Dignities
The old tables score each planet by the sign it stands in: at home, honoured, among allies, merely passing through, or in the sign opposite its own. This page scores the seven traditional planets and shows the working.
In this chart
Mutual receptions
Five dignities and two debilities
A planet is strongest in the sign it rules, its domicile, and next in the sign of its exaltation: the Sun in Aries, the Moon in Taurus, Mercury in Virgo, Venus in Pisces, Mars in Capricorn, Jupiter in Cancer and Saturn in Libra. Triplicity is a share in ruling the three signs of one element, held by day or by night, which is why a day chart and a night chart score differently. The terms cut every sign into five unequal stretches, each ruled by one of the five planets, and the faces cut it into three of ten degrees, handed out in the Chaldean order from Mars at the start of Aries. A planet in the sign opposite its own is in its detriment, and opposite its exaltation it is in its fall. One with none of the five dignities is called peregrine, a wanderer.
How the scores are counted
The points, five for domicile down to one for face, and five and four taken away for detriment and fall, are the ones William Lilly printed in 1647 and traditional astrologers still use; Lilly also took five away for a peregrine planet, which this page names rather than scores. The tables are older: the triplicity rulers of Dorotheus of Sidon, the Egyptian terms as Ptolemy records them, and the faces from 0° Aries. Before it shows anything the page checks that the terms of every sign add up to thirty degrees. Exaltation counts for the whole sign. A birth chart is a day chart when the Sun is in the houses above the horizon; without a birth time that is not known, and the triplicity column is given both ways. Mutual reception is shown by domicile only.
Two planets, counted
Put the Sun at 15° Aries in a day chart. Aries belongs to Mars, so there is no domicile, but it is the Sun’s exaltation, worth four. Aries is a fire sign and the Sun holds the fire triplicity by day, three more. The term from 12° to 20° of Aries is Mercury’s and adds nothing; the second face of Aries is the Sun’s own and adds one. The total is eight. Born at night, the same Sun loses the triplicity to Jupiter and scores five. Now take Venus at 10° Virgo by day. Virgo is her fall, four off. But Venus holds the earth triplicity by day, the term from 7° to 17° of Virgo is hers and so is the second face: three, two and one. She ends at plus two, and at night at minus one. A fall on the first line of the grid is not the whole account, which is why the page prints every part.
Where the rulerships come from
The domiciles follow a pattern the Greek-speaking astrologers of Egypt already used. The Sun and Moon take Leo and Cancer, the signs of high summer in the north, and the five planets take two signs each, fanning out on both sides in order of speed: Mercury has Virgo and Gemini, Venus Libra and Taurus, Mars Scorpio and Aries, Jupiter Sagittarius and Pisces, and Saturn, the slowest, Capricorn and Aquarius opposite the lights. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were unknown when the tables were drawn, so they have no exaltation, triplicity, term or face. Modern astrologers give them Aquarius, Pisces and Scorpio as signs, but this page keeps to the seven and to the old rulers.
Essential and accidental
Essential dignity is only about where in the zodiac a planet stands. The tradition keeps a second account, accidental dignity, for the planet’s circumstances: which house it is in, whether it is direct or retrograde, fast or slow, and how close it is to the Sun. Lilly printed a separate table of points for those. This page scores the essential side only.
What it claims
A planet with a high score is read in the tradition as able to act in its own way, and one in detriment or fall as working against the grain of its sign. The scores describe a position in an old system of rulership, not the worth of a person or what will happen to them, and nothing on this page predicts anything.
The faces and terms, drawn degree by degree, are on Decans, which reads the same tables. What each planet stands for is under The planets, the signs they rule under The signs, and the same split between day and night charts decides the formula on the Lot of Fortune page.
Questions people ask
What is essential dignity?
Essential dignity is the traditional measure of how well suited a planet is to the part of the zodiac it stands in, judged by position alone rather than by aspects or houses. The strongest are its own sign and the sign of its exaltation; smaller shares come from triplicity, term and face. A planet opposite its own sign is in detriment, and opposite its exaltation in fall. This page scores the seven traditional planets, the Sun and Moon included, for your birth or for today, and shows every part of each total.
What does peregrine mean in astrology?
A peregrine planet has none of the five essential dignities where it stands: it is not in its own sign, its exaltation, its triplicity, its term or its face. The word means a wanderer or a foreigner, and the tradition reads such a planet as acting without the support of its surroundings, leaning on the planets it relates to. William Lilly took five points away for it; this page names peregrine planets in the grid and in the summary but does not take the points off.
What is a planet’s exaltation?
Exaltation is the sign where a planet is traditionally said to be honoured, second in strength only to its own sign and worth four points in the old scoring. The classical list gives Aries to the Sun, Taurus to the Moon, Virgo to Mercury, Pisces to Venus, Capricorn to Mars, Cancer to Jupiter and Libra to Saturn. The opposite sign is the planet’s fall, which takes four points away. On this page exaltation counts for the whole sign, although older texts also name a particular exalted degree.
What is mutual reception?
Two planets are in mutual reception when each stands in the sign the other rules, such as Venus in Aries with Mars in Libra. The tradition reads the pair as supporting each other, each able to act almost as if it were in its own sign, and some astrologers extend the idea to exaltations, triplicities and terms. This page counts reception by domicile only and lists every such pair among the seven planets, for your birth chart or for the sky today, or says there is none.
What is the difference between detriment and fall?
Both are debilities, and each is the mirror of a dignity. Detriment is the sign opposite a planet’s own: Mars rules Aries and Scorpio, so it is in detriment in Libra and Taurus. Fall is the sign opposite its exaltation: Mars is exalted in Capricorn and falls in Cancer. Lilly took five points away for detriment and four for fall, matching the five and four given for domicile and exaltation. The Sun and Moon have one sign of detriment each, Aquarius and Capricorn; the five planets have two.