Hi all,

I will probably kick myself when I get the answer to this one, but I am wondering which house should I should use in order to try and determine the identity of a murderer who was never caught.

If the question was asked 'Who was the murderer?', then is the murderer the 7th cusp of open enemies in that we are speaking of a killer, a predator, or is it more appropriately the 12th, as the identity of the killer is as yet unknown.

I am unsure about the 7th, because this cusp opposes the Ascendant, and I am speaking of no enemy of my own, but someone who has killed another.

My thoughts keep returning to the 12th, because it is the house of the secret, unfathomable and undisclosed, and after all, the question concerns trying to determine the identity of a killer who was never caught.

Once the appropriate house for the killer has been determined, then should the cusp directly opposite that house not represent the victim?

I will cut to the chase here, my question is 'Who was Jack the Ripper'?

So is the Ripper the 7th, the 12th, which would befit should an elusive and mysterious character which pervades the nightmares of people the world over, or should I opt for another house all together? What house should I look to for what is essentially a nfamous legendary figure?

I cannot proceed with the horary until I have clarified this, although for now, I'm drawn to the 12th.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Draco

Hi Draco,

Just to confuse things even further, I lean towards the first house. Some astrologers see this as appropriate when asking a question that does not involve the querent in any way. You do not need to be in this chart. A number of astrologers would put the killer on the ascendant as the person who initiated the action. I'm inclined to agree with this. It is difficult when there has been so much conjecture and so many suspects over the years to keep an open mind. There is always the possibility that it is someone we have never heard of. Maybe the ruler of the 1st will be in the 12th. I would look to the 7th for the victims.

Good luck with your quest. Let us know what you come up with.

Hi Sue,

Thankyou for yor response.

It is a breath of fresh air actually for you to say that the first house is the most appropriate, as after scratching my head over all the possibilites this would seem to make most sense.

I had just been thinking about this possibility. Why would I need to reserve the Ascendant for myself when it is a completely impersonal question?

When I cast the chart, the thing which stood out to me was the Scorpio Ascendant. How appropriate for a question about Jack the Ripper.

I will have a look at the chart using the first for the killer and the seventh for the victims.

It is difficult when there has been so much conjecture and so many suspects over the years to keep an open mind.

Very true. I was thinking about looking to the significator and then, by the type of person it might describe, then seeing which of the suspects (of which there are scores) might best fit the profile. Then it would be a case of whittling these down further, and when having identified the most likely candidate, simply asking of a horary: 'Was this Jack the Ripper?', and taking it from there.

Ther is also the possibility that the killer was someone unknown who has never been a suspect, but I will trust that the chart might reveal whether the killer was someone suspected or someone completely unknown.

I will post my thoughts here tomorrow.

Cheers Sue,

Draco

Is there really any such thing as ?a completely impersonal question?? Your inclinations have to lie somewhere; if you were completely devoid of emotive interest I doubt you?d be drawing the chart.

In charts where there is no definable relationship like in this situation, you would normally associate the person who is seen as the enemy with the 7th house, because the 7th house has natural signification over those we collectively view as enemies, fugitives from justice, attackers, those people that society aims to hunt down, and anyone you feel naturally hostile towards.

If you are asking about a missing person that you sympathise with, you would assign that person to the ascendant, because the relationship you are holding with the person asked about is one of sympathy and shared concern, so you identify with them. But that isn?t the case here. I presume your sympathy doesn?t lie with Jack the Ripper but that you view Jack as an enemy to society.

You wouldn?t use the 12th house because Jack is known to be an enemy even though his identity is unknown. In the same way, if you were asking ?who is the thief?, the fact that you know there is a thief makes this a 7th house issue and you would aim to get a description from the 7th house influences. It would only be a 12th house issue if you didn?t know whether there was a thief or not, eg ?do I have a secret enemy who is stealing from me?? It?s very rare that we need to use the 12th house because usually we are thinking of someone in particular and holding them up for suspicion. So even if you asked ?Is Peter my secret enemy?? it would still be a 7th house issue because you have identified Peter as a potential enemy. Lilly talks about this and says that if you are able to name someone who you suspect as a secret enemy it should be treated as a 7th house matter. This is why some people believe that if you name someone they automatically assume 7th house signification which isn?t what Lilly meant and isn?t the case at all.

Some time ago we had a chart that involved a kidnapping and possible murder. You raised the possibility of giving the kidnapper the 1st house and the 7th to the victim leaving out the querent altogether because she did not know anyone involved. This makes sense to me. How is this so different? Since the focus of the question is Jack the Ripper and not the victims it seems more logical to give him the ascendant as the initiator of the action. I realise that the 7th is used for the collective enemy but you cannot assume that the querent's sympathies are with the victims. (I'm speaking generally here of course and not suggesting anything about Draco's question). From the point of view of Jack the Ripper, it was the girls he murdered who were the enemies.

I can?t remember the kidnap chart you are referring to, but was it an event chart? Event charts usually give the ascendant to the one who initiates action so there might have been the suggestion that we consider the ascendant from that angle. Even on that basis I would be less than confident in proposing it as a general principle, but there is more of a sense of detached observation in event charts than horaries, because in a horary the only empowerment of the moment of study is that which we create from our engagement with the question. So we?re identifying in some element of the drama, and associating with Jack through sympathy or antipathy.

There has been a lot of confusion about this sort of issue recently and I have been checking it out in a variety of sources over a long period of time ? partly because of the suggestion that some modern authors make that all missing persons or anyone that is named should be attributed to the 7th house. The traditional sources are all quite clear about it and my fuller explanation of it is given in the pdf extract below on 7th house rulerships on practice.

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/temples/seventh.pdf

From the point of view of Jack the Ripper, it was the girls he murdered who were the enemies.

If Jack were asking the question, or if we were seeing it from his point of view (therefore sympathising/identifying with him), he would go on the ascendant. But I'm assuming this isn't the case.

Yes, it quite possibly was an event chart. And I certainly agree that there has been a misinterpretation by many modern astrologers of giving the 7th to anyone who is named or missing. But I still question the wisdom of always giving the 7th to the 'enemy'. This is more in relation to a chart where the querent is not necessarily involved. Obviously if there was a potential victim or family member etc. asking the question it would be a clear cut case of the querent having the 1st and Jack having the 7th but I don't see it as so clear cut under these circumstances. For me, this goes back to the issue of whether we really can get a satisfactory answer from horaries of this nature and how much involvement someone can have in a question such as this. How do you place the querent in the chart of a question such as that of Jack the Ripper? If the querent doesn't get the first then who does and how do we decide? Is it good enough to just say that the 'enemy' always gets the 7th so the victim gets the 1st? Does the victim really belong in the 1st or is it just by default because we have decided that the enemy always gets the 7th? It still makes more sense to me to give JtheR the first, particularly in light of the fact that the emphasis of the question was on him. The querent may not be sympathising or identifying with him but he is focussed on him. And if the 1st and 7th are occupied by the victim and perpetrator then where does the querent go? If the querent doesn't belong anywhere in the chart then is it really a viable question?

This is more in relation to a chart where the querent is not necessarily involved.

If the querent doesn't get the first then who does and how do we decide?

If the querent doesn't belong anywhere in the chart then is it really a viable question?

That was sort of my point; that there is no such thing as a horary where the querent has no personal involvement. There has to be a concern or an emotive impulse for the question to be asked, so in a sense the querent always gets the first house and significations are identified according to whether they sympathise with the focus of the question or are seeking to hunt it down. We might then take the person asking the question out of the description offered, but they originate the question so they are never really dissociated from it or from their association with the ascendant. Whether such a chart is going to be reliable is another matter. This is turning into the ?third person horary? debate isn?t it?

