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August 15th, 2016
We often hear that astrology as most know it is garbage because it is only focused on sun signs, that is, a system that treats all the persons born in a given month roughly the same (the Moon makes most of the difference). Knowledgeable people, is it believed, take the ascendant (rising sign) in consideration, because it is more personalized -- it changes every minute of the day, by one sign in two hours.
However, when you'll discover more about astrology, you'll often encouter descriptions of the ascendant as "the mask", "the way one appears" and the like.
So ultimately, what can tell us apart is... unessential. Unconsequential.
So we're back to square one.
However, when you consider Indian astrology" (that's broad, I know), the ascendant is much more important. Moreover, horary astrology (the ancient practice of finding an answer by checking the astrological chart of the question) pays more attention to the rising sign, and to other similar factors that change each minute.
So why is the ultimate question, "Who am I", the object of astrology as we know it, not answered in the same way?
(Perhaps because, since Alan Leo's condemnation for soothsaying, astrology has made much of its reputation with sun sign entertainment (astrological columns). Anyways. That was a rhetorical... question).
A point made by several authors (in such a way that you'd believe that they are plagiarizing each other...) is that the whole system of the ascendant and related regions (which I'll call from now on "the houses"), is that the house system, for several reasons, has been overly simplified, and corrupted, by a an analogical system where signs and houses correspond to each other.
My intuition is that if we get back to the ancients, BUT with a modern mind, we'll "fill the houses" we fresh understandings, now that the phantom of signs has been expelled.
I know that some astrologuers have already made a lot of progress with houses, empirically, and freed themselves from the sign↝house system.
But, just as an example, consider the third house, traditionally house of the Goddess, opposed to the ninth house of God. They are associated with Gemini and Sagittarius in the modern sign↝house system. Since celestial objects go in the opposite direction (from house 1 to 12 to 11, etc.), it makes much more sense to consider these two houses as absolutely superior in importance to the fourth and tenth houses, the reason being that the object (planet, the Moon, the Sun) has ALREADY culminated or reached its nadir (lowest point) when it enters the third or ninth house. In the fourth and tenth houses, the planets have not reached their zenith and nadir. This would correspond with some kind of search or struggle, but not the with the notion of accomplishment.
August 15th, 2016, b
Importantly, these latter considerations on the 3rd and 9th houses are confirmed by Gauquelin's studies. In other words, the strongest statistical evidence of astrology confirms this house system. Imagine if better statistical were made!