Astrology in America Today (1994)

ASTROLOGY IN AMERICA TODAY

By Marion D. March
April 1994

Good afternoon and thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to speak
to you here in your absolutely beautiful city!
The subject you’ve asked me to cover, ASTROLOGY IN AMERICA, is vast,
nearly as vast as the country I’m to talk about. So, to illustrate more clearly, I
have put the United States chart behind me [see chart next page], and in one
glance you will recognize why we are such a dynamic mixture of wild and
crazy, straightlaced and prude, idealistic individualists who will fight for
freedom, yet will blindly follow fads cleverly laid out by some advertising
geniuses. These huge fluctuations and differences of expression reflect in our
geographical diversity, our motley climate, our daily life and, of course, our
approach to astrology.
To quickly settle a point of contention, namely Gemini rather than Sagittarius
rising: Dane Rudhyar is the one who made the Sagittarius chart famous in
Europe. But that chart, published in the 17th century by Sibley, is not based on
fact or knowledge, as usually assumed – it is a rectified horoscope which has
less raison d’être than a Gemini Ascendant which at least is based on some
historical notes. Most of our recognized and successful American mundane
astrologers, including the Grand Dame of all, now deceased Washington D.C.
resident Barbara Watters, all used Gemini rising. Gemini represents our
preoccupation with youth, our delightful, often naive curiosity, which the chart
ruler Mercury in Cancer well explains our zealous patriotism and near
reverence for home, hearth, mother, and family life style. Gemini validates our
movability, adaptability to new circumstances and boredom with the status
quo.
Anybody who’s ever been to the United States and observed us for a while, will
acknowledge our strongly revolutionary inclination evident with Uranus rising,
rebels with or without a cause; original, inventive and open to the future. Is it
any wonder that we consistently have to show the world how unique we are?
After all, Uranus, the ruler of our Midheaven is right on our Ascendant. Mars is
also placed in the 1st house, and yes, we were born in revolution and war and

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still live in a violent society that thrives on gun ownership as a citizen’s right
with subsequent violence in the streets escalating. The Mars/Neptune square
is not inducive to clear vision and has seen many a racial strife; but thankfully
this same Mars is involved in a grand trine with Saturn (good timing) as well as
the Moon (the public) enabling Americans to make mistakes and yet come out
on top in the long run, be it in human rights, racial or gender issues.
Our 2nd house Cancer Sun conjunct friendly Venus and Jupiter, again confirms
our love of home and country as well as our fixation with money, on equating
success with what we earn and own rather than with who we are or what we
know. Yet this Cancer Sun’s ruler, the Moon, is in Aquarius in the 10th house,
the highest or focal planet of the chart, lending a different nuance to usually
sympathetic and domestic Cancer. This Moon placement prides itself on
being unpredictable, independent, tolerant, humane and ahead of its time.
The conservative Sun and the progressive Moon undergo an eternal battle that
often appears to divide the country, but in truth adds to its basic strength and
growth potential.
This great eclectic mixture reflects in our attitude toward astrology. In other
words, we are willing to listen to anything, try it out and only reject it if it
doesn’t work – but first we give it a chance. This makes us a top testing ground
for new methods, ideas and systems. Whereas Uranus and Aquarius say yes
to the new, Cancer holds on to the old, the tried and true. Thus in our country
can such groups as the AFA (American Federation of Astrologers) consisting
of very traditional astrologers, most of them adhering to the type of astrology
taught fifty or more years ago, versus progressive groups such as UAC (United
Astrology Congress) made up of three top organizations in the U.S. today,
namely AFAN Association for Astrological Networking, ISAR International
Society for Astrological Research, and NCGR National Council of Geocosmic
Research; all three pioneer new images for astrologers.
Just as our country flourishes and prospers because of its diversity, so does
Astrology. Germany may have given birth to Midpoints, Uranian Astrology,
Dr. Koch’s house system and Composite charts, but it was American that
took these to heart, tested and retested them and made these systems
palatable to the rest of the world. France may have given birth to Dane

