Sect

Sect is a traditional concept that divides charts and planets into day and night. A chart is a day chart, or diurnal, if the Sun was above the horizon at birth, and a night chart, or nocturnal, if the Sun was below it. This single distinction shapes how the planets are judged in traditional astrology, and it is one of the first things a traditional astrologer checks. The seven classical planets are each assigned to a sect. The Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn belong to the day team, and the Moon, Venus, and Mars belong to the night team, while Mercury joins whichever sect suits its position, taking the day sect as a morning star and the night sect as an evening star. The Sun leads the day sect and the Moon leads the night, so one of the two luminaries is always the sect light, the most important planet of its kind in the chart. A planet that agrees with the chart, a day planet in a day chart or a night planet in a night chart, is said to be in sect and tends to be more comfortable and constructive. A planet that disagrees with the chart is out of sect and works with more difficulty. The modern outer planets are not part of this traditional scheme. Sect colors several other techniques, including which planets serve as triplicity rulers and how the benefics and malefics behave. A benefic in sect gives its best, and a malefic in sect causes less harm, while a benefic out of sect gives less and a malefic out of sect bites harder. Considering sect adds an important layer of depth in traditional practice, helping to explain why the same planet can behave so differently from one chart to another.