The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 421, titled:
United Astrology Conference 1986 Documentary
With United Astrology Conference Lecturers and Attendees
Episode originally released on October 5, 2023
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Note: This is a transcript of a spoken word podcast. If possible, we encourage you to listen to the audio or video version, since they include inflections that may not translate well when written out. Our transcripts are created by human transcribers, and the text may contain errors and differences from the spoken audio. If you find any errors then please send them to us by email: theastrologypodcast@gmail.com
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Transcribed by Andrea Johnson
Transcription released October 11th, 2023
Copyright © 2023 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
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JOHN STEINBERG: The United Astrology Congress was a unique astrological event. A combination of three organizations—AFAN, ISAR, and NCGR—produced UAC ‘86, and this is the official documentary. The Moon is in Aquarius, and the convention has not yet started, but we got here the day before in order to test some equipment and get some shots of the preliminary steering committee meeting tonight. But meanwhile, here’s a shot of what it’s like at the Bahia Hotel in San Diego, quite a local for the first United Astrology Convention, otherwise known as UAC ‘86. We’re here for about six days to do a documentary about this convention where some of the real notables in the world of astrology are expected, along with over a thousand other folks who are all coming here to exchange information and engage in astrological talk at various degrees of complexity. So once again this is the Bahia Hotel in San Diego, and I hope you all enjoy yourselves.
MARION MARCH: We have some good news and some bad news. Number one, I wrote you an agenda so that you can all make notes because I am not gonna ‘five minutes’ do this. This is—
FEMALE ORGANIZER: Oh, come on, Marion. Come on.
JOHN STEINBERG: Okay, this is Marion March, affectionately known as the ‘head honcho’.
MALE ORGANIZER: Will there be time to get to it?
MARION MARCH: Yes, there will.
MALE ORGANIZER: We’ve got until July 1.
[laughter]
FEMALE ORGANIZER: Hopefully we’ll be finished before then.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: I don’t think the opening program should go past 10:00 or 10:30 at the very latest. It’s the first night.
MALE ORGANIZER: Why is it starting at 9:00? I’m just very curious why it starts at 9:00.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: I don’t know why.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: I don’t know why either. I thought it was starting at 8:00.
[applause]
MALE ATTENDEE: Yeah, it looks like they have the last degrees of Virgo rising. But it’s gonna draw two grids now, two 360° grids. This is the boring part, especially this part will probably get edited out.
JOHN STEINBERG: If it wasn’t for this computer, how long would it take for this kind of thing?
MALE ATTENDEE: It would take the time it takes somebody to draw it up. And it could be like that fellow who’s down there, who has the beautiful chart mandalas, and they spend a lot of time making real fancy output. Or it could be like my old teacher Hans Niggemann who used to use a magic marker on the back of a napkin and that would be about it, you know. He’d sit there and scroll this thing out. So it’s anybody’s guess.
MARION MARCH: Good evening. My name is Marion March, and I’m the coordinator of the United Astrology Congress. Welcome to all of you.
JEFF JAWER: First of all, it’s in the program at 9:00, and I think in some ways it’s useful. If you’re running a short program of approximately an hour, then 9:00 is a very appropriate time, particularly, the opening night, for a conference.
NOEL TYL: It’s going to be an hour-and-a-half, Jeff. You sit down and figure it all out.
JEFF JAWER: It’s still over at 10:30, Noel. People have not been here for two days. And people are going to be arriving late, they’ll want to have dinner. Give them some space. Give them an hour.
NOEL TYL: You know, I was also concerned with the television, trying to get some night coverage on this thing, some premium plays and all that.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: Well, it was scheduled for 9:00 from the beginning, and the music was written for 9:00.
MARION MARCH: —the beautiful music you just heard. By the way, our horoscope read 21 Capricorn rising, with Jupiter and the Moon in Pisces in the 2nd house, Sun in Cancer in the 6th, Mercury and Venus in Leo in the 7th, Pluto in Scorpio in the 9th. Saturn and Uranus in Sag in the 11th, and Neptune and Mars in Capricorn in the 12th. Thank you very much. But I do think that we as astrologers have a very special relationship to the universe, and as such I would ask you to join forces in a moment of silent meditation to give thanks for our awareness of our oneness with the universe.
JEFF JAWER: Marion comes out, we go through the whole orientation, the representatives of all the groups. We all say our things that will take us to 9:45 at the very latest.
[Jeff Jawer on stage]
JEFF JAWER: And it is very important to understand that UAC is designed like no other conference. It’s a very Aquarian event both in the best and the worst senses of the word. And the maddening aspects of Aquarius are certainly present as well. I take ultimate responsibility for the misspellings, the lack of page numbers. I suggest you number the pages yourself.
[laughter]
JEFF JAWER: Take a little pen and then do it. If you all start on the first page then we can agree. Okay, please help me, just put a ‘1’ there. And I didn’t like the black-and-white cover so I took mine and I put a little colored sticker on it, and you could do that too, and it’s a lot cheaper.
[Jeff Jawer with organizing committee]
JEFF JAWER: Susan will speak for 20 minutes.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: 25 minutes.
JEFF JAWER: 25 minutes, and then we have a five-minute closing, and we’re closed at 10:50.
[applause]
FEMALE SPEAKER: Listen, even for Leo rising that was a very long entrance. It’s a pleasure to be here with you, to see you all here.
[applause]
MARION MARCH: Now let me quickly tell you about Susan Strasberg. We are very thankful to Billy who knows of a service where they can get to [unintelligible] on a computer, which is something totally new.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: They get what?
MARION MARCH: On a computer. It’s a new service. Well, it doesn’t matter. Anyhow, Billy got a few of them, and I picked Susan because it so happens that Susan has referred clients to me for years but I’ve never met her. So I said, “Please have her call me,” and she did. And she said, “Your name is so familiar.” And I said, “Well, you’ve been referring clients to me for about three years.”
FEMALE SPEAKER: 80% of all Americans are aware of their birth sign and know about astrology.
MARION MARCH: She immediately told me that she needs a room with a view on the water because she has her Moon in Pisces, which I got for her.
MALE ORGANIZER: She should be used to being disappointed and we wouldn’t have to—
[crosstalk]
FEMALE ORGANIZER: —a closing experience for the whole group. Something short and sweet to get to know you.
[music]
JOHN STEINBERG: And so, it became the end of the first day and the great dignitaries have not been met yet. But the planet Venus overlooked all and saw that all was well here at the Bahia Hotel in San Diego California.
[music]
JOHN STEINBERG: The next morning we went out to one of the spacious gardens at the Bahia to cover the official opening of the convention.
ANGEL THOMPSON: Now one question: what about the 12:00 noon opening tomorrow? Is it important that we have it? That we have someone to do it? Will anyone show up?
MARION MARCH: Of course we have to have it. That’s our official opening. Did anybody look at their chart?
FEMALE SPEAKER: I’d like to kind of get a sense—how many people are local? Would you raise your hand? How many people from the Pacific Northwest? Midwest? How about the South? East Coast? How about Canada? How many Canadians? There’s a group over here? Anyone from further? Where are you from?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Australia.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Australia. South Africa. Where else?
MALE ATTENDEE: Brazil.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Brazil.
MALE ATTENDEE: Mars.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: —to officially open the conference and to try to have it be kind of a unifying, welcoming kind of an experience for all of us to start focusing our energy. Now it didn’t get put in the program but I feel it’s a really important vital part for all of us to start doing that together. So I think maybe just networking mouth-to-mouth is the best way to do it. So at least we have a core group of 50-100 people that will participate in that spiritual, if we call it, ceremony.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Notice where your place is relative to this circle: west, east, north, and the south. And let’s each take about a minute just to breathe deeply to get more in touch with yourself, to get more in touch with the earth that you’re sitting upon. And let’s just all take a private minute and breathe just as deeply and as fully as you can, getting yourself centered. And now, if you will, focus your attention on the point between your eyebrows. The yogas call this the ajna center or the third eye.
[crowd chatter]
FEMALE SPEAKER: On behalf of all of us here, we declare the first United Astrology Congress open. Thank you.
[applause]
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’m from São Paulo, Brazil.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: You flew all the way.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Yes, a long way. And we came exactly for this conference, just for this. And the opening was wonderful.
JOHN STEINBERG: Oh, okay.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Yes, it’s based exactly on the kind of work we do there. We have an Aquarian school there, and we work with the elements and with images, so it was just perfect. I’m very grateful for that.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Good.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Thank you.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Lee Schiller. This is Katya and Gabrielle.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Welcome.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’m from Derwood, Maryland. It’s near Rockville, outside of Washington DC.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Miami, Florida.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: You?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Miami.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: New York.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Sacramento.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’m from Passaic, New Jersey.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: And I’m from Montclair, New Jersey.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: New York City.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: From Victoria, Canada.
MALE ATTENDEE: The island of Hawaii and the state of Hawaii.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Long Beach.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Long Beach.
JOHN STEINBERG: California?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: California.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’m from Ti Valley, Oklahoma. My name is Kathleen Sweeten.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: How about you?
MALE ATTENDEE: Cincinnati, Ohio. My name’s Dave Walters.
MALE ATTENDEE: I’m Tony Bray from Chicago, Illinois.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: From Michigan.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Oh, where in Michigan?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: From Jackson, Michigan.
MALE ATTENDEE: Sedona, Arizona.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Okay, how about you?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Boston, Massachusetts.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: And you?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Santa Ana, California.
[music]
FEMALE ORGANIZER: I didn’t get a letter.
MARION MARCH: In the letter Milon wrote was a line that said, “Please be sure to attend our faculty party at 5:30.” The only thing is at that time it’s said on the Bahia Belle. In the meantime, it’s changed to the Delmar Room.
[crowd chatter]
NOEL TYL: You can take your truck in there Big Lill. Hi, I love it.
[crowd chatter]
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Sun, Gemini, Uranus rising, and a stellium in the 11th house in Taurus.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: What is my Sun, Moon, and ascendant? My Sun is in Capricorn, my Moon is in Scorpio, and my ascendant is Taurus.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Oh, my Sun sign is Scorpio in the 5th, Cancer rising, and a Virgo Moon.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: And are you going to be doing a lecture?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Yes, I will be. I’ll be lecturing on ‘50 Ways to Meet Your Lover’.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Double-Virgo with an Aries Moon, cardinal Grand Cross in angular houses. The day never stops—sometimes the night doesn’t either, so there.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Sun sign is Libra, Moon sign is Scorpio, and Leo rising.
ALAN OKEN: Oh, I’m an Aries Sun, a Scorpio rising, and the Moon in Gemini in the 7th house.
MALE ATTENDEE: My Sun is in Stradivarius.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: And your Moon is over Miami?
MALE ATTENDEE: And my Moon is in Miami, that’s right.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Over Miami.
MALE ATTENDEE: Thank you.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: Tell them your name.
ROGER ELLIOT: My name is Roger Elliot.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: What sign were you born under?
ROGER ELLIOT: I am a mother’s boy. I was born under Cancer.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Oh, my Sun is Capricorn, my Moon is Libra conjunct Neptune, and my ascendant is Sagittarius. We’re here at the UAC conference and I’m gonna be doing a lecture on Neptune: ‘Saints and Sinners and Lovers’.
MALE ATTENDEE: I’m a Scorpio doing my imitation of the water-bearer or the next best thing.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’m a Gemini Sun conjunct Uranus with a Moon in Taurus and a Capricorn rising.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: My Sun is conjunct the ascendant, and I have a balsamic Moon.
FEMALE SPEAKER: —that’s what’s happening in this room tonight. All of you, whether you know it or not, are the best astrologers in the world. That’s why you’re here, that’s why you were invited because you are the best.
[applause]
ROGER ELLIOT: Basically the zodiac is the order of this world. It’s not quite the real order, it’s an idealization based on the 12-fold principle of the order of this world.
JOHN STEINBERG: Could you tell me your name?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I think I have it on the tape.
JOHN STEINBERG: No, I want to hear it.
EDITH WANGEMANN: Oh, yeah, you have to hear it. Well, it’s Edith Wangemann, coming from Germany.
JOHN STEINBERG: And what is your specialty?
EDITH WANGEMANN: Oh, research work and just to clean astrology knowledge from all those suspicious things. The clear, old astrology, and the research is going back very, very far back. And I think that astrology as knowledge is much older. We got the symbols from the Egyptians, and they re-found it. Those symbols of astrology are much more older because I found those signs in the physical body of human beings. The Aries, the Taurus is shown in the body and in the cells of human beings. Those pictures done now in research work for health, they show that those symbols are in the body.
MALE ATTENDEE: I have some heterodox views. I do sidereal astrology, but I don’t use signs in either a tropical or sidereal framework because I think it’s an oversimplification. And it may be good for getting some people interested in astrology, however it’s such an oversimplification that in the long run it will cause damage to serious astrology.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: My Sun sign is Scorpio, my Moon sign is Pisces, and my ascendant is Capricorn. And something about myself through my chart—I’m very individualistic. The reason I’m saying that—is this for an audience that’s gonna understand astrology possibly? Okay, ‘cause I have Uranus exactly partile square my ascendant, and it’s in a T-square. It’s a focal planet of a T-square and in a Grand Trine, both. So it’s a very strong planet in my chart, which makes one different than the rest. It’s as if you walk to a different drummer.
JOHN STEINBERG: How long have you been studying astrology?
EDITH WANGEMANN: Oh, a little more than 40 years. But the astrology I got from my husband, and he was much more older than me, therefore it’s a very, very old thing. And he was a student of old astrologers, ancient astrologers, and it’s going from one to the other like a family, but a family by soul and by spirit.
ROBERT HAND: I propose a terminological shift that signs should be reserved for 30° wedges and constellations should be used for stellar images.
MALE ATTENDEE: They’re all way off where they were because they’re—
ROBERT HAND: No, she’s talking about vertically not horizontally.
MALE ATTENDEE: Since the precession of the equinoxes was discovered by Hipparchus, they’ve all moved a great deal.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Right.
ROBERT HAND: May I suggest that it would probably simplify matters enormously if Western astrologers stopped referring to the sign Aries as Aries and referred to it as ‘Sign One’ followed by ‘Sign Two’, as we do with—
MALE ATTENDEE: I like what you say. I like what you say.
ALAN OKEN: And I believe that—now this is purely the personal opinion of Alan Oken’s, okay? But one of the things which inhibits that is a tremendous amount of egotism that’s extant, where astrology is seen as a business, which for a lot of people it is. And there’s nothing wrong with business. I mean, we live in America. But it’s seen primarily as a business and who is going to get top billing at this or that event, and ‘who’s on first and what’s on second’ and this whole type of thing. I mean, someone came up to me today, an astrologer, and said, “Oh, you look so different.” She said, “You, look very well,” which is always very nice to hear, especially when your personality is a bit vain like mine is. “You look very well,” and I said thank you. “Why do you look so well?” she said. Well, I said, “I’m growing.” She said, “Oh, you mean growing in stature.” I didn’t mean growing in stature at all, I meant growing as a being. And if that contributes to being healthy, which it does, and I feel healthy, that’s great. But, you see, that kind of a theme is very common here, ‘growing in stature’, rather than growing in love, rather than growing in a selflessness, which takes form through a self-focusness. And once that selfness is secure then a selflessness may manifest and service can be done to each other. And until we recognize that there’s no need to stomp on each other, there’s no need to be competitive with each other to the extent where we forget that competition is a vehicle for unity, and we just take competition as competition, then a lot of the wonderful ideals will not be realized. And I think having Scorpio rising with Pluto trining the Sun and an 8th house Mars helps me to realize one thing, that we’re all going to die, and that death is going to come relatively soon. I mean, 30 years, 40 years, 10 years, 50 years, 60 years for some of the young ones—that’s very soon. So what is the big deal? What’s the big urgency of having statues made in your honor? I don’t understand that at all. Instead if we could work towards contributing collectively to the collective wholeness of our humanity then that is a legacy, and I would like to help contribute towards that in my work if I can, that concept at least.
ROBERT MYERS: I am a metaphysical astrologer from Cleveland, Ohio. I have my Sun in Scorpio, my Moon in Cancer. and I’m a Gemini rising. And I call myself a metaphysical astrologer because I kind of believe that the age of astrology we’re going into is not really scientific, I believe it’s the age of blending the science with the arts. And if we don’t reach this point in time and space where we bring these two great sciences together, the arts and the sciences, then I feel that we’re gonna miss the whole mission of the Aquarius age. So one of the things I feel that I do is I kind of expound on the theories of metaphysics and its relationship to astrology. Some people claim that I’m a purist, and that means that I am purely an astrologer. I don’t have any other art forms. I’m not a psychologist. I have no degrees. My degree is in the ‘school of hard knocks’ and astrology. I started with An A to Z Horoscope Maker in a closet in Atlantic City, New Jersey and fell in love with it, found out astrology worked, started to manipulate it and have misused it, and then found out the dangers of misuse through the years and being burnt a few times. I’ve started to use it more metaphysically, and I find that it’s now helping my life. I believe in cycles. I believe in transits. I believe in progressions. I believe in all of the traditional things of astrology, but I’m not sure that I believe in the traditional forms that they delineate with. So I also feel that one of my missions is to make sure that the books are rewritten and people start to look at astrology in a more humanistic and a more metaphysical approach.
ALAN OKEN: But when I said I see myself as a unifying energy, I meant that very literally as an energy. Not as a persona, but as a persona that conveys an energy so that my focus of consciousness is in the essential energy. And if I feel like dressing that energy in this costume, I do, and that’s okay. But I don’t identify with that other than just being a particular taste or a particular mood, but that my real purpose is as an energy, as an essential flame, if you will, who I hope is serving humanity in some way to bring about a greater focus of love.
ROBERT MYERS: Astrology is to be used as something to get you in tune with the cosmos, something that’s supposed to take you through an evolution. And when you start manipulating it and holding it back, you stop that natural evolution. And then that energy builds and it actually comes back at you and then and then you spend your life fighting off all these energy patterns. And then you’re resisting the flow of energy, you’re not working with the flow of energy. There is no enemy. There is no good person, there is no bad person. So there is nobody you should ever have to manipulate. We’re all doing the work in perfection.
ALAN OKEN: I use secondary progressions as a technique of the inner unfoldment, to reveal the inner unfoldment. It’s very traditional. I’m a very traditional astrologer. To me, when I see the position of the progressed Moon, and let’s say it’s an aspect to Jupiter, I know that for those two or three months of duration that the Jupiter function is going to be formed in a person’s external life. So wherever abundance is, or excess is, or the urge to expand the philosophical framework of awareness is—wherever that happens in that person’s life which is a house position—then it’s going to take form through the lunar progression and that’s going to be highlighted. That, to me, is fundamental to understanding the unfoldment of nature through astrological lenses, if you will.
ROBERT MYERS: A good astrologer should have a tremendous understanding of the tarot. Not necessarily should they read the tarot, but they should be able to look at the tarot and have the same feeling for the tarot that they have for the planetary structure. They should be able to do that with the I Ching. They should be able to do that with any form of divination. A good astrologer is only using that horoscope to tune in and become psychic, and I don’t care what anybody says. And that’s what creates the greatest fight in our field—there are these tremendous groups of people that do not want to believe that there is this tremendous psychic energy that takes place when you study astrology. When I look at an astrological chart, when I am done reading, I could not tell you how I got it after I got it. I could tell you at the second because my mind is going through this trance-like thing going from planet to aspect, but it is just my tool to get me in touch with the art form, which is synthesizing, and all forms of metaphysics do that. I was very glad at UAC because they have really included in it tracks that are outside of astrology. And in a major convention, national, this is the first time that’s ever happened. And when you stop to think that there were astrologers in a convention this size attending workshops on healing, attending workshops on positive thinking, that they’re gonna take that back and they’re applying that to their clients, they’re gonna start applying some of the techniques of the metaphysics which is what we need because we are an extremely negative, negative science. We are totally into looking for the fault in the person and not looking for the whole and the totality you. Metaphysically there is no bad aspect. There can’t be. It’s imperfection. It’s like taking a car—it doesn’t run if that aspect isn’t there. And we’re not seeking the difficulty, we’re seeking how the mechanism runs. That’s what metaphysics can teach astrologers and that’s what’s missing in astrology.
