BIRTHTIME DETECTION

Or, RECTIFICATION (adjustment, to make correct [OED]).

Astrological rectification is the attainment of a birthtime where one was previously unknown.  There's whole books written on rectification, and I don't propose to write one here.  There are hundreds of different techniques, from the mathematical to the fantastic via the obscure.  I just use the easiest and most common sensical, on the grounds that I like a simple life and I can't be doing with all that calculation and hypothesis - but neither am I comfortable with the purely psychic, or "channelled", or dowsed birthtime detection methods.  I use what works.  And by writing down what works, I'm not giving any trade secrets away, because the one absolute essential that is necessary to be able to rectify a birthchart is experience - at least ten years worth, and that's just to get a toehold on the ladder.  Once you've been working with it for twenty years or more, a sense of "knowing" supersedes the mentality and even the gut feel, a "knowing" that you just don't question.  Not very scientific, I know!  But the techniques I use are based in mathematics, pattern and geometry, and I've been proved right many times.

Technique 1 - The Moon's place

The Moon moves an average of thirteen degrees over the course of the day.  During this day its aspect patterns to other planets in the heavens will ebb and flow, creating certain patterns at times in the day when specific energies will predominate in the character.  For example, on any hypothetical day, at one am, the Moon could be approaching square to Mars (emotional volatility).  By seven am this has passed and the Moon is trining Neptune (sensitivity, receptivity).  This also passes as by 3 pm the Moon is coming up to sextile Jupiter (humour, optimism), and by eleven pm the Moon is coming up to conjunct Saturn (reserve, seriousness).  Four different patterns of behaviour in the same day.  By a process of elimination these can be narrowed down to one, giving a birth time of some three/four hours either way.

Technique 2 - Transits to the Moon

Look for a time over the last twenty years when Uranus will have been in hard angle to the natal Moon.  If only the day of birth is known, then establish the earliest and latest possible Moon positions.  For example, the Moon at the start of the day may have been at nineteen degrees Leo, ending the day at two degrees Virgo.  I would look at Uranus opposing nineteen Leo from Aquarius in the year 2000, and opposing two degrees Virgo from Pisces in 2004, and say  "One of these five years brought a period of dramatic, sudden, unpredictable and chaotic change into your personal and emotional affairs.  Which one?"  From the answer I can calculate the time of birth to within three hours either way.  Then by repeating similar processes with Saturn and for more accuracy Mars, the time can be narrowed down even more, to perhaps an hour or two either way.

Technique 3 - The Ascendant and Midheaven

I believe that in general, the single biggest influence on personal appearance is the Ascendant.  So often people resemble their rising signs.  If the birthtime is known to within two hours either way, there can only normally be three possible Ascendants.  See which one fits, in terms of appearance, stature, bearing, and external approach to life.  The Ascendant is the armour you put on as you go outside the front door.  For a check up on this, look at the resulting Descendant, and this should typify the Sun sign that the client naturally gets on with without trying.  For a further check, look at the resultant Midheaven, and see if the client typifies that sign in terms of public image and self projection into and onto the world.

Technique 4 - Fine Tuning

Eclipses, New and Full Moons, Mercury retrogrades, midpoints and especially progressions - you don't expect me to give away all my secrets, do you?  And the biggest secret of all is experience.  So don't ever let anyone use the excuse of not knowing their time of birth as a reason for not getting their chart read.  The birth time can be found - normally to within five minutes either way.  Over a period of years this can be fine tuned to the minute.  So if you don't know your birth time and you want an accurate chart done - get in touch!

130506 - Unchanged from the original.