The Complete Guide to Astrology, Vedic Astrology and Tarot: Learning Astrology and Tarot Series

By R. Sheth

The complete collection of three books in the Learning Astrology and Tarot Series containing:

 

✓ Astrology: You Were Born & The Stars Aligned

✓ Vedic Astrology: The Map of Destiny 

✓ Intuitive Tarot: The Seeker's Tool

 

In Book 1 discover: the foundation of western astrology and understand the meaning of planets, houses, aspects and zodiac signs. Get to grips with birth chart interpretation and predictive techniques such as transits, progressions and solar returns.

 

In Book 2 learn: advanced astrology and develop astrological knowledge of the eastern system. You will get to grips with the role of constellations, nodes of the Moon, and learn further techniques for prediction, understanding relationships and your life purpose.

 

In Book 3 explore: the world of tarot, add to your divination toolkit and develop an understanding of how to read tarot intuitively. Delve deep into the meanings of the cards, suits and characters as well as the interaction of tarot with numerology and astrology.

 

This collection is a comprehensive guide for the beginner or advanced student to develop knowledge of divination, astrology and tarot and learn the different ways in which they interact. It also allows you to learn western and eastern astrology so that you have a in depth understanding of all your birth charts as well as adding to your directory of meanings when reading tarot.

 

So, get this collection now - an excellent source of spiritual reference that you will treasure for a lifetime!

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. Sheth
• Release date: Feb 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393768562

Book preview

The Complete Guide to

Astrology,

Vedic Astrology

and Tarot

Copyright © 2021 R. Sheth All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher and copyright owner

Published by The Many Sides

Contents

Book 1 – Astrology: You Were Born & The Stars Aligned

Introduction

The Mystery of Astrology

Destiny, Fate or Free Will?

Sign and House Systems

Building Blocks

Understanding the Signs

Elements

Modalities

Dignities

The 12 Zodiac Signs

The Personality Planets

The Ascendent

The Moon

The Sun

The Relationship Planets

Mercury

Venus

Mars

Understanding the Houses

The Wheel of life

The 12 Houses

The Points

Planets and Houses

Putting It All Together

The Birth Chart

Interpreting Your Chart

Predictive Techniques

Interpreting Transits

Short Term Transits

Jupiter and Saturn

Transformative Transits

Progressed Charts

Solar Return Charts

Predicting Life Events

Relationships and Children

Career, Money and Education

Horary Astrology

The Ethics of Prediction

Going Further

Book 2 – Vedic Astrology: The Map of Destiny

Introduction

How to Use this Book

Eastern or Western?

Adding Planets and Points

How to Read a Vedic Chart

The Planets

The Houses

The Importance of the Moon

The 27 Constellations

The Nodes of the Moon

Adding Vedic Techniques

The Divisional Charts

Predictions and Dasha Systems

The 7 Significators of Life

Adding Relationship Techniques

Synastry and Composite Charts

Love and Marriage

The Spouse

Timing Love

Adding Career Techniques

Your Career and Money

Houses and Planets in Career

Houses

Planets

Your Ultimate Life Purpose

Astrology and Legacy

Book 3 – Intuitive Tarot: The Seekers Tool

Introduction

The Mystery of Tarot

Getting Started

Intuitive Understanding

The Fool’s Journey

The Suits

The Characters

The Numbers

Intuitive Meanings

Major Arcana

The Fool

The Magician

The High Priestess

The Empress

The Emperor

The Hierophant

The Lovers

The Chariot

Strength

The Hermit

The Wheel of Fortune

Justice

The Hanged Man

Death

Temperance

The Devil

The Tower

The Star

The Moon

The Sun

Judgement

The World

Minor Arcana

Pentacles

Wands

Cups

Swords

The Intuitive Reader

Ways In

Patterns

Spreads

Last Words

ASTROLOGY

You Were Born & The Stars Aligned

Introduction

The Mystery of Astrology

Astrology is an addictive science, so I am so excited and thrilled to be sharing this journey with you as you dive into the rich pool of this ancient science! Astrology is rich, because it’s full of gems of wisdom; ancient, because it stretches back in some form from around the 2nd Millenia BC; and it is a science because it is always developing, it is always being expanded and researched, and added to with hypothesis and experimentation.

Astrology, as most of us recognise it today, is primarily in the predictive form, in the form of Sun Sign horoscopes. For people of my generation, we used to read them in the daily tabloid or in the back of a magazine. I’m pleased to say commonplace astrological knowledge now is much more sophisticated. There are great astrologers online now who share profound insights and have opened up the world of astrology in ways that were closed before.

As I mentioned, astrology can be thought of as a science – one that involves hypothesis, experimentation and proof in order for it to be advanced – and in order to go from a beginner in science to a master, eventually you will want to know how to apply the basic principles yourself and test and form your own theories and techniques.

Astrology is related to astronomy of course, the planets and stars, the celestial bodies that we see every day like the Sun and Moon and the ones at the distant edges of our solar system, like Pluto. Astrology also involves, once you dive deeper, all manners of asteroids smaller bodies like the Nodes of the Moon, and of course the whole basis of astrology is based on a system of 12 Zodiac signs which are based on the constellations.

The fact that astrology is based on these mystical distant, yet ever present bodies, and somehow these affect our energy, our destiny and our relationships, is amazing to some and to others a bunch of nonsense. How can it be, they ask, that Pluto affects the way in which we deal with transformation and causes revolution every generation here on Earth?

It has long been known that the Moon affects the tides and widely believed that in turn it also affects women’s menstrual cycles and their fertility. The Moon’s effect on us and our cycles may be explained in the same way the Moon affects the tides through the gravitational pull of the Moon on water. And as we are mostly water could this be the reason? And if that is the case can the other planets not have similar effects on our systems, the organic matter of our bodies and minds? And just as the Moon is the closest and therefore would have a greater impact, would it then mean that planets more distant would have a lesser or different effect?

Suffice to say no one has ‘proved’ astrology by showing how the planets affect us. You can decide once you see the principles in action whether or not you think it is ‘real’. And as a true student of anything I would encourage everyone to question and critique and not blindly take anything on faith. That would not be doing credit to serious astrology and would relegate it to the realms of superstition or magic which serious astrologers have never intended it to be. It is not supposed to be a fortune telling tool but a tool to really know yourself.

Essentially, astrology is a tool in self-mastery to overcome the destiny we all too frequently inevitably get drawn into without question. In knowing yourself, you ultimately tap into the power of free will and not just be governed by your own intrinsic tendencies and nature – to understand these tendencies is to therefore create your own way.

Destiny, Fate or Free Will?

A word about destiny and fate. People think astrology is determinative and therefore depressing. That, basically, astrology says that your fate is set by some calculations and depending on this mystical lucky draw you are dealt your cards and that is it. That is not true, at least not to my understanding, of the value of astrology. Ultimately, there are many ways of interpreting the same configuration in your chart and so you always have a choice - will you unlock the positive or negative side? What will you make of lessons and trials? Even when there is an element of fate, I believe it is small and destiny plays a larger role.

Destiny in my definition is what we are tended towards based on our tendencies and personality which is not a fatalistic concept but rather probabilistic. And even here we can use astrology to create more opportunities for free will which normally none of us really exercise. Even where we think we are acting freely, we are actually just doing what our conditioning, subconscious and nature would intend us to do. Where is the room for free will without understanding and mastery of the self?

So, I would encourage you to see astrology as this – a science which is constantly evolving even though there are established principles; that destiny rather than fate is what shapes us and that we can affect destiny through self-understanding; and that astrology, more than anything, gives us tools to go deeper and deeper into ourselves, to the core of our true selves.

No one else is like you. You were born at a specific time and place at a latitude and longitude which it is physically impossible for two people to share, even if you are a twin. Therefore, your unique birth chart is just that, truly unique – a map, if you like, of where you could go – but it is up to you to figure out how to read it and make it get to where you want to go. In fact, it is more than a map of how to get you where you want to go – it also tells you where you want to go, really in your heart, and that is the true magic of astrology.

Sign and House Systems

Astrology, as well as being a science, is also heavily based on mathematical calculations. For example, a birth chart is a circle and is 360 degrees and in every chart there will always be 12 houses and 12 signs that take up a portion of the space in the 360 degrees of the chart.

However, what you need to know is that there are different ways of calculating where a sign starts and ends as well as how charts should be divided into houses. These are all advanced topics, which I encourage you to find out more about later, but essentially there are two main ways of calculating signs – the tropical system, which is the subject of this book and what western astrologers generally use, and the sidereal system, which is what Vedic astrology uses.

Sidereal and tropical are astronomical terms used to describe two different definitions of a year. Both divide the ecliptic into a number of signs, but while the sidereal system defines the signs based on the fixed stars, the tropical system defines it based on the position of the vernal equinox.

What this means in practice is that you may be a Cancer Sun in western astrology using the tropical system and a Gemini Sun in Vedic astrology using the sidereal system. This book focuses on western tropical astrology. While there are similarities between the systems, and you will find one compliments the other as you learn both systems, it is best to become firmly rooted in one before learning the other. So do not get too hung up on people saying you are another sign in Vedic astrology – just know that it does not negate or invalidate your western signs and birth chart. In time, if you feel inclined, you can add Vedic astrology to your body of knowledge and find it to be enhancing rather than contradictory to your western astrology knowledge.

I also mentioned there are different systems of calculating a birth chart. For example, some systems say that the birth chart which is 360 degrees should be divided equally into 12 separate compartments (or houses of 30 degrees each), while other systems use an unequal house system of different degrees. Some systems use a whole sign method – i.e. one house takes up an entire sign from beginning to end while other systems allow houses to straddle two signs.

Depending on which method is used you will produce a slightly different looking chart. Again, this is an advanced topic, and it is unlikely to make much difference to your chart unless, for instance, you have a planet in a very early or late degree which means that a planet could, depending on which system you use, fall into the previous or next house. I therefore invite you to research more into this at a later date and see which system makes sense to you but for our purposes we will use the commonly used Placidus house system.

For all levels of student, an excellent and free site to calculate your birth chart and many other types of chart is at www.astro.com. Ultimately the best way to learn is to just produce a chart and then start applying the principles to understand how they work. For now, when using www.astro.com to throw up a chart, use the default settings in respect of the sign and house systems.

Building Blocks

Astrology is amazing because like any creative, dynamic system from a few building blocks many, many different structures of varying complexity, theories and systems can be built. There are universities where people study astrology and where serious academic research is being done in this area by astrologers who consider themselves less as mystics but more as intellectuals conducting a system of research and advancing knowledge.

The building blocks in astrology are the signs, houses, planets, aspects and degrees. The signs, houses and planets are the objects or the blocks, and the aspects and degrees are ways in which these objects or blocks interact with each other and with what force. There are 12 signs in astrology which most people are familiar with: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. There are 10 ‘planets’ in astrology which play a part in astrology. For these purposes, the Sun and Moon are called planets even though astronomically speaking they are not planets but a star and a satellite.

So far, so good, and mostly understood. The houses are another building block. There are 12 houses in our birth chart. They are the compartments or spheres of life on which astrology acts. Each compartment represents a different area of life from our relationships to our money, our education to our sex life. The houses in our birth chart, depending on whether they are in good or bad shape, show us how our life is in each area, which area is easy for us and which is more challenging.

Finally, aspects are the relationships between these blocks. Depending on the type of aspect, we can tell whether the relationship between these blocks is easy or challenging or somewhere in between. There are five main aspects in astrology: the conjunction, opposition, trine, square and sextile. The opposition and square are challenging aspects and the trine and sextile are easy aspects. The conjunction can be either negative or positive depending on which planets and signs are involved.

