This is the first astrology book I read. Astrology: A Cosmic Science by Isabel M Hickey. This book was first published in the early 1970s.

My parents ran an astrology business when I was young and I grew up hearing astrological explanations for people’s behavior, especially when that behavior seemed otherwise irrational.

This was one of the book that my mother spoke highly of, and I began consulting it in my early teen years.

It is organized much like many introductory astrology books. The twelve signs of the zodiac, helpful tables and diagrams, the astrological glyphs and their symbolism, the planets, houses, and aspects. The basic building blocks you need in order to begin reading a chart.

When I was young, the first place I would go at Barnes and Noble or the local used bookstore would be the astrology section. I would greedily hunt for astrology books I had not seen before. Then I would immediately flip through them to find out what the author had to say about my natal chart placements.

In some ways, I think artificial intelligence is the modern version of that experience.

Except now, instead of searching through ten different books for information about one particular placement, AI can generate thousands of words about it in minutes.

That is a luxury that wasn’t available to us even a few years ago. But there is also a problem.

AI can hallucinate. It can make connections that aren’t justified by the information you’ve given it. I’ve noticed that this becomes more of a risk when you ask it to interpret many layers of an astrology chart all at once.

At a certain point, there is simply too much information competing for attention. But the AI usually isn’t going to stop you and say, “There are too many variables. We should slow down.” It will often keep going.

That is one reason I think it can be useful to learn the basic language of astrology from books rather than relying exclusively on AI for chart interpretation.

Then when AI provides an interpretation, you can compare it with other sources and ensure you have a balanced view. This is particularly important when considering whether the interpretation truly resonates for your lived experience.

If AI tells you something about yourself that genuinely feels incorrect, you do not have to contort yourself into believing it.

Books like Astrology: A Cosmic Science illustrate that astrology has a defined vocabulary and structure underneath all of the interpretation. While it is mystical, it is not random. There is a system and method that organize it.

In future videos, I will be discussing more of the astrology books on my shelf and what they have taught me.

But today, I wanted to share my view that it is good to take in books, websites, and AI all together as sources for understanding your astrology chart without treating any as an all powerful or unquestionable source. Your own experience and inner sense of what feels true are ultimately the most important parts of interpreting your chart.

AI can be an extraordinary tool for studying astrology. But it becomes much more useful when you know enough astrology yourself to question what it tells you.