Contents

INTRODUCTION
Past Lives and Destiny

CHAPTER 1
What is Karma?

CHAPTER 2
Coming into Incarnation: The Elements

CHAPTER 3
Past Life Reflections: The Moon

CHAPTER 4
Where Am I Going?: The Sun

CHAPTER 5
Past Life Vibrations: The Planets

CHAPTER 6
Karmic Expectations

CHAPTER 7
Past Life Repositories: The Houses

CHAPTER 8
The Life Path: The Moon’s Nodes

CHAPTER 9
Bringing it all together

CHAPTER 10
Past Lives and Childhood

CHAPTER 11
Past Lives and Relationships

CHAPTER 12
The Karma of Disease

FURTHER READING

How To Use This Ebook

Select one of the chapters from the main contents list and you will be taken straight to that chapter.

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Dedication

I would like to honor all my students and the clients who have taught me so much about the working of karma and astrology as I watched their lives unfold over the last thirty years. They have shown, time and again, that even the most difficult karma can be transformed and their courage in moving forward has been an ongoing inspiration. My heartfelt thanks and love go especially to the master class of 2002 (and the staff at the retreat house at Glastonbury Abbey) who made possible such a profound healing of one of my own past life experiences and who so joyously welcomed the transmission of wisdom garnered over many lifetimes. My editor at Godsfield Press, Mark Truman, has been a joy to work with and, as might be expected, his astrological chart fitted exactly into the unfurling moment.

JUDY HALL

Past Lives

& Destiny

Karmic astrology is the key that will unlock your past lives. While your birthchart will not provide the fine detail of your former lives, the arrangement of the planets at the moment of your birth maps out your karma, highlights your soul’s challenges, and pinpoints the ingrained patterns that you have carried over from other lives. Your chart maps your potential and purpose and may also hint at where or how you have lived before.

Unlocking The Past Through Astrology

Past life astrology will help you to understand your past lives and their effect on your present life. It will enable you to understand your karmic inheritance and the way your soul wants to grow. Karmic simply means “pertaining to karma,” and this type of astrology looks to the past to explain the present.

You will no doubt be familiar with “Sun-sign astrology,” which is based on the sign of the zodiac in which the sun resides at your birth. It says that as an Aries, for example, you will have a particular character and a specific approach to the world. According to conventional astrology, the birthchart describes who you are. But the notion of a baby being a “blank slate,” randomly born at a specific moment in time and imprinted with specific traits according to where the sun is to be found in the sky, seems nonsensical to many people.

However, astrology, and an individual’s birthchart, are much more subtle than this. Your birthchart shows the heavens as they appeared overhead when you were born and, as such, is deeply symbolic. When you are introduced to in depth astrology and told that the birthchart is a map of your entire psyche with your inbuilt expectations and ingrained reactions, as well as what will unfold during your life, you may well ask “Why? Where does that come from? Why do I respond in that way, why do I have that particular expectation? What made me that way?”

Where did your particular traits come from? Only when you look at the idea of reincarnation can you find an answer. Reincarnation stipulates that you have lived before and have incarnated once again into your present body. Where karmic, or past life, astrology differs from conventional astrology is that past life astrologers believe that the birthchart sets out a picture that reflects your previous experience, the credits and deficits you yourself created in another life. Conventional astrology says that these patterns arose from a random act of fate: your birth. However, past life astrologers would say that this moment of birth is carefully chosen so that the chart fits both your past experience and the lessons you have incarnated to learn as well as your potential for the future.

In other words, your birthchart is a map of your karma—the sum total of your actions in the past that will have an effect on your present life. However, it is not necessary to believe in previous lives to use past life astrology. The past stretches back from a moment ago to as far as you want to take it: birth, conception, or beyond. By looking at your chart from the karmic perspective, you will understand the person you are now and the potential you have for soul growth.

What happens to a person is characteristic of him. He presents a pattern and all the pieces fit. One by one, as his life proceeds, they fall into place according to some preordained design.

CARL G. JUNG

What actually Reincarnates?

The part of you that reincarnates is the soul, or spirit. This is the eternal, and many past life astrologers would say divine, part of you. Your eternal Self. It is the soul that wants to learn, to grow, to evolve. To do this, it uses a physical body. That body may be male or female, but the soul is not gender specific. Some lifetimes will be lived in a female body because it is more appropriate for the lessons that are to be learned or the karma that is to be worked with, while other lives will be lived as a male, for the same reason.

Our experiences on earth are...predestined by virtue of our own past behavior...We have free will in respect of how we meet our karma.

PAULINE STONE

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

This book will help you to explore your past lives and their effect on your present life. To do this, you will need a birthchart. However, you do not need to understand astrology to use the book. Each section takes you through your chart step by step. While there is more depth of understanding with a chart based on time of birth, if you do not know exactly when you were born a sunrise chart will give an overall view of your karmic credits and deficits.

Your Birthchart

Your birthchart is a map of the heavens overhead at the moment you were born. To calculate a birthchart accurately, your date, place, and time of birth are required. In some countries time of birth is recorded on the birth certificate, but in others you might have to rely on someone’s memory. If you do not know your time of birth, a chart calculated for sunrise in the country of your birth will give the symbolic picture of your incarnation.

Calculating a Birthchart

This is not something you need to be able to do yourself to use this book! Any competent astrologer can calculate your birthchart or you can obtain a computer generated chart.

Understanding Your Birthchart

When you are first faced with a birthchart you may be somewhat bewildered. Don’t worry. Take your time. Look at the illustration and familiarize yourself with where to find the information on the chart.

In the pages that follow you will be taken through your chart step by step so that the past is unveiled. Later you will learn how to synthesize apparent contradictions in your chart.

Use This Book To Explore Your Birthchart

As you work with the book, follow your own chart through each stage rather than trying to read everything at once. The process of understanding a chart is easy if you follow these simple steps and use the information in the pages that follow as a guide to your chart. You can then apply it to the charts of your friends and family.

✶ The Elements: The zodiac is divided into four elements (fire, earth, air, and water). The element in which your sun-sign is placed has a strong influence on your character. On your chart you will find an indication of the number of planets in each element (see chart opposite). You can ascertain whether they are in balance or not.

✶ The Moon: Read the general information on the Moon, then look up your Moon placement on your birthchart and read about it. If you don’t have a birthchart, you can calculate your moon position using a chart online (see here).

✶ The Sun: Read the introductory pages and information about your own Sun-sign. (You will find that the Moon, the Sun, and the Moon’s Nodes placed in a sign have rather similar interpretations, although there are subtle differences.)

✶ The Planets: Their placement shows drives and energies in your psyche.

✶ The Aspects (the geometric relationships the planets have with each other) will help you understand what your chart is telling you about your patterns from past lives (see here).

✶ The Twelve Houses: Check out in which houses your planets are located. This will point to the areas of life where karma will manifest.

✶ The Moon’s Nodes: these reveal your karmic purpose.

When you have mastered these sections, move on to specific areas such as childhood, relationships, or health. Synthesizing the different parts of your chart takes practice, but look out for the main themes to begin with, especially those supported by several indicators, and learn to recognize the conflicting parts of yourself. You will soon recognize where karma is manifesting most strongly. Look at charts for friends and family to help you to familiarize yourself further with karmic astrology.