Cast & Chart

House

House 1

A chart describes tendencies in a symbolic tradition. It cannot decide health, money, law, marriage or children.

In an older source

It hath signification of the life of man, of the stature, colour, complexion, form and shape of him that propounds the Question, or is born

William Lilly, Christian Astrology, Book I (second edition) (1659)

About this entry

Every other house is counted from this one, which begins at the eastern horizon. Lilly 1659 calls it the Ascendant because the Sun rises into view at that line, and he ranks it the most powerful of the twelve. Ptolemy gives no such list, so the twelve-house scheme below comes from later practice.

Where this house ends depends on method, and writers disagree. Lilly used Regiomontanus's tables, and Wilson 1819 argues for Placidus and compares the rival systems. The calculator uses Placidus by default and offers Whole Sign, in which the rising sign fills this house exactly. Either way it requires a birth time.

Lilly gives this house the body and appearance, and Mercury has his joy here, which marks it as a house he favors. Alan Leo, writing before 1917, adds personality and the five senses. Modern popular astrology speaks of self-image and first impressions, a softening of Lilly's more physical reading.

Where this text comes from

Statements credited to an older writer follow the scanned text named here. The modern readings are labeled as modern and come from none of these works.

Our own plain wording. Quoted lines keep the spelling of the scanned source.