Management of Measurement Constructs
Connecting the Dots….
15 Indispensable Keys to Analysismay be a great DVD title [See MENU, BOOK LIST], but the list of “Keys” must pay off, must have something more going for it than mere description and explanation of measurement items. The Keys have to work together, every single time we analyze a horoscope. The 15 “dots” of measurement must be connected for practical meaning, to anchor synthesis.
My presentation of the15 Indispensable Keys to Analysis definitely has this contiguity: each Key carries a signal to the next. The echoes form an undeniable synthesis of an individual’s life development.
Here is one way we work with the Keys: I teach a “check mark or dot technique” that proves the pudding. You can do it too, this way: when you know the inter-relationship within and among the three Grand Crosses of Houses [Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology, pages 225-270 … and dramatized strongly on the DVD], you place a small check mark or dot just above the cusp Sign of a House whose planetary ruler is under high developmental tension. There will be times when ALL of the cusps will be checked in this way –that’s a lot of developmental tension in many areas of life, you learn to manage the flood. Usually, you will have six or seven dots.
What you have then are House areas of life experience marked as demanding, as challenging, AND those areas inter-relate dramatically for development. You have a social development pattern immediately obvious before you in the horoscope drawing. In fact, you can look at a horoscope without planets but with just the Houses of tension marked and get started toward a very meaningful analysis!!
For example, let’s assume that the Ascendant, the 2nd, the 10th, 11th, 5th, and 7th Houses have check marks, have dots signifying that the ruling planet of each House so marked is under high developmental tension, i.e., making a strong aspect with an outer planet or Mars, or being Ptolemeically unaspected (peregrine).
This pattern says the following: there will undoubtedly be identity development concerns that build self-worth anxieties, which are connected with one parent in particular (probably the father), fostering a feeling of not being lovable, which makes emotional expression (giving love) difficult, which in turn undermines relationship. –Of course we can use other words for this matrix, at different levels, etc., but these are the basic thoughts. The grasp of the horoscope situation is immediate.
The horoscope will say more with more keys, of course, but the point here is that the keys signify unassailable insights, and they work together. As we synthesize measurements, we are connecting the dots to paint the portrait.
Looking further into this example horoscope —and please note, we do not see the horoscope with our eyes right now, but we do see it with our mind … we really do! —we might be presented with Saturn-rx, or a Nodal axis component; the 9th House ruler may be jeopardized … etc. etc. Your mind should be integrating more and more into the synthesis picture. –For “keys” to be valuable, the doors they open must show much. And boy! Do they!!
Look at this man’s horoscope(!): Check marks key the Ascendant, the entire Succedent Grand Cross, and the 7th House. In other words, you know that the rulers of these Houses are under strong developmental tension; you have determined this by assessing the measurements … you’ve even seen other keys like Mars conjunct Venus-retrograde, squared by Saturn … And your mind is running full-steam ahead!: much identity-development anxiety, exacerbated feelings of inferiority, great difficulty with relationships, possibly pathologically frightening, and undoubtedly fraught with deep sexual concerns. –This lay of the heavens is undeniable. This is the beginning orientation to Adolf Hitler’s horoscope. [April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria at 6:34 PM LMT.]
The Keys are essential. The Keys hold together. They reveal much. Imagine what you can do with fifteen of them!
Learn them.