The mysterious eighth house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

The eight house is somewhat of a black hole in astrology in my opinion. I am saying this because it covers death, as in something beings undergo without the possibility of undoing. I am also saying this because, like a black hole, this house has remained muchly unexplored in my opinion.

A lot can be discussed about it yet little can be said for certain, even among astrologers I dare to say. There are several reasons for this and one merely needs to look at how this house was seen throughout history as besides death and things connected to it (burials, wills, etc.), it also became associated with the wealth of the spouse (likely based on horary considerations) and over the last century sex and intimacy became associated with it. Moreover, stuff like surgeries and transplants were allocated to this house and it also bears important psychological components, fears being assigned to it. 

I am not into psychology and I do not know how this science deals with fears, how they have been analyzed and catalogued. I am sure someone like Scott is way more able to discuss these things from a scientific perspective. What I can say is that I have been actively working with the energies of this house more than once, both on myself and on others, both for pretty things and for less pretty ones. By the way, the angel of this house is Susul and here's his sigil in case anyone is curious to take a quick dive into it:

Again, I am not into psychology and I do not know how psychological processes start and how they develop - Scott has told me this several times, but I keep forgetting... Sorry Scott!!! But what I came to find out is that what Scott calls conditional patterns are being formed in the Imum Coeli and fourth house, (and with a helping hand from querido Shaman I realized) elements of the third house also play a role in this process. At some point the person starts suppressing (not repressing because that implies multiple personality from what I can remember from Scott - hope that came out right) certain behaviors and traits in order to better cope with the outside environment, as those elements of their personality go against the "normal standards" of their family and society at large. Those suppressed elements do not go away, but instead they get stored in the eighth house. They end up manifesting through self-undoing patterns in the twelfth house. 

The fourth, eighth and twelfth houses are trine one another, all three being Water houses with respect to the universal assignment of houses to zodiac signs - one is not to conflate houses with signs though! Using the same universal assignment, all three are feminine houses, which along with the Water element make them more accessible using the abstract part of the mind. They are also trine one another, meaning the energy flow between them is very strong and harmonious - the flow itself is harmonious, not necessarily the energies - allowing for easy interaction between them. 

The fourth house is an angular house, meaning it is very strong and thus it is fitting for generating behavioral patterns, especially since it also covers the home and family and such patterns start from there. The twelfth house is a cadent house and its weak energies combined with the fact it is located directly "behind" the first make it the area of life the native has the least control over and perfect to manifest self-undoing patterns. As for the eighth house, it is a succedent one. It is also a stable house, meaning its energies are sturdy and reliable (in a sense they will keep on operating with the exact intensity regardless of their nature).

Like all succedent houses, the eighth house is closely connected to the angular one that comes before it, in this case the seventh. The seventh house is one of relationships and partnerships, meaning your significant other you're forming a committed relationship with (traditionally a marriage) and your business associates, but it also covers open enemies (people you know hate you and want to harm you), fights, wars, lawsuits, etc. It thus makes sense that the eighth house is a house of the spouse's wealth, since it is the second house from the seventh and if the seventh is the spouse, then their second is their wealth (personal possessions, income and the likes). 

It also makes sense that anything suppressed is a result of one-on-one interactions with others because that is a seventh house thing as well. So if the native's behavioral patterns encounter resistance when interacting with others, then they slip into the eighth house because the native usually wants to be liked by people. He or she then stuff those patterns elsewhere in order to prevent them from manifesting in front of others. And this is where the fun begins because those patterns usually start blending with what has been stored in there before in the form of fear, shame, guilt - there can be others, but so far I've only been able to identify these three. Again, don't expect me to speak scientifically, but I can say that this process of blending of stuff in the eighth house generates anxiety as a result of various energies interacting with each other in an apparent disorderly fashion - the native is not conscious of it (most of the time). This anxiety increases stress levels in the native's microcosmos and takes a toll on their vitality (and can affect their physicality along the way). 

Chronic fatigue can be a result of this, something which I found fits perfectly with the title "Idle" the ancients used for the eighth house. What I am referring to here is someone who is so tired, regardless of how much they slept, they seem like a zombie. They can move around and do chores and stuff, albeit with some difficulty and slower than usual, but they usually appear absent to others and they themselves can feel disconnected from the world around (as if they were dead while still being alive). 

As mentioned before, fears also get stored in the eighth house and that happens from early on in life. This can range from fear of roaches or certain animals to all sorts of phobias that might appear weird and even funny to the rest, but they can be very traumatic for the person. No matter how weird these fears appear to be, and they can be very hard to rationalize. They have a very intimate cause (Imum Coeli) one is to dig for in order to uncover so it will enable them to deal with and heal their fears later on. The problem I have encountered is the fact stuff in the eighth house can become so entangled it is hard to break down into its individual components in order to pinpoint the exact elements you are looking for. This kind of work requires patience and diligence, unfortunately. 

The eighth house is also a house of trust, first because it is a consequence of partnership in which trust is a key element, and secondly because a cleaner or filthier eighth house allows one to trust people more or less. A cluttered eighth house can hinder trust because the native has piled up all of that clutter during various experiences, at least some of which involved their trust being broken.