[crowd chatter]
LILLIAN TREVY: I’m Lillian Trevy from Forked River. We’re very impressed with the conference, the way it’s being run, the way it’s set up, the lectures, the information that you’ve given us. And the—what is this? The Bahai, the Bahia—I have to get the pronunciation right. The Bahia Hotel is just marvelous.
LINDA LUTSAI: Hi, I’m Linda Lutsai. Sun in Pisces, Moon in Taurus.
JO STUTTS: Hi, Jo Stutts. Sun in Leo, Moon in Sagittarius.
CINDY SAUL: Cindy Saul. Sun in Libra, Moon in Gemini.
JOHN STEINBERG: Excellent. Enjoy the conference.
LILLIAN TREVY: Thank you.
JOAN MCEVERS: My name is Joan McEvers. I’m a double-Aquarius with a Moon in Leo, Sun in the 1st house.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: In honor of UAC ‘86, I have the Sun in Pisces, Moon in Aries, and Libra rising.
[crowd chatter]
MICHAEL LUTIN: There’s only gonna be one show. So come at 8:00 tomorrow and we’ll tell you the answer to the riddle.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Is it 8:00 or 8:30?
MICHAEL LUTIN: 8:00. 8:00, okay? So I know it said two shows, but we’re gonna have to just condense the evening and make it one show. But all the dirty stuff that we were gonna do in the second show, we’ll do it in the first show, okay?
[singing]
FEMALE SPEAKER: Don’t forget, 8:00 tomorrow night.
[applause]
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Capricorn Sun, Leo ascendant, Pisces Moon.
JUDY POWELL: I’m from Alberta, Canada too, Edmonton, and my name is Judy Powell. Leo Sun, Sag Moon, and Virgo ascendant.
MALE ATTENDEE: Cancer. I think I’ll have another drink.
JOHN STEINBERG: All right.
MALE ATTENDEE: Pisces Moon.
MALE ATTENDEE: I’m from Argentina originally. Now I’m living in France.
JOHN STEINBERG: Okay, what’s your Sun sign?
MALE ATTENDEE: Libra.
MALE ATTENDEE: My Moon sign is in Libra, my Sun sign is in Cancer, and I’m a Leo ascendant.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Hi, Jim.
JIM LEWIS: Hello. How are you doing?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Fine. How are you?
JIM LEWIS: Enjoying our little shindig here.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: The shindig? Well, yeah, except it’s been crashed by everybody except the foreigners.
JIM LEWIS: Yeah, right.
[crowd chatter]
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Do we still have a table upstairs? Do you have any empty space?
[crowd chatter]
JOHN STEINBERG: It’s now a little after the ‘foreigners’ party, which was crashed by just about everyone. And while we recollect the impressions of the day, let’s get a little of the Bahia Hotel here on another beautiful starry evening. Actually the balmy weather has loosened everyone up and the astrology talk is rampant but much deeper than the usual back-page newspaper columns. At any rate, I figured I’d let the camera run here and give you an idea of this beautiful place. Right across the harbor a lot of people over there are having fun: amusement parks, fireworks. And right next door here someone has some Bach playing on a radio. All in all, quite a setting for this United Astrology Congress. I’ll give you a moment or two here to look at Venus and then we’ll get on with this thing.
[music]
PHILLIP SEDGWICK: In the other car I suggested to them, by the way, is the Cancer car which doesn’t have an engine ‘cause it really just wants to stay home.
[laughter]
PHILLIP SEDGWICK: But enough of that, we can really take that one for a ride, so to speak. Now Cancer is also an element that must make contact with the earth, and I find ultimately all of the elements will derive some contact with the earth because of the fact that we do live here. But in the Cancerian sort of way, the little crabs, yes, they live in the water, but they very frequently run around in the bottom and they have contact with the earth. When I was in the Navy, we used to have this joke that the nearest land was never far away, it was just slowed down, you know, that type of feeling. And that’s one of the things that needs to be understood about water is there’s an earth foundation to it as well.
ALAN OKEN: We see the study of astrology, astrological symbol, as a vehicle to unite intellect with intuition. We see it, if you will, as a honing device which allows us to tune into the collective archetypal forces and to be expressive of those in our individual ways. Could we not do that? That’s gonna distract from my talk, okay? But I’ll be happy to see you privately. Thank you. We all want to be stars, you know.
[group in silent meditation]
BRUNO HUBER: We know that’s a different point of view because this is a question of strength, of intensity, that is a quantitative thing. Aspects bring a qualitative aspect to it. You cannot mix up quality and quantity. We strictly have to consider the quantity in itself and then add the looks from a qualitative point of view. There you have the signs where the planets are in, the house it’s in, as a qualitative consideration. You have the aspects going to that planet, etc., but that’s qualitative. It doesn’t add or subtract strength.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: You’re saying this is based on the fact that 7 is the first number that you can count to that doesn’t go into 360°?
ROBERT HAND: No. It’s based on traditional symbolism of the number 7. I mean, the fact that it is also the first number that doesn’t divide evenly with 360 I suspect is a reinforcement.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Right.
ROBERT HAND: Or let me put it this way, I didn’t say that but you’re right.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Right. Well, I don’t know if this is related or not but when you take something like the golden rectangle, it has measurements that are finite and then measurements that are infinite based on numbers that are not whole numbers like the—
ROBERT HAND: Not infinite, irrational.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Irrational.
ROBERT HAND: Yeah. Or transcendental is actually the word.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: And so, 7 is like one of those.
ROBERT HAND: Yeah, it’s breaking out of ordinary reality. Yeah, the symbolism of 360° in a circle is not to be taken lightly. 360 is the smallest number that is divisible by the most primes. See 360 can be divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 12. To add in 7 requires multiplying 360 by 7 and that gives you a huge number. Well, don’t bother, you can figure it out for yourselves later. I can’t do the math in my head that quickly. So 7 times 360 would be the smallest prime that contains all of those numbers.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Say that again?
MALE ATTENDEE: 2,520.
ROBERT HAND: If we looked in your forehead would we see a liquid crystal display?
BRUNO HUBER: It’s sinus curves. Sinus curves.
MALE ATTENDEE: Sine curves.
BRUNO HUBER: Sine. Sinus, is this, huh?
[laughter]
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I have Sun in Aquarius, Moon is exactly between Scorpio and Sagittarius, and I have Capricorn rising with Venus and Jupiter conjunct the ascendant, that’s important. And I love being outside, always loved astrology. I loved studying the stars when I was a child, and psychology. And I love being outside and I love being by the beach and I like being with friends.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: My Sun is in Cancer, my Moon is in Taurus, my ascendant is in Leo. All my Cancer planets are conjunct Uranus. Most of my planets are in the 11th house, which probably indicates why I’m so into astrology.
ROBERT HAND: Yeah, I am not one of the people who is a tremendous believer in the signs of the zodiac, but I got to admit Neptune and Pluto signs really look like they deliver. Many years ago, when Neptune was early in Sagittarius, I was sitting down talking with a friend of mine and she was a heavy-duty Capricorn who was rather turned off by the renaissance of Oriental religions that was going on full swing at the time. You know, everybody going around and following ‘guru this’ and ‘swami that’. And she said, “When Neptune gets into Capricorn that’s when all of this will stop.” I said, “No, it won’t. It’ll all turn into churches.” That’s what’s happened. It was really amazing how suddenly religion turned from being mystical and Oriental to being right-wing and conservative. I mean, they were always there but as soon as Neptune entered Capricorn, bam, up they came.
BRUNO HUBER: Transpersonal is, one could probably say, the most modern branch of psychology that is also dealing not only with the normal personality and its problems but also with the spiritual facets of the human being. Transpersonal psychology, especially psychosynthesis, says that there is a central being in each human being that may have different interests, different qualities, motivations towards life than the normal daily personality, which we know from from the symptoms, the behaviors we can watch. This can come into contradiction with each other, the spiritual person and the worldly person one could say. And the conflicts between these two personalities one could say are the object of treatment of transpersonal psychology.
[male attendee asks a question]
JEFFREY WOLF GREEN: The question is what is the role of the composite Venus? Anytime you do a composite chart obviously you have two people who are coming together to form a unit. The two Venuses that come together in the composite chart will show how those two people’s need patterns can be united—the specific way for them to unite—in the house that it’s in, the sign that it’s in, the house [unintelligible] that is made.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I got this neat gift for my husband Bob. He has a Moon in Pisces. It’s a geode but it has water in it.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Oh!
FEMALE ATTENDEE: So the water is millions of years old.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Wow.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: So I bought it for his desk. I don’t know if it shows up as you shift it around, maybe not in this light, but it has water.
JOHN STEINBERG: That’s incredible. Can I see that?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Yeah.
ROBERT HAND: You know the people of the ‘60s—I mean, we’re here dammit, you know. We haven’t disappeared, we’ve gotten older. And real soon now if the older generation doesn’t live forever, we’re even going to get political power. I was saying if my daughter ever said to me, “How did your generation screw it up?” my answer would be, “What do you mean? We haven’t even gotten a chance to try anything yet.” The older generation is still in power as symbolized by our president.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: It is thrilling. I was telling John that you were part of the active organization behind Woodstock.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: That’s right. This is exactly what this is reminiscent of. You plan and you plan, but it’s not until the day you arrive that you know exactly what you’re gonna be able to do.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Right.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: So I’m not having any problem with the overview of the whole situation or the components of it. And I think any administrative difficulties come because people don’t know everybody, or they’ve never done it before. But they’re moving fast because it’s only Saturday and all of a sudden they’re getting the picture. But it’s very similar to Woodstock.
JIM LEWIS: I think a good many of the people who are loudest in AFAN perhaps had active roles in the ‘60s, and indeed are using some of that experience here. Except the thing about the ‘60s is that everyone went through them, and anyone who’s 40 or 45 was there then and had different roles. I think that probably there are people in AFAN who sat at home and watched TV during the ‘60s and then were sorry about it, and now this is their chance to try it again. But I think anyone in AFAN, or anyone in astrology for that matter, is not a majoritarian. They do not believe everything they read in the San Francisco Chronicle, which says something about them right there. And because they have a different worldview and they have the courage to stand up for a worldview that is unpopular and often even heterodox, they obviously have a certain view of the world as well.
EDITH WANGEMANN: When life starts to be arranged and they cut the nerves, then you find the sign of Aries in it and you find the sign of Taurus in it and you find the sign of Gemini in it. The first quadrant of starting to become alive—they are the same symbols in human beings as they are in plants.
ROGER ELLIOT: Oh, you’re desperately serious about your inner lives and your personal growth and your holistic self-fulfillment. That’s wonderful, yes. We don’t seem to worry too much about those sorts of things in Europe. I think you’re sometimes very earnest. You like your spiral-bound notebooks. You like your lecture starting at half-past 8:00, prompt in the morning. In Britain, a similar conference would be much more laid back. We’d be lying out on the grass having quiet philosophical chats about the meaning of astrology and is it true. Here, everybody assumes not only is it true in general but their particular brand of astrology is the truth. And please don’t argue and pay the money because it’s special. I’m joking, you’re lovely people really.
[crowd chatter]
JOHN STEINBERG: I consistently got great interviews in the outdoor coffee shop where astrological pundits were constantly holding court.
MALE ATTENDEE: We have meridian, horizon, ecliptic, equator, prime vertical, zenith, midheaven, nadir—the various points and planes that are used in astrology and in astronomy and in navigation. Generally astrology is done one-dimensionally in longitude, and this is an oversimplification which the ancients I think would have laughed at.
ROGER ELLIOT: I’m going out into space, I’m talking about the Sun first of all as the center of the solar system, the fount of all energy really within the solar system; the self-evident power house. To any galaxy-wanderer out there in space coming near our solar system, the very first thing they’re gonna see and sense is that Sun bursting forth, a huge nuclear fusion furnace. And so, we’ve got to recognize the Sun as a unique central factor in the scheme of things.
MALE LECTURER: The ascendant is the intersection of the horizon and the ecliptic and has to do with defining place and locale. So the ascendant is how we interface in a small group, how we interface at a given place on the Earth.
MALE ATTENDEE: It’s a very powerful violet. That’s because it’s a Sun-Pluto conjunction in Scorpio and the Moon is also in Cancer. So the water is very powerful and it gives this night climate.
JOHN STEINBERG: One of the major features of the United Astrology Congress was the trade show where the entrepreneurial aspects of the world of the occult were manifest. Here computerized charts, crystal balls, and astrological music written specifically for your birth time were available for modest sums. Also, audio and video cassettes depicting every level of mystical endeavor were there for the delight of the emerging occultist.
[crowd chatter]
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Well, I just started studying about six years ago, and I just found it a really useful tool for myself and something I like to share with people because self- understanding is always a helpful thing. I really believe in astrology, I believe it works.
KIMBERLY MCSHERRY: Basically what the transits and progressions indicate are what’s cooking right now, what’s going on right now, what comes to the foreground. Okay, we all have a multitudinous number of issues and a backdrop of experience, but the transits and the progressions point to that which is coming up to the foreground right now to be dealt with. Like if you see Pluto coming up and conjuncting someone’s Venus or making a major aspect to someone’s Venus, you know that one of the things they’re dealing with right now is an amazing transformation in their value system and in their whole idea and attitudes about relationships. And sure enough, within just a few minutes of interface with the person, those issues come up. They tell you what those transits mean.
ROGER ELLIOT: I’m not convinced that the astrology that we have today is what is really happening. I’m quite prepared almost to see the death of current astrology in favor of something else which is yet to be discovered. It may be that we are only dealing with a partial truth when we look at the positions of planets in the sky, or the positions of the planets in the sky may be a very clumsy and abbreviated way of talking about something which might be there in the DNA of each of my cells, or there in something else yet to be discovered altogether.
JOHN STEINBERG: So you’re talking about some higher language rather than, for instance, some heliocentric form of horoscope.
ROGER ELLIOT: Yes, yes. It may be that astrology in the sky is not what we’re really on about. I mean, it’s only just a passing thought. I’ve got no real evidence one way or the other to support it. I certainly do feel that when we marry up with other disciplines, the one we will marry up with will be molecular biology and the life sciences, trying to unravel both the mechanism of the brain and the structure of DNA and RNA. And through that I think we’re gonna find maybe what we’re really talking about when we talk about astrology.
KIMBERLY MCSHERRY: The South Node of the chart is really involved with potential. It describes what you come from. It describes some very basic early life conditions in the chart. So if you choose to go back—if someone doesn’t really necessarily buy the idea of reincarnation just simply goes back to the very beginning early years of their lives, you can talk about those energies, or you can go back further than that. I think the Moon is very important in terms of what you have brought with you this particular trip; what the soul has come in knowing and has come in with a natural facility for in order to grow from that point. Many people call Saturn the ‘lord of karma’ and equate it to the idea of a past life experience. I think the 12th house is very much tied up with past-life experiences. They don’t always apply, and for all people they definitely don’t apply. Because if you don’t have that basic sense then it does no good to talk to you about past-life experience.
MALE LECTURER: The nodes define our most intimate or inner connection since it’s the plane of the Moon crossing the plane of the ecliptic, which is Earth-Sun. The ecliptic is always created through Earth-Sun. So it has to do with birth, death, all kinds of connections that we don’t have much choice over, right? Our parents, our children, our mates, blood relations.
MICHAEL LUTIN: I never knew what I was supposed to do in this life, what I did in my last life, what I was gonna do in my next life. I never could understand it, I never understood it. And it took me a long time to realize that the South Node, when they say it’s the easiest, the path of least resistance, the South Node is what tastes great; it’s chocolate. And the North Node is sprouts; it’s the stuff you know you’re supposed to do. The South Node represents in your horoscope a point of infantile deprivation. And you’re so addicted there that you’re a sucker. You can always be taken for a ride because of some very early deprivation that you never get over, so there you’re totally vulnerable all the time. And the North Node is a place of non-attachment. You have a sense that it’s always gonna be there for you, so you really tend not to be as interested in it; although it really is the healthier path to take. But it’s an axis, and we all have this axis. We have this axis of great maturity and non-attachment, and it’s connected to an addictive, infantile, irrational angry, unevolved part of ourselves that is extremely vulnerable all the time.
FEMALE ORGANIZER: We have to find out. We don’t know. We will have to find out the limits of this and work it with our policy as much as we can. Are we losing interest here? Should we continue?
MALE ATTENDEE: What time is it?
FEMALE SPEAKER: It’s 6:48.
JOHN STEINBERG: —putting people on TV. You want to be on TV? I think fame is awaiting you right around the corner.
[crowd chatter]
MICHAEL LUTIN: My name is Michael Lutin, and I am an astrologer in the United States. At the moment I write a horoscope column for Vanity Fair magazine. I have a private practice in New York City. I’m currently publishing a book on astrology and relationships called Made in Heaven, and I’m here in California to supervise and act in the production of my musical Pluto in Scorpio, which is taking place this evening.
[crowd chatter]
FEMALE ORGANIZER: Consensus as it has been defined has meant unanimous agreement. And the basic question here is should decisions of the steering committee continue to be made only with unanimous consent, or do we go with some kind of numerical rule on the steering committee?
MICHAEL LUTIN: Gather your belongings. Taurus watch your purse. The person next to you could be your [unintelligible]. Come with me, whether you’re an astrology fiend or a staunch nonbeliever, we’re going past the last stop on the bus line.
[singing]
MALE ORGANIZER: I think the steering committee ought to be able to act without having to submit any such questions to the membership.
MICHAEL LUTIN: He says to the Sagittarius, “What are you doing here?” The Sagittarius says, “Here? I’m not here.”
[laughter]
MICHAEL LUTIN: They’re unbelievable. I swear to God these people are unbelievable. This guy Bob, he’s a Sagittarius. I’ve seen him a couple of times. This guy is unbelievable. He will walk down a dark street laughing, he will spill salt on purpose, he breaks chain letters, he makes fun of Jesus Christ—but inside maggots in a pail.
MALE ORGANIZER: Things get done with our consensus, and I’ve seen amazing instances of polarized opinions on how a necessary thing gets done and be united and synthesized under a consensus, which I would have four years ago believed also was an unworkable system.
MICHAEL LUTIN: So pardon my Pluto if you think I’m kind of rude or just a little out of tune. It’s just a simple pattern and it’s all because of Saturn and afflictions to my 3rd house Moon.
[laughter]
MICHAEL LUTIN: Why I decided to write the play Scorpio? Why I’m even doing this really—it’s a major astrological aspect, and it’s the transit of Pluto through Scorpio, which is reflective of the current wave of aggression and war and terrorism, and the sense of end of the world that we are all feeling can be described by Pluto in Scorpio. So I’ve tried to make the apocalypse as humorous as I could and still not be utterly tasteless.
[Michael Lutin on stage]
MICHAEL LUTIN: The last 15 years have been a quote ‘spiritual initiation for Scorpios’—some people call it masochism and depression. Anyway, now they’ve come into their own. They’re 10 times more power-crazed than usual, and now they want to change their whole approach to everything—their work, their love life, everything—so there’s not a trace of what was there in years past.
[laughter]
MALE PERFORMER: I’m sick of getting sand kicked in my face every time I kneel down to pray. I’m sick. I am sick of sharing rice with the Indians, and I am sick of catering to people who didn’t even know I was there in the first place. And, boy, have I done that. I’m beginning to think that maybe I’m worth something. So these days when anybody—
[intermission]
JOHN STEINBERG: Okay, this is Sunday morning, and a cloudy one here at the Bahia Hotel. Unusual for Southern California, but useful for doing a lot of work without the distractions of the beach and the swimming pool.
[crowd chatter]
ROBERT HAND: The very first principle I want to give you is that it is during hard aspect transits of the outer planets, particularly Saturn, that you are most likely to find life crises.
FEMALE LECTURER: Now you notice I said one indication. We have this marvelous ‘rule of three’ in astrology. There are many different ways to look for repeated messages. And if you see something once it’s a possibility, if you see it twice it’s a probability, and if you see it three or more times you can count on it manifesting in your life in some way.
ROBERT HAND: Now a mistake is often made with transits, particularly by people who are heavily into progressions. Progressions and transits actually are two different forms of progression. Transit is day-for-a-day, progression is day-for-a-year. Transits are in fact a form of progression, but because of the speed differential you have to handle transits differently than progressions. In progressions things move so slowly that you take one or two hits within a few minutes of arc as being very significant. One or two hits within a few minutes of arc in transits is not usually terribly relevant; you need lots of hits. And the hits don’t need to be as precise as they are in progressions as long as—and here is a major point—the orbs of the various transits tend to cancel out. In other words, if one orb is applying by 2° another one must be separating by 2°. That’s too simple an application but you get the general idea.
[attendees on the Bahia Belle]
EDITH WANGEMANN: I’d like now to show you a few other pictures I found in my search for graphic representation of the [foreign language]. I have here several pictures showing similar—
FEMALE LECTURER: So we don’t have that many major events in our life. Those major events will be marked by the progressions in the transit.
ROBERT HAND: Or to give another example most people who have nervous breakdowns don’t have them all instantly. Or most people, although not all people, do not have relationships that start instantly. Some people do. They’re the same ones that tend to have them end instantly. Yeah, easy come, easy go. Yeah, I’ll share something personal with you. Pat and I have been together now for nine years, actually living together, and much longer than that going together. And I attribute the longevity of our relationship to the fact that we never fell in love. We love each other dearly. I mean, I’ve never loved anybody more or even as much, but I never went through the madness phase. It just sort of grew slowly. There’s something to be said for that, particularly when you have Saturn ruling the 7th house.
[laughter]
FEMALE LECTURER: How many of you believe in simultaneous existence? I never heard of that? What does that mean? That means that once energy is put in motion it doesn’t cease. This is the theory behind reincarnation. However time is a man-made concept. And time—we have invented the concept of past, present, and future to keep us from getting so confused. If everything was one it would all be chaotic. So we have this nice little idea that time runs along the line past, present, and future because of the idea of alternate, or not alternate, but simultaneous life experiences occurring.
LEYLA RAËL RUDHYAR: My name is Leyla Raël Rudhyar. Astrologically, the vital statistics are that I’m Scorpio, Scorpio rising, Moon in Aquarius. And I suppose if I had to name an outstanding configuration the one I like best is the Grand Trine with the Moon, Uranus, and Mercury.
JOHN STEINBERG: And that would be a Grand Trine in water?
LEYLA RAËL RUDHYAR: It’s in air.
JOHN STEINBERG: Oh, okay. How would you relate that to your astrological profession?
LEYLA RAËL RUDHYAR: I think the Grand Trine in air gives facility with symbols and language, with words and communication, intuition and understanding, and I think that’s my strong point astrologically. My main focus astrologically is actually working one-on-one with clients, being able to listen and hear and translate their life situation in terms of the chart, and then re-translate those symbols back to them for their understanding of where they are.
MICHEL GAUQUELIN: Well, my name is Michel Gauqelin from Paris. So my Sun sign is Scorpio, my Moon sign is in Sagittarius, and my ascendant is Leo. Is it—I’m sorry. I thought it was, well, so I just—
JOHN STEINBERG: Whatever comes to mind, say it. Don’t be shy.
MICHEL GAUQUELIN: Okay, I’m not shy.
JOHN STEINBERG: How is your position in astrology controversial?
MICHEL GAUQUELIN: Well, it’s controversial in the sense that I started a long time ago to verify the astrology. Well, mostly what I was doing is published in my latest book Birth-Times, which was published recently by Hill and Wang in New York. And in this book I just summarized that I found—
[airplane noise]
JOHN STEINBERG: Not a whole lot we can do about that. Okay, about your book, what did you do in your book?
MICHEL GAUQUELIN: Well, in this book I just present the results I found in favor of astrology and also unfavorable of astrology. So my position is in between two chairs, if you want. I am an astrologer in this sense, I am a skeptic of astrology in another sense. So I found positive results like, for instance, a correlation between famous people and some planetary positions at their birth times. That’s why the book is called Birth-Times.
JOHN STEINBERG: Could you give me an example, for instance?
MICHEL GAUQUELIN: Yes, yes. For instance, one of the greatest boxing champions, Muhammad Ali, according to his birth certificate, was born with Mars at the midheaven, as the astrologers say. And I found that a lot of great sport champions like Muhammad Ali were born more often with Mars at this position than ordinary people. And I found positive results also for other planets with other famous professionals, but from other groups. For instance, actors like Dustin Hoffman were born with a Jupiter, that is, a strong Jupiter rising or culminating, you see. And, well, there’s also good results for famous writers or famous scientists, and writers are linked with the Moon and scientists with Saturn, results just like this. So that’s the positive results I found. Of course I got more than 25,000 birth data with time of birth from birth certificates, which is a lot of money and work and time.
THEODOR LANDSCHEIDT: My Moon is opposite the Galactic Center. Perhaps you can interpret that but I mention it because I introduced the Galactic Center, the Super Galactic Center, and the apex of the Sun’s motion into international astrology. And already in the ‘50s, how should I say, yes, I introduced geocentric nodes into astrology, which in my opinion are very important. If you don’t put the geocentric nodes of planets into your chart it won’t be complete, and in many cases your interpretations will go astray. And I can’t find the sense in believing in the Moon’s nodes and not considering Mercury’s nodes, Venus’ nodes and so on.
LEYLA RAËL RUDHYAR: The foundation for what I do, that technical foundation is the progressed lunation cycle, which was a technique I wouldn’t say invented or discovered, but a technique brought out of the shadows by Dane Rudhyar as a way of understanding the main flow and structure of a person’s life, then superimposing transits on that. The progressed lunation cycle is the cycle of the phases of the Moon as they continue in the days and weeks after birth symbolically applied to the months and years of life. If, for example, a person is born say at the trine with the Moon 120° behind the Sun, they would be born approximately 10 days before a New Moon, so that when they were 10-years-old a new lunation, a new progressed lunation cycle would begin in their life, and that would diverge considerably from the Saturn cycle.
JOHN STEINBERG: You say you were a judge?
THEODOR LANDSCHEIDT: I was a judge, yeah.
JOHN STEINBERG: You were. And a scientist?
THEODOR LANDSCHEIDT: Yes.
JOHN STEINBERG: In this country you probably wouldn’t find too many judges and scientists who even believed in astrology. Is it the same in Germany?
THEODOR LANDSCHEIDT: In other countries too, yes, yes. But astrology should be an integrative science and astrologers should be examples of integration. They should integrate the knowledge of many fields, as astrology should. And I don’t talk about this, I do it.
LEYLA RAËL RUDHYAR: The cycle of Saturn, for example, is what Rudhyar called a ‘cycle of position’. It’s something that starts someplace and it doesn’t matter where, it’s an arbitrary start or wherever it was when they were born. It goes all the way around in cycle and it comes back to the same place. It takes the same time for everyone. That event occurs in everyone’s life at the same time. It’s what he referred to as a ‘generic cycle’. You go through those phases because you are a member of the human species. The lunation cycle on the other hand is a highly individual thing. It depends upon the exact relation of the Sun and Moon at your birth, the speed of the Moon throughout that particular cycle, which the Moon has quite a variance in terms of the speed that it moves per day. And so, therefore, the main phase changes and the change from one cycle to another shifts considerably from individual to individual.
THEODOR LANDSCHEIDT: It’s only interesting where fields of knowledge intersect, where there are boundary regions between fields of knowledge. There you’ll get interesting information but you can get it only if you are in this field and in that field.
MARION MARCH: I cannot do it. I have to talk face to face with the person. To me, the eye contact—
ANGEL THOMPSON: Of course when I talk to someone on the telephone I ask them quite a few more questions than I would ask if I was having a personal interview. And I spend maybe 5 or 10 minutes really asking questions—what’s going on, how this happened, how that happened—so I get a feeling for the person beforehand.
ERIN SULLIVAN-SEALE: I usually have pretty standard questions like: Are you married? Have you ever been? Do you have children? What is your occupation? Your level of education? That way you’re not gonna send someone to The Met as a concert pianist if they have no musical training and if they have a Mercury-Neptune conjunction.
ROBERT HAND: The astrological community has been too unconscious of its own role in history too long. We have been outcasts. We’ve been pariahs. We’ve been regarded as believers in something that is incredibly stupid and weird, and ‘how can you possibly adopt anything so silly as astrology’? The fact of the matter is not only are we not mentally perverted in any way shape or form, but we actually have a serious and solid message for the broader world, and I don’t think astrologers are adequately conscious of the full implications of that message. The full implications of that message are very simple: astrology is applied mysticism. It is a practical day-to-day experience that you and the universe are one, and that’s mysticism in the true sense of the word. Scientists use mysticism to mean mystification. But the true meaning of mysticism is the awareness that the individual and the universe are one, and astrology is a practical applied consequence of that doctrine. Planets don’t cause anything. Signs of the zodiac don’t cause anything. They are simply a symbol of the unity of the individual with the cosmos.
MICHEL GAUQUELIN: My positives were found for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and for the Moon. Those are the planets—or the Moon’s not a planet—but the celestial bodies you can see with your naked eye; well, it’s maybe not by chance. Until now I didn’t find any results for Pluto, and no results also for the outer planets, as the astrologers say, Uranus and Neptune. So then it might be because they are too far away, but I know that for astrologers these planets are very important when they are dealing with horoscopes and they are interpreting horoscopes. But as a statistician of astrology I cannot say I found some positive results. I didn’t find any.
MARION MARCH: Do you prepare beforehand or do you do it cold?
ERIN SULLIVAN-SEALE: I actually do it cold now. I have the chart run out and it’s sitting there. I make sure I know where the progressed Moon is. I always know where the transits are back a hundred years and up to current. And I have a fairly decent idea of what it is I’m going to be seeing that I’ve stopped projecting before they come. And so, when they come and they sit down, I almost always for initial clients say, have you ever had your horoscope done before? That opens the door. Do you have any astrological knowledge? Do you prefer to hear jargon? Would you rather not?
LEYLA RAËL RUDHYAR: Right. I always ask that question.
MARION MARCH: You do ask that question?
