Customer Reviews

The Book of Pluto

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Steven Forrest's work on Pluto in the natal chart is a truly great work that is also incredibly useful. He introduces the beginning and advanced to the notion of the planet and astrological concepts in the chart. He infuses his own humor, charm and love of humanity throughout the book, which allows you to believe that he is there with you, as a guardian angel, as you are walking through the depths of Hades. This allows the reader to keep looking with an unflinching eye at some touchy and difficult-to-face topics in the beginning. He introduces Pluto by house, sign, and by aspect in separate chapters which are outstandingly clear and profound. He also deals with the transits and progressions . This is a book for people who want more than a cookie-cutter interpretation of their charts; the author asks that you use your imagination and your heart. It's a truly inspirational and illuminating book by a great teacher of psychological astrology, and a book I often keep going back to!

"Let's go get stoned...or drunk. Or watch television until we're bleary eyed blobs of protoplasm. Or eat, or work, or exercise until no human feelings are left. Or, if our denial mechanisms require the apperance of nobility, fast or meditate or maintain a yogic posture until we achieve the same state. Or read self-help books until we have reduced ourselves to a flurry of concepts and insights dancing around the top three inches of our skulls...

Extinguishing consciousness is easy; generating it is difficult..."

"Pure religion and pure psychology both fail miserably at such junctures. We need something that embraces both. In practice, except among 'fundamentalists' of either category, ministers and psychotherapists often play roles that blur into one another. The same can be said, in my opinion, for any counseling astrologer who's worth a nickel."

"...what do we mean by the word feminine? Easy, just ask Betty Crocker: "'Feminine' means emotional, nurturing, non-linear, creative...the same old traditional stereotyping that truly modern women (and men!) have been battling since long before Beatles roamed the earth...Sometimes, especially among Jungian thinkers, this old notion is dressed up in more sophisticated garb...

"There is in the human psyche a very real syndrome of interrelated, "transrational" qualities. That is a psychological fact. But in my opinion it is past time we stopped poisoning and confusing ourselves by calling them "feminine" and began calling them by their name: LUNAR traits... To be human is to access both the solar and the lunar aspects of our common humanity, and to experience their eternal cross-pollination."

"Where PLUTO lies in the birth chart, we are particularly vulnerable to distortions and navigational errors based on un- processed wounding [life] experiences...if you are pretending to be happy in your job, your friendships, relationships, religion, whatever, a Pluto...event will try to reveal that to you...what if a ...person makes a less than optimal response? The basic Plutonian contract is simple to say: you go to the dark or the dark comes to you..."

"No one has ever been, or can ever expect to be, nurtured perfectly. Parents are only human. Communities are flawed. The Shadow makes itself felt sooner or later in every life...on one hand, there is a temptation to say, "So quit your whining!" But so easily that can generate into denial and avoidance... On the other hand, there is the toxic-psychologist's exhortation that we reduce our lives to a resentful meditation upon our wounds. And given life's richness and brevity, isn't that a foolish waste?"

from Steven Forrest, THE BOOK OF PLUTO

For anyone intuitively saddened and subsequently turned off by the perceived stereotypes and actual limitations of both the disciplines of psychology and astrology, this alchemical book, combining the profound and cleansing essences of both in simple terms, will steer you down a very interesting and enlightening path. We "know" that astrology is much more than the sun signs you read in the newspaper or magazines. We "know", ironically enough, that many of the secular patron saints of many a religious conservative have been well known to use and follow the advice of professional astrologers (Ronald and Nancy Reagan immediately come to mind). But do you really believe that there is something you can be truly taught by this discipline, beyond how popular it can make you among progressive or artistic friends when you bring it up?

If you already do, you will get even more out of this book than you currently would think. Steven Forrest's approach is one that combines some of the essential ideas of modern psychology--Jungian and Freudian--with the metaphysical wisdom of the ancient and modern astrologer (and some of his own silly sense of humor) into a book that teaches you as much about yourself as it does the methods, overarching purpose and intrinsic, trans-cultural social value of this often maligned, millenia-old science/art form. If you have ever felt that the fundamentals of psychological perspectives on the human mind and heart and the astrological perspectives on the human soul are inherently antagonistic (and show themselves to be such when assessing the meaning and imapct of the same events of a human life) THE BOOK OF PLUTO will provide you with the synthesis you need to appreciate--and be healed-by both.

This book is easy to read, and very valuable. I did not find it antagonistic to religion either. I advise people to read his work in tandem with your own astrological chart, and the work of psychologist Alice Miller, to free yourself in ways you did not know you could be freed.

Steve Forrest is one of the few people I would recommend to both utter astrology novices and advanced astrologgers alike. He writes very intelligently, but can phrase his ideas in very simple, earthy language. It's definitely not for the uptight and prudish.
Make sure you read his "Parable of the beer can."

If you have prominant Pluto placements, aspects or strong Scorpio in your chart, this book is a must have. I have studied astrology for thirty years and the things I found in this book amazed me. I don't think I ever realized what magnitude Pluto held until I read this book.
If you are an astrologer, you need to have this book as a reference. Kudos to Steven Forrest.

