Astrology Books – the building blocks

32 thoughts on “Astrology Books – the building blocks”

1. Barbault’s Planetary Cycles is a good book if you are evaluating the value of astrology in looking at recurrent cycles in history.

2. One more book: The Psychology of Astro*carto*graphy, by Jim Lewis & Kenneth Irving. I met Jim Lewis briefly when he was getting started in the 70s, an enthusiastic man with a love for the technical side. He combined mapping, computer programming and astrology. He was associated with Zip Pottenger Dobyns and Neil Michaelson (of American Ephemeris fame) in California and many others. They fostered the US computerized astrology movement. I didn’t know them personally, but the 70s/80s were a cool time in the growth of modern astrology worldwide.

   • Additonal: the Lewis book was republished in 2012 (available on Amazon).

3. Thank you for this great list! Please add Barbara H. Watters’ book, Horary Astrology and the Judgment of Events to the list (Valhalla 1973, 220 pages). This simple paperback is long out of print and the index is skimpy, but the delineations are very well explained. It’s a workhorse of a book for students of horary. Watters was the horary text of choice for Diana Bills Stone, a US astrologer and teacher active in the 70s to early 2000s. Diana was a good friend of Donna Cunningham, and wrote a book herself, exploring the origin chart(s) of the US: The United States – Wheel of Destiny (Am. Fed. Astrologers, 1976). She steered my interest along the way and often referred to Watters, Cunningham, Olivia Barclay, William Lilly, and John Frawley, among others of the more down-to-earth school of interpretation. Mostly these books don’t delve into esoterica much, but it’s a fine line at the best of times!

4. Erin Sullivan’s Retrograde book. It’s so helpful in understanding retrograde cycles.

5. Richard Tarnas “Cosmos and Psyche” still doing great work in California.

6. Mentioning Sakion and Acker , they also wrote a terrific book named The Minor Aspects in Astrology. Don’t let the title fool you , this is an incredible book whether beginner or advanced.

   Delphine Jay’s book named The Dark Moon Lilith is excellent .

   Marcia Moore’s Astrology book is a great beginning book also.

7. Thanks Marjorie. Good to see Astrology King get a mention. Jamie’s interpretations of planets in aspect (natal and transit) are always spot on and illuminating.

   • Noel Tyl’s system is very useful, incorporating Solar Arcs and Tertiary progressions. ‘Solar Arcs’ is one of the books in this series. Good for advancing astrologers with a good foundation.
     Also, I really liked Sue Tompkins’, ‘Aspects in Astrology’. Unmatched, in depth interpretations.
     ‘Predicting Events With Astrology’ – Celeste Teal. A very good foundational text on prediction.

8. Since it is astrologer Elsbeth Ebertin’s birthday today (14 May 1880) I’d like to reconmmend her Fixed Stars and Their Interpretation. Although nearly 100 years old, it’s a useful book. Positions of the stars will need updating.
   The Fixed Stars and Constellations by Vivian Robson (1923) is also useful and interesting, if somewhat old fashioned of course. It’s on archive.org.

   Also on archive.org is Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars, by Bernadette Brady. An excellent modern take on interpreting the fixed stars, it includes history and mythology, some asto techniques I haven’t really got the hang of, and some great positive comments and ways of looking at some of the gloomier ‘traditional’ interpretations.

   Diana’s Fixed Stars, the website for the late Diana K Rosenberg, has some fascinating articles with her extensive research into fixed stars over many decades. Her Medusa’s Head (Algol) article is quite mind-boggling and not for the faint-hearted! I’ve yet to read her fixed star books, but will get round to it sooner or later.

9. Great post . I have quite a few of these but must get hold of Melanie Rhineharts Chiron as I have it aspecting most of my planets …trines and sextiles. Thank you Marjorie .

10. I have owned most of the above- still have many . Although I gave away many in the late 1990’s. I regret giving away Sakonian & Acker. I also have an Astrology book by Rodney Collins – The Theory of Celestial Influence – which I initially read decades ago. I have been meaning to reread it as I found it quite a difficult read the first time. Recently bought Nick Campions History of Astrology volumes.

11. tysm

12. I have been adding suggestions into the main text for ease of finding at a later date. Many thanks. Loved Richard Idemon _ I once attended a seminar he did with Liz Greene in Italy. Lovely man and insightful.

13. Erin Sullivan’s “Saturn in Transit”
    Dana Gerhardt’s articles on astro are all enjoyable “https://www.astro.com/astrology/in_gerhardt_e.htm”

14. I did start with some of the above, in particular Margaret Hone, Robert Hand, Sakoian and Acker, Bil Tierney, but then I took a different direction towards Traditional and Horary Astrology > William Lilly, Olivia Barclay, Charles Carter and Deborah Houlding mainly.

15. Thank you Marjorie, this brought it all back to me – you must have started studying astrology about the same time as I did – I enrolled with the Faculty of Astrological Studies, after considering the Mayo School of Astrology and I think the Huber School. I have most of the original books you mention and of course, Margaret Hone, but not the Chiron book.

    I attended a FAS seminar where Robert Hand was speaking, at the lunch break I happened to be standing next to him in the queue in the cafe. When we arrived at the till, he turned to me to help with the coins in his hand, he asked why the 50p piece was larger than the £1 coin, when it was only worth half that amount. I did manage to reply without turning into a gibbering idiot, as for me, it was akin to hero worship, having all his books which helped me enormously with my interpretations.
    Stephen Arroyo was another author whose books I still have, and would recommend, as mentioned by Marjorie.
    Having Uranus in Gemini in the first house, I have never stopped learning, and find long cycles (Pluto second return from Henry VIII/Queen Eliazabeth I to our Queen Elizabeth II, the end of our GB cycle) I am still in awe that time on our planet Earth was fixed in this cycle starting from the Greenwich meridian just outside London, in the northern hemisphere) for the whole world.

16. I loved the Liz Greene, Steven Arroyo and Howard Sasportas books. Those authors are what drew me in further.

    • The Mountain Astrologer has stopped printing.

      • It’s being relaunched soon by Frank Clifford, online:

        https://www.londonschoolofastrology.com/pages/tma

        I’m not sure about their archives, but there are some MA articles on astro.com anyway. Hope this helps.

        • That’s great to know. Thanks Jane

      • I received an email last week stating it was coming back!

    • The Howard Sasportas book “Gods Of Change” is a great read. “The 12 Houses” is decent. Plus he edited one of the Richard Idemon books which are both informative.

17. I agree on all. But if there are any that I’ve repeatedly referred to above the others, it’s all of Sakoian & Acker’s.

18. For beginners I can also recommend “Astrology – a Cosmic Science” by Isabel Hickey. It takes a more spiritual approach. You might even be able to find it online as a pdf.

    Personally I found Sakoian and Acker’s Handbook most thorough but always seeming to put a negative spin on everything. Best to balance their views with other interpretations.

    • Yes, I have a copy of A Cosmic Science, bought it new in the 1990’s and now it is completely brown around
      the pages, because I read it so often. Even today, Isabel’s words in that book continue to help teach me.

      My late mother, I never knew her birthtime. I always stared at her chart, trying to rectify it. I kept coming
      back to something Isabel wrote, about a native with a 5th house Pluto. “If there are children promised in
      the chart, they will be unusual and not run-of-the -mill types. If you knew my late half sister, and me,
      we are extremely unusual people. Not successful at all, but boy did we end up being unusual. I just
      could not imagine my mother being Pisces rising, so I was stumped.

      Finally recently found my mother’s born at home birth certificate on an ancestry site, with the birthtime.
      Isabel Hickley was a genius. What was confusing me was what Isabel explains about this placement.
      She writes: “This placement is similar to the Sun in conjunction with Pluto”. I was picking up on this,
      but never thought to apply it. Anyway, my mother was a Pisces rising, 5th house Pluto, opposing her
      11th house Mars. In my chart, Pluto opposes my Pisces Moon/Chiron, Pluto opposite Moon exact, zero
      degree orb.

      I also consider myself fortunate, I will always be grateful that Robert Hand picked the phone up and
      spoke to me personally once, when I called him to ask him a question. I also spoke to the late great
      Noel Tyl on the phone once, shortly before he passed away. It was very frustrating to me to try to
      speak or listen to Noel Tyl, it felt like I was trying to communicate with an alien, and for that I am
      sorry, because I now know how many people adored him.

      • Hmm I met Noel Tyl once and it was not a great experience I would have to admit. Marginally creepy.

    • Ebertin can be gothic as well and treated with caution tho’ v useful. . But I always found Sakoian & Acker’s more ‘negative spins’ useful when I did not understand why an individual who was clearly less than wonderful had aspects which I had lazily imagined were positive.

19. Thank you Marjorie!

20. Great list! I have many of these books or at least authors, but some I will go check out. Endlessly fascinating.

    If I might, I would add Donna Cunningham’s An Astrological Guide to Self-Awareness, which I found helpful when I was just starting out learning about astrology. It appears to be available used. (I can recommend https://www.addall.com/ as I good aggregator of used book sites.)

21. For out of print books, you can check on Internet archive website, which is a vitual non profit library with millions of free texts.
    https://archive.org/

22. For astrology sites, I’d especially recommend (this one of course) and Astrodienst (www.astro.com) set up by Swiss Alois Treindl who met and brought on board Liz Greene, Rob Hand and other renowned astrologers.
    Link below to description and timeline Astrodienst’s history.
    For magazines, recommend The Mountain Astrologer, The Astrological Journal.
    The Wessex Astrologer is an excellent site (and shop) for buying astrology books.

    https://www.astro.com/contact/contact_about_e.htm