Originally Published in Pathways as "Will He Marry Me?"
The millennium has seen an amazing amount of exploration
of spiritual, esoteric and "occult" (in the old sense of hidden) arts and sciences.
Astrology has undergone explosive growth in the number of astrologers and
the quality of astrological analysis that is now available. Strangely, the questions
that many potential
astrological clients want answered, e.g., will he marry me? when will our house sell?
where is my missing cat? modern astrologers either can't or won't answer. Why is this?
Basically the problem is one of history and
specialization. While astrology is several thousand years old what most
astrologers practice today is not what was practiced until 1700 when astrology
essentially died out. When astrology was reinvented at the end of the 19th century
it was with a predominately psychological approach that had been greatly simplified from
traditional practice with many of the ancient techniques lost.
Modern astrology is based on analogizing the heavens
above with the psyche within and much interesting and useful work has been done
with combining astrology, Jungian archetypal psychology and counseling. Traditionally,
however, astrology was divided into:
mundane, which predicted weather and events affecting countries, kings and cities;
natal, which predicted events in a person's life based on their birthchart;
electional, which is used to select auspicious
(or inauspicious for evil purposes)
times to take action; and
horary, which can answer specific questions
based on a chart of the time of
the question.
Modern astrology is essentially a fifth type of astrology,
dealing with psychology and what the ancients would have considered questions of the soul.
Most ancient astrologers stayed away from this type of prediction because the
Church considered the soul to be its domain. Similarly, modern psychological
astrologers often have shied away from predictions because they, like most of
their 20th century contemporaries are skeptical or nervous when confronting
the existence of fate. In addition, modern psychological astrology,
well suited for counseling and self discovery, simply lacks the
tools necessary for accurate prediction of events.
I practice traditional horary astrology,
specifically the techniques of William Lilly,
the famous 17th century English astrologer.
Horary means of or relating to the hour and horary astrology
is based on asking a specific question, which is answered by using a horoscope calculated
for the time that the question was asked.
How does this work? Plotinus, the famous 3rd century
Neo-Platonic philosophers says in his Enneads,
We may think of the stars as letters perpetually being inscribed
on the heavens or inscribed once and for all yet moving as
they pursue the other tasks allotted to them; upon these main tasks
will follow the quality of signifying, just as the one principle underlying
any living unit enables us to reason from member to member...If these parts
are members of a whole, so are we; in different ways the one law applies.
All teems with symbol; the wise man is the man who in any one thing can read another..
Plotinus, the Enneads, trans. Stephen McKenna (Penguin, 1991) at 80.
What is amazing about horary astrology
is that the unity of the universe is so complete that any question can be answered
at any moment.
The recent discovery of chaos theory and mathematical/artistic figures of fractals
provides a useful analogy for horary astrology.
The Mandelbrot Set is perhaps the
most famous fractal figure and is produced by successive iterations of the formula
a + (a x a) over an X-Y axis. The figure produced is infinite and extremely beautiful
with constantly changing and never exactly repeated variations on recurrent themes.
Each section of the fractal contains the formula, more philosophically, the essence,
of the entire figure. The Universe itself appears to have this fractal quality,
each part containing in itself the essence of the whole.
While new to science this formulation has considerable
antecedents. The great Sufi mystic Ibn Arabi emphasized the primacy of wahdat al-wujud,
the Unity of Being,
The concept of the Oneness of Being is an all-embracing one,
in that all Ibn Arabi's other concepts are but facets of it,
just as he would say that all distinction, difference and conflict
are but apparent facets of a single and unique reality,
the "seamless garment" of Being, whose reality underlies all
derivative being and its experience.
Ibn Arabi, The Bezels of Wisdom, trans. R.W.J. Austin (Paulist, 1980) at 25.
Horary astrology
can be used to answer how long a person
will live, whether they will be rich or poor, where is my missing cat?,
whether one should move to a new house or new area, what sort of illness one has,
how will a relationship turn out
, will I get the job? and
whether one is bewitched (much more popular in the 17th century than now).
I usually have clients write down their question for me and
then I note the time and place. I then have several computer programs which
will calculate the chart and give me other pertinent information.
While judgment is important horary astrology does not rely on psychic ability,
in fact, we rely on careful and methodical rules of interpretation.
My basic checklist for reading a horary chart has fourteen steps and numerous sub-steps.
Basically, I see the chart of the heavens for the time of
the question as setting forth a drama. We look at the planets that rule the houses
involved in the question as actors. Their strength and weakness, speed and direction,
show the state of the person or thing they represent. Their separating aspects show
what has happened, their applying aspects what will happen.
The drama played out in the heavens shows the drama taking place here on Earth.
As above, so below, as the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistos says.
By carefully studying and applying the actual techniques of
traditional astrologers we can also obtain the accurate and specific predictions
that they produced.