Charts and the sky from computed positions: natal, transits, progressions, Hellenistic and Vedic techniques, the Chinese four pillars, fixed stars, mansions and hours read in period sources, and world maps.
Horary
Horary judges a question by the chart of the moment it is asked, as Lilly’s Christian Astrology (1647) taught it: the figure square, in Regiomontanus houses; each planet weighed by his table of fortitudes; the significators’ aspect followed until it perfects, with prohibition, refranation, translation and collection of light, reception and the antiscia by his definitions; and his considerations before judgement.
Terms
About this tool
History
Horary astrology answers a question from the chart of the moment it is asked. William Lilly set it out in English in Christian Astrology (London, 1647): Book II judges thirty-five questions of his own practice, house by house. He drew his figures square, in Regiomontanus’s houses (1490).
How it works
The planets are placed for the moment and place and each scored by Lilly’s table of fortitudes and debilities (p. 115) on his essential dignities (p. 104), a planet within five degrees of a cusp counted in that house. The querent is signified by the lord of the Ascendant and the Moon, the thing asked by the lord of its house. An aspect within half the sum of two planets’ orbs is followed hour by hour until it perfects, and what comes between is named by his definitions: prohibition, frustration, refranation, translation and collection of light, reception. His considerations before judgement are checked with the lord of the hour, and the antiscia found as he finds them.
Any of his thirty-five questions can be opened: the sky recomputed for his Julian date at London beside his printed figure, his note of the Moon’s course, and passages of his judgement.
How it was checked
His tables, definitions and figures were transcribed from the page images of the Wellcome copy. The tests recompute his worked examples of pp. 107–126 and the antiscion of p. 91. His printed planets lie within 1¾° of the sky recomputed, the Moon within 2½°; from his own Midheaven, 97 of his 175 other cusps fall within 15′ of Regiomontanus’s houses and at most 19 of any other division; the Moon’s course he notes agrees in 24 of 28 figures. His scoring of the figure of p. 177 (pp. 178–180) comes out for Saturn, Mars and Venus as he sums it. Regiomontanus cusps agree with the Swiss Ephemeris to 0.1″.
Limits
Where his scoring of p. 177 departs from his table and definitions — no triplicity for the Sun in Leo, Jupiter, Mercury and the Moon free of the beams within 17°, the Moon not joined to Cor Leonis within the six degrees he gives Venus — the tool keeps his table and orbs and says so. Where he leaves a word open it decides and says so: the Moon’s “later degrees” her last three, the seventh afflicted by Saturn or Mars in it. Testimonies are counted, not weighed; the judgement is left to the astrologer.