Receptions in astrology

I have recently written on receptions on Facebook (yes, I still use it. I’ll be 48 this year, I’m entitled to it).

In it, I said receptions as Frawley sees and teaches them (although I don’t mention him in the post) make sense and work, and people who say he’s wrong are wannabe philologists who torture old texts until they say what is expected of them.

It was a bit of a shitpost, because a student of mine had shown me people talking about Frawley behind his back, and it annoyed me. And, yes, I stand by it: people who talk crap behind his back are usually the ones who couldn’t judge a horary chart to save their sorry lives.

But a good colleague took offense, and disagreed with it. My venom was not meant at him, of course, and he was very nice about it. I promised I would explain myself. I first decided to do so there in the post comments; then, in a separate post; in the end, I decided to write an article, because it would be a really long post.

So buckle up. I think it will be worthwhile.

What I intend to do is: first, I’ll explain what receptions are (“John Frawley’s version”). Then, I’ll spell out the astrological principles behind it.

Next, I’ll address Nicolás’s (The colleague) definition of receptions and the quotes he brought up, not to diss him, but because he deserves to receive a decent answer, and because it is a reasonable explanation of the “other version”.

First.. stop! Frawley’s time.

It is simple, really.

Planets are not indifferent to signs: there are signs in which they are more aligned with their own essence, signs or parts of it in which they have some of that, signs which are strange to them, and signs in that they have difficulty in expressing their best nature.

This is the concept of essential dignity (and essential debility). There are five essential dignities (ranked from strongest from weakest: sign — or house, or domicile—, exaltation, triplicity, term, face or decan) and two essential debilities (detriment or exile, the opposite of sign; and fall, the opposite of exaltation).

This is a reaction, so to speak, of the planets to the signs — so, dignities and debilities come from the qualities of the signs.

That means, while a planet is in own dignity is essentially fortified, another planet there will experience the same qualities — althought it will not be strengthened by them.

Translating the previous paragraph: there is something in Aries that makes it Mars’s sign and the Sun’s exaltation. When, say Mercury is there, it’s not in its dignities, but it is in Mars’s sign and the Sun’s exaltation, and these qualities influence it somehow.

In the same way that being in Aries makes Mars more marsy, being in it makes Mercury more inclined to Mars. That is, it cannot change Mercury into a strong Mars, but makes it a Mercury that “helps” Mars. Mercury in Aries acts, mercurially, in a Marsy environment.

This usually means that whatever Mercury means “loves” or is “under the power” of whatever Mars means, but, as our art is vast, and it refers to the unending variety and change of this sublunary world, it may mean other things in other contexts.

It’s not hard to adapt it for when a planet is in the other’s exaltation, triplicty, etc, or when it it’s in another’s detriment or fall.

In short, Planet A is in the sign (or any other dignity) of planet B. Therefore, planet A “helps” (according to the dignities involved) planet B.

I have learned it from John Frawley; I have seen the charts he shows as examples of it, and I have seen others — countless others, from my practice and from colleagues — in which this works perfectly.

Moreover, this makes perfect sense when we think of the astrological principles, our building blocks: what are the planets and the signs, which is the next part of this text.

The building blocks of astrological symbolism

The visible sky has on it many shiny bodies, the vast majority of them dot-like, which we call stars. Most of them are fixed (meaning they move as if they were glued to the Celestial sphere, which drags them in its daily motion), or so they seem to anyone not willing to observe them for a very, very long time.

Seven of them seem to move in relation to this sphere. These are the wandering stars, or planets. Being the only things that move, they are naturally associated with action: they are the cosmic actors, and their interactions in the sky symbolize events and happenings.

Among them, one is obviously more important, being so strong that it makes the others disappear. This one (the Sun) has also some interesting properties.

Its annual course is always on a great circle called Ecliptic. It never deviates from it, and it never significantly changes its speed.

This motion seem to be linked to the weather, the seasons: annual changes in the world. The Sun seems to be symbolically related to these great changes.

Moreover, it is obviously a symbol of the “light from above”. So, the circle onto which it moves must be important.

It is also important because the other six planets also move along it, although not exactly on it. They move on a belt that envolves the Ecliptic as a sheat does a blade.