If you bought this book or are considering it, I'm assuming it's safe to say you already have a working knowledge of astrology and its themes, and perhaps also interpret life events and those you meet through its interstellar lens. Then you know that when we're talking Pluto, we're talking a force that bears witness to all that is deep, profound, life-altering, dark and dysfiguring, painful, powerful, transformative, regenerative and ultimately healing, etc... and I regret to say (this coming from a deeply Plutonian individual with a heavily aspected Pluto myself and 4 planets in Scorpio including my Sun, and Pluto) that this book didn't quite meet the mark. I wanted the book to go deeper than it did. I wanted Forrest to really dig into the mystical side, the death experiences (ones in which an aspect of the native's consciousness undergoes a death and rebirth rather than his or her physical body,) and to speak the profundity that this planet confers. Having been on the brink of death a number of times myself, in no uncertain terms, I walked into this read with array of personal experiences to relate to his writings, but felt a bit like Pluto personified with Mercury sitting on my shoulder chirping his observations about me in my ear--none of them really telling me anything. With Chapter titles like, "Recognizing Plutonian Passages" and "Living With The Dark" I'd anticipated really satisfying morsels of morbid widom, delving into the dark night of the human soul with unflinching vigilance, but got a glossed-over mish-mash of trite and at times "cutesy" commentary. It seems Forrest suggests the graveness one experiences when Pluto is active in one's life, but fails to make the concentrated effort it would take to really unpack them. Even his initial anecdotes, such as "The Parable of the Beer Can" in which he runs through examples of Plutonian events, seem to gloss over the true depths of such experiences, preferring a very superficial psychological analysis at best (and I feel relatively justified in this claim as it just so happened that at least two of his parables described events expressly from my own personal history.) Rather than an astrologer, Forrest is a counselor who employs astrology in his sessions, as revealed in the pages of this book (despite the fact that he calls himself an astrologer on the back cover.) As such, a lot of the personal insights you might expect to find from a true astrologer who has dedicated decades to the research a single facet of the solar system were lacking. The same goes for the cook-book style readings of Pluto in the signs, houses, aspects and transits (although, bravo to Forrest for including all categories) as they were superficial and minimally informative. I was hoping for a book with an impact that could rival it's namesake, certainly no simple task, but no such feat was in evidence as the pages turned. Admittedly, in depth-plumbing-Plutonian form, what I was probably looking for was more of a Pluto Anthology that could be the bible of all I could ever want to know about this one magnificent heavenly body. Nevertheless, my final analysis: It was moderately informative but not worth the money.

Steven Forrest's chapter on "Pluto in the First House" has been fundamentally life-shifting for me. To learn that I'm NOT "the bad one" -- that there is not something fundamentally wrong with me because I can see things and understand things most people avoid or skip over (or call me mean and evil for knowing) -- has been so freeing and reassuring that I cannot thank him enough!

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"You began to learn that there was something about your nature that people found upsetting, unsettling,or just plain reprehensible..."

and

"...Anything in the first house tends to radiate visibly and obviously from the personality. With you sending out such Plutonian vibrations, people around you often let you symbolize that part of life for them. And when they was not at ease with Plutonian realities -- a fair bet most of the time -- they'll have a tendency to project their discomfort onto you, naming you the 'bad' one: you're 'too intense,' 'too psychological,' 'too sexual,' 'too morbid, ' whatever. This scapegoating patten has likely make itself felt it some point in your life, and it too is part of the Wound you carry."
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I must assume his other chapters are equally precise in providing accurate descriptions of Pluto in the various houses. Having this amazing description of myself and my world view laid out for me, I have found that my Plutonian nature helps me tremendously in my counseling and coaching of people in trouble. Because I am able to say things others can't or won't, I can help people face what's really going on in their lives (or the world around them)! I'm not wrong and broken, I'm valuable even if uncomfortable.

Thank you Steven Forrest, from the bottom of my deep, dark, Plutonian heart!

This is one of the greatest books on Pluto available around. The books is useful to very young inexperienced astrologers as well as for the advanced.
What I particularly liked were descriptions of pluto in houses, and this book brings lots of elements to deeper discussions regarding the Pluto's influences.

Steven Forrest is an astrological legend. He writes in an easy style, casual and easy to grasp. Its like a friend trying to explain usually complicated interpretations and techniques, trying to keep the mood light in a subject as heavy as pluto. There is a strong emphasis on the esoteric understanding of the planet, aspects, and its transits, with a focus on empowerment and awareness. People make pluto transits out to be so tough. Glad I read his book when I needed it most. This book shows have choices, can decide on strategies that work, and can use the time or aspect to our advantage.

This was the first book I ever read from Steven Forrest- and it surely won't be the last. He has a personality that can make a deep dark planet like Pluto come alive. The book is aptly titled The book of Pluto,
TURNING DARKNESS TO WISDOM--- I totally get that part- turning darkness to wisdom, as this is what he does in the book. The way he writes is lively, he has way to tell wise stories that do not put you in the dark as Pluto is known for. The stories shine a light on the darkness, after all when you are in the dark, it is kinda hard to see. The book is very honest & encouraging. I would recommend this highly, as it is one of my favorites.