The Twelfth House

Anachiel

Well-known member
The fact there is so much controversy about this house must say something about it's nature.

Obviously, it is a disagreeable house of obscure(d) and doubtful meaning in which all are undecided and stash innumerable, demanding personal events into.

Sounds like the 12th to me!
 

Carris

Well-known member
The fact there is so much controversy about this house must say something about it's nature.

Obviously, it is a disagreeable house of obscure(d) and doubtful meaning in which all are undecided and stash innumerable, demanding personal events into.

Sounds like the 12th to me!
To the materialistic world, this house would seem disagreeable. This discussion would not make sense to people who don't view themselves as eternal souls/spirits who incarnate several times on earth in order to grow spiritually. As an analogy, its like complaining about a difficult class in college, one that you chose yourself - because you wanted to learn the lessons of that class.

Why is the ability and desire to provide selfless service undesirable or "disagreeable"? It would only seem so only to materialistic people - they would not be able to comprehend such a thing - it would seem obscure, doubtful, a complete mystery to them.
 
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Anachiel

Well-known member
To the materialistic world, this house would seem disagreeable. ..
Why is the ability and desire to provide selfless service undesirable or "disagreeable"?

Well, I don't know what world you live in but, most of us are in a material (Read: physical) world.

Also, case in point, I didn't say selfless service was disagreeable. I said the views concerning the 12th were in disagreement. Still are apparently. The 12th also seems to bring out that quality to view others in comparison to lofty positions that mere mortals are supposedly so ignorant of.

Many wars had their basis in such hubris and judgement as to who was "spiritual" and who was "materialistic". That's the undoing I think they speak of about the 12th.
 
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poyi

Premium Member
I am curious if we can compare serial criminal and international spiritual leaders' charts.

When the two most opposite type of people while both have planets in the 12th and just have a look what those planets do in their life. Obviously!! I prefer the already died one! Soooo then we can truly finalize the meaning of such individual. Anyone have examples to share. :joyful:
 

SniperBomber328

Well-known member
The fact there is so much controversy about this house must say something about it's nature.

Obviously, it is a disagreeable house of obscure(d) and doubtful meaning in which all are undecided and stash innumerable, demanding personal events into.

Sounds like the 12th to me!

I was thinking the same. Not all the problems we have in life stem from the 12th. There are other houses, aspects and of course the dignities/debilities.

Nonetheless, the 12th House is still called the house of self-undoing, because of what it denotes. Whether we choose to see it as a "spiritual house" or "house of bad spirit", and our own preferences of this house cannot just be nit-picking what we like, and what we don't like.

About obscurity and doubt, I think you hit the ball-park there. I mean, Trad. (Yes Traditional) Astrology say's the reason the 12th House is so ill is because not only does it not see the AC, but it is also combust, since the Sun overshadows this area when rising. Not too mention the 12th is "falling away" from the AC and therefore Cadent. So naturaly since it's 'hidden' in nature (due to the house being in the most remote and malicious area), so are the things associated with it.

House of Secrets, Hidden Enemies and Isolation from the World anyone?
 
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sandstone

Banned
hi doodle,

that is cool. better for one to find oneself then to blindly follow someone else.. i share in those beliefs you identify with..

i see others commenting on your chart.. i think you do have a very strong 12th house with the ruler of the 12th conjunction the ruler of the 3rd and 4th if one uses trad rulers.. to me this describes much of what you comment on in one of your posts - your sense of isolation with no friends perhaps brought on or coinciding with the loss of your father in some respects. venus conjunct saturn is the ruler of your 7th which is also a strong relationship themed house. thanks for sharing..


I'm definitely not religious..more like a spiritual atheist i guess (atheist sounds a bit extreme). I already grew out of it. what am trying to say is that i don't fall into any sects or spiritual beliefs. I have my own beliefs, ex. love, kindness, and common sense.
 
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RaptInReverie

Well-known member
SniperBomber,

No, the twelfth house is called the house of self-undoing and secret enemies because some astrologers are superstitious and credulous. It amazes me that an individual with absolutely no twelfth house placements is presuming to tell those of us who do have them what the twelfth house represents--and that it represents “self-destruction“ at that. We are not nit-picking or being selective here; we are simply exposing the spurious notions about this house for what they are. Horary is another matter, and these claims may very well be valid in that practice, but as far as genethliacal astrology is concerned, the twelfth house should not be viewed in such a manner.

