My wife likes to read monthly forecasts by Susan Miller, and some times (2-3 times per year) those came really true, even in details. But mostly were wrong.
She wrote once something like: "Dear Taurians, I happy to announce that your 10th house ruler Uranus is no longer in retro motion. So, all steam ahead with your career plans now!"
She meant that Uranus ruling Aquarius, which is 10th sign from Taurus.

amelia wrote: What is scary about that perspective, though, is that the reverse ought also to be true :if one has no transits, no progressions, no directions for a few days/hours/minutes etc and presumably one will cease to exist completely for that time..................................?

Sorry but why would it? Do astrologers state that one can only exist if you are having transits or progressions? I've never read that anywhere. There's a difference between having noticeable events, or not, in your life and then ceasing to exist. :S

I can't resist to share with you, have noticed that many Taurians at this forum.
And this is again from Susan Miller's November forecast
http://www.astrologyzone.com/forecasts/ ... s_full.php
And we'll find out shortly if its true:
"...No matter what the reason you may need an infusion of hefty cash - to pay tuition, to buy a house, or have a baby - the friendly solar eclipse of November 25 in your house of "other people's money" can now open a new, exciting path for you. The eighth house, where this eclipse will fall, rules such things as your credit, loans, taxes, settlements, scholarships, financial aid, mortgage or home refinancing plans, court settlements, divorce agreements, insurance payouts, inheritance, prize winnings, bonuses and commissions, licensing fees, and similar types of money. As you see, this house does not rule salary, but rather, money that seems to make its way to your door in other ways.

The fact that this eclipse will be the friendliest one of 2012 bodes well for you. It seems likely you will get the money you need to move forward with any dream. Have faith, dear Taurus. Eclipses bring events from the outside world that is out of your control, that you don't expect, and yet that have a direct bearing on your life. With four heavenly bodies in your eighth house, including the Sun, new moon eclipse, Venus, and Mercury, this is certainly a busy hub, and because this eclipse is nicely aspected, I feel the news will be terrific. I think you will be happy!

This month, if you work in a creative field or support artists and/or other creative people, you will find this same eight-month period to be a blessing, for you will be at your very best and quite excited about projects that come up.

Speaking about your work, no matter what career you work in now, November 22 or 23 should bring you exceptional career news, thanks to a beam between the Sun and Uranus, the planet that rules your tenth house of fame and honors. You could see a terrific breakthrough at this time, or get hints that it's all coming in late January or early February. "

Yuriy wrote:I can't resist to share with you, have noticed that many Taurians at this forum.
And this is again from Susan Miller's November forecast
http://www.astrologyzone.com/forecasts/ ... s_full.php
And we'll find out shortly if its true:
"...No matter what the reason you may need an infusion of hefty cash - to pay tuition, to buy a house, or have a baby - the friendly solar eclipse of November 25 in your house of "other people's money" can now open a new, exciting path for you. The eighth house, where this eclipse will fall, rules such things as your credit, loans, taxes, settlements, scholarships, financial aid, mortgage or home refinancing plans, court settlements, divorce agreements, insurance payouts, inheritance, prize winnings, bonuses and commissions, licensing fees, and similar types of money. As you see, this house does not rule salary, but rather, money that seems to make its way to your door in other ways.

The fact that this eclipse will be the friendliest one of 2012 bodes well for you. It seems likely you will get the money you need to move forward with any dream. Have faith, dear Taurus. Eclipses bring events from the outside world that is out of your control, that you don't expect, and yet that have a direct bearing on your life. With four heavenly bodies in your eighth house, including the Sun, new moon eclipse, Venus, and Mercury, this is certainly a busy hub, and because this eclipse is nicely aspected, I feel the news will be terrific. I think you will be happy!

This month, if you work in a creative field or support artists and/or other creative people, you will find this same eight-month period to be a blessing, for you will be at your very best and quite excited about projects that come up.

Speaking about your work, no matter what career you work in now, November 22 or 23 should bring you exceptional career news, thanks to a beam between the Sun and Uranus, the planet that rules your tenth house of fame and honors. You could see a terrific breakthrough at this time, or get hints that it's all coming in late January or early February. "

This is absolute bull****. The art of saying nothing, promising everything we are so used to these days. Just another astrologer trying to make a buck by bull******** people with bogus forecasts and selling some books and products with glyphs all over them. But hey, you need to make a living, right?

