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Planets in Transit: Life Cycles for Living

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Most astrologers regard "Planets In Transit" as the definitive book on transiting planets. In Hand's own words, "a transit occurs whenever a planet, moving in its orbit during your lifetime, forms an aspect to a planet, the Sun, Moon or any of the house cusps in your natal horoscope" (p. 3). In this book, Hand reveals what "you are most likely to experience, emotionally psychologically, and circumstantially, under each transit" (p. 3). Since modern astrology is geared toward self-empowerment and most astrologers shun fatalistic interpretations, this book provides you with the basis upon which you can choose suitable directions to harness the energies of planetary transits. Consequently, a great benefit of understanding transits is that you can expect and plan accordingly for them, since they function within time. Armed with that awareness, your potential for success in handling both easy and challenging transits is quite good.

As with all of Hand's books, this text is easy to read and informative. Hand's writing style is positive and insightful, and the cookbook format makes a nice handy reference guide for both beginners and professionals. If you are new to astrology, then this text is great to own. Originally published in 1976, this book has been a standard classic in most astrologers' library and is as insightful today as when it was first written.

I bought this book years ago in hardcover. I'm happy to say that I had the foresight to cover it with plastic since I refer to this book more than any other astrology book that I own and now, more than 20 years later, my copy is still in good condition. I have an entire shelf filled with astrology books, probably in the area 400+ books. I've been an astrologer for over 30 years and my highest recommendation goes to Planets in Transits. In 1980 I had the opportunity to hear Robert Hand at an astrology conference. He talked about how he wrote Planets in Transit and he said that at the time of the writing, he had a transit of Neptune going over his Sun. He jokingly said, "I don't even remember writing this book." Surely, with Neptune transiting over his Sun, he was blessedly inspired. For all new and intermediate students, this is the one to have on your shelf.

Over 20 years old, this book still remains one of the modern classics that no contemporary astrologer can afford to be without. Just about every serious astrologer I've ever met has got a copy of this on his or her shelf.

For most of the book, Robert Hand explores the meaning of every possible combination of planets in transit to each other, this being one of the most commonly used techniques of astrological prediction. In addition to the planets, the ascendant and midheaven are also included but astrologers using Chiron will have to look elsewhere. The introductory chapters about the interpretation and timing of transits are well worth a read, and these are followed by a case study of Nixon and the Watergate scandals in the early 1970s. Then its on to a chapter for each planet and the transits it makes to all the others.

Hand's interpretations are full of psychological insights, but the nature of specific events that may occur are also covered. For the first few years I had this book I tended to focus on the more obvious long-term transits of the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) but eventually I became just as intrigued by the uncanny accuracy of the "insignificant" daily or even hourly transits of the Sun, the Moon and Mercury. The smallest and the largest life cycles have their part to play.

Buy this book and prove or disprove predictive astrology for yourself!

The book brought by Robert Hand is a "magnum opus".In this book I find not even a single word of waste or repeating the same again and again.Hither to Astrology was mainly dealing with results of aspects from Radical planetary positions to yearly progressions.Almost in all, writers did not attach much importance to transitions. The book deals all transitions of planets from Sun to Pluto.And the aspects of transitions to Ascendent and Mid-heaven also.It is a very useful book to be kept on the table of a beginner aswell with a professional.I appreaciate the language, manner in presenting the matter and the authoritative command on the subject. The book contains all the subject without wasting the pages with endless sample horoscopes. The book is a BRISTLING STAR in this subject and stays shining for ever in the Galaxy of Astrology Books.(I am 60 yrs. old and having an experience of 40 yrs.)

With all the nonsense written about astrology it's good to have a reliable book to explain the daily influences in your horoscope. Put down the newspaper. Put down the book that claims to tell you about your day based simply on your Sun sign. Those things are completely worthless. I was once fired on my supposed lucky day in one of those magazines. The newspaper and magazine daily horoscopes have given astrology a bad name.

