Astrology and Horoscopes

What is astrology?  

To the majority of people it is a bit of harmless fun.  It is a daily horoscope.  A short parapgraph in the newspaper telling you what is going to happen to you today, but written in such general terms it will cover almost anything that does eventually happen.  Or a love horoscope in a magazine telling you who you should date or even marry, based on astrological signs and horoscope compatability.

These things, however, have very little to do with astrology and everything to do with pure entertainment.  If you consult and really believe in the daily horoscopes in the newspaper then you must believe that there are only 12 types of people in the world, and that all the people in each of the horoscope signs (one twelfth of the entire world population in each) will all face very similar challenges today.  Hardly likely is it?  But as there are only 12 star signs in Western Astrology that is the inevitable conculsion.

True astrology is very, very different from this.

If you are going to do it properly you must construct a proper natal chart.  In order to do this you will need to know the exact time and place of birth of your subject.  The more accurate you can be, to the minute rather than to the hour for birth time for example, and to the minute rather than to the degree for longitude for example, the more accurately you will be able to constuct the birth chart.  In most cases you will not have enough information to be this accurate.  You may not even have the exact hour.  Even if you do not have very accurate information, the chart you create will help you produce astrological advice that is far more accurate than anything you will ever have seen in a newspaper or magazine.

You will also need some basic tools - at the very least an accurate Ephemeris for the year of birth , a Table of Houses, a Gazetteer to determine the exact latitude and longitude of the birthplace (unless your subject already knows this, which is very unlikely), a table for converting Degrees and Minutes of Longitude into Longitude Equivalent in Time.  And you will need plenty of blank birth chart forms (although you can make do with blank paper once you really know what you are doing).  You can obtain a worldwide Ephemeris for all birth years from 1900 to 2000 here (or here if you wish to pay in pounds sterling)

In order to calculate the natal chart you will first specify the time of birth in Greenwich Mean Time.  From this you will determine the local sidereal time of birth.  From there you will calculate the positions of the planets and the planetary aspects (the angles between the planets) at the time of birth.

Once you have created the natal chart in this way you need to be able to interpret it.  At first you will find you need to keep referring to books in order to do this.  For as long as that is the case you will not really be an astrologer and you will not be able to predict anything very substantial or meaningful.  You will simply be learning your skills.  Eventually, though, you will find things start to stand out for you and have meaning without the need to refer elsewhere.  As that skill develops, so you will find the art of divination also begins to develop.  This is not a scientific interpretation of the chart, but a way for your inner self to find patterns that "strike a chord" for you in this particular instance.  This is true astrological divination, a skill that is completely unrelated to anything you read in the newspapers or magazines, and one which is unique to you. Another astrologer reading the same chart will arrive at a very different conclusion.  If you and the other astrologer have studied and practised long and hard, both interpretations will be meaningful, but will have different emphases.

If this brief introduction to astrology has interested you, the next step should be to obtain some good study material which will help you develop that interest.  One good astrological primer is "Llewellyn's Complete Book of Astrology".  The link for this is suitable if you wish to pay in US dollars.  If you wish to pay in UK Pounds Sterling you can find it here.

What is Divination

What is divination?

The word "divination" conjures up different images for different people.  Perhaps you imagined someone staring at the entrails of a freshly slaughtered animal (yuck!).  Or looking at the tea leaves in the bottom of their cup.  A clairvoyant staring at a crystal ball.  Looking at a set of tarot cards they have drawn.  Or even performing a magic ritual, invoking spirits from another world to help them prophesy.

Divination can, of course, be any of the above but it is certainly not limited to those images or to anything like them.

We each have a precognitive ability.  We can each be a fortune teller in our own right if we set about it in the right way.

Each of the above techniques can be a valid means of focusing precognition, although personally I would hope messy entrails will not feature in anything you may try!

We all live in three worlds - past, present and future.  It is obvious to most of us that we live in the present, but how about the past and the future?  Do you ever reflect on memories of the past?  If so, while you are doing so you are living in the past.  You also plan for the future in many different ways, and while you are doing that planning to a degree you are living in the future.  Many of the things we do involve a prediction of the future.  For example, if you make yourself fresh and sweet and head out to the cinema, maybe you are predicting that you will meet your boyfriend or girlfriend there - based on the very logical reason that you have already arranged this meeting with them.  Yes, it has been prearranged, but that does not mean it is not still a prediction - nor that the prediction may prove not to materialize (for example, they may change their mind at the last minute).

This last example illustrates a very important fact you must always be aware of when practising divination - there is no absolute certainty about the future.  There are varying degrees of certainty, and your divination will touch on the more likely eventualities, but there is never an absolute certainty.  Apart from anything else, the free will of many individuals will impact on the final result, and the further in the future this may be the more this may cause a change in the result you have forseen.

Far too many people think there is something mystical about divination and prophecy, and that it is something only available to a practising clairvoyant (or, if they are sceptical, not available to anyone at all!).  There are certainly mystical techniques that can be used to focus your power of divination, but the divination itself is not at all mystical - precognition is a capacity we all have in varying degrees.

All future predictions are based on sensing the causes that lead to the event.  Some of these are very mundane and not at all surprising.  We look outside, see large black clouds, and predict there is a strong likelihood it will rain.  We are on our way to work, see a big traffic jam ahead, and predict we will probably arrive late.  These are both still predictions, and cannot be stated with absolute certainty (for example, the traffic may suddenly clear and we may find the rest of the journey is so smooth we arrive early!).  But there are other, much more subtle causes, which we can sense if we clear our mind and spirit to do so, and of which others around us are completely unaware.  It is the latter which are more recognized as the source of divination and prophecy, although the reality is all such causes are simply somewhere on a scale between obvious physical causes and completely hidden, occult causes.

In order to become aware of the myriad of causes of future events we must still our mind and spirit and allow it to become sensitive to them.  Some people find they can easily and naturally do this.  Others need props of various kinds - for example a crystal ball or a bowl of water, in which they begin to see images as they clear their mind and spirit.

Over the next few months I will write about different forms of divination, some of which you may not have realized were divination techniques at all.  For example, in a couple of weeks time you will read an article by me on astrology.  Whenever you study a new divination technique like this, always bear in mind the true basis, the sensitivity of your mind and spirit to the unseen influences that are all around us all the time.  View it in that way and you are much more likely to develop the ability naturally and fully.