the-astrology-book

Horary Astrology
Horary was already well developed by the first century C.E., as demonstrated by
the work of Dorotheus of Sidon. In this remarkable work, Dorotheus presented interrogatory
methods for such questions as building or demolishing a building, buying and
selling, requesting a gift, marriage, whether a pregnancy will come to term, debt, travel,
buying or building a ship, imprisonment, lawsuits, theft, fugitives, illness, and
bewitchment. While a modern horary astrologer would not likely follow all of his
methods, his presentation is quite readable and logical to modern eyes.
The viewpoint that infused Dorotheus was that all forms of interrogations are
interpreted with the same methods, except where the type of interrogation forces a
change in usage. Furthermore, there is a hierarchy among the three branches, which
applies to deciding upon the appropriate time to use for a question. For example, when
it comes to theft, if the time of the theft is known, then a chart for the event is drawn.
A horary is used only if that time is not known. While the differences between reading
an event chart and a horary are often not explicitly mentioned, the most important
is that in a horary, the ascendant gives the querent, while in either event interpretation
or electional, the ascendant gives the event itself. Event interpretation is
generally for a past event, horary for the present, and electional for the future.
Most likely, horary is much older than the first or second century in which
Dorotheus lived. This is because Dorotheus’s work looks too sophisticated to be a firstgeneration
codification, and because Vedic astrology has an absolutely equivalent
branch called prashna, which is probably equally ancient. At this time, it is impossible,
based on manuscripts and artifacts alone, to decisively nail down the exact nature
of the cross-fertilization of Western and Hindu methods. It is clear that there was
extensive sharing of knowledge between the two cultures. For example, the words
used by Vedic astrologers for the planets are transliterations of the Greek planet
words. It was easy to postulate that the major source of “sharing” occurred when
Alexander the Great invaded Western India in 327 C.E. However, it now appears that
sharing between cultures was far more extensive and over a far greater time period
than had been previously thought possible.
There are several extant katarche (the Greek word for interrogation) from the
fifth-century astrologer Palchus. Mixed in with questions about taming lions and ships
at sea, Palchus included charts of political events: a disastrous crowning of a king and
the time when a prefect entered Alexandria.
Horary was passed on as one of many techniques when large numbers of Greek
manuscripts were translated into Arabic in the period around the eighth century C.E.
Because the Islamic expansion extended into India, this was another period of technique-sharing
between East and West. Dorotheus was one of the authors translated
into Arabic, so his methodology became generally known and influential on subsequent
generations of astrologers. Later authors expanded on the Hellenistic authors.
William Lilly, the great seventeenth-century horary astrologer, cited Zael, one of the
ninth-century Jewish horary astrologers. The tenth-century astrologer Al-Biruni
(973–1048) also included horary as part of his work.
Just as the eighth century represented a bonanza for Arabic-speaking intellectuals,
the twelfth century was the same for Latin-speaking ones, as that marked the
THE ASTROLOGY BOOK
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