New to Astrology- Where to start?

Aviorwolf

Yes, house systems are interesting. The one you will see most often is the Placidus system. However, I learned from a genius astrologer friend that the Placidus system was calculated a few hundred years ago by a monk who of course did not have access to our modern mechanized aids to calculation. This system was corrected, so to speak, by Koch, hence the Koch system, which is the one I use. As my astro teacher said "The system is for the astrologer," meaning go with what feels correct to you once you've tried a few.
 

Barleywine

Yes, house systems are interesting. The one you will see most often is the Placidus system. However, I learned from a genius astrologer friend that the Placidus system was calculated a few hundred years ago by a monk who of course did not have access to our modern mechanized aids to calculation. This system was corrected, so to speak, by Koch, hence the Koch system, which is the one I use. As my astro teacher said "The system is for the astrologer," meaning go with what feels correct to you once you've tried a few.

I tried Koch back in the 1970s (as well as Whole-Sign Houses and Equal Houses more recently), but returned to Placidus as being the best fit for my observed life-circumstances and events. Koch is supposed to be more "birth-place specific" but it has the same weakness as Placidus at higher latitudes. The Larousse Encyclopedia of Astrology has interesting comparisons of most of the different approaches to house division; I imagine de Vore's encyclopedia does too but I don't own it.

I agree up to a point that what "feels" right to you is the one to use. But astrology isn't as intuitive or open-ended as tarot. I would expect to see some empirical evidence of the validity of the chosen system, both in natal placements and through transits, progressions (especially of the Moon and personal planets) and, though to a much lesser extent, "ingresses" as planets cross the intermediary cusps over the course of the life.
 

Barleywine

Also, at www.astroamerica.com the Astrology Classics publisher, Dave Roell, has all of the books he sells (most by other publishers) broken down by beginner and intermediate/advanced classification, and you can get most of them more cheaply from Amazon. His commentaries on the books are generally very useful too.

I've frequently mentioned Dave Roell's website as a good source of information on beginner books. But he also puts out a free weekly newsletter that carries excerpts from books by many prominent authors like Vivian Robson, C.E.O. Carter and Ivy Goldstein-Jacobson (among other), in addition to his own analyses of the charts of well-known people. The most recent issue has the natal chart of John Cleese, which I found fascinating. Here's a link if you're interested.

http://www.astroamerica.com/astroamericanewsletter.pdf
 

Minderwiz

I use Regiomontanus houses in my work. Recently I came across a podcast on Traditional Astoology Radio by Chris Brennan.

http://traditionalastrologyradio.com/

His argument is that the original system for Topical Houses, was Whole Sign Houses (as still used in Jyotish). Quadrant Houses were invented and developed by Hellenistic Astrologers for one purpose, to measure the strength of planets in the calculation of the length of life. Strength here being that familiar to modern Astrologers, Angularity or the lack of it.

He argues that these two systems of House division lived side by side up till the end of the first millennium. From the middle of the Hellenistic period, there was some use of the MC, to throw additional light on what we would now call career and profession. and this introduced some topicality into the use of quadrant Houses, but they were still used in conjunction with Whole Sign Houses.

At the end of the Millennium, Whole Sign Houses suddenly fell out of faviour, he postulates that this was because of errors in understanding by Astrologers, and also the influence of leading Astrologers of the time....I think he mentioned Ma'sha Allah but I haven't double checked.

If Brennan is right, then the argument about what quadrant House system is the 'correct' one is moot. It's function is to determine angularity or otherwise, not to accurately reflect an idealist notion of a 'perfect' representation in two dimensions of three dimensional reality, as seen from a particular location. That means that a simple system such as Porphry is every bit as good as a more complex system such as Regiomontanus, Placidus or Koch.

So the implication is that you should choose a system that you like, and not worry about abstract mathematical ideas. Any quadrant system will serve the purpose of the Astrologer, and even the Whole Sign system is perfectly valid.

If you want to give emphasis to the mathematics, then that's fine but I don't really think that will lead to any better predictive work, because it's angularity that counts most. Whether a planet is cadent or succedent is not a big deal.

It's an interesting take, but so far I've not had the courage to throw Regiomantus out of the window and move to Whole Signs and Porphry LOL.
 

Barleywine

If you want to give emphasis to the mathematics, then that's fine but I don't really think that will lead to any better predictive work, because it's angularity that counts most. Whether a planet is cadent or succedent is not a big deal.

It's an interesting take, but so far I've not had the courage to throw Regiomantus out of the window and move to Whole Signs and Porphry LOL.

