognitive values, while it most often submits itself to the practical values. Benedetto Croce, that survivor of the exploding thought of the Italian Renaissance, postulates an equivalency of importance among the four forms or "functions of the mind": the economic-technical, the esthetic, the ethical, the logical. He insists that logic plays no especially privileged role in the quaternary: it is not logic which makes the distinctions; it contents itself with the concept of distinction: "It is on the inside and not the outside of philosophy, in the same manner as (...) the surface of a pond that reflects the countryside and is itself part of the countryside." [71]

      The manifestations of this quadrilectic are innumerable in philosophy. There are still four worlds, or rather four visions of the world that meet and cohabit. Systems of thought necessarily adopt and seek to impose one or another of these perspectives; philosophies of the Self and of consciousness (individuation), philosophies of the Other and of relation (conjoining), philosophies pantheistic and organicist in nature (participation), and those analytic and structuralist in nature (objectivation). In the 17th century there collided the Cartesian Cogito, the vision of God of Malebranche, the pluralist monism of Leibnitz and the mental atomism of Locke.

      The astrological Houses determine viewpoints: they represent modes of existential rootedness within the frameworks where they strike root: the lists of social power, the atmosphere of conviviality, the sphere of spirituality, the network of knowledge. They inform us about the receptivity of consciousness to a certain relational rapport with the world, and also about the authority that each person recognizes as pertinent to his own existence: be it that of society in its ensemble, that of individual persons, that of the sacred and indefinite, or that of a more or less ideal community of thinkers. That perspective, and that perspective alone, is the arbiter of our consciousness, of what we ourselves are worth. If there is "accounting" to be done, it is defined in these places.


Notes

Translator's Note: In the interest of expediency, works originally published in English and used in French translation are cited in the language of the translation, without reference to the original English title. Texts from those works have been prepared on the basis of the translation rather than quoted from the English originals, which explains any possible divergence of the citations from the author's text. The translator hopes that this practice honors the content of the original completely, even if it diverges at points from literal transmission. (MSB)
 

[1]   Cf. Léopold de Saussure, "L'origine de la rose des vents", in Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles, 5.5, Genève, 1923. « Text

[2]   D. Haigh, "Yorkshire Dials" in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 1896, p. 166; cited by Prudence Jones, "Celestial and Terrestrial Orientation," in Annabella Kitson (ed.), History and Astrology (Clio and Urania Conference), London, Unwin, 1989, p. 40. « Text

[3]   Cf. Prudence Jones, op. cit., p. 41 and 45. « Text

[4]   Cf. Tablet no. 90827 of the British Museum, in L.W. King, Babylonian Boundary-Stones and Memorial-Tablets in the British Museum, London, 1912, vol. 2, plate XVIII, and Giovanni Schiaparelli, Die Astronomie im Alten Testament, Giessen, 1904 and Astrologie en Mésopotamie, Les Dossiers d'Archeologie, 191, 1994, pp. 43, 51 and 65). « Text

[5]   L.W. King, op. cit., vol. 1, p. XV. King points out, however, the necessity of "distinguishing the original meaning of the symbols from the later meaning given them by neo-Babylonian speculation" (op. cit., vol. 1, p. XVI). « Text

[6]   Cf. the tablet from the British Museum, from Nineveh and dated from the 7th century B.C., in Astrologie en Mésopotamie, Les Dossiers d'Archéologie, 191, 1994, p. 36. « Text

[7]   Cf. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge University Press (UK), vol. 2, 1956, p. 355. « Text

[8]   Mânava-Dharma-Shâstra, French translation by A. Loiseleur-Deslongchamps, Paris, Garnier, [1939?], I 13, p. 4. « Text

[9]   cf. Horoscopes and History, London, Warburg Institute, 1986, p. 1. Cf. also Frank Robbins, "A Division by Eight Was an Older Conception than the System of Twelve Regions" in "A New Astrological Treatise: Michigan Papyrus No. 1," I 20-26, in Classical Philology 22.1, University of Chicago Press, 1927, p. 36. « Text

[10]   Cf. Otto Neugebauer & Henry Van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1959, pp. 138-140 and 152-157. « Text

[11]   Marcus Manilius, Les Astrologiques (Astronomicon), French translation by Alexandre-Guy Pingré (1711-1796), Paris, 1786; ed. by René Alleau, Paris, Denoël, 1970, p. 171. Cf. also the versified translation by Louis Ricouart, Les cinq livres des astronomiques, Anzin, E. Dugour, 1882. « Text

