Hi JohnLi,

It is not my experience (29 years astrology) that planets in the region 5 degrees before a house could be considered as being in that next house, neither that they have an influence in that house.
In my experience the house boundaries are as sharp as blades of a knife, just as the positions of the planets withing a sign are to be take in that sign and not in the next sign, even if a planet has 29.59 as position.

I notice you are using Placidus houses in the chart you gave the link to. Have you always relied on this house system over the 29 year period you refer to?

I tend to feel the choices we make determine what we see in a chart. In other words you will see it when you believe it. If you use the 5 degree rule you will see that working, if not its visa versa. I doubt these issues can ever be settled. Its a question of consciousness not truth and falsehood in my opinion.

However, one thing everyone seems to agree on is the power of planets ingressing a different sign. I have recently been using whole signs houses for natal which of course eliminates discussion such as the 5 degree rule as well as the issue of intercepting signs in houses.

Hi MarkC,

Yes, I've been using the Placidus system all the since the beginning of my astrological path and never changed it since, just as exactly I use the same systems of progressions from day#1

I happened to get into contact with one the dutch most productive astrologers ever who made 40.000 charts in his 45 years of practice. I've known him for about 28 years and we worked a lot together. He always used Placidus and made a lot of predictions up to the very 1 day difference. So I am following his footsteps which I decided very long ago when I was his student for a long time.

The experience from practice is that house boundaries are strict. They are not fuzzy. The 5 degree rule from the Ancients originiated probably from the idea of inaccuracy of the calculations, especially at night. So probably they decided that a "secure" area of 5 degress would suffice.

The same kind of thing happened with the structures in horary astrology where 27-30 degrees and 0-3 were "unsafe" for a delineation.
But today with our incredible accuracy of calculations there is no reason to do this.

I am only telling the Placidus worked for me very fine and surely there are many others who use some other house system, which is OK of course.

In my experience the house boundaries are as sharp as blades of a knife, just as the positions of the planets withing a sign are to be take in that sign and not in the next sign, even if a planet has 29.59 as position.

I don't think likening house cusps (which change every minute) and sign cusps (which don't ever change) in this way is a good way to go. I've always thought of house cusps as more permeable than sign cusps simply due to how variable they are.

The 5 degree rule from the Ancients originiated probably from the idea of inaccuracy of the calculations, especially at night. So probably they decided that a "secure" area of 5 degress would suffice.

Maybe I'm making up an excuse for them, but I was always under the impression that they were giving the sun space to get off of the Ascendant (The sun at 2? above the Ascendant still has like half of it under the horizon.) So they gave the 5? rule to let the sun and other planets be completely free from and off of the ascendant, then they just decided to apply it to the other cusps. Like I said, that's how I've always thought of it, who knows what the original reason is.

The same kind of thing happened with the structures in horary astrology where 27-30 degrees and 0-3 were "unsafe" for a delineation.
But today with our incredible accuracy of calculations there is no reason to do this.

Oh now, that's not very fair. They aren't "unsafe" at all, simple considerations before judgment, like the title it's listed under suggests. Early ascendants being indicative of situations that still aren't fully developed and late ascendants being indicative of the querent asking out of desperation or already knowing the answer, or both!

Personally, I disagree with the "strict boundary" approach to house cusps because it is not compatible with the concept of orbs, which are an incredibly important part of traditional astrology. Yes, we can now calculate positions of cusps and planets down to the nth degree, but this is missing the point somewhat. Astrology requires a qualitative, not a quantitative, approach. Of course a planet can "shine through" a cusp, if it's close enough. It has an orb which extends from its exact location, an area of influence which does not end abruptly, but which "fizzles out" at the edges. As is clear if you have ever watched the Sun rise, casting so much light before it's even over the horizon!

Of course, an aspect can only perfect when the angle is exact, but this is not to say that an aspect which is applying by 4 or 5 degrees has no effect. Of course it does; the orbs are in contact. In my experience this applies to house cusps just as well as planets. The house cusp may not have an orb, but the planet most certainly does.

As for the issue of early/late Ascendants, the evidence is out there on this very forum that it is an important consideration. The chart may be readable in such cases, but this does not negate the importance of the *consideration*. In astrology it is important to use all of the tools at our disposal, to evaluate a chart as accurately and as clearly as possible. We shouldn't chuck out a bunch of stuff just because everyone has a computer and we can now calculate a chart down to the last second. Astrology is still the same; the methods and considerations have not changed just because computers have been invented.

