Heaven Knows What: How to Cast Your Horoscope in 15 Minutes, by Grant Lewi. Now in its tenth printing, published by Llewellyn Publications.

Every few years a new Sun-Moon combination book is published. None of them compares with an old standby, Heaven Knows What by Grant Lewi, first published in 1935. I have a tattered 1978 Bantam paperback, and felt lucky to have it, because it was out of print for many years.

Heaven Knows What was a popular book, written for everyone to understand and use. One could start with the clever do-it-yourself horoscope system at the back of the book, and then move onto the aspects between the planets, all delineated in concrete, everyday terms—except for Pluto, just being discovered when he wrote.

The book is brief, but amazingly accurate, far better than any computer report I’ve seen. Many of Grant’s interpretations don’t seem to arise from logic, but they are right on. His super intuitive ability is shown by his Gemini Sun conjunct Pluto and opposite Uranus. Grant died young, at 49. It seems a great pity that he wasn’t around to write more.

But perhaps this uniquely useful book is quite enough for one person. (I do have one other by Grant Lewi.) It had hundreds of thousands of sales—probably millions by now—and was republished many times by several different publishers.

The good news is that it has been recently republished by Llewellyn. Grant had an engaging writing style, and once you open this book you’ll be hooked.

April 2001

Astrology for Yourself: A Workbook for Personal Transformation, by Douglas Bloch and Demetra George. Wingbow Press, Berkeley, Ca.

People often ask me to recommend a good beginner’s book. If you’re interested enough to do a bit of work, I suggest Astrology for Yourself: A Workbook for Personal Transformation by Douglas Bloch and Demetra George.

This book has become a classic primer. My copy was published in 1987, and it continues to be republished.

The reader uses their own astrological chart, and step-by-step works through the basic astrological principles, like a detective, eventually interpreting their own chart. The authors are both well grounded in astrology, and are able to lay out the basics in a simple fashion.

In fact, the language of astrology is simple. There are three basic categories—planets, signs, and houses—and all interpretation is based on a thorough understanding of the meaning of each term, 34 in all. Practice is the key. A student could go through this simple book with many charts, of people they know or people in the news, and develop a workable understanding of astrology.

Since every chart is different, every combination different, experience is essential to develop a framework of meaning for each of the 34 terms. This book provides a good grounding, but like any other discipline, it requires practice to develop skill.