Penelope Sitter’s translation of Morin’s Book 21 is available from 13 May.
The study of the astrology of Morin de Villefranche by English-speaking students of his work has been hampered by the absence of a true and complete translation of Book 21. This newly translated version sets out in the fullest and most succinct terms the theory of astrological signification and the related method of determination that is the foundation of Morin’s astrological work. As such, Book 21 is the single most important volume of Morin’s 26-volume masterwork, Astrologia Gallica. In a single volume, Book 21 gives us Morin’s most outstanding and valuable gift to horoscopic astrologers and to the great art we practice.
In 1974, Zoltan Mason Emerald Press published Astrosynthesis, a work translated by Lucy Little, a student of Zoltan Mason, a leading teacher, practitioner and explicator of Morin’s work. It is, I believe, well known among English-speaking astrologers who study Morin’s work that Astrosynthesis, which is a translation from Henri Selva’s 1897 abridged French paraphrase of Book 21, is more a paraphrase of Morin’s text than a translation, a fact that the translated text itself makes clear. I believe it is also widely understood that Astrosynthesis is an abridgment of Book 21 rather than a paraphrase of the full text.
On the other hand, Richard S. Baldwin’s version of Book 21, also published 50 years ago in 1974, neither gives an indication that it is more a paraphrase of Morin’s text than a translation nor informs the reader that it omits parts of the text. Neither, of course, does it reveal that it gets some things simply wrong, misstates others in a way that obscures Morin’s meaning, and adds things Morin does not say. Baldwin’s version of Book 21 likely is the one to which most astrologers who have sought to study this book in English translation have turned, at least in more recent years, and on which we have relied. Unfortunately we have relied on an unreliable source.
When I began to suspect there were problems with Baldwin’s text, I began to compare passages of that text with Morin’s Latin original. Those comparisons confirmed that my suspicions were well founded. I here categorize some of the kinds of errors and other deficiencies in the Baldwin version of Book 21, and give a few examples of the kinds of problems with which Baldwin’s text is riddled.
1. Baldwin’s text directly contradicts some things Morin says. For example:
The Baldwin version says: “For the spaces themselves have no determinative power.” Section 2, Chapter 1, p. 51. This version completely contradicts what Morin actually says: “For in those spaces, by reason of their position in relation to the Horizon or to the person born in it, there is a determinative kind of virtue, which we call the virtue of the houses.” p. 51.
The Baldwin version also says that the Primum Caelum “determines all things.” Section 1, Chapter 4, p. 23. The new translation corrects this reversal of Morin’s text to what he actually says, which is that the Primum Caelum “is accidentally determined in every way.” p. 21.
Similarly, the Baldwin version reverses the very title of Book 21 and says that “the celestial bodies actively determine the individual…but are in turn determined passively.” Section 1, Chapter 4, p. 29. The new translation correctly translates Morin as saying that “the celestial bodies are actively determined to a kind of substantive effect by those subject to them, but the latter are passively determined by the former.” p. 27. This same sentence in the Baldwin version has other problems not mentioned here.
2. Baldwin’s version adds things to Morin’s text, sometimes in a way that confuses, or even negates, the doctrine or rule Morin states.
See, for example: “The aspects to the house cusps are to be compared, for by the prime motion from east to west the planets move to the cusps, and of these the dexter aspects, or those preceding the cusp (earlier in the zodiac) are generally said to be more effective than the sinister aspects, or those of the same kind following the cusp (later in the zodiac).” Section 2, Chapter 11, p. 111 The italicized words are not found in Morin’s text. The two additions of “the cusp” completely negate the point Morin makes here. The added references to the zodiac are relatively harmless, but they are interpolated without acknowledgment of the addition.
The Baldwin version also sometimes simply adds something, even something highly consequential, that Morin does not say. For example: “One should also note that a planet in the first house has an influence on the affairs of the ninth and fifth (the houses corresponding in this instance to the fire triplicity), and even more so if it rules the ninth or the fifth; and so on for the second, sixth and tenth, etc.” Section 2, Chapter 5, p. 82. (Emphasis supplied, to highlight the very consequential words that the Baldwin version adds and Morin does not say.)
3. Baldwin’s version sometimes misstates Morin’s text with the result that it confuses even important facets of Morin’s theory of determination. In the first example below, Baldwin’s version confuses and obscures the way planets in aspect mutually determine each other, a doctrine that is an important application of Morin’s foundationally important theory of determination.
The Baldwin version reads: “So if Jupiter is in the first and trine to the Sun in the tenth, the Sun’s aspect will incline Jupiter to influence the affairs of the tenth house—that is, honor and prestige—and Jupiter’s aspect to incline the Sun to influence the affairs of the first….” Section 2, Chapter 10, p. 108. Among other problems here, Baldwin’s version even speaks of “influence” where Morin’s text is an explanation of mutual “determination.” Both these words are terms-of-art with specific and technical meanings.
