Category Archives: reviews

Andrew Ross Sorkin on Evangeline Adams

Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of the bestselling book Too Big to Fail, takes on the great stock market crash in 1929.  But in his thumbnail sketches of Evangeline Adams and astrology, his research skills completely fail him.

In his introduction, Sorkin claims “more than eight years reporting and thousands of hours of research.”  He’s been writing for the New York Times since high school, has a show on CNBC and edits a financial news service.  But when it comes to Adams and astrology, all he can do is regurgitate questionable bits from a nearly 50-year-old book.  You can’t track down every fact, but the rumors and innuendos are perpetuated.

Astrology is the colorful, sexy subject that many want to laugh at.  Adams is mentioned in over a half dozen online reviews of Sorkin’s book, yet she only plays a tiny role in it.  She was probably included in the press release as a fascinating part of the history.  Sorkin himself compares horoscopes to fortune cookies in an interview, seemingly only aware of Sun sign astrology.

Of course, Andrew Ross Sorkin is an over-achiever who probably had assistants compile much of the information in 1929.  The few short parts on Adams are all directly from The Day the Bubble Burst, a 1979 book about the crash.  In order to look like they did more research on Adams, Sorkin also cites Maury Klein’s 2003 book The Crash of 1929.  But academic Klein also swiped the same skewed anecdotes directly from Bubble Burst.

In both, Evangeline Adams is a regular at the Plaza Hotel dining room, where she “had her own reserved table… surrounded by several star struck young men.”  On September 2, 1929, she predicted on a radio show that “the Dow Jones could climb to heaven,” which it obligingly did.

On Black Thursday, October 24, 1929, Adams held a group session in her office for worried clients, telling them that things were looking up.  She then supposedly contacted her broker, who said she’d lost $100,000 on the market, and told them to sell it all ASAP.

I could verify none of these stories, and much sounded bogus to me.  (Evangeline said she ate lunch at her desk; she was a workaholic with the Moon in the 6th house.)  The original authors gave no specific source notes and were clearly biased against Adams from the start.  Sorkin repeats the same prejudice.  Evangeline made a great forecast, but cared nothing for her clients as long as she could profit from their loss.  The astrologer as charlatan and fraudster is such a tired trope.  How would anyone know how much she had or when she sold?  I don’t even think she owned stocks; she always said her chart was unlucky for speculation (with Cancer on the 5th house and the Moon in the 6th opposite the Sun).

I shouldn’t complain.  Of the 100+ people on Sorkin’s cast of characters list, Evangeline Adams, “astrologist known as the stock market’s seer” (another attribution I could never confirm), is the only woman portrayed in 1929’s exclusive men’s club.

Sorkin, interestingly enough, has the Sun and Moon in Pisces and Mercury and Mars in Aquarius, signs he shares with Adams.  They helped him create a varied and comprehensive story.  His T-square of Mercury conjunct Mars opposite Saturn in Leo and square Uranus in Scorpio has clearly made market crashes a preoccupation.

Yet with a grand trine of Venus, Saturn and Neptune, Andrew Ross Sorkin will likely continue on his merrily ignorant way.  Until, of course, the calamitous day there’s a sudden major reversal he can’t explain, leaving him crushed and in need of direction, and ignorant of what astrology could do to help.

Astrologers won’t find anything enlightening on Evangeline Adams or astrology in 1929.  The many other character profiles might help understand their individual horoscopes.  Reviewers compliment the writing, but I personally wonder how such a seemingly intelligent man can be so oblivious to a subject that has become standard in market forecasting.  In this astrologer’s opinion, 1929 is a missed opportunity.

Sorkin’s birth information is from Wikipedia.  We have no time of birth.

For the real story on Evangeline Adams, read my books, Foreseeing the Future and What Evangeline Adams Knew.

Astro Speculation on Wall St.

