Critical Days Theory

​Astrological theory dictates that anything begun at a particular moment takes on the qualities of that moment. This is true whether it be a life, an event, or, in the case of medical techniques, the commencement of an illness. With the information for this beginning in hand, astrologers are able to describe and predict qualities, character-istics, and changes before they occur.

This is extremely useful with medical techniques and allows the astrologer the power of diagnosis and prognosis. Once a chart for the commencement or report of an illness has been constructed, various techniques can be applied to it to determine the likely outcome of the illness, effective therapy and treatment, and identifying important turning points in the condition of the patient. This last point is exactly what the Critical Days doctrine was designed to accomplish.

Historically, the Critical Days were a medical technique developed in response to malaria type illnesses. These ill-nesses characteristically produce episodes of intense and acute symptomatic increases called paroxysms. The most common form of malaria type illnesses were referred to as tertian and quatrain fevers, meaning the paroxysm returned every third or fourth day. This repetition fits nicely within the phases of the Moon as she orbits the Earth through the Zodiac. The Moon reaches her quarters, full, and new phases roughly every seventh day and her half-phases between these roughly every three and a half. It didn’t take astrologers long to notice this correlation and they quickly attributed these paroxysms to the Moon’s phase in relation to her position at the time of the patient falling ill.

The Beginning of the Crisis

While the progress of an illness is easy to track, ascertaining its starting point has always proved a difficult task. Historically, the most desirable moment to set as the beginning of an illness was when the patient first felt so weak that they were forced to take to bed. This was specifically referred to as the "decumbiture" chart from the Latin decumbo which means "to fall" or "to lie down". Unfortunately, it's very difficult to recall this time, especially if the patient is unaware that they should be taking note of it. For this reason several alternatives were devised and presented as useful, but less desirable. These alternate times are most often based around the connection between a patient and doctor; like the time of the appointment or time of the first contact (historically when the patient submitted a urine sample). When all else fails, a horary chart concerning the illness is always a good substitute.

The most important position in the horary or decumbiture chart (at least within the scope of this article) is the degree of the Moon, as this is the indicator for the arrival and quality of the critical days. The most common technique defines the critical days as occurring when the Moon reaches 90°, 180°, 270° and 360° angles from her position in the illness chart.

If the above were a decumbiture chart, the Moon at 6° Scorpio would mark the axis from which the critical days began. The astrologer working this case could expect to see a crisis occur when the Moon moves to 6° Aquarius, 6° Taurus, 6° Leo, and when she returned to 6° Scorpio. These placements mimic the Moon's phases with the Sun with her own placement in the root chart and indicate turning points in the course of the illness.

The squares and oppositions were not the only positions considered. As mentioned above, the original inspiration for the critical days technique were the regular parox-ysms exhibited by malaria-type illnesses which occurred roughly ever 3 or 4 days. While the roughly 3 and a half days corresponded neatly to the Moon's 7 day phases, many astrologers advocated a system that marked the Moon's positions every 45° from her initial spot in the decumbiture.

Application of the Crisis

Being able to predict the onset of paroxysms is useful on its own. Non-astrologically trained doctors were able to do this and benefit from it just fine by preparing the patient's body for any sort of duress it may experience once the crisis arrives. However, the real use of the critical days was to know exactly what would occur so that preparation and treatment was efficient.

Charts would be constructed for the time when the Moon arrived in these degrees and her position at that time in relation to the other planets and to planets in the original decumbiture would be considered. The Moon interacting with benefic planets could indicate relief while the Moon's connection with malefic planets indicate the patient's condition worsening. These planetary relationships are also used to predict the exact changes in the illness; harsh aspects with Mars likely indicate fevers and vomiting, for example.

The above chart is an example from Nicholas Culpeper's Astrological Judgments of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick. Here, the Moon at 10° Aquarius 19' sets the axis from which the critical and half-critical days will be derived from. We can expect the first crises to occur when the Moon reaches her first square from this position, or 10° Taurus 19'.

The chart is then constructed for the moment the Moon arrives at 10° Taurus 19' and delineated in the hopes of understanding what sort of direction the illness will take. In this chart, the Moon does not arrive at negative aspects of Mars or Saturn so we can expect the crisis to be relatively easy. Mercury, who was the Lord of the First House in the decumbiture chart above, has retreated to the square of Mars. About this Culpeper reports that the patient's fever increased and they began to sweat. Fortunately, though, the pleurisy the patient was experiencing appeared to resolve itself at this time due to the Moon's position in her exaltation and the applying Trine she makes to Mercury.

This is repeated and a new chart constructed for each time the Moon moves into a crisis or half-crisis position until the illness is overcome or the patient passes away. The ultimate goal of utilizing astrology and medicine in unison is to foresee the twists and turns an illness might take to effectively judge how to best proceed. The critical days doctrine is a technique that gave physicians who practiced astrology an advantage over those who did not. The advantage inherent in foreseeing the outcome of an event continues to benefit medical astrologers to this day.