Horary Astrology: an Answer to One Question

A natal chart is cast for a birth and describes a person. A horary chart is cast for the moment a question is asked and answers that question. No birth data is needed at all: only the time and place where the question arose. This gives horary a property the natal chart lacks — its input is exact to the second, whereas a birth time is usually rounded to five minutes, which displaces the Ascendant by about a degree.

Regiomontanus is the system European horary worked in, and the one every rule applied here was written for: Lilly, Bonatti and their sources. Placidus came into general use later and belongs to natal practice. The difference is not cosmetic: cusps move by several degrees, a planet crosses from the twelfth house into the first, and the significator changes along with the answer.

It is a distinct outcome, not a failure. It appears when the Moon makes no aspect before leaving her sign and no route — a direct aspect between significators, translation or collection of light — reaches perfection. The traditional phrase for this is that nothing will come of the matter. The second case is when the warnings before judgment bear on the judgment itself rather than on the matter.

Because in horary the moment is data, not a setting. The chart answers the question asked when it arose; choosing a moment to get a prettier chart turns horary into electional astrology, a different branch with different rules. The tool freezes the moment at the second you press the button and records it in the journal. The “set a moment” field exists for a question written down earlier and for studying historical charts.

Because there are two definitions and they disagree in roughly a third of cases. The modern one counts only exact aspects to planets before the Moon leaves her sign. The traditional one Lilly uses also counts the aspect she is already applying to, and several authors exempt Taurus, Cancer, Sagittarius and Pisces entirely, holding that the Moon acts there regardless. “The Moon is void” weighs too heavily on the conclusion for a tool to pick one school silently on your behalf.

Two different things are shown. The exact moment of perfection is computed from the ephemeris — a fact, good to the minute. Symbolic timing is a technique in which the degrees to the aspect are converted into days, weeks, months or years by sign and house, and here the authorities flatly contradict each other: for Bonatti cadent houses give days and angles give months, while for Lilly the sign sets the scale. On the same chart their answers can differ by a factor of tens, and that factor is printed.

It comes from a catalog of standard situations, each carrying its traditional assignment, and for other people’s affairs a derived house: a friend’s property is read as the 2nd from the 11th, that is, the 12th. The chosen type and the resulting house are always shown above the judgment with a control to pick another. This is the one step decided by a person rather than by calculation, so it is never hidden.

The astronomy uses the VSOP87 and NOVAS models and is checked against NASA JPL Horizons — the worst disagreement across the ten classical bodies is 8.6 arc-seconds. Tested against a historical chart as well: the “Fish stolen” figure Lilly judged in 1638 is reproduced with an Ascendant 0.2 arc-minutes from the one he printed.