Seiko wrote:
This is absolute bull****. The art of saying nothing, promising everything we are so used to these days. Just another astrologer trying to make a buck by bull******** people with bogus forecasts and selling some books and products with glyphs all over them. But hey, you need to make a living, right?

Nevertheless you can verify shortly her forecast about current eclipse, that occurred in 2nd house for Scorpios.
Why I still reading her monthly writing, because we've done some major mortgage refinancing shortly before crisis at the end of 2008. And miraculously her general forecast for that month described situation on daily basis, 90% accurate...

Yuriy wrote:Personally I'm disappointed with outer planets trine/sextile aspects to natal points. Mostly conjunction/opposition/square influences more or less obvious.

I experienced the same and to the extent that I even considered kicking out the sextile and trine too. I haven't done it because sometimes they seemed to have effect, and they fit into Kepler's considarations of congruence. A modern approach is to concentrate on the 'hard' aspects because these are considered difficult and therefore bring more opportunity to 'learn' while 60/120 have this much less. However I've had both positive and difficult experiences with Saturn's 60/120 transits so I think the aspect indicates rather a relationship than the good or bad times. I think that's the classical approach too. It's the character of the planet that determines the character of the aspect.

Note that Kepler placed the sextile and trine in hierarchy after conjunction, opposition and square so it might be just the weakness of them that makes them less noticeable.

Amelia wrote:I used to work all hours god sent and never noticed individual Saturn transits. Since I have had a less pressing work role though I find I do notice them - indeed a Saturn transit prior to a holiday will go unnoticed but when I go on the holiday chances are I'll meet Saturn through some form of difficulty because the self imposed ( i.e integrated into daily life) restriction is lifted one gets an external event instead. Then it is bck to work and Saturn seems to disappear again!

For me it's just the other way round . Maybe our holidays are somewhat different but during holidays I never seemed to mention them. Perhaps it is because my holidays are very active, either cycling long distances or hiking in nature during several weeks, walking all day. This made me believe that astrology is typically something for the sedentary people rather than (temporary) nomadic. Astrology originated in an agricultural setting.

Yuriy wrote:
Nevertheless you can verify shortly her forecast about current eclipse, that occurred in 2nd house for Scorpios.
Why I still reading her monthly writing, because we've done some major mortgage refinancing shortly before crisis at the end of 2008. And miraculously her general forecast for that month described situation on daily basis, 90% accurate...

Look, I don't blame people for trying to sell stuff especially if there is a market for it. But you have to call a spade a spade. This is so vague that it fits everything. You just throw a ton of options at people and something will stick. "You will get some great news in those two days -- OR -- get hints about your career that will have an effect in January or February."

"Don't lose your phone/wallet because a retrograde Mercury can make you absent-minded. Traffic probably will be bad during holidays so if you are traveling take an iPad to make good use of your time etc etc" That's not even a forecast, that's a list of advices. And why a retrograde Mercury affects only the minds of Taureans? Or maybe there should be an all-in-one forecast? I could go on and on but that's just a waste of time.

If people are buying her stuff, good for her. Someone I know bought a numerology program a couple of years ago, it produces 50-60 pages (per person) of nicely written solid piece of nothing.

You said it yourself, sometimes fits perfectly but mostly wrong.

Ehh, who cares. If people want to be suckers then I say they get what they deserve. (By people I mean people out there.)

Seiko wrote:
Look, I don't blame people for trying to sell stuff especially if there is a market for it. But you have to call a spade a spade. This is so vague that it fits everything. You just throw a ton of options at people and something will stick. "You will get some great news in those two days -- OR -- get hints about your career that will have an effect in January or February."

"Don't lose your phone/wallet because a retrograde Mercury can make you absent-minded. Traffic probably will be bad during holidays so if you are traveling take an iPad to make good use of your time etc etc" That's not even a forecast, that's a list of advices. And why a retrograde Mercury affects only the minds of Taureans? Or maybe there should be an all-in-one forecast? I could go on and on but that's just a waste of time.

If people are buying her stuff, good for her. Someone I know bought a numerology program a couple of years ago, it produces 50-60 pages (per person) of nicely written solid piece of nothing.

You said it yourself, sometimes fits perfectly but mostly wrong.

Ehh, who cares. If people want to be suckers then I say they get what they deserve.

If you follow that link you'll find few pages forecasts for all signs. And she reiterates such advising things about retro Mercury with only corrections to rulership, houses, etc.
About eclipses that's her method (seen in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos something relevant), part of it is that some event initiating at present eclipse and might gen full strength at next one (like for Tauruses at the end of January/ beginning of February).
I'm not much into her methods but there is certain consistency of her conclusions.
Also, of course general forecasts lack of whole picture views. For instance if your Sun in Scorpio and Saturn just leaving Sagittarius, than it could be stated that Saturn: "finally leaving your 2nd house of incomes, you'll see some relief in your financial sector!"
But if in your chart AC in Sagittarius than Saturn moving to your actual 2nd house, and you'll not notice any easements...
Again, unless some powerful Jupiter's transit going on or etc.

If people want to be suckers then I say they get what they deserve.

Even the most intelligent people can be swindled of large amounts of money. Don't blame the victim. It's the racketeer who is the culprit.

Years ago (probably mid-70's) I heard about the "rule of three" which is the idea that if you see some astrological indication once, there's a 30% chance that it will happen, twice, 60% and thrice, 90% chance that what is said is correct (never mind which of those astrological effects if any actually "caused" the event, just interested in whether what will be said is correct or not). I wish I could remember who said this, but like so much stated in the astrological community, it lacks sources. At the time, Dane Rudhyar had recently released his Astrological Mandala text and astrology was already going in a decidedly non fatalistic direction for several decades. I personally don't think that life is rigidly fated (but some lives may be more "fated" than others). Because "psychological astrology" takes the stand that nothing is set in stone, by its own nature it tends to lack clarity when it comes to "nuts and bolts" considerations. I don't reject the claims of psychological astrologers or that type of thinking because there is an inner dimension that the traditional side places much less emphasis on and the range of experience is far greater than what is covered by any particular branch of astrological thought in itself. For this reason I don't regard it as less likely that someone having Uranus transit the MC will have career problems or change, than if Saturn comes to the same position or that there is a direction of the MC to one of the malefics, etc. Back in the 70's I had some books that made fated statements about the outer planets to other chart positions...

However, one of the strengths of the traditional area is that because it believes that fate is more "rigid", it makes statements that can be "falsified". In other words you can tell if something is true or false. A statement can be verified accurate or not objectively; whereas many claims by psychological astrologers live on a more subjective level and are far more difficult to pin down scientifically. This was one of the reasons why Schmidt's work was of such interest to me because he came from the realm of science and one of the few mathematicians / physicists who have treated the question of astrology in a fair manner. In my dealings with skeptics, he was one of the few capable of intelligently dismantling some of the more sophisticated arguments against astrology (obviously the precession argument does not fall into this category).

Unfortunately, astrology has many of the same characteristics of a religion and people defend their astrological "sect" status as if it was a fight between Christians and Muslims. Very often it is the case that both sides are wrong and I don't think it is really that much different with astrology if you will be honest with yourself. So asking if we have noticed our Pluto transits (as if because it was demoted from planet status that it no longer holds true, or never did) seems to be a rather misleading comparison. I can think of many instances of traditional techniques that I didn't notice as well, such as the "noddings of the Moon", the third trigon lord period onset, etc... If your attention is focused upon one area, by definition you have to ignore anything that is not within your "focus" and that is a problem if you want to catch/notice "everything".

I have found a set of techniques which seem to work spectacularly (for nuts and bolts types of considerations only), but because of the phenomenon of agnoia, wonder if this is just part of what every serious astrologer has experienced. I find myself in the strange position of feeling like I know best what "works" but not willing to state how I view the world because ego always triumphs over truth in a place where Kronos binds us to the material.

What I was hoping for in the traditional field was that there would be a philosophical foundation upon which all astrology could be found to rest because without this we are all hopelessly lost. Instead what I see are astrologers debating against each other as if upon a sinking ship scrambling for the highest decks and in many cases seeming to place personal ego authority (the "it works for me" syndrome) above objective truth. This is no doubt because astrology is a disgraced subject and because of this has attracted some unscrupulous characters into the field. One can call themselves an astrologer without criminal punishment in many areas of the world, but claiming to be a doctor without a license is not allowed. Perhaps some unspoken understanding exists that any reasonable person "should know better" that calling ones self an astrologer automatically makes one into a person "not to be taken seriously".

