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This article is about the fact there are significant similarities between rectification without birth time and locating lost items and missing animals with horary Astrology. The astrologer must use the whole chart. Relying just on the major significators does not work on a consistent basis.
I have been studying lots of lost objects as well as missing animals horaries lately. Locating mislaid items or lost pets is one of the most impressive tools in horary Astrology’s arsenal. It is also universally recognized to be among the most difficult, if not the most difficult, to master within the horary branch.
In fact many horary astrologers refuse to accept such questions. On the other hand, someone who has not done such charts may wonder why it is so. Why finding lost items and missing animals is more difficult than pretty any other topic in horary Astrology. For example, divorce, disease, job, money, travel, parents, siblings, friends, communications/letters/emails, etc, etc.
Why questions about lost objects or animals are the most difficult in horary Astrology
The answer is two fold:
- Unlike a lot of the above topics, the astrologer cannot be almost right. The missing item/pet will either be found or not. Sure, the timing may be slightly off, as in the above topics. But whether it will be found, where it is, whether it is close or far away, whether it is damaged or not, etc, etc, etc are as unambiguous questions as it gets;
- Because of its demanding and complex nature that is, sort of, pushing Astrology to its limits, locating lost objects or missing animals with horary can very rarely, if ever, be done by the usual, straightforward, short way. In other words, it is not always enough to find the significators of the lost item/animal and to judge accordingly.
Why rectification without birth time is the most difficult one
Likewise, rectification from an unknown time of birth is universally recognized not only as the most difficult rectification (when the day of birth is known of course) but one of the most difficult things in the whole natal branch of Astrology. And the natal branch sits above the electional and horary one. Rectifying a chart without a time of birth is so much so difficult that far too fewer astrologers in the world offer this service compared to locating lost objects or animals. Why, someone may wonder, is 24 hour rectification so damn difficult? For the given reasons for missing items and pets in horary:
- The astrologer cannot be almost right in rectifying a chart. If the final result is not a workable nativity (most often within 10-15 minutes accuracy), then the practitioner has failed;
- Because of its demanding nature and the numerous variations, rectifying a horoscope from an unknown time of birth, if done properly, must not depend on any single method or technique. A multilevel approach is required.
Examining the whole horary chart and the whole horoscope
Getting back to point 2 of the horary Astrology of lost items and missing pets, the astrologer is literally forced to consider the whole chart. Instead of the simplistic significators approach that is applied in many of the other topics, here the number of planets and images and points that must be considered is a few times more. Not just that, but synthesizing them before pronouncing the final judgment is the most demanding task.
Ancient Astrology is overwhelmingly a left-brained science, full of so many rules and exceptions. When it comes to locating lost items and missing animals, though, the astrologer must unify all the contradicting information from various parts of the chart and reach a conclusion. This conclusion cannot be reached by merely following the rules and counting the indications “for and against”. The truth is always in the chart, of course, but it must be extracted without getting sidetracked by various other indications.
Getting into specifics, one cannot just use the Asc and its domicile lord and the Moon and the lord of the place signifying lost objects, the 2nd, or the one signifying small animals, the 6th or large ones, the 12th. This approach of using only the rulerships of a given topic is what I call the Accidental Approach.
The most famous 17th century English astrologer William Lilly used 8 significators. He was quoting much older sources that go back up to 1,000 or more years before him, and they too were quoting older sources. Next, when one has to consider the location of the lost item or missing animal, the number of variables is almost doubled because both the images and the places/houses almost always show different directions.
The Universal Approach for reading the horary and natal chart
This approach, where the astrologer takes whole chart into account, is what Robert Schmidt calls the Universal Approach. While Schmidt uses it for the natal branch of Hellenistic Astrology, in its essence the same type of approach is used in the horary of locating lost items and missing animals.
The situation is the same with rectification. The astrologer must not depend on the Accidental Approach but must use the Universal Approach along with it. The need to use both approaches grows exponentially the more deviation there is in the time of birth. In other words, one’s birth time being off by 1-2 hours is obviously not as difficult to rectify as someone whose time of birth is 5-6 or more hours. Lastly, when someone has an unknown time of birth, then it is obviously the most difficult due the number of variations and hence the necessity of relying on the full kit of tools in one’s arsenal.
