Corruption

latin: corruptio / detrimentum · arabic: فساد (fasād) · greek: φθορά (phthora)

Definition

A planetary condition in which a body's capacity to act cleanly is compromised — through malefic contact, debility by sign or house, combustion, retrogradation, besiegement, or partile co-location with an infortune. Latin corruptio (translating Greek φθορά, phthora, 'decay, dissolution') is the medieval term; Arabic فساد (fasād) carries the same metaphysical sense rooted in Aristotelian generation-and-corruption physics. A corrupted planet still acts but along a damaged channel, and what it signifies tends to come to pass with effort, delay, or diminution rather than cleanly.

In Tradition

Across the Arabic-Persian and medieval-Latin traditions, corruption names the diagnostic frame for assessing whether a planet's natal significations will succeed cleanly or fail. Masha'allah's Book of Aristotle II.1 systematises the doctrine into a seven-fold corruption checklist — the first integrated diagnostic catalogue in the Arabic-Persian primary-source natal tradition. Sahl ibn Bishr uses fasād as a general term covering any kind of planetary harm; Dykes traces the doctrine to the Aristotelian γένεσις καὶ φθορά (generation and corruption) framework underlying ancient physics.

In Practice

Practitioners run Masha'allah's seven-criterion corruption-diagnostic planet by planet. Criterion 1 — position: is the planet pertaining-to-arising or pertaining-to-sinking, direct or retrograde, in first or second stay? Criterion 2 — sect: is the planet in or out of sect, in ḥalb or ḥayyiz? Criterion 3 — besiegement (ḥaṣr): are benefics or lights squeezed between Saturn and Mars? Criterion 4 — bad houses: does the planet occupy or aspect the sixth or twelfth? Criterion 5 — cadent or wabāl: is it falling from the angles or in detriment? Criterion 6 — partile with infortune: do the benefics share the exact degree with Saturn or Mars? A planet failing multiple criteria is read as substantially corrupted; the chart's judgment of whatever it signifies is modulated downward. Bonatti's Vol XI predictive-modulation table operationalises the same logic: a strong-oriental significator delivers 'complete good, more completely, more swiftly'; a retrograde-or-combust significator 'diminish[es] more yet again, and with effort.'

Historical Origin

The metaphysical frame is Aristotelian — De Generatione et Corruptione, γένεσις καὶ φθορά — adopted into Greek astrological physics and transmitted through Hellenistic-Arabic translation. The seven-fold corruption diagnostic is Masha'allah's distinctive synthesis in *Book of Aristotle* II.1 (8th-9th c. CE), inherited and elaborated by Abu Ma'shar, al-Qabīṣī, and the medieval Latin tradition via Hugo of Santalla's translation. Sahl's *Introduction* §5 preserves the kawn wa-fasād ('being and decay') Aristotelian-Arabic doctrinal frame at metaphysical depth.

Etymology

Origin: Latin / Arabic. Meaning: Decay, dissolution, harm.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Etymology

Further Reading