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The Public's renewed interest in Astrology.
While Astrology has always attracted casual readers, we have also observed a
renewed interest by earnest seekers for self-knowledge and meaningful values
through this traditional discipline as a reaction to the distractions created
by an increasingly technology-driven world.
What strikes these serious inquirers after glossing
through numerous astrological texts is the omission of a systematic and
rational method to synthesize a chart, that is, a methodology that will
enable the practitioner to view the horoscope as a unit based on reason.
Without such a method, the chart remains for its inquirer a chaos of
disparate and often contradictory facts with no observable cohesiveness.
There have been some notable exceptions, but most astrological texts are typically rich in
detail but silent on how to combine the factors in a chart into a
meaningful whole. The authors of these texts do
not provide the student with a sensible method to synthesize the chart.
What
these authors have to say is valuable, but their comments are general
statements that must be applied to a particular case. Their
statements very often do not apply to the particular chart under
consideration or leave unsaid how to integrate their observations into the
chart as a whole. Thus, our two-fold task is to figure out how we
can apply correctly, generalizations to the specific horoscope and to know
how to create a meaningful vision of the person gathered from numerous
disparate facts.
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The Purpose of Training: How to think astrologically
An Astrologer should be inspired, but interpretation is not based on
something mystical - rather it is based on conjecture, that is, an educated
guess based on experience. In Book III, Paragraph 108 of the Tetrabiblos,
a seminal work on the principles of Western Astrology, Claudius Ptolemy makes the
following observation about the application of conjecture.
"...the predicted result, summed up by the
combination of many elements, applied to the underlying form, we shall leave,
as to the skillful archer, to the calculation of him who conducts the
investigation....".
What Ptolemy implies is that a person
must have the necessary skills to make a correct speculation based on the
observed facts.
And as for the need to base practice on experience,
we quote Paracelsus, the great 15th century Swiss physician and
occultist who wrote,
"Practice should not be based on speculative theory
- Theory should be derived from practice. Experience is the judge - If a
thing stands the test of experience, it should be accepted; if it does not
stand the test, it should be rejected".
Our program teaches the student how
to gather information and come to correct conclusions about what they have
garnered. To accomplish this, the course content
is designed to teach the student how to view the horoscope
deductively, inductively, and analogically. This is a necessary
requirement for a rational approach to interpretation.
Astrological
instruction must teach you how to combine all the considerations in a
chart in such a way that it creates a meaningful image for you, where
meaningful means that it must make sense to you. If you say
something about a person you must be able to demonstrate a basis for the
comment.
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The Art of Interpretation
The program's goal is to train people to interpret. We must be
able to see the horoscope as a whole, complete, and integrated unit. To
do this we must be able to synthesize; and to accomplish this, we must have
and practice regularly the required skills. As with any discipline, nothing
can replace this basic requirement.
The practice itself starts with a very structured
analysis of the chart. With increasing experience, we advance from
analysis to synthesis by being able to combine quickly ever larger blocks of
information. In the beginning, a newcomer to astrology should not
be too concerned about possessing this skill. The point is that the road that
leads to synthesis requires we discipline ourselves from the beginning to
think economically and systematically. These two factors provide
the primary requirement for synthesis - SPEED. These two factors
bring quick, clear, yet deliberate and careful thinking that take us from
analysis to synthesis. The images must flash together into a
feeling.
The ability to synthesize is a talent that ripens
with the maturing of skills and regular practice. It is an incremental
process. The initial step in training is to help the student
respond to the signs and planets on a feeling level, a level that goes beyond
an intellectual understanding. The accomplishment of this foundation
skill forms the platform upon which horoscope synthesis rests.
The acquisition of this experience requires a
deliberate conscious effort on the part of the student. To
facilitate the student's effort, we make use of a simple training exercise
that we introduce and detail in the first few lessons of Forum on Astrology.
The
training technique makes use of some very elementary but fundamental
information about the signs and planets combined with the practice of a
three-fold process of careful observation, memory with the ability to recall
accurately past experiences, and conjecture.
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A Methodology for Teaching Astrology
To be able to teach a thing, not only must a person know the subject,
but they must be able to unfold the topic in such a way that they deliver the
discipline's message. The teacher must be able to unfold the
subject in terms of words and experiences that are meaningful to the student.
For such an experience to take place,
there must be a methodology. The methodology permits the unfolding
of the discipline by the teacher and the receipt of the knowledge by the
student. Without this process, there may be good intentions and
feelings between the speaker and the listener but no learning takes place.
Our
program provides a simple 4-point approach to unfold the astrological
tradition based on experience. Successful practice requires that we have an
understanding of (1) A horoscope's basic parts and their interrelationship
based on instruction, observation, and tradition, (2) How to measure the
influences quantitatively and qualitatively, (2) interpretation technique,
and (4) The signs, planets, and houses rooted in feeling. This understanding
of "rooted in feeling" is based on obtaining an ever increasing awareness
of our instincts, an understanding that is facilitated by practicing certain
sensitivity exercises.
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The Tradition and its Teachers
This writer received the tradition
from Zoltan Mason of
Citing these particular individuals is not meant to
take away or minimize the contributions of the many many
great minds in this field, but rather, it is meant to acknowledge Ptolemy's,
Morin's, and Mason's efforts to transmit a living tradition from one
generation to the next.
It
is our sincere hope that we can continue this tradition without distorting or
misrepresenting what they have intended to give to posterity.
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