I've had some interest in Regiomontanus because it's conceptually, not just mathematically, different from Placidus. It's derived from 12 equal divisions of the celestial equator, starting at the East Point, projected onto the ecliptic as house cusps by drawing perpendicular lines through the Prime Vertical. In Placidus, house cusps 12 and 11 are derived by moving the ascending degree along the ecliptic 1/3 and 2/3 of the distance in diurnal semi-arc between the eastern horizon and the point of culmination (Midheaven), while houses 9 and 8 are similarly derived by moving the culminating degree (MC) 1/3 and 2/3 of the distance toward the western horizon (Descendant); the other intermediary cusps are mirror images of those mathematically derived. (Right ascension is involved, which makes it a complex process.) One is more of a spatial division method, and the other is more temporal. In the Regiomontanus (and Campanus) illustrations, the celestial sphere seems to be turned sideways (a perceptual as well as conceptual difference) because the celestial equator and the Prime Vertical are the relevant frames of reference.

Personally, although I use Placidus in practical work, my brother and I have been casually playing around with an 8-house division system since the 1970s, based on the Germans' fascination with the "hard" angles of 45 and 90 degrees. It may be similar to Cyril Fagan's oktotopos system, but I only knew of Fagan very vaguely as a prominent siderealist until last year when I discovered that he used 8 houses. It seemed to us that if intermediary house ingresses actually work, they would be more prominent at angles associated with stress and action. Just a theory, of course.

ETA: Forgot to mention: since the intermediary divisions would be based on the midpoints between the angles, they wouldn't be precisely 45 degrees, but the principle still applies.
 

Minderwiz

The 8 fold division is possibly the earliest system of houses - dating back to at least the first century BCE and and probably much earlier in terms of it's philosophical basis. Marcus Manilius mentions it but it's not clear whether he confused/conflated it with the, by then, more popular 12 House system.

This page is useful for consideration:

http://cura.free.fr/11domi2e.html

If Brennan is right (and I stress If It might have been the earliest prototype for testing planetary strength as it yields but two possibilities, angular and non-angular placements. In that sense the issue of 'stress'is not really important. There's clearly more than one 'if' here so I'm only mentioning that as a tentative possibility. We just don't know enoght about how it was intended to be used and clearly Astrologers in the present or recent past will put their own spin on it (as I've just done). On the other hand it might have been used for Topical purposes alone.

The key, I think, is what are houses for? There are at least two possibilities,

The measurement of planetary strength, to determine the most effective planets in a chart

The application of planets to areas of life to see their impact - that is houses as Topical Houses

The dropping of the Whole Sign approach in the West, and the subsequent use of Quadrant House systems, leaves us with trying to do both from the same chart. There's no reason why that can't be done, as long as we bear in mind which we are doing at any particular moment. Thus we could use charts in a predictive way precisely in terms of planetary strength and therefore current or predicted influences. That is we read the predictive chart in a different way from the radix. That's a point that Dave makes regularly (and rightly so).

As most 12 house quadrant systems give only marginal differences in house placement, and not at all in angular placements (by which I mean within say 15 degrees of an angle), the effect of the difference in choice is likely to be minimal in determining planetary strength, though it might make some difference in a consideration of the 'topics' in a person's life.
 

Barleywine

The key, I think, is what are houses for? There are at least two possibilities,

The measurement of planetary strength, to determine the most effective planets in a chart

The application of planets to areas of life to see their impact - that is houses as Topical Houses

The dropping of the Whole Sign approach in the West, and the subsequent use of Quadrant House systems, leaves us with trying to do both from the same chart. There's no reason why that can't be done, as long as we bear in mind which we are doing at any particular moment. Thus we could use charts in a predictive way precisely in terms of planetary strength and therefore current or predicted influences. That is we read the predictive chart in a different way from the radix. That's a point that Dave makes regularly (and rightly so).

As most 12 house quadrant systems give only marginal differences in house placement, and not at all in angular placements (by which I mean within say 15 degrees of an angle), the effect of the difference in choice is likely to be minimal in determining planetary strength, though it might make some difference in a consideration of the 'topics' in a person's life.

If forced to choose, I would opt for planetary strength over topical relevance. Even with 12 houses, I give planetary strength precedence over topicality where the intermediary houses are concerned. (BTW, thanks for pointing me at traditional methods for this over the last year.) Even a stellium in one house is, uppermost, a combination of planetary forces and only secondarily a concatenation of topical references. Or so it seems to me.
 

Minderwiz

If forced to choose, I would opt for planetary strength over topical relevance. Even with 12 houses, I give planetary strength precedence over topicality where the intermediary houses are concerned. (BTW, thanks for pointing me at traditional methods for this over the last year.) Even a stellium in one house is, uppermost, a combination of planetary forces and only secondarily a concatenation of topical references. Or so it seems to me.

I don't think it's an either/or situation. We can do both but it's important that we know which we are doing at any one time. Also they're not completely separate activities. The Angular houses are the most important even in Whole Sign systems, followed in general terms by Succeedents and ending with cadents, though this is modified by taking into account a second factor, that is whether the House makes a major aspect to the Ascendant. Planets in aspect to the Ascendant gain strength.

