Table of Contents:
Chapter One. Intuition.
Chapter Two. Choice.
Chapter Three. Time.
Chapter Four. Consciousness.
Chapter Five. What Is Astrology?
Chapter Six. The 8 Laws of Art.
Chapter Seven. Prophecies.
Chapter Eight. The Golden Ratio.
Chapter Nine. How an Astro Forecast Works.
Chapter Ten. Astrological Houses.
Chapter Eleven. The Symbolism of Astro Houses.
Chapter Twelve. Planets and Houses.
Chapter Thirteen. Tarot and Astrology Together.
Chapter Fourteen. The Zodiac.
Chapter Fifteen. The Influence of Planets.
Chapter Sixteen. Malefics and Benefics.
Conclusion.
From the Author
“You have truly understood something only when you can explain it to a child.”
Albert Einstein.
When I began studying Jyotish in 2008, it turned out to be the most difficult branch of astrology to understand. All the terminology is in Sanskrit, and there are many religious aspects. One has to study not only astrological principles but also Indian mythology and cosmology. For more than fifteen years I collected, piece by piece, the nuances of interpretation that I share in this book. But to understand how a Jyotish chart works, one must grasp the foundation — everything is an expression of Kala Purusha. In Sanskrit, Kala means “time,” and Purusha means “the observer.” According to the ancient Indians, the entire universe is a great super-consciousness. In modern science, this idea is known as pansychism.
In this book, I examine in detail what consciousness and time are. Jyotish, like any other astrological system, studies the cycles of time. All modern sciences grew out of natural philosophy; the division into separate disciplines appeared later. Because of this division and specialization, modern astrology absorbed many mistakes and distortions. Jyotish, however, has reached us almost unchanged and is therefore the most stable and least contradictory branch of astrology. It was unaffected by the Dark Ages or the persecution of the Inquisition. Many Jyotish methods were preserved in families and transmitted through sacred texts — shlokas. According to modern researchers, Jyotish existed even before writing appeared, and these sacred texts were originally transmitted orally. This tradition continues to this day.
Five thousand years ago, the sage Bhrigu was granted the ability to see the past and future of all human generations, and he recorded this knowledge on palm leaves. Later generations would call this work the Bhrigu Samhita. As you can see, Jyotish is a very strict and systematic tradition that has remained unchanged for centuries. What is done well once works forever.
In this book I convey the essence of the system — the foundational principles without which interpretation becomes difficult not only for the astrologer but also for the person seeking answers. I intentionally omitted Sanskrit terminology and technical astrological vocabulary. I wrote in clear and accessible language so that these introductory teachings would be understandable not only to astrologers but also to general readers.
This book will guide you slowly, step by step, into the world of universal symbolism: from simple divination techniques, through the mystery of the Major Arcana of the Tarot — and eventually unifying everything into a single symbolic system, crowned by astrology.
Modern understanding of the universe has made it possible to explain principles of astrology that were difficult to comprehend even 10–15 years ago. Symbolism is not something detached from reality. Its foundations appear in quantum physics and are being refined every day. Vacuum fluctuations describe one of the aspects of the ancient Indian concept of prana. For some reason, the universe “knows” what each particle should look like, how the atom must be arranged, and by which laws molecules and their interactions take place. Therefore, an informational layer must exist somewhere — a kind of library of cosmic blueprints and laws. Symbolism is the ancient name for this layer. Everything that exists is described and present in the universe in the form of universal formulas.
I am confident that this book will help you understand how astrology works — and how symbolism works in particular. You will return to it more than once, synchronizing your inner growth and new insights with what is presented here. Things feel complicated only when we do not understand how they work. Once understood — everything becomes simple.
Enjoy your reading.
Chapter One. Intuition
You are facing a complex life situation. You have several options, but each of them is risky. The natural desire is to choose something, since humans are given the freedom of choice. And here arises the main question: how do you choose the best option if the consequences are unknown? Nature has its own answer to this question — evolution. Choose incorrectly, and the species dies. Choose correctly, and the species survives, and this choice is encoded in the genes.
This explains both the fear of spiders and the love of cats. Spiders are often venomous, so it’s better to keep your distance. But cats require observation: our ancestors were often threatened by wild predators, and those who knew how to carefully watch predatory cats survived, embedding this observation into their genes.
So, to choose the optimal path, one must listen to their genes. Yet we do not know how to communicate with them in the usual way. But there is a certain mysterious force — intuition — that helps us make decisions. To use it, you need to form an image in your mind and wait a little. If a similar situation is recorded in your genes, you will “feel” the solution.
This method, to be honest, is not the most reliable. But how else could nature implement genetic communication? Over 80 billion neurons in the brain and 30–40 trillion cells in the body — that’s a colossal amount of information that cannot be fully processed. Simply put, our DNA is a giant book, and each gene is a separate page. Each cell’s nucleus contains such a page, many of which are repeated. Reading the entire book is impossible. The mechanism of intuition is more about guessing the result than reproducing it exactly.
In a critical situation, when a decision is needed immediately, and there is no other way besides intuition — it is still better than acting blindly.
But another problem arises: how do you distinguish intuition from mere expectation of the desired outcome? Here, systems of divination based on visual images come to the rescue. There are many such systems, here are some of them:
- divination with coffee grounds, tea, or wine
- divination by smoke or ash
- divination using wax or molten lead
- reading clouds and sky patterns
- interpreting reflections and water waves
- flame interpretation
- lithomancy and sand practices
- perceiving random shapes
Our brain fills in about two-thirds of the information it receives, and if you focus on finding an intuitive solution, it begins to see familiar patterns even in random forms. Scientists are absolutely right: in these patterns, you can see almost anything. For materialistic science, this is not proof of divination, but for esotericists, it is. Not everyone needs an explanation of the principles; more often, people just need a working method.
Examples of this principle in everyday life are obvious:
You want to buy something — and suddenly you see it everywhere, as if the universe itself is signaling: “Here it is, take it.”
If you are anxious, the world will show only bad news: police cars, fire trucks, ambulances.
If you are in love, the whole world seems like a fairy tale: everything is sweet, and gloomy people and bad things seem to vanish.
Now let’s delve into the understanding of symbolism. The situation is the same: you need to make a choice, but the consequences are unknown. Sometimes, you do not want to rely on your own intuition. Then you seek advice from the outside. From the outside, the situation looks different: an external observer does not feel your stress, and their view is not clouded by expectations.
A modern person often tries to manage without esotericism and goes to experts. Don’t know whether to plant potatoes or tomatoes — you go to farmers. Want to choose tiles for the kitchen — you go to tile installers. Experiencing inner distress — you go to psychologists. And only when all the experts in the world cannot help, do people turn to esotericists.
An esotericist applies their methods to answer your questions. In the case of divination based on images, it is important that the diviner resonates with your question — as if addressing their own genes with your query. This is an extremely subjective and complex process. The diviner must empathize with you and understand the essence of the question. If there is no empathic connection, the answer will be weak or distorted. An observant person can even tell, from the answers of some diviners, what troubles them personally.
To solve this problem, ancient diviners began observing nature. They noticed that nature reflects the essence of phenomena through synchronicity. Many esotericists build their work on this idea: dozens of books about synchronicity, archetypes of the psyche, God, and the Universe. I will not repeat their content — after reading these books, clarity rarely increases. I will present the essence more briefly and clearly, saving your precious time.