It's not whether the observations are correct, but to what extent the person is inclined toward self-observation. People cover the spectrum in that regard, from little awareness of inner states to a world-blocking self-absorption. It's a matter of the innate characteristics assigned to us.

Concerning time: Much depends on a person's ability to play with time and put it into different containers. A Pluto transit of two years can be two years filled with each day's concerns, or that two year period can be seen and experienced nearly as one moment. That does require a backward glance, another trick of time. The inner state creates, or perhaps more correctly, perceives that moment. But then it could be true: The inner state is time. Perceptively living that two-year transit as one moment as it happens probably leads to madness and a lot of missed engagements.

Short version: It depends on what you're looking at.

OK This is it. I"m done after this one and heading back to the tower to spend quality time with my owl, candles, and dusty books.

I think I'd answer that by saying that transformation is not often a proactive occurrence; it happens, by and large, through external events forcing some sort of change on a person that requires not only the 'dealing with' the external events, but also forces one toward introspection and greater self-understanding.

I used the word "transformation" as kind of a catch-all to identify the sort of things moderns like to talk about. Obviously people can be transformed or change at some level. Some greater than others. I don't accept the idea that somehow people are changed in any meaningful way every time an outer planet crosses ann angle or forms an aspect with another outer planet. I think that sort of thing is rubbish. It may happen to some people now and again but it isn't something I'd count on. Most of what I've seen that is called "transformation" is no more than what my grandmother would have called "growing up."

Tyl isn't what's known as a ''psychological astrologer''. It's popular or populist astrology for those who have been unable or disinclined to study depth psychology.

I call it 'agony aunt astrology'.

Although I can find all sorts of things to say about Noel's astrology, I'm going to stick up for him a bit. What attracted me to him was the fact that he had a system for delineating a chart. Knowing what I know now, I'm not so sure it is a great system, but it wasn't gibberish, and there was a method and perhaps a logic to it. Tyl was taught initially by Zoltan Mason, and some of the good stuff apparently stuck even though Tyl went his own way eventually. He teaches an organized method of chart interpretation and he enforces a certain discipline on the student. That I no longer see any great value in the way he does things does not change my opinion that having an organized approach is important.

I'd like your take on this quote of Dane Rudhyar:

"...the meaning and function of all the factors used in astrology are inevitably conditioned by the philosophical approach of the astrologer to the universe, to man and to society. Astrology is, in a very real sense, a 'language'."

Amzolt, you write intelligently and have a passion for the subject and I'm sure you're quite knowledgeable. All of those are characteristics I respect. But you haven't been hanging around here very long, or you never would have asked me this question. I have no use for Dane Rudhyar.

A) He's a poor man's Marc Edmund Jones. Almost everything found in Rudhyar can be found in Jones and often better, always more clearly.

B) He is deliberately obtuse and I hate that in a writer. If you have something to say, say it. Skyscript's very own Kim Farnell once described Rudhyar's style as "Writing in Theosophy." She actually found some of his writings that were written in readable English, but he used a pen name. No point in disappointing the star struck.

C) He and Jones, mostly Jones, realized at some level, that astrology was getting off the track. I doubt, and if Kim still reads these things I hope she'll correct me, that either Jones or Rudhyar had much of a background in the astrology that came before them much less understood them. My own opinion is that they, Rudhyar in particular, pushed astrology further off the track.

The quote is typical Rudhyar. There is a point in there somewhere. It would be much simpler to note that there is a strong philosophical component to astrology and worldview is definitely part of it. In the pre-Enlightenment world view astrology was little more than common sense. In the age of scientific materialism it becomes a problem. I don't think Rudhyar really grasped the difference in the two worldviews and instead took it upon himself to spread the Gospel of Jones his own way. I don't see astrology as a language. I see it as part of a particular worldview.

What confounds me about your position is that you don't see how internal transformation can help order the life and you claim that transits show nearly nothing "happening" in your life. I find your position quite interesting.

I think using words like "internal transformation" conveys nothing of value. People don't mature emotionally on schedule with outer planet transits. My experience is that none of the outer planet transits timed anything in my life that modern astrology said they should time. I am not the only person to notice this. Rob Hand has written and commented on the undeniable fact that transits by themselves, often mean nothing. Why not? My answer is that "Transits alone are not enough." The don't coincide with things that are not noted elsewhere in the chart, its directions, progressions or revolutions.

