May I ask, though, why you didn't make IV, VII, and X "bad", and II, VI, VIII, and XII "indifferent"?
Great question. There's a few answers to it, though I'm afraid none of them are entirely satisfactory:
The angles are "primary" and sort of neutral-by-definition, so I treated them as locked in place. So with four neutral houses and four good houses, the remaining would need to be bad to balance out the symmetry.
I definitely had the sixth, eighth, and twelfth houses in mind here, which are traditionally "bad."
Thinking of the sixth house, which generally signifies disease... the diseases aren't trying to harm you, they're just trying to live their own lives and do their own thing, but it just so happens that them doing their own thing is extremely harmful to one's body! So I sort of ran with this intuition across the board.
A lot of this is based upon Chris Brennan's discussion of the planetary joys in Hellenistic Astrology. (It's not exactly the same, but he covers a lot of similar ground in this essay.) I'll cover this more in an upcoming post, but Brennan notes (citing Firmicus) that "the luminaries, benefics, and Mercury all rejoice in one of the so-called 'good houses' that are configured to the rising sign through one of the classical aspects (i.e. conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition), while the two malefics rejoice in two of the 'bad houses' which are not configured to the rising sign." So I was sorta following this, though I suppose I didn't consider the angles as "good houses" in my own discussion.
In my experience, "indifferent" and "actively hostile" aren't readily distinguishable, though I do have a pretty powerful stellium in my natal twelfth house and therefore a lot of "secret enemies," so that may just be one of my many idiosyncrasies.
It just "felt right."
Regardless, I agree this is one of the shakier parts of the theory. I could have rested the logic on top of the joys system, but for simplicity I wanted to try and keep it separate and self-contained... still, this should be considered "experimental" and pretty firmly in "wild theorycrafting" territory, so if it pans out in testing, then I'll try to shore up the theory as I go. :)
I'm curious if you saw my recent comment in Magic Monday about the 8th house
Oh, I hadn't, so thanks for pointing it out! For whatever it's worth, I'd put EG's house in the fourth house as well... he hasn't lost it yet! So it still fills the "real estate" role in his life, rather than the "I wish I still had that" role. (Hopefully it stays that way...)
I agree that the personal factor is essential, though. As I've said many times, divination is communication, and we're not all communicating with the same people! So as long as you and your spirits understand each other, so much the better. (In fact, sometimes I worry about how idiosyncratic my understanding of geomancy is getting, since while it makes it easier for me to divine, it makes it harder to discuss with others!)
I thought JMG's comment about the eighth "always pertaining to magic" was pretty funny. I have a couple crowded houses, too! In case it's of interest, I usually see my spiritual contacts or the influences of the stars in the eighth house in daily charts, though I've frequently used that house for lost or forgotten things in questions (with success).
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Great question. There's a few answers to it, though I'm afraid none of them are entirely satisfactory:
- The angles are "primary" and sort of neutral-by-definition, so I treated them as locked in place. So with four neutral houses and four good houses, the remaining would need to be bad to balance out the symmetry.
- I definitely had the sixth, eighth, and twelfth houses in mind here, which are traditionally "bad."
- Thinking of the sixth house, which generally signifies disease... the diseases aren't trying to harm you, they're just trying to live their own lives and do their own thing, but it just so happens that them doing their own thing is extremely harmful to one's body! So I sort of ran with this intuition across the board.
- A lot of this is based upon Chris Brennan's discussion of the planetary joys in Hellenistic Astrology. (It's not exactly the same, but he covers a lot of similar ground in this essay.) I'll cover this more in an upcoming post, but Brennan notes (citing Firmicus) that "the luminaries, benefics, and Mercury all rejoice in one of the so-called 'good houses' that are configured to the rising sign through one of the classical aspects (i.e. conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition), while the two malefics rejoice in two of the 'bad houses' which are not configured to the rising sign." So I was sorta following this, though I suppose I didn't consider the angles as "good houses" in my own discussion.
- In my experience, "indifferent" and "actively hostile" aren't readily distinguishable, though I do have a pretty powerful stellium in my natal twelfth house and therefore a lot of "secret enemies," so that may just be one of my many idiosyncrasies.
- It just "felt right."
Regardless, I agree this is one of the shakier parts of the theory. I could have rested the logic on top of the joys system, but for simplicity I wanted to try and keep it separate and self-contained... still, this should be considered "experimental" and pretty firmly in "wild theorycrafting" territory, so if it pans out in testing, then I'll try to shore up the theory as I go. :)Oh, I hadn't, so thanks for pointing it out! For whatever it's worth, I'd put EG's house in the fourth house as well... he hasn't lost it yet! So it still fills the "real estate" role in his life, rather than the "I wish I still had that" role. (Hopefully it stays that way...)
I agree that the personal factor is essential, though. As I've said many times, divination is communication, and we're not all communicating with the same people! So as long as you and your spirits understand each other, so much the better. (In fact, sometimes I worry about how idiosyncratic my understanding of geomancy is getting, since while it makes it easier for me to divine, it makes it harder to discuss with others!)
I thought JMG's comment about the eighth "always pertaining to magic" was pretty funny. I have a couple crowded houses, too! In case it's of interest, I usually see my spiritual contacts or the influences of the stars in the eighth house in daily charts, though I've frequently used that house for lost or forgotten things in questions (with success).