Today I want to start a tradition of sharing from my collection of past horaries on this blog, to showcase this wonderful art (and the sometimes messy process I’ve gone through to practice it). This Halloween-themed horary was drawn just one day before the fall equinox, and concerns a gruesome and ghoulish career opportunity that I was pretty terrified to accept!

In late September 2019, I was contacted via email by the producers of a new show called Murder House Flip set to debut on a new video streaming platform. Described by the producers as a home renovation show with a spiritual twist, Murder House Flip was exactly what it sounded like: a macabre hybrid of HGTV’s wildly popular Fixer Upper and the “messages from beyond“-loaded hit show Long Island Medium.

Murder House Flip would feature a team working to energetically and physically clear old, scary homes which were claimed to be haunted as a result of infamous crimes that had been committed within them. In each episode, a spiritual blessing of the home would be followed by a traditional home renovation performed by an interior design specialist and a renovation expert, upon which the families (all of whom claimed to have been tormented by odd happenings within the house for years) could move back into their home, hopefully free of any further ghostly disturbances.

The producer who first reached out to me informed me that I had been recommended to them personally by a shared colleague, one of my clients who had attended some classes in natural magic that I had taught previously, which included sharing my own personal experiences of using techniques of natural magic to help metaphysically cleanse interior spaces.

Straight away I wasn’t sure that the show was something I would want to do; in fact, I had a pretty instant and very strong resistance to it and almost said no immediately. Firstly, I am pretty introverted and shy. Being on TV would be scary for me. In addition, the concept of the show was of course macabre, and even sounded potentially gauche. I was skeptical and a little mistrusting of the way that a reality TV show with this framing might portray such a heavy topic. I was also concerned with whether they would give the proper respect to the victims of the violence that occurred in the homes in the past; or were they, at the core, just exploiting the trauma for reality TV profiteering? I hated the idea of such a heavy subject being taken too lightly, especially for cheap entertainment and advertising revenue.

My suspicions were made worse by the fact that the show was new, there were no past seasons I could go back and see what kind of “vibe” the show would have, and how respectful it would be of the victims’ memory and the families that survived them. All these worries made me instinctively shrink back from the whole idea, but I told myself to be open-minded.

On my first phone call with one of the producers, the woman was very professional and nice, and addressed my concerns about the treatment of the victims’ experiences directly. I learned more about the project. From what I could tell, there was nothing so far to indicate that it was sketchy. I did get a good feeling from her, but I’ve also heard that TV producers have a way of coming across extraordinarily normal, understanding, and nice, earning your trust and building rapport quickly, only to turn around and renege on every matter of common sense when it makes for better TV. Content is King, as they say. Anyway, a day or so later, I was informed that I was being moved upward in the interview process.

My next call was with a different female producer on the show, this time over Zoom, where I also learned that they planned to feature 8 different energetic practitioners, a different one for each episode. I had the idea to recommend a friend of mine who is a very talented medium, and who I had been in the habit of chatting regularly with about all matters psychic, spiritual, and to do with home clearings. After I got off the call, I contacted my friend, explained the show, and got her permission to give her information to the producers. She was very excited when I told her about it, and seemed more open to the idea than I was at the time. I sent my friend’s information to the producer I’d just met on Zoom. She thanked me and told me they would contact my friend to start the interview process immediately to consider her for the show, too.

In the meantime, I was given a long list of further questions to answer by email, and a contract to look over in order to ask questions or make potential changes. They also gave me tentative filming dates which were as soon as November. It was starting to feel very, very real! At the time I asked this question, I was actually pretty nervous that I might be seriously in the running to be on the show, and had ambivalent feelings about that.

Part of me felt that if I were invited and said no, I might be turning down opportunities out of fear, and living too conservatively. Would I regret it? The other part of me worried that if I were invited and said yes, would it even be worth undergoing the experience? After all, it wouldn’t be fun. I would be working in homes where some very dark, heavy energy may still lurk, and where terrible trauma occurred. If powerfully haunted, there was no reason to assume that a particular home couldn’t also genuinely present some element of danger to me or others involved in attempting to purify it.

The idea of looking into the eyes of families who feel tormented by ongoing negative energies in their home, and genuinely trying to help them while silent camera guys lurk around us and a suspended microphone dangles over me, threatening to bop me in the forehead at any moment, and a producer interrupts with suggestions like “great; can you just repeat that, this time looking at the camera?”–frankly sounded both cheesy and off-putting.

I didn’t doubt that I would be able to perform a blessing on the home, as I had plenty of experience with that under my belt already (though not being able to astrologically elect the timing of the blessing myself would admittedly be a handicap). But would I be able to actually help get rid of an extremely malevolent haunting, assuming the stories were true? Especially one of such magnitude as a murder scene, which had been confirmed by its occupants to behave so strangely? It seemed foolish not to take the metaphysical prospects seriously.

