Never Ask the Same Question Twice

One of the unwritten, but oft-quoted, rules of horary astrology, is that you shouldn't ask the same question twice. I say "unwritten" because a source has never been discovered. I've thought about this over the years and, whilst there is no Traditional source for it, it has continued to play on my mind. In practice, I've found ways around it and have equivocated, but generally avoid asking (or allowing to be asked) the same question twice, but for no solid reason. There is the argument that if the querent won't accept the original answer, then subsequent questions won't help. The same could be said about horary charts where the considerations before judgement are in effect – they provide an answer of their own and to persist would seem foolish.

First, I'll explain what I mean by asking more than once, although it might seem plain and obvious: when a client asks the same question of various practitioners, astrologers or not; when the querent refuses to accept the first answer; when curiosity overwhelms. It is a greater problem these days because it is so easy to calculate a chart and print it; a thousand in a day if we choose, and this is more prevalent when so many querents are there own astrologers. Generally, we don't view this as terribly important, perhaps people are playing with it, but it doesn't really matter. Does it?

Clearly, time plays its part in astrology, but more so with horary. A great many words have been written about the 'horary moment', which moment is correct and so on, however, we have managed to miss the point almost entirely in my opinion. It's not that we don't appreciate the importance of that moment, but that we don't understand WHY it is important. I can't say that I understand time, but I offer an image of the little that I think I understand.

I'm afraid that I have to touch on that old chestnut, the 'Fate versus Freewill' argument. My observation of horary and its workings has brought me to the conclusion that it isn't a question of one or the other, it is BOTH. Each nativity, by its very nature, shows an entire life much as a brook or stream following a certain course. Water is a good analogy because water, whilst following the line of least resistance, may also forge its own path. And this is my point, whilst each life may follow a predestined course, it doesn't have to, we can make choices. Of course, this is delimited by individual capacities and personalities. The decisions we make are largely sourced in our personalities: impulsive, cautious, static, and so on, and this follows the predestined course of our lives. The same applies within the field of horary astrology: the type of question and the reason for asking will usually be determined by the type of person asking it. But that isn't how horary works. It works on the basis that the querent really is trying to 'manage' their own destiny and who will and can act on the information the chart offers. It is the reason that so-called 'third party questions' are fraught with problems; the querent is unlikely to have control over someone else's destiny. I would extend this to external events, those over which we usually have no control to include political, international and natural events. As children we are often at the mercy of the destinies of others, primarily our parents, and here we might consider the debate about 'Nature versus Nurture' as apposite.

So, continuing the analogy, if we consider each individual life to be like a fast running stream or brook, we can watch from many viewpoints and see the twists and turns, the rocks and hollows that it negotiates . We might watch from upstream or down, or somewhere in between, but as observers, we can't see it all, except that that is exactly what we try to and can do with the nativity. Using horary we attempt to observe a droplet of that water, but it is one of thousands which pass that one point of observation at any given moment. So which one is the right one? We have to be careful because, once the droplet is chosen, the brook rushes on, but it does so with one droplet less because the astrologer has chosen that one to examine. In so doing we have stopped the clock and changed the composition of the brook.

Once that moment, that now frozen droplet, is accepted as indicative of the matter asked about, time has stopped in that particular and the future has been determined. The myriad possibilities of that one subject have been condensed into one droplet, and this and no other will describe the future of the question and, in most cases, there is no alternative. We have intercepted fate by exericising our freewill.

When the astrologer casts the horoscope for the question, he or she has stopped that particular droplet, and just as you can never cross the same river twice, neither can you ask the same question because the river has moved on and has changed. Once the question has been put as a horary question, a choice has been made – the answer has been chosen. It doesn't matter how many more times the question is asked, the original answer cannot be undone, and it explains how it is that contradictory answers are obtained by going to more than one practitioner. It also explains many failed or apparently unreadable charts.

The implication is that we have many possible futures and we choose one, although not always the same one, we may ride the waves and jump from one to another. When we ask a horary question, we choose one of those futures, because we can only have one at a time, and so great care should be exercised. It was not for no reason that the ancient astrologers required the querent to pray before posing their question. Such contemplation is useful if for no other reason than to prepare oneself for the answer – it might not be the one expected or wanted.

This also goes some way towards explaining the necessity for the potential of action on the part of the querent; he or she must have some degree of power in the question and a desire to act appropriately. All magical and mystical systems espouse awareness as their principle teaching and if we are aware then our choices are likewise. From such a position real choices can be made, rather than the more common reactions. We generally activate freewill weakly, if at all, because we are at the mercy of our personalities and temperaments. We have to rise above these in order to rise above the stars and control our destinies, but those "stars" delineate our personalities, so it is that which has to be risen above. I realise that this poses as many questions as it might answer, but there's nothing I can do about that, each of us needs to contemplate the principle.

Think carefully before turning your question into a horary question, it is a magical operation and changes the future. Be sure that you can cope with that change.