Tag: books

Learn traditional astrology with these five excellent books

So you want to learn traditional astrology? Here are the top five books I recommend to everyone to help them get started.

But first? Let’s ask the million dollar question…

Do you have to learn traditional astrology from books?

Learn traditional astrology with these five excellent books.

The short answer to this question is no. If you do a search, you’ll find several well-respected and knowledgeable astrologers who offer online classes in traditional astrology. Some of these teachers do require you to purchase a book or two as “classroom” texts, but they bring a lot of themselves to the table.

If you learn best in a classroom setting, an online course might be just the thing for you. Me? I like books, so that’s what you’re getting here.

All five of the books below are in-print and are readily available online. I’ve included an Amazon link to each book, but if you can find them at your local occult bookstore that’d be swell.

On the Heavenly Spheres

On the Heavenly Spheres

I’ve recommended this book before, and I’ll keep recommending it. On the Heavenly Spheres by Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro is absolutely the best introduction to traditional astrology I’ve ever read. Packed with information on history, theory, and technique, it’s not only a great place to start, it’s a reference you’ll come back to over and over again.

It’s definitely information-dense, so it might pose a challenge to people looking for a quick “overview,” but it really is a must-have. And I think it’ll especially shine if you keep it next to you while reading the other books on this list.

Buy it here.

Traditional Astrology Course

Traditional Astrology Course

This is the companion book to On the Heavenly Spheres, also written by Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro. Its full title is Traditional Astrology Course: Essential Concepts and Interpretation Basics, and it definitely lives up to its name.

While this book expands on the material in the first, it does so in a way which will help you learn traditional astrology through practical application. If you only purchase two of the books on this list, these should be them.

Buy it here.

The Martial Art of Horary Astrology

The Martial Art of Horary Astrology

Published in 2002, Dr. J. Lee Lehman’s The Martial Art of Horary Astrology still holds up as one of the best modern works on the subject. In my opinion, when you first learn traditional astrology, it’s best to start with horary astrology. This is the branch of astrology where you cast a chart in order to answer a specific question. It’s the most “divinatory” form of astrology, and one of the most popular forms used prior to the modern era.

This book presents the topic in plain English, and serves as an excellent bridge between the books I recommended above, and the two which I’m about to mention below.

Buy it here.

Christian Astrology (Books 1 & 2)

Christian Astrology (Books 1 & 2)

In 1647, William Lilly published his magnum opus Christian Astrology. Consisting of three volumes, this book was the first major work on astrology published in the English language. He covers theory and technique with equal style, grace, and depth. He’s also quite challenging to read, even in the updated editions of his text now available in two volumes.

This volume contains the first two “books” of Lilly’s original text. The first is an introduction to the theory and techniques of astrology, while the second is his treatise on horary astrology and “the resolution of all manner of questions and demands.” It’s a marvelous book, but I recommend that you have considerable familiarity with those I mentioned up above before trying to tackle this one.

Buy it here.

Christian Astrology (Book 3)

Christian Astrology (Book 3)

This is the third volume of William Lilly’s original work, and it focuses on natal astrology. In my opinion, it provides a wonderful description of how to adapt your knowledge of horary astrology to the interpretation of birth charts. If you’re learning traditional astrology, odds are pretty good you’d like to apply its principles beyond the asking of specific questions. This book will help you do just that.

There is a downside, though, and that is this book just isn’t as readable (or reliable) as his earlier work. If you’ve absorbed Books 1 & 2, as well as the others I recommended, then you won’t have too many issues. Otherwise…you’re in for a bit of a time.

Buy it here.

Where to go next?

Traditional astrology is a very deep and broad topic. Once you start learning it, and you come to appreciate it, there will probably be no end to the books you’ll acquire. My own shelves (and tables, and floors) are filled with texts on the subject.

Consider the books above to be a “good start” to your traditional astrology library. Where you go from here is really up to you.

If you have any books that you’d like to recommend, let me know in the comments below. I still have a few corners of my house that aren’t completely filled yet.

Have a blessed day!

Posted on by Jeff

Let’s Recommend: “On the Heavenly Spheres”

It’s been a while since I wrote a recommendation post, so I figured why not break that streak with what I think is the best book on astrology you’re likely to find.

Photograph of the cover of "On the Heavenly Spheres" by Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro.

On the Heavenly Spheres by Helena Avelar and Luis Ribeiro is, as its subtitle says, a treatise on traditional astrology. Specifically, this is traditional, Western astrology which consists of techniques and concepts as practiced and understood in Europe from the Hellenistic era through the sixteen hundreds.

It’s the astrology of the middle ages and the renaissance. The stuff John Dee used to select the date of Elizabeth I’s coronation, and the stuff William Lilly wrote about in the first English-language textbook on astrology.

Simply put, it’s the heart and soul of Western astrology, and On the Heavenly Spheres does a fantastic job of presenting it. It includes traditional interpretations of the planets, signs, houses, and aspects just as you’d expect, but it also goes into incredible detail on a number of astrology’s finer points. Concepts such as sect, hayz, occidental and oriental planets, and countless others are introduced and explained in detail.

And it’s that level of detail which raises one of the two issues you might find with this book. At only around 270 pages, On the Heavenly Spheres is extremely “information dense.” Topics are introduced, discussed at length, then the authors move on assuming you have absorbed the material. This makes the book an invaluable resource, but it also might make it a little less friendly for the beginner.

Simply put, this book requires work. It demands to be read more than once, and you’ll likely find yourself referring back to it over and over again.

The second issue is less of a problem and more an intention. This is a book on traditional astrology, and the authors are both very clear on this, as well as very exclusionary of “modern” astrological contributions. The most obvious example of this is an appendix in the back of the book which criticizes the use of the outer planets Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

That may put some readers off, particularly if they’re coming from a purely modern background, but Avelar and Ribeiro’s arguments are worth reading.

And, at the end of the day, you’re ultimately free to take them or leave them.

No matter what your astrological background, though, I can’t recommend this book more highly. It absolutely belongs on the shelf of everyone who is serious about astrology.

Posted on by Jeff

Let’s Recommend: “The Chaos Protocols”

I’ve rambled a bit about chaos magic before, and at the risk of doing so again, let me recommend a book about it!

Cover of "The Chaos Protocols"

Gordon White’s The Chaos Protocols, published in 2016, is one part chaos magic and one part socio-economics. If this sounds like a strange combination, I can only guess you’re new here.

If you’ve always kept your magic and your politics firmly separated, now more than ever is the time to entangle them.

One of the ideas I’ve come to have about magic, is that it is principally a tool for the marginalized. With a few notable exceptions (particularly along the Levi-Mathers-Crowley trunk of the family tree), magicians in “the West” are more likely to come from the underclasses of society than from its upper crust. Whether you’re talking about witches, cunning folk, root workers, or fortune tellers, the magically-inclined have historically been outcasts.

Or, at least, that’s how they’re usually treated by “fine, upstanding folks,” until the need for their services arises.

And this makes sense, when you think about it. If you’re a member of the ruling elite, and you hold all of the economic and political power, there’s no need to take your grievances to the crossroads.

This is much less true if you happen to belong to the “wrong” ethnicity, gender, or class. When you have little if any material or social currency, and no practical way to beat your oppressors, the “supernatural” might be the only ally you’ve got.

Magic isn’t a tool for the Powers That Be. It’s a tool to be used in spite of them, if not against them.

In The Chaos Protocols, Gordon White lays out the case that the socio-economic systems presently dominating the globe simply weren’t made for our benefit. Rather, thanks to a decades-long marketing campaign by the elite, we’ve been fooled into buying into a pack of economic lies, and trapped ourselves in a cage.

And breaking out of that cage should be the first order of business for the budding magician.

Now, to be fair, I don’t agree with everything in this book, and you’d probably do well to hit up some solid works on anarchist economic theory once you’ve gotten through the material. I do agree with most of it, though, and it had me Googling housing costs and inflation rates for half a night, so there’s that.

Oh, and if you do decide that cutting a deal at the crossroads is your best bet after reading this book, it’s got a ritual for that, too.

Posted on by Jeff

Let’s Recommend: “Tarot: The Open Reading”

I’m pretty sure you could fill a modest public library with nothing but books on the Tarot, and new books on the subject come out monthly. In my humble opinion, most of them are fairly derivative and not very interesting. One notable exception to this is the late Yoav Ben-Dov’s book Tarot: The Open Reading.

Cover of "Tarot: The Open Reading"

Written as a companion to Ben-Dov’s deck, the CBD Tarot de Marseille, this book is an exceptional introduction to the traditional, Marseille Tarot. It’s also a good introduction to the looser, more intuitive style of Tarot reading which some of the more “Hermetically-inclined” readers may have struggled with.

There’s a long and growing debate between people who assigned fixed or “traditional” meanings to Tarot cards, and those who prefer to “let the cards speak” in the moment. I’ll save wading into that blood-drenched kiddie pool for another post, but I will say that if you begin your Tarot career in the fixed meanings prison, it can be frustratingly hard to break out of it later on.

Once “Death = Transformation” gets in your head, it tends to lock the door and throw away the key.

Tarot: The Open Reading is like a hacksaw slipped into a birthday cake. There are excellent write-ups of all the cards, giving you “fixed meanings” galore, but the way they are presented, and the way the tie directly into the images on the cards, lets you cut through the bars and get out into the open.

And, as the title of the book implies, the “open reading” is the whole point. It’s all about knowing the question, looking at the cards on the table, and seeing the answer unfold like a stage performance.

This book, and Ben-Dov’s approach, has probably influenced my own Tarot practice more than any others I’ve read in recent years. It’s helped me shed a few of my more annoying Tarot reading “bad habits,” and I keep going back to it. I read and re-read his text, and find myself still having “Aha!” moments when I least expect them.

If you don’t have it already, I highly recommend buying a Marseille deck, picking up this book, and taking them both for a spin.

Posted on by Jeff