The Jacket
In the opinion of the Author this book should be studied together with the other, titled “Transits and Solar Returns”, because this one is, over all, about the technique of Solar Returns, starting from the meaning of a Solar Return and continuing with the calculations to get a SR (Solar Return), and a lot of related technical problems like: “By What Strength a Solar Return Works”, “Which Place You Should Consider to Calculate a Solar Return”, “Long and Short Ascension Signs”, “How to Make Manual Calculations”, “What is the Annual Progression of Sidereal Time”, “From When to When a Solar Return Works”, “How Long it Is Necessary to Remain in the SR Location”, “What Happens if the Time Zone Changes”, “The Results of the Last Researches”. For example, in the latter, we read: “Remember that Saturn is always stronger than Jupiter or Venus or the Sun. So, if you place, in a SR chart, a Saturn close to Midheaven and contemporarily you place Jupiter or Venus exactly joined to Midheaven, your SR Tenth House will work as Saturn works and not as Jupiter or Venus”.
In the book there are also sixty examples of Solar Returns in order to explain, in a very practical way, all the theory and the interpretations contained here (“The Ascendant of the SR in the Radix Houses”, “Celestials in the SR Houses”, etc.).
It is the first full-length volume by Ciro Discepolo about Solar Returns and it has been revised many times since 1993 to the present.
A Daniela
Preface
Modesty is not always a virtue. Often, when it becomes an excessive habit and it is manifestly contrary to the truth, modesty may turn into foolishness. This is perhaps my case. In the past years I have shied away for long from both my readers and colleagues: in response to their compliments I would say, “Thank you”, and would smile and add: “You’re too good…” I went on for nearly a quarter of a century this way, studying astrology day and night (for example, I am writing these lines at three o’clock in the morning), with love, passion, enthusiasm and the greed of the researcher. I published works that I consider quite important, such as manuals, ephemerides, research works. Yet, I have never got a swollen head.
Every time I was addressed a good word, I simply replied that after all, I had not done anything extraordinary. Then, slowly over time, it was my good colleagues – those whom I esteemed the most – who began to provoke me, literally shouting at me: “Come on, Ciro – haven’t you got the […censored] to assert yourself?” Eventually, that is exactly what I have done.
At some point I realized that I had produced more than twenty books (about fifty at the time of writing the preface to the Italian edition of this volume). Some of them may be defined successful; others can surely be of great value to every student. Consider my Guida all’Astrologia, for example: it has been reprinted more than a dozen times in four editions; it sold over 50,000 copies since 1979 – a real best-seller. So, after speaking personally – or getting in touch through letters or phone calls – with thousands of indirect pupils of mine, one day I realized that I had taken a way on my own, different from any other stream of thought, despite my full respect for the astrological tradition. Thus I realized that I had become the founder of a school of thought.
One day, the historians of astrology will state whether I have been a good teacher or a bad one. In any case, I have founded Active Astrology (Astrologia Attiva in Italian, which is also the title of a volume published in Italy by Edizioni Mediterranee). That is to say, an approach to astrology that refuses the notion of a human being overwhelmed by a fate engraved in his/her DNA, bones and birth chart. On the contrary, the approach of Active Astrology is to give you certain tools (which I have been improving little by little) with the aim of spurring you to act according to the motto, God helps those who help themselves.
The two tools that I have first elaborated, and then improved, are the exorcism of symbols and the Aimed Solar Return. I am aware of the criticism the former would attract: “This is no invention! Many others before you...” Yes, yes, of course, I am conscious of it. But to my best knowledge, those who deal with the exorcism of symbols were not astrologers; and anyhow, the way I put this technique into practice is absolutely original.
On the other hand, I think that I can really claim an absolute right of primogeniture over the latter (the Aimed Solar Returns), especially if you consider the application of the technique of relocating Solar Returns on such a large scale and in such huge numbers as I have been doing for years. In fact, to my best knowledge no others before me have done the same; and even if so, nobody can prove it with such a large number of publications as I can. In the seventies, here in Italy there was a magazine published by Armenia called Gli arcani. There you can find many of my articles on Solar Returns. Many of my counselees and students – who later have become very good colleagues – accepted and followed my theories and put in to practice my technique of the aimed birthday. One might ask, though: “How come you were the first, when this technique was already known to your colleagues?”
