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05/19/2012
Eugene, Oregon
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How I Became Interested In Astrology
Mark Lerner began his astrological studies in New York City in June 1972 – on the same day that he began taking a chemistry class at Columbia University to prepare for a pre-Med training and entry into Medical School.
Instead of becoming a physician like his father and uncle, a few months later he decided to become a professional astrologer after reading a variety of astrological books, including masterworks by the eminent Dane Rudhyar.
Having already graduated Michigan State University with High Honors and a B.A. in Social Science, he completed an intensive, self-directed one-year training in learning professional astrology from A to Z. He started his active consultation work in the summer of 1973.
After working at the Alice A. Bailey/Arcane School in Manhattan (1975-1976) and becoming a member of the Findhorn Community in Northern Scotland (1976-1979), Mark became a father for the first time in August 1979.
Settling back in the USA in 1980, he initiated The Great Bear as an astrological educational center and journal in Amherst, Massachusetts. This is where his second daughter was born at the Summer Solstice in 1981 – on the same day that Welcome to Planet Earth astrology journal began publication.
This newsletter eventually grew into a newspaper and magazine over a time-period of 19 years (1981-2000) in Massachusetts, Madison, Wisconsin and Eugene, Oregon (where Mark has lived and worked since 1984). WTPE journal reached thousands of astrological students and professionals around the nation and world, and it became well-respected as one of the top periodicals concerning Mundane Astrology (focusing on the higher destiny of nations, humanity and Spaceship Earth).
The first WTPE astrological web site was launched in the mid-1990s and the new Earth Aquarius News web site represents a great ideal and dream of merging astrological wisdom with late-breaking reporting in an online newspaper format.
Mark has done thousands of astrological consultations – in person, by telephone and e-mail, and 90-minute and 1-hour cassette tapes – during more than three decades of professional work. He has appeared on TV, been interviewed on radio and by newspapers, and lectured at many conferences. He organized and created two successful Planet Earth Astrology conferences in 1988 and 1990 – each conference attended by over 150 subscribers.
For more information on his consultations, School of Planetary Studies astrological correspondence course (with 36 1-hour tape-classes), wide variety of astrological printed reports, birthcharts, back issues of magazines and Daily Cosmic Kalendar forecasts, explore the rest of this extensive web site or contact him at markl@marklernerastrology.com
P.S. The photograph accompanying this information is Mark Lerner at around the age of 20. He is now considerably grayer and in his 50s, but remains very youthful at heart!
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My Resume
Mark Lerner Resume includes:
Attended and Graduated from Michigan State University (1967-1971) with High Honors and B.A. in Multi-Disciplinary Social Science.
Worked at Alice A. Bailey Center/Arcane School in New York City (1975-1976).
Member of Findhorn Community in Northern Scotland (1976-1979).
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Welcome to Planet Earth astrology journal (1981-2000).
Professional Astrologer with worldwide practice since 1972-1973.
Creator and Designer of School of Planetary Studies – astrological correspondence school with 36 1-hour tape-classes – since 1985.
Author of Mysteries of Venus (self-published book in 1986 – out-of-print), and co-author of Inner Child Cards (Tarot Deck-Book Set published by Bear & Company) and Baseball Tarot (Tarot Deck-Book Set published by Workman Publishing).
Note: Picture is of Mark Lerner at beautiful Crater Lake, Oregon in the 1990s.
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My Services & Products
My services and products are listed in a variety of places within the Earth Aquarius News web site. Enjoy exploring these areas and ordering via the shopping section.
If you have any questions, please e-mail me for more information at:
markl@marklernerastrology.com
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Where I Stand Politically and Philosophically
By Mark Lerner (Publisher of Earth Aquarius News)
Dateline Saturday September 27, 2008
After watching the first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, and following the last two weeks during which the shocking financial crisis has besieged the nation, I am making this statement available to all readers of Earth Aquarius News.
A woman wrote in to me this morning indicating that she was a student of astrology who wanted to determine if I were a far-left liberal politically before she was going to subscribe to Earth Aquarius News. Somehow this registered with me and touched a nerve. The following is verbatim what I wrote and sent back to her as an e-mail.
