Modality
HellenisticRenaissance & early modernModern WesternEditorial synthesisTraditional doctrine
Definition
One of three classifications (cardinal, fixed, mutable) sorting the twelve signs into groups of four by their position in the seasonal cycle. Older texts call the groups moveable, fixed, and common signs.
Also called: Quadruplicity · Quality (older usage) · Moveable/fixed/common signs
In more depth
Modalities (the quadruplicities) are the second classical grid over the signs, alongside the elements. In the tropical arrangement the logic is seasonal: cardinal signs open the seasons at an equinox or solstice, fixed signs hold each season's middle, mutable signs close it. Hellenistic writers used the terms tropical, solid, and double-bodied; Lilly's English is moveable, fixed, and common.[1][2][3]
Their interpretive associations (initiating, sustaining, adapting) are tradition-scoped doctrine, presented on this platform in interpretive register only.[1]
References
Numbered citations in the text link to the records below; each record links to the full source registry.
- Chris Brennan. Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune. Amor Fati Publications. 2017. Modern practitioner interpretation View source record
- William Lilly. Christian Astrology, Modestly Treated of in Three Books. T. Brudenell for J. Partridge & H. Blunden, London. 1647. Historical primary source View source record
- Claudius Ptolemy. Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, or Quadripartite: Being Four Books of the Influence of the Stars. J. M. Ashmand (translator). W. Foulsham & Co. Ltd, London. 1900. Historical primary source View source record