Lesson #9
The Astrological Houses and Planetary Aspects
Return to Index
In a rather primitive fashion, astrology has passed down to us what have long been known as the “houses” of a horoscope. Like a sign of the zodiac, a house is merely one-twelfth of a circle, so there are twelve astrological houses to a horoscope just as there are twelve astrological signs to the zodiac. The twelve houses represent the very same basic astrological principles outlined in Lessons Two to Seven.
When a surveyor is measuring land, he has to have one “point” from which to begin his measurements, and so it is with astrology. If we can be sure of one point on the circumference of a circle, we can measure off the other points. Some other starting point would do just as well, but we have to have some point from which to begin. In Lesson One, we began measuring the zodiac from that mathematical point where a straight line can be drawn through both the plane of the earth’s orbit and the plane of the earth’s equator. Some other point would have done just as well, so long as we were sure of it.
If we could see the plane of the earth’s orbit, it would cut across the sky from that point on the eastern horizon where the Sun rises, to that point on the western horizon where the sun sets. Follow the course or the Sun from sunrise to sunset, across the sky, and that is the plane of the earth’s orbit. It is the ecliptic, the plane of the zodiac. In winter, this circle will be lower in the southern sky than in summer, for in winter the earth tilts northward away from this great circle, and in summer it tilts back southward again, so that the great circle comes farther north to our observation.
We will use that mathematical point where the rising Sun crosses the circle of the horizon as a point from which to measure. In other words, the point where you can see the Sun rise on the eastern horizon is what we call the ascendent. We will measure the astrological houses from this point.
Different schools of astrology measure the “houses” in three different planes of space. Although we will explain all three planes later, for the present, we will confine ourselves to one of these planes, the one which our experience has indicated as most reliable. You can investigate the other two planes at your leisure. We will keep everything in the same plane of space, the plane of the earth’s orbit. We will measure the “houses” along this plane in the same manner that we measure the zodiacal signs along this plane, but there will be one important difference. The houses will remain fixed with the earth. They will move only as the earth moves, while the zodiacal signs move only in accord with that straight line that passes through both the plane of the earth’s orbit and the plane of the earth’s equator. The zodiac is almost, but not quite, stationary with the fixed stars. There is actually a slippage, and in something like 26,000 years, the zodiac slips all the way around the circle of the fixed stars.
Starting at the ascendent, or point where the Sun crosses the eastern horizon as it rises, we will divide the circle into twelve equal parts, going counterclockwise, each space occupying 30 degrees of space, and these twelve spaces will be the twelve astrological houses of the horoscope.
A more primitive astrology has identified these twelve houses with twelve departments of life. Let us see what these departments of life are. In describing them, to avoid confusing the student, we will omit some claims which our experience has caused us to consider false. We will list the houses together with the things in life to which they are supposedly related, and in making this listing we will adhere to the same somewhat primitive conception that has been passed down to us. In this way, the student will have a better grasp of the entire situation when we are through. We urge you to realize that there is a certain primitiveness in this historic presentation, and yet, regardless of its primitive aspects, it is actually ingenious. It is ingenious in that it is basically sound. It is primitive only in that it jumps all the way from the mathematical to the material world, with too little consideration for the psychological and emotional factors that lie between. However, this is only an attempt to practice and make astrology useful, and if that is a fault, we possess the fault to a greater degree today than did our ancestors. The important thing to realize is that there are many points where a psychological or emotional cause can be interrupted before it manifests in material consequences. That is the difference between fatalism and free will. The latter is dependent upon knowledge and education, and to an ignorant person or one who does not care to improve himself, life can actually be more or less a matter of fatalism.
First, we will present a table showing the various factors with which the houses of the horoscope have become identified in the astrology that has been passed down to us. Then, on page six, we show a diagram illustrating the twelve houses of the horoscope and also listing the factors with which each house has become associated or identified.
The astrologers of at least the last 2000 years have watched the planets travel around the circle, passing from one house to another. They have called some planets favorable, others unfavorable, and they have forecast good fortune for the department of life described by a particular house when a “favorable” planet passed that way misfortune when a “malefic” planet crossed a house. Astrology is not as simple as that, and although this conception is on the primitive side, it is, nevertheless, basically correct. In many instances, it has been ignored or looked upon as superstition merely because of its simplicity, but the basic principles are true, despite the fact that they have been mixed up with much that is untrue.
