Term, faces, decans -- why do they work?

1
Morin claimed that terms, faces, and decans are "figments of imagination" by the ancient astrogers and had no basis in natural phenomena. The way I understand his reasoning is that he considered it artificial to divide the zodiac into smaller segments and associate it with certain planets. Can anyone explain or point out where I can read about the origins of the terms, faces, decans and why they work? On this site, I see that they are used extensively, but I'm just curious where do they come from and what are they based on?

2
Ptolemy mentions them in Book I of his Tetrabiblos http://www.reocities.com/astrologysourc ... sbooki.htm but I think he preferred using the signs only.

F. Rochberg-Halton traced the dodekatemoria back to the Babylonians ca. 5th century BC. Here's the article but since the jstor website can only be accessed at universities or by paying relatively quite a lot for it, I'm afraid this is of little use to most people over here.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/603245?&Sea ... howArticle

4
Morin claimed that terms, faces, and decans are "figments of imagination" by the ancient astrogers and had no basis in natural phenomena. The way I understand his reasoning is that he considered it artificial to divide the zodiac into smaller segments and associate it with certain planets.
Depending on the English translation Morin called them "Arab Fictions" or Arab fantasies." He didn't like Arabs and mistakenly believed they were the inventions of the Arabs. But that isn't the main reason he didn't use them. Morin believed that astrology was best understood as part of nature. If it didn't occur in nature, it wasn't useful in astrology. The terms and faces are not "natural." They have no basis in nature. Domicile, exaltation and triplicity are based on nature or the elements in his view, so they are acceptable

He used the same logic to disregard firdaria and profections, which he called "progressions."

Tom

5
Tom wrote:
Morin claimed that terms, faces, and decans are "figments of imagination" by the ancient astrogers and had no basis in natural phenomena. The way I understand his reasoning is that he considered it artificial to divide the zodiac into smaller segments and associate it with certain planets.
Depending on the English translation Morin called them "Arab Fictions" or Arab fantasies." He didn't like Arabs and mistakenly believed they were the inventions of the Arabs. But that isn't the main reason he didn't use them. Morin believed that astrology was best understood as part of nature. If it didn't occur in nature, it wasn't useful in astrology. The terms and faces are not "natural." They have no basis in nature. Domicile, exaltation and triplicity are based on nature or the elements in his view, so they are acceptable

He used the same logic to disregard firdaria and profections, which he called "progressions."

Tom
Thank you for your response, Tom. I have Morin's Astrosynthesis, and there he attributes some of the mistakes to Ptolemy and other astrologers like Cardan. He says that they invented these distinctions (terms, decans) b/c they only had 7 planets and needed more astrological data to make their judgments. I'm curious though what are the origins of these divisions and what are they based on. In Vedic astrology there are similar divisions by 3* and 20'' for e.g and they seem to provide very accurate results in readings.

6
Lee Lehman wrote, quite a few years ago now, that the terms or bounds are of Babylonian origin and they are probably derived empirically, but empirically from what? We don't know. Jim Tester thinks they were based on heliacal rising times. Typical for traditional astrology there is more than one set: Chaldean (Lilly's preference) and Egyptian (medieval astrologers like this set).

Lehman also claims the decans, faces of phases are Egyptian in origin, " ... and were time markers on the way to being able to measure planetary positions in smaller minutes." The order of the decans is simple: start at 0 Aries with Mars ruler of Aries, then follow the Chaldean order of the planets: Mars, Sun Venus Mercury, Moon Saturn Jupiter etc and keep going.

Tom

Classical Astrology for Modern Living, Lee Lehman Whitford Press 1996

7
Personally, I think these things "work" because they are descriptive of various macrocosmic qualities of the SPACE involved (in my belief system I regard space as THE fundamental reality-at least on this "plane" of manifestation) However, these considerations (decans, terms, etc) might also work simply because each is part and parcel of a particular whole system model (that of "traditional Western astrology"), and to get that model to work reliably and efficiently, each of its components must be utilized in order to obtain consistent results in practice.

8
(Following is presented for general interest only, although I personally have been experimenting with it in practice for some time)

Manilius (author of the "Astronomica", prior to the time of Ptolemy) describes a decanate system differing from all others in use since his time (to my knowledge the Manilius decan system has not been used in practice for the past 1800 years) Essentially it is a small wheel of the zodiacal signs (at 10 degrees each) revolving in the same forward sign movement as the great (30 degree) sign wheel.

MANILIUS DECANS

ARIES
1st: Aries
2nd: Taurus
3rd: Gemini

TAURUS
1st: Cancer
2nd: Leo
3rd: Virgo

GEMINI
1st: Libra
2nd: Scorpio
3rd: Sagittarius

CANCER
1st: Capricorn
2nd: Aquarius
3rd: Pisces

LEO
1st: Aries
2nd: Taurus
3rd: Gemini

VIRGO
1st: Cancer
2nd: Leo
3rd: Virgo

LIBRA
1st: Libra
2nd: Scorpio
3rd: Sagittarius

SCORPIO
1st: Capricorn
2nd: Aquarius
3rd: Pisces

SAGITTARIUS
1st: Aries
2nd: Taurus
3rd: Gemini

CAPRICORN
1st: Cancer
2nd: Leo
3rd: Virgo

AQUARIUS
1st: Libra
2nd: Scorpio
3rd: Sagittarius

PISCES
1st: Capricorn
2nd: Aquarius
3rd: Pisces