John Addey (astrologer)

English astrologer

John Michael Addey (15 June 1920 – 27 March 1982) was an English astrologer.

Addey's view was that constructs such as the twelvefold zodiac and house systems were unable to evaluate many of the effects of cosmic periods. Twelvefold systems allow patterns of 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12 to be easily analyzed, but not cycles of 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, ll or greater than 12. The tools of astrology would have to be improved. He wrote, "We are all engaged upon the building of a science – a science which of course has practical application as an art. But what are the 'stones' with which this Science is to be built? This is an important question, for before any science can be truly unfolded, so as to realize its full potentialities, it must first be reduced to its fundamental concepts". These fundamental concepts, he thought, were at their simplest the qualities of number manifesting in time. The search for some way of understanding these lead to the formulation of his theory of harmonics. His harmonic techniques presented a far more subtle and refined way of studying the complex pattern of the numerous cycles that make up the world in which we live. It broke out of the limitations of the twelvefold system of astrology. The practical development of harmonics was facilitated by Addey's use of computers. Nevertheless, the initial vision of a basis for a rational astrology arose from a vantage point of Platonic and Pythagorean contemplation. For Addey, the value of astrology was as a way of seeing the great order of time as expressive of eternal forms and numbers. The value of the natal chart was that it was, in his words, "a diagram of the soul's contract with time and space"[9]. He was influenced by Plato's myth of Er described in The Republic, in which Plato suggests that the soul continually incarnates having made a positive choice to take on the opportunities and challenges of a particular terrestrial life, lived at a particular time, in a particular place.

Addey's astrological research methods have been cited in mainstream publications. One source cites Addey's work on astrological time twins (people who are born at the same moment and should therefore have similar traits) as "perhaps the most extensive survey of time twins made by an astrologer." The authors describe their own independent study that considered Addey's criteria of timing between time twins. Another source, a standard college textbook on the philosophy of science, provides a chapter with descriptions and graphic illustrations from one of Addey's studies as an example of astrological research. The study extended the statistical research of Michel Gauquelin by applying harmonic analysis to the data. "Addey found that, as the planetary position at birth changed, the personality traits (determined from biographies) varied smoothly as in a spectrum The spectrum repeats itself every quadrant." However, "As Addey points out, planets with variable meanings are quite contrary to what astrology predicts." The authors regret that "sadly, this intriguing work was cut short by Addey's untimely death."

Addey wrote numerous articles – mainly for the Astrological Journal, many of which are now available in his Harmonic Anthology (1976, new edition, AFA, 2011) and Selected Writings (AFA, 1976); his main work was Harmonics in Astrology (1975, latest edition, Eyebright Books, 2010). He was some way through a further book, A New Study of Astrology when he was taken ill in the winter of 1982 – this was completed by Charles Harvey and Tim Addey some years later (Urania Trust, 1996). The latter work included as appendices two small monographs – Astrology Reborn (originally published in 1972) and The Discrimination of Birthtypes (1974).