Modern Astrology and the “Pick-a-Chart” Quandary
AUTHOR’S NOTE: On one of the astrological sub-reddits, a member recently asked how it can be right for different house systems to yield inconsistent chart structures and planetary placements but still manage to “resonate” with our life circumstances even though there is little commonality in the competing definitions. This fluidity of horoscope factors doesn’t seem to make much sense if there is any validity to conventional house meanings. Much of the commentary breezed right by the question and advised “Just pick one and stick with it.”
But this is a very good point. I’ve worked with a lot of different house systems since 1970, mostly staying with Placidus but using Regiomontanus for horary and experimenting with harmonic, sidereal and whole-sign charts (although I never penetrated too deeply into Vedic astrology). More recently, my brother and I have been discussing the old Greek “octile” (or oktotopos) charts of eight 45-degree segments because they align with the opinion of the German astrologers (at least those back in the ’70s) that the “hard” angles based on 45 degrees are the most sensitive to aspects and transits. In my experiments with them, the segments “meld” the standard house meanings into something different that echoes the psychological focus of Hemisphere Emphasis. (If you’re interested, I’ve linked a previous post on the subject below.)
With my own chart, I did a rectification based on life events many years ago because I was never persuaded by the original Sagittarius Ascendant and the 9th-House location of Sun, Mercury and Venus conjunct in Cancer. (I think what happened was that I was born right around the time the US was flip-flopping on whether or not to stay with “War Time” [now Daylight Saving Time] and nobody is certain which one the hospital was using on that particular Summer Solstice.) This analysis gave me late degrees of Scorpio rising with the Cancer conjunction intercepted in the 8th House opposing Moon in Capricorn intercepted in the 2nd House. In other words, a perfect fit for both my appearance and introverted personality (but it could also be true that I “grew into” the chart). These days I use mostly traditional methods applied to horary astrology and do very little natal work.
One member commented that looking strictly at chart angles, planetary signs and aspects, and overall dynamics while ignoring or devaluing the traditional intermediary house cusps is the best way to resolve this conundrum, and I believe that observation has merit. There is an old assumption that the planets show “what” will happen, the signs reveal “how” it will transpire, and the houses indicate “where” in life the consequences will be felt. I’ve always believed that house interpretation is the least reliable of these since — other than the nature of the four “angles” that is identical across the Tropical systems I’ve used — it seems like too much of a “grab bag” of miscellaneous ideas. It can also be argued that modern life is nowhere near as “compartmentalized” as it was in the time of astrology’s forefathers, so rigid “bins” are somewhat non-intuitive in contemporary practice. The standard approach seems more anecdotal than empirical, making its usefulness for analytical purposes doubtful (although the average person who wants a horosocope reading won’t know the difference and therefore won’t care).
As scholarly (rather than populist) astrologers trying to navigate these murky waters, we are left in the position shown in an 1846 Punch magazine cartoon, later repeated by Mark Twain in Huckleberry Finn: “You pays your money and you takes your choice.”
https://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/octile-house-divisions-in-astrology/
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on November 11, 2024.
