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In Astrologia
Gallica, Book 17 Section I Morin takes up the matter of the twelve
houses of the astrological chart. He first states the nature of the
division of the Caelum
into houses and then deals with the criticisms levied by opponents of
astrology, who declared that the division of the Caelum into 12 houses and the assignment of individual
characteristics to them was purely arbitrary and with- out any rational
foundation. Not so says Morin, and he gives his reasons for contradicting
their objections.
Some parts of this
Section closely resemble Morin's statements in his early book, The Cabala of the Twelve houses.
But both there and here the word Cabala
is misleading. At first glance it would seem to imply that Morin had found
something in the Jewish Kabbalah that pertained to the astrological houses,
but that is not so.
There is no mention of
the Kabbalah. Instead, he seems to have used the word Cabala as a more exotic synonym
of the word Mystery.
And even mystery is an overstatement. The
mystery seems to consist of the fact that in his opinion the signification
of the houses can be deduced by counting them from the ASC in both the
clock- wise and counter-clock-wise directions. The clockwise direction
(ASC. 12, 11, 10, etc.) is the direction of the diurnal motion of the
Planets, while the counter-clockwise direction (the familiar ASC,2, 3, IMC
etc.) is the direction in which the Planets move through tile zodiac.
What Morin actually
does is to give what seemed to him to be valid reasons why the celestial
houses can be arranged in triplicities
similar to the arrangement of the signs of the zodiac into trigons (he seems to prefer that
word for them). By assigning general characteristics to these celestial
triplicities, Morin sets forth what he believes to be reasons for the
characteristics of the individual houses. His assignments are mainly like
the traditional ones inherited from the earliest Western astrologers with
the exception of the characteristics of the 6th and 12th houses.
In the case of the 6th
house, he assigns servants and animals to it, while he assigns illnesses
and other bodily problems to the 12th house. But he also says that the 4th
house rules both parents, not just the father. And he stresses the point
that each house shares the characteristics of its opposite house to a
lesser degree-this he says, is why previous astrologers mistakenly assigned
illness to the 6th house. It does relate frequently to illness, but since
it is opposite die real house of illness, the 12th, it does so in a
secondary way.
In Section 1, Chapter
8, Morin embarks on a lengthy inquiry into whether the bad houses of the
horoscope, the 6th the 8th and the 12th, would havened their present
signification before Adam's sin. Since Adam was the first man, the question
could only have applied to him and to his wife Eve. And since it is purely
theoretical, it hardly seems to us today to have been worth considering.
But this question seemed to be importantly Morin and so he had a lot to say
about it. Perhaps his main contention is that the houses, the domiciles,
and the planets had the same significations before Adam's fall from grace
as afterwards. For us in the twenty-first century, this is scarcely a
matter of any importance, but the patient reader may marvel at the
intricacies of thought that are presented in this lengthy chapter.
Section 11 contains a
technical discussion of several systems of House division. Morin begins by
attacking the Equal House System of House Division first offering
theoretical arguments against it, and then presenting several horoscopes
drawn in the so-called Rational System of Regiomontanus' and pointing out that
the house positions of the planets in that system are more in accordance
with the facts of the Natives' lives than their positions in the Equal
House System.
Like Regiomontanus, be
asserts that Ptolemy had the Regiomontanus System in mind in Tetrabiblos, Book 3, Chapter 10.
But this is not true, since what Ptolemy mentioned was only a minor
variation of the Equal House System. Morin does not mention the Placidus
System of house division in this book, since it was probably already
written before Placidus's books were published. However, in AG Book 23
Chapter 16, he does mention it and calls it “false and erroneous,” since it
rejected the circles of position that are employed in the Regiomontanus
system.
Morin next offers what
seemed to him to be valid arguments in favor of viewing the equator as the
primary circle to be divided. And he says that those systems that only
divide the ecliptic in various ways cannot therefore be true. He then
mentions the Campanus System and shows his own horoscope with Campanus
cusps, but he also votes against that system.
Finally, he explains
his own system, which is now called the Morinus System, and shows his chart
drawn in that system. He notes that the signs on the cusps of two of the
houses have changed, which changes the planetary rulers of those houses and
he then discusses the changes in interpretation that result from that, but
he asserts that the revised interpretations are also valid. His conclusion
is that the Morinus System is a valid one.
However, we may note
that since the changes in house position in his own chart were minor this
does not seem to be a fair test of the system. If he had redrawn the charts
of Wallenstein or Gustavus Adolphus, there would have been drastic changes.
And it should also be noted that the Morinus System does not produce the
true ASC degree. which all astrologers mom the
Alexandrian founders down to the present time have considered to be a point
of prime significance in the horoscope. In fact, the Morinus System does
not even produce the true astronomical MC degree. Consequently, it is
clearly wrong.
lf the student has
already chosen a house system (such as Placidus) and is satisfied with it,
he can probably skip over the technical parts of Section II, since they
mainly deal with the technical details of house division used in the
various systems, and since it is primarily a defense of the Regiomontanus
System. How- ever, the charts that are given as examples should be studied.
Section III continues
the discussion of the houses. Chapter 2 states that the calculations should
be made for a point on the surface of the Earth rather than for its center,
and Morin actually men- lions that this can make a noticeable change in (or
apparent longitude of the Moon. He thus seems to advocate the application
of the parallax correction to the Moon's position. However he does not seem
to have ever done this in practice, Chapter 5 is followed by two Problems
that explain how Morin calculated cuspal distances and converse primary
directions to planets in the 12th house and the 9th house for the
rectification of the birth time. These are quite technical and have mostly
a historical interest.
