things. Without such an accurate understanding, correct delineation and predic-
tion is impossible.
For Morin, the natures of the planets were essentially the same as what other
astrologers had long believed, but they were not recognized as being as distinct as they
were in reality. Aside from their natures, the planets had analogy with specific kinds of
manifestation.This analogy was an important factor in delineation.
By zodiacal state, Morin understod the planet’s interaction with the sign it is
in, its dignity (he recognized rulership, exaltation, and triplicity) or debility (he recog-
nized detriment and fall). He supposed peregrine was a kind of frontier between digni-
ty and debility. His understanding of dignity of triplicity was that a planet in a sign of
the same element as the one it rules is in dignity (or honor) of triplicity in that sign
(e.g. Mars, who rules the fire sign Aries, in Leo or Sagittarius; Venus, who rules the air
sign Libra, in Aquarius or Gemini). Zodiacal state also entailed the planet’s relation-
ship with its dispositor (the ruler of the sign it was in), as well as the aspects it
received. Zodiacal state modulated the qualitative manifestation of the one planetary
nature (Mars, Venus, etc.) giving it a hierarchy of expression from pure to corrupt.
The purer a planet’s influence, the easier it produced what it promised. Local determi-
nation specified the field of action a planet might have, limiting it to the affairs of life
corresponding to the house it was in (hence “local”) or the one(s) it ruled, or to the
affairs of those houses and rulers to whom it was linked by aspect.
Morin regarded astrology as a divine art. Bad astrology was the work of the
devil intended to discredit it and to remove it from man’s use. He strongly objected to
the medieval astrology, which he saw as corrupted by “Arabisms.” He questioned the
astrological doctrine of combustion, which held that combust planets cease to act on
the sublunary world. He favored Regiomontanus houses over equal houses. But he
developed his own house system described in Astrologicarum domorum cabala detecta
(1623). Morin taught that benefic planets could accidentally work evil (“accidental
malefics”) and malefics could accidentally work good (accidental benefics).
Morin presented the claim that he was reforming astrology. Actually, his
reforms were more like rearticulations of the very astrologers he objected to most:
Guido Bonatti, Abu ̄ Ma‘shar, Massa’allah, and Cardanus. Yet upon close study, his
assertion that he had improved upon the medieval astrology derived from Arabic and
Persian astrologers appeared to amount to his making explicit what was either implicit
in the teachings of Bonatti, the thirteenth-century Italian astrologer who resumed the
practices of the Arabic astrologers.
For instance, Morin’s rule in delineation, “The good or bad signified by a house
emanates from the ruler of the house” (Book XXI Astrologia Gallica), is found in Bonatti’s
Liber astronomiaeand attributed to Abu ̄ Ma‘shar. So, too, the idea that benefic planets
can accidentally work evil and malefics can accidentally work good. In Book XXII, which
deals with primary directions, his teaching that the significator indicates the kind of
event and the promittor (promissor), the quality is implicit in the earlier medieval and
Arabic astrological practice. It can be seen by analyzing the effects of transits. In the final
analysis, although Morin’s “Rational System of Horoscope Analysis” is of great practical
benefit to the practicing astrologer, much of it is not new, nor even Morin’s.
THEASTROLOGYBOOK [467]
Morin, Jean-Baptiste (Morinus)