Might I also remind you that this is a public forum? There is nothing revealing or surprising about people disagreeing on astrological matters. Sift through some of the other threads here and see if the twelfth house is the only subject that people find disagreeable and obscure. Furthermore, we cannot declare something to be “hidden”, “ambiguous”, or “destructive” because we haven’t taken the time to properly ascertain what it actually is.

The twelfth house doesn’t see the Asc? Are we using the same charts here? I thought we had already established that a chart is a continuous circuit. The twelfth house is not ostracized from the ascendant, and a planet therein can aspect the ascendant or be the lord of the ascendant. The Lord of the twelfth can aspect the ascendant or any other angle for that matter. And of course many astrologers view such aspects negatively, but it is only because they have predetermined that the twelfth house is evil when it is not.

The Sun does not overshadow a house, nor are houses combust the Sun. I have only seen these definitions used in the context of a planet’s relationship to the Sun.

Here’s a challenge for you: Find a few twelfth house natives who will confirm the notions you have about it, then direct them to this thread. I’d love to speak with them.

I’m not saying that the twelfth house is solely about spirituality. I am still coming to conclusions about its meaning myself, but I refuse to label it as something destructive because I simply don’t understand it in its entirety.
 

Carris

Well-known member
SniperBomber,

No, the twelfth house is called the house of self-undoing and secret enemies because some astrologers are superstitious and credulous. It amazes me that an individual with absolutely no twelfth house placements is presuming to tell those of us who do have them what the twelfth house represents--and that it represents “self-destruction“ at that. We are not nit-picking or being selective here; we are simply exposing the spurious notions about this house for what they are. Horary is another matter, and these claims may very well be valid in that practice, but as far as genethliacal astrology is concerned, the twelfth house should not be viewed in such a manner.

Might I also remind you that this is a public forum? There is nothing revealing or surprising about people disagreeing on astrological matters. Sift through some of the other threads here and see if the twelfth house is the only subject that people find disagreeable and obscure. Furthermore, we cannot declare something to be “hidden”, “ambiguous”, or “destructive” because we haven’t taken the time to properly ascertain what it actually is.

The twelfth house doesn’t see the Asc? Are we using the same charts here? I thought we had already established that a chart is a continuous circuit. The twelfth house is not ostracized from the ascendant, and a planet therein can aspect the ascendant or be the lord of the ascendant. The Lord of the twelfth can aspect the ascendant or any other angle for that matter. And of course many astrologers view such aspects negatively, but it is only because they have predetermined that the twelfth house is evil when it is not.

The Sun does not overshadow a house, nor are houses combust the Sun. I have only seen these definitions used in the context of a planet’s relationship to the Sun.

Here’s a challenge for you: Find a few twelfth house natives who will confirm the notions you have about it, then direct them to this thread. I’d love to speak with them.

I’m not saying that the twelfth house is solely about spirituality. I am still coming to conclusions about its meaning myself, but I refuse to label it as something destructive because I simply don’t understand it in its entirety.
What happened to the "thanks" button?

RaptInReverie

I can't thank you enough - I couldn't have said it better! I was getting so tired. I guess I will never understand the mentality of people who like to falsely pronounce dark negative fates upon others ("you will end up in prison or an institution, incarcerated forever. You will never do well.") - thus getting them scared and upset for no reason. It must be some sickness in them, some issues with lack of power.
 
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waybread

Well-known member
Carris, religion and spirituality do have much in common. However, they also have differences. For many people, their religion is a pathway to their spirituality. Take the examples of Mother Teresa and Thomas Merton, whose charts I posted above. For them, Catholicism was a pathway to spirituality. For me personally, I couldn't get past the chequered history of the church and its ecclesiastical heirarchy. People have different pathways in life. Also, we might wish to separate out mysticism.

Some old-fashioned dictionary definitions: Spirituality: "The state or quality of being spiritual" [This has several definitions, but I think we mean pertaining to "the soul", "sacred", "holy," "distinguished from secular."]

Obviously religions deal with such topics. Religion is divided into different sub-topics, so we sort of have to define which branch we are talking about: theology, an institution's organizational structure, eschatology (afterlife), spirituality, and so on.

Mysticism has more to do with humans' ability to directly apprehend the divine without the use of reason, ordinary sensory experience, or intermediaries such as a church heirarchy.

The service question is interesting, given the 12th-6th house axis of astrology. I sometimes feel slightly annoyed at oh-so-spiritual people who actually aren't very nice to others in their interactions; or who expect that they can just commune with the divine while somebody else looks after the bills and takes out the trash. Apparently whatever benefits such people derive from their spirituality are more internal, because they don't manifest very well in their inter-personal behaviour.

Holier-than-thou types usually have the same issues in their lives as the rest of us. I just see most of them as a bit less honest about it. I do know a few truly spiritual women who absolutely live their religious creeds (interestingly, some of them are Mormons) and you can see it in how they interact with other people.

Service is one way that the truly spiritual person can manifest divine love.
 

powerion

Well-known member
funny I have all the bad houses then lol. 12th house gemini with jupiter and chiron both retro there. but both are in cancer..lol, my sun is singletone 8th house aquarius, n my other 6 planets are in the 6th house capricorn. my moon is also singletone in the 10th.

the main problem with life is knowing what to do ..haha right? cause I remember a man saying what more could a man need, a table bowl of fruit n a violin, he also wrote to the president how important it was to make the atom bomb, but he was albert einstein why listen to him. Some of the worst things can come from the greatest of thinkers, and people who clearly have hearts. I dont want to become a destroyer of any world, any life, The main thing that gets me is how we take advantage of our eyesight and mind. "it takes a genius to make something small and simple", our spaceships have 6million parts, our eyes have 6 billion parts, we see and feel and learn. because we could have no knowledge and see a person jump in water and drown, then hey we know something dont we? How crazy is it that the eye and the mind can work in such a way? How does your heart not race knowing this? your world you see is because of light, light hits the eye and reflects in? I read some quote that says therefor, you are always filled with light. Be thankfull that you ever even for a second understood what life or love is and maybe you can be free from your mind and free your heart.

btw I think its funny with all the media telling us to reclaim our selves, be more than god n stuff, like chronics, wrath of the titans the list goes on and on just turn on the tv and its every last show or movie. I give you a warning doing nothing could be more safe than doing something, you dont know what you're capable of, what if you're a star and form a black hole consuming everything which has ALWAYS been around you from the start. btw anyone believe blackholes could all be connected like a giant mind. say the universe is the mind, and black holes are the nerves where the insanly fast moving information gets moved naw what I mean? :D:whistling:
 

waybread

Well-known member
SniperBomber,

No, the twelfth house is called the house of self-undoing and secret enemies because some astrologers are superstitious and credulous. It amazes me that an individual with absolutely no twelfth house placements is presuming to tell those of us who do have them what the twelfth house represents--and that it represents “self-destruction“ at that. We are not nit-picking or being selective here; we are simply exposing the spurious notions about this house for what they are. Horary is another matter, and these claims may very well be valid in that practice, but as far as genethliacal astrology is concerned, the twelfth house should not be viewed in such a manner.
.....

The twelfth house doesn’t see the Asc? Are we using the same charts here? I thought we had already established that a chart is a continuous circuit. The twelfth house is not ostracized from the ascendant, and a planet therein can aspect the ascendant or be the lord of the ascendant. The Lord of the twelfth can aspect the ascendant or any other angle for that matter. And of course many astrologers view such aspects negatively, but it is only because they have predetermined that the twelfth house is evil when it is not.

.....
.

Some of us are merely transmitting how astrologers viewed the 12th house for the past 2000 years. We don't have to like it or agree with it. History is what it is, however. We can't deny it.

We don't have to agree with their rationale, but since ancient times, traditional astrology's aspects ahave been restricted to squares, sextiles, trines, and oppositions. No semi-sextiles or quincunxes. Conjunctions were treated a bit separately. This was one explanation for the bad reputation of the 12th, 6th, and 8th houses. The ascendant (1st house) was super-important, and aspects were understood in relation to it in the first instance. If we don't like this concept we don't have to follow it, but this is how traditional astrology views the houses.

Also, the notion that no one can really comment on a house unless s/he personally has a chart emphasis on it would puzzle professional astrologers. They read charts for clients whether they share any placements or not. The good astrologers produce accurate results.

I have a modern take on "self undoing." It isn't really negative: only in the sense that each house has its peculiarities and positive or negative navigations. For example:

Sun in the 12th: "It's not about you." (A 12th house sun example is Jimmy Carter, with a lifetime dedication to public service and NGO service.)

Saturn in the 12th: Saturn symbolizes the father in a night birth. Dad may have been missing or emotionally unavailable to the child.

relationship planets in the 12th (moon, Venus, Mars): Are we fully conscious of how we behave towards others in relationships? If not, they are apt to be a source of difficulty for us. [from Robert Hand, Horoscope Symbols.]

Jupiter in the 12th: a spiritual nature.

I am pretty optimistic about life in general, but bad things do happen to good people, and some people are "the authors of their own misfortunes." Where might we look for this in the chart?
 

StillOne

Well-known member
Powerion, I like what you brought up about the Universe and how we largely don't know how it operates. I think to a certain extent that the 12th house may be a reflection of the potential depth and the lack of understanding we have in general about the universe around us.

I mean, just yesterday I read an article that said billions of potentially habitable planets have been discovered within our own galaxy! http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...le-planets-discovered-milky-article-1.1053118

Just goes to show that there is much to be discovered out there! I think this can be related to the potential depth and lack of complete understanding we have of the 12th house.
 

Carris

Well-known member
Carris, religion and spirituality do have much in common. However, they also have differences. For many people, their religion is a pathway to their spirituality. Take the examples of Mother Teresa and Thomas Merton, whose charts I posted above. For them, Catholicism was a pathway to spirituality. For me personally, I couldn't get past the chequered history of the church and its ecclesiastical heirarchy. People have different pathways in life. Also, we might wish to separate out mysticism.

Some old-fashioned dictionary definitions: Spirituality: "The state or quality of being spiritual" [This has several definitions, but I think we mean pertaining to "the soul", "sacred", "holy," "distinguished from secular."]

Obviously religions deal with such topics. Religion is divided into different sub-topics, so we sort of have to define which branch we are talking about: theology, an institution's organizational structure, eschatology (afterlife), spirituality, and so on.

Mysticism has more to do with humans' ability to directly apprehend the divine without the use of reason, ordinary sensory experience, or intermediaries such as a church heirarchy.

The service question is interesting, given the 12th-6th house axis of astrology. I sometimes feel slightly annoyed at oh-so-spiritual people who actually aren't very nice to others in their interactions; or who expect that they can just commune with the divine while somebody else looks after the bills and takes out the trash. Apparently whatever benefits such people derive from their spirituality are more internal, because they don't manifest very well in their inter-personal behaviour.

Holier-than-thou types usually have the same issues in their lives as the rest of us. I just see most of them as a bit less honest about it. I do know a few truly spiritual women who absolutely live their religious creeds (interestingly, some of them are Mormons) and you can see it in how they interact with other people.

Service is one way that the truly spiritual person can manifest divine love.
Waybread

Yes religion taken in the right spirit can be a path to spirituality. I guess I was thinking of organized dogmatic religions that promote the concepts of guilt, sin, damnation, intolerance, bigotry, hatred, wars, terrorism, etc. But there are good and bad people everywhere I guess. And "religions" or rather philosophies like buddhism are definitely all about spirituality.

I believe in this explanation given about our origin and purpose as souls: “The purpose of spirit/soul, was to have an experience of separation from itself, from the Universal Spirit. One way to do this was to downsize, so to speak, into a physical body on earth. Part of the experiment was that the soul would go through the “veil of forgetfulness” so that it would not remember its true nature. It would simply associate itself with physicality, with a physical material experience.

Even though these souls had gone through the veils of forgetfulness, and may have been shackled by religious dogma into structured religious belief, could they find their way back into spiritual understanding of self? Even with the hindrances of materialism and dogmatic beliefs as well as a physical focus versus a spiritual focus? To ensure this through the veil of forgetfulness, the experiment became one where the goal was to find enlightenment, but in truth this is more a remembering of one’s truth and one’s truer being." Source: cosmic awareness org
 
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sandstone

Banned
hi waybread,

not sure what you are getting at with your modern take on 'self undoing'. does this connect with your comment immediately after?

i am curious to know how you have answered your last question here as well. what have you come up with? my own response to this question is there are potential pitfalls to any chart. an imbalance can suggest a strength and weakness with any number of implications. i think saturn often points to an area in a chart that requires work and attention and can point directly to a weakness in the chart.. it can also point to great strength if a person is willing to work with it. i think the 12th house has gotten some of the bad rap due less of a focus on the material realm generally. it shares this with the other water houses 4 and 8. any transition house moving from one hemisphere to the other seems to suggest some possible difficulty as well - 6 and 12 capturing the shift from below to above and vise versa..

i think modern astrology can be accused of having rose coloured glasses on in it's attitude towards the 12th. the fact is there are a lot of things going on in peoples lives and on the planet that aren't all that pretty or liberated. the end of the cycle associated with pisces and the 12th house seems to capture some of this as i see it. i think it is one reason also that some seek a path of redemption and spirituality with the hope of transforming their life or being 'reborn' onto a different level of consciousness which i also see as being implied by this sign and house in general.



I have a modern take on "self undoing." It isn't really negative: only in the sense that each house has its peculiarities and positive or negative navigations.

I am pretty optimistic about life in general, but bad things do happen to good people, and some people are "the authors of their own misfortunes." Where might we look for this in the chart?
 

RaptInReverie

Well-known member
Waybread,

I know that you guys are relaying the traditions of the ancient astrologers. That’s fine, but I am more interested in hearing your own opinions. I want to know why people still espouse these beliefs about the twelfth house. I’ve already researched the traditional theories behind it, and I found them to be impractical and contradictory.

I didn’t proclaim that a person without a twelfth house placement had no authority to make assertions about it, but I do marvel at the audacity of some astrologers who will make definitive statements to other astrologers about elements in their chart. If they are going to make such claims, they should at least have an adequate theoretical explanation or sufficient evidence from their own practical application of astrology to compensate for not actually having the placement in their own chart. I have not seen either produced on this thread as of yet.

You can find self-undoing anywhere in a natal chart. There isn’t any one specific house or sign or aspect or transit alone that will precisely indicate such a tendency--in my opinion, that is.
 

sandstone

Banned
i think to avoid the mush factor in astrology, explanations need to be given for why something means what it does. as for the idea of "undoing" and where one could see this in a chart, i don't think it means much if it is going to be seen anywhere in the chart.

using just the sun and saturn as 2 symbols, i think the idea of sun as a symbol for strength and saturn as representative of weakness has immediate application. if one wants to get beyond this simple interpretation of these 2 symbols by going into them more deeply, i think it can change it.. how do these 2 interact with other planets in the chart? the general idea is that hard aspects are more demanding and bring us into more conflictual situations which require we work it out in some direct manner.. the soft aspects don't demand this and are therefore thought to imply an 'ease' between the same planets.

where it gets interesting is when we think of how signs do or don't have an obvious affinity for other signs, which goes right into the traditional idea of houses from very early astrological times that had a house system where the 12th house was always the 12th sign to the rising sign.. with the profusion of house systems that continued to gain ascendancy in the middle ages ( this word to describe traditional astrology is a pretty huge net) we see the use of systems working to incorporate the 2 primary axis to create house systems where 2 or 3 signs can be sometimes captured inside 1 house depending on how far north or south of the equator someone is born..

this is not an attempt to change anyones mind on their use of a particular house system.. i only want to point out how a meaning implied may have become corrupted and essentially meaningless if not understood in the proper context..

either a particular house means something, or it doesn't.. i break it down based on what i believe was the insight gotten off the idea of the 12th sign to the rising sign being a different one from the rising sign.. however, i don't ignore a distinction being made on what is above the ascendant axis, verses what is below it.. i don't treat house cusps as walls that operate like boxes whereby something is either in box 1 or box 12 for example.. i like to think of cusps like the crest of a wave as opposed to a hard edge. my astrological perspective is based on an appreciation of vibrations, as opposed to a hard edged one where something immediately stops, and something else immediately starts..

