The 8th house in astrology is opposite the 2nd house, which deals with your money, income, your strengths, assets, and talents.
The 8th house pertains to other people’s money and assets. This covers a wide area!
Joint finances reside here, but so do unpleasant financial issues such as debt or alimony.
This house is very misunderstood. It’s sometimes called the “house of sex”—but it’s much more than that. It takes the pairing from the 8th house and intensifies it.
The 7th house is where you find your relationships and your mindset towards them. The 8th house is how that coupling manifests itself, and the sign on the cusp and any planets involved will color that manifestation.
The 8th house is one of the three relationship houses, the other two being the 5th house and the 7th house—the 5th house is the ideology of love, the 7th house is commitment, and the 8th is the conjoining, through sex as well as finances.
It’s a Fixed house, and it belongs to the element of Water. It’s ruled by Scorpio and by the planet Pluto.
What Does the 8th House Mean?
1. Deals With Sex
The 8th house isn’t all about sex, but even when actual intimacy isn’t referred to, it’s a good metaphor. This area of your chart is where the cycle of life continues, where you reap the harvest that your skills and possessions have brought to you.
It’s also the place where combining takes place; of your assets as well as your physical body.
“La petite mort” is an expression used to politely refer to orgasm or sexual climax. It translates as “the little death.” It represents the rapture that is felt at the moment of climax when the body responds so strongly with pleasure that the senses are temporarily numb.
It’s interesting that sexual ecstasy is seen as dying a little, particularly when studying the 8th house.
2. Sheds a Light on Death
So many people are scared of death, but it’s just as much a part of life as birth is, and it’s nothing to fear.
Death is represented in the 8th house, but so is birth. It’s all regeneration —something that this house of the birth chart represents well. It starts with the “little death” at the climax which has the potential to create a new life and ends with actual physical death.
Every ending has to have a beginning. Every beginning starts with something else ending. This is just the cycle of life.
Sex, death, and rebirth are all part and parcel of that cycle. They’re represented in your chart by the house on the cusp and the planets in the 8th house.
Attitudes towards death and rituals observed are also indicated here.
3. Deals With Finances
Joint finances are a big part of the eighth house.
Where you had a look at your individual assets in the second house, now you’ve combined them with someone else. Are they safe? Are they secure? Are you responsible for their belongings and resources?
This house looks at how you support each other financially, but emotional support—or lack of it—is hinted at here, too.
Death also comes into play here with the money that belongs to other people. Inheritances are included in the financial aspect of the 8th house. This is more to do with any money that will come to you rather than money you leave to someone else, but it’s all connected. Often you can’t have one without the other.
4. Lays Down Rituals
The rituals that you believe in when it comes to death or intimacy or even your spiritual activity are found in the 8th house, too. Some say this is where your attitudes and interests in religion, spirituality, metaphysics, and possibly the occult are divulged.
It’s possible to reach ecstasy in other ways than intimacy—and clues to that are here.
Legacies and inheritances aren’t limited to money. They’re also rooted in what you inherit from others when it comes to your behavior and your character. Every culture, every society, has its own ideas when it comes to spiritual practices. Sex, legacies, bequests, and joint finances are often a part of that.
You’ll uncover more about your own philosophies in the 9th house.
What is Your 8th House Placement?
If you want to find out more information about intimacy, sex, your attitudes towards death, and spirituality, you need to focus on the 8th house of your astrology birth chart. The planets and aspects in these houses will reveal a lot about these themes in your life.
Catch up: All About the 7th House of Partnerships in Astrology & Read next: All About the 9th House of Philosophy in Astrology