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

13
Hopefully we'll have built up a picture of houses not necessarily needing to be imagined as being part of the ecliptic, but instead part of the whole sky and about the passage of time of planets which carries them from angle to angle and recognise that the ecliptic, along which all planets move, is at an angle to the direction of motion of the earth's spin which moves all the planets in a given day through the houses. This motion can be represented visually by the equator - within a day, a point on the (celestial) equator will trace out a full circle on the celestial sphere, or rather will trace out the celestial equator itself.

So far we've been focusing mostly on the ecliptic and show with Campanus a different way of doing things.

Meridian
But if the earth itself, and its spin, is responsible for carrying the planets through the houses in the course of a day, we could imagine a house system which actually uses some sense that the earth rotates to define it.
Well if the equator is the circle that gets defined by the earth's spin, we could divide up this into 12 equal sections.
We've mentioned a lot about the meridian line, which is the great arc/circle which runs from the poles of the earth through the point over head. Well obviously this line, if runs from north to south pole, will intersect the equator, and will do so at 90? angles to the equator. So this meridian line connects an observer to the equator, by plotting a line of longitude through our location - in fact this meridian line, when it intersects the eclipitic, is the MC, the beginning of the 10th house in systems like Campanus and Porphyry and all the other quadrant house systems.
So the meridian line is used to create the 10th house and it connects us to the equator which is the circle we can use to describe the rotation of the earth itself. What if we, from where the meridian intersects the equator, divide up the rest of the equator into equal 30 degree sections, and then we could divide them through the north and south pole as well?
If we did this, we'd have the meridian house system. it is a clear attempt to relate a given point on earth back to the earth's spin which is responsible for carrying planets through the houses to begin with. However, notice that the calculation is only from the meridian line - we could say it's only from the 10th house cusp. The first house, then, is 90? not along the ecliptic (like with equal or, more abstractly, with whole), but instead along the equator. So this point, the east point, and the arc emanating through the poles from it, is the 1st house cusp. But crucially in this system the first house will not coincide with the ascendant - that is because the first house in the meridian house system is coinciding exactly directly east, and the ascendant is the intersection of the ecliptic and horizon to the east, but the ecliptic moves north or south of east through the day. So they do not align.

Additionally imagine our globe from before, if we're only calculating the house system from a line of longitude, which is what the meridian is, then it really doesn't matter what latitude we are, say, born at. Anyone at a given longitude would have the same houses and the zodiac would pass through it.

But this lack of connection back to the ascendant is problematic for many astrologers and this house system remains not popular outside a small subset of astrologers. Uranian astrologers prefer this system and advocate its use, and also to connect us back to the very principle of earthly rotation that the houses rely upon, but for many, that lack of a first house coinciding with the acendant is a problem. To continue my discussion of projecting a point on a great circle through a pole, Meridian projects 30? segments along the equator, from the meridian line, through the earth's poles, that is, the poles of the equator.

Regiomontanus
Like Meridian houses, Regiomontanus is a division of the equator and likewise can be imagined as starting from the same principles as the meridian house system - that of connecting us back to the principle of earthly rotation which causes the planets to appear to move east and west through the sky over the course of a day.
However, so far when we've described houses in terms of projection of a point on a great circle through a pole, we've always used the pole of that same great circle. Whole, equal and porphyry are divisions of the ecliptic through the pole of the ecliptic, and campanus is the prime vertical through the pole of the prime vertical, and meridian is the equator through the pole of the equator.

But because meridian is not connecting back to the horizon in its calculation, it divorces the first house from the ascendant - which is on the horizon by its nature. A very simple change to the Meridian calculation can change this - rather than project the equator through the pole of the equator, we an project it through a point on the horizon. In Campanus houses we projected through the pole of the prime vertical, which is the meridian connecting the horizon in the north and south. Regiomontanus uses this meridian, like meridian houses do, to connect to the equator - but crucially, unlike meridian houses, Regiomontanus projects the equator through the poles of the prime vertical itself, so it projects it through a point on the horizon bringing this sense of earthly rotation into a more immediate setting that is unique to our location and not true of the entire longitude like with meridian.

