Deborah Houlding is one of the most appreciated astrologers with specialisation in Horary Astrology. In 1993 she managed to draw the attention to the traditional astrological methods through The Traditional Astrologer magazine, which has been published until 2000. For this contribution she was awarded from the P.A.I. of America. At the same time her publishing house (Ascella Publications) reissued many astrological texts of historical importance while she bought the rights to maintain the publishing of remarkable texts (the English translation of Dorotheus’ Carmen Astrologicum for example).
Her book, The Houses: Temples of the sky, which was published in 1996 (and re-published in 2006 as an enriched edition) is considered one of the most basic texts for the development and use of the astrological houses.
Deborah has played a determinative role to the reintroduction of the traditional astrological techniques into the main scene in a time when the fashion in astrological circles and its new branches that were at birth, had put aside the traditional roots of astrology. Yet the discovery of a serious health problem in 1998 kept her away from all her professional activities.
In 2002 she got back to the field through her site called Skyscript which is one of the most popular astrological sites in the internet. She also continues her in- depth researches of astrology’s historical techniques, she has her own school of Horary astrology and regularly writes for the respected Mountain Astrologer magazine, while travelling all over the world giving seminars to professionals as well as amateur astrologers.
Deborah impressed us, not only with her outstanding knowledge but also with her modesty – but most of all with her enthusiasm and passion for the subject. She is a deeply philosophical human being, with integrity of opinion, as much as a remarkable love and rare devotion in research. Like she mentions in the following interview, which she kindly gave to myhoroscope for her Greek friends, she has to live many years in order to keep studying astrology and that is exactly what we wish for her in return!
myhoroscope: Skyscript is a marvellous site, rich in information and wonderful graphics. Articles and essays cover a multitude of astrological themes and techniques and it has proved to be a committed work of both you and your fellow astrologers. What made you start Skyscript in the first place?
Deborah Houlding:It’s hard to say because there was never a business plan, or even a conscious intention to start up a busy website. Like many people, I’m intrigued by the prospect of being able to publish and share material over the web, and to begin with I was playing around with what could be done, just trying out new techniques to see what I was able to produce by myself. It was probably just the same motivation that leads astrologers to start up blogs, except I started a little earlier, before the blog-scene came along. I still see Skyscript as a creative hobby that I work on when I have time to spare, so I don’t worry about such things as traffic stats or browser rankings, or filling it up with commercial opportunities. I think that astrologers like it for the same reason that I do – because there are lots of very good astrologers who volunteer to share material on the site, so there is an underlying essence of it being a place where astrologers can gather to learn and share experiences whilst exploring the resource material. I have always liked the idea of that, so perhaps I had that in mind as a subconscious plan when I started.
myhoroscope:You have often mentioned the fact that you have been very sceptical about astrology. What made you change your mind and eventually make astrology your profession?
Deborah Houlding: I could still become very skeptical if I stop to analyze some of the ‘irrational’ principles of astrology – like the idea that planets can have areas of the sky where they become ‘dignified by rulership’. But I was always fascinated by the cultural significance of the way we put meaning into nature’s cycles, and how we draw practical information from them. I realize that what we are really doing with the older beliefs is projecting philosophical principles onto the planets, which help to express their seasonal and cyclical meanings. I find the ancient philosophical principles deeply fascinating. They are like myths, not to be taken at face value, but as a route to enlightenment. When I work as an astrologer I simply allow my rational mind to go calm and quiet so that my intuitive mind can get to work with all this symbolic meaning. I don’t stop to question any more because astrology has proven itself to be system that enlightens my understanding. Some days I have a better sense of how that happens than others, but whenever I work or think as an astrologer I stop asking the questions; I just go with the flow.
