Sixth sector—Virgo: Worker, servant, neatness, carefulness, precision,
detail, sensible, critical, retiring, fault-finding, fussy, pinpricking, hygien-
ic, clean; Sixth house: Food, clothing, pets, capacity to serve, employees,
health, diseases, employment, daily work, servants, diet, hygiene.
Seventh sector—Libra: Companionable, harmonious, evenly balanced,
diplomatic, indecisive, vacillating; Seventh house: Partnership, cooper-
ation, marriage, war, legal contracts, lawsuits, divorce, treaties, enemies.
Eighth sector—Scorpio: Passionate, secretive, sexual, sensual, penetrating,
resentful, mystical, unfathomable; Eighth house: Birth, death, regeneration,
sexual instincts, occultism, legacies, others’ property, investigation, afterlife.
Ninth sector—Sagittarius: Intellectual, exploration, research, wide-
ranging, far-reaching, freedom loving, sporty, traveler, religious, moral;
Ninth house: Philosophy, religion, law, travel, exploration, research,
foreign lands or people, higher education, publishing.
Tenth sector—Capricorn: Cautious, practical, prudent, ambitious,
grave, stern, restrained, disciplined, authoritarian; Tenth house: The
personal image, authority, honor, prestige, career, ambition, father,
organizations, rulers, employers.
Eleventh sector—Aquarius: Original, independent, detached, scientific,
cool, humane, freedom loving, congenial, social, reformer, eccentric;
Eleventh house: Friends, contacts, clubs, social groups, humanitarian
enterprises, altruism, hopes and wishes.
Twelfth sector—Pisces: Intuitive, expansive, sensitive, sympathetic,
intangible mystical, artistic, occult, sacrificial, confused, deceived,
escapist, sentimental; Twelfth house: Sacrificial service, repressions,
neurosis, hidden enemies, prisons, asylums, institutions, occultism,
mysticism, secrets.
According to Holden, the notion of a belt of zodiacal signs that modify plane-
tary influences according to the sign in which planets are placed originated over 2,500
years ago in the ancient Near East. At least 300 more years passed before the notion of
houses was developed, probably by the Egyptian astrologer Petosiris in the mid-second
century B.C.E. The earliest house system, which was the system put forward by Ptole-
my, was an equal house system.
An equal house system, as the name implies, draws all houses equal in width
with respect to the ecliptic (the great circle at the center of the belt of the zodiac).
Most systems of equal houses, including the earliest, begin the first house on the east-
ern horizon. Thus, someone born when the eastern horizon intersected Virgo at 26°
would have a first house that began at 26° Virgo, a second house that began at 26°
Libra, a third house that began at 26° Scorpio, and so forth. It is an ancient system of
house division that is still used in Vedic astrology, although most Vedic astrologers use
the full 30° arc of the rising sign as the first house. In other words, if someone’s rising
sign was Leo—whether 1° Leo, 29° Leo, or any point in between—the full 30° arc of
Leo from 0° to 30° Leo would be the first house. Then the full 30° arc of the nextHouses
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