The Whole Sign House System

All charts are cast and interpreted using the whole-sign house system. At the advanced level, you will learn those few special circumstances when a dynamic house system is employed to identify the predominator and make assessments related to length of life. The only valid house system used for a handful of special techniques is the system known as the Porphyry System. All other dynamic house systems are invalid since they’re contrary to the principles of astrology.

The whole-sign system was used for more than 1,200 years before the clueless ass-clown Arab and Persian astrologers started using a house system because they couldn’t comprehend what the Greeks were doing.

In “scholarly” circles it’s called “bad data transmission.” When you learn the history of astrology you’ll realize that beginning with the Arabs and Persians and continuing to the present, astrology has been the victim of a very long running Telephone Game corrupting and destroying astrology.

If you use a house system, your chart interpretations will fail and so will your predictions.

If you want proof, you need only look at the fiasco surrounding the 2024 elections in France and the U.S. and all the failed predictions. The primary reason they all failed so spectacularly is because they weren’t actually practicing astrology and that includes the fact that they used house systems skewing the natal chart interpretations for the handful of losers (you can count them on one hand) who actually took the time to do a half-fast natal interpretation.

The Porphyry System is the only system based on Astrology Time that uses the meridian of your birth-place. That’s important since Astrology Time DOES NOT EQUAL Calendar Time. Since Porphyry is based on Astrology Time, you don’t need software to calculate the houses. All you do is take the distance from the Ascending Degree to the MC Point in degrees and divide by three (3) to find the houses for the masculine quadrants (I & III) and the distance from the Ascending Degree to the IMC Point, then divide by three (3) to get the houses for the feminine quadrants (II & IV).

We have preserved for you an entry from Wikipropaganda or Pukipedia (whichever you prefer) dated November 13, 2024, illustrating the level of stupidity employed by detractors of the whole-sign system. As is typical for better than 95% of the articles written on Wikipropaganda, this article was written by a non-starter. We lovingly refer to the non-starters who are legends in their own minds as “guys living in mommy’s basement playing with their man-buns.”

The article (sans citations), penned by a non-starter wannabe astrologer referring to themselves as “GrzegorzWu” under the heading “Debate surrounding whole sign houses”, has thankfully been removed by someone with a way bigger brain, but the arguments posed are those likely to be found on astrology forums and we want you to be able to beat up on people who foist such nonsense on others.

“There is debate surrounding the claims that the whole sign house system was the original form of house division and that it was the dominant form of house division among ancient astrologers.”

Actually, there is no debate. There are only those who do not understand Greek or have never read the texts or do not understand what they are reading. And then you have the people like Deborah Houlding who we refer to as “Mustache Pete.” A “Mustache Pete” is an old fogy who freaks out when they have to change their ways. You probably noticed in the work-place that older people are very resistant to change and in particular to new technology or technological innovations. As the saying goes, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and you’re asking these “Mustache Pete” people to change the way they’ve done things their entire lives — without even understanding why — and that’s why they’re freaking out.

“One argument against whole sign houses is that it is never explicitly mentioned in the text of any ancient astrologer when explaining how to divide up the houses.”

We find that argument both lame and unpersuasive but that is typical of non-starters and hacks oblivious to concepts like “underlying assumption.” Underlying assumptions are implied assumptions which are simply those things taken for granted or assumed to be true without being explicitly stated. For example, where in the U.S. Constitution or the Bill of Rights does it explicitly state that people are “presumed innocent until proven guilty?”

Nowhere. That is an implied assumption. When reading a U.S. history book or watching TV news, reading the newspaper or a magazine article, where does it say “U.S. President Obama…” or “American President Ronald Reagan….” Never. Their nationality is explicitly implied in the same way French TV, newspapers and magazines never refer to “French President Emmanuel Macron….” because the nationality is implied by the context. Later, when you reach the section on glorification (when a star is “bonified” or “glorified”) a good question is, “Where is that explicitly stated in Greek texts?” It isn’t, yet it is a very real thing. Captain Obvious always sailed with the Greeks.

“A counterpoint is that it is implied and it would be the only house system that makes sense in ancient charts where only an ascendant degree is presented. However, if one knows the longitude of the location of the astrologer, one would only need the ascendant degree to determine the quadrant houses.”

That’s proof that “GrzegorzWu” is a non-starter living in mommy’s basement playing with his man-bun.

Of the 160-odd charts of antiquity ranging through the 4th Century of our era, nearly 45% show neither the Ascending Degree nor the MC Point and it’s clear they are using whole sign houses. About 55% do provide the Ascending Degree but it’s clear the Ascending Degree does not define the cusp of the 1st House. Only 0.5% of charts show both the Ascending Degree and the MC Point, but when the MC Point is in the 11th House it’s crystal clear they’re using whole sign houses. None of the charts mention cusps or the degrees of any cusps.