This belt is the Zodiac. It is divided in twelve equal parts, called the signs. There are twelve of them because 12 is 3 (the stages of action) times 4 (the elements, the principles of matter).

These signs are symbols of the supreme possibilities. They are qualities; they are unchanged and never influenced by anything. Gemini will be the mutable sign of air until the End of times.

In the West, Gemini will also be in the same position in relation to the Equinoxes until the end of times.

The planets are the actors, the bodies, which move and interact; the signs are qualities, that modify the planets that are in it.

Things in the Cosmos are related. Different levels have similarities. So, the planets, being at one level of the sky, have some similarites with the signs, they being at another level.

That’s the basis of the dignities, especially the dignity of sign, house, or domicile (these signs are, more or less, the “translation” of the respective planets in their level, and vice-versa).

But, in “different levels”, different means different: planets and signs are not the same thing. Planets are active, bodily, and interacting; signs are (from our point of view; they are above the planets, not below) passive, immaterial, and unchanging.

Now, for the other point of view.

Here is how some people view receptions:

Planet A is in the sign (or any other dignity) of planet B. Therefore, planet B “helps” (according to the dignities involved) planet A. Some people say they must be in aspect, some people don’t. There are some modulations, according to the dignites and other aspects of the planets involved, which are not relevant now.

The most common argument for it is that planets follow the principle of hospitality - planet A is a guest in the house of planet B, so planet B treats it well.

There are two problems with that.

First, a guest is not someone, or something, that happens to be in our house. Beggars and kings are treated very differently; guests that are announced and the ones that are uninvited are not treated the same; who the person is is very, very, very important in how they are treated, be it in 21st Century New York or Ancient Athens.

Moreover, being a guest means being greeted into the house (which — again, as in New York now as in Athens then — had walls, fences, and doors to prevent people from just walking in), a burglar was not a “guest”. And planets just enter signs, there is nothing announcing them, nothing preparing the lord of the place, etc.

The second is… how to planets know? As I said before, planets are active and moving, signs aren’t. The signs do not change when a planet enters it, so… what makes the sign “tell” its lord that there are new “visitors”?

A planet being influenced by the sign it’s in is straightforward; a planet being influenced by something being in the sign they rule is a weird inversion.

If it happened, why doesn’t it happen when fixed stars move? Regulus left Leo some years ago, and the sign is every bit the fixed fire sign (and the house of the Sun and the detriment of Saturn) now as it was 30 years ago.

But let me quote (in italics and underline) and comment Nicolás on what receptions would be:

“When the Sun or any planet moves from a sign to the next, what automatically changes is its essential dignity. This concept contains everything you mentioned about "being influenced by different qualities", etc.”

Hum… not exactly. When the Sun moves from Taurus to Gemini, for example, it changes absolutely nothing in its essential dignity — but it changes the environment, so to speak. It changes the qualities that influence the Sun. That is why, in “Frawley’s” receptions, it changes from wanting, or being under the power of, Venus and the Moon to wanting or loving or obeying Mercury. Because it is not in the fixed earth sign anymore, but in the mutable air one.

“Now, for instance, the Sun in Pisces is peregrine, it has no affinity with the sign, it can't really do its thing very well. But IF it is seen by Jupiter (or someone else with strong dignty there, such as Venus), it can be assisted on how to perform best there. Especially if there is an aspect connecting them.”

Good — that’s how I explained what you meant by receptions (planet A, Sun, is in planet B’s, Jupiter’s, sign, so Jupiter helps the Sun). And, as I said, when we think of what the planets and the signs are, it makes absolutely no sense. It implies, without any justification, that somehow Pisces changes by the presence of the Sun, and in turn Jupiter changes because of Pisces.

“And yes, it's just like being in someone else's house, you need their help to figure out how to move around and use things.”

As I also explained, only if the person inside the house is really a guest. A robber would be expelled, harmed, or restrained; a wanderer or a begger would be fed and sent on their way; a friend, authority, or relative would be treated with more care.

“That is what the old texts planinly state reception is about. The rest is not wrong - in fact, there are examples showing how planets relate better to other planets when they are in friendly signs and viceversa - but it's not what reception means.”

