The House Wars of Astrology

Recently I watched a video on astrological domification posted by Deborah Houlding, whose work I have followed and admired for many years. Deb expressed her concern that the current popularity of what are called “Whole Sign Houses” might interfere with the newer generation of astrologers being able to understand the conceptual underpinnings of mundane houses. Unfortunately, Deb was somewhat polemical and provocative in her presentation and at times made factually inaccurate statements, which her critics have pounced on rather than trying to understand the gist of her presentation. Nonetheless, I felt that Deb’s argument was worth pondering, and I posted a link to her video on my Facebook page.

The response to the link to Deb’s video was quite startling. I felt like a tourist visiting the Holy Land when the Crusades broke out. It was like being in the midst of a religious war with opposing cults battling each other to the death over whose dogma had God’s blessing. In any case, the back and forth discussion did produce several valuable statements and references, which I’d like to summarize.

My name became linked to the controversy because about 20 years ago I had translated Morin’s Book 18 from Latin to English and discovered, to my great surprise, that he sometimes used the relative position of the signs with respect to the rising sign to derive house-related meanings of position of planets in those signs. For example, a planet in the 8th house is determined toward death but if the planet lies in the 9th sign from the Ascendant, it is also determined toward activities in a foreign land. At first I did not want to believe that Morin treated signs in this way, but after finding many instances in his chart examples I had to concede that Morin sometimes read house significations from the signs in which they planets resided. Even today, however, I see comments in forums by otherwise learned astrologers that I must have misunderstood or mistranslated Morin because, in their opinion, he could not have used signs as houses, but none of these critics has carefully read or argued from Morin’s original Latin text in which he unequivocally states that signs can accidentally carry the significations of the houses. Personal bias dominates their thinking rather than the explicit words of Morinus.

Upon further reflection I realized that in my own experience I had noticed signs at times acting like houses. When I was first learning astrology in my teens I kept a journal of the planets conjoining my house cusps (Placidus at the time) and noticed that often an event related to the meaning of the house took place close to the conjunction with the cusp but also when the planet entered the sign on the house cusp. This seemed odd to me, but it occurred repeatedly. It was as if the planet conjoining the cusp of the Sign on the house cusp “triggered” an event related to the cusp of the house of the same Sign.

At the same time popular astrology was using whole signs as houses in newspaper forecasts. Since the astrologer did not know the birth times of millions of readers, he or she could cast a chart with the Sun sign rising and all the other signs acting as houses. Then, it was easy to forecast the month ahead for thousands of readers at a time if they shared the same sun sign. The modern use of Whole Sign Houses has been with us since the early days of pop astrology and sun-sign horoscopes in the press. Sophisticated astrologers tended to poo-poo sun-sign pop astrology based on Whole Sign Houses as not being genuine astrology, which requires a chart with an accurate birth time and quadrant houses that begin at the degree of the Ascendant.

One thing I learned from the postings on Facebook was that a similar controversy was going on in ancient Egypt between the pop or lay astrologers and the more sophisticated astrologers of the period. Chris Brennan, who has been a pioneer in teaching and promoting Hellenistic astrology, posted on my Facebook page the following images which quote about the Egyptian  “Vulgärastrologen,” from a German text by Koch and Knappich on the Houses, translated by Jenn Zahrt:

Reading this text by Knappich, a respected authority on the history of house systems, we see that in ancient Egypt the “lay” or pop astrologers were in “absolute rebellion” against the hard-ball nerdy mathematically-mined astrologers who were into precise astronomical calculations, ascensional times, the use of the cardines, etc. To me this sounds like the ancient Egyptian warring camps of astrologers were debating whether to use a quadrant system of house division or to use the whole signs as if they were houses (the “house-less manner” or the “sign equals house” method, according to Knappish and Koch) as do the sun-sign pop astrologers today. There appears to be no doubt historically that whole signs were used instead of what we now call Mundane Houses by a vocal group of pop astrologers in ancient Egypt. To be fair, these authors also state that “the oldest, actually “house-less manner” was used later also by learned astrologers like for example Palchos.” Unfortunately, I do not have this book and therefore cannot comment on how the authors develop their argument or what their final conclusion are toward the end of the book. My comments here are based solely on the passages provided to me by Chris Brennan.