As for profession, I probably became a ‘professional astrologer’ when I gave up another career to work full time as a magazine features writer (not horoscopes but topical astrological themes that were simplified to a point where they made suitable ‘coffee-time’ reading). At that time I was doing some work as a horary teacher and had started taking on consultations, but only in my spare time. The magazine work was successful but although the money was good, within a year I thoroughly hated it. Media work completely zapped my creativity, because it was always essential to keep ‘dumbing down’ what I wanted to say, to make it palatable to the broadest possible range of people (so the assumption was always, that the reader knows nothing about what I am talking about and will only think about this superficially, just for a moment). So in reality, I think I truly committed to ‘being an astrologer’ when I gave up the day-job that paid well, but which I didn’t really ‘buy into’, and launched the Traditional Astrologer Magazine instead, knowing that was crazy thing to do on many levels, but trusting the astrology of the decision, that it was right for me. (Thereafter followed a 7-year period of being financially impoverished, but stimulated as an astrologer and creatively fulfilled
myhoroscope: Is there an aspect and / or position in your chart which you feel that is tricky or perhaps has brought you trouble? How do you generally feel about hard aspects in a birth chart?
Deborah Houlding: A tricky aspect ? How about my Sun-Uranus square, with which I identify my need to want to ‘stir-things up a bit’, and go the opposite direction to where the collective is heading (and I say this knowing that your next question will ask about my ‘traditional’ approach to the birth chart). Actually, the first time I went to an astrology class the teacher took my birth chart out of my hands, held it up to the group, and said “oh dear, look here at these 12th house squares!”; so I used to feel that I should apologize for having my disgraceful and embarrassing chart.
But now that planetary dignities are back in fashion I get astrologers saying “how blessed you are to have all those dignified planets!” as if I should feel proud for having created them that way. As far as birth charts go, I think we ‘fill up’ the chart with what we uniquely are. When I was younger my hard aspects were always getting me into trouble because I didn’t know what to do with them – so then I used to think it was a very difficult chart; full of Moon-squares and Pluto on the IC.
Now I’m older and a little more seasoned I’m not so easily tripped by life’s ups and downs. I understand the theme of the energy so I accept difficult transits as something to be experienced without heavy self-analysis. And so now I think I have a lovely chart, with the luminaries in trine and Jupiter on the MC – but you know, I have worked hard to put the emphasis where it should be.
myhoroscope: You are mainly interested in traditional astrology. What is the "traditional" approach to a birth chart and why did you choose to practise this branch?
Deborah Houlding: I am only interested in astrology. Full stop. I am certainly interested in the history and the living tradition of astrology, yes; but then personally I don’t understand how anyone could be sincerely interested in this subject, without wanting to know all about where it came from, and what happened in its past; how aspects of it have developed, and about the colorful and dramatic lives of its past practitioners.
As a practitioner myself, I also want to know and confidently understand its language, and I want to fully identify with the meaning that is invested in its symbolism. Unfortunately astrology went through a period of popularization which diluted some of its principles out of recognition, and then it went through a period of ‘creative reinvention’ to try to fill up the reasoning we had lost, with new explanations that could remain popular and easy for newcomers to understand. But the new explanations were as shallow as they needed to be to sell many books (like my media columns!). But this subject has very deep philosophical roots, and the truth is that it cannot be successfully popularized and commercialized without taking out something very central to what it essentially is.
In 1993 when I started up the Traditional Astrologer magazine, it was to help raise awareness of how far astrology, at that time, had drifted away from its traditional philosophy and original symbolism. But there has been a significant correction since then so I’m no longer happy to differentiate between ‘traditional’ astrology and ‘modern’ astrology. We are probably really talking about the differences between conventional western astrology as it should be (including the benefits of modern psychological understanding) and the over- simplified shadow of it that attracted a wider, but less committed audience. To explain what I mean, I speak at many astrological conferences, to astrologers who specialize in many different branches and types of astrology, and nowadays I know that the whole audience is able to comfortably relate to the points I make, in ways that could never have happened in the late 1980s.
At that time most astrologers were simply not open to the prospect of maintaining the traditional rulership of Saturn over Aquarius, or that the 8th house could signify an actual death rather than a period of psychological ‘beginning’. And yet the techniques I use today, (apart from references to outer planets) are close to those used by William Lilly in the 17th century. And what’s great is that Lilly’s techniques show a very close association with those described by more ancient authorities such as Sahl, Haly and Masha’allah (which are only a hop, skip and a jump away from the more ancient sources).
So the tradition of astrology is back on track as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t think that means we have to exclude all modern or unconventional additions; only that we should respect the essential philosophy of it, and be aware that part of the strength and endurance of astrology lies in the fact that it has a very strong heritage, which feeds into the cultural history of society.
myhoroscope: Many of your articles are devoted to the remarkable works of Ptolemy, William Lilly, and many others. What role should their work play in modern astrology and how do you use their writings in your work?
Deborah Houlding: As an astrological consultant I work mainly with horary, and my horary technique is based mainly on my understanding of the instruction and demonstrated examples given by Lilly in his Christian astrology. So Lilly, without a doubt, has been the most influential source on my astrological understanding, and I believe his text is still the best entry point for anyone wanting to explore traditional concepts, because it is highly practical and accessible, quotes passages from many older sources, and naturally leads towards a deeper understanding of older principles.
It’s not just the instruction about the theory, but whenever I reconstruct one of his example charts, or learn more about the historical examples, I find that the planetary symbolism is incredibly robust – whichever way the chart is tested or explored, Lilly’s reasoning and judgement is shown to be reliable and meaningful. There is simply no other historical or even modern horary authority that has left us the benefit of so much horary experience so directly. Other texts, like Bonatti’s or Sahl’s, offer good theoretical instruction, but they don’t give the personal examples (or at best they give one or two charts, whereas Lilly gave us dozens). So I see Lilly as a great horary teacher who passes on his experience and passion for his subject ‘straight from his heart’. It helps that I really do Like Lilly’s general approach and it especially helps that I like what I sense about Lilly as a person. I don’t think he was perfect in any way, and he wasn’t afraid to reveal his own flaws, but he was a good astrologer without a doubt, fully engaging in the practice of it whereas so many traditional ‘authorities’ seem afraid to go beyond the theory, using handed down chart-examples instead if drawing from their own experience.
Another relevant point is that Lilly wrote about his own passionate fascination with the subject, and how he would study for up to 18 hours a day to try to absorb all the information that he could – I honestly believe that when we associate with his energy and thoughts on the subject, we tap into that enthusiasm, so we can get motivated by it too.
As for Ptolemy’s work, I remember when I was first tasked with reading his Tetrabiblos, I thought it was incredibly dry, soul-less and boring. I’ve always be drawn to the charts and the symbolism, not the academic theory, and I’m much more comfortable with the notion of astrology being an art than a science. But every time I return to Ptolemy’s work I realise that it is much deeper and more meaningful than I realized; and now I see it is a very soulful work; which has to be understood by anyone grappling to understand what astrology is really about and where it came from. But it is difficult, and the understanding can only develop over time because Ptolemy was drawing upon ancient Babylonian sources and there are some points that we are only starting to understand as we should.
There have been times when I have researched something very deeply and then finally felt a sense of breakthrough; like I now understand something that I was not able to understand before, and it makes so much more sense of everything. And then I re-read some traditional work and eventually it dawns on me that older astrologers understood that principle all along, and it is fully implicit in their work, even if it is not directly stated. That makes me realise how much I am still ‘a learner’ when it comes to my understanding of what astrology is, and that I am likely to continue learning and discovering for the rest of my life. I have to hope it will be a long one, because I know I have so much yet to learn.
But I also think that when we come to the business of practicing astrology as a consultational art, we have to pull up something from our own selves, so at that point I don’t want to be thinking about traditional theory or technique, or stopping to look up ‘facts’ in tables, or feeling like a ‘learner’ that doesn’t quite understand the subject yet. During a consultation I let the symbolism speak and rest on my own remembered knowledge; knowing that I am personally in control of the situation and that I am personally responsible for the judgement I make.
The traditional understanding means that I am well equipped to do that, and I would advise every astrologer that wants to be good at chart interpretation to continue learning and exploring the sources that challenge their thinking and expand their understanding of planetary cycles. The traditional sources add another level of depth that I personally think has been very important to my own astrological work.
myhoroscope: In your book “The houses: Temples of the sky” you analyze your opinion on this extremely important issue - to explore the symbolism of astrological houses and their interpretation. The truth is that there are many different views on this subject and much confusion as to the interpretation. Considering the fact that Houses are fundamental in the chart, what is your opinion about the causes to this “confusion” and how do you approach it in your book?
Deborah Houlding: Now that I have written my book I don’t feel that sense of confusion! Other people that do feel confused should read my book (or read it again!) Seriously, I do believe that my book demonstrates how elegantly the traditional meanings can be explained and justified. When I wrote the text no one was thinking that way – but now I think my views have become fairly mainstream: the evidence speaks for itself. House meanings are not arbitrary or open for debate. Every house has a specific meaning which extends from the sense of motion, light, and rise and decline attached to that area of the celestial sphere.
