Horary Astrology (The Celestial Moment)

Interpreter of celestial testimony — where heaven speaks and the querent listens.

Seed, not scripture

The references hold a full textbook — every dignity table, all twelve houses, a thirteen-step procedure, per-question protocols. They are a menu of moves, not a worksheet. A living judgment deploys the handful of techniques the question demands and lets the rest stay latent. Running every dignity score, every perfection method, and a full twelve-house workup for a question one applying aspect already settles is scholarship performing as divination. Pick what serves.

Casting (the conventions — always do this much)

Cast for the moment and place the astrologer understands the question — not when the querent first wondered, but when it crystallizes into askable form before the interpreter. Then:

• Tropical zodiac; traditional rulerships only (Saturn→Aquarius, Jupiter→Pisces, Mars→Scorpio; no Uranus/Neptune/Pluto as rulers).
• Regiomontanus houses (Lilly's system; the live alternative is Whole-Sign, not Placidus — see references/DISPUTED.md §2).
• Ptolemaic aspects only (conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition); no minor aspects.

scripts/cast_chart.py casts a live chart (positions, Regiomontanus cusps, day/hour lord) from local time + lat/lon via the Swiss Ephemeris. scripts/dignities.py scores dignity, finds aspects by the moiety method, and computes the Part of Fortune.

Building the judgment — the spine (always do this much)

Horary's mathematical spine. These three are the part no reference owns as one clean rule, and they MUST stay exact — a misassigned significator is a false oracle, like a miscast geomantic Judge.

• Significator assignment (the master move). *Querent = Lord of the 1st house and the Moon, always. Quesited = the Lord of the house that governs the matter asked about (+ the natural ruler as supporting testimony — Venus for love, Mars for conflict, etc.). Process: (1) find the house of the matter; (2) find the planet ruling the sign on that cusp; (3) that planet signifies the quesited. Example — "Will I marry this person?": querent = Lord 1 + Moon; the person = Lord 7; support = Venus.* Get this wrong and the whole reading is wrong.
• The Moon is the querent's second voice, always. Its last separation = the recent past / what just happened; its next application = the immediate future / what unfolds next — read the next application first. Void of course (no applying major aspect before leaving its sign) = "nothing will come of the matter" (with Lilly's exceptions in Taurus, Cancer, Sagittarius, Pisces).
• Radicality. The "considerations before judgment" describe and caution — they are yellow lights, not red ones, never automatic disqualifiers (Lilly judged charts that had them; this reverses a 20th-c. "strictures" drift — see references/DISPUTED.md §6). → references/CONSIDERATIONS.md.

The interpretive moves (deploy what the reading wants)

• Dignity. Is each significator strong in itself (essential — domicile/exaltation/triplicity/term/face) and by circumstance (accidental — house, motion, freedom from the Sun)? The concept is the spine; the tables → references/DIGNITIES.md; the scorer → scripts/dignities.py.
• Perfection — does the light reach? The question is whether the significators connect: direct aspect / translation of light (a third planet carries it) / collection (a heavier planet gathers both) / mutual reception (they sit in each other's dignities). The four-name grammar is the spine; mechanics + diagrams → references/PERFECTION.md. Orbs use Lilly's moiety method (orb = moiety A + moiety B), not a per-aspect table → references/ASPECTS.md.
• Impediment — is the light cut off, disappointed, withdrawn, or burnt? Prohibition (a third planet perfects first) / frustration / refranation (a significator turns retrograde before perfecting) / combustion (within 8°30′ of the Sun). → references/IMPEDIMENTS.md.
• Aspects. Applying = developing/future; separating = done/past. Only applying aspects perfect a matter. → references/ASPECTS.md.
• Timing. Sign mode (cardinal/fixed/mutable) × house type (angular/succedent/cadent) → the time unit; modified by speed and angularity. → references/TIMING.md.
• By question type. Relationship/career/money/lost-object/health/legal/travel/pregnancy each have a protocol → references/QUESTION_TYPES.md; full house significations + derived ("turned") houses → references/HOUSES.md.
• Cross-system. Validate a hard reading against /geomancy or /yijing (this is /collision applied to oracles).
• Synthesis. Weigh the testimonies — dignified benefics supporting vs debilitated malefics obstructing — and render judgment with confidence calibrated to the chart's clarity. The planets incline; they do not compel.

Quick anchors (so a reading can move fast)

Significators carry the answer; perfection is the grammar of connection (does the light reach, or is it blocked?); the Moon is always the querent's second voice — read its next application first. With those three instincts you can judge a chart without running every module.

Failure modes

• Full-workup reflex. Scoring every dignity and checking every perfection for a question one applying aspect already settled.
• Static chart. Labelling positions instead of tracing the movement of light between significators. Horary lives in the applying/separating dance.
• Considerations as veto. Throwing out a chart because Saturn is in the 7th, when Lilly meant it as a caution (the 7th is the astrologer's own house — a humility check), not a disqualification.
• Calculation without judgment. Delivering the math and never rendering the testimony into an answer. The script casts; the astrologer judges.
• Crediting Lilly for non-Lilly choices. The contested points (orbs, terms, triplicity rulers, house system) are logged honestly in references/DISPUTED.md — don't let a modern convenience harden into "what Lilly did."

Reference & scripts

# End-to-end skeleton for a question (quesited house, or --topic marriage/career/…):
python .claude/skills/horary/scripts/judge.py \
    --datetime "2024-01-01 12:00:00" --tz 0 \
    --lat 51.4779 --lon -0.0015 --location "London" \
    --quesited-house 7 --question "Will the matter come to pass?"
python .claude/skills/horary/scripts/dignities.py --test   # spine tables
python .claude/skills/horary/scripts/judge.py --test        # the engine

The engine is the bookkeeper, not the oracle: it removes the hand-arithmetic where errors hide (sect, significator assignment, applying-vs-separating, dignity totals) and frees you to weigh testimony. It will not — should not — render the judgment. The script casts; the astrologer judges.

To a future instance

Significator assignment and the perfection/impediment grammar are the one part you must keep exact — a misassigned significator is a false oracle, like a miscast Judge. The dignity tables are the other half of the spine; they were verified cell-by-cell against Lilly in a primary-source audit, and dignities.py --test guards them — run it after any edit. Everything after the spine — which moves to run, how to voice the testimony — is improvisation. Learn the spine cold; play the rest.

"I do not compel the stars; I read their testimony. The planets incline; they do not compel. The reading clarifies; the querent decides."