The side effect, or perhaps intention, that this will bring is that now we're projecting through horizon, the intersection of the first house will be at the horizon - just like where the ascendant is. In other words, Regiomontanus houses will have something like the meridian philosophy in mind, connecting back to the earth's spin, but will retain the first house as being at the ascendant. If Meridian houses solves a problem of needing to connect to the earth's spin, but creates a problem in that the ascendant is no longer relevant to our local horizon, and that the ascendant is therefore not the coinciding with the first house, Regiomontanus can be imagined as building on Meridian but solving those problems raised.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

14
So before continuing, we've now discussed 6 different houses.

We have three ecliptic based divisions (whole, equal, porphyry) and they all project through the ecliptic pole, and then we have a more apparent-spatial division of the prime vertical (campanus) through the pole of the prime vertical, and then we have two divisions of the equator (meridian and regiomontanus), one of which is through the pole of the equator (meridian) and one through the pole of the prime vertical (regiomontanus).

Morinus
It may start to suddenly become apparent that we can take any given great circle (say, horizon, prime vertical, equator, ecliptic etc.) and project it through the pole of its own great circle, or indeed the pole of another great circle, if we think, for any reason, that this would be meaningful.

This gives us a couple of dozen possible combinations right off the top of my head.

Yet, whilst we can do this, the reality is that we typically don't. You may think, well the ecliptic is really important, we know that, and we've just discussed how important the equator is to bring back that dynamic sense of movement, so why not project the equator through the ecliptic. We absolutely could, and that's the "Morinus" method, so called because Morin de Villefranche described it, but, as far as I know, he described almost more in theoretical terms - I don't know if he actually used it himself. Of course we know from our problems with the Meridian method that this will mean we lose connection of the first house with the ascendant, and so we return to all the problems we might have there.


At this point we might start to realise, as if we didn't already, that the whole subject of house division is principally one about trying to relate complex patterns of movement or division of the sky and that actually the more we look into them all the more we can imagine that they all have astronomical merit in some way or another. Some of those forms may not have as much symbolic merit to us, and others may seem to be more compelling or have greater symbolic meaning or merit.

Perhaps because of this, are house systems and debates between them so divisive - there are so many ways of cutting up the sky and all of them are sound. A problem, in my opinion, can arise when people are not aware of how all the other systems operate or why they do what they do or what problems they solve in doing it that way - when we only really understand one system, that one system seems very compelling.

In reality of course most people choose one system because their teachers used it, or because they just stuck with whatever default system a computer program provides them etc. or they feel there is some appeal to authority or ancientness in their system. For now, the one thing to draw attention as we see with the Morinus method is that we can have all sorts of theoretical house systems which divide any given circle and project through any given point, so really what we might want to keep our focus on instead, is something which seems more meaningful to an astrologer.

In this way we might argue that Regiomontanus may well be more meaningful, for many, than either Meridian or Morinus, because all three connect the sky to the apparent movement of that sky caused in fact by the earth's rotation, but only Regiomontanus brings that connection right back to location of a given birth/event/etc. such that the Ascendant comes back to being so intrinsic to the first house like we have with the other house systems. Of course whether you really find that more meaningful or not is an individual concern.

I'm going to move away now from describing all the houses as being divisions of a given circle and projection through a given point because hopefully the case has been made that we can do this to any circle and point, but what's really telling or important is the symbolic relationship or understanding we have from that rather than a computation exercise of what we could do.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

15
So before continuing with a few last houses (and if you made it this far, good for you, at this point I'm probably just posting to and for myself), it's worth getting as far away from all the complication of the theoretical notions of projecting this or that circle through this or that pole. Astrology should be meaningful so the houses should have some meaningful connection or correspondence for us.

