Astrological Myths

People with a casual knowledge of astrology, and even people who are practicing
astrologers, carry many myths about astrology that just don't hold up in real life. Since I
complain about these on a regular basis I thought I would just go through them one by one and
clear up some of the prevailing lack of insight that accompanies these concepts. The underlying
problem is that many practicing astrologers are more conceptual in their understanding of
astrology and do not have real life experiences with which to test their theories. The trouble is,
some of these people write books and people who read them believe that what they say is true,
simply because they got published. These myths spread themselves around as these astrologers
share their so-called wisdom with their friends and clients, who in turn share these precious bits
of wisdom with their friends. So, these myths get circulated and soon enough become part of the
collective misunderstanding of life that is part of the illusion we live under. Some of these myths
actually scare a lot of people and have folks afraid to do things on certain days and make people
more worried about the planets than they need to be. Are your planets scaring you? If so, let's see
if we can separate some of these out and get rid of them once and for all!

Horoscopes

Let's start with the daily and monthly horoscopes that you read in magazines and
newspapers. There are also weekly ones that fall under these categories. Since anyone writing
such a column lumps everyone of a certain sun sign together, not knowing the date, time or place
of birth, they are forced to use a technique called the solar chart, which creates a chart with a 0 or
15 degree sun sign on the ascendant from which transits can be calculated and predictions made.
Needless to say, the solar chart is rarely, if ever, accurate. If you read something in one of these
articles that hits home, believe me, it is purely by accident. You were born on a specific day, in a
specific month and year. Without knowing at least your day, month and year, it is impossible to
make any sort of accurate prediction for you that would be as specific as affecting a given month,
week or day of your life.

Mercury Retrogrades

It seems that more and more people are aware of when Mercury goes retrograde, which is
does quite frequently. And more and more people are concerned about it. They will avoid doing
anything on Mercury retrograde times, which often span weeks and weeks at a time. They
essentially put their life on hold until Mercury goes direct. The truth is that Mercury retrogrades
do have an effect and sometimes it is quite pronounced. However, Mercury retrogrades do not
affect everyone and you would need at least an intermediate level understanding of astrology to
know whether or not it would affect you, and how much. For a Mercury retrograde to affect you
adversely, that transiting Mercury planet would have to make an adverse aspect to some planet in
your natal chart. Then and only then will you experience some of the horrors of a retrograde
Mercury.
I used to completely ignore Mercury retrogrades, which is actually what I recommend to
everyone. Just forget about them. The greater percentage of them will not affect you at all. If you
really want to know which ones will, have some astrologer tell you if you will get a stressful
Mercury transit while it is retrograde. In the last ten years I have only have two Mercury
retrogrades that affected me powerfully in a negative way. Two in ten years! So, I am not going
to pay attention to them, which I never had anyway. And who needs one more thing to be afraid
of anyway?

Void of Course (VC) Moons

Here is another one, slightly more esoteric and so, if you tell others about it, you can be thought
of as being really hip. And this one stumps most astrologers. So many astrologers out there are
just mental and don't get the truth behind things, not to mention they believe everything they read
that is in print. And from my personal experience, most astrological books out there are pretty
useless, if not misleading. I will talk about one or two of them later. But the void of course moon
is another highly misunderstood area in astrology. This occurs when the moon has reached a
point in the current sign that it is in, when it will not make any other aspects to the other planets
before entering the next sign. That is the technical definition. They say it is void course or void
of course because it will not make any aspects before hitting the next sign. The moon moves very
fast, going from one sign to the next in 2 1/2 days. So, it will pretty much be void of course every
couple of days. And what do they say about it? They say that "anything began on a void of
course moon will come to nothing." Don't ask me who said this but I will never forget the words.
In other words any new business, relationship, project, etc. will basically fizzle out and become
worthless if it is started while the Moon is void of course. And VC Moons take an even more
advanced knowledge of astrology to determine than Mercury retrogrades. You are probably
going to have to pay someone to get this information!
Now that sounds pretty heavy, doesn't it? And it sounds like something we should all pay
attention to. Darn! I had better figure out when these VC Moons are so I can plan my life around
them! Life is like a mine field. Now I have to watch every step I make to make sure the Moon is
not void of course. But the truth is that the effect of a void of course Moon is not as they say. For
example, the longest running television show in history, The Tonight Show, was began while the
Moon was void of course. That one fact makes you realize that this myth is way off target. In my
own experience VC Moons tend to bring a steadiness to situations, a persevering quality. And it
is entirely possible that they have no effect at all.

The Truth about Transits

There is a fairly famous book called Planets in Transit by Robert Hand that is probably one
of the most worthless books I have ever read. You can go through all the trouble to figure out
what transits you are experiencing and when, and then read his book about what you can expect
to experience and I guarantee you that rarely will anything he describes actually happen to you.
After the disappointment of reading his book and some years of real life clients and studying the
charts of my loved ones, I determined some real stuff about transits and got rid of the junk. Here
are a couple of my conclusions:

1. You will have some sort of experience, an event, when there is a conjunction of a transiting
planet to one of your natal planets. These conjunctions are when some planet that is passing by,
moves right over the place where one of your planets was at the time of your birth. When this
occurs, an event will happen.
2. You will never experience a transiting trine, sextile or inconjunct as a distinctive event. These
influences are so subtle you will not even notice them unless you are looking carefully for them.
Robert Hand's book has interpretations for every planet making most of these aspects and none
of that will likely happen.
3. You will experience squares (especially) and oppositions from the outer planets (Saturn -
Pluto) to your natal planets. These transits are the trouble-bringing or growth-bringing transits
and will all precipitate in some meaningful, if difficult events in your life.
4. The only Jupiter transit that yields an event is a conjunction. Jupiter is such a gift-giving
planet that it has no negative transits. The stressful aspects of squares and oppositions from
Jupiter will not yield negative events or experiences. There you have it in a nutshell. The rest is,
well, worthless.

Lunar and Solar Eclipses

Some astrology magazines and columns will warn you about lunar and solar eclipses,
another highly misunderstood and overstated problem. They will tell you not to plan or do much
before during or shortly after one of these events, as if they are some sort of astrological poison.
In fact lunar and solar eclipse are like a death and rebirth of that sun or moon on the day they
happen. But again, these will not affect you unless they aspect specific planets in your natal
chart. However, having a solar eclipse on your birthday is definitely not desirable. This will often
portend a year with some sort of darkness, perhaps a tragedy or health issue that overshadows the
year ahead. But for the most part, these eclipses come and go without notice and are nothing to
worry about.

Relocational Astrology and Solar Returns

In astrology there is a chart called a relocation chart that is done by substituting some other
location with your birth location. The theory is that if you are living somewhere else other than
your birthplace, which most of us are, that you get a somewhat different chart, changed by your
new location. So, astrologers will create these 'relocation charts' to tell you what this new
location will do for you. It doesn't work. And relocation charts have no meaning at all. If you
doubt my words on this, get one done for where you now live and see for yourself.
There are several prominent astrologers that make a lot of money sending their clients all
over the world for their solar returns. The solar return is basically your birthday - the day the sun
returns to its exact location it was at the time of your birth. However that day can vary a bit from
year to year. Some years, your solar return will be either a day less or greater than your actual
birthday. The theory with solar return charts is that they become like a birth chart for the new
year. The wrinkle that is sending people all over the planet on their birthday is that the place
where you are on your birthday will affect the house positions of the planets in your solar return
chart. For example, if you had a very well-aspected Venus or Jupiter in your solar return chart,
by being somewhere specific on your birthday, you could position the planet so that it brought its
great success to bear upon a specific area of your life, such as your career, health or personal
relationships. The theory sounds good but in practice it just doesn't work.
In my experience the solar return chart does have an impact and can be used to make some
predictions about the upcoming year, if it is done for the location you are living or will be living
for that year of your life. But just being at a certain location on your birthday is not going to
affect you if you immediately go back to where you are living. An accurate solar return will
created for where you intend to live for the year. People are wasting their time and money to get
solar return charts with no results from them. Don't believe me, just ask them.

Stelliums of planets and special planetary configurations

A stellium is really just a bunch of planets in the same sign. Just recently there was a stellium of
planets, Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars, all in the sign of Aries. Often when these stelliums
come, and especially when there are many of the outer planets concerned, some pot-smoking
amateur astrologers put out the word that some big and exciting metaphysical 'event' is going to
occur. They will assign it some cool name, like the Harmonic Convergence, and spread that
around along with a story of what it means and what is going to happen as a result. I have seen so
many of these come and go, with grandiose predictions about earth changes and angels coming
down to earth, etc. that I can spot them immediately. Nowadays they come through email,
circulated by the aforementioned amateurs. So far, and I have seen at least 20 of these in the past
12 years or so, none of their predictions have come true. This also includes reports about other
planetary configurations. I think just last year I received reports about a ‘Star of David’
configuration that occurred. Yes, it did occur. No, none of the predictions about it came true.
In fact, certain planetary alignments will appear when tremendous world events take place.
There were such an alignment on 9/11. Funny that none of these prophets caught that one. Just
because an email sounds convincing and intelligent, mostly because the writer is using some
astrological jargon that you don't understand, doesn't mean that any of it is true. The best policy
is to ignore these and chastise the people that send them.

The Sad State of American Vedic Astrologers

I have always had an interest in Vedic astrology since I spent ten years in a yoga school. I
just love the whole culture. So, I investigated vedic or Indian astrology a bit. When I did, I
realized that the subject was so vast that even at the age of 35 I would not have enough time to
really learn it well enough to do much with it. Plus, my energy was invested in western astrology
and I had to decide between the two. I chose western because I had already invested so much of
myself into it. But I did want to get a good reading for myself by an Indian astrologer. So it
wasn't long before I found someone who did it, a guy named Nilakanta who was a Hare Krishna
devotee. I got a reading and was fairly satisfied with it. But it really didn't seem like my reading
was as good as it could be. Then my wife got a reading from a fairly famous Indian astrologer in
Los Angeles called Chakrapani. I listened with great interest to her tape and was very
disappointed in his work. He spent at least 5 minutes at the beginning of the reading advertising
his other services. And the things he told her really didn't seem relevant or accurate for her. This
guy must be a Jack of Diamonds, the way he is constantly selling stuff during his paid readings.
Then I found a book by James Braha, an American guy who is well known as a vedic astrologer.
I read his book with anticipation, using my chart as a study tool and was again disappointed. The
interpretations did not fit. This James Braha guy, I thought, knows very little about Vedic
astrology. He was just one of the first American guys who wrote a book about it, and so had
become somewhat well known.
I was beginning to lose faith in the entire system but something inside me told me that
somewhere there are great Vedic astrologers who really know what they are talking about. I got
another reading from a guy in Los Angeles, I cannot remember his name, and again it just wasn't
even that useful. At this point none of the readings I had seen or had could even come close to
the relevance or accuracy of the readings I was doing in western astrology, and I wasn't even that
good and I knew it. So, I put the idea aside for a few years until I happened to discover a man
named Mamaji.

Mamaji was an Indian man in his mid-sixties and he could not speak English. He was
visiting the yoga center where I used to live and I found out he had performed many readings
during his visit before I got there. After he found out about me and my work, he offered to trade
readings though I would have been happy to pay him for one of his. He had a friend with him
who could translate so we set up a reading.
Mamaji, it turned out, had been doing vedic astrology for over 50 years. This was his first
trip to America. When he began to speak during my reading, he said things that none of the other
astrologers had mentioned. I was amazed from the very start, as he began telling me about my
life from birth on. He mentioned many things that happened to me that I had forgotten and
explained how the speed of my planets affected their expression and how as they changed
speeds, as I grew older, that my karma would also change. He basically started from birth and
went through my childhood, teenage years and adult years, marking what he called 'turning
points' which were years when I made important transitions. He was amazingly accurate, which
made me even more excited when we got to the part about my future.
The predictions he made then have already began to come true, exactly when he said they would.
I can honestly say that this reading was among the top 3 received in my life. But I also realized
that it would be nearly impossible to find a man like Mamaji. I truly believe that there are none
in America who can even do the system justice and I cannot think of anyone I would
recommend. As for Mamaji, I tried to locate him later in India without success. If he surfaces
again I will let you know. I think that maybe, and I mean maybe, someday we will actually have
a great American Vedic astrologer. It is actually very hard to find a great Vedic astrologer in
India. But that could be a long time from now because the Vedic science is so vast that it takes
not only a lifetime of study, but also a sincere devotion to God to become masterful at it. So, my
advice is 'don't hold your breath.'