Book review:
This is a revised and expanded version of a classic text that was first published in 1998. Ever since I got that first edition, it has been one of the very few books I keep within arm’s reach while I work, and this new edition is even better.

The book’s particular angle is stated on the first page of the Introduction:

…despite all the books that speak of the essential message of house meanings, very little exists in contemporary literature to foster a true appreciation of that essence by illustrating where the meanings come from. The origin of their symbolism is poorly understood, and little effort has been made by modern astrologers to investigate and define their meaning. (p.ix.)

The book fulfils two distinct functions. Firstly, it is a ‘cook-book’ for houses – and in this role it is the best there is. (The meanings of each house are covered on pp.61-92, and there is also a rulership index, pp.160-168). Secondly, underpinning the entire text is an enquiry into where the house meanings come from, and an attempt to purge the misinterpretations that have crept into this area of astrology.

Probably the worst source of distortion, Houlding judges, is the attempt to equate signs and houses:

Although modern natal astrology allows a considerable exchange of meaning between houses and signs, the suggestion that houses derive their meanings from signs is clearly contradicted in traditional texts, where a much stronger distinction is readily apparent. (p.x).

There is much very interesting material in her description of what is needed in order to understand the houses correctly. The two things that stand out in my mind are:

– the observation (p.19) that while there is mileage in considering the houses as a ‘cycle of life’, this works only if we judge the cycle to move according to diurnal motion – i.e. from the 12th house to the 11th, and so on. As she points out, this is the opposite motion from the (counter-clockwise) numerical sequence of houses which modern authors have often taken as their starting point.

– The author’s illustration of how the joys of the planets have fed back into the understanding of house meanings – with perhaps the most significant single instance being the Venusian qualities which have been assimilated into the definition of the 5th house (see p.32 – 40).

What Houlding offers here is a way of understanding the houses which is more hard-edged than is met with in many modern astrology books, as for example when she insists:

The 8th house remains the house of death, loss and grief, no matter how pleasantly we wrap that up in digestible phrases such as ‘personal-transformation’. (p.21.)
I think the perspective offered here might be of interest to many researchers, both insofar as it challenges certain common assumptions about the core meanings of the houses, and also for the way that it lays out the philosophical basis for the houses’ meanings, making it possible by working from first principles to figure out which house might be expected to rule any given subject. The final two chapters are devoted to the problem of which house system is ‘the best’. Houlding concludes that this is an unanswerable question:

…there are so many valid frames of reference, and it is impossible to fully recognise the potential of them all within any one technique. (pp.122-3.)

Anyone who already has the first edition will find the text thoroughly overhauled, and often expanded. Much of the expansion is by way of further explanation and definition of terms, so if you have the first edition and already understand everything in it then this new version should count as ‘desirable’ rather than ‘essential’. Otherwise, this is simply a must-have for anyone with a serious interest in astrology.

Book review:
This has proved a difficult book to review, not just because a Zodiac of twelve authors have participated in its creation, each brings different concerns to the finished work, which embrace psychology, mathematics, art history, architecture, philosophy, anthropology and much else, but because it forces me to confront fundamental philosophical differences with the majority of its contributors, many of whom I know personally, and hold in high regard for their contributions to astrology, and from whom I have benefited. The papers represent a selection of those delivered at two conferences held during 2005; conferences I was unable to attend due to work commitments, and now have the unfair advantage of putting into print thoughts that would have been far better debated at the time.

In the penultimate paper (which perhaps should have come first, as it sets the scene so eloquently) Richard Tarnas clarifies much current debate with an account of modernity’s rejection of the human being as situated in a mysterious world governed by meaningful principles, in favour of an ego-driven, technological environment in which individual desire is the sole driving force. While his general analysis cannot be faulted, his fleeting reference to Nietzsche identified a door that was not opened. Nietzsche’s central thesis was that humanity had to re-evaluate its sacred ideas, and strip away all illusions. He predicted, accurately, that humanity’s reaction to this would be a retreat into Nihilism, which he called a ‘pathological response’ (God is dead, everything means nothing, so let’s give up). But Nietzsche challenged that attitude with his passionate belief in the fundamental power of the natural world and, like Heidegger, demanded that theory should be set aside so that the world could ‘show itself as it is’. While Nietzsche and Heidegger were exceptional scholars of the ancient world, drawing on much pre-Socratic thought (both thinkers essentially rejecting the Platonic above/below, timeless/temporal, theory/experience divide as quasi-Cartesian) their re-thinking of the past has led, in the hands of others, to both the very post-modern sterility that Tarnas describes, but also to new visions of the human being that Tarnas hints at in his closing paragraph. However, like many of the contributors, he primarily couches his views within the orthodoxies of neo-Platonism and Jungian psychology, and thus side-steps alternative readings. And herein lies my problem with this volume: there is virtually no engagement with the present, and the shifting nature of ideas. If Sky and Psyche are one, an ancient idea that Nicholas Campion invokes in his introduction, then what is happening now? After all, it is only in the now that we exist, albeit a now that simultaneously contains a shifting understanding of our past and our expectations of the future, which in turn are made possible, as Heidegger (and astrologers) claim, by the fluid nature of time.