Evangeline Adams’ 1927 autobiography revealed her personal association with financiers like J. Pierpont Morgan and Thomas W. Lawson. She said she could forecast the swings of the market and advise when individuals should invest. In “Astrological Speculation on Wall Street,” Carrie Tirado Bramen explains how Adams shared similar messages with the financial forecasters of her day. Prediction involved both a logical analysis as well as metaphysical hunches or astrological insight.

Bramen presents a fascinating history. The word speculation was first used by Scottish economist Adam Smith in 1791, and like the word consider, “was originally about contemplating celestial matters.” Financial advice literature in Adams’ day sought to separate speculation from gambling by emphasizing rationality, analysis and calculations. They even used charts.

Aquarian Evangeline also tried to normalize her practice, stressing her knowledge, authority and skill. She, too, had great expertise, analyzed data, and presented it in chart form. And yet neither could escape the fact that both also relied on something beyond ordinary rationality: the intuition or impressions.

Bramen asks the question “Who has the authority to predict the future?” Adams agreed with a well-known literary magazine that the clergy, realtors, and stock and bond traders could do so with impunity, but not astrologers. With market forecasting unregulated and in its infancy, and the first female member of the New York Stock Exchange decades away, financiers benefited from Adams’ astrological advice and she from their patronage.

Carrie Tirado Bramen’s academically-written piece reflects a clear understanding of the literature and attitudes of the times, and is full of intriguing connections and historical facts. It’s thought-provoking reading for those interested in the history of astrology in the U.S., especially financial astrology.

“Astrological Speculation on Wall Street” from the Journal of Cultural Economy. (May present a pay-wall.)

More on my biography of Evangeline Adams, Foreseeing the Future.
And my book on Adams’ astrological techniques, What Evangeline Adams Knew.

Joan Quigley and the Reagans

1988 was a great time to be an astrologer.  Nancy Reagan’s use of astrology in the White House was suddenly revealed to the public, and it was big news.

Former chief of staff Don Regan’s memoir came out in early May, and the press leapt on the news.  It was no surprise to astrologers, who were aware that the Reagans had consulted Carroll Righter and other astrologers during their Hollywood years.  Don Regan didn’t know the identity of the San Francisco astrologer that the First Lady used, but the press soon found out:  Joan Quigley, who Nancy may have consulted as early as the early ‘70s.

Quigley was the daughter of a successful hotel owner, and she and her sister grew up in a penthouse and were featured in the society pages attending events and charitable functions.  We can see her inherited wealth and social standing in her Aries Sun in the 8th house trine her Moon in Leo in the 11th.  With a Virgo Ascendant, she was attractive and always perfectly dressed, seemingly without a hair out of place.  Joan graduated with an art history degree from Vassar College.  Her Ascendant closely trined Venus in Taurus, so she had good taste.

After college, Joan returned to San Francisco, where she started practicing astrology and continued volunteer work.  Her Venus in the 9th showed her attraction to art studies, and since it also ruled her second house of income, her ability to earn through sharing her astrological knowledge.

She was choosy about her clients since she didn’t need the income.  Her Moon also trined Saturn in Sagittarius in her 3rd house; while she published three books, the first, Astrology for Adults (1971) very much used Evangeline Adams’ 1930 book Astrology: Your Place Among the Stars as a direct source.

Quigley’s Mars and Pluto were in the 10th house and her focus was on her career.  Mars squares both Mercury and Uranus in the 7th, attesting to the short-term nature of consultations.  She never married, probably a good choice as she needed freedom in relationships.  The 7th also shows her clientele and public outreach.  Jupiter in its own sign of Pisces, closely conjunct the 7th house cusp, added to her independent spirit, as well as her ability to come before the public.  Quigley made regular appearances on the Merv Griffin show and he was probably a client.  Though with Pluto in Cancer in the 10th and Saturn in the 3rd, the astrologer was discreet and typically didn’t reveal anything about her clients.

