Skyscript Astrology Forum

zoomaster wrote: First, you are correct in stating that yes, the tropical zodiac does indeed originate from the Vernal Equinox. However, you then go on to state that "I divide the sky up 12 times from there, giving 30 degrees of ecliptical longitude..."

I do no such thing! (And to perfectly honest, neither does the sky, since technically the signs of Ophiuchus and Cetus interrupt the tidy little 30 degree divisions we would so dearly to have.)

HOWEVER, as you seem to have already stated, the SUN's passage through these constellations via the ecliptic DOES divide the sky up into these zodiacal signs. I do not do this. The SUN does this.

Hi Zoomaster

The sun absolutely does not do this whatsoever. I agree with everything Konrad said, but to highlight one thing in particular "the zodiac doesn't exist outside of human perpection".

The zodiac, and you state you're using tropical, is an equal division of the line of the ecliptic into particular units of measurement. One such measurement is a sign, which is 30 degrees. The sun does not make the measurement. We do. The sun's path is the thing we are measuring.
There is no division that the sun makes whatsoever let alone into signs. Instead the sun does several things which we take as being of interest to us and we overly its path with a structure to help define and measure it. You reject the other house systems as, in your words " these lines do not exist in the sky" - I would encourage you to then show us the lines of the houses in the sky - do they exist? Of course they don't. None of the houses exist as lines in the sky.

You later make an odd statement: "neither does the sky, since technically the signs of Ophiuchus and Cetus interrupt the tidy little 30 degree divisions ...the SUN's passage through these constellations via the ecliptic DOES divide the sky up into these zodiacal signs"

Well this is a peculiar thing because on the one hand you're asserting using a tropical frame of reference, which, to state the obvious, does not utilise the stars/constellations in its calculations, but then contradict your logic by suggesting that the reason for this division is due to the sun's ingress through particular constellations. You further contradict your own logic by on the one hand suggesting the divisions into signs come from the sun's movement through the signs, whilst just a breath earlier mentioned that the constellations break up the equal degrees. Well if you're focusing on this then you're clearly not using a tropical framework but a sidereal one. And if you're using a sidereal one and thinking the logic for the 'real lines' of the whole signs is the constellations then again you're greatly mistaken as the constellations are not of 30 degree longitudinal arc but vary from constellation to constellation.

Either you're using a tropical reference, in which case there are no 'real lines' in the sky for either the signs or the houses, or you are using a sidereal zodiac, where again there are no real lines in the sky for either the signs or the houses.

Whilst I think it's perfectly permissible to state that you prefer the whole sign houses (even arguing for its use to your death as you suggest), I think it's perhaps less permissible to demand others do so, and whilst you do not need to provide any reason why you prefer whole sign, the reasons you have so far provided appear to be based on a flawed understanding of the zodiac and how it is calculated and what it is calculating.

That said, I find it strange that you think the whole sign houses are "the only house system that does not place imaginary lines in the sky." - do you genuinely think the whole sign houses do not place imaginary lines in the sky?

edited

Mark wrote: I did see the chart of a French serial killer that looked exceptionally difficult. I can post that here if anyone is interested.
Mark

When this discussion on house-systems ends at some point, I'd be very interested in seeing the mentioned chart.

Yuki

zoomaster wrote: That I would disagree with vehemently. I am certain you would agree that the ecliptic is defined as the Sun's path through the zodiac. (Or at least, the path the Sun appears to make through the zodiac.) What I am arguing is that, (in the Whole Sign House system) we don't overlay its path with any structure at all. The structure is already there, that structure being the signs of the zodiac!

No. Let me try to explain it another way.

Say I have a stretch of road and when I create a map of that road I choose to demarcate it into equal units of division, called miles. So my road is divided into N miles. There's nothing about that stretch of road that informs us about my choice of division. I might have used kilometers. Or any other measuring scale.

