Saturday, January 11, 2014

Skeptics and Other Hazards

If you make it known that you study or practice astrology, you will from time to time encounter people who don't believe in it. You will also encounter people who believe in it, but also believe it's the work of the Devil. Ironically, the second group is usually easier to deal with, as you can generally point to a quote in whatever holy book they happen to be using that will support astrology. That won't work with the first group as they have no holy book, and in fact, no central authority. However, they are every bit as dogmatic as the second group.

The first group refers to themselves as skeptics. You might expect that to mean that they are skeptical about things until shown evidence. If that were true, they would reserve judgement until studies were done. The history of astrology skeptics is quite different. They do studies based on their assumptions about what astrology is, then publish those as proof that astrology doesn't work.

Furthermore, members of this group have no problem with saying that astrology is not valid, even if they know nothing about astrology. So they are not really skeptics, they are deniers. And because they do not know what they are denying, you have no hope with them.

The skeptics typically define astrology as the belief that the position of the sun and the planets relative to the earth at the time a person was born determines his and personality. The good news is that this is not true. The bad news is that what astrology really is will be even less palatable to the skeptics.

Astrology is simply the study of cycles as marked by the cycles of planets from the perspective of us here on earth. Astrology relies of the concept of an interconnected universe. In such a universe, the cycles of planets mirror other cycles which control everything. Under this concept, the Planets don't control anything but are simply indicators. And the natal chart doesn't determine a person's life; the life a person decided to have determines when and where they will be born.

In any case, argue with them at your own risk.

The other reason to be wary of those groups is that astrology is still illegal under laws against fortune-telling in some locations, and members of these two groups will be most likely to file a complaint.

tl;dr: Don't argue with fundamentalists, whether materialist or religious.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Astrology's Image Problem






Tuesday, September 25, 2012

An Infinity of Infinities

As a starting point, I'll present for you a grossly oversimplified model of the universe. First there was the Infinite. The Infinite was everywhere and everything. Even the word "was" is inaccurate as the Infinite was outside of time as we know it. Whatever the Infinite thought was real; after all, nothing else existed. Since the thoughts of the Infinite were still within the Infinite, they had the same properties and could create their own thoughts. So at this point we have an infinity of infinities. But things didn't stop there.

At this point, the Infinite and all of the thoughts for infinite generations were together within the Infinite. One of the thoughts had a thought of being separate from the rest. Since the thoughts of the Infinite were real and could create thoughts that were also real, that resulted in the experience of being separate from the rest. I'll leave out a few steps for the sake of brevity. Suffice it to say that, according to A Course in Miracles, that's why and how we are here in this place of pain, limit and lack.

This is the starting point, but what if the thought of being separate wasn't a mistake? Here's my theory: we're here to experience the underlying unity and limitlessness described above. Naturally, this won't happen overnight, but each of us has as many lifetimes as needed. But since we'll be doing this as people, each of us will have this experience from a different perspective. The effect will be that we will have multiplied infinity by itself, which in my opinion was the original plan.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Why You Should Learn Traditional Astrology










Thursday, May 10, 2012

Traditional Astrology Course

I'm still working on my book on traditional astrology, but I'm taking a break to teach a four-week course on traditional astrology for beginners. The course will take place next month at a local New Age store in Michigan. I'll post after the course is done to let you know how it went.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Primary Directions in Traditional Astrology

Primary directions are a time-tested prediction and timing technique used in traditional astrology. They are similar to secondary progressions, but use degrees of what is called right ascension instead of degrees of the Zodiac. Right ascension degrees are different from Zodiac degrees in that they take into account the different amounts of time that Zodiac signs take to rise above the horizon. The differences arise from the fact that the Earth's orbit is elliptical, while the Zodiac is a circle by convention. In secondary progressions, one day's activity in the ephemeris after the birth time is taken to correspond to one year in the native's life (the native is the person whose birth chart is being examined); in primary directions, the planets move by one degree, more or less (there are different methods), per year of the native's life. The interaction between the adjusted (or directed) positions and the natal positions can mark events in the native's life.

Here's my chart. The house cusps are not shown because I use whole sign houses, where the entire sign where the Ascendant falls is the first house, the next sign the second house, and so forth. The arrow pointing to the left is the Ascendant; the upward-pointing arrow is the Midheaven. How it works is that the planets move clockwise through the chart as they would during the course of the day; a quarter of the way through will cover the native's entire life.

The first event I'd like to point out happened in September 1989 and was marked by Pluto advancing upward to meet the Midheaven. At the time I was starting my senior year of college, but I had to leave due to finances. That event completely transformed my career as Microsoft was recruiting heavily on campus at the time and I could very well have ended up working there had I graduated. So you can see that the event worked similarly to a Pluto transit of the Midheaven.

The next event also involves the Midheaven, this time with Uranus as the directed planet. This was in late 1993. At the time, I was working at an investment bank in Boston, in a department that managed stocks for pension plans. I developed stomach problems due to the stress levels, and in February of the next year, one day decided I couldn't do that job any more and gave notice. So the event was similar to a Uranus-Midheaven transit.

The last event I'll cover involves Venus, which was directed to the Midheaven in the summer of 1998. The major event was a trip to Russia to meet my future wife. I came back engaged and got married a year latter. The subsequent divorce ten years later was marked by an aspect between the Midheaven and what's called the antiscion (a shadow spot) of Mars.

If you'd like to try working with primary directions, I recommend using the program Pymorinus. Book Three of William Lilly's Chrisitan Astrology gives instruction on how to use primary directions.

Disclaimer: the first rule of predictive astrology is that no event can happen unless it is indicated in the natal chart. The technique given here is used to determine when events will happen, not if they will happen.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Free Astrology/Tarot E-book

It's time for a publicity stunt!

From now until the end of 2011, I will make the e-book version of my new book, Better Living with Astrology and Tarot, available absolutely free to anyone who requests it. To request it, send an email to all DOT are DOT wonders AT gmail DOT com.