Whole Houses or Placidus?

Amarande

So I have doubts on which system to use. When I began delving into astrology I used Placidus since it's always the default on every site that provides birth charts. Just recently I discovered whole houses and my chart does change quite a bit in terms of planets in their houses. I think I love my whole house chart interpretation more than my Placidus one, it seems to fit much better. Some changes include (from Placidus to Whole): Pluto goes from 9th to the 10th, Neptune was in 12th and now in the 11th, Part of Fortune in the 3rd now in the 4th, and Juno from 7th to 8th. I would think such changes in a chart could indicate a different individual entirely.

So, what does everyone think? On what do you base your decision for using your house system?
 

Minderwiz

When I was learning Astrology, I had to do a reading of a chart cast for the same!E natal details but using three different house systems. Yes some planets changed houses but the overall tenor remained very similar.

The outers are of marginal significance in natal unless they are angular and even then I have doubts. Asteroids are only worth it once you have tea
Lucky got the planets clealy delineated. The Lot of Fortune (Part of Gortune,) is judged from its ruler rather than its house position.

All that being said, which house system you use becomes a personal preference. Whole Signs was the original syste for topical issues in reading a chart. Quadrant systems (starting with Porphyry and then Alcabitius) were used fo in forecasting and predictions. Then Whole Signs lost favour around the turn of the first Millennium but have made something of a comeback recently, with the rediscovery of Hellenistic Astrology. They have always been used in Vedic Astrology.

There's nothing special about Placidus, the system dates to the Seventeenth Century but when Westrrn Astrology was revived in thedecond half of the nineteenth century, the only available house tables seems to have been Placidus. This it became the new defaults system. That being said there's nothing wrong with it apart from the general problem of distortion the further north or south the place for which you cast a chart and then break down completely at the poles.

I use Whole Sign Houses but that's because I'm studying Hellenistic Astrology. Info find it works well I'm that context.
 

RohanMenon

In my limited astrological experience

I think for one's *personal* natal chart, one can try different house systems and see which one resonates with lived *experience*. especially with the planets that change houses.

If a planet is in the 11th vs 12th house when using different houses systems, the significance of that planet and the manifestation in your life obviously leans one way or another,since these houses are quite different. (to assert the alternative is to say that house significances are interchangeable). The key, in my opinion, is to abandon the psychological interpretations - where interpretations for any planet in any house can be 'bent' trivially to fit anything and focus instead on actual observed life events and concrete predictions

In my case, when I use Whole Signs (I use a sidereal zodiac see below), Saturn is in the 12th in Taurus, ruling the 8th and 9th. And using Placidus he is in the 11th , in Taurus and ruling the (same as Whole Signs) 8th and 9th. so the only difference is the house location.

So I examined the events in my life when Saturn was prominent (return, angular transits, prominence in Solar Returns etc) and found that the Placidus houses fit best.

One *could* work with the Whole Sign system and get a valid explanation, but it was just a tiny bit more work. So I happily use Placidus to this day, for prediction, event analysis (as an impactful event actually manifests in life) and for horary.


. For horary, prediction etc, my approach is - when learning, use whatever house system the teacher uses, and for personal work, use whatever house system you are more comfortable with.

I have the same policy with zodiacs, which is another can of worms. While learning from a book or person, I use whatever the book or teacher is using,
most books, including Lilly and Morin which I'm studying now use the Tropical Zodiac, and for personal work, I use the system I'm comfortable with (in my case Fagan-Allen Sidereal Zodiac, and Placidus Houses)

To judge which zodiac system to use, I cast my chart and a dozen or so of friends-and-family charts, and examined the ascendant and its ruler and which signs they occupied and their dignities. Without exception, the Sidereal signs fit their body types and 'core self' descriptons better than the Tropical equivalents(I don't use 'ascendant as mask' and other new age notions).

Don't get me wrong, you *could* use the Tropical and do some extra analysis to explain all this tropically, but the Sidereal signs were a more obvious and easy fit.

Also when predicting events etc, (using Solar and Lunar returns) the Sidereal zodiac worked better with respect to timing *for me*.

Given these, I use the Sidereal Zodiac.

But on the other hand, Minderwiz uses Whole Sign houses and Tropical Zodiac and penetrates much better into the heart of a horary chart I am thoroughly confused by.

I have also seen expert astrologers here in India using Vedic techniques to make absolutely incredible predictions, to the point where it seemed more magic than astrology, and which would get me called crazy if I were to try explaining those in public, and all this leads me to conclude --

In the end, it is the astrologer and her skill and not so much the system in use.