And what if the show portrayed these themes in a deleterious, cheap, or otherwise distasteful manner? That would be completely out of my control. So I drew this horary to answer the question, would I be invited to go on Murder House Flip? If I was, would it even be a good idea to do it? And what about my friend, would she be as well?

The Judgement

Horary Set Up: In horary, the 10th house cusp rules jobs that are being asked about, and so takes the signification for the show. As the querent, I am represented by the 1st house and its ruler. Friends are given by the 11th house and its ruler. The Moon serves as a co-significator for the querent or occasionally the quesited, in this case, that would also be the show itself. The Moon can also show the flow of events.

The Sun, an important point of analysis in any horary, is positioned in the 8th house of death, making no aspect to the ascendant of the horary or its ruler; however, is exactly conjunct my natal ascendant, which is 28˚16′ Virgo. The midheaven of the horary is exactly conjunct my natal Sun, which is at 23˚47′ Scorpio. So immediately, it was clear that the chart was radical.

As the ruler of the first house, Saturn is my significator. In this case, Saturn is besieged in a partile conjunction with the South Node and within orb of conjunction with Pluto. Though strong in essential dignity by being in his own sign of Capricorn, Saturn is unfortunately placed in the 12th house, very near the cusp. The 12th house rules weakness, self-undoing, imprisonment, restraint; I would add phobias and anxieties that plague us. The 12th house also has an association with the occult and witchcraft, magic in the negative sense (CA p56)–people who work against us through curses and negative workings, for example, or possibly fears related to such things. This is very descriptive of my mindset at the time and very much reflects my reservations about the show. Between my suspicions about the treatment of the topic and my hesitation about the metaphysical implications of the job itself, I was plagued with dark notions about it.

Saturn’s position conjoined the Moon’s malefic South Node at 13 degrees Capricorn also lent a spooky feel to the horary. 13 is often seen as an unlucky number or a number associated with the idea of “something extra, that leads to suffering,” since Judas was the 13th apostle to arrive at the Last Supper, leading to Jesus being crucified the following day. 13 is also the Death card in the Tarot, a motif of darkness and letting go, but also paradoxically of facing one’s fears of the inevitable. With Pluto not far off from my significator, the “Hades” signature was all over this horary before I had even formulated a judgement, which is fitting for a show that deals with spiritual entities and victims of murder.

My friend whose information I had passed along to the producers is appropriately shown by Jupiter in Sagittarius, the 11th house ruler and placed on the 11th house cusp. Jupiter is known for being a planet that brings (among other things) enthusiasm, participation, spirituality, faith, excitement. The cusp is also aligned with her natal rising degree, so this felt like another strong characterization of her as a very spiritual and courageous person who was up for the challenge of the show. Indeed, it sort of felt like it was meant for her. Ever since I had floated her information along, she kept me updated with her interview process, and in the meantime, her husband helped her take some professional headshots at the request of the producers. Everything appeared to be going along smoothly, but as I looked at the chart, it started to become apparent that something else was brewing under the surface.

With the very fitting, dark and mucky sign of Scorpio ruling the 10th house cusp, Mars becomes the significator of the show. Mars in Virgo conjunct the 8th house cusp (of death) was such an apt significator for the show that I couldn’t help but be struck once again by the shockingly congruent symbolism present in horary charts, it’s truly amazing.

Mars in traditional astrology naturally signifies violence, contentiousness, crime and murders (Christian Astrology p66). In traditional horary significations within the home, Virgo rules storage areas, closets, cupboards (CA 96). This is also striking, as a great many of the hauntings in the show involve Virgo-ruled areas of the home, such as closet doors opening and closing on their own; dark and less-visited storage areas tending to ‘hold energy.’ Virgo is also a practical, Mercury-ruled earth sign, and in psychological astrology it is often known for its tendency to tidy up, organize, fix, repair, and generally ‘make right’ its environment. So, very clearly here, Mars in Virgo on the 8th house cusp is a perfect shorthand for Murder House Flip: the Virgoan renovation and healing of haunted homes presently tainted by the Martial memory of the crimes that transpired within them.

In this chart, Mars is peregrine and just barely emerging from combustion, a state of being overpowered and hidden by the Sun. Based on this, I wondered if perhaps the show had undergone some sort of change recently. The producers had expressed a sense of urgency as they wanted to start filming the episodes as soon as possible, as I mentioned before. The recent and lingering combustion of Mars also seemed to indicate a production plan and crew that may have only recently been conceived, since Mars was now at the very beginning of his synodic cycle.

Generally, the 10th house ruler, when afflicted, can indicate poor reputation and unfavorable publicity (Deborah Houlding, The Houses, Temples of the Sky p84). A weak, peregrine, combust Mars positioned in an unfortunate house, therefore tells of an opportunity that is more likely to hurt my reputation than not. I didn’t have much of a reputation to hurt anyway but still, the message was clear.