Similarly there's nothing about the ecliptic which suggests it is divided into anything - we might use 12 equal signs of 30 degrees, but we might also use unequal signs, some 20, some 30, some 40, or we might use equal divisions of 8 rather than 12 and so on.

How we measure the road, how we measure the ecliptic, is a construct which we apply onto the road/ecliptic.

Paul wrote:Additionally, you are entirely correct that even in the Whole Sign House system, the "lines don't exist in the sky." But my response would be: they don't have to! The signs themselves are the divisions. There is no need for projecting lines upon the signs which make up the ecliptic!

Right, but be very careful on this point, because your previous logic for discarding the other houses was that the lines don't exist, but you're attesting that the lines also do not exist here - you say they don't need to, but that's a separate issue which can be addressed separately. For now we can agree that the reason for discarding the other houses is NOT because the lines do not really exist.

Instead your saying that some other construct exists, namely the zodiac, which divides it. But this is equally arbitrary - why did you use the zodiac at all for? Why is that any more real than using some other equally astronomically realistic construct such as, for example, the ascendant point and the midheaven point. These are no less real than the zodiac, arguably they are more real in fact (depending on how we define what is real and what is not). Certainly they are valid astronomical points which divide the sky.

So what exactly is the logic for deciding that one artificial construct (the zodiac) is better than another (some other house system). For example, in porphyry we take the point of the Midheaven and the ascendant and divide the distance between them equally into three parts. This is an artificial construct, but how is it any less artificial than dividing, say, the length of arc between the summer solstice point and the vernal equinox one - ie, like with the tropical zodiac and by extension the whole sign houses?

You are correct that a tropical frame of reference is not based on the stars or constellations. Since Whole Sign Houses are derived from sidereal phenomena, it would appear that these two systems are mutually exclusive. But they are not! It is possible to use a tropical frame of reference and still use Whole Sign Houses.

At this point all I would say here is that you've completely misunderstood how the tropical zodiac is calculated, but, more importantly, the whole sign houses. To clarify, the tropical zodiac is an equal division of a circle into, chiefly, quadrants. The points of the quadrants are, primarily, the intersection fo the ecliptic with the equator - the equinoctial points. 90 degrees from these points, in other words forming a square with them, are the solstice points. These points form a circle divided into a quadrant (imagine a cross running through the square). Each of these quadrants are further divided into three so that we get four quadrants of three divisions, a total of 12 divisions. The beginning of our circle (if we want to think of that) is, arbitrarily, taken as the vernal equinox and so this point becomes 0 degrees of our first division, our first sign, and we call it aries.

The whole sign house system is just acknowledging this very same division of units, only rather than begin at 0 aries, we just begin at whatever the division (ie sign) is that the ascendant falls into.

There are no major sidereal calculations involved here* - or rather, planets or points are not calculated against the fixed backdrop of stars. You say whole sign houses are derived from sidereal phenomena, but, in fact, they are not. They are simply defined by whatever zodiac you use. That MIGHT be a sidereal one, but it MIGHT be a tropical one. It could be anything. If you are using a tropical zodiac it is a tropical one. Sidereal astrologers have a longer preserved history and tradition of using the whole sign house system and perhaps as a result of this you believe that the sidereal zodiac is a necessity for using it, but it is not (I'm trying to understand why you might feel that whole signs are sidereally defined).

If I'm using this technique, I can't in good faith include Ophiuchus and Cetus, since the zodiac I'm using (tropical) doesn't include it. But it is still perfectly valid for me to use a house system that is based on sidereal phenomena.

No in good faith you cannot include Ophiuchus and Cetus - but then it raises the quesiton why you mentioned them in the first place as it was, from the beginning, counter intuitive to your argument.
However it is unclear why you say it would be perfectly valid for you to use a sidereal house system - I agree, you can use whatever division to form your houses you wish to. However, whole signs are not necessarily that system. If you want to use sidereal whole sign houses with tropical sign places I suppose you could do so if you wanted, but, to be blunt, nobody does this and certainly this is not at all what is implied when we just cast it (in for example astro.com or solar fire or delphic oracle etc) in the whole sign house system. These will just use whatever zodiac you specified, in your case, tropical.