When we started to look at equatorially derived houses like Meridian, Regiomontanus and Morinus we were focusing here because the equator is symbolic of the earth's rotation in a day. And this daily rotation is what causes the phenomenon of the planets appearing to move through the houses and that all important notion of moving to and from angles. This motion, primary motion, completes a full cycle every day. Just like it takes the Sun a full year to complete its cycle through the zodiac, it takes Sun a day to complete its cycle through the 12 houses.

Astrology is all about time and really we could imagine astrology as being about time telling - not providing a mechanical notation for the current time on the clock, but rather telling the timbre or flavour or uniqueness of each moment. Sometimes this is obvious to everyone, and sometimes not. There is a distinct quality of time at night which is different to day time. Noon has its own flavour and it's different from dawn or dusk. We understand time chiefly on a day to day level without paying much attention to it by considering the Sun and its motion, primary motion, through the course of the day - the same way in which houses are derived.

The sun will rise at the ascendant at dawn and at high noon it will reach the MC, then some hours later it will reach the descendent at dusk. Surely we should be able to find a model of the sky which takes into account this all important quality of time?

We can, but we have some difficulties we have to understand first. The most important amongst them is that the earth can be understood to spin at a constant rate in a given day - it doesn't speed up at lunch time, slow down during the night etc. It's constant. And we can also imagine that the angle at which the earth spins will therefore increase at a steady rate from 0? at some starting time, to 360? exactly one day later - and because the equator describes this very same spin, we might start to wonder about seeing the equator as telling time.

So when we think back to Regiomontanus and the other equatorially defined houses. Are these really divisions of the equator? Which would be a spatially defined division. Or are they of the day itself, which would imply a time based division? Or in fact are they both - is space and time, in this context, actually synonymous? If there is 360? of the equator for every single day, then, say, half a day will be half the circle - 180?.

When we calculated our houses along the equator we took each subsequent 30? segments from the MC - 12 of them to make the 12 houses and 360? of the equatorial circle. So if we took 1/12 of the equator, then in fact what we've really done is take 1/12th of a day - that is to say 2 hours (24 hours in a day).

In fact we could imagine our Regiomontanus house cusps again with twelve arcs, like longitude, connecting the equator to the poles. Each of these arcs (or circles if we connect them in a circle) represents every two hours of clock time. In fact, in astronomy, such circles are actually called 'hour circles' and there are 24 of them in every day. So each house cusp in Regiomontanus not only represents the earth's spin in some crucial way, but also can connect to a sense of daily time with each house cusp on the equator being a symbol of two hours of time passing. Space and time start to become synonymous with one another in astrological settings here.

Suddenly Regiomontanus doesn't seem to be only about dividing up some great circle and projecting it through some pole - that's just mechanical - the astrology and meaningfulness may be in realising that these house cusps are likewise symbols of time through the day.

However, one thing I want to highlight here is that it's tempting to think that if 0? Gemini is on the MC right now, and if we realise that the Regiomontanus cusps are each of them 2 hours apart and the earth spins at an even rate, that therefore in two hours time 0? Cancer will be on the MC, or even that if the 10th house cusp is 0? Gemini now, that the 11th house cusp would be 0? Cancer.

However, that cannot be the case because once again we have a problem whereby the zodiac signs are not positioned along the equator (were they, this wouldn't be an issue), but along some other circle, the ecliptic, which isn't parallel to the equator but tilted at an angle. What that means is that whilst the earth is spinning at a uniform rate, it appears like the zodiac signs are not rising at a uniform rate - some are taking much longer than others.

Read this post if you want to understand this more:
http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... c&start=15

Nevertheless what we've seen so far of the houses is that whilst they can be computed as being like any great circle through any pole, the reality is that we typically use or are drawn to a house system not because we can calculate it in this or that way, but because there is some meaningfulness to calculating it in that way or in conceptualising the heavens in that manner.

