Episode 10 - What Makes An Astrologer? with Daniel Norman
Today we are doing something a little bit different. This is the second episode of a mini-series entitled ‘What Makes An Astrologer,’ which came about as a result of the comments that Rob Hand made on a recent Astrology Podcast episode about significations in the birth chart of a professional astrologer.
The link to this episode is in the show notes. Therein, Rob Hand makes a bit of an off-hand comment saying
“The 11th sign from the Lot of Fortune is a Place of Acquisition. People [at Project Hindsight] started looking at their charts, and an awful lot of people had one of the following things true: The Lot of Fortune was in a sign ruled by Mercury, or Mercury was in the sign of the Lot of Fortune, or those same two condition applied to The Place of Acquisition, which is the 11th sign from the Lot of Fortune. And to this day, if I don’t find that in a person’s chart, I wonder about their credentials as an astrologer. This is for making money by astrology, by the way. It’s not for studying it. All you need to study it is a good, solid Mercury.”
In the wake of this episode, there was some commentary about it on social media. Being curious about what Hand said, I put out a tweet thread looking at these conditions in five professional astrologers charts. In one way or another, all five of those people met Hand’s criteria. I’ve put a link to that tweet thread in the show notes for your reference.
In response to that, Michel, who is @astrospeccion on Twitter, shared a database of famous astrologers from astro-seek.com with me, and encouraged me to do more research into this subject. I was reticent, but Mo, who is @austral_taur on Twitter, told me that she’d help me carry out a research project looking at Hand’s criteria in famous and/or professional astrologers. Mo and I ended up looking at about 90 charts of historical, famous astrologers, and received input from about 40 contemporary professional astrologers through a Google form survey.
In this series, I will speak with five astrologers and thinkers - Cameron Allen, Daniel Norman, Amy Green, Dorje Kirsten, and Ali A Olomi - about their thoughts on Rob Hand’s comments, and other significations they identify in the birth chart that may point to remuneration from astrology.
The series will culminate in a conversation between Mo and I where we discuss our research and the conclusions that we’ve drawn from it. In addition, I plan to release an article on my website after the series airs where I summarize our findings and the thoughts of my guests in this series.
Please be sure to subscribe to my website for updates, which is linked in the show notes below.
Now for my second conversation of this series with the thoughtful, gracious astrologer Daniel Norman. I think we went quite deep for the amount of time that we spoke. I want to warn listeners that there is some profanity in this episode, so please proceed accordingly. I also want to say that in this episode we talk a lot about the nature of suffering, as it relates to life, which I know can be a challenging topic for some. I want to elaborate here on what I said in my conversation with Daniel. Therein, I say that suffering can be good, and I want to reiterate, as I do in the episode, that that’s an oversimplification. What I meant by that is that I’ve been, perhaps, fortunate to be able to make meaning and find purpose as a result of some of the challenging things that have happened in my life. But I don’t necessarily think that suffering is a good thing, or that anyone is required to find meaning in the painful things that have happened in their lives. Hope that makes sense. And I want to thank Daniel again for having that conversation with me in real time, because I think it was an important thing for me to explore. In addition to talking about that, we also discuss the 9th House, especially as it relates to the Sun, and the mystery of fate, or destiny, or our life path, for lack of a better term.
I hope you enjoy it.
Please, be sure to check out the links to Daniel’s website and socials below, as well as links to some of the resources that we touch on in our conversation.
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Visit my website here - https://luminaries-in-and-out-of-sect-podcast.ghost.io/
And please subscribe to and rate the show on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
You can also find me on Instagram @sphallastro and Twitter @vincit_qui_se. Please feel free to follow me there, and let me know that you’ve found me from listening to the show.
If you have any questions or feedback on the show, please feel free to email me at: sphallhorary@gmail.com
Book a consultation with Daniel - https://www.everhappening.com/
Find Daniel on Instagram and Twitter - https://www.instagram.com/everhappening/; https://twitter.com/daniel_the_lion
My tweet thread about Rob Hand’s Criteria in 5 professional astrologers’ charts - https://twitter.com/vincit_qui_se_/status/1625196832799473665?s=20
Rob Hand on the Astrology Podcast (quote is from 47:00-47:55) - https://youtu.be/u4xJP74Rx1Q
Photo for Cover Art by Luke Stackpoole @WithLuke on Instagram - https://unsplash.com/photos/TRXSkmJb40c
Intro/Outro music is ‘Clair de Lune,’ composed by Claude Debussy, played by David O and available courtesy of Great Scott Gadgets - https://greatscottgadgets.com/2021/08-05-open-source-clair-de-lune/