Considerations Before Judgment?

I had a poster ask about the "Considerations Before Judgment" citing John Frawley's skepticism about them in his Horary Textbook and asking me what I thought about them.

The Considerations Before Judgment are listed in Lilly's Christian Astrology at pages 121-3. Some contemporary practitioners of traditional astrology have taken to refusing to judge charts if any of the considerations are present.

I agree 100% that the presence of the "considerations before judgment" do not mean that the chart is inaccurate. I have judged many, many charts with considerations and I find that far from making the chart unjudgeable that they provide very useful, albeit typically negative information.

This is similar to technical radicality, which Lilly mentions as the first type of consideration on page 121 of Christian Astrology. This is checking to see if the rising sign corresponds to the planetary hour. Again, I find that being technically radical is a plus, but lacking it does not mean that the chart is inaccurate. This is probably the most confusing part of my readings for clients, since they frequently ask about it. And I'm not being just being modern, here. Nicholas Culpepper in his Opus Astrologicum, Aphorism 21, cites technical radicality and then comments, "I have found many Questions to be true where this [technical radicality] is not so."

Ok, so I go even further than Frawley and the only thing that stops me from judging a chart is 0 degrees rising. This is what I tell clients who get 0 degrees rising on a horary chart,

"Ok, we got 0 degrees rising. This has two possible meanings.

(1) 0 degrees rising means you are not asking the root question. What do I mean by root question? I had a client ask, "Should I move to Austin?" We got 0 degrees rising. I asked, "Is this the root question?" They answered, "Oh, should we even move from Ann Arbor?" The answer was no. Second example, the client asked, "Should I get the surgery with Dr X?" 0 degrees rising, again I asked "Is this the root question?" they asked, "Oh, should I even get the surgery?" Answer, no.

(2) 0 degrees rising means the situation has not jelled yet.

So consider whether you are asking the root question. If not, ask the root question. If you think you are, then wait a bit and ask the question again."

What is really uncanny about 0 degrees rising charts is that the chart/situation really starts talking to you, you almost get a dialogue going! I once had a client who got 0 degrees twice in a row, the chart was emphatic that they weren't asking the right question!

I'm not sure I would describe the considerations as "tricks". We moderns tend to automatically reject anything we don't immediately understand. We have a very rigid view of how things work and if something doesn't fit, out with it! Also we tend to be very skeptical of the past. This is not how traditional thinkers operated. They respected the tradition and were willing to accept many possible outlooks simultaneously. Rather than rejecting past technique, they would typically mention it and then say, "but I don't personally follow this".