Currently I am thinking about the relevance of the 9^th house and the reality of holding to one belief – for anyone. Let me try this thought out.

To be a person of utter conviction is to be a strong person, one who sometimes runs up against the convictions of other people along the way. Sometimes I have been convinced of my way forward, of the way I measure my actions. But I am bumping up against A-H at present as the seminars are compelling. Yet it is sensible to remember that many others are speaking from a pulpit or a lectern as well, offering The Word to rooms full of people. This is a way of garnering energy for people who like to feel the energy of certainty from within themselves and confirmation from their audience rush through them.

I found my way to A-H via non-physical energy, ‘Arthur’ and the astrology group, but it was a mistake to bring the A-H material into the astrology mix with as much emphasis as I did because I lost the group. From their point of view I went from being a reader of charts with an outside and objective view to someone who was held in the thrall of something that not everyone could understand or accept.

A person’s beliefs are more than just a thought they keep thinking as A-H describes it. Beliefs involve a culmination of long-time individual life experience which is always in a state of change – because that is the nature of life. Beliefs have to move along with change or hold their shape despite the change. Beliefs have been selected, edited, expanded or pruned throughout life and reach into all areas of life. They are large packets of information with tentacles. They do not deserve the rather trite description of: ‘a belief is just a thought you keep thinking’ (A-H). To make so little of a person’s beliefs says something to me about the person making the statement, especially and ironically as the statement comes from Source energy via the beliefs of the speaker, Esther Hicks. Esther is offering the Abraham material because she believes in its value – for what reason exactly we cannot know. Beliefs tend to be private things at source. She has a very strong Jupiter which is in its own sign of Sagittarius.

As an astrologer I look at the ruler of the cusp of the 9^th house in a person’s chart for information about a person’s belief system. The ruler is a planet which is somewhere in the chart. The planet is in a sign and a house and makes geometrical aspects to other planets and points in the chart. This gives me, the astrologer information. But remember, I have my own 9^th house and ruler etc. So whatever description I offer to a person about his or her belief system is inevitably filtered though my own belief system, no matter how objective I feel I am on the subject.

As well as the 9^th house I look at the position of Jupiter in the chart as Jupiter is the ‘natural’ ruler of the 9^th house. Where is it, in what sign and house and what are the aspects? I will also cast an eye towards the sign of Sagittarius which is naturally ruled by Jupiter to see if there is anything affecting this sign which gives it prominence in some way. At the end of all this research into the individual’s beliefs I synthesize the information to the extent that I can and then discuss it with the person who is asking, or with myself if it is just personal research.

One other thought I want to render into words at this time concerns meditation. 20 minutes of meditation in the morning is fundamental to the Abraham teaching. Abraham believes it to be essential for becoming in alignment with one’s own Source energy which is the purpose of all A-H material. Here is another 9^th house matter. On personal experience of meditation Esther talks about not knowing her nose from her toe and a sort of dissociation and a floating experience which develops, she says, as the meditator becomes proficient over time, practising each day, focusing on a sound or whatever feels right. I believe that there are some people who are never going to have the experience that A-H describes. What Esther describes I can see clearly in her birth chart as an experience she would be likely to have, but I cannot see it clearly in my birth chart as an experience I would have. Yet I admire her ability to dissolve into meditation in this way, and I envy all the other millions of people who experience this as well. I have practised meditation on and off since 1986, but I am more of a questioner than a receiver and as A-H says, these energies come from 2 different places. I continue to do the best I can, but my description of the effect will not sound like Esther’s experience. And I do not particularly like meditation. I do however spend most of my time in nature or alone, and alone in contemplation, or in another form of dissociation. For one such as me, to discipline something which is more natural to me in other ways I think, might be non-essential.

Concluding for today, I continue to examine those things and people I am attracted to. Energy follows thought. As a sun in Scorpio the tendency towards fixation or obsession is always a possibility so it serves me well to step back with deliberate detachment from time to time.