Frustration

A term used in Horary Astrology when one planet is applying to an aspect of another, which aspect would tend to signify some event; but before such aspect culminates, a third planet, by its swifter motion, interposes to anticipate the culmination of the forming aspect by completing one of its own. It is said to produce an Abscission of Light that will frustrate the promised effect of the slower-moving aspect, constituting a prohibition (q.v.) against its operation. The indication is that the matter thus subjected to the prohibition will be retarded or utterly prevented, through influences connected with the House of which the frustrating planet is Ruler, or in which it was posited at birth. In his "Arcana of Astrology" Simmonite gives this illustration of its application to an Horary Figure: "If Venus, Lady of the Ascendant, were hastening to the trine of Mars, Lord of the Seventh, in a question of marriage, it might denote that the match would take place; but if Mercury were to form an opposition to Mars before Venus reached her trine of that planet, it would be a frustration and would show that the hopes of the querent would be cut off, and if he were Lord of the Twelfth, it might denote that it would be done by a private enemy; if Lord of the 3rd, by means of relations, and so on."