Because horary judgments are so specific and concrete, we are creating powerful karma whenever we venture to advise people using this kind of astrology. We are not hedging our bets and laying out options as we tend to do when talking to people about their transits and progressions. We have a lot less "wiggle room."

Speaking as a long time professional astrologer of the modern persuasion and a recent enthusiastic convert to traditional/horary astrology, I feel that the karma stakes are considerably higher when I make a horary judgment because I am so much more definite in what I tell people. I've always taken the responsibility of being an astrologer very seriously. The immediacy of horary judgments makes me that much more aware of the need to be altruistic in my motivation. And to me altruism is a tacit acknowledgement of a higher good or power.

So yes, I do think that asking horary questions is an intrinsically spiritual act and that our moral obligation in giving judgments cannot be over emphasized.

I think that I would phrase it a bit differently. I think a better description of what I think horary's intrinsic nature is, would be

"the more you are willing to suspend your own personal judgements, preconceptions, what have you, when engaged in asking a horary question, and the more you are willing to let the Universe respond to you, The more likely you are to not only receive highly accurate feedback from the universe, but also the more likely you are to SEE it."

A case in point a friend showed me a chart the other day, where she had asked is a particular person she is interested in Married. She eagerly showed me how he obviously isn't because The moon is way over ... in the chart... I looked at the chart and said, well and the sun sitting right between Mars and venus (the significators of she and he) is what? She was so bound up in what she wanted the chart to say, that she looked right at it several times and still didn't see the sun. Whether it is spiritual or the collective unconscious or whatever, to do horary, there must be some order to the universe. My Aethiest friend who practices astrology thinks it is just the individual connecting into the collective unconscious, not tied to deity or spirits, etc. Her readings are rather good, so I dont know that I can argue with her, other than my experience has been more ... well spiritual has odd connoctations for me so I dont want to use that word, connected perhaps? connected to the universe is the feeling it gives me, regardless of what ever it is.

Granny

I wonder what you all think of this? John Frawley says:

?it is an inescapable consequence of the very premises of horary [astrology] that the judgment given will be the right one, whether it be ?correct? or not.? ?If the q[uestion] can fall only at its appropriate time, it must fall also at its appropriate place - i.e. onto the head of the appropriate astrologer in whatever state of good or bad form he is in at that moment. As Al-Ghazali says? every raindrop has its own angel appointed to guide it to its destined place (i.e. the essence of the life of that thing, whether a raindrop or a question or a human, can unfold only as it is destined to unfold).?

The first quotation is from The Astrologer's Apprentice No.17, p.45. The second is from a clarification of the passage from John, quoted with permission. Both appear in an article of mine in the latest Correlation (Vol 23(2)).

So in other words, is it part of astrology's function to provide inaccurate or downright misleading information at certain times? (I'm reminded of the misdirection in the witches' final prophecy in Macbeth.)

It seems clear that this idea could, if taken in the wrong way, have a negative impact on the practice of astrology - leading to an 'anything goes' attitude amongst astrologers. But this is a separate issue from whether it is true or not. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? In particular, any experience of horaries which were 'right' though not 'correct'?

...any experience of horaries which were 'right' though not 'correct'?

Hi Garry,

I recently had just such an experience. The client asked if it was time for her to give up her own place and move in with her boyfriend lock, stock and barrel. She had broached the idea to him and he had "just smiled", and she was feeling anxious and impatient, feeling undervalued and displaced.

I judged from the chart that the answer was "No, it is not time." Lo and behold, two weeks later, her boyfriend asked her to move in with him and apparently all is bliss between them. So I was apparently incorrect. However, she told me in a 'post-mortem' session that because I told her 'no', she was able to put the matter to rest and not push or even worry about the matter further. This in turn may well have encouraged her boyfriend to make the first move whereas (being an Aquarian) he may well have gotten into resisting the idea if she'd kept bugging him about it. So my "incorrect" answer quite possibily contributed to things working out well for her.

Of course in retrospect I'd rather have been able to tell her that he would make the first move ... but if I had, she may have been so impatient for him to make the move that she'd have stirred the pot causing him to build up resistance to the idea.

Having said that, it seems a slippery slope to allow ourselves to believe that it's of no consequence if we're right or wrong in our judgments. Sure would make horary astrology a more relaxing profession though.

Tara

Hi Alanna,

That's a great example. Personally I'm convinced that this kind of thing is part of the way astrology works. Patrick Curry says, "every prediction is necessarily also an intervention" and that's surely to the point here. (p.55, 'Astrology Science & Culture')

It makes the astrologer's role more sensitive & tricky though if what's involved is not just the simple conveying of cut-and-dried objective facts....