Skyscript Astrology Forum

He does use the usual trick of nudging a planet forwards into the next house if it's close to a cusp, and this may be why Whyte assumed whole signs.

I can't speak for Hereford, but I do think the idea that the so-called "five-degree rule" means the planet within five degrees of a sign is treated as though it is in the next house is a mistake. Morin did something like that, but more on him below. The idea was that a house began, not at the cusp, but 5 degrees before the cusp and the cusp was the most sensitive point in the house. So if the 2nd house cusp is 15 Leo and Jupiter is at 12 Leo, Jupiter is in the 2nd house because the second house begins at 10 Leo. If subsequent researchers mistook that for usage of whole sign houses, they were likely mistaken. As I said I can't be certain of that.

This idea does cause some confusion. Morin misstated it, but acknowledged that a planet close to a cusp exerted influence in the next house because of its orb of influence. In his mind the cusp was the beginning of the house - end of story. So in the above example, Jupiter would be in the first house but exerting influence in the 2nd.

Whole sign houses, regardless of whether they are the oldest system or not, solves all these problems and more.

Tom wrote:The idea was that a house began, not at the cusp, but 5 degrees before the cusp

I would argue that actually the house begins where we might imagine the house ends - that is, after all, where planets enter them via primary motion. In this way of thinking, as the planet enters the house via primary motion it has nothing of that house yet associated with it. As it moves through it and makes its way to the cusp, the power or association of the house is built up so the planet becomes pregnant with its association, as it touches the cusp, it has now spent as long as it can in that house and so is brimming with association with that house. And then it enters the preceding house and for a few degrees is still brimming with the power of the previous house.

Whole sign houses, regardless of whether they are the oldest system or not, solves all these problems and more.

In what sense is this a problem and what are the other problems that whole signs solve?

hi paul,

i know you didn't ask me, but i would like to comment..

i like how you have stated everything in your last post here.

i think that so much of the technical side of astrology is about math, so it is understandable that a particular math equation is used to arrive at the various house systems that an astrologer has to chose from.. ultimately the astrologer chooses a system that makes the most amount of sense to them based on their own observations.

now, i personally think there is a lot to be said for whole sign houses in this regard - the planet in the same sign as the ascendant resonates within that sign.. i say this regardless of whether it is in the 12th or the 1st.. obviously some consideration must be given to just how close or far away it is from the ascendant degree too, but it becomes very subjective at this point and no longer a purely mathematical construct that one falls back on...

however, i note in the past when i was first learning astrology in the 70's - everything was very black and white - ie - it is either in this 12th house box, or in the 1st house box - this is the houses as boxes idea i harp about periodically on skycript... it never made sense to me and i thus gravitated towards equal houses which i will quickly define as what was very much like how i understand whole sign houses of today... again - for those folks coming from the thinking of houses as boxes- they did the same thing with equal houses too, while downplaying the significance of the sign on the cusp... i recall being given the example of the house cusp being like the crest of a wave... it builds up and falls off in relation to the crest, but to think in terms of static boxes is the antithesis of how i understand houses!

obviously this is where the re introduction of whole sign houses has given new light onto just how one views 'houses'.. they are not so much 'boxes' where planets are either in, or not in, but they are some type of vibration centered on the cusp!!!

the 5 degree rule is a simplification of this for a novice who has to start somewhere.. ultimately anyone doing astrology must come to their own subjective conclusions on just how much one weighs something over something else.. it is at this point that one moves away from the '''mathematics'' of astrology and into the ''subjectivity'' of astrology... the objecti-fists will of course find this unacceptable and continue to emphasize the limits of math at the cost of letting any subjective considerations colour their thinking.. this is how i frame the dilemma over the topic of houses... perhaps places as opposed to houses would be a better word to have used in astrology, but that might have presented other problems too, that i am not able to see at the moment..

In what sense is this a problem and what are the other problems that whole signs solve?

Whole sign houses eliminate the "debate" over which house cusps are correct. They eliminate intercepted signs, and they eliminate distorted houses at extreme latitudes. Other problems are if late degrees are on a cusp, which planet is the true ruler, the ruler of the sign on the cusp, or the ruler of the bulk of the house?

I would argue that actually the house begins where we might imagine the house ends - that is, after all, where planets enter them via primary motion.

Sort of, if we direct to house cusps. Not all astrologers did that. Progressions and the modern solar arc directions go the other way.

james_m wrote:hi paul,

i know you didn't ask me, but i would like to comment..

