20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book on House Rulerships!, January 3, 2002
This review is from: The Only Way to Learn Astrology, Vol. 3: Horoscope Analysis (Paperback)
This excellent book is called "The Only Way to Learn Astrology: Horoscope Analysis," but the bulk of it focuses on one facet of horoscope analysis, house rulers. If you're looking for a either a beginners guide on how to interpret a chart, or an all-around horoscope analysis guide that blending many elements of chart interpretation such as planetary patterns and aspects, you'll probably be disappointed. However, if you have a basic understanding of the planets and houses, and you're looking for one of the best guides around on house rulerships, this is the book for you! The first half of the book (Part I) is devoted to house rulerships.
What is a house rulership? Example: Marilyn Monroe had Leo (ruled by the sun) on the ascendant. Marilyn's sun was in her 10th house. The reader can go to lesson 1, First House Rulers," look up "Ruler of the 1st in the 10th" and find out what this means. Marilyn Monroe had Virgo (ruled by Mercury) on her 2nd house cusp, and Mercury in her 10th house. The explanation is in lesson 2, "Second House rulers" under "Ruler of the 2nd in the 10th." Volume 3 of "The Only Way..." series helps one go around the wheel, house by house, figuring out what it means to have that house's ruler in each of the houses. The best way to learn from this book is to begin with one's own chart (and then loved ones) and read the introduction to that house, determine where the ruler is, and then try to figure out what the house rulership means before reading the description. Each of the 144 rulership patterns is well explained and uses an example of a famous (or infamous) person-everyone from Mohandas Gandhi to Charles Manson, that really helps emphasize the point.
Part II, "The Art of Chart Interpretation" provides detailed chart interpretations of four famous people (charts provided in this volume): General George Patton, Ernest Hemingway, Princess Diana of Wales, and Barbra Streisand. In this section, March and McEvers throw all their fancy stuff at you yods, dwads, decantes, part of increase, and the like. While there's benefit in reading how two skilled astrologers interpret a chart start to finish, this section is of limited "teach you how to do it for yourself" value, for which I recommend the first volume of the series. Rulerships are discussed quite a bit in this section, so it provides a review.
Part III, "Delineating for a Purpose" is an interesting discussion of astrological associations with health/illness, physical appearance, relationships of many sorts (preview of coming attractions for volume 5), and vocational aptitudes. Each of these chapters is a well-explained, good introduction to the topic, but not a complete treatment. Unlike the house rulership information, I've seen much of this information elsewhere.
I primarily use and recommend this book as a guide to house rulerships-the best I've seen. However, as this book, written in 1982, and the series age, chances are that younger astrologers will not identify with the famous people given as examples, as much as the babyboomers of my generation. I like the fact that when they refer to a chart in this volume, they provide the page number. However, some of the chart discussions will refer you to charts in other volumes in the series. Despite a detailed table of contents, the book lacks an index. I'm giving the book 5 stars, primarily based on the strengths of sections 1 and 3.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Misleading title, March 27, 2006
This review is from: The Only Way to Learn Astrology, Vol. 3: Horoscope Analysis (Paperback)
This is the third book of the March & McEvers series "The Only Way to Learn Astrology". It's a well-written book that helps the intermediate astrologer complete their chart interpretation technique, but it is not of much use if you have not read the previous two books in the series.
I find the entire series excellent and the only reason I give this book 4 stars instead of 5 is because I think the title 'Horoscope Analysis' is misleading. The book only focuses on one marginal part of a chart, namely the interpretation of house rulerships. In the end of the book it gives some examples of chart interpration of 4 famous people, and very briefly touches on specific areas of interest in a chart such as vocational aptitude, but the bulk of the information revolves around house rulerships.
Therefore, if you buy this book thinking that you will learn about horoscope analysis from scratch, you will be very frustrated. But I would definitely recommend it if you are interested in an in-depth analysis of house rulers, and you already have some basic knowledge of astrology and chart interpretation.
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