I am making an assumption that anyone reading this article will be pretty sure that astrology works.
But how does it work?
Perhaps this is simply beyond the comprehension of us mortals although I feel that when we are completely present we can have glimpses of the astonishingly powerful interconnectedness of a moment in time.
Maybe we don’t need to know the how of it because it works anyway.
But one question that I generally tended to avoid because I assumed it was equally incomprehensible is “Why does Astrology work?”
In the last few years, as the direct result of the profound changes in my own life, I have become more and more fascinated by this question and I now believe it is really important that we try and find out.
And to do this we should genuinely make it a serious study, not just rehash received and well rehearsed religious notions about life and death.
My own approach to astrology is to do it logically, even if the subject itself seems to defy it.
This is how I spent my first 40 years with Astrology, culminating in the largest ever research study done into the subject – THE CAPRICORN ASTROLOGY RESEARCH PROJECT | Capricorn Astrology Research
In the decade since then I have devoted all my energies to communicating these discoveries.
So I have applied the same meticulous, logical approach to the why question.
A quote from a previous article The Astrology Of Past Life Regression
We know that astrology works.
“For this to be the case, chance does not come into it, there must be a rational purpose behind it all.
Why are we born at this moment? There must be some reason for it.
The most likely explanation is that we must have some kind of past experience before this birth, that contributes to or even causes us to be born at this precise moment.
If that is the case, then there is an assumption that the astrological themes that we have to explore in this life must be in some way connected to those of the previous one.
So given that there is some kind of linkage, is it possible to deduce something of this by looking at the current natal chart?”
How might we do that?
We could look at major transits in the past to our current chart. I have the Sun at 4 Capricorn.
I experienced Pluto conjunct my Sun in 2010, this was when I discovered a connection apparently by accident, that led me to start the Capricorn Research Project, which took 3 years to complete.
The last time Pluto was at this degree was in the years 1764 – 65. Maybe this was a significant turning point in a previous life of mine.
But transits seem to be particularly related to our current chart and life. After all they are planetary movements that aspect our natal positions, so they appear to be marking things “out there” that will happen to us.
Secondary Progressions however seem to be something internal.
They don’t exist on their own, the positions that these planets take up are not real, they are symbolic.
The notion that one day after birth should equal one year of life seems to say that there is an internal pattern that we have brought with us into this life and it will unfold in its predetermined way in time.
The fact that the progressed Sun would cover a quarter of the Zodiac in a person’s lifetime (approximately 90 years) seems particularly pertinent because in that time it would make one (and only one) major aspect to each of our planets.
Something that I have discovered is that while transits will point to things that happen to us, progressions are more likely to indicate our meeting with important people in our lives.
I discovered this through my own experience.
Six years ago, my life changed completely. I met someone through astrotwitter, recognised her as my true soulmate who I had shared many lifetimes with and moved to the other side of the world to marry her.
I had not seen this coming at all. Why not?
Because although during my early days with astrology, I was equally enamoured with progressions and transits, my Capricorn desire to want to prove astrology through events had led me to realise that the latter was a much more effective way of doing that.
So for the 30 years up to this point I had neglected progressions even to the point that I wasn’t aware of my own.
So I had completely missed the fact that my progressed Venus was about to make it’s most powerful aspect of my life, conjunct my Ascendant, opposite my 7th house Jupiter/Uranus conjunction and square to my 9th house Neptune.
As well as completely changing my life, this event alerted me to the importance of progressions. So I started to look more seriously into them in the charts of clients, people I knew and famous figures.
My discovery was that rather than heralding events, secondary progressions invariably seemed to point to meeting people who would play an important role in the person’s life.
And that these meetings seemed to be preplanned by the Universe from their birth.
So I realised that progressions were all about members of our soul group and when they would make their predetermined appearance in our lives.
A major progression of the Sun to Venus, or vice versa or of Venus to a 7th house planet would indicate our meeting with the person who could best be described as our soulmate.
In my case Venus to my 7th house Jupiter/Uranus happened at the age of 63, but I have used this method very successfully for clients to tell them when it happened/would occur for them.
For more information on this see Progressed Life Support
About a year ago, the notion came to me that if we can look at progressions to see when we will meet our soulmate, could we use a reverse method to identify when we were last with them in a previous life?
