<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: opening new frontiers
Review: Here you have the only book that (un)covers a taboo by taking a very close look at the topic of death in a horoscope. Houck blends western and hindu astrology and shows how both systems do give valid information together. He uses progressions and tertiairies as well as the sidereal zodiac. Though well structured this is not a book for novices. You need a lot of astrological background to read the book but if you're willing to proceed further in your study of your devoted art, read this book as it will teach some enlightening new systems of forecasting. Indispensable for serious astrologers and worth incorporating in all new software.
Rating: 
Summary: Best available study of Death timing
Review: Rick Houck was a maverick Vedic astrologer who like many westerners was trying to extract what really works from the morass of accumulated Indian astrological literature. Rick's writing is pungent & entertaining. He has a weird sense of humor perfectly suited to his subject! Highly recommended for readers with a working knowledge of Vedic predictive techniques, who want the benefit of Rick's extensive death-timing research. Beware, however, that Rick saw himself as a Tropical/Vedic bridge thinker. Rick was a formerly accomplished tropical astrologer who was driven to study jyotish out of frustration with failed tropical predictions. He got much better predictions with jyotish & the sidereal zodiac of course, but he chose to retain tertiary progressions which he said improved his accuracy for predicting death. In 1994, he thought he still could or should address the tropical audience. Unfortunately the constant switching between these apples-and-oranges perspectives makes the book fairly cumbersome. Also he used his own private ayanamsha (-5.10 from Lahiri) - so if you want to use his examples in your own research, you'll need to accommodate his ayanamsha. (Luckily, Goravani Jyotish software v.2.x has a Houck's ayanamsha option programmed in.) When Rick left his body in spring 2001, he said that his books would not be reprinted again after his death - so if you want this book, get it soon.
Rating:
Summary: Best available study of Death timing
Review: Rick Houck was a maverick Vedic astrologer who like many westerners was trying to extract what really works from the morass of accumulated Indian astrological literature. Rick's writing is pungent & entertaining. He has a weird sense of humor perfectly suited to his subject! Highly recommended for readers with a working knowledge of Vedic predictive techniques, who want the benefit of Rick's extensive death-timing research. Beware, however, that Rick saw himself as a Tropical/Vedic bridge thinker. Rick was a formerly accomplished tropical astrologer who was driven to study jyotish out of frustration with failed tropical predictions. He got much better predictions with jyotish & the sidereal zodiac of course, but he chose to retain tertiary progressions which he said improved his accuracy for predicting death. In 1994, he thought he still could or should address the tropical audience. Unfortunately the constant switching between these apples-and-oranges perspectives makes the book fairly cumbersome. Also he used his own private ayanamsha (-5.10 from Lahiri) - so if you want to use his examples in your own research, you'll need to accommodate his ayanamsha. (Luckily, Goravani Jyotish software v.2.x has a Houck's ayanamsha option programmed in.) When Rick left his body in spring 2001, he said that his books would not be reprinted again after his death - so if you want this book, get it soon.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Gem
Review: This is a very special book. I am now on my third reading, and I appreciate it more each time. Houck is very precise in his methodology. He establishes his rules of evidence at the start and then systematically works through many charts showing how his system works. There is no obfuscation in this book. It is as clear, crisp and pointed as a razor's edge. The author packs the book with interesting facts, philosophies and news items about death. I came away from this book feeling a lot more at peace with death as a natural part of living. After years of "The Denial of Death" this book makes it something to look forward to if only because it is so interesting. There are two more things I love about this book. Houck has a tremendous sense of humour. In an area of life that all too easily can be grim and macabre, filled with black humour, he manages to render death a humourous human foible. Nothing to take too seriously. Lastly, I love the graphics in the book. Pick it up and see what I'm talking about. All this before one even gets to the astrology. I have studied western and eastern systems for almost twenty years, and I agree with the author as to why Hindu or Vedic astrology is superior to the western system. What is new here is tertiary progressions, how they tie into the Vedic dasha/bhukti system, and the role of pre-natal eclipses in a chart. His technique has vastly improved my ability to time events in the charts I read. While I haven't instituted such a policy for myself, I can understand how Houck ofers a "double your money back" guarantee on his readings. Thanks, Mr. Houck, for a great book.
Rating:
Summary: A Real Gem
Review: This is a very special book. I am now on my third reading, and I appreciate it more each time. Houck is very precise in his methodology. He establishes his rules of evidence at the start and then systematically works through many charts showing how his system works. There is no obfuscation in this book. It is as clear, crisp and pointed as a razor's edge. The author packs the book with interesting facts, philosophies and news items about death. I came away from this book feeling a lot more at peace with death as a natural part of living. After years of "The Denial of Death" this book makes it something to look forward to if only because it is so interesting. There are two more things I love about this book. Houck has a tremendous sense of humour. In an area of life that all too easily can be grim and macabre, filled with black humour, he manages to render death a humourous human foible. Nothing to take too seriously. Lastly, I love the graphics in the book. Pick it up and see what I'm talking about. All this before one even gets to the astrology. I have studied western and eastern systems for almost twenty years, and I agree with the author as to why Hindu or Vedic astrology is superior to the western system. What is new here is tertiary progressions, how they tie into the Vedic dasha/bhukti system, and the role of pre-natal eclipses in a chart. His technique has vastly improved my ability to time events in the charts I read. While I haven't instituted such a policy for myself, I can understand how Houck ofers a "double your money back" guarantee on his readings. Thanks, Mr. Houck, for a great book.
<< 1 >>
| 
