The computerized horoscopes go further. They tell you what the rest of the planets are doing in your horoscope, but that is still no where near enough. If you bought a new car and all they delivered to you were a bunch of parts, would you have a useable car? Of course not. You can't drive disconnected parts. They have to be put together. It's the same situation with those computerized horoscopes.

The description of each planetary position that you find in the books is general and designed to cover all the possible things that the planet can do in any situation. All of those statements won't apply to a particular individual horoscope. Not only that, but some of the interpretations in those computerized “readings?will contradict each other. During a real reading, the astrologer has to weigh each factor against the others and see which ones are going to predominate. The statements that don't apply, drop out. The true statements remain. That's what this second section is about: how to put it all together and see the person in the horoscope.

Remember the case I talked about earlier, the one where the person had a strong Mars (action, energy, assertiveness, aggression) and yet was very passive? This was because the planet Neptune was placed in an even stronger position. What made Neptune “stronger?than Mars in this case? What are the rules to follow? That's what the next few chapters will tell you.

One important point. Not every horoscope has a strongest planet, but the ones that do are much easier to interpret. Find that strongest planet and you can easily make true specific descriptive statements about that person. Not just “Barnum?statements that can apply to anyone (“sometimes, you have trouble with relationships? wow, how unique). For instance, you should be able to detect if a person has a repressed temper that can flare up suddenly into an angry rage. If one therapist had that information years ago, he would have taken the violent fantasies of one patient seriously and several innocent people might still be alive today. I am referring to the horoscope of Charles Whitman Jr., the “Texas Tower Killer? A short time before Whitman snapped, he went to see a therapist, and told of his urge to go to the top of the tower with a deer rifle and start shooting. The danger was clearly indicated in Whitman's horoscope, as you will see.

We will start with recognizing chart shapes and then go to what I call “Astrology by Counting? If you can recognize certain patterns and can count how many planets are in a particular place, you are well on your way to being able to interpret a horoscope. The fist two types of chart shapes, the funnel and the locomotive, make a good test because the important points about a person's life seem to jump out at you. Keep an accurate record of your “hits?and “misses? Then make up your own mind if astrology is just a “superstition?or a real force in our lives.