Chart Rectification

From Astrowiki-en

The reconstruction of an exact birth time with the aid of metagnostic (retrospective) prognostic methods. Many astrologers consider an exact time of birth to be indispensable for an accurate chart interpretation, while others feel this is only the case if an axis or house cusp is right at the end or beginning of a sign, thus making a small inaccuracy important. There are also certain predictive methods such as Primary Directions whose accuracy depends on the birth time being accurate to within a minute.

But it is rare to have such an accurate time of birth - the time recorded at registry offices is often only given to the nearest five minutes and previously often to the nearest fifteen. Some people only know their time of birth to the nearest half hour.

There are enough reasons to rectify the time of birth though this rarely happens in practice because it is a time-consuming exercise. There are now various computer programmes designed for chart rectification which makes the task easier and considerably less time-consuming. However, it is important to remember that it remains difficult to accurately calculate the actual time of birth, and that there are different views among astrologers as to what defines this moment which are not always in agreement. The question is, how is a time of birth given to within a minute to be assessed? It could also be argued that chart rectification based on concrete events is contradictory in spirit to much of the current astrological practice which concentrates more on inner psychological processes rather than concrete events.

When the time of birth is thought to be inaccurate, several important events in an individual's life are usually used to help to rectify the chart: for example, an important examination, wedding, birth of a child or the death of one of the parents. Then, with the help of various prognostic methods such as transits and secondary progressions (it is advisable to use more than one method), the astrologer looks to see whether these events occurred at the same time as important triggers on the axes, i.e. the Ascendant, Descendant, Medium Coeli and Imum Coeli. These are the most individual factors in the horoscope because a small change in the time of birth causes them to move by several degrees. The Ascendant and Medium Coeli move on average one degree of arc every four minutes. Even triggers of the faster moving planets do not help when rectifying a chart because they move little over the course of one day, with the exception of the Moon which moves one degree in roughly two hours. But the Moon's movement remains too slow for any kind of accurate chart rectification within a framework of one hour.

The following methods give an illustration of how astrologers attempt to tackle the fine tuning of chart rectification:

• For each trigger which is thematically related, a hypothetical Ascendant or Medium coeli is calculated - depending on which axis is triggered. Example: The (non-rectified) Ascendant is at 18 degrees 30 minutes Capricorn. The wedding took place with Saturn at 16 degrees 15 minutes Cancer, i.e. on the Descendant. The hypothetical Ascendant would therefore be at 16 degrees 15 minutes Capricorn. The underlying hypothesis is that the event and the trigger can be exactly timed which may be true in some but not all cases. Therefore several different hypothetical Ascendants and Medium Coelis are calculated and linked to events that are thematically related.

• A similar process is carried out using the Medium Coeli as the basis.

• A decision is made on the basis of which value appears to give the most accurate results.

There are several other methods - some more convincing than others. To summarise: There is still an enormous amount of speculation among astrologers concerning chart rectification. And, as the German astrologer Christoph Schubert-Weller has remarked, it can't be conclusively proven that the rectified time is the correct one.