The Astrology Book

chart and its harmony or discord.” According to the astrodynes technique, the

amount of power that a planet has is determined by the house that the planet resides

in and by the aspects that the planet makes or receives. The orb for the aspects varies

depending on which planets are involved, from which houses the aspects originate,

and what aspect is being considered.

Due to such complicated considerations, calculating astrodynes by hand for one

chart takes about ten hours. In the 1970s, Astro Numeric Service and Astro Commu-

nications Services began to offer computerized printouts of the astrodynes (also known

as cosmodynes) tables and summaries. Then in the mid-1980s, Church of Light mem-

ber John Molfese wrote a program for the IBM personal computer to calculate and

print the astrodynes tables. To quickly provide accurate planet longitudes and declina-

tions for his calculations, Molfese linked his program to John Halloran’s public domain

program for calculating and saving charts. Users of Molfese’s program could display the

names of all the charts saved with Halloran’s ASTROL96 and pick the charts for

which the astrodynes program should print its tables. When Halloran released Astrolo-

gy for Windows in 1994, Molfese followed suit and in 1995 released Astrodynes for

Windows, which adds screen tables, bar graphs, pie charts, and other features to the

astrodynes results. Halloran Software continues to distribute Astrodynes for Windows.

—John Halloran

Sources:

Benjamine, Elbert. Astrodyne Manual.Los Angeles: The Church of Light, 1950.

Doane, Doris Chase. How to Read Cosmodynes.Tempe, AZ: AFA, 1974.

ASTROLABE

An astrolabe is a mechanical device that, prior to the development of the sextant, was

widely used by mariners. Said to have been developed by Hipparchus, greatest of the

ancient Greek astronomers (although some scholars give Ptolemy the honor), the

astrolabe was used by astrologers when they erected horoscopes to determine the posi-

tions of the planets. (Prior to the development of ephemerides, it was necessary to

actually look at the heavens when casting a horoscope.). The term astrolabe means

“taking the star” in Greek, so it could be used to refer to any instrument for observing

the stellar dome. Thus, in the early medieval period, astrolabewas often applied to the

armillary sphere, a different instrument. The device now called an astrolabe is more

properly termed a planispheric astrolabe. Originally Greek, this instrument was lost to

western Europe until its reintroduction by Arabic sources.

Sources:

DeVore, Nicholas. Encyclopedia of Astrology.New York: Philosophical Library, 1947.

Tester, Jim. A History of Western Astrology.New York: Ballantine, 1987.

ASTROLOGER

An astrologer is one who practices astrology. The term is usually reserved for individu-

als who read charts for clients, although astrological researchers can appropriately

Astrolabe

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