Defluxion (Aporroia)

greek: Ἀπόρροια (Aporroia)

Definition

Defluxion is the Hellenistic name for a planet pulling away from an aspect. Once a faster planet has completed an aspect with a slower one, it separates and carries the flavor of that finished aspect onward toward its next one. The Greek word, apporoia, means "flowing-away." The separating planet is read as bearing the just-completed meaning along with it — and that idea is the seed of the later medieval technique called translation of light.

In Tradition

In Hellenistic and medieval Arabic-Latin astrology, defluxion is the other half of a pair with application: application is a planet approaching an exact aspect, defluxion a planet carrying away the residue of one just completed. It underpins the medieval translation-of-light technique in horary work — astrology cast for a specific question — where the Moon flows away from one significator and applies to another. Brennan and Crane keep it as a foundational piece of the Hellenistic synaphe-apporoia framework, the doctrine of planets joining and separating.

In Practice

You find a planet that has just separated from an aspect with another, and check where its motion now carries it. The separating planet is read as bringing the texture of the aspect it has just left into whatever it meets next. In a horary chart, the Moon flowing away from one significator and then applying to another performs translation of light between them — the second significator obtains the matter through the Moon acting as go-between. The same idea shapes natal interpretation: when a chart-significant planet has recently separated from a major aspect, that aspect leaves its mark on whatever configuration the planet is in now.

Historical Origin

Defluxion, as apporoia, appears in Hellenistic technical literature including Vettius Valens' Anthologiae (c. 145-175 CE) and Dorotheus of Sidon's Carmen Astrologicum (1st century CE). The doctrine survives in the Arabic transmission through Sahl ibn Bishr and Masha'allah, who keep it within the doctrine of planetary joinings, and enters the medieval Latin tradition through Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae (c. 1277). It returned to traditional practice through Project Hindsight, Crane's Astrological Roots, and Brennan's Hellenistic Astrology.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading