At present my vote goes to India as the birth place of this house system.

In the early 1970's I attended a workshop at the New York Astrology Center given by the late Hindu astrologer, B.V. Raman. He began presenting his charts and immediately we got first our first surprise. The charts were of course sidereal; that was no surprise. The surprise was the house system! His chart consisted of twelve squares or rectangles arranged in a larger square or rectangle (the South Indian form). [The form is posted at the end of this column.] In this South Indian form the houses are given as signs (rashis) which are always arranged as above, The sign rising is then marked either with a line in one of the corners or a diagonal line going from the lower left to the upper right of the square or rectangle representing the rising sign. The midheaven is not given. Also note that the signs are listed clockwise rather than the more familiar counterclockwise. However, the form was not so much the surprise as the fact that the houses each consisted of an entire sign and only one sign, and in fact the houses coincided with the signs, except that as houses they are counted from the rising sign. We dubbed this the ?Whole-Sign House System.? I remember turning to a friend and saying ?I wonder if this is what Ptolemy was actually doing.? By that time I had enough familiarity with Ptolemy to realize that he did not seem to be using either Placidus, as Placidus thought, or Equal Houses as most others thought.

My conclusion is that the most accurate name for this system is simply "Indian Equal House." (As Raman and Rohiniranjan termed it.) The system doesn't really belong either to B. V. Raman or Vehlow, both now departed from the earth. It's simply a system that has been kept alive in common use by India's astrologers.

...but how does sidereal adopt 30 degree segments when the signs are not 30 degrees using sidereal signs? maybe someone can answer it privately to me or in a separate thread.. i can't figure that out.. if one goes with 360 degree circles and 12 signs - i don't get it sidereally..

It would take something of a paradigm shift to move from ''Vehlow'' to ''Indian Equal houses''. I thought Vehlow-Raman or Raman-Vehlow was at least a recognition of the Indian role here and highlighted the two most famous practitoners of this one approach bringing together eastern and western astrology.

I have discovered there is a B.V. Raman Association and I intend to write to them.

Mark wrote:I have had interest in this system for a couple of years now. I have been unsatisfied with quadrant systems for much longer than that. Not least due to the problem of latitude on quadrant houses. Living in Scotland I see many natal examples of Placidus houses with the classic large or shrunken houses. While i understand the astronomical reason for this I find it unsatisying.

I use whole sign houses and get results which I am quite happy with. I accept I am biased but I consistently see whole sign houses producing more reliable delineation of natal issues. However, in whole sign there is the issue of charts with very late ascending degrees. I tend to examine those in equal too. But in many ways I find the Vehlow-Raman system more appealing.

On reading Vehlow I found myself rather supporting his full on criticism of placidus houses!

Symbolically, I really like the idea of associating the houses with the rising Sun (rather than the unequal ascensional rising times of signs). While rising times may vary the transiting Sun can be approximated into 30 degrees. Its traditional orb was 30 degrees with an orb 15 degrees before and behind it. This fits the Vehlow houses.

The early meaning of many of the houses can also be symbolically related to solar mysticism and the diurnal Sun starting at the ASC and moving clockwise through the houses.

Another argument I like for this house system is that it helps to explain the so called Gauguelin effect. Its true medieval astrology (following Ptolemy) allowed a 5 degree orb before a cusp. So the house effectively started 5 degrees before the cusp. But this frequently fails to explain the large number of prominent people with clusters of planets in quadrant or equal sign 12th house houses.

The ASC is after all a power point in the chart. The idea you often find in modern astrology that anything above the ASC degree is by definition automatically weak seems nonsensical to me.

Looking at Babylonian astrology planets rising in the sky were often seen as at their most powerful. Cutting off a house at the ASC degree loses that visual astrology dimension. Influence around the ASC doesn't stop immediately. Its more like a light that gradually fades out.

As I see it only house systems that frequently start the 1st house above the ASC can deal with this.

Excluding the so callled clockwise house system that counts the 12th as the first , 11th as second etc we only have 3 conventional house systems that really address this paradox:

Whole sign
Sripati
Vehlow-Raman

Of course one could be more radical and reject houses altogether but I am trying to stay within the confines of fairly orthodox astrology.

Very often what other astrologers see as 12th house planets I see in reverse as 1st house with whole sign. I can think of several natal delineations where this has proved more relaible.

While I intend to stick with whole signs I think Vehlow is a good system to measure planetary strength with. Although advocates of quadrant systems will inevitably argue it loses the centrality of the MC for the 10th. That of course is a point that also applies to whole sign and equal.

If you prefer quadrant houses you could use Sripati houses. These are a variant of Porphyry houses where the cusps are placeed at the centre of houses not the beginning/ end. This is a popular system in India today.

Lets look at a practical example. Below is the opening of poll chart for the UK General election next week. It can be seen as a kind of contest chart with the incumbents/status quo indicated by ASC and challenger(change) indicated by the DESC. The chart is displayed in Placidus houses.

If one uses Vehlow-Raman ,Whole sign or Sripati houses this Mercury is strong in the first house. Its not as powerful as it could be since it is over 10 degrees from the ASC. Still it is the domicile ruler in its own sign in the first house. A powerful indicator for the incumbent. Although a square to Neptune indicates confusion over the outcome.

But if you use a quadrant house system like Placidus, Alcabitius, Porphyry, Regiomontanus etc (or Equal) the ASC ruler Mercury is weak as it falls in the 12th house. Which is it?

This seems like a good test of the competing house systems!

If David Cameron loses next week I may need to return to the drawing board...

Mark

Looks like Sripati or WS were correct.

I have the Sun at 18 capricorn,like the conservative party?s AC. That may explain why I had a better time there under Thatcher than under Blair,though I didnt like her.

naomibennett9 wrote:I have only just discovered this thread of the German Vehlow using the Asc as the middle of the first house. This is the very thing that Carl Payne Tobey and I advocate and the Gauguelin effect supports.

The old square medieval charts had triangular houses with the apex of the triangle as the cusp point. This placed the cusp in the middle of an equal house--the very same point that Tobey, Vehlow and I advocate.

(I have an example but I cannot figure out how to insert an image here). Drag and drop doesn't work


Mark Cullen, is there a translation of Vehlow's work in English??? I"m most interested in what he wrote on this subject.

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I just read Hamilton's post of BV Raman. Carl Payne Tobey and Raman used to correspond with each other in the 1950's about equal houses. It has been Tobey's practice to use the Asc as the Center of the house since the 1930's. So it may be Tobey as the source of this practice of BV Raman adopted after his correspondence with Tobey years ago.