Since my previous post, I've found something by Firmicus Maternus on the 8 House system. He was a fourth century Hellenistic Astrologer, so he's towards the end of the Hellenistic period. Also he's more a reporter than a practioner, so I have some doubts about his knowledge of this system. Nevertheless for what it's worth His topical meanings are:

House 1 - Life
House 2 - Money (and resources)
House 3 - Brothers (and presumably Sisters too)
House 4 - Parents
House 5 -Sons (and Daughters)
House 6 - Health
House 7 - Marriage
House 8 Death

The IC divides house two from house 3, the Descendant divides house 4 from house 5 and the MC divides house 6 from house 7. This makes Life, Marriage, Children and Brothers the angular houses - which is clearly a very family centred division and reflects the vital nature of family in those times (without family it's difficult to maintain life in a predominantly agricultural environment).

He doesn't give a rationale, for the system, so I suspect it's something he's come across but there's no one who he can contact who can explain it. Manillius refers to the four spaces between the angles as reflecting the four stages of human life - which is not an unreasonable idea, even to modern ears.

This missing houses compared to the twelfth house system, are the last 4, which suggests that a some stage, the MC was not identified with action or career, indeed that this was not considered important to be separately shown. I tentatively think this might be an indicator that the system was again linked in some way to the length of life calculation but that's really pure guess work on my part and I'll have to read Manillius to get more information.

I've seen claims that the references to an 8 house system are through misunderstanding and that Patrice Guinard (weblink cited above) is in a minority in his views. I'm not able to take a clear view, though a 12 sign zodiac lends itself to 12 houses - and Whole Sign houses if the '12' are accepted.

Your right that the 8 house system really only allows Conjunctions oppositions and squares, which suggests predominantly pessimistic readings - which again might have accounted for it being rejected. It perhaps also explains why those three rank above trines and sextiles in Astrological theory (because they are later additions?).
 

Barleywine

Since my previous post, I've found something by Firmicus Maternus on the 8 House system.

. . . for what it's worth His topical meanings are:

House 1 - Life
House 2 - Money (and resources)
House 3 - Brothers (and presumably Sisters too)
House 4 - Parents
House 5 -Sons (and Daughters)
House 6 - Health
House 7 - Marriage
House 8 Death

The IC divides house two from house 3, the Descendant divides house 4 from house 5 and the MC divides house 6 from house 7. This makes Life, Marriage, Children and Brothers the angular houses - which is clearly a very family centred division and reflects the vital nature of family in those times (without family it's difficult to maintain life in a predominantly agricultural environment).

He doesn't give a rationale, for the system, so I suspect it's something he's come across but there's no one who he can contact who can explain it. Manillius refers to the four spaces between the angles as reflecting the four stages of human life - which is not an unreasonable idea, even to modern ears.

This missing houses compared to the twelfth house system, are the last 4, which suggests that a some stage, the MC was not identified with action or career, indeed that this was not considered important to be separately shown. I tentatively think this might be an indicator that the system was again linked in some way to the length of life calculation but that's really pure guess work on my part and I'll have to read Manillius to get more information.

Your right that the 8 house system really only allows Conjunctions oppositions and squares, which suggests predominantly pessimistic readings - which again might have accounted for it being rejected. It perhaps also explains why those three rank above trines and sextiles in Astrological theory (because they are later additions?).

Perhaps, in an agrarian society, marriage and the resultant melding with another extended family were considered the pinnacle of social engagement, before the merchant class and the craft guilds came into prominence. With an average life-span somewhere in the 30's or 40's, they would barely have had time to raise the children to maturity before death took them. The peasant class (even though they weren't much exposed to the practice of court astrology), also didn't really have access to the wider world implied by the last four houses.

Pessimism seemed to be a stock-in-trade for the German astrologers back in the 1970s (Ebertin, even though as a Cosmobiologist he didn't use house systems, seemed to epitomize that), which is why we were exploring the square and semi-square model. Also, the midpoints in a "flat" chart fell at 15 degrees of fixity, which seemed significant at the time. The trend in psychological astrology was to see those historically difficult aspects as spurs to self-development ("developmental stress") rather than outright obstacles or blockages. I suspect that the abandonment of the 8-house system had more to do with the fact that it didn't blend well with the 12 signs, as you noted. I'll be interested to see what you find out.
 

dadsnook2000

A suggestion

There is one suggestion that is seldom made, yet it can accelerate the learning process greatly. Advertise in a local newspaper, at a library bulletin board, or other such place to find others interested in studying astrology. You would not be looking for a teacher or someone who sells canned reports or gives lectures. You need only others having a similar inclination as you do to study astrology.

Set no limits on levels of expertise or time studying. Just find others who wish to study, who have studies, or who are currently studying astrology. Start a group. Meet at a library or a home, or rotate among homes/apartments. Keep costs, if any, at a minimum.

Share charts. Explain to each other how you might read a portion of a chart. The experience of being with others will be the best self-teaching path you can follow. In time, those who are a bit further along the learning curve will help the others to follow. The diversity of interests will broaden your approach to astrology and introduce you to various methods and techniques. You, as a group, will be able to share books and expand your access to more material. This is the most satisfying and dynamic approach to learning astrology. Dave