Many modern astrologers attribute sex and intimacy to the eighth house. The seventh house was traditionally seen as the house of marital sex, which nowadays can be adapted to sex in a committed relationship. Non-marital sex was seen as a fifth house affair (see what I did there?), the house of pleasure. I for one have found that sex is only connected to this house in the form of the suppressed stuff I have previously talked about that might get stored in the eighth house, with respect to sex. So whether you're having sex with your husband or wife (seventh house) or going to a... pretty massage parlor (fifth house), sex is still a one-on-one thing (even if many people take part in it at the same time) so thus it is a seventh house interaction which can result in leakage (see what I did there again?) into the eight house. 

For example, if you're acting like a barbarian in bed and the partner dislikes that you will "force" yourself not to be that way in case you want to remain in a relationship with the other person. If you're being super cutesie with the... massage person, and they're starting to make fun of you because you're not there to play cutesie, then you will take the necessary measures to avoid that further on. The fifth house is square the eighth so from a modern astrology perspective it's understandable why you can... have a pretty massage without actually being intimate with the... massage person, except physically.

When it comes to intimacy, this is a broad field of which sex and sexuality are mere parts. Intimacy can mean spending some quiet time on the loo all by yourself. Funny how the Romans had public loos in which people "loo-ed" next to one another with no parting walls between them so it's like they were having group (eleventh house) intimacy or something - the eighth and eleventh houses are also square. Another thing that appears to be funny is for example guys in urinals who turn away from those next to them so their weewee won't undergo inspection or because the person cannot take a leak when being watched. This probably has to do with shame that can be the result of some sort of mockery the person was subjected to with respect to their weewee or even to strict upbringing with respect to keeping one's weewee away from being seen. Again, I'm not able to be sciency about this. 

During my several years of social media procrastinating I came across several guys who complained about erectile dysfunctions and two girls who complained about that with respect to their guys. They all sought magical help because they thought the issue was caused by curses. While curses could do that, especially when jealous third parties or exes are involved, we discussed in Asteria that healing requires a holistic approach so medical issues should not be overlooked. However, when it comes to the occult side of the street, I have met only one person who suffered from this as a result of a curse and he was successful in overcoming it quickly with solid uncrossing rituals. 

Besides curses, one has to look at other factors, such as the natal chart and transits over it. If no transit is observed as being responsible for the issue, then the chart itself should be studied thoroughly. I have found that besides the fourth house (alongside the Imum Coeli) the eighth house is also greatly connected with the root chakra - this chakra is responsible for boners. Besides being responsible for one's roots as in their family and their sense of belonging, this chakra is also responsible for trust and mistrust. When imbalanced it can cause issues with eliminating waste (both #1 and #2), among several other physical conditions, as well as the aforementioned dysfunctions in guys (and frigidity in womens folk). It would thus seem fitting that the anxiety and stress generated by a cluttered eighth house can cause certain tissues down there to function poorly, especially when the person is being stimulated to a great degree during a one-on-one interaction.   

Naturally, any planet located in the eight house will act on the house based on its nature and the archetypal traits of the sign it is found in at that time. Mercury in the eighth house for example can make the native neurotic, aside from bestowing good investigative skills to them. Jupiter can confer the person great financial benefits from relationships, yet at the same time it can enlarge whatever psychological mess one has gathered in there. I don't want to alarm anyone who might have these placements, but Mars and Saturn in the eighth house can (although this is not mandatory!!!) be catastrophic. The outer planets too can cause various unpleasantness for the native if he or she has at least one of them in the eighth house. Any aspect such planets are involved in will also affect the eighth house in a more or less pleasant way, depending on the other planet(s) involved, their dignity, etc. (One is not to overlook Lord Manticore's snowballs either - i.e. Chiron, Black Moon, various other elements more specific to modern astrology.)

But the eighth house can also be used for one's benefit, as I think it was always meant to be. It is also a house of letting go and this applies to whatever mess has been gathered there along the way. In no way does this imply one will bury that mess even deeper and forcing one's self to forget about it. I cannot say if doing that repeatedly will somehow generate an autonomous "different self" that will manifest as an alter-ego or something, but from what I remember from Scott, that does not happen. The mess will simply keep generating faulty patterns that will manifest in the personality to one's detriment.

By letting go I mean that once the causes responsible for the mess start being identified, it will become easier for one to disconnect the parts of the mess that consist of memories from the parts of the mess that consist of emotional trauma. The memories can be allowed to remain as important reminders and life lessons, but the traumatic energies will find it easier to "die" by sinking into the "black hole" that is the eighth house. Now, I'm not sure if actual real black holes have a so called white hole on the other side where the matter that got sucked in gets spewed out, but in this case the traumatic energies do not disintegrate into nothingness. They come out through the Imum Coeli as fresh new ones having been transmuted and they can be put to work in consolidating a stronger structure for the individual, instead of spewing out into the twelfth house as some kind of relativistic jet and biting the native in the arse, to put it Britishly. 

I might edit this article along the way and it could be the start of a series in which I address zodiacal houses. Who knows?!

Edit: I'm sure this doesn't apply all-around, but I would recommend you take care of your debts before starting to work with this house for clearing up any clutter you might have in there!!!

Hate on, dum-dums!

The Great Gazoo