The new translation reads: “So, if Jupiter is in the first and trine the Sun in the tenth, the Sun will determine Jupiter to the significations of the tenth—of course, to honors and dignities—and Jupiter [will determine] the Sun to the significations of the first….” p. 108.
In a second example, in Baldwin’s mistranslation Morin’s statement of his theory of determination becomes hopelessly confused. Baldwin’s version reads: “It must now be made clear that the primary houses…[are] the factors which modify or delimit the quality of the signs, planets or fixed stars so as to produce some kind of accidental quality or event in the life of the native, according to the essential attributes of those houses.” Section 2, Chapter 1, p. 51. This version’s statements that the houses modify the celestial bodies’ “quality” directly contradict important statements Morin makes in multiple places and in multiple ways.
The new translation reads:“Now with these premises, it is to be said that the primary houses…are only determinants, either of the signs or the Planets or of the fixed stars, to these or those kinds of accidents that are suitable to the native and are in accord with the essential significations of the houses set forth by us in Chapter 3, Section 1, Book 14.” Note that Baldwin’s version also uses vague and confusing terms in place of Morin’s clear and exact ones.
4. Baldwin’s text simply omits, without acknowledgment, significant, interesting and even notably important parts of Morin’s text.
As one example among numerous: “It is because of this fact that application has greater effect than separation—all other things being equal.” Section 2, Chapter 11, p. 111. The full passage is translated as: “And this doctrine is founded on the fact that application is more efficacious than departure, at least other things being equal, because in application the force is directed toward the aspect as it becomes closer to partile, but in departure it is slackened; from this it is also to be deduced that a preceding Planet does not have power superior to one following unless the former also applies to the latter. And this is to be carefully noted when the strengths of the Planets are counted up to discover which one is preeminent.” pp. 111-112.
5. In this example, Baldwin’s text mistranslates Morin’s text in a way that fundamentally alters its meaning and results in a statement Morin would consider to be false.
Baldwin version: “If a planet located outside the first house is debilitated therein and is connected with the ruler of the first through rulership or by aspect, or itself aspects the Ascendant, it will have a very debilitating influence on first house affairs.” Section 2, Chapter 12, p. 125. New translation: “But a Planet outside the first and debilitated in it, if it is connected by rulership or aspect to the ruler of the first, or aspects the Horoscope, will very weakly influence the significations of the first.” p. 124. This item is #6 in a list of seven items that are set in the descending order of the relative power of their effect. Morin’s statement here is about the relative weakness of the influence of a planet so placed rather than about its powerfully damaging effect.
6. Baldwin’s text frequently replaces Morin’s strong, clear and memorable statements with relatively unclear, weak, unmemorable paraphrases, some of which are reasonably accurate and some of which are not.
To give one example among many, Baldwin’s text reads: “And so, this horoscope is an example of how the universal significators are not able to refer to any specific situation or event since, considered by themselves only, their meanings and application remain too general.” Section 1, Chapter 3, p. 20. The new translation much more accurately renders Morin’s words as: “On account of which those celestial causes, so long universally esteemed, able to signify universally but not of Peter or John or of anything particularly, are hooted offstage.” p. 17.
7. Other divergences from Morin’s text also weaken the work and make Morin’s work less accessible to readers and students.
For example, Baldwin’s version frequently eliminates landmarks that Morin put in his text to make the structure and development of his argument apparent to the reader, and to help the reader follow his reasoning. The landmarks include numbering of related points that are steps in an argument, or that otherwise support a conclusion for which Morin argues. Those landmarks include also words or phrases that tell the reader what to expect from what follows, or that help the reader properly place what follows in the context where it is found. And in a work designed for professional astrologers, Baldwin’s text simply omits Morin’s numerous cross-references to other volumes of Astrologia Gallica. Examples of both these problems are readily found by comparison of Baldwin’s text with the new translation or with Morin’s Latin original.
Numerous other examples of these kinds of mistranslations, weak paraphrases, and omissions, and even more additions or changes in the words Morin uses, can be readily identified in Baldwin’s text. Baldwin in many instances correctly renders the meanings of Morin’s statements, including in actual translations of what Morin says rather than mere paraphrases. Although Baldwin’s version of Book 21 has been important for English-speaking students of Morin’s work, I among them, it has also obscured Morin’s work and been in part misleading. In my view, Baldwin’s version of Book 21 does not meet standards of an adequate and reliable translation. I became unwilling to use it to study Morin when I began to see its numerous problems, only a few of which are specifically noted here.