The History of Whole-Sign Houses in Ancient Astrology

In episode 386 Chris Brennan addresses a controversial lecture that was recently given by Deborah Holding where she denied the historical existence of the whole sign house system in ancient astrology. Holding claims that whole sign houses did not exist in ancient astrology, and that the concept was only invented in the 1990s by Robert Hand and Robert Schmidt of Project Hindsight. Chris sets out to present evidence that contradicts Holding's claims, demonstrating that there is ample evidence for the existence of whole sign houses in ancient astrology, and to provide a commentary on the distortions and misrepresentations made in her lecture. During the course of the commentary Chris emphasizes the importance of separating the historical debate from the current practice of astrology, and criticizes Holding for denying the historical existence of whole sign houses based on personal preferences rather than objective evidence. Chris also discusses the concept of whole sign house denialism, which is the attempt to deny the existence of whole sign houses in ancient astrology and dismiss or suppress any historical evidence that it existed, as well why it is important to address false claims in order to set the historical record straight. This is a recording of a livestream that was broadcast on February 9, 2023. It is best to watch the video version on YouTube, because there are lots of visual elements, although most of the information is contained in the audio. This episode is available in both audio and video versions below. Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:37 Deborah Houlding’s lecture 00:01:37 The central false claim Houlding makes 00:05:14 Whole sign house denialism 00:08:45 Separating history from current practice 00:11:35 An extreme view 00:13:26 The need to address this 00:16:28 Not eager for this debate 00:19:42 Responses to her lecture 00:21:33 Different scholars saying DH is wrong 00:27:01 Fair use in this commentary video 00:28:59 My main treatment of house division in ancient astrology 00:33:35 Sneak diss 00:38:00 Commentary on DH’s lecture begins 00:40:42 Quoting Co-Star instead of the source she’s debating 00:44:42 Ignoring the Indian tradition 00:45:15 Claiming whole sign houses “didn’t exist” prior to 1990s 00:53:00 Downplaying the equal house system as well as WSH 00:55:44 Intermission 00:58:07 Intermission ends 00:58:47 Rhetorical tactic: make false claim then say responses are “emotional” 01:01:30 She “doesn’t like to talk about personalities” then proceeds to do so 01:02:38 Blaming Project Hindsight 01:03:32 Houlding claims not “a single historical astrologer” mentions WSH 01:05:35 Downplaying the work of historian James Holden 01:09:20 Holden’s 1982 paper on WSH 01:13:44 Sextus Empiricus defines WSH in 2nd century 01:20:45 Isaac Argyrus defines WSH 01:22:45 Ancient charts that use WSH 01:24:41 Prevalence of WSH in ancient horoscopes 01:25:36 Vettius Valens WSH example 01:27:14 Dorotheus of Sidon WSH charts 01:29:44 Rob Hand coining the phrase “whole sign houses” 01:30:48 Claims WSH only used abstractly 01:35:48 Earlier discoveries of WSH before Project Hindsight 01:45:00 French book on WSH from 1961 01:50:42 Intermission 01:55:40 HD trying to suppress WSH 01:57:26 Ali A Olomi on Arabic texts using WSH 02:00:31 Masha’allah using WSH in horary 02:02:13 Possible Morinus example of WSH? 02:05:05 DH falsely claims “most” of Valens translated before Hindsight 02:07:00 Revival of 17th century Lilly tradition in 1980s 02:09:38 DH only studied traditional for few years before Hindsight 02:10:40 Tensions between the Hellenistic and Renaissance traditions 02:17:03 DH displaced from center of traditional movement 02:20:18 Robert Hand and attempt to undermine his credibility 02:24:45 Robert Schmidt’s background