[12]   The Five Books of M. Manilius, English translation by Thomas Creech, London, 1697, Washington, National Astrological Library, 1953. « Text

[13]   Julius Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis (Livres I et II), French translation by P. Monat, Paris, Belles Lettres, 992, pp. 109-110 & 114-118. « Text

[14]   Julius Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis (Livres III à V), French translation by P. Monat, Paris, Belles Lettres, 1994, IV 16.4, p. 170. « Text

[15]   Auguste Bouché-Leclercq, L'astrologie grecque, Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1899, pp. 279-280. « Text

[16]   Cf. Cyril Fagan, Astrological Origins, St. Paul (Minn.), Llewellyn Publications, 1971, p. 162. « Text

[17]   It is to Thrasyllos that is owed the grouping into four parts of the works of Plato, which is followed in medieval manuscripts and is still in effect to this day. « Text

[18]   "The lords of the eight quarters (East, Southeast, South, Southwest, West, Northwest, North and Northeast) are respectively Indra, Agni, Yama, Nirriti, Varuna, Vayu, the Moon and Shiva." (Varâha Mihira, in Brihat-Samhita, translation by Panditabhushana Subrahmanya Sastri & Vidwan Ramakrishna Bhat, Bangalore, Soobbiah, 1947, 86.75, p. 666). Cf. also op. cit., 54.3, p. 459 and 86.34, p. 656. There is still the question of the eight quarters in the work of one of his disciples (his son?), Prithuyasas. Cf. his Horasara, translation by Panditabhushana Subrahmanya Sastri & Vidwan Ramakrishna Bhat, Bangalore, Soobbiah, 1949. « Text

[19]   Wilhelm Gundel, "Neue astrologische Texte des Hermes Trismegistos", München, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1936, Chapters 13 (Die Lehre der Kentra und der Quadranten) and 14 (Die Lehre der zwölf Häuser oder Orte), pp. 301-313. « Text

[20]   Plato, Timée (32b), in Oeuvres complètes, French translation by Léon Robin, Paris, Gallimard, 1950, vol. 2, p. 447. « Text

[21]   This model is speculative: it requires confirmation by collateral analysis. One could argue concerning the association of sunrise with dryness. However, it is indeed the case that at daybreak the sun begins to dry out the Earth, and the East Winds are dry winds. (cf. for example Fred Gettings, The Arkana Dictionary of Astrology, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985; rev. ed. London, Arkana, 1990, p. 404.) « Text

[22]   "They [the disciples of Marcus] maintain, then, that first of all the four elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air, were produced after the image of the primary Tetrad above, and that then, when we add their operations, viz., heat, cold, dryness, and humidity, an exact likeness of the Ogdoad is presented. They next reckon up ten powers in the following manner: There are seven globular bodies, which they also call heavens; then that globular body which contains these, which also they name the eighth heaven; and, in addition to these, the Sun and Moon. These, being ten in number, they declare to be types of the invisible Decad, which proceeded from Logos and Zoe. As to the Duodecad, it is indicated by the zodiacal circle, as it is called; for they affirm that the twelve signs do most manifestly shadow forth the Duodecad, the daughter of Anthropos and Ecclesia." (in: Irene de Lyon (ca. 135-205), Contre les hérésies, I 17.1; the text is available through the Gnostic Society, URL: www.webcom.com/~gnosis/library/advh1.htm). Cf. also St. Irene, Contre les hérésies, translation by Adelin Rousseau (et al.), Paris, Cerf, 1965. « Text

[23]   in Frank Robbins, "A New Astrological Treatise: Michigan Papyris No. 1," I 20-26, in Classical Philology 22.1 (University of Chicago Press, 1927, p. 14). Cf. also the Michigan Papyrus 149, the importance of which Wilhelm Gundel has emphasized, as well as its originality vis-à-vis the astrological vulgate (in: Wilhelm Gundel & Hans Georg Gundel, Astrologumena, Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner, 1966, pp. 25 and 36), which Rupert Gleadow has translated (in American Astrology, Sept.-Oct. 1950). [I have not managed to secure either the original or the translation.] « Text

[24]   Cyril Fagan, in Astrological Origins, St. Paul (Minn.), Llewellyn Publications, 1971, p. 161. See the chapter regarding the Oktotopos (with my comments). « Text

[25]   Tycho Brahe, De nova stella, in Opera omnia, ed. by John Dreyer, Hauniae, vol. 1, 1913, pp. 35-444. Cf. also in the same volume the representation of charts with the eight directions symbolizing the houses (pp. 83-130), as well as the section -- quite astonishing -- of charts in the form of elliptics (pp. 75-82), which may well have inspired Kepler at the time of his discovery of the First Law of Orbital Motion. « Text

