An election to chase a man away from his place

Make an image with a tortuous sign ascending, and with the lord of the ascendant cadent from the ascendant, fourth, seventh or tenth house, and the Moon similarly cadent. Bury the image at a crossroad under the Via Combusta, and make the face of the image look away from his place, and you will see miracles. – Picatrix, transl. John Michael Greer & Christopher Warnock

This is a nice example of a fairly simple multi-part election from the Picatrix. It is malefic in nature as, in its basic form, it is designed to “chase a man from his place”, and we make it more malefic still by afflicting the ascendant.

Electional conditions

Part 1: The creation of the image

We require the following:

1. A tortuous sign ascending (in the Northern Hemisphere, these are Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, and Gemini)
2. The Lord of the Ascendant and the Moon cadent from the Angles

The election is set for London, UK at 02:23 on 20 April 2018.

In our chart, we have Capricorn rising. Its Lord is Saturn,the Greater Malefic, who is strong, and is retrograde and therefore made more malefic. Saturn is cadent in the unfortunate 12th house. The Ascendant is afflicted by an applying conjunction from an exalted Mars. The Moon is cadent in the unfortunate 6th house.

It’s at this time and under these influences that we create our image of the target. This could be anything from a poppet with personal concerns to a simple printed picture of the person we wish to make move away. By virtue of the astrological conditions and the Law of Contagion these unfortunate celestial influences are transmitted to the target.

At this stage we conjure appropriate forces and use materia consonant with the nature of the intention. We might use hot or martial incenses, we might speak fiery words expressing our desire that the target moves far away from us, we might sprinkle some Hot Foot powder on the poppet. The details are going to be dependent on your own magical tradition and abilities.

Part 2: The burial of the image

The election is set for London, UK at 19:48 on 20 April 2018.

We have the Ascendant in Via Combusta. As an additional benefit we have Uranus making a partile applying opposition to the Ascendant. Although Uranus is not considered in Traditional Astrology, in my experience (and in the experience of many other astrologers) it generally has an influence of sudden change and separation, which fits nicely into our intention for this election.

In this part of the election we could, as the Picatrix suggests, bury our image at a crossroads with its “face” pointing away from our target’s residence, or we can throw it into a flowing river, post it to a distant location, or burn it and scatter the ashes to the four winds.

Election rationale

This election makes use of the relationship between the symbolic relationship between the ascendant and the target.

In the creation of the image we want a tortuous sign rising. Tortuous signs are also called signs of short ascension and are so-called because these signs cross the horizon in less time than the other signs. This symbolic notion of swiftness of movement is invoked when we create the image to influence the target to move away quickly. We place the Lord of the Ascendant, signifying the target, and the Moon, in cadent houses where they are in a debilitated state. In our election we have Saturn retrograde. Symbolically this shows the target isolated in the 12th house and moving away from the natural path of movement.

In the second part of the election we have the Ascendant rising in Via Combusta, the area between 15 Libra and 15 Scorpio known as the “burning road”. This was an especially unfortunate part of the zodiac as the luminaries are in fall in these signs and the malefics are especially strong here. In this part of the working we place our target on a symbolic fiery path to ruin.