Episode 13 - What Makes An Astrologer? with Ali A Olomi
Today we are doing something a little bit different. This is the fifth 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 fifth conversation, the penultimate episode of this series with the astrologer and academic Ali A Olomi.
In many ways, my conversation with Ali was a culmination of topics put forth by the other guests of this series. First off, referring to astrologers of the Medieval Islamicate, he corroborated the criteria put forward by Rob Hand, while adding crucial details and addenda. Furthermore, Ali mentioned looking at the 3rd House, which was mentioned by Cameron Allen. He spoke of the 9th House, which was mentioned by Daniel Norman. He spoke to the importance of the Lot of Spirit, which Dorje Kirsten and I discussed in depth. And Ali also reiterated points put forward by Amy Green, such as looking to the term lord of the Ascendent and Midheaven to discern the vocation of the native. But he added enriching texture and detail to discussions of this topic as well. He suggested looking at the dodecatemoria, the 12th part, of the Ascendant and the Lot of Fortune. We discussed looking at the house 11th from the Lot of Spirit, as well what planets cast rays there, and Ali outlined the differences between the more Mercurial Modern Astrology from the Saturnian pre-modern Astrology.
I was really honored to be able to have this conversation with Ali, and to have all of the conversations in this series. Thanks again for joining, Ali, and for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us.
Please, be sure to check out the links to Ali’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
Become a member of Ali’s Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/headonhistory/posts
Find Ali on Instagram and Twitter - https://www.instagram.com/aaolomi/; https://twitter.com/aaolomi
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/TRXSkmJb40cIntro/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/