Liz Greene

Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas were founder members of the Centre for Psychological Astrology, founded in London in 1983. They were co-directors till Sasportas' death, when Charles Harvey took over as a co-director, till he too sadly died.

Greene's early work is heavily psychological in nature and it's only in the last few years that she has begun to shift ground. She is a qualified Jungian analyst and the psychological approach is always her first love, so I'm not implying any conversion, merely an increasing interest in what the tradition has to offer.

She is also a partner in Astrodienst, which many use for their web based horoscope.

This topic is a bit old, I know, but I decided to bring it back to life instead of posting the same question.

I am looking for books that are available in my country, because Brazil is making it very hard to important anything from abroad. So goodbye Amazon and Book Depository for a while. We have many Astrology books that have been translated, specially during the 80s and the 90s. Many of them are book written by Liz Greene.

I wanted to know which ones you consider her must-read books. Because there are many titles available, I am not sure which ones would be a good read for a a 'rookie' astrology student.

Thank you!

This isn't an easy question to answer, but given the situation with imported books, I'd say go for whatever you can get. The books on individual planets are a reasonable starting point there's a good but now dated book called New Insights In Modern Astrology, written along with Stephen Arroyo and its a record of talks they gave at a conference, together with the answers to questions from the audience.


Edited to add:

There's an interesting interview with her at: You can enlarge the pdf to full screen, as instructed on the page.

http://theastrologyplace.blogspot.com/2009/11/liz-greene-interview.html

I've been kind of conflicted about Liz's work since I started cooling to the purely Jungian psychological approach to astrology about the time I bought her Saturn book, and I never really warmed up to it. It's probably also why I never bought anything by Arroyo (although I should probably back-track and do so). I did think The Twelve Houses by Sasportas was worthwhile. Early on, I was a big fan of Dane Rudhyar, and the "next wave" of psychological writers (Jeff Green is another one), while certainly capable and earnest, didn't grab me in quite the same way.

Marina, I think we must be on some kind of weird similar wavelength, because just today at a tarot meet up, a lady who is fairly well informed on astro strongly recommended Liz Greene to me to help me understand some of the makeup of my natal chart.

And lo and behold, I come here and you've resurrected this thread. Nice synchronicity.

Life can be so pleasantly weird.

Minderwiz said:

This isn't an easy question to answer, but given the situation with imported books, I'd say go for whatever you can get. The books on individual planets are a reasonable starting point there's a good but now dated book called New Insights In Modern Astrology, written along with Stephen Arroyo and its a record of talks they gave at a conference, together with the answers to questions from the audience.

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I think most of her popular books were released here, although some are quite hard-to-find... Astrology had quite a boom here on the end of the 80s/early 90s. Even my mother made natal charts, lol!

I just remembered I gave Greene's book about sun signs and love (not sure of the title in english) to my mother and she liked it very much. I will look for her more easily available books and if I like them, then I'll seek the ones that are harder to find. Hope that until then our situation here gets better and I am able to buy things from abroad.

I have a book by Howard Sasportas, "The Twelve Houses", but I just found out it came with a defect - some pages are missing. Since it's a second-hand book I cannot ask for an exchange, I'll have to find another copy. So lucky! But I really liked his explanations on the Houses and how different planets can manifest in different houses. He worked with Liz Greene so I suppose they both discuss the subject in a way that makes you think about it, instead of just giving one-paragraph definitions.

I have not forgotten about the books on Traditional Astrology you once recommended me, I just have not found them here. I think I'll have to use the 'Modern' Astrology books to begin with.

Barleywine said:

I've been kind of conflicted about Liz's work since I started cooling to the purely Jungian psychological approach to astrology about the time I bought her Saturn book, and I never really warmed up to it. It's probably also why I never bought anything by Arroyo (although I should probably back-track and do so). I did think The Twelve Houses by Sasportas was worthwhile. Early on, I was a big fan of Dane Rudhyar, and the "next wave" of psychological writers (Jeff Green is another one), while certainly capable and earnest, didn't grab me in quite the same way.

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Thank you for your input! I have been looking for Dane Rudhyar's books here as well, and there are quite a few I don't know where to start. Do you have any special recommendations? It seems to me that his book "The Astrology of Personality" is very popular, but I wonder if it's a good book to start with.

The books I have - Sakoian & Acker's "The Astrologer's Handbook" and (don't laugh!) "The Mammoth Book of Fortune Telling" - while very interesting and straightforward, they mostly give me prêt-à-porter descriptions of the planets and houses and their combination. In my opinion they do not offer much food for thought. I mean, they don't help me to 'understand' the planets and houses, only to memorize descriptions, which I find mentally unfulfilling, lol! I am looking for alternatives.

prudence said:

Marina, I think we must be on some kind of weird similar wavelength, because just today at a tarot meet up, a lady who is fairly well informed on astro strongly recommended Liz Greene to me to help me understand some of the makeup of my natal chart.

And lo and behold, I come here and you've resurrected this thread. Nice synchronicity.

Life can be so pleasantly weird.

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First Minderwiz reads my journal, now you are intercepting my brain waves!?!?!

Kidding! That's an amazing sychronicity indeed! I wish I could find a decent astrologer here to analyze my chart... I agree that if you could get your chart analyzed by someone like Liz Greene that could be a very nice experience! Of course, I have no idea how many kidneys.. I mean, how much money this would cost.

Barleywine said:

I've been kind of conflicted about Liz's work since I started cooling to the purely Jungian psychological approach to astrology about the time I bought her Saturn book, and I never really warmed up to it. It's probably also why I never bought anything by Arroyo (although I should probably back-track and do so). I did think The Twelve Houses by Sasportas was worthwhile. Early on, I was a big fan of Dane Rudhyar, and the "next wave" of psychological writers (Jeff Green is another one), while certainly capable and earnest, didn't grab me in quite the same way.

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I can well understand this point. One of the problems I face, and I think Dave faces too is when giving recommendations to newbies, or people wanting to take the next step forward is trying to balance my own approach to Astrology with the wider practise and it's not easy to recommend looking at something that I've not much faith in. Dave usually adds a disclaimer that he doesn't use such and such a technique, I try and make it clear that I follow a traditional approach.

However people have to start somewhere, and the techniques to follow really depend on a student's reason for taking up Astrology. If you're interested in Jungian psychology there's not a great deal of point in going into a traditional approach - though you'd be surprised at the amount of psychology you can get out of it. If you're interested in taking up Horary, then there's little point in learning about a psychological approach to Astrology and if you're interested in Karma, because you have a great attraction to Eastern approaches, then Vedic Astrology might be a more appropriate step.

Liz Greene is a very good example of the psychological approach - indeed one of the key pioneers and she has been the focus of change in that approach. In Sasportas' book 'The Twelve Houses', He (mistakenly) says that the fourth has traditionally been associated with Cancer and the Mother but then attributes to Liz Greene the casting of 'ambiguity' over that meaning and that Liz's extensive research identified the Mother with the tenth House.

In fairness, at the time of writing 'traditional' meant back to Alan Leo, Sasportas did not really know or understand the 'tradition' as we now know it. Liz Greene's research from a psychological perspective, confirmed the (real) traditional stance, that the tenth is the House of the mother, and that the Cancer=Moon=Fourth House view was erroneous and based on a misunderstanding of houses, signs and planets.

Liz now incorporates a much wider pespective into her teaching as the interview I linked to shows - but she is still fundamentally the psychologist.

Marina said:

I have not forgotten about the books on Traditional Astrology you once recommended me, I just have not found them here. I think I'll have to use the 'Modern' Astrology books to begin with.

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There are relatively few books on Traditional Astrology, compared with those on the Psychological approach - so they're more hard to come by. Certainly high street bookshops tend not to include them in their Astrology sections. So I can see your problem. Anyway, I think, as a beginner, you should acquaint yourself with all forms of Astrology before making your choice of which to specialise in, or even in what order you want to do further reading into two or more forms of Astrology. When Dave and I learned Astrology, there was little choice on what approach to use, if you wanted to study in depth and courses then (and often still) did not cover traditional approaches, Vedic approaches, etc. A basic knowledge of the varied types of Astrology is a good thing, it helps you put your later studies in context.

