Whole Sign Houses - Cusps as Sensitive Points

Hi,

Please correct me if I have misunderstood the concept, I have read people talking about the cusps of Whole Sign Houses being at the point in the sign where the ascendant is rather than the edges between the houses. These cusps are apparently thought of not as boundaries between different house or sign energies but as the point at which the house is most sensitive to influence.

For example;
Say my ascendant is at 10 Degrees Aries. If I have say, Mercury at 10 Degrees Virgo and Venus at 25 Degrees Virgo then Mercury will have a very strong influence over the 6th house and Venus a weaker one.

Am I correct in thinking that this is how cusps are considered in the Whole Sign System? (in general, or is it just a minority of the people using the cusps in the Whole Sign system?)

In addition, this also seems to create the interesting factor that any planet on the cusp would also be likely (2 in 3 chance) to aspect the ascendant. Of course it's the same with the Equal House system except in that case anything aspecting the ascendant would also be between two houses, which doesn't really make sense to me...
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Hi,

Please correct me if I have misunderstood the concept, I have read people talking about the cusps of Whole Sign Houses being at the point in the sign where the ascendant is rather than the edges between the houses. These cusps are apparently thought of not as boundaries between different house or sign energies but as the point at which the house is most sensitive to influence.

For example;
Say my ascendant is at 10 Degrees Aries. If I have say, Mercury at 10 Degrees Virgo and Venus at 25 Degrees Virgo then Mercury will have a very strong influence over the 6th house and Venus a weaker one.

Am I correct in thinking that this is how cusps are considered in the Whole Sign System? (in general, or is it just a minority of the people using the cusps in the Whole Sign system?)

In addition, this also seems to create the interesting factor that any planet on the cusp would also be likely (2 in 3 chance) to aspect the ascendant. Of course it's the same with the Equal House system except in that case anything aspecting the ascendant would also be between two houses, which doesn't really make sense to me...
dr. farr has studied astrology for more than fifty years :smile:
he began when he was twelve and he explains the application of
genuine whole sign methods to chart delineation
during discussion on this thread

https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42163


Cusps:

Today (and for the past thousand years or so) we define cusps as "borders" (coasts), but that is not the original meaning of the word "cusp": it means "point" such as cuspal teeth (bicuspids) and the point of a sword

- so originally the term cusp meant the "point" of something, and in astrology originally the "cusp" of the house meant its "point";

now, when quadrant systems were developed, this "point" of the house came to mean its "beginning", which later came to mean its "border", ie, the "border" between one house and the other.

And later astrology also began using these "borders" (cusps) for various prognostic applications (Charles Carter came to believe that, for timing of events, the "cusps" of the Campanus house system gave the best results, among the various quadrant house systems)

But now notice this: in whole sign the cusps are NOT the 0 degree "borders" of sign/houses at all, and never were so regarded!

In whole sign, the "cusp" retained its original meaning, not as a "border" but rather as A POINT

-and that POINT (cusp) for EACH house, was the sensitive point of that house, viz, the sensitive point in whole sign houses-each house-that is the "cusp" of each house-is a direct projection from the ascending degree.

Example:
-the ascending degree of a chart is 18 Taurus: what are the house cusps (sensitive points, original meaning of the word "cusp") in the whole sign houses of this chart?
Cusp of 1st house = 18 Taurus
Cusp of 2nd house = 18 Gemini
Cusp of 3rd house = 18 Cancer
Cusp of 4th house = 18 Leo
Cusp of 5th house = 18 Virgo
Cusp of 6th house = 18 Libra
Cusp of 7th house = 18 Scorpio
Cusp of 8th house = 18 Sagittarius
Cusp of 9th house = 18 Capricorn
Cusp of 10th house = 18 Aquarius
Cusp of 11th house = 18 Pisces
Cusp of 12th house = 18 Aries

Now it is these "cusps" (sensitive degrees, original meaning of the word "cusp" as a "point") that are (and were) used for progressions, timing of events, etc, and the fact is that they work for these purposes, quite well (in expert hands)

Whole sign does not use the BORDERS between houses (always 0 degree of any sign) for anything, but it DOES use "cusps" (points in the house, projected from the exact ascending degree) for timing (and other) delineative purposes.

