Andrew Mountbatten Windsor

Maybe the title for this post should be "Andrew's long and winding road to dis-entitlement". We've had frequent news of the styles, titles and honours he has been stripped of, following Virginia Guiffre's posthumous memoir "Nobody's Girl", published on 21st October 2025.

Once it was published, there was nowhere for Mountbatten Windsor's already tarnished reputation to go, except lower still. Known as partying "Randy Andy" before he married Sarah Ferguson, he had a much-publicised affair in the 1980s with model and actress, Koo Stark.

His chart is unusual in that it has two parallel linear aspects spanning the I/private side and the You/public side. One red, one green, they link both halves of the chart like zip wires suspended over a canyon, at the bottom of which, hidden, sits unaspected Neptune in the 4th house. 

 

 Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, 19.2.1960 at 15.38, London (RR AA)

What might this tell us? That he is able to zoom across these and switch from being a sociable, outgoing, party-loving person to one who might very much want to do his own thing? Or control his own thing? Both Uranus and Pluto are on the end of the zip wires - but these are transpersonal planets and how they are expressed depends on the self-awareness of the person concerned. Beginning at the base level of how each of the transpersonal planets are likely to be expressed, Uranus at the "asleep" level can be subversive, erratic and fanatical; Pluto on this level suggests egomania, the use of power and imposing the will. And that unaspected Neptune in the collective area at the bottom of the chart suggests either no boundaries, or very flimsy ones, along with the escapism and potentially addictive behaviour at  an "asleep" level.

Mountbatten Windsor's overall chart shaping shows a mixture of Fixed and Mutable motivation; he could swap from one mode to another, the Fixed drive for security alternating with the Mutable restless drive to do something new and challenging. A public v private side?

The Guardian newspaper helpfully published a timeline tracing Mountbatten Windsor's naval career, his time serving in the Falkland's war, his marriage, divorce and subsequent friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell which has ultimately led to his downfall, and I shall draw on this to take a look at Age Progression in his chart/life events.

But first a few speculations - 

1) unaspected Neptune in Scoprio sits at the bottom of the chart, in the 4th house. His AP was conjunct this planet in 1979, when he joined the navy. As a young man of 19, he may at that stage, have had high ideals about service to his country and about his role as a royal. These ideals/dreams could well have become tarnished or changed along the way as he matured. An unaspected planet behaves like a dog off lead, responding to what the environment offers in a non-discriminatory way.

2) in 1981 his AP was conjunct his intercepted Low Point Moon (feelings, emotional needs, the inner child) highlighting his relationship with Koo Stark and also the possibility that those emotional needs were being met, maybe for the first time. The royal family are not renowned for showing feelings. Was Koo his true love? And was he, as some reports suggest, urged to give her up by his mother, the late Queen? He was known as her favourite. In 1986, with AP conjunct his Balance Point Jupiter, he married Sarah Ferguson and was given the title of Duke of York by the Queen.

3) in 1992, he and Ferguson divorced, with his AP conjunct Mars and Venus in Capricorn, in the 6th house of service to others (his role as a royal?) and it was an amicable divorce; they remain friends and until now have shared a home in the Royal Lodge in Windsor Castle's grounds. 

4) his AP moved through the lower part of the chart between the ages of 18 and 36, passing 6 planets along the way.This quadrant of the chart is busy with the aspects pinning two separate aspect patterns - the Detective and the Magic Cap.The Detective is a blue/green figure, more likely to respond to and obey the demands of the environment rather than work on personal development. The Magic Cap, also predominantly blue/green, makes the wearer invisible and inscrutable.

For detailed explanations of these aspect patterns see Aspect Pattern Astrology by Bruno & Louise Huber

Fast forward now to 2000. Mountbatten Windsor had already met Epstein and, with AP first conjunct his Sun then in 2001/2002 with the crossing point of the natal and node chart Age Points taking place simultaneously, he posed for the now-famous photo with his arm around teenage Virginia Guiffre. This, along with his TV interview with Emily Maitlis and other subsequent  details which have come to light over a period of 15 years, bring his sad and sordid story to this current point in time.