We’ll talk about the old texts in a minute. But here’s one of the problems — there are abundant examples of “Frawley’s receptions” working, and not a single one of this thing doing the same. Whenever I read someone posting an example of this in horary, for instance, the person is actually explaining why it didn’t work. Why would I call it reception and search for another name for the change in disposition that I see working?

“That is why the old texts are full of considerations that improve or worsen a planet's status depending on WHETHER it is received or not. This is all over the place, and would make absolutely no sense if it just depended on each planet's sign position.”

Setting the main issues of the old texts aside for a moment again, your definition of receptions implies exactly that: that these considerations, as they “depend on whether a planet is received or not”, depends on each planet’s sign position. That’s your definition of “being received”, being in a sign of another planet.

Of course neither option says that, this is just a strawman. Both take into account many other things happening to both planets.

“In "your" way, the Sun in Pisces would always be automatically "received", regardless of where Jupiter or anyone else is in the chart.”

No, and I didn’t use the expression “received” once, because (I’ll come back to it shortly) it’s misleading. That is why I used the “planet A and planet B” thing.

What I said is that the Sun’s “intentions”, for lack of a better world, change as it changes sign. In Pisces — apart from all the other things that might be happening to it — it “likes” or is “under the power” of Jupiter, it is in a similar state, although with a bit less force and a bit of exaggeration, in relation to Venus, that it has a fraction of interest in Mars, and that it “loathes” or “wishes harm” on Mercury.

Your version implies that, when the Sun is in Pisces (and is in aspect to any of the following, and they’re in all the conditions you deem necessary), Jupiter and Venus want to help it a lot, Mars wants to help it a bit, and Mercury wants to harm it.

“This is based on the fact that regardless of where they are, planets retain a connection with the signs they rule. Thay's why we have house rulers.”

This is a misunderstanding. There is no connection it that sense — in the sense that, when something happens to one of them, it happens to the other.

This is so, as it is probably very clear by now, because nothing happens to the signs.

And this is by no means why we have house rulers. We have them because — again, as I already said — the planets correspond to the signs, one is, as it were, a translation of the other in its own level.

Mercury is, as an actor, as a body, what Gemini and Virgo are as qualities, environment, background.

“Reception just states that house rulers are more effective when they can see (aspect) their houses, and can better help out their occupants so they don't make a complete mess of themselves (and of the house they occupy).”

I have no issue with the first part of this sentence. It may or not be true, but that’s not what is at stake here.

What is at stake is that the second part is not justified by the principles of the art. OK, even if being more effective means that they can better help out the occupants of their house, why would they? Why would they help them, regardless of who they are, what they “think” about it, and of how they got into the house? And, more importantly when we think of what signs are, how do they know they’re there?

Moreover, who said the occupants of another planet’s house will make “a mess” without this help? The Sun is very nice and strong in Mars’s house, for example — so is Jupiter in the Moon’s sign, etc.

“The idea you are presenting has more to do the feelings or attitudes that house occupants may develop towards the house owner. And I have no problem with this, I find it is a wholly valid and useful concept, it's just not what reception is -not the whole story in any case, and not even the main focus.”

Yes, it is totally related to the feelings and attitudes, and if no one bashed this as a “misunderstanding”, I wouldn’t bother to defend it.

“Can both concepts be used simultaneously in an effective and meaningful way? I'm sure they can! But we do need to distinguish between them first.”

That’s what I was doing, distinguishing something that makes sense and seems to work pretty well from something that makes no sense. And I was doing that merely because people like to talk crap about it and about the man who taught me this very valuable tool.

And this is why I called them (I was obviously not thinking of Nicolás when I wrote it) “wannabe philologists who torture old texts until they seem to mean that”, which leads us to the next part of this article.

Because he mentioned old texts, and that they plainly state what he advocates, I asked for any quote which would do that.

Before I comment them, I must repeat things I have said a lot of times, and add a few new ones. This also is not originally mine.

Astrology books are not Scriptures, nor (in their vast majority) textbooks.

They are a very irregular collection of texts from different periods in history, with widely different purposes, and with variable degrees of preservation.

Some are, to put it simply, not astrological in aim: most of John Gadbury’s books are political propaganda.

