Quesited

Definition

The quesited is the thing or person you are asking about in a horary chart — as opposed to the querent, who is you, the one asking. You find the quesited by topic: marriage sits in the seventh house, work in the tenth, a lost object in the second, and so on. The planet that rules the sign on that house's cusp then stands for the matter itself.

In Tradition

Arabic astrologers held that the relationship between the Lord of the Ascendant — the planet for you — and the Lord of the quesited house — the planet for the matter — carries the main testimony of the chart. Sahl ibn Bishr wrote that "for every question or quesited matter, a signification by which is signified whatever of the good and evil there would be in that same question," and walked through all twelve houses to fix what each one can be the quesited of.

In Practice

Once the rising sign is set, the astrologer maps your question onto its proper house: the second for money and movable property, the seventh for spouses, partners, lawsuits, and known opponents, the tenth for career and superiors, the fifth for children and pregnancy, the eighth for death and inheritance, and so on through all twelve. The ruler of the sign on that house's cusp becomes the main significator — the planet that speaks for the matter. Other witnesses count too: any planet sitting bodily inside the house, the almuten (the planet with the most overall claim on the cusp), and the cusp ruler's dispositor (the planet that hosts it by sign). The outlook is then read from how the quesited's significator relates to yours and to the Moon.

Historical Origin

The twelve-house topical mapping for horary quesiteds is fully worked out in Sahl ibn Bishr's On Questions (9th century) and carried forward in Masha'allah, Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae (13th century), and William Lilly's Christian Astrology (1647). The underlying topical-house assignments come from Hellenistic natal doctrine attested in Dorotheus, Valens, and Firmicus Maternus.

Etymology

Origin: Latin. Meaning: From quaesitus, past participle of quaerere, "to seek." Literally "the thing sought.".

Further Reading