The goal of rectification is to arrive at the actual birth chart you chose as a soul incarnating into earthly life, which resides in etheric form in your energy body and glandular system.
In order to have something approaching an authentic birth horoscope a person needs the correctly timed rising sign over the Ascendant (AC or Asc). I say correctly timed, because nearly always the same sign will appear over the Asc at 0:00 (midnight) that will be there again to end the day (23:59).
Horoscope means “view of the hour.” So even if you are certain of your rising sign, the correct time of day must be chosen. Otherwise, any interpretation of an (errant) chart will contain incorrect and misleading information. What use is that?
By the way, the 361°+ arc covered during that 24-hour period shown in the two charts above is how the Ascendant actually progresses during 1 year of day-for-a-year secondary progression, not the net difference of 1.5° as is common in standard progression of the Asc. In my rectification work I do not rely on that standard method of secondary progression of the Asc or cusps, which can lead to incorrect conclusions.
Rounded hour/half-hour times almost always show the wrong Asc degree (and often the wrong rising sign)
Rising sign and house placements are completely unreliable using such rounded hour times. See my commentary on the charts for Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Luther King Jr, both supposedly born at noon. Neither noon chart had the right rising sign, therefore none of the aspects to Asc or Midheaven were correct and house placements were entirely shifted with the correct charts.
Even a few degrees difference for the Asc can considerably change the flavor and primary influences in the birth horoscope, even show a very different life orientation. There is great importance in the aspects to the Asc and Midheaven, which reveal your primary astrological influences.
Forget the simple rising sign stereotypes
It is also not enough to match your overall look or particulars of physical appearance to stereotypes of astrological physiognomy like Sagittarius rising for a “horsey face”, Virgo rising for a worried look or wrinkled forehead, or Leo rising for a “mane” of hair. Gordon Ramsay’s birth chart has Gemini rising not Virgo.
Anyone can grow and style their hair ‘big’ if they choose.
Dyan Cannon’s birth chart does not have Leo rising, and neither does Cher’s.
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These stereotypes are unreliable and do not include a view into the whole personality or possible planetary aspects of the day of your birth. I get acquainted best I can with your overall personality, and I consider planetary positions in both longitude (zodiac) and declination. Such planets can be aligned with your Ascendant or Midheaven in longitude or declination and can alter personality from the norm for that rising sign.
So forget the stereotypes and write down who you are, what you are like, what you like to do, how you operate — in non-astrological terms. Make no reference to any astrological factor. While your appearance may contain some important physical clues to your rising sign, it comes down mostly to personality.
We’re most interested in what is true about you regardless of the superficial things that are easily changed. How do you function? What is your way of going about life?
When you have no birth time at all
Rectification is especially needed when there are no clues whatsoever to the time of birth. Then I have to totally reverse engineer your birth horoscope from your personality and life events since there is no proposed chart to start with. That is what I call a 24-hour rectification, because the entire 24-hour period must be searched for your correct Ascendant.
This is the toughest rectification work, and I can do it, but it is best if you inquire first so I can assess the challenge and we can deal with it realistically.
It can be incredibly time consuming and it is important to organize all relevant information so as to make most effective use of it — and of the time.
It is very important that you make every effort to get whatever documented or verbal information you can about the time of day you were born. Talk to relatives who may know — whatever you can do to be certain you have all the most specific information you can get for an accurate birth chart.
If you’re lucky, the Moon changed signs on the day you were born
If so, we’ll address that first. We can use that to narrow down the possible charts by knowing which Moon sign fits you, and possibly what major planet it aspects. Adjacent Moon signs are distinctly different just as adjacent rising signs are.
The importance of precisely dated life events
I’m not a magician and cannot arrive at a conclusion about your chart without the necessary materials which includes information about your life events and their exact timing.
This is needed so that progressions and transits on the day of the event can be seen. Otherwise, we get into estimations pretty quickly, which cannot be relied on for a precisely accurate end result.
Take plenty of time to recollect and date each life event as precisely as you can — before requesting a rectification.(Especially if you are single and too young to have many life events.) This saves both of us many back-and-forth emails.
Get help remembering from parents or siblings if necessary. Sometimes they really do fill in the gaps in our memory about the timing of things if you just talk it out with them. Was it before or after the school year started? You moved that summer, but was it right after the school year was over, or closer to the start of the next school year at the new location?
Life events can be anything that was important to you, but especially:
– all moves of residence
– beginnings/endings of relationships
– beginnings/endings of jobs
– accidents, injuries
– early life medical issues, emergencies, hospitalizations (even if you don’t have a date, describe it and narrow down the timing)
– awards, honors
– competitions
– travels
It is best to have the exact date of the event, but narrow it down best you can. It is better for me to know it occurred in October, then to just tell me “autumn” — and it is better to know it occurred in the first half of October than for me to work with an estimated date of the 15th.