I asked that particularly because progressions seem to be more to do with the soul or whatever is in us that is not simply of this life, and the unfolding of it’s karma through meeting other people.
This led me to discover what I call Secondary Regressions, a method that takes our progressions backwards before we were born, to discover when we last met these same members of our soul group in a previous life.
Since making this discovery, I have used them to develop a method that includes horary and reverse solar returns to describe Important relationships and turning points in our previous lives.
I have done this for many clients – for information on this see Have You Been Here Before
Everyone that I have done this for has found that the experiences described resonated with them and have helped them in terms of what is happening for them in their current life.
However, I recognise that these glimpses into our past lives are very difficult to prove.
Recently I did one for a client that brought something up about this life that I could not possibly have known about. When I presented it to her with the report, she told me that my discovery had been correct in its connection with her current life.
This client I will refer to as Y.
Y contacted me because she had a difficult relationship with her mother and wanted to see if this had a connection with a past life experience with her.
I started as I always do by casting a horary timed for the moment I received Y’s request.
Horary is an extraordinarily potent subject. Its field of operations is much wider and more extensive than we can possibly even imagine. It is only limited by the range of the questions we ask of it.
I often think this when someone on Astrotwitter asks for one to show them where they lost their phone.
If horary can find your mobile under your bed, why can’t it find your Mum in your last life?
When I cast the horary, I immediately saw that there were two other people involved in this question, one very powerfully, so I went back to Y and asked her for birthdata for other important people in her current life to see if I could find out who these two are this time round.
She sent me the information for various members of her family and I regressed them all.
I have included the Past Life Review in full, so that readers can get a sense of how detailed and tight the research is from an astrological perspective.
“When looking into past lives, I find it extremely useful to use a horary cast from the moment the client requests it.
In your previous past life reports, I showed the horaries for both lives and the connections that they had.
They had the same degree (16 Gemini) rising.
A horary for this question has a T square with an apex planet (Jupiter) at 17 Gemini.
Here Libra is rising, so as the person asking, your role in this life would be identified by Venus, it’s ruler.
Venus is situated in Virgo in the 12th house.
For this life review you have specifically asked to look into any previous connection with your mother.
As 4th house ruler, she would be represented by Saturn, which is placed in Pisces in the 6th house.
Venus and Saturn are opposite each other which is very significant.
This opposition also creates a T square which focuses on two apex planets, Mars and Jupiter.
Mars is the 7th house ruler, so I’m assuming that it signifies your husband.
Jupiter is 3rd and joint 6th house ruler, so could be a sibling or a neighbour. Having checked the charts of the people you suggested as possibilities I haven’t been able to find a clear link, so I believe we should take Jupiter as representing someone who is probably not making an appearance in your current lifetime.
So for this review I think we should start by looking at the current synastry between you, your mother and your husband.
Your Sun at 17 Virgo is exactly trine your Mother’s Sun.
This is a favourable connection but it is not as simple as it seems.
Your mother has a tight square aspect between her Sun and a powerful Mars in Aries in the 4th house, which would indicate that she can be very assertive and fall out with members of her own family.
You also have Mars in Aries, conjunct hers and square her Sun, so there would be a natural tendency to lock horns with her.
You have a Saturn/Uranus conjunction in the 4th house which is in close square to her Pisces Moon and would suggest a challenging relationship with her.
Your own Moon and Ascendant at 27/28 Leo is quincunx hers and indicates that you are a strongly independent person and would not be prepared to go along with her behaviour.
Bringing your husband’s chart into this synastry makes some interesting contributions to your relationship with your mother.
His Sun at 16 Cancer is closely sextile your Sun but exactly opposite hers.
A major theme in his chart is his T square.
This is formed from Mars in Virgo in the 7th house, which very obviously signifies his marriage to you.
This Mars is opposite Saturn in the 1st house and focuses onto an apex Mercury in the 4thhouse, which suggests that his relationship with you will bring complications with family.
As a rule we would just expect that to be with his own parents, but when we factor your mother’s Moon into this, it seems that he would have significant problems with her as well.
His Saturn is conjunct her Moon and his apex Mercury is exactly square it.
