William Lilly’s checklist is often flattened into “strictures against judgment,” as if one warning automatically invalidated a horary chart. That is not how Chapter XL reads. Lilly moves among different instructions: establish that a figure is “radicall,” do not “adventure judgment” in some conditions, “be wary” in others, expect a matter to go “hardly on,” or defer when testimony is equal.
That wording matters. A consideration can be a gate, a caution, a description of the querent’s power, or a reason to postpone. It is not always a veto.
The rule matrix
| Check | Lilly’s condition | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Planetary-hour agreement | The hour ruler and Ascendant ruler are the same planet, belong to the same triplicity, or share the same traditional nature. | Treat this as the initial radicality test: does the chart fit the moment well enough to judge? |
| Early Ascendant | 0°00′–2°59′ of a sign rises. | Usually defer because the matter may be premature. Lilly gives historical exceptions involving the querent’s youth and physical correspondence with the rising sign. |
| Late Ascendant | 27°00′–29°59′ rises. | Usually defer because the matter may already be settled. Lilly excepts precisely timed event charts and a historical age-to-degree correspondence. |
| Moon near a sign boundary | The Moon is in the later degrees of any sign, especially Gemini, Scorpio, or Capricorn. Lilly also reports an Arabian warning about the first degrees of those three signs. | Flag uncertainty. Lilly does not give one precise numerical boundary for this test. |
| Moon in the Via Combusta | The Moon is between 15° Libra and 15° Scorpio. | A serious caution, traditionally associated with instability or impaired judgment, but not worded as an automatic cancellation of every chart. |
| Void-of-course Moon | In the common Lilly-style test, the Moon will not perfect a conjunction or major aspect with another planet before leaving its sign. | Expect difficulty bringing the matter forward unless the main significators are strong. Lilly says the Moon may still perform something in Taurus, Cancer, Sagittarius, or Pisces. See what a void-of-course Moon means in practice. |
| Afflicted seventh house | The seventh-house cusp is afflicted, or its ruler is retrograde or impeded, when the question itself does not concern the seventh house. | Be wary of the astrologer’s judgment satisfying the querent. This is conditional, not simply “anything in the seventh invalidates the chart.” |
| Ascendant ruler combust or opposed to the Sun | The querent’s significator is combust—under Lilly’s usual definition, in the Sun’s sign and within 8°30′—or opposing the Sun. | Read this primarily as impaired power to accomplish the matter, not as an automatic refusal to judge. |
| Equal testimony | Fortunate and unfortunate testimonies balance evenly. | Defer. Lilly says it is not possible to know which way the balance will turn. |
“Fortunes” and “Infortunes” are Lilly’s traditional terms, principally Venus and Jupiter versus Mars and Saturn. Equal testimony is not a raw planet count. Significators, dignity, reception, aspects, house position, motion, and relevance to the question carry different weight.
The deep technique: planetary-hour radicality
A planetary hour is not necessarily sixty minutes. It is calculated from local sunrise and sunset:
- Divide sunrise to sunset into twelve equal daytime hours.
- Divide sunset to the next sunrise into twelve equal nighttime hours.
- Begin the first daytime hour with the weekday’s planetary ruler, then continue in Chaldean order: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon.
- Find the planetary hour containing the exact minute when the question was understood and cast.
Next, identify the ruler of the rising sign. Compare that Ascendant ruler with the planetary-hour ruler through three possible routes:
- Same planet: Mars rules the hour and Aries rises, so Mars also rules the Ascendant.
- Same triplicity: Lilly explicitly accepts Mars as agreeing with the water signs Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces through the watery triplicity.
- Same nature: Mars rules the hour and Leo rises. The Sun rules Leo; Lilly accepts the match because the Sun and Mars are both traditionally hot and dry.
The third route is often misread. It compares the traditional qualities of the two planets, not merely the element of the rising sign. Triplicity tables and some planetary classifications also vary across traditional authors, so a reproducible method must declare its tables in advance rather than changing them after seeing the chart.
Passing radicality does not prove that the desired event will happen. It only says the figure meets Lilly’s procedural test for correspondence between the moment, its ruler, and the Ascendant. Every other consideration still has to be checked independently.
Worked example: a radical chart that should still be deferred
Consider a deliberately constructed chart for the question, “Will the delayed payment arrive?” It is not a client chart and has no claimed real-world outcome.
- Ascendant: 1°48′ Gemini
- Planetary hour: Mercury
- Mercury: 10° Virgo
- Sun: 25° Leo
- Moon: 18°07′ Libra
- Jupiter: 21°40′ Aquarius, direct
- The Moon applies to a trine with Jupiter before leaving Libra
Run the checklist in order:
- Radicality passes. Mercury rules both the planetary hour and Gemini Ascendant. This is the clearest form of agreement.
- The early-Ascendant warning triggers. At 1°48′, the chart falls inside Lilly’s first-three-degrees condition. Nothing in the constructed case meets his stated exceptions.
- The Via Combusta warning triggers. The Moon at 18°07′ Libra lies inside the traditional 15° Libra–15° Scorpio zone.
- The Moon is not void of course. It can perfect its trine to Jupiter before changing signs.
- The Ascendant ruler is not combust or opposed to the Sun. Mercury and the Sun are neither in the same sign nor in opposition here.
- The seventh-house warning does not automatically trigger. The question is being treated as a money matter, Jupiter is direct, and no additional affliction to the seventh cusp has been declared.
A strict Lilly-style result is defer, not YES or NO. Planetary-hour agreement shows that the chart is radical, but it does not erase the early Ascendant. The Via Combusta supplies another caution. The honest move is to stop before manufacturing a verdict.
That does not mean recasting the chart several minutes later to obtain a more convenient Ascendant. A new question is more defensible after the circumstances materially develop. This is why Decide includes ASK AGAIN alongside YES and NO: its horary verdict is produced by internal rules, not by an AI model inventing a judgment.
What about Saturn in the seventh?
“Saturn in the seventh means never judge” is not the exact formula Lilly gives in Chapter XL. His stated warning concerns an afflicted seventh-house cusp or a retrograde or impeded seventh-house ruler when the subject does not belong to that house. Saturn could contribute to an affliction under a declared rule set, but mere presence in the seventh is not the whole test.
Honest limits
- Horary astrology is a historical divinatory practice, not a scientifically established forecasting method.
- Void-of-course definitions, triplicity rulers, and rules for affliction can differ. Those settings should be visible and consistent.
- An incorrect time, location, time zone, or sunrise calculation can change the Ascendant or planetary hour.
- Confidence can describe how strongly the rules agree; it cannot guarantee an event.
Primary source: William Lilly, Christian Astrology (London, 1647), Book II, Chapter XL, “Considerations before Judgment.” Quotations above use modernized spelling; pagination varies by edition.