Charting the House Systems

I have read a lot about each house system, some say that they are time-based, others space based and then there is a long explanation about dividing the ecliptic either on the meridian or the equator.  It made me wonder when it comes down to creating the actual chart, does it matter?

      It all started with Porphyry

The Porphyry House system dates from the 3rd Century AD and is named after its creator, Porphyry (233-305 AD)  a neo-Platonist and student of Plotinus.  He devised his system from the writings of Greek astrologer named Orion (150-175 AD) before Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos was written in 295 AD.  It is the oldest house system and uses Equal Houses like the Ancient Egyptians, but the Midheaven is always the Tenth House Cusp and the remaining houses are determined by trisecting each hemisphere so it can be used with northern latitudes unlike Placidus.   The Ascendant starts at with the first house.

The NeoPorphyry, a modern update to the ancient version has little in common with its namesake — it would seem the name is just a marketing gimmick for those who think that they are getting a “correct” Porphyry.  The major difference between the two, is that the Neo  no longer trisects each quadrant equally but now uses a graduated “sinusoidal” method  (i.e. based on the sine wave) so that everything is still apparently smooth but houses with lots of planets get more space while those with few or no planets get less. It is easy to view and for those into financial forecasting because of its similarity to Welles Wilder’s Stochastic Trend System, easy to follow.

But the true earliest known house system is the Whole House System where the houses as such basically disappear and each house equals a sign.  The Ascendant is not tied to the first house though the chart starts with the ascendant zodiac sign & the ascendant itself lies at the correct degree within it.    This method is used by the Hellenistic Astrologers and has no interceptions.

                             Alcabitius liked Ptolemy

Alcabitius is “time-based” system i.e. it is based on the diurnal (sun day) arc of the ascendant.  A Syrian Christian c. 950 AD, he wrote a book on astrology and created his House System to replicate the  Ptolemaic one as stated in the Tetrabiblos; it does not have interceptions but does have unequal houses (i.e. each house cusp has its own start. In the true Equal House system, all houses are exactly the same size & have the same start, see the slideshow for more).  What is nice about Alcabitius is that it causes no distortion at high latitudes so people born in Russia, Scotland etc. can use this method without getting wide distortions — though some actually like that.  See Mary Ann Trump for examples.  The NeoProphyry house system fixes that.

Michel de Nostradame (Nostradamus)  used the Alcabitius System for his predictions.

               Alcabitus is out…the Latins move in

The Campanus House System was created by two Mathematician brothers, Johannes and Matthias Campanus, born around 1250 AD.  The Campanus method is “space based” a term that refers to when a House System uses the prime vertical — the great circle that passes through the east and west points of the horizon as well as the zenith (midheaven) and nadir at right angles.  The prime vertical starts at Greenwich England and is what all longitude is based upon.  See this set of Naval cartoons — they are a set of three — for more.

While the Campanus  brothers based their method on the Alcabitius House Method, they made significant changes including being the  first to incorporate the idea of Intercepted Houses.  A problem with Campanus (and its successor Regiomontanus and Placidius) is that half of the system (zenith to nadir) is equatorial and the other half (east to west) is ecliptic based. They also broke with Alcabitius that that the cusp should mark the center of a house rather than its start.  Campanus,  is still rather popular in Europe today  (thanks to French-American Dane Rudhyar).

                                                 Regiomontanus changes that

Next up was the German Regiomontanus (aka Johann Mueller), a contemporary supporter of Reverend Martin Luther.  According to Dr. Luke Broughton Regiomontanus made his name by selling an “Ephemerides” much like Raphael & Neil Morrison would do several hundred years later.   He brought this work out for astrologicalpurposes, containing the planets, longitudes, aspects, etc.’, for thirty years,  and each year sold out for  twelve Hungarian pieces of gold.

After making a name for him, Regiomontanus then announced a new house system that was as a further improvement on the Campani Bros. by changing the cusps from the middle of the house back to the start and making them fixed.  He felt that they should be immovable because they were space-based (like the Campanus ) and not (birth) time or (birth) place based (like Alcabitius); it is typically used in horary work

 

                        Brother Placidus enters the Fray

Benedictine monk Placidus de Titis (1590-1668) was also a mathematician.  He read Ptolemy in the original and was considered the authority on the latter’s work.  Placidus was a native of Bologna, and mathematician to the Archduke Leopold  William of Austria.   His work was considered the most accurate rendering of Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblios until Morinus entered the fray with a “time based” system that tri-sections the arcs.  He calculated the time it would take any degree to ascend from the ecliptic  to the Midheaven and then from the ecliptic to the nadir.

Mathematically, Placidus’s method was rather complicated, astronomically, according to Carl Tobey “this was just as bad,”  as his predecessors, and in the final analysis no different because it made  unequally divided houses or a different start point  for each house depending on location.The final point is problematic for anyone born north of Cornwall, England where large intercepted houses occur at the midheaven — see Mrs. Frank Trump’s chart for an example of this.

Nonetheless, Raphael (Robert Cross) based his ephemeris on Placidus, probably because it was  not French, and  all the major astrologers followed suit i.e. : Charubel, Alan Leo, Charles E. O. Carter and Marc Edmund Jones because they used his tables. It is still the most popular one around, though in America the German Walter Koch system is a close second, though the latter system does not address all the problems of Placidus.  It is doubtful though that the Britisher’s Raphael and Alan Leo would have used a French system no matter how accurate because of  historical prejudices,

                                  Placidus is wrong!?