There's much more I could say and speculate on - for instance, the Family Model in his chart. Mother as Queen, father the Queen's consort, both now deceased but with their influence at it's greatest as he was growing against the background of the permissive 60s. Saturn, representing in the Huber Method, the mother and rules, boundaries and adherence to expectations. When your mum is the Queen, all that is likely to be highly magnified. Saturn, strongly positioned before the 6th cusp, is in a separate linear aspect pattern which is disconnected from the Fixed structure. In spite of being her favourite, how close were they?

And the Sun in 7th house, representing the father. It's just into Pisces and opposite Pluto at the other end of the red zip wire but connected to the Magic Cap pattern and to the Moon This suggests a potentially powerful father figure and role model, and perhaps a challenging relationship between father and son.

And now? Mountbatten Windsor's AP recently made an exact opposition to Saturn as he began to lose all he may have deemed essential to his way of life. I leave you to speculate further, and leave comments on any insights that arise.

 

 

Age Progression: How to use it

Age Progression - the technique of exploring life's journey - is probably the best known feature of the Huber Method.

It was researched and developed by Bruno Huber, based on his experience of working with clients as an astrologer and psychosynthesis counsellor, and it was not intended to be used as a method of prediction.

Rather than Age Progression (AP) being a predictive tool it offers users a specific and unique technique; when used alongside other chart features in the Huber Method it throws an illuminating spotlight on issues such as where has the individual come from, where are they going and where are they now in their lives.

 

 

How to use it 

•  To get the best results, don't "cherry pick" - don't try to graft Age Progression on to the system, method or approach you're using for chart interpretation. It's designed to be used with the Huber Method, and is backed up and supported by a variety of other features to take into consideration. If you mix it up with other methods you'll miss out on the relevance and significance of these. 
•  
• Start with the correct time of birth, wherever possible. 

• Use the Koch House system. Bruno Huber researched the effectiveness and validity of AP using other systems and found the Koch system yielded the most accurate results.

• Use the Dynamic Energy Curve within the chart to trace the ups and downs encountered as the AP moves around the chart, travelling from house cusp to house cusp, going through the zones of each house and encountering the Balance and Low Point within each one.

• Consider the meaning and significance of the house and sign the AP is in to build up an understanding of the general background/environmental influences and expectations.

• Consider which element the AP is moving through - fire, earth, air, water - this focusses the background more sharply and adds to the overall picture. 

• Are there planets in the house the AP is in? If so, what are they and where are they placed on the Dynamic Energy Curve? Strong, weak or stressed?

• Are any planets being aspected by the AP? Conjunction, opposition and quincunx are likely to be the most significant. NB - the Huber Method uses far fewer aspects - this again was researched by Bruno Huber. 

This is a brief summary and taster of what is in my book 

Using Age Progression: Understanding Life's Journey 

For much more, with full details, click on this link, read the outline and the review. 

Using Age Progression is available from Amazon in paperback and on Kindle.

It's illustrated in full colour and has worked examples of using AP in a mixture of the charts of real ordinary people and famous people, historical and living.

  

The astrology and psychology of AI

A brief web search for astrology and AI will yield a raft of possibilities and choices if you're looking for a chart interpretation by a robot. But why would you trust a robot, programmed to look at your natal chart - and maybe not very well either - when you could have it interpreted by a real, live, trained and experienced astrologer?

I might, as an experiment, see what an AI astrobot would come up with for my own chart, but really wouldn't have many expectations beyond it being able to regurgitate material it had already been programmed to use. In truth, it would be a waste of time going there because I've been looking at and working on my own chart in the context of my life experiences as I've learned and practiced astrology since 1984, gaining my professional qualification in astrological psychology in 1987. 

