Astrology Predicts Meanings, Not Events

Astrology is a science of calculated probabilities....but it's also an art. I am sure somewhere there is a "psychic astrologer" but I'd like that proven to me. An astrologer doesn't have to be psychic if he/she is experienced and capable enough.
And a psychic doesn't need astrology if they are really psychic.
A true psychic is a very very rare bird indeed.

I have predicted events in the lives of my clients. Through a combination of calculated probabilities and intuition (guessing?)....not really guessing, no. Experience. If I see X square X opposition X to the ruler of the X house, and I've seen that before about 20 times, and it always meant X would happen, then I can pretty well figure out that on the 21st time the same thing will "happen."

That is how the science of astrology has advanced to where it is today. About 6,000 years ago in Ur or someplace like it some people who had just been through a drought looked up at the heavens and noticed such and such going on and wrote it down. After a few hundred years of noticing what was going on in the heavens when certain events happened (it probably all started with a solar eclipse) the science of astrology was born. People with strong necks and inquiring minds began to keep track of the "lights".

We are lucky. We only have to buy books and do our own research based on the record keeping of probably a of million astrologers from the past. And put in the time.

Not everything CAN be predicted because of Uranus and Neptune. One is the ruler of "unpredictability", meaning we are not MEANT to know everything, and the other is the ruler of "deception" meaning man can be deceived.

And I have no problem telling a client that "we can't know this." or "you can't know this at this point." Or "you aren't supposed to know this. You need to LEARN for yourself."

Astrologers are not supposed to take the process of self discovery and life lessons away from his/her clients. Sometimes the client just has to learn the hard way.
LIN

amzolt said:

This may be really hard for some folks to believe, but here it is: Astrology does not, will not, and never has predicted events.

"What?!"

Yes. It's the absolute truth, even if some astrologer "predicted" something for you. If an astrologer tells you something is going to happen, don't you think that, if it does, there may just be a bit of self-fulfillment in that?

What astrology does predict or reveal is Meaning.

"O.K. What if an astrologer says some event happened in your past, and, in fact, it did happen?"

Believe it or not, what happened is that the astrologer saw a meaning in the chart and made a very good guess at the exact event. Here's some proof of that:

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to talk to two men, born of different mothers but at the same time at the same hospital. Since they had the same chart you'd think they would have had the same events happening in their lives, right? Well, all it takes is one contrary occurrence of something to disprove a theory and here it is:

There was a strong indicator in their charts at a certain time, and I asked the first man what happened. He said his father had died. I asked the other man, with the same chart, what happened, and he said he'd been on his first nude beach...

Obviously, the same chart had shown two very different events! Then, I asked the first man (by the way, I interviewed these men separately), "What did it mean when your father died?" He said that he'd felt like he'd had shackles removed (his father had been rather authoritarian). I asked the other man, "What did it mean to be on your first nude beach?" He said that he had dropped his shackles...

They used exactly the same, and not so common, word to describe what two very different events meant...

So, astrology doesn't predict events, it predicts meanings.

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I tend to agree that astrology is more about meanings. This is what I read in The Horoscope of Manifestation which was enlightening to me about the process of a transit on the inner and outer level. Not quoted perfectly, but the essence is there.

A woman whose father died a few years earlier, had transiting Pluto approaching her 4th house Chiron in Sagittarius. A few years earlier when her father had died. The woman said it hadn't meant anything to her, to her it was a non-event. However, when her brother in law was ill and she feared he would die. She couldn't understand why his dying terrified her. Transiting Neptune was also crossing her Sun. Gradually it became apparent that the real event which underpinned her anxiety was the death of her father. This may sound strange, because he had already died, but on an inner level he had not died at all. There was no grief or emotional separation, and no sense of loss at the time of the actual death. The real death seemed to occur with transiting Pluto coming up to Chiron. The real meaning of his death took place later.

When does the end of a relationship occur? When two people physically part. For many people the relationship is alive and powerful years after the separation. This is particularly tragic and poignant when a parent loses a child, and cannot process the loss. The child's room may be preserved like a museum, with nothing moved or changed. Often people are unconscious of all this and sometimes the ex partners photograph is never removed from the mantelpiece, and no new love is allowed to sit in their favorite chair. Years later when the ex remarries all hell breaks loose, as though the vanished partner has been put on ice in a secret compartment. The separation may have happened on the concrete level many years before, but only now are they feeling angry and hurt, and grief for their loss.

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I think 'meaning' is a word of wide definition. It can trip you up. I like to say, traditionally this transit brings such and such a situation to the forefront of your life, and it can mean this or that. Physchologically it can mean so and so. Physically it can bring so and so....emotionally it often means that.....
because meaning may have to do with my experience or philosophy ...... but for the individual client the meaning may be something we don't put together by what we see at that moment that we are looking at the chart.

I had a client, a doctor whose wife used to go to Florida for a few months every year and left him home to work in his practice....he only saw her a few times during that time. This gave him a LOT of time to "play around" and he did....a LOT...and broke a lot of hearts.
Well, when he was in his early 50s, he met this gal. I saw from the chart that this was really going to be rough going, as they were NOT compatible, but the chemistry was there. She was too young for him, and I felt it was a terrible risk for him, as he seemed to really really like her....in fact, he fell for her...even though I warned him in all ways I could.
Well, finally SHE broke HIS heart....he was stunned...he didn't think he could be affected like that. When I saw him again after they broke up, I said to him, "well, now you know what it feels like"....and he said, "you are absolutely right. Maybe this was supposed to happen because of the way I've 'been' with women."

So what did it all mean? Was it karma? The law of averages? The age difference? HIs marriage? Was he just in a bad transit (Neptune WAS involved, believe me.) In the end he didn't care what it meant. Only that he was heartbroken. He was a Virgo, she needed rescuing, he rescued her, she went away. There's a LOT of meaning....or none. Obviously he was supposed to experience the loss of love. Why? Because he'd been a "dawg?" Maybe, or maybe it was just bad luck or bad timing.
LIN

This may sound strange, because he had already died, but on an inner level he had not died at all. There was no grief or emotional separation, and no sense of loss at the time of the actual death. The real death seemed to occur with transiting Pluto coming up to Chiron. The real meaning of his death took place later.

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This is especially for me very interesting as I experienced the same feeling or rather non-feeling when my father died and actually also when my mother died. I did not even want to see her, not because I did not like her, I was just scared stiff to see a lifeless mother. I could however quietly look at my father and even said: beautiful hands he has, real pianohands (he was a good pianist). My ex- husband was stupified with my attitude and said: "You can cry you know, I really dont mind." He cried his eyes out when his father died.

So now I am still waiting for that feeling of grief I guess. But I do remember, when my ex had a brain infarct 8 years ago, I was in total panic, true. He recovered but the sword of Damocles is constantly hanging above his head and I am constantly worried he might die all of a sudden. After our divorce we remained really close.
In my case however, Chiron will not anymore be activated by Pluto until Pluto squares it at 4° Aquarius. I dont think he will live that long as he must undergo an autopsy this month for something else. The Solar Eclipse at 29° Cancer fell conjunct his Moon/Pluto conjunction at 0°19 Leo and Moon rules his Sun.

[QUOTE by Lin]
So what did it all mean? Was it karma? The law of averages? The age difference? HIs marriage? Was he just in a bad transit (Neptune WAS involved, believe me.) In the end he didn't care what it meant.
[/QUOTE]

Indeed.
Maybe we could say to a client: trans, Saturn will go over your Venus this year and this could mean that ....... instead of saying: this could cause problems in ......

However, the meaning behind this occurence is probably karmic.(like in your example) Maybe Amzolt talks about that sort of meaning. But trying to explain the karmic consequences to a client is quite tricky as so many dont believe in karma.

I still have difficulties to grab the meaning of what Amzolt means with meaning.

starlink said:

This is especially for me very interesting as I experienced the same feeling or rather non-feeling when my father died and actually also when my mother died. I did not even want to see her, not because I did not like her, I was just scared stiff to see a lifeless mother. I could however quietly look at my father and even said: beautiful hands he has, real pianohands (he was a good pianist). My ex- husband was stupified with my attitude and said: "You can cry you know, I really dont mind." He cried his eyes out when his father died.

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Death in particular provokes many different feelings. I noticed in my family when my father died, all the different ways we cope. Some close off to their feelings and try to cope alone. There are suicidal feelings, anger, terror, fear. I grieved slowly, and I got on with life. I am not opposed prediction, many astrologers do it successfully, and they also make mistakes, because they have looked at the transits too literally.

So now I am still waiting for that feeling of grief I guess. But I do remember, when my ex had a brain infarct 8 years ago, I was in total panic, true. He recovered but the sword of Damocles is constantly hanging above his head and I am constantly worried he might die all of a sudden. After our divorce we remained really close.
In my case however, Chiron will not anymore be activated by Pluto until Pluto squares it at 4° Aquarius. I don't think he will live that long as he must undergo an autopsy this month for something else. The Solar Eclipse at 29° Cancer fell conjunct his Moon/Pluto conjunction at 0°19 Leo and Moon rules his Sun.

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It will come if you let it, you are a Scorpion Moon (I think), so you do feel intensely. I worry about my partner suddenly dropping dead like my father. My father was young at 42, and as my partner gets older there is that deep fear and anxiety. You react differently to life after the death of people, it does change you.

I remembering looking at Marilyn Monroe's transits during her first divorce, and the transiting trines were beautiful to Uranus involving her air houses. I think she found the marriage limiting and wanted to leave so she could have a career, a breakup is not always negative. T. Jupiter in 11th squared her 8th house Uranus, legal issues, divorce does occur under Uranus. However, the rest of the chart was lovely, she was enjoying a new chapter in her life, and more opportunities for growth on an individual level. Other people with similar transits may experience the same freedom in different ways.

Michael Jackson was having Saturn transits and Pluto trines etc.. and I thought this represented his re-birth in the sense he was touring again, totally unaware that it was his re-birth in a totally different sense. After his death his career made it's biggest comeback. No accurate birth time does make predicting a little more difficult.

I think free will is being overlooked in this discussion. One of the primary beliefs in Vedic astrology is that 'Karma' (deeds/actions) are above all.

Astrology cannot predict the minutest of detail, which is why many Indian astrologers look to develop their psychic abilities or also make use of other predictive aides like numerology, while making predictions.

Two individuals, with identical charts will, at different points in time, make decisions that set off chains of events leading to very different consequences. Hence, when the individuals pass through the same transits, an astrologer will note that an event will occur, a good astrologer will be able to provide details of the event and an astrologer with very good predictive skills will have specific details of the event.

Haizea, you seem to be under the impression that astrologers volunteer such information, irrespective of whether they are asked or not. I don't believe this is the case. No responsible astrologer would provide such information unless he/she were expressly asked to do so, in no uncertain terms.

No responsible astrologer would provide such information unless he/she were expressly asked to do so, in no uncertain terms.

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I totally agree with this. Absolutely incredible! and inhuman .. What a dreadful experience. You have my deepest sympathy Haizea. To me this would be the worst thing that could happen to me.

Starlink

starlink said:

I totally agree with this. Absolutely incredible! and inhuman ..

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Hold on. You are commenting on Lilly's post, and before you call her personal experience "incredible! and inhuman", shouldn't you ask *her* more about the background? I think you are making unfair assumptions.

What a dreadful experience. You have my deepest sympathy Haizea.

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This did not happen to Haizea. Haizea is commenting on Lilly's post. Again, we do not know the circumstances behind her experiences. Let's stick to the facts. Haizea asked for more explanation. Let's wait until we see the explanation before passing judgment.

My apologies Gaer, I totally misread the whole thing and thought that Haizea had told us about her son. I dont know how I could have missed that.

I think you are making unfair assumptions.

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What do you mean by unfair? I just told someone that I felt sorry for her loss. I thought it was Haizea's loss, now I understand it is Lilly's,so I dont see anything unfair in this. There was not even an assumption possible here. Lilly told what happened to her and I said that I really felt sympathy for that. (only mistake was that I did not see it was a quote from Lilly).

Even so, an astrologer telling you these unhappy things, sorry, that is not what this person should have done, no matter how personal her astrologer is. Unless she, as also was mentioned, explicitly asked for it.

OK, I hope I made myself clear here

There's a few points I'd like to make here:
Firstly the astrologer to whom I refer would never have volunteered such information and responded to questions I specifically asked.There was nothing unethical about it.
I think people's reactions to this issue of predicting difficulty (death even), are sometimes based on their own fears/perceptions of death. To me, death is simply a transition from one dimension to another.Just like being born really.There doesn't seem to be the same concern around the prediction of birth.To me birth and death are very much the same thing.That perspective is shared by many and deserves respect also.

For those who are concerned about the son involved, and his rights, at the time of asking he was unborn.This was a long time ago.But after it happened I had no doubt that Astrology, in the hands of a competent astrologer can indeed predict all the main events, and it is in the context of this debate that I thought it relevant to raise it.

This topic raises the question of what astrology can and cannot do, not what astrologers should or should not do, so a discussion of that would have to occur in another thread, or we would be off-topic.

When you visit an astrologer, you are quite entitled to ask that certain issues not be raised, such as illness etc, but personally I prefer to use astrology to gain information as to how best to utilise the potential of any given situation.I use astrology to guide the direction of my life.That sometimes unfortunately involves hard stuff, like the loss of friends etc.Some people want to know as much as possible, but others want only to be told about certain areas- career, love etc.. No-one is arguing that a client's wishes aren't paramount.
I hope I have cleared this up for you.
Cheers
Lilly

Haizea,
The day I found out I was pregnant,I had an intuition that my baby was only going to be with me for a short time.Two weeks before, I had been diagnosed with a very serious illness. I had to make a choice-forego the treatment which would have harmed the unborn baby, but *cured* me,(possibly-that was not a certainty) or terminate the pregnancy and proceed with my treatment. I used astrology to guide me in that decision.

My specific question was "Will the baby make it?".The chart was pretty clear he wouldnt.But I used this info to decide to keep him, forego my treatment, seek alternative therapies which would not harm him.In the end, (although this is now off topic), I was healed, but he died the day he was due to be born.
The astrologer did not and was not asked to provide details about how long he might live etc. To me asking that would be placing another person in a very difficult and unfair position.I chose to have the experience of having him in my body for the nine months and I have never once regretted that decision, although losing him was excruciating-he was my first.


This kind of issue is incredibly complex from an ethics viewpoint, but once you find yourself a compassionate astrologer, as I have been fortunate enough to do, astrology can really help you make crucial decisions-about almost anything.
I hope my sharing this rather personal information, answers your questions.
Cheers
lilly

You are completley right
astrology has nothing to do with predictions of the future
thats all ******** ,it is about meanings and understandings
don't mix up the two.

Haizea said:

Thank you very much again, lillyjgc.

Yes, now I can understand your question and the whole situation. The picture is totally different now. I hope you can comprehend all my personal questioning into your life, and that I saw the first statement as truly scary.

If I asked too much, you can blame this transit I had yesterday: Mercury Conjunction Pluto

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I really want to thank you too Lily, knowing how hard that must have been to share that difficult chapter with us. I appreciate it because it was really hard to imagine how, in what context, an astrologer would ever make that prediction to a client. But now i do understand. Thank you.

Caprising said:

If the thought of not having total control over your life is too terrifying to consider, then why study astrology? Nancy Anne Hastings published a book called "time to remember", and in it she will teach you the basics of prediction, so for those of you who can get past the "total control" fears that most of us have, buy the book and learn the craft.

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I think this is a good point. I went through a period where I had to quit studying astrology for about 6 months because I realized that I was trying to control my life too much by figuring out what was going to happen next. Studying astrology has helped me come a little closer to a day-by-day attitude- not that I'm completely there, just a little closer than before. To sum it up, astrology made me so aware of my need to have control over my life, that I gave up some of that need for control.

This may be slightly off topic, but I've noticed that I will have days on occasion where things hits the fan, and I don't have any transits going on that would explain it.

Caprising said:

If the thought of not having total control over your life is too terrifying to consider, then why study astrology? Nancy Anne Hastings published a book called "time to remember", and in it she will teach you the basics of prediction, so for those of you who can get past the "total control" fears that most of us have, buy the book and learn the craft.

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I don't consider the possibility of having total control over my life to be "too terrifying to consider." I just know that I would miss out on a lot of the good things that have happened to me, if I did. Life throws beautiful things our way that we would miss if we were fully in the driver's seat.

This might be as simple as unexpectedly bumping into some friends I hadn't seen for a while, or as life-changing as taking an introductory college class many years ago simply because I heard it wasn't too difficult and it fit my schedule--and thereby inadvertantly finding the subject to which I devoted most of my working life.

