Which house system do you use?

Placidus
Total votes: 9 (50%)
Koch (No votes)
Equal
Total votes: 7 (39%)
Natural
Total votes: 2 (11%)
Total votes: 18

31
[quote="Paul"

First some preliminaries.

We describe the houses according to three categories - they can be angular, succedent or cardinal.
Angular houses (1,4,7,10) have a sense of dynamism, action and being charged with power to act. They have been described as being pivots or even like supports which hold up the sky itself. Either way they have a sense of power attributed to them.
Succedent houses are so called because as the earth spins it appears that planets in a succedent house are 'succeeding' toward being angular - it is as though the planets go from a sense of being less dynamic or less capable to finally succeeding in attaining this dynamism when angular. So succedent houses (2, 5, 7, 11) are those which are coming next, and are so called because they are succeeding toward the angles.
Cardinal houses then connote a sense of falling away from the angle. So they fall away and are stripped of the power and dynamism they had when angular.

So succedent houses are like a moving toward power, angular houses being an attainment of that power, and then cardinal houses being a stripping away of that power. This motion of the planets through the houses in relation to the four angles is very important and from our first systematic dealing of the houses in Manilius we see that this motion is kept in mind. We'll return to it later.


[/quote]
Paul I think you mean cadent houses. Cardinal relates to signs (as in Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable signs) not houses. I'm sure you know this anyway and it is just a slip in an otherwise nice description.

32
Sunsagmoonlib

Thank you so much for catching this and alerting me to it. I have no idea why the hell I said cardinal - the best that can be said for me is that at least I was consistent with my bad terminology!

It's actually one of those weird things I say when I'm posting when I'm tired. When I first learned astrology I would forever refer to Cadent signs and Cardinal houses - it's been years since I've done it so it's weird it happened here. Thanks for catching it though, I hope it didn't confuse anyone.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

33
Cheers Paul, that's what I thought happened, just wanted to be sure though there wasn't some conflicting traditional use of Cardinal based on turning points that I wasn't aware of... because I know how careful you are to use correct terminology. I was discussing it with Ed Falis on Astrodienst. Nice to catch up again.

34
?m an Aries Rising and Leo is on my 6th house, but you said that if I?m a Leo Sun this New Moon will be in my 1st house,

Or

I?m a Virgo Sun, but I have no idea what time I was born, so how do I know what house the New Moon is in for me

Each month, when I do the posts for New and Full Moons, and, indeed, when I do the posts for the Sun changing signs, I usually say something like:

If you don?t have any idea about your birth time, or can?t be faffed working it out, you can follow the solar guide:

If your Sun or Ascendant is in Virgo, this New Moon will be in your 1st house.
If your Sun or Ascendant is in Libra, this New Moon will be in your 12th house.
If your Sun or Ascendant is in Scorpio, this New Moon will be in your 11th house.
Etc?

What I?m doing here is using Solar or Sun Sign Astrology.

Ok, let?s back track a little.

When you cast a chart on com, the calculation will probably default to Placidus ? arguably the most commonly used method of house division. There are, however, others ? and most astrologers will be able to tell you the reasons why they use the one they use. We won?t get into it now, suffice to say that most house systems do require you to know the exact time and place of your birth in order to determine both the way in which the houses will be divided and which sign and degree is on the Ascendant. It?s why we can have houses of different sizes (although remember, they will always be the same size as the opposite house) and why we can have houses

36
I agree, James - Gold Cup's post seems strangely out of place! However, I am glad that you brought this interesting thread back to the fore - I missed it at the time.

Paul's highlighting of the features of various house systems is simply brilliant.

I used Equal exclusively for a long time, as I rather like the way it reflects the symmetry that we see in the zodiac. And as Paul explained, it does have an astronomical basis too, only that it focusses on the nonagesimal rather than on the MC. Plus it works well for me in practice, so Equal is still my default system.

That said, I additionally started looking into Placidus in more recent years, as I find its emphasis on the temporal side quite interesting, which also ties in with primary directions.

That the charts of different individuals seem to work best with different house systems is an observation I have made before, although I am hard pressed to explain why this should be the case.

However, I find the idea quite logical that particular systems may be especially suitable for certain purposes, as their bases (e.g. the equator, the horizon, or something more abstract -
whatever) should carry different meanings, as everything "up there" seems to have some meaning in astrological terms, and this should colour the respective house system that was deduced from them. But I haven't read any comparative studies so far that would address this. If anybody here is aware of such, I would appreciate a hint.

Of course, many astrologers simply adopt the system suggested by an author or school that influenced them, which is understandable and may be sufficient for most. Nevertheless, the mystery of the various house systems remains one of the most intriguing ones for an astrological researcher like me. I would like more astrologers to share their thoughts and observations on this.
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37
michael - yes - i agree with all you say and it is worth pondering for those who haven't considered all of the ideas touched in your post.. pauls posts on the topic of houses are very good! i don't know if i stated it earlier, but i too use equal houses, which i feel often catches much of what people are trying to do with whole sign houses... it was like whole sign came along and all those astrologers who had blown off equal previously, took on something similar to what they had blown off before! have to put on the traditional astrologer badge and wear it proudly, lol...

hey - i see in this survey they have '''natural''' houses to choose from.. if i go around barefoot, does that mean that is the house choice for me?

