Astrology was the actual psychological system of the ancient world. It remained so, right up to the 19th century with the advent of Freud and his many disciples. What we call modern psychology is a relatively new thing – perhaps 150 years old. A blink in terms of historical time.

In the past only very important people had their horoscopes done – nobles, princes, kings, archbishops and popes. It was a cumbersome thing to erect a proper horoscope before the age of computers and calculators. Everything was done by hand with primitive equipment. Only the very important could afford this. Today of course it is a whole different story. Every man (or woman) can have their chart done – and probably more accurately than was done in the past.

For many years now there have been attempts to marry astrology and psychology. It seems like a natural marriage. The problem was in translating the language of Astrology with the language of modern psychology. It is two different languages. A lot of these attempts are very good.

While modern psychology has many important insights, you cannot compare it to the insights of a horoscope which is so much deeper and comprehensive. Also, the horoscope will show the “meaning” of certain behaviors. Some lie in the person’s destiny – his or her mission for the life. Some lie in what is going on in a person’s life at a given time – the impact of the transits.

Psychology has a whole list of “disorders” which are not seen as disorders in the horoscope. Attention deficient disorder, for example, is often seen as someone with many mutable signs in their chart. It is natural for them to have short attention spans and to shift from one thing to another. Some people are natural warriors. Some people are natural intellectuals who are not good at sports. These are not disorders and the people don’t need to be medicated – they only need to be understood.

For example, lets take a person who is very strong in BOTH the 9th and 2nd Houses. There would be a strong drive for wealth along with a strong idealism and religiosity. This is not schizophrenia. The person is quite normal. Only there are two competing urges in the soul which need to be integrated and harmonized. Somehow or other – and there are no hard and fast rules for this – the person needs to become rich while maintaining the idealism. The person doesn’t need to be medicated.

The person with a a Moon/Uranus conjunction (or Uranus in the 4th House or conjunct the ruler of the 4th) is often diagnosed as bi-polar. In psychology the solution is to medicate. The Astrologer would prescribe meditation and point out the positive’s of this position. The native would tend to be fun to be around, would tend to have genius hunches, would tend to like to move around a lot and remake the home. The astrologer would help him or her to understand his or her nature and give positive outlets to these urges.