the-astrology-book

Asteroids
insistent. Those who have studied the astrological influence of asteroids have reached
a consensus, which is, to quote from J. Lee Lehman’s The Ultimate Asteroid Book: “1.
The asteroids have astrological effects which may be studied. 2. The name of an asteroid
has astrological significance.”
The most common way of studying the influence of a new astrological factor is
to study people in whose charts the factor is prominent, such as when an asteroid is in
very close conjunction with a key planet or with the ascendant. The essential clue is
the name of the asteroid, which gives preliminary insight into the asteroid’s astrological
“temperament,” because the names astronomers give to newly discovered celestial
bodies are not coincidental—by virtue of some nonapparent synchronistic influence,
nonastrologically inclined astronomers give them astrologically significant names. For
example, with regard to the asteroid Eros, an astrologer would anticipate that it was
somehow related to passion, yet its name was assigned by an astronomer for whom
asteroids were little more than big space rocks.
In The Ultimate Asteroid Book (1988), Lehman attempted to overcome some
astrologers’ resistance to asteroid use by asserting that asteroids have few concepts
allocated to them and that their being small and numerous may allow for many very
exact meanings. For example, Eros specifically means “passionate attachment,” and so
does not have a broad range of meanings. (One can only wonder about the concepts
associated with asteroids such as Dudu.) Lehman contrasts this specificity with the
multivalent significance of a planet like Venus, which can refer to “love, harmony,
magnetic attraction, the veins, diabetes, erotica, potatoes, or a host of other things.”
Beginning with a preliminary clue, such as, in the case of Eros, the idea that
this small celestial body is somehow related to passion, the astrologer would place Eros
in the charts of acquaintances as well as in those of famous people whose lives are
open to public scrutiny. One would anticipate that natives with Eros in conjunction
(or in some other close aspect) with the Sun, the ascendant, Venus, or Mars might
exhibit more “erotic” inclinations than people with a less prominent Eros. One could
not, however, know the specific nature of these inclinations—and how they differed
from the passions of Venus, Mars, and Pluto—until after studying many people with
Eros prominent in their chart. This approach to the study of new astrological factors is
the same methodology utilized by astrologers to uncover the nature of the “new” planets
Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
There were several reasons for the initial focus on the Big Four. Ceres, Pallas,
Juno, and Vesta were the first asteroids to be discovered—in 1801, 1802, 1804, and
1807, respectively—and there was a 38-year gap before other asteroids were located.
Thus, they belong together in a fairly natural grouping. Beyond the Big Four, however,
asteroid research has not proceeded in a systematic manner. Rather than studying
either the next asteroids to be discovered, or the next-largest asteroids, researchers
have jumped to the study of asteroids with intriguing names such as Eros and Amor, or
asteroids with eccentric orbits, such as Adonis and Icarus. These are all relatively tiny
bodies: Eros is 18 miles across at its widest, Amor is approximately 2 miles in diameter,
and Adonis and Icarus are both about 1 mile wide. By comparison, Hygiea (personification
of health or hygiene), Psyche (personification of the soul), Kalliope (muse of
THE ASTROLOGY BOOK
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