A Short Lesson in Applied Electional Astrology

Traditional astrology has four main branches: horary, electional, natal and mundane. The first of these branches to revive was horary and we have had almost thirty years of serious contemporary practice of traditional horary astrology with a relatively large number of practitioners. Horary is also fairly obvious to judge your success at, either you get the prediction right or not.

Electional astrology, can almost be seen as the mirror of horary. We use similar techniques, for example, we look just to certain houses and significators like horary and unlike traditional natal astrology. However, contemporary traditional electional astrology has not been practiced as intensively as horary. In addition we have less practical guidance from our traditional sources. Typically a traditional source will list every single factor which it would be nice to have in an election from all the previous sources they can get their hands on. See eg,
Ramesey on marriage, Astrologia Restaurata at 175-7.

This leads to circumstances where 20-30 separate factors are listed for an election. Occasionally we will get sources saying, "Well if you can't get X, then do Y" but the impression that is left is that somehow we should be getting 20 chosen factors in an election and that there should not be a single negative factor in any election.

Certainly this is the newbie view. I am constantly getting e-mails or posts nitpicking elections. There seems to be an almost orgasmic pleasure in pointing out the "errors" of others, particularly under the passive-aggressive posture of "just helping".

The antidote is simple. Just ask the nitpicker to suggest an alternative! Their actual suggested elections are invariably abysmally inferior. Elections are easy to criticize because Warnock's first rule of electional astrology is NO ELECTION IS PERFECT!!!!!

This really is the key to electional astrology. We must use our judgment and pick the best combination of factors possible within the time, date and place range given to us. The best may be simply mediocre, but we can avoid the truly awful times of which there are always a plethora.

Normally we can control about 3-4 factors in an electional chart. This means that if we attempt to add in natal factors the election itself inevitably suffers.

Still a decade of doing electional astrology professionally has taught me some tricks of the trade. One of the most important is use all the possible variations of favorable astrological conditions.

What do I mean by favorable astrological conditions? Above all this is when planets, particularly multiple planets are dignified. The more dignified planets, the more raw materials you have for elections. The icing on the cake is when you have multiple dignified planets and add in applying positive aspects.

We had this situation recently, in fact it is ongoing with regard to exalted Venus and exalted Mars making an applying sextile. What makes this even more fabulous is that we can use this for a 1st house/7th house set of elections. The 7th house is very important, signifying love, marriage, partners, clients, customers, even opponents in lawsuits and other enemies. Christian Astrology houses

The only possible planetary pairs for a 1st/7th election are

Venus/Mars
Sun/Saturn
Moon/Saturn
Mercury/Jupiter.

Compare this to a 1st/10th election

Mars Saturn (Aries-Capricorn or Capricorn-Scorpio)
Venus Saturn (Taurus-Aquarius or Aquarius-Libra)
Mercury Jupiter (Gemini-Pisces)
Moon Mars (Cancer-Aries)
Sun Venus (Leo Taurus)
Mercury Mercury (Virgo-Gemini)
Venus Moon (Libra-Cancer)
Mars Sun (Scorpio-Leo)
Jupiter Jupiter (Sagittarius-Pisces)

So a Venus/Mars pair up is very useful!

Ok, so let's start with the Love/Wealth talisman election The election is for 11:43 pm MST, January 5, 2009 for Boulder, Colorado, where the talismans were cast. The following factors are in place:

* Ruler of the Ascendant, Venus exalted
* Ruler of the 2nd house of money, Mars exalted
* Ruler of the 7th house of love and marriage, Mars exalted
* Ascendant strong
* 2nd house strong
* 7th house strong
* 8th house strong
* Ruler of the Ascendant, Venus making a an applying sextile with
reception to the ruler of the 2nd, Mars and the ruler of the 7th, Mars
* Moon exalted

Immediately, we can see that this would be good for marriage, except that 11:43 pm is obviously not a good time. How about 11:43 am on January 5? We just flip Mars for Venus ruling the 1st and 7th houses? No, because we have Moon square Mercury. How about 11:43 am January 6. Yes! Venus, Mars, Moon exalted and unafflicted. Venus sextile Mars, ruling the 1st and 7th houses. Great marriage election!

Ok, how about trying for a business election? Well, in that case we really need the 2nd for profit and the 10th for fame and marketing. We can do this in New York City, on January 5, 2009 at 11:19 pm EST. There Libra rises, Scorpio is on the 2nd and Cancer on the 10th, so Venus rules the business and is exalted, Mars rules the profit and is exalted and the Moon rules fame and marketing and is exalted. Venus sextiles Mars, the business gets the money and the Moon trines Mars, the business gets great publicity! Tight time range of 11:19-11:33 pm EST as then the Moon separates from Mars. Not a huge problem, still a great election, but Moon trines Mars is optimal.

So, very interesting! We can find all sorts of uses for optimal conditions. Watch for them carefully!

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