limits to house sizes and capacity (placidus)

1
obviously, there are limits to house sizes

having flicked through about thirty charts the biggest house i can find is about 66? and the smallest 14?

are there limits? and apart from the obvious, does size matter?

what do we say about signs that are completely spanned with no house cusp? in the above example the ascendant is in pisces and the second house cusp in taurus

while we are in the subject, i am working on a chart with a 17? 4th house and 5 planets crammed into it... what do we say in general about such phenomena?

jws

2
Hi fish,

on this site there is an excellent (though one that requires deep concentration) article about the very thing you're asking about: http://www.skyscript.co.uk/polar1.html .

Of course there are no limits. I live in Finland, and now and then I encounter horoscopes like this owned by a friend of mine:
1st December 1972 at 2.08 PM (-2.00), Oulu, Finland 65N00 25E32. Note that we've not even crossed the Polar Circle yet.

This touches something that I've been thinking lately, the offset degrees for houses. Many astrologers consider a planet located near the cusp of the next house to be in that house. But what is the rule? Five degrees? What if you have a house that is less than five degrees by its whole size? You may have a situation where you have the 3rd cusp located in the 4th house if you give a five degree offset for the 4th house!

So that principle doesn't always work on the extreme (and even not that extreme) latitudes. Where has this practice come from? Could it be possible that the cusps actually mark the exact borders of the houses?

3
what a lonely little Chiron, lost in the nordic night gloaming!

my feeling is that offset should be a percentage. if a standard house is 30 degrees, then 5 degrees represents 16.6%

having considered it further, it strikes me as ridiculous that a planet in the 12th house of your friend's chart would be considered in the first house if it was <16.6% from the cusp (c. 20 degrees) - i am imagining a rule something like: 5 degrees or 1/6 of the house, whichever is smaller.

there must be some limits: there must be 6 houses in each hemisphere so the limit must be 180-(6*min)

i will read the article now

for most of my life i use whole signs and sidereal, so this issue does not arise

4
Points on the celestial sphere (obviously including planets) should be placed in houses according to their proportional progress along their semiarcs (declination circles) if you are using this method. Mike Wackford at least touches on this in his series.

- Ed

5
Fish,

The following article may better assist you and although it doesn't deal with Placidus, it does prepare the ground for part 3, which does.

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/polar2.html (or just click on "articles," above, and then select it.

The point is this: - Houses cannot be measured accurately with zodiac degrees. The inclination of the ecliptic skews the result. Placidian houses are measured in Right Ascension - ie along the Equator, where they ALWAYS measure an equal 30 degrees each.... at every latitude.

Mw

6
Papretis,

The "five-degrees before the cusp" thing was recommended by Ptolemy. And those will be house degrees, not Ecliptic (see response to Fish, above)

Curiously enough - Gauqelin's findings appear to corroborate the practice.


Mw

7
MWackford wrote:Curiously enough - Gauqelin's findings appear to corroborate the practice.
But were the Gauquelin peaks not in the middle of the cadent houses? At least in the diagrams I've seen, that's the case (for example The Spheres of Destiny, pages 20 and 21). The peaks are located quite exactly on the middle of the 12th, 9th, 6th and 3rd houses.

But if we are using Placidus houses and the five degree rule means house (Equatorial) degrees, that would mean measuring the offset with percents like fish suggested - and that would mean 16,6% of every house, regardless of how "big" it is. Interesting. Now we should only find a software that registers the planetary positions in this way :!:

5 degree rule

8
Yes I remember the power zones seem to go the "wrong" way. The five degree rule of Ptolemy is open to discussion anyway ( I think I read on this in Hand's "Whole Sign Houses") and was stated long before many of the house systems in use today were in invented.What I find odd is that we go to great lengths to calculate the house cusps and state that our system is best then admit that it is five degrees out - insert puzzled looking smiley face here

Re: 5 degree rule

9
matt23z wrote:The five degree rule of Ptolemy is open to discussion anyway ( I think I read on this in Hand's "Whole Sign Houses") and was stated long before many of the house systems in use today were in invented.What I find odd is that we go to great lengths to calculate the house cusps and state that our system is best then admit that it is five degrees out - insert puzzled looking smiley face here
It is a bit odd. I've been slowly but steadily reading the Bonatti translation by Ben Dykes, and every time there is a gem or two. One thing I've been thinking in regard with the house cusps is the way Bonatti (and his predecessors) evaluated aspects: Bonatti stresses several times that as soon as the aspect is perfected, it's over. It may generate fear or hope (regarding of whether the aspect is from a malefic or a benefic), but that fear or hope doesn't actualize, the person avoids the thing signified by the aspect (sometimes at the last moment if the aspect is still close). (This fear/hope thing with separating aspects could serve us with a lot of psychological insights. And then they say that traditional astrology lacks psychological depth!)

Should we use the same principle with the house cusps? When a planet is in a house, it's applying the house cusp. But as soon as it has crossed the cusp, it's over, it doesn't apply the cusp any more. There may be some remnants left (on the mental level maybe), but the passing has happened and the planet has started to apply to the next cusp.

10
Should we use the same principle with the house cusps? When a planet is in a house, it's applying the house cusp. But as soon as it has crossed the cusp, it's over, it doesn't apply the cusp any more. There may be some remnants left (on the mental level maybe), but the passing has happened and the planet has started to apply to the next cusp.
I think we have to come to some sort of consensus as to what is actually happening. Bonatti talks about planets exiting houses at the cusp as you have done, and astronomically this is what seems to happen in real time. Actually the cusp moves towards the planet, and I think it is more useful to think of the planet and cusp coming together.

If we work on the principle that each cusp is to each house what the ascendant is to the 1st house, then a planet on the cusp has come to the point of full manifestation of that house's concern, and I don't think this ends at the minute of exactness (as with aspects) because by annual revolution the planet is moving towards the cusp - so although the real time event is over, the symbolic union is just coming into effect.

But I should declare my prejudice - my own experience would never allow me to give up the 5 degree orb, because with horary I constantly see planets falling into the 5 degree orb of the house cusp of the quesited. So much so, that it is one of the ways that I recognise a chart as valid. But I extend this approach to natal charts too, and I am personally convinced that planets are more powerfully placed just before the cusp than actually inside the house.

Cusp

11
I have heard John Frawley make a similar point. His example was that L7 close to your cusp of 1st house indicated defeat for you but if it was a few degrees into house 1 it lost its effect. I do not remember the exact degrees he uses but it is probably in his new book. I do not have that book nor Bonatti as Saturn won't let me buy any more astrology books.
Another writer points out that cusp means point so an orb around the cusp could be what was meant by the term.

12
Deb wrote:But I should declare my prejudice - my own experience would never allow me to give up the 5 degree orb, because with horary I constantly see planets falling into the 5 degree orb of the house cusp of the quesited. So much so, that it is one of the ways that I recognise a chart as valid. But I extend this approach to natal charts too,
So, and what orb do you allow?
Deb wrote:and I am personally convinced that planets are more powerfully placed just before the cusp than actually inside the house.
I'm not convinced. :)