I've had the normal life experiences. I've been married, divorced, remarried, had children, lost jobs, found jobs, done stupid things, done smart things, lost a parent, two really, as well as all my grandparents. I was fortunate in that I never had to endure genuine abuse, or some of the other tragedies people are forced to endure. I like to think that I've grown up a bit over the last 60+ years. All I'm saying is that if we look at the transits and compare them to the time of the major events in my life, internal and external, they don't measure up. They don't line up. That's why I don't use them.

Tom

Kirk wrote: It's not whether the observations are correct, but to what extent the person is inclined toward self-observation. People cover the spectrum in that regard, from little awareness of inner states to a world-blocking self-absorption. It's a matter of the innate characteristics assigned to us.

If the characteristics are all innate, then what use is it to exhort people to self-awareness?

If the observations are not correctable, then is there something else to self-observation other then self-absorption?

Although I can find all sorts of things to say about Noel's astrology, I'm going to stick up for him a bit. What attracted me to him was the fact that he had a system for delineating a chart. Knowing what I know now, I'm not so sure it is a great system, but it wasn't gibberish, and there was a method and perhaps a logic to it. Tyl was taught initially by Zoltan Mason, and some of the good stuff apparently stuck even though Tyl went his own way eventually. He teaches an organized method of chart interpretation and he enforces a certain discipline on the student. That I no longer see any great value in the way he does things does not change my opinion that having an organized approach is important.

I think you read it in a way I didn't intend it to be read. Tyl's 'astrology' is what it is. In comparison to Psychological Astrology it's surface, superifical, easy and so on. But this suits many people not everyone wants to, is disposed to or can afford to spend yrs studying depth psychology before they are in a position to make any deeper sense (in theory) of a horoscope. Same with agony aunts, or behavourial psychologists, they have their place and doubtless help many people with this and that.

BTW, I'd be very surprised if anything happened to you under an Outer planet transit that you 'noticed' . If you go with the Depth Psychological approach most of the chart is unconscious.

Robert Hand takes the view after, in my opinion, an erudite appraisal of the Hermetic ''as above, so below'' that astrology 'is an event in consciousness not an event in nature'. As regards transits these are experienced as emotions and the 'events' are the result of these emotions. So if you don't 'experience' them nothing is going to happen. Of course there's more to it .................

OK This is it. I"m done after this one and heading back to the tower to spend quality time with my owl, candles, and dusty books.

OK I lied but this is it.

BTW, I'd be very surprised if anything happened to you under an Outer planet transit that you 'noticed' . If you go with the Depth Psychological approach most of the chart is unconscious.

Then what's the point of it? The beauty of dealing with something that is unconscious and unnoticeable is that the interpreter can never be wrong.

Robert Hand takes the view after, in my opinion, an erudite appraisal of the Hermetic ''as above, so below'' that astrology 'is an event in consciousness not an event in nature'. As regards transits these are experienced as emotions and the 'events' are the result of these emotions. So if you don't 'experience' them nothing is going to happen. Of course there's more to it .................

Does he still take this view? He might, (I heard him say something similar many,many years ago), but he does define himself as" ... a medieval astrologer who uses Hellenistic when it does not conflict with the medieval, but I use the outer planets." The description given doesn't sound like medieval astrology, but he is a bit of an eclectic. This self-described medieval astrologer has been spotted using a 90-degree dial.

With all due respect to Mr. Hand, I just find the idea that the planets "act" on our emotions, which they would have to do in order for them to be experienced as described above, about as credible as the idea that they cause earthquakes.

The "as above, so below" quote is always left there and that is less than half of it. I can't find an accurate translation, well actually, I don't feel like going through a dozen or more books where it might be. It goes something like this "As above so below; as below so above in order to accomplish the one thing." This means everything is connected. We are connected to the planets; the planets are connected to us. And we are connected for a reason or reasons. If we can find that reason in the unconscious, I suppose it works. I just have my doubts the advisability of astrologers poking around in the unconscious. As was once pointed out to me: The unconscious is unconscious for a reason."

I once tried explaining the as above so below stuff to a non astrologer, something I've long since stopped trying, but he seemed to get it even though he raised the following objection. "Well if that's true, why not study leaves on trees, or running water or blades of grass?" The answer is of course, that you can - in theory. People once studied the livers of slaughtered animals. The planets however gives something that hands, runes, the I Ching and tarot cards do not. They give us timing. We know where the planets will be at a given date and time - now more accurately than ever before. So to say that we can take this information, plot it on a chart and then announce: "you won't feel a thing," seems counter productive.

For the alternative point of view, try Tillyard's The Elizabethan Worldview. Better yet, get a copy of C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image.

