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Essential Dignity in Horary Astrology
Essential dignity measures how much a planet is strengthened or weakened purely by the zodiac sign it occupies -- ruling its own sign, being exalted, or falling into detriment or fall. A well-dignified significator is judged able to act on its own behalf; a poorly dignified one is judged weak, regardless of anything else in the chart.
Horary astrology is a traditional, rule-based symbolic practice with no empirical scientific basis -- treat this page, and Querens itself, as entertainment and a genuinely interesting historical system, not fact.
What Lilly says
Christian Astrology, p.115 (1647 ed.)
Lilly's "A Table to Examine the Strength and Debility of any Planet" assigns a point value to each dignity or debility a planet can hold in a sign: rulership, exaltation, triplicity, term, and face on the positive side; detriment, fall, and peregrine (holding none of the above) on the negative.
How Querens reads this
Querens scores every significator against that same table, verbatim: rulership +5, exaltation +4, triplicity +3, term +2, face +1; detriment −5, fall −4, peregrine −5. A planet can hold several of these at once (in its own term and face, for instance), and the scores simply add. This is the essential dignity score shown on every reading's Full Judgment panel, alongside the accidental dignity score.
See it in a real chart
See it in Lilly's Library: “If have the portion promised” →
Frequently asked questions
- What is essential dignity in astrology?
- A measure of how much a planet is strengthened or weakened by the zodiac sign it occupies, independent of anything else happening in the chart.
- What's the difference between essential and accidental dignity?
- Essential dignity comes purely from the sign a planet occupies. Accidental dignity layers on everything else -- house placement, motion, speed, solar proximity, and more.
- What does 'peregrine' mean?
- A planet is peregrine when it holds none of the five essential dignities (rulership, exaltation, triplicity, term, face) in its current sign -- scored −5, the same weight as being in detriment.