The reason is very simple. In 1970 – the very same year in which I started studying astrology – I happened to read a few lines of André Barbault’s Practical treatise of astrology, published in Italy under the title of Trattato pratico di astrologia. There he explained the Solar Returns, clearly stating that you have to cast it (i.e. ‘domificate’ it) considering the place in which you physically are at the very moment of your birthday – not the place of your birth. Reading these lines was like a bolt out of the blue for me. At that time, I was barely able to grasp the predictive implications of this reality. I simply read – which immediately convinced me – that you have to domificate the Solar Return for the place where the subject is at the time of his/her birthday.
Being fairly good with math, I resolved to plunge into this ‘unknown sea’. But this would not be enough. Despite my skill in math, if I had wanted to study the charts of a single birthday over twenty different towns of the world, I would have had to spend many hours computing and drawing charts manually; and this would have taken plenty of time, considering that I was and that I still am a perfectionist in this field.
By those times I directed the laboratory of electronic devices at the Institution of Motors in Naples, belonging to the CNR (Italian National Research Council). Thus, I deployed my knowledge of electronics developing, with the help of professional programmers – much before the era of personal computers – original routines of software that allowed me, by simply pressing a few keys, to cast a chart of Solar Return in few minutes for any town anywhere in the world. I have written evidence, published in major newspapers of the sector (the magazine BIT, for example), that since the dawn of the era of personal computers and even earlier, I used to publish articles concerning my own software routines, describing how they were programmed, what flow-chart they followed, what you could get out from them, and so on.
I must say that the majority of my astrologer colleagues were not very familiar with computing; they were not even aware of the existence of those machines. Some of them did know about them, but they refused the very idea of machine computing of an astrological chart. For this reason, I can say that – studying for many years plain Solar Returns and ‘targeted’ or ‘aimed’ Solar Returns – I have been gathering an experience of thousands of cases. This is especially true in the last three or four years, in which further works of mine have been published that have spurred many counselees and pupils to ask me for consultation. To make a long story short, you may judge me modest or arrogant, but I must admit even to myself that I have shown a way and that along the decades I have become the leader of an astrological movement.
That is why I resolved to title this book A Practical Treatise of Solar Returns, not A Guide to Solar Returns. In fact, what you are about to read is the gist of my experience gained in this field over many decades. I am confident that you will see clearly the several points analysed here, which give me the right to call this volume a Treatise.
I do not know exactly why I have written this book now and not in another year. Maybe it is because I had previously proposed it to three or four different publishers who had rejected it. One considered that this volume is far removed from their policy, another thought that the scope of this volume was of no interest for the reader. I think otherwise. This is why I have wanted to take this risk, and have built this volume entirely with ‘my hands’ editing it by myself (this refers to the first Italian edition of 1993).
Back to the Solar Returns, now. I must add that to me, they have opened one of the windows on the Truth, and that the ‘aimed’ Solar Returns (please note that the term Aimed Solar Return has been created by me) have opened an even wider window on it. Those who keep on denying the value of these predictive tools are missing a moving train.
In fact, both new and old students and colleagues who have read my books or those of Alexandre Volguine, with tens, sometimes hundreds of examples (also included in my astrological quarterly Ricerca ’90) have immediately become convinced of the exceptional potentiality of this method of astrological analysis. Since I am personally convinced that ‘an example is worth a thousand words’, you’ll also find several practical examples in this volume. Today, I cannot read properly a case about which I am asked to give my astrological opinion unless I have three charts in front of me: the subject’s birth chart, his/her current Solar Return and his/her following Solar Return. For me, a birth chart is ‘blind’ without its relevant Solar Return alongside. On the other hand, it is my opinion that any other position deserves to be respected.
I started studying the book of Alexandre Volguine on Solar Returns in French, translating it in a botched way. Of course I recognize in him my first teacher on this subject. This is why I asked the publisher Armenia to publish an Italian version of his volume, to which they eventually agreed.
