'Comparison' significators

1
Hello:

I have a problem for interpreting horaries. Suppose you are faced with questions like these, which involve 2 or more parties:

1. Which ship will arrive first- Ship A, or ship B?
2. Who will I get to meet first- Person C or person D?
3. Should I marry E or F?
4. Should I purchase book X or book Y?
5. "Who will win the election" when there are three or more candidates?

How may I distinguish the significators of the two parties, if they are of the same 'kind'? -- to take [3] for example, what significators should I use to represent the women E and F respectively?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

2
Hi Edward,

This is a topic that comes up every now and then and I wish I could hear the admin Deb's point of view on this. I am no expert but my advice to new horary readers is to try to avoid these types of questions because they can be difficult to decipher. However, they are possible for more advanced readers. Horary does have its limits and I would not recommend asking a question where there are no distinguishing features between the scenarios asked about. One example question I received before was on PhD programs a friend of mine had offers for. I believe there were 3 total. Had they all been the same geographic area and the same subject matter, I would have not been able to offer much information on the candidates. In her case, she applied to slighlty different types of programs and in different regions, which helped guide significators. Some astrologers would not even accept such a question and would have told her to ask about one of the programs.

There is no hard-fast rule that will work in all situations. My general emphasis is always to see where the ascendant ruler and Moon are placed, and which planets are aspecting them because those planets will suggest the most potential in a future event. The subject matter itself will be ruled by a planet, and possibly other planets will be in that house as well. Typically, those planets are going to represent what is asked about and will show whether or not they are most favorable, but sometimes planets can present themselves as important by being angular or otherwise very strong. If people are involved, planets can describe them physically. If an object is involved, it can also have distinguishing features or colors/condition of the object. When asking which is the better choice, one would assume the best choice would more likely rule the house of the matter and describe the thing, but that is not always the case, such as situations where a planet is the strongest planet in a chart and basically says "look at me". When I form a question, I do often try to have clear intent in how I interpret the chart before asking and often the chart does a good job of obliging, though.

Personally, I think it makes more sense in most situations to do real world homework first and turn to horary only when necessary. If someone is looking at buying 10 different ships, have they really looked carefully at these options, etc.

3
I already asked a question like that, with 3 possible results.
It was impossible to answer it because the ruler and the moon intertwined.

I tried to choose, for example, 10th as the first option and - 10th of the 10th - as the second option, and I got no answer. It was confusing. I don't think it's impossible, but it's complicated.
There is still a chance that you ask the same question later, looking only at 1 part and the ascendant being late.
Should I purchase book X or book Y?
In that case, choose the book that most interests you first and see if the experience promises to be good. Then, try to make a new horary for Book Y.

Re: 'Comparison' significators

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Edward White wrote:Hello:

I have a problem for interpreting horaries. Suppose you are faced with questions like these, which involve 2 or more parties:

1. Which ship will arrive first- Ship A, or ship B?
2. Who will I get to meet first- Person C or person D?
3. Should I marry E or F?
4. Should I purchase book X or book Y?
5. "Who will win the election" when there are three or more candidates?

How may I distinguish the significators of the two parties, if they are of the same 'kind'? -- to take [3] for example, what significators should I use to represent the women E and F respectively?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
ask your querent to focus their intentions on one option and go from there. honestly your client probably should be focused a bit more, and let the chart tell you if there is another option they should be considering.

for questions 1 and 2, possibly 4, it seems like there would need to be a deeper reason to need to know these things, otherwise it's idle curiosity. and if there is a deeper reason, THAT should be the focus of the question, not which ship lands first or which person is met first. I'd ask my client to tell me * why * they wanted to know those things, and then address that instead. seems far more direct and meaningful, and would allow you to analyse so much more than this either/or kind of approach can give.

I hope no one is asking question 3 -- seems like they shouldn't be getting married at all if they're leaving the decision to an astrologer. and I'd argue question 5 isn't a good/appropriate use of horary.
http://wadecaves.com | hello@wadecaves.com

5
Hello Edward,


As a fellow beginner I am interested to find out various methods that experts come up with for this kind of question. Back in August 2018, we had a new member who asked about which dog food is better (A or B) for the querent's puppy. Below is my reply to the dog food question and here is the thread so you can see the rest of the replies from others: http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10224

Part of Fortune wrote: Hi All,

This question interests me as well because our dog is getting old (he is almost 13 now) and switching to senior food is starting to hover in my mind. It will be a bit difficult for us to find the right food for our dog because of his various food allergies.

I am open to all methods but as Leo-Poet mentioned “It is very difficult to assess your inquiry without a chart???. I’d also like to know more detail about your puppy -- since you are using rulerships and the dog is represented by Leo the Sun.

