Interrogations

Definition

Interrogations is the medieval-Latin technical term for the branch of astrology that casts a chart for the moment a question is posed to the astrologer and reads the matter from that chart. The English usage 'horary astrology' is a later term covering the same branch. Together with elections (chart-selection for an undertaking) and inceptions (chart-reading for the moment an undertaking began), interrogations belongs to the broader katarchic family of moment-of-asking astrology, in which the chart of the precipitating moment, not the chart of a birth, is the working ground.

In Tradition

Across the Hellenistic, Arabic-Persian, and medieval-Latin traditions, interrogations is a structured horary-question practice on a precipitating-moment chart. Greenbaum names the doctrine via Manilius: 'elections and interrogations, both of which are included in katarchic astrology.' Sahl supplies the Arabic-Persian operational foundation — querent (al-sā'il) and quesited (al-maṭlūb) as the two horary significators, with the Ascendant + its lord + the Moon for the querent and the topical-house lord for the quesited.

In Practice

Practitioners run an interrogation in three procedural steps. First, take the chart for the moment the question is asked at the astrologer's location. Second, identify the querent's significators (Ascendant, its lord, Moon) and the quesited's significators (lord of the house ruling the matter: 2nd for substance, 5th for children, 7th for marriage or contention, 10th for office). Third, examine the application or separation of aspect between querent-and-quesited significators, the Moon's next aspect, and the radicality conditions, then judge whether the matter will perfect, in what manner, and within what time. Sahl's *On the Questions* stresses that misidentifying the true quesited from the querent's intention — or treating a crafty or testing question as genuine — invalidates the interrogation. Derivative houses (counting from the house signifying the third party rather than from the Ascendant) extend the technique to multi-party questions. The tradition reaches Lilly's *Christian Astrology* (1647) as the canonical English horary handbook.

Historical Origin

The katarchic-question root is Hellenistic: Greenbaum reads Manilius's eleventh and twelfth lot-places (*Astronomica* 3.142-155) as carrying katarchic significations of choice-of-remedy and decision-making. Dorotheus's *Carmen Astrologicum* Book V is the first dedicated treatise on inceptions and questions. Sahl's *On the Questions* (9th c., Latin *De Interrogationibus*) is the foundational Arabic-Persian text systematising querent-and-quesited, derivative houses, and the perfection methods inherited by Bonatti and Lilly.

Etymology

Origin: Latin. Meaning: Asking, questioning.

Further Reading

• Sahl ibn Bishr, On the Questions (in Works of Sahl & Masha'allah)
• Dorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum
• William Lilly, Christian Astrology
• John Frawley, The Horary Textbook
• Anthony Louis, Horary Astrology Plain & Simple