I think I answered this. You are arguing that a tropical zodiac and the whole sign house system are mutually exclusive. I have attempted to explain that they are not, and why they are not.

On the contrary I'm not arguing this at all. I suspect you're not understanding my posts or perhaps have some running assumption - probably the "whole signs are sidereal" one. Instead I was demonstrating here that you were making contradictory statements about which zodiac you were using, and based on this a rationale for why whole signs were more 'real'. I suspect you think that the whole sign houses are based upon constellations - which are 'real' things you can see in the sky - but they are not.

My point was that even if you use the tropical zodiac they are not just as if you use the equal sign sidereal zodiac they are not. Arguably the only time they are, is if you use a form of the sidereal zodiac which is unequal and which corresponds to the arc of the constellations involved - and my point here was if that's the case then, as you yourself introduced, you run into problems with Ophiuchus (potentially, depending on how you divide). Hence my demonstrations to you that your proposition was not only counter intuitive but also proved itself false in its own reasoning.

That being said, it is obviously my intention to defend this house system at all costs.

Yes, and I appreciate that the whole sign house system is something you are passionate about. Rather than defend it, you might first ask "is it under attack?" because I think the answer to that is no. Then there can come a subtle difference between defending something, and just being defensive - the two are, perhaps, not the same. I wonder though why you are defending it? If I can be blunt, and I mean this with no disrespect, it would appear that you do not actually fully understand it to begin with. I suspect from what you've said here is that you believe that the whole sign houses have some greater astronomical reality or weight, one which is lacking in the quadrant and equal sign houses. I suspect that the reason you feel this is the case is that you mistakenly believe that they are based on something which is observable in the night's sky: the constellations and stars. However as this initial premise is false, so too is the rest of the logic which flows from that assumption. It sounds like if you're putting this importance on the observable stars and the movement of the planets through them (which inadvertently you are if you believe the whole signs are actual constellations and thus the planets move through the constellations which instead of depicting zodiac signs are depicting houses). But this makes me wonder why not go the full mile and be a sidereal astrologer? You will still not be using the exact constellational boundaries but the theory behind it will at least be closer matched to the importance you place on them and certainly will be much closer than the whole sign houses you have been using with tropical.

* there are some sidereal calculations involved here as they are necessary for the calculation of determining the vernal equinox, but for all intents and purposes this can be ignored in terms of the theoretical underpinnings of tropical astrology and the whole sign house system.

edit

zoomaster wrote:However, your assertion that whole sign houses have no sidereal origin is patently false.

hi zoomaster,
i like your name tag, lol... looks like the animals are running wild in your zoo at the moment! can you tell me the sidereal connection with whole sign houses, as i am curious about that and you seem quite confident in your position on this. thanks!

Zoomaster

I don't think we're getting anywhere, so I doubt there's much reason for me to continue. I'll just make a few final points or reply to your responses.

zoomaster wrote: Unfortunately, while the statement above would certainly be correct for a surveyor planning construction on a highway, the analogy falls flat when applied to the zodiac. But, let?s use your example. Say your road is divided into N miles. Within that stretch of road are the twelve signs of the tropical zodiac. In fact, you have no choice of division. Well, I suppose you do, but if you decide to divide it up so that the first division includes all of the Ram and half of the Bull, what you are doing is ignoring the map that is already there. You are proclaiming that ?I, Astrologer, don?t have to abide by the extant map! I know better!

No, there is nothing on the ecliptic wich suggests "the ram" - the ram is a projection we make upon the ecliptic. For instance the ram used to be the hired man. In some cultures it's something else completely. However, if you're using constellations you're not using tropical signs. There's no reason to labour the point though.

Paul wrote:But if we use unequal signs, once again we might be cutting off the leg of the Bull, or perhaps splitting one of the Twins? legs off.

Right, and before we cut off part of scorpio to make libra, we didn't cut off part of scorpio to make libra. You seem to be implying here that the twins and the bull and so on are all equal 30 degree segments however. Take out a constellational map and take out a ruler and take some measurements. Are the constellations equal? No. they are not. Therefore if you're using the Twins and the Bull you're already using unequal signs, even if you're not aware of that.

This is a very intelligent point. The reason that the zodiac is completely rational, and not arbitrary, is because ancient astrology is wholly Ptolemaic.

On the contrary 'ancient astrology' existed long before Ptolemy - certainly the zodiac did. Ptolemy was just one astrologer in the hellenistic period who used the zodiac which was already established long before his birth.

The Ptolemaic system, being geocentric, asserts that the zodiac defines the ecliptic, not the other way around.

Could you quote from Ptolemy where he asserts this?

N.B. Medieval astrology is a whole different kettle of fish, since the Copernican Revolution occurred in the fifteenth century.

If we were to measure the entire time between then and today, and subtract that from copernicus' birth, we'd still be during the medieval period of astrology - which included and to some extent focused upon the arab contributions. In fact by the 16th century (rather than 15th) and the copernican revolution we generally recognise this as renaissance astrology, rather than strictly medieval, though these terms are somewhat loose obviously.

Personally, I practice ancient astrology (as much as it is possible to say one practices ancient astrology), which is why I would argue that the zodiac is completely rational.

Practicing 'ancient astrology' and concluding that the zodiac is rational is a non-sequitor. Also nobody has stated that it is irrational so I'm not sure what you mean by making that point.

Now, the ascendant point and midheaven as fixed points independent of the zodiac did not come into usage until quadrant houses became dominant, which is somewhere between the 13th and 17th century, depending on who you ask.

Incorrect. The quadrant houses, as Mark highlighted earlier on this thread, were always around and at varying points were more dominant - a good example being Alcabitius which, as Mark highlighted, was dominant within the arab periods of the medieval astrology I just mentioned. This was much much earlier than the 13th century.

Also the very example of a quadrant house system I offered you, Porphyry, is equally ancient. In fact, the one I just mentioned, Porphyry, is used by the second century astrologer Vettius Valens when discussing the length of life. He in turn references this back as far as Nechepso and Petosiris - several centuries prior to his own and ptolemy's births for example. This is not unusual for 'ancient astrologers' - in fact Ptolmey also uses quadrant houses here.

In fact the Placidus system of houses is entirely medieval, and it would be incorrect to state that the ancients used a fixed ascendant or midheaven that was independent of the zodiacal path of the Sun.

This is not the case, in fact there's an argument to be made that Ptolemy used placidus cusps. To what extent the quadrant houses were used is a matter of debate amongst scholars of astrology, placidean cusps included. That quadrant houses were used in ancient hellenistic astrology is NOT debated. They were.

The reason that ?dividing the length of arc between the summer solstice point and vernal equinox?by extension the whole sign houses? is more rational is because it is based upon meteorological phenomenon, whereas the Porphyry system, as you mentioned, is based upon the (admittedly imaginative) machinations of an astrologer. The same goes for all of the quadrant house systems.

Do you realise that the summer solstice and equinox divisions are not the same ones as the constellations of the same name which you previously argued in favour of? I'm beginning to think you're not aware of the differences between the sidereal and tropical zodiac.

You are quite correct that the tropical zodiac is an equal division of a circle, that circle being the zodiac. Also, you write ??the tropical zodiac is calculated?whole sign houses?an equal division of a circle into, chiefly, quadrants.? No! This is incorrect!

Well when you strip out the rest of what I sayI'd almost forgive someone thinking I was discussing quadrant houses. I wasn't. I was saying that the zodiac is divided into quadrants. It is. The quadrants being by the equinoxes and solstices.

Therefore there is a zodiacal origin to both the tropical zodiac and Whole Sign Houses. It isn?t just lines we place on a celestial map and then divide it up as we see fit.

There is a zodiacal origin to the zodiac. This is starting to make no sense now.

I am aware of precession and the sidereal and tropical differences however I have to say that it appears that you are not if you think that the whole sign house system with a tropical zodiac reflects the constellations.

OK, now it appears as if you are suddenly jumping from a discussion of the origin of the tropical zodiac to the proper application of the Whole Sign House system.

I can only suggest re-reading it then. I'm demonstrating that the very same whole signs houes you use are referenced not from sidereal positions but tropical ones - assuming you use a tropical zodiac. It's becoming increasingly impossible to tell.

Paul wrote:Truly, this is correct, that planets are NOT calculated against the fixed backdrop of stars?anymore. Yet originally, they were! I can cite an article by Robert Hand regarding this if you wish.

Why would you need to cite Robert Hand?

If you use the 'original' positions then this means you're a sidereal astrologer - hence my point regarding confusing the tropical zodiac.

Therefore, you are completely incorrect in arguing that whole sign houses are not derived from sidereal phenomena. They are, completely and totally, even if you continue to use a tropical system to this day.

Eh, right, but again that is only true if you assume that you're using the sidereal zodiac for the whole sign houses - which is the very question I posed to you in my previous post. So no. I am not incorrect on this. Instead you either do not understand the point Rob Hand is making or you are in fact answering my question that yes, you use sidereal houses and tropical signs. And if so, you're probably one of a tiny handful who do. Certainly asking others to present their charts in whole signs would not present them in the form you desire which is fact whole signs with corrections to account for precession.

Paul wrote: I would never use such a system. I stick with the same method used by Hand, and others, which is a Tropical Zodiac

Yes, so you keep saying. Frustrating that you do not realise that whole signs are tropical if you use a tropical zodiac.

Paul wrote: Once again I have proved already that whole signs have a sidereal origin.

Yes, and you do realise that this kind of logic allows me to also say "the tropical zodiac has a sidereal origin".

I admire your mathematical mind. I wish I had the scientific and astronomical aptitude that you possess. However, your assertion that whole sign houses have no sidereal origin is patently false.

At this point all I might say is "so do I". For what it's worth my 'astronomical aptitude' is not particularly noteworthy as it happens.

I guess I would encourage you to try to learn more about how whole sign houses are calculated and what their calculation is. Perhaps you'll find this sheds more light on the situation. Other than that, I would just say that you're entitled to believe as you wish about whole sign houses but just because we firmly believe it and will fight to our deaths believing so will not make it any more accurate or truthful. Unfortunately the claims you've made here on the whole sign houses are, simply, not true. They reflect a misunderstanding somewhere about the zodiac and about whole sign houses, however I do not feel that any further posts from me will help elucidate those mistakes. As the proverb goes, how can I show you until you empty your cup? As it happens I do not necessarily need to, but it grabbed my curiosity that you seemed to be conflating tropical and sidereal logic without distinction and so I see now that whilst you may be defensive of whole signs, you're actually not defending what they really are, just what you have mistaken them to be. But then, that is up to you.

EDIT:
One last thing, my "assertion that whole sign houses have no sidereal origin is patently false" would be an interesting discussion if in fact I made that assertion. In fact I said that whole sign calculation depends on the zodiac employed and could be either tropical or sidereal. I did not comment on its origins.

It seems like the ?horrendous chart? question got sidetracked and it?d be interesting to get back to it, but while knowledgeable people?s attention is on the WSH vs. quadrant topic I?d take the opportunity to ask a possibly dumb question. I?ve heard a few folks say they use WSH topically and quadrants for planetary strength. Is it the case that ancient astrologers (pre-medieval, lets say) did things this way, calculated two house systems per chart? Been wondering that. Thanks to anyone who can point me towards info here.

