planets (the Sun and the Moon included). Where these planets are located indicates
where (by zodiacal signs and especially by houses) they can be used by you to produce
the most valuable results.”
Rudhyar also believed that humanistic astrology needed to be founded on cer-
tain basic principles that would guide the astrologer in deciding how to interpret a chart
and would function as a code of ethics in helping the astrologer decide what to tell a
client, just as a therapist would choose not to state “facts” that would merely damage a
patient’s perhaps already eroded self-esteem. The central principle is that every individ-
ual has a right “to stand, erect and open, at the center of the universe around him.”
Finally, Rudhyar says, “It is evident that many astrologers ... mainly think of
astrology in terms of conformism—if not to the goal of financial profit, at least to pop-
ular expectations and the wishes of their clients’ egos. I believe instead in an astrology
of transformation.... I hope to awaken the sleeping god in every person. By sounding
the ‘true name’ of an individual one may arouse to life the divine within him. Every
person is a ‘celestial,’ if only he gains the strength and has the courage to stand by the
truth of his being and to fulfill his place and function on this earth by following the
‘celestial set of instruction’ revealed by the sky.”
In From Humanistic to Transpersonal Psychology,Rudhyar expands on My Stand on
Astrologyto discuss astrology as a spiritual discipline whose highest goal is to assist the
individual to manifest his or her own special relationship to divinity. From this view-
point, he argues against the use of statistics and other research to provide a “scientific”
basis for astrology, on the grounds that, were astrology to be socially sanctioned, licensed,
and regulated, it would become a force for conformity, not for actualization of individual
potentials. He thought that the situation would be as ridiculous as looking to the Ameri-
can Medical Association for spiritual guidance. Rudhyar specifically allied himself with
the Eleusinian Mysteries against Aristotle, with the Gnostics against the fathers of the
church, with the Albigensians against the pope and the king, with the alchemists against
the chemists, and with the Romantics against the scientific materialism and bourgeois
boredom and mediocrity of the Victorian Age. Consequently, his popularity with the
young during the 1970s and 1980s is not at all difficult to understand.
—Aidan A. KellySources:
Rudhyar, Dane. From Humanistic to Transpersonal Astrology.Palo Alto, CA: The Seed Center, 1975.
———. My Stand on Astrology.Palo Alto, CA: The Seed Center, 1972.
HUNTER, KELLEY
Kelley Hunter has studied the sky as a professional astrologer, mythologist, and ama-
teur astronomer for over 30 years. An internationally known astrologer, she is a speak-
er at national and international conferences and was the cofounder of the Roots of
Astrology experiential conferences. She is the astrologer-in-residence for the Omega
Institute programs in the Caribbean and on the faculty of the Self Centre at Caneel
Bay resort. Holding degrees in drama and in depth psychology / creative communica-
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Hunter, Kelly