Sasportas

Howard Sasportas occupies a distinct and formative position within the depth-psychological astrology corpus as co-architect, alongside Liz Greene, of what became institutionalised as ‘psychological astrology’ in the English-speaking world. His primary contribution, the 1985 monograph The Twelve Houses, is consistently cited as the definitive treatment of astrological houses from a depth-psychological perspective — one that, as its foreword argues, uniquely avoids jargon while integrating Jungian individuation theory, existentialist notions of essence and dharma, and humanistic psychology’s language of self-actualisation. The subsequent Seminars in Psychological Astrology series, co-authored with Greene and published from 1987 onward (The Development of Personality, 1987; The Luminaries, 1992), establishes Sasportas as a dialogic presence: his seminars address the psychological significance of astrological symbols — the Sun and Moon, parental complexes, subpersonalities — through a clinical lens informed by psychosynthesis, object relations theory, and Jungian analysis. Across the corpus, Sasportas is referenced both as author and as co-investigator; his voice integrates therapeutic humanism with astrological hermeneutics. Subsequent researchers such as Stella Dennett (2025) situate his work within the broader lineage connecting Jung’s interest in astrology to contemporary depth-psychological practice. The tensions in his work — between deterministic astrological tradition and therapeutic agency, between esoteric symbolism and psychological science — remain productively unresolved.

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Howard Sasportas has managed to do this without either violating those aspects of astrological tradition which have proven to be valid, or ignoring — as so many authors do — the current urgent need to bring psychological understanding into a study which has for far too long been purely prognosticative and behavioural in its interpretations.

This passage, from the foreword to The Twelve Houses, frames Sasportas’s core methodological achievement: synthesising traditional astrological interpretation with depth-psychological understanding without sacrificing either.

Sasportas, Howard, The Twelve Houses: An Introduction to the Houses in Astrological Interpretation, 1985thesis

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Modern psychology attaches many different names to the perennial quest ‘to be that self which one truly is’ — the individuation process, self-realization, self-actualization, self-development, etc. By whatever label it is called, the underlying meaning is clear: all of us possess certain intrinsic potentials and capabilities.

Sasportas grounds his astrological interpretive framework in the depth-psychological concept of individuation, linking Aristotelian entelechy and Eastern dharma to Jung’s individuation process as the philosophical spine of house analysis.

Sasportas, Howard, The Twelve Houses: An Introduction to the Houses in Astrological Interpretation, 1985thesis

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Loss of meaning is often the root from which spring the myriad psychological problems which masquerade as clinical symptoms, and loss of meaning is often the crisis which drives the client to seek an astrologer.

This passage from the Greene-Sasportas collaboration articulates the therapeutic rationale for psychological astrology, positioning the astrological chart as an instrument for restoring meaning within a depth-psychological counselling framework.

Liz Greene, Howard Sasportas, The Development of Personality: Seminars in Psychological Astrology, Volume 1, 1987supporting

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Remember, the higher Self — or whatever you want to call it — doesn’t burden you with any aspect or pattern just for the fun of torturing you.

Sasportas’s seminar voice here demonstrates his characteristic synthesis of psychosynthesis vocabulary (‘higher Self’) with astrological chart interpretation, showing how he translated transpersonal psychology into practical astrological counselling.

Liz Greene, Howard Sasportas, The Development of Personality: Seminars in Psychological Astrology, Volume 1, 1987supporting

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THE TWELVE HOUSES An introduction to the houses in astrological interpretation HOWARD SASPORTAS : D F ASTROL S FOREWORD BY

The title page of The Twelve Houses establishes Sasportas’s professional credentials (DFAstrolS) and the work’s position within the Aquarian Astrology Handbook series, contextualising his contribution within the institutional landscape of 1980s astrological publishing.

Sasportas, Howard, The Twelve Houses: An Introduction to the Houses in Astrological Interpretation, 1985supporting

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The Sun and Moon symbolise two very basic but very different psychological processes which operate within all of us. The lunar light which lures

This passage from The Luminaries exemplifies the Greene-Sasportas hermeneutic method: reading astrological symbols as representations of depth-psychological processes operative in the individual psyche.

Greene, Liz; Sasportas, Howard, The Luminaries: The Psychology of the Sun and Moon in the Horoscope, 1992supporting

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