Astrology by Hand - Renowned Astrologer Robert Hand

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                                            The Mind Is Active in the Process





Here is my key point. If the mind were simply the passive object of the effects of the planets and zodiac, then there is no way that this could be true. The chart would always have to show the question clearly because it would force the questioner’s mind to adapt to the nature of the planetary arrangements. But instead we have this: It may be putting it too strongly to say that the mind of the questioner affects the arrangements of the planets, but it is certainly true that the mind of the questioner can choose (at least unconsciously) to be or not to be “in tune” with the planetary arrangements. And the clarity of the chart in making a statement about the question is a statement about the mind of the questioner, rather than a cause of the state of the mind of the questioner. The mind has to “reach out,” so to speak, to the heavens and choose a moment that accurately makes an astrological statement about its intention.

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                                              Is Astrology Related to Magic?





When we passively observe phenomena at a symbolic level in order to get an idea of what is going on around us, such as anaylizing the flight of birds or the entrails of sacrificial victims (a style of divination that has fortunately gone out of date), and the like, we are doing a passive form of divination. When we shuffle a deck, or throw coins for an I-Ching divination, we are more actively involved. Many people think that some kind of “field” surrounds the questioner that controls the arrangement of the cards or the falling of the coins, and thereby the questioner becomes actively involved in the answering of the question.

However, it is much more difficult to believe that a questioner can affect the movements of the planets. These are programmed into the nature of the cosmos by arrangements that long predate any questioner. Yet the ability of some faculty of the mind to link or not link itself to the cosmos in order to answer a question goes beyond passive divination. It becomes an active form of divination like cards or the I-Ching. The intention of the questioner becomes something like a magical force that determines the efficacy of the divination. The only problem is exactly what is meant by “magical,” outside of the obvious notion that it involves some kind of active power on the part of the questioner.

This is something that I will be dealing with over the next several weeks. For the moment, we just have to leave it at this: Critics of horary astrology have been correct in saying that horary is more akin to magic than any other branch of astrology. My quarrel with these critics is that they have raised this as an objection to astrology. I am going to be arguing that this is a central point. If we were to understand what lies at the base of magic, we would not have a problem with the magical foundations of astrology.

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I raised the possibility, in fact likelihood, that at least horary astrology has a magical aspect. I want to say at this point that I am aware of the dangers of this admission. Back in the 70s, 176 scientists signed a petition condemning astrology that subsequently appeared in the magazine The Humanist. There was an article associated with this petition by one Lawrence Jerome. His thesis was that astrology was a form of magic. He claimed that since we know magic is bogus, astrology must be bogus also. If we accept his premise, his conclusion follows. I suggest that we cannot accept his premise, but we are obliged to do something he did not feel obliged to do.

We have to come to some kind of definition of magic. I do not think that magic is a term that allows only one definition. It is apparent that there are many definitions that are possible, and each of them applies to certain uses of the word. Magic is not an easy term to define, but in these articles I do plan to present definitions that will be, first of all, intuitively plausible, and second, will apply in varying ways to astrology. However, all of them will have one thing in common: they will not be possible in a universe that works the way that traditional science has claimed it does.

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                                                 Natal Astrology and Magic





There is something else that I need to do before I get into astrology and magic. Thus far, I have only been talking about horary astrology. What about natal astrology? Does it have this magical quality as well? I would say yes, and it revolves around the whole idea of astrological polymorphism, which I mentioned in previous weeks.  Astrological polymorphism is the fact that astrological indications can be expressed in many possible ways. I am going to tell a story now about an actual client that illustrates just how far polymorphism goes in natal astrology. This is a true story, but I have to fuzz over some of the details a bit because this is a real client. I trust that the details will not be sufficient to reveal the identity of this person.

I was recently giving consultations while on one of my trips abroad. I was informed that I had a last-minute booking for a reading, and was asked if I could take this person on. I agreed. It turned out that the client was a reasonably well-known popular musician (except of course to yours truly, who is seriously out of the popular music loop). In the course of the consultation, I noticed configurations that could easily manifest as a drug or alcohol problem. She acknowledged this, and indicated that it was in the past and well under control.

Then I noticed that in the year 1998 this combination in her natal chart was hit in such a way as to indicate a possible resurgence of the problem along with depression and a general sense of alienation and loneliness. I asked her about 1998. She said that it had been a very successful year professionally, financially and that she had been very happy during that year; not what I expected. I asked her what she had been going through that year and this is what she told me.

She had a large part in a musical that did very well. Her character in that musical was another female singer, who in real life had had a serious alcohol and drug problem, as well as suffering from loneliness and alienation, exactly as my client’s natal chart had described. So instead of being the person suffering from these problems in real life, my client played the role of someone who suffered from these problems in her real life. She created space for the symbolism to work out in a benign manner and enjoyed a very successful year. And she did not know that those difficult aspects were going on in her natal chart.

I suggest that there is no way that my client could have known this about any of this. She unconsciously came up with a successful way of dealing with difficult planetary combinations. It worked brilliantly. Instead of being a “victim” of planetary “effects,” she made her transits a statement of the deepest intentions of her mind. This is clearly a “magic” similar to what happens in horary.

In both natal and horary astrology, it is clear that some kind of dialogue goes on between the planets and the minds of individuals in order to reach a conclusion about what is going to happen. As this last example makes clear, astrological polymorphism is not just the result of indeterminacy in astrology. The individual may play a very active role in determining the outcome of the “effects.” But the word “dialogue” is interesting here. It comes from a Greek word meaning “conversation” by implication between two people. Exactly who is having this conversation?

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                                                               Magic!





Last week, I presented the case that even natal astrology has its magical aspect. But of course this statement doesn’t mean much if we don’t have some kind of working definition of magic. This is a subject area that could easily turn into a swamp if we are not careful, given the loaded nature of the word.

Certainly, in many circles, the idea of magic is only slightly removed from devil worship, even being considered in these same circles as trafficking in demons. (And lest this seem extreme to some of you, I would like to remind our readers that there are those who consider even astrology to involve trafficking with demons.) Even I, myself, not too many years ago regarded any kind of magic (except stage magic, of course) to be highly dubious and risky. I never thought of magic as intrinsically evil, but I did believe that it required a high degree of spiritual awareness to transcend the temptations that might be involved. So as a matter of course, I steered clear of it, without, I might add, having clearly defined it myself.

So what is magic, assuming that there is one all-encompassing definition? And let’s assume also for the moment that there is such a thing as magic, because until we have given it definition, we can’t really talk about whether it exists or not. Let’s also be clear that we are not talking about stage magic, or legerdemain, also known as “sleight of hand.” Stage magic is simply a form of deception for the purposes of entertainment.

Has real magic, whatever it may be, ever involved sleight of hand? Almost certainly! People who have attempted to master magic have also mastered other technologies, and that has made various forms of “sleight of hand” quite easily doable. But I am not talking about that. I am talking about something else that may have existed besides that.

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                                                        The Supernatural





It is often said that magic involves the supernatural, meaning that it is some violation of natural law as it is understood. I have no problem with the idea of a violation of natural law “as it is understood,” but that is only because natural law as it is understood at any particular time, and in any particular culture, has never been, and never will be, a complete understanding of the truth. All systems of natural law have been, and will continue to be, only approximations of the truth, and there will always be phenomena that do not fit the current system. Thus we may get an appearance of the supernatural, but the real thing is unlikely.

There is, however, a possible way in which there could be genuinely supernatural phenomena, but it requires a view of things that is even more at variance with the prevailing reality system than magic. This “view” is not unfamiliar to people who study the so-called occult. It simply states that in addition to this world of nature and physical phenomena, there are other worlds that may lie within this one, outside of this one, all around this one or whatever.

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Is There a Supernature?

One often hears almost casual references to the “astral” or “etheric” planes, alternate realms of being that have some particular relationship to the physical world. The nature of the relationship varies from system to system. In Kabbalah one speaks of Atziluth, Beriah, Yetzirah and Assiah. In Neoplatonism there is the One, Nous, Soul and Cosmos. The basic idea is simple. In addition to the realm of nature or cosmos in which we live, there are other “natures” that are usually considered to be “higher” than this one, supernatures, as it were. (The quotation marks used in the previous sentences should be understood as my questioning the validity of the words in quotation. The marks mean that I am using the word without having a clear sense of exactly what it means.)

With this kind of multiple-worlds view, the concept of the supernatural is not self-contradictory. We can take the view that almost all phenomena that we encounter can be accounted for by referring to the laws of nature as we understand them, and insofar as they are complete. But occasionally, we might encounter phenomena that are the result of things operating in another one of these worlds that leads to a chain of events that somehow impinge on this world, the world of nature, without having originated within this world.

The problem with this hypothesis is that modern science does not recognize any sort of multiple-world theory of the nature of existence. For modern scientists, the concept of supernatural is indeed self-contradictory because there is nothing beyond nature, and therefore, anything “supernatural” must either be a violation of natural law, or an indication that our understanding of natural law is inadequate. Here we are right back to the original problem of astrology as stated at the beginning of these articles. Is astrology the result of some kind of comprehensible natural law that simply has not been discovered yet, or is astrology an indication that the universe is much different from what we have thought it to be?

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So according to the discussion of last week, magic, whatever it may be, presents much the same problem as astrology. Either it teaches about a new system of natural law that is not radically different in kind from our current ones, or it teaches us that the universe is radically different from what we have thought. So let’s look at some of the characteristics of magic that make it clearly different from most of what characterizes astrology.









                                                       The Use of the Will:


                                        A Difference Between Astrology and Magic





Most astrological activities involve looking at a chart and trying to determine what it says about something in our lives or about our lives. Even in horary, the main act of will is the decision to choose a time to ask a question and construct a chart. The mind may connect itself more or less to the chart by the strength of its intention, but the mind does not alter the motions of the heavens.

As generally understood in ordinary speech, magic involves some kind of an act of will on the part of someone, or a force emanated from something. That “someone” may be a human being or a disincarnate entity of some sort. This is where the business of demons, etc. comes in. But this leaves room also for the benevolent, but apparently supernatural, actions of saints or deities to be a form of magic, unless one insists that all magic by definition comes from evil sources. That is a problem of one’s point of view toward magic, not the intrinsic meaning of the word.

The “something” referred to previously assumes that magic can be the result of an action by something that is not living or conscious. This brings us to natural magic, which is the study of the magical effects of natural things such as minerals and crystals, plants, colors, sounds, etc. This is the part of magic that is most likely not supernatural by our or any other definition, but is the result simply of our not understanding natural law. Therefore, let’s drop natural magic from our consideration and restrict ourselves to other forms of magic that do involve some kind of living, conscious beings.

It appears that an act of will is required for magic—someone wants something to happen. This can be anything from casting “spells” that are intended to coerce or limit another’s freedom of action, up to changing oneself into a purer and higher being, with lots of “magics” in between. The casting of spells is of course the kind of magic that gives most people the heebee-jeebees. The higher magic referred to is often called ceremonial magic or white magic. It does not involve the casting of spells. Its sole object is to use magical techniques to explore and enlarge one’s own consciousness. In its highest form, the object is to approach God. This has nothing to do with altering the natural world or anyone in it. One form of this is called theurgy (which roughly means “god-working”) and one example of theurgy is the Christian mass. The only debate concerning this kind of spiritual magic that there might be is whether some church or other should, or should not, have a monopoly on the practice. And of course it must also be noted that a considerable degree of wisdom is required of those who pursue this kind of magic.

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                                    Will Alone Is Not the Only Thing About Magic





But the presence of will alone cannot be the defining criterion of magic. There was once a student of ceremonial magic named Aleister Crowley, who made a rather dubious reputation for himself because of his tendency to mix white or spiritual magic with other forms that were less benign. He defined magic as “the art of bringing about change in conformity with the will.” Here we see the primacy of will in defining magic. The problem with this definition is that this could also be used as a definition of any technology.

Is not medical technology, for example, used to bring about desired (i.e., in conformity with the will) changes in a medical situation? And in fact, some have suggested that magic is simply a form of technology, or the other way round, that technology is simply a form of magic! I believe that this is not a bad argument, but I think that it is useful to make some further distinction here.

In the next article, we will look at some things that make technology as generally understood different from magic, or that maybe make magic a form of technology, albeit a technology very different from our more conventional modern technologies.


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                                                           Magic Versus Technology





Last week I mentioned Aleister Crowley’s definition of magic, which was not very different from the definition of technology in general. It is “the art of bringing about change in conformity with the will.” All technology is an effort to will change. Yet most people would agree that there is some essential difference between “building a better mousetrap” and magic. Even though popular definitions of magic are far from rigorous, there is something about our notions of “magical” that preclude “the better mousetrap,” or at least most mousetraps.

(Author's Note: The following section has been changed from the original posting. In mentioning certain materials regarding a better rat trap, I inadvertently introduced copyrighted material belonging to my friend, Christopher Warnock, an attorney and traditional astrologer in Washington, D.C., who performed the original experiment. I was unaware that he had an article that was about to be published about the incident, and that article, "A Legacy of Magic: Traditional Electional Astrology in the Renaissance" will appear in the December 2000-January 2001 issue of The Mountain Astrologer. My apologies to my friend Chris, and I refer the reader to his forthcoming excellent article.)

What would a “better mousetrap” be like? If I could answer that question, I would be the inventor of one, and I would (according to the prevailing American mythology) be on my way to wealth. But let’s suppose for a moment that we were planning to build one. We might examine the behavior of mice and find out what they really like, and what attracts them. We could check out better baits—do mice really like cheese all that much, and if so, what kind? Could we create the mouse equivalent of the “Roach Motel” where the mice “check in, but they don’t check out?” Whatever we would do, we would look at known, observable criteria, accessible, more or less, to all who might care to look at the phenomena involving mouse behavior, and exploit this information to design the better mousetrap. The main point is that everything that we would do would be basic mechanical, cause-and-effect reasoning.

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                                                 The Nature of a “Spell”





Instead of manipulating the physical universe directly, magic uses ritual and spells. I think that most readers are sufficiently familiar with magic to know what a spell is, at least in general terms. The word “spell” is actually derived from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning “play.” Casting a spell is a kind of psychic theater in which the intentions of the operator are focused on bringing about a certain kind of result. Here is where the will comes in. The spell can be a ritual, the creating of an amulet or charm, the recitation of magic or ritualistic words or other things as well. It is extremely open-ended in its structure. What a spell typically is not, however, is a manipulation of physical-plane, “real-world” conditions so as to bring about an intended outcome.

Here is an example of what a magical operator might do. Suppose someone were to desire to improve his thinking, writing or basic communications skills. The modern person would no doubt take a class. According to Cornelius Agrippa in Book Two, chapter 43 of his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, he would create an image of Mercury for an amulet to wear, perhaps.


They made an Image at the hour of Mercury, Mercury ascending in Gemini, the form of which was an handsome young man, bearded, having in his left hand a rod in which a serpent is twyned about, in his right carrying a dart, having his feet winged; They report that this image conferreth knowledge, eloquence, diligence in merchandizing and gain...” [Spelling and punctuation as in original.]

Everything is done to evoke the symbolism and energies of Mercury, it being the principle ruling the qualities the operator wishes to enhance. But what is even more interesting is that the images are made under certain astrological conditions. The ritual act of creating the image of Mercury is elected astrologically.

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                                                     And There’s More





Later on, in chapter 50 of Book Two, Agrippa describes very detailed techniques for electing times to make images and to perform rituals for bringing about all manner of results, making someone fortunate or unfortunate, making someone fall in or out of love, bringing about the downfall of cities and even driving away vermin. All of these involve just simple electional astrology. And what is it electing but an act of will? Like the rituals it may time, it has no obvious mechanical interaction with the physical world, even though the intention is to bring about change in the physical world “in conformity with the will.”

