A Horary from Astrolabus (1898)
Text Copyright 2007 J. Lee Lehman
Many of the writers of the 19th c. and early 20th c. used pseudonyms, and I don’t know who Astrolabus was. This horary was published in the June 1898 (pp 328-330) edition of Coming Events, which was the magazine published by Sepharial after he split with Alan Leo.
Everyday Astrology
Astrolabus
So many aids are obtainable nowadays to the successful study and practice of Judicial [Horary] Astrology, that it is perhaps remarkable that few should be really competent to deal with it.
Not only so, but many even of those who profess and call themselves Astrologers are nothing more than living desecrations of the name. As one of the Astrologers connected with the Free Horoscopes promised in this journal, I was considerably startled the other day to have a letter from a subscriber, asking me whether my calculations were right, or whether an enclosure (bearing the name of a so-called modern astrologer) was correct. The point in dispute was nothing more than the progressive place of the Moon, according to the remarkably simple Arabian method of calculation, viz, a day for a year. In some trepidation, I turned to the Ephemerides, and found that the modern astrologer had made the mistake of adding a number of days on to the day of birth, which was two less than the number of years that the man lived.
At all events, I am glad for the honour of our journal that it was not a Coming Events coupon.
All our subscribers may rely on careful work, and any mistake on the part of the subscriber is always rectified free on application.
Now, a good many of our readers know what a Horary Question is. To those who do not, I may say that it is a question propounded at a given hour originally, but according to our modern methods, at a given hour and minute, the question, time, and date being plainly stated.
A gentleman wrote on the 27th January last, asking me if he might, with advantage, take steps to obtain a fresh appointment. He was already in one, but, being ambitious, wanted a better. He gave as the special time of anxiety about it the 27th January, 1898, at 11 AM. I
I immediately calculated a figure of the heavens for that moment.
If readers will refer to page 269 of Zadkiel’s “Lilly’s Astrology,” and read the second paragraph, they will find:
“If the lord of the ascendant or Moon be both joined by good aspect to the Sun, or by conjunction or good aspect to the lord of the 10th, and this planet behold the 10th, or be therein, the querent shall gain the thing sought for, if he use proper endeavours.”
In the present instance, the lady of the ascendant, Venus, is in conjunction with the sun, and the Moon is in sextile with that luminary.
The lord of the 10th is Saturn.
Now, Venus, lady of ascendant, applies to the sextile with Saturn, while the Moon is separating from the trine. Every one of these is a good aspect. Therefore, according to Lilly, “the querent shall gain the thing sought for.” If the reader will look lower down on page 269 of Lilly, he will find that the querent “gains his desire very easily, if the two lords, those of ascendant and midheaven, be going to a good aspect.” This is the case in our map.
Venus, lady of ascendant, goes to a sextile with Saturn, lord of 10th, as stated above.
I gave judgment in accordance with the above, viz., that the querent would obtain another appointment very easily.
As a matter of fact, he was appointed on the 15th of February, when Mercury transited the place of the Sun in the horary figure, and when the Sun and Venus were very close to their exact conjunction.
He informed me that out of three appointments which he applied for, he was asked to interview three employers.
This is an illustration of every day Astrology.