Eighth house of horrors: growing into it?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

aquarius7000 said:

Since the ruler of your career house also is in your 8th house - I am now curious to know about what you do for a living. Do you write about horror stuff or something connected to the 8th house? Saying because your Venus is connected to your dignified Merc. and also to your Moon as well as Mars in Gem. Feel free to ignore any question you don't like.

Click to expand...

Funny you should ask...

I'm in transition. I'm moving into an herbalism/astrology/reiki practice, and slowly creating a blog to write about a few of those things and whatever else I can tie in.

I've also tried my hand at writing some dark fantasy, but not put in the discipline to make it a profession. In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, I wrote my first ghost story (actually an adventure story that happened to have a ghost in it) when I was 10.

waybread said:

I have no natal 8th house planets, just the NN. But several by progression, for a very long time. None of them resulted in a love of being frightened.

I wonder if you've looked at other prognosticative methods, like profections, solar arcs or tertiary progressions.

Click to expand...

I'm less familiar with those. Might bear some looking at, but it's a study!

I did just pull my SR+natal chart for my eleventh birthday, and my natal + secondary progressions for that date. My falling in love with horror happened, as best as I can remember, either the summer I turned 11 or that fall. I was definitely into it by Halloween.

I do remember finding a 2 volume set of the complete uncensored Grimm's fairy tales that summer, and reading my way through it. Maybe all the severed body parts in Grimm's paved the way.

My eleventh solar return chart is on the left, progressions on the right.

A couple of details jump out at me on those 11th birthday charts:

SR Pluto in exact square to SR Mercury, while applying sextile to natal Mercury.

SR Venus on natal Pluto, although that's happened many years. I recently heard that there are only 8 different possible placements for Venus in your SR chart, by degree and sign. Every solar return in your life will have Venus on one of those degrees. 8 Libra is one of my possible SR Venus placements. I had it this year, too. Meanwhile, progressed Venus and progressed sun were conjunct, making Venus cazimi by progression.

T Neptune was on my ascendant that year. Perhaps that helped shift my sense of what was and wasn't real? I think the main reason I didn't like scary stories when I was little is that they seemed too real for me. By the time I was 11, I'd had enough practice with the difference between real and made up to perceive a solid boundary between them, and I guess at that point, I was willing to deliberately cross that boundary. (But that's my adult self filling in the details. I wouldn't have reasoned that way when I was 11.)

The progressed Venus/Sun conjunction was also trine my AC, meaning Neptune was trining that as well.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

aquarius7000 said:

Also curious now about your relationship with your parents, esp. mother. Also, did you move often your place of living? Again, feel free to ignore any question.

Click to expand...

Never moved at all until I was 18. Mom and I... well, I think the problem all along has been that we're too much alike! Both of us have very fiery charts, and it shows. But there's love.

My mom always was very strong on encouraging independence (go away to camp at 9? Sure!) and playing in the dirt (her attitude: you can wash off dirt, but you can't wash off not having the experience). Could be volatile and moody, too, and sometimes took it out on me.

She also encouraged all her kids to read, just as a matter of fact. We went to the library every week. Thinking of the scary story kick: my parents had very firm rules about what I was allowed to watch as a child--no violence, absolutely--but no restriction at all on reading. If the library had it and they let you check it out, it was fine.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

aquarius7000 said:

Would you say your parents get along well?

Click to expand...

Yes, very. They always have. Still married and harmonious (as far as I can tell) after 46 years.

aquarius7000 said:

May I ask what your dad's profession is or if he has retired, then was?

Click to expand...

He's a retired civil servant. Federal. The security of it meant a lot to him.

aquarius7000 said:

I want to understand the Sun in the eight better. Or did he in any way feel that life had dealt him an unfair hand? Although, I want to believe he was optimistic given the Sun in Leo, but something did weigh on him due to the Sun's placement in the eight.

Click to expand...

I've never known him to express the attitude that life had dealt him an unfair hand. He's not the kind of person who walks around with a chip on their shoulder, not at all. But there was some pretty tragic stuff involving his parents. My grandmother had a history of mental illness that I didn't know about until I was a teenager (and she was dying of dementia), and my grandfather was killed in a freak accident when Dad was 19.

In general, my dad is the kind of person who internalizes burdens. (I see this as an adult, but I don't think I would've picked up on it as a child.) My siblings and I have an understanding that we've got to be careful what we tell Dad and when, if it's bad news, because he worries so much.

aquarius7000 said:

Would you say you have many friends or intellectual friends (Mars in Gem. and rules the 11th)?

Click to expand...

Yes!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

GemwDepth said:

Yes but what is your 8th Cusp? In melancholic Pisces versus happy Sag differs a great deal.

Click to expand...

Cusp is in Aries.

aquarius7000 said:

Thanks for sharing such personal info. Confirms to me often how I am interpreting - even with the dad - I can see some trauma that has had a deep effect on him (perhaps he fears the loss of his children and therefore the excessive worrying)

Click to expand...

I never thought of that, but it's plausible.

Edited to add: I'm the oldest of three, and the only one with an eighth house sun. Both my siblings have fifth house suns. If I'm the one whose chart shows sun in the eighth--trauma for Dad--does that perhaps mean I'm the one it's passed down to? Or perhaps, since I'm the firstborn, it was especially raw when I came along? My birth meant my parents became parents for the first time... so any fears they had about having children would've been up.

And then, I was born prematurely. The doctors immediately whisked me off to intensive care. I imagine that worried my parents a lot.

aquarius7000 said:

May I ask what the deal is with children? Do you have any?

Click to expand...

No, and I never tried to. If I had gotten pregnant, I probably would've wanted the baby, but I've never felt any very strong compulsion to be a mother. A bit of revulsion, actually--not to children themselves, but to the kind of role that's expected of mothers, especially when their kids are little. If I were to adopt a child or acquire a stepchild, I would be perfectly happy for it to be a school age kid, and skip the baby stage.

Heck, even my pets have always been full grown when I adopted them. I get the joy of having a cat without having to deal with a hyper kitten tearing the house apart.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

But I will make this observation though. My 8th house didn't really begin taking effect in my life until I was about 30-35. Prior to that my life was focused on 10th and 7th house issues and had no idea all that existed.

I didn't even know there was this part of me. It was like there was a hidden depth that was unexplored, but I never quite imagined or knew it was there.

After 30-35, things gradually unfolded. It feels like an entire world opened up...more like a fascinating, deep abyss opened up all of a sudden...and I never knew it was there.

Considering that the ruler of my 7th, 10th, and my actual NN are in the 8th, I am really, really surprised it took this long to get to this point.

I don't know if it has to do with progressions, life time period, transit, etc...and I never looked into the cause. But you can take this experience for what its worth.

GemwDepth said:

But I will make this observation though. My 8th house didn't really begin taking effect in my life until I was about 30-35.

Click to expand...

In what way did your eighth house start taking effect?

Off the top of my head...

• Realizing I had deep emotions. It all sort of just bursted out all of a sudden.
• Deeper comprehension of astrology.
• Realizing I may have latent psychic abilities. Never paid attention to this.
• Realizing my mind worked in a different way than others. I was honestly terrible at school compared with peers, and did “well” by memorization and using lots of systems. It always took twice as long for me to get the same results, so I thought I was just naturally unintelligent compared to everyone else. Finally realized my mind was deep in certain areas and was more suited to problem solve by independent investigation.
• Interest in spirituality, death, reincarnation concepts, meditation, energy medicine, natural health, magick and consider all as a vast candy store unexplored...

But still, no interest in horror.

GemwDepth said:

But I will make this observation though. My 8th house didn't really begin taking effect in my life until I was about 30-35. Prior to that my life was focused on 10th and 7th house issues and had no idea all that existed.

I didn't even know there was this part of me. It was like there was a hidden depth that was unexplored, but I never quite imagined or knew it was there.

After 30-35, things gradually unfolded. It feels like an entire world opened up...more like a fascinating, deep abyss opened up all of a sudden...and I never knew it was there.

