Your character at the time of your birth is depicted in your birth chart. It’s been built by evolutionary experience and human life events and conditions ensure further growth and development. But to use your birth chart as a self-development resource you need the facts of progressed aspects.
They provide the coding for your development so to gain control of your destiny you need to understand your character, the experiences that will sustain your development and the role played by your progressed chart in timing the developmental process.
The first astrologers left their astrological wisdom in the sky and their knowledge of how your character as mapped in your birth chart unfolds and develops in response to major progressed aspects was part of their database of information, yet for thousands of years no one knew the science of how they influenced your life experience or the role they played in God’s Great Evolutionary Plan.
Then, with Aquarius, in 1881 came an astrology revival and the leading exponents of the ancient science with little clear understanding emphasized the importance of major progressions.
But their general use was hampered by the need for an accurately calculated birth chart, difficult time-consuming calculations, and a lack of interpretative data explaining their influence and this resulted in those seeking easy explanations to life’s events discarding them in favor of the easy to calculate transit progressions.
By 1920 members of the astrological community were advocating transit progressed aspects that apparently explained and timed every possible human life event.
Humanity had just emerged from the Age of Pisces when mystical belief and supposition guided the knowledge gathering process and transit progressions were just another unsubstantiated Piscean age belief.
It was assumed they played a key role in the life that unfolded, but where was the scientific evidence? Some knew, from personal observation, that when it came to transits that their influence didn’t add up. But the mystical minded don’t need scientific evidence – their happy to believe – and since then the idea that transit progressions cause major life-changing events has hurtled out-of-control like a runaway train.
In April 1924 in Los Angeles, California The Brotherhood of Light led by Elbert Benjamine established an Astrological Research Department. Elbert wanted you to use your birth chart as a self-development resource and he knew that you can only do this when you had access to evidence-based astrological facts regarding your progressed chart.
His starting point was an ancient teaching regarding major progressed aspects. It was based on the theory that each birth chart planet moves or progresses and that their movement each day after your birth equates to an influence that covers one year in your life. They were thought to explain major life events.
In 1910 Elbert had re-discovered minor progressions and based on the theory that each planet’s movement each 28 days after your birth equates to an influence that covers one year in your life the aspects formed by minor progressed planets to birth chart planets were thought to explain the less important minor events of life.
And finally, there was the popular transit progression. It was based on the theory that aspects formed by transiting planets to birth chart planets were thought to coincide with inconsequential events.
These three types of progressions or energy releases provided theories regarding the timing of major, minor and inconsequential events but each had to be statistical tested to determine their precise influence and function before they could be accepted as astrological facts.
In 1940 after 16 years of research the evidence supporting the theory that major progressed aspects timed and influenced major life events was a mile high and Elbert Benjamine undertook what is probably the most important Church of Light research project ever conducted: Case History studies of Environment and Conditioning as affecting events attracted by Progressed Aspects.
This project involving the birth charts of real people and their life events forced the progressed chart to reveal many of its secrets. It caused a revolution in the way the progressed chart and major progressed aspects were understood.
Then in 1946 in the course of their research work on astrodynes, harmodynes and discordynes Elbert Benjamine and WMA Drake discovered that minor progressed aspects have two distinct influences.
They exert an independent influence that can attract a minor event or they can reinforce a major progressed aspect and add the extra energy necessary to attract a major event.
And in 1947 Lenora Conwell conducted a research project into transit progressions that revealed the role they played in timing events mapped by major and minor progressions. It was later tested by Elbert Benjamine and William Drake.
Their follow-up statistical research involving 200 progressed charts confirmed that on the day a major event occurred there was a transit aspect to one of the planets involved in the major progressed aspect mapping the major event; and on the day a minor event occurred there was a transit aspect to a planet involved in the minor progressed aspect mapping the minor event.
It took The Brotherhood/Church of Light Astrological Research Department 24 years to demystify the precise role played by the three types of progressions in your birth chart. It was a spectacular achievement. Here’s a timeline of events:
Time unknown: The ancients discover that major progressions play the key role in timing the important – life-changing – events that define your life experience.
1910: Elbert Benjamine re-discovers minor progressions.
1917: Elbert Benjamine publishes the Hermetic System of progressions.
April 1924: The Brotherhood of Light establishes an Astrological Research Department to investigate astrology’s data-base of beliefs, sift the facts from the fictions and to go in search of new astrological facts.
December 1929: The Brotherhood of Light Astrological Research Department presents Astrological research report No.3: When do people marry? It reports that marriage only occurs when there’s a major progressed aspect involving a planet ruling the seventh house. For the first time an ancient astrological teaching is validated by scientific statistical research.
1939-1940: Elbert Benjamine supervises the only research project ever conducted into the events attracted by biological and astrological twins.
April 7, 1940: Elbert Benjamine publishes Case History Studies of Environment and Conditioning as affecting Events attracted by Progressed Aspects. This research project forced the progressed chart to reveal many of its secrets and resulted in the Astro-Physical Interaction diagram.
June 1940: Elbert Benjamine presents and explains his Astro-Physical Interaction diagram aka Matrix that you can use when assessing the potential influence of any major progressed aspect.
June 26, 1941: Elbert Benjamine gives a talk before the Third West Coast US Convention if Standard Scientific Astrologers in Oakland California entitled: The Characteristics of the Event Attracted by a Progressed Aspect to each of the Ten Planets.
August 1941: Elbert Benjamine publishes an article entitled: Place the emphasis on thought-cell activity – not the planets.
September 1941: Elbert Benjamine announces that The Church of Light Astrological Research Department during 1941 had developed a new approach to appraising progressed aspects.
February 1942: Elbert Benjamine commences a series of articles in The Rising Star entitled: Judging and Calculating Progressed aspects. The series continues each month till July 1945. The Church of Light Astrological Research Department had scientifically confirmed ancient astrological teachings and Elbert Benjamine explained its findings to the Church of Light membership.
1946: Elbert Benjamine and William Drake while developing the Astrodynes discover that minor progressed aspects have a dual function: An independent influence that results in a minor event and a stepping-up influence that reinforces and fine-tunes the timing of a major event mapped by a major progressed aspect.
August 2, 1947: At the Fifteenth International Church of Light Convention, Lenora Conwell presents a study of 25 progressed charts which reveals that a transit aspect plays a trigger role in timing the major event mapped by a major progressed aspect.
1947: Parallel aspect is proved to be important.
September 1947: Elbert Benjamine publishes Church of Light Astrological Report No. 59: The Reinforcement effect of Minor Progressed Aspects.
March 1948: Elbert Benjamine publishes Church of Light Astrological Report No. 60: The Trigger effect of Transit Aspects.
March 1948: Elbert Benjamine publishes Church of Light Astrological Report No. 61: The One Degree rule for all progressed aspects is valid.
1950: Elbert Benjamine conducts his final research into progressed conjunction and parallel aspects made by progressed planets to their birth chart positions.
He observed that ‘a planet which has not moved beyond one degree of its birth chart place, and has not reversed its motion, does not have the effect of a progressed conjunction or parallel aspect. But if before it gets one degree from its birth chart place, either in the zodiac or by declination, it reverses its motion – if direct at birth becoming retrograde or if retrograde becoming direct, or if moving south by declination at birth, starting to move north, or if moving north by declination, starting to move south – it has the full effect of a progressed conjunction or parallel aspect.’
Astrology for Aquarius – sharing our knowledge