ERIN SULLIVAN-SEALE: Oh, yes. And some people say, “Oh, please, don’t tell me about the Moon and Mars.” And then some people say, “Oh, yes, I’d like to hear about where my progressed Moon is and my Mars aspect, and please tell me about my Pluto.”
MARION MARCH: I would say 1% of my astrological clients I’ve long ago given up to ask. Most of my clientele are referred by psychologists and one psychiatrist, and so they are absolutely and totally unaware of astrology.
JEFF JAWER: I would say half my clients, particularly in the Bay Area, are familiar with astrology to one degree or another. They’ve had their charts done. Some of them are astrologers or students of astrology who are looking for another perspective.
MARION MARCH: Those are fun to work with.
ERIN SULLIVAN-SEALE: Yes.
JEFF JAWER: But I use jargon with people who don’t know any.
MARION MARCH: Really?
JEFF JAWER: I translate for a number of reasons. One is it really keys me; I need it to express myself. The other is, as somebody mentioned the other day, the idea that this is where this information is coming from. But I speak two languages. “You have Mars in Capricorn in the 12th house. Mars, the planet of anger, assertion, aggression, is in the part of your chart that has to do with an area that’s kind of behind your head and that you’re not directly conscious of.” And then I go into the description of it, but I do the labeling. And I guess for me, again, it’s a device that I need to create, but it also fulfills a certain magical need for me, that kabbalistic idea that Maureen Blumenthal talked about, about naming the name.
ERIN SULLIVAN-SEALE: Invoking the gods.
JEFF JAWER: By just saying, “You have Mars in Capricorn,” you make a statement that works on an archetypal level that the person may be totally unaware of, but that’s very powerful.
MICHEL GAUQUELIN: A large part of the astrological symbolism of the planets is vindicated by my work, but when I go to verify the signs of the zodiac, I got in trouble. In this case I was not able to demonstrate that there is some validity in that.
JEFF JAWER: In other words, you can play it safe in a reading or you can take risks. And taking risks means what I call pushing the symbols a little bit; let’s see how far in stretching. And to do that you’re gonna make mistakes. You’re gonna lay out a set of descriptions for a Venus-Saturn, a number of which may be wrong, but you’re taking the risk of really touching something that’s quite pertinent for them. And so, I’m telling them now I’m not perfect, I’m gonna make mistakes, and it’s your job to be a good consumer. It’s your job to use this information whatever way—
ERIN SULLIVAN-SEALE: When we translate the planets, they translate it into their own lives.
ANGEL THOMPSON: I think I’m more of a confrontational astrologer, to spend two or three or four hours reading somebody’s chart. I remember doing that many many years ago but—
LEYLA RAËL RUDHYAR: How long do you spend?
ANGEL THOMPSON: 45 minutes to an hour is a session. And I do not make claims that this is a complete reading or anything like that. As I said, I deal with current events.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: All from your Pluto in the 1st house.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: All from my Pluto in the 1st house, right. A real bummer. Learning to live with it has taken me many, many, many years. Pluto in the 1st house, once I understood that, the whole chart opened up for me. The only thing I have really going for me that is lovely is that I have Venus and Jupiter conjunct in the 9th house, and so I take it all very philosophically.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: That’s good.
ROBERT MYERS: So that becomes these nodes of Uranus. Now the nodes of Neptune—feel this one out everybody and think of the industry—the nodes of Neptune, Leo in Aquarius 9° to 15°. What’s theater? What’s stage? What’s motion pictures but Leo? And when did it all start? Off those degrees coming through the zodiac/ Think about it.
ERIN SULLIVAN-SEALE: —Aries rising, Scorpio in the 8th house. The concept of the ‘warriors’, Mars and Pluto, are the ‘mental warrior’ and the ‘physical warrior. So if a person has Scorpio in the 8th house they tend to be very, very fearful of losing their identity in a relationship, not because they’re paranoid because it could possibly happen.
MICHAEL LUTIN: Hey, if you know any Scorpios, go easy. They have sticks of dynamite taped to their ears and the fuses are sizzled, so don’t expect them to just be nice and take out the garbage. And if they think you’ve wronged them for any reason, they just trim you out of their life like fat off a roast.
ERIN SULLIVAN-SEALE: Most people’s deepest fears are based in some reality. You can’t just poo-poo somebody’s fear because you don’t—there is a lot of risk involved with the 8th house. And it is the 3rd house of self-worth. It is the risk that you take when you integrate psychically, emotionally, spiritually, and possibly even corporately with someone else. You may lose yourself in them, you may become the group.
ROBERT MYERS: And they’re so creative that we see their creativity, but we forget that they live in the mists, that they live in a veil, that they live in a shadow, and they can’t see out of that shadow. And they always have a fear that Pluto’s in there getting ready to pull them over to the other side and rape them.
MALE LECTURER: —that simply surfaces into the conscious don’t exist. And if the person actualizes it, they grow. An example of this is Jimmy Carter. When he chose to run for president, the Pluto transit was transiting his 12th house Sun. And he became aware of a latent possibility, “I can be president.”
CARLOS BOTON: I think Neptune in Capricorn and Pluto in Scorpio is a turnaround of humanity to connect science and spiritual matters. And this is very important because the science goes one way, the religions and philosophies go another way, and I think Neptune in Capricorn and Pluto in Scorpio will put these things together. It’s a good time for the astrologers.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’m an Aquarius Sun. In fact, I have a stellium of five planets and the North Node in the sign of Aquarius. But I don’t appear like an Aquarian because I’m Capricorn rising, and I’ve got a Leo Moon, so I love to be on camera.
[laughter]
JEFFREY WOLF GREEN: My specialty is to help people become aware of who they’re supposed to be and to motivate them into that, and to help them de-condition themselves from what they’ve allowed themselves to be conditioned to be, by separating away from that and finding their own essence. So that is my work.
NOEL TYL: My name is Noel Tyl. I’m an astrologer. I live and I practice in McLean, Virginia, a suburb of Washington DC. I’m to tell you that I’m 6′ 10” tall and pretty close to the stars. I’m also supposed to say that my Sun is in Capricorn ‘cause I was born on New Year’s Eve, that my Moon is in Leo, which allows me to fulfill all that dramatic stuff that audiences like, and my ascendant is 0 Cancer, which sometimes helps me keep my coat buttoned with good reason.
[music]
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’ve really enjoyed all the speakers I’ve listened to, and the Bahia is a wonderful setting for it, beautiful. It just feels good here. I like it.
JOHN STEINBERG: And your Sun sign, your Moon, and your ascendant?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: Pisces, Aries, Cancer.
JEFFREY WOLF GREEN: The Pluto in Scorpio, Neptune in Capricorn, clearly and obviously that’s a 500-year cycle. In other words, it only repeats every 500 years, and it only takes place just before or after the turn of the century. The last time it took place was in 1500 AD, and it correlates with what I call evolutionary themes or intentions or necessities for the planet as well as the individual. So if you simply go back in history—i.e., to the 1500 AD point and even beyond—you will find exactly the same themes at that time that you find at this time; although the context clearly is different, so the circumstances are different. From an evolutionary point of view, the actual intent, the positive intent is to transcend all group/subgroup and national differences to promote a consciousness of unity versus what has happened in history and what is happening now: progressive polarization of reality—i.e., nationalism; one subgroup isolating itself against another subgroup; I’m right, you’re wrong; and polarization at all levels of reality. This is reflected through simple circumstances merging. The merging of corporations, the monetary resources going into the hands of fewer and fewer, the progressive elimination of what we call the middle class in this country, yet another example of polarization; you have all kinds of examples of that. And you have an example of Neptune in Capricorn in the 1820s correlated not only to the Industrial Revolution and social displacement, which we see now, but also at that time what was called the Monroe Doctrine with respect to South America and Central America. And we see it again with respect to Reagan and the whole Contra thing and this country that he invaded for no real reason. So in effect what you have is history repeating itself. It’s a famous cliché but it unfortunately seems to be true, and you have all kinds of examples. Take the example of genetic engineering, Scorpio and Pluto both correlate to the RNA genetic code, and Neptune is an example now of man playing God. And I’m sure there’s gonna be positive applications of it, but there’s also gonna be negative ones. So I think we have to be very careful in terms of our intentions, our motives, what we’re actually trying to do. So the promise of course is to move into the Aquarian age relatively intact with a progressive revolution in consciousness, individually and collectively, working more towards unity. But if we don’t, then we have progressive Plutonian evolutionary themes called cataclysm which enforce change like it or not. As an example the fellow called Jesus, he was actually on the planet with Neptune in Capricorn, and in fact persecuted with Neptune in Capricorn, examples.
THEODOR LANDSCHEIDT: We are living in a solar system which is a living entity and each part of this living entity influences all other parts. I think even mankind influences the planets and the Sun, and on the other side the Sun and the planets influence men.
BRUNO HUBER: Jung speaks of 12 archetypes of human behavior, and those are the 12 archetypes they are inborn in every human being, but by the positioning of planets you have a selection of archetypes of an individual kind. Certain signs are occupied, others are empty. So you have this archetype which is empty within you as a latency but not in an activatable way, while planets are organs with which you can live, act and react, perceive and do something with. And with these planets you can activate the archetypes, right? You can use those models in your behavior.
JEFF JAWER: So the other point that I wanted to make came up from a Chinese medicine teacher of mine, and that is that every disease, psychological or physical, serves a function, and with the removal of that disease you create another issue. I’ll give you two very quick examples. One was she had a client, a man who was a labor lawyer—very intense, high stress work—who had severe headaches. And so, she discussed this with him and felt that using Chinese medicine, herbology primarily and counseling, she could change his condition, get rid of the headaches, but he would lose some of his aggressiveness in work, and he decided he would keep the headaches. The other case was a woman who had asthma but she was a concentration camp victim, and to treat the asthma—the asthma was helping to block the memory and the pain. And in removing the asthma, you have to address the pain.
MARION MARCH: That’s right.
JEFF JAWER: So the whole thing is, and I really like this Chinese idea, that every bit of disease serves a function in the psyche and when you—
MARION MARCH: It’s psychological.