Upon inspection of the aspectual connections, Mars at 22˚06′ Virgo had already made past aspects to both my significator, Saturn, and the significator of my friend, Jupiter, and markedly, there were no developing ones, and no help from any other planets to translate the light of Mars (the ‘job’) to Saturn or to Jupiter, either of which would have potentially indicated a formal offer of the job to me, or to my friend. I started to feel that maybe the show wouldn’t work out after all, perhaps not for either of us, not even if we wanted it!

In horary, it’s possible to take a look not only at the job itself but also the higher up managers, by way of analyzing the dispositors of the 10th ruler. The theory is that when the 10th house ruler is in the dominion of another planet, then the ‘next higher’ people in relationship to the job (people the querent hasn’t directly interacted with because there are levels of management between them) could be symbolically shown by the dispositor of the 10th ruler. In this case, it’s Mercury. Mercury also rules the Moon in this chart, which we haven’t looked at yet.

The Mercury-ruled Moon has just recently squared Mars in Virgo (or, Murder House Flip) and now moves to square the Sun in Virgo, after which she will make no new aspects before changing signs. Squares are tense aspects that can bring limitations or dash hopes, especially when there is no reception. Immediately after changing signs, the Moon still won’t be in orb of any promising aspects to the main significators. If using the Moon to loosely describe the flow of events, this is like a one-two-punch followed by radio silence.

This unexciting ‘flow of events’ in combination with the fact that Mars / the show had already aspected both my friend and I and then moved on from us–promptly undergoing a transformation through combustion–perhaps indicated that something had shifted, or maybe new problems had surfaced within production, though news of them hadn’t reached me or my friend yet. It didn’t look promising. I was still new at discerning horary charts at the time, but without any promising new connections, this one was clearly negative. However, the message of the chart strongly contradicted the flow of events as they’d been happening up to this point, so there was really nothing to do but wait and see how things unfolded.

The Outcome

What ended up happening was that soon after I cast this horary, I was put into contact with the executive producer of the show (a man named Star) and told that he would be handling all correspondence with me moving forward. Then, strangely, he dropped off all communication. This was very unusual and represented a definite shift in the process; since the show had been under such time constraints, someone from the team had been reaching out every day or every other day at a minimum to keep us updated. When I finally heard from him again, it was just over seven days after the last time we’d spoken. The news was that the show had gone in a different direction, deciding not to have any energetic practitioners present, shaving down the air time and focusing only on the home’s history and renovation. He expressed a desire to keep my information as it was possible they would be able to expand the show to include featuring metaphysical practitioners to do a blessing on the homes in the second season (if it was renewed).

In the horary, Mercury moves to the square of Saturn. This square is eagerly received by Saturn, by not one or two but three dignities: Exaltation, Term, and Face. As you would imagine, this Saturn was relieved to ‘receive’ this information via the square of the ‘executive producer’ Mercury. It was good to hear that I would be able to actually watch the show first and see how these delicate topics would be handled, so that in the remote off-chance they did reach out again, I would be able to more confidently answer, knowing exactly what I was getting myself into (or turning down).

As for timing, the one degree and 14 minutes of arc of distance it took for Mercury to perfect the aspect by transit represented the week that it took to hear anything back. Following this, Mercury traveled to the sextile of Jupiter, and my friend heard back from the producers that they would have loved to work with her for the show at some point but because she was a Canadian citizen, the ACTRA laws (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television, and Radio Artists, essentially the Canadian version of the US Screen Actors Guild) were incompatible with the network’s procedures. It ended on an amicable note (Mercury sextile Jupiter).

In the end, I did watch the show after it came out. The episodes are unusually short, having been produced for a short-form media streaming platform. While they did the best they could with the subject matter, there was a bit of an awkward disconnect between the “upbeat home & garden renovation show” aesthetic and the discussion of the horrific crimes that transpired in the homes. Having inside knowledge from speaking to several people working on the show, I know for a fact that they wanted to focus more on healing and bringing resolution to the homes, rather than focusing a lot on the trauma of it all. So, the obstinately cheerful narration was intentional. Unfortunately, that had the effect of coming across a little callous in specific moments (particularly those in which comedy was attempted) especially when you really think about what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it. It’s just very, very hard to make an uplifting show about such a dark topic. But don’t take my word for it: You can watch all the episodes for free here on Roku.

As far as I know, the original network has since gone under, so whether or not the show will be picked up for a second season on another platform is unclear. I doubt it though. Overall, I was very grateful to have had this experience, and particularly grateful that it didn’t work out. The magic of this somewhat macabre horary is the real benefit I got out of the whole process. It served as one of my early experiences with the spooky accuracy of this special art.