By Dorian Grimault, astrologer · Published · updated
The 11th house is the house of friends, groups and projects carried out with others. For tradition, it was also the place of hopes and of support, one of the most favorable in the chart, so much so that it was called the Good Daimon. This page traces what the sources said about it, what AstralPro retains, and how to read it when it holds no planet, with the example of Camille Morel, AstralPro's sample chart (fictional data).
Firmicus Maternus places the 11th house among the four “second” places, which follow the angles in power: the Goddess (3), the God (9), Good Fortune (5) and the Good Daimon (11) (Mathesis, II, 16). Between the Good Daimon and Good Fortune, which faces it, the former prevails (II, 18).
He describes it thus: Good Daimon or Good Spirit, agathos daimon in Greek; a place where the Midheaven is often found; the place of Jupiter; and a place tied to the Ascendant by a “not negligible” association, since it regards it by sextile (II, 19, 12).
Vettius Valens gives it: friends, hopes, gifts, children, slaves, freedmen (Anthology, IV, 12, trans. Mark Riley). In his chapter in book II, he holds that benefics placed in the sign of the Good Daimon, well disposed, make the native illustrious, and that malefics in conjunction with this place can do no harm there.
William Lilly (Christian Astrology, book I, chapter VII) makes the 11th house the house of friends and friendship, of hope, trust, praise or blame, the fidelity or falseness of friends. For a king, it represents his favorites, counselors, allies and treasury; for the City of London, the Common Council, when the 10th house is the Lord Mayor.
Its consignificators are Aquarius and the Sun, and Jupiter rejoices there in particular. It is succedent and masculine, but Lilly specifies that it equals the 7th or the 4th house in strength. His table on page 115 confirms it: +4, like those two angles. A succedent house can thus weigh as much as an angle in Lilly, while the 8th house, also succedent, counts among the debilities.
The report's glossary sums up the 11th house in three words: friends, groups, projects. The king's favorites and treasury become networks and shared causes; the hopes of Valens and Lilly become long-term projects.
Two elements of tradition do not pass into the calculation. Jupiter's joy is not calculated: AstralPro counts no planetary joys. And the strength of the house adds nothing to the balance of testimonies, which retains only the weak houses, the 12th, 8th and 6th. The house is drawn in Placidus, and its ruler is that of the sign on its cusp, according to modern rulerships: for an Aquarius cusp, Uranus and not Saturn.
In chapter I, the “House cusps” table gives its cusp, its sign and its ruler. In chapter IV, the 11th house carries the Friendships & social life section, which reads it with Saturn and Jupiter, the cusp, the ruler and the occupants, then the draconic chart as counterpoint. By another route, Jupiter there regains the place tradition gave it in this house. In the Book, the same section can also call on Ceres, when she sheds light on what you nurture in your bonds.
For Camille Morel, AstralPro's sample chart (fictional data), the 11th house begins at 2°12' Libra. No planet occupies it. Its ruler is Venus, ruler of Libra in both systems, which lies at 6°30' Scorpio, in the 12th house, in detriment and “in sect.” Venus rules three houses in all, the 7th, 11th and 12th: for Camille, friendship and partnership pass through the same planet.
One asteroid occupies the house: Juno, at 12°27' Libra. And one celestial point stands just before the cusp: Hygiea, at 1°51' Libra, stays in the 10th house, since the 11th only begins at 2°12'. Twenty-one minutes of arc are enough: the cusp decides the house, not the sign. Since Placidus houses are unequal, Libra carries two cusps, that of the 11th house and that of the 12th (26°43' Libra): Camille's 11th house covers almost the whole sign, 24°31' of the zodiac. Juno, which the Love life section reads for commitment, thus sits in the house of friendships.
The case Firmicus pointed out also arises in her chart: counted by sign from her Scorpio Ascendant, her Virgo Midheaven would fall in the eleventh place. In Placidus, it remains the cusp of her 10th house.
The two planets the section names are elsewhere: Saturn at 23°53' Aquarius, in the 3rd house, and Jupiter at 0°50' Scorpio, in the 12th house. The aspect the calculation assigns to Friendships & social life is the conjunction of Mercury and Venus, with an orb of 0°07', the tightest aspect in the whole chart, and an applying one.
Valens has each place act together with its opposite. Lilly, for his part, places the joys of the two benefics on this axis: Venus rejoices in the 5th house, the house of pleasure, and Jupiter in the 11th. The 5-11 axis gives a clear example of this in Camille's chart. The two cusps share the same degree, 2°12', in Aries for the 5th house and in Libra for the 11th. The 5th house is ruled by Mars, which is in Sagittarius, in the 1st house, and Lilith lies there at 14°01' Aries. On one side, creation and pleasure pass through a planet placed in the foreground; on the other, friendships pass through a planet withdrawn into the 12th house. Read together, the axis tells how what is born of Camille and what she shares with others answer each other.
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