ホール・サイン・ハウスシステムについて

本稿はクリス・ブレナン氏のYouTube動画翻訳文です。ブレナン氏より掲載許諾を受け公開。翻訳の誤謬・責任はastrogrammarにあります。
This is a translation, under the permission of the original author, from the transcript of a YouTube video by Mr. Chris Brennan, The Astrology Podcast. 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisbrennan7
website: https://courses.theastrologyschool.com

より詳しい内容は「ヘレニズム占星術・運命と幸運」をご参照ください。英語文献の中でも氏の文章はわかりやすく丁寧です
"Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune".

ホール・サイン・ハウスシステム

それでは話を進めていきましょう。
ホール・サイン・ハウス（WSH）は占星術でチャートをハウスと呼ばれる12区分方法のひとつです。12ハウスのコンセプトが使われ、すでに2000年が経っています。ここ20〜30年にわたるグレコ・ローマ時代（ギリシャ文明とローマ文明の境目の時代）の伝統的占星術に関する調査から、ヘレニズム占星術は紀元前1世紀あたりに始まったと言われています。
研究で明らかになったことは、WSHが最古のハウス区分方式で、チャートを12区分する始まりであるということです。その後600〜700年にわたって西洋占星術の実践で中心的な役割を果たし、最も使われた方式でした。少なくとも、紀元前1世紀あたりから700年の間に残された出生図や占星術の教科書で、惑星、サイン、アスペクトとハウスを使ったチャートにはホール・サイン・ハウスが使われています。
ですから、そうした歴史的理由、さらに占星術師にとっての概念的、実践的な観点からも重要だと言えるでしょう。ところが、初期700年間の西洋占星術の実践においてメインストリームであったにも関わらず、中世には姿を消してしまいます。そして、この20〜30年、80年代、90年代に占星術の伝統として復活したばかりのハウスシステムでもあります。

さて、ここまでがおおよその歴史的背景。
実際の概念について話していきましょう。

ホール・サイン・ハウスは最もシンプルなハウス区分方法です。アセンダントサインがそのまま第1室になるということからも、一番分かりやすい方法だと言えます。たとえば、出生図のアセンダントが、かに座にある場合、かに座がそのまま第1室になります。かに座の0〜30度がその人の第1室となるわけですね。その後は黄道サイン順にサインを割り当て、かに座が第1室なら、2室はしし座、3室におとめ座、4室にてんびん座とつづきます。

つまり、ホール・サイン・ハウスシステムでは常に12ハウスと12サインが一致しているというわけです。おそらくですが、これがハウスが12区分となった起源でしょう。4つや8つ、36にならなかった理由です。ホール・サイン・ハウスを使うことで12ハウスは黄道12サインと相応するからです。上昇宮がそのまま第1室になるので、ハウス計算は簡単明瞭。さらに、アセンダントの度数がサインのかなり前半にあろうと、後半にあろうと全く関係がありません。上昇宮はそのまま第1室となり、その次のサインが2室、その次は第3室とつづいていくわけです。ですから、この方法では10室は上昇宮から10番目のサインが司ります。とても明瞭で簡単な計算方法ですよね。知る必要があるのは上昇宮だけ。それさえ分かれば誰のチャートであろうとホール・サイン・ハウスシステムで作れるのです。

さて、次なる問題はMC、ミッドヘブン。MCの度数はどう扱うのでしょう。

ホール・サイン・ハウスシステムにおいて、MCはチャートの上半分を行き来します。そして、近代の占星術師が使うVertexやPart Of Fortuneと同様にハウス上の感受点として機能します。つまり、10室が示す事柄はMCがあるハウスにも採り入れられるのです。もし、MCが9室にあるのなら9室と10室、MCが11室にあれば10室と11室は連動し、そのサイン全体を関連させて捉えるのです。

この様にMCはチャート上部を移動する感受点として働き、MCが位置するハウスやサインに、その意味を付加します。ICも同様です。4室の意味は、ICが位置するチャート下部のハウスとサインに対し付与されるわけです。
この用法はすでに2世紀の占星術師、ヴェティウス・ヴァレンズ(Vettius Valens)が記していました。MCとICの度数を感受点として扱い、ホール・サイン・ハウスを他の4区分方式（注）と併用し、ハイブリッド的に見る方法として紹介されています。

他のハウス区分方法と組み合わせて見ることも出来ます。重要なことは、ホール・サイン・ハウスを起点、あるいは基本解釈の基盤として使うという点。

とても使い勝手のよいハウス区分法であるとともに、試験をしてみればいかに優れているかが分かります。実際に機能するところをテストしたいと言う人たちには、トランジット法を勧めています。自分自身のチャートや、誰かのチャートをホール・サイン・ハウスのレンズを通して学んでみるのです。
このテストで、特に強い効果を見たり、感銘させられるのは惑星が新しいサインにイングレスする時です。トランジット惑星をホール・サイン・ハウスで観ると、惑星がサインから別のサインに移る時、その惑星は同時にハウスも移行することになるからです。これはサインとハウスの境界が同一だからですね。

