Horoscope Symbols

Robert Hand's Horoscope Symbols, published by Para Research in 1981, is a practicing astrologer's own manual explaining the interpretive symbolism of astrological signs, planets, houses and aspects, written from within the modern Western astrological tradition for readers learning to read a chart. Hand is among the more historically literate figures within contemporary astrology, having also worked on translating historical astrological texts, which gives his interpretive choices here more grounding in the tradition's own historical development than a purely intuitive modern guide would carry. Its strength is that it is the tradition's own account of its symbolism, appropriately used here as evidence of what astrologers themselves hold these symbols to mean rather than as external validation of astrology's predictive claims. Its limit is exactly that internal standing, the book explains astrology's interpretive system on its own terms and makes no attempt to test that system against outside evidence, so it should never be cited as evidence astrology works, only as evidence of what its practitioners believe and teach.