Review from the ISAR Journal, July 2004
Review: A New Vision of Astrology
Tad Mann’s latest book is a concise and organized presentation of his life’s work. Never before has Life*Time Astrology been accessible in this way. Since the early 1970’s, Tad Mann has worked with a system that he first outlined in his book The Divine Plot, published in 1986 in England and reissued in 1991 in America. I have a hard cover edition from Allen & Unwin, 1986, and the paper back edition with Element, 1991. From this work, he wrote his Life*Time Astrology. He created a computer program of that name to print out the system he has designed which lists one’s age periods from conception to, in my own case, age 98. This book not only acts as a guide to interpreting and using his complex theory of astrology and reincarnation, but also presents in a more simplified way the entire opus of his theory.
This author has a very large mind, in which are housed myriad ideas and images, phenomenal amounts of detail, facts, theories and endless permutations on all of them. Tad Mann is not just a writer, or an astrologer, or an artist, or an architect or a theoretician; he is one of our most prolific book producers in the business!
His books all find a way to explode the microcosm into a macrocosmic world view. In his previous works, he has lists of these epochal sectors and concepts of spiraling time, including complex interactions and relativistic meaning between — well, between everything!
“From the precession of the equinoxes and that view of the epochal ages of the Zodiac, through to the finite position of the houses and planets in a natal horoscope, we have a blueprint for a very interesting theory of reincarnation as seen through a contemporary individual horoscope.”
In his earlier book The Divine Plot; Mann introduces the concepts of his view on astrology and reincarnation, drawing on great western mystics and philosophers, exploring mega-mythic time periods (such as the Flood and deluge legends, of which he lists 39 different cultural sources of the same — universal — stray); the unveiling of the new sciences to incorporate the double helix and the DNA as a relative diagram to human evolution and cosmic design; and sourcing from Plato, Jung, Eliade, Zukov, Pagels, Aristotle Nietzsche, Wilbur, Ouspensky, Rodney Collins, just to name a few. He weaves a fascinating story of our individual origins that go back aeons in time.
From the precession of the equinoxes and that view of the epochal ages of the Zodiac, through to the finite position of the houses and planets in a natal horoscope, we have a blueprint for a very interesting theory of reincarnation as seen through a contemporary individual’s horoscope.
For those less anxious to read myriad theories of levels of consciousness and other esoteric phenomenon which Mann expounds and clearly enjoys, here’s the book for you!
A New Vision of Astrology is well organized and has introductory interpretations of the signs, planets and houses all woven into the fabric of the evolution of the human life span. In that way it is a new vision — of lifetime astrology — a kind of “divine plot unveiled”. The text in the book is augmented by “windows” that accent what level of interpretive process you are embarking upon while studying the book For instance, once grasp the keywords for the signs, and read the section on the time scale of the natural zodiac from conception to childhood to maturity, which is created on a logarithmic scale, I can then look at the next pictorial of a natal chart which is numbered to show a fast track interpretation of the conception point (ninth house) and the parents, as seen through the symbols in the horoscope, through to the individuals development from conception, childhood, to maturation.
Woven throughout the book are classic interpretations of astrological information such as the Ascendant/Descendant and the MC/IC as well as the houses and planets and signs. This is a rather clever way of weaving well established natal chart interpretations with the “new” concepts that Tad has brought to astrology, via the systems and methods that he uses and then demonstrates, getting the reader to assimilate it rather easily.
Somehow, though a great deal of the material is very familiar if one has read Mann’s other books, it is also new in that it is practically applied and thus, can be used and tested out by any reader. While it is unlikely that a “casual” read of The Divine Plot would allow any amateur lay or student of astrology to actually make his or her own incarnation sequence, but in this book, those people can.
For instance, when we read in Chapter Six, “Our Cast of Characters”, we have a description of the planets and nodes and their classic rulerships and detrirnents and so on — but the delineations are specific to “characters” that play a role in our incarnation from pre conception to death. For example: each planet is briefly treated in each stage of life. . . such as Neptune, and its influence in gestation, during birth, during childhood, then, as we mature, Mann gives images of the kinds of people who influence our growth and life. He draws in the mother as the “container” and her experiences of conception and her awakening or realization of her pregnancy and so on.
The latter part of the book treats more finitely the measurements of the life cycle and has more ways of viewing a planet and its influence, according to age of development and time cycles of the life. Each planet is given its character as it “works” in the psyche as a child, as an adult and as an aging person.
From the mother’s realm of holding the unborn in utero, through the birthing and growth, the last five chapters, bring Tad’s work together, with sample horoscopes and interpretive values for the house cusp rulers and the ages of life, as well as, the interpretations of each house cusp as demarcating changing needs in one’s environment as one matures.
Tad Mann offers each person who purchases the book a free series of horoscope diagrams and a list of dates in your life that you can do from his website at http:llwww.newvisionastrology.com. In doing this, you can chart your own lifetime using Mann’s unique method. By following the text in the “windows”, you just might find some really interesting perspectives on your life cycle!
In the Introduction, on page xiv, it says you are eligible for free horoscopes of your own to use with the book. I received my charts and lists through email attachment from Tad, and proceeded to find out “what my mother was thinking” long before I was a twinkle in my father’s eye.
Buy and add this
book to your library. For astrologers only I would say. Enjoy!
Erin Sullivan