こうしたことは内惑星においても見られますが、なによりも外惑星のトランジットにおいては格別な影響を見て取ることができます。土星がひとつのサインから別のサインへと入り、ハウスを変えることで、その人の人生のテーマが変化する場合などです。
たとえば、トランジットの土星が4室から5室に移るとき。土星が4室にある時は家、生活の状態、あるいは両親に関する事柄が重要になりますが、5室に入った時から突然、子どもがテーマとして現れるといったことです。
こうした調査は金星、木星、火星のイングレスにおいても可能。基本とする姿勢はトランジット惑星がイングレスをする際に、新たなテーマが現れるかを調べることですね。
もし充分と言えるほどまでにこうした調査をしたなら、必ずや何事かが起きていることを確認し、このハウス区分法の優位性を知ることでしょう。
実際にどの様な発見をするかについては、みなさんに委ねます。

以上が概要です。
前述した様に、このシステムは数百年間、1世紀近く使われましたが中世には失われてしまいました。そして80・90年代に西洋で再発見され、突如として再び西洋占星術師の間で使われる様になったのです。現在ではよく知られたシステムとなり、最近の二つのアンケートにおいて、プラシーダスに次いで高い人気を得ています。プラシーダスについては、過去1世紀にわたり殆どの占星術師に使われてきましたが、多くの人たちがホール・サイン・ハウスに興奮し、それぞれのアプローチに組み込んでいる状況を見るのはとても興味深いですね。ある人たちはホール・サイン・ハウスだけを使い、また別の人たちはプラシーダス、ポルフィリー（Porphyry）、あるいはイコール・ハウス・ステムなどと併用しています。
ぜひ、みなさんもご自分で調査してください。きっと役立つものを見つけると思います。

さて、これでホール・サイン・ハウスについての説明を終わります。さらに勉強を進めたい方は、私の著書「ヘレニズム占星術・運命と幸運」で歴史的な背景や、どの様にして他のハウスシステムが出来上がってきたかについて章を割いて解説しましたのでお読みください。オンラインコースでも、古代占星術を教えています。https://courses.theastrologyschool.comをご覧ください。
以上、ご覧いただきありがとうございます。それではまた会いましょう。

訳者注
4区分方式（Quadrant system）アセンダント、MC、DSC、ICの4点を基準にハウスを分ける方式。プラシーダス、レジオモンタナス、ポルフィリー、コッホ、キャンパナスなど数多くの方式がある。

Translation by astrogrammar

Whole Sign House System by Chris Brennan

All right. Let's get right into it first. Let's define our topic.
Whole Sign Houses is a method or a form of house division of dividing an astrological chart into 12 sectors or zones or what's called houses. The concept of the 12 houses has been in use for about two thousand years now, we can trace the concept back. The Hellenistic tradition starting somewhere around the first century BCE and when you go for that far back one of the things that you actually notice or that over the past 20 or 30 years that researchers who went that far back and studied the ancient Greco-Roman astrological Traditions.
What they discovered is that Whole Sign Houses appears to have been the oldest form of house divisions of the oldest approach to dividing up the 12 houses and also, it seems to be the predominant or the most popular form of house division for the first six or seven hundred years of the practice of Western astrology, or at least the system of astrology that uses planets signs aspects and houses that system seems to have originated around the first century BCE and for about the first 700 years the system that was used the most frequently in their surviving birth chart, it's in the surviving astrological manuals is the Whole Sign House system.

So, it's important for that reason for let's say historical purposes, but it also has an important conceptual and practical implications for astrologers as well. The system actually despite being that popular for the first several centuries of the practice of Western astrology. The system was actually lost during the Middle Ages. And it's only since in the past 20 or 30 years since the 1980s and 1990s that Whole Sign House has been recovered in the astrological tradition.
That's a little bit of background about the topic about, you know, its history and its recent recovery. Let's talk about actually defining the concept.

Whole Sign Houses is actually the simplest method of house division, or at least it's one of the most straightforward methods because all you have to do in order to calculate Whole Sign Houses is determine what sign of the zodiac the ascendant is located in and whatever sign of the zodiac that is that entire sign becomes the first house in the chart.
For example, let's say that the ascendant is somewhere in the zodiacal sign of Cancer when a person is born. In that case, Cancer would become the first house. From 0 to 30 degrees of Cancer would become the first house in that person's chart. And then what you do in order to calculate the rest of the houses is that they all coincide with the subsequent zodiacal signs in zodiacal order, which is counterclockwise. So if cancer is rising Cancer is the first house then that means the next sign is zodiacal order which is Leo becomes the second house and then a sign after that, which is Virgo would become the third house and the sign after that Libra would become the fourth house and so on and so forth.