The French medical doctor,Jean-Baptiste Morin, better known as Morinus, fixed Placidus’s  mathematical errors based on a manuscript he got from a fellow Scottish doctor who knew of his interest.  While Morin was born seven years after Jerome Cardano had died, he did the most pioneering work in similar area’s to the earlier astrologer.  As Kepler’s contemporary and correspondent, he was the first to design a longitudinal system, but was vilified by the powerful Cardinal Richelieu & Etienne Pascal so he was work was banned and his theories thrown out.  Whether this affected Benjamin Harrison’s Longitude is a good speculation, but biographer Dava Sobel never addresses that issue.  While the Morinus method is mathematically accurate, the houses are still uneven slightly but can be used at all latitudes.

The Australian David Cope (Zariel)  re-discovered Morinus’s work and corrected cuspal issues for his Meridian House System.  This means that some planets now fall in the previous  or latter house but our highlighted chart for Wendell Wilkie does not show that discrepancy.  The one below, for the founding of Helena Montana does.  Green is the earlier Morinus method; gold the later Zariel.  Look at the midheaven for the most obvious difference:  Morinus has 06.10 Aquarius; Zariel’s (as it called in Janus 5) 01.36 Aquarius.  After that look at the where the part of fortune falls in each globe: Morinus it is in the 2nd, Zariel the 1st and of course on the other side of the hemisphere Venus falls into the seventh house for Meridian.

Technology and the 20th Century

Sydney Omarr was good friends with fellow astrologer & astronomomer Carl Payne Tobey, (see here for his picture and wedding announcement).  In Omarr’s  autobiography, My world of Astrology,¹  Tobey discusses the key to their choice of the equal house system was  based on the ecliptic North Pole.

So what is the ecliptic North Pole?

It is a mathematical point that is 90º north of the artic circle that is often seen on globes as where all the lattitudes converge.

The distance from the Artic Circle to the regular North Pole is exactly the same as the distance of the Tropic of Cancer from the equator  and the Tropic of Capricorn to the Antartic Circle.  All of this also explains  why on the horoscope bottom is North, top south and the left is East and the right is West.   So why do they feel that’s important?

1. It divides the horizon into twelve equal sections and has the great circle passing throught he zenith and nadir just like it would in the sky.
2. The cusp of the first house will not be the ascendant because that comes after the house division and should not influence it.

It does have a relationship to the Campanus system, so a Table of Houses created for that house, can be used by the Zenith or Equal House system.  Lois Rodden was another who preferred the Equal system.  The Whole House system starts at Zero not at the ascendant like the Equal and is used when “no houses” are preferred, like when the birth time is unknown.  This system can be easily transferred to the Witte 90 degree dial. Kelly Surtees uses this one.

                                      Going back in time

In the meantime our reference chart of President Bill Clinton is problematic as it does not have interceptions no matter which house system we try.  We want to highlight interceptions, first Marc Edmund Jones used them but many other modern astrologers do too (Martha Lang Wescott’s Mechanics of the Future and her audio on Anne Sexton drives home what she feels is the importance of an interception. )  So, we are  changing our reference point from the Democrat Bill Clinton to the 1940 Republican Nominee Wendell Willkie who lost against incumbent Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940 Presidential election..

If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Wilkie, read his obituary from the New York Times where they hailed him as “businessman who put politics aside” and ran for office.  Boy that tune changed 75 years later.  NYTimes — Wilkie dies

                                                          Pictures please

Now that with all of that under your belt, click on the Slideshow to see  how the various house systems handle the same horoscope. I tried to put the slides in chronological order.  The key things to notice is the early cusp layout that affects Mars in Sagittarius.   If the keyword ASC for Ascendant is not noted, then it  is the start of the first house.

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Footnotes:

1. Omarr, Sydney.  My World of Astrology, 1969 edition.  Published by:  WIlshire Book Company, 8721 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood CA 90069.
2. Another Equal House system was created by  the Dutch esoterist A. E. Thierens.  He  has a rather unusual tarot system that is worth reviewing.
3. The Meridian System is found in cheap Matrix WinStar series — that Michael Erlewine sold to the David & Fei Cochrane who maintain it in Florida.
   1. Kepler &  Sirius are their own hybrids and the only software that is actively developed. The price difference is $300.00
   2. Solar Fire is from Australia  Many prefer it because of the large variety of information it provides that Kepler does not and is just $50.00 more.  It’s Uranian portion is fine.
   3. Janus 5 is from New Zealand.  It is the cheapest of the astrological systems and aimed at hobbyists.  It has a lot of information in it, and it’s Uranian portion is superb but it has a very limited database.  Still it’s a bargain, but not available for Macs.
   4. Aureas hails from Paris.  It has two versions, one for hobbyists and the other for professionals.  It comes with the complete Gauquelin database and it’s Uranian portion is also very good.  It is tailored to an European audience.
   5. Finally there is the free Astrolog.  It has lots of houses but its graphics are gif-y.  Others in that category are Morinus  and Zet
4. I have never found the Meridian online but like Porphyry, Morinus and Whole Sign  it does not tie the ascendant to the first house.  I have never seen the “Zenith” House system mentioned as such.