Okay, I need some direction and professional advice on just what methods work and what doesn't. Has anyone kept a record of what interpretations or methods actually are accurate? In seriously learning astrology several years ago, I felt, much like Robert Hand that it was not put together properly, this was after much reading and studying. So I thought if none of this is good enough for Robert Hand there must be something wrong with all the methods I am reading, and they must not be valid for Robert Hand to keep looking for the missing liknk to make Astrology work for him.

Then quite a while ago in reading , Bernadette Bradys book, something also didn't seem quite right, and In her interview on this website, I see that she does not think much of Lilly at ALL, and says she no longer uses the methods of what she teaches in the book!!!

So then I just left it all alone, and went it with the traditional meanings, and started interpreting using those of planets, houses, signs, sometimes triplicities, always transits and solar returns. As far as predicting, it seems to work extremely well for one client in particular, her life seems to follow the transits to a precise activities, which if very unusual!! For her I can tell her months in advance that this is when it will happen, not so much throuhgh horary, and your methods, (significator, etc.) but because of the transits hitting progressesed planets and the houses they are in. It works to within a day or two, of the event she wants to know.

However, I would like to learn horary properly, so can anyone guide or direct me to the correct BOOKS that would give me a good start? I saw the post on courses,but how about some suggesstions on books on the art of predicting using Horary Astrology. Can you all let me know which ones tend to have the best and most accurate methods?

I seem to be all over the board lately in learning this, as life as you all know also interferes with studying and putting into practice for real people, just friends and family and friends of friends, I do not have the confidence yet for clients. Even though my niece whom I predict very accurately for,thinks so. I also need some references for a good framework to follow, as a beginning in the consultation. So help in that area, books, would be appreciated, authors that you all and have tested yourself as being accurate. I would really appreciate your guidance and direction at this point.

Thanks so much for your guidance

If you go down the page quite a ways to the post entitled, "Question About John Frawley's Horary Textbook," that I posted, there was a lot of discussion about different authors of horary books. You will find a lot of information from the various postings.

Happy reading

I was under the impression Brady said she doesn't follow Modern astrology any longer in that interview? Also Brady had been studying Fixed stars for quite a while now which is a more ancient method than Lillie. I dont recall her discounting Lillie in any of our discussions? but perhaps I missed something. I know that when I stopped using outers as rulers things started making a whole lot more sense. I still use them, but as accents.

Also I agree with Linda Reid, keep it simple, work with the planets and angles, make yourself a spread sheet that takes into account all the things you want to keep track of and once you've taken into account the simple things, THEN you can spread out a bit. too much when you dont understand it well can just make you crazy.

Granny

Thank you all so very much!! Tom a list of books that I can start with that comes highly recommended is worth gold! I have gone through so many books, and am not sure which ones are the most accurate. IT can be a waste of time and money and lead one astray!

The link to the post of the previous discussion on this was very helpful also, I read it all!

My thoughts in reading the previous discussion thread on this, left me wondering if all that energy into traditional vs. modern, would have been more productive if anyone ever took the time to approach a quasi-scientific study and actually make specific predictions, using differing methods. If a group or this group, those that use Lilly, and those who have altered Lilly's interpretations, could form a study group and actually keep track of accurate predictions. That would be very interesting.

I have been in metaphysics close to 30 years, Astrology on and off for about 15, seriously just the past few years. My predictions for my neice have been with in one to two days of occuring, on several occasions, without the use of Lilly, and with just the progressions and transits. After her house had not sold after three months she was so desperate, I told her when she would get the offer and when she would get the money. That she would have to wait only 3 more weeks, and gave her the day of the offer, within one day. Not bad, and several more that were within two days. However, I am not secure and confident yet, and feel I needed more direction and information for more difficult questions.

Granny, I believe, and I would have to read it again, that in the interview/article on Bernadette Brady on Debs Website, she does indeed laugh at Lilly as well as state she doesn't even use the methods she used when she wrote her book regarding predictive astrology, the lark ...., as well as my impression in reading the article, she did not think much of the fixed stars as well!! Pretty much discounting them altogether, saying she does not use them. My feeling was she wrote the book for money and a name for herself. Really disappointed in reading that interview, which really lead me to ask the question of guidance for some level of professionals that I could trust, who use thier own methods, rather than read a method someone doesn't even believe in anymore, wasting time and money!

So I thank you all so very much for leading me into the proper direction. How about a great author on reading the Birth Chart? Tom, can you provide some direction and suggestions?

This is a great forum!

Don't judge Brady too harshly by the interview! It?s a good idea to keep in mind the statement on the left side of the interview page:

?This interview is slightly updated from one first recorded by Garry Phillipson on 31 May 1998?.
http://www.skyscript.co.uk/brady.html

That was nearly 8 and a half years ago. It tells us little about what she thinks and how she practices now. ?Slightly updated? provides little information.

Hello,

Hello,

As far as I can tell Brady teaches 2 big subjects of astrology,

Medieval/ancient natal astrology and astrology of the fixed stars.

Medieval and ancient astrology refers mainly to that astrology which is Bonatti/Arabic medieval astrology. Her main texts seem to be Liber Hermetis (Hermes), Tetrabiblos (Ptolemy), Three books of nativities (Omar of Tiberias), Liber Astronomiae (Bonatti), Carmen Astrologicum (Dorotheus of Sidon), Mathesis (Firmicus Maternus), books by the Arab astrologers (Abu Ma?shar, Masha?Allah, Albiruni, Ibnu Ezra, Abu Ali Al-Khayyat, etc.), the Greeks (Vettius Valens, Hephaistio), maybe one or two of the later astrologers (Montulmo, Schoener) plus of course works by Rob Hand, Rob Zoller and Lee Lehman.

Since astrology was somehow filtered during and after the crusades and following that, during the Renaissance, she does not seem to take note of those modern traditionalists ? e.g. Lilly, Morinus, ?(and she does not give courses on horary ? as far as I know).

Her course on fixed stars is also following the ancient visual methods (which the software Starlight does) using paran relationships between fixed stars and planets and not the projected onto the ecliptic method used extensively by Lilly and many modern astrologers. This is the software that I intend to get as it is the only software that allows me to calculate the parapegama of stars, heliacal rising and setting stars, paran relationships, etc.

I don?t think she discards the fixed stars. Just have a look on some of her articles on visual astrology:

http://www.zyntara.com/starlight_newsletters.htm

Her predictive approach (currently) may include a lot of those medieval techniques and algorithms than those portrayed in her previous book, The eagle and the lark.

Hi Reginae,

I'd like to pick up a couple of themes from this interesting thread you've started. First, I have to say that I think you're being unfair to Brady in a couple of things you say. You don't have to meet her for long to realise that her attitude to astrology is not cynical, she's almost ridiculously passionate about the subject and about evaluating and testing techniques.

What she says about her book The Eagle & the Lark/Predictive Astrology is this:

So basically I deconstructed my astrology piece by piece, quite thoroughly, and rebuilt it again. I stopped seeing clients for a while so I could do that, and started working much more on predictive work? so, yes, my astrology has changed dramatically since The Eagle and the Lark. Fortunately, that book covered the predictive side and I?m still happy with that! Now I would add a few more chapters, because I have added in a lot of medieval predictive techniques ? firdaria, almutens and so on.

So her point at that time (and so far as I know this is still what she'd say) is that she reworked her entire approach to astrology after writing that book, but even after that reworking she wouldn't change what she says there, just add some new stuff about firdaria etc.

On a more general point, I think I'm right in saying that you're on a quest to find what is the best way to practise astrology? This is also something that I hoped to figure out in the course of interviewing all the astrologers for my book Astrology in the Year Zero, so I feel a certain affinity here! My conclusion, for what it's worth, is that there is no such thing as a definitive best astrological technique. Because the individual astrologer is inevitably involved in interpretation, we each have to find a set of techniques that mesh with our personality and work for us. So that you can have different astrologers practising in different, sometimes contradictory, ways, but the question of 'who is right and who is wrong' on the points of difference would be mistaken. Just as (to use a common analogy) it would be mistaken to ask which language is correct, Italian or French.

OK, see what you think of this:

Can one learn this knowledge? Yes; some can. Not, however, by taking a course in it, but through 'experience'. - Can someone else be a man's teacher in this? Certainly. From time to time he gives him the right tip. - This is what 'learning' and 'teaching' are like here. - What one aquires here is not a technique; one learns correct judgments. There are also rules, but they do not form a system, and only experienced people can apply them right. Unlike calculating-rules.

What is most difficult here is to put this indefiniteness, correctly and unfalsified, into words.

It seems to me that this points to something significant about the nature of astrological understanding. In fact it is about the difficulty of evaluating when people express their feelings genuinely, and when they do not. It's from Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations 193).

You say that you have a background in metaphysics, so I'd definitely recommend to you The Moment of Astrology by Geoffrey Cornelius. People sometimes find this heavy going, but it seems to me that for anyone with a burning interest in trying to figure out how and why astrology works, it's a real page-turner. (This is what it is btw - a book about astrology's philosophical issues, not a book about how to judge charts etc.) My book's not bad, either!

