Alitifal (Conjunction or Application)
Definition
Alitifal is the medieval-Latin transliteration of an Arabic technical term, used by Alchabitius and preserved by Bonatti, for the joining of two planets by conjunction or application. It names the condition in which one planet is reckoned "joined" to another. Two forms are distinguished: bodily conjunction, when both planets sit in the same sign, and aspectual conjunction, when they occupy different signs but aspect each other by trine, sextile, or square, with the faster planet at an earlier degree. The faster planet stays "joined" by application until the aspect perfects exactly, then becomes separated.
In Tradition
Practitioners use alitifal to settle the basic question of whether two significators are actually joined and so able to bring a matter about. The faster, lighter planet applies to the slower, heavier one in the planet order Mercury, Moon, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Authors disagree on the threshold: Alchabitius required union exact to the degree, while Masha'allah held a planet joined once it casts its rays within orb on the other, unless a third planet prohibits the meeting.
In Practice
First identify the faster and slower of the two planets you are testing. Confirm they share a sign for a bodily joining, or stand in signs that aspect each other by trine, sextile, or square for an aspectual one. Check that the faster planet is at an earlier degree within its sign than the slower, so it is approaching rather than leaving. Then apply the orb test: by the stricter reading, count the joining as forming only when the gap closes to about six degrees or less between one planet's rays and the other's body; by the looser reading, treat them as joined as soon as the rays reach within their combined orbs. While the faster planet is still closing in, the joining is applying and the matter is live; the moment it passes the exact aspect by even a minute, the planets are separated and that opportunity has gone. Watch for a third planet that perfects its own aspect first, which prohibits the joining before it completes.
Historical Origin
The term descends from al-Qabisi (Alchabitius) and was carried into Latin practice by Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae, where Robert Hand glosses it as "continuation." Bonatti sets Alchabitius's degree-exact definition against Masha'allah's rays-projection doctrine, noting that the sages strongly favored Masha'allah. The underlying conjunction-and-application doctrine also runs back through Dorotheus and the per-planet orb tradition.