Some are didactic poems (Manilius’s Astronomicon, for example), which means they were meant for helping students remembering what they have learnt, not for teaching them anything.

Some were paid works, so the rich clients could exhibit them, and then mix good astrology and simplications (most of Ibn Ezra’s texts are like that).

Some, like William Lilly’s Christian Astrology, are advertising. They were written in the hopes of getting clients.

Some others were (Al-Biruni and Ptolemy were the first that come to my mind, but a good chunk of the texts in Arabic, Persian, and Greek fall into this category) summaries, part of enciclopedias, meant to register all previous knowledge available.

Very few were meant for students to learn from them; and none of them meant for a student to learn only from them. One example that comes to my mind is the Treatise of the Sphere, written by John Sacrobosco in the 13th Century, for his students at the University of Paris.

The idea of learning a practical craft from written stuff seems natural to us, but was alien to anyone born more than a couple of hundred years ago.

Of course, the more a text is ancient, the more degraded, interpolated, and corrupted it tends to be. Many of the texts in Arabic and Persian are only known in the West by their translations into Latin (most of the originals of Masha’Allah ibn Athari, for example, were considered lost to the West; I don’t know if it’s still the case); some of them underwent very weird translation paths (check Dorotheus of Sidon’s Carmen Astrologicum, for example).

Finally, just because a text has survived, it does not mean that the author was a top astrologer, or a good teacher (or even an astrologer), or that their work was a faithful representation of what most of the astrologers of that time thought about the subject. Just imagine if Jean Morin de Villefranche’s work were the only astrological testimony of the art of his time…

Having said all that, let’s go to the actual quotes.

Old texts on receptions.

(The actual quotes from the old texts are in italics and underlined; his comments are not underlined, and my comments are in plain text)

Abu Ma'shar's Great Introduction (Yamamoto/Burnett translation p.785):

" ‘Reception’ is that a planet applies to a planet from the house of the planet applied to, or from its exaltation, term, triplicity, or decan; then it receives it. Or the planet applies to the planet and the receiver of the application is in the house of the giver or in ⟨one of⟩ its other shares which we have mentioned".

A preliminary note on translations.

This is a great example of a very complicated problem with the astrological sources in Arabic (disclaimer: I am not implying any flaws in Keiji Yamamoto’s impressive work, and I am by no means fluent in Arabic).

It is the following: it is a very fluid and poetic language. Translations rely, to a degree, on clues from the astrological understanding of the subject, and to the inner cohesion of the text.

It means that, in any dubious passage, it is translated with the meaning that more closely resembles what we would expect it said on the subject. In other words, it is translated in a way that ends up confirming what astrologers would expect, which stems from the initial interpretation of the… Latin translations.

This is not what the passage says literally.

It begins like that: “And the qabul [acceptance, reception, concordance, admittance, obeyance, submission] is that the planet is united in frienship to/is in contact with/connected with/associated with [yattaSal] the planet in the house connected/contiguous/etc [almuttaSil, the adjective has the same root as the verb] to it; or from his exaltation, term, triplicity or decan; then the planet is “yattaSal” to the planet…

See, I am by no means saying this translation is wrong, my Arabic is below rudimentary. My point is that the translation is already an interpretation of the text, based on what people would expect from it.

Now, back to the quote as it is given.

If we take it as it is, and forget my digression, this describes a thing, not how it works. It is telling us that this round thing called clock has gears inside it, and other small pieces, but not that it used for knowing what time it is.

The translation merely says “there is a certain relation between a planet and another planet in its sign [or exaltation, etc], and it’s called reception”.

"When the application is to the lord of the term or the triplicity or the decan alone, it is weak unless the term and triplicity, or the term and decan, or the triplicity and decan are joined. For that is complete reception".

"These planets having dignities may also ‘receive’ by aspect without application, although reception by application is stronger".

---

This part states clearly that reception requires an aspect either by sign or by dregree, although there may still be some confusion regarding who receives who.

This is, by the way, why I don’t use the phrases “planet X receives planet Y in its sign/exaltation/fall etc”, nor “planet X is received by planet Y…”. It’s so much easier just to say “planet X is in planet B’s sign/etc”.