JEFF JAWER: Right. And when you move one thing other things shift, even if it seems, “Oh, it’ll be all to the good for this guy to get over sexual problems,” well, what next? What does that serve?
BRUNO HUBER: The aspect structure actually tells what you expect from life, what you want to reach in life, etc. So it’s the basic motivational level that to most people is not very conscious, to very many absolutely unconscious. You know, they don’t know what they are driving at. They believe what they have been told is important, so you have a distinction. There is this basic inner motivation that wants to get somewhere in life and produce some—
[door opens and closes]
BRUNO HUBER: —that wants to get somewhere in life and produce something, and also give something to life, to people, to the surroundings, etc. And there is the outer motivation that mostly comes from conditioning, from education, etc. People around tell you this is the most important thing in life, this you should do, or that goal you must reach, etc., etc. And these two instances can fight with each other.
JEFFREY WOLF GREEN: Long ago I lived in a monastery, and I thought that would be my whole life. I had no idea I’d be an astrologer. In fact, I had a very dim view of astrology and spiritual arrogance of course. But I had a very enlightened teacher there and he said, “Look, you cannot have an opinion of astrology without studying the thing,” so that certainly made sense. So in order to have a valid opinion in this man’s eyes I went out and bought a book on astrology to have a valid opinion. I read two pages, and much to my horror received a vision about my life, and it required me to leave the monastery, it required me to open up to relationships, which I’m not inclined to do, Venus retrograde, and become an astrologer of all things. And so, the way I learned astrology was in the following way, I said, “Lord, if you want me to be an astrologer then you teach me astrology.” So for six years I had dreams about astrology that simply came into my consciousness, and wherever I happened to be living in the world, I would simply hang out sign-free charts—and never had a course—and would empirically validate what I was receiving in dreams. And this is how I learned astrology.
JEFF JAWER: A lot of times I’ll hit something. I like to talk about parents a lot using the Sun and the Moon, and a lot of times people don’t want to hear anything. And I’ll touch on something and I’ll get this resistance, and I’ll kind of say, “Well, okay it’s your life. That’s not what happened to you, if that’s not your vision, well, then maybe I’m misreading the symbol. Maybe you’re not ready for it now.” I’ll go on to something else. Then we see that Venus is hit up by other kinds of crap like the Moon was hit up and I might bring up something again around that appreciation, and then they’re going, “Well, yes.” ‘Cause I’ll ask people, “How was your relationship with your mother?” “It was wonderful.” Then you get to Venus unappreciated, “Well, yeah, my mother used to lock me in the closet days on end.”
[laughter]
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I feel that this convention is doing much more for the professional astrologer than other groups that I’ve previously been a member of. They’re addressing all of the modern issues: legalization in all of the states, networking, providing a better media image, and so forth.
JOHN STEINBERG: How do you like the Bahia?
FEMALE ATTENDEE: The Bahia, it’s wonderful here. I may even wind up here, who knows. I really love California.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I have a 0 Libra Sun, a 20 Virgo Moon, and a 27 Virgo ascendant. I’m having a wonderful time. This is one of the best organized and best energy conferences that I’ve been to. It’s in a beautiful setting. We are able to get outside and be alive and feel the energy of nature rather than being shut up in some high-rise hotel.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: It’s such a relief to have an opportunity to be with people who think on an intuitive plane. You can speak to most of the people that you meet here and they understand immediately what you’re talking about. And you don’t get that pleasure in general in the world, plus you’re getting involved with concepts and ideas that are obtuse to the rest of society. Astrology is not necessarily something that’s accepted by most of your comrades on the planet.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’m Sun Aries, Moon Pisces, Gemini rising. I have planets on the angles which feature in my chart: the Saturn opposite Mars and the Moon opposite Jupiter, 9th house Moon.
MALE ATTENDEE: And I’m from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Dutch country. I’m an Aquarius with a Moon in Cancer and Cancer rising. And I’m just out here having a good time. Wish we had a few more drinks out here.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: My Sun sign is Leo, Moon in Aquarius, Gemini rising. And my Aquarian Moon is what is called a singleton Moon; it’s the only planet above the horizon. And so—Roger. Turn around, Roger.
MALE PERFORMER: How did astrology begin? What is the genesis of astrology? What happened was this, one day all the signs of the zodiac were sitting around waiting for a pizza to be delivered.
[laughter]
FEMALE PERFORMER: Man, they slow.
FEMALE PERFORMER: Oh, Aries you’re so impatient.
FEMALE PERFORMER: Oh, give me a break, ‘Bovine Bree’. Okay, everybody, here’s a game we’re gonna play.
PERFORMERS: Oh, no!
FEMALE PERFORMER: Shut up and listen. Now this is a game that I made up, and y’all got to play now.
KEN NEGUS: Aries: Forward and outward, dashing for sheer joy of self-dissemination, always centered, yet moving, merging oneself and all self. They are short, five lines each.
FEMALE PERFORMER: We pick our tokens from the sky.
MALE PERFORMER: That’s stupid.
FEMALE PERFORMER: Hey, Capricorn, don’t be a dead beat. Listen now this is my game and I say everybody pick a token. Taurus, what do you want?
FEMALE PERFORMER: I don’t want to play. I’m hungry.
KEN NEGUS: Taurus: Hanging jowled bovine, savoring goodies, munching cuds, sniffing the flowers, inalterable budgelessness, all gorged with sensuous delights. Gemini: Yes and no, and now and then and good and evil, but that’s too serious, pendulating—talk, talk, talk, constant glorious interchange. Cancer: In full embrace, on her soft breasts and lap, she holds and feeds and warms, protecting her and us, with painful hard-shelled-gentleness. Leo: With a yawn-like roar, and grand sweep of tail, gazing down from his boulder, he emanates majesty, drawing all to his center.
FEMALE PERFORMER: You can’t have the Sun. The Sun’s not a token.
FEMALE PERFORMER: That’s not right. You said I can have anything I wanted, and I want that big, bright, beautiful, blazing Sun or I won’t play!
FEMALE PERFORMER: All right, all right. Take the Sun, God. Virgo?
MALE PERFORMER: I don’t know. It’s gotta be exactly right. That one over there is way too big. That one’s too far away. And that one doesn’t even look healthy. I guess that little fast one might be all right but it’s already taken.
FEMALE PERFORMER: It’s okay, Virgo, I’ll share it with you.
MALE PERFORMER: Well, it’s not perfect but it’ll have to do.
FEMALE PERFORMER: All right, how about Libra?
FEMALE PERFORMER: Oh, I really wanted to share one with someone.
KEN NEGUS: Libra: On silvery chains, a perfect balance, of the golden weighing pans, shows occasionally, a wave of thoughtful uncertainty. Scorpio: In dark crevices, intensely focused inward, she ponders alone, dwell with her and share her depths, lest the light invite her sting.
FEMALE PERFORMER: Hey, Scorpio, pick a token. Come on.
[male performer points]
FEMALE PERFORMER: Uh, I don’t see anything.
MALE PERFORMER: Never mind.
[laughter]
KEN NEGUS: Sagittarius: Arching his arrow, infinite circumference, his constant aim, for man-horse embraces all, from forest unto the stars. Capricorn, that’s me. That’s the one I was trying to remember and couldn’t. Capricorn: Upward-climbing, he defies peaks, but always with mountain underfoot, somber games played passionately, sovereign over all below.
MALE PERFORMER: I want that one, with the rings around it. Looks like a good investment.
FEMALE PERFORMER: All right. How about Aquarius?
MALE PERFORMER: Oh, I think I’ll take that goofy one right over there.
FEMALE PERFORMER: Is that a planet?
MALE PERFORMER: Who cares?
FEMALE PERFORMER: Okay, Pisces.
FEMALE PERFORMER: Oh, I don’t really care. I’ll just take whatever is left.
KEN NEGUS: Aquarius: With glistening eyes, peering through all to the clouds, he pours out wisdom, designed for no one, because everything’s for everyone. Pisces: The water refracts, her image, you cannot know her disposition, and then there are two of her, she/they are one with the sea.
JOHN STEINBERG: Bravo.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: My Sun is Pisces, my Moon is Leo, and my ascendant is Gemini. And I feel that this conference has been excellent. It’s really been mind-expanding. And people like Jeff Green really help me to understand how related our consciousness has to be, how we have to relate all these points to every other point, when we’re doing a chart and when we’re understanding life, and how everything is really cyclic. And it’s really integrating me and grounding me tremendously. I think it’s been fantastic.
BARBARA MAY: Does anybody not really understand what hypnosis means right here? You all feel comfortable with this then that it is self-hypnosis? Oh, my goodness, there are so many of you. Self-hypnosis, that’s all it is. You allow it. Nobody can hypnotize you unless you want to be hypnotized. And you don’t say anything unless you want to say it. You don’t spill your guts and start talking about your sex life unless you want to talk about it in an altered state.
LOUISE HUBER: Then you have to ask, to point to this Sun and say, what happened when you were six- or seven-years-old? And then very subtle and very sensitive you have to ask this. You must not say, “Aha! Here is the Sun, and maybe when you were six your father kicked you or something.” This is not the right way to counsel. And when you are a therapist and when you use analytical psychology or psychoanalysis, you need to be very sensitive to what has happened.
JIM LEWIS: The positions of Neptune and Pluto in Capricorn and Scorpio are probably the most significant and most important things going on right now. And people who have things in their chart aspected by Neptune and Pluto are coming to astrological conferences because their lives are in crisis.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I have a Capricorn Sun sign, a Sagittarius rising sign, and a Pisces Moon. So I’ve been tending to attract and meet the Pisces-Sagittarian types, which is an interesting affirmation of how our energy comes back to us.
DONNA CUNNINGHAM: I think when Neptune was in Sag, it got sort of ridiculous. That was the ‘all things are possible, you can do anything you want’ metaphysical kind of head where you can visualize and create anything you want. Also, publishing of the occult was very widespread. Lots and lots of books got published. But I think now that Neptune has moved into Capricorn, it’s sort of like we’re gonna concentrate more on what works. What if all those proliferation of ideas actually has practical application?