Thanks for your e-mail.
I have always tried to avoid expressing my personal views through astrology work and articles. I believe that astrology must stand on its own merits.
So, for example in the current political race, when I saw all the Republicans running last December before the primaries, it was clear to me that -- astrologically -- John McCain was the strongest candidate and I saw him winning against all the other Republicans and I explained that in a Top Story article still available INSIDE my website -- that, if and when you subscribe, you can read.
I saw that Hillary Clinton was the strongest in the Democratic field, but I never much liked her, she was terribly arrogant, ran a bad campaign in the beginning, and I was not totally shocked when Obama came from behind originally and then eked out a win against her.
I don't report -- in my articles -- using a political preference. So, for example, in the writing I will be doing INSIDE the website -- available by subscription in the next few weeks -- I will be writing about the toss-up states and which of the two candidates is likely to win each state from a purely astro-comparison standpoint, having nothing to do with their politics or mine.
In judging who will win this election, I have already explained on Coast to Coast AM Radio that if the broadcasters -- mainly centered in NYC (NBC; ABC; CBS; etc) call the election fairly early in the night -- say 8PM to maybe Midnight, the WIN favors Obama whereas if one or two toss-up states are keeping us from knowing who will be president, that favors a win by McCain. This has to do with the movement in the sky of Uranus and Saturn, and which is more powerful.
In the last 2 elections -- 2000 and 2004 -- I clearly predicted victories by George W. Bush both times from the astrology cycles.
Currently, when I hear the views of both Ron Paul (Republican from Texas) and Ralph Nader (former consumer advocate and third party candidate), I feel that many of their views are more correct than those of both Obama and McCain.
I believe all people who become president move to the middle spectrum politically anyway in order to govern from the center and in order to pass decent legislation.
In general, I believe that people should be allowed to own registered handguns to protect themselves -- as long as people don't abuse the system by hoarding AK-47s and outrageous stocks of weapons.
I believe in a woman's right to choose regarding the abortion issue which I will never deviate from because I feel it is not a man's independent right to tell a woman what to do with her body. On the other hand, I do not believe we should be ever encouraging abortions and I believe women having sexual relations should be extremely careful in choosing their partners in order to minimize to the hilt wrong pregnancies. Bottom line: I think it is wrong when I see men and preachers crusading against abortion. I think every woman in this country has the intelligence to decide what is right regarding (a) how they approach a relationship; (b) and what they should do if they become pregnant. I believe parents should be explaining sexual issues to their children and I think the schools should have an OPTIONAL and not forced sexual education program -- in case some students WANT to learn things about sexuality that their parents aren't telling them. Maybe such a sexual educational program could be, say, after school hours, so that, again, such a program would be optional.
While I am not for an aggressive death penalty -- in general -- there are definitely crimes that are so extreme and willful that I think there should be such a penalty on the books. I don't think the death penalty -- unfortunately -- actually prevents extreme crimes, however. That's because I believe some people are just plain "evil" in their intent and behavior.
This leads to another view of mine. I do believe that GOOD and EVIL exist in the world and universe.
Having said all these things, I would side very much with George Washington that America should keep out of foreign wars and particularly overseas. I think the wars in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and Iraq were ALL inappropriate for many reasons. They are all part of a wrongly-viewed SuperPower America stance in the world. We took over the Vietnam War from the FRENCH -- who formerly had controlled Vietnam, and that country and general area was called in the 1950s INDO-CHINA. I don't know how old you are and if you know that history.
At any rate, because of our fear of the Russians, Chinese and Communism, we invented what was called the DOMINO THEORY -- That if Vietnam fell to the Communists, then EVERY country in Asia -- including the Philippines and possibly Australia and New Zealand -- would eventually become Communist.
After losing over 50,000 soldiers and sailors and air force in the Vietnam War and hundreds of thousands of injured, we realized that the DOMINO THEORY was incorrect as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, etc., are not at all Communist.
