by Robert Wilkinson
Because we're celebrating Grant Lewi, here's a review of his masterwork Heaven Knows What. As many of you know from his recent birthday tribute, Grant Lewi is one of the true astrological all-stars. Originally an Ivy League English professor, he ultimately became one of the truly beloved astrologers of all time.
He was a professional writer who began his astrological career writing and doing personal chart readings in 1934, around the same time as another venerable legend, Dane Rudhyar, began to write his pioneering articles. Rudhyar published The Astrology of Personality in 1936, the same year that Grand Lewi published Heaven Knows What. Part of Grant's legend is that predicted the time of his death in 1951, a story related in his other astrological masterpiece, Astrology For The Millions.
As I mentioned in that book review, Grant was an early editor of Horoscope Magazine and later founded his own, The Astrologer. In his books and magazine articles, he was the first to offer us ways to regard "bad" aspects as challenges for us to act wisely, and his easily understood, reasonable approach dispelled many superstitions about the "hard" aspects and how they manifest in the lives of both famous and not-so-famous people.
All his works offer helpful psychological approaches to crucial points in our life cycles that help us to be aware of what's happening and what we can do about circumstances, even though when they were written the vast majority of astrologers took a much more fatalistic approach.
In Heaven Knows What, the first of his two astrological masterpieces, he gives extraordinary in-depth analyses of all 144 possible Sun-Moon combinations, as well as the meaning of the various aspects, or angular relationships, of the planetary combination.
What is remarkable about this work is that in a pre-computer era, his unique method of looking at the chart enables anyone to calculate a pretty accurate astrology chart without having to know diurnal logarithms, universal time, or acceleration factors. As one who remembers computing charts by hand, doing the STAR method of calculation I learned from The A to Z Horoscope Maker and Delineator, all I can say is wow!
Whether you simply want to know what sign your moon and planets are in, or how a Sun in Aquarius/Moon in Libra may be different than a Sun in Cancer/Moon in Aquarius, this book lays it all out in a very user-friendly way. If you are considering studying astrology, whether for fun or professionally, this is one of the all-time best books to begin with, especially if coupled with Astrology For The Millions. You can get an instant "take" on people, in a revealing and enlightened way, and you will find things about yourself to contemplate that will reveal you to you for years to come.
© Copyright 2020 Robert Wilkinson
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