Whole sign suddenly vanished (both in the West and in Vedic astrology) during the same period of time-ie, late 8th to early 9th century - this sudden disappearance suggests a sudden turn in astrological thinking and practices, rather than a gradual supplanting of a less effective traditional method (whole sign) by a new and more effective method (rheotrius/alchabitius in the West, and the closely related to whole sign Equal house, in Vedic astrology)

For me, there is only 1 reason I switched to whole sign-it worked better (FOR ME)

I could care less if it were the oldest house system (which it is) or whether it was invented by Badda Bing at Barney's Beanery in Bayonne, 10 years ago: only things I consider are:
-does it seem to make sense?
-does it "taste good" to me (ie, does it "feel right" to me)
-and, if yes to the above, does it work (producing delineations and predicitions) better than what I have previously been doing?

Well, whole sign did all that, for me, so I switched; but I am not going to try to convince anyone of anything about it, except for beginners-to you who might just be starting out, I would say: try whole sign first, and see how well it might work for you...
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
dr. farr also states :smile:
A study of early Greco Roman texts
demonstrates
that the terms house, sign and place
were synonymous with each other
-they meant one and the same thing.


Valens is known to have used a quadrant method (triisection of arc) as a tool in the evaluation of angular strengths of planets, but NOT in erecting the delineative chart. Quadrant division for angular evaluation can be found in Manilius, and can be traced as far back as Hypsicles (mid-2nd century BC) But these were TOOLS in delineation, and only by the early 6th century AD did we see these tools of evaluation become delineative houses (understood in the more modrn sense), and the concept of the IDENTITY of house with sign, began to fade away and become replaced by the concept that houses were "something different" than sign-places.

Greco/Roman astrology also had a "in what context?" approach to allocation of meanings to places/houses: we find this from the very beginning (in the extant literature) with Manilius: in a "raw" chart, meanings allocated to houses/places 1 through 12 were quite different than the meanings allocated to the same houses/places in the Fortunata chart (Valens somewhat continued to follow this procedure) Only later did houses acquire a "same within all contexts" allocation of meanings. Indeed, early Greco/Roman astrology was a more flexible creature-a more symbolical/analogical system- than what developed later in medieval, Renaissance, Reformation and modern times, where an increasing literalism and mechanisitic outllook came to characterize Western astrological thought and practice.

Same change in concepts happened in Vedic astrology: all historical and original-document evidence indicates that as late as the 6th century AD, the concept rasi=sign=house=place, dominated. However in Vedic the quadrant house system never developed: the original sign/house/place (whole sign) format simply morphed into the related Equal house format (around the 7th-8th century) which remains the predominant house system in jyotsih to the present day.

When the Chinese use houses (in some of the several Chinese astrological approaches), these too have always been "whole" (one animal sign to every 30 degree "palace", as they often call their "houses") Quadrant house formats are totally unknown in Chinese astrology up to the present time.

Now, I am not defending Valens (there are quite a few statement in Valens which I myself do not go along with), nor am I attempting to convince others about the glories of whole sign! As I have stated before, I could care less whether or not it was the original house format system-don't care if some guy came up with it 20 years ago out of the blue, because all I care about is that for me it is superior to any other house system format. But with the historical evidence backing it up, not only in the West, but also in the older Vedic and still to this day in approaches to Chinese astrology, it makes me think to myself, yeah, maybe these oldtimers had it right after all, and maybe we became so methematically advanced, coming to believe that more complex = more "true", more "accurate", that we have lost sight of what actually "worked best"...


(Note: Traditional astrologers rarely use whole sign or Equal house; the vast majority use quadrant houses, especially Regiomontanus; some use Alchabitius; a small number use Placidus; neo-Hellenists use whole sign more often, but even this tiny group of practitioners mostly use quadrant house systems like Porphyry or Regiomonatnusl; as mentioned above, most Vedic astrologers use Equal house, with a very small number still using the ancient whole sign format of the ancient maharishi's)
 
Awesome, this thread you linked to has a lot of interesting information... I'm really just starting out with all this, looking to make a decision about what system of houses I'm going to use.

Anyway, one thing I didn't find in that thread (maybe it's buried somewhere amidst it) is the thing of whether the Cusps, being the degree of the Ascendant in each House mark how strong the influence of a planet will be...???

I'll requote the example I gave in the first post - is this correct?:
Say my ascendant is at 10 Degrees Aries. If I have say, Mercury at 10 Degrees Virgo and Venus at 25 Degrees Virgo then Mercury will have a very strong influence over the 6th house and Venus a weaker one.


