Whole-sign houses: the twelve places
The house system every Hellenistic astrologer used, and the one the tradition's names and rules were written for.
How whole-sign houses work
Whatever sign was rising at birth is the first place, all thirty degrees of it. The next sign in order is the second place, the one after that the third, and so on around the wheel. There are no house cusps to compute and no houses of unequal size: a sign is a place, and a planet anywhere in that sign is in that place.
The ancient authors call them topoi, places, and count them from the horoskopos, the rising sign. Because the count is by sign, every place is the same size and a planet cannot straddle two of them. Aspects are counted the same way — a planet in the fifth sign from another is in trine to it, whatever their degrees — which makes the whole system consistent.
The twelve places and their meanings
- Helm — the body, life and character
- Gate of Hades — livelihood and possessions
- Goddess — siblings, short journeys, the Moon's joy
- Subterranean — parents, home and land
- Good Fortune — children and pleasure, Venus's joy
- Evil Fortune — illness, injury and servants, Mars's joy
- Setting — marriage and partners
- Idle — death, inheritance and what is left behind
- God — travel, religion and learning, the Sun's joy
- Midheaven — action, reputation and profession
- Good Spirit — friends and hopes, Jupiter's joy
- Evil Spirit — enemies, losses and confinement, Saturn's joy
Four of them are the pivots (the angles): the first, fourth, seventh and tenth. Planets there act most strongly. The second, fifth, eighth and eleventh are the post-ascensions (succedent), and the third, sixth, ninth and twelfth the declines (cadent), where a planet's effect is delayed or weakened. Places that are in aspect to the first — the third, fifth, seventh, ninth and eleventh — are said to see the rising sign; the second, sixth, eighth and twelfth do not, and a planet in them is turned away from the life.
Each planet also has a place where it rejoices: Mercury in the first, the Moon in the third, Venus in the fifth, Mars in the sixth, the Sun in the ninth, Jupiter in the eleventh and Saturn in the twelfth.
Where the Midheaven goes
The Midheaven by degree — the point of the ecliptic culminating at birth — does not always fall in the tenth sign. Depending on latitude and the time of year it can land in the ninth, tenth or eleventh place. The tradition keeps both: the tenth sign is the place of action and reputation, and the degree of the Midheaven adds its own emphasis wherever it falls.
How Occult Astrology shows it
The wheel is drawn by whole signs with the rising sign in the first place. The twelve places section names each place, its topic and the planets in it. For comparison the modern chart beside it can be switched through twelve quadrant systems, from Placidus to Porphyry, so the difference is visible on the same sky.
Read next: sect, annual profections, which move one place a year, or all the techniques.
Questions
- What are whole-sign houses?
- A house system in which the rising sign is the entire first house and each following sign is the next house. Every house is one full sign, thirty degrees, and there are no cusps to calculate.
- Are whole-sign houses the oldest house system?
- Yes. They are the system the Greek-language astrologers of antiquity — Valens, Dorotheus, Paulus — used, and the one the names and rules of the twelve places were written for. Quadrant systems such as Placidus came later.
- What happens to the Midheaven in whole-sign houses?
- The tenth sign is always the tenth place, but the Midheaven by degree can fall in the ninth, tenth or eleventh sign. Both are read: the tenth place for its topics, and the Midheaven's degree as an added emphasis wherever it falls.
- Which houses are the angles?
- The first, fourth, seventh and tenth places, called the pivots. Planets in them act most strongly and earliest in life.
Occult Astrology reads a birth chart the way the Greek-language astrologers of antiquity did. Cast a chart and compare it with a Vedic and a modern reading of the same sky.
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