Nocturnal Chart

nok-TER-nuhl

Definition

A nocturnal chart is a night chart — one where the Sun was below the horizon when you were born. In practice that means the Sun sits in one of the six houses beneath the horizon line (houses 1 through 6 when you count by whole signs). Its opposite is the diurnal, or day, chart. This day-or-night split is called sect (Greek hairesis).

In Tradition

In Hellenistic astrology, a chart's sect sorts the planets into those that are in-sect (better supported) and those that are out-of-sect. In a night chart the Moon, Venus, and Mars are in sect; the Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn are out of sect; Mercury follows its phase, joining the night side when it is an evening star.

In Practice

Astrologers usually settle a chart's sect first, before weighing any planet, because sect colours nearly everything that comes after — which planets rule the elements (triplicity rulership), the formula for the Lot of Fortune (which flips by sect), how help and harm between planets are read, and the overall reading of the helpful and difficult planets. In a night chart the Moon leads as the night-time light, Venus serves as the favoured helpful planet, and Saturn — being out of sect — usually shows up as the harder of the two difficult planets.

Historical Origin

The day/night distinction is among the oldest pieces of the Hellenistic system, covered in Dorotheus of Sidon's Carmen Astrologicum (1st century CE), Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos (2nd century CE), and Valens' Anthologiae (c. 145–175 CE). The Arabic astrologers preserved it; it gradually faded in later Western practice, then was recovered in the late-20th-century traditional revival.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading