The religious classics while containing much general wisdom are relatively useless.
The Bible, the Koran, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita et al, while they may tell you how you should live, they don’t show you exactly how to get from where you are to where you should be. And if you portray a desired end without indicating the means to get there, you are just compounding human suffering.
All they do is make us feel worse about ourselves and try to be better without knowing how. It’s like you are searching for the promised land and you are standing, Indiana Jones style on one side of chasm and the Holy Grail is on the other.
Unless there is some kind of rope bridge to help you take the necessary steps to get across, any unguided attempt that you make will plunge you straight to the depths of hell.
In my view there are two great books (published 300 years apart) that do help form some kind of bridge to paradise.
These are Christian Astrology by William Lilly and the I Ching by Richard Wilhelm.
These oracles allow us to apply the Will of God to the actual issue that is concerning us at this moment in time. They give us an instant practical opportunity to apply the grace of God to the task in front of us.
The I Ching is the Chinese Book of Changes, which is based on the principles of Yin and Yang, and incorporating the eight compass points.
A petitioner with a question about their life will cast three coins six times and record the results heads or tails. This gives 64 hexagrams with 6 lines each, producing 384 possible different outcomes.
Wilhelm’s book gives a passage for each which contains a combination of the Taoist description of the conditions in nature that exist around the question with Confucian advice about how a superior being would act in such a situation.
The book has a foreword written by Carl Jung.
In order to show how the oracle works, Jung asked the I Ching to describe itself and it’s current situation.
“I made use of the coin method, and the answer obtained was hexagram 50, Ting, THE CALDRON.
In accordance with the way my question was phrased, the text of the hexagram must be regarded as though the I Ching itself were the speaking person. Thus it describes itself as a caldron, that is, as a ritual vessel containing cooked food. Here the food is to be understood as spiritual nourishment. Wilhelm says about this:
The ting, as a utensil pertaining to a refined civilization, suggests the fostering and nourishing of able men, which redounded to the benefit of the state. . . . Here we see civilization as it reaches its culmination in religion. The ting serves in offering sacrifice to God. . . . The supreme revelation of God appears in prophets and holy men. To venerate them is true veneration of God. The will of God, as revealed through them, should he accepted in humility.
Keeping to our hypothesis, we must conclude that the I Ching is here testifying concerning itself.
When any of the lines of a given hexagram have the value of six or nine, it means that they are specially emphasized and hence important in the interpretation. In my hexagram the “spiritual agencies” have given the emphasis of a nine to the lines in the second and in the third place. The text says:
Nine in the second place means:
There is food in the ting.
My comrades are envious,
But they cannot harm me.
Good fortune.
Thus the I Ching says of itself: “I contain (spiritual) nourishment.” Since a share in something great always arouses envy, the chorus of the envious is part of the picture. The envious want to rob the I Ching of its great possession, that is, they seek to rob it of meaning, or to destroy its meaning. But their enmity is in vain. Its richness of meaning is assured; that is, it is convinced of its positive achievements, which no one can take away.
The text continues
Nine in the third place means:
The handle of the ting is altered. One is impeded in his way of life. The fat of the pheasant is not eaten. Once rain falls, remorse is spent. Good fortune comes in the end.
The handle is the part by which the ting can be grasped. Thus it signifies the concept one has of the I Ching (the ting). In the course of time this concept has apparently changed, so that today we can no longer grasp the I Ching.
Thus “one is impeded in his way of life.” We are no longer supported by the wise counsel and deep insight of the oracle; therefore we no longer find our way through the mazes of fate and the obscurities of our own natures. The fat of the pheasant, that is, the best and richest part of a good dish, is no longer eaten.
But when the thirsty earth finally receives rain again, that is, when this state of want has been overcome, “remorse,” that is, sorrow over the loss of wisdom, is ended, and then comes the longed-for opportunity.
Wilhelm comments: “This describes a man who, in a highly evolved civilization, finds himself in a place where no one notices or recognizes him. This is a severe block to his effectiveness.” The I Ching is complaining, as it were, that its excellent qualities go unrecognized and hence lie fallow. It comforts itself with the hope that it is about to regain recognition.”
To consult the I Ching is an act of divination, to divine the will of God so that we can live more in accordance with it.
To cast a horary chart is also an act of divination, but it has infinitely more possibilities to accurately reflect God’s will, because it is not bound by 384 different scenarios. Every horary is different because the planets are always moving, no two charts are the same.
I discovered both the I Ching and Horary Astrology in the late 1970s, but until today it had never occurred to me to apply the same method to our discipline as Jung did. Until a few days ago that is.
I was contemplating writing an article about the subject and the question “How Does Horary Work, What Kind Of Thinking Is Required To Understand It?” occurred to me very strongly, so I cast a chart for that moment.
Whatever way you look at it, this is an extraordinary chart. There is a very powerful conjunction on the Descendant including Saturn, the North Node, Venus and Mercury in Pisces with Neptune in the 1st minute of Aries.
So we have to immediately ask why?
The Ascendant is the emerging individual, it is the point where the Sun makes an appearance, in a horary it is all about the immediate concerns and interests of the person asking the question.
The Descendant is the other, the point where the Sun sets, where the individual disappears.
As the person asking the question, I am represented by the Virgo Ascendant, trying to understand the subject of horary from an analytical perspective.
