Approaching the Astrologer
by
Ashutosh Agnihotri
There is a simple reason why most people generally cannot tell the major differences between astrology, palmistry and psychism: they never had the opportunity to be educated on it. Most people just never see themselves trying to read up in order to know more about these subjects. So they never get the best of astrology or the astrologers. Thus people don't know enough to talk about astrology yet they can't stop NOT talking about what little they know about it. Well no more. By the time you go through the following you should be in a better stance in dealing with an astrologer more beneficially.
To begin with every astrologer needs to have the following minimum data: your sex at birth date birth time and birth place. Any astrologer doing your birth chart without these would not be doing astrology. It's just the basics. It's astrology. With palmistry you offer your palm. With astrology you offer your birth particulars. If your astrologer doesn't ask for them then he might be using some other model for his predictions but it won't be astrology. He might even be pretending. Also the sad part is if you don't have this data then don't go to astrologers. Go to a psychic or some other diviner using other models for their prediction. So do you have your birth data? Check this out first before you even search for an astrologer. And you should have them as reliable as possible because the honest astrologer's work will only be as reliable as the data that you provide him to work with.
The basic idea of needing your birth particulars is because he needs to calculate the astronomical positions for the time that you were born. How did the galaxy look like? That is what the horoscope is about. So the astrologer uses the birth particulars so that he is able to see the configuration of the planets in the zodiac during the precise moment of birth. Astrology uses the picture of the galaxy at your moment of birth as its model to make predictions. Candle-reading diviners use the "configurations" of the melting wax of the burning candle to "see" the things that they interpret into their predictions tea readers see how the tea leaves position themselves at the bottom of your cup to make their predictions and astrology uses the galactic configuration of the planetary bodies for its predictions. So imagine what happens when your astrologer does not get reliable birth particulars to work with? He simply does not get to see the accurate picture of the galactic configuration during the subject's actual birth moment and he simply would not be able to reliably relate what he sees to your true life experiences. So what do you want to do? You want your birth particulars (especially your birth time) as correctly possible.
Now one of the most riveting things in any personal horoscope is what we call the Ascendant. This is the precise degree in the chart that is the "moment of physical birth" based on the time and place of birth you provide. So aside from accurate birth time you want to give the accurate place of birth as well. So the place of birth should be as accurate as possible as well. Knowing the town will do. But if the town is not on the map then give the closest town on the map in order for the astrologer to obtain the latitude and longitude of the birth place. That's why he needs to know the town in the first place. But if you can give him the latitude and longitude of your birth place straight away he won't complain.
What happens if you don't even know your birth date? Then really don't go to an astrologer unless you're ready to go a lengthy process called Birth Rectification. That might take hours if not weeks plus a lot of interaction with you to confirm your most likely chart. What the diligent astrologer (difficult to find them for free) would have to do is to keep on fine-tuning some of your horoscopic positions. He would probably start by placing your ascendant somewhere he thinks relevant and with that he'd try to read the chart as a whole and see if it fits with your life events. If it doesn't or he thinks it's not conclusive enough he'd continue adjusting the chart with other "what if" positions. This part of the work is so specialized that some astrologers offer this service only to other professional astrologers who need this work done for their very important clients.
There is one other way whereby you don't need to give your birth particulars and that would be when you use the services of a "horary" astrologer. Obviously this is a professional astrologer who is adept at using a special branch of astrology called Horary Astrology. That's where you ask a very specific question and you get a very specific answer to that question on the spot. But that horoscope cannot be used for anything else. But even these professional astrologers report that their horary techniques are used best when used in conjunction with a reliable birth chart.
Going further back now remember your personal sign that you normally refer to in the news and magazines and normally refer to yourself as? Well really it's not very personal. What you've always called your personal sign is what astrologers call your Sun Sign. No real astrologer uses this. But this is what people generally use and refer to at party chats. It's anything but personal. The sun occupies a zodiacal sign for a whole month. So what this kind of sun sign astrology says is if the sidereal sun occupies the general zodiac sign Capricorn between 15 January and 15 February and you were born anywhere between those dates just like a few million other people then you are all Capricorn people. This is technically true. But what is wrong is to think that you and your millions of other Capricorn siblings all behave precisely like how a Capricorn should and should exhibit similar Capricorn attributes and go through the typical life experiences that a Capricorn should. It is this basic assumption that has put real astrology to shame. The popularity of this uneducated assumption is the continued cause of the "educated" people's general argument against astrology. You need to know that nothing so oversimplified and general can offer anything so precise and individualistic.
If you want to know the specifics of your own life then you need to get the astrologer to work on your personal chart (there cannot be another similar one; with the exception of twins). And you only get the best of this when you give your personal birth particulars. These are the important things you will normally hear pertaining to the technical aspects of your personal birth chart:
1. Your Ascendant
This is the single most important thing in real personal astrology. Everything revolves around where this little thing is placed in your personal horoscope. It's also called your Rising Point or in Sanskrit your Lagna.
2. Your Planetary Longitudes
These are the astronomical positions of the planets in the zodiac at the precise moment of your birth. The sun and moon are luminaries but also included together with some other factors which are not planets but considered significant in the astrological scheme of things; such as the asteroids moon's nodes and some other sensitive "points" as a result of unique astrological formula.
3. Your M/C I/C and your Descendant
These your Medium Coeli Idium Coeli Descendant and together with your Ascendant earlier form the crucial "angles" that astrologers find to be very important in every horoscope.
4. The Progressions
These are astrological (not astronomical) techniques that "project" your zodiac to certain ages in life and form part of the astrologer's "predictive" inventory.
5. The Transits
These are the "real" or actual positions of the physical planets for any given time. If the astrologer says something like "Transiting Pluto is going to hit your natal Mars next year..." then it means that the physically moving Pluto will be positioning itself to settle on the exact degree in the zodiac where Mars was during your birth. And of course that would trigger off a certain "prediction".
A crucial thing you need to know is that there are basically two schools of astrology; the sidereal and the tropical. However all of the above still apply to both schools. The school that is normally used in the west is typically tropical while the one used in the east is typically sidereal. The former deals a lot with how character breeds destiny and how self-knowledge and astrological foresight can offer some amount to changing a destiny that you don't like. The latter deals a lot with what they think is a destiny that is almost absolute and unchangeable as if written by some gods for you. This of course is a simplistic description. Good modern astrology students make it a point to learn the good essentials of all systems available.
There are numerous other technicalities that the astrologer would go through before he arrives at a mature analysis to make a prediction. But the above are the most basic. You put in a small attempt to understand the above then you're on your way to having a better conversation with your astrologer. And every good astrologer loves to talk technical with his clients because he would be more motivated to show his astrological reasoning and that he's doing a good piece of astrological work. Otherwise he would be blamed for just being psychic (or even pretending) and not doing real astrological work.
When you make use of astrologers you need to know that not everything is a prediction. Sometimes it might be an "explanation" sometimes a "description" and yes sometimes a "prediction". Sometimes it involves dates sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the astrologer can be very precise because several symbols appear to concur and converge at a specific date (like several separate symbols telling the same story about a specific event). Whereas sometimes it might not be that easy for him to ascertain a specific "moment in time" because of the divergent symbols involved in the "coming event" he should be stating.
If an astrologer has never dealt with you before or if he doesn't know your context then he would normally begin with an overview of an aspect of your interest. For instance assume you provide the astrologer only your birth date time and place together with your name and sex. Nothing else. And you ask a question like "Tell me about my finances." Unless he uses horary techniques in which case you should know that this is not an astrologer's first choice of tools (most astrologers wouldn't want to use that part of their arsenal flippantly) he would prefer to try to answer your question from your personal birth horoscope. But not knowing your "context" he would start off with an overview. He would then give you an honest analysis of what your birth chart would have to say about your "general financial experience in life". However if you were to "offer you context" then just ask a brief but specific question. This can be as simple as "I'm thinking of buying a car but I really don't know. So what does my chart say?"
Try not to "test" the astrologer. Especially if you think you want to prove that astrology doesn't work. You won't get to prove or disprove anything by dealing with one humble astrologer. For all you know the one you're dealing with might not had studied astrology sufficiently himself.
Many astrologers started off with the wrong footing; like many other professionals in many other fields. In their passion for the glamour of being in a certain profession or position, they end up just 'getting into a job'. They stop their studies, they close themselves to new realizations and developments, and their motivation fizzles off. There are good astrologers, and there are not-so-good astrologers, like in almost every other profession. If you have come across a medical doctor with lousy bedside manners, dispensing less than average medical advice than what you expected from a professional, it doesn't mean the whole medical profession is populated by the same personality nor that medicine is fraudulent. It is the same with astrology and the astrologer.
What is important is for people to be responsible for their own open-ness and gullibility. Don't accept or reject anything just because someone else said so. Dare to trust, dare to take risks. In this manner, you are liberated to do what you want and seek advice from anywhere you can. After all, opinions from other professionals are just that; opinions. And you need varied opinions to consider in order for you to make your own mature judgment over things you need to decide.
Try to know more of your personal chart always. As you do this you will get to see a certain "logic" to astrology and will get a feel of how things are being "read". Make friends with your astrologer friend and keep on asking things about your personal life events and its relationship with your personal chart. This doesn't mean that you live by astrology by doing this but you would be exploring a model that supposedly deals with your personal "blueprint". Ask different astrologers about the same issues in your chart and see what others have to say. Do they concur? If not probe and ask why they said things differently. Before long you will find yourself not just knowing better astrology but even knowing more about yourself.
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About the author: Dr Agni has been using astrology for 37 years and has taught astrology for free every week till today, since 1986. He is now advisor to the Institute of Astrological Science, Malaysia at http://astrologyuniversitymalaysia.com. He invites all friends of astrology to email him directly at rizabeg@gmail.com.