Radicality

Definition

Radicality is whether a horary chart is fit to judge — whether the moment the question was asked captures it genuinely enough that the chart's symbolism really matches the situation. You test for it a few ways: the planetary hour ruler should agree with the Ascendant ruler, or share its triplicity (the same group of three signs); the rising sign and its ruler should fit the querent in a recognizable way; and the chart should be free of warning signs that mark it as unsafe to read.

In Tradition

Medieval and early-modern astrologers held that you check a chart for radicality before offering any judgment at all. Sahl ibn Bishr made the test come before interpretation: a question is fit to read only when it comes from someone "hoping, or under necessity, or sad," and "the matter goes out according to the quantity of the concern of the questioner." Lilly carried this discipline forward as the chain of "considerations before judgment" set out in Christian Astrology Book II.

In Practice

The astrologer first looks at whether the rising degree is too early or too late — under three degrees can mean the matter is too unformed to judge; over twenty-seven, that it is already settled. They check whether the Moon is void of course (making no more aspects before it changes sign) and whether it falls in the Via Combusta, the band from 15° Libra to 15° Scorpio long treated as a hazard. Saturn in the seventh house was read as a warning to the astrologer of a likely error in judgment. The planetary hour ruler and the Ascendant's ruler are checked for the same triplicity. These are cautions, not automatic vetoes — Lilly and modern traditional astrologers often read them as descriptions of the situation rather than reasons to refuse the chart. It is also a good sign when the rising sign and its ruler physically describe the querent, and when the Moon's most recent aspect matches something that has just happened in real life.

Historical Origin

The "considerations before judgment" were systematized in William Lilly's Christian Astrology (1647), but the underlying discipline of testing whether a chart is fit to judge is older: it is implicit in Sahl ibn Bishr's On Questions (9th century) and in Bonatti's Liber Astronomiae (13th century), reaching English horary through the medieval Latin translations from Arabic. The modern revival of these tests dates to Olivia Barclay's Horary Astrology Rediscovered (1990) and the late-twentieth-century traditional movement.

Etymology

Origin: Latin. Meaning: From radicalis (of or pertaining to the root), from radix (root). A "radical" chart goes to the root of the matter..

Further Reading