How to Learn Astrology, Part 2

Welcome back to the second part of a series on how to learn astrology for the determined student. (You can find the first part here.) Last time, we covered the preliminaries of choosing what kind of astrology to learn and how to go about doing it. In this post, we’ll get into the fundamentals. If you haven’t acquired a good book on astrology, do that first before going on. If you have, make sure it’s handy, and we’ll get started.

Most older astrology books begin with a section on casting a horoscope by hand with the help of an ephemeris, a table of houses, and log tables. In the days before computers, this was a requirement before one could proceed to interpret a chart. You may be tempted to skim this section, confident that you will use astrological software throughout your career. I advise you to resist this impulse: take the time to read that section thoroughly, and try it out at least once yourself.

Casting a horoscope by hand is admittedly a tedious process. It is obvious why astrologers generally embraced software as soon as it became available. Yet a number of things which are not noticeable when using a computer become apparent when calculating by hand. In many cases, the high precision of computer-calculated placements does not actually matter; the outer planets move slowly enough that calculating their movement rarely produces any interpretable difference from the ephemeris. Conversely, it quickly becomes natural to visualize the planets’ daily motions by using an ephemeris. If you know that the Moon was at 29 degrees of Scorpio at midnight one day, and 12 degrees of Libra the next, then you know that she must have crossed sign boundaries not long after midnight. This type of rough calculation is more useful than it may seem. There is a good deal of folklore surrounding the phases and signs of the Moon, which is seemingly not talked about by astrologers as often as other planetary ingresses, but which I have personally found useful and effective. By simply paying attention to the Moon, and planning your activities accordingly, you can align your life with broad astrological currents and reap some of the benefits of electional astrology with a good deal less hassle. (The planetary hours can be used in the same way.) Finally, the movements of the planets acquire greater conceptual solidity when calculated at least a few times by hand, which is especially of benefit in horary astrology.

If I’ve convinced you that learning to cast a chart the tedious and old-fashioned way has some value, then you’ll want to make the effort to draw up at least one chart. Your natal chart is a good candidate; you probably know it well enough to easily check your work, and you’ll always come back to study it in the future. Cast your natal horoscope, then, according to the method outlined in your book, and use it as an additional example for any exercises it may give.

For each planet, sign, and house, your book will provide several lists of characteristics known as rulerships. Some of them go obviously enough together, while others may seem arbitrary or disconnected. These rulerships are determined by careful observation or by the Renaissance doctrine of signatures. Basically, the doctrine of signatures states that spiritual forces reveal themselves in the physical forms which they influence. To the mind well-trained in the doctrine of signatures, every material object, including stones, plants, places, and the different parts of the human body, expresses the forces which shape its form, and these forces can be identified through its characteristics. This is usually paired with a system which divides spiritual power into useful categories. The most popular of these systems is based on the twelve signs and seven classical planets of astrology. According to the doctrine of signatures, for example, St. John’s Wort is ruled by the Sun, because it primarily expresses, in the plant kingdom, the same current which is most powerfully and obviously expressed in the heavens by the Sun. This is known as a correspondence. To say that one thing corresponds to another is to say that they are both expressions of the same ideal.

This is the origin both of many of the long lists of rulerships and of the differences between them. Most writers agree that the Sun rules grand, showy buildings and palaces, as the Sun is the brightest and most powerful object in the sky; but does the Sun rule over kingship because of the same attributes, or does Jupiter rule kingship, because good governance requires wisdom, temperance, and a well-organized bureaucracy? An argument could be made for either, and the cultural contexts of the astrologers who recorded their opinions on rulerships must also be taken into account. To the beginning astrologer, these differences of opinion are of scholarly interest only; use the rulerships provided in your book for now.

