The Four Aspects of the One: One, Being, Life, and Intellect

The One and Intellectual-Principle

The topmost row, labeled “Idea of the Good,” is the dignities of the first quadrant in four groups (rulerships, exaltations, detriments, falls), which are labeled “One,” “Being, “Life,” “Intellect.” The next row, labeled “Tetrad” and “Intelligible Intellectual,” is the rulerships of houses 1-12 in four groups by quadrant. (Instead of drawing the symbols for Mars, Venus, Mercury in the first quadrant, Damiani uses the ditto mark.) The next row, labeled “Intellect,” is the exaltations of houses 1-12 in four groups by quadrant.

At the bottom of the diagram, the row of planets is the dignities of the first quadrant in four groups (rulerships, exaltations, detriments, falls), which are labeled “One,” “Being, “Life,” “Intellect.” The signs above and below each planet are the other dignities of that planet and all together they constitute the henad of the planet. The signs in which the planet is in dignity, when read from top to bottom, are in the following order: rulerships, exaltations, detriments, and falls (and when a planet has two rulerships or two detriments, the sign that comes first in the order of zodiacal signs comes first). The result is that some signs are listed above and others below the planet in the list.