The only obvious thing about this magical practice is that the will or intention by itself seems to be acting as a mechanism, albeit a psychic one. (Yes, at this point I would have to agree that a psychic mechanism is from the point of view of ordinary language, an oxymoron. An oxymoron is a statement that contradicts itself, such as “jumbo shrimp.”) The astrology involved here is intended to make sure that the intention of the operator is to a maximum degree in accordance with the symbolism of the cosmos. The astrology does not make the act of will happen.

So here we have two factors that seem to distinguish magic from non-magical technology: 1) There is an act of will. 2) The main channel of the act of will is not some concrete action on the physical plane, but the direction of what seems to be a psychic energy toward an intended aim. No ordinary mechanism is involved.

We will continue this a bit more next week, and then look at another definition that is related closely to Crowley’s.

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                                                     The Operation of Will





Last week, we explored the magical spell in very simple terms. We saw that the essence of the spell involved an act of will that attempted to channel psychic energy, or something like it, toward an intended end.


Now, once again we are stuck with our old problem. Does an intense will send some kind of unknown but basically natural energy out into the world, something like “rays?” There is one problem with this idea. Those who have experimented with these techniques have often found that they did not have to be intensely, or passionately, desirous of bringing about what they wanted. It would no doubt help, but obsession does not seem to be required. Simple curiosity about the experiment seems to be all that is required.

But whatever level of intensity may be required, are the results something that are really natural but merely not understood by science? Possibly, but again, I think that we are in the realm here of something that, if understood, would change science as we know it almost beyond recognition. I believe that Lawrence Jerome and company (see week 12) were right in thinking of magic as beyond the scientific pale. All they felt that what they had to do was to show that astrology was magical to debunk it. But let’s put aside that question for a bit longer.

Dion Fortune was another student of ceremonial magic earlier in the twentieth century. She, it is alleged, took Crowley’s definition of magic and added something to it that I believe does a great deal to improve the definition. She defined magic as “the art of bringing about changes in consciousness in conformity with the will.” The part that distinguishes magic from technology is the change in consciousness, the channeling of will being one of the most common changes in consciousness that traditional magic has sought to bring about. The role of consciousness is very evident in what I described last week. The consciousness of the operator is saturated with the symbolism of the energy that he or she is trying to evoke.

What I particularly like about Dion Fortune’s variant on Crowley’s definition is that it includes all forms of working on one’s own consciousness that are designed to increase one’s level or awareness, and even one’s closeness to the center—God, if you like. Magic is a technology of consciousness.

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                                          Are Astrology and Magic Dangerous?





Magic is not just something dark, primitive or barbaric. But it can be powerful and dangerous. And you think ordinary technology is not any of these things? The late John McCormick once asked the question in a lecture as to whether astrology was dangerous. He said that it was, and that anything worth doing like astrology (or magic, we might add) would be dangerous. But then he asked which thing most of us had greater reason to fear, astrology (or magic), or nuclear physics? Most of us do not understand most technology any better than scientists understand magic! All we can say for certain is that for a certain kind of “rational,” materialistic mind, consciousness and its powers seem much more scary than H-bombs.

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                                                 Consciousness and Nature





We are moving now to the center of the problem for both astrology and magic. Both of them seem to involve consciousness and its relationship to nature. What is that relationship? This is the central problem in any attempt to understand these issues. And while we are at it, what is consciousness? There is a gigantic problem, but gigantic as it may be, that is exactly the problem that we must answer at least somewhat, if we are to get anywhere with the question of what astrology really is.

While I am putting this in a rather extreme form, what I am about to say lurks in the scientific mind in its basic assumptions about consciousness and nature, and lies, I believe, at the heart of the problem. To the traditional scientific mind, whatever consciousness may be, it is not at the heart of existence. Consciousness, like life itself, is an epiphenomenon (basically a side-effect) of the laws of nature as understood by physics and chemistry. It is an accidental by-product of these, and need not even have come into existence. Now I am aware that this is not a point of view shared by all scientists, and I am especially aware that the role of consciousness in modern physics has become considered quite important. (See week 7.) Again, I say that this thinking is a tendency among scientists, sometimes conscious (heh-heh!), sometimes unconscious.

Next week, we will begin to try to define consciousness, at least at a primitive level suitable for our purposes.