On a more personal note: part of my objection to psychological astrology is that I have objections to psychotherapy. It's not that I think psychotherapy never works, it's just that I think it is over-hyped and probably best left for people who really need it, not just those who feel it is unfair that they should have difficulties in their lives. And if one really needs it, he is far better off going to a mental health professional than an astrologer.

As for Noel and whether or not he is a "real" psychological astrologer, my only comment is that it is good to see the other side fighting over definitions like the traditionalists do.

Tom

Then what's the point of it? The beauty of dealing with something that is unconscious and unnoticeable is that the interpreter can never be wrong

According to Hand, and I'd say this is the Psychological Astrology view which is rooted in an 'understanding' of Hermetic, Neo-Platonic and Kabbalistic thinking, it's pretty much the 'raison d'etre' of astrology. If you are 'unconscious' of your chart then your chart will be your 'fate'.

It's an hr long but perhaps this talk is of critical importance for all astrological enthusiasts. The implications, if Hand is right, is that a large part of what is loosely defined as Predictive astrology, which is also sometimes seen as rooted in this Hermetic mindset, is something of a fallacy, immoral and hubris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L6eb4wK ... PL&index=4

Yes of course it's very hard to be 'wrong'. But then this is the criticism of all astrology that it's non-falsifiable. A horary astrologer can say the 'signs' were mysteriously not contactable or the querent wasn?t serious. The predictive astrologer can say well on reflection it was this progression, direction, transit...........not this one and so on.

As for Noel and whether or not he is a "real" psychological astrologer, my only comment is that it is good to see the other side fighting over definitions like the traditionalists do.

I haven't seen any fighting amongst Psychological Astrologers or perception that they are on 'another side'. They take the view that the type of 'astrology' you gravitate towards is a result of your historical / (sub) cultural circumstance and your chart.

If you haven't read it Greene's talk on the last 2,000yrs of astrology, and todays diversity, should be of interest.

http://www.astro.com/astrology/in_lifeview_e.htm

Yes of course it's very hard to be 'wrong'. But then this is the criticism of all astrology that it's non-falsifiable. A horary astrologer can say the 'signs' were mysteriously not contactable or the querent wasn?t serious. The predictive astrologer can say well on reflection it was this progression, direction, transit...........not this one and so on.

But those are just rationalizations or excuses by the astrologer for getting it wrong. If I make a prediction of a verifiable event or accurately describe an individual or his or her reaction to an event, I will be right or wrong and it will be obvious. If I get it wrong and blame the astrology, or the weather or anything else it is less of a reflection on the astrology than it is on the astrologer. That's no different than a carpenter blaming his tools when the boards aren't cut correctly.

If we come up with a way to use astrology that can never be verified one way or the other until after the events, it doesn't seem very useful, e.g. "Joe optimized his chart so he must have been conscious of it; Mary wasn't conscious of it and look what happened to her - just what the predictive astrologer would have said would happen to her."

I think all astrology has a problem here including traditional. Hindsight astrology is wonderful and relatively easy. After poring over a chart after an event to find out how it was shown in the chart (what we all do when we are studying), the question becomes "Is this predictable?" In other words, would a knowledgeable astrologer, given this information in advance be able to predict the event? If the answer is nearly always, "no," I think we're wasting our time.

Tom

I can appreciate your quest for scientific verification of transits, Tom...but IMO this feels a bit like the head of my department telling us that our work is meaningless unless we can quantify it...our work being almost purely of a qualitative nature.

Take the Pluto transit we previously discussed. No, you can't predict *exactly* what will take place, when, for example, Pluto transits your ASC. For you, at age 8, it was events beyond your control, and at the age of 8 very few people have developed sufficiently in a cognitive sense to derive any sort of 'meaning' from the event, beyond the event itself.

For my oldest friend, whose ASC is in late Sagittarius (the same degree as my Sun; how's that for synastry) experienced Pluto crossing her ASC as a crisis period with her father, who has been both physically and verbally abusive in the past. My friend, during this transit, found the strength of will to finally stand firm against him and refused to participate in his particular 'play for today'. She also took up yoga and tai chi, both symbolic, perhaps, of her increasing internal strength and flexibility. Another friend, also with a late Sag ASC (again, the same degree as my Sun. Peculiar) experienced the transit in a completely different way. Both of these people were much older than 8 at the time of the transit, so of course their experience of the transit was different than yours, both objectively and subjectively. By nature, it would have to be.

Coincidence? Perhaps. If you are looking for purely quantitative data on a Pluto/ASC transit, for example, you'll be on a hiding to nothing, I totally agree. The problem is that so much of life is subjective and highly individual; so there is no way that a single transit across a certain sign/degree will be felt in exactly the same way by each and every person, which is what I think is bothering you about the whole thing. However, when asked (without any astrological suggestion whatsoever, merely a curious, "How were the years between 2006-8 for you?") both commented that those years a) had been very challenging and often difficult emotionally, and b) both had found a final resolution to a long-standing issue in their lives that had previously caused them to feel powerless. Both of these matters would fall under Pluto, if you are to believe the psychological astrologers. Likewise, another friend of mine whose Venus is in the same sign/degrees as mine, when asked (again, in terms of years, rather than astrologically) about the years when Pluto was conjuncting those degrees, relayed a tale that was, while not identical to my own experiences during those years, identical in *feel* as well as with the 'deeper' issues involved: mainly relationships and how one deals with them.

Were other things involved, notwithstanding the Pluto transit across those degrees? Probably. Life doesn't occur in a vacuum chamber, but I *think* that there IS merit to transits, and that people *do* feel them...not all, and not with the same degree of awareness that 'something is happening', but if you were to take people with similar aspects/angles in their charts, and ask them open questions about what happened during those years, you would find similarities, again, in the *expression* rather than in exactitude.

GH

An interesting discussion, many thought-provoking points made.

Tom, you got dragged into this against your will... But you make some very good and common-sense points which I'm glad you took the time to add to the discussion. I nodded particularly vigorously when you pointed out that

a lot of what is called 'internal transformation' today is what my grandmother would have called 'growing up'.

This really struck a chord with me. I'm in my 20s and I can't tell you how shocked I am on a daily basis by the behaviour and expectations of my peer group. We've somehow been conditioned to believe that nothing is our fault, that "hard work" equates to "boring" and that "having fun" is the only point of life. We've been conditioned never to grow up, never to just grit our teeth and get on with it. It's always someone else's fault.

This all has to do with this misguided notion of "internal transformation", that somehow the very basic task of growing up and maturing, dealing with disappointment, loss and trauma, is to be applauded as outstanding and unique. It's not.

Anyway, back to the topic. I have found that for actual external events to occur, one single transit, no matter what planet(s) is involved, will not produce any concrete result. A single transit can produce a change of mood, yes, but not a major concrete external event. For a concrete event to be produced, there must be progressions AND transits, happening within a month or two of each other. For something concrete to happen, it must be shown not once, but twice (progression plus transit).

Gunhilde, I'd bet a whole box of Quality Street that the events connected to Pluto's transit in your chart are also shown by the progressions at that time ':brows'.

And finally, yes I have noticed that some people respond much more strongly to a particular planet than others (eg Pluto, Uranus). Some people can have a serious Pluto transit and absolutely nothing will happen. Others have the same transit and all kinds of things happen. I think this is down to the details of each person's chart (what is promised) - and of course, the progressions must add up for a transit to have any effect.

Keren

I think all astrology has a problem here including traditional. Hindsight astrology is wonderful and relatively easy. After poring over a chart after an event to find out how it was shown in the chart (what we all do when we are studying), the question becomes "Is this predictable?" In other words, would a knowledgeable astrologer, given this information in advance be able to predict the event? If the answer is nearly always, "no," I think we're wasting our time.

If Hand is right about the emerald tablet then it may well be a lot of people who define themselves as astrologers, may not be wasting their time, but be on something of a fools errand. But maybe this is their fate?

Campions survey suggests around 40% of folks who define themselves as ''astrologers'' regard it as a means of predicting the future. So there's a lot of people around who perhaps have more to lose than is tolerable if they start thinking Hand is on or near the money here.
.

But those are just rationalizations or excuses by the astrologer for getting it wrong. If I make a prediction of a verifiable event or accurately describe an individual or his or her reaction to an event, I will be right or wrong and it will be obvious. If I get it wrong and blame the astrology, or the weather or anything else it is less of a reflection on the astrology than it is on the astrologer. That's no different than a carpenter blaming his tools when the boards aren't cut correctly

Isn't this just faulty reasoning?

Here?s Popper:
?It is easy to obtain confirmations or verifications, for nearly every theory?if we look for confirmations. . . . Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory??

The sports board here is a good example. If someone gets 20 results right in a row does this suggest astrology is responsible? No, there could be a range of reasons. If they get most right, most of the time and consistently do better than a football pundit then it might be worth looking into. But do they?

Although I feel reluctant to comment over here (I once was hanged drawn and quartered for not following the symbolic doctrine) I'd like to say I agree on most points of Tom.

