Rationale Behind Twelve Houses
Babylonians started observing natural phenomena connected with ascending and culminating of the heavenly bodies. This evolved into 12 division system of houses before the discovery of the ecliptic. Later (around V c. bce) ecliptic was discovered (Schmidt&Hand "On the invariance of tropical Zodiac" and "Early house divisions in the Hellenistic era"). At the beginning this early zodiac it has no sign divisions, and only 18 bright stars were used as markers to measure planet positions. Later in Alexandria astrologers introduced the twelve signs to fit the number and probably meanings of the houses, and named constellations after them. Nowadays, practising astrologers use a 12 house division. Most theoreticians attribute 8 fold division for misinterpretation of old texts only, but one theoretician Patrice Guinard has argued, contrary to that prevailing opinion, that there is a basis for an 8 house division. One prominent astrologer, Marc Penfield, uses 8 houses - dividing each quadrant using the same technique as in Koch & Placidus. Michel Gauquelin divided Placidus houses into 36 (instead of 12) "decans" and marked beginning of the 36th "decan" (the first before ascendant) as the starting point.
Read more about this topic: House (astrology)
Famous quotes containing the words twelve and/or houses:
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had to hailbomb, for twelve hours, and when it was all over I walked up.... We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinking dink
body. That smell, you know, that gasoline smell. The whole hill. It smelled like ... victory.”
—John Milius, U.S. screenwriter, Francis Ford Coppola (b. 1939)
“Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beating up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready. And when the people eat the stuff they raise, and living in the houses they build, I’ll be there, too.”
—Nunnally Johnson (1897–1977)