In the meantime, I started to look into the answers on how to do multiple choices (including A or B) and here are some methods I found out so far:

Bonatti’s Treatise 6 (Benjamin Dykes –pages 552, 553) gives Triplicity for multiple choices. Lord 1 and Lord 7 for A or B, also the Moon’s aspects, dignity and reception. Here’s detail on Triplicity: https://westernastrology.net/2018/03/10 ... questions/

In Lehman’s The Martial Art of Horary Astrology (Chapter 13) she uses Triplicity and Rulership (also dignity, etc.). I enjoyed reading various interesting charts in this chapter. In one of the charts the querent was asking which job (two choices, here Lehman used Triplicity method) and both significators were in the same house but one was conjunct South Node. There was a confusion on the part of the querent regarding which job was offered first and based on that the result came as . . . well I don’t want to give it away if anybody is planning to read her book.

In Frawley’s The Horary Textbook on “Hiring Staff??? (p223, 224) he shows querent’s house vs quesited’s house instead of Lord 1 vs Lord 7. On A,B,C, choices he suggests querent’s house (here, 6th house) for the favorite and using rulerships for the others (needless to say dignity, etc. counts here). I believe OP’s method was based on Frawley’s suggestion.



By the way, I’m wondering . . . is there something wrong with the skipping house method (I think that’s what it’s called) applied to multiple choice questions? Perhaps better to stay in the Radical? So far, I don’t see famous astrologers adapting these methods such as:

The dog is 6th house. His food is 7th house (2nd from 6th -- choice A). So by skipping to 9th house (sibling of 7th) it would be choice B and so on.

Or choice A (food) for 7th house (2nd from 6th) and choice B for 8th (2nd from 7th). Here, applying the same method as house hunting; 4th (current) and 7th (4th from 4th) for prospective next house.

One problem I could see in the sibling method above is if the choice is changing from puppy to adult food then choice A (puppy food) might not able to apply to choice B (adult food) because of a different content.
Since then, I found more information on Triplicity. If the question is "which to choose -- A, B or C ?" then instead of Ptolemy (as mentioned earlier) another option I could use is Dorothean triplicities.

For example if it is Cancer (water sign) according to Ptolemy Mars/day, Mars/night.

But if you go by Dorothean:


Element ------------- Day --------- Night -------- Partner

Water (Cancer) ----- Venus ------- Mars --------- Moon


Edward, I'm not sure our email notification is fixed :) ... but if you read this, I would love to hear your feedback (perhaps you have some new discoveries to share). Thanks!

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PoF - yes, the houses can be used that way in general and Ibn Ezra had that technique that someone lined out well in an old thread of mine relating to how to prioritize the 3 rulers: http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5284. Co-rulerships like this are especially helpful in natal to divide up the areas of life, for example, to describe periods of life.

It boils down to whatever the reader finds works for them (I have used these 3 rulers in natal charts well). Turning charts is a questionable technique to some too and in general can become cumbersome (such as 3rd from the 3rd being a second sibling) but some people also like that. If I ask about two of my siblings, for example, I personally have never found co rulers or turning houses useful and I always find the ruler and planets within the 3rd describe them but maybe others find these techniques useful. This subject matter would make for a good article for someone to write about.

I agree with Wade that some of those hypothetical questions would not be great for horary and most professional horary readers I have gone to would have probably asked the querent to rethink their question and get back to them.

8
First, I give my thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

Part of Fortune: I have found your post most interesting. The triplicity rulership method sounds very useful.

If I understand the 'skipping house' method correctly, what you do is find the relevant house for the first option , and find the derived house of the same significance for the second option. So (say) you use the 2nd house for the first option, and the 2nd house from the 2nd (i.e. the 4th house) for the second option?

The link in the post is broken: I managed to find its new location https://westernastrology.net/horary-ans ... questions/

_______
As for questions of type 1 or 2 "Which ship will arrive first-- A or B" there is a method for a similar sort of question, found in W.J. Simmonite's Horary astrology, pp. 101-104
https://benebellwen.files.wordpress.com ... rology.pdf

The upshot of the method is to make the question into a positive one -- i.e. "Will ship A arrive first", and judge accordingly. If the answer is 'no', by deduction ship B would arrive first. His own examples are:
Two antagonists
265
1. Will A.B. win the foot race?
2. Which will win the quoit match?
3. Which will win the game at cards?
4. Shall I be able to win the battle?
5. Can I bargain to my advantage?
6. Shall I be successful in the raffle?
7. Shall I win this wager?
8. Shall I win or lose by purchasing these shares?
His considerations are:
The lord of the asc. and the Moon are for the querent.
The 5th house , its ruler and planets therein are for the gain or loss
The 7th house and its ruler, signify the opponent
This method seems to be feasible for all except no. 2 and 3 (short of 2-player card/quoit games) .-- unless you use the triplicity co-rulers. Simmonite is silent on how he would've solved the problem-- the example he gave was "Will Mosley win Pinder this afternoon at Sheffield Hyde Park". This involves only 2 antagonists.
Last edited by Edward White on Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

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That page agrees with something I said about letting the chart speak to you, such as a planet being placed in the Midheaven. It would be nice if someone wrote an article of the general aphorisms in more detail, with a historical perspective and sources cited. Hopefully at least threads like this help, though.