Phil

Phil wrote:It seems like the ?horrendous chart? question got sidetracked and it?d be interesting to get back to it, but while knowledgeable people?s attention is on the WSH vs. quadrant topic I?d take the opportunity to ask a possibly dumb question. I?ve heard a few folks say they use WSH topically and quadrants for planetary strength. Is it the case that ancient astrologers (pre-medieval, lets say) did things this way, calculated two house systems per chart? Been wondering that. Thanks to anyone who can point me towards info here.

Phil

Hi Phil, zoomaster is planning to raise the topic again in another thread after conceding he may prefer to discuss whole signs here, he said " I suppose now that you have brought this subject up, it would be more fitting to discuss it here. We can discuss the terrible charts in another topic."

You ask about the idea of topics versus strength and this is something that Robert Schmidt postulated from examining the Hellenistic texts. He argues that when it comes to assignations of topics the whole sign house system was used, but when it comes to determination of strength the focus shifts primarily to the angles and divisions from those angles (ie, quadrant houses). The most obvious example of this, which I mentioned in my last replies to zoomaster who seemed to suggest that quadrant houses only gained prominence in the 13th century is the issue of the length of life treatment where a quadrant based house system is used - Porphyry in Vettius Valens for example, and, arguably Placidus for Ptolemy.

Some people agree with this theory put forward by Schmidt, and some do not. There is no widespread agreement on the issue. Many people who have studied traditional texts arrive at sometimes different conclusions.

I think there is perhaps, an argument to be made either way and certainly many who are educated on a variety of traditional texts does just that. Some have argued in the past that this hypothesis by Schmidt is not always supported by textual evidence. My own thinking is that there are places where this theory seems to hold a lot of weight and others where it is perhaps either not so clear, or even sometimes contradicted. I think it is fairly clear that the hellenistic authors tended to use a quadrant house system for the length of life treatment. In other places however a whole sign set of 'angular' places is often used to determine strength, which would appear to contradict R. Schmidt's theory.

Conclusion: we do not know what the actual hellenistic astrologers were really using or why in all cases. We have theories and we're trying to in effect reverse engineer what was done, and in some cases we'll get it right and in others we won't.

When this discussion on house-systems ends at some point, I'd be very interested in seeing the mentioned chart.

Yuki

I am still waiting on Zoomaster to edit his initial post to focus more on the whole sign vs quadrant houses issue. We can then retitle the entire thread to something more reflective of what has been discussed here.

I think this thread has gone too far on the house system issue to get back to natal examples. I propose to open an ongoing thread on 'difficult nativities' but I will be opening it in the General forum as there is nothing particularly traditional about the topic.

Mark

I thought we were talking about bad nativities. Personally I wouldn't tell someone not to use a particular house system but one point I'd like to make is that there needs to be an agreement on which to use for this topic because we will have 100 different interpretations for the same chart and we need overlap somewhere.

Hello Paul
Hardly need say taht I agree with jsuta bout everything you've said in this rahter tiremsome post, but rahter confused by this:

the tropical zodiac is an equal division of a circle into, chiefly, quadrants. [...] Each of these quadrants are further divided into three so that we get four quadrants of three divisions, a total of 12 divisions. The beginning of our circle (if we want to think of that) is, arbitrarily, taken as the vernal equinox and so this point becomes 0 degrees of our first division, our first sign, and we call it aries.
The whole sign house system is just acknowledging this very same division of units, only rather than begin at 0 aries, we just begin at whatever the division (ie sign) is that the ascendant falls into.

The WSH system (at least if tropical) surely starts jsut as much from 0? Aries (or the VP, call it what you will) as does any other house system, perhaps even more so, as the not just the signs but the houses correspond to the 12 divisions from the VP. Most astrologers consider the "cusp" of a WSH to be the beginning of the sign, others use the ascendant degree, wherever it falls in the sign/house, as the "cusp". But the signs/houses are still defined by the solstice and equinox points. Perhaps you were thinking of sidereal WSH? (Though even many siderealists, especially Indian ones, consider Aries to be the first sign of the "natural" zodiac - wrongly, in my opinion, but that's beside the point).
Graham