Zoltan Mason, who passed away in 2002 at the age of 96, was a gifted and well known Astrologer that practiced his art for almost seventy years. He was without question the foremost practitioner of Jean-Baptiste Morin de Villefranche’s system of horoscope synthesis as set forth in Morin’s monumental work Astrologia Gallica published in Paris, 1661.

Mason through his successful practice gathered an ocean of practical experience. He built upon Morin’s foundation and greatly expanded and refined his system. Morin always stressed the necessity of viewing the horoscope as a unit. Mason continued this relentless drumbeat in his weekly classes that he gave year after year. He taught that analysis of a horoscope was an elementary and necessary step for the new student of Astrology, but in the end, the horoscope would remain lifeless without proceeding to a synthesis.

To arrive at a point to be able to see a horoscope as a living and dynamic whole requires the art of synthesis. A disciplined and systematic methodology greatly facilitates this process.  This approach not only emphasizes the need to gain speed in our thinking but also to be economical with our images. Without these elements, synthesis never takes place.

Mason practiced and taught the astrologer’s credo: “Life is short, Art is long, Experience hard to obtain, and Judgment, highly difficult.” 

Mason and the astrological writings of Morin have almost exclusively influenced my development as an Astrologer, but my development of  values in life and so to a great degree  my world view  in relation to myself and to the divine in me has been influenced by others. While Mason did orient me and stressed that the most important value in life is life itself, my development of this value came under the influence of my teacher in metaphysics. He said that “Living is the aim of life and to live is to grow, not only physically but also emotionally”.

The man who spoke these words and to whom I owe an equal debt of gratitude  is the Indian monk Swami Dayananda Saraswati with whom I had the privilege to study a tradition called Vedanta. While Zoltan Mason gave me my cosmological perspective of the world, this world view rests upon the metaphysical tradition of the Vedas as taught to me by Dayananda.

In addition, I must thank Rabbi Mier Fund of Brooklyn, New York, an  Orthodox  Rabbi under whose guidance, I was introduced to the elementary principles of Kabbalah, the ancient mystic tradition of the Jewish people

Lastly,  Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the ethical writings of Maimonides, and Judaism’s Mussar tradition which stresses character correction have also influenced my teaching style and approach to Astrology. Complementing these traditional writers are the modern metaphysical works of Titus Burckhardt and Rene Guenon, writers in a traditionalist school founded in the 20^th century called philosophia perennis.

It is my sincere hope that I can continue the tradition of Astrology without distorting or misrepresenting what previous generations have intended to give to posterity.

Robert M. Corre
New York - 2008

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