Last year I wrote Zagata’s 24 Hour Astrology Rectification Course. It is the first Astrology Rectification Course, dare I say, in the history of the Western world which teaches rectification without birth time. Those who signed up for my Course have benefited from my extensive and extremely diverse knowledge that I have put into written form. They have been exposed to my System and as such can instantly find the weak spots of any rectification system in any time in history. They have been taught the above two approaches and how they are unified in a unique whole, which in addition contains fail-safes.
My point is that my students know why I am writing on the deficiencies of the Accidental Approach, and what I have in mind. What I have in mind is that, for historical and other reasons which I discuss in my Course, while the Universal Approach survived in the horary of lost items (because as I explained, it is indispensable for such), it pretty much did not survive the period of Perso-Arabic Astrology. In other words, it did not make it to Europe which has had horrific consequences. Pay attention to this!
The Universal Approach was dead for the last about 1,000 years. Given that modern astrology contains a tiny part of the ancient branch, it, of course, not only does not contain the Universal Approach, but it has not even heard of it. In other words, practitioners of modern astrology use an extremely limited set of tools. Basically, they are only left with the Accidental Approach of the “12 house cusps, the planets and their aspects”. Not only that, but they are misusing the Accidental Approach.
Criticism of modern astrology
Please understand me correctly: I am not criticizing anyone in particular. I am criticizing the modern astrological approach. Many of the modern astrologers have years or decades of experience in rectifying charts where the time of birth is within a few hours. My point is, they don’t realize how incredibly more difficult their job is by totally relying on modern techniques which were never meant to perform such rectification, let alone doing rectification without birth time.
One may wonder, then, how come modern astrologers rectify charts successfully with the modern techniques? Well, a study determining their success has not been done. More importantly, the natal astrological branch is way more complex than the horary branch and as such it contains more than a few different ways of reaching the same conclusion.
Put differently, one may get away with using modern techniques and modern approaches, but only when the time of birth is within a few hours at most. I even claim such successful results cannot be achieved on a consistent basis. Again, I am talking about the methodоlogy, not the a given astrologer using modern astrology.
Obviously, there are modern astrologers who specialize in rectification and are more skilled in it than others. The key to remember is that a given astrologer can get away with approaching the easier types of rectification with an incomplete system or approach. But when it comes to rectifying a horoscope from a 24 hour window of time, then the astrologer had better use the methods meant for this type of work rather than applying techniques which are far too premature.
The fundamental difference in the approach to birth chart rectification between modern and Ancient Astrology
To give you an analogy, where does a tree start from? The way modern astrologers perform rectification, they make it look like the tree starts from the leaves. Of course it does not, but they do not know that there are ancient techniques that start from the core of the tree. The tree starts, of course, from its roots. Then it has a trunk. Then the tree has branches, and these branches have leaves.
That is why my rectification Course is entirely based on techniques that are over 2,000 years old. While some of them have survived, such as the so called planets in the houses, their aspects, their rulerships, their transits, their returns, etc, they are utilized in a highly structured manner that makes up my System. Just as there are principles describing each of the parts of the tree, so are there techniques for the tree’s roots, its trunk, its branches and finally its leaves.
Something that should be emphasized, which I keep writing about, is that Ancient Astrology (and Chinese Metaphysics) is the highest science. It is based on eternal rules. They must be followed. There is a strict hierarchy that I teach in an objective and systematic manner. Anyone, provided they are willing to spend the time to study with an open mind, can learn how to do chart rectification without birth time. After all, the fundamental astrological principles, which I myself have explicitly named and based my System on, were taught for centuries in some of the best universities in Europe (as well as India and China).
As Robert Zoller says, when speaking about Medieval Astrology’s accuracy: “<It is> not because we are great but because the Art is true.”
My thanks to this website for the great picture: