An Interview with Pat White, Editor of Astrolabe Professional Reports
1. What schools of astrology have contributed most to the Professional Natal Report? (humanistic, psychological, )
First, some history...
PNR is an accretion of delineations done by different authors over the years. It grew out of 'Astro-Scope,' our earliest natal report, released in 1980. This was conceived and written by our first report editor, Steve Blake, who was also one of the original founders of Astrolabe. With 'Astro-Scope' we became one of the first, if not the first, publishers of delineation programs for personal computers. As the capacities of computers grew, Steve expanded this into 'Deluxe Astro-Scope' (1981), 'Advanced Natal Report' (1987), then 'Professional Natal Report' for DOS (1992). In 1997 we brought out 'Professional Natal Report' for Windows, with some added text by Gary Christen, and in 1999 we released the current version, 'Professional Natal Report Version 2' for Windows. PNR2 was expanded with Chiron delineations by Ronnie Gale Dreyer. (We did not add Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta because around the same time we also released the *Asteroid Goddesses* report by Demetra George and Douglas Bloch. This report treats these four – as I think they should be treated – as a self-contained symbol system.) PNR2 also had all-new introductory passages and a number of revised delineations by me. In addition there was an illustrated 12-page supplement outlining the essentials of astrology. This is my complete revision of the supplement that I wrote in the 1980s for Advanced Natal Report. The supplement (or any user-generated material) can be printed out as an appendix to the report.
Now to answer your question...
From its first incarnation as Astro-Scope, PNR was designed to be a basic, mainstream natal report that would be useful to as many people as possible. Steve Blake, a talented astrologer in his own right, worked with Robert Hand and saw eye-to-eye with him about many things. Steve wrote Astro-Scope so that each aspect had a plus and a minus delineation, conveying a philosophy that every aspect, no matter how good or bad it's traditionally supposed to be, has two sides, and it's up to the astrologer to show that there's a choice. This bad news/good news approach was continued in subtler form in the later expansions of the text. Beginning with Advanced Natal Report, Steve arranged the material into PNR's trademark format with the hard aspects first, then the soft aspects, and then an optional section on the minor aspects. This came about, I think, because both Rob and Steve had been influenced by Cosmobiology, which concentrates on the angular relationships between the parts of the chart, and John Addey's harmonic theory, which emphasizes the distinctive character of each type of angular relationship. Steve's format does seem to work well, because it's the hard aspects that are most likely to bring people running to their astrologers, while the soft aspects tend to provide the resources to deal with the hard-aspect problems. In the last part of the report, Steve adds detail by delineating each planet's house and sign placement in the traditional manner. In the first Windows release of PNR, Gary Christen contributed additional material on planetary conjunctions to the chart angles – which usually makes a planet very noticeable in someone's life. All the founders of Astrolabe placed great importance on angularity, and Gary, with his Hamburg-school orientation, was no exception. Ronnie Dreyer's Chiron additions for PNR2 stem from the view of Chiron as the wounded healer, and so they talk mainly about a person's wounded areas – something that can be quite moving and useful for the reader. As you know, Ronnie's specialty is Vedic astrology, but she also does Western and she wrote a well-regarded book on Venus. My astrological background is similar to the other founders of Astrolabe. I learned Cosmobiology first, and did a lot of work on Jim Valliere's almanacs, so I, too, tend to look first at angular planets and aspects between planets. But I also like the symbolic richness that signs and houses can add. With my strong Neptune, I'm less interested in concrete events than in interior feelings. I was a literature major and I'm also very interested in Jung. I respect astrologers who specialize in 'what's going happen,' but I think my own particular bent is to help people to see the poetry in their own lives.
2. What was your intent in developing the report?
As a company, we wanted to bring out a basic, mainstream natal report that would fill the needs of the majority of buyers. PNR was conceived to be used (1) by entrepreneurs who want to sell reports, (2) by those who want to learn more astrology by 'trying out' reports on people they know, and (3) by professionals who want to promote their services, provide something for people who are not yet ready for a live reading, and give their clients something concrete to take home with them as a reminder of the live reading. We tried to cover all the usual astrological bases, and we made the report editable, so that customers can add their own comments to individual reports and even rewrite the text database itself to insert their own astrological insights. As astrologers, we wanted to educate people about astrology, and so we included explanations of various astrological concepts. In the earlier versions of PNR, I think we overexplained. In Version 2.0, I shortened the explanations in the report itself and tried to make what remained more colorful and involving. I moved a lot of the explanatory material to an optional appendix, which people could read if they wanted to learn more.
3. When you edit each delineation what goal or intent is in your mind?
From an editing standpoint, I try to make each delineation as clear and easy to read as I can. Instead of a buckshot of disconnected adjectives, I think readers want a few good ideas that are developed in sequence, something their minds can hang onto, some bit of insight that will stay with them past the last page of the report. So within each delineation paragraph I try to group like thoughts together. We are also aiming to do this in the whole structure of the report. This is an ongoing, ever-tantalizing challenge! I also try to make the report as a whole what the publishing trade calls 'a good read' – something that has a form, that begins and then propels itself inevitably toward an end, keeping the reader turning the pages. From the standpoint of content, I try to ensure that the information is helpful and encouraging. If negative possibilities are discussed, I try to make doubly sure that the paragraph closes with a possible remedy, or a positive quality that can offset the negative.
4. How do you like to explain difficult aspects?
In a report you have to take a softer approach than you would in a live reading, because there's no way to gauge the person's readiness to hear the brutal facts. There's a danger that some people could take the report as gospel, and go into a depression about some shortcoming that is pointed out. To head this off, first of all we often add qualifiers like 'tends to,' 'in some cases' or 'suggests that.' This is important in a computerized report because unless many factors are weighed together and you get some feedback from the client, you can't know with much certainty whether a single factor in the chart will actually deliver as promised. More important, I myself feel that while statistically speaking some aspects seem to cause more pain than others, every planet and aspect has its place in the grand scheme of things. For example, Neptune aspects can make for a kind of spinelessness and for an unwillingness to deal with the physical world, but they can also dissolve our resistance to inspiration, and soften our rigidities so that change and accommodation can happen. While an excess of any planetary energy, even of the so-called benefic type, can bring pain, each planet performs certain functions that are necessary to keep the whole thing running. Taking the larger view and recognizing the ultimate purpose of a planet can do much to alleviate the pain that fills up a client's foreground. I think that one of astrology's higher purposes is to suggest possibilities that people may not have thought of by themselves. It can lift people up out of their foxholes so that they can see the landscape from a larger, more all-encompassing viewpoint, one that embraces everything that the universe can throw at us. Using astrology in this way is one of the ways that we can (at least sort of) get to the viewpoint of the great mystics: that, despite all the apparent pain and horror, the universe is, when all is said and done, essentially benevolent. Or, said from a Jungian point of view, the aim is not goodness, but wholeness, and to be whole we need to embrace and understand all sides of our nature.
5. What did you learn about astrology by developing this report?
Editing reports teaches me all kinds of things. First of all, every author has a slightly different take on astrology, so I'm always picking up new ways to interpret a given factor, ones I hadn't thought of before. Also, trying to find ways to simulate the thought processes of someone doing a live reading is an eternally fascinating puzzle, one that starts up all kinds of interesting trains of thought about the way astrology works.
