THE ASTROLOGICAL GEORGES MUCHERY With 100 line diagrams From the beginning of time human beings have looked to the stars and the planets to reveal their past, present, and future. And for centuries there was no real distinction between astrology and astronomy. Even now, in an age that appears to be dominated by science, the ancient wisdom of starlore continues to fascinate us. Almost everybody knows the birth sign under which they were born. and few of us, however sceptical, can resist sneaking a look at the horoscopes published in newspapers and magazines. For those with a serious interest in astrology, however, the popular horoscope is too general to be truly useful. The compilation of an individual chart is a complex and timeconsuming task, requiring accurate information and expert calculations. This examination of the Astrological Tarot ) shows how a study of the astral chart can be combined with divination by cards to provide very specific personal predictions. Unlike the more widely known tarot of seventy-eight cards, the astrological deck contains fortyeight: three for each sign of the Zodiac and twelve Major cards representing the Ascendant, the Moon's Nodes, the Part of Fortune and the Planets. For each card the author has provided a full-page illustration and a comprehensive description of its symbolic value. But since the intepretation of these cards relies on a detailed knowledge of heavenly configurations, the book also contains several chapters on the Signs, the Planets, and the Houses, together with tables and formulas enabling interested readers to compile their own charts. Finally, there are two short sections covering some methods of laying out the cards and their possible interpretations. For the practitioner, the student, or even the simply curious The Astrological Tarot offers an authoritative guide to the fascinating subject of telling the future through the stars and the cards. « To deny the power and influence of the Stars is to deny the wisdom and providence of God." We are under the influence of the stars, Many people are sure of it. If you, Reader, deny their power on each one of us, who is a microcosm in the macrocosm, we will endeavour to convince you, Why is it that on dull days, when the Sun does not shine, you are depressed Will you deny the influence of the Sun upon the human body ? Does the influence of the Moon count for nought in the phenomenon of the tides? Does it count for nothing in women's menses ? How is it that in the Maternity wards in hospitals, the midwives notice that at the periods of the Moon's changes births become more numerous ? Why is it that our personalities are so different ? It is because each one of us has been influenced ín a different way at the moment of birth by the state of the Heavens. All this is mere fancy, you think, and to be born under a lucky " or “ unlucky * star makes no difference to the course of one's life, Nevertheless, Napoleon believed in his star, Like him, if we draw up his horoscope, we can see it alternately clear, bright and dazzling, and then become pale and dim, Astronomy and Astrology should go hand in hand, in spite of the astronomers, who took so long to recognise the influence of the Moon. Both are Sciences; one is mathematical, the other empirical, The sceptical reader will say that if Astrology were a science, it ought to predict unerringly at birth everything that will happen afterwards, and it cannot do this Admittedly, it cannot do this,—not exactly, at ariy rate—for this reason : The stars which astronomy has not yet catalogued are numerous. When these have been found, astrology, the empirical science, will discover their influence. When astronomy becomes as exact a science as geometry, when it no longer rests on hypotheses as is still the case at the present time, then astrology will become all-powerful. That is why we say that these two sciences must go hand in hand, Ástronomy sneers at astrology, but neither is more infallible than the other. Expert astronomers have been, and are, at variance in their conclusions. Some astrological deductions are quite as plausible as certain astronomical discourses, You say: “* The astronomer is a scientist ; but the astrologer is a quack {”' That ís often the case, but not always. Kepler, Newton and many others were astrologers. No, these two sciences should not be separated, any more than we separate anatomy from medicine ; the one completes the other, Again, you may say, “ For two thousand years astrology has made no progress.’ We will go further, and say that we are less advanced. There are some also who say that the whole system of astrology is based on a false idea—the fixity of our globe. The Earth, whether fixed or mobile, is always subject to the same influences, in the same way as a photographic plate is similarly influenced, whether we take the picture of a train on the move from a station, or the picture of a station from a train which is in mo