There are many approaches to astrology, and many different styles or methods which can be used - Western astrology, Chinese astrology, Vedic astrology, Horary astrology, Psychological astrology, Mythic astrology and more - you can go and look them up for yourself. Where would the astrobot start if it was scraping info from some of these various sources? 

Would it mix them up and present them as a mishmash of different approaches? This has the potential for a dog's dinner because a machine, unable to differentiate, could cherry pick different techniques from different astrological disciplines, methods and systems, regardless of their relevance and compatibilities, and bundle them together into one single reading.

I use the Huber Method of Astrological Psychology, which has strong connections with Psychosynthesis, often called a Psychology with a Soul, which was developed by Italian Psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli. Anything you might find on the web about astrological psychology and AI is likely to have been poached, pinched, stolen and taken from existing information on the web. It might have been copied directly - and illegally -  from books available on the subject if their content is available online. 

Astrological psychology differs from psychological astrology where the approach is more Jungian. Jung and Assagioli were contemporaries, Assagioli branching independently into more spiritual realms with his work. Astrologers Bruno and Louise Huber worked alongside Assagioli in Florence, training with him and seeing clients, and they began to research and combine astrology with psychosynthesis. The end result was a new, soul-centred approach to working with the charts of people - they called it astrological psychology. You can read how they did this in their biography Piercing the Eggshell.

The Huber Method is a system complete in itself and cherry picking and using some of its techniques with another approach doesn't yield reliable answers. You need to use the whole approach to get an accurate reading, as the chart reflects the whole person.

The astrology of AI

AI came into being in the summer of 1956 at a workshop in Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, USA. A group of scientists and mathematicians explored the possibility of creating a human-like brain and research began. In the 1950s in the UK, Alan Turing looked at the possibility of developing AI, and in the US the 1956 research was headed by John McCarthy.

Was the summer of 1956 significant astrologically? Saturn, the planet we might associate with scientific fact and the organisation of well-defined systems had gone retrograde, moving from Sagittarius to Scorpio for a few months over the summer. It stayed there until autumn before returning to Sagittarius for the long haul. It kind of fits if you're looking for a background theme.

I've speculated - just for fun, but you might like to try this too - on what the chart for the "birth" of AI might look like, and have concluded that it would be devoid of most of the planets used in a natal chart. It would be full of empty spaces and unoccupied houses, with two main players - Mercury and Saturn.

The astrological psychology of AI 

Here, with what I see as these two main players in the "birth" chart of AI, I'm going to speculate generally and astrologically about how Mercury and Saturn might operate in this scenario.

We can forget  the presence of the Sun and Moon in this fantasy chart. The Sun represents our sense of self, personal self-awareness, ability to make decisions and moral judgements and it signifies our unique individuality. AI does not have this, nor does it have emotions, needs, moods, or the ability to connect with it's inner child, so forget the Moon here too.

Mercury - yes, AI's fantasy chart can have this planet which represents, in humans, the ability to communicate using words, gather information, and transmit information. But an AI bot will only be as good as the information it has been programmed with, and only as good as the individuals who programmed it, although it can use words to communicate, it can gather and transmit information and it can also chat.  All of this because it's been programmed to.

Venus - no, since this planet assists, along with the Sun, in discrimination, choosing and evaluation. Yet there are hints that AI offers answers which give both sides of a topic. It tends to sit on the fence, doesn't want to offend and answers frequently have an "on the one hand...and on the other hand" flavour. AI doesn't commit to either and doesn't offend, so I detect shades of the traits of the sign Libra here. For this reason, I'll put Mercury into Libra in this non-existent fantasy chart.

Mars - yes, there has to be some Mars energy in order for AI to work and do something, but it's the sheer unconscious energy of a machine, a blind force dependent on the components that makes it work.

Jupiter - no, as this is the planet associated with judgement, wisdom, ethics and the ability to evaluate experiences. AI is currently not able to do that.

