Almagest

The library · The Western houses

The eleventh house

what the eleventh house governs in the Western chart

What the tradition reads

The eleventh house, the tradition holds, is the house of friends and of the hopes a person holds for the future. Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos names the eleventh house the Good Daemon, the thirty degrees in dexter sextile to the ascending sign, and ranks it among the chart's prorogatory places, third in influence behind only the midheaven and the ascendant. His own chapter on friends and enemies does not read this house at all: it instead compares the Sun, Moon, Ascendant and Part of Fortune of two whole nativities against each other, judging lasting friendship or enmity by how closely those four places agree between the two charts. Ptolemy's chapter on children calls the place succeeding the zenith, the same eleventh house, the place of the good daemon, and reads the planets found there, or in opposition to it, for whether children are granted at all, and whether they are healthy. Lilly's Christian Astrology heads its own chapter on the eleventh house House of Friends, Hope, Substance of Kings, and reads it there for friends and friendship, hope, trust and confidence, and, for a king's chart, his favourites, councillors, servants, allies and treasure. Alan Leo gives the house friends, acquaintances, hopes, wishes and aspirations, holds that free from affliction it may be considered a benefic house, and adds that it has much sympathy with the tenth, often strong in the charts of those concerned with the many rather than the few, through companies, associations and societies.

The story

The eleventh house's oldest attested name is Ptolemy's own: the Good Daemon, one of the thirty degree places forming a dexter sextile to the ascendant, a configuration his Tetrabiblos ranks just behind the midheaven and the ascendant itself in astrological potency. In his separate chapter on children he calls the same place, there named as succeeding the zenith, the place of the good daemon, and reads whichever planets stand in it, or oppose it, for whether offspring will be granted, healthy, or denied altogether. Centuries later, in Christian Astrology, Lilly gives the eleventh house an entirely different heading, House of Friends, Hope, Substance of Kings, and fills it with trust, confidence, and the praise or dispraise a person earns, and, for a king's own nativity, his favourites, councillors, servants, allies and treasure; Ptolemy's Good Daemon and Lilly's house of friends and hope are two distinct namings of the same place rather than one continuous tradition. Ptolemy's own method for judging friendship does not read a single house at all: it compares the Sun, Moon, Ascendant and Part of Fortune of two whole nativities against each other, and reads how closely those four places agree, or disagree, as the measure of a lasting friendship or a lasting enmity.

Written from

Corpus key house:11.