Houses (Was A statistical study...)

[Guest guest]

At 08:02 AM 5/1/08 +0300, Sari wrote:

>Therese wrote:

>

>> The fact that Placidus is showing up so well for the psychology of

>> criminals (rapists) goes back to the Hellenistic concept of different

>> kinds

>> of house systems being used for different types of delineation. If

>> 'topics'

>> were investigated, that is parents, siblings, profession, etc. a system of

>> whole signs or equal houses was used. These were *topical* houses. But

>> quadrant systems were used to judge the strength of planets.

>

>Sari:

>

>Yes, this is a theory promoted by Robert Schmidt but it's not universally

>accepted. I've seen at least Deborah Houlding questioning it. Houlding is

>also not sure if the whole sign houses were really the only house system

>used in delineation in Greek...

>

>I've searched for dates for the horoscopes in Masha'allah's Book of

>Nativities which are tentatively dated by Pingree & co to quite obscure

>dates that range from the 1st century to the 5th century and give several

>erroneus positions to the planets. There's degrees for the cusps in those

>horoscopes (Rob Hand says that they are added afterwards, but I'm in fact

>not perfectly sure about that) that fit well with Porphyry/Alcabitius...,

>

>and by using those degrees/houses, not signs, for locating the planets I've

>found dates in the 3rd century for three horoscopes so far in that booklet

>that give quite fitting positions for the planets. What's remarkabe is that

>those dates range so far from 220 to 248 a.d., so there's much better

>concistency than with the dates by Pingree.

 

Sari, would you like to share the dates you've found? I'd like to compute

the charts. I know the charts in Masha'allah's ON RECEPTION are accurate

because the planet positions check out quite nicely with the Raman

ayanamsa. I haven't looked at the charts in THE BOOK OF NATIVITIES. (Is

there a new book aside from Robert Hand's small booklet?)

 

Quite possibly there was a change in house use from the earliest

Hellenistic astrologers to the Arabic era. But we're fortunate--it doesn't

matter so much which house systems were used for what in past times. What

matters is what our current research describes.

 

>In my own studies I've so far found poor evidence for the whole sign houses,

>both dynamically (angular - succedent - cadent indicating strength) and

>topically.

 

I have also found whole sign houses not to be helpful. But for Jyotish what

matters is equal house rulers, not the extent of the house. That's my

perspective. I gave up whole sign houses a long time ago except for equal

house rulers. I still use cusp-as-equal-house center for topics, but this

needs much more research.

 

>In fact the reason

>why I'm currently favoring Alcabitius cusps myself is that they gave clearly

>the best results with dignities in that study; I didn't publish the diagram

>about sidereal Placidus cusps but it was significantly weaker than the

>Alcabitius diagram. Of course one study doesn't settle it but it may hint

>the direction.

 

Yes, one study is a hint to produce more studies!!

 

>The best results so far about topical matters has been given by Bonatti's

>Part of Work (Asc + Moon - Saturn) in houses of 651 people in art and

>fashion...Using Sripati houses, the part of Work accumulated in the so

called " Kama houses " (physical enjoyment in India) 3, 7 and 11 with the

artists/designers, and

>correspondingly it accumulated in the " Dharma houses " (right conduct) 1, 5

>and 9 with the healers...

 

Whereas the trigons of houses are important, the division of kama, dharma

(etc.) houses is very recent and not universally used in India. Systems

Approach has an entirely different view of the trigons, and tropical

astrologer Morin has yet another view. I personally reject this new

division of houses into kama, dharma, etc. I don't think it's valid. The

8th house, for example, seems to be mostly unfortunate and has nothing to

do with spirituality or 'moksha.'

 

The Dispositors of the lots are also very important in chart

interpretation. I agree that the lots might tell us a great deal about

individual charts because they're mostly based on the ascendant and are

unique to the chart.

 

>Also, when I was doing qualitative research about houses by collecting

>charts with a lot of planets in a certain house, Sripati gave the most

>homogenous groups. One especially striking example is mafia boss Lucky

>Luciano...

 

I have a whole file of Mafia bosses. I'm going to have to take a few days

to sort my thousands of horoscopes because I can't find that particular

file--along with others I can't find as well.

 

>...These results are not contradictory to the good results got with

Alcabitius

>on angular - succedent - cadent houses, because Sripati cusps are identical

>with the Porphyry cusps which are almost identical with the Alcabitius

>cusps. It may be that Sripati gives topical houses while Porphyry/Alcabitius

>gives dynamical ones, so that when a planet is about to rise to the

>Ascendant, it's angular and in the 1st house, but after it has crossed the

>Ascendant, it has become cadent but it's still in the 1st house until it has

>come nearer to the 12th cusp than the 1st, when it moves to the 12th house

>being still cadent.

>

>But my opinion is not settled yet, have to do more research.

 

Sari, you've shown by your research that houses can be a fruitful area of

research. The houses may not mean what tradition says they mean, but we may

be able to isolate certain areas that collect certain types of planets. But

we also have to remember that in India it's the combination of house rulers

that matters, and dispositors. For example, if Mars is angular in the

charts of rapists, for the rapist charts without an angular Mars, is the

dispositor of Mars angular?? What house system would show this? I've found

the planet and its dispositor to be interchangeable when it comes to

angularity.

 

A research group on the topic of houses would be very productive.

 

Therese