Family member’s charts can contain good clues to yours
Even if your mother doesn’t know her time of birth I can use her planetary positions for clues to your Moon, Asc, or Midheaven (or undersky). I can make use of the birth data of those closest to you — family members, parents, lovers, partners, children, etc.
Repeated themes show up in our family’s charts, degree areas that line up with your correct Moon position, Asc, or MC. There is almost always at least one aspect that aligns tightly to one of those points in your correct chart (within just a few minutes arc).
Basic adjustment of the Ascendant
This is needed with more people’s birth charts than you might think, even those based on a documented, minute-specific time of birth. It is very common for a word-of-mouth or documented time to suggest you should have rising sign B when you actually have rising sign A (previous to it).
This is far more common than followers of astrology know or astrologers would like to admit. Birth charts are human-made representations of the genuine horoscope (which resides in the energy body and cellular structures) and should not be assumed to be exactly accurate just because they were made according to standard procedure.
Read descriptions of the rising sign that is supposed to be yours, and if there is any doubt whatsoever, read about the sign preceding it to see if it fits you better. My Rising Signs descriptions are a good place to start, but if you’re still not sure read descriptions by other astrologers.
If neither of the two make sense for your personality send me an email called “Rising Sign inquiry” and include all your birth data (city, hospital/location, date and the time you have for birth).
This can also be helpful to me in case I need to make some adjustments in my rising sign descriptions. That is an ongoing editing process to be sure they are as clear and inclusive as possible.
More about birth times
In some cases, AM/PM may be reversed even on an official record. This is rare, and I don’t make such leaps right away, but listen to what you say about your personality and weigh it against the whole chart and the results of testing. You are the one that knows you best and I never negate how you describe yourself. If all possible charts within a fairly wide range of the officially recorded time fail, then we can look at the possibility of an AM/PM error. Deeper scrutiny that goes beyond rising sign alone and testing comes before flipping the chart around to the opposite part of the day.
Older birth certificates that were first handwritten before being typed up are sometimes hard to read and may have been typed up by a different person. That allows for the possibility of a transference error. Even today many birth times are not accurately recorded to the minute. One of my clients is a nurse and has attested to this. She says most often the time is back-estimated 10 minutes or more after the urgent issues of delivery are over.
Medical documents are made by people who make mistakes. They are not to be taken as astrological documents or gospel truth.
How to prepare for a birth chart rectification
1. Write down a good description of yourself, your personality, and what those close to you say about you (in non-astrological terms).
2. Get some good digital pictures that show you compared to your family members and show your facial features clearly.
3. Make a good list of life events and date them as specifically as you can.
4. All family members’ birth data (parents, children, mate), including close long-term friends.
5. Fill out my Rectification request form.
Terms of my rectifiation work
Finalized charts are delivered only after payment has been made. Please use paypal to do this or make other arrangements with me by email.
I will update you as to the progress I am making with your chart and ask for more information if needed. Some rectifications can be done in less than a week if you give me enough information when you fill out the form.
Some rectifications will take a couple weeks or more to be completed. Some of those may need a period of observation and communication between us to give final confirmation. When completed I deliver an explanation and interpretation of the core points of the rectified chart.
Why you want me to do your birth chart rectification
I’m a good listener and do my best to get all the information I can from you and to weigh it all in the consideration and testing process. My questionnaire (Rectification Form) is very thorough and I amend it as needed.
We can speak by phone 503-206-4922 (Pacific Time) if you are in the US or Canada (at my cost) or you can see me in person so I am sure to be clearly acquainted with you as you really are.
Beside that there are some important points that are not merely technical:
- Declinations: Unlike 99% of astrologers I am able to make use of them in all the astrological work I do. In fact, rectification work cannot be consistently accurate without including declinations.
- Unlike most astrologers who do rectification I have fixed standards by which I test a horoscope for authenticity: Chart validation standards.
- There’s a reason I coined the term internal chart rectifying metrics. The hundreds of charts I’ve studied or rectified have shown me how to find the culminating secondary progressed aspects that can virtually prove a natal chart in many cases.
I first attempted rectification in the year 2000 and honestly was terrible at it. Since then I’ve made virtually every mistake that can be made in rectification efforts, including a lot of mistakes that aren’t in any of the books or even understood by astrologers. With each one of them I have changed my approach to prevent making those mistakes again. As my Feng Shui teacher Nancilee used to tell me, the road to success is paved with failures.
#rectification #BirthChartRectification #HoroscopeRectification
#Ascendant #Asc #RisingSign #AscendantAspects #AscAspects
Kannon McAfee - The declinations guy | | Astrologer & herbalist 