27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book, January 4, 2003
This review is from: The Art of Predictive Astrology: Forecasting Your Life Events (Paperback)
This is not an introductory astrology book, but it is an excellent book for intermediate-level astrologers. The reader should definitely have an idea of what planets, houses, signs, transits, progressions, etc. are before buying this book. Rushman explains these terms well, but not extensively because the book is not really aimed at beginners in astrology.
This book is excellent because Rushman presents her system for doing astrological readings in a lucid and well-organized manner. She has clearly been doing professional astrology for quite some time (30 years), and it shows.
She sums up the book well in the introduction when she writes, "This is my system, and it has served me well for three decades. I follow a logical order, which helps me feel organized and comfortable... While this system is not complicated, it is thorough, and a competent astrologer can get what is needed for a good astrological reading." As an intermediate-level astrologer myself, who has done readings for family and friends and is preparing to make the transition to professional astrologer, I appreciated her simple and well-presented system greatly.
In terms of the criticisms given under the "Another average astrology book" review, it has been several months since I read this book but I don't remember it being horribly edited. There may have been editing errors but I don't recall them getting in the way of understanding the text.
As to the "old twelve-letter astrological alphabet", that is certainly a valid criticism and an excellent observation by that reviewer. I think I missed it because I assumed she did it that way for the sake of brevity, rather than adherence to an over-simplified system that makes planets = signs = houses. The book is not meant to be a cookbook astrology text, but she does try to insert some of that material in order to help people who are more at the beginner end of the spectrum. An argument could be made that by simplifying things that way in those portions she made them inaccurate, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed she did so for space reasons and to strike a balance between including enough cookbook material to help more novice astrologers and not so much that more experienced astrologers would be annoyed by a rehash of the basics. As I wrote above, this is another reason that this is an intermediate-level book, as moderately experienced astrologers will already know that planets, signs, and houses are different things and how to interpret things differently accordingly.
My only other criticisms, and these are minor, are that 1) there is no material on the solar arc direction method of prediction, and 2) there is too much material on progressed house cusps. Both of these are personal opinions of mine, however. I have read enough about solar arcs and used them enough to find them effective for predictions (and even just birth time verification). Similarly, I find progressing the house cusps to be excessive and tedious, generally not worth the extra work involved. However, this book isn't about what I like, it's about what Carol Rushman has found effective in her 30 years of astrological practice, and from that perspective the book achieves its stated goals admirably.
As I said, this is generally an excellent book. If you know the basics of astrology and would like one professional astrologer's time-tested system of doing readings, I highly recommend this book.
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48 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Another average astrology book..., February 14, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: The Art of Predictive Astrology: Forecasting Your Life Events (Paperback)
Pros:
Beginners are often overhelmed by the vast array of astrological predictive techniques. Ms. Rushman does a good job of presenting a coherent system that beginners can use to manage all the information.
Cons:
* On a superficial level, this book is just badly written and edited. There are all sorts of language errors that could easily have been picked up by the grammar checker of a decent word-processing program. My favorite was the paragraph that simply ended with a comma,
* Less superficially, a good editor could have helped Ms.Rushman to organize and tighten up her presentation a bit. She has a tendency to get caught in anecdotal stories and ramble, making it difficult to hold on to the thread of her presentation.
* Sadly, Ms.Rushman espouses the mistaken notion that a sign, a planet, and a house are all roughly the same thing. This is basically the old twelve-letter astroglogical alphabet first proposed (I believe) by Zip Dobyns, and it goes against literally hundreds of years of astrological practice.
For example, this system would have you believe that the Moon combined with ANY "letter-10" element (Capricorn, Saturn, 10th house) produces roughly the same result -- which is clearly not true.
- Moon in the 10th: Your career involves the public.
- Moon in Capricorn: You're painfully shy, or perhaps
you just like living in the mountains.
- Moon conjunct Saturn: Your mother was an ice cube...
So, all in all, an okay book if you need help organizing all the data used in prediction, but not a great source of information about astrological interpretation.
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24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
very useful information from a practicing astrologer, February 23, 2002
This review is from: The Art of Predictive Astrology: Forecasting Your Life Events (Paperback)
This book gives a very good overview of the art of predictive astrology. The author returns to the astrological basics: what is the psychological profile of the client ? (the elements and modalities, stelliums, configurations, etc..). Only with this information at hand you can better pinpoint when something is going to happen. The natal promise is extremely important too: if something is not promised in your natal chart, it's not going to happen. From the natal promise Carol Rushman goes to the key of all predictive astrology: the (secondary) progressions. Her rules and delineations of the progressive planets as well as the interpretations of the aspects of the progressed moon (most important in predictions !) are a must read. Next come the transits (and stations), lunations and eclipses. Throughout the book Carol Rushman speaks from her own practice. Though the book is not as revealing as Celeste Teal's books, you will find very useful information in it. Beginning and intermediate astrologers will find very much knowledge in this very readable book. Experienced astrologers will be glad to know that with the right methodology and basic principles you can better time your predictions. Recommended reading.
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