In my beginning years of astrology I read Rudhyar's "Astrology of personality". I never suffer a headache but I did after that book for a few days. Then I decided that his kind of astrology was not the kind for me. As the only books I could find tended to theosophism, I felt very attracted to Kepler's ideas of rejecting the houses and signs and going in a more 'scientific' direction.

Perhaps a strange reason and a radical decision, but when I as reader was bombarded with cosmic eggs, tied up with snakes biting their own tails and had all my bones broken on the wheel of karma before getting to an explanation of the astrological symbols in an incomprehensable language, I believed most astrologybooks were set up according to the pattern: "Those who enter, leave all reason.".

Contrary to this, in the Tetrabiblos I find a lot of common sense, it is rational. I like the physical/natural explanation of astrology. Even though I have different ideas and may not agree with him on several points, on the whole I like the concept of Ptolemy's scientific approach.


In my opinion transits often do work though and I even believe they 'work' very close to the exact moments. However I don't agree with the 'transformation' stuff. Transits come and go, they have their effect like the weather has and after them I remain the same old me. They mainly seem to work on the emotional level as a change of feelings. However as emotions are chemical processes in the brains, I therefore consider their effects as 'physical'.

They sometimes do become more apparent. During transits of Venus over the Ascendant or Jupiter over Venus I get more (feminine) attention. So indirectly I think the stimulances in the brain work through to the looks and physical condition. And a few of my transits can even be related to 'real' events.


Perhaps this still sounds quite psychological but I'd rather see this in the traditional sense of the humours and perhaps with a modern sense of humour .

One Bull's eye predition is generally enough to validate astrology in my opinion. The random chance of a mundane/particular event being predicted with accuracy of time and location along rich details are very small, and random chance can not stand it's ground, since it would have to be accounted for each and every detail on the prediction. Astrology is about getting it real right one single time.

Now, about this transit discussion, I feel somewhat of a drive seeking utopia when we try to align them with life events. It's an unperfect universe. The effects and their rules are not universal, There's no uniformity. But there are patterns. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. You have to use them in a enviroment that you know they will work most of the time or at all times if possible. As far as a predictive tool, transits are an aid, but they just pave the way. For instance, among other reasons, if everything is interconnected, who can say that a transit is not an event taking place out of our bodies and perception, preparing itself to lead to another one? I've seen a transit to my 12th house as the culmination of a series of events that lead to a car crash once. Everytime I suffered an agression on the street, two planets had entered my 6th or 8th house and when the third enters and form a sttelium I get a punch, kick and things like that in the face.

The same way, the only time of my life I get to be approached by girls is in the beggining of every year, when Jupiter goes over my natal Saturn. Obviously there are important transits.

What most of us forget is that our natal charts is not only ours. At the same time the Moon represent's a bodily function through a sanguine relation to Jupiter, it may also represent a woman preparing herself to leave her house that night and meeting us for a short time. Or even meeting a friend of us, that later will comment how much of a beauty she was. And that relate to us, only but in not a so direct way. Our chart is not only ours, our events is not only ours. The representation system of astrology is unperfect in the sense that it does not serve to it's hoped for purpose in a complete way (if perfectly prediting is your purpose). Still, that's what we have to work with. And sometimes, we may be able to use it to predict fairly well. And by knowing, to act accordingly. But them again, this ability is nothing more than something that was already accounted for. If we can predict, that means that there is a reason for it. Some people gets by without it, we do not. Why can we predict? That I do not know. But I could care less.

Also, the psychological approach only leads to confusion IMO, as if everything on the chart belongs to us, as if we are the center of the universe. Our emotional changes are related to reality, nothing changes without a reason. For you to feel grief, there must have to be something going on, you can not feel it out of nothingness, something lead to that. And that something is verifiable. Instead of caring about transits that seems to mean "nothing", we should look at those that mean. Those that have any importance as a trigger or culmination. After all, we have only 7 planets, and they are in charge of the sunny day as much as the day of our deaths. We cannot call for the Super Special Miracle Planet everytime an important event happens, Jupiter will be in charge both of the rain that falls on our yard and that fantastic lottery prize you were destined for. And our emotions and inner transformation are the result of something real, something that happened or that was denied to us by not happening at all. Moods change can be very informative when you see a transit that means sadness and depression or joy and exaltation and can track what lead to that, if not like this, they have little value, even for transformation. Nothing happens in isolation, time is always on the move, and emotions are subjective reactions to reality. In that sense, they are real and usefull.