California Events
Zip Dobyns
We are earlier than usual with our Gemini Mutable Dilemma hoping to remind our readers that the event of the year is happening in San Diego from June 26 to July 1, 1986. The United Astrological Congress (UAC) will be offering a stellar group of astrologers from all over the world at the Bahia Hotel on the bay. UAC is being presented by ISAR (International Society for Astrological Research), NCGR (National Council for Geocosmic Research), and AFAN (AFA Network). There will be beach parties (the hotel is right on the beach), drama, a Mexican dinner, and upwards of 25 choices of lectures going simultaneously. Several “tracks” will run continuously, including one for beginning students, one on relationships, one on mundane and economic astrology, one on community affairs, one on metaphysics and philosophy, and a series of ACT panels organized by Michael Erlewine. My son, Mark Pottenger, and my daughter, Maritha Pottenger, will be on the program along with me and many, many others. We hope that as many as possible of our readers will come and we can get acquainted “in person.” For more information, please phone us or Marguerite Dar Boggia: same area code (213) either 487-1000 or 465-1408. It will be too late to write by the time you get this.
Immediately after UAC, actually overlapping (unfortunately) there will be a small but stellar conference on astrological research. It has been organized by Francoise Gauquelin with the help of Dr. Fiebert, a professor of Psychology at the University of California at Long Beach, and Dr. Hans Eysenck, the famous British psychologist, researcher and writer. The preceding and several other academic leaders will be speaking in addition to some members of the astrological community including Neil Michelsen, Rob Hand, Tom Shanks, my son Mark and me. The conference will be held from June 30 through July 3, 1986 at the Long Beach campus. For more information, please phone us at the first number above. Mark and I will leave UAC early on July 1, missing the last half day of UAC and the first day of the research conference. These dates were the only ones available at the Long Beach campus where Dr. Fiebert is sponsoring the conference. If any of our readers are interested in serious research and able to attend the Long Beach conference, we might be able to put you up. Scott and Carolyn Vail will be staying with us, along with some friends of Maritha who will be here for a bridge tournament. Everything happens at once. For those who can’t make the conferences, we’ll report highlights in later issues of The Mutable Dilemma but do come if you can.
Mark is working hard to finish an ISAR project in time for UAC; aspect frequency tables including summaries in printed form and greater detail on computer disks. The tables will permit astrologers to determine whether there are more aspects in a chart (or a group of charts) than would happen “by chance.” For example, it has been suggested that both highly successful people and heart attack victims have more conflict aspects to Jupiter. The new tables will tell us without the need of a control group for comparison.
I have received a few letters from subscribers asking to be kept on the mailing list for later “interim newsletters.” Since very few have responded, I will be sending them out as first class mail in regular letters. We have to have 200 to use the bulk permit. I will only send them to people who have written and requested them, but anyone who has already expressed interest in the asteroid network or in the interim report is on the list and does not have to write again. If anyone thinks of a catchy title for a brief look at asteroids, the world, and new techniques in astrology, drop me a line. I am reminded of something written by Maslow. He commented that new knowledge rarely developed within established academic disciplines which were like solid blocks of cement paving stone. He said that new knowledge had to come up through the cracks between the stones. I was thinking of calling the report some variation on “The Crevice”, with the implication that it will be done between regular issues of The Mutable Dilemma, that it will include a lot of information which is usually overlooked or ignored whether because it is not immediately practical and useful, it seems too complicated to add to an already complicated system, it requires special equipment such as a computer, or it just takes too much time. I guess there are people in the world with spare time who have nothing to do except watch TV, but I don’t know any of them. Everyone I know is so overextended, there are few or no cracks in their schedules to fit in another interest. We have to choose. We can’t do everything! So if any of our readers has the time and the curiosity to look at what might be growing in the crevice, and if you have not already expressed interest in our asteroids and mundane explorations, drop me a note and join the party.