If we are looking at astrology and reincarnation we would have to assume that our whole chart is influenced, if not conditioned by our past life experiences.
But even given that, I would expect 4th house and 8th house themes to be the ones most connected to our past.
We have already looked at two previous lives that occurred around 1941 and 1600. You have asked about the period around 1800, so I will apply my method of Secondary Regressions to that and see what comes up.
The year 1825 takes your Sun back to 10 Aries which makes it conjunct your current 8th house Mars, so this must be an important time in your past life experience, probably the most critical one between the two previous lives we have looked at.
The Moon is also exactly quincunx the regressed Sun and your Mars.
The Sun and Moon in this chart form a Yod pattern with an 8th house Pluto in Scorpio.
This has to be related to a previous death.
As the Moon is exactly on the 7th house cusp, it seems to be connected with the death of a partner.
If we regress your husband’s chart back to the same date, his Sun is exactly conjunct his Uranus, a clear indication that he was part of this life experience.
His regressed Moon forms a very tight T square with Saturn and an apex Jupiter.
This makes a strong connection with his current chart as this Saturn is right on his current Ascendant.
The Virgo Moon in the 12th house opposite Saturn in Pisces in the 6th connects very strongly with the horary chart which has Venus in Virgo in the 12th opposite Saturn in Pisces in the 6th.
Both of these patterns form T squares with Jupiter.
Also note that your regressed Moon for October 1825 is 9 Virgo in the 7th house, and your husband’s regressed Moon is in the same degree.
The odds against all this happening by chance must be monumental.
The 6th/12th Virgo/Pisces themes in all three charts suggests that there must be some very serious health issues at least for your husband.
If we regress your mother’s chart back to the same date, we can see that she was involved as well.
Her regressed Sun, Moon and Jupiter are all forming challenging aspects to her current chart Saturn.
The regressed Mars is square to her Ascendant/Venus conjunction
Her regressed Venus is opposite her Sun.
But the really acute links here are the ones that tie in with both yours and particularly your husband’s regressed charts.
Her regressed Moon at 8 Gemini is in square to both your regressed Moons at 9 Virgo.
Her regressed Sun and Jupiter is conjunct those Moons.
Her regressed Mars is conjunct your husband’s natal Saturn.
So let’s go back and have another look at the horary.
As Venus is in Virgo, you were also female in this life.
Venus is in its fall in this sign and in the 12th house, we would have to assume that you were in very poor health and probably hospitalised.
Your mother as the 4th ruler would be Saturn in Pisces in the 6th house.
She would also be female.
The 6th house placing could be identifying her relationship with you in this current life.
Given that it’s Saturn, she would probably be someone older.
As the 6th house is the 3rd from the 4th, she could possibly have been an aunt.
Saturn is the planet of limitation and obstruction. With it being opposite Venus, the most likely interpretation would be that she was involved with your illness and possibly even responsible for it.
This opposition forms a T Square with two planets, Mars and Jupiter.
Mars and Jupiter are both in Gemini so they are men.
They are in the 8th house so there is a suggestion that your illness would have been related to their two deaths.
Mars is the ruler of the 7th house, so he would be your current husband.
What relationship would he be to you in this life?
It’s difficult to be sure, but as Venus was about to form a square with Mars, it seems that you were in a relationship with him and about to get married.
If we turn the chart to put the 4th house on the Ascendant, we can see what his relationship in this life is to your current mother.
The 8th house is the 5th from the 4th, so he would be her son in this life.
By doing the same we can see what the connection is between her and the person signified by Jupiter.
Jupiter co rules the 6th which is the 3rd from the 4th, so would signify her brother.
I have found that looking at regressed solar returns for the year involved can give us a clear flavour of what is happening in the person’s past life at the time.
Your solar return for September 1825 does pick up these themes.
The Moon/Venus/Mars conjunction in the 6th house does seem to reinforce the health themes that have been identified.
The 7th house seems to be particularly afflicted however. The Sun there in square to Saturn and the retrograde Mercury opposite Pluto suggests some serious trouble for your husband.
His own solar return for that year has a 6th house Sun opposite the chart ruler Uranus in the 12th and does indicate major health troubles.
This opposition forms a T square with an apex Moon in Aries closely conjunct Chiron.