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Rudhyar, but it was the U.S. that accepted his philosophies, psychological
insights as well as his lunar phases and put his name on the map.
The ancient method of using the relationship between the Sun and Moon for
childbearing may have been revived and tested by Czech Dr. Eugen Jonas,
but Americans, including myself, were the first to apply this to some of the
new high-tech fertility techniques. In fact the newest book in our “The Only
Way” on Horary and Electional Astrology due this May, covers the subject. For
centuries the Chinese have used Feng Shui, a type of geomancy involving the
art of placement, which, together with the use of the I Ching thanks to our
large Asian population, is infiltrating into our basically western genre of
astrology. It is forward looking Astrologers like Angel Thompson who up-date
the ancient wisdoms and make them palatable to Eastern or Western, age-old
or contemporary civilizations. Now many of us check carefully before placing
our desks or chairs in certain directions.
In a similar vein the concept of Local Space, based on the Horizon system,
has only recently been explored, though it is an ancient system that over the
centuries lost is popularity to Ecliptic and Equatorial methodologies. Edward
Johndro and Charles Jayne, two technically oriented American astrologers,
tried to revive it in the 1930s and 40s, but it took Michael Erlewine (owner of
Matrix astrological software) to work out the mathematics of converting the
ecliptic zodiac planetary positions into their azimuth and altitude before the
practical applications of local space could be ascertained. There still is no
ephemeris that can give you the necessary information, though it is stored in
navigation manuals and now can be obtained in computer programs. The
Local Space chart is the perfect tool to help you understand the variety of
conditions in your immediate environment. After fighting for months with my
bank regarding billing errors, Local Space made me realize that this bank was
on my Saturn line. My new bank is on my Jupiter line and I haven’t had a
problem in 9 years!
True to the Cancer stellium in the U.S. chart which loves tradition, we have
resuscitated Heliocentric Astrology first talked about by Vincent Wing a
student of William Lilly, then discussed again in the 1940s by Hugh McCraig
in the back of McCoy’s 200 year ephemeris and finally revived, researched,
explained as well as publicized by T. Pat Davis in the late 1970s. She and
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many other American astrologers use both heliocentric and geocentric
together. Personally I prefer to use each separately and I find that Heliocentric
can provide great insights when interpreting a chart in an esoteric rather than
psychological manner. But either way, it is an interesting addition to natal
astrology and well worth exploring.
The renewed popularity of such fields as Horary Astrology is partly based on
the enjoyment of the old and traditional, thanks to England’s Olivia Barclay
who republished William Lilly, Ivy Jacobson who used many of Lilly’s methods
but also added some of her own procedures and Joan McEvers who
streamlined and revised much of it. Yet in typical American fashion, all three
techniques have gained followers and acceptance.
We still have a school of Sidereal astrologers which naturally includes Hindu
and Vedic astrology. Jacob Schwartz has reintroduced the Draconic System
based on the Lunar Nodes. Fixed Stars and their influence also seem to pick
up in popularity, so do Weather Predictions.
Also digging back into our astrological roots is the exciting Project Hindsight,
a fabulous effort at translating into English, mainly from the Greek and Latin,
the surviving astrological literature from ancient times thru the Renaissance.
This most worthwhile undertaking is headed by three Roberts, Robert Hand
who serves as editor and general overseer, Robert Schmidt and Robert
Zoller who do the translations. They already have discovered some amazing
facts regarding some words where mis-translations have led to
misunderstandings. The Greek word zoidion for example means “small living
things” or “a place where a living thing dwells”, yet its translation into the Latin
“sigmum” and subsequent interpretation of sign does not really convey the
same meaning. There have been many other discoveries, especially regarding
the qualities and elements, diurnal versus nocturnal definitions and more.
English astrologer Roy Firebrace may have been the first to publish local
maps in 1962, but it took the typically American mindset of “everything is
possible” of Jim Lewis to computerize the idea, utilize it in mundane as well
as personal applications and sell his Astro*Carto*Graphy to a willing and
waiting public. Now you simply superimpose your horoscope onto a world