Of course, there could come a speedy –and valid – response to my disquiet from many of the contributors, who might observe that they were essentially engaged in historical research. But research conducted within the astrological paradigm should contain astrology’s implicit assumption: that everything –including human thought- is in flux, and thus my world is fundamentally different from the world of the ancients. In Heideggarian jargon, we cannot disclose the world of the ancients because we are not situated within their time. Only the now can be disclosed because only in the now do we exist. And there is very little attempt to explore the now of Sky and Psyche within this volume. The Platonic response might be to suggest that there is within me some inchoate knowledge of essential forms, which I draw upon to make sense of their temporal equivalent, as if there is within me some sort of map that makes my immediate landscape partially comprehensible. But such a claim holds a conundrum. If I need something ‘inner’ to recognise its outer portrayal, then how can I recognise the meaning of the inner in the first place, or even know that it has any meaning at all? If we say that “I just do” then I could similarly recognise meaning in the ‘outer’ without any need for recourse to a hypothetical ‘inner’ to explain my understanding. Much psychological theory founders in similar waters, with concepts of unconscious processes, psychic mechanisms and so on, all allegedly framing conscious perceptions, but are post-facto constructs of its theorising.

I labour these points partly to bring to the fore the unquestioning nature of many of the papers: a particular truth is assumed, and is supported by evidence framed in a language that only engages with its own terms of reference, and partly to acknowledge my own struggles with the profound issues raised by the various authors. And profound they are. There is little doubt that the publication of Sky and Psyche is a considerable achievement, and along with Campion’s Culture and Cosmos journal is an important contribution to the history of ideas that inform some of astrology’s paradigms, though the volume tends to ignore others. To put it bluntly, there is little engagement with the lived experience of astrology –and, indeed, virtually no astrological examples. Yes, Liz Green includes some welcome charts, but their circles are encompassed by an unquestioned, and familiar

mythology. Has nothing of philosophical importance happened since the time of Plato (or before) has nothing taken place within psychology after lightening struck Zurich’s old oak?

This is not a demand for new techniques -which, at face value only echoes current scientism – but rather a call to explore the evolving nature of ideas. Both John Addey and Charles Harvey were convinced neo-Platonists, and from their work emerged theories of harmonics, of which little is to found amongst current astrological writings, yet both authors drew on the same Plato that informs the majority of this volume’s contributors, but were always tilted towards a horizon that has found little recognition here.

Of course, some contributors contradict a few of my complaints. Noel Cobb’s paper wickedly portrays the manner in which current politicians wish to extend their suspect mastery of the firmament with delusional aspirations for controlling space, and includes some beautifully written passages extolling the centrality of the geocentric worldview: this is our world, which we can revere or contaminate. In this essay he shares many of his personal experiences, and brings them vividly to life. And, as ever, Robert Hand attempts to bring together ancient modes of thought within a modern, and in this case mathematical model, one which demonstrates the manner in which abstract calculus disconnects us from out physical sense of the world, and offers an alternative, though one that requires considerable pondering as to its applicability within the ebb and flow of life. In his preamble he puts into parenthesis the question what is space? What, indeed! In his lectures to psychiatrists at Zollikon, Heidegger posed the same question. The transcript records that ten minutes of silence followed…

