The Five Phases of Pluto in Aquarius

The title for this post came from a YouTube video I watched recently about the passage of Pluto through Aquarius. Figure 1 shows a screenshot from the video.

Figure 1

Here we see the sign divided into five sections, not all equal, associated with the five visible planets: Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. I was familiar with the division of signs into three decanates: the first decanate being cardinal in nature, the second fixed and the third mutable. Thus the first ten degrees of Aries is "doubly" Arian as Aries is a cardinal sign. The next ten degrees is blended with the fixed quality of Leo and the last ten degrees with the mutable quality of Sagittarius.

Figure 2 summarises this with rulerships of each decanate shown. Thus the first decanate of Aries is ruled by Mars the ruler of Aries, the second by the Sun that is the ruler of Leo, and the third by Jupiter that is the ruler of Sagittarius.

Figure 2: source

It's also possible by looking at the Sabian Symbols to assign a significance to each degree of the Zodiac and thus each degree of each sign. However, I wasn't familiar with this type of division of a sign and which is not the same from sign to sign as can be seen in Figure 1. So what's going on? What is the pattern here? Well, it's explained sort of in an earlier video by the same author in which he refers to the divisions as Egyptian terms or bounds. Figure 3 shows a screenshot from the video in which all the divisions can be seen.

Figure 3

This source gives a little more information about terms:

Synonym: bounds

The Latin word "termini" means limits, confines - i.e. not a single degree but an area. In Hellenistic times the terms were called hories.

Traditionally, each sign is divided into five sections of unequal length. One of the five traditional planets (excluding the sun and moon) rules each of these sections. A planet within the segment that it rules is in its own terms.

Ptolemy in the second century CE in his Tetrabiblos described two different types of terms: Egyptian and Babylonian. However, the rationale behind these divisions of the zodiac is lost.

Figure 4, from the same source, shows a clearer image of the Egyptian terms along with the decanates and other divisions:

Figure 4

I guess this sheds a little more light on the subject.