As opposed to Obama's view about sending more troops to Afghanistan to fight there, etc., I think we should pull our troops out of BOTH Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of my views on these subjects are similar to those of Conservative Republican Pat Buchanan -- who ran twice for the presidency, was President Nixon's main speechwriter, and who is the conservative pundit on MSNBC.
I like his views A LOT on almost all subjects. I like his sense of humor a lot, and he and I have the same Jupiter placement in Aquarius precisely. I also agree with him on Immigration and therefore disagree with both McCain and Ted Kennedy on that subject. I think massive immigration -- as supported by George W. Bush, John McCain and even Ted Kennedy -- is helping to destroy our country. I believe it is also wrong to give amnesty to people who have come here illegally because of the rules that make people often wait years before they can come here legally the RIGHT WAY.
Republican political heroes of mine would include Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower who all had enormous COMMON SENSE and governed from the middle.
I think the concept of TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS (give tax breaks to the super-rich so they can hire more people and trickle-down $$$ to the middle class and poor) -- as first articulated by Republican Herbert Hoover (just before The Great Depression) and then renewed by Republican Ronald Reagan doesn't work and that's why I am against it. It's a neat theory, but it doesn't work in reality due to unbridled greed (as we have just seen via the current Wall Street fiasco).
On the other hand, Hoover out of the presidency was a great man and very dedicated to American issues and Ronald Reagan had a fantastic and terrific personality that was good for America even though, periodically, some of his economic and political views fell short of the correct approach to governing in my estimation. He did do a good job though in teaming with Gorbachev to help undermine the Soviet Empire. The Pope was actually a secret third force in eliminating a Communist government from the Soviet Union. I don't know if you have studied about that. By the way, Pope John Paul II was a great hero of mine, too and I would consider him rather conservative.
I did not want George Bush the elder to become president in 1988-1989 for one simple reason having nothing to do with politics: His Sun at 22 degrees of Gemini is EXACTLY united with the USA Mars placement from July 4, 1776! I knew that meant that he would lead America into war and in my printed magazine of the 1980s and 1990s (called Welcome to Planet Earth), I wrote about that many times. Under his presidency we got the first Persian Gulf War. And -- very importantly -- this led the current president Bush to want to eliminate Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq because Saddam tried to assassinate the first President Bush, George W's father! Thus, this obsession by our current president to march into Baghdad and destroy Saddam was actually a son-father, father-son rivalry or event between the two Bushes. I think it was the son trying to so honor his own father that he created this Iraqi War mess now going on longer than World War II.
[George W. Bush is very mother-dominated -- he is a Cancer Sun-sign -- but he so longs for his father's approval. This war -- and I almost hate to say this -- was George W. Bush seeking the love of his Dad because George W. saw himself destroying the horrible Saddam (who was actually horrible anyway) who was the evil guy trying to kill his father. George W. has been trying to live up to his father's heroics his whole life -- the elder Bush being a naval war pilot and hero in WWII and his father playing baseball for the Yale University team and then being the head of the CIA, Ambassador to the U.N. and then to China, and Vice President, and then President. So, to TOP the father, he tried to save the world and lead the West against the Islamic Evildoers via the Iraq War, but it didn't work out because it was too personal and too familial at its core, psychologically speaking. The confirmation of all this is that it was during the 2004 election that George W. Bush experienced his second Saturn Return. Saturn = the Father. Ever since he was re-elected, his second term in office has been a disaster no matter where you look.]
Thus, from father to son, the first Bush in office to the son, I believe we have gotten into two unnecessary wars in the Middle East. Furthermore, using Relocation Astrology techniques -- that all scientific astrologers have used since the techniques were discovered and disseminated by Jim Lewis in 1975 -- the USA's chart, moved to the Persian Gulf region, has our natal Pluto overhead. This reveals a national BLINDSPOT for us in that part of the world and why we are in constant danger of igniting a Third World War due to our wrongly-conceived presence in that part of the world.
We should have already led the world in alternative energy sources DECADES AGO but because of the horrible control by the auto industry, in cahoots with the oil industry, the American people have been sold the idea that we must be entrenched in the oil-rich Middle East. We have been actively playing this geo-political war CHESS GAME (particularly against the Russians and eventually Chinese) for decades and it is only undermining our financial well-being on the home front.
