Occidental
A planet is occidental when it sets after the Sun — an evening star, standing ahead of the Sun in zodiacal order. For Venus and Mercury this is the strong posture, which is the half of the rule most people have backwards.
The fuller picture
The measurement is the signed distance from the Sun. A planet ahead of the Sun in zodiacal order lags behind him at setting and stays visible in the evening sky; that is occidental, and the alternative is oriental. The words describe visibility, and they are read as a condition of the planet rather than of the chart.
Traditional practice does not treat the two postures as good and bad. Venus and Mercury, the two planets inside the Earth's orbit, are fortified when occidental, and Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are fortified when oriental. So the word that sounds like the weaker one is the credit for two of the five planets that get a posture at all, and it earns nothing for the other three. Our engine follows that split exactly, which means the label appears on every planet and the bonus does not — an occidental Saturn is named as occidental and paid nothing for it.
Occidental also does one job the other posture does not, and it is easy to miss. Mercury has no fixed sect of his own: he counts as a day planet when oriental and as a night planet when occidental. That makes his posture the input to a second fortitude — hayz, which asks whether a planet agrees with the chart's sect — so on Mercury alone the morning or evening question changes the answer to a different test. No other planet's sect is decided this way.
Two readings sit on the same fact and should not be blended. The first is the fortitude above. The second is a timing statement: a superior significator occidental performs the matter later, and Venus or Mercury occidental performs it sooner. That comes from a Lilly aphorism, and our engine emits it as evidence about pace rather than about strength. The practice this glossary follows adds two topical readings of its own. In a sickness question, the sick person's significators occidental argue for a chronic complaint rather than a new one. In a journey question, significators of the journey occidental argue that the journey will be obstructed. Both are conclusions about the shape of an outcome rather than about a planet's power to reach it.
The Sun has no posture, and the Moon is not given one here either — her relationship to the Sun is read as her phase, waxing or waning, and as what she next aspects.
In your chart
Every planet except the Sun and the Moon has its posture named in its dossier — Occidental or Oriental — on the same Accidental row as its house strength and its condition relative to the Sun. The score beside that row credits the posture only for the planets it fortifies, so an occidental Venus gains and an occidental Mars does not. Mercury's posture also decides which sect he belongs to, which is what the hayz test then reads.
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