Why are there no predictions in astrology text books?

Good points from Minderwiz and dadsnook

that I am thinking about. Thank You both

"Quoting from the Preface of my book, Personal Moon-to-Sun Returns 2, "What happens next? Which choices are best? IT ALWAYS COMES DOWN TO THIS. Prediction is part of the astrologer's craft, answers are part of the client's needs."
- dadsnook

I have this book (and your older book) and once I finish working through them, I'll post a review here. I completely agree with the above thought. And love the fact that in your first book (I've read only the first few pages) on page 3 you show a Solar Return than does *not* show the event's symbolism. This kind of intellectual honest dealing is quite refreshing. Good work.

"A further factor is the subtlety and variety of Astrological symbolism, especially if house rulerships are considered. Thus If Mars rules the ninth house of higher education through Aries, The Sun will rule the Ascendant through Leo. So what does Mars applying to the Sun through Primary Direction mean for a 22 year old undergraduate? It might signify that they are about to receive their degree or it might signify that they are liable to have an accident, or illness involving sharp stabbing pains. If you foreast the first and it turns out to be the second (or vice versa) you look a fool, yet the symbolism fits both events. I think Martin Gansten uses a similar example in his book on primary directions in which both events occurred. It's not easy fitting the 'correct' event to the symbolism from a chart."

-- Minderwiz.

Good point. Gives me something to think about.

But then the question becomes what exactly the value add of the astrologer is. If an astrologer can't resolve between these predicted events, or pick out specifics from the infinite possibilities represented by Mars, why should the 22 year old undergraduate pay money to hear "you might get your degree. Or not. You might get into an accident. Or not. You might get sick. Or not. You might join the military. Or not." etc. This is fairly useless from the point of view of a client. Maybe the correct lesson for someone in a client position is to only ask for predictions one year out, so he can provide some context as to what is going on in his life, as dadsnook talks about.

Maybe the right answer is that the astrologer should use other tools to narrow down the possibilities. Maybe the Solar Return for that year will indicate a bunch of other possibilities, and only those that reflect the symbolism of both the direction and return chart work. I don't know. In any case, without narrowing down, such a wide prediction is of dubious utility to a client. Prediction must be precise enough to provide guidance and be verifiable.

The above can also be seen as a good motivation for someone to learn astrology to monitor *his own* life because he can see some of these possibilities beginning to manifest and connect it to the ongoing direction of Mars (or ongoing Saturn square Mars or whatever). Then the question becomes what to do with this insight. Dave has a chapter on this in his first book (what to do with a prediction) but I haven't read it yet.

Thank You for this answer Minderwiz. Really made me think.

There's also the issue of what you want to predict, ot perhaps more accurately what your client/sitter wants you to predict. I find that horary questions tend to work very well but general attempts to predict accurately the next year do not. Where the client has a clear focus then extraneous events or possibilities can be ignored. By its very nature a general prediction has to consider every conceivable possibility. A client who asks for a prediction relating to their career isn't interested in predictions about their health. Thus the range of symbolism available is reduced.

And of course as Barleywine says, the prediction is rooted in the natal chart and other derived charts... We consider the astrological context relating to the prediction, we don't just grab a technique and do it.

Chris Brennan predicted the outcome of the last presidential election (2012) together with references to related events that also occurred after he predicted them. My point in my previous post is that if the area of consideration was narrowed down to an aspect of life it's easier to make a prediction than it is to make general predictions that cover a very wide range.

If one is writing a book about predictions with concrete examples two factors become important. The first is time frame. Are people going to buy a book that contains 50redictions, none of which can be tested for 3 years? The answer is very likely no. So some evidence of efficacy must be given using examples that have already happened.

The second is the cult of celebrity. Giving examples of predictions for Freda Bloggs will be of very limited interest to prospective buyers who neither no nor care about her. And may not be independently verifiable when the time comes.

Even with a celebrity, the detail of their lives is not totally known (thank goodness,) so independent verification is not always possible.

One last point... My hypothetical book on predictions might be 95% correct on the life of Freda Bloggs in 2019 but the event that most grabs the news is the assassination o thenPrime Minister. The obvious criticism is that I failed to predict such a momentous event. The fact that I didn't seek to becomes irrelevant. 'Why waste your time on Freda Bloggs when you should have known about the assassination.' is the obvious criticism. How do I choose which events I should concentrate on, from the thousands of possibilitie?

No one is asking for book filled *only* with predictions.

This post was accidentally deleted by Minderwiz when trying to respond to it.

Interesting discussion. Virtually everything we think we know about astrology is based on "past events" - primarily the births, lives and deaths of individuals that astrologers over the centuries have found remarkable enough to incorporate into the traditional body of knowledge as expressing "qualities" of the astrological landscape. Even people that are still living can be measured by the yardstick provided by this compilation of past events. I can't see that prediction would be any different; predictions for events that are analogous to previous events according to their astrological signatures strike me as little different from delineating a natal chart based on the evidence of the myriad historical horoscopes on which its interpretation rests. "Cold" predictions with no experiential frame of reference would seem to belong in magazines - which have a relatively short-term focus - rather than in textbooks.

Accidental Deletion

I made an unforgivable mistake in accidentally deleting RohanMenon's last post when I was trying to reply to it. All I can think is that I accidentally hit edit rather than quote when I was using my tablet. I would not have thought the forum software would allow that but clearly (in retrospect) it did.

If the original post still exists with RohanMenon I'd love to have it reposted. I do have my response but I'm now unwilling to post it without the original in place.

No Problem Minderwiz

I don't have a copy. I just type out these things when I'm puzzling over things and don't think they are worthy of replication or backup lol.

(for any puzzled readers, I was responding to the various comments and responses Minderwiz made to my last post, wherein I made by case they aren't as formidable as they seem at first glance)

You can post your response without the original, I don't mind at all If you don't plan to publish your response ( I agree it doesn't make too much sense without the original post), then I request you to PM it me, since I'm interested in your thinking.

That said, I think, between all the responders to the thread, the topic has been exhausted of useful information, and I'm content to let it rest at this point.

Briefly, my response was from the point of view of the author of such a book and why they might be loathe to do what you ask. As a non-author (at least in this genre) I have little or nothing to lose if I make a predictions on this site and it comes out wrong; or even a series of predictions that come out wrong.

However if I were considering to write such a book as an attempt to establish myself as an author, the risk to my putative career is great. Get the predictions wrong and my career is down the pan before I start.

As you pointed out having celebrities as examples is wide spread but most of us have knowledge of them only through the media. Their fame, such as it is, is rather narrowly defined. Even worse their natal data may be estimated or not really known. I've lost count of the times I've come across 'learned' articles on celebrities only to find that the chart used is a sunrise chart or that there are several alternative sets of details for them depending on which author you read. It's possible to get away with that on a simple natal analysis but use duff data to generate predictions and you have the old computer program jibe of Garbage In, Garbage Out. It's not the method is wrong (though it might be) it's that the information used is dubious.

So my point boils down to Astrologers being very careful about publishing predictions about celebrities unless they have a great deal of information, not least an accurate birth chart. On the other hand, fitting events that have happened to a chart is, as you point out, not difficult to do (or at least if you can't do it, you don't include it in the book.)

Now I wouldn't have that problem with a client or friend/family. I can verify the data as much as possible. I can discuss issues with them and I can gradually build up a series of charts and other data from which I can make a good prediction. But as I said before, no one really wants to know about Freda Bloggs and issues which might seem minor to them, but are quite important to her.

Very few celebrities are willing to discuss their private lives with a reporter, still less an Astrologer. I've seen several comments to that effect from Astrologers. So yes, there may be things that can be predicted from validated charts but exactly how the symbolism is interpreted might be the crunch. I've even seen some predictions dismissed because they were days or a couple of weeks out. The prediction was correct, the timing wasn't To be dismissed as being unreliable because you got the day wrong, is a bit harsh.

John Frawley had a good series of prediction about the outcome of horse races. He got a job as a TV pundit on the basis of it. However a couple of wrong predictions after a whole string of good ones led to him losing the job.

When William Lilly appeared before the House of Commons Committee, he admitted to having predicted the Great Fire (some at the time argued he'd started it to enhance his reputation). But he claimed that he had not predicted when the event would happen or indeed made any attempt to find out when. The committee accepted his explanation that he had predicted 'a' fire but not 'the' fire and he walked free.

If you're interested, there's an article on Skyscript by Maurice McCann, in which McCann argues that the hieroglyph that Lilly published (which was not a chart nor contained any commentary) actually does contain clues to the date of his prediction and that he was spot on.