You should always comment James


i like how you have stated everything in your last post here.

now, i personally think there is a lot to be said for whole sign houses in this regard - the planet in the same sign as the ascendant resonates within that sign.. i say this regardless of whether it is in the 12th or the 1st.. obviously some consideration must be given to just how close or far away it is from the ascendant degree too, but it becomes very subjective at this point and no longer a purely mathematical construct that one falls back on...

My personal belief, and I realise I'm in the minority here, is that this whole sign issue is actually all very simple and common sense - there was a tradition of seeing planets in houses by sign as well as by degree, the exact same logic is seen for aspects. Libra and Gemini are trine by sign but planets in them may not be trine by aspect etc. I personally think that's all it is and the idea of "original house system" and so on just misses that. But I'm not trying to open that can of worms here, but what you say above I would certainly agree with, in that any 12th house planet (by non WSH) would surely resonate with the ascendant precisely because it's in a whole sign conjunction with the ascendant itself.

but to think in terms of static boxes is the antithesis of how i understand houses!

Me too to be honest, I personally use two house systems at pretty much the same time and I guess I may even use three if I include whole sign houses, though my use of it is a bit more abstract in terms of thinking like a whole sign conjunction to an equal house cusp. So I definitely don't see the black and white box approach either. The reality is that all the house systems divide up the mundane sphere in some manner and that division is an equal division into 12ths and is inherently meaningful in its own right. So I don't really buy into ideas of better house systems etc. either.

the 5 degree rule is a simplification of this for a novice who has to start somewhere.. ultimately anyone doing astrology must come to their own subjective conclusions on just how much one weighs something over something else..

It's so refreshing to see someone articulate this so well, I think the exact same way as you here James. The five degree rule is fine, but it may often be 6 for me if I think it's meaningful. I use the so called five degree rule more abstractly by saying that planet preceding the cusp of a house by a 'few' degrees may be meaningful to that proceeding house. We don't have to put a number on it.

Tom wrote:Whole sign houses eliminate the "debate" over which house cusps are correct.

Not really though, instead, just like every other house system, it has a particular cusp and that's that. The idea of correctness doesn't come into it and we don't have any set of tools other than experience and common sense to tell us otherwise. Equal house people may say the same, it eliminates the debate on which cusps are correct, clearly the answer is equal house ones. Whole sign may actually widen and confuse the issue of cusps more so perhaps than any other house system in that some people (for example Schmidt) imagine that whole signs do not have cusps of power at all, but some other house system, such as equal, is required for a power based cusp. That is the opposite of simple and eliminating the debate if you take that approach, that instead is widening the possibilities of what the cusp is and also what cusps mean.

They eliminate intercepted signs

Sure, just like equal, but then with all of these kinds of things there will be people who say this isn't a problem to begin with, and indeed offers an opportunity to provide a more nuanced interpretation of the chart.

and they eliminate distorted houses at extreme latitudes

As do equal, but both ignore the bigger elephant in the room, which is that the problem of houses at extreme latitudes isn't about their size but their behaviour. A succedent house at extreme latitudes won't, for example, move to the angle, but could become cadent, and cadent places can move to angularity. We always ignore these issues when talking about houses at extreme latitudes, but really that's the bigger issue here and all the houses suffer from it.

Not really though, instead, just like every other house system, it has a particular cusp and that's that.

No because there are no cusps in Whole Sign Houses. In fact Robert Hand pointed out that it might be incorrect to call Whole Signs a house system at all.

The word "cusp" was first used by astrologers in the middle ages. The word comes from a Latin word "cuspis," which is the point of a knife, sword, or spear. It is the point where the energy is most concentrated. The etymology of the word has nothing whatsoever to do with "beginnings," yet that is the debate, "where does the house begin?" The sign IS the house and the sensitive point business doesn't come up.

The Greeks possibly used some combination of whole signs and a quadrant system not to determine where the house began but only to determine the sensitive point within a sign. That all changed over the years.

As for your other observations, I never said equal house don't solve the same issues such as intercepted signs. But they bring about other problems. For example Donald Trump's chart has an ASC of 29 Leo 59, an extreme example I admit. That means, using equal houses, that nearly the entire house is occupied by a sign other than the one on the cusp. That's just weird. But using Trump'schart with whole sign houses, the most sensitive point is near the end of the sign. But Leo is his ASC, and Leo rules his first house not a combination of Leo and Mercury.

