Astrology Doctrine - Three Points of Discussion

1
1) Do you consider planets being opposite the house of their joy as being debilitated in any way or form?
Say, Mercury in the 7th or Saturn in the 6th..

2) Do you actively note negative mutual receptions, just like we usually do with positive mutual receptions?
Say, Saturn in Sagittarius and Mercury in Cancer.
[these ones always confuse me and I fail to notice em]

3) Do you agree with the assessment that essential dignity shows nature or intentions (good vs. bad) while accidental dignity shows prowess to deliver upon the essential nature (capable or incapable)?

---

These points are taken from Frawley's "Let's get this straight" series, published in the Astrologer's Apprentice.
Here's a link if you want to go to the source:
https://www.johnfrawley.com/magazine

Wanted to add:
I love Frawley with all my heart, learnt so much from his books and the rest of his materials (even though he's not strictly a traditionalist, rather an innovator on many points).

Cheers.
D.
https://www.gurastro.com

2
1) Do you consider planets being opposite the house of their joy as being debilitated in any way or form?
Say, Mercury in the 7th or Saturn in the 6th..
No. Accidental dignity indicates the strength a planet because of its Angular position not by other house position except for Houses 6,8,12 which have considerations linked to unpleasant things in our life. Not everyone is Mother Teresa!
Joy of the Planets is linked to the Sect they belong to.
Sun, Jupiter, Saturn (Day Chart) and Moon, Venus, Mars (Night chart)
Mercury as a morning star (Day Chart) as an evening star (Night Chart)
To which you can add the hairesis (masculine or feminine) for each planet.
In resume, look at what is above or below the horizon.

The Classical Astrologer explains the concept this way (sorry! I could not retrieve the link)... but useful link here
https://classicalastrologer.com/nature- ... trology-2/

"In allegorical terms, the difference between essential (Sign) and accidental (House) dignity can be illustrated through an example question - 'Will I get the job?' - a man represented by a planet with essential dignity may receive promotion because he has qualities and skills that suit him to the job, while one represented by a planet with accidental dignity may get it because someone has helped him or because he was in the right place at the right time. (The former could be shown by essential dignity derived from a beneficial aspect, the latter by angularity.)"
The best position being if both merge together.

But there are many other factors to consider of which the House position you mention is one of them
- Debilitated: Detriment, Fall, Out of Sect, planets 6,8,12 house/lord, retrograde, combust, conjunct the Nodes, aspecting or not the Sun, Moon and or ASC
- Strengthened: Rulership, Exaltation, In Sect, Direct, Swift, Angular, free from combustion, Halb or Hayyiz, in beneficial aspect to a fortunate planet
2) Do you actively note negative mutual receptions, just like we usually do with positive mutual receptions?
Say, Saturn in Sagittarius and Mercury in Cancer.
[these ones always confuse me and I fail to notice em]
On Skyscript, Deborah Houlding in her article 'A brief comparison on the use of Reception in History" quote
"When a planet is in aspect with the ruler of the sign or exaltation, or of two of the minor dignities of term, triplicity, or face, the ruler of the dignity commits its own disposition and virtue to it, even if they are normally destructive to each other. If it aspects the ruler of only one of the minor dignities, it is not received, because these dignities are not strong enough to make reception without additional support."

In the case you mention, planets are not debilitated by sign but they 'see' each other by being in Contra-Antisce.
By Antiscia (Cancer/Gemini), they 'see' each other and are willing to collaborate.
By Contra-Antiscia (Cancer/Sagittarius), they 'see' each other but the collaboration is being forced. For example, you have a brother-in-law that you would not normally choose as a friend in your life but he is being forced to you by your sister.
To add to the subject of negative mutual reception with example of Moon in Scorpio in trine to Mars in Cancer, Lilly said that they are like 2 drunk men coming out of a bar and helping each other to walk. Help is there but limited.
3) Do you agree with the assessment that essential dignity shows nature or intentions (good vs. bad) while accidental dignity shows prowess to deliver upon the essential nature (capable or incapable)?
Strength and essential dignity do not always go together.
You can have a boss who is strong because he is the boss, strong by Sign but lacking essential dignity, weak by House, where the employees will not respect him behind his back.
Or the other way around, weak by Sign but strong by House where he got a promotion and people will say that he not qualified for this position.
Aspects to benefics or malefics will confirm where the brickwall will come from.

Regarding dignities, Danièle Jay in her book "Pour une astrologie de l'événement' describes the 5 essential dignities like this.
- By domicile (permanent benefits)
- By exaltation (sudden and bursting benefits)
- By triplicities (a 'meteorological' benefit' like the winds more generally associated with our life and temperament) Morin de Villefranche said that the benefits will come from our relationships.
- By term (benefits in the future)
- By face or almuged (qualify the state of two planets that look at each other from the same aspect as their house) which is a reproduction of an existing aspect between the rulership of a planet and one of the luminary.
Let me thing this one over again, not sure to understand exactly what she means here!
--------------
If we read Ptolemy, when we look at dignities essential or accidental and mutual receptions between them, we must consider the Ptolemaic aspects but also the signs that 'see' (same declination) and 'hear' (equal ascension) each other to get a full spectrum of 'aspects'.
In this regard, Danièle Jay suggests to look at the aspects 'In Zodiaco' (signs), the way we normally assess the aspects but also 'In Mundo' (houses), in the local sphere. For example, a planet on the cusp of the 12th will be in sextile to a planet on the cusp of the 10th or 2nd 'in Mundo' even if it is a square 'In Zodiaco'.

Mercury Occidental and slowing down right now makes me think that I wish I can recall everything I have tried to synthetize here but it is more like recalling some old stuff. Make sure you don't forget your keys before leaving home and I don't know yet if I am going to throw away my winter coat from last year!

Blessings,
Ouranos
Blessings!

3
2) Do you actively note negative mutual receptions, just like we usually do with positive mutual receptions?
Say, Saturn in Sagittarius and Mercury in Cancer.
[these ones always confuse me and I fail to notice em]
Most astrologers would say the concept of reception requires a true aspect or conjunction. These two planets would arguably not be aspecting (you could argue contra antiscia depending on the degrees involved), so I'm not seeing this working on several levels. If planets that aspect do so from areas where each planet is debilitated, I do think it is significant (especially in horary). If it were describing two people, they would be approaching the issue at hand from energies that are potentially not good for the other person. The aspect will technically describe whether the relationship between them is bad, but even if a friendly aspect, the energies are going to describe the scenario better. It would more likely describe some sort of dysfunction. If there is an aspect there would also just not be reception, which can be significant on its own, depending on the aspect (some aspects don't necessarily need it). If planets are in opposition and both parties approach from areas that are bad for the other, that's one nasty opposition, for example.

I'm very tried so hopefully that made some sense.

Frawley is a very creative astrologer, and does a lot of interesting things with reception, and if people find his techniques work, then so be it. Personally, I would not look at the relationship between these two planets other than the fact that they are in aversion towards one another. That would be more significant than any reception or lack thereof, IMO, because, again, reception describes an aspect. I'm not sure when reception became more important than aspects in popular theory.

I remember Andrew Brevan had some theories he made up on negative reception as well:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2949