However, the confusion is somewhat dispelled by this sentence:

'These planets having dignities may also ‘receive’ by aspect without application'.

The planet that does the receiving is the one having dignities [in the place where the other is].

Again (let’s forget everything I said about texts, translations, etc), “doing the receiving” doesn’t mean anything. Abu Mashar does not state in this entire passage who helps/harms who. Let’s move on.

Ibid, p. 791: "The misfortune of the planets is that they are in conjunction with the malefics or in their opposition or in their quartile or their trine or their sextile, or between them and the malefic there is less than the term of a planet, or that they are in the terms of the malefics or in their houses, or that one of the malefics is rising above them in the tenth or eleventh ⟨place⟩ from their place—the worst of that in all this is that the malefic does not receive them".

This shows that at leat one important purpose of reception is to make bad aspects smoother.

Hum… no, it doesn’t. Because interpreting this passage in “your” version of reception simply makes no sense.

How can a malefic not receive a planet afflicting by being… in the terms or in the houses of the malefics, as it is written just before? The text says it is bad to be in the malefic’s dignities, and it’s worse if the malefics don’t receive… but if receiving means to have the planet in its dignities, it’s bad if you do, and bad if you don’t. No rest for the wicked planets.

(Another small digression: the Arabic sentence that was translated into “the worst of that in all this is that the malefic does not receive them” is anything but plain and simple. It reads more or less like “and the worst in all of this is that the malefic [al-naHs; the same root as “misfortune” in the beginning] is not “qabul” [see above] to/for them”)

However, this passage on the misfortunes of the planet allows me to quote a preceeding one on their fortunes, in page 787:

“When the luminaries are in shares of the two benefics, then it is as if they are in their own shares. It is likewise when the two benefics are in shares of the luminaries.”

Hum… so, when the Sun and the Moon are in the dignities of Jupiter and Venus, The Sun and the Moon are influenced differently? And Venus and Jupiter receive a different influence by they being in the Sun and the Moon’s sign, and not the other way around? That’s funny.

On we go.

p. 891, same source:

"The fifth is the lot of knowledge and understanding. (...)

If this lot is aspecting Saturn and Jupiter and received by both or one of them, and aspecting the lord of the ascendant, he is a man of patience, steadiness, tolerance, intelligence, and understanding".

This throws light on the issue of who receives who: Obvioulsy the lots don't rule signs, so it's clear here that Saturn and Jupiter 'receive' the lot if the lot is in one these planet's signs or dignities (and there is an aspect).

Hum… Are you sure this was supposed to be a quote in favour of your position?

If, as you say, “being received” means “being in the sign of”, It is clearly stating that the Lot is influenced by being in the signs of Saturn or Jupiter.

You mean that Jupiter and Saturn will be helping the lot because it’s in their signs, which is not what is written there. It is written that it makes (presumably because of the aspect to the Ascendant) a man “of patience, etc” when it’s in a Jupiter or Saturn sign.

If the sign occupant was the one meant to receive, it would say here that "If this lot is aspecting Saturn and Jupiter and RECEIVES both or one of them..."

The problem with your sentence is that is assumes the text states that “Being received by” means “being helped by”, which, as I have shown above, simply is not the case.

I am not going to comment, or present, the Lilly quote. I have written elsewhere quite a bit on how he uses the word “reception” in a very vague way, in senteces that sometimes seem to see them in one way, sometimes in the opposite way, and my sincere impression after having done the research on every time he mentions “reception”, “receive(s)”, “received”, etc, is that he doesn’t have the slightest idea of what he’s talking about.

Then, Dante’s best friend in the whole world, Guido Bonatti:

Bonatti's Treatise 6 "On Questions" from his Book of Astronomy (Dykes Translation, p. 365):

"Likewise if the significator of whatever matter (or the Moon) were joined to the Sun from Libra (which is his descension), or from Aquarius (which is his fall), because then the Sun would not receive any of them, and thus he would destroy the matter and not permit it to be perfected".

---

Besides the change in terminology ('descension' for fall and 'fall' for detriment), it's clear here that:

-The Sign owner is the one who can receive (or not) the planets in his dignities, and not the other way around.