Whereas Whole sign houses lack a strong sense of astronomical reference point, equal and porphyry pick that up with the nonagesimal and MC respectively. Whole becomes more symbolically important to many more so because of the understanding people likely have with its history or they fundamentally believe the houses are meant to be compared or connected to the zodiac. Campanus has an obvious connection to a sense of the visible or the apparent and of placing the observer at the centre of his/her universe and conceptualising the sky around him/her. Morinus and Meridian and Regiomontanus all connect to not just spatial descriptions of the equator and of the earth's spin, but bring us right back to the fundamental concept of time itself in some way, whether by accident or design, but Morinus and Meridian houses lose us when it comes to bring us back to the immediacy of our local frame of reference - something which Regiomontanus improves upon and for which the tone can be set to understand the houses in general as being not just factors of space (dividing up 2D circles and projecting them), but of time itself - where space and time are merely two sides of the very same coin to begin with.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

16
On an earlier post I demonstrated in an image the diurnal arc of the sun - the path it appears to take when it rises and sets.

In the space of time it takes the sun to rise and set, it will have passed through the 6 houses above the horizon. At high noon the Sun will sit on the MC. So we can imagine from dawn, when the Sun is at the ascendant, to noon, when the Sun is on the MC and take this as being just as equally valid a representation of a quadrant as anything else, and divide this up somehow into three to make three houses.

Alcabitius
Alcabitius approaches this problem by recognising that the length of time it takes a point on the ecliptic, for example the Sun, to be brought from the ascendant to the MC should be noted and trisected. So we divide by three how long it takes a point to rise and culminate. After each of those thirds of time after the ascendant has been on the horizon/ascendant has elapsed, whatever point is on the MC at that time is the cusp of the the next house.

So if, let's imagine, we have 4.5 hours for a point to rise and culminate, then after the first 1.5 hours (4.5/3), whatever point is on the Midheaven is the cusp of the 11th house. 1.5 hours later, the point now on the MC is the 12th house cusp. 1.5 hours later, the ascendant, the point rising, will complete its journey on the MC.

So Alcabitius is about dividing up evenly the time it takes a given point to rise, and recognising where, at that moment in time, other points on the ecliptic are which represent the key stages of its journey.

So imagine I'm a runner, I have to race 4.5 miles to reach my goal - my race is divided into three sections with flags at each one. However, at the time I set out, I notice that there are other planets and points at my various flags. They are already on the places I need to be at the 'thirds' of my race. These are the house cusps.

Alcabitius has somewhat fallen out of use, but it was once upon a time a very popular house system, particularly in the Arab world.

Koch
So Koch is a modern house system, in that it was invented only in the 20th century and is chiefly used by the Huber school - it is perhaps more popular in mainland Europe. It starts with some very similar basic premises as Alcabitius, in that is interested in trisecting time. However, in my previous analogy, I imagined the ascending point as like a sprinter with the MC as the finish line, and we've placed flags which are, at that moment in time, represent checkpoints at one third of the race.
Koch imagines it another way, imagine you are at the finish line, the MC, and you work back toward the ascendant and try to imagine where each sprinter was back in time at thirds of their journey.

You may think this is the same, but because during the length of time it takes the point to move from ascendant to MC, the ecliptic will have made new angles to the ascendant and because of the signs of long and short ascension mentioned in the post I linked to earlier, this isn't the case in fact.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

17
Both Alcabitius and Koch try to make sense of the fact that a point will take time to move through each quadrant and to, in some way, divide them evenly.

However neither manage to fully capture the ratio of time in real life it would take the planet to move through the quadrants due to the dynamic distance involved caused by the fact that the ecliptic doesn't appear to rise at a uniform rate even though the earth spins at a uniform rate.

Thinking of Alcabitius again, if we imagine our sprinter, the checkpoints which are set out at thirds of the way to the MC only demonstrate where each third is right now at this moment - by the time the sprinter gets there, the distance to the MC will have changed, and so our flags are no longer at the same checkpoint.