Saturn -  yes, Saturn is a reliable player when it comes to storage (of info in this instance) and it's a major player because it represents boundaries and the control of these (AI can only operate within the boundaries of it's physical structure, making it inflexible and conservative). The systems which AI is composed of aren't able to step outside of the framework they're operating within, but there could be a large number of systems at work, transmitting the information that's been stored (Saturn holds on tight to things) via Mercury. And of course, in this fantasy chart, Saturn and Mercury would be in conjunction.

No point in considering the transpersonal planets - Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - in this fantasy chart, although you, the reader, might want to speculate on how AI could work out against the  general background of the collective consciousness - i.e. human beings.

The 2025 Saturn /Neptune conjunction

Saturn and Neptune are currently in conjunction in Aries. They have been gravitating towards this position during the first few months of 2025, finally arriving together, alongside, on the first degree of Aries in May.

I can't resist viewing this conjunction in terms of two people/beings/entities, both with very different natures, who are irresistibly drawn to each other by some uknown powerful force. The magnetism becomes too great, they can resist it no longer and - for better or worse- they fall into each other's arms and to hell with the consequences. 

The fact that this happens in Aries (imagine the circumstances of this meeting taking place against a backdrop of being urged to "get on with it" and "come on, get started - get the ball rolling - there's no time for hanging around dithering!")

This is just one way of looking at it, and allow me my fantasy of what it could be like as I seek to understand the significance of this conjunction of these two planets in this sign - both planets are "heavies" in the sense of being influential personally and collectively. 

Saturn and Neptune are hardly the most compatible of bedfellows. Saturn will be uncomfortable having the loose leaky margins of Neptune invading its well-defined space, while Neptune will find Saturn's boundary-loving structures a big challenge when all it wants to do is hang out and share a bit of love. And Aries, where this is taking place, is the sign related to getting things moving - especially new things -  and being quick off the mark.

Without a doubt, globally we are  going through times of change, upheaval and uncertainty with the need to renew, refresh, and make changes in all areas of life. This is reflected in what is going on in our world, from ongoing attacks on Gaza, ongoing warfare between Russia and  Ukraine and unrest in the middle east, while the US president presides over endless announcements of trading tarrifs on other countries. These change, alter, and yo-yo up and down seemingly at the whim of the president. No wonder watching the news is rapidly becoming a threat to mental health.

At this point, let's break off and say hello to Uranus in Gemini. Are you, Uranus, excitedly enjoying your first toe-testing foray into this sign, taking what you glean back into steady Taurus for a brief while before setting off into inquisitive Gemini proper next April for the long haul? When you arrive, there will no doubt be a surge of new tech-based issues to get to grips with, involving more AI and all that goes with it. We can expect more disruption.

Back to Saturn and Neptune who, although not immediately natural bedfellows, have a lot going for them; their inherent and very different qualities, when combined, can confer strength. They have things to learn from each other and their contrasting energies can be combined to create something new. That's what a conjunction is about - it's not about one of the two planets involved being superior, but is rather the opportunity to create something new, blending, mixing and expressing the two sorts of prevailing energy in a positive way.

On their highest level of expression, these two combined could usher in a new approach, a new way of looking at things. Saturn, at this level could convey wise and benevolent authority, with Neptune bringing unconditional acceptance and love. The potential is there - but will it be taken up collectively? Looking at the current state of the world that, at this stage, seems unlikely just yet.

At the lowest level of collective expression of these planets, Saturn will probably want hang on fiercely to old estalished structures, old ways of resolving problems and defending boundaries, i.e. in countries (Israel, Russia for example) in the "usual" way - that of conflict and war.

Collectively so many things seem in flux, the need for change is pressing, but the "same old, same old" patterns are played out because they're safe, established, tried and tested. We've heard it all before - the solid, defensive, unchanging Saturnian stuff, so those softer, more inclusive Neptunian qualities could be instrumental in ushering in change. Neptune at the lowest level of collective expession is concerned with escapism and getting away from the challenging demands of having to find new and fair solutions. At this level Neptune is good at creating smoke screens, diverting the attention towards something more alluring which will capture the attention of the masses.

