General and Particular Fate

JEN-uh-ruhl and pahr-TIK-yuh-ler fayt

greek: Τετράβιβλος Α´.γ´ (Tetrabiblos I.3)

Definition

General and particular fate is Ptolemy's two-part division of fate, set out in Tetrabiblos I.3 and summarized by Holden. General fate falls on whole populations and is held to be largely beyond changing — events such as conflagrations, pestilence, and cataclysms. Particular, or individual, fate is likewise fixed without foreknowledge, but with foreknowledge and deliberate effort it can be at least partly altered. The division is what makes prognostication worth doing.

In Tradition

Holden reads Ptolemy as the writer whose answer to the fate-and-free-will question astrologers have generally followed. The heavens turn by an eternal, unchangeable order, whereas the things of earth answer to a fate that is natural and capable of change — and so the two kinds of fate stand apart. General fate cannot be turned aside; individual fate can, where foreknowledge and conscious effort are brought to bear. Foreknowledge serves the soul a second way as well, by calming it and readying it to meet what comes with steadiness. Holden cites Robbins's translation at length and endorses Ptolemy's position.

In Practice

Carry this division as the working answer to why prognostication is useful at all. When you read large-scale events — the matter of mundane astrology — treat them as general fate, the immutable kind that foreknowledge can prepare you for but not avert. When you read an individual life, hold the other half: much of it runs on unless foreknowledge and deliberate effort intervene, and there foresight can shift the outcome at least in part. Either way, Ptolemy's second use of foreknowledge holds — knowing in advance steadies the soul. Keep the division clear from mundane astrology itself, which is the subject of only one half, the general.

Historical Origin

The division is set out by James Herschel Holden in A History of Horoscopic Astrology (2nd ed., 2006, pp. 289-291), reading Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos I.3 in F. E. Robbins's translation. Holden distinguishes general fate, which affects many and is generally immutable, from individual fate, which foreknowledge and effort can in part alter, and endorses the position as the one astrologers have adhered to.

Etymology

Origin: Greek. Meaning: fate divided into the general and the particular.

Further Reading

  • James Herschel Holden, A History of Horoscopic Astrology
  • Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos