The personal horoscope

A personal chart is the map of the sky for one place and one moment: the moment of birth. Everything after that is interpretation of that map.

What is needed

The date — gives the positions of the planets in the signs.
The time — gives the ascendant, the midheaven and the houses. Without it, half the chart is missing.
The place — latitude and longitude, because the same moment shows one ascendant in Hamburg and another in Rome.

The birth time is the sensitive point. The ascendant moves on by one degree about every four minutes; an hour of uncertainty shifts it by as much as a whole sign. Anyone giving an approximate time should say so — an honest uncertainty is usable, an invented precision is not.

The order of interpretation

There is an order, and it is not arbitrary.

The temperament — the basic make-up of body and mind, calculated from the Moon's sign and phase, the ascendant and its ruler, the season and the planets on the angles. Everything else is read against it.
The dignity of the planets — what condition each planet is in on its own, before aspects come into it at all.
The houses — which area of life it acts in, and whether from there it can act at all.
The aspects — last, not first. An aspect between two weak planets does little, however exact it may be.
The quality of a stretch of time — profections, directions, the yearly horoscope. These show when a theme that is already laid down becomes active.

Most misreadings come from starting at point 4. A striking aspect catches the eye at once; a planet's dignity has to be looked up.

What a chart shows and what it does not

It shows dispositions — abilities, leanings, difficulties that keep returning — and periods in which they make themselves felt.

It shows no events and no dates. It names no profession, only a direction; no name; no diagnosis. And it decides nothing: the old formula that the stars incline but do not compel is not a soothing phrase but an accurate description of what the technique can deliver.

Celebrity charts

They are popular as practice material, and they come with two catches. The birth times are often unverified — and a reading laid over a known life after the fact is always convincing. Anyone who wants to test whether a technique holds has to write the claim down beforehand.

With living people a second thing comes in: anyone who has not asked for a reading has not consented to having their character judged in public either. This page therefore does not do it.