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

25
waybread wrote: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.)
As if I could forget ;)
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.
This is a great primer for the houses if anyone is interested in computing them, however I actually feel that this could do with something of an update - I think there are probably easier ways to calculate/program the houses now. That said, is commentary on the houses is still useful and I agree whole heartedly with his promoting against an idea of there being some one size fits all house system too.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

26
Wow Paul! I have been off Skyscript for a while. Just about to give a talk on house systems this week so your posts are literally manna from heaven! Thanks so much.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

27
I use Placidus always. I find Equal house charts confusing to look at mainly because the Midheaven is in the wrong place. The Midheaven is by definition the cusp of the 10th house.

Having said that, I do not use house rulerships and all the rules of traditional astrology, but I do like to see at a glance which house a planet is in and I hate it when this is visually confusing. The angles of the chart are absolutely vital, and I hate it when the Midheaven IC axis is skewed. But I don't care what the 8th house ruling planet is, never use that.

I am less concerned exactly where the house cusps are, and I am not sure always if a planet falls near the end of a Placidus cusp whether it should be in that house or the next one.

One reason that I don't find house rulerships useful is that they use the traditional planetary rulers, and I don't find these work as well as the newer rulers of signs. For instance, one of my houses, with Libra on the cusp, would traditionally be considered to be ruled by Venus, but I find IsisTranspluto and its aspects in my chart describes this house far better than Venus. There is no way that the affairs of that house are linked with Venus.
Last edited by fleur on Mon Feb 06, 2017 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

28
Waybread, your comment is interesting:-

"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"


It still doesn't explain a planet I have in one house that I have often wondered if it should be in the next house, and even in Equal House it is still six degrees away from the next house cusp.

29
Thanks Mark

Let me know if you have any comments, critiques or questions. Hope you find it useful.

Fleur

I can only be brief here but the midheaven is not, by definition, the 10th house cusp. I hope you read through my early posts where I define what each thing is. The midheaven is an astronomical point irrespective of astrological considerations, even houses.
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" - Socrates

https://heavenlysphere.com/

30
Fleur, in a natal chart interpretation I would look at both the *commonly accepted* modern rulers and traditional rulers of a sign and house cusp. You probably wouldn't do this in traditional western astrology. But in modern astrology it's fine.

At Astrodienst www.astro.com you can play around with all kinds of house systems, and see which one gives you the best fit. If the right fit still seems ambiguous, try dating transiting or progressed planets to the house cusps. Ideally a planet exiting one house and entering the next one should highlight the affairs of the new house. Even if you do not much partake of the new house's activities in your everyday life, you may find yourself thinking or daydreaming about them a lot more than you did in the past.

Also, I would generally look at progressions only in relation to the natal chart, but you can construct a stand-alone progressed chart at Astrodienst that will give you different house cusps.

If you live a long distance from your birth place, you might also cast a relocated chart for you new location. You may find that that "misplaced" planet shows up in the "right" house for you with one of these methods.

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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