The South Node is closely conjunct the Ascendant indicating that trying to perceive the subject in this way would be a major challenge and lessons would have to be learnt.
The placement of the ruler, Mercury is telling me what is required of me in order to comprehend horary.
It’s position in the very last degree of Pisces on the Descendant in exact conjunction with Neptune says that I have to first let go of my sense of my separate self to receive the wisdom of the subject.
I have to quieten my Virgo mind and allow the impressions that come through the chart to wash over me.
Because Horary Astrology is simultaneously an insight into the mind of God and of quantum physics.
In a previous article on the subject I wrote “Horary is a quantum science. It represents our connection with the collective unconscious.
We choose to ask a question about something in our life that we don’t consciously know the answer to. But there is a part of us where we are at one with the collective unconscious mind which knows everything, including the very reasons why we have chosen to have this life experience in the first place.
So by asking a horary question, we are opening ourselves up to that connection with the natural great space in our chart. We are tapping into the part of ourselves that already knows the answers to our questions.
Through that space emanates the answer in coded astrological form. If the question is something that it is appropriate for us to have answered, the horary chart of that moment will precisely do that.”
If ever there was an astrological description of a quantum jump, it’s Mercury in the last degree of the Zodiac making the leap to Neptune in the first minute of the new dimension.
There are certain basic rules that apply to the subject which can be grasped fairly easily and these can be found on any book on the subject. Beyond that the important thing is to allow our minds to become quiet and reflect on the symbols until their meaning and relevance to our question becomes clear.
In the past, adepts who wished to divine something would spend long periods of time in meditation first in order to find that stillness and receptivity required to understand the answers received.
This is not the same thing as obsessing over what Panadol of Athens wrote 2,000 years ago. It is very likely that he used the same basic method anyway, to take time to quieten his mind and relax his body (hence the name Panadol) and to allow the horary to show him the answer.
In those days, horary astrologers would have their own rituals for focusing their minds before interpreting their charts.
Someone consulting the I Ching would have used the following yarrow stalk method.
“Remove one yarrow stalk from the fifty stalks, and put it in front of you, in a direction parallel to your body. This is the observer stalk, you will not be using it again while casting the hexagram
Randomly divide the remaining 49 sticks into 2 piles. Put the 2 piles on both sides of you, pointing away from you, in a direction perpendicular to your body.
Pick up a yarrow stalk from the pile on the RIGHT, and put it between the little finger and the ring finger of the LEFT hand. This is the 2nd stalk.
Pick up the remaining yarrow stalks from the pile on the LEFT with your LEFT hand.
Remove 4 stalks at a time from the LEFT hand, and put them on the table, in individual piles of 4 stalks each. This process is stopped when there are 4 or less stalks left. Put these remaining stalks held on the LEFT hand between the ring finger and the middle finger of the LEFT hand.
Now, pick up the RIGHT hand heap, and sort it by fours in the same way, placing the remainder into the next gap between your fingers.
Count the stalks you are holding in your LEFT hand. This first total is either 5 or 9. (The various possibilities are 1+4+4, or 1+3+1, or 1+2+2, or 1+1+3.)
Set these counted stalks separately, and gather the uncounted stalks into a new pile. Repeat the steps above, to obtain a second total of 4 or 8. This time the possible combinations are 1+4+3, or 1+3+4, or 1+1+2, or 1+2+1. Likewise, these stalks are separated.
Repeat the procedure one last time, to get a third set of 4 or 8 stalks. You should now have three counted piles of 4/5 or 8/9.
The counted stalks are in groups of 4/5 or 8/9. For each group of 8 or 9, count 2. For each group of 4 or 5, count 3. This count should match the final number of removed piles of four, and determines the hexagram line.
Repeat this process for each of the other 5 lines of the hexagram.”
This process seems utterly bizarre to the modern mind. Even casting three coins six times and recording the results appears very old school. These days there’s an app for that, you just click and collect your answer.
The point of these old methods is to give the questioner time to quieten their mind and develop the necessary receptive state to be able to truly understand what the oracle was telling them.
But then as Indiana Jones discovered after overcoming almost insurmountable obstacles to reach his goal, the true grail is the simplest chalice and the false ones will turn you into a steaming pile of ash.
As in the chart for the question, you have to allow your Mercury to progress through the Zodiac to 29 Pisces, only then will Neptune at the first minute of Aries, show you the simple truth.
This is the quantum paradox of horary astrology
A Universal truth can be instantly beamed into your brain from the Universe, but it can take a lifetime to acquire the receptivity to understand what that truth means.
Either that or get some old goat to do it for you – What’s Happening Man?
Posted on April 3rd 2025
YOU CAN BOOK YOUR OWN PERSONAL ASTROLOGY CONSULTATION HERE
HAVE YOU BEEN HERE BEFORE – ASTROLOGICAL REGRESSION AND PAST LIVES
KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY – A DETAILED LOOK AT YOUR SYNASTRY WITH THE RELATIVES
TREAT YOURSELF – REMEDIES INDIVIDUALLY TAILORED TO YOUR BIRTHCHART AND TRANSITS
PROGRESSED LIFE SUPPORT – WHEN WILL YOUR SOULMATE BE COMING ?
WHAT’S HAPPENING MAN ? USING HORARY TO ANSWER ALL YOUR QUESTIONS
HOW TO CHANGE YOUR FATE – USING ELECTIONS TO ENSURE THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME FOR EVERY VENTURE
.