Category Archives: reviews

A Scheme of Heaven

Alexander Boxer’s A Scheme of Heaven is a new work about the history of astrology. Obviously published to capitalize on astrology’s current popularity, the book benefits from the author’s familiarity with ancient texts, but is ultimately undermined by his scientific point of view.
Boxer is a classics scholar with an affection for the old tomes and languages. His bite-sized coverage of many astrological topics, from Manilius to Cardano, is often easy-to-understand and sometimes even entertaining. While the writer covers much familiar ground, I still learned some new things Chaucer wrote a textbook on using the astrolabe. Alexander the Great’s conquest in 331 BCE is accurately described by an eclipse omen tablet from 300 years before. And some have seen Shakespeare’s Hamlet as an astrological allegory, with the names Rosencrantz and Guildenstern turning up in Tycho Brahe’s family tree.

But the author is also a “data scientist.” The book’s U.S. subtitle, “The History of Astrology and the Search for Our Destiny in Data,” is, it seems to me, a faulty conceit. Boxer assumes that all astrology is essentially reducible to algorithms and statistics, and its allure simply due to our need for patterns. He rather gleefully and cavalierly reduces Bonatti’s rules for trading to a virtual investing program. In practice, it doesn’t work very well, but what could we expect without human judgment involved? (Mr. Boxer: Bonatti wrote aphorisms, NOT algorithms.)

Boxer addresses chart interpretation, the cyclic deaths of U.S. presidents in office and other topics in a similar manner, as the book devolves into a display of his cleverness. He’s solved the houses issue! He’s re-invented the chart wheel! (As his chart can’t even show an obvious opposition, it’s not of much use.) The writer couldn’t resist sharing his own birth data, with Jupiter rising in Leo square Venus and Mars in Taurus. The book’s major flaw is that it’s more about what the author can do than the topic at hand. His arrogance and self-indulgence have led him to presume that he could address a complex topic without being able to grasp its depth or the great continuity of its tradition.

A Scheme of Heaven proves one thing: that astrology is an occult study (one concealed or not apparent to all). Despite reading Ptolemy, Vettius Valens and Guido Bonatti in their original languages, the writer nevertheless lacks an essential understanding of what astrology actually is. While real astrology is thriving and there’s a proliferation of online classes and certification today, Alexander Boxer still considers it “a topic for which the whole idea of expertise seems thoroughly up for grabs.” The reality is either obscured or he hasn’t even bothered to check. He considers Mercury to be “in retrograde,” a dead giveaway to astrological cluelessness.

With nearly 30 people thanked for their contributions to this offering from a major publisher, it’s baffling that not one real astrologer was consulted. And no editor, proofreader or fact-checker was able to rescue Boxer from the intellectual prison of his linear mind. Boxed-in, as it were.

It appears to have become acceptable to admit astrology’s prominence in the past but not the present. The closest the author gets to exploring contemporary astrology is having a cookbook print-out done for himself and family members. He gives short shrift to the last four hundred years, becoming more derivative and disillusioned with each century that lies beyond his expertise.

Alexander Boxer’s attitude towards astrology is ambiguous at best. He assures us he had a wonderful time researching and writing this book and that he’s not a true debunker. But he admits it’s politically incorrect to associate oneself too closely with astrology, and fears he may end up like Otto Neugebauer, who translated Babylonian astrological cuneiform texts and was supposedly labelled as something of a crank. Ironically, the writer will probably never again find another project as uniquely tailored to his own talents.

For those who want to know more about astrology’s past, A Scheme of Heaven is worth reading. It’s also indicative of the modern malaise of those with nothing to believe in, who summarily dismiss anything outside their limited view.

If you’d like to learn more about the history and spirit of astrology, try something like Anthony Aveni’s Conversing with the Planets (by a more simpatico non-believer). Or better yet, just read anything by an actual astrologer. They’re very easy to find these days. Unless, like Mr. Boxer, you choose not to look.

Check out A Scheme of Heaven on Amazon.com.

About my Amazon links.

Mountain Astrologer Review

The Mountain Astrologer reviews my astro-bio, Foreseeing the Future: Evangeline Adams and Astrology in America in their February-March 2020 issue. Judi Vitale writes:

“This biography of one of the 20th-century America’s best-known astrologers never strays far from thoughts of the planets and stars, but Foreseeing the Future does take the reader on a gratifying vacation away from the workaday grind of heavyweight astrology theory and technique. Karen Christino’s tenacious research and passionate reporting give us a tantalizing view of virtually every aspect of Evangeline Adams’ extraordinary life.”

More on Foreseeing the Future here

Novel About Astrologer

Astrology is back in the mainstream and has been for a while. Astrologer Barbara Shafferman recommended a book that she discovered by chance – it just happened to be about an astrologer – 2009’s literary and mystery novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. It’s a good read that says something about the contemporary human condition.

Janina, our protagonist and narrator, is a retired teacher living in rural Poland. She has a passion for studying astrology and helping a student translate William Blake’s letters. A vegetarian, she tries to live simply and shares great empathy with animals. But she suffers from debilitating health attacks and nightmares about her dead mother, while also finding herself in the midst of a series of local murders.

The book is part detective story and part psychological study: we get to know this marginalized woman living in an unbalanced, harsh environment. Her frustrations in dealing with the corrupt, ineffectual and even violent local authorities are very relatable since her age and unconventional beliefs make her someone who’s not taken seriously.

Janina admits she’s not a good astrologer, and maybe she’s not, as she puts small animals in the 3rd house. It’s hard to know whether the use of words like quadrature (for square) or cosmogram (for horoscope) were a translator’s lack of expertise or a choice to make Janina seem quaint (she also talks of using a slide rule for calculations). Does knowing her date of death support that the character is unrealistic or show the writer’s limitations on the subject?

Janina has some lovely thoughts about her place in the universe:
“The world is a great big net, it is a whole, where no single thing exists separately, every scrap of the world, every last tiny piece, is bound up with the rest by a complex cosmos of correspondences, hard for the ordinary mind to penetrate.”

Tokarczuk clearly knows astrology herself as she refers to it throughout the text; she worked as a Jungian therapist before her writing career. Born on January 29, 1962 in Sulechrow, Poland, she has the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn all in Aquarius – no surprise for someone attracted to astrology!

I won’t reveal the ending, but I found Drive Your Plow engrossing, with a skillfully balanced plot and the extra bonus of following a real character whose astrology – for better or worse – is part of the tapestry of her life.

Buy Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead on Amazon.com
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Dell Horoscope Review

I was delighted to read Chris Lorenz’ review of my book about Evangeline Adams in the Dell Horoscope 2020 Yearbook!

He writes, “In this deeply researched and fascinating biography, readers can follow the evolution of astrology… as experienced and shaped by Evangeline Adams… Thank you, Karen Christino, for bringing us her story.”

Sorry to see this magazine leave us. It’s come full circle for me, as Horoscope was the first mainstream publication to publish my work.

More about the book here.

Planetary Powers

Patti Tobin Brittain’s book, Planetary Powers: The Morin Method takes the reader through the first steps in understanding how her teacher, Gerhard Houwing and his accomplished source, Jean-Baptiste Morin (1583–1656), may have interpreted a horoscope. As I have a background in this method myself, it was fascinating to see her approach.

This is a clear introductory text that focuses on what the author calls “cause and effect.” Brittain uses stripped-down charts with only a few key elements to show how the ruler of one house placed in another creates meaning. She provides numerous examples to familiarize the reader with these mechanics, almost like drills. They are often illuminating, but it can be unclear whether the examples represent real people or theory.

Another important concept is “analogy.” The Sun has an affinity for the 10th house, and Venus for the 7th, for example. These will vary by sign, ruler, house or aspect and are also clearly illustrated. This is another concept that I had personally absorbed but never reviewed in such detail.

The planets’ essential nature (their basic meanings and whether malefic or benefic) are significant, as is cosmic state (dignities and debilities). Morin used simplified triplicity rulers (different than those in Ptolemy or William Lilly).

Students interested in Morin’s methods should find this book a good, accessible starting point. Houwing emphasized “the concise, the specific, the concrete” and a “systematic approach to reading a chart.” These do reflect Morin’s traditional practices, which are very different from modern psychological astrology.

Houwing “felt it was worse to be unresolute than to be wrong” and Brittain admits this “may sound fatalistic.” I found it so myself when one of her “malefic” examples reflected components of my own chart! I personally strive to be accurate in a more general way than rigorously specific, as the latter can often be misleading, judgmental, or just plain wrong. Horoscopes, like human beings, are complex.

Some intriguing tidbits are mentioned but not addressed and are certainly beyond the scope of the book. But I would’ve liked to read more about what factors could indicate events in childhood, middle or late life, or what placements might show experiences that are fleeting vs. constant and ongoing, for example.

Patti Tobin Brittain died in March of 2019 at the age of 91. Born on 10/28/27 in Forney, Texas, she had the Sun, Moon, Mercury and Mars all in Scorpio in a grand trine with Jupiter in Pisces and Pluto. Her mentor Houwing was born on 10/27/23 – just a day and four years before Brittain, so we can understand their connection astrologically. They share the Sun and Venus in Scorpio and both appear to have been single-minded and incisive. Houwing’s Jupiter closely conjoins Brittain’s Mercury, and he passed along his knowledge and experience to her. But while the teacher had Mercury sextile Neptune, the student had a square between these planets, so something may have been lost in this rendition of Houwing and Morin’s work.