This is turning into the ?third person horary? debate isn?t it?

Yep. Afraid so. Although I am trying to avoid that.

If we don't know whether or not someone is stealing from us, then we don't know whether or not there is a thief. Why does he get a house, then?

He doesn't get a house. I generally wouldn't assign the 12th house in this way when asking a question about a potential enemy but would consider a significator in the 12th house rather important. So, for example, if we did a horary about Jack and gave him the 7th house ( ) and that significator was in the 12th house I would say there is a good chance his identity will remain hidden.

There is elegance in simplicity, and in the case of Jack the Ripper, if we use the 7th for the victims, the radical 6th is where I'd look for him: the enemy (secret or otherwise) of the victims.

Sorry, why are you giving the 7th to the victims? And I take it that you are suggesting the radical 6th as the 12th from the 7th. Why are we turning the chart? Or have I missed something here?

Lilly gives the radical 12th to prostitutes. All the Ripper's victims were prostitutes, so maybe the 11th (12th of the 12th) is worth a look.

So, then, why would you turn the chart in this situation to get the victims? We've got the 1st, 6th, 7th, 11th and 12th as possibilities. Any advance on that?

The Greeks had a simple system. The 12th was enemies: period. It didn't mater if they were open or closed, secret or blatant, known or guessed about, larger or smaller than a goat.

I know that in a footnote to Valens? Anthology IV, Schmidt writes that in Greek astrology the 7th house has nothing to do with enemies and hostilities and that this does not seem to come into the tradition until the 8th century. Yet on the other hand we know that the western angle was used to signify enemies and hostilities in the more ancient sources that the classical astrologers relied upon.

I haven?t checked this out in too many sources but we would have to disregard the Carmen Astrologicum of Dorotheus. He used the 7th house to represent adversaries, quarrels (and people we are in quarrels with), troubles, insults and fighting. In legal conflicts the defendant is given to the ascendant and the person they are fighting against is given to the 7th. To get a description of an unknown thief we use ?the stars which at that hour are opposite the ascendant.? (v33-35)

This is not just in the 5th book which I consider completely compatible with the style of the technique described elsewhere. In the other books too we have comments such as Mercury in the west causes quarrels and slander (II.27) or ?If Jupiter is in the ascendant while Mars is in the west, then the native will be better than his enemies and superior to them?. (II.24)

This is despite the fact that the 7th house is generally referred to as the house of marriage, as in other classical texts. Erasistratos also refers to the use of the descendant in the identification of theives (CCAG1 94-97). It seems obvious to me that in most texts the knowledge of the 7th house as being ?opposing? was known and used.

For example, Firmicus might be held up as an example of someone who only used the 7th house for marriage, saying of it ?From this house we shall inquire as to the nature and number of marriages?. Yet he adds: ?But this house is aspected most detrimentally to the ascendant for it is in opposition?, without dwelling further on the meaning of that comment at that point. (XIX). But again, reading on, we find references that show the house being used as one of hostility and danger. Mars in the 7th house, for example, doesn?t simply signify arguments in marriage, but criminals and murderers, accusations, and people who are accused of crimes. Venus in the 7th brings great scandal over love affairs, and Mercury here makes fugitives and exiles, condemned persons and scandals. The references to this house being associated with malicious actions, accusations, crimes, criminals and people we seek to condemn, capture and imprison continue throughout the book.

So I don?t think Schmidt is correct in saying the 7th ?has nothing to do with enemies and hostilities? in that period, and we know that the association existed in the more ancient tradition and that the 7th house has been associated with the enemy in all of the main sources that demonstrate horary technique. Because of the weak influence of the 12th house it is more to do with situations where we endure victimisation and feel oppressed, so we experience the feeling of being beset by enemies or calamities, but I have never seen any horary astrologer use this house to signify the enemy that is known about, whose impact and influence is direct.

There isn?t any confusion in Lilly?s work. If you know you have an enemy, they are represented by the 7th house.