Customer Reviews

The Art of Predictive Astrology: Forecasting Your Life Events

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I have been studying astrology for twenty years and practicing it for a few. I bought this book based on the glowing recommendations here on Amazon. I wish I had not.

The premise of the book is sound. It is that, unless something is promised in the natal chart, then it will not manifest in the life of a client. But the author almost immediately contradicts herself. On page 42 she says: "We are not stuck with the natal promise of our chart. There is always the potential to outgrow the more difficult aspects." WHAT? Does the natal promise matter or does it not? Please make up your mind!

From there it just gets worse and worse. The chapter called "The Natal Promise" is laughable and exemplary of the rest of this book. The author reduces everything to childish, ridiculous generalizations. For example, the entire section on "Success" is about the Nodes. Apparently, at least if you follow her advice, you have no chance of success unless your North Node is in an angular house (1, 4, 7 or 10). In the section "Violence/Rape," all she discusses are hard aspects between the Moon and Pluto. Try telling my friend who was savagely raped and beaten that she must have imagined it happening to her since she has no aspect in her chart between the Moon and Pluto.

Not only is this book shoddily written and edited, as another reviewer mentioned, but there are some GLARING errors. In the section on "Vocation," page 68, she claims that "Jackie Kennedy had her tenth-house Neptune in Scorpio, and she was a book editor." Well, Neptune did not even enter Scorpio until 1956 so unless Jackie O. was about seven years old when JFK was shot, then this is completely impossible.

Finally, a large bulk of this book, maybe a third of it, is devoted to childish, cookbook interpretations which are vastly oversimplified. But my biggest complaint comes with the author's system of making predictions itself. It ultimately relies on eclipses, progressed house cusps and the position of the progressed Moon in order to pinpoint dates and times of events. This, in my experience as an astrologer, simply doesn't work. And as someone else noted, she makes no mention of Solar Arc Directions whatsoever.

The author's rambling narrative and anecdotes occasionally bring up an interesting observation here and there. But based on all of her other glaring errors and omissions, it makes one wonder if her observations are even worth considering. Ironically, she even promotes in the introduction to the book that astrologers develop a "personal method" in making predictions (in other words, she is suggesting that you may not want to use her method). Honestly, I'm amazed that her method has worked for her, but if you are expecting it to work for you, then you are likely in for a big surprise.

This book was a huge waste of my time and I wish that I had not purchased it.

Definitely one of my favorites. Carol Rushman shares from her astrological wisdom and experience, cases and techniques that help the reader get a good insight not only on the theoretical astrology, but also on the practical approach to predictive astrology.
This book changed my approach to predictive astrology and has sharpened my astrological tools.
It is very accesible to all readers, from beginners to advanced students of astrology.

This is a good book. At first it may seem like it's not because she does tend to ramble on and get caught in side anecdotes and present very simplified interpretations, making it seem like maybe she's not that knowledgable. Then, she'll segue right into an extremely complicated theory which is going to be a lot of work to understand and test out, and you're thinking, "Is it really worth it, when this person may not know what they're talking about?" Let me tell you that it certainly is. I had to re-read her theory about potential marriage partners about 4 times before I finally "got it". And it is one heck of an excellent theory. It works. I've never read anything by any author which was so in-depth on potential marriage partners. There's a lot of other little gems in there too, some of which I still haven't had time to test out. I've started testing out the one on success or wealth potential and so far I've only tested it on me, and it fits very well. If you buy this one, hope you enjoy it. It was also recommended by Dave's Top Ten at astroamerica.com.

Carol Rushmans's book is full of little gems and tidbits from her 30 years as an astrologer. She brings everyting together regarding prediction. Critical degrees, progressed moon and other progressed aspects, eclipses and transits are highlighted along with true experiences from her practice. Her chaper on the "natal promice" is a must read for all astrologers! The idea of the squares and opositions in the a chart as a "driver" that creates the motivation to succeed is a good one!

This book was a delight to read!

It has always been a pleasure to read anything written by Carol Rushman. She explains well about every aspect and talks with lot of conviction. She doesn't miss out giving examples when needed. She explains right reasoning for an event with proper logic and great accuracy.

In chapter of Stationing and Retrograde Planets she writes "My daughter and I went to have our hair cut on the day Venus went retrograde and we both cried all the way home because we got such bad haircuts. We each had wanted a trim but we both went home with very short hair" She would not miss out making a note of minor or major event in her life.

Examples are very casual and yet not mundane but in line with what she is talking about.

I recommend this book to all who have deep interest in astrology.


Bhavesh N. Pattni

I refer to 'The Art of Predictive Astrology' relatively often. I think Carol Rushman is a competent astrologer. If you don't have anything else, the book is a great guide to the progressed planets, using aspects to predict marriage and divorce, et cetera.

My complaint is in the way it's written. No one likes a dry textbook but her book would be much better in a textbook format. Charts (charts in the traditional sense, not astrological charts) and tables would be useful and in fact, would have worked much better than her fleeting glimpses of what some of the signs denote in certain situations. Equally annoying is how personal she made the book ("I don't like the moon in Cancer, but that's because mine is natally in Aquarius" - ?). Personal anecdotes about having children, divorcing, and making money and blah blah blah just detract from the book.

I have encountered many of the ideas in the book for the first time (for example, early and late degree planets) but again it's tough to make the ideas useful based on what is in the book - she probably means to provoke thought in the reader and have him or her do their own research and discovery, which is good, but the flip side to that is if you're not advanced enough you won't be able to do the predictive astrology that she outlines in the book.

Good for advanced students of astrology, but beginners and intermediate students will need to learn from other sources. econ

First of all, I need to forwarn you, this book is NOT for beginers to astrology, it assumes you're already familiar with the basics.

I found this book very helpful in my studies; it was a turning point in my use of this ancient science. Where basic natal astrology is useful for providing a basic pyschological profile for the client, the techniques described in this book point out how the progressions point to the evolution of the individual. It also goes into eclipses and how they describe events in the life.
I would consider this book mandatory reading for anyone beyond the basics. 5+ stars for this one!