Annual profections

One sign a year, counted from the rising sign: the simplest timing technique in the tradition, and the one to learn first.

How profections work

At birth the rising sign is the first place. On the first birthday the year moves to the second sign; on the second birthday to the third; and so on, one sign each year, all the way around. At twelve the count returns to the rising sign, at twenty-four it returns again, and every age is found by the same rule: divide the age by twelve, and the remainder counts the signs from the Ascendant. Age 35 leaves a remainder of 11, so the year belongs to the twelfth sign from the rising sign.

The sign the year lands on is the profected sign, and its domicile ruler is the lord of the year. The place it occupies gives the year its subject — the second place for livelihood, the seventh for marriage, the tenth for action and reputation — and the lord of the year is the planet whose natal condition, and whose transits, shape how the year goes.

Open the profection calculator

How to read a profection year

1. The place. What does the profected sign signify in this chart by its position from the Ascendant? The year turns on that topic.
2. The lord of the year. Where is that planet in the birth chart, in what sign, in what place, in or out of sect, and what does it rule? A lord of the year in its own sign on a pivot promises a year that goes well; one in its fall, in a decline, contrary to sect, promises effort.
3. Planets in the profected sign. A natal planet sitting in the sign of the year is activated for the year, benefic or malefic.
4. The transits. Transits of the lord of the year, and transits through the profected sign, are the ones that count. The rest is background.

The tradition goes on to profect the other points too. Valens profects from every planet and lot as well as the Ascendant — the year's sign from the Sun, from the Moon, from the Lot of Fortune — and reads the handovers between them. The annual profection from the Ascendant is the frame the others hang on.

Monthly and daily profections

The same count runs at smaller scales. From each birthday the profected sign of the year takes the first month; the next sign takes the second month, and so on — twelve months, twelve signs, arriving back at the year's sign for the next birthday. Each month can be divided the same way into days, about two and a half days to a sign. The reading rarely needs the daily level, but the monthly profection is worth knowing: the month whose sign holds a natal malefic is the month to be careful in.

How Occult Astrology shows it

The Time-lords section gives the profected sign and the lord of the year for the age on the day you open the chart, the monthly profection for the current month, and the profections from the lights and the lots beside them. The reading names the lord of the year and its condition. The free calculator does the annual and monthly count from a birth date and a rising sign, without an account.

Read next: the twelve places the years pass through, zodiacal releasing for the longer chapters, or all the techniques.