27 Sept 2003

Sue:

I have been looking at Lilly's table of dignities and debilities. I can understand the scores for every house except the 2nd. Why is a planet in the 2nd house accidently dignified and given a 'score' of 3 when the 9th and the 3rd are given a lesser score but rate higher than the 2nd in Lilly's order of force and virtue? My automatic assumption (never assume anything)would have been that planets in the 2nd would have accidental debility.

I hope this question makes sense.

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Deb Your question is probably better than my answer, but I suspect it's because the 2nd is a house connected with increase and the 3rd and 9th houses are cadent, so lose points for that.

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Sue:

Okay, that makes sense. But Lilly also says for example that Mars and the Sun never do well in the 2nd house. I am sure there are several other examples. It suggests to me that it isn't necessarily a good idea to take the table at face value by simply adding up the scores but rather to use it as a guide and make each judgement based on the chart at hand.

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Pete Phoenix:

I think you make a valid point, Sue, cos I've never been able to understand why the 2nd house has been assigned such a high accidental score. The 6th , 8th and 12th houses are considered malefic partly because they make no traditional aspect to the "house of life" - the 1st - and any planets in them are given a negative scoring.
Well by that criterion, the 2nd house should get a negative score too, and for the same reason! The 9th house may be cadent, but it throws a mundane trine to the ascendant, and in my view should be scored far higher than the 2nd.
By all means we should take Lilly's scoresheet as a guideline, but I also think we should apply our own common-sense, too...
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Pete

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