Go for what you can get books on (as long as it is of interest)

Marina said:

Thank you for your input! I have been looking for Dane Rudhyar's books here as well, and there are quite a few I don't know where to start. Do you have any special recommendations? It seems to me that his book "The Astrology of Personality" is very popular, but I wonder if it's a good book to start with.

The books I have - Sakoian & Acker's "The Astrologer's Handbook" and (don't laugh!) "The Mammoth Book of Fortune Telling" - while very interesting and straightforward, they mostly give me prêt-à-porter descriptions of the planets and houses and their combination. In my opinion they do not offer much food for thought. I mean, they don't help me to 'understand' the planets and houses, only to memorize descriptions, which I find mentally unfulfilling, lol! I am looking for alternatives.

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I have the following books by Dane Rudhyar (in no particular order of preference):

The Astrology of Personality
The Pulse of Life (covers the signs)
The Astrological Houses
The Lunation Cycle
An Astrological Study of Psychological Complexes
Person-Centered Astrology
The Practice of Astrology
An Astrological Mandala (covers the Sabian Symbols)

The Lunation Cycle is the one I still refer to, though there are probably many more recent treatments of that subject. I recall the books on signs and houses to be thoughtful as well, but I haven't looked at them in a while. If you're interested in Rudhyar's "humanistic" approach, Michael Meyer's "A Handbook for the Humanistic Astrologer" is still available as well.

Also, the Sakoian and Acker book is one of the more reliable beginner's "cookbook" style efforts, but some of it needs to be taken with a large grain of salt and some of it just makes me scratch my head. I also have Astrology: The Divine Science by Marcia Moore and Mark Douglas, which is a worthy alternative and more fully fleshed out than the Handbook (although, in the nature of these things, still somewhat formulaic). I also liked Rob Hand's work when it first came out but, upon revisiting it, my impression is that not all of it has aged well.

Minderwiz said:

Anyway, I think, as a beginner, you should acquaint yourself with all forms of Astrology before making your choice of which to specialise in, or even in what order you want to do further reading into two or more forms of Astrology.[...]
Go for what you can get books on (as long as it is of interest)

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I am trying to do that - keep and open mind about all styles of Astrology before making a decision. I actually wanted a book on Traditional Astrology just to learn more about it and compare with the most popular Psychological Astrology.

But now it seems all local second-hand bookstores have thrown their Astrology books in the fires on the Spanish Inquisition because, now that I want them, I am not finding a SINGLE decent book. Argh! Universe, please, stop conspiring against me!

Barleywine said:

The Lunation Cycle is the one I still refer to, though there are probably many more recent treatments of that subject. I recall the books on signs and houses to be thoughtful as well, but I haven't looked at them in a while. If you're interested in Rudhyar's "humanistic" approach, Michael Meyer's "A Handbook for the Humanistic Astrologer" is still available as well.

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I know this one has been translated to Portuguese, so I'll keep an open eye to it! Do you think that "The Astrology of Personality" is a good book?

Barleywine said:

Also, the Sakoian and Acker book is one of the more reliable beginner's "cookbook" style efforts, but some of it needs to be taken with a large grain of salt and some of it just makes me scratch my head. I also have Astrology: The Divine Science by Marcia Moore and Mark Douglas, which is a worthy alternative and more fully fleshed out than the Handbook (although, in the nature of these things, still somewhat formulaic). I also liked Rob Hand's work when it first came out but, upon revisiting it, my impression is that not all of it has aged well.

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Well, the truth is that all general book on basic Astrology tend to be rather formulaic, there's no escape. The authors have to talk about a bit of everything in a concise and basic manner that limits a bit your approach on the many different topics within Astrology.

I don't think we have "Astrology: The Divine Science" here, but thank you for the suggestion! There's such a huge amount of books on Astrology it's hard to know what is good and what is not... so recommendations are always welcome!