I don't believe there is one true house system that works perfectly 100% of the time. I've seen charts where quadrant systems show things whole signs will not. The reverse is also true. But to me, whole signs just make more sense overall. I admit they aren't perfect.

I think the reason that whole signs are not more widely adopted is habit. If we're been using say Placidus, and look at whole signs and realize one or more planets "move" to the next "house" it's a turnoff. It means our previous delineations are wrong- much too uncomfortable for most. In my own chart every planet except Mercury (including the outers) moves to the next house. My 11th house Moon becomes a 12th house Moon, but once I get honest with myself, I realize that makes more sense in my life. On the other hand, my 7th house Sun becomes an 8th house Sun - a potential premature death. Well I'm 70 - "premature" is looking less and less likely.

Whole signs are neat and orderly - "Virgoesque" if you will. Debates over whether it is better to use time, or the equator, or the ecliptic to divide the quadrants can never be resolved. A pox on them.

hi paul,

thanks for your comments and generousity!

i like what tom has said in his latest post about no house cusps in whole signs... i guess this is why i tend to favour the equal house concept as it gives emphasis to the degree on the ascendant, even if one uses whole signs, one can't get away from the significance of the rising degree.. well, that is how i see it and i think that rising degree carries over into the different signs too, but i might be in a minority thinking this way..

but to swing my ideas back to the question of the thread - equal houses in renaissance astrology? - i think it is an open question how astrologers of the past were working with these ideas... one sees the same thing happening today and no one has a fool proof system that i have seen for a particular approach to houses.. somehow the angles have to be integrated with the rest of the chart.. the problem is the 2 angles - ascendant axis and midheaven axis, often don't work out easily in the division of the houses.. a simple way is to just work with one more then the other - ascendant is what equal house does, but one could just as easily base the houses off the midheaven too and i forget what that approach is called right now..

tom,

it is interesting what you say about why you think whole signs aren't used more often - it would confirm astrologers perception that the house systems they used in the past were in fact wrong!! i think there is some truth to what you say here..

as for your comments on last degrees of a sign and how it works out with equal houses - i hear what you are saying, but then that ignores the fact that an appreciation of degree distance is of any relevance in determining where a planet is.. my problem with lumping all planets that are in one sign as being in one area of the chart is it is not really accurate... there are 30 degrees to a sign... to think that the first few degrees share the same strength to a last degree rising sign is not how i view houses... i don't know that whole sign house people think this way.. but, i think degree differentials and distance in terms of degrees from an angle are important - whether it is the ascendant or midheaven axis..

Tom wrote: No because there are no cusps in Whole Sign Houses. In fact Robert Hand pointed out that it might be incorrect to call Whole Signs a house system at all.

But whole sign houses are not a trademark or a brand, they're a house system, so whether Rob Hand says this doesn't necessarily mean its how astrologers in practice use the house system. What I mean by that is that if you imagine that the beginning of the sign is a cusp, or that some other part of the sign is the cusp, then whole sign houses does indeed have cusps. Note that I'm not talking about what Robert Hand or Schmidt claim the older astrologers did, but I'm talking about astrologers today.

Let me give you some examples.
Chris Brennan:
http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/2007 ... gn-houses/

"As you can see, the ‘cusps’ of the houses in this system are actually the cusps of the signs. So any time a planet transits into a new sign in a person’s chart it is also moving into a new house."

Now this is dated over 10 years ago and of course Chris may have changed his mind. For Chris, in this instance, he clearly imagines the beginning of the sign to act as a kind of cusp, he puts it in italics which suggests he recognises this kind of cusp has being perhaps qualitatively different (my guess), but nevertheless a cusp all the same.

But he reiterates this cusp idea in a subsequent podcast where he claims:
http://theastrologypodcast.com/transcri ... gn-houses/

"there end up being twelve signs and twelve houses and each of the houses begins at the beginning of the sign and the house ends at the end of the sign so the cusps then essentially become…, the cusps of the houses become the cusps of the signs."

So I think we can say that for Chris, there is a cusp to the whole sign houses and it occurs at the beginning of the sign. How Chris uses that of course is up to him, but he has floated the idea of the whole sign houses perhaps solving the Gauquelin sectors, which would suggest that Chris sees the beginning of the sign as the cusp in the sense that it provides a focus or pivot of power or turning which the term cusp implies - he's not just using it as a term to mean boundary in other words.


