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-
- Astrological Houses
-
-
- According to ancient astrological theory, the
- Heavens are divided into twelve significant regions in the
- plane of the Observer, numbered from the first, called the
- Ascendant, rising in the East, and counted in the order of
- the signs of the Zodiac. These twelve "houses" are fixed
- and the Heavens appear to rotate entirely through them in
- the course of one day. Primitive astrologers probably did
- not suspect the geometrical problems posed by the doctrine
- and were satisfied with the so-called "Equal House System."
- Soon enough, various solutions were proposed; the program
- offers a nearly complete survey of these.
-
- The "Equal House System" divides the Ecliptic into
- twelve equal houses counted from the Ascendant.
-
- The "Porphyrius System" named after the Neo-
- Platonic philosopher Porphyry (233-303) divides equally the
- regions of the Ecliptic comprised in the quadrants formed by
- the four cardinal points (Ascendant, Lower Mid Heaven,
- Descendant, Mid Heaven). In this system, as in most others,
- Mid Heaven stands on the cusp of the tenth house.
-
- The "Old Greek System" (also called the
- "Alcabitius System") divides equally the regions of the
- Equator comprised between the four cardinal points; the
- houses are then projected unto the Ecliptic.
-
- The "Regiomontanus System", made famous by a
- Fifteenth Century German mathematician (1436-1476), and the
- "Campanus System", whose attribution is not clear and whose
- date is either the Thirteenth or the Fifteenth Century, try
- to reconcile the fact that Mid Heaven is independant from
- the local plane and the Ascendant is dependant upon it.
-
- Probably the system most widely used by modern
- astrologers is the so called "Placidus System", called after
- a Seventeenth Century Italian monk (1603-1668), but already
- proposed a century earlier by the Italian mathematician
- Magini. It divides equally the time taken by the point on
- the Ascendant to reach Mid Heaven; and so on for the other
- quadrants.
-
- The "Morinus System" is named after Jean-Baptiste
- Morin (1583-1656), French astrologer to the court of Louis
- XIV; it divides the Equator in twelve equal segments from
- the point where it intersects the local plane. In this
- system, the Ascendant does not coincide with the cusp of the
- first house, and except for places on the Equator, Mid
- Heaven does not coincide with the cusp of the tenth house.
-
- The "Meridian System" divides the Equator equally
- from Mid Heaven; the system is independant from the local
- plane and the Ascendant does not fall on the first house
- cusp.
-
- The "Koch System" is named after Walter Koch
- (1895-1970); it is also a system of time division, where
- the time taken for a point at Mid Heaven to reach one third
- of the semi-diurnal arc is allocated to the point on the
- Ascendant for it to rise and mark the cusp of the eleventh
- house.
-
- All that is needed in order to enter this part of
- the program is the longitude of Mid Heaven, the latitude of
- a given place and the obliquity of the Ecliptic. If other
- parts of the program have previously been executed, these
- values are already computed and available.
-