At the Lodge - 18th April 2005

Lodge Lecture | Class | Charts Discussion

Lodge Lecture

It was a pleasure to welcome Neil Spencer to the Lodge to give his lecture entitled "Hello, my name's Alan and I'm a Leo", the irresistible rise of the Sun Sign republic, which was first presented at last year's AA Conference. It seemed appropriate that we should invite him to give the same talk at the Lodge.

Neil began by explaining the events which lead to the initial idea: a talk by Jonathan Cainer at the AA Conference in 2001. Cainer was giving a lecture on Sun Sign astrology and the questions following the main talk developed into "a full and frank exchange of views". Money was a central factor in the debate, a debate which is by no means new, together with the notion of Sun Sign based astrology not being "real astrology".

This lead Neil to put together this talk outlining the development of Sun Sign astrology and the twentieth century astrologers who were instrumental in this. He began by sharing his thoughts on astrology. Mercury is the traditional ruler of astrology but he also rules liars and thieves; there is little moral content with Mercury. Uranus is the modern ruler but there may have been some confusion with the Muse Urania, however we do literally steal fire from the gods when we consult a chart. Bringing these two together he made the point that there is no such thing as "real astrology"; we project ourselves upon the sky in all branches of astrology. Almost nothing is real: houses, nodes, parts etc.

Sun sign astrology, as we know it, is a modern animal. It could be argued that Alan Leo was the father of modern astrology and that his methods of compiling cookbook delineations laid the foundations upon which later newspaper astrology developed.

Leo was a theosophist and many of the ideas he brought to astrology were based in theosophical doctrine. Principal among these was "Sun at the Centre" and "Astrology for All"; very interesting when you consider the focus on the Leo/Aquarius axis in Leo's chart.

The first British newspaper astrology column was a profile of Princess Margaret in the Sunday Express written just after she was born by R. H. Naylor. Following the main article were brief forecasts for each of the Sun Signs; and so the astrology column was born.

Neil then spoke about the many eminent astrologers who have been involved in Sun Signs including Dane Rudyar, who was among the first to push psychology into astrology. Others worthy of note are Carl Righter, who could name Ronald Reagan and Marlene Deitrich amongst his clients, Sidney Omar, who was close friends with Henry Miller - you don't write books entitled Tropic of Cancer without having an astrologer somewhere in your social circle, Jean Dixon, who also advised the Reagans and had 650 syndicated column, and of course Lynda Goodman, who wrote the most popular astrology book in terms of sales - Lynda Goodman's Sun Signs. Patrick Walker must also be mentioned and his various columns advanced astrology significantly.

The modern rival to the newspaper column is the Internet and there are increasing numbers of astrology sites which are, unfortunately, of varying standard. Neil concluded by emphasising the essential qualities which a Sun Sign astrologer must have: not only must they be a good astrologer but they must be able to write and convey their ideas. Bringing precision and clarity to the terrifyingly general is the key to a good column.

Claire Chandler

Class

There was was no class this week

Charts Discussion

Well, what an interesting Easter holiday that turned out to be. So charts discussion, the first one of the summer term, was action packed.

Of course we did the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and the new Duchess of Cornwall, and the chart of the moment they said 'I do'.

As many astrologers had predicted, their wedding had been 'eclipsed' by the demise of Pope John Paul II, so we looked at his chart along with the moment the conclave started. It was predicted that it would be a short concave, with a new Pope being decided very quickly.

We then also did the chart of Prince Rainier who had also died, along with the chart of Monaco and Prince Albert.

Gill Dorren

Lodge Lecture | Class | Charts Discussion