Placidus Vs. Whole Sign. What’s the Difference?
Let’s learn the differences between 2 of the most common house systems in astrology.
Most likely you are someone that enjoys astrology, whether you’re just erely interested in the concept, a beginner in learning, or more advanced, and are learning about the different house calculations that you can choose to apply to your birth chart. I’m also learning new things when it comes to different house calculations, so let’s learn some new things together! Right now, we’re going to talk about Placidus, vs Whole Sign.
Placidus is most widely used and is used as the default when you generate a birth chart online. Whole Sign is the traditional house system, and one of the oldest, that has each house dedicated to entirely one sign of its own, and the signs go in their regular order. So, say your 1st house was in Scorpio, then the 2nd would be in Sagittarius, then 3rd in Capricorn, and so on. In Placidus, houses can be larger than 30 degrees, so you can end up seeing an overlap and notice that sometimes a sign will get skipped. The closer you were born to the North or South Pole, the more likely you’ll have interceptions in your birth chart.
Comparing the same birth chart you’re using in each system I think is a great way to see which rings truer to that person. Whether you’re doing your birth chart or someone else’s, it’s an interesting way to learn more about yourself or an individual on a more thorough level. If you’ve ever felt like the birth chart you’ve generated on the Placidus system doesn’t seem like it connects as much as you thought, switching it to the Whole Sign system might give you better insight into yourself, or someone else.
I’ll use my own chart for examples. The 1st picture shows my chart using the Whole Sign system. You can see each house at the top represented by the colors, are evenly distributed beside one another. There is no overlapping; each house has a sign that is completely dedicated to it.
You can see I have an Aquarius stellium in the 5th house, which is the house of pleasure, creativity and children. With all that concentrated energy placed there, a lot of my energies are focused on that aspect of my life. Being creative and having an output for it. I’m someone who likes to do creative things, and when I don’t I feel like I’m stuck within myself. My Jupiter is located in the 2nd house, the House of Possessions, indicating good fortune in regards to money and property, if not heavily afflicted. Mercury and Saturn are in the 6th house, the House of Service and Health. Saturn here indicates someone serious, hardworking and efficient at ones job, while Mercury can indicate perfectionism and a tendency to overwork themselves.
Now looking at the Placidus Chart, you can see the colors at the top, overlapping each other in some houses. My 1st and 12th house are both ruled by Libra, but if you go back to look at my Whole Sign chart, Libra is ruling my 1st house, and Virgo my 12th. My 10th house is being ruled by Leo, but in the other chart, Cancer rules it. Cancer has been skipped over in this chart, because again, Placidus charts adjusts the houses based on how close to the equator you were born, while in Whole Sign each house is at 0 degrees, so each house will go in order based on your ASC (Ascendant) and have each sign dedicated to that house.
You can also see that now I have a stellium in the 4th house, the house of family and ancestors and land, so concentrated energy is now being focused on these topics instead of the creativity, and self-expression associated with the 5th house. Jupiter is in the 1st house, indicating self-confidence, optimism, and strong moral convictions. Saturn is in the 4th house, while Mercury is in the 5th house. I won’t try and decipher my whole entire birth chart on here, hell I’m new to this too, but hopefully you now have an idea of the differences these charts produce against one another.
For the longest time I’ve gone by the default method, but now that I’m looking into the Whole Sign system, I identify with some things more with that chart than I do the other one. Both charts I think explain me pretty well, and I can’t pick just ONE house system to go with. But I don’t think you necessarily have to. There are so many other house systems to choose from, Placidus and Whole Sign are just the beginning, but I think it’s up to you to do the research and determine yourself what exactly works best for you.
