And if someone wished to eject or expel phantasms or some harmful spirit (which is called the Devil by certain people) from some place or home, or some harmful thing either terrible or infesting the inhabitants of that place, or [if] in some person there were some violent motions (which is called demonic), and you wished to administer some medicine or perform some exorcism or the like, and you wanted to elect for him the hour fit for it, adapt the Ascendant and its Lord, and beware lest the Ascendant be Cancer or Leo or Scorpio or Aquarius; not let the Moon be in one of those signs; let the Ascendant be whatever [other] one you wanted, and its Lord free, and let [not] the Moon be in any one of them, joined to some benefic, nor let her be impeded.
Guido Bonatti, Book of Astronomy p.769 (translated by Benjamin Dykes)
The election Bonatti describes above is suitable for cleansing a house, uncrossing a person, or even exorcism. It is not, by itself, enough to remove a malefic influence from a place or person, but the timing will help to boost the work and minimise any issues.
For this election we require the following:
1. The Ascendant and Lord of the first unafflicted
2. Neither the Ascendant nor the Moon should be in Cancer, Leo, Scorpio or Aquarius
3. Moon unimpeded and joined to a benefic
Given that the ascendant degree changes approximately every four minutes and the Moon changes sign approximately every 2 days, it is fairly easy to elect for these conditions. Here’s an example for London tomorrow.
As we can see, it is far from ideal as both the Moon and Lord of the first are peregrine. However, the Moon is separating from one benefic and applying to to the other, and Mercury, the Lord of the Acsendant, is making an applying sextile to Venus. The Ascendant itself is unafflicted by the malefics, and, although it is just separating from a square to the Moon, it is making an applying sextile to the Sun which can be regarded as a benefic, according to Bonatti.
It is rare that we will ever have the perfect election, and it’s not entirely uncommon to find significators in a weakened state when we want to elect a time to change a situation for the better but, as you can see from the chart above, it is possible to make the best of a not altogether ideal chart.