Who's Who in Modern Traditional Astrology

Barleywine

I'm slowly building a library of texts on traditional astrology, and trying to do so without huge expense. Obviously, the "old masters" (Hellenisitc, Arabic, Renaissance, etc.) are essential, and fortunately some of them are free. I've looked at the resources described here (which seem to be a conglomeration of traditional and modern), on Amazon and on the various publishers' websites, but informed commentary (other than marketing spin) seems to be in short supply.

I was wondering who the "rock stars" of the current crop of traditional astrologers are. Back in "the day" (well, my "non-traditionalist" day anyway) the leading lights in modern astrology were Rob Hand, Noel Tyl, Stephen Arroyo, Liz Greene, Nancy Hastings, et al, and the "Grand Old Men" were Dane Rudhyar and Marc Edmund Jones. Today I'm aware of John Frawley (although he has his detractors), Kevin Burk, Avelar and Ribeiro, Benjamin Dykes (although he seems to be mainly a translator), Deborah Houlding and the Project Hindsight and ARHAT people (Schmidt, Hand). That's about the extent of my knowledge.

The question I have for this group is "Where should I put my money first?" The classical texts will come in time; I'm more interested in the "original" thinkers of today (if ""original traditionalism" isn't too much of an oxymoron

), primarily for their readability. I already have "On the Heavenly Spheres" and Burk's "Comprehensive Guide to Classical Interpretation."

Minderwiz

There are a lot that you didn't mention and if you're thinking of leaving the texts for a while then Dykes is certainly not where I'd start. He is a prolific translator but he's relatively expensive (small market) and whilst there's a lot of scholarship there, I actually don't find him that readable. Incidentally he does provide commentaries at the beginning of his translations and loads of footnotes. His 'Traditional Astrology For Today' is a slim volume but it's very much an introduction.

Over the last couple of years or so, I've noticed quite a shift to web based material, sometimes free, often charged for. If you dig you can still find quite a few articles and videos free from Project Hindsight or Rob Hand. Chris Brennan, who is now one of the foremost Hellenistic Astrologers has some excellent web sites, with free material or web based courses (of which I am doing one).

http://theastrologypodcast.com/
http://www.hellenisticastrology.com/
http://horoscopicastrologyblog.com/
http://www.chrisbrennanastrologer.com/

His podcast site has a great interview with Rob Hand, but you'll find quite a wealth of material there and in the Archives there's interviews with Robert Schmidt and Robert Zoller. As with all interviews some are good others middling and some don't work even if you thought they should.

For books there's James Holden's work (sadly he died recently but he's one of the earliest to turn to translating and writing about Traditional techniques). I actually find his translations easier to read than Dykes but there's a little less analysis. They're considerably cheaper though. Of note is his 'A History of Horoscopic Astrology' is a good review of everything up to the present day

Joseph Crane has two quite good ones: A Practical Guide to Traditional Astrology is a slim volume. More substantial is his 'Astrological Roots, The Hellenistic Legacy'.

Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum has done some translations for ARHAT, and her Temperament, Astrology's Forgotten Key is an excellent look at the traditional humours and personality.

For Horary, Sue Ward is one of the leading authorities on William Lilly.

http://www.sue-ward.co.uk/

She has a fair amount of free articles for download, as well as texts for purchase.

Sue is also one of the editors of the Tradition Journal, along with Helena and Luis

http://thetraditionjournal.wordpress.com/

Which has four edtions for purchase and download. They're quite good but since 2010 there don't seem to have been any more issues.

Lee Lehman has a book on Horary and a very good book on rulerships which is totally traditional in nature. She also has MP3 versions of a fair amount of material available on Amazon.

I like Frawley as a writer, he's very entertaining and usually quite well based in fact. His two books on The Real Astrology are worth the price on entertainment value alone. They also have a good basis in traditional techniques.

If you want a genuine text to start your collection. Andrea Gehrz's translation of 'An Introduction to the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy' by Porphyry of Tyre is a slim and easily read volume.

Lastly Demetra George gets a lot of mentions. She's got a classical background and like many started out with psychological Astrology. I think she still tries to blend the two but she's held in good esteem.

i'm sure there's people I've missed out but that's a good sample.

There's a few I haven't mentioned, some have done articles for the Tradition others crop up on Skyscript. But the ones above are a good sample.

Barleywine

Minderwiz said:
There are a lot that you didn't mention.

Chris Brennan, who is now one of the foremost Hellenistic Astrologers has some excellent web sites, with free material or web based courses (of which I am doing one).

For books there's James Holden's work (sadly he died recently but he's one of the earliest to turn to translating and writing about Traditional techniques).

Joseph Crane has two quite good ones: A Practical Guide to Traditional Astrology is a slim volume. More substantial is his 'Astrological Roots, The Hellenistic Legacy'.

Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum has done some translations for ARHAT, and her Temperament, Astrology's Forgotten Key is an excellent look at the traditional humours and personality.

For Horary, Sue Ward is one of the leading authorities on William Lilly.

Lee Lehman has a book on Horary and a very good book on rulerships which is totally traditional in nature. She also has MP3 versions of a fair amount of material available on Amazon.

I like Frawley as a writer, he's very entertaining and usually quite well based in fact. His two books on The Real Astrology are worth the price on entertainment value alone. They also have a good basis in traditional techniques.

If you want a genuine text to start your collection. Andrea Gehrz's translation of 'An Introduction to the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy' by Porphyry of Tyre is a slim and easily read volume.

Lastly Demetra George gets a lot of mentions. She's got a classical background and like many started out with psychological Astrology. I think she still tries to blend the two but she's held in good esteem.

Thanks for the helpful overview.

I had forgotten about Chris Brennan. He had a two-part series in Mountain Astrologer on Hellenistic astrology in the last year or so, and I've been to his website. He goes in the "rock-star" category for sure.

I'm aware of, but haven't read, James Holden and Robert Zoller; I have been to Sue Ward's website a couple of times.

Joseph Crane and Dorian Greenbaum I know by name only, not reputation (other than that Greenbaum's Temperament book is on my wish-list; I will now add Crane's).

Lee Lehman has, of course, been around since the '70s, but I haven't been exposed to her traditional work. There is a YouTube interview with Dr. Lehman on astrologyilluminated.tv.

I have Frawley's horary textbook but not his others. Some say his rants against modern astrology get tedious, but since I've been edging away from psychological astrology (well, OK, it's more like a rout) every since it was hijacked by psychotherapy, I doubt that would bother me. I looked at his on-line courses, but the one I was interested is around $5,000.

I have a download of Tetrabiblos but some learned commentary would be nice since Ptolemy isn't always transparent.

I forgot that I've read "Astrology and the Authentic Self" by Demetra George, billed as an integration of traditional and modern, but not her previous one.

I'm not a big fan of web-based material unless it's short articles. I have a Kindle if any of the books are available in that format. But I really like having a book to hold in my hand, mainly because I find them easier to use for future reference purposes.

Minderwiz

Barleywine said:
Thanks for the helpful overview.

I'm aware of, but haven't read, James Holden and Robert Zoller; I have been to Sue Ward's website a couple of times.

I've tried Zoller's book on the 'Arabian Parts' and I was put off by his semi-mystical approach. I think when he wrote it that most Astrologers believed they really were Arabic in origin. Holden I like both in translation and his History. I read that early on in my travels to get some idea of who was where an when so to speak. But I still regard it as a classic, even if bits might not be up to the current level of knowledge.

I like Greenbaum's book it's an interesting approach. Lilly and others have a more complex system but in the main I find Greenbaum is usually in line with Lilly and is something that can be done on the back of an envelope.

I sort of have mixed feelings about Lehman but I enjoyed her horary book. It clashes in places with Frawley and I'm not sure it's true to Lilly but then Lilly was not the first horary Astrologer and I've still to read Holden's translation of Sahl Ibn Bishr, who wrote one of the first horary texts.

And Yes the Frawley course is silly money. A friend of mine has the second edition of his Horary Textbook and I waited for her review before deciding whether to buy it. She reckons that it's simply a reprint of the first edition with a couple of bits added and not worth the price.

Barleywine said:
I have a download of Tetrabiblos but some learned commentary would be nice since Ptolemy isn't always transparent.

That is perhaps the understatement of the last two millenia. Schmidt reckons that even trained classical scholars have difficulty deciding what Ptolemy meant in places. Brennan, Hand and Schmidt reckon that it was a mis-translation or misunderstanding of Ptolemy that led to the dropping of Whole Sign Houses in the later Arabic period. Their argument is based on translation errors, as Ptolemy probably went through two or three languages to get to the Arabs.

Hand and Brennan reckon that there was a 'Back to Basics' movement in the later Arab period but as their sources were less than outs, that meant back to Ptolemy. The Arabs found that the only house system Ptolemy defines explicitly was a quadrant system (probably Porphyry). But this only occurs on his discussion of the length of life calculation and all Hellenistic Astrologers used a quadrant system when doing the calculation. Brennan has a very good article showing that Ptolemy actually used the Whole Sign approch for topical issues just like all the others. Hand and Schmidt both concur with that.

Barleywine said:
I'm not a big fan of web-based material unless it's short articles. I have a Kindle if any of the books are available in that format. But I really like having a book to hold in my hand, mainly because I find them easier to use for future reference purposes.

My wife is just the same.

It seems that the issue is cost. Traditional Astrology books don't have a wide market yet. So you either do your own publishing, like Dykes and charge an arm and a leg, or you go in for web publishing. I wish more would use the ebook formats. The only one that I know of that does is Sue for the last edition of the Tradition Journal and even that is epub, not the Kindle mobi or KF8 formats. However there are a number of conversion programs that will solve that problem. The best is probably Calibre as it has other facilities too. Including ebook management. Sometimes you might find free classic texts in epub format and Calibre will allow you to manage them and port them over to your Kindle.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

This allows the conversion of pdf files to kindle (and a host of other formats), though the results are a little uneven. The more complex the formatting (including tables and diagrams) the less reliable it is. Calibre will also convert Word documents but again there's the rub. If the text is simple than there's no problem, Add in tables, diagrams and footnotes and your chances of a good result are by no means certain. Just to add to the woes, different ebook readers can render the document in different ways.

Barleywine

Minderwiz said:
I've tried Zoller's book on the 'Arabian Parts' and I was put off by his semi-mystical approach. I think when he wrote it that most Astrologers believed they really were Arabic in origin.

Among the books recently gifted to me by an astrologer friend who can no longer see well enough to read is one called "The Fortunes of Astrology," written in 1980 by one Robert Hurzt Granite. It appears to be Al-Biruni digested and regurgitated for the modern reader. I've only just dipped into it, but the background information, the tables and the calculation techniques seem to be the best parts. He doesn't descend into psychobabble until he gets to the house delineations.

I also have Martin Schulman's "Karmic Astrology: Joy and the Part of Fortune," but none of his "karmic" titles do anything for me.

Here is a simple calculator I found on-line. The introduction indicates that it uses the 97 parts identified by Al-Biruni.

http://archive.is/mPxp

Minderwiz said:
A friend of mine has the second edition of his Horary Textbook and I waited for her review before deciding whether to buy it. She reckons that it's simply a reprint of the first edition with a couple of bits added and not worth the price.

Good to know. I have the first edition and was wondering whether to upgrade it with the second.

Minderwiz said:
Brennan has a very good article showing that Ptolemy actually used the Whole Sign approch for topical issues just like all the others. Hand and Schmidt both concur with that.

Have you read Rob Hand's Whole Sign House book from 1999? I just belatedly discovered that he published it. The last time I saw him (before his epiphany) he was working on something else entirely, in a modern vein.

Minderwiz said:
However there are a number of conversion programs that will solve that problem. The best is probably Calibre as it has other facilities too. Including ebook management. Sometimes you might find free classic texts in epub format and Calibre will allow you to manage them and port them over to your Kindle.

Also good to know. I would like to get more use out of it.

Barleywine

Minderwiz said:
That is perhaps the understatement of the last two millenia. Schmidt reckons that even trained classical scholars have difficulty deciding what Ptolemy meant in places.