Placidus
Placidus is like Alcabitius and Koch in that it trisects the time it takes a body to rise and culminate. But whereas for example Alcabitius essentially freezes that in place and notes at what points of the ecliptic the ascendant degree will be a third and two thirds of its way through its journey if nothing moved (and likewise for Koch), Placidus finds out at what point it will be a third and two thirds of its journey keeping in mind that as soon as it starts off, the ecliptic will continue to appear to stretch and shrink. To use my sprinter analogy, the race track is actually one which changes length through as time goes on - shrinking and stretching. Alcabitius and Koch both take cusps for a static moment in time which is real and meaningful for that moment as a snapshot, but for which we lose a sense of real dynamic movement when it comes to a planet in its own journey through that shrinking and stretching.

Placidus solves this problem - it notes where our sprinter will actually be when that sprinter is at thirds of its journey in real time through the course.

Now Placidus becomes quite interesting because outside of the problem of house division, we see echoes of Placidus philosophy elsewhere in astrology and indeed right back through antiquity in terms of actually telling the time (though we do not see Placidus cusps themselves being used at the time). In ancient cultures, one way of telling time was to use "seasonal" hours - these hours change with the seasons. So in Summer, when days are long, a Summer hour would be longer than a Summer night - so the time it takes the sun to rise and set is divided by 12, and the time it takes the sun to set and then rise again is also divided by 12. So an hour isn't a static set of time, but a proportion of time.

In a similar manner Placidus cusps are like a proportion of time, but rather than divide the time it takes the Sun to rise and and set by 12, it divides it by 6. It has echoes then of when we divided up the equator - a symbol of the rotation of the earth which in turn is a day - into 12 sections for the 12 houses. Here we're dividing up the time dynamically into 12 sections as well.

In addition, following the logic of seasonal hours, astrology uses planetary hours where a given planet has rulership over a given 'hour'. These hours are seasonal hours in that an hour in a summer's day is longer than an hour in a winter's day etc.

So two ancient planetary hours, and two astrological plaentary hours, are always equal to one placidean house cusp.

Ptolemy, the ancient astrologer and polymath, likewise appears to apply Placidus' philosophy, though it's entirely unclear if he uses it to divide up houses (it's a controversial subject), but we have clearer use of his understanding of this very same principle when it comes to primary directions. Placido de Tito, for whom we name these cusps, certainly believed that this was the method of division that Ptolemy himself used for his house cusps. Today it's altogether unclear with some people arguing a case for Placidus, others for Equal, others still for Whole and possibly more.

Finally just to compare time-based methods like Alcabitius and Koch with Placidus, to understand the kinds of conceptual problems Placidus solves, see this diagram of two charts below.
The time taken, in both cases, is one third of the time it takes the Sun to rise and culminate on the MC.

Notice how Placidus retains exactly the 12th house cusp as being 1/3rd of its own journey, whereas by the time the Sun gets to the same position the Alcabitius cusps have changed.
Image
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

18
So final summary of these houses and their calculation because these are the only houses I feel comfortable describing.

We've looked at the following houses and hopefully should have a clearer idea of how they're calculated and what kind of problems they have or problems they resolve.
  • * Whole
    * Equal
    * Porphyry
    * Campanus
    * Meridian
    * Morinus
    * Regiomontanus
    * Alcabitius
    * Koch
    * Placidus
At this point it should be obvious that claims to "one true house system" start to seem almost ridiculous - clearly there are many meaningful ways to divide up the sky and which is the most meaningful is really up to us.

Or is it?

You may still want to find a one house system to rule them all, and may think "what of empirical evidence". Let me start baldly here: there isn't any.

Which again is not to say that there won't be many people who claim otherwise. Chief on this list is the likes of Koch or a system I haven't described here called Topocentric. The Huber school have made the claim that the only system to work reliably with their methods is the Koch house system - thus making it the most popular for astrologers who are inspired by the Huber system. However no evidence has been presented for this view, and when we think even of the house systems I've described here, but then remember that any given circle could be projected through any point, then the claims starts to look dubious at best. It's almost certainly not been the result of an empirical study of all the house systems with only this one working.

