progressed chart

Fate and the progressed chart

fate or free willThe question of fate vs. free will is a thorny debate among astrologers.  Traditional astrologers, such as those who practice Hellenistic, Vedic or Medieval astrologers, tend to believe more firmly in the concept that the unfolding of our lives occurs in a predestined pattern and that we as humans have very little choice in the process.

It’s clear when you learn to read the astrological symbols that fate and destiny are tightly interwoven.  We are born with certain planets in certain placements which enables someone like me to be able to identify psychological patterns of a perfect stranger across a phone line with no previous information, just from looking at the birthchart.  And yet, you can take two different people born at the same moment in the same location, with identical charts, and while there will be similarities in the underlying dynamics of the chart their choices and outcomes will be completely different.

AK asked in the comments:

I have a question about your series on fate and free will. I always wondered why progressed chart should show how we “evolve”, if we have the free will to change our destiny. In other words, if we are born with certain challenges, lessons to be learnt (during transits to our natal planets), but at the same time have the ability to choose our destiny, we can evolve very differently than what progressed chart might show us. Progressing our natal planets somewhat assumes we are born with a certain fate…..

I thought this was an important question that deserves its own posts.  I’ve written on this topic before, but it’s an ongoing question that never gets old.

The progressed chart is the natal chart “progressed” forward through time, revealing […]

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By |2013-12-14T17:52:16-05:00December 14th, 2013|Fate, Favorite posts|4 Comments

More on Letterman’s Birthchart and What is Rectification?

The other day I wrote on Dave Letterman’s chart as it affects his situation at the moment, embroiled in a blackmail scheme and needing to make major apologies to his wife and staff.  My anonymous commenter Chiron questioned the birth time of 6 am which has been put forth by the wonderful people at Astrodatabank which is now posted on astro.com and is listed with a Rodden rating of A.

Rectification is the art, or fantasy depending on how you look at it, of assigning a time of birth to a person where no birth time is known, using the astrological correlations with certain events in a person’s life.
Rectification is more reliable when we have a smaller time range, for example, if I know that someone was born in the afternoon I can generally narrow down the time using rectification methods.  But if we have no birth time, such as in the case of a celebrity, and we rectify based on what we THINK we know about that celebrity, we are not doing ourselves or the field of astrology any favors.
The example of what happened with Susan Boyle’s birthchart is a good one.  Susan Boyle, as you may recall, exploded into public view overnight.  Nothing was known about her, but when a birth time was found astrologers all over the world began publishing what we thought were extremely accurate portrayals of her birthchart using this birth time.  Unfortunately for us, that birth time turned out to be incorrect and the correct birth time did not appear to be so accurate based on what we assumed we knew about Susan Boyle.
That said, the 6 am time for Letterman comes from a staffer and from his biography so it is reasonably reliable although when I see a rounded-off time […]
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By |2009-10-06T15:26:15-04:00October 6th, 2009|Astrology, People|Comments Off on More on Letterman’s Birthchart and What is Rectification?