As l have
done in my translations of other books of the Astrologia Gallica, I have tried to turn Morin's scholarly
Latin into readable English as literally as possible. But he had a large
vocabulary, and rather than attempting to match him by studding the English
sentences with uncommon words l have used more common renderings of seldom
encountered Latin words. 1 have also tried to keep
paraphrase to a minimum.
Also, as previously, 1
have retained the Latin word Caelum
“sky” as a technical term; it refers to the zodiac and the placement of the
Sun Moon planets and fixed stars in it at a particular moment. I have also
retained Primum Caelum
“first sky”, which refers to the supposed outer sphere of the universe more
commonly called Primum Mobile,
which contains the signs of the zodiac And the reader will find that in
this book (from p. 31 on) Morin frequently uses the word “space'' as a
synonym for “house”.
As a writer, Morin
resembles a college professor teaching a course in astrology. He talks
extensively about each topic that he introduces, explaining the background
and the justifications of the rules that he introduces. From time to time
he even raises objections to the rules and refutes them, And he cites the
rules that some of his predecessors have stated and discusses them. Thus,
the reader not only learns what Morin believed to be true but he is also
introduced to some alternative theories that were current in the 17th
century. Some of this may seem excessive but Morin took great pains to
discuss all aspects of his topics.
If this is the first book
of the Astrologic Gallica
that the reader has taken up. he will be
immediately struck by the length of some of the sentences. Morin sometimes
extends a sentence into half of a page. His idea of the proper length of a
paragraph also differs considerably from ours, so I have broken some of the
solid text into paragraphs. And I have occasionally broken up some of his
long sentences into two or more shorter ones but
more often I have kept them together with commas semi-colons, and dashes. I
have occasionally used italics to emphasize a word where Morin did not, and
I have added some words in brackets where I thought they were needed.
Also, the reader may
find that after having read one of Morin's extra long sentences, he is
uncertain whether he has understood it. In such a case, my advice is to
read it again and think about how the several clauses fit together. Morin
is not an especially easy author. He should not be skimmed. To derive the
maximum benefit from what he has to say, it may be necessary to re-read
some parts of it and think about them. Unlike most astrological writers
Morin does not simply state a rule, but as mentioned above he also
discusses the reasons for the rule and objections that have been raised
against it.
One feature of Morin's
discussion that is seldom encountered in modern astrological texts is his
quotations from the Bible and his not infrequent digressions into religious
or philosophical justifications of the rules and explanations that he sets
forth. Moron
was a devout Catholic and he was at pains to try to show that nothing in
his book was contrary to Catholic dogma. This was partly due to the
sincerity of his personal religious beliefs and partly due to a desire to
avoid giving religious opponents of astrology obvious tar- gets to attack.
But he also tried to find Biblical justification for some of his
explanations or procedures.
The reader will also
find frequent references to Claudius Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos (or Quadripartite
as the Latin translation was called). Morin seems to have generally cited
the Latin version printed by Jerome Cardan in his voluminous Commentary on the Quadripartite.
Since the numbering of the chapters in that text does not agree exactly
with those in F.E. Robbins's edition and translation of the Tetrabiblos in the Loeb
Classical Library, I have generally changed the chapter numbers' cited by
Morin to agree with the chapter numbers in the LCL version.
And I have sometimes
expanded Morin's citations of passages in Cardan's book to agree with the
numbering in the Lyons
omnibus edition of Cardan's works published in 1663. (Morin of course used
an earlier edition, which I have not seen.) I do not have access to all of
the books by the other authors that Morin mentions from time to time, to I am unable to augment his references to those.
I have however, supplied references to their place and date of publication.
It will soon become
obvious to the reader that Morin usually cites Ptolemy or Cardan only in
order to disagree with their statements. In the 17th century they were
considered to be the two leading authorities on astrology. And, since Morin
had devised a system of astrology that differed in important respects from
the tradition set forth by his two eminent predecessors, he felt obliged to
point out the differences and explain why he thought that his system was
preferable.
He particularly cites
numerous passages from Cardan and delivers what he believes to be logical
arguments against them. And he also cites passages from Jofrancus Offusius
(16th century) in order to show that from his point of view they too were
erroneous. Offusius like Morin had discarded a good bit of traditional
astrology and substituted a system of his own devising. But not
surprisingly, Morin thought that his own system was better than Offtusius’s,
and he goes into detail to explain why. I think the reader will agree with
him.
However, we must
remember that Ptolemy, Cardan and Offusius all lived before the invention
of the telescope. Consequently, some of their statements relating to the
structure of the solar system, while generally believed to be correct as
late as the end of the 161 century, were found to be incorrect in the early
l 7th century. And while Morin accepted Kepler's elliptical orbits for the
planets, he refused to give up the idea that the Earth was the center of
tile universe since he was a devout Catholic and the Church had not yet
abandoned that erroneous belief.
Still, it is important
to note that since horoscopes are calculated with geocentric positions
regardless of how those positions are calculated, Morin's method of
astrological interpretation is largely unaffected by the change in
astronomical theory and remains valid.
Finally, I want to thank my friend Kris Brandt
Riske for converting my word-processor files into publishing files and
seeing the present book through the publishing process.
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