Whole Sign houses
HellenisticIndian JyotishaModern WesternTraditional doctrineHistorical scholarshipEditorial synthesis
Definition
A house system in which each house is exactly one zodiac sign. The sign holding the Ascendant becomes the whole first house, and the eleven signs that follow become houses two to twelve.
Also called: Whole sign · Sign-house system
In more depth
Whole Sign is the house system attested in the earliest Hellenistic material: houses and signs coincide, so every house is thirty degrees wide and no house boundary falls in the middle of a sign. The Ascendant marks which sign becomes the first house, but its exact degree does not move the boundaries.[1]
It fell out of favour in the Western tradition as quadrant systems spread, and returned to wide use in the twentieth century as Hellenistic sources were translated and studied again. Its history and its later displacement are documented in the scholarly literature on the Western tradition.[2]
References
Numbered citations in the text link to the records below; each record links to the full source registry.
- Chris Brennan. Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune. Amor Fati Publications. 2017. Modern practitioner interpretation View source record
- Nicholas Campion. A History of Western Astrology, Volume I: The Ancient and Classical Worlds. Continuum. 2009. Historical scholarship View source record