Mars in Cancer in the 5th house in exact square to Pluto points to a powerful and even violent family connection with his illness.
Your solar return chart for the following year is even more powerful.
The Moon in Cancer in the 7th house is exactly opposite Saturn and focuses by T square on an apex Pluto.
The Moon is the chart ruler, Saturn is the ruler of both the 7th house of marriage and the 8th house of death.
This together with all of the above is the clearest possible indication of your husband to be’s death in that life.
His next solar return with the Sun opposite an 8th house Neptune confirms it.
The South Node right on the Ascendant in exact square to the Moon in the 4th house adds more evidence and also brings in a family flavour.
Your mother’s solar return for 1826 has a tight Capricorn stellium.
Both Sun and Moon are conjunct Neptune.
Venus and Mercury are exactly square to Pluto.
There is a tight T square from the Ascendant opposite Jupiter focused onto an apex Saturn.
Taking all of this into consideration, my best interpretation of this is that your mother in this life was your would be mother in law in this previous one.
She tried to prevent your marriage to her son by getting rid of you.
Given that her significator in the horary is in Pisces and with the Neptune placements of the returns, I believe she tried to do this by poisoning you.
Your health suffered and you were hospitalised, but her own son (your intended husband) and her brother were also inadvertently poisoned and this resulted in both of their deaths.
I can imagine that this would come as a shock to you and would be difficult to process, but the combination of horary, regressions, solar returns and synastry seems to leave little room for an alternative explanation.
Using dowsing I have come to believe that you were a native of the Flint area of Michigan, your intended and his family were settlers who had recently arrived from New York state.
His mother did not want him to marry an indigenous woman and consequently tried to poison you.
I have a method for finding the birthchart of a previous life by looking for secondary regressions to the 4th house ruler of the current chart.
If we regress your chart back further to 1796, your regressed Sun would be trine your current Pluto and your regressed Moon would be square it.
This would make you 30 years old at the time of your husband’s death.
If we apply the same principle to your husband’s chart we reach late 1793, making him 32 at the time.
The same principle applied to your mother/mother in law’s chart takes her back to 1777, making her 16 when she had her son/your husband and 48/49 at the time of these events.
This method would produce birthcharts for each of you.
In this life you had a 4th house stellium which meant that themes around your roots, family and homeland were of paramount importance to you.
Your Capricorn Sun was the apex of a T Square involving an exact opposition between the Libra Ascendant and a 7th house Aries Moon.
This would point to enormous challenges around relationships that would have a serious impact on your family.
Incidentally, I don’t believe this relationship was the big one for you. I think that happened at age 20 in 1817-18 when this birthchart’s progressed Sun was conjunct its Venus.
I believe this was with someone from your own tribe who died in battle in 1821, so you were a widow.
The events that we are describing in 1825-26 coincided with the progressed Sun’s conjunction with Pluto.
Transit Uranus in the early months of 1826 was at 21 Capricorn forming a T square to your Moon and Ascendant.
Your husband/would be husband in this life had a Sun/Jupiter conjunction in Sagittarius, befitting a traveller/explorer.
With Cancer rising and a Moon/Mars conjunction on the IC, family themes would be powerful.
Venus in Scorpio conjunct Neptune exactly opposite Saturn gives an indication of how his life ends.
The synastry with your chart suggests that this relationship is unlikely to have been a true love match for you, but maybe one that was required by your practical circumstances as a 30 year old widow.
Your Mars in Scorpio attracted this man’s Venus and the shared conjunction with Neptune sealed your respective fates.
This was compounded by your 8th house Saturn being opposite his Sun.
But what really brought your fates together was that his Ascendant/Descendant was exactly square your Moon/Ascendant.
I believe that he was also married before, having met his true love in 1814 – 15. She also died in 1821.
He met you and died when his 8th house Pluto had transited to oppose his Moon, again pointing to his mother as the cause of his death.
Transit Uranus was exactly conjunct his Descendant when he died.
Your mother/his mother in this life had the Sun at 23 Aries, right in your T square, but also opposite Saturn.
Her Cancer Moon in the 8th house is square to Mars and closely square to the Moon/Mars conjunction in her son’s chart.
