Stars of India - Travels in Search of Astrologers and Fortune Tellers

Rating:
Summary: Excellent new age travelogue about the mysteries of India.
Review: A very enjoyable read this. Holt interviews endless different kinds of experts in prediction, as well as asking about his own future. The Rajastani shadow reader is fascinating, as is the author's account of the Asta Mangela, a South Indian astrological ceremony to discover what is going wrong with a family or a temple. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A great book about the history of astrology.
Review: As an astrologer myself I found this an excellent book for telling one about the history of astrology and how it originated in India. There are an incredible number of different types of predicition written about here, and it all makes run of the mill Western astrology look mighty tame.

Rating:
Summary: Do I now believe in astrology after meeting all these seers?
Review: First of all I'd like to say I'm not a professional astrologer but rather a journalist with an interest in the occult sciences. However, I made an after-dinner speech recently at a British Association of Vedic Astrology conference in Britain and everyone seemed to think I was pretty well educated on the subject. I must say that I felt very honoured to be asked to speak in front of so many distinguished soothersayers. Meanwhile, people keep asking me if after all I have researched whether I believe in astrology. I tell them I have to go on my own experiences in India. As you'll read in this book, some of the astrologers I met came up with some fairly stunning stuff about my past life, but I had to get used to plenty of inaccuracies as well! I don't think I'd bother going to a Nadi reading again. Indians swear by the Nadi, arguably the world's most mysterious method of prediction that involves reading a person's fortune from tiny sanskrit writing on palm leaves sometimes 1,000 years old. As I tell you in the book, I've been to several Nadi readers but generally I find them baffling and, after a reading lasting four hours or so, rather boring as well. No, if you want to convince me there's something in the stars, give me a straightforward, old fashioned Vedic astrologer everytime. Someone who uses as little intuition as possibl. For it is in my experience, that when a reader allows intuition to creep into his readings they go way off course. My favourite astrologer is K. N. Rao of Delhi, who consults to Indian government ministers and other top dogs on the sub-continent. He told me some amazing things about my family. Merely by looking at my horoscope he told me that my sister was married to someone who was working mainly with non-Christians - my brother-in-law was in the Gulf at the time, with Moslem colleagues. Now if you're an astrologer reading this, you'll think that's a pretty normal prediction, but for a layman like me, it was amazing. I hope you enjoy this book. It's gone down well in the UK and I hope you enjoy it in the States. Certainly I had a lot of fun travelling around India and meeting all kinds of weird and wonderful people.

Rating:
Summary: Good.
Review: Really enjoyed this. Surprised it hasn't done better