I believe my views on this subject are extremely CONSERVATIVE because I think (a) we have the talent, nationally, to have led the world in alternative energy (especially solar and wind, also water, and possibly nuclear); (b) alternative energies do not pollute our cities as gasoline does; (c) and the word conservative really means to "conserve."
I thought the way Clinton behaved in office was disgusting although I did think he was intelligent overall and that he had a good sense of humor. I thought Al Gore and John Kerry were both terrible politicians who did not run good campaigns at all. I thought Gore choosing Lieberman as his running mate was the worst choice he could have made. I think Jimmy Carter is excellent in many views (out of the presidency), but while president he made serious errors especially regarding Iran and some of his attitudes and the way he governed. That's what led to 8 years of Reagan.
From the standpoint of America's higher destiny -- that can often be read from its July 4, 1776 horoscope -- I believe we always get the right president for the times and that the president we get has ONE or TWO primary missions to perform during his or her presidency. So destiny and fate are involved here.
I believe in a vast spiritual universe in which a divinity on a colossal scale is "running the show," so to speak. So, as opposed to many scientists, I believe the human race was devised and created through a combination of a divinity we cannot see, and Nature -- working as a kind of duo. Thus, I see no reason why evolution and creationism cannot exist cooperatively. I certainly do NOT believe the universe just began ON ITS OWN. If there was a Big Bang that created everything 14 Billion years ago, a God or DIVINITY is creating it from behind the scenes.
But (!) I don't see some biblical long-white-haired Jehovah like God -- what seems to be the God of the televangelists -- in charge of what's going on "down here" in the material plane on Earth. I do think prayer is good, but I believe each one of us has been given a Guardian Angel that is almost the equivalent of what we call, our SOUL. This Guardian Angel and other myriads of angels (see Billy Graham on this subject, who I think has been a brilliant figure during the 20th century for the most part) are so intrinsically a part of humanity that we are really a dual species of human-angel rather than one separate from the other.
So, if you see where I am going here, I do believe in angels, but that almost means that people can be possessed by demonic forces. And I do believe that happens and that there are evil beings in the universe and/or shall we say evil forces that can possess people.
I believe that Jesus became what we call The Christ 2000 years ago, but I also believe we have had many such divine-avatars in human history at different times. High-spiritual beings like Buddha, Pythagoras, Krishna, Hermes and so on from different time-periods and different cultures. However, I believe that The Christ had a more dramatic mission and important one than all the preceding ones and that I believe each of us -- no matter how long it takes -- is striving to become a "Christed One."
Thus I absolutely believe in reincarnation and that we live many lives. I have studied this for 36+ years (as long as I have been a professional astrologer) from all the world-wide sources, religions and philosophies. Reincarnation was NOT excluded from early Christian doctrines following the time of Jesus. It was only later on eliminated from the church teachings and from The Bible so that the Church fathers could keep their flocks under control by perpetuating an erroneous idea that (a) there is only this one life; and (b) you will go to either Heaven or Hell at the end of this one life.
This is absurd and totally ridiculous to me. And, by the way, my way of looking at ALL astrology charts cannot possibly fit into such an absurd doctrine. That's because any one soul -- and I consider each of us to be fundamentally a spirit that uses a physical body, with emotions and mental energy, and living on Earth via a soul (which is really the Guardian Angel that is assigned to us) -- cannot possibly achieve its eternal mission in one short life. We need DOZENS of lives -- stretching out for thousands of years. That's my view and I do not believe there is any rival religion or philosophical alternative view that makes more COMMON SENSE than what I have just articulated.
Well, you really opened me up here on a Saturday morning. I might even publish this view in Earth Aquarius News -- without indicating your name or e-mail address of course. Since many people out there may want to know WHERE I STAND perhaps this is the right time that I should publish this kind of view.
So, I do appreciate your writing in. If you want the astrology that I share with my subscribers and readers, then just know that I am NOT beholding to ANY political agenda and if a candidate-president is clear and sensible and wise, I will be probably on their side.
I hope this helps...Many Blessings always...Mark
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