On the other hand, with all due respect, I must say that my experience on the Aimed Solar Returns is many miles away from Volguine’s, for the simple fact that in his time, travelling was the preserve of a few classes. By those times very few people could afford a journey, especially over long distances. In addition to living in the age of computers, I have been lucky enough to work during the decades when the transcontinental voyages have become commonplace. One example? Between winter and spring of 1993 you could purchase a return ticket to the United States from Rome, with little more than seven hundred thousand Italian Liras. Today, travelling has become a mass sport. Therefore, no one opens his eyes wide if I propose that he goes to spend his birthday in Australia. Some of my counselees relocated their SR so far away that they reached the very edge of the maps that can be commonly found in the marketplace, boldly going where no Westerner had gone before.
I must also add that I haven’t found it useful to consider the position of the MC of the Solar Return in the radical Houses. Also, I disagree with Volguine on the dating of events within the year covered by the Solar Return, which he obtained by mixing (in an inappropriate way, I believe) judicial astrology with exoteric astrology.
There is another important point that I wish to mention in this preface – it is yet another recommendation to my readers. Do not scare people and always give them a chance, an alternative to the relocation of the Solar Return (using the exorcism of symbols, for example).
Before concluding I would like to bring to your attention a few points that I have been ‘shouting’ for years. A lot of my students have been giving their favourable feedback on them, checking and trying them out in practice. I refer to the fatality of the Twelfth, First and Sixth Houses (a real guillotine if one of them is involved in a Solar Return); to the never enough emphasized goodness of the Tenth House; to the very strong connection between the Eleventh house and grief or death; and to the close link between the sense of sight and the axis of the Sixth and the Twelfth House.
There is yet another point that I tell you after many years of study and silence, because now it seems to me that it is an evident piece of truth. I refer to Taurus being the sign that, immediately after Pisces, has the most fragile nerves. Meditate on this judgement and review your personal collections of birth data: I am sure that you’ll give me a positive feedback on this point too.
Finally, I would say that I have included small charts in this volume. I had two reasons for doing so. The first reason is that I wanted to devote more space to the written text, which could not be sacrificed.
The second reason is that these charts have been produced by my software ASTRAL and printed out with a plotter: thus they are razor sharp, also considering that they have been drawn – as André Barbault would say – in the only possible correct way: with the celestial bodies outside the circle of the Zodiac, not inside.
Naples, Summer 1993
Preface To The New Text
Apparently, this volume is the third edition of my Practical Treatise of Solar Returns, published by Ricerca ’90 and Blue Diamond Publisher. Actually, it is much more. In fact, after about ten years since I wrote it, I thought it useful to start working again on it with a deep revision of the original text, which has partly been re-written, and with the addition of new sections. Something has been deleted, too. Above all, this volume has been updated with the results of my most recent research in such a difficult and critical area as that of the Aimed Solar Returns. Let me also add that this volume has profited from the valuable work of my friend Lorenzo Vancheri’s editing. For a long time now, Lorenzo has become the only and irreplaceable supervisor of my works.
In short, this is a completely new book; this is also why I changed its title.
Here, you will find the summary of a series of ‘patches’ – as they say today in the computer world – that are intended to fill gaps or to correct positions that over time, eventually proved to be partially incorrect. Only a practice of thousands and thousands of ASR’s can offer the guarantee of abundant material to such an extent that it allows us to write down rules, which of course are susceptible to be updated, yet they still are rules.
In my case, I have collected around sixteen thousand ‘aimed’ birthdays, which I have personally followed with the persons involved; and at about one year after the relocation of their Solar Returns, I have also discussed personally with each of them the astrological implications of each relocation. Consider that the average of those who actually aim their SR is one fourth of the people to whom the astrologer suggests relocation. Also consider that for about 33 years I have worked on a sample of approximately 64,000 SR’s, of which 16,000 have been aimed – i.e. relocated – and the rest have not been relocated at all. Thus, you can see that I have been able to elaborate statistics that have helped me to correct my direction along a path that – please let me underline this once again – had no literature of reference except the one that I had written myself. Let us elaborate this point. Before my several volumes on this subject, the only volume on Solar Returns (and entirely devoted to Solar Returns) was Alexandre Volguine’s. Despite mentioning the possibility of relocating a Solar Return, the Author stated clearly that he had never relocated any Solar Return, nor had he suggested relocation to anybody. The simple reason is that, at those times, travelling, for example, to the United States from Europe was so expensive that you would had to sell your house to afford it…
I would never stop repeating that the chart of SR shall not be read the same way as a birth chart. This is exactly the reason why I had to ‘break many bones’ before realizing that the Ascendant of SR falling in the 1st natal House is exactly as detrimental as the Ascendant of SR falling in the 12th or in the 6th House of the birth chart. Has anyone read it somewhere else, in any book? Do you still have doubts about this reality?
So, today this work of mine – enriched by the prestigious edition of the publisher Armenia – may be considered the culmination of my latest researches on this specific segment of astrological knowledge.
I think therefore, that you can all benefit from it. In fact, unlike some of my colleagues, I believe that astrology should not be esoteric. What I mean is that those who presume to know some fragments of it should – as it is the case with this volume – facilitate its utmost diffusion, so that everybody can benefit from their knowledge.
Naples, on the 21st May 2002, at 6:31 pm
Dear Deva,
your question is logical and pertinent. I have published many books, in Italy, in which it is exclusively written or almost exclusively written about the Solar Returns and the Lunar Returns. I believe how some of these books will never be translated in English because we also speak of volumes of 800 pages and very difficult (for "students of the superior schools of Astrology"). However everything will depend from as my precedents books will be welcomed by the American Readers, Canadian, English, Australians, SouthAfricans and of the whole world. Studious as you as Georgiana from Romania as Julie and Neena from USA and as Mordekhai in Israel and as so many others in Russia, China and all over the world you are giving me a lot of satisfactions, in this moment, with reviews that my job praises and they makes me understand that "my" Astrology likes to many colleagues of mine. If will be there also an economic success, to valley of this, then I will run over other money to publish other books.
Solar Returns is the new English edition, seen again in many points, of my Italian book "Nuovo Trattato delle Rivoluzioni Solari") that appeared partly in a series of articles on specialized magazines at the end of the seventies. Subsequently it, in its essential part, it was around the third part of my book "Guida ai Transiti" of 1984, then it knew a new complete layout in 1993 and another anchor in 2001.
The fundamental difference among "Transits and Solar Returns" and "Solar Returns" is in the fact that the first one is directed to 100% to the interpretation and the reading of an Aimed Solar Return (but the explanations are also worth for the Aimeds Lunar Returns) while the second book founds more itself on the mathematics and on the "physics" of the Solar and Lunar Returns: how does a Solar Return work? How is the place of birth of a Solar Return? And why it is that and not the place where we born forty years before? What are the signs of short and of long Ascension? And how can we exploit the geographical latitude to change a Solar Return? Is it true that every 33 years the Solar Return is equal to that of the birth? Than does it increase the Sideral Time every year? Then they are also the interpretations related to the Solar Returns and to the Lunar Returns (they are practically the same) and I have added 60 practical cases of Solar Returns to describe what it happens to a subject with a particular sky of Solar Return.
In short, according to my opinion, it deals with two books that must be studied together for understanding both the mathematical aspect and the interpretation aspect of the Solar and Lunar Returns.
The Deva's Review, on Amazon, of "The New Guide To Astrology":
5.0 out of 5 stars Review of New Guide To Astrology (Volume 1), June 28, 2011
This review is from: The New Guide to Astrology: Casting, Analysing and Reading the Birth Chart (Volume 1) (Paperback)
This book gives you just what you need to know about how to interpret a natal birth chart. Unlike some astrology books that give you very generic and wordy interpretations, this book is highly condensed and get to the point. It covers everything from as basic as how to interpret each planet and sign to planetary aspects, planet in signs, signs in houses, house significator in houses, etc. This book has also included many natal charts (some of them are from renown people and some of them ordinary people) and the author has integrated chart readings in various chapters of the book as an example of illustration: such as, how to interpret dominant planets and aspects, and how you can use them to interpret the individual's personality, area of love, work and health.