Jupiter also shows that Quigley could serve some notable patrons.  She had volunteered for Ronald Reagan’s campaigns for California governor and then president.  After the assassination attempt on President Reagan on March 30, 1981, Nancy began to rely on Joan regularly.

Quigley was 54 years old at the time.  Her progressed Jupiter conjoined 7th house Uranus, opening her to an unusual relationship.  Her progressed Midheaven conjoined her natal Moon in Leo in the 11th, nicely describing her association with a regal kind of woman, and she was also experiencing a lunar return.  Joan’s Mercury had progressed to her 10th house, and was a few degrees from conjoining her North Node and squaring natal Uranus.

Pluto transited her 2nd house of finances and values at 23-1/2 Libra, equidistant from a trine to 10th house Mars and opposition to her 8th house Sun, showing a rewarding career opportunity.  Neptune through her 4th house trined her natal Neptune in the 12th, and she was hired as a consultant and counselor, but had to keep it secret.  The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in early Libra that had foreshadowed the assassination attempt on the president was transiting Quigley’s first house, so a long-term (Saturn) partner (natal Jupiter conjunct her 7th) had come to her (first house).  Both exactly opposed natal 7th house Uranus within a few months, bringing a new relationship.

Quigley’s Mercury in Pisces and Uranus in Aries in the 7th house square Mars in Gemini in her 10th shows the potential for sudden upheavals in relationships from time to time.  The pattern suited Joan’s consulting work with Nancy, especially as they did it remotely, by telephone (Uranus).

When the news broke in early May of 1988 about Joan Quigley’s influence on President Reagan’s schedule, transiting Saturn and Uranus were closely conjunct in Capricorn and squared her 7th house Uranus, creating a break.  Of course, her seven-year stint represents a Saturn cycle, and the relationship had begun when Saturn conjoined Jupiter and both opposed her Uranus.  Transiting Pluto in Scorpio through her 3rd house was less than a degree from squaring her Moon:  the relationship with the powerful First Lady had ended.  Quigley said that Nancy only spoke with her once after the public got the news.

Nancy Reagan couldn’t deny what had happened, but distanced herself from astrology, describing her use of it out of fear.  Joan Quigley felt compelled to speak out, and later write her own book, where she detailed her influence on the Reagan administration, including encouraging the president to work with Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev on arms control agreements and ending the Cold War.

Some astrologers felt that Quigley had betrayed a confidence.  Her leonine integrity and dignity had been questioned, and she wanted all to know what astrology could really do.  With five planets in fire signs and an angular Mercury and Jupiter, she shared her truth.

Quigley’s book on the Reagans has interesting facts, but her ego comes off a little strong.   What does Joan Say?  My Seven Years as White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan.

Roger Bacon and Incorruptibility

Meagan S. Allen’s book Roger Bacon and the Incorruptible Human, 1220-1292: Alchemy, Pharmacology and the Desire to Prolong Life shows how alchemy, astrology and medicine were interconnected in the medieval world.  Roger Bacon was a 13th century philosopher and Franciscan friar, who, like many others of the time, was influenced by both the Bible and medical works, and believed that the extension of life was a valid pursuit.

Allen explains Bacon’s ideas in a consistently clear and lucid style. And while she mentions astronomy much more than astrology, at that time they were a united subject.  But given the context, it seems to me that the astrological meaning is generally intended.

Adam and Eve were given the potential to live forever, eating the fruit of the Tree of Life in Eden, which would sustain them forever.  But eating from the Tree of Knowledge, they had to leave.  And human bodies have lost their balance compared with the much longer life spans of the biblical patriarchs.

Our bodies will eventually be incorruptible through God after the resurrection, and a physical resurrection that included both body and soul was the accepted idea.  There would then be no tension between them, as both would be completely subject to the soul’s will.

Bacon was familiar with astrological works by Arabic authors like Abu Ma’shar and al-Kindi, and Greek works such as Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos. Many texts attributed to Galen had also been translated into Latin by that time.

