By Dorian Grimault, astrologer · Published · updated
Domicile says where a planet is at home. Exaltation says where it is received with honor, like a guest of note, and fall, at the opposite end, where it loses its footing. This is the second pair in the system of essential dignities, and AstralPro reserves it for the seven traditional planets. Here you will find the table, its origin, what the engine does with it and what it leaves aside, with the example of Camille Morel, AstralPro's sample chart (fictional data), whose Moon is in fall.
Exaltation is very old: Mesopotamian texts already speak of the “secret houses” of the stars, which Hellenistic astrology took up and fixed. Ptolemy justifies them by the seasons: the Sun is exalted in Aries, where it regains its strength in spring, and falls in Libra, where the days grow shorter; Saturn, a cold planet, follows the reverse movement. Where domicile evokes mastery of a place, exaltation evokes being showcased: the planet displays the best of its qualities there, sometimes with a certain emphasis.
Fall is the sign opposite the exaltation. The planet is not on hostile ground there, as in detriment: it is deprived of what carries it. Its qualities still exist, but they need more support to express themselves.
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto have neither exaltation nor fall in AstralPro reports. Modern authors have proposed some for them, without managing to agree among themselves; the engine uses none. The North Node, Lilith and Chiron remain outside the dignity system.
The table has its own internal logic: one planet's exaltation is often another's fall. The Sun and Saturn, the planet of light and the planet of limits, swap Aries and Libra; Mars and Jupiter swap Capricorn and Cancer; Mercury and Venus, Virgo and Pisces. Only the Moon has no partner in this game of mirrors.
No degree of exaltation. The tradition specifies a degree for each one: 19° Aries for the Sun, 3° Taurus for the Moon, 15° Virgo for Mercury, 27° Pisces for Venus, 28° Capricorn for Mars, 15° Cancer for Jupiter, 21° Libra for Saturn. AstralPro's engine does not contain them: it reads exaltation by sign, and a Moon at 0° or at 29° Taurus is exalted there just the same.
The case of Mercury. Mercury has its domicile and its exaltation in the same sign, Virgo, and its detriment and its fall in Pisces. The engine gives only one word per planet, read in a fixed order (domicile, detriment, exaltation, fall): Mercury in Virgo is therefore said to be in domicile, Mercury in Pisces in detriment. These are the only two overlaps in the system, and the engine checks at startup that no other exists.
A deliberate graft. The exaltations are traditional, the domiciles modern. AstralPro combines the two, as most contemporary astrology does.
In the positions table, the Dignity column shows “Exaltation”, in gold, or “Fall”, in red. In Chapter I, the dignity paragraph of the planet's block says which one and what it changes.
Exaltation also comes into three calculations. The dominants add 1.5 points to an exalted planet (against 2 for a domicile), without taking anything away for a fall. Receptions are calculated on domicile and exaltation: when two planets in aspect each occupy a sign where the other has a dignity, the reception is mutual if the two dignities are of the same rank, mixed if one is a domicile and the other an exaltation, and it is shown under the aspect's name in the grid. Finally, the scale that weighs the degree of the Ascendant gives 4 points to exaltation, just behind the 5 for domicile.
Camille's Moon is at 27°09' Scorpio, in house 1. Scorpio faces Taurus, the Moon's sign of exaltation: this is its fall, and the table shows “Fall”. A Moon in fall describes a sensitivity that finds no simple relief, that protects itself before confiding, and that feels all the more intensely for showing so little: this is the register the dignity paragraph of its block reads.
Fall does not take away this Moon's role. Camille was born at night: her Moon is the luminary in sect, the one that leads the chart, and the report says so once, in its portrait. Dignity describes the planet's means in its sign, sect its place in the chart, and the two readings complement each other instead of clashing. This Moon also rules Camille's house 9, whose cusp is in Cancer.
None of Camille's planets is exalted. This is a common case: with a single exaltation per planet, many charts have none, and the report does not point out this absence.
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