One sky, many questions
Astrology has always been asked to answer many different kinds of questions. What kind of person am I? Will this business succeed? When should I start? What does this political crisis mean? These are not the same question, and they are not answered by the same chart or the same technique.
The Western tradition resolved this by developing distinct branches of practice — each with its own chart type, reading methods, and scope. Understanding which branch applies to a given situation is not pedantry; it is what prevents a reading from reaching beyond what the chart can actually say.
Natal astrology
Natal astrology is the study of the birth chart (a map of the sky at the exact time and place of birth). It is the most widely practiced branch and the one most people encounter first. The natal chart describes the form of a life: the native's temperament, resources, difficulties, and the shape of their major themes.
Natal astrology does not predict specific events with certainty. It describes conditions and tendencies — some of which are stable across a lifetime, some of which are activated at particular times through timing techniques like , , and .
Most of the essays in this library are oriented toward natal astrology.
Horary astrology
Horary astrology — from the Latin hora, hour — casts a chart for the moment a question is asked and the astrologer understands it clearly. That chart represents the question itself, and is read to answer a specific matter: Will this deal go through? Where is the lost object? Should I take this job?
Horary has strict rules about what makes a chart "radical" (valid for judgment) and how to assign house rulers to the querent, the thing sought, the outcome, and the opposition. It is surgical and time-bounded: the reading is about this question, now, not about the life of the person asking. The covers its method and logic in full.
Electional astrology
Electional astrology chooses an auspicious moment to begin an action. Rather than reading a chart that already exists, the electional astrologer selects or constructs one: a time when the sky is favorably configured for a marriage, a business launch, a surgery, a contract signing, or any other significant beginning.
Electional work is practical and constrained — the ideal chart exists in theory, but the actual choice must be made within real-world limits (the other party's schedule, legal deadlines, business windows). The craft is in finding the best available moment within those constraints. See for the techniques.
Mundane astrology
Mundane astrology reads charts for collective entities — nations, cities, institutions, governments — and for collective events: wars, elections, economic shifts, natural disasters, pandemics, and cultural turning points. The charts used include founding charts, ingress charts (especially Aries ingress, the Sun's annual entry into Aries), eclipse charts, and charts cast for specific events.
Mundane astrology requires historical and political context alongside astrological technique. The planets still govern, but the topics are collective rather than personal. The same Mars-Saturn conjunction that might describe friction in a natal chart could mark a moment of military conflict or political crisis in a mundane frame. The covers this branch in detail.
Relationship astrology
Relationship astrology compares charts. The two main techniques are (overlaying two natal charts to read inter-chart aspects and connections) and (building a single chart from the midpoints of two charts, representing the relationship itself as an entity). This branch asks what happens between two charts, not what each chart describes in isolation.
Medical and other branches
Traditional astrology also includes a medical branch, which reads the body and health through planetary correspondences, humors, and timing. It is the oldest practical branch of the craft but requires specialist training and is not the subject of this library. Other minor branches include financial and agricultural astrology.
The discipline of keeping branches separate
The rules of one branch do not automatically transfer to another. In horary astrology, the 7th house represents the astrologer, the partner, the opponent, and often the querent's interlocutor — an extremely specific set of significations for a tight context. In natal astrology, the 7th house describes partnership and the way one tends to meet the "other" in a broader developmental sense. The same house, different reading logic.
Similarly, using horary-style "significator chasing" in a natal chart, or applying natal developmental language to a horary judgment, produces muddled readings. The branch establishes the frame, and the frame holds the rules in place.
The simplest practice: before reading any chart, name what kind of chart it is and what kind of question it is answering. That one step prevents most technique confusion.