Worse than that, what “GrzegorzWu” doesn’t understand because he relied on knee-jerk emotion instead of doing actual research — after all, he is a legend in his own mind and doing research is beneath his dignity — is that no one knew their longitude so his claim that quadrant houses could be calculated using the Ascending Degree and the longitude fails as a matter of reality.

To make matters even worse, anyone using Ptotle’s longitudes would be in error. Remember, Ptotle is a narcissistic prick who believes he is the smartest person who ever lived and who will ever live in this entire Universe. Accordingly, he rejected the remarkably accurate 252,000 stadia value calculated by Eratosthenes for the circumference of Earth. Ptotle substitutes the erroneous value of 180,000 stadia (which he plagiarized from Marinus and Posidonius).

To illustrate the error, the true longitude of Alexandria (Egypt) is 29° 55’ East, yet Ptotle gives the coordinates as 60°30’ East. The Prime Meridian used by many including Ptotle was the Fortunate Isles (the modern Canary Islands) which are 16° west of the Greenwich Prime Meridian Applying that offset to 60°30′ East gives us about 44° East and that meridian runs right through Russia, Armenia, Iraq and the Saudi Peninsula which is way, way more than a stone’s throw from Alexandria.

We know for a fact the Arabs and Persians were using Ptotle’s Geographia and because the longitudes were all wrong the Midheaven is wrong and so are the house cusps. Does the chart accurately reflect what is happening in a person’s life? No, so the Arabs and Persians begin experimenting with different houses which still leads to the wrong Midheaven and house cusps. To fix an error oblivious to the Arabs and Persians the concocted the silly “essential dignities” and the even sillier “essential dignities point scoring system.”

“Another argument against whole sign houses is that it breaks with principles of primary motion since planets can go backwards through the houses (e.g., a planet can go from the 8th house into the 9th house given the right conditions).”

Uh, wut? Seriously? What kind of drug-induced hallucinogenic fantasy is that? House systems do not alter zodiac motion which is counter-clockwise around the chart (anticlockwise for our British friends). Any star at Scorpio 15° will eventually move to Sagittarius 1° regardless of the house system used.

“Additionally, there is concern that whole sign houses demotes the value of angularity.”

And, what, pray tell, is the value of angularity? That’s predicated on the false teachings of Modern astrology where angular houses are “strong” and cadent houses are “weak.” That cadent houses are “weak” is of little comfort to Sharon Tate who was horribly killed because Mars and Saturn were cadent, or Buddy Holly who died tragically because Moon and Jupiter were cadent or Princess Grace and her cadent 12th House Venus.

All houses are equally powerful as all signs are equally powerful as all stars are equally powerful.

Obviously, “GrzegorzWussy” has never read a Greek text, but then he’s a legend in his own mind and knows everything and reading a Greek text would be beneath his dignity. Whole sign in no way, shape or form “demotes” the value of angular houses. Yes, the MC Point floats and may fall in the 9th, 10th or 11th Houses, but what do the Greeks say about that? When the MC Point falls in the 9th or 11th House you blend it with the 10th House.

So, what’s the problem? No problem, except those manufactured by the people we call Mustache Pete.

“Whole sign houses is essentially an American driven movement that is argued to have decontextualized Hellenistic astrological texts from those that preceded and proceeded them.”

If “GrzegorzWu” was the big brain he thought he was he would know and understand the difference between “preceded” and “proceeded.”

Granted, continental European astrologers have always been, well, you know, “out there” but the truth is they don’t seem to have a scintilla of curiosity and have made no effort to examine the Greek manuscripts made available in 1990.

There’s a reason why things are the way they are and that explains in part the reason for the recent revival of Hellenistic astrology as well as “traditional” astrology as a whole.

The short story is simply this: The works of the Latin, Renaissance and Classical astrologers were taken at face value to be true and accurate. However, there was no way to confirm that because astrologers were denied access to important Greek, Latin, Arabic and Pahlavi manuscripts necessary to confirm or refute what the Latin, Renaissance and Classical astrologers said.

Without going into detail, suffice to say that contrary to conventional wisdom, the Greek and Latin Hellenistic texts were not held by libraries. The majority were in the hands of private collectors. The only way to buy them was to wait for them to be put up for sale at a public or private auction, or to approach the collector directly.

Adjusted for 2025 U.S. Dollars, the universities paid $100,000’s to get their hands on those ancient Greek, Latin, Arabic and Pahlavi manuscripts. They were not in pristine condition. They had to be restored and you can’t do that in a few minutes. It takes months, even years for professionals to restore ancient manuscripts so that they can be transliterated and read. It costs a lot of money to do that. A lot of money.

The universities spent a lot of money and they want a return on their investment and that is why John and Jane Q. Public were denied access. Only bona fide scholars of Greek and Latin were allowed to see them.

That changed in 1990 when lay-persons including astrologers were granted access to those texts when Otto Neugebauer died and David Pingree retired and their respective universities made the manuscripts available.