JIM LEWIS: Neptune and Pluto are probably better suited than any other planet to produce a total life change over in a crisis, and since they are in Scorpio and Capricorn, it’s the Scorpios and Capricorns who are hurting. An astrologer rarely sees someone who comes into his or her consulting room and says, “Everything is wonderful. I’m making lots of money. I love my wife. I have great kids. I have a wonderful house. Please read my chart.” This does not happen. They come in and say, “Everything is terrible. I just lost my job, I hate my wife, and the kids are coming down with awful diseases.” Then they come to see the astrologer, then they start looking after their souls, then they start going to astrological conferences.
DONNA CUNNINGHAM: And the more traditional professions are also opening up more to certain kinds of ideas, like using visualizations on cancer patients or something like that, or nurses and doctors learning touch for health, that these are actually taught in universities. So it’s sort of like the cream of the crop, it rises to the surface. The really high quality stuff will go more into the traditional professions and not be seen as so unusual or so far out.
JAY JACOBS: If I tell you your wife is gone and she’s not coming back, or that she is coming back, certainty that second opinion, that insight or whatever else we discussed might easily be worth the $100 an hour that I charge. But if I told you I can make your wife come back, what’s that worth? $1,000-$2,000? If I say which stocks are going up and which are going down, and you invest your money, that’s worth something. But if I or someone else pretends to say, “Oh, yeah, I can take that stock you’ve already invested money in and make it go up,” that kind of scam, if people believe it, is dangerous. Some people may believe they can change the future. I believe people can change their own future and working together we can change society’s and the world’s future, but I don’t think anyone can have that kind of influence on another individual or a corporate entity or a governmental organization.
JOAN MCEVERS: My Sun is Aquarius and my ascendant is also Aquarius. I have the Sun in the 1st house. I have a Leo Moon and a couple of fixed T-squares, which always throw people a little bit when they find out how stubborn I can be. Aquarius doesn’t have a reputation for being a stubborn sign, but you have to remember that it is fixed even though it’s air. I also have Sun square Saturn, which gives me a certain amount of ambition, and a Jupiter-ruled midheaven. I think the most significant factor in my chart is a very active 12th house. And I find that many astrologers have either strong Pisces, strong Neptune or an active 12th house.
MARION MARCH: I don’t think despite what most people seem to think that there is a particular degree or a particular sign that has to do with astrology. I really don’t think that gets you into it; I think there’s certain tendencies in a chart. In my particular case, I would say that the 12th house Moon and some of my T-squares make it very important for me to help others, to do counseling, which is what I chose astrology to do with—or rather I chose astrology to do the counseling with.
JOAN MCEVERS: Now what I mean by an active 12th house is that I have three planets there—Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter—and that is a lot of power in one house. And when you first get into astrology and learn about the 12th house, you find out that it’s very secretive and very traumatic and sometimes very sorrowful. Mine hasn’t worked that way for me. I find that writers need some 12th house aspects or 12th house planets, unless you write on the bus a lot. I mean, if you’re comfortable writing in public then you don’t need a 12th house. But if you do write like most of us write, you write in the 12th house.
MARION MARCH: Hermann Hesse lived a few villages down the road, across a little mountain, a place called Caslano, and of course his life was totally changed when he first went to India. He had a very similar chart to a very dear friend of mine, Erich Maria Remarque, who wrote the book All Quiet on the Western Front, the Arch of Triumph and those books. They had exactly the same chart. That means they were born at different times. They’re both Cancers, they both have Sagittarius rising, and they were as different as night and day. I always love to quote people who have very similar charts and are totally different, and then I like to point out to my students why they’re different. But Hemingway had Virgo rising, not Sagittarius rising; it’s a little different. And—we have company today don’t we?
[airplane noise]
MARION MARCH: That one isn’t as pretty as the other one. The other one was sleeker. Didn’t you see it? It was beautiful. Remarque—of course Marlene Dietrich was one of the loves of his life. I think he was the love of her life though a little bit more than she was the love of his life.
[airplane noise]
JOHN STEINBERG: As you may have noticed the Bahia is under the flight paths of just about everything out of San Diego International Airport, so I figured I’d get some shots here on the morning of the last day. A few more interviews and then a grand finale and UAC ‘86 will be history.
RAY MERRIMAN: Well, I think with Gemini on the midheaven, which is a vocational house, and Mercury ruling it in the 3rd house of communication in direct opposition to Uranus, which is a planet we usually ascribe to astrology, it probably shows my my interest in unusual eclectic, maybe avant-garde thought. And then trine Pluto and Saturn might have to do a bit with my background in psychology. Also, the Mercury trine Pluto plus the Venus and Jupiter conjunct in Scorpio in the 2nd perhaps correlates with my interest in the markets, financial markets with astrology. And then with maybe Neptune rising on the ascendant with the sextile out of Mercury, my ruling planet, that might have something to do with my interest in spiritual dimensions to astrology. Never know for sure, but I think it might.
THEODOR LANDSCHEIDT: But I think that this Galactic Center is very important in astrology. It is the nucleus of our galaxy. Our galaxy consists of about 200 billion stars revolving around that center. And if you are looking for information, you’ll find it always in the nuclei of structures. For instance, if you look at the cells we are composed of—
TONI GLOVER: The Galactic Center is a place where a great deal of knowledge comes in, and not necessarily solicited, it gets there. But in order to have this knowledge become effective one has to share. It’s like how the kid says, “Okay, dad, if you’ll let me take the car tonight, I’ll wash it tomorrow,” and dad says, “No, go ahead and wash the car and then you can use it.”
PHILLIP SEDGWICK: For those of us who are getting ready for the Jupiter—or I’m sorry, the Saturn-Uranus conjunction in Sagittarius, that is gonna be an extraordinarily significant conjunction by virtue of the fact it will be going over the Galactic Center. The center of the galaxy is a nucleus point about which the Sun revolves every 250 million years, taking us with it of course. And we find that this point represents knowledge, and the knowledge that it brings is knowledge which requires responsibility. That is, once we receive knowledge, it’s up to us to go ahead and to utilize the knowledge otherwise the knowledge is very dormant.
THEODOR LANDSCHEIDT: If you find an aggregation of matter and energy there must be an aggregation of information too. For instance, such places as the Sun or the center of our galaxy, very rare places in between, is a lot of void, and this is a concentration of matter, energy, and information, and you can’t separate that information from matter and energy. And so, if there is such a body like our Sun which contains much matter, much energy, then it must contain also a lot of structure, a high potential of information, and you can even calculate the quantity of information that’s getting out from the Sun.
ROBERT MYERS: There is a Saturn-Uranus conjunction that is going to take place at 29° of Sagittarius which is the solstice point of the soul entering the body. And it means that when that Saturn-Uranus conjunction takes place at 29° Scorpio, its solstice is 0 Capricorn, and there is a splitting in the universe, there is a splitting of the way. There is an eclipse and a Saros cycle that is gonna take place at that time which started its origin in 1926, which means that there is a brand new soul group that is going to be entering, and they’ll probably enter off that Saturn-Uranus conjunction. I feel that that is going to be like a huge enlightening period, and I think we’re in preparation for the end of ‘87 and ‘88 for that conjunction.
PHILLIP SEDGWICK: So as we watch Saturn and Uranus move over this point the thing that we’re gonna see is people are gonna be gaining new information, which is gonna give them both a level of stability in their own personal life and collective life, as well as it will give them the information on changes they need to meet the needs of the Galactic Center, which require that we approach things from a more progressive orientation, shying away from, “Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it” and allowing ourselves to pursue the unknown with a tremendous enthusiasm and optimism as to the results that we might get.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I’m a Gemini Sun, a Capricorn Moon, a Libra ascendant, and I’m having a marvelous time. The most wonderful thing I think about the convention is being with a group of people who speak the same language because when you’ve been in astrology for a while it structures your perceptions and the way you view the world. And it’s magnificent. It’s a wonderful experience.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I have the Sun in Capricorn, Moon in Cancer and ascendant, and I think it’s fabulous. I think the convention was an opportunity for people of like minds to get together and share and join in the astrological circle. For me, it’s just been a wonderful experience.
MALE ATTENDEE: Basically it’s been a great conference. I have the Sun in Scorpio, the Moon in Scorpio, and three other planets in Scorpio, so I sort of like things that are hidden.
MALE ATTENDEE: And I’m a Libra with the Moon in Aquarius, beginning Aquarius, Scorpio ascendant. And it’s a wonderful convention. I was just thinking how much I enjoy conventions that have so much input and a lot of people of like minds in a beautiful atmosphere.
FEMALE ATTENDEE: I can’t say much about the food that we had at the two dinners. That was pretty bad.
JEFF JAWER: The inner change, the kinetic energy that happens when you get upwards of a thousand astrologers together is something that’s very dramatic and exciting for the profession and very entertaining and stimulating for me personally.
[applause]
EDITH WANGEMANN: You know, I’m looking all around the world and from every place, even from my students, I learn piece by piece. And in this way I try to give it to the other ones just to tell them how universal astrology language is. Thank you very much.
[applause]
STEPHANIE ERICKSON: It has definitely made its mark. It’s been different, and I think it’s the first step. I think that after the planets go direct and we see what we’ve manifested for ourselves—because we can’t quite see it yet, we need to have a little distance, we need to have a little perspective on what we’ve manifested for ourselves. I think we will have laid a very important foundation not only just for this thing we call the United Astrology Congress, but for the astrological community which takes in everybody, those that we like and those that we don’t ‘like’ right now. It’s a real special time.
[crowd singing]
TAD MANN: So as we move through the horoscope we gradually transform our potential reality that has come into existence at conception into our actual reality, until at the moment of death we’ve utilized all of our potential and our life is actual. The sequence is complete and the ouroboros snake has bitten its tail outside of time.
JOHN STEINBERG: I’d like to take this opportunity to give special thanks to Stephanie Erickson who single-handedly coordinated and arranged all the interviews. And I’d also like to thank all the astrologers who graciously gave their time and energy to this project.
[singing and applause]
MALE SPEAKER: UAC ‘86, thank you.
[crowd releases balloons]
MALE ATTENDEE: Send a message to Los Angeles!
JOHN STEINBERG: I would also like to thank the technical crew, and that would be Omar Kish and Sarah Steinberg, and also Rachelle Young, the sound person.