So if were you, I wouldn't worry too much. Use what works for you and judge by the results only. Occasionally try explaining a particularly interesting charts in multiple house systems.

my 2 cents, and from my personal experience, I am *not* an astrology expert, and am still learning the basics, just saying what worked/works for me.
 

Minderwiz

I agree with RohanMenon. The house system you use is very much a personal decision. There's no right or wrong answer, despite the tomes written on which is objectively the best. And yes, it's good to try out three or four just to see how they compare.

One thing I have noticed in my switch to Whole Sign Houses is that they are not independent of the methods you use. They work best with a traditional approach and don't work very well with the modern psychobabble approach.

I'm guessing that may also apply to your choice of zodiac. Some techniques may work better with a sidereal zodiac than a tropical one. I can't say for sure but clearly the Vedic approaches, which are different (and dare I say better) than the psychobabble approach seems to work well with it. Certainly the traditional Astrologers treated signs in a different way to the moderns, and left out the psychological tones to signs, unless they were rising at the time of the event in question (usually a nativity).

The Hellenistic Astrologers who developed/invented Horoscopic Astrology worked at a time when there was no meaningful distinction between the zodiac of the stars and the zodiac of the seasons. They seemed to emphasise the role of the four cardinal (they called them 'tropical') signs but they also wrote at length about the constellations than could be found in each sign.

I have the impression that they saw the Sign as being coloured not only by its seasona position but also by those constellations that lay inside. They were aware of precession but did not make a great deal of it for obvious reasons. Ptolemy suggested the tropical signs as being primarily linked to the seasons and this coloured the development of Western Astrology. However Ptolemy was not typical of Astrologers of his day. The Astrology of the Greek (The Yavanajataka of Sphujidhvaja) which reached India did not lead the Astrologers there to adopt a tropical zodiac, even though they adopted the basic methods of constructing a chart based on location, the use of aspects and one or two other Hellenisitic methods.

From about the second century CE onwards, the problem began to become increasingly noticable. As you can't have the constellations in the original signs and the tropical signs coinciding with their tropical points, both are incomplete.

The psychobabblers don't use starts to any extent yet the Greeks did, the Medieval Astrologers did and they were still in widespread use at the time of Lilly and Morin. I think that's a sad loss to Modern Western Astrology.

I've tried Dave's precession corrected solar returns but ended up not adopting them. The reason being that I wanted to learn how they were originally used (and they date back to early medieval times (Abu Ma'shar in the ninth century). But Dave gets some good results from them and they are something to explore. One thing that needs to be born in mind; up to and including Morin, Solar Returns (Revolutions in the terminology of the day), were not stand alone. They were judged in the light of more long term trends, identified through either time lord systems or primary directions relating to the natal chart. That is the root reason why Solar Returns are not independent of the natal chart (something Dave emphasises strongly).

So the choice of methods and approach may well influence which house system and which zodiac works best for you. Trying to use the systems used by the writers you're studying is a good move. That helps you with the techniques but eventually you might feel a need to modify the techniques and adapt them to your style. As long as you know what you are doing, and more impotently, why you are doing it, this is the way that Astrology develops and remains vibrant.
 

RohanMenon

One thing I have noticed in my switch to Whole Sign Houses is that they are not independent of the methods you use. They work best with a traditional approach and don't work very well with the modern psychobabble approach.

Very good point. I personally spent 2+ years trying to get the 'modern' astrology to work but always ended up with mush. Not to put down people who use these techniques, just saying *I* could never get them to work reliably. Now I'm learning medieval classical astrology and I feel I'm 'home'. Finally.

The psychobabblers don't use starts to any extent yet the Greeks did, the Medieval Astrologers did and they were still in widespread use at the time of Lilly and Morin. I think that's a sad loss to Modern Western Astrology.

A question for you Minderwiz. Does Medieval/Greek etc western astrology use the mansions of the Moon (or something similar?) Vedic astrology uses the nakshatras, and I read somewhere that the Arabs did. Did these techniques ever get back to the Western canon?


One thing that needs to be born in mind; up to and including Morin, Solar Returns (Revolutions in the terminology of the day), were not stand alone. They were judged in the light of more long term trends, identified through either time lord systems or primary directions relating to the natal chart. That is the root reason why Solar Returns are not independent of the natal chart (something Dave emphasises strongly).

this makes a lot of sense. I worked through Gansten's book, which gets quite complicated towards the middle, but it *is* comprehensive. I've not yet decided which system of directions to use, but will probably end up with something simple. I'll think about this after I finish Lilly (and more Morin).

So the choice of methods and approach may well influence which house system and which zodiac works best for you. Trying to use the systems used by the writers you're studying is a good move. That helps you with the techniques but eventually you might feel a need to modify the techniques and adapt them to your style. As long as you know what you are doing, and more impotently, why you are doing it, this is the way that Astrology develops and remains vibrant.

This. + 100!
 

Minderwiz

Very good point. I personally spent 2+ years trying to get the 'modern' astrology to work but always ended up with mush. Not to put down people who use these techniques, just saying *I* could never get them to work reliably. Now I'm learning medieval classical astrology and I feel I'm 'home'. Finally.

I spent two whole attempts to get into Astrology plus nearly two years of a third, before discovering Horary and realising, as you said,the rest is mush

RohanMenon said:
A question for you Minderwiz. Does Medieval/Greek etc western astrology use the mansions of the Moon (or something similar?) Vedic astrology uses the nakshatras, and I read somewhere that the Arabs did. Did these techniques ever get back to the Western canon?

There are several divisions of the zodiac, either by Sign or degree that never made it back into the Western Tradition. The Hellenistic twelfth parts (of a sign) is one but Mansions of the Moon seems to be one of those which left and then came back. The Arabs and Persians were obviously very much in contact with Vedic approaches but from late medieval times the Mansions seemed to fall out of favour but we're revived by those later nineteenth and twwentieth century Astrologers who decided that incorporating 'juicy' bits of Vedic Astrology would be a good thing.



RohanMenon said:
this makes a lot of sense. I worked through Gansten's book, which gets quite complicated towards the middle, but it *is* comprehensive. I've not yet decided which system of directions to use, but will probably end up with something simple. I'll think about this after I finish Lilly (and more Morin).

My own intention is to try it out in the context of a Time Lord system like Zodiacal Releasing.

A question for you. Why did Jyotish Astrologers not incorporate the modern planets? (For which I applaud them).

Yes, I know some have, but as I understand it the large majority have not. I have my own philosophical reasons but I believe they must have similar grounds and are not simply gripped by inertia
 

RohanMenon

My own intention is to try it out in the context of a Time Lord system like Zodiacal Releasing.

A question for you. Why did Jyotish Astrologers not incorporate the modern planets? (For which I applaud them).

Yes, I know some have, but as I understand it the large majority have not. I have my own philosophical reasons but I believe they must have similar grounds and are not simply gripped by inertia

Time Lord systems are another area I want to investigate once I've finished Lilly etc.

I'd love to tell you Indian astrologers have thought deeply about the philosophical underpinnings of their craft and have rejected modern planets for soundly thought through reasons.

Unfortunately the main reason is respect of / conformance to tradition.

For one, the astrological stream never 'broke' as it did in the West. Astrology is also heavily entwined with the practice of Hinduism, to the point where (say) 90% of marriages happen at an astrologically elected time. Likewise with the beginning of many projects from film shooting to political campaigns. Astrology is so deeply entwined into life in India that it is only when you live elsewhere for a time that you notice the relative absence of astrology. (I live part of the year in the USA). Astrology is not 'fringe' as it is in the West and astrologers are openly consulted by everyone from Prime Ministers to peasants(it has its good and bad effects)

Also by Hindu theology, we are now living in 'fallen times' (Kali Yuga - the age of the demon Kali) where only fragments of a once perfect art of astrlology remain (note: this is not the historical stream of practice, which never really broke down, this is a religious belief, unsupported by historical evidence). Once you take this belief on board, it makes sense to put your efforts into adhering as closely as possible to the 'perfect' past rather than take new concepts on board.

Most Indian astrologers will firmly reject the Greek origins of astrology. Per traditionalists everything was discovered by ancient Indian sages who were in direct communication with the divine and that's that and then some barbarians might have received some fragments of this perfect knowledge from the Indians. If those sages didn't need Uranus etc (of course they were aware of these planets via supernatural senses, heh) then we certainly don't. A lot of mental gymnastics and reams of ink (including digital ink) are used up trying to defend this view point.

Also the process of learning astrology is hugely based on massive amounts of memorization + direct instruction by a guru, and not necessarily reasoning from first principles + personal experimentation. The dying out of Sanskrit a language in daily use didn't help. Innovation is resisted fiercely by 'the system', which has its good and bad points

So that's why (imo) Vedic astrologers don't use the modern planets. A tiny minority have started 'innovating' (which has both positive and negative aspects), but they are very 'fringe' as compared to mainstream astrological practice here.
 