Next we can look at what Schmidt said in his preface to Ptolemy III:

"In conclusion, if this interpretation has any merit, every degree which is thiny degrees from the Ascendant or a multiple thereof should be regarded as a "cusp" (or turning point) of the whole-sign in which it occurs-albeit not a cusp on one of the extremities of the sign."

So for Schmidt, in this work (he has since changed his views), the whole sign houses do indeed have cusps, they're the equal house boundaries - he has expanded on this view considerably in recent years, but I just want to highlight that although not set to the beginning of the sign, Schmidt sees that WSH has a cusp as well.

You mention Robert Hand, but what he actually states to provide context is:
Robert Hand, Whole Sign Houses, p.24

"What are the “cusps??? of Whole-Sign houses? Are they the beginnings of the signs, or something else? Unfortunately, we do not have definite evidence as to what the practice actually was."

He then goes on to speculate or "read between the lines" (his words), as to what the cusp of the whole sign house may be, set in a chapter/section devoted to the concept of cusps for whole sign houses, and repeats what Schmidt imagines, namely that whole sign houses do have cusps and they're identical to equal signs:
p.25

"This means that the Whole-Sign “cusps??? are the same as the Equal House system cusps."

Therefore when you say "there are no cusps in Whole Sign Houses", that may well be the case for you, but I don't think we can say that generally. Clearly for Chris Brennan, Robert Hand and Robert Schmidt, arguably some of the biggest proponents for whole sign houses, the house system does indeed have a cusp, even if Chris disagrees with the others on where it's placed.

For example Donald Trump's chart has an ASC of 29 Leo 59, an extreme example I admit. That means, using equal houses, that nearly the entire house is occupied by a sign other than the one on the cusp. That's just weird.

Right, that may be 'weird' but weird doesn't make it a problem. The point I tried to make before is that this kind of additional layer of detail could be argued to provide context or some fine tuning to an astrological reading. You see similar examples where people say it's "weird" to have the MC in the 9th or 11th, if you use whole sign or equal houses, but the counter argument run similarly which is that this can provide greater subtlety to the astrological reading and provide additional astrologically meaningful information. The same thing applies.

But to me, whole signs just make more sense overall. I admit they aren't perfect.

That's fair enough, I'm just curious what the problems were that they solve and if they're problems in the sense of some astronomical phenomena problem (such as extreme latitudes), or problems in the sense of not a sense of distaste (like Trump's weird first house etc.)

It means our previous delineations are wrong- much too uncomfortable for most.

That may be true, it may be what's stopping Placidus users to adopt Equal as well, and for that matter what stops Equal and Whole sign users adopting Placidus. But then the other side to that is that just maybe some astrologers are not adopting this house system because for them it really isn't working as well as the house system they were already using. But for that matter, I think a lot of people are using Whole sign houses these days anyway.

I think you missed my point especially regarding the cusps. In English the origin of the word "cusp" comes from a Latin word that meant something other than a beginning and in fact had nothing to do with the beginning of anything. That makes it a good reason to believe, they might have had something other than a beginning in mind when they coined that word.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the first English usage of the word "cusp" was in astrology and not used (in English) until the late 16th century. Our assumption that the word cusp was always used in astrology to mean the beginning of a house may not be valid.

The Greeks used the zodiac to determine the places - not the ecliptic or the equator or time. That came later. We have to have a word that describes the mathematically determined "lines." (I'm sure you're aware they're actually circles) that divide the quadrants. That word is "cusp" and it seems to have come from the Latin "cuspis." That probably wasn't a mistake. The cusp was the most sensitive point in a house. Prior to that development, the sign was the place or area of life of the native. There was no "five-degree rule" or discussion about where to look for wealth or children or the spouse. There was no, "well if we use this system Jupiter is the ruler but if we use that system Saturn rules the house. They used the zodiac not math to determine the areas of life under discussion and in so doing producing a "clean," logical system

As for Hand: I mentioned his name not as an appeal to authority, but rather as giving credit for what I wanted to say. I didn't create the idea. Here is the quote to which I was referring.

Actually to understand this properly one has to know that it is not that the sign were used as houses so much as there were no houses at all, merely the signs of the zodiac used as we would use houses, with no separate twelve-fold division of the chart at all.

Italics in the original

We use the phrase "Whole Sign Houses" as a semantic convenience. It's easier for all of us to do that to get the idea across. In whole signs Donald Trump's wealth is revealed by the sign Virgo and it's ruler Mercury - period. There cannot be a planet in Libra ruled by Venus in the 2nd house that also plays a role in that area of life. That is as simple and neat as it can be.

