The eighth house in astrology is complex, and there is no way around that. Historically it was called the Idle House and represented death and monetary gain via inheritance. In the 19th century, sex and mental health were added into the mix. Simply put, it contains everything we don’t want to acknowledge or admit, let alone talk openly about. Think of subject matter that is secret, stigmatized, and/or taboo and you’ve got it. But we all experience it at some point, whether by personal planets placed there in our birth charts or by periodic planetary transits through our eighth house.