CHAPTER IV

HOW TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL ASTROLOGER I take it that nobody nowadays can afford to fritter away time in the study of subjects which are not likely to become a source of benefit to himself and others. If there be such people among my readers, which I consider unlikely, I may dismiss them offhand with the remark that they will never become successful astrologers, for the first word of practical astrology is Utility. If the science had not its practical application to the affairs of everyday life, if its principles contained no word of assurance and hope for the myriad toilers of this world, no word of admonition for the self-indulgent parasites of modern social life, if, in short, it did not make for the betterment of human life and thought, it would never have attracted the attention of Aristotle, Cicero, Galen, Claudius Ptolemy, Thales, and others of the old world, and such men as Bacon, Cardan, Archbishop Usher, Naibod, Mercator, Ashmole, Kenelm Digby, Sir Christopher Heydon, Dryden, Dr. John Butler, Sir George Wharton, Vincent Wing, George Witchel, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Flamstead of more recent biography. Indeed, in whatever age or country we may elect to make our inquiries concerning Astrology, there are to be found a host of intelligent and even illustrious advocates in every department of life and learning. Suffice it to say that the modern student of this most ancient of all sciences is at all times in very good company. Let it first be understood that there is an object to be attained in the study of Astrology, and that the pursuit of it in the gratification of an idle curiosity alone will inevitably entail the waste of time which invariably attaches to idleness of all descriptions, and we may then profitably consider whether or not the subject is worth the labour which it will demand from the man who has something to do in the world and little enough time in which to do it. These are stressful times, and we have to be economical in our efforts. We have strength enough to carry us through, but neither strength enough to thresh the wind nor time enough to fish in puddles. What, then, does Astrology offer to the patient worker, the man who would become a successful Astrologer? First and foremost it will enable him to gain an insight into individual motive and character which no other science can possibly afford. It will enable him to know himself, his own strength and weakness, and so fit him to deal harmoniously and justly with others. It will enhance his opportunities to the extent that he is able to foresee and make use of all benefic influences operating through his own environment. It will give him timely warning of his approach to the quicksands and pitfalls which occur in his passage through life. He will discern his special physical weaknesses, and the times of his predisposition to sickness, the nature thereof, and the precautions which are necessary. He will know whom to cultivate and whom to avoid, and in selecting a partner in business or a wife for his home, he will be guided by a foreknowledge of evils to be avoided and of good things to be gained. He will choose his path in life with the confidence that it is for him the line of least resistance and therefore that of greatest progress. He will not become obsessed by ambitions beyond his power to achieve. He will learn the power of adaptation to environment, and thereby effect his work in the world with the least possible friction and waste of force. He will know when to make provision against sickness, accident, and death. He will not invest capital where interest is not to be gained. He will see the end from the beginning. It may not make him a brilliant success in the world, but it will assuredly save him from being a failure. He will find causes for inexplicable things, and his mind will rest content in the knowledge hat while he is working out the highest potentialities of his own horoscope, the major problems and intricacies of life are not of his making or needful of his solving. And finally, when his time comes to “shuffle off this mortal coil,” he will be prepared, and will know that it is the will of Heaven, expressed and determined from the moment of his birth. Rightly employed, Astrology cannot fail to improve the man who makes of it a serious study, fitting him to be of greater use to others and of higher service to the race at large. But to become a successful Astrologer he must study patiently for several years, testing each statement that is made in the books by reference to his own and several other horoscopes. He must be able to erect a figure of the Heavens with mathematical accuracy for any given time and place, work out directions by the use of the sphere or trigonometrical tables, and have a competent knowledge of the motions and periods of the various planetary bodies. When thus satisfied in his own mind that Astrology is a dependable science, and that he is capable of demonstrating it under test conditions, he must be generous in the use of it. Here and there he will find one who is opposed to the belief that the stars have any influence in human affairs. Let him not waste logic with such a man, but go straight to the task of convincing him by an appeal to facts. For preference, select a period when the directional influences are such as seem likely to hit the sceptic with considerable force, define the event, make a careful calculation of the time of its fulfilment, and put them on paper, which, being yet unread by the man of Common-sense, should be placed under cover, sealed, and endorsed to be opened only after a certain date. Now a man who has been hammered rather severely and in quite an unexpected manner, is usually open to conviction of truth when he finds that the nature and date of his disaster have been accurately foretold. Being a man of “common-sense” and not of intuition, he will probably think that the Astrologer might even have saved him from the consequences of his own lack of foresight. So indeed might the Astrologer have done had he taken the management of affairs from the beginning; but to step in half-way to arrest causes which are already in operation and charged with inevitable effects, is requiring too much of any man short of a Prime Minister! There are certain things which even the most astute deductive reasoner cannot foresee, and these are the points that should be utilised by the Astrologer who seeks to convince others of the truth of his science. A man cannot reason from his doorstep to a street accident. If he could he would avoid it. All men are not subject to accidents, however. But almost all are subject to bereavements, losses, sicknesses, and changes of fortune. Those are the points which the Astrologer intent on proselytising, usually makes use of. But events need not be in futurity to carry conviction. If it can be shown that by mathematical calculations the events of the past can be recited with precision and exactness, it is evident to the meanest intellect that nothing hinders from an extension of such calculations into the future. And once convinced of the reliability of such claims to foreknowledge, the practical man of the world is not slow to avail himself of its uses. But Astrology is not exhausted in the study of individual horoscopes, for there are other departments of this extensive science. The influence of the planets upon the weather, as embodied in Astro-meteorology; the rise and fall of Empires, political changes, the outbreak of wars, of revolutions, of epidemics, as defined by State Astrology so much in repute among the Oriental rulers; the occurrence of tidal waves, earthquakes, and other seismic phenomena, all form a part of the complete equipment of the practical Astrologer. It would be superfluous to recite here the numerous and strikingly accurate forecasts which have been made by modern exponents of the science, but it is only right to say that they reflect considerable credit upon their authors, for the above-mentioned departments of astrological learning are by no means in the same efficient state as Genethliacal Astrology, to an outline of which this work is devoted. Anciently it was otherwise, and even in the East at this day they hold some secrets of traditional knowledge, concerning which they are unduly mysterious and of which we have only the evidence afforded by more exact prediction upon certain points. Prejudice and Ignorance are the twin giants which bar the path of the world’s progress to-day, even as they have ever done. Step by step they have been beaten back, baffled by the light of Reason, harassed by the arrows of Truth. The world is redeeming its ancient heritage. All that is now required to establish the paramount truth of Astrology as a science is an impartial and thorough investigation, preferably at the hands of scientific men, of its methods and principles. Not that the truth is to be ratified at the hands of modern scientists, seeing that their own teaching constitutes a mere shifting orthodoxy, liable at any moment to undergo a fundamental change in theory by the discovery of a single new fact--but that to such men rightly belongs the duty of disproving the claims of Astrology to be considered as a science, for it is a fact to be regretted that certain members of their body have written against the subject in a spirit of prejudice and without adducing any data in support of their contention, which ill becomes any man of scientific pretensions and is above all things detrimental to the cause of Truth.