Live or die? An example of “prohibition” from Masha’allah

In the past couple of posts I’ve been looking at ‘prohibition’ in horary. Going through some old charts, I came across this horary from Masha’allah. The querent who is quite ill wants to know whether he will live or die as a result of his illness. I reproduced a close approximation of Masha’allah’s chart from the description in Ben Dykes’ translation in the Works of Sahl & Masha’allah (2008).

Moon day, Jupiter hour.

I usually begin with the 12th part of the Ascendant. Here the Asc in 14 degrees Virgo has its 12th part in Aquarius, the 6th whole sign from the Ascendant, which is consistent with illness being on the querent’s mind. The ruler of Aquarius, Saturn, lies in the 8th whole sign from the ascendant, as is fitting because the question is about whether he will die.

Masah’allah tells us to determine which planet signifies the querent. The ruler of the Ascendant is Mercury, but he is in the 8th house and cannot behold the Ascendant sign, that is, Mercury is in aversion to the Ascendant. He also mentions that Mercury is void of course.

Because of the status of Mercury, Masha’allah next looks at the Moon to see whether she is a more suitable signifier of the querent. In this chart the Moon aspects the Ascendant sign from the 9th house and is in better condition than Mercury, so the Moon becomes the querent’s signifier. (In addition, the Moon in Taurus is exalted.)

Next Masha’allah follows the chain of dispositors, starting from the Moon. Luna in Taurus is disposed by Venus in Pisces, which in turn is disposed by Jupiter in Taurus. Because Jupiter is the heaviest planet in this sequence and is not disposed by Saturn, who is even heavier, the chain of disposition ends with Jupiter. This is favorable and likely indicates that the querent will not die.

We must, however, examine the future aspects of Venus. We can see that Venus will apply to square Mars and to sextile Jupiter. The square to Mars would be bad news because Mars rules the 8th house of death. If Venus perfects the square to Mars before she can perfect the sextile to Jupiter, the querent will surely die. Fortunately Venus will sextile Jupiter (in the ephemeris) before she can square Mars, so Jupiter functions to “prohibit” the death that Mars would bring.

Another interesting feature of this chart is the nature of the “pushing” that takes place. “Pushing” simply means that the applying planets conveys its agenda and nature to the receiving planet which it aspects.

The Moon, being exalted in Taurus, pushes its exalted nature and desire to live (as ruler of the Ascendant) onto Venus, who receives the Moon from her domicile Taurus. Venus is already exalted in Pisces, ruled by Jupiter, so Venus gets kind of supercharged by the additional exaltation of the Moon.

Next Venus applies to Jupiter and, by doing so, conveys or “pushes” the Moon’s desire to live onto Jupiter who receives Venus from his domicile Pisces. This super-exalted Venus, a natural benefit, conveys her nature and the power of her exaltation to Jupiter who becomes a kind of super-benefic in the process of receiving this doubly exalted Venus and prevents the death from taking place.