38
james_m wrote:michael - yes - i agree with all you say and it is worth pondering for those who haven't considered all of the ideas touched in your post.. pauls posts on the topic of houses are very good! i don't know if i stated it earlier, but i too use equal houses, which i feel often catches much of what people are trying to do with whole sign houses... it was like whole sign came along and all those astrologers who had blown off equal previously, took on something similar to what they had blown off before! have to put on the traditional astrologer badge and wear it proudly, lol...

hey - i see in this survey they have '''natural''' houses to choose from.. if i go around barefoot, does that mean that is the house choice for me?
That depends on the floor the house has, James. Or rather, if it has a floor in the first place... :-?
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39
GoldCup

I removed the link at the bottom of your post as it was not at all related to anything astrological.

I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at with your post though, could you elaborate? Who is it that you're addressing specifically? It's a little confusing to follow.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

40
Thanks for the kind words guys. I personally use equal alongside Placidus and I find it works well enough for me, but I also really like the symbolism of these two house systems which I think is probably quite important.

One of the things which has really started to take hold recently is of course whole sign houses as James says. (My guess is that 'natural' is meant to be whole).

Whilst I don't really mind what house system people use, I do think it's worthwhile being aware, even only as broadly and as roughly as I've tried to explain here, what some of the differences are between the houses - otherwise our only connection to the house system is a drop down option in a computer software.

I find some of the claims for some house system to be a little overplayed or overhyped though and that's some of what I wanted to address in my posts here. We have the Huber school who claim empirically that their house system, Koch, is best. We have the same claim for Polich-Page/Topocentric houses. Neither one has had that claim examined nor whatever evidence lead them to this conclusion presented - I think that's pretty telling and I think we should all assume there's nothing empirical whatsoever until that kind of demonstration of proof is made. It's particularly difficult for Topocentric as the cusps run so closely aligned to placidus for most climes that it's hard to imagine anyone truly examining all the house systems empirically, seeing that the effect wasn't there, and then found a fit with some very subtle moving of the cusp which Topocentric does - it's also not topocentric at all of course.

We see horary astrologers claim that horary only works with Regiomontanus or that it works better - and this is just another unusual assertion that astrologers make with no real reason to back it up. The best we have is that Lilly used Regiomontanus, which is of course transparently weak as his authorities that he himself uses do not use Regiomontanus.

And now most recently it's whole sign houses. The first argument people make is that it's the original house system - I personally reject that we can say that with any real authority, especially as our oldest textbook which deals with houses really does not appear to be describing whole sign whatsoever and possibly something broader which could apply to many houses, in particular quadrant derived houses, or else, for my money, something like Campanus. In addition, the background from which the houses derive clearly emerges from a tradition of examining and observing rituals at the times associated with the transit of stars or planets by primary motion over the ascendant, and then over the midheaven. It is from this prototype that the house systems as we know them today emerged - this should make us cautious about proclaiming any house system as truly original - it could well be understood much like aspect doctrine which from even some of our earliest authors we can see be applied to the zodiac by way of sign, the zodiac by way of degree or else along the mundane sphere generally and so we have in mundo aspects. The argument that the aspects were meant to be or emerged from the zodiac itself holds little to no appeal for me. All the more so now we know that the Babylonians had trigonometry (see work done on Plimpton 322).

Once an appeal to authority or to ancientness (itself an appeal to authority) the next major focus I've seen people use is that the cusp of the first and tenth house could somehow figure into the sensitive points at the Gauqelin zones. With even minor critical thinking we ought to dismiss this - the zone above the ascendant may be interesting, but the other is actually from the MC which is independent of whole signs, one of the few house systems that is. Therefore of all the house systems, some derivation of a quadrant house system might make more sense, but if anything, it all but actually rules out Whole. Some have suggested mixing whole with quadrant - that's possible, but if we do that we're not making an argument for whole any more than we're making an argument for quadrant divisions. A better explanation would be that the zones have nothing to do with our houses at all, or else that we adopt, like an Indian house system, an approach which is something like porphyry but where the MC and Asc are in the middle of their houses etc.

Finally the other argument that I see is that whole works everywhere in the world - Placidus and other quadrant houses break down at the poles, but not so whole. Having a house system that works everywhere is better than one that only works at temperate climates. Problem? Whole signs, like all house systems breaks down at the poles as well and if we track a planet rising in whole signs we'll quickly see it rises, moves to the 12th and then can, in the blink of an eye, jump to the 6th. I've explained much of my rationale for all this here on this thread:
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9618
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

41
thanks for your comments paul.. it sort of suggests the relativity of all things astrological when it comes to some of the topics like house systems anyway..

that goes back to the idea of astrology as a type of divination as opposed to matter of fact something.. it depends on whose hands it is in more then the type of system one might use.

i like your new website. good luck with that!

42
Michael Sternbach wrote:I would like more astrologers to share their thoughts and observations on this.
I too appreciate the descriptions of the various astrology house systems earlier in this thread. :' Understanding the mechanics can help one make intelligent choices about which house system to use, or even come up with new alternative methods. For example, 23 years ago I attempted to look at houses with no preconceived notions and come up with the "best" form of division. The result was "Sinusoidal Houses", which although relatively new, has at least spread to become options in software such as Astrolog/Kepler/Sirius/astro.com.

Sinusoidal Houses are a quadrant based system similar to Porphyry, however instead of simply trisecting each quadrant, it instead uses a sine curve to proportion the middle house in each quadrant, making it larger or smaller depending on the size of the quadrant. The result is a "smooth" look that looks nice in wheel charts. (Not that the subjectivity of "looking good" means astronomically or astrologically accurate, of course.) ;) Sinusoidal Houses are described more at: http://www.astrolog.org/astrolog/astsine.htm