When life throws some real curve-balls that appear to be transit-free, I would also suggest looking at progressions, solar arcs, Chiron, and perhaps some relevant asteroids. I became a believer in Chiron's implication in actual "wounds" [a broken bone, surgery] when it was spot-on and no major planets were. The vertex is supposedly implicated in fateful encounters.

Lilly, I am really sorry for the difficult choice you faced and its outcome. But it sounds like the key is to find an astrologer who is both compassionate and knowledgeable. Unfortunately, not all of them are!

lilllybelle said:

I think this is a good point. I went through a period where I had to quit studying astrology for about 6 months because I realized that I was trying to control my life too much by figuring out what was going to happen next. Studying astrology has helped me come a little closer to a day-by-day attitude- not that I'm completely there, just a little closer than before. To sum it up, astrology made me so aware of my need to have control over my life, that I gave up some of that need for control.

This may be slightly off topic, but I've noticed that I will have days on occasion where things hits the fan, and I don't have any transits going on that would explain it.

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I went from being a professional astrologer, who lived and breathed it, and had many close astrology friends, to NOT using it or looking at it for years.

When we moved from Venice beach california, to a town far away where astrology was considered kooky or evil, I put it away for the sake of my young kids. They did not want mom to be an astrologer as this town was very conservative and uptight. For several years I kept up with some of my old clients and did their solar returns etc, but I pretty much put it away. I had a garage full of astrology books which sat in boxes for years.

Just recently I felt compelled to get back to my roots and began charting everything again. A major progression spurred this return to astrology. When I first began a serious study of astrology, tr uranus was on my sun @ 0 Scorpio. When I returned to it, my pr Uranus was conjunct my pr asc in Cancer.

This is an old thread that I found thru search. Maybe I won't get any feedback for my personal opinions, but I'm just writing for what it's worth.

The two exact same natal charts that have very different events, but similar meaning are certainly within the real possibilities offered by predictive astrology. The problem that I see that is not being asked is that the two natives simply don't have the same parents, etc. The course of events & life can be HIGHLY correlated to the people around us, especially our closest family members. Each natal chart will progress and receive transits all the same, but will interact differently with other "natal charts" around us. As time progresses, it changes our physical locations, further producing differences in the two lives that started with the same natal charts.

At least, that is what I have found through studying my own charts and the charts in my family. Indeed, for all the family members (to be close together physically, emotionally, or event-wise), their charts must have some synastry, with certain combination of natal planets near the same degrees, for the future transiting planets to strike them at about the same time with similar aspects, producing some events that tie the natal charts involved.

It is obviously very difficult to blind-read a chart. However, educated "guesses" could be derived by looking at the native's and his/her surrounding charts, including the mundane charts at that time. To be able to make any good "prediction" or guesses, the astrologer must know the past and present, how the natal planets have developed and expressed their "stronger meaning" in the past through evolution of events & interactions with other charts. The life unfolded in the study of progression & transits is never meaningless and discontinuous. Based on the continuity of the current state of native's life (& the past), the more correct "meanings" can then be decoded for the future as in the form of actual events.

And of course, the astrological meaning is always true. The only problem is that even with a single transit/progression, one cannot often choose the correct rendering based on various different possibilities presented by the houses & planets, not to mention that the sum of experiences is an ensemble of all collective planetary influences & interactions with others/world at large.

Therefore, predicative astrology is truly the combination of the ART of story-telling together with the science of casting charts. All of the scientific astrology disapproval as far as I can see failed because the scientists (who are not astrologers) don't know how to formulate the provable hypothesis. It's like scientists trying to prove that things are just random when you throw a regular dice, but astrologers are trying to tell you that if you see a "six" facing up, you just WON'T see the "one" on the four sides because the "one" is hidden at the bottom. (Note: this is only an analogy, assuming a regular common dice construction with opposite faces adding up to 7.) The right scientific question needs to be asked in the provable way for astrology, and my personal guess is that it needs to start with outer planet transits.

Apology for my odd positions. My natal Uranus in 9th house always causes me to look at things differently.

Astro Novice, in my opinion your points are valid.

External influences are certainly a factor, they affect free will and astrology cannot override free will. I suppose this takes us back to what is being discussed here, in the main, in that astrology can predict that an event will occur, the general nature of that event, what area of the life of the individual it should affect. How that event influences the future of an individual, will depend on their specific circumstances.