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Edward, thanks for sharing your information on Joseph Simmonite! And thanks for the very readable summary of pages 101-104 of his book.:D

Also, I appreciate very much your updating the link on Westenastrology.net... sorry I made you go through this. By the way, this new site seems to have more information than I recall (or perhaps the amount of information is the same but better format?). As for the skipping house method, I think you have explained it well -- I suppose just like the same method you do turning the chart counter-clockwise.


Since that last post on multiple choice I became interested once again in the subject and found a clue in Lilly’s Christian Astrology which might apply to one of your questions:

On page 430, under title: "Of many Persons absent or travelling, in what Condition they are."

Quote:

It happens sometimes that four or five or more are travelling together in a company beyond Seas, or are at places far distant, and the querent is willing to hear news of every one of them: names in order, one after another; then observe the Moon her application first of all, and the Planet to whom she applies; shall signify the state and condition of the first Man in order as he is writ down; observe in what condition that Planet is in, how placed, how dignified, how and by whom or what Planet aspected, from whom he last separated, to whom he next applies; accordingly judge of the state and condition, health or welfare of the first Person inquired after. [And Lilly goes on to the Moon's second application and so on].



Regarding question #3: Should I marry E or F?

I was thinking about bygone days, for instance 15th century Europe – Mary of Burgundy (aka Mary the Rich) became an attractive marriage prospect. She received several marriage offers from her childhood on. But when her father died she eventually picked the future Holy Roman Emperor, Maximillian I (talking about multiple choices!). I am curious how her court astrologers worked on the case. Lots of cultures now have arranged marriages, or variations on arranged marriages.


Regarding your political question #5: “Who will win the election??? when there are three or more candidates?

You know, I have done a similar type of question in the past few years. Mine was about my neighborhood politics when electing the board of directors in a condominium complex. For instance, this year there were 6 candidates for 5 seats, so it was the reverse of who will win. I asked who will lose the election. I usually ended up doing each individual candidate and compared their strength (10th vs 4th). This year, I didn’t have to keep asking because the first person I asked about (it happened to be a person I was rooting for) had the unfortunate chart and lost. The person was incumbent and was very keen on preventing neighborhood crime (purse/cellphone snatching, car break-ins, etc.) The MC (radix 10, incumbent house) was Cancer and the lord of the 10th, the Moon was conjunct 11th house cusp, 2 degrees to perfection (meaning on the way out)… too bad.

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Part of Fortune wrote:
Since that last post on multiple choice I became interested once again in the subject and found a clue in Lilly’s Christian Astrology which might apply to one of your questions:

On page 430, under title: "Of many Persons absent or travelling, in what Condition they are."
It happens sometimes that four or five or more are travelling together in a company beyond Seas, or are at places far distant, and the querent is willing to hear news of every one of them: names in order, one after another; then observe the Moon her application first of all, and the Planet to whom she applies; shall signify the state and condition of the first Man in order as he is writ down; observe in what condition that Planet is in, how placed, how dignified, how and by whom or what Planet aspected, from whom he last separated, to whom he next applies; accordingly judge of the state and condition, health or welfare of the first Person inquired after. [And Lilly goes on to the Moon's second application and so on].
This methods sounds like a reasonable method of answering my questions 1 and 2. It might also be used to answer question 5 (3 or more candidates for the same seat) -- but taking the application of the planets to the Lord of the 10th might be a better method?

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Edward White wrote: This methods sounds like a reasonable method of answering my questions 1 and 2. It might also be used to answer question 5 (3 or more candidates for the same seat) -- but taking the application of the planets to the Lord of the 10th might be a better method?
Although I only erected one chart (using 10th house) for this year’s board of directors, there were three candidates who were not incumbents. In such cases, in the past I used 4th houses for these candidates because they were challenging incumbents for the seats. In some cases, I used 1st vs 7th or 1st or 7th vs 10th. John Frawley gives us helpful instructions in his “The Horary Textbook??? (revised edition) on pp. 251 to 254.

However, I learned from our moderator Tanit a valuable lesson to not just use the house formulas but also to apply other methods to make sure I got the right person. For instance, the one and only chart I did for this year’s candidate well described the person, according to my knowledge.

The people who would want to be on the board of directors almost all have their own agendas (many have personal interests). The candidate I was rooting for was the only one whose top priority was preventing neighborhood crime. My candidate had Cancer ascendant and I read it as representing a sort of mini “homeland security.??? Also, L10 (the Moon) was peregrine, ruled by Mercury Rx (shows returning incumbent) who is detriment, fall and combust the Sun.

I was not there to witness the event where all candidates introduced themselves, Q & A, etc. – people talk, and according to my various sources, my candidate was quite late, gave a reason for being late (something about job related), sat down and immediately pulled out their cellphone and started texting. I knew about the candidate’s unprofessional behavior already, but with all the pro and cons, I’m more interested in the candidate’s agenda.