Not unlike today, the medical establishment offered little help for the aging process, since their focus was on disease.  People could support their health with an improved diet and natural remedies that might help extend life (prolongatio vitae).  And Bacon felt there were risks to relying on medical advice.  Prescriptions needed to suit one’s age, constitution and horoscope, but doctors often weren’t good astrologers, alchemists, diagnosticians or apothecaries.  Without these skills, treatment was left to guesswork and luck.

Lunar aspects should be considered when taking medicines, and herbs needed to be collected at the proper times.  Helpful astrological patterns could pass celestial virtues onto alchemical medicines.  Alchemical techniques (which might be termed astrological magic today) could also enhance food and stones to bring one back to health and prolong life.

The ideal was a corpus equale – a body with the elements in equal proportions, which was so balanced that it would be incapable of decay (as gold and the immortal resurrection body).  Like everything else in the universe, stars and planets were made up of four essential elements and simple humors:  sanguine blood (air), phlegm (water), choler (fire) and melancholy (earth).  Our natal horoscopes give each of us differing elemental balances.  The challenge, then, or the “secret of secrets” (secretum secretorum) lies in balancing out the qualities of the humors in the body.

A thousand years earlier, Galen and Hippocrates’ medicine also based human health on the balance of the four humors.  As medical astrology still does today, alchemy was built on this foundation.

Bacon felt that the theory of the transmutation and purification of metals could be applied to human medicine, and that alchemical medicines could theoretically help us approach immortality.  A universal health elixir would be perfectly balanced and therefore incorruptible, able to restore bodies to health.  Bacon claimed he had seen it work with skilled doctors and patients.

Meagan Allen even shares the recipe, which included a combination of honey, fruit, seeds, spices and flowers, all fermented and boiled down with various powdered gem stones and gold, and placed “under the sky” for a week or so to take advantage of the “heavenly powers.”  Other key ingredients could include the flesh and bones of the Ethiopian dragon (a large winged snake) and the Tyrian viper – which was good for old age and aided memory.

And best of all, no one need worry about a diagnosis, since the elixir had a universal nature that cured anything.  A panacea, it did not require a diagnosis, and would balance humors, lessen pain, clear vision, calm disease and slow aging, support the brain, stimulate joy and prolong life.

Those interested in medical astrology, the medieval mind or alchemy’s connection with the cosmos should enjoy reading Roger Bacon and the Incorruptible Human, a well-researched and abundantly annotated work.  Since Meagan S. Allen is a college professor, her book is another example of how ancient and medieval world views that support astrology continue to be legitimately explored today.

As an academic book, Roger Bacon and the Incorruptible Human is unfortunately rather expensive.

About my reviews and links.

The Astrology of Bond

I’m definitely not a James Bond fan, but I really enjoyed The Astrology of Bond.  Why?  It’s the astrology!  Hollywood astrologer Ra Rishikavi Raghudas has given us lots of charts, with well-drawn interpretations that only someone who’s spent a lifetime practicing astrology can do.  And I no longer see many in-depth horoscope portraits elsewhere, making this book valuable indeed.

The Astrology of Bond cover blurb says it’s “suitable even for those with little or no astrological knowledge,” and while there are clear explanations throughout and much of a non-astrological nature, I personally think readers should have the basics to best appreciate the book.

Ra has done a tremendous amount of research and I especially enjoyed reading about the history and back story of the Bond works.  We’re treated to the horoscopes of Queen Elizabeth’s astrologer Dr. John Dee, Rudolf Hess (yes, he’s connected), creator Ian Fleming, his mentors, his wife, the American ornithologist whose name was borrowed for the character, the producers, all of the actors who played the title role and more.  For film and electional astrology buffs, all of the horoscopes for the movie premieres are included too.

