Topic: Determinations and House Combinations

Lesson 6 introduces Morin's "Theory of Determinations" which explains how the signs, planets, and houses interrelate and mutually determine one another. In Astrosynthesis, he summarizes the entire relationship in one short sentence.

"We know that the spaces called houses actively determine the celestial bodies, whereas the celestial bodies passively determine the things essentially signified by the houses".

From this one simple statement he develops and expands upon his entire approach to horoscope synthesis and also refutes the common notion among some astrologers of his time who believed that the entire sky concurs in every worldly affair in the life of a human being.

The Theory of Determinations gives us an understanding of how planets and signs which are universal causes influence us only in specific and particular ways, ways that are determined according to their relationship to the houses. Among the four ways the signs and planets are delimited in their action by the houses, the two most important modes are "position" and "rulership". This explanation serves as a valuable and necessary prelude to the topic of house combinations that forms the second part of the lesson.

When studying a chart we routinely observe the ruler of one house physically posited in another house. This situation anticipates an important topic in astrology called house combinations. It raises the following issue: Will the planet that rules over one house act as the agent to combine the meaning of the house over which it rules with the meaning of the house where it is posited? In other words, will the affairs of a house ruled by the planet be the cause of the house affairs where the planet is posited?

When a planet as ruler of one house is in another, it anticipates the combination of the affairs of the two houses but they do not necessarily or always combine. On what factors will a combination depend? We use the charts of Bonnie Lee Bakley, Timothy Leary, and Linda Tripp to demonstate the topic of combinations as the combinations found in those charts are very pronounced and easy to observe.

Sincerely,

Robert M. Corre
New York City