But to return to this volume, and its treatment of embodied space. While Angela Voss offers an illuminating, and beautifully illustrated essay on the capacity for statues to evoke the ineffable, not all contributors manage to catch the book’s central theme with the same clarity. Both Nicholas Pearson and Cherry Gilchrist generously share their moments of illumination, Pearson with an account of a personal journey of discovery and Gilchrist with a fascinating description of Russian shamanism. But Pearson makes no reference the volume’s theme, and Gilchrist offers only the most generalized account of sky and psyche for the shaman (that the layout of a house may mirror concepts of above and below and so forth) a theme which has been extensively explored by many philosophically-orientated anthropologists, and the omission of disparate views, even if forcefully rejected, seems at odds with academic endeavour. But she is not alone here, and perhaps this is how astrology is caught when it knocks on University doors seeking re-admittance after 400 years. There may be a hovering between scholastic demands, which are partially acknowledged, and a wariness of rushing in with a radically different world-view. Of course, I have been spared the tribulations of the book’s editors, who have tried so hard for so many years to hold the doors ajar against the weight of orthodox opinion, that I feel a disquiet at my various criticisms, but, nevertheless, they clearly surface here. In this volume the practice of astrology, which is implicit in the title, finds little voice within its pages, though it has ultimately been made possible by those whose lives have been dedicated to its cause. As ever, astrology, the bastard child of innumerable cultures, still seeks parental acknowledgement, and does not quite know which way to turn under the endless revolve of a sky that is mainly illuminated by the Sun and the Moon.

And here two papers really stand out, in that they capture the volume’s title most directly. Bernadette Brady’s examination of the astro-geography of Chartres cathedral and Jules Cashford’s exploration of lunar mythology. In her paper on Chartres Brady has distilled essential information and diagrams into a clear, and highly informative essay that really brings to life the ancient masons, and the manner in which the solar world may have informed their architecture. But, for me, the paper offered by Cashford steals the show. Though staying within the Jungian/Platonic paradigms, she is the only contributor who reminds us that our perceptions change over time, and that we can never claim to comprehend the sky/world of the ancients. Her theme contrasts Brady’s with its focus on the evolution of Lunar imagery, and she presents it within the poetry, mythology and iconography of various cultures, identifying both the similarities and divergences of the Moon’s enduring influence on humanity’s consciousness. And here this word -consciousness – which forms part of the book’s title- reminds us again that we are all moulded by the slow tread of time. Consciousness is a comparatively modern concept, stemming from Descartes, and only finds it way in common usage in the 17th century. Were the ancients ‘conscious’ – are we? – or has the invention of yet another abstract concept come between us and the immanence of the world that this volume aims to explore? If I see something in the sky that is meaningful for me, am I ‘conscious’ of this, or do I just see/experience it? Endless papers have been written on ‘consciousness studies’, without there being a single, clear definition of the subject’s enquiry. And such could be said of the astrologer, who sees/experiences the transient moments of transits as something that is shown and felt, but still defies, a clear analysis.

There is no doubt that its various authors have combined to create a book of considerable importance, and one that can be strongly recommended to astrologers, psychotherapists, and all who are concerned with trying to understand our place within the cycles and images of the world. All the papers are written with commendable clarity, and are well referenced; many have extensive bibliographies that urge us to further reading. While the ideas presented will have the greatest appeal for those whose life has been illuminated by Plato, Jung and similar thinkers, the uncertain readers will also find in this volume a richness of ideas, imagery, and accounts of life-experiences that demand recognition and thoughtful re-reading. Despite my various objections, I would urge serious students of astrology to engage with the thoughts and experiences of its various contributors, as I have tried to do, and offer their own response to what, for me, has been both an illuminating and a problematic text.

Astrology has been studied for millennia and practiced and accepted for as long. To understand astrology and its benefits for timing and even mehtods of conception, one must begin with a view of the zodiac and an examination of the couple’s birth charts.

Two case studies of couples who have exeprienced difficulties with conceiving are presented and the astrology of their birth charts is discussed in this context.

The planets, from an astrological point of view, are related to their visible characteristics and not to any scientific description. This is confirmed by Gauquelin’s failure to detect any correlations with the non-visible (outer) planets. The author extends this observation to argue that science is not any special preserve, but a mere facet of existence, and its ability to demonstrate astrological truth just incidental

Author: Dr. Geoffrey DeanAbstract: Keywords: Gauquelin, planetary effects, attribution, G-effects, artifactsNotes:Publication: Correlation Journal of Reserach into AstrologyIssue: Volume 23 Number 2Dated: 2006Pages: 53 – 57

Author: Prof. Suitbert ErtelAbstract: Keywords: Gauquelin, planetary effects, attribution, parental tampering, birth count, DeanNotes:Publication: Correlation Journal of Research in AstrologyIssue: Volume 23 Nubmer 2Dated: 2006Pages: 58 – 61

The original Cosmic Loom emerged from Unwin Hyman in 1987, with an imposing hardback cover. It became an immediate classic or seminal text on astrology, although it was never a best selling astrology book. Why? Perhaps, as one reviewer in Considerations put it, ‘the non-thinking (astrologer) had better leave it alone’. And the original review in the Astrological Journal was equally emphatic, ‘cuts across almost all current developments in astrology and leaves few of today’s fashionable positions and approaches unscathed… brilliant studies.. a mind of inestimable value at the present stage of astrology’s development’.