THE ASTROLOGICAL HOUSES
HOUSE IDENTIFICATION
NUMBER
1. Self, personality, personal expression and physical appearance
2. Money.
3. The mind, relatives, brothers and sisters, short journeys.
4. Home, parent of opposite sex, land, mines and real property.
5. Children, personal projects, speculation and gambling.
6. Help, pets, inferiors, employees, etc.
7. Marriage and partnership affairs.
8. Death, debts, money of other people, partners, etc.
9. Religion, philosophy, education, long distance travel, life in foreign countries.
10. Business, the factor of authority, parent of same
11. Friends and social matters.
12. Work, service.(We omit the words prisons, hospitals, mental institutions. These will be transferred to the 6th, and this will later be explained.)
When we think of the dark ages we have passed through since the days when master minds must have known a great deal more about astrology, it is less difficult to understand that errors have crept into the subject. It is more difficult to understand how knowledge survived at all through those centuries of ignorance, bias, bigotry, prejudice and intolerance. Even the church did all in its power to destroy this knowledge.
In the previous table we present the astrological houses and their meanings as they appear in a horoscope. Compare this with the diagram in Lesson Eight, and you will see that our numbering matches the counterclockwise count in that diagram. The counterclockwise count illustrates the manner in which the twelve astrological principles described in Lessons Two to Seven fit into the twelve astrological houses, while the clockwise count shows how they fit into the zodiac. In other words, the houses run in one direction, while the signs of the zodiac run in the opposite direction. The planets go through the zodiac in a counterclockwise direction, while they go through the houses in a clockwise direction. The planets move from west to east, but because the earth turns from west to east, and the houses turn with the earth, the planets move across the sky and through the houses from east to west, just as the Sun and Moon rise in the east and set in the west.
Once in every 23 hours and 56 minutes, the houses and the zodiacal signs will be found in the relationship shown in the diagram on page 14, Lesson Eight. Then, the zodiac will appear to move westward, and it will go all around the circle of the houses.
This constant change of zodiac to houses ever continues. Human emotion and psychology are also ever in a state of flux.
Employing the same designations for the twelve astrological principles as those explained in Lessons Two to Seven, we can now identify the astrological houses with these principles in the same manner in which we have identified them with the zodiacal signs. It will be noted that this is contrary to a system that has been taught by many astrologers who have attempted to identify Aries with the First House, Taurus with the Second House, etc., with both houses and zodiacal signs running to a counterclockwise count. We abandoned this system as an error more than 20 years ago and have never had reason to return to it.Lesson Eight, identifies the 2nd House with Cancer, the Individual Survival Dynamic, and money. Money is man-made, but it is an outgrowth of the struggle for individual survival. If a man has money he can buy food when he needs it. It is known that the ancients associated Saturn with death, and they called the 8th House the House of Death. Here, we associate Capricorn and Saturn with the 8th House, while the system we abandoned attempted to associate death with Scorpio. In actual practice, we are sure that the student will find that this system works, while the Aries-First- House system does not appear to function. That is the important thing. To those of you who have never studied the Aries-First- House system, you may be better off. There is much that you will not have to unlearn.
The two counts agree insofar as Gemini is related to the Third House and Sagittarius is related to the Ninth. These are the points where the two counts cross. Leo is related to the First House principle, Cancer to the Second House, Taurus to the Fourth House, Aries to the Fifth House, Pisces to the Sixth House.
Our experience caused us to shift the association of prisons, hospitals, secret enemies, asylums, etc., from the Twelfth to the Sixth, which was designated as the House of health. Obviously, people who are confined to prisons hospitals, asylums, etc., are sick people It is all a health factor. People who have secret enemies are usually mentally sick people. A mental condition usually has to exist before the secret enemies are created. Other people do not have secret enemies. Some people go forth and make friends of their enemies.
Aquarius is related to the Seventh House, Capricorn to the Eighth House, Scorpio to the Tenth House, Libra and Venus, the planet that was always associated with social matters, are related to the Eleventh House, known as the House of Friends, and Virgo is associated with the Twelfth House.
(bonniehill.net)