Unfortunately, astrology has many of the same characteristics of a religion and people defend their astrological "sect" status as if it was a fight between Christians and Muslims. Very often it is the case that both sides are wrong and I don't think it is really that much different with astrology if you will be honest with yourself. So asking if we have noticed our Pluto transits (as if because it was demoted from planet status that it no longer holds true, or never did) seems to be a rather misleading comparison. I can think of many instances of traditional techniques that I didn't notice as well, such as the "noddings of the Moon", the third trigon lord period onset, etc... If your attention is focused upon one area, by definition you have to ignore anything that is not within your "focus" and that is a problem if you want to catch/notice "everything".

I relate my problem with the outer planets with the probability & prognostication which I discussed in another thread. In fact, without them there still are too many techniques that make astrology nonfalsifiable.

What I was hoping for in the traditional field was that there would be a philosophical foundation upon which all astrology could be found to rest because without this we are all hopelessly lost. Instead what I see are astrologers debating against each other as if upon a sinking ship scrambling for the highest decks and in many cases seeming to place personal ego authority (the "it works for me" syndrome) above objective truth.

I?m afraid that the hope for a common foundation for astrology is in vain. This is partly because astrology is applied as a religion, often even by those who don?t consider it a religion. If there will be an established common foundation, then astrology will have turned from the patchwork of minds with equal rights (and sometimes some occasional ego?s) into an established religion with a hierarchy, a priesthood guarding the common unified philosophy and probably excommunications of the heretics.

Another point is that there?s an unbridgeable gap between judicial and natural astrology. While the former accept the symbolic explanation of analogy, the latter wants to know how and why.

One can call themselves an astrologer without criminal punishment in many areas of the world, but claiming to be a doctor without a license is not allowed. Perhaps some unspoken understanding exists that any reasonable person "should know better" that calling ones self an astrologer automatically makes one into a person "not to be taken seriously".

The only way astrology can lift itself out of this 'untrustworthy' position is by following the rules of science, or in other words, falsification. Now I will have to say a dirty word but in society ?statistics? will be the only acceptable means to say that an astrological technique is effective. It?s obviously is not sufficient to say that it ?works for me? but it isn?t sufficient either to say that it works on hundreds of clients.

Any seriously set up research that has been made, and usually by astrologers themselves, has turned into a deception. Perhaps it will turn out that astrology works but possibly in a totally different way that astrologers hope for or might expect. For example, the only effective planets might turn out to be Mercury, Moon, Venus and Saturn and only the conjunction may be considered effective and only tertiary progressions and all this in the Regiomontanus in mundo frame of reference. Be prepared to a hard task and many disappointments.

I?ve usually been defending statistical research, and I realise that it isn't a popular stance, and even ?my preferred realm? (the aspects) wasn?t spared. My reaction ought to be either to reject astrology or to be somewhat flexible in the application of it in combination with falsifiability. But the latter two are hard to reconcile.

Perhaps there are only three ways astrology can go, either become a religion and get accepted as a religion even by scientists who don't bother about whether 'walking on water' is possible or not, or follow the standards of scientific research or remain in the marginal area and little change of the status quo.

The biggest problem is that many believe that astrology can explain everything while I think that astrology constitutes only some 5% of factors in life, next to era, political situation, economy, location, gender, age, (family)culture, own actions, human interactions etc. etc. Unless these aren't taken into consideration, most of astrological astrology remains educated guesswork. Or to use the words of Kepler who already knew this:

Kepler wrote:9-8 Natural predictions are more reliable than those of astrology, because they are derived from earthly and direct causes, and thus address the specific matter more accurately. Thus a military strategist knows about future fortune and misfortune [in war], a lawyer about the outcome of his cases, a historian about change in government, an elderly man about the future condition of his children, a physician about the outcome of illness, a farmer about anticipated fertility or about rainy weather on the next day -- each better able to make pronouncements about his special area than the astrologer... The astrologer's specialty is to examine the single general and universal cause, the course of the heavenly bodies.
(Almanac for the Year of Our Lord, 1598)

Kenneth G. Negus: Kepler's Astrology
http://cura.free.fr/docum/15kep-en.html All rights reserved ? 1987-2001 Kenneth G. Negus

Eddy wrote:The only way astrology can lift itself out of this 'untrustworthy' position is by following the rules of science, or in other words, falsification.

There is no science without philosophy. Everything that science holds dear (including statistics) comes from the ideas of philosophers having been applied. This is why philosophy has to come first or the situation is hopeless.