What of Topocentric and what are they? Another modern invention for a house system, sometimes called the Polich/Page house system after the inventors. Sorry, the discoverers. In the introduction to the presentation of this house system Polich and Page make the claim that they did not invent the house system but rather they discovered it by examining, empirically, primary directions to the house cusps of given nativities which ought to correspond with events in that native's life. They claim to have done this and, having done so, tried to figure out the mathematics that would model the house cusps which were so clearly obvious from their findings.

There are some problems - chief amongst them is, like with the Koch idea, these empirical findings are not presented for independent review. There is just a claim that this was done. The other bigger problem which belies this claim by some amount is that actually in practice the Topocentric are almost synonymous for most people with Placidus cusps. IF they were really doing this empirically why not model it on Placidus? There must need to be some compelling edge cases - but none are given.

Moving aside from these, typically you may hear people say something like "You must use Regiomontanus for Horary". But likewise this claim lacks any strong rationale - we know that William Lilly, a prominent horary astrologer, used Regiomontanus, but we shouldn't imagine that we need to follow suit. Indeed the Arabs from whom, indirectly, Lilly himself was following, were, almost certainly, not using Regiomontanus at all but probably Alcabitius, or something similar, perhaps at times Whole.

Likewise there has been almost movement recently of astrologers promoting Whole sign houses as the only true house system citing its ancient history - again this poses problems because the idea of moving to and from angles is completely lost in whole sign houses as they are not modelled on the angles. Nevertheless it remains an increasingly popular house system amongst some traditionally leaning astrologers though, to my mind, doesn't seem to do anything that equal doesn't do, at the very least, just as well and, at most, far better.

Finally there is a problem, often used as evidence amongst whole sign advocates, that quadrant house divisions or at least those involving the MC (essentially everything mentioned so far except whole and equal) fail at the polar regions.

Now this is something of a controversial problem as well, because they only fail in terms of the method in which they are calculated currently - they could be reimagined somewhat so as to not fail but this may involve something of a jump in how we define the MC to begin with.

The problem occurs because at extreme latitudes this idea of, say, the Sun rising in the east and culminating in the MC and then setting in the west etc. can break down. Think of the phenomena of the midnight sun, in which, in extreme northern climates, the Sun actually never sets at all - likewise in winter it doesn't rise.
This poses something of a problem for all the house divisions but the problem seems to only be levelled at quadrant divisions.

It's common to hear whole sign advocates cite such problems at polar regions in defence of a one true house system, namely whole signs, as they don't suffer from this problem.

In fact, I would argue that they of course do suffer from the very same problem, but instead of being a problem of computation, it becomes a problem of interpretation.

What happens, say, when the Sun never rises, is that the part of the ecliptic occupied by the Sun is not able to get over the horizon. If we imagine the MC as being the point of highest altitude of the ecliptic in the sky, the issue is that sometimes this 'flips' so that it's no longer toward the south, but can be momentarily north - so closer to the position occupied by the 4th house than the 10th.

The only way this doesn't affect whole sign house advocates is if they don't actually understand that, or if they dont' believe there is any astronomical phenomena underlying their house meanings - if there isn't, this could be an argument against adopting them to begin with, but we have the seed of this problem in whole sign houses already as we lose entirely the sense of moving to and from angles and the whole focus we have of being succedent, angular and cadent.

Because if we assign ideas of prominence, fame, visiblity, applause and so on to the 10th precisely because it is the point at which planets gain ultimate altitude, either in the course of a day (the MC and quadrant based 10th house) or at a single moment in time (nonagesimal - equal), then actually that highest point could be in the 4th house - the house we associate, amongst other things, with being hidden or buried.

To conclude then, my argument would be to abandon all pretence of there being a one true house system - all the house systems are true to some level. The thing is that some or other of the symbolism behind each house system will better appeal to you or not.