Note in the passage by Koch and Knappich, which Chris Brennan posted on my Facebook page, how the authors go out of their way to call the use of whole signs as if they were Houses as a “house-less manner” of working with a chart or a “sign equals house” method, but they carefully avoid calling is a House system, and they never use the term “whole sign houses.” For those who read German, Chris also posted on my Facebook page the original German text by Knappich and Koch:

Michel Ibarra added some historical perspective to the debate: “For some needed perspective, there are 278 extant horoscopes from the 1st to the 6th century CE. Out of those, 32 note the degrees of the Ascendant and the Midheaven, 21 note the degree of the Ascendant only, and the remaining 225 only note the Sign of the Ascendant.” Michel noted that he arrived at these statistics in collaboration with Chris Brennan. Michel and Chris view these statistics as definitive proof that Valens and other early astrologers were using whole signs as houses. Deb Houlding, on the other hand, accepts these statistics as valid but argues that they are not necessarily proof of the use of whole sign houses. Instead, if I understand Deb correctly, she feels that these statistics reflect a shorthand way of describing a chart, in other words, essential features from which trained astrologers could generate a detailed chart, including mundane houses demarcated by specific zodiacal degrees.

No one disagrees with the statistics gathered by Chris Brennan about how ancient astrologers described their charts. The question is, what do those statistics imply? They could be interpreted as suggesting the use of signs as houses, as Chris sees it, or alternatively they could be interpreted as a shorthand which astrologers would use to generate a detailed chart, as Deb sees it.

Let me give a personal example. I first came across the charts of Palchos back in the 1980s when I read the book by Neugebauer and Van Hoesen. At that time I was unaware of the ancient use of signs as houses, so I assumed from by 20th century perspective that Palchos must have used one of the early quadrant systems, especially because he provided the degree of the MC in his text. Koch and Knappish make it a point that Palchos “inserted the true MC” into the chart, implying that the whole sign method does not reflect the “true” MC because it is a “house-less” method. With the data provided by Palchos, I reconstructed the chart with Porphyry houses, and the delineation of Palchos fit nicely into my 20th century quadrant-house view of the chart. Hence, I was surprised that Koch and Knappich stated that Palchos used only whole signs as houses. My point is that Chris saw the description by Palchos and concluded that it implied whole sign houses. I saw the same written text some 35 years ago and assumed that it implied Porphyry houses. The specifics of this particular chart are not the issue; rather, the issue is what you can or cannot definitely conclude from a written set of chart data about the house system which the author is using.

If, centuries from now, we were to look back on all the horoscopes mentioned in writing in the 20th century we would most likely find that sun-sign horoscopes with whole signs as houses dominated the astrological writings of the 20th century. They appear often in a large number of newspapers and magazines. What could we conclude about the modern practice of astrology from such statistics? Would it be reasonable to conclude that sun-sign pop astrology is the best practice of the celestial art? I write this not to disparage pop astrology but to point out that the use of whole signs as houses has pervaded the experience which most people have of astrology in the popular press.

Interestingly, one of the sources cited in the too-and-fro about astrological Houses was a recent academic article by Martin Gansten, an excellent astrologer and a respected academic expert on the topic. Here is an abstract of Gansten’s paper (bold is mine) in which he argues that the use of whole signs as houses was a matter of convenience (as with modern pop astrology in newspaper columns) but that the calculation of the cusps of the “places” by degree was considered the more accurate and useful way to do astrology by knowledgeable practitioners (which is essentially the argument that Deb Houlding makes in her polemical video):

Abstract

“From the ancient practice, implied by many textual sources although never formally prescribed, of identifying the twelve horoscopic places (the δωδεκάτροπος dōdekatropos) with the zodiacal signs, recent scholarship has often concluded that such identification constituted a tenet of ancient astrology even at a conceptual level. On the basis of a close reading of Vettius Valens’ Anthologies, supported by other ancient sources, this paper argues that while the places, like other elements of horoscopic practice, were often provisionally approximated by sign position alone, calculation of places by degree, with boundaries differing from those of the zodiacal signs, was consistently upheld in principle as more accurate and useful. Specifically, Valens’ preference appears to have been for places calculated from the quadrants formed by the intersections of horizon and meridian, a method also occasionally used in the Anthologies for defining planetary configurations and for annual transmission (παράδοσις paradosis). In several cases, such methods are explicitly employed even for horoscopes presented in a simple, signs-only format.”

The 2022 paper by Molina Escolano-Poveda which describes three new ancient Egyptian horoscopes from the 1st century BCE appears to support Martin Gansten’s position, especially in their use of the 4 Angles (Cardines) in calculating the horoscope chart.