I understand there are other things which you can do with cusps but I'm not quite there yet.
 

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Awesome, this thread you linked to has a lot of interesting information... I'm really just starting out with all this, looking to make a decision about what system of houses I'm going to use.

Anyway, one thing I didn't find in that thread (maybe it's buried somewhere amidst it) is the thing of whether the Cusps, being the degree of the Ascendant in each House mark how strong the influence of a planet will be...???

I'll requote the example I gave in the first post - is this correct?:
Say my ascendant is at 10 Degrees Aries. If I have say, Mercury at 10 Degrees Virgo and Venus at 25 Degrees Virgo then Mercury will have a very strong influence over the 6th house and Venus a weaker one.


I understand there are other things which you can do with cusps but I'm not quite there yet.
To assess planetary strength with any reliability
rather than using theoretical assumptions
one requires a natal chart of the example you gave, to view
:smile:
 
Ok, here is my chart, not the same as the example. Pluto and Chiron are close to the degree of the Ascendant (16 degrees) and both seem to me to be very dominant themes in my life.

Anyway, I might not have explained myself properly... I understand that there are many other indicators of planetary strength... What I'm asking is if - in the Whole Sign system - a planet being at a degree close to the cusp (and therefore to the ascendant) is one of these indicators?
 

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JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Ok, here is my chart, not the same as the example.
Your chart is not the same as the example you questioned earlier on this thread
and so
let's use your chart as the example instead
ascendant of your chart is 16 degrees TAURUS
and so
to quote dr. farr
whose example is of TAURUS ascendant co-incidentally :smile:



Cusps:

Today (and for the past thousand years or so)
we define cusps as "borders" (coasts)
but that is not the original meaning of the word "cusp":
it means "point" such as cuspal teeth (bicuspids) and the point of a sword

- so originally the term cusp meant the "point" of something

and in astrology originally the "cusp" of the house meant its "point";

now, when quadrant systems were developed
this "point" of the house came to mean its "beginning"
which later came to mean its "border"
ie, the "border" between one house and the other.
And later astrology also began using these "borders" (cusps)
for various prognostic applications

But now notice this:
in whole sign the cusps are NOT the 0 degree "borders" of sign/houses at all, and never were so regarded!

In whole sign, the "cusp" retained its original meaning
not as a "border" but rather as A POINT


-and that POINT (cusp) for EACH house
was the sensitive point of that house
viz
the sensitive point in whole sign houses
-each house
-that is the "cusp" of each house
-is a direct projection from the ascending degree.


Example:
-the ascending degree of a chart is 18 Taurus:
what are the house cusps
(sensitive points, original meaning of the word "cusp")
in the whole sign houses of this chart?

Cusp of 1st house = 18 Taurus
Cusp of 2nd house = 18 Gemini
Cusp of 3rd house = 18 Cancer
Cusp of 4th house = 18 Leo
Cusp of 5th house = 18 Virgo
Cusp of 6th house = 18 Libra
Cusp of 7th house = 18 Scorpio
Cusp of 8th house = 18 Sagittarius
Cusp of 9th house = 18 Capricorn
Cusp of 10th house = 18 Aquarius
Cusp of 11th house = 18 Pisces
Cusp of 12th house = 18 Aries

Now it is these "cusps" (sensitive degrees, original meaning of the word "cusp" as a "point") that are (and were) used for progressions, timing of events, etc, and the fact is that they work for these purposes, quite well (in expert hands)
so clearly
16 degrees of each WHOLESIGN HOUSE of your natal chart
is a 'sensitive point'
aka original meaning of the word 'cusp'
as clearly explained by dr. farrs above quoted observation

Pluto and Chiron are close to the degree of the Ascendant (16 degrees)
and both seem to me to be very dominant themes in my life.

Anyway, I might not have explained myself properly...
I understand that there are many other indicators of planetary strength...
What I'm asking is if - in the Whole Sign system
- a planet being at a degree close to the cusp (and therefore to the ascendant) is one of these indicators?
any planet on a sensitive degree of a natal chart
must be assessed for likely influence
and by the way
since there are numerous variations of astrological methodology
clearly, not all astrologers are in agreement

for example
None of the seven traditional planets
i.e.
Sun Moon Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn
are on the sensitive point aka original meaning of the word cusp
of your natal chart
discussion thread: Is Pluto An Astrological Planet
at
https://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/showthread.php?t=80531
may be of interest
 
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