Asbolus in Greek mythology was a seer who could read omens and portents in the flights and calls of birds. He is said to have led a stampede of centaurs which caused the death of Pholus, and the fatal wounding of the immortal Chiron as Hercules defended himself by firing off poisoned arrows.
The minor planet which bears its name, orbiting between Jupiter and Neptune, was discovered on 5 April 1995.
Asbolus, Divination and Alternative Realities is the latest in a fascinating series of books by Ben Belinsky, on the astrological influence of the centaurs in which he lays out lucidly the meaning of their mythological narratives.
“In Chiron’s case it is – wounding and healing. Nessus – violation and betrayal. Pholus – the ecstasy of intoxication and helps deprogram from abusive cults. Chariklo – from unbearable situations to eventual transcendence.” Asbolus – augury and divination, the world of alternative realities and probabilities.
In the first third of the book the author, a practising astrologer with a Jungian background and a degree in Comparative Religion, explores theories of divination. How the ability to forecast ahead can be related to findings in quantum mechanics where reality is seen as a wave of probabilities; and to our experience of time and timelines.
I would have to confess I gave up a long time ago trying to fathom out the whys of divination whether astrological, or psychic or sensing a parallel between natural sightings and future events. But there is a good deal of reassuring backup about a notion of multiple probable realities from quantum mechanics which makes sense of the underpinnings of astrology. Asbolus, the seer, has ‘a particular state of consciousness that can read symbolic realities. And how that symbol will manifest in physical reality.’
Seers in the traditional sense do not figure in the impressive array of chart examples in the book from the worlds of:
Science fiction – Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley, Ursula Le Guin, Jorge Luis Borges, Douglas Adams, William Burroughs.
Creative writers and composers – Richard Strauss, T.S. Eliot, Erik Satie, Salvador Dali, Stravinsky, Frida Kahlo.
Film – Alfred Hitchcock, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan.
Philosophy – Marquis de Sade, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Foucault.
Quantum Physics – Max Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg.
Chess – Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Karpov.
Asbolus appears to lend an ability to think symbolically, to imagine different realities.
This e-book is a thought-provoking dip into a complex new character in the astrological lexicon. The heightened intuition that Asbolus gives may well be a factor behind the illustrious creative names above who changed the culture in different ways by plugging into the zeitgeist to predict what would catch the public interest. And to the physicists, chess players and philosophers who successfully juggled with uncertainty and multiple possibilities to sense the underlying pattern.
I must confess to a slight sense of disappointment since although I am not psychic there were periods in my life when bird sightings did appear to coincide with outer happenings . Asbolus is not prominent in my chart apart from being in my 9th house of communication. Though on the Solar Arc Directions for this year, Asbolus does conjunct my Sun and it appears notably in my 21st writer’s Harmonic. And at its discovery was sitting on my Ascendant – but that is all a stretch. Next post for fun I will run through past bird sightings and related/synchronous events.
Available on Amazon or from Ben’s website – https://moonletter.co.uk/e-books/#asbolus