Howard Sasportas - The Twelve Houses

Howard Sasportas died on 12 May 1992, fifteen years before the publication of this welcome new edition of The Twelve Houses. Fifteen years are a long time in the context of the changing paradigms and fashions in interpretation that have always constituted the endlessly creative domain of astrological study and discourse since its beginnings in ancient Babylon. Books, teachers, schools, and religious and spiritual frameworks come and go, and in any given period a particular set of techniques might be considered definitive and is then abandoned because a new set of techniques seems to provide all the answers to questions that have been asked for over four millennia.

Astrologers also understand the importance of cycles. The meaning of a major transiting configuration such as the Saturn-Pluto opposition of 2001-02, or the Saturn-Neptune opposition of 2006-07, or the thirteen-year passage of Pluto through Sagittarius, can be glimpsed not only in political, scientific, social, religious and artistic currents, but also within astrology itself, affirming that what seems relevant in astrological theory and practice at one time might not seem as relevant to some people at another because the needs of astrologers, their students and their clients alter according to changes in the collective. Few astrological authors make contributions that transcend and outlast these shifting cycles, but Howard was one of these. His astrology was not based on fashion, but is rooted in the sub-soil of a profound understanding of astrological symbolism conjoined with a penetrating insight into human nature. When he died, the astrological community recognized that it had lost one of its best-loved and most original thinkers. His published work The Twelve Houses, The Gods of Change, TheSun Sign Career Guide (co-authored with Robert Walker), Direction and Destiny in theBirth Chart, and the four volumes of seminars which I co-authored with him (TheDevelopment of the Personality, Dynamics of the Unconscious, The Luminaries and The InnerPlanets) has earned him a lasting place among the authors of classics in astrological literature. More recently, greater sophistication in computer technology has made possible the production of a series of Studyshops published by AstroLogos, which includes live recordings of Howards seminars combined with articles and graphics in a CD format. As a result of these Studyshops, a new generation of astrologers can enjoy the pleasure of listening to Howards voice in a live, dynamic seminar setting.

And there is no question that the live setting was the place where Howard was at his most fascinating, and where his qualities of wit, inspiration, profundity, articulateness and human warmth were expressed most fully. Although he was a superb writer, it was his personality that made the greatest impact, and those who knew this best were the students attending his seminars for the Centre for Psychological Astrology in London. Howard possessed a rare combination of mysticism and pragmatism that allowed him to move from the most exalted metaphysical speculations to the most earthy and, occasionally, downright scatological observations about horoscope placements. He never lost sight of human psychology, nor of the need for the astrologer to grasp fundamental human motivations and conflicts in order to apply abstract astrological interpretation to actual life situations. He exhibited unfailing kindness and sensitivity to his students, and perpetually emphasized a spiritual overview that encompassed an intense idealism; but at the same time he had little tolerance for dogmatism or destructive criticism. His approach was intensely personal and intensely transpersonal at the same time, but it was never aimed at a mass market audience because he always related to the individual.

Howards written work, like his teaching, was offered to the astrological community before the great explosion in astrology websites and online courses. His approach was rooted in the intimacy of exchanges with students and individual clients, and his astrological interpretations were always based on experience rather than speculation. The Twelve Houses was also written before the advent of Pluto into Sagittarius, whose reflections may be seen in the rise of sectarian trends, not only in religious contexts but also within astrology. It would never have occurred to Howard to promulgate a One True Astrology, or to see astrological practitioners who espoused other schools and approaches as enemies or heretics. Although he himself was frequently subjected to the kind of personal attack, rooted in envy and disguised as professional criticism, which has always existed within astrological praxis, he never indulged in this form of self-aggrandizement himself. He simply continued to practise and write superb astrology, and was willing to incorporate in his approach an eclectic pot-pourri of perspectives that ranged from Freud to Psychosynthesis, from Western esotericism to Hindu mysticism, from psychological chart interpretation to the divinatory application of astrology to progressions and transits, and from a discussion of myths and archetypes to the timing of when one should sell ones house. But his focus was always on the relevance, integrity and importance of the individual, and techniques were never subordinated to the reality of the human psyche.