Keren

I want to reinforce the views of the last two posts, which really say what I was planning to say myself. I am constantly running across this idea that the early and late ascendants were all about having a ?calculation fudge factor?, and that they are meaningless now that we have computers. This idea undermines what the considerations are about, and how they help to fill our judgements not prevent them. It is a constant principle that significators about to leave their signs, or having just moved into new ones, are loaded with meaning, and it is the application of these meanings of early or late circumstances that are built into the need to consider ascendants in early or late degrees. To ignore them is to ignore a very descriptive adjective in our horary terminology.

I always apply the 5 degree rule myself, and I am perfectly happy with the results of that (so much so that I teach it to anyone who will listen). Even before I started studying horary and adopted that as a ?technique? I tended to view a planet that was in conjunction of the MC as being connected to the symbolic principles of the 10th house, rather than the 9th. Also, many traditional sources tell us that the further away a planet is from the cusp, the weaker its influence in that house. But surely, if this is a natal chart, it will be easy for you to tell whether this is a midheaven/10th planet (in which case it will be bristling with its relevance in the chart and very open and manifest in its influence). If that is not the case then you might say that it is a 9th house planet (I would say that the time is obviously wrong, because any planet within 5 degrees of the MC should be jumping up and down with its importance )

This may be a dumb question, but why do we even use the 5 deg rule if the planets move backwards through the houses (e.g. 1st, to 12th, 11th, etc from East to West in the sky)? Shouldn't we apply it to planets in the early degrees of a house which are about to enter the previous (or next depending on how you see it) house's late degrees?

but why do we even use the 5 deg rule if the planets move backwards through the houses (e.g. 1st, to 12th, 11th, etc from East to West in the sky)?

The motion you're describing is diurnal or primary motion. It is clockwise. The five-degree rule applies to movement through the zodiac, which is in the opposite direction or counter-clockwise. The position of a planet (except the Moon) in zodiac hardly changes at all during the day even though it will move 360 degrees of primary motion in about 24 hours.

Tom

I guess my understanding was that you were applying the 5 deg rule to the houses, not the signs, which doesn't make sense to me if the planets are moving out of the houses, not into them through the cusp. Which means that when I'm assessing a chart, I'm taking that movement into account. Should I be setting the house frames down as static, then, when I assess planets in relation to them? I usually do, but I'm curious if this is "correct" or at least why we do this.

Elfpower,

Within your question, it seems, is the belief that crept in over the centuries that cusps are the beginning of the houses. The original idea was of the cusp as the most powerful point within the house. As Rob Hand has written (and I should probably quit quoting) bicuspid teeth are teeth with two points, not two beginnings.

So, going back to comments on page 1, if we're calculating house cusps to the second we're getting as close as we can to the point of power within the house, not to the boundary between houses.

Here's a link to an old thread:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1575

And Tom's more recent thread, where he wrote:

The cusp, then, is the pressure point, like the tip of a sword or spear or knife. It is not the beginning of anything.

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4088

I guess my understanding was that you were applying the 5 deg rule to the houses, not the signs,

Let's start with what the idea of the five-degree rule is: the house begins five degrees of celestial longitude prior to the cusp. The cusp is the most sensitive point of the house. For example today Jupiter is at 12 Aquarius. Let's cast a chart for a time when the 5th house cusp is at 15 Aquarius. Jupiter is within five degrees of that house cusp, so Jupiter is considered to be in the 5th house as the house begins five degrees prior to the cusp. In order for Jupiter to be conjunct the cusp, Jupiter would have to move counter-clockwise from 12 to 15 Aquarius. He is moving that way, but slowly. Jupiter's diurnal motion is clockwise. His diurnal or daily motion has nothing to do with the five-degree rule.

Tom

Tom wrote:

I guess my understanding was that you were applying the 5 deg rule to the houses, not the signs,

His diurnal or daily motion has nothing to do with the five-degree rule.

Tom

Perfect, just what I was asking =)

I do find that the 5 deg rule works in my own chart, too. Jupiter was in the 6th, 4 deg from the 7th house, which I experience very much in my relationships.

The original idea was of the cusp as the most powerful point within the house. As Rob Hand has written (and I should probably quit quoting) bicuspid teeth are teeth with two points, not two beginnings. if we're calculating house cusps to the second we're getting as close as we can to the point of power within the house, not to the boundary between houses.

An excellent point. Well said!

Mark