I also found the section on the alchemical myths that relate to the Bond story fascinating, as well as Fleming’s friends in occult circles (and their horoscopes).  It’s ironic how such a self-destructive man as Ian Fleming (who died at 56 from a heart attack due to chain smoking, drinking and a generally unhealthy lifestyle) created what became a seemingly indestructible man.

Ra is living in the 21st century, and while James Bond may have been an old-school, misogynistic alpha-male, the writer certainly is not, and also considers the shifting cultural climate and how the series adapted to succeed throughout the years.  He also notes the 1962 Solar Eclipse in Aquarius (with seven planets in that sign) and the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 1960s as initiating the new social norms that helped the Bond archetype take root.

Ra Rishikavi Raghudas is a seasoned astrologer who brings a depth of experience to his book.  He’s a wonderful writer with an easily accessible style, who presents sound, solid astrology while also touching on many tools to use and ways to look at a chart.  If you’re an astrologer who’s interested in film or its history, you’ll enjoy this fun and informative book.  But if, like me, you crave compelling horoscope interpretations of real people and events, you’ll find much more.

See The Astrology of Bond on Amazon.

About my reviews and links.

The In-Between

When my mother first moved to an assisted living facility, they placed her under hospice care.  Being the stubborn and contrary person that she was, she fought them every step of the way until they disenrolled her (she lived for five more years).  We weren’t sure why she was put on that plan, but I ended up feeling it was a very good program that was more holistic than most medical treatment today.

So my interest was piqued when I saw The In-Between:  Unforgettable Encounters During Life’s Final Moments, a memoir written by a hospice nurse, about her experiences with twelve patients over the course of a few years.  Most interesting to me was the medical reality of patients receiving visits from their loved ones as they neared death.

The author, Hadley Vlohos, R.N., was a teenage unwed mother when she enrolled in nursing school and later landed in hospice care.  She felt at home with the more patient-centered, comfort-driven mandate of hospice.  Hadley shares what she learned from her patients, who were usually open and candid at the end of their lives.  We follow her on her journey as she acclimates herself to the challenges of her job, gets married, goes through the death of her mother-in-law from brain cancer and learns to confront medical authorities when necessary.  Her patients range from wealthy to homeless, elderly with dementia to a young parent, slow and expected weakening to quick passages, and all offered insights and wisdom.

But it’s the unusual relationships that develop, as well as the metaphysical experiences described that were the most compelling.  Patients invariably felt calm and peaceful near the end, and many looked forward to rejoining long departed family members who had recently visited them.  Hadley herself had struggled with her religious upbringing, and she found that beliefs didn’t affect her patients’ experiences in dying.  (Even a life-time atheist was also visited by family from the other side.)

While the topic may be off-putting to many, Hadley Vlahos tells her patients’ stories with great feeling and empathy, and the book becomes a celebration of life in all its many facets.  Hadley learned that she couldn’t control everything and often had to trust both her patients and the universe and let go.  (Saturn is often invoked in the subject of death, but may also be appropriate in its sense of timing and the idea of release, too.)  All of the patients’ stories resonated with me.  In an age of AI and continual promotions, it’s nice to find a work that honors uniquely human experiences.

See The In-Between on Amazon.com.

About my reviews and links.

Eliminate TV?

Jerry Mander’s 1978 book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television is a counter-culture classic that analyzes the negative effects of television and advises against its use.  Mander spent many years handling TV ads for huge corporations, became disillusioned with the “establishment,” and turned to helping promote non-profits and those he considered more worthy.  But he ultimately felt their voices couldn’t be effectively communicated through the medium. 

Mass media is limited in many ways, as anyone can see from how astrology has been conveyed to a wider audience for more than 100 years.

Mander believed that human-created environments had already replaced real experience, and that television in particular narrowed perceptions (reminding me of Plato’s allegory of the cave).  TV limits the use of our senses, as well as instinct, intuition, feeling and thought, and replaces them with a hypnotic, addictive experience.  People and the environment are “dimmed out,” and we’re separated from others, the community and ourselves.  Knowledge that’s not based on direct experience becomes the norm, and aided by TV, is replaced by the influence of science, technology and industrial proof.

