Becoming an Astrologer

Astrology is a craft. You can learn it the way you learn a language: first the basic vocabulary, then the grammar, then plenty of practice. This page shows you what it involves and what order to go in.

What an astrologer actually does

The work does not start with the interpretation; it starts with a calculation. Your date, time and place of birth give the birth chart: a snapshot of the sky above that exact spot at that exact minute. Only once the drawing is finished does the reading begin. The astrologer looks at how the planets stand in relation to one another and turns that pattern into sentences the person in front of them can actually use.

So a large part of the job is talking to people. A chart calculated without a single error is no use to anyone if nobody explains it in plain words.

The basic vocabulary

Four building blocks are enough to start with:

• The twelve zodiac signs describe the how. Each one covers 30 degrees of the zodiac.
• The planets describe the what: which force is at work. The Sun and the Moon count as planets here, along with Mercury through to Pluto. Each has its own orbital period.
• The twelve houses describe the where: which area of life something happens in, such as work, relationships, family background or possessions. For these you need the exact time of birth.
• The aspects are angles between two planets: conjunction (0°), sextile (60°), square (90°), trine (120°), opposition (180°).

Two systems help you understand the twelve signs instead of learning them by heart: the four elements fire, earth, air and water, and the three qualities cardinal, fixed and mutable. Every combination of the two occurs exactly once, and that gives you the twelve.

An order that works

Most beginners try to read a whole life story far too soon. You are better off going step by step:

• Calculate your own chart. Get your exact time of birth from the registry office where your birth was recorded: it appears on the full copy of the record, whereas the short certificate usually leaves the time out. Without it, any reading of the houses is pure guesswork.
• Understand the ascendant. It is the sign rising on the eastern horizon at the moment of birth. Because the Earth turns once in 24 hours, on average it moves through a whole sign in about two hours, and being four minutes out already shifts it by roughly one degree. Those are averages: how long a sign really takes to rise depends on the sign and on the latitude of the birthplace.
• One planet at a time. Look at a single planet in twenty charts before you move on to the next one.
• Only at the very end, the overall picture of the whole chart.

Work out your first charts by hand with an ephemeris, a table of the planets’ daily positions. Software will take that off your hands later, but once you have interpolated a position yourself, you notice when a program spits out nonsense. For further reading, the selection under astrology books will help you.

Training, exams and practice

In the German-speaking world, “astrologer” is not a protected job title. There is no state training and no official diploma, and anyone may call themselves one. Which is exactly why proper training counts for something: professional associations run courses lasting several years and ending in an exam, usually part-time over two to four years. Alongside those there are distance courses, study groups and a great deal of reading on your own.

If you want to earn money from consultations, you have to deal with registration and tax. The rules differ from country to country: in Germany you normally have to register a business, while Austria and Switzerland have rules of their own. Ask the relevant authority before you take any money. And be realistic about the money: the first consultations take a long time and bring in little. Practise with people who give you honest feedback.

What astrology does not tell you

One honest limit remains: astrology is not a recognised science. Controlled studies have so far been unable to confirm its claims, and no mechanism behind it has been demonstrated. A chart will not give you a date, a name or an illness. It replaces neither a doctor nor a therapist nor a lawyer, and serious astrologers say nothing about diagnoses or about life expectancy.

What it can do is something else: it gives you a grid with which to describe your own patterns more clearly. Being open about that limit does not cost an astrologer credibility; it earns them some. For a first taste, try the free horoscopes or the overview of astrology.