Not all Guardian Daemons are equal in effectiveness, since not every soul learns their lessons fully or completely during their sojourn on earth. This is not due to one Guardian Daemon being inferior to another, but rather to the quality of the soul’s perception. For some people, the Guardian Daemon shouts in their ear, while for others, he may as well be shouting across a busy street. Astrologically speaking, this is all in the strength or weakness of the receiving instrument, or the soul in question. Iamblichus, in “On the Mysteries,” writes that the Guardian Daemon may be found in a chart, by looking for the Lord of the Geniture, since that is our strongest planet and our best card. However, he cautions that the planet itself is not the Daemon, but rather provides a means to the Daemon.

I am inclined to see the overall strength of the Lord of the
Geniture as our willingness to follow the Guardian Daemon’s promptings. A powerful Lord of the Geniture indicates that the person can hear clearly; a weaker Lord of the Geniture shows some fuzziness in the reception.

Too, every person’s Guardian Daemon is different in nature. It is said of Socrates that his Guardian Daemon had a constraining nature, whereas for most people the Guardian Daemon incites to action. For most of us, it is when we do not listen to our Guardian Daemon’s promptings, we tend to become mere lumps of clay. For the very tiny minority of souls like that of Socrates, the Guardian Daemon must actually restrain the soul from pouring out its divine essence too quickly, and from expiring too soon to give the rest of the world any benefit of its wisdom. It is as though the vast majority of mankind was walking uphill to achieve wisdom at the top of the mountain, while Socrates walked downhill and told of those he met about what he saw at the top. Our Guardian Daemons must push us upward, while that of Socrates had to act as a brake so that he did not descend the mountain of knowledge without conferring any benefit on the rest of us.

The Real Astrology conference at Fulda, as presented by John Frawley, was a great success. There were approximately 30 attendees from numerous countries, including Germany, the UK (including Scotland), the Netherlands, Switzerland, Serbia, South Africa, and other exotic locales. Yours truly was the only representative from the US. By the end of the conference, I realized one very important thing – we really need more dialogue between traditional astrologers in all countries. There appears to be very little cooperation between US and European astrologers – sure, they chat on email lists, but the US traditional astrology community could significantly benefit from the Europeans’ efforts and knowledge. Judging from the attendees at the conference, the European traditional astrology community is extremely impressive, and I wished I could have spent a week just talking to everyone (whether they would have enjoyed that, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter). There need to be more cooperative ventures between traditional astrologers in variuos countries to enhance our understanding of the art, and truly bring the tradition to life.

As an illustration, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK each have their own home-grown traditional astrology magazine. The US, despite a much greater population and its technological advancement does not. The same is true for conferences and associations focused on traditional astrology. As you can no doubt tell from my strident tone, I have resolved to do something about this, and plan to pursue a rather unique method of bridging the geographical divide in the community, which (I hope) will raise the level of discourse about traditional astrology and its practice. Stay tuned for more details on this website and at www.gryphonastrology.com.

So what actually happened at the conference? John and Branka each lectured on key topics in the tradition – John spent the first evening discussing the philosophical and religious underpinnings of our art. We sang a traditional hymn in the praise of Lilly (“Lilly, Lilly, I love you so”), and analyzed two Rubens paintings. The following day, John lectured on the Arabian Parts and the soul within the chart. It was a very inspiring lecture, and was especially enlightening in view of John’s recent article in the Astrologer’s Apprentice on this very topic.

On Sunday, Serbian astrologer Branka Stamenkovic shared a few horaries with us, which all had to do with nefarious doings in the far-off land of Serbia. Vanished political rivals, hidden mafiosi assassins, and tormented lovers (are there any other kind that call astrologers in the middle of the night?) were all trotted out on display. We learned much from Branka’s charts, as she described the analytical process she used for each chart.

At the end of the last day, John lectured on the chart, solar and lunar returns of one Vesna Vukovic, a Serbian airline hostess who fell from the skies during a terrorist plane bombing, and miraculously survived.

About Fulda itself: a town of about 65,000 in the Hessian region of Germany, it has both historical and natural beauty. On the train ride from Frankfurt, there were beautiful rolling flowery meadows with contented cows grazing happily. It appeared to be a large Milka commercial. The town has beautiful baroque architecture and gardens dating from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, as well as churches that were far older, and were established when Christianity first arrived in Germany over 1000 years ago.

Finally, the hotel itself was very cozy and as one should expect in Germany, immaculately clean. The food was delicious, abundant, and all homemade (just thinking about the yummy desserts makes me hungry). Yum!

Future doings: Word has it that due to the great success of the Fulda conference, there will be a repeat next year, this time with more speakers from all over the world. Details, as always, can be found on John Frawley’s website, in the “Here, There and Everywhere” section. Visit www.johnfrawley.com for updates.