Planets In Transit by Robert Hand is the real thing, the kind of book Sir Isaac Newton would have approved when he defended his belief in astrology to Halley (of Halley's comet fame) by saying - I have looked into the subject, Mr Halley, and you haven't.

This book is not for novices. You have to know the fundamentals of astrology to use it. You have to know what transiting Mars trine natal Venus means in astronomical terms before Robert Hand can explain it to you in astrological terms. You also need your chart and an ephemeris. If you don't have these things and don't know what I'm talking about, pick up a basic primer in astrology before graduating to Planets In Transit. I recommended the book to my astrology students when I taught an adult education course.

My neighbor/mentorloaned me this book a year ago. I just now gave it back, it was so good. I refer to it almost on a daily basis. Mr. Hand has done an outstanding job in collecting the various pyschological effects that transits can have on us. I am able to plan very accurately according to the descriptions in this book. It let me know what to expect in all my Plutonian transits I have been having lately and, this is the greatest part, it has saved my marriage from collapsing. My wife and I figured out that the Pluto/Venus/Ascendant combos was causing the strife in our life and so we decided to wait it out instead of ending it.
Thank you Mr. Hand

This book is a must for your astrological reference library. Written by the world's greatest living astrologer, Robert Hand, and Charles A. Jayne, it is an invaluable "cookbook" of transit interpretation for the budding professional astrologer-to-be. As a professional astrologer myself, an astrology teacher and a contemporary of Hand's, I would venture to say from my own personal experience, that virtually every professional astrologer in the past two decades has cut their teeth on this book. Hand is learned, profound, and sometimes downright uncanny in his interpretations. As I recall, he wrote this book in collaboration with Jayne, while Saturn was transitting his third house. This transit would be a classic for giving someone the discipline it takes to write something as tedious yet invaluable, as this book. It IS the Bible of transit interpretation.

This was recommended to me by an astrologically adept friend, and I'll never be able to thank her enough. The writing is non-esoteric -- very accessible and spot on. As long as you have someone to tell you "what's happening when", this book is the place to read about it. I recommend purchasing the hardcover if you can manage it, because my softcover edition is falling apart from so much use! It's always a comfort to open the pages to the right place and find answers to the confusion.

Over 20 years old, this book still remains one of the modern classics that no contemporary astrologer can afford to be without. Just about every serious astrologer I've ever met has got a copy of this on his or her shelf!

For most of the book, Robert Hand explores the meaning of every possible combination of planetary transits, including those to the ascendant and midheaven (astrologers using Chiron however, will have to look elsewhere). The introductory chapters about the interpretation and timing of transits are well worth a read, and these are followed by a case study of Nixon and the Watergate scandals in the early 1970s. Then its on to a chapter for each planet and the transits it makes to all the others.

Hand's interpretations are full of psychological insights, but the nature of specific events that may occur are also covered. For the first few years I had this book I tended to focus on the more obvious long-term transits of the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) but eventually I became just as intrigued by the uncanny accuracy of the "insignificant" daily or even hourly transits of the Sun, the Moon and Mercury. The smallest and the largest life cycles have their part to play.

Buy this book and prove or disprove predictive astrology for yourself!

After passing the novice and acquaintance stage, this is the next building block to firm up the base of the student of astrology and hone his/her skills. Although astrology is a vast field, and this book is limited only to transit delineations, once a student "gets the hang" of transits, he can proceed further afield. Even after gaining that, this book will always remain an indispensable basic reference manual. It is a timeless classic, which many purportedly famous names have yet to excel. Some reviewers may criticise the quality of the book's binding (the 1976 one may be called average, but not bad) or the author's grammatical or syntactical proclivities and "lack of soulfullness" (I honestly don't know what that implies!) or, even what I see as a slightly blunt moralising overtone of "good" and "bad" - but such criticisms are immature and irrelevant, and detract from the author's actual work. Everybody has their own way of approaching and interacting with even the best books, and should therefore not expect a book to be 100% satisfying beforehand, without reconciling its content with their own mature judgement in some way.