direct insight, "direct knowledge", "channel", channeling. It can be spontaneous (like satori in Zen) or provoked by the bearer of knowledge (like shaktipad in yoga practice).

4. Experimentally - relying on a well-thought-out methodology, on experience and experiment.

Each of these paths, or strategies, has advantages and disadvantages. And if you are seriously going to study astrology, you must clearly understand what are the strengths and weaknesses of your path, your methodology.

The most popular and obvious is the appeal to tradition, translation and study of classical authors, historical and archival research, learning from the Masters. Symbolically, this is Cancer and the Fourth House, the exaltation of Jupiter. The first way, generally speaking, is the most correct. Here we have in the "pros" - a slender, developed to the smallest detail, to the details, a time-tested system. There are, however, very painful "minuses" - the bearer of knowledge, the "Master", is by no means always a master, even if he seems or wants to appear to be such. For hundreds of years, not only true knowledge has been accumulated, but also a huge amount of distortion as a result of the activities of all authoritative followers of the tradition. And often distortions completely overwhelm real Knowledge. Remember, for example, the situation with any major religion, its heresies and difficulties of becoming. In the process of transmitting a tradition, people inevitably introduce distortions. This is what happened with astrology. Misunderstandings, ambitions, the imposition of one's own limited life experience... For example, in the context of astrology, the proponents of the traditional approach are trying to translate (or rather, re-interpret) the surviving ancient texts. Although an adequate interpretation texts of other times is a most difficult problem in itself, even the possibility of this is still being argued in hermeneutics. Or they learn from direct bearers of knowledge, although the presence of good PR, good looks or exotic appearance, or, for example, the foreign origin of a teacher is not at all connected with his Knowledge. As a result, each such follower deliberately dooms himself to the path through other people's distortions and stratifications, to the path in the wake of authoritative figures - living people with human shortcomings. The main danger of this strategy is dogmatism and caste (the expulsion of Saturn in the Fourth House). But if the Fourth House, Cancer, Jupiter are strong in your chart, then this means that there is that inner compass that will allow you to overcome all distortions and obstacles. If not, then you risk...

The second way is the way of building theories. Symbolically, this is the Ninth House, Sagittarius. This is the way of the so-called "fundamental science". Just as a river overflows, breaking out into the open, so any theoretician, relying on tradition, generates hypotheses, theories and systems. On the one hand ("in the black"), it must be said that without theoretical understanding, serious research in science, including astrology, is impossible. The generation of theories that are not confirmed by facts, relying only on the existing system of knowledge, on tradition, has a very serious "minus" - projecting (the symbolic expulsion of Mercury in Sagittarius). Slender and beautiful Jupiterian systems often suffer from the desire for globalism and separation from reality. In karmic astrology, there are a lot of authors who have taken this path. Strictly speaking, most of them are. To verify this, go to any bookstore specializing in esotericism, or look through books on astrology. Most of them are of theoretical origin. This is not necessarily a bad thing - often such systems have amazing beauty and logical harmony, deservedly doing credit to the mind of their authors and gathering many supporters. But we must remember the main drawback - the theory, despite the beauty, does not always adequately reflect reality and can not often be applied in practice. There is a real gulf between describing what "should be" and what "really" is. деле". Чтобы было понятнher — предстаinьте себя на месте аinтора, ко­торый описыinает, к примеру, теорию рукопашного боя. it описание может быть очень убедительным и логичным, но будет ли оно так же убедительно, когда лично ATам по­требуется этот наinык? А inедь in астрологии самореали­зации глаinное — именно наша практика...

The third way of research, which has recently become popular, is the direct, non-experiential acquisition of knowledge (channeling, contacting, channeling, insight, etc.). These are Pisces and the Twelfth House. Theoretically, this is an absolute path, which makes it possible to directly obtain information, as they say, "in the wrong hands." Due to the fact that Pisces is the Ninth House from Cancer (traditions), traditionalists often exaggerate its significance and its results, that is, in other words, they romanticize. But in practice, everything is much more complicated. The symbolic expulsion of Mercury deprives the followers of this strategy of the ability to think critically and evaluate the significance of what they receive in Neptunian meditations, revelations, visions, etc. And the symbolic fall of Mercury in Pisces generally turns common sense almost into a curse. I am very wary of this strategy, and not only in astrology. Strictly speaking, this is not a scientific approach at all. Last but not least, it is thanks to this road that modern esoteric knowledge has turned into an eclectic dump of ideas, where it is sometimes difficult to distinguish anything worthwhile from the real paranoid delusions. While it is clear that many genuine masterpieces of knowledge came to us in this way, the need for self-control and skepticism is also clear. And it definitely cannot be such a mass phenomenon as modern New Age supporters want to present it. Neptunian knowledge, coupled with the damage of Mercury, can be so sweet that it comes to anecdotes. Recall that Aldous Huxley, while experimenting with LSD, somehow received a Revelation - a universal Truth that was vitally important to convey to people. He found the strength in this state to pick up a pencil and with heroic effort wrote down the Revelation on a piece of paper. When he came to his senses and his scientist's Mercury started working again, he was shocked by what he saw: "The banana is big, but the peel is even bigger"...

The fourth path, in order, but not least, is experimentation. symbolically, this is the Eleventh House and Uranus. The Eleventh House is the Eighth House from the Fourth (that is, from the House of Tradition). Therefore, the path of experience and experimental verification is always a revolutionary path that comes into conflict with tradition and threatens its very existence. Last but not least, the notorious conflict between science and religion lies precisely in this plane. In relation to astrology, we are talking here about research based not on tradition or authority (Jupiter), but on basic ideas and thoughtful methodology (Saturn, Uranus). A huge amount of successful research has come to astrology through this strategy. But no less number of errors and misconceptions appeared through it. Why? Very simple. Astrology is based on just a few principles shared by all schools and astrologers. As, for example, "as above, so below". Based on experience, experimentation and basic ideas, it is possible to independently discover completely new areas of practice as much as possible. A vivid example of this is M. Gauquelin's research on the distribution of planets in the region of the Angles of the horoscope for certain professions or the cyclic indices of Barby and Gan. But there is (as always) the other side of the coin. For this strategy, this is a symbolic expulsion of the Sun, that is, the sin of subjectivism. There is always a strong temptation along the way to regard the results of one's research as general, all-encompassing and universal, and "the beloved one" as exceptional and unique. But, by definition, everything that is gained through experience is limited by that same experience. And therefore, the logical consequence of the experiment should be the generalization and generation of hypotheses, however, they should be critically comprehended in the spirit of the second Ruler of the Eleventh House - Saturn. Everything accidental must be removed, everything effective must be brought into a strict system.

It so happened that I did not choose how I should master karmic astrology and astromagic, which strategy to choose, which path to follow. The path found me.
Theme Background

A scientific hypothesis always goes beyond the facts that served as the basis for its construction.

/ Academician V.I. Vernadsky /

In 1991, in Kharkov, I joined a large group of enthusiasts who were originally engaged in research on altered states of consciousness with the purpose of self-regulation and correction of mental problems. The methodology of Hatha and Raja Yoga and its integration with modern NLP technologies and the concepts of transpersonal psychology were taken as a basis.

At first, the research was carried out on a voluntary basis on the basis of the medical laboratory and the KhAI sports complex (Aviation Institute, Ukraine, Kharkiv). But everything changed significantly when S. Grof's model of the unconscious was taken as a methodological basis and full-scale scientific research in the field of transpersonal psychology began with the general theme "Modern psychophysiological technologies for personality development." The number of participants in the program has grown to one and a half hundred. The preparation of participants has become phased and multi-level. The group systematically developed systematic methods of working with the deep unconscious and studied transpersonal phenomena. Medical diagnostics based on the Vol-l and Nakatani methods, biological age control, psychodynamic control based on Luscher tests, complex personality profile tests, self-reports, etc. began to be used without fail. At this stage, I offered the help of astrology as a