Best Practice for Accurate Astrology Charting

 There are many ways to pull a chart, and many different types of interpretations are used for charting. You will find many styles and approaches to the astrology interpretation process. These tools can be an extremely helpful aid to include in a self-exploration journey. However, charts are only as accurate as the data provided. To get the best results you need to incorporate the correct birth time and location where the person was born.

This data is used to calculate not only the planetary positions, but also your Ascendant (Rising Sign), and is very beneficial no matter which style of chart you chose. This calculation determines the correct degree of Midheaven placement and each of the cusps. The cusps between signs help narrow down what energetic influence your personal planets will fall under, and which area of your life is under the guidance of which specific influence.

These data points of information are used in interpreting your personality attributes, determining your potential career choices, and for comparing/contrasting your chart with those of others in your life. Extended charting can be used in forecasting future events to come in your life.  Without an accurate birth time, interpretations and forecasts can be invariably incorrect.

Before you schedule a consultation or order charts and reports, you should refer to your birth certificate. But what about your birth certificate? How accurate is it? It may not be as accurate as you think. It’s not hard to get the date and the place correct, but birth times are an entirely different story. Since doctors and nurses are not usually astrologers, they give little attention to the exact time of birth. For example, they may round off an 8:38 birth time to 8:40 or 8:35. A doctor may fill out the birth certificate at a later time and use an estimated birth time. The certificate time could be reflected as far earlier or later than the time recorded on the delivery room records.

Depending on where and when you were born, your birth certificate may not even have a space for the time of birth. Some people have no written birth certificates at all because they were born at home, or during times when birth certificates were not considered necessary, or in countries where birth certificates are or were not issued. Some parts of the United States have other problems with birth certificate times.

For example, during certain years in the state of Illinois, War Time, the precursor to our modern Daylight Savings Time, was in effect but was not observed by all hospitals, many of which continued to operate on Standard Time. That means that if you happen to have been born in Illinois during those times, your birth certificate could be off by an entire hour.

Without an exact birth time, astrology in general, and predictive astrology in particular, are rarely accurate. There may be some general information and interpretations that are correct, but the subtleties and events-oriented aspects will be wrong. However, do not fret, if you do not have a birth certificate, the time is not stated, you suspect your birth certificate has errors, or if you have only an estimated birth time, you can have your chart rectified.  

However, if this is not feasible, you can still get a general chart interpretation based on the date of birth and with a bit of investigating may still be able to benefit from the analysis. A qualified astrologer can work with you to help narrow down, at a minimum, the influences that were present at the time of your birth. These details can still net a result which can be helpful in starting to understand yourself through the lens of your energetic plan.

Ultimately, you want to approach this tool as a potential guidance to learn more about who you are, why you are, and in what direction your life is intended to head. It is not a be-all-end-all answer for every person, but that should not prevent you from exploring. You may just find exactly what you needed to know was written in your life blueprint all along. Or you may uncover a fun new way of looking at your existence. In either instance, enjoy the journey toward self-understanding and happy discovery.