The School of Evolutionary Astrology

Mountain Astrologer book review of
“Essays on Evolutionary Astrology”

Essays on Evolutionary Astrology: The Evolutionary Journey of the Soul
by Jeffrey Wolf Green,
The Wessex Astrologer Ltd,
4A Woodside Road, Bournemouth, BH5 2AZ, England, 2011.
Softcover-290 pp. – $34 (L22) (ISBN 978-1-902405-52-0).
Available from: www.wessexastrologer.com
Buy on Amazon.com

Reviewed by Mary Plumb in the June/July 2012 issue of  Mountain Astrologer magazine.

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Jeffrey Wolf Green’s daughter, Deva Green, has done a splendid job of editing a random and previously unpublished collection of her father’s essays and lectures. For those who may not be familiar with Jeffrey Green, he is the founder of the body of work that has come to be known as Evolutionary Astrology.

As Deva Green relates in the Introduction, the origins of the approach began with a dream that her father had in 1977. The dream gave “the entire astrological paradigm that measures the Soul’s growth, and the evolutionary intent, from life to life.” Jeffrey Green’s teachers were Paramahansa Yogananda and his guru, Sri Yukteswar.

This book is comprised of 12 chapters, which are transcriptions of talks given in various places over an extended period of time. (Sometimes the location is mentioned in the talk, but it is a bit perplexing that there are no dates in the book; some talks were apparently from the mid ’90s. and many could have been earlier.)

Green’s interpretation of a birth chart is informed, first of all, by understanding the nature of the Soul, its “four natural evolutionary conditions,” and the Soul’s connection to the ego. This matieral is explained clearly in Chapter 1, “A Review of the Key Principles in Evolutionary Astrology.” This chapter also covers the essential and most widely known parts of Green’s method: the importance of Pluto and the nodal axis in horoscope delineation. (As some other chapters suggest, the rest of the planets are also seen as supporting the Soul’s journey.)

The book covers a broad range of subjects, making it the most complete compendium of Green’s contributions to astrology in print. Unless you attended his lectures or workshops in the course of his long public career, you will not have had access to the material in this book.

To give you an idea of these topics, here are a few of the chapter titles: “The Leading Edge of the Soul’s Evolution — The Mars and Pluto Interface,” “The Role of Mercury in Evolutionary Astrology,” and “The Planetary Nodes and Evolutionary Astrology,” “Understanding the Sexual Archetypes and Evolutionary Astrology,” and “Saturn, Capricorn and the 10th House – Chaos and Dark Eros.” There is also a very interesting chapter on medical astrology that combines a Western understanding of anatomy and physiology with the chakra system.

When looking at the planetary nodes, we take a long view, since these nodes move very slowly. The nodes of both Mars and Pluto, for example, take 24,000 years to travel around the zodiac. Currently, the North Nodes of Pluto, Jupiter, and Saturn are in Cancer; the North Node of Uranus is in Gemini, and the North Node of Neptune is in Leo. These positions are true for everyone alive now, and “correlate to the evolutionary intentions for the entire species.”

Those who know Green’s work will be familiar with his use of the term “natural law”; he believes that the distortion and suppression of natural law, over the ages, has led to all kinds of “conditioning patterns” in the human being. He teaches that awareness of history will help us to understand the basis of many of the difficulties in our lives. The conflict between “natural law versus conditional law” is one of the underlying principles in Green’s work, and is “implicated in the causes of the current Patriarchy’s wars, violence, abuse, sadism, and masochism.”

Chapter 7 discussed “Evolutionary Transitions,” the astrological configurations that signify the important events in a life. “The choices we make shape our life direction. They are the ones we really want to look at.” The cycles of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are noted, as well as the transitting nodes, which “provide some of the deeper insights you can bring to a client.”

The chapter titled “The Planetary Method of Evolutionary Chart Analysis” includes (as does the entire work) many deep insights into the sphere of human behavior. For instance, many astrologers think Pluto as pointing to compulsion and obsession; Green says the reason for this is that “Pluto is going to correlate with the deepest sources of your unconsicous sense of security.” He often addresses the human need to feel secure and examines what constitutes security.

Another outstanding chapter is “Trauma and the Outer Planets.” Here, Green includes discussion of Delayed Stress Syndrome (more commonly called PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and its pervasiveness now, as “we are living in very transitional times in which everything has to change.” Living in uncertain times increases the fear of the unknown, which intensifies the need for security. Resistance to, or avoidance of, change “can lead to cataclysmic change, which produces intense forms of individual or collective trauma.” This chapter covers Physical Trauma and Saturn; Mental Trauma and Uranus; Neptune: Spiritual or Psychic Trauma; and Pluto and Emotional Trauma. Green uses each planet through the 12 houses as examples of how trauma can manifest. “A key point to remember is that even though trauma can occur in one of the specific bodies, i.e., physical, there is almost always a chain reaction effect that impacts the entire organism, the other bodies, in a variety of ways.”

Since the book’s contents are transcriptions of talks, Green is always open to questions and interaction with the audience. This brings a present and lively quality, which can leaven the tone when some of the subject matter carries an undeniable intensity.

This astrologer’s metaphysical experience has brought something unique into astrology. He counseled about 20,000 people around the world during his career, and he has many devoted students, including those who have developed Evolutionary Astrology in thier own way. I am sure that Essays on Evolutionary Astrology will speak to readers who will benefit from Jeffrey Wolf Green’s body of work.

reviewed by Mary Plumb

What is Evolutionary Astrology?

