What is the IC?

Caro

Well-known member
- the depths of the soul
- the point at which you can access the akashic records - where you begin in life and where you return after life.
- your gene pool - family heritage(for me this is past life) for some maybe their current family tree.
-a place to retreat to when life gets tough take stock and move out again.
-your earth connection which may be strong or weak - depending on other aspects etc etc.
 

Carmen C

Well-known member
May I ask how to interpret familiar heritage on IC? Is there a link where I could read some examples?
I know my fathers family and a little bit of this genealogical tree but my mothers family is almost unknown. What data or information can you extract here regarding heritage?
 

waybread

Well-known member
In traditional astrology, the 4th house symbolizes the father and his connection to land and family inheritance. Even today, children automatically inherit their father's surname unless the mother is unmarried or the parents have made other arrangements for the child's name. So land as a kind of patrimony (think "family farm") is a 4th house matter. Land as merely a real estate transaction for financial gain would belong more to the second or possibly the 8th house (which rules inheritances and proceeds of the marriage).

Since one also inherits a genealogical lineage, whether you have studied it or not, the 4th also relates to family history. This was very important in traditional societies, where someone's identity and social status depended upon who his ancestors were.

Also, since the IC is one of the angles, a planet conjunct it or in the 4th would be given some extra strength.

Modern psychological astrology sees the IC and the 4th house more as your personal inheritance or emotional conditioning from early childhood. If someone had a tough childhood you can often see it via afflicted planets in the 4th house or the ruler of the 4th house.

Some modern astrologers conflate the 4th house with Cancer. This sort-of works if you think about parenting styles but generally I don't think of rank-order signs and houses as necessarily good match-ups.

One think to consider is that the IC opposes the MC and in most charts it will square the AS-DS axis. So a planet conjunct the IC can create home-career conflicts; or affect one's outer personality and 7th house matters (marriage, partnerships, open enemies.)
 

Carmen C

Well-known member
I can understand the confusion about representing father or mother on IC because in the past and also in the present are cultures or families which lineage is determined by the mother. We can't say in the past and now because today still are families ruled by mother lineage. Then IC should represent father or mother depending on this.
But this is not my curiosity, what IC represents, it is how do you track the roots. How the only combination of sign and a few planets, if there, can represent something about my genealogical lineage. For example, if I have there Leo, and the Sun is right there, does it mean that I have royal blood (or/also that I was a child superstar)? Only an example.

My IC in Capricorn doesn't seem to represent my happy childhood in a romantic german valley, I was always happy, just the opposite of "Heidi" (in the mountains and crying, Heidi is more likely to represent Capricorn or not?) :wink: :happy:. Later yes, when I started to be a young woman we moved to the mountain and I was sad, depressing sad, missing all the friends I had before, but then IC should represent adolescence.
Capricorn could represent my fathers discipline, authoritarianism (could also be represented by Aries or Scorpio) but there is nothing else I can see clearly in relation to his family or my childhood and also I wouldn't know, as astrology student, what to think or tell about other ICs.
 

dr. farr

Well-known member
Root chakra is a consideration re to the IC (actual angle/sign, not necessarily the 4th house)
The earliest remaining Western astrological book we have (Manilius "Astronomica", 14 AD) considers the IC the foundational angle of the chart, the base and basis of the entire chart; in ancient times it (the angle and/or the 4th house) was known as the "House of the Ancestors"...many esotericists consider the IC and/or 4th house the "blood-line house"...
There has always been a difference relative to the 4th house per se, between the West and the East: in Vedic astrology, the 4th house has been the "house of the mother" in all extant jyoptish literature from the earliest times; whereas the earliest Western domification literature has always given the 4th house as significator of the father.
 

waybread

Well-known member
Carmen, you might want to look at the material on dwads on this site: www.aliceportman.com . Based on considerable research, Alice feels there is a relationship between the dwad (1/12 division of a sign) of your sun, moon, or ascendant and your parents' luminaries and ASC.

Carmen, there is nothing inherently problematic with either Capricorn or Saturn, in my book. Look and see how Saturn is aspected. Ditto, if you have planets in Capricorn.

There is no reason why an IC in Capricorn couldn't represent a happy childhood. Check out Saturn. If it is well aspected, there is no reason to think otherwise. Also, Saturn and Capricorn rule mountains!

