0:03 Hello, everybody, and welcome to the first video in a series of discussions with Kepler College tutors. And today we have the honor of speaking with Mr. Charlie Obart, who teaches two classes at Kepler, which are Dignities and Abilities and Cycle of the Year. Charlie is also an author of several fantastic books, which several of them I have, and a practicing astrologer. So thank you, Charlie, for joining us today in this first of the series videos. It is my pleasure to be talking with you. Just very quick, by the way, it is Obert. Obert. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. That's quite all right. I suspect it was originally Irish. I think that's probably where the accent. So say it again for me. Obert. Obert. Obert. Okay. It used to be Obert, but
0:51 my parents dropped the accent. Obert. I love it. I'm going to keep that. I'm going to have to sear it in my mind. Peter Andreele Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal Iqbal I Well, first of all, dignity, stability, this comes out of my being a traditional astrologer. And by traditional would mean astrology, it was practiced basically from its earliest beginnings here in the West in the Hellenistic civilization up through approximately the area of William Lilly, which is like 1600s, 1700s.
1:37 And Dignities and abilities are right at the core of traditional astrology, because what it's all about is evaluating the condition of the planets. A lot of traditional astrology is all about asking questions. is this a good time to plant? Is this a good time to go to war or whatever? And dignities and debilities is all about weighing up the strengths and the weaknesses, the plus and the minuses of the planet. How strong is the planet going to be? How weak is it going to be? Is it going to be balanced? Is it going to be imbalanced? That's huge because you can really get a sense of,
2:23 it's not quite relative strength. I'll call it relative condition, but that's huge. So that's the core of the class, being able to evaluate relative strengths and weaknesses of the planets. And also then as part of that, figure out quite quickly, well, which are the most important planets? Which are the ones I need to concentrate on that should jump out at you? So, and as being a student of yours as well, and it's been such a, I'm actually I was privileged to have been through your class because I think when you started studying astrology that though that wasn't there, but it will be available those those texts or those techniques is that correct right. They weren't widely available in modern astrology. I'm very lucky that when I first seriously started. getting into
3:14 traditional astrology, number one, there's quite a bit in print now. But number two, I also happened to be starting that right around the time that my friend and colleague Ben Dykes started doing his amazing series of translations from the Latin and from the Arabic. And I had an awful lot of fun reading those, but it was a really steep learning curve. those classes are not immediately, those books are not immediately user friendly. So I'd have to read and reread and compare texts and that kind of thing. So in my books and in the course, I tried to take the core principles out of traditional astrology text and kind of give people a structure to which they could then
4:03 approach it and make more sense of it. I'm the, I'm the beginner's gateway for traditional astrology, if you will. Absolutely. And I have thoroughly enjoyed your books. One I've got right here, using dignities in astrology. I highly recommend this for any students out there, which I think is a requirement too, but you do it in such a wonderfully digestible way. And the examples you give are incredible as well. So a part of the books that you have, and you can find your books on studentofastrology.com as well. Is that correct? Yeah. I don't sell physical books there, but the physical books you can get at the usual booksellers. Like I know Barnes & Noble has them, Amazon has them, a lot of others do. And all of my books are available at downloadable in
4:52 PDF ebook form. Fantastic. Books are less expensive than the physical books are. Yeah. Yeah, I have, I think cycle of the year, that book as well. That's fantastic. So in speaking of books, do you have any high recommendations for supplementary material like William Lilly's, Christian astrology or anything else to compliment? I'm glad you mentioned that. Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. If you were going to buy one book on traditional astrology, this is it. This is the Astro America edition. of Christian astrology was re-edited by the late Dave Roll, me rest in peace. And he, he puts it in, you know, modernize the
5:41 spelling of the English kept Lily's words, modern type charts, he reset in modern format. So it's beautifully done addition. Wonderful. Wonderful. Fantastic. Actually this, um, A project that I did out of that, this is for you more ambitious users, and this is what turned me into an astrologer. What's unique about Lilly's book is in book two, which is on horary, which is asking specific questions. He's got something like 40 specific examples fully worked out with the question, the chart, how he evaluates the dignities and the interpretation. Right. if you really, wildly want to master this material, and
6:28 while I was putting together the class, I did this. I took every one of his examples and the charts in that part are in Lily's traditional format. So it's a bit hard to read. I hand drew every one of them on a wheel in modern format, evaluated all the dignities and abilities myself, then went through and analyzed exactly what he did. Wow. And I did that for the whole book. That taught me astrology. Wow. That's a lot of work. That's incredible. I highly recommend it. I think it's the single greatest book on astrology in the English language. Fantastic. Fantastic. And definitely to have in the library for students out there. So speaking of your class and dignities,
7:18 Andrew Smith, Williamsburg Regional Library, And abilities and other any examples that we can show to maybe showcase what the class is about. Andrew Smith, Williamsburg Regional Library, Now i'm going to give just a brief example i'm going to go ahead and share my screen now okay. Andrew Smith, Williamsburg Regional Library, Perfect here we go. Andrew Smith, Williamsburg Regional Library, Sure.