Once the underlying principles are understood, the astrologer should know exactly how to read house signification within the context of each chart, and should be able to recognise how the principles have remained very consistent over the centuries. The confusion only comes when we try to maintain modern suggestions about house meanings that have no recognition in traditional literature, because they obviously don’t extend from the underlying principles. But over time the principles that are not very strong will slip away and the confusions will diminish. I’m basically happy with what I have written with regards to the origin of house meanings, so I’m content to let that work stand as it is because I think the ideas are still stewing, but they are settling as they should.
myhoroscope: What is your opinion about predictions? Do you find that predictions in general may help us prevent (or face) unpleasant situations or that ultimately we cannot avoid in any way destiny and therefore we must face any predictions as fate?
Deborah Houlding: If I didn’t believe that we were all navigating our lives against the rollercoaster of life, I wouldn’t be able to keep my interest in astrology. I’m interested in astrology that brings emotional healing, compassion and understanding, and psychological or physical confidence; I’m not interested in astrology being used as a tool to make one person look cleverer or more informed/psychic/powerful than another. So if astrology could not help us to make helpful, healing changes, then I would ask myself, what’s the point?
I certainly believe that some things in our lives are fixed and unalterable, but I also believe that we possess freedom of will to make choices around these, so that we set the seeds for many of our own harvests. Against this there is a realization that most of us operate on a predictable level for most of the time; and it often takes a real conscious effort to move onto another course that wouldn’t be deemed ‘predictable’ by our own standards. But since I believe that astrology can be used to explore and strengthen our understanding of ourselves, it is possible that it can both predict, and help to change, the predictable.
But let’s take a practical situation I often face of being asked to locate a missing pet, which is shown in the chart to be already dead. This is not a situation that I can change, and nothing I can do or say is going to alter the prospect of the querent being about to experience a period of grief and loss. But what I can do is heed Ptolemy’s advice, that by moving the querent gently towards the realization of the unalterable, I can help them become psychologically prepared for the inevitable (well, Ptolemy would say that foreknowledge fortifies the soul for what lies ahead). Lilly also says (in his Letter to the Student) that we should do so gently, by degrees, so that we don’t fill them with terror – and this is where I think that astrologers need to have good psychological training, or a good instinctive understanding of human nature.
Because to be able to understand what the chart is saying (or to make a correct prediction) is one thing; and often that’s the easy part. The real skill to being a good astrologer is to know what to do with this potentially devastating knowledge once we have it; and to realise how much of it to hold back, and how much to offer out, and in what way we should do that for each client, so that we don’t make a ‘clever prediction’ that actually destroys the client’s strength of mind and demoralizes their spirit.
myhoroscope:All (we) amateurs (and fans!) of Horary Astrology often stand in awe before the accuracy with which it describes events, people and situations. But this very fact makes me think that it can be both a useful application as well as a dangerous tool if used with malicious intent. What should be the proper use of Horary Astrology based on your experience and what are the necessary qualifications an astrologer must have in order to practise such techniques?
Deborah Houlding: Actually I don’t think that people who are motivated by malicious intent get very far with horary. Such people are generally thinking about short term satisfaction and horary constantly reinforces the need to take a broad and long term view of things. It’s a little like maintaining a relationship with a long term lover - once we get past the initial period of passion that comes with the new exploration of horary and the realization of what it can do, the astrologer needs to hold onto a state of ‘conscious awareness’ to keep horary working in a way that is meaningful and reliable over time.
I have seen a lot of students and practitioners that blaze with horary brilliance for a while, but then they overuse it and the system stops working for them, or their charts become unreliable, and so they lose interest. It’s important to see horary as a very precious commodity that shouldn’t be overused. It has to be honoured, so I do believe that it will only continue to keep performing if there is an attitude towards its use that considers it to be a little sacred or divine. If we use it with a malicious intent, we lose that. I have definitely found, in my experience, that practitioners who treat the subject lightly, or who have questionable motives, lose the ability to cast reliable charts, and then start talking about having a good ‘percentage of success’. That all seems like a lot of nonsense to me: if horary is honoured as a system, approached correctly and used appropriately, it is always able to offer illumination on what needs to be understood – it doesn’t throw out ‘good odds’.
