Cadent from Own House

latin: cadentes ab angulis · arabic: sāqiṭ (ساقط) — 'falling' · greek: ἀποκεκλικότα (apokeklikota) — 'fallen away'

Definition

A planet placed three signs from its own domicile, putting it in aversion to its home sign by zodiacal square (a placement that does not aspect the planet's ruled sign by sextile, square, trine, or opposition). A planet so placed is said to be cadent or 'falling' from its own house — it cannot see or claim its native ground, and its capacity to act on the topics it rules is read as reduced. The most-cited example is Mars in Sagittarius, which sits three signs from Scorpio (Mars's nocturnal domicile) and is therefore cadent from its own house.

In Tradition

Across the Hellenistic and Arabic-Persian traditions the cadent doctrine is canonical: Bonatti classifies the 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th houses as cadent ('falling from the angles') and reads them as 'extremely weak.' Dorotheus's Arabic transmission uses sāqiṭ ('falling [place]') in the same register — the places averse to the Ascendant by zodiacal square that mark reduced capacity to act on a topic. The 'cadent-from-own-house' specification applies the same averse-by-square logic to the planet's own domicile rather than the Ascendant.

In Practice

Practitioners check each planet's relationship to its own ruled signs. A planet three signs from its domicile is in aversion to its own home — it cannot send an aspect there and cannot be reached from there by any Ptolemaic aspect. This is read as a structural weakness layered on top of the planet's other dignity-and-debility scoring: even a planet otherwise well-placed by sign or angle can be cadent from its own house and so unable to draw on or stabilise its native ground. The technique is used most often in horary and traditional natal practice when the significator of a topic falls in this configuration; it is one of several aversion-derived weakening conditions practitioners track alongside being cadent from the Ascendant proper.

Historical Origin

The cadent doctrine is foundational Hellenistic astrology, transmitted continuously through the Arabic tradition as sāqiṭ and into medieval Latin as cadentes ab angulis. Dorotheus Book I uses 'falling [place]' as the canonical destitution-indicator; Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae Tractate II Pars III Ch IV preserves the angular / succedent / cadent three-tier strength classification. The 'cadent-from-own-house' application of the same averse-by-square logic to the planet's domicile is the Lilly-era refinement of the underlying aversion doctrine.

Etymology

Origin: Latin / Arabic / Greek. Meaning: From Latin cadere ('to fall'); rendering Arabic sāqiṭ ('falling') and Greek ἀποκεκλικότα (apokeklikota, 'those having fallen away')..

Further Reading