Almost immediately the importance of context in determining which correspondence to use becomes paramount. Unless you live on a farm, it is probably not very useful to you that large animals fall under the 12th house, or that the Sun rules horses. Thus, we can ignore a great many possible meanings in formal use. However, even the basic meanings of any astrological element are many and varied. Venus, for example, rules love and desire; also musical skill, arts and crafts, jewelry, adornment, mothers, wives, and women generally, to say nothing of all the other rulerships she may acquire in context of a chart. All these meanings are apparent in everyday life. Yet one cannot read a chart by equivocating that Venus might refer to any of these things; it is impractical, and it does not develop the intuitive faculties. Soon enough you will be able to look at a chart and understand which of her meanings Venus is expressing in a particular context. For now, I recommend choosing one (yes, just one) meaning for each of the fundamental elements of astrology and using it in all your early readings.

Using one meaning for each element simplifies and limits astrology considerably, but it is still possible to produce clear and effective readings with this method. The fundamental materials of astrology, as agreed upon by nearly all astrologers, are twelve houses, twelve signs, four major aspects, and seven, nine, or ten planets, depending on your system. To these can be added three modalities, four elements, conjunctions, retrogradation, the Moon’s nodes (if not considered with the planets), and perhaps the Part of Fortune. That is a minimum of forty-six divinatory meanings which must be learned to become a competent astrologer, and it ought to be enough to keep you busy for a little while. Your assignment, then, is to go through your book and choose one keyword out of the lists provided to be your basic meaning for each of these fundamental elements.

Try it out now: turn in your book to the first list of meanings given for one of these astrological fundamentals and choose one to use. In one of my usual books, an old edition of Llewellyn George’s A-Z Horoscope Maker and Delineator, the houses are discussed first, and the rulerships given for the first house are the personality, natural disposition and tendencies, self-interest, and worldly outlook. Of the parts of the body, it rules the head and face. The meanings given all seem to have something do with the self, so I’ll decide that in my readings, the first house will always refer to the self, meaning the totality of body, emotions, mind, and soul; one could just as easily decide, based on these rulerships, that the first house refers to the personality alone, and that some other points or planets represent the body and mind. (That is, in fact, a common division used in a reading based on the placements of the Ascendant, Moon, and Sun.)

You may have observed that the second set of rulerships listed does not share a logical category with the first. Recall, from our discussion of the doctrine of signatures, that St. John’s Wort expresses the same current in the plant kingdom that the Sun does in the kingdom of the astrological heavens. It is a categorical error to apply a correspondence in one kingdom to the context of a different one. Fortunately, astrologers usually deal with the realm of ordinary human experience, and it’s usually easy to tell when another kingdom is being discussed. Another possible error is of equivocating one correspondence with another: thus, the fallacy goes, the Sun becomes a horse. The meanings you choose should always agree with the context in which you plan to use them.

It’s worth reinforcing at this point that astrology is the study of general patterns, and that specifics can only be predicted by those who have developed their intuition. While horary, in the context of specific questions, can be impressively literal, it is never a good idea to attempt to force a divinatory system into a Procrustean bed. Therefore, the meanings which you choose ought to be general enough to refer to ordinary life, and not overly specific. They should also cover a wide range of human experience, both good and bad. Go through the astrological fundamentals listed, as well as any others which your textbook calls out, and choose one primary meaning for each of them. You should certainly memorize these meanings.

You will also want to commit to memory the table of planetary rulerships of signs given somewhere in your text. Rulership, in this context, means that a planet has a particular relationship with a sign, and can exert influence on it from anywhere in a chart. These relationships are called rulership, detriment, exaltation, and fall. By this point you may have heard about some of the disagreements between traditional and modern astrologers regarding rulerships; my advice is to use the rulerships provided in your book.

Stick with your chosen meanings for a little while. If you find, after some practice, that a meaning is not working well for you, choose another one. Never change a meaning in the middle of a reading. Eventually you will have many more correspondences at your disposal, not to mention understanding the nature of the planets such that you will be able to place objects and situations which are new to you under an appropriate rulership. For now, continue to work through your book; you’ll get the most benefit from the next post if you’ve read through some delineations, or interpretations of combinations of the basic astrological elements.