My earliest memory of astrology goes back to the age of three when I accidentally let go of my helium balloon and watched it soar. I wanted it back. My father took a hose and turned on the water and brought the balloon back down. Some nights later, there was a simply enormous full moon so I asked my father to get it. He said it was too high; I said, “Daddy get the water.” Matter of factly, he said the water wouldn’t reach. I said, “Daddy get a yadder.” I could not pronounce “L” until I was twelve, but the clues to my past life identity were lost on my parents. Valiantly, I asked my father to get a “yong yadder.”
Events can linger in one’s memories forever, but this one has been particularly worthy of reminiscing because it turned out to be prophetic. My father went on the design the Surveyor Moon Soft Landing Device — and I became the person my horoscope suggested I would become: an odd combination of the intensely focused Mercury/Mars conjunction in Virgo on the 7th house cusp opposite my Pisces rising.
As early as I can remember, I read the astrological column in the newspaper and by the time I was six or seven, I saw invisible waves in the ethers and every person I met was riding one of those waves into incarnation. The point on the wave corresponded with a date and I was able to guess people’s birthdays.
Not knowing that astrology could become a profession, I went on to major in Asian Studies and development economics, to complete an entire incarnation or two by age 30, and to start a new life as an astrologer. On the way back to Hawaii from years in Asia, I stopped to see my father. One day he said, “I suspect you will be leaving soon.” I asked how he came up with that idea. He said, “Because you have used up all the scratch paper in the house.” He asked what I had found so interesting. I explained it was his ephemeris, not really an easy book to copy! I told him I had no idea that everything I had been figuring out from what people told me could be so easily found between the covers of a book. He was more interested in whether I found the math daunting. I explained that I had only kept one thing from my job on Wall Street and that was a very handsome slide rule
It was my turn to ask questions. As it turned out, he had become very interested in astrology; I had had no idea how interested until he explained that after my mother divorced him, he looked for insights in Jungian analysis and astrology. He was particularly fond of the quote attributed to Isaac Newton in addressing a skeptical Edmund Halley, said: “I, sir, have studied it; you have not.” My father was consulted by other scientists at Hughes Aircraft, Jet Propulsion Laboratories, and other such erudite places where presumably the Carl Sagans would outnumber the astrologers mightily.
Those discussions took place in 1972. My father, a man whose entire life was involved with the cutting edges of science: airplanes, then missiles, rockets, and satellites. At the end of his life, he was constructing a four-story high artificial sun. He died of a pacemaker failure, a little technological problem that he himself would have found if it had been aerodynamic. I only mention this because a famous Vedic astrologer, Mr. K. N. Rao clearly saw his death in my horoscope and the astrological feat that most impressed my father was Grant Lewi’s prediction of his own imminent death, knowledge he used to buy life insurance just before his death at the age of 49. Lewi died of a cerebral hemorrhage, something that was only anticipated by himself, not his doctors.
I became a medical astrologer. The tale of how and why this came about is on the audio cassette called My Personal Quest; it is far too long to recount here except to say that I was not motivated by the desire to predict illness or death but rather to explain why some people develop certain illnesses and others develop other illnesses. I have always been curious and capable of very prolonged concentration and probing; but what I found in 1970 was that there were precious few books on medical astrology and none of them were particularly adequate.
What I am saying here is that interest in constitutional type and predisposition to illness began fifty years ago; it has been the main thrust of my work. There were phases to this work that can best be summarized by a cycle in the 70s that was focused mainly on stress—as it is shown in the horoscope—and the revelations of a fairly extensive period of clairvoyance that contributed to my work on astroendocrinology.
In December of 1979, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where I lived for twenty-one years. While it might be a little simplistic, the 80s were colored by a fascination with two subjects: past lives and the continuity of memory through what are normally perceived as drastic interruptions, birth and death. This work became part of my book on Lunar Consciousness. The other interest was Ayurveda. I began studying with Dr. Shrikrishna Kashyap in 1980. Shyam had been a yogi in the Himalayas before marrying and moving to the West. He was an extremely gifted healer, but what he imparted to me was enough of an understanding of the elements to develop an astrological interface to the ancient wisdom of India. Two great works emerged from these studies: the second volume of a textbook series and Kitchen Doctor, an audio cassette series and a web site of the same name.
For all intents and purposes, the 90s could be called my cancer decade. To the best of my knowledge, I have not myself had cancer, but I spent the 90s researching an alternative approach to treatment of cancer, developing a major web site for patients and another for practitioners, and working on some deep metaphysical issues that became a lecture, Fate: Destiny or Karma?
In presenting this history, I realize I have offered a summary by decades whereas my usual cycle is a seven-year one. In any event, I have followed a precedent when naming this site. Just as there was a cancersalves.com before there was a cancersalves.net, there has been an astroheal.com for some years already. It’s a very large web site with one section open to the public and another, Cybernine, for students of The Astrology of Healing. In this case, however, I am doing the reverse in that .net is for the public, but it is the more serious site and the one that will present in depth material as opposed to interesting articles and a bulletin board.
While this bio is long for a web page, it omits a lot, a book on Immunity, and several more web sites, but it’s enough for visitors to realize that material such as you will find on this site doesn’t just come out a book that someone spends the weekend cribbing. It is the result of many years and probably even more lifetimes of dedication to a facet of health that has been hugely neglected since the advent of the germ theory of disease. While no one denies the existence of microorganisms, the assumptions made about disease were vastly altered when a little creature was deemed responsible for causing approximately similar symptoms in all infected by that species of pathogen. Excitement over bacteria and later viruses, over inoculations and antibiotics, tended to shift the focus of medicine from constitutional type and predisposition to disease to treatment. While this was a great loss for psychology and psychiatry, it was an even greater loss when one considers the impact of such theories on immunity. Failure to understand susceptibility was accompanied by almost total neglect of the immune responses. To the extent that because there is really no such thing as an immune system, at least not in the sense that there is a skeletal system or a reproductive system, means that even the term chosen to represent a host of varied immune responses is sort of ill-fitting.
It has not been my goal to repair the damage done to medicine by twentieth century tunnel vision. Rather, I have personally focused on a few points that, I believe, fall within my life’s purpose.
First, I have purged the astrological vocabulary of archaic terminology by representing the elements intelligently. For instance, I call them elements rather than humors, and I do not refer to red and white and yellow and black blood but rather physiological functions and psychological biases.
Second, I have adapted some of the five element theories of India and China to the four elements of astrology; however, in doing so, I am not suggesting that there is no fifth element, simply that it is not manifest in the same manner as the four denser elements.
Third, I have developed incredibly sophisticated ways for determining constitutional type and elemental balance using either the horoscope or medical history — or a combination of the two.
Fourth, I have created strategies for eliminating the effects of elemental imbalance that involve all parts of life: food, herbal medicine, life style, and even shamanic integration of the psyche.
So, why not write a book? The answer is simple. My experience with the Internet is that it works as an effective means of communication. It also appeals to the desire people have for information in a nutshell. There are perils involved in reducing a gigabyte of experience to a 500k web page, but people who are interested can come back as often as they like. Therefore, I have priced admission to this site at the cost of a book and made membership lifetime, like owning a book. Enjoy your visit.
First published in 2007, revised in 2010 and again 2021
Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2007, 2010, 2021
Sidebar:
Excitement over bacteria and later viruses, over inoculations and antibiotics, tended to shift the focus of medicine from constitutional type and predisposition to disease to treatment. While this was a great loss for psychology and psychiatry, it was an even greater loss when one considers the impact of such theories on immunity.