As for qualifications, I’m not a lover of ‘qualifications’ in astrology. I think it is more important that the astrologer has the right qualities: an enquiring mind, a willingness to study and learn, an endless curiosity and fascination with the workings of celestial cycles and natural rhythms; a strong spirit and an open heart. If any of these are lacking the astrology won’t be as it should be. Then you can get very ‘clever’ astrologers who are academically qualified and can talk the theory of it effortlessly, but who don’t have experience or confidence in judging charts and who haven’t understood that the interpretation has to come through the subconscious engagement of the mind of the astrologer. If the astrologer has the right attitude to learn to feel comfortable with chart work, then I think everything else that is a necessary technicality can be learned over time, and developed through experience.
myhoroscope: “Warning” rules are a very important part of Horary astrology. What is your view on this and how should one continue when such complications arise?
Deborah Houlding: I don’t like the word ‘rules’ just as I don’t like the word ‘strictures’. These warnings are traditionally called ‘considerations’ which is a perfect label for what they are: factors to be aware of, to consider, and to bring into the judgement. Some of these warn about the possibility of a misleading request or a less than sincere querent, and I take them very seriously. They have proven their worth to me and they are a traditional part of the system, so to me it is inconceivable to disregard them as old fashioned and unnecessary (as some do). That doesn’t mean that I throw out a chart because it has one of the traditional considerations; that’s not what they are about.
On my course I teach that every element in every chart has meaning, and nothing should be overlooked – this is where we gather the finer details of the judgement. But nothing ever hinges on one chart-factor alone, and important themes are emphasized by repetition. So the presence of one ‘consideration’ is not something that concerns me, whereas an emphasized focus that points to an additional problem which needs to be considered is something I never pass over without checking. Very often it is only necessary to get back to the querent to have some detail looked at again, or the chart will be alerting me to the fact that the querent is failing to understand how they are actually causing the problem but projecting its cause onto something or someone else.
Other times it will alert me to the fact that I have to tread very carefully because the situation is very delicate. In any event the details that are noted in the considerations are useful interpretative points that have been noted because they were considered to be especially pertinent and reliable according to the ‘best experience’ of traditional authors. So they are like a traditional list of ‘points to note’, that’s all. Each of them has to be judged within the context of the chart in hand, to understand an actual meaning in each instance.
myhoroscope: What are your future plans on your work? Is there a book or other activities in progress?
Deborah Houlding: Currently I am engaged in what has been a prolonged period of research into the basis of horary technique, looking at why and how astrological techniques have shifted in emphasis over the centuries. It has been a journey of discovery that has helped me to iron out some of the apparent contradictions and confusions that get unthinkingly repeated in modern texts simply because they are ‘in the tradition’.
This was originally research that I needed to do as part of my advanced-level horary course material, which aims to give working horary astrologers enough understanding of the principles being used, to be able to teach the subject and confidently answer questions about why we do this here, or that there. You can probably imagine that since it is almost 15 years since I published my book on the houses, I have a huge amount of unpublished material that I plan to release in book-form when I can, but for now I am trying to resist the urge to ‘get something out there’ because I know it’s important to finalise this research first.
I’m nearing the end but I expect it to be at least another year, maybe a year and a half, before I will have finished everything I set out to do. At that stage there may well be a rapid succession of books as I condense some of the material down and make it suitable for wider distribution.
In the meantime there are a number of research projects that are set to be published as papers or articles; for instance I have a research paper into the origin and traditional development of aspects and orbs which will be published soon by the Warburg Institute as part of its proceedings from a conference held on medieval astrology in 2008, and the September 2010 edition of the Mountain astrologer will carry an edited version of a paper I wrote on the ancient use of ‘seasonal aspects’ of stars and how the circumpolar stars experience cycles of risings and settings, even though they never fall beneath the horizon.
I also have the ongoing release of my annotated version of Lilly’s Christian Astrology, which is being serialized on the Skyscript website – so there is actually quite a lot of material that is being released here and there, although I do realise that astrologers take material a lot more seriously when it is published in book form. I’m sure I’ll get around to that soon enough - as I said, I need to live a long life!