-The main importance is on the context of an aspect, when "they are joined" (by aspect), not in absence of one.

I must here talk a bit more on texts, I’m afraid.

Bonatti (which was, I don’t doubt, a wonderful astrologer, mathematician, and scholar) is writing this in the 13th Century. His sources include Latin translations from texts in Arabic, so his work includes the issues I have spoken before.

Moreover, his treatise is clearly not a text-book, but a Summa: a collection of all the astrological knowledge known to him, which means that it’s hard to determine what is tested technique and what is repetition of older authors.

I couldn’t find the exact passage in the original; I don’t have the book with me, and internet copies are horrible to browse (those words crammed in two columns, full of abreviations, make it impossible to do a decent word search, for example). So, I’ll take it and the next quotes as they are.

It may mean exactly what Nicolás means with reception (it might just be what Bonatti read in the translations he had access to); but the word “joined” here might mean conjunction, not aspect (coniunctio, conjunction, and iunctio, union, were, if my memory does not betray me, both used for conjunction in the text). Then, this passage means that a debilitated Sun would destroy the matter by combustion.

In fact, all the times reception is mentioned is in the context of an aspect, such as:

-"Those which come easily and without striving or any difficulty, as unhindered things, are when the Lord of the Ascendant or the significator of the querent and the significator of the quaesited matter are joined by a trine or sextile aspect, and with reception." (p. 362).

-"Indeed those rnatters which come to be shortly and without striving (...) are when the Lord of the Ascendant is joined with the Lord of dte quaesited by a trine aspect without reception, or by a sextile with reception" (p. 363).

-"Those things which come to be with the greatest labor (...) and yet hardly or never perfect (...) are those in which the Lord of the Ascendant (or the Moon) and the Lord of the quaesited matter, are joined by opposition without reception (p. 363).

-"But if the aspect were a square, it reduces much of the querent's intention and the goodness and durability of that same matter, even if it were with reception. It even diminishes if it were a trine or sextile without reception, even if less so [than if it were a square]. If it were a square or opposition without reception, it signifies the destruction of the matter itself and that no good nor durability will be in it (p. 372)".

I have so far disregarded the need for an aspect, a thing Nicolás is emphasizing in his comments and quotes, because it is not relevant to the discussion (that is, whether receptions work as “Planet A, in planet B’s sign, helps planet B” or “Planet A, in planet B’s sign, is helped by planet B”).

And these last quotes, of course, don’t really help us in any way.

However, now it’s the time to talk about it a little bit.

This discussion — whether receptions work with aspect or without them — is, quite frankly, weird.

Aspects are a thing; a thing that can happen with or without receptions. All the texts that state something along the lines of “such and such aspect does X, but, with receptions it does Y; with bad receptions, it does Z” are talking about what aspects do.

They are opportunities of contact between planets, and it’s very clear that the contact and what happens with it depends on the disposition of the planets (and on their conditions, etc). If someone insists on calling “aspects with these dispositions” receptions, and the dispositions themselves something else, OK. I have no issue with that, apart from the unnecessary expansion of the terminology.

I prefer to call aspects aspects, receptions (in “Frawley’s sense”) receptions, and one with the other, one with the other.

Conclusions, finally.

This is probably twice as long as the longest newsletter post I have ever written, so it’s time to say goodbye.

In short, what I think of the subject:

1) Receptions are dispositions; they don’t do anything without aspects because… aspects are contacts, and events are contacts.

2) A planet is influenced by the place it is, not by whoever is in any of its dignities, because signs are unchangeable and don’t send messages across the sky to them;

3) Items 1 and 2 mean that receptions are a change in the disposition of a planet, in relation to the planets that have dignities/debilities in the sign the planet is in, because it is in the said sign;

4) Items 1, 2, and 3 are in accordance to what signs and planets are;

5) Written sources must be read, confronted, and contextualized, not blindly followed, astrology is not a theoretical experiment, but a practical craft.

I hope I have made my point clear enough. Thanks for reading, see you soon, I hope.

(If you liked what you read, consider subscribing to this newsletter and sharing this post; if you got offended or enraged, also consider subscribing and sharing it, who knows? If you do that with anger, it might make me change my opinion!)