Evolutionary Astrology is a specific paradigm that reveals the evolutionary developments and progression of any Soul. It asks the questions, “Why am I here, and what are my lessons?”

The causative dynamic within all Souls that determines their evolution is Desire. Accordingly, Evolutionary Astrology reveals the types of desires that any Soul has had in previous lifetimes that created what those lifetimes, in total, have been.

We all arrive in any given life, as in the one we are living now, as a result of the composite of all those previous desires. The past is always shaping and conditioning the nature of any given moment (a new birth), as well as the future. The future itself is a function of the desires within the Soul that reflects its ongoing need to evolve: to evolve beyond where it has already been. Thus, it is the natural tension between the past and the future that shapes any given moment of our life(s).

Thru the specific paradigm of Evolutionary Astrology, the astrologer is able to measure this dynamic evolutionary process in each life.

Read the rest of this article

About the School
(part one)

The School Of Evolutionary Astrology is the original work of Jeffrey Wolf Green, as embodied in his best selling books Pluto: The Evolutionary Journey Of The Soul, volumes One and Two.   The DVD course sold by this school  is the recording of the first live Pluto School that Jeffrey Wolf Green taught, in 1994 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

For the first time in the history of astrology a unique paradigm has been developed that is able to accurately measure the evolutionary development of the Soul from life to life.

It is able to do this because the evolution of the Soul is based within the natural law of desire. Thus the evolutionary paradigm, as reflected in this astrology, is able to accurately determine the types of desires that the Soul has had prior to its current life, and the types of desires that it has in the life currently being lived, that reflect its ongoing evolutionary journey.

It is this type of astrology that allows the individual to understand the WHY of anything: why these emotions, why these fears, why these goals, why a certain type of partner, why this, and why that. Why am I here, and what are my lessons ? It allows for a total understanding of the unique and individual reality of each soul. It provides a perspective on one’s life that can only occur through an astrology of this type.

Jeffrey Wolf Green personally worked with over 30,000 clients in his time, all over the world. He lectured for twenty five years, in many countries, on the topic of Evolutionary Astrology. In combination, this allowed him to refine and further develop every detail and aspect of the Evolutionary Astrology paradigm that is presented in The School of Evolutionary Astrology.

The DVD correspondence course that leads to a credential as a certified Evolutionary Astrologer is the distilled essence of all those years and work. It is unique unto itself. There literally is nothing else like it.

About the School (part two)

The School Of Evolutionary Astrology is a comprehensive course, in that it teaches the totality of astrology from the ground up, thru the prism of the Evolutionary Perspective. Thus the school starts with an exhaustive understanding of all the signs, houses, and planets. The entire Evolutionary Paradigm is then taught:

• Pluto’s correlation to the Soul
• its placement in the birth chart by house and sign
• the location of the South Node of the Moon, and the location of its planetary ruler by house and sign
• the meaning of the polarity point of Pluto by house and sign
• the location of the North Node of the Moon, and the location of its planetary ruler by house and sign.

Many examples are given along the way.

It then teaches the nature of all the planetary aspects as understood thru the natural phases that they take place within: the New Phase, Crescent Phase, etc.

It teaches the understanding, use, and application of all the Planetary Nodes of each planet as these relate to the total evolutionary understanding of each individual.

Within this, the school teaches anatomy, physiology, and the chakra system, from the understanding of Pluto’s (the Soul itself) correlation to the specific RNA/ DNA signature of each person: their birth chart, and, thus, the reasons for this medical condition or that.

Since sexuality is a core part of most humans’ experience, The School Of Evolutionary Astrology also teaches the types of sexual desires that any soul has had and why, and what types of sexual desires the soul has in the current life and why, as they relate to the ongoing evolutionary development of each soul. Thus the entire spectrum of sexual desires and how to understand them in each chart is covered in the course.

And finally, the specific evolutionary methodology of measuring the evolutionary development of the soul thru time is taught, as this manifests through the transiting positions of the planets at any point in time, and thru various methods of planetary progressions at any point in time.

The School Of Evolutionary Astrology is recorded on 27 DVD’s – over 50 hours of material. The entire school has also been transcribed, and this printed transcript is provided along with the DVD’s. Copies of the birth charts discussed in the DVD’s are included in the transcript.

All students have access to the private School of Evolutionary Astrology Message Board, where they can ask questions that arise as they progress in their work. The Message Board is conducted by Deva Green, daughter of Jeffrey Wolf Green.

Evolutionary Astrology Certification

The school offers a certification program, for those who intend to do professional astrological counseling, or for those seeking personal validation of their understanding of the material and paradigm. (Many students become involved with the school simply for their own learning, without interest in certification. Certification is entirely optional.)

For those seeking certification, the process is ten specific homework charts must be successfully analyzed and interpreted, using the Evolutionary Paradigm. Each assignment is reviewed by Deva Green, daughter of Jeffrey Wolf Green. Upon successful completion of these ten charts, the student is issued a Certificate of Graduation as an Evolutionary Astrologer, competent to counsel people from the Evolutionary Astrology point of view.

Certification is encouraged, because it is through submitting homework and receiving feedback that the student can measure their progress in grasping the Evolutionary Astrology paradigm.

( continue: The Essence of Evolutionary Astrology )