IN addition, I tend to filter things through my background in the sciences, and current studies in integrative medicine. I have looked forward to using astrology in some capacity when I start my practice as a licensed naturopathic physician, if only to help advise my patients how best to put that exercise program into practice!

So I got it, opened it, and started working through it. My immediate reaction to this book is “Yes, but……”

It’s a big “but”.

Look, I respect the efforts to revive traditional astrology. I think that part of what has kicked it into gear has been the increasing use of Vedic astrology (which looking at Ms. George’s book, my immediate reaction is that the links between Vedic and ancient hellenistic astrology seem obvious, at least to me; no judgment made here as to which one “came first”.) Obviously a fair amount of people want to know practical things, such as “what will happen?” rather than what their psychological tendencies and etc.

But Ms. George’s book comes across as depressingly deterministic. And I think we need to realize something. The ancient world was one that thought of things as being pretty determined by the circumstances of one’s birth – especially the Greeks. Do we really want to use interpretations and mind sets from a time and place that saw slavery and the subjugation of women as simply part of the natural order of things? That figured what you were born into was your destiny? This is a far cry from looking realistically at the circumstances of one’s life and figuring out how to work with those things. I don’t know about you, but my answer is no.

Ms. George does allow for the fact that people may not want to use deterministic interpretations, and might want to instead use the chart to pinpoint what one could work on. But at least at this point, her take seems to be “help the client to live a life in accord with the chart, and steer them away from things that aren’t indicated in the chart.”

You know, in that case, I might as well just put away, and forget about it. I already know where I’m suffering; if all the chart is going to do is say “Well, yes, you are suffering in this area, and that is that”, why bother?

In that light, I think I’ll go do something real. I may have just brought some years of study to an end.

Les