The beginning of the sign is the beginning of the "house." There is no "sensitive point" or cusp. There are no planets in subsequent signs occupying that "house" ruling a different house or houses and having a different dispositor. There is enough clutter in astrology as it is.

If Trump's chart is weird it is a problem. I have a tough time looking at a chart where the merest sliver of a house cusp determines the ruler of the house. That problem is overcome to an extent with other quadrant systems because all of the houses in his chart aren't like that - only with the equal system does that become an issue.

I am not claiming that Whole Signs are right and everything else is wrong. In fact I said that sometimes quadrant systems will show us things that whole signs might miss and vice versa. But I do think there are some misunderstandings about whole signs and that Hand must have thought so too since the quote above comes from the first page of his booklet.

Rumen Kolev hit upon something and I wonder if his idea shouldn't be applied to house systems, although I admit I'm not sure how to precisely work it out. There are, as you know a myriad of systems of calculating primary directions and they can produce significantly different "hit" dates. Kolev looks at a chart and calculates the various methods (using his program I'm sure) and determines the one that fits the known events best and then uses that one and that key for subsequent predictions. I have no idea how to do this for someone who is very young. Perhaps the same is true for house systems. Maybe this one works better for one native and that one works best for another native. Or maybe Valens had it right and we use more than one and use them for different purposes.

Tom I did understand your point.

Tom wrote:That makes it a good reason to believe, they might have had something other than a beginning in mind when they coined that word.

I don't disagree. I am not implying the cusp is the beginning anywhere, in fact I've explicitly stated the contrary when I say "What I mean by that is that if you imagine that the beginning of the sign is a cusp, or that some other part of the sign is the cusp, then whole sign houses does indeed have cusps." - I recognise cusp to be a centre of power or signification or a peak of that power or signification, which is often, but not necessarily, related to the beginning of the house.

My point was that whilst you may not have whole sign cusps, other astrologers, Robert Schmidt, Robert Hand and Chris Brennan included, all think otherwise, and they all refer to cusps with whole sign houses.

The Greeks used the zodiac to determine the places - not the ecliptic or the equator or time. That came later.

We don't really know what the Greeks were doing, it's too broad a term. What we can say for sure is that they used the ecliptic to determine places, but we cannot rule out other divisions. For example the houses may have originated from egyptian decans which focused on transits of planets by diurnal rotation over the four angles and inferring from a spatial division, a division of time. This suggests that from early on it was recognised that time and spatial divisions are simply two sides of the same coin - you can measure time by measuring space. I dont' mean this in some futuristic Einstein notion, but simply that when this or that space is rising, it's this or that time.

Prior to that development, the sign was the place or area of life of the native. There was no "five-degree rule" or discussion about where to look for wealth or children or the spouse.

We don't know anything about what was there before though. I speculate that the five degree rule stems from the decan system somehow, whereby the decan was the equivalent of a house with particular meaning associated with it, and imagined conceptually as centred, which means that five degrees before and after a point could be imagined as a decan for simplicity, but that, like this statement, is just speculation.

You say they used the zodiac and not math, but we again don't really know everythign that they did. We know they had access to rising times of the zodiac, and for all we know someone used those as a kind of house system. All we 100% know they used is equal houses and porphyry houses, everything else is either inferred or speculative, including whole sign houses. Nowhere do they mention calculating houses that way, instead they refer to houses sometimes as signs, so this is an example of inferring. But later authors examining the texts inferred otherwise, such as Placido inferring Ptolemy used placidus houses. Holden infers he used Equal. Brennan infers he used whole.

Too often we're left guessing.

As for Hand: I mentioned his name not as an appeal to authority, but rather as giving credit for what I wanted to say. I didn't create the idea. Here is the quote to which I was referring.

Sure, I wasn't suggesting otherwise, but seeing as you refer to him, it makes sense to also refer to him.

That is as simple and neat as it can be.

Sure, and if simple is a synonym for better then I understand why it would appeal. But as I don't think complexity is a problem, I'm not sure what this would advance for any problems whole sign is solving, especially when typically astrologers choose a house system or systems, regardless of complexity, and run with it.

But I do think there are some misunderstandings about whole signs and that Hand must have thought so too since the quote above comes from the first page of his booklet.

I think so too, but I also think some of them are that whole signs solve certain problems which in fact on closer examination they don't solve, which is why I was curious which problems you personally had in mind.