Richard Hills - Astrologer: a Biographical Note

For consultations with UK astrologer Richard Hills click: astrology readings

If I had been told at the time of life when most people are forging a career for themselves that I would eventually be an astrologer I would have expressed astonishment!

Born in Bromley, England, in 1947, into a conventional practising Christian family, I was taught all the traditional virtues including regular church attendance. My parents meant well, however the basis of true religious observance, it seems to me, was lacking. 'Morality tinged with emotion' was a saying often used at the time to describe a practice of religion that was ethically pure but short of love. I was, it seems, somewhat different from what I was expected to be, and this difference required love and acceptance in order that I could blossom. These qualities being insufficient I found it an immense struggle to make my way in life and to determine a path appropriate to my character.

At various times I was going to be a medical doctor, a priest (Church of England), a social worker, and eventually went into publishing after graduating at the University of Durham in 1971. Publishing was never meant to be a career, only passing time while I looked for what I really wanted to do - and that took some 20 years!

I had tried various counselling methods at various times, some of which helped. It was when I settled into long-term psychodynamic psychotherapy that things began slowly but more permanently to change. Some way into my therapy my therapist recommended an astrologer to me. This took me by surprise, but with some excitement and anticipation I booked an appointment with the astrologer for a birth chart consultation.

I was brought up to believe, implicitly if not explicitly, that astrology and other so-called 'occult' practices were at odds with Christian teaching, and I still held on to this while I was by now more at the periphery of church life. (I now know that the Church has, at various times in its history, had a good relationship with astrology - but perhaps based on a misunderstanding of what astrology truly is.) Now my resistance to astrology crumbled as I was told how my birth chart described my early family life, my difficulties in growing up, my problems in finding a suitable career, relationship issues and the like, and also the good qualities that I have and how I could bring them out.

The crumbling of my resistance was made the easier by my being given empathy but not sympathy, and encouragement to find the path that was right for me. I was not told my fortune and would have cringed had I been so. I do not engage in fortune-telling in my consultations now, and prediction is limited to what might be possible with the active co-operation of the client.

I soon wanted to be able to understand birth charts for myself, and began attending seminars by Liz Greene and her tutors at the Centre for Psychological Astrology, soon enrolling on their 3-year course, being awarded their Certificate in 1997.

My astrological practice started slowly, but received a lift when I booked a regular stall at Merton Abbey Mills, a weekend craft market in south London. I generally hesitate to do anything without considerable preparation (and I do still prepare thoroughly for my consultations now), but in this setting there is no time for such preparation, I just had to use a pocket calculator to prepare the chart and interpret it there and then. I was much relieved when I found I could do this, and I believe I did much good work at the market as well as finding it exhilarating.

I would never have taken astrology on board other than through the psychological approach and it is still very much part of my work. However, my continuing research after completing the CPA Course led me to see that there are other approaches in a very rich tradition about which I was keen to discover more. I wanted to study horary astrology, and after some research chose the Katarche course run by the Company of Astrologers. The CoA was founded by Geoffrey Cornelius and Maggie Hyde, authors respectively of The Moment of Astrology and Jung and Astrology, and I knew I could trust them. I completed this course in 2004, except I have not yet submitted a piece of my own work. Concurrently with the horary course I studied for, and was awarded, the Certificate in Medieval Astrology by the Academy of Predictive Astrology, principal Robert Zoller. The name of this Academy leads me to say that I do not see the primary role of astrology to be that of prediction, but, rather, of insight leading to conversion and action bringing about change for the better in those who seek its counsel. There is no point in prediction unless you can change something thereby. Perhaps those who predicted the result of the 2004 US Presidential Election and got it wrong could ponder that.

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