On the other hand, television is best at being an “advertising delivery system” since the confining experience of TV can easily implant simple, clear ideas. Programming choices are in the hands of the techno-scientific and corporate elite, whose power is enhanced by their technology, resulting in the “loss of virtually everything that qualifies as meaningful.”

Those interested in history and cycles would tend to agree with some of his arguments.  The needs of the market are contrary to human needs since “unlimited economic growth is a planetary impossibility.  It could only have been conceived by minds out of touch with natural limits.  It is dependent on a suicidal over use of resources and an impossible rate of commodity consumption.”

Artificial light obscures natural rhythms.  Like food, living things need natural light for nourishment and growth.  We’ve learned much more about how ultraviolet light is essential for synthesis of Vitamin D, and how blue light from screens can interfere with our circadian rhythms, but Mander wrote about these topics over 45 years ago.  He believed that new technology should be considered “guilty until proven innocent.”  Television was rapidly adopted, with little review or testing, and not much study of it was ever done.  Over a 7-year period, the author found only 20 articles that critically looked at the effects of television, some of which included epilepsy, eye damage, heart rate changes and exposure to X-rays (electromagnetic radiation).

Television is only able to present us with “drastically reduced versions” and distortions of nature, the arts, religion and non-western or non-materialist cultures, since they demand the interplay of the mind and senses to understand fully.  Instead, TV causes us to lose a sense of grounding in time and place.

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television doesn’t touch on astrology, but while astrology proliferates on mass media today, much continues to be superficial.  Like other uncommon subjects in the western world, one needs time to study, experience and understand astrology.

These days, television is very different, and we’re dominated by the Internet.  But our social media platforms have become updated “advertising delivery systems.”  Jerry Mander died in April of 2023 at the age of 85, and would have seen the popularity and power of the Internet as the next stage for advertisers.  He was very prescient, if not prophetic.  But in 1977, even he admitted he didn’t know how to eliminate TV.

Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television is available second-hand on Amazon and elsewhere.

All the Beauty in the World

The 12th house is one of the most difficult to understand.  But when we experience 12th house issues, we can connect with them directly.  Patrick Bringley’s book All the Beauty in the World: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me seems to share such a 12th house journey in a compelling way.

Horary practitioners relate the 12th house to disappointments, sorrow, affliction, even imprisonment.  Planets here may show a focus on the wounded, hospitalized or withdrawn.  Al H. Morrison related the 12th to people who retreat from society to meditate, who turn inward or connect with inner guidance.

Patrick Bringley’s book chronicles his experiences following the death of his brother.  He could no longer tolerate a somewhat superficial job that required him to spend his days in front of a computer.  He had found meaning in art and instead became a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.  At this 12th house institution, his co-workers joked they had “nothing to do and all day to do it.”  Bringley added that “Guards are nothing but secret selves in dark blue suits.”   He worked at the museum for 10 years, recovering from the loss of his brother and becoming a husband and father along the way.

The experience of loss, his low profile position and his escape from the achievement-oriented world are all 12th house affairs.  So is suffering, which many of the artists experienced as well.  Their works capture the sublime and ineffable, and transcend time and place.  They celebrate “the making of anything worthwhile in a world that so often resists our efforts.”  The author shares that, “Artists create records of transitory moments, appearing to stop their clocks.”  “Such moments provide solace; they are heartwarming; they are pure.”  “They help us believe that some things aren’t transitory at all but rather remain beautiful, true, majestic, sad and joyful over many lifetimes – and here is the proof.”

Bringley shares his impressions of a Michelangelo sketch, done while painting the Sistine Chapel, with a note saying, “I am not in a good place and I am no painter.”  The artist begged to be released but the Pope refused him.  In his 70s he was similarly assigned as the architect to complete St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, “to his intense dismay and completely against his will.”

Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion “reminds us again of the obvious:  that we’re mortal, that we suffer, that bravery in suffering is beautiful, that loss inspires love and lamentation.”  The best art puts us “in touch with something we know intimately yet remains beyond our comprehension.”  All 12th house.

Bringley shares his musings on many other works, old and new, from around the globe.  We learn of his experiences with his warm co-workers and the patrons of the museum.  Like the artists he’s come to know, Patrick Bringley connects us with something transcendental and metaphysical.  I am definitely not a fine arts person, but I loved this book.  It illuminates the 12th house, not as a long, dark journey of the soul but a celebration of the cycles of life.  I found the print and audiobook are equally well done.

Find All the Beauty in the World at Amazon.

What Evangeline Adams Knew Review

I was very pleased to read Sara Rose Diamond‘s review of my update of What Evangeline Adams Knew: a Book of Astrological Charts and Techniques:
Christino has done the world of astrology a major service by compiling, and presenting in such a lively way, a lot of valuable information that would otherwise fall by the wayside… vital scholarship for the safeguarding of astrological history.

The Milky Way

To start her new book, The Milky Way: an Autobiography of our Galaxy, Moiya McTier reminisces about her relationship with her “celestial mom and dad” – the Sun and Moon.  As a girl in rural Pennsylvania, she felt they watched over her, and she’d speak with them regularly, sharing her news and feelings:  “I sought comfort from the Moon well into my adolescence.” 

And no, she’s not an astrologer.  She considers herself both an astrophysicist and folklorist (which is probably about as close as you can get) who found “science and myth weren’t as contradictory as they seemed on the surface.  Both are tools that we humans use to understand how we fit in with the rest of the universe.”  I suspect that McTier represents a new generation of astronomers who don’t find astrology quite as threatening, offensive or absurd as those who came before them.  In fact, she goes so far as to have the Milky Way say that “You might think they [astrologers] would annoy me but I like them; they remind me of my sufficiently awestruck ancestors.”

The marvelously organic conceit of the book is that it’s dictated by the Milky Way galaxy itself, who’s charming and pompous at the same time, as well as all-knowing, even admitting that, “consciousness is an inherent quality of the universe.”  I loved the idea that a galaxy’s black hole holds their angst and negativity.  This is a far cry from the typically materialistic astronomers we’ve come to know.

Dr. McTier mentions lots of sky myths from around the world, as the Milky Way waxes nostalgic for a time when humanity was more connected with the cosmos.  Much of the astronomical information is accessible and even entertaining due to the Milky Way’s compelling persona; but some of it was still a bit too technically involved for this astrologer’s taste (reminding me that we, too, have the same problem communicating more detailed astrological analyses to the inexperienced).

They still don’t know exactly what dark matter is, though it comprises over a third of the universe.  And there are only about 10,000 astronomers and 1,000 radio astronomers in the world.  We exponentially outnumber them, interestingly enough.  The Milky Way admits that measuring galactic distances is very derived and indirect, a thought that’s often struck me, too.  A defense of astrophysics is that “some sciences are observational in nature, not experimental,” and related critiques have regularly been leveled at astrologers by skeptics.

Often accessible, The Milky Way is a refreshing and informative journey through the history of the cosmos.  On her website, McTier says she was born in 1995, giving her the Uranus-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn signature of the times, which perhaps explains her gentler, more inclusive astronomical point of view.  It’s notable that Dr. Percy Seymour’s The Scientific Basis of Astrology and Dr. Anthony Aveni’s Conversing with the Planets were both published in 1992, when the Uranus-Neptune conjunction was already nearly exact; both seemed to open the door to broadening views of astrology.

As Moiya McTier has not yet reached her first Saturn return, I’m eager to see where the coming years take her and what other topics she’ll address in the future.

Buy The Milky Way on Amazon.com.

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