Taking apart a horoscope to understand its working parts may be valuable, but putting an emphasis on isolated elements makes for a somewhat linear and literal approach. Another book is needed to fill in the vast spaces between the simplified examples shown and an interpretation and synthesis of the full horoscopes presented at the end of the book. Nevertheless, Planetary Powers provides a valuable introduction to Morin’s methods.

Check out Planetary Powers (AFA, 2010) on Amazon.com
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Brittain’s birth date is from her obituary.

Houwing’s birth date is from public records on Ancestry.com

Astrology News Service Review!

I was thrilled to see Armand Diaz’ review of my book, Foreseeing the Future: Evangeline Adams and Astrology in America on Astrology News Service. He says,

“Adams was not only a good astrologer, as Karen Christino’s book clearly shows. She was a real maverick in many ways, including her fight to establish herself in business at a time when women rarely held positions of authority. She was also a master of self-promotion, and one gets the impression that Adams possessed the abilities of a great mystic in liberal combination with the spirit of P.T. Barnum.”

For more on the book and links to order, click here.

McWhirter’s Market Forecasting Techniques

Louise McWhirter’s 1938 book on stock market forecasting outlines the methods she used to predict long and shorter-term trends on the stock market. She had obviously studied both natal and mundane astrology and used the North Node’s cycle, her own rectified chart for the New York Stock Exchange, the horoscopes of corporations, and lunations and transits to form her judgments.

The North Node’s cycle outlined the bigger swings of the market. From Scorpio to Libra, expected business volume moves from normal to above normal, creating prosperity. In Leo, business is at a high point. In Cancer and Gemini, business is above normal trending toward normal. With the Node in Taurus through Aries, we transition to below normal. When the North Node passes into Aquarius, we are at the low point. From Capricorn to Sagittarius we move from below normal to normal again.

McWhirter rectified the NY Stock Exchange chart, giving it a 14 Cancer Ascendant with 24-1/2 Pisces on the MC and felt that transits to the angles would change the trends in securities, bonds and the general condition of the market. These “secondary factors” could alter the expected nodal cycle movement by up to 20%. Lunations (New Moon charts) compared with the NYSE horoscope will show the trend of the coming month.

Other factors can also throw this business cycle out of its expected rhythm. Transiting Jupiter conjunct the Node or in favorable aspects to Saturn or Uranus may give the markets a boost. Saturn or Uranus in hard aspect to the Nodes should depress prices. The positive or negative aspects between transiting Saturn and Uranus can also be used to forecast major trends. Louise felt that both the signs of Gemini and Cancer related to the United States, so Jupiter in these signs was helpful, while Saturn, Uranus and Pluto here were not.

To forecast for individual stocks, McWhirter utilized incorporation dates and their solar charts. If their natal planets connect to the NYSE chart, we can expect them to follow the general market’s trend. Lunations and outer planet transits to these charts will indicate how the particular company will fare in the coming months and years.

In 1938, McWhirter reiterated Dr. Luke D. Broughton and Evangeline Adams’ cycle for U.S. war with Uranus in Gemini, and correctly forecast that when Saturn and Uranus were in this sign from 1942 to 1944, it suggested “war, depression, government change, social upheaval and a financial panic.”

Louise McWhirter’s methods might not be as effective today as they once were, but they’re based on sound, standard astrology. We can all begin to test them by following the charts for the market and individual companies and studying the transits and lunations to them. As Louise advised, “It takes time and practice to become adept in analyzing the charts of stocks, but it is interesting and very worthwhile because it helps you to obtain financial independence through investment of a sound and practical nature.”

My biographical sketch of Louise McWhirter is here.

McWhirter Theory of Stock Market Forecasting is on Amazon.

Foreseeing the Future Review

I’m thrilled and flattered to see Ken Irving’s review of the update of my book Foreseeing the Future in the May 2019 issue of Horoscope Guide magazine. He says,

“Karen Christino’s revised edition of the outstanding Evangeline Adams biography Foreseeing the Future may be the same story, but it covers Adams’ life in more depth than the first edition, so Christino has taken her original, unique history of an American astrologer, and made it much, much better. If you already have the original on your shelf, get the revised edition. If you have never come across the original, buy this newer edition. Karen Christino is a wonderful writer, and this is a wonderful book to read.”

For more on the book and links to order, click here.