[26]   According to John North, Horoscopes and History, London, Warburg Institute, 1986. « Text

[27]   Cf. Nicholas Culpeper, Astrological Judgment of Diseases, London, 1655; Tempe (Arizona), American Federation of Astrologers, [1959], pp. 17-18. « Text

[28]   Cf. Wilhelm Knappich, Geschichte der Astrologie, ms. Wien, 1953, pp. 566-567. [I have not yet been able to secure the article of his which appeared in Astralen Warte, Mai-Okt. 1950.] « Text

[29]   Isha Schwaller de Lubicz, Her-Bak "pois-chiche," Paris, Flammarion, 1955, pp. 369-373. « Text

[30]   Seneca, in Questions naturelles, III 14.2, French translation, Paris, Belles Lettres, 1929, vol. 1, p. 129. « Text

[31]   Kaushîtaki Upanishad, French translation by Louis Renou, Paris, Adrien Maisonneuve, 1948, IV 2-18, pp. 61-68. « Text

[32]   These are "the different points of space that the sun regularly traverses according to Indian cosmology." (Jeannine Auboyer, "Le char du Soleil à Konarak," in Archeologia 23, 1968, p. 8.) « Text

[33]   Arlette Leroi-Fourhan & Ichiro Ayamanaka, "Un très ancien football," in Archeologia 320, 1996, pp. 62-65. « Text

[34]   The date 17 February 3102 B.C. (- 3101) marks an exceptional astrological configuration: all the planets were situated in an angle of 90° (or 41° if one excludes Uranus and Neptune). « Text

[35]   Astrology was not thrown into confusion by the advent of heliocentrism, nor will it be so long as the center of perception does not leave the Earth's surface. Only astronauts can suddenly alter their astral potential. (Cf. the difficult return to Earth of the first American astronauts, the film Solaris of 1972 by Andreï Tarkovski, and Daniel Verney, Fondements et avenir de l'astrologie, Paris, Fayard, 1974.) « Text

[36]   The schema applies strictly to a celestial body situated exactly on the ecliptic, since the Ascendant is a point of intersection between the ecliptic and the horizon, the point which "rises" in the East, on the left of an observer facing south, i.e. in the direction of the sun at noon in the Northern Hemisphere. « Text

[37]   For the meaning I give to these terms (Individuation -- diurnal I+ and nocturnal I-, Conjoining -- diurnal A+ and nocturnal A-, Participation -- diurnal P+ and nocturnal P-, Objectivation -- diurnal O+ and nocturnal O-) cf. infra: "The Semantics of the Domains." « Text

[38]   The Ascendant marks "the tendencies to fold back upon the self," the Midheaven "the tendencies to elevate oneself," the Descendant "the tendencies to project oneself toward another" and the Nadir "the tendencies to become weighted down" (in Armand Barbault, Technique de l'interprétation, 1952; Paris, Dervy, 1986, vol. 1, pp. 134-136.) The consensus is relatively general among astrologers regarding these attributions. Nonetheless, the term introversion in regard to the Ascendant permits one to avoid certain conflicting meanings vis-à-vis the meaning of this sector. « Text

[39]   Graham Douglas points out the eight houses in "Astrology and Semiotics," in: Martin Budd (ed.), Radical Astrology, London, Radical Astrology Group, 1983. « Text

[40]   Michel Gauquelin, Les hommes et les astres, Paris, Denoël, 1960. « Text

[41]  T.O. McGrath (in Timing Business Activity and the Sun): "In all magnetic bodies with two poles (for example, the Sun and its satellites), the magnetic currants circulate from the north pole toward the south pole, their minimum activity manifesting every 90 degrees and their maximum activity every 45 degrees." (cited in Dane Rudhyar, L'astrologie de la personnalité, New York, Lucis Press, 1936; French translation Paris, Librarie de Médicis, 1984, p. 196.) However, Rudhyar inaccurately attributes this polarization to the Zodiac. « Text

[42]  Yi King [I Ching] (Le livre des transformations), German translation by Richard Wilhelm, French translation by Etienne Perrot, Paris, Librairie de Médicis, 1973; 1977, p. 306. Cf. also Marcel Granet, La pensée chinoise, 1934; Paris, Albin Michel, 1950, p. 186. « Text

