How to Judge a Nativity

The chart wheel is cut into twelve slices, and each slice is a house. Alan Leo starts here because everything else in judgment depends on it: before you can say what a planet means, you must know where in life it is operating. The Ascendant opens the first house, and the houses run on around the wheel, each a department of experience — money, kin, home, marriage, work, and so on.

But a house never predicts anything by itself. It is a field of life, not a fortune. The tenth house is the stage of career; what actually happens on that stage depends on the sign, the planets and the aspects that occupy it. Learn the fields first.

Four points on the wheel carry special weight: the Ascendant in the east, the Midheaven above, the Descendant in the west, and the Nadir below. Leo treats these as the roots of the whole system — 'from each of these angles the other houses receive their value.'

He even reads them as a symbol of circle and cross. The first angle is the circle of spirit under the cross of matter: life forced into form. The second balances the two, giving self-consciousness. The third, circle over cross, is spirit triumphant. The fourth he calls the great mystery, the hidden centre where all the forces gather for unseen work.

Which four houses are the Angular houses, corresponding to the four angles of the chart?

• The first, second, third and fourth
• The third, sixth, ninth and twelfth
• The first, fourth, seventh and tenth✓Correct answer
• The second, fifth, eighth and eleventh

The Angular houses sit exactly on the four angles: Ascendant, Nadir, Descendant and Midheaven. The set beginning with the second is the Succedent, and the set beginning with the third is the Cadent — a division we will come to shortly.

The First House begins at the Ascendant and shows personality: natural disposition, the worldly outlook generally, and the physical experiences that come through the five senses. Leo calls it the quality of the life force, 'the material brought to the front' — whatever the chart contains, this is where it makes its first appearance. Its body rulership is the head and face.

Notice what this house does not say. It does not say the native is cheerful, sickly or proud; it says the whole question of self belongs here. the self appears here first — and the verdict waits for the planets.

Leo taught that each house receives its meaning from the sign that rules it, not from its position relative to the four angles.

False✓Correct answer

It is the other way round: for Leo the angles are the roots, and each house draws its meaning from its relation to them. Sign rulerships modify that meaning; they do not create it.

The houses work in triangles. From the First, Leo says, a stream of natural fire runs to the Fifth and the Ninth. The First is the self in action; the Fifth governs offspring, enterprise and emotional impulses — the self pouring out creatively; and the Ninth carries the same current upward into science, philosophy and religion.

The Ninth also became the house of travel, dreams and metaphysics, because it concerns the mind transmitting itself beyond the limits of the brain. One current, three heights: one current, three heights. Judge any of these houses with its partners in mind — a weak fifth may read very differently beside a strong ninth.