Prenatal Charts
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Although most astrologers place much emphasis upon the chart of the time of physical birth of an individual, there is also a school of thought that says that the physical birth is not the only time for which a useful chart can be cast.
In esoteric thinking it is suggested that the incarnation of a human being starts on the spiritual plane, descends to the mental plane, then the astral/emotional plane, and finally to the physical plane when birth takes place. If charts can be determined for the times at which incarnation onto the mental and astral/emotional planes occurred, then they would provide astrologers with insight into the mental and emotional aspects of the individual, and thus provide a fuller picture of how the individual functions at different levels, and how interactions between these levels occur.
The earliest known reference to prenatal charts is in the “Tritune Hermitas”, which states that the chart of conception (which is usually about nine months prior to birth) has positions of the Moon and Ascendant that are interchanged from those of the natal chart.
The concept of prenatal charts has been adopted and developed by several astrologers in more recent times, such as Sepharial, Johndro, Charles Jayne, E.H. Bailey and Gustav Schwickert and as a result there are now a number of other prenatal chart types that have been proposed. For example, in addition to the time of conception (fertilization of the egg), the time of quickening or animation (first independent movement by the fetus) is also thought to be especially important. Two of the aforementioned eminent astrologers (Charles Jayne and E.H.Bailey) who undertook a lifetime study of prenatal charts, seem to concur from their independent research that these charts reflect mental (thinking) and emotional (feeling) aspects of an individual, respectively, as distinct from the birth chart itself which reflects outer physical events and sensations.