Minderwiz

My take

Thanks for that very interesting and informative account. Whilst I was hoping for some good logical reasoning. I can see that inertia and the 'golden age' style of argument can produce a system that does not adapt.

That's a shame because there are good reasons to limit the number of planets used. My own view is that Astrology is built around 'seeing; and 'light'. Not necessarily in the sense of modern science but in a system where humankind reacts with the natural and observable universe.

The whole language of Astrology is based on seeing or viewing - that's the literal meaning of aspect. It lies at the root of concepts such as Translation of Light and the traditional importance given to states such as Combustion and Under the Beams. It also explains why eclipses are seen as weakening the Sun or Moon respectively.

The nature of the seven visible planets comes from their appearance. It's why Jupiter and Venus are seen as benefic, because they are the brightest planets and why Mars and Saturn are seen as malefic. The red tinge to Mars recalling blood and Saturn being the least bright and slowest moving of all the visible planets.

That being so (and you will find a more detailed discussion here: http://theastrologypodcast.com/2016/02/24/significations-of-seven-traditional-planets/).

The concept of meaning being based solely on myth is just not there. That isn't to say that they are entirely myth free, but it's just as likely that the myths were inspired by the planets than the planets were named after myths.

Taking visibility as the crucial criteria then there's a clear cut off point at Saturn. Other things may be out there, but they are not visible and so have no significant importance or power. Just as a combust planet or an eclipsed luminary loses its power.

Such a view doesn't preclude development of new techniques but it does preclude the introduction of the non-visible as astrological actors. It should also preclude the elimination of the visible from Astrology - so the fixed starts have meaning. The psychologists vest such great meaning into Pluto, yet neglect the brightest objects in the sky, after Sun and Moon.

Breaking that demarcation produces a mess where there is no end to the number of bodies that can be incorporated and delineated. As no new meanings are discovered, the process multiplies the number of objects and reduces each to a single or small collection of meanings. The sophistication and complexity of the planets is stripped away.

Now I know such an argument has little chance of persuading those who dote on the outers or see magic in the invisible asteroids. But it seems to be a consistent link between creation and the human being.

On the Hellenistic roots of Jyotish you might be interested in:
http://theastrologypodcast.com/2013/07/26/hellenistic-and-indian-astrology/

And my own uneducated view is that the contacts probably worked both ways over the last couple of millenia but the use of charts, ascendants and aspects was not independently but identically derived by two different cultures. The evidence for at least a Hellenistic base to Vedic use of charts is compelling. But there was clearly some Astrology in India before, just as the Greeks took ideas from Mesopotamia and I'm sure there was some Indian influence in what went on to their north west.
 

RohanMenon

Thank You Minderwiz you might be interested to know

that "Jyotish" literally means (the study of) Light.

Visibility certainly makes a good case for the seven planets, especially in combination with the "as above so below" hermetic principle.

I confess I do watch transits etc to the outer planets (Uranus through Pluto) and (ime, only) when they are partile angular in a chart, or form parans,they do seem to have some effect, but I am by no means an expert, and have only a small collection of charts, (mostly just friends and family) and it is very possible I'm imagining things.

That said, unless I see partile (less that 30 minutes) aspects of the outers, or them exactly conjunct an angle, I pay them no mind. Seven planets are hard enough to keep track of!

Fwiw I am personally convinced horoscopic astrology at least came to India from the Greeks. The lunar emphasis of Vedic astrology (mansions etc) are more hard to track down and could well be Indian (or maybe Arabic) in origin. In the end (imo) origins don't matter, only effectiveness of the technique does.

I find it easy to believe that fixed stars have an effect, but am not sure if fixed stars far away from the ecliptic actually matter.

PS: Thanks for the podcast links.
 

Minderwiz

Yes, I agree; if you're going to use the outers the orb must be very small. The Greeks gave the Moon, 13 degrees, being its average travel in a day. For the outers, the average travel in a month is often much less than a degree. In sum signs it takes Pluto over 30 years to transit them (Leo for example) in others the transit is much faster but even in Scorpio, one of its fastest transits, it still takes 17 years.

We once had a member insisting strongly that squares and oppositions of the outers in one chart to the Sun in another, with orbs of four or five degrees, or more 'proved' that the first individual intended harm to the second. She would not accept that the time frame involved was some five or six years, allowing for application and sepraration and that several million people shared the same aspects to the Sun of the second individual.

And yes, angularity is very important.

The podcasts are rather long, in some cases over two hours, but if you have a look at the index, I'm sure you'll find several of interest.