Sect

Meaning

Every chart is either a day chart or a night chart. If the Sun was above the horizon at birth, the chart belongs to the day; if it was below, to the night. The Greek word was hairesis, a party or faction, and it gave the Latin secta.

The seven traditional planets split into two teams. The Sun leads the day team, with Jupiter and Saturn. The Moon leads the night team, with Venus and Mars. Mercury joins either side. It counts as diurnal as a morning star, rising before the Sun, and nocturnal as an evening star, setting after it.

A planet is in sect when its team matches the chart: Saturn in a day chart, Venus in a night chart. Tradition reads a planet in sect as more at ease and more constructive, working with the grain of the chart. A planet out of sect is read as less comfortable, its qualities harder to use well.

Sect matters most for the benefics and malefics. By day, Jupiter is the benefic of the sect and Saturn the malefic in sect, tempered by the Sun’s warmth. By night, Venus is the benefic in sect, while Mars, cooled by the night, is the gentler malefic. So tradition reads Saturn as harder to carry in a night chart, and Mars in a day chart.

In practice

• Saturn in a day chart is read as patient and structuring; in a night chart, as heavier and more testing.
• Mars in a night chart is read as courage and drive kept within bounds; in a day chart, as hotter and more prone to conflict.
• The triplicity rulers take turns: the day ruler leads in a day chart, the night ruler in a night chart.
• The Lot of Fortune reverses its formula by night in Hellenistic practice, as do many other lots.

Across traditions

• Indian astrology has no sect in the same sense, but it gives some planets more strength by day and others by night. In that scheme the Sun, Jupiter and Venus are strong by day, the Moon, Mars and Saturn by night, and Mercury at all times.
• Medieval astrology added further tests of sect, such as the planet’s hemisphere and the gender of its sign.

Origin and history

Sect is one of the foundations of Hellenistic astrology. Dorotheus of Sidon reads a life through the triplicity rulers of the light of the sect. Vettius Valens uses the difference between day and night charts throughout his Anthology.

Ptolemy, in the Tetrabiblos, explains the two teams by the qualities of the planets. Day is hot and dry, so cold Saturn joins the Sun to be tempered. Night is cool and moist, so hot Mars joins the Moon. Unlike most of his colleagues, Ptolemy did not reverse the Lot of Fortune by night.

Sect faded from much of later Western astrology. It came back from the 1990s, when translations of Greek texts, notably by Project Hindsight, made the Hellenistic sources easier to read.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune decides day or night from the Sun’s altitude at the time and place of birth. It takes the Sun’s position seen from the Earth’s centre and measures its height above the true horizon of the birth place. No allowance is made for refraction. Above zero the chart is by day; at zero or below, by night. If the altitude cannot be computed, and in composite charts, Ulune uses the houses instead: the Sun in houses 7 to 12 makes a day chart.

The table’s Chart part shows the sect with the Sun’s distance above or below the horizon. The Points and Dignities parts mark each of the seven planets in or out of sect, Mercury by whether it rises before or after the Sun. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto have no sect. Only the triplicity ruler of the chart’s sect is scored in Lilly’s points.

The Lots of Fortune and Spirit reverse by night. Fortune is the Ascendant plus the Moon minus the Sun by day, and plus the Sun minus the Moon by night. On the wheel, the sect overlay shades houses 7 to 12 as the day half and dims the planets out of sect. Without a birth time, Ulune says the sect needs the time, and all that hangs on it is marked ~.

Correspondences