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map and at one glance you can see where you may or may not live happily
ever after.
Of course nothing changed the face of astrology as much as computers. Our
preoccupation with them has brought another dimension into astrology,
reducing once formidable tasks into simply pushing a few buttons, thus
making many complex systems child’s play. Financial Astrology serves as a
good example. Though still not openly used, we know that many high rollers
on Wall Street utilize astrology. J.P. Morgan’s firm is supposedly the only one
that officially employs an astrologer, but it is an open secret that assorted
financial newsletters are based on astrological as well as financial cycles.
Computerized programs have made it easy to establish and record those
cyclic movements.
Lois Rodden, the lady more responsible than anyone else for alerting us to
the amount of wrong birthdata being used, has categorized it into: AA =
Official Records A = Information given by family B = Biographical Data C =
Source Unknown DD = Dirty Data. If Lois had been around in 1776, we would
know for sure at what time America was born! That same Lois, thanks to
computers, was able to put together a data base of more than 20,000 people
and 30,000 categories such as vocational, human interest, relationships and
more. This database formerly called RID (Rodden/ISAR/Data) is now jointly
handled by ISAR and NCGR, called IDEA (International Data Exchange for
Astrologers) and available for research to astrologers worldwide.
Computers enabled Edwin Steinbrecher to assemble a database of more
than 22,000 internationally famous people, using mostly AA or A data and the
list is growing constantly. Of course the much acclaimed research by Michel
and Françoise Gauquelin grew by leaps and bounds when Neil Michelsen
offered them his, in those days, advanced computer and space in his San
Diego Astro-Computing company.
The Information Highway, America’s newest way of networking via computer,
modem, fax, telephone, cable and other modern devices, is a rather typical
consequence of Gemini rising with Uranus conjunct the Ascendant. Astrology
easily fits into the picture with a networking organization like AFAN, which was
already in 1982 linking astrology groups, both in the country and abroad. The
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idea was enlarged upon by the concept of ARC (Astrologer’s Registration
and Communication) created in 1987 in Switzerland where the astrological
world can communicate from country to country via Computer stations called
Nodes. As more people communicate by modem, astrology will permeate
even the remotest corners of the United States.
There is another significant component to the complex and manysided face of
the United States, and that is the importance, in fact passionate intensity of
our religious and spiritual convictions, astrologically easy to recognize with
Pluto in our 9th house. I would say that most astrologers have a deeply spiritual
side which they may or may not show. Because of America’s strict adherence
to the separation of Church and State, each person, each family, each group
can go his or her own way. And believe me, American take full advantage of
these freedoms. There are more diverse groups under the aegis of religious
denomination than you can count. The so-called main stream religions such
as Catholicism, various forms of Protestant, Jewish and Muslin faiths are
enhanced by Eastern philosophies, by fads or guru led beliefs that spring up
today and are gone tomorrow and of course we have our own native Indian
ceremonies.
Originally based on such rituals as the Medicine Wheel and Directions, a
group of adventurous young astrologers demanded that astrology be taken off
the written page and put into inter-active participation. In doing so, they
created a new form of astrology called Experiential. When it was introduced
to Europe at the Swiss International Congress in 1984 it coincided with the
growing interest of the French in the same directions and quickly became
successful.
All this has a tremendous influence on the way we access astrology. We do
not consider it a religion, but use it as a tool to find a deeper or higher meaning
to life, which of course includes religion. Numerous of our groups have an
esoteric approach which includes some form of belief system and spiritual
basis. Alice Bailey’s Seven Rays theories are a case in point. So are those
who work with the esoteric meaning of the astrological glyphs, Inner
Meditation Guides or past life regressions.