I was reading somewhere recently that Ptolemy deliberately avoided mythological and symbolic correspondences so as to bring his theories more into line with "Aristotelian science." Probably a blessing (he didn't give the asteroid enthusiasts any more fuel for their fancies

) and a curse (it might have put some "flesh on the bones," so to speak, and given some insight into what he was thinking).

Here is an unkind quote from James Wilson's 1880 Dictionary of Astrology that might not have existed if Ptolemy had been more forthcoming. It's in the definition of the Part of Fortune. Wilson calls it ". . . nothing but a phantom hatched in the figurative brain of Ptolemy, which has no influence whatever, except influence can arise out of nothing. It was a favourite maxim with that author to have everything, as his grandmother might call it, 'in apple-pie order.' The distribution" (of planetary correspondences) "certainly displayed much order, regularity and ingenuity and only wanted truth and reason to render it complete." Heresy or hard-nosed reality?

Minderwiz

Ptolemy seems to have wanted to put Astrology on a 'scientific' footing (from his point of view, though, according to Schmidt, he never actually gives the sources for his innovations and perhaps an unkind comment, he's not even sure whether Ptolemy actually used them himself.

Your quote from the 1880 dictionary, attributing the 'Part' of Fortune to Ptolemy, is interesting. Firstly because the author seems unaware of other Hellenistic practitioners (which he probably was) and secondly because the date puts him squarely into the period when Astrology was at it's lowest ebb.

Ptolemy used (or at least proposed) a revised Lot of Fortune (no difference between diurnal and nocturnal births) and virtually dumped all the other Lots. I've actually found it useful but only on the original basis of reversing for night births.

Chanah

Zoller's Tools and Techniques Books are worth reading, and he doesn't get terribly mystical in them. I think the one he published on lots was his very first.

Minderwiz, I think you'll love Sahl (I have the Holden translation). He's one of the clearest writers astrology has ever had, and there are things you'll find in his book that you won't find elsewhere. I can pretty much unreservedly recommend all Holden's translations.

Lee Lehman sometimes deviates from tradition in her horary book, but at least she tells you when she's doing it (unlike Frawley). Lots of worked charts to go through, too, and some interesting things to think about.

I really have to recommend Ibn Ezra, even though he isn't current. Both Beginning of Wisdom and The Book of Nativities and Revolutions are outstanding texts, and if you can find The Book of Reasons it explains any number of astrological puzzles (best after you've been reading astrology for a while).

DavidMcCann

Ptolemy always reminds me of Kepler and certain moderns: more theories than evidence to back them up. When medieval astrologers deal with him, they are usually trying to explain away his oddities. Montulmo correctly spotted that the Tetrabiblos and the Centiloquium can't be by the same author, but decided that the Tetrabiblos must be the fake because such a great astronomer couldn't have written such poor astrology! The Arab authors seem to rely mostly on Valens and Dorotheus for the basics.

Minderwiz

Chanah said:
Zoller's

Minderwiz, I think you'll love Sahl (I have the Holden translation). He's one of the clearest writers astrology has ever had, and there are things you'll find in his book that you won't find elsewhere. I can pretty much unreservedly recommend all Holden's translations.

It's sat on my shelf waiting to be read I totally agree with you about Holden. I love his books generally and his translations - I have four - are easy to read and I rate them above Dykes. They might not be as accurate (and personally I'm not sure that's an accurate statement) but his books are not the exercise in Astrological Masochism that I sometimes feel with Dykes (only two translations)

Chanah said:

I really have to recommend Ibn Ezra, even though he isn't current. Both Beginning of Wisdom and The Book of Nativities and Revolutions are outstanding texts, and if you can find The Book of Reasons it explains any number of astrological puzzles (best after you've been reading astrology for a while).

Click to expand...

I have the Beginning of Wisdom but broke off going any further to learn the Hellenistic approach. When I'm happy with that, I'll come back through the Arabic Writings and be better able to contextualise them.

Who's Who in Modern Traditional Astrology

Barleywine

Minderwiz

Barleywine

Minderwiz

Barleywine

Barleywine

Minderwiz

Chanah

DavidMcCann

Minderwiz