Traditional and Modern Astrologers: Never the twain shall meet?
I recently had someone on my discussion group Spiritus Mundi ask me about the void of course Moon in fixed star elections.
One of the nice things about having practiced, taught and wrote about traditional astrology for close to 15 years is that I find that I have often already answered a lot of questions.
Here's a post on exactly this question: Fixed Stars and Void of Course Moon
And in fact it references another post that gives a nice run down on modern astrology Retrograde Planet Riff
It's interesting also because I tend to differ from some other traditional astrologers in terms of who the best audience is to get interested in traditional astrology. A certain number of traditional astrologers think that modern astrologers are a good audience to convert to traditional. Now certainly a good number of now traditional astrologers may have started with modern. I think I was lucky because I never trained in or used modern before learning traditional. Lucky? Not because traditional is necessarily so superior, but just that I didn't have to unlearn anything.
This is a serious problem! Prospective students ask if they aren't disadvantaged taking my courses because they know nothing about astrology. I tend to say again that they are lucky because they can start from scratch.
Compared to most other New Age "sciences" modern astrology is pretty difficult. You do have to learn the planets, signs and aspects. You do need to look at a chart. This does take some effort. Why would you want to toss all that and learn a different method? Even more confusing is that fact that most modern astrologers aren't aware that there are other schools of astrology or that there is any reason not to use any and all techniques of any and all schools simultaneously. Finally there is a philosophical problem. Traditional astrology predicts, traditional astrology openly accepts and in fact depends on Fate. Modern astrology weirdly enough denies Fate and makes disguised predictions. Moderns like modern astrology because it fits them better.
This makes traditional astrology a hard sell to modern astrologers. Throw in magic and you've really got a problem. Magic definitely gives modern astrologers the heebie-jeebies. So my view tends to be that modern astrologers are not the best audience for traditional astrology or astrological magic.
Who is? A pretty diverse, but small group. Unlike modern astrology, traditional seems to be about 50-50 men and women. Traditional astrologers and astrological magicians are scattered all over the world. What they all share is a consuming passion for these ancient arts, consuming enough to put in the considerable time and effort required for mastery. Many people describe how traditional astrology and astrological magic call to them, how they feel inexorably drawn to it. That's certainly how I felt and still feel!
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