Her Venus/Uranus conjunction in the 8th is conjunct your 8th house Saturn and opposite her son’s Sun.
All this synastry was triggered in 1825-26
Transit Pluto was square to her Moon when she poisoned you and her son.
Transit Uranus was square to her Sun.
With transit Pluto moving on to oppose her Mars and Saturn to conjunct her Moon and square her Mars, she was convicted of murder and executed later in 1826.
I can imagine that this review of your past life will come as a shock.
If it helps, I discovered that my ex wife, who I endured a dysfunctional relationship with for the best part of 40 years had killed me in a previous life.
Recognising that we had come together this time round to work through themes that had obviously been accumulating for several lifetimes, made it easier for me to reconcile why I had lived this experience this time and made it easier for me to step away from the marriage in a way that ends this connection once and for all.
In doing these reviews for clients, I have found that many of them have similarly difficult past life connections with their current relations.
I hope this one resonates with you and helps you understand some of the shared themes that you have in this life.”
Y’s response to this review included the following
“You know what’s funny? When I was about 15, which was 2 years after 9/11, my liberal, “accepting” mom told me “the only kind of man I’d have a problem with you dating would be a Muslim.” Now I’m married to one. And she won’t say it straight up, but she hates him.”
As I said at the beginning I had no way of knowing this before doing the review and Y had never asked for a past life review or any other report to include her husband, but this process has clearly unearthed an ongoing karmic theme between the three of them that may well have been in operation for many lives.
I don’t go along with the binary good/bad karma idea that many believers in reincarnation seem to be stuck on.
That if we are struggling with something or someone in this life it must have been because of a negative act that we performed in a previous one.
This is Sunday school level Christianity applied to the Buddhist perspective.
I feel that what continues on and sets the pattern for future lives are themes that are unresolved from previous ones.
So if we have any experience with someone that we haven’t fully learnt what we needed to from it, what remains unfinished will naturally continue.
And the respective souls (for want of a better word) would agree to come together again in circumstances that give another opportunity for resolution.
It’s obvious that Y’s mother’s attempt to poison her and inadvertently killing her own son leaves a situation that has been unresolved.
So this generates the need for all three to come back again in an antagonistic situation with challenging synastry in the hope that these themes will be understood and whatever lessons are necessary can be learned so that each soul can resolve their part in this and move on.
It seems likely that these themes have followed all three through several lifetimes and they may well have met up in Flint in 1826 in order to try and resolve them, but this obviously did not pan out in that way.
This is really the point of having a past life review and the reason that it is important to know why we are here and where our natal chart themes come from.
Most people are unable to see their life themes in a detached way. They will inevitably view things from their own perspective and place fault or responsibility for their problems onto the particular person who appears to be bringing them into their life.
Such a perspective makes it impossible to work through these themes and to learn from them or gain release from them. So they will continue on. Our reactions externalising the problem onto other people simply magnifies these issues and they will go on accumulating ad infinitum.
Having insight into our own birth charts gives us the opportunity to see these problems as something that we need to experience in this life.
Many people would say that a spiritual approach to life would give us the capacity to modify our responses and gain some freedom from these themes.
That may well be so, but only astrology will clearly show us exactly what they are, so we might have a general feeling of goodwill but we don’t necessarily recognise the specific stimuli that will occur in our lives and so we still react along with the old patterns, thus simply confirming them while believing that we are freeing ourselves.
A sophisticated understanding of the astrology will show us who will provide these stimuli and when.
An understanding of our own charts and in particular of those that are in close relationship to us, is imperative in order to have any chance of rising above our troubles.
But even with all this, we still don’t know why we have come together with these people, what has caused this connection and how much accumulated power there is behind it.
Only the astrology of our past lives can give us this insight.
This knowledge is immensely difficult to acquire in any sort of reliable sense, but I am convinced that a combination of secondary regressions, solar returns and horary can deliver it.
Much of my work over the last couple of years has been around family patterns and past lives in astrology. I believe the crossover of these two areas is the most important work that I’ve done in my life.
If you would like to look into a current relationship and see where the patterns have come from, why not take advantage of this offer Have You Been Here Before?
If you’re asking why, just ask Y. She now knows why.
Posted on Oct 7th 2024
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