Robert Hand

A Bridge Between Two Astrologies

Robert Hand (born 1942) is one of the most influential astrologers of the 20th century — and a rare figure who shaped both modern and traditional practice. He first defined how a generation read transits, then helped launch the movement to recover astrology's ancient texts, standing with one foot in contemporary astrology and one in its deepest roots.

Planets in Transit

His 1976 book Planets in Transit remains the definitive reference on the subject — an exhaustive, carefully written guide that countless astrologers still reach for first. Together with Planets in Composite and Horoscope Symbols, it established Hand as a leading interpreter of modern psychological astrology.

Project Hindsight and the Recovery of the Texts

In 1993 Hand co-founded Project Hindsight with Robert Schmidt and Robert Zoller, an effort to translate the surviving Greek, Latin, and Arabic sources of astrology back into use. The project catalyzed the modern traditional revival — the recovery of sect, dignity, the time-lord methods, and the other techniques that had been lost for centuries. He later founded ARHAT (the Archive for the Retrieval of Historical Astrological Texts) to continue the work.

Scholar and Historian

Not content to practice from secondhand summaries, Hand returned to university later in life and earned a doctorate in history, bringing genuine scholarly rigor to the study of astrology's past. That combination — working astrologer and trained historian — gave his recovery work unusual authority.

Legacy

Robert Hand's career traces the arc of modern astrology itself: from the psychological mainstream of the late 20th century to the rediscovery of the ancient tradition. Much of the classical method used across this site reaches us through the doors that he and his colleagues reopened.