Okay, so I’ve been getting into esoteric astrology lately. It’s pretty wild stuff, not your typical horoscope column. I wanted to dig deeper, and that meant I needed a way to calculate some of the more, shall we say, unconventional placements and aspects. I don’t know of an easy website or app that does this, so, being the DIY type, I decided to figure out how to cobble together my own esoteric astrology calculator.
The Hunt Begins
First things first, I needed to find the actual formulas. This wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. I mean, it’s called “esoteric” for a reason, right? The info isn’t just floating around everywhere. I spent a good chunk of time searching through online forums, dusty old PDFs, and some pretty dense books.
Spreadsheets to the Rescue
Once I’d gathered a decent collection of formulas (for things like calculating the esoteric ruler of a planet, finding the ray influences, and so on), I realized I needed a way to organize and, you know, actually use them. I’m not a coder, so building a fancy program was out. Spreadsheets seemed like the obvious answer. I went with a simple spreadsheet to begin, entering in the basic birth data (date, time, place) in one section.
Building the Formulas
This was the real brain-bender. I took each formula, one by one, and translated it into spreadsheet language. Lots of nested IF statements, modulus calculations, and looking up values from tables. I am not going to lie, it felt like pulling teeth at times. There was a lot of trial and error, and my debuging method involved running the formulas with known birth data and comparing the results to what I should be getting.
The Test
I put in my birth details. With that I inputted the different formulas I put together. I held my breath and hit enter.
It Works!
After all that, the spreadsheet actually spit out the results I was expecting! It was clunky, sure, and it definitely wasn’t pretty, but it worked. I could now enter birth data and get the esoteric calculations I needed. Success!
It’s still a work in progress. I keep adding new calculations as I learn more. There’s always something new to discover. My next step would be to create a better looking user interface, but hey, function over form, right?