i think there is an inherent weakness to the 12th house.. i see it as the final house of the social hemisphere - the upper half of the chart, where a person needs to move beyond this realm into a more personal one represented by the lower half of the chart.. this transition from the social sphere to the personal one does require adjustments which may or may not be easy to make.. this particular viewpoint on houses is based on the clockwise movement of the planets thru the zodiac signs, as opposed to the diurnal counterclockwise motion.. i could comment on that too, but i am going to stop here to go do some other things!
 

gaer

Well-known member
Some of us are merely transmitting how astrologers viewed the 12th house for the past 2000 years. We don't have to like it or agree with it. History is what it is, however. We can't deny it.
Nothing is certain except for death, taxes, and AW :)

I seldom state any "facts" about what what X, Y or Z means in a chart unless I am referring to my own. And unlike many people, I have always made my chart available to anyone who wants to check.

In my chart Pluto does not count for traditionalists, so I will only mention Venus and Saturn.

Here is how it plays out for me:
Saturn in the 12th: Saturn symbolizes the father in a night birth. Dad may have been missing or emotionally unavailable to the child.
We always have to remember that what we are "reading" is about the individual or "native", not about another person. I was born after midnight. My father was invisible to me as a child. He was just a "nice man", distant, and he seemed to take a back seat to my mother. Passive, self-contained, conservative, very fixed. We had no birthtime for him, so I have no AC, and the Moon could have been in Cancer or Leo. That's a huge difference.

Fast forward: before he died my father went into a coma, only for a day or so. We became VERY close. I found out that my "distant" father never judged me, never criticized me, always quietly supported me, and in every way that truly counts was a FRIEND. You don't get more than that in this life. So after becoming so close, I was there to hold his hand, and while I did he slipped away. I'll let other people come to their own conclusions. The lady who was there said that she had seen this before and that he was waiting for me to be there before leaving. I choose to believe that.

POINT: my perceptions colored my dad as distant, when I was young, and his own nature made it impossible for him to change my misconceptions.
relationship planets in the 12th (moon, Venus, Mars): Are we fully conscious of how we behave towards others in relationships? If not, they are apt to be a source of difficulty for us. [from Robert Hand, Horoscope Symbols.]
My take: very few people are more than a very little self-aware, so they tend to be blind to both their strongest and weakest points. The Venus/Saturn conjunction in my chart, about 5 degrees but in different signs, played out this way:

I was a lonely kid. I learned to hide vulnerability, so successfully that I was viewed as arrogant, cold, aloof and conceited. That is what I was projecting. I only knew I felt lonely, not connected to anything. A series of experiences hit me like an avalanche in my late 20s (Saturn transiting 12th, "Saturn return") and my whole life was torn up in my early 30s (transit of my 2nd house).

So was the Venus/Saturn conjunction in the 12th "hidden"? Yes. Totally. The study of astrology was they key that unlocked this mystery. Things that are hidden do not have to STAY hidden. But they have to be looked at first, which is usually very painful while going through the learning experiences. :)

That's my personal view of my own chart, for what it is worth to other people.
 

RaptInReverie

Well-known member
Sandstone,

I stand by what I said above: self-undoing tendencies can manifest anywhere in a natal chart, and that’s pretty self-explanatory.

The Sun and Saturn should not be taken to represent strength and weakness, as dignity and debility determine strength and weakness. The Sun represents the native and Saturn represents discipline and restriction, or even wisdom in certain instances.

If you view the twelfth house as the final house in the social hemisphere and you also consider it to be weak, then you must also view the culmination of everything acquired throughout the preceding five houses to be weak. Why does completion have to imply that something is weakened? One could certainly view the twelfth as a graduation or an attainment, and in that sense it makes no sense to consider it weak.
 
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Munch

Well-known member
Also, the notion that no one can really comment on a house unless s/he personally has a chart emphasis on it would puzzle professional astrologers. They read charts for clients whether they share any placements or not. The good astrologers produce accurate results.

Agreed. Just because you don't have planets there doesn't mean it doesn't exist for you. There is the house ruler and the aspects to said ruler, not to mention the sign in the house.

We all have 12 houses. A good astrologer would never think to marginalize a house just because it's 'empty.'
 
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