Considering that the ruler of my 7th, 10th, and my actual NN are in the 8th, I am really, really surprised it took this long to get to this point.

I don't know if it has to do with progressions, life time period, transit, etc...and I never looked into the cause. But you can take this experience for what its worth.

Click to expand...

GemwDepth said:

Off the top of my head...

• Realizing I had deep emotions. It all sort of just bursted out all of a sudden.
• Deeper comprehension of astrology.
• Realizing I may have latent psychic abilities. Never paid attention to this.
• Realizing my mind worked in a different way than others. I was honestly terrible at school compared with peers, and did “well” by memorization and using lots of systems. It always took twice as long for me to get the same results, so I thought I was just naturally unintelligent compared to everyone else. Finally realized my mind was deep in certain areas and was more suited to problem solve by independent investigation.
• Interest in spirituality, death, reincarnation concepts, meditation, energy medicine, natural health, magick and consider all as a vast candy store unexplored...

But still, no interest in horror.

Click to expand...

I think this may be happening because of your NN in the eighth. I've been told (though not on this site) that the north node and its house usually start being particularly noticeable in the native's life when they get within shouting distance of 40. Early to mid thirties is a bit younger, but still within the age range that it could be a newly activated north node.

My first interest in astrology kicked in when I was in my early thirties. I have my NN in Scorpio, eleventh house (not eighth, so the north node kicking in isn't my reason for interest in horror--besides, I was only 11!), so we could read some NN into that--but I think the real astrological trigger is that my Venus, which rules my fifth and tenth houses and is retrograde natally, went direct by progression at that time. No progressed planets changed direction when I was 11, though.

At that time, someone read my chart and said I was involved with spiritual groups and probably a teacher. That sounded so foreign to me, like they were talking about a stranger. I said so, and they double checked my birthdate and said they were looking at my north node, and what it indicates would probably kick in around 40.

Ten years later, that sounds more like me, though not quite.

I am a Scorpio with a strong 8th house. Sag is on the cusp of my 8th, but I have a triple conjunction of Moon/Chiron/Mars in Cap in the 8th.

I have never liked horror movies. I am super sensitive to them and cannot watch them. I avoid them like the plague.

HOWEVER, I am obsessed with true crime mysteries and murder trials. I follow missing person cases and murder cases daily on another forum.

katydid said:

I have never liked horror movies. I am super sensitive to them and cannot watch them. I avoid them like the plague.

Click to expand...

And how are you defining horror movies? Are you thinking of the blood and guts and jump scares kind?

My kind of horror is along the lines of Coraline or The Witch. More dark fantasy than jump scare, much more psychological thriller than overt violence. I don't like the Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th kind of horror at all.

Anyone with a 8th house sun/moon and 4th house Pluto in Libra - something to do with death and medical problems - is a horror feature for anyone's natal charts. Then I have my ruling planet Uranus (Im an Aquarius) in Scorpio. And finally, the morbid black moon Lilith conjunct Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in 3rd.

Hmm, my baby sister has an 8th house Cancer sun. I haven't noticed anything peculiar about her, but then again, we come from an odd and generally Plutonian/Martian/Scorpionic family as it is

She has a dark sense of humor and often jokes about death. I don't know the deeper goings on in her mind. My mom and I have both had interests in the occult and much darker aspects of life so I'm sure it's also there in our genes. She is a bit of a rebel and likes to watch things she shouldn't, but I get the feeling it's for the pure thrill of feeling like a rebel rather than deeper interest at this point

For me I have Mars ruling my 8th house with Aries so I guess it's at home there and then I have mars in my 1st house. I don't think that makes me any more Plutonian or Scorpionic or 8 house oriented tho, but that's just something I'm adding

I'm mainly interested in reading this thread for my baby sister, tho. She's 12. She also has Scorpio rising. I don't have any worries about her so far. She's a very emotional person, but she externalizes it more than I ever did so I think she's better off


I don't like to view the 8th house as the house of horrors, as some house to be avoided or wary of . I think every house has its possible horrors and graces. 8th house rules more than just horrors after all