[43]  Yi King, p. 305. « Text

[44]  K'AN remains paired with LI, and KEN with TOUEI, not only by reason of the center, but also along one axis of symmetry. Jean Marolleau observes that the Chinese T'ai Ki symbolizes the reunion of central and axial symmetries, and that the circular arrangement of the Hexagrams and the Trigrams obeys a binary logic that reveals an axial symmetry behind the apparent central symmetry (in La Galaxie Yin Yang, Paris, Robert Dumas, 1975). Demetrio Santos Santos comes to the same conclusion concerning the axial symmetry that underpins the order of the Trigrams (in Investigaciones sobre astrología, Madrid, Editora Nacional, 1978, vol. 1). « Text

[45]  TCHIEN also marks the East in the second arrangment, the one attributed to the king Wen. Cf. Yi King (Le livre des transformations), German version by Richard Wilhelm, French translation by Etienne Perrot, Paris, Librairie de Médicis, 1973; 1977, p. 308, and Marcel Granet, La pensée chinoise, 1934; Paris, Albin Michel, 1950, p. 186. « Text

[46]   Alan Leo, in Esoteric Astrology, London, Fowler, 1913, p. 55; Marc Edmund Jones, in Astrology, How And Why It Works, Philadelphia, David McKay, 1945, pp. 45-76; Jean-Pierre Nicola, "Les maisons astrologiques," in Astrologique, Hors Série No. 1, Paris, 1977, p. 33-38. The system proposed by S.O.R.I, doubtless developed before the work of Alan Leo, is thought by some people in France to be the original version! Moreover, it is usual in astrological literature to neglect citing one's sources, or even to pretend there are no sources and that one has invented it all oneself. For the sake of completeness, let it be said that Nicola artificially reintroduced the conditionalist designations qualifying the planets as a way to differentiate his thought from that of S.O.R.I; House 3 is, according to him, "Transcendance of Relationship," House 7 "Representation of Relationship," and House 11 "Existence of Relationship." Apart from the uselessness of such jargon, one would rather expect to find siblings involved with the "Representation of Relationship," spouses with the "Existence of Relationship," and friends with "Transcendance of Relationship," or even with one or other of the four other possible combinations. My wife, for example, considers her siblings associated with "Existence of Relationship," her spouse with "Transcendance of Relationship," and her friends with "Representation of Relationship"! Whatever scenario one chooses, these categories appear incoherent. How could the Object, for example, find its place in the chart of a native? They are also impractical because they remain anchored in simple empirical presuppositions, and because the logic underlying their semantic distribution is not made clear -- assuming, of course, that the system "Representation -- Existence -- Transcendance is itself semantically coherent, which is far from the case in point of fact. « Text

[47]  This circumstance often leads those who interpret charts to conflate quite merrily the semantics of the signs with those of the houses. « Text

[48]   Johannes Kepler, in his letter to Herwart, Gesammelte Werke, ed. Max Caspar, Franz Hammer, et al., München, Beck, 1945, vol. 13, p. 232; cited by Arthur Koestler in Les somnambules, French translation, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1960, p. 286. « Text

[49]  I do not retain the "integrative" connotation that Jung gave to this term: individuation circumscribes the field of affirmation of the ego (in the strict sense). This term presupposes no realization of an augmented consciousness, or of a Self open to the aspirations of the unconscious. "Individualized consciousness" remains Cartesian: separate, impermeable to all external factors, balanced by the sole evidence of the Cogito, implicated in the arena where the competing consciousnesses confront each other. To put it another way, I give to this term individuation its most restrictive sense, close to the "utilitarian" sense of a Herbert Spencer. « Text

[50]  from the Latin ligare (to join, to unite, to assemble) « Text

[51]   Max Scheler has underlined the "entitative" density of the relationship to another person and the irreducible nature of empathy (Einfühlung) on the basis of intersubjective communication and affective communication in consciousness (in Nature et formes de la sympathie, French translation, Paris, Payot, 1928; 1971). Cf. also Martin Buber, Je et Tu, French translation by Geneviève Bianquis, Paris, Auber, 1938. « Text

[52]   What is more, the four quadrants of the model which, according to Gundel, antedated the octotopos, are associated with the four ages of man. « Text

[53]   It is certain that the children of the Fourth House are today among the least happy. Charles Fourier! « Text

[54]   Cf. Otto Neugebauer & Henry Van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes, Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society, 1959, p. 8. « Text

