Profections
Profections are the oldest annual technique in Western astrology: with each year of life the Ascendant moves forward one sign, and the ruler of that sign becomes the Lord of the Year. The calculator finds the house and sign of the year, the Lord of the Year and the monthly profections, and analyzes how strong the Lord of the Year is in your chart.
You need your exact date, time and place of birth: the Ascendant, the houses and the sect of the chart depend on the time. If your city isn't on the list, choose "Other place" and enter the latitude, longitude (north and east take a plus sign) and UTC offset. Dates are in local time at the place of birth. The forecast date defaults to today: the calculator will use the profection year it falls in.
How to Calculate a Profection
A profection (from the Latin profectio, "advancement") doesn't require ephemerides for the forecast year: everything is calculated from the natal Ascendant.
- Find your Ascendant sign — this requires your exact time and place of birth.
- Take the number of full years of age. In the year of birth (age 0), the Ascendant sign itself is active — the 1st house; at age 1, the next sign, the 2nd house, and so on.
- The number of the house of the year = the remainder of age divided by 12, plus one. After 12 years the cycle repeats: at 12, 24, 36 and 48, the 1st house is active again.
- The ruler of the year's sign under the septenary (the seven classical planets) is the Lord of the Year.
Example. Ascendant in Gemini, the person is 29. 29 = 2 × 12 + 5, so we count five more signs from Gemini: Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio. It's a Scorpio year — the 6th house, and the Lord of the Year is Mars. Next the astrologer looks at where and how Mars is placed in the natal chart.
A profection year runs from one birthday to the next. Within it are monthly profections: each of the twelve months the Ascendant moves on by one more sign, and each month has its own lord.
The Twelve Houses of the Year
The age at which each house is active is the same for everyone; what differs from person to person are the signs and their lords.
| House | Theme of the year | Age |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Self, body, appearance, new beginnings | 0, 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72 |
| 2 | Money, possessions, income | 1, 13, 25, 37, 49, 61, 73 |
| 3 | Siblings, communication, learning, short trips | 2, 14, 26, 38, 50, 62, 74 |
| 4 | Home, family, parents, real estate | 3, 15, 27, 39, 51, 63, 75 |
| 5 | Children, love, pleasure, creativity | 4, 16, 28, 40, 52, 64, 76 |
| 6 | Work, duties, health | 5, 17, 29, 41, 53, 65, 77 |
| 7 | Marriage, partners, contracts, rivals | 6, 18, 30, 42, 54, 66, 78 |
| 8 | Other people's money, debts, inheritance, crises | 7, 19, 31, 43, 55, 67, 79 |
| 9 | Long journeys, higher learning, faith, law | 8, 20, 32, 44, 56, 68, 80 |
| 10 | Career, status, reputation | 9, 21, 33, 45, 57, 69, 81 |
| 11 | Friends, patrons, hopes | 10, 22, 34, 46, 58, 70, 82 |
| 12 | Solitude, limitations, endings | 11, 23, 35, 47, 59, 71, 83 |
Sign rulers: Aries and Scorpio — Mars, Taurus and Libra — Venus, Gemini and Virgo — Mercury, Cancer — the Moon, Leo — the Sun, Sagittarius and Pisces — Jupiter, Capricorn and Aquarius — Saturn.
How an Astrologer Reads the Lord of the Year
The sign of the year tells you what is activated this year. The Lord of the Year tells you who runs the year and what it will be like. The tradition (Vettius Valens, Abu Ma'shar, Bonatti) assesses the Lord of the Year point by point:
- Essential dignity — in its domicile, exaltation, triplicity, term or face a planet is strong and acts according to its nature; in detriment and fall, against it.
- The house the lord occupies in the natal chart: that's where the year "leads" your affairs. Angular houses (1, 4, 7, 10) bring noticeable events; cadent houses (3, 6, 9, 12), quiet ones.
- Sect: in a day chart the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn work best; in a night chart, the Moon, Venus and Mars. The benefic of the chart's sect helps the most, and the malefic contrary to the sect is the most difficult.
- Motion and the Sun: retrograde motion brings matters back to the past; combustion (within 8.5° of the Sun) hides and weakens.
- Aspects from the benefics (Jupiter, Venus) support; squares and oppositions from the malefics (Saturn, Mars) create pressure.
- Natal planets in the sign of the year "wake up" and also color the year.
- Transits of the Lord of the Year are the most important transits of the year: they are used to pinpoint when the year's themes will show up.
The calculator goes through all these points and brings them together into a conclusion: whether the Lord of the Year is strong, how it will help and where the difficulties will be.
An Honest Look at the Method
Profections are part of Hellenistic and medieval astrology; over the last twenty years they have come back into wide use among traditional astrologers. The rule is simple and fully computable, so the calculator applies it exactly.
Profections have not passed testing as a way to predict events, any more than astrology as a whole has. We describe the method as the tradition uses it — it's a good reason to calmly think once a year about which area of life matters most right now, but not a source of information about the future.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Lord of the Year?
The ruler of the sign that the Ascendant has profected to this year. Hellenistic authors called it the chronocrator — the time lord. Its natal condition shows what the year will be like, and the house it occupies shows through which affairs everything will happen.
Does the profection year start on January 1?
No, on your birthday. A profection year lasts from one birthday to the next, so in January you may still have the "old" Lord of the Year.
Which house system should I use?
Classical profections are counted in whole signs: each sign is one house, and the first house is the entire Ascendant sign. The calculator counts the same way. In quadrant systems (Placidus) sign and house may not coincide, and then the profection is followed by signs, not by cusps.
Why are Uranus, Neptune and Pluto never Lords of the Year?
Profections are a technique created long before the outer planets were discovered; the sign rulers in it are the seven classical planets. The calculator does show outer planets that sit in the sign of the year: modern astrologers believe they also color the year.
What if my birth time is unknown?
Without a time there's no Ascendant, and so no profections from it. Sometimes profections are taken from the Sun or the Moon, but those are different, auxiliary profections. If the Ascendant is close to a sign boundary, the calculator will warn you that with an inaccurate time the whole calculation will shift by a sign.
How are profections different from a solar return?
A solar return is a new chart for the moment the Sun returns; a profection advances the natal chart by one sign per year. Traditional astrologers use them together: the solar return shows the picture of the year, the profection shows who runs that year.