Dennis Elwell dealt out his perspective on what astrology is, what it does and how it permeates our daily lives in a way which puts astrology first, and human schools of thought about astrology last. He made enemies, yet several non-astrologers who have read the original book think it the best non-jargon and ‘plain languaged’ book on the subject yet. 1 think these original reviewers were right. Our subject is top heavy with jargon, filled with theories, complications and medieval hangovers following astrology’s time underground, partying away from the scientific rationalists. Elwell doles out astrological truths in a refreshingly straight way. Elwell’s main theme is that of ‘multicongruence’, the author’s term for ‘many things in agreement’. The tendency for certain things and conditions to co-occur because they belong together at a higher, unmanifest level. The original Loom contained many examples of this phenomenon, but the revised edition bulges with exceptional examples of multicongruence, and Elwell defines several forms of the effect, using non-nonsense terms like event level, content level and intent level. Then the author identifies another facet when several features in a person’s chart all point to the same circumstance. I’ve often heard this called the ‘rule of three’ by astrologers, but here Elwefl delineates the effect with a stunning (and Royal) example. Finally, the author identifies a form of multicongruence which he claims could more than squash -the sceptics of astrology – the effect when several people all become involved in the same event and it turns out that they all share similar chart features. Again, the author walks his talk with extremely well thought out Royal examples. So Elwell is back in town, and whoever in the UT initiated the reprint of Cosmic Loom had insight and, 1 think, commercial acumen, for this book deserves to become one of the all time best books on what astrology actually is.

Whilst reading through the UT edition, 1 recognised that we have so few books that deal with the philosophy of astrology. Elwell quotes Charles Harvey in Mundane Astrologv, ‘we are going to need to develop ways of ‘considering the future interweaving of ‘whole hierarchies of cycles and charts rather than treating them in isolation as we do at present. How this is done effectively is one of the great challenges of the next few years.’ The new material which the author provides for us takes multicongruence and sits it on the top of the astrological agenda for anyone who wishes to break free from charts in isolation or the computerised cause and effect that astrology has become in so many quarters. As the back cover reminds us, ‘All genuine knowledge confers an advantage, and this stuff is positively dangerous’. If this sounds over-dramatic, Elwell backs it up.. and here’s a brief example.

The material on the appalling Dunblane shootings, through Dennis’ detective-like abilities to spot multicongruence, are shown to be inextricably woven on the Cosmic Loom with the earlier Ryan shooting in Hungerford. The Royal Arnoury in Leeds, was opened by the Queen two days after the shooting, and it has the exact midpoint latitude of the two locations, which sent goose-bumps up this reviewers back. If that’s spooky, Elwell’s uptuming of the name Harnilton and Dunblane at the other locations is positively weird. Yet, it isn’t, for this is how astrological event horizons are shown to work, and Elwell goes through the chart of that time with precision expertise, leaving any competent astrologer in no doubt what the Cosmic Loom is weaving. Similarly, the material on the Titanic (ship-wreck and film linked) and the mysterious death of Diana, Princess of Wales (an outstanding piece of astrological research) rounds off a new final chapter, The Far Edge, of a book which must be read by any astrologer who wonders what the astrological effect actually is and how it operates.

The Urania Trust has also broken with the hard-back productions of recent years, and this edition of the Cosmic Loom is decidedly more elegant and attractive as a paperback. I feel drawn to again quote Charles Harvey, who, in a 1etter to this reviewer concerning another book, said, ‘I do hope the enterprising publisher will get it the distribution it deserves..’ This is so relevant to the UT with Elwell’s masterpiece.

Dennis Elwell has been with astrology for over half a century. He is undoubtedly one of the subject’s most original thinkers and has clearly studied esoteric and scientific material. In places, his strong opinions take an undue emphasis which takes away from some of his important lines of argument. But, perhaps paradoxically, his work shows how much humility we need when approaching the evolutionary process as seen through astrology and the Cosmic Loom. The author is not over-kind to several other schools of astrology, notably sun-sign astrologers and psychological astrology, and remains somewhat of a lone-wolf, a maverick, which is an understandable though probably necessary shame. But with the reprinting of the Cosmic Loom, astrologers have the opportunity to meet Dennis Elwell head-on, to be knocked out of a rut, and to give themselves an astrological work-out. This book really is a second coming for astrologers. If you missed it first time round, buy a copy and lend it to all your sceptical friends. If you already have a copy of the original, pat yourself on the back for your discernment – but you really do deserve this new enlarged edition. It’s a popsy.

Reviewed by Robin Heath

Archaeoastronomy is a complex discipline. Even though its origins date back to William Stukeley’s survey of Stonehenge in the 1720s, its modern history is essentially thirty-five years old, commencing principally with Gerald Hawkins’ Stonehenge Decoded (1965), with its debt to Peter Newham’s work, and Alexander Thom’s Megalithic Sites in Britain (1967). Since then the discipline has seen an initial rejection by archaeologists, changing to a brief flurry of interest as the sheer depth of Thom’s work became clear, followed by a final rejection. An academic discipline of archaeoastronomy is now emerging which largely rejects both Hawkins’ and Thom’s theories, leaving their theories to what, for want of a better term, we know as ‘alternative’ archaeoastronomy. However, the ‘academic’ v ‘alternative’ polarity is compounded by another, which is equally deep and often more bitter; the clash between astronomical and archaeological methodologies. Both make claims to being exact sciences – and each challenges the others’ claims to a monopoly of truth. The fundamental difference between the two is that astronomy is often unable to test its hypotheses under controlled conditions and instead frequently relies on mathematical proofs, while archaeology relies on the analysis of artefacts from the past which can be weighed, measured and, roughly, dated, but often with little real idea of the cultural context from which they emerged. Hence, while astronomers have made claims on Stonehenge’s age which have later been overturned, as did Norman Lockyer in the 1900s, archaeologists have also utterly misunderstood the site’s history. When Jacquetta Hawkes, subsequently a leading opponent of archaeoastronomy, wrote confidently in 1945 that British megaliths were based on Mediterranean models, (1945:16) she had no idea that the British sites were later shown to be much older and that her self-assurance was not partially, but completely and utterly misplaced. Thus we can predict that archaeologists will not like Heath’s latest book. That is not to say that there is not much in it that they could learn from.

Heath has set himself the task of maintaining the Thom/Hawkins position, namely that Stonehenge, and many other megaliths, were precisely designed to measure not just the solstices, but lunar standstills, eclipses and some stellar risings, all quite reasonable hypotheses to any simple observational astronomer. Like Thom he is an amateur astronomer and professional engineer and he works from the same mathematical principles, placing a higher emphasis on the structure of megalithic monuments than the nature or dating of associated artefacts. His is the big picture.

Heath’s Stonehenge is simple structured with simple one page ‘chapters’, all with an illustration on the facing page. In fifty-six pages of text he describes some of the main features of Stonehenge’s history together with theories about its origins and function, including its location in the immediate landscape, its orientation with the Preselli hills (home of the ‘bluestones’) and the significance of its latitude. He includes other researchers’ theories, such as Guy Underwood’s dowsing experiments, and his own, such as the ‘lunation triangle’ (covered in more detail in his Sun, Moon and Stonehenge 1998), and covers some features of the site’s construction which are uncontroversial (the erection of the stones) and others which are more radical (Fred Hoyle’s simpler and in some ways fundamentally different version of Hawkins’ eclipse predictor theory).

Heath’s writing is fluid, articulate and suffused with a very gentle wit, and his latest contribution to the ever-expanding corpus of literature on Stonehenge is an ideal introduction for the ignorant and a valuable aide-memoire for the cognoscienti.

Reviewed by
Nick Campion

This paper will discuss the relevance of the ‘four levels of interpretation’ of medieval theology – literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical – to the teaching of astrology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. In an educational system increasingly bound to positivist assumptions a way is required to lead students to a deeper perception, and experience, of the symbolic. This system unlocks the door to a hermeneutic of divination and magic relevant and accessible to beginners in this field, yet grounded in philosophical and theological tradition.

Two sets of data are analysed for the presence of solar-planet interactions and their relation to the presence of Gauquelin Effects. A statistically significant solar correlation with Jupiter is also demonstrated when the planet is also in a Gauquelin plus zone in one sample which is not composed of eminent people and does not show a Gauquelin Effect. Earlier results (Douglas 2006) are considered and the most likely conclusion is that the solar- and lunar-planet correlations are real but independent of the Gauquelin Effect.