For me that's Equal and Placidus and so I prefer these two house systems because from them I feel I can tick as many boxes to describe the heavens in all its complexity in a way I don't get from the other houses. With equal I have an aspectual and symbolic relationship with all the houses to the ascendant, like I do with whole, but unlike with whole, I also have symbolically meaningful connections to the astronomical point at the nonagesimal. Equal, to me, is whole sign houses only more meaningful. Similarly Placidus brings in the connections to time and understanding of time in a manner that I think is lacking in Alcabitius and Koch.

If I had to name one other, it would probably be Regiomontanus.

Hopefully though, if nothing else, if anyone actually manages to read all that (and my congratulations, and commiserations, if you do), what at least you may come away with is the realisation that arguments over which house is better is reductive and overly simplistic. And whatever house system we use, it won't be because some wise authority claims it's best - we see now that such arguments are equally reductive and simplistic.
Last edited by Paul on Thu Mar 16, 2017 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

20
Thanks Donna

It's a huge amount to take in so let me know if you have any questions on anything.

I think one of the things I would like to help to promote is the idea that whatever house system we use is fine, but if we are to promote it, we should at least understand the other house systems too and whatever house system we use should be because we find something about its construction or how it envisions the sky or models it that we find meaningful.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

21
Paul wrote:Thanks Donna

It's a huge amount to take in so let me know if you have any questions on anything.

I think one of the things I would like to help to promote is the idea that whatever house system we use is fine, but if we are to promote it, we should at least understand the other house systems too and whatever house system we use should be because we find something about its construction or how it envisions the sky or models it that we find meaningful.
You conveyed this message convincingly. As you explain, most house systems have a long history and a not-so-arbitrary foundation, and I agree it's important to understand our methods beyond "it works for me" (even though I've used that explanation.)

You're right it's a lot to absorb and I'm going over it again. I would like to be really grounded in this subject, and, you know, feel it. Right now I'm obsessed with angles!

24
Good stuff, Paul. :' :'

(As a private joke, I hope a prior discussion on another forum, long ago and far away, helped to tease out the issues of the visible heavens vs. house systems, or at least of explaining them.)

In answer to the OP, I couldn't vote on the best house system. I don't think a single house system necessarily works best for all uses.

In his article, "An Astrological House Formulary," https://www.scribd.com/doc/6495552/An-A ... -Formulary Michael Munkasey reviews different house systems, and argues that the "best" house system is the one that best describes the situation or person at hand. I don't think "best" is identical for each horoscope.

"... use that house system which divides space in such a way that the planets fall into houses which describe their function in the nature of the event; and, use that house system which gives cusps against which you can time events. That is, if the Moon function of this event is described well by a Moon in the eighth house, then the house system you choose should not place the Moon in the seventh or ninth, or some house other than the eighth house. Also, if subsequent events can not be timed to the house cusps derived mathematically and plotted on the horoscope,then choose some other house system."

If you're not trying to time an event using house cusps, maybe skip his second piece of advice. But theoretically a transit or progression of a planet into a new house in your natal chart should highlight some changes in your life that are consistent with the meaning of the new house.

Alice Portman www.aliceportman.com has argued that different people actually respond better or worse to different house systems. She found that Regiomontanus works well for the British royal family, and this is also the system preferred by many horary astrologers.

I normally use Placidus, but in doing a quick-and-dirty survey of the charts of extremely wealthy people (like Warren Buffett and Donald Trump) I thought I detected a second house Jupiter signature in some of the charts, but it showed up in whole signs, not in Placidus, for some.

The difference between whole signs and a quadrant system can make a big difference for people with a late degree rising.

To my personal way of thinking, there is not an ideal house system for people born at high latitudes. North of the Arctic Circle the sun doesn't rise or is very low in the sky and visible for maybe only a few hours in winter. We also see this distortion effect for northern countries.