Eighth House

The eighth house stands opposite the second: where the second holds what is one's own, the eighth holds what is shared or comes from others. Traditionally it is the house of death and the estate of the dead, wills, legacies and inheritance, a dowry, other people's money, and fear and anguish of mind. Modern astrologers read it as joint finances, debt, taxes and investment, intimacy and sexuality, trust and power within close bonds, and the crises through which a person is changed. Howard Sasportas called it the depths, the house of merging and of death and rebirth, where the task is surrendering control enough to meet transformation and hidden resources.

Angular, succedent or cadent

The eighth house is succedent, following the angle of the Descendant, yet Lilly ranked it tenth of the twelve, among the weak houses, because it has no aspect to the Ascendant. Planets here were thought to struggle to act openly; modern astrologers often find them working beneath the surface, intensely and over time.

Natural sign and ruler

The eighth house corresponds to the eighth sign, Scorpio, and to its traditional ruler Mars; many modern astrologers give Scorpio to Pluto as well. Both speak of intensity, endurance and the power to cut away. No planet has its joy in the eighth house.

Lilly's significations

Lilly gives the eighth house the estate of the dead; death, its quality and nature; the wills, legacies and testaments of the deceased, and who shall inherit; the dowry of a wife, and whether it is easily obtained; in a duel the adversary's second, and in a lawsuit the defendant's friends. It signifies fear and anguish of mind. It rules the privy parts, and with them the bladder, the stone and poisons. Its colours are green and black. It is feminine, and its cosignificators are Scorpio and Saturn.

Planets here, and the ruler elsewhere

A planet in the eighth house tends to describe how a person meets shared resources and deep emotional exchange: Jupiter here may favour benefit through others, a partner's means or an inheritance, Saturn a cautious, slow-built trust. The eighth is not a sentence of loss; in a modern reading it more often marks a capacity for depth, recovery and renewal. Its ruler elsewhere shows where questions of shared means and change tend to surface. These incline, and they are not read for when or how a life will end.

Related

• Second House, the opposite house: one's own resources
• Scorpio, Mars and Pluto
• House system