Enclosure (Containment)

Definition

Enclosure is when one planet is hemmed in on both sides by two others, with no planet of an opposite nature in between to break the hold. It matters most when the two flanking planets are the malefics, Mars and Saturn, or the benefics, Venus and Jupiter. A benefic pair supports what the enclosed planet signifies; a malefic pair constrains and afflicts it. The Greek terms are emperiocheo (ἐμπεριοχή) and emperischesis (ἐμπερίσχεσις). The Arabic and medieval-Latin tradition calls the same thing besiegement (obsessio).

In Tradition

In Hellenistic and traditional Western astrology, enclosure is one of the recognized things that shape a planet's condition, counted alongside dignity, sect, and aspect. Lightfoot documents it in the Pseudo-Manetho Apotelesmatika at Ma 6.657-664, where the Sun at the Midheaven hemmed in by Saturn and Mars is read as fatal — "the two malefics bring lives to an end in prison." Al-Biruni's Tafhim §500 gives the standard statement: besieged by two infortunes the influences are extremely bad, between two fortunes extremely good.

In Practice

You spot enclosure by looking at the planets immediately before and after the one in question — by sign for the looser bodily kind, or by aspect (sextile, square, trine) for the ray-enclosure variant al-Biruni separates out. It carries the most weight when the enclosed body is the Sun or Moon, a chart-significant planet (the chart ruler, the Lord of the Year, or the sect light), or a malefic itself. Astrologers look for relief through reception — a hospitality bond between planets — through a helpful aspect from a third planet, or through solar phasis, the point at which a planet becomes visible near the Sun. In a horary chart, an enclosed significator weakens the matter's prospects; in a natal chart, malefic enclosure of a luminary, or of a planet at the Midheaven, is read as a major affliction. Greenbaum cites Manetho VI.41-42 on the Moon enclosed in the Ascendant by Saturn in the twelfth house and Mars in the second as a cause of death in childbirth.

Historical Origin

Enclosure appears in Hellenistic technical literature under the Greek terms emperiocheo and emperischesis; Lightfoot's commentary on Pseudo-Manetho Apotelesmatika 6.657 cites Heilen 2015 (807-9) for the technical vocabulary. Manetho VI.41-42 attests the doctrine in verse, and Hephaestio of Thebes transmits it for the Bad Daimon configurations in childbirth contexts. Al-Biruni sets down the Arabic version as muhasara, "besiegement," in the Tafhim (Wright 1934 translation, §500), and Bonatti and the medieval Latin tradition take besiegement up as a standard modifier of planetary condition.

Further Reading

• J. L. Lightfoot, The Apotelesmatika of Manetho
• Al-Biruni, Kitāb al-Tafhīm
• Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, The Daimon in Hellenistic Astrology