The author also summarizes some interesting rules from his over 40 years studying astrology that when comparing two charts, what are the elements that predict two people successfully coming together as business partner or marriage partner. It is certainly an invaluable resource and a reference guide to have when reading a natal chart, especially the last section which include collection of charts of ordinary people with summary of their profiles on appearance, characters, profession, health, love life, etc. I highly recommend this book!
Dear Neena, please, post again your questions recording to us where
the subject spent his last birthday.
Thank you.
Dear Georgiana,
I would limit the discourse to Jupiter and Venus because the Sun can point out
an important fact, in the Relocated Chart, but not always very good. Well, even
if you can think that this is banal, Jupiter-Venus rilocated to the Ascendant of a
city protect your health and they give you physical and mental comfort.
Jupiter-Venus to the MC can help you to get an important position in society,
in the social and professional sense. Jupiter-Venus to the Descendant point out
you who is the place of the world where you will be more fortunate in love.
Finally Jupiter-Venus to the FC signal you where you could live in a great and
pleasant house or where you could realize good real estate business
(an architect to which I suggested to go to live to St. Paul of Brazil,
where he has Jupiter to the FC, today it is an important builder
of houses in that place).
Relatively to your second question, you did very well to go you to the Azzorres in 2010, where unfortunately you penalized the love, but where you got a great social and professional growth and you widened very well your relationships with the foreign countries. If you had put the AS of Solar Return in the X House of birth, the your 2010 would have been very heavy.
The Ascendant of Solar Return in the X House radix is very stronger if tightly connected to the MC, in positive and in negative.
At last, if the ASR is good, an AS of ALR in the Tenth House cannot indicate disgraces.
Caro Giuseppe, pensa a guarire e ricordati che siamo in tanti a stimarti e a volerti bene. La quasi totalità dei tuoi nemici, non saprebbe fare previsioni neanche se tu li mettessi sulla buona strada con una mappa dettagliata.
Per Valeria: no comment!
Per Francesco. Ho provato, in passato, a studiare le Rivoluzioni di Mercurio, Venere, Marte... Ma le ho trovate assai poco parlanti in relazione all'Astrologia Previsionale.
Per Uranio15. È forte una squadra di Arieti, ma fate attenzione perché potreste diventare un plotone di Arieti...
Per Francesca che chiede: "
Grazie Ciro leggo che la posizione è ottima, ma non credo di avere disponibilità economiche e lavorative per poterci andare.
Grazie a Niko per i suoi consigli, non conoscendo l'interpretazione posso cercarla su astrologia in linea.
Se si esclude l'australia quale potrebbe essere la scelta migliore per avere serenità nuove relazioni e magari anche una bella relazione d'amore?
Non voglio la bacchetta magica ma qualche predisposizione positiva si!
Grazie. Ciao".
Per ottenere una rosa così vasta di goal e con un viaggio brevissimo potresti provare a Medjugorje.
Per Michela. Chiedici pure quando vuoi e un grosso in bocca al lupo!
Augurissimi a Google per il nuovo nato!
E’ arrivata l’ora di Google di buttarsi nel social. O meglio: è tornata l’ora di Google. Già, perché dopo tentativi su tentativi che non sono proprio passati alla storia – Wave, Buzz etc. -, Mountain View dopo mesi di indiscrezioni e sussurri ha lanciato oggi Google+, da leggere Plus. Il tutto nello stile “umano” della casa. Così come si legge sul blog ufficiale, a firma Vic Gundotra: “Vogliamo portare nel software le sfumature e la ricchezza delle interazioni che sono proprie della vita reale. Vogliamo fare di Google un posto migliore includendo voi, le vostre relazioni e i vostri interessi. È da questa necessità che nasce il Progetto Google+”. (Dal Corriere della Sera di oggi).
Buona Giornata a Tutti.
Ciro Discepolo
