Most astrology starts with a person. You give a date, a time and a place of birth, and the chart describes the one who was born. Horary starts somewhere else entirely: with a question. You ask something you genuinely want to know, a chart is cast for the minute you asked it and the place you asked it from, and the answer is read from that chart. Nothing about you goes in. No birth date, no birth time, no birthplace. The chart belongs to the question, not to the person asking it.

That sounds strange at first, and it is also very old. Its rules were written down centuries ago, most famously by William Lilly in the seventeenth century, and they are stricter than anything in modern birth chart work. Our horary report follows Lilly's method.

Why the moment of asking?

The idea is that a question is born the way a person is born, with a chart of its own. And the chart of a single instant holds more than a snapshot of how things stand. The planets keep moving, so an aspect that is still forming describes something still to come, and one that has already passed describes something already done. That is how one minute of sky can say something about what will happen next.

It also explains a rule that surprises people: the chart is judged once. Ask the same thing an hour later and you get a different chart, a different judgment and possibly a different answer. That is the technique working as intended. So the report keeps your asking for you, and opening it again shows the same chart and the same answer. Asking again is a new moment, and a new question in every sense.

Who stands for what

Every horary judgment begins by deciding which planets represent the two sides of the matter. The first house always stands for you, the person asking, and the planet that rules the sign rising on it is your significator. The thing you asked about is given the house that governs it, and the ruler of that house stands for the matter.

The houses are read the old way. The seventh is a partner, but also the other side in any dealing, or a person you ask about who is not a relative. The tenth is your career and your employer. The second is your money and your movable things, including the thing you have lost. So "Will I get the job I applied for?" is a tenth-house question, and "Will my partner call me back?" a seventh-house one.

The Moon has a special job in every chart: she carries the matter along, and what she does next is always part of the answer. When your question is about yourself, or when one planet happens to rule both houses, the Moon also steps in to stand for the matter, because one planet cannot meet itself.

Our report uses the seven traditional planets, the traditional rulerships (Mars rules Scorpio, Saturn Aquarius, Jupiter Pisces) and Regiomontanus houses, the system Lilly used. It ignores the house system you chose for your birth chart, on purpose: this chart is not yours, it is the question's.

How the chart is judged

The judgment is close to mechanical, and the report computes every step before a word is written.

The central question is whether the two significators meet. If they are moving towards an aspect that completes before either leaves its sign, the matter comes together: smoothly by an easy aspect, with friction by a hard one. If one changes sign first, they reach for each other and fall short. If the aspect is already separating, whatever it describes has already happened.

Then come the classical complications. A third planet may reach one significator first and cut the matter off: that is prohibition, and it says no. A faster planet may carry the light from one to the other: that is translation, and it means someone else brings the matter about. A slower, weightier planet may gather both: that is collection, a third party who settles it. Mutual reception, each planet standing in a sign where the other has dignity, says the two sides are disposed to help each other even without an aspect.

The Moon is checked next. If she applies to the planet of the matter, she carries it forward. If she is void of course, completing no aspect before she leaves her sign, Lilly says she "performs nothing", and that is one of the plainest answers in the technique: the matter goes nowhere. In four signs (Taurus, Cancer, Sagittarius and Pisces) the tradition lets her manage a little of her own, so the report weighs it more lightly there.

Last comes condition: whether each significator is dignified, debilitated, peregrine (at home nowhere), retrograde or burnt up by the Sun. Condition says how a thing goes, not whether it happens, so it can tip a balanced chart but never decide one on its own.

Five answers, and one refusal

The testimonies are weighed and the report gives one of five answers: yes; yes, but not easily; probably not, when nothing in the chart is bringing the matter about; no; or the chart does not say. "Probably not" is the commonest answer to a random sky, and that is honest: most of the things people ask about do not happen on their own.

The answer is not softened: a chart that says no is reported as saying no, because horary is only useful when the chart commits. Under the answer you see every testimony and how much it counted, so you can follow the reasoning yourself.

There is also a sixth possibility, which is not an answer at all. When the rising degree is in the first three degrees of its sign, the tradition says the matter is not yet formed, and the report tells you roughly how many minutes to wait before asking again. A rising degree in the last three degrees is read differently: the matter is already decided, or out of your hands.

When you have lost something

Lost things are one of horary's oldest specialities. Imagine you ask "Will I find my keys?" with somebody waiting at the door, tapping a foot. The verdict says whether they will be found. Under it, the report reads the planet that stands for the keys and says where to look: a direction, the kind of place (near heat, low down, high up or near water), how near, and in whose keeping. If that planet sits in your own first house, the keys are among your own things, mislaid rather than gone, quite possibly in the pocket you checked first.

How to ask well

Ask one question at a time, in plain words, about something you genuinely want to know. Concrete questions with a real outcome work best: will this offer come, should I take the flat I saw. Vague questions give vague charts.

Some questions the report will not judge at all: illness, death, the outcome of a court case, and harming another person. Those are refused before a chart is cast, and nothing is charged. They need a doctor or a lawyer, not a chart.

When you have a question that matters to you, ask the chart here. Put it in your own words, say where you are asking from, and read the answer with the reasons beside it.

Frequently asked questions

What is horary astrology?
The branch of astrology that answers a question from the chart of the moment the question is asked, rather than from a birth chart. It is one of the oldest surviving branches of the practice and the most rule-bound.

Do I need my birth chart or birth time?
No. Nothing about you is used. The chart is cast for the moment and the place of the asking, so all you need is the question and where you are.

Can I ask the same question twice?
You can, and you will get a different chart, because the moment has moved. Traditionally that is discouraged: asking again because the first answer was unwelcome tends to produce a chart about the asking rather than the matter. Opening an answer you already have is always free and always shows the same chart.

Does it give a yes or no?
Where the chart commits, yes, and the report says so plainly with the testimonies that led there. Where it genuinely does not commit, that is said too. For a lost thing it also says where to look.

Why was my chart "not judged"?
Because the rising degree was in the first three degrees of its sign, which the tradition reads as a question not yet ripe. The report tells you roughly how long to wait before asking again.

Are there questions it will not answer?
Yes: health and illness, death, the outcome of legal cases, and anything about harming someone. They are refused before any chart is cast, and nothing is charged.