With Capricorn on the IC, it is possible that your parents valued a traditional upbringing for you, as well as practical, material achievement.

Re: the IC (4th house cusp) symbolizing the father: When Hellenistic astrology developed around 300-100 BC, society was very patriarchal. Your roots were normally traced through the paternal line. Land was transferred from father to son. Today it might make more sense to consider both the MC/IC axis and just see which point better represents Mom or Dad.

There are suggestions in the horoscope if a father were absent, such as Saturn in the 12th house or, more generally, the ruler of the 4th house in the 12th. In my experience, this doesn't necessarily mean Dad was completely out of the picture, but he might have been emotionally remote or not home very much.

If you are interested in genealogy, see if you can get birth data for your ancestors. Probably you won't have birth times beyond your parents (unless they were born in a country that recorded them in its birth registries.) So input the birth time as "unknown", recognize that the moon can move 6 degrees either way with a default noon birth time, and skip the houses; but you can determine your ancestors' sun dwads, or whether particular types of planetary contacts are common.

Astrologer Erin Sullivan has written a book that includes genealogy (The Astrology of Family Dynamics); and to a lesser extent you will find things on family horoscope patterns in some of Liz Greene's books.
 
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JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Re: the IC (4th house cusp) symbolizing the father: When Hellenistic astrology developed around 300-100 BC, society was very patriarchal. Your roots were normally traced through the paternal line. Land was transferred from father to son.
Practicing Hellenistic astrologer Vettius Valens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vettius_Valens who chronicled the techniques of astrologers preceding him by many hundreds of years has a comment to make regarding this matter and advises us as follows in his anthology - a free translation of which is available online at http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/Vettius Valens entire.pdf

QUOTE FROM THE ANTHOLOGY BY VETTIUS VALENS
IV (aka 4th) is The Place concerning the life of parents, concerning religious and secret matters, estates, property, and treasure-troves.

i.e. Vettius Valens, Hellenistic astrologer from two thousand years ago reminds us that the IVth house is the place concerning "the life of PARENTS" plural

For Hellenistic astrologers, the IC/4th house in fact symbolizes BOTH parents

- as well as:

(b) religious and secret matters

(c) estates

(d) property

(e) treasure troves :smile:
 

Love2Know

Well-known member
In traditional astrology, the 4th house symbolizes the father and his connection to land and family inheritance. Even today, children automatically inherit their father's surname unless the mother is unmarried or the parents have made other arrangements for the child's name. So land as a kind of patrimony (think "family farm") is a 4th house matter. Land as merely a real estate transaction for financial gain would belong more to the second or possibly the 8th house (which rules inheritances and proceeds of the marriage).

Since one also inherits a genealogical lineage, whether you have studied it or not, the 4th also relates to family history. This was very important in traditional societies, where someone's identity and social status depended upon who his ancestors were.

Also, since the IC is one of the angles, a planet conjunct it or in the 4th would be given some extra strength.

Modern psychological astrology sees the IC and the 4th house more as your personal inheritance or emotional conditioning from early childhood. If someone had a tough childhood you can often see it via afflicted planets in the 4th house or the ruler of the 4th house.

Some modern astrologers conflate the 4th house with Cancer. This sort-of works if you think about parenting styles but generally I don't think of rank-order signs and houses as necessarily good match-ups.

One think to consider is that the IC opposes the MC and in most charts it will square the AS-DS axis. So a planet conjunct the IC can create home-career conflicts; or affect one's outer personality and 7th house matters (marriage, partnerships, open enemies.)

Interesting!!!!! Do you agree that if someone lacks an element in the planets yet has it in their angels, that that means they have previously mastered or integrated this element into their being in previous incarnations like south node, descendant ?
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Interesting!!!!! Do you agree that if someone lacks an element in the planets yet has it in their angels, that that means they have previously mastered or integrated this element into their being in previous incarnations like south node, descendant ?
How many people remember their own past lives, let alone the past lives of others. I could easily say you did such and such in a past life and you could agree but there's no proof . You could disagree and there's no proof that you are right to agree either... so IMO - since the theory cannot be proved or disproved - then the theory is simply speculation. Could be a fact – yet equally, could be an error.:smile:

Two thousand years ago, Hellenistic astrologers assessed planetary strength by whether a planet was conjunct one of the angles – i.e. IC/MC/DESC/ASC –

