House Keywords and More...

This massive tome offers keywords for the twelve astrological houses, but as the title suggests, there’s much content beyond that. Munkasey packed his text with valuable information about the different parts of astrology, the hemispheres and quadrants, keyword theory, and the rationales behind astrology's many different house systems.

The book begins with the author's premise and methods, language usage in astrology, and symbol sets. The second chapter covers astrological grammar and techniques for transforming astrological symbols into a coherent language. This is valuable for intermediate students. Chapter 3 covers the origin of keywords. Chapter 4 describes the importance and meaning of the quadrants and hemispheres. Chapter 5 explains how to choose a house system – a singular and invaluable body of information that should be important to all astrologers. The house systems are described in detail (and Appendix B gives the mathematical formulae for erecting charts in the various house systems by hand).

House-related keyword collections occupy the bulk of the book (pp 45 – 204). Each house is explained in detail, beginning with an overview – a summary with key words, phrases and concepts in bold font. This is followed by things that house represents in horary or electional charts, things associated with the house, psychological qualities, occupations or personality types, places, family members or relations, mundane ideas, body parts, afflictions/diseases, colors, gems/minerals, animals, mythical figures or constellation names, organizational segments, industrial categories, health, and the architectural parts of a home and ship (which would most likely be useful in horary astrology).

The next listing provides all the keywords in alphabetical order as a cross reference (pp 205 – 309), followed by another section that cross references the key words through house categories (afflictions, body parts and functions, etc, described above). Appendix A (p 361) is the House Formulary; Appendix B gives house cusp formulae for the various house systems; Appendix C has a summary of topic headings and quadrant ideas. Appendix D provides a list of the author's most useful literary reference books and word source books.

“House Keywords and More...” is a reference book and will be useful for instructors helping students come to grips with house concepts. Since it's filled with long lists of words, it's not the kind of book one sits down to read like a novel. The three sections cross-referencing words and categories are helpful if a person needs to figure out specific chart associations, especially in horary, electional and mundane charts. This is a highly helpful well-organized book for a specific area of astrological study and will be of significant assistance for those who are striving to improve their astrological vocabulary for explaining charts to clients.

~review by Elizabeth Hazel

Author: Michael Munkasey
2017, American Federation of Astrologers (AFA)
397 pgs, $44.95 pb