Descendant

The word comes from the Latin descendere, meaning to descend, and designates in astrology the sign that descends below the horizon at the precise moment of birth. The doctrine of the four angles (Ascendant, Descendant, Midheaven, Imum Coeli) was codified by the Hellenistic astrologers of Alexandria from the 1st century CE and systematized by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century in the Tetrabiblos. In the Arab and Latin Middle Ages, the Descendant (occasus) remained one of the four cardinal angles of the chart. The French word descendant became established in astrological language as early as the Renaissance.

In the Hellenistic tradition, the Descendant was associated with death, the decline of the day and the setting of the stars. The psychological re-reading of the 20th century, under the influence of Carl Gustav Jung, Dane Rudhyar and later Liz Greene, shifted this reading: the Descendant now represents the other in the Jungian sense, what one projects onto significant partners. The seventh house governs marriage, professional partnerships and declared rivals. The sign of the Descendant, always opposite that of the Ascendant, indicates the type of person attracted or sought as a complement.

In consultation, the Descendant helps understand a person's relational dynamic: what they expect from others, what they reject, what they project. A person with Aries Ascendant has Libra Descendant, which suggests an attraction to diplomacy in partners. On Tarotoui, the Descendant is calculated automatically from the natal data and appears in the chart map. Transits over the Descendant, particularly those of slow planets (Saturn, Uranus, Pluto), often mark upheavals in relational life.

Reducing the Descendant to the ideal partner is a simplification. It also describes the relational shadow, what one does not recognize in oneself and meets by projection in the other. Note that like the Ascendant, the Descendant depends on a precise birth time. Without that data, it cannot be reliably calculated.