A conjunction is when a planet is on top of another planet, house or point, at the same degree. When it is found together like this, one point is said to be conjunct or in conjunction to the other. So, if my Saturn was at 7 degrees Libra and my Mars was also at 7 degrees Libra there would be a Saturn-Mars conjunction in my chart. In other words, a conjunction is where one planet is 0 degrees away from the other. The other aspects are calculated in similar ways depending on how far one planet is away from the other. The square aspect is a difference of 90 degrees, the opposition is 180 degrees, the trine is 120 degrees and the sextile is 60 degrees.

In calculating aspects, we don’t just take exact aspects, there is a catchment area or ‘orb’ of influence. The further outside of this orb we go, the weaker the influence is felt. Generally, astrologers take an orb of 3-4 degrees. Some go up to 8 or even 10 degrees. However, to do more exact interpretations, I would encourage you to take a narrow orb of 3-4 degrees. Using the example above, if my Mars was 7 degrees Libra and my Saturn was 11 degrees Libra we could still call this a conjunction (as although the conjunction is exact at 0 degrees this is ‘off’ only by four degrees so it is within orb). However, if my Saturn was 21 degrees Libra, although my Mars and Saturn are in the same sign, they are too far away too really affect each other by way of the conjunction aspect.

When you calculate a chart, the aspects will be shown alongside the chart. Each aspect is represented by a shorthand symbol. There are many other aspects apart from these major aspects but until you become more advanced, I suggest you look only at the major aspects. The table below is a useful reference as to the degrees and symbols associated with each major aspect.

t1

Understanding the Signs

Everyone knows about the 12 Signs of the Zodiac and there are many tomes that go into detail about the characteristics of each sign. This book is not designed to provide a comprehensive analysis of each sign but to give you sufficient information so that when we go further into considering a full birth chart you understand the foundations.

Before considering each sign individually however, you should know a little on how the signs are grouped. Each grouping tells us more about the signs and its relationship to other signs in the group and across the Zodiac.

Elements

There are four elements of signs, Water, Fire, Air and Earth. The Water Signs are Scorpio, Cancer and Pisces, the Fire Signs are Aries, Leo and Sagittarius, the Earth Signs are Virgo, Taurus and Capricorn and the Air Signs are Gemini, Libra and Aquarius.

Generally, Water Signs are emotional, intuitive, psychic, deep, spiritual, empathic, creative and nurturing. They are ‘Yin’ in the sense of being introverted, feminine, receptive rather than outward facing and action orientated. They are concerned with the inner world more than the outer.

Fire signs are the opposite and are ‘Yang’, masculine and action orientated. They are creators and leaders, visionaries, fighters and entrepreneurs. They have no problem leading the way for others, inspiring and motivating and fighting causes. They tend to be fiery, assertive, passionate, inspiring, adventure seeking, fun, extrovert, enterprising.

Then there are Air Signs. They are ‘Yang’ and again, similar to their Fire Sign cousins, are outward facing although the Air principle is more about thought rather than action. They tend to be intellectual, curious, freedom orientated, communicative, open minded, rational, logical, sociable.

Finally, Earth Signs are ‘Yin’ and introverted like their Water Sign cousins and are dependable, practical, earthy, sensual, nature loving, caring, materialistic. They are the fixers, the doers, the ones that keep things together whether that be church or state or families and communities.

Modalities

The signs are also divided into three categories or modalities depending on whether the sign is Fixed, Mutable or Cardinal.

The Cardinal signs are Aries, Libra, Cancer and Capricorn. They are leaders, the first movers of their element and they lead according to the element. So Aries are the leaders in the fire element. They lead in an inspiring, action orientated way. Cancer, on the other hand, leads in an emotional, intuitive way guided by their own inner compass – in fact they are often so understated in