Sefer Yetzirah – The Book of Formation (or Creation)

Meira Epstein presents Sefer Yetzirah, one of the oldest Jewish mystical texts, in a new, accessible and easy to read translation with commentary. Sefer Yetzirah dates from the 1st to 3rd centuries (perhaps around the time of Vettius Valens and Ptolemy), and presents a philosophical model of creation.

This unusual text describes the creation as a world of pure forms and ideas, a time prior to Genesis’ “In the beginning there was the Word.” Numbers, letters and the elements are the only forms. The numbers are more divine (provoking astrological parallels), the letters are connected to material creation.

Epstein’s argument that the ten “Sefirot” mentioned in the text refer to planetary spheres or motions is compelling. The twelve zodiac signs and other similarities are mentioned, and Sefer Yetzirah ends with the divine covenant with Abraham, who was traditionally connected with astrology.

I’ve never read anything quite like Sefer Yetzirah before, and thankfully Meira Epstein places it in its historical and cultural context. It shares some ideas or influences with Gnosticism, neo Platonism and the Phythogoreans.

While contemporary western books are for the most part rather linear, this is a multilayered and organic work. The introductory sections, Sefir Yetzirah itself, the notes and the commentaries all naturally lead to other sections. Each section is completely different from the rest, and each illuminates the others in many ways, in the same way I understand the Talmud and Torah to be organized. Epstein guides us through this world, and as I become immersed in it, the book kept getting better as I went along, leading me to immediately start reading it once again from the beginning.

But what does Sefer Yetzirah represent? Is it derived from an oral tradition? A magical incantation, prayer or chant? The spare nature of the text itself leaves us with this question.

The entire work is about 200 pages, with the text itself taking about ½ the book and including the original Hebrew, transliteration for those with familiarity of Hebrew, and the English translation and notes.

The Appendices form about 1/3 of book and introduce us to a wide array of related topics in a compact form. One was more fascinating than the next, and they include introductions to the Merkavah mystics and their vision quest, the four-fold hermeneutic way of understanding scripture, the history of writing, the connection between numbers and letters in Gematria, the metaphysical and metaphorical meaning of names, the legend of the Golem, the Dead Sea Scrolls and much more.

If you’re interested in the ancient world, Jewish philosophy or mysticism, you’ll enjoy this engrossing book – a small treasure!

Buy Sefer Yetzirah at Amazon.com.

Tom Hanks, Author

I like looking at the charts of creative types to see how they’re reflected in their work. Popular actor Tom Hanks released a book of short stories last year, Uncommon Type, and I listened to his audiobook. I wasn’t sure how good it’d be, but with the Sun in Cancer, I expected Hanks’ warm and accessible, sexually non-threatening style. The stories were wonderful and seemed to reflect even more of the real person than we know from the movies.

Many of the stories concerned family, friends and leisure activities and seemed personal and authentic. Hanks has both the Sun and Mercury in Cancer with the Moon in Leo, all of which favor self-expression. His Sun and Moon are also in mutual reception and dispose of the entire chart, strengthening his ability to connect with emotions and present dramatic situations.

Venus in Gemini creates a grand cross with Mars in Pisces on the Descendant, the MC/IC and Virgo rising. True to Virgo, there is a meticulousness about the writing, but with Mars in Pisces, it’s always emotionally engaging. The stories are accessible and comfortable, the content somewhat “cozy” (PG rated), and nothing is pushed or rushed, with occasionally disturbing situations and satisfying endings.

The actor also has Mercury Out of Bounds in declination. Kt Boehrer thought this placement was associated with considerable imagination, curiosity and talent. And I would add, versatility.

The stories of a divorced mother learning to trust again and the son of a divorced couple getting to know his more successful mom and her new boyfriend seemed so truthful and real that I assumed the writer had experienced these things first-hand. There were also stories about space flight, time travel, star gazing and discovering the exhilaration of piloting an airplane. These all seemed Uranian to me, and Hanks has the Moon conjunct Uranus in the 11th house, probably one reason he’s been so popular in the first place. His bio tells us that he’s experienced divorce and is a big booster of NASA and space exploration.

Saturn in Scorpio in the 3rd house trines Uranus, and this also explains Tom Hanks’ somewhat low-key communications style. Saturn rules his 5th house and also squares Pluto in Leo and Jupiter in Virgo in his 12th, showing a great inner drive and intensity. As Jupiter rules his 4th house cusp, this also shows the changes he experienced in his personal life.

One story is about a woman striking out on her own and connecting with a typewriter. With Saturn strongly accented in the 3rd house, it’s no surprise that Tom Hanks collects typewriters and is devoted to writing with them.

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks on Amazon.com.

Tom Hanks was born on July 9, 1956 at 11:17 AM in Concord Calfornia, rated AA on Astrodatabank (from his birth certificate).