The Astrological Journal 2018
September 2018
Victor Olliver's Editorial
How Does Astrology measure Up?
At my debut Astrological Association conference (as recent as 2014) at least one of many conversations left its mark on me. Rectification was the topic of discussion, and all was going well until I suggested that one simple way to test the technique would be to get a bunch of astrologers to work blind on charts whose birth data was known only to the researchers. It would be interesting to find the percentage of matches between rectified and actual birth dates. The reaction was horror. My interlocutor gaped at this heresy, as if struggling to breathe. "Astrology is not science!" h/she said, not incorrectly, in tones reminiscent of Lady Bracknell or Captain Mainwaring....
Read the rest of September's editorial here.
List of contents (PDF)
Members can read the whole of this and every edition of the Astrological Journal online. Log in at the Members' Portal and click on the 'Articles' tab. You can become a member of the Astrological Association for as little as £35.00 - join here!
July 2018
Victor Olliver's Editorial
Backward trickster medicine dance
Have astrologers lost touch with the "vast temple of the living heavens.with their observational roots?" Put a lot more simply, do we lift our heads from books or charts enough in order to star-gaze? How familiar are we with the actual intricate movements of planets and with the added significances opened up by such study? These questions arise from the work of Gary P. Caton whose essay on Martin Luther and the Mercury Elemental Year we publish in this issue. Among his many observations is that "Mercury traverses the zodiac [in a year], [but] he does not spend an equal amount of time in each sign...
Read the rest of July's editorial here.
List of contents (PDF)
Members can read the whole of this and every edition of the Astrological Journal online. Log in at the Members' Portal and click on the 'Articles' tab. You can become a member of the Astrological Association for as little as £35.00 - join here!
May 2018
Victor Olliver's Editorial
The AA's diamond jubilee
Welcome to the Astrological Association's 60th birthday party! For this momentous
occasion, the 'grown-ups' who run this organisation have delved into the past, analysed
the present and considered the future in what turned out to be a delicate balancing act
between warm-hearted nostalgia and cool-headed critiquing. If the temperature of certain
pages hits the odd extreme (hot or frosty) then take this as evidence that the AA's pulse
remains strong and its passions robust. This 60-year-old is alive and kicking and will
decline the bus pass. Bring on the next 60 years....
Read the rest of May's editorial here.
List of contents (PDF)
Members can read the whole of this and every edition of the Astrological Journal online. Log in at the Members' Portal and click on the 'Articles' tab. You can become a member of the Astrological Association for as little as £35.00 - join here!
March 2018
Victor Olliver's Editorial
Astrology's sleuth-masters
The over-arching theme of this issue emerged of its own volition as I worked through the
many contributions: pioneering exploration. Raye Robertson's excellent essay on an illness
unique to Sweden, afflicting the children of refugee families facing deportation, applies
astrology in an attempt to shed light on a genuine mystery: though patients (the so-called
'Snow White children') fall into a comatose-like state, there's no medical explanation. Yet
many have fallen victim.
Rebekah Hirsch's piece fuses astrology, psychology and clairvoyance in a delving into the question of what it is to be a human being, combining practical techniques with energies we scarcely understand in healing processes. I do commend her book Charting the Soul (also the title of her work in this issue) for a fuller explanation of her synthesis of approaches. Different again - but investigative nonetheless - is Wanda Sellar's enlightening essay on the notorious communist British double agent, Kim Philby...
Read the rest of March's editorial here.
List of contents (PDF)
Members can read the whole of this and every edition of the Astrological Journal online. Log in at the Members' Portal and click on the 'Articles' tab. You can become a member of the Astrological Association for as little as £35.00 - join here!
January 2018
Victor Olliver's Editorial
Let's Get Ready to Party!
There is so much to celebrate in 2018 that dedicated party-poopers may want to book themselves into the world's remotest log cabins or resorts - I can personally recommend Kokopelli's Cave in New Mexico or the tiny island of Motu Teta (Tahiti) as starters in your Google search. We are celebrating not just the ninth-decade birthdays of Dr Percy Seymour and Roy Gillett (see tributes in this issue) but the AA's 60th and its 50th annual conference in June (our May-June issue goes to town on these). Journal itself has hit its 60th year with this issue though its actual 60th birthday is not until January 2019, making it one of the longest-lived astrology magazines in the world.
Assiduous birthday-spotters may also want to note that Nicholas Campion is 65 in March, but that's far too young for special coverage. Still, minds have been known to change...
Read the rest of January's editorial here.
List of contents (PDF)
Members can read the whole of this and every edition of the Astrological Journal online. Log in at the Members' Portal and click on the 'Articles' tab. You can become a member of the Astrological Association for as little as £35.00 - join here!