Oriental/Occidental

or-ee-EN-tuhl / ok-sih-DEN-tuhl

Definition

Oriental and occidental describe where a planet sits relative to the Sun in the daily round of rising. A planet is oriental — also called matutine, or eastern — when it rises before the Sun and shows in the pre-dawn sky; it is occidental, or vespertine, or western, when it rises after the Sun and shows after sunset. Classical Western astrology holds that the superior planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) prefer the oriental side and the inferior planets (Mercury, Venus) the occidental, with measured distances from the Sun marking off the bands.

In Tradition

Traditional and modern revival astrologers count the oriental/occidental position as a basic piece of accidental dignity — strength from circumstance rather than from sign. A planet in its preferred phase is read as fortified, in the other phase as somewhat weakened. Most agree the doctrine comes down from Hellenistic and Arabic-Latin tradition, complete with measured distance-from-Sun bands. They differ on where the bands fall and on whether it should apply evenly to the modern outer planets.

In Practice

You measure how far each planet is from the Sun (its elongation) and check whether it is oriental — rising before the Sun — or occidental — rising after. For a superior planet (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), the oriental side adds strength and the occidental side is a slight weakness. For an inferior planet (Mercury, Venus) the preference flips: occidental is favoured and oriental reads as somewhat weakened. Bonatti's band-system marks the phase off against set distances from the Sun — for the superior planets, 30° for first appearance, 60° for first station, 90° for the opposition. The whole classification feeds the larger accidental-dignity score and ties back to sect through the day-or-night light of the chart.

Historical Origin

The doctrine comes down from Hellenistic astronomy — Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos and Almagest both treat the geometry of the phase cycle — and was made systematic in the medieval Arabic-Latin transmission. Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae, Volume XI, Tract III, carries Alchabitius's authority forward: the per-planet 30°/60°/90° distance-from-Sun thresholds for the three superior planets sit in Chapter V (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars) and Chapter VI (the reversed sequence for Venus and Mercury). Lilly keeps the doctrine for English horary in Christian Astrology.

Etymology

Origin: Latin. Meaning: From orientalis (eastern, rising) and occidentalis (western, setting) — the planet's relation to the Sun in the daily-rising sequence.

Further Reading