One final thing - the idea that there can be different valid ways to practise astrology sometimes seems as if it will mean that 'anything goes' and that there would be no benefit to be gained from studying other astrologers etc. I don't believe this to be true at all. Somehow it seems that we have to act as if there is an absolutely valid technique and strive to reach it through reading, pondering, discussion and practice. Quite why this should be is one of the subject's mysteries, I think. According to metaphysical taste one might say that it is because one needs to show the gods that one is in earnest, or because one needs to convince the unconscious mind that its participation has been legitimised.

Good, so, I'm glad we've got that all sorted out!

Thank you all so very much, this has provided MUCH CLARITY. One, it identifies for me, who?s who. Which authors are considered Medieval/Ancient and which are considered traditional. So that when I read them I know which category they belong in, so I can form my own methods from them all and I know where they are coming from.

But as Deb and you all have said, it is essential for me to know which school of astrological thought they belong to. This has been MOST helpful in that respect, except to identify which you all consider traditional astrologers. I have copied the list of Medieval and Ancient.

I have had Lilly?s books for several years, I think he would also admit he has a few missing points, not to say he doesn?t have 95 percent of it correct. I also read back then, that astrology was truly in disrepute at the time, especially from the church?s point of view. I believe Lilly was trying to bring some respectability to it, by naming it Christian Astrology which was more palatable and acceptable at the time and if I remember correctly several astrologers were jailed as well as Lilly questioned at inquests of the fire.

This is where Rob Hand came in for me, he also thought there is something missing, and he is on the search for it. That is when I threw my hands up and became a bit discontented. Add Brady to the mix and I did not want to find myself in her position, that after countless years of using a method finding the errors. I understand the feeling she described perfectly.

There is a lot that is correct about the methods and those few that are not seem to discount the entire theories sometimes, according to my logically thinking. Such as, in Ptolemy Table of Essential Dignities, puts Saturn in Detriment in Leo. So it does not follow nor make sense to me that Saturn could be the Term Ruler from 0 to 6, nor the Face ruler to 10 degrees, that would be a very weak ruler, if in the sign of its detriment. I do not understand the logic in that!! And would be hesitant to apply that. Or I guess just read it as a very weakened ruler. Who would make Saturn detriment, a ruler of a term or face in Leo?

However, as I used it, I did see it worked, as well as the traditional, so I threw away the thoughts that said it had to be perfect before I could use a method and the missing links had to be filled in. So now I am back on track with all of your help. Start where I am and the rest will be given.

I felt I also need to make an outline of a method of study, the players, who is who and follow it, as I lately found myself running amuck in too many directions.

So all of your help as been extremely HELPFUL, and I thank you all so very much. I have to go back and make a solid foundation and just go from there!

Hi Reginae,

Being of the humble type, Garry will not press the point so I will. For anyone who has these sorts of questions, Astrology in the Year Zero is an excellent book for getting a wonderful overview of astrology by many astrologers practising today.

I doubt whether you will ever find anyone or any method that you agree with in its entirety. There are things about Lilly I strongly disagree with and will never accept but overall I accept his methods. The same goes for any teacher. The best teachers are those who encourage and support you to find your own best way of doing things. If you go by anyone 100% then you are practising their way of astrology, not yours. That is not to say that you will not find people you largely agree with. I agree with the person who taught me about 98% of the time but there is always that 2% where we will argue and disagree about something (and at those times the 2% starts to feel like 98%). But it is only because I had such a good grounding in the basics of traditional astrology that I am able to argue and debate a point. The other thing I appreciate about my studies was the emphasis on reading the traditional texts. No offence to any teachers of traditional astrology out there but you should never just take someone's word for what Lilly or Bonatus or Dorotheus did or said. What you often get is someone's interpretation of what these authors said and it is not necessarily what was said at all. You need to go back to the original sources and see for yourself. This is made so much easier today with the amount of translations being done. You will soon come to a point where you are able to discern what is best for you. This will most likely be a combination of things from all sorts of sources. It will all come together eventually and you will become comfortable with the way you approach astrology.

Good luck with it. It is a wonderful adventure.

Sue

Hello Sue,

Very Well said, it's unusual, but I agree with 100% of what you said. It mirrors my feelings entirely and you are correct!

I already planned to get Garry's Book, as I dreaded, at this point, to do the same research he did, which is what I would have done. I do have Bonatti's Astrologers Guide or at least the 146 considerations. And always, ponder what I read and test it to see if it plays out in reality before I accept any theory, as well as read the original. As you find that I usually get someone else's interpretation filtered through their own perspective on life and their views. Much like religion, as opposed to actually reading the Bible. Everyone has their own interpretation. So I agree with you whole heartedly!

Thanks so much for your feedback! I wish I knew what all you already know at this point. But slowly and step by step, I will get there. It is an adventure. There doesn't seem to be enough time for everything now a days, as time seems to fly by!

Thanks so much for your feedback! I wish I knew what all you already know at this point.

I wish I could remember even half of what I have already forgotten.