[55]   In Horoscopes and History, London, Warburg Institute, 1986. « Text

[56]   In Geoffrey Dean, Recent Advances in Natal Astrology, Subiaco (Australia), Analogic, 1977, pp. 166-167. Cf. also Henri Selva, La domification ou construction du thème céleste en astrologie, Paris, Vigot, 1917; Ralph William Holden, The Elements of House Division, Romford (UK), Fowler, 1977; Pierre Brind'Amour, Nostradamus astrophile, Ottawa, Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa, & Paris, Klincksieck, 1993. This last work, despite its title, offers the clearest presentation and the best documentation available in French of the history and techniques of systems of domification. « Text

[57]   Cf. Fred Gettings, The Arkana Dictionary of Astrology, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985; rev. ed. London, Arkana, 1990, pp. 278-279. « Text

[58]   Cf. the political treatise of Kautilya, the Arthashastra, the Manava Dharmashastra (The Laws of Manu) or the famous Kamasutra of Vatsyayana. « Text

[59]   Cf. the excellent presentation of Indian metaphysics by Heinrich Zimmer, in Les philosophes de l'Inde, French translation by Marie Renou, 1953; Paris, Payot, 1978. « Text

[60]   I use here the terms realistic and idealistic in their common meaning, distinct from their connotations as philosophical terms. « Text

[61]   Max Weber, in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Tübingen, 1922; cited by Julien Freund, in Max Weber, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1969, pp. 96-99. With the following reservations: the realistic character of the "behavioral type" of Europeans is not sufficient to legitimize this supposed hierarchy of behaviors, largely tributary to the prejudices that derive from education and enculturation, i.e. from the idola specus of Francis Bacon, prejudices that obviously influence Weber in his formulation of behavioral types. « Text

[62]   Bhagavad-Gita, II 47, in La Bhagavad-Gita, Sri Aurobindo (ed.), 1942; French translation by Camille Rao and Jean Herbert, Paris, Albin Michel, 1970, p. 63. « Text

[63]   The giant among historians of religion, Mircea Eliade (Pisces sun sign), has pointed out in his Histoire des croyances et des idées religieuses (Paris, Payot, 1976, vol. 1, pp. 140-143) the already "Hinduistic" character of the religious concepts of the Harappan and Indus civilizations (2500-1500 B.C., which antedate the Aryan invasions and the Brahamanist Vedic text corpus). This circumstance tends to corroborate that India "has always been" Participation (cf. my Géoculturologie astrale) and to explain one of the most astonishing paradoxes of religious history: the expulsion of Buddhism from its place of origin and its implantation in China and Japan (cultural tenor of Objectivation). Hinduism is opposed to the emptiness and emotional aridity of Buddhism and instead embraces forms, ceremonies and rituals in great number due to the superabundance of its gods, goddesses and demons. In Hinduism each person finds his own place, his own god, his own truth. Each vision, each tendency, each perspective is compatible with all others. Hinduism is the religion closest to animism, and also the most authentic and the least elitist, because it barely qualifies as a "religion." « Text

[64]   Marcel Granet, La pensée chinoise, 1934; Paris, Albin Michel, 1950, p. 6. « Text

[65]   Bardo-Thödol (Le livre tibétain des Morts), version by Lama Teunzang, German ed., München, 1977; French translation by Valdo Secretan, Paris, Dervy, 1980; rev. ed., Paris, Albin Michel, 1981. « Text

[66]   With the exception, however, of atomism, the influence of which was less continuous, but which has "made up for lost time" since the 18th century because it has been regenerated in the present system of science, despite the "anti-scientific" attitude of Epicurus. « Text

[67]   Damascius, Traité des premiers principes, French translation by Joseph Combès, Paris, Belles Lettres, 1986, vol. 1. « Text

[68]   Cf. Lecture 28 by Johann Gottlob Fichte, in La théorie de la science : exposé de 1804, Paris, Aubier-Montaigne, 1967. « Text

[69]   Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception, Paris, Gallimard, 1945; 1979, p. 263. « Text

[70]   Paul Philastre, in Le Yi King, ou Livre des changements de la dynastie des Tsheou, ed. and translation, Paris, Annales du Musée Guimet, 8 & 23, 1881, 2 vols.; Paris, Adrien Maisonneuve, 1982, vol. 1, p. 36. The quaternary is also associated with the seasons as is explained by the author of the best extant version of this prodigious Chinese treatise (in op. cit., pp. 14-15). « Text

[71]   Benedetto Croce, in Logica come scienza del concetto puro, Bari, Laterza; French translation by Paul Olivier, in Denis Huisman (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1984, vol. 1, p. 643. « Text



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