The 4th century astrologer Julius Firmicus Maternus is also in agreement with Gansten’s hypothesis. In the Matheosis (II:14, 3-4) we find the following explanation:

3 Platice vitae locus est in eo signo, in quo est horoscopus constitutus, spei vel pecuniae in secundo horoscopi signo, fratrum in tertio, parentum in quarto, filiorum in quinto, valitudinis in sexto, coniugis in septimo, mortis in octavo. Quae omnia initium ab horoscopo facientes hac nominum definitione signavimus: vitae spei fratrum parentum filiorum valitudinis coniugis mortis. 4 Sed haec, sicut superius diximus, platice ad informanda initia discentis dixisse sufficiat; postea vero, quatenus haec loca suptili partium definitione monstrantur, explicare curabimus.

Here is my quick translation: “Speaking in generalities, the Place of Life is in the sign in which the Horoskopos is found, of Hope and Money in the 2nd sign of the horoscope, of Siblings in the 3rd, of Parents in the 4th, of Children in the 5th, of Illness in the 6th, of Spouses in the 7th, and of Death in the 8th. All these things measured from the Horoskopos we have indicated with the defining names: life, hope & siblings, parents, children, illness, spouses, and death. But these things, as we have said above, are sufficient in a general way to introduce the ideas to the beginning student; later on [once the students are more advanced], we will carefully explain the extent to which the Places are defined precisely in degrees (suptili partium definitione).” — Firmicus Maternus

This passage from Maternus gives a valuable perspective. As a teacher, he began by introducing novice students to the signs as if they were houses. Later, after the students had gained some experience working with charts, he taught they how to use houses defined more precisely by particular degrees of the zodiac.

A recent YouTube video by David Cochrane gives a useful perspective on the issue of zodiac signs versus mundane houses in astrology. He visually demonstrates the astronomical difference between the ecliptic (the home of the zodiac signs) and the equator, upon which mundane houses are based. The use of whole signs as houses and of mundane quadrant houses are each well-established and widely used in the literature dating back to Hellenistic times. We ought to ponder what each technique has to offer rather than get involved in hostile diatribes about different methods of practice.

In a video on Chris Brennan’s Astrology Podcast, Luis Ribeiro explains the various methods of quadrant house division. This is the best lecture on domification I have seen in all my years studying astrology, and I highly recommend it.

In summary, as I understand the arguments, there appears to be no doubt that whole zodiacal signs were used in ancient Egypt in the manner in which we use mundane Houses today. Koch and Knappish called the oldest manner of using signs as houses “eigentlich häuser-lose” which means “in fact, house-less” and to my mind these authors view it as less sophisticated than the use of the mundane houses. The “sign = house” system was extremely popular among the group of lay or pop astrologers who revolted against the more rigorous mathematically and astronomically minded astrologers of the period who insisted on precise measurements and the use of cardines (the four Angles). Nonetheless, some quite learned ancient astrologers used whole signs as houses. Firmicus Maternus explains how he taught beginning students the “sign = house” manner of delineating chart to introduce them to the art and later, when the students became more advanced, he introduced houses defined more precisely by degrees of the zodiac. At least in this case a learned astrologer attempted to integrate the two systems in his method of teaching.

To rephrase Deb Houlding’s argument (I hope accurately): As modern astrologers, do we want to limit ourselves to ancient Egyptian pop astrology, similar to the sun-sign astrology of newspaper columns today, or do we want to become nerdy, more mathematically oriented astrologers who work from a sophisticated understanding of the 3-dimensional astronomy that underlies our art?

My own view is strongly influenced by my long study of the work of Morinus who advocated the use of quadrant houses based on the diurnal rotation of the Earth and the projection of the Earth’s Equator onto the Celestial Sphere. For theoretical reasons, I lean more toward Placidus than Regiomontanus, which is the system Morinus favored (partly because they made him look so intellectually superior in his own natal chart). Even Morin, however, at times used the zodiac signs in his delineations as being analogous to mundane houses, so he found a theoretically satisfactory way to combine the two distinct systems.

In the end, it will come down to the experience each astrologer has with a chosen house system. I lean toward the more nerdy approach to house division, but it may turn out that the simpler whole sign system works just as well, or even better, in practice with clients. I am grateful to Chris Brennan for teaching me about the whole sign system in Hellenistic astrology. I am also grateful to Deb Houlding for her teachings about the use of the Regiomontanus system in horary. Morinus also deserves recognition for demonstrating a way to combine quadrant houses (Regiomontanus) with the “sign = house” approach. The proof of the pudding, however, will always be in the eating.