Whole Sign House System, there're always 12 houses and they perfectly coincide with each of the 12 signs. So this is actually probably the reason why there are 12 houses, to begin with rather than some other number like 4 or 8 or 36. It's because the 12 houses were originally meant to coincide with the 12 signs of the zodiac using the Whole Sign House system. So it's pretty straightforward and easy to calculate whatever your rising sign is that becomes the first house. It doesn't matter if the ascendant is really early in the sign or really late in the sign. It becomes that rising sign becomes the first house, nonetheless, and then the sign after that becomes the second house in the sign up that becomes the third house and so on and so forth.
So in this approach, the 10th house is always the 10th sign relative to the rising sign. So it's pretty straightforward pretty easy to calculate.
You just need to know what sign of the zodiac the ascendant is located in basically and then you can calculate Whole Sign Houses in anyone's chart.

The next question that often comes up is what do you do then about the midheaven, so what about the degree of the midheaven?

In Whole Sign Houses, the degree of the Midheaven or the Meridian actually floats around the top half of the chart. And it can fall in a number of different Whole Sign Houses and it acts like a sensitive point kind of like the vertex or the lot of fortune does the part of fortune is the modern astrological charts at least in terms of how modern astrologers often treat those points. And what happens is that the degree of the midheaven will import 10th house significations into whatever Whole Sign House at falls. So, if the degree of the midheaven falls in the 9th Whole Sign House that it's going to import, and it's going to double up on significations from both the 9th house and the 10th house in the 9th sign relative to the rising sign, or if the degree of the midheaven falls in the 11th sign from the rising sign. So the 11th Whole Sign House, then it will double up 10th house 11th House significations in the entirety of that sign.

So again, the degree of the Midheaven is like a sensitive point that floats around the top of the chart and import significations into whatever house it falls.
The degree of IC does the same thing except it imports fourth house significations into whatever whole sign has it falls in the bottom half of the chart.
In that way, and that this usage is actually outlined already in a second-century text by the astrologer Vettius Valens, but in that way the approach to Whole Sign Houses already represents a sort of hybrid approach between the whole sign approach and the other systems of quadrant house division just by taking into account the degree of the MC and the degree of the IC and using them as sensitive points.

There's also other ways that you could use hybrid approaches incorporate other forms of house division on top of Whole Sign Houses, but the important point is just using Whole Sign Houses as a starting point or as a foundation for determining the basic significations of the houses and then building on that from there.

So Whole Sign Houses is actually a pretty useful form of house division and it's a pretty impressive form of house division once you actually test it out. And one of the recommendations that I usually have for people if they want to test it to see if it works is to apply transits to Whole Sign Houses in to start looking at their chart, and the charts of other people that you want to study through the lens of Whole Sign Houses using transits.

And the way to do this the most effective or the most impressive demonstration that you can do or impressive test is to look at ingresses of planets into new zodiacal signs. Because one of the things that you realize when you are studying transits through the lens of Whole Sign Houses is that when a planet moves into a new sign of the zodiac it's also moving into a new house in the Whole Sign House system. Because the cusps of the zodiacal signs are essentially the cusps of the houses in the whole sign approach.

So sometimes you can see this with inner planet transits, but it's typically actually most impressive or striking with outer planet transits, like watching Saturn move from one zodiacal sign to another, and then seeing if the topics shift in that person's life of Saturn moving from one Whole Sign House to another.
For example, the shift of Saturn going from the 4th whole sign house and matters having to do it the home and the living situation of the parents perhaps being more prominent versus Saturn moving into the 5th whole sign house and suddenly other topics related to the 5th house like the topic of children becoming more prominent in the person's life.

So there's many different sure combinations or variations you can do in terms of study Venus ingresses or Jupiter ingresses or Mars ingresses or what have you. But the basic point is just that you can test to see Whole Sign House is working by studying your transits and planetary ingresses to see if new topics are coming up as soon as the planets switch signs. And I'm actually pretty confident that if you do that test it if you do it thoroughly enough, you'll actually see that there's something going on there that you know that this approach to house division should actually merit more attention on your part. But I'll leave that up to you to test to see what you find.

Let's see other points to make, I think that's about it.
As I said one of the things about this approach, is that even though it was the most popular form house division for several hundred years for nearly a millennia. It was lost during the course of the Middle Ages. And it's only in the 1980s and 1990s that this approach to house division has been rediscovered in the west, and suddenly Western astrologers are starting to use it again. And it's actually becoming quite popular so that I've seen two polls recently that said that Whole Sign Houses is now the second most used system of house division next to Placidus. With Placidus, of course, being the primary form of house division that most modern astrologers have used over the course of the past century. But it's interesting to see where things are headed and lots of people are getting excited about Whole Sign Houses and starting to integrate it into their approaches to astrology either as their only of approach to house division, or as a secondary approach in addition to other forms, like Placidus or Porphyry or Equal Houses or what have you.
So I'd encourage you to check it out to research it for yourself. And I think you'll like what you find.

All right, so that's it for video on the Whole Sign House system. If you want to learn more about the history of ancient house division and how the different forms of house division came about I actually have a chapter on that topic in my recent book, which is titled Hellenistic astrology the study of Fate and Fortune. I also teach an online course on Ancient astrology, which you can find out more information about at https://courses.theastrologyschool.com. All right. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.

Transcript by astrogrammar