Any planet that was conjunct an angle was considered very strong. That idea remains in practice in astrology currently
 

Love2Know

Well-known member
Very true it is very much speculation, I believe more statistics are in order. Bill gates lacking earth but having it as an angel does not qualify as sufficient evidence.
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Very true it is very much speculation, I believe more statistics are in order. Bill gates lacking earth but having it as an angel does not qualify as sufficient evidence.
There is always the important factor of time of birth - i.e. is time of Bill Gate's birth accurate? How accurate is the timing of the Ascendant? I would say for most people, the timing of their ascendant is most definitely NOT exact - amazing if everyone has a totally correct birth time noted! How can astrologers be expected to produce accurate results from inaccurate birth times? :smile:
 

Love2Know

Well-known member
There is always the important factor of time of birth - i.e. is time of Bill Gate's birth accurate? How accurate is the timing of the Ascendant? I would say for most people, the timing of their ascendant is most definitely NOT exact - amazing if everyone has a totally correct birth time noted! How can astrologers be expected to produce accurate results from inaccurate birth times? :smile:

Yes that is another valid issue which you have raised. For myself I looked at my birth bracelet from the hospital. It has the time I was pulled out. I guess you would need to conduct statistical research on participants who have valid birth time records.
 

Ion

Well-known member
(opinion)
The I.C. is our 'foundation' and 'psychological base', represented by 'the home' which is our 'most private' component and opposite the 10th house of 'career' which is our 'most visible'.
My belief is that the I.C. , on the cusp of the 4th House (Cancer-The Great Mother, in the natural zodiac) represents 'the Mother' . . . or the psychological-ingredients that form the foundation of our birth.
The I.C. (opinion) contains the most important information related to our hidden motivations , even perhaps 'hidden' from our normal day-to-day consciousness.

If we begin to 'meditate' then we (if successful) gradually begin to penetrate the veils (iron-door in alchemy) and discover the multi-layered patterns which form our personality and expressions in this lifetime.

When we have 'penetrated' to the absolute core of the I.C. and have by-passed all psychological-patterning then we arrive at 'pure creative and eternal light' . . . (an actual living 'light') . . . the I.C. is the 'gateway' to 'The Kingdom of Heaven' that is within each of us.

As such , (As Above, So below) . . . . we attain a new birth , through the Great Mother (I.C. and 4th House) and realize (opinion) that 'who we thought that we were' was a divine fiction when compared with who we really are ; eternal playful spirits navigating through eternity .

The I.C. is 'the portal' to 'beyond space and time' .

The Kingdom of Heaven is "within" . . . . it is also the 'pleasure palace of The Buddhas' . . . . . pure ecstasy ! the place where Mars and Saturn do not exist . . . a 'place' of pure nourishment and enrichment devoid of 'human ego' . . . a place of pure love.

Love and Light !
Ion
 
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Moog

Well-known member
Very true it is very much speculation, I believe more statistics are in order. Bill gates lacking earth but having it as an angel does not qualify as sufficient evidence.

Using the sidereal zodiac, his Mars and Mercury are in Virgo.
 

Moog

Well-known member
Whoever keeps rating my threads 5 stars, bless you :biggrin:

And thanks for all your views, I am reading them. Haven't must time for long conversations at the moment.
 

waybread

Well-known member
Love2know, I am not much into karmic astrology, so hopefully someone else can answer your questions about it. A planet in an angular house (#1,4,7, 10) especially when conjunct an angle, is supposed to be strengthened by that position; with the 1st and 10th houses being stronger.

I don't know that it is worthwhile arguing "parents" vs. "fathers"; especially now that some modern astrologers like to blend planets and signs. With the fourth sign Cancer being ruled by the moon, many astrologers today would be just as happy to give Mom the 4th house. The association of the 10th house with the mother comes from the derived or turned house method. The wife of one's father would be the 7th house from the 4th.

However, if the history of astrology is of any interest to people on this thread, I suggest a few cautions. One is that we have to understand how people at past times understood concepts, which may be very different than how we understand them today. For example, today the expression "father of the family" doesn't have nearly the extensive connotations that the term "pater familias" did to the Romans. In a highly patriarchal society (which was the case in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East) one's maternity was of far less consequence than one's paternity. Also, some languages are gendered in ways that English is not. Finally, in a lot of the oldest horoscopes that have come to light (see Neugebauer and Van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes) houses are scarcely mentioned: just the ascendant and planets in signs. The Babylonians didn't use houses.

JA, how is your Latin or ancient Greek? Where Riley uses the term "parents" in his Vettius translation, do you know what was the word in the original?

This matters, because one might well have a question concerning one's mother that was different than asking about one's father. In Hellenistic astrology these were often determined by "lots" or what were subsequently called Arabian parts that relied upon positions of the planets and ascendant, vs. a particular house.

Some early sources on house meanings are:

O. Neugebauer, 1943, "Demotic Horoscopes", Journal of the American Oriental Society 63: 115-27. This is a fascinating look at 4 horoscope descriptions from archaeological sites, dating to around the turn of the first millenium AD. Neugebauer was a mathematician and historian of science who calculated (by hand in those days!) the planetary positions of many horoscopes of antiquity from both archaeological and literary (like Valens) sources. Demotic was the ancient Egyptian language, writen with Greek characters.

The four horoscopes in this article give the 4th house as "the Dwat" or "the lake of the Dwat." Dwat (Duat, Tuat) was the ancient Egyptian name for the realm of the dead, and it had a firey lake near where the god Osiris and his team judged the dead in Egyptian mythology. However, if we look down the most complete horoscope (dated 18 AD), "the part of the father" is given as Capricorn, which is the same sign given to "the Dwat" or 4th house.

I think Manilius, Astronomica 2 (1st cent. AD) probably had access to now-vanished Egyptian sources, because he does pick up on the underworld and paternal theme for the 4th house. He called houses "temples." He says,

"Where at the opposite pole the universe subsides, occupying the foundations, and from the depths of midnight gloom gazes up at the back of the Earth, in that region Saturn exercises the powers that are his own: cast down himself in ages past...he wields as a father power over the fortunes of fathers and the plight of the old. Daemonium is the name the Greeks have given it..." (2: 929-39I think I can make out the gender in Manilius's "pater in patrios" on the facing page.

Dorotheus (Carmen Astrologium, 1:5, ca. 25-75 AD) simply called the 4th house the "cardine of the earth" or "the cardine under the earth." Cardine apparently means "hinge" and was a name given to the 4 angles. Dorotheus rated the houses in terms of their beneficence, with the 4th house considered good, but rated 7th overall. Dorotheus relied heavily on lots and planetary relations for his delineations, but we do find (in the Pingree translation), that if the sun is in "the cardine under the earth it indicates a fall and a decrease in the property of his fathers, but if the lord of its house or its exaltation overpowers it, it will ameliorate this evil." (2:22.) With some of the other planets in the 4th there is no mention of parents or property but other good/bad things could happen. Jupiter in the 4th bodes well for "parents." It gets a little confusing on the property front because sometimes the 2nd, rather than the 4th house seems intended.

Ptolemy (Tetrabiblos, 2nd century AD) scarcely mentions houses, and does not name the affairs of the 4th house. He relies on relationships between planets for parental information.

Firmicus Maternus (Matheseos Libri VIII, 3rd-4th century AD, 2: 19) calls the 4th house the Imum Caelum ("lowest part of the heavens") and gave it to "family property, substance, possessions, household goods, anything that pertains to hidden and recovered wealth." FM stated that this house was powerful due to its square relationship to the ascendant. In 2:xx, the fourth is the house of "parents."

Firmicus is kind of interesting, because he has a real cookbook of "planets in signs" in book 3. Here we don't find associations of the 4th house with parents as a unit or with Mom, unless the planet is feminine. Saturn in the 4th indicates an early death for the father. Jupiter in the 4th is generally good news for high positions and wealth. The father will be "high born and famous." Mars in the 4th is generally bad news, unless you want to be a soldier. The sun in the 4th signifies "death for the father" and afflictions with any Mars or Saturn aspect to it. Venus in the 4th signifies loss of property. Mercury in the 4th is good for teachers, including of secret arts. FM gives the moon a special treatment depending upon whether she is applying or separating from another planet.

Anyway, since JupiterAsc is our resident expert on Valens (2nd century AD), I encourage JA to carry on with Mr. V's interpretation of the 4th house.
 
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