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Basically Christianity has rejected astrology; in fact the Vatican has yet again
declared it a sin. Even New Agers are more interested in meditation and
Eastern philosophies than astrology while the Media have fun deriding it as
superstition or parlor games. This has left much of astrology out in left field,
except for the mainstream who resonate to what is commonly called Natal
Astrology, especially when used in a humanistic or psychological manner.
Carl Jung’s influence is strongly felt, so is a general attitude that astrology
best serves as a road-map or guide to character analysis, to find vocational
aptitudes, or work well together, to search for the right moment to execute
certain ventures, to help in finding people who are compatible with each other
or work well together.
Astrology as a profession has a hard time in the U.S., Astrologers seem
reluctant to charge enough money to enable them to earn a decent living. It is
as though a strict parent told them that it is sinful to set a price on
metaphysical advice. Most of them hold outside jobs and pursue astrology as
a hobby or part time profession. Only a few have found ways of totally
supporting themselves, such as authors of well selling books who can also
rely on royalties, those who have an astrological business such as computer
programs and software and of course those who work with Sun Sign astrology.
Newspapers in the U.S. all carry Sun sign columns which are so popular that
the papers get severely chastised if for some reason they want to eliminate
them. Astrology by telephone is becoming extremely fashionable and 900
numbers – a prefix indicating that you get billed for this call by the telephone
company and pay a certain amount for each minute spent on the line – are
very successful with the average public spending millions to have some
unseen and unknown astrologer give them some usually superficial
telephonic advice.
The United States is anything but monolithic, but it is its diversity rather than
coherence that helps it to grow. This pattern of diversity has been successfully
applied in the astrological conventions given by UAC (United Astrology
Congress) since 1986. UAC was the first to divide the program into tracks,
meaning into subject areas such as Natal Astrology, Technical, Esoteric,
Psychological, Experiential, Financial, Mundane and so on, so students could
focus on their special interests. UAC was the first to insist on right brain as
well as left brain stimulation, meaning let’s be serious and have fun, enjoy
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cerebral stimulation as well as a special type of surrounding and
entertainment. UAC also broke the ice when it came to financial
remuneration, not only assuring its faculty of paid hotel rooms, a free dinner
banquet and a share of the profits for each lecture given, but treating them like
professionals. Much of UAC’s success is, of course, due to its variety and
broad spectrum of subjects which attracts a wide audience.
UAC has also contributed to an escalation of professionalism in America.
Getting paid for ones efforts is a good first step in that direction. But much
work still needs to be done. American astrologers have a great resistance to
being licensed, since it would entail universally accepted tests and certain
restrictions. Blame Uranus on the Ascendant, if you wish, or agree that
astrology is not a science or even pseudo-science, but an art and as such
cannot be categorized and licensed. Whichever, until astrologers assume
some sort of coherence which can earn them credentials, they will have a
hard time meriting credibility.
We have other rather serious problems, many of them connected with the
same need not to comply with anything that even remotely smells of status
quo or bourgeois behavior. We have no officially recognized certification or
testing that says “You are an astrologer”. We have very few unified schools
where, as you leave one, you can enter another and receive a comparable
education.
The United States constitution has similar problems where this need for
individualism reflects in the fact that each little community has its own laws,
so that in some areas the dark ages still reign and astrology is forbidden as
witchcraft or fortune telling. To combat this, each locality has to lead its own
fight, one by one, town by town, state by state. A slow and cumbersome
process.
So now you know the state of Astrology in America, the good, the bad, the
indifferent. Some outsiders may consider us pushy, a few may mistake our
wish to help as being on a power trip, but what we are really doing is reflecting
our Aquarian Midheaven and Moon by wishing to share everything, be it our
data, our techniques, our successes or mistakes. American enthusiasm is
pervasive, and true to our Gemini, ever young Peter Pan nature, it naively
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assumes everyone else feels the same way. Most Americans sincerely believe
that learning is classless and that knowledge belongs to all! Our hope is that
our willingness to be open, to try new things and to reach out to others is
contagious.

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