It's not difficult to spot this behaviour at work with powerful world leaders showing us how they do it. But only when, on a personal level, the ego and any narcissistic needs are set aside, will it begin to work.

And what of this Saturn/Neptune on a personal level? We're all part of the collective and are therefore part of both the problem and the solution. What can you/I/anyone who happens to wonder what the hell is going on right now do on a personal level to work with the current flavour of things in our eveyday lives?

Saturn is about structure, form, boundaries, standards, mentoring, teaching, supporting and - for want of a better word - rules. Not tough rules but clear guidelines on how to be a fully functioning member of the society we live in, respecting others, being kind to them and supporting them. If this is something we'd like for ourselves, then it's up to us to offer this to others. Do as you would be done by. You get back what you give out.

Neptune is about unconditional acceptance, inclusion and love for our fellow human beings. Not an easy ask by any means, but it's achievable. Forgive, accept, include, care, understand. Again, do as you would be done by and yes, you will get back what you give.

 

What would you like to see less of in the world?

 

It's very easy to identify and name what you'd like to see MORE of in the world, as I experienced when I asked this question nearly 16 years ago, and stood on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, reading out what people wanted to see more of. 

You can read about it here and here.

But what about seeing LESS of some things in this world of ours? I ask this at a time of global upheaval and change, of war and dissent; as I write, Russia's invasion and attack on Ukraine continues after three long years of years of conflict. More recently India and Pakistan have been bombing each other over the long-standing dispute about who should "own" Kashmir, while Israel seems bent on ethnically cleansing and bombing Gaza out of existence for Palestinians.

Alongside this there are some sections of society and leaders of some countries throughout the world who appear to want a return to the rise of Fascism in the 1930s. And we know where that led. At the same time, there is a drift towards less tolerance of anything or viewpoint or lifestyle which doesn't conform to what might be regarded as the "norm". Anti-woke attitudes are touted, books are removed from libraries and words removed from the lexicon of common parlance if they are deemed to be too "woke", while infuencers spread hatred and dissent through social media.

Is this what we want? Is it the path we want to tread? The world we want our children, and their children, to inherit? Do we want it here and now, in our everyday lives?

In 2022 I wrote here about what I see as a decline in the use, expression and manifestation of transpersonal qualities in everyday life - those simple but essential things and attitudes which benefit everyone, not just one or a few of the privileged or those in positions of power. These qualities are what, in life, you can value as you recognise their worth, but you can't put a price on them. They are priceless but cost nothing, and I looked at how the energies of each of the transpersonal planets - Uranus, Neptune and Pluto - can be expressed via three levels. 

These levels apply to all planets and their expression, especially the personal planets, whose qualities and energies we express in everyday life; let's call these levels of consciousness "Asleep", "Waking" and "Awake":

 "Asleep" planetary energy is expressed through automatic survival behaviour with little or no self-awareness.

• This what we could do with less of -  interactive human behaviours which lack empathy, where the individual is bent on its own survival and lacks self-awareness.

"Waking" behaviour comes from a place of greater awareness but is largely "me" oriented.

• This level of increased consciousness and more aware behaviour moves in a more promising direction, but oh dear.......if it is predominatantly "me" oriented then we have the  strutting, intrusive "in your face" stuff of the "me, me" narcissist, often someone who wants to be in control. Right now the world could do with a lot less of this, especially from some world leaders.

 "Awake" behaviour is fully conscious, directed, focussed and inclusive.

• This is what would be welcome. More of this would be most welcome - refer back to what people told me, back in 2009, when I stood on the Plinth and read out their desired shopping list of what they'd like to see more of in the world.
  

Then ask yourself the question: "What could I do to bring some of MORE of these qualities into the world right now, and consider how you might go about it.

Engage your Sun - your mind, your sense of self, your ability to choose, be decisive and discriminating, and use your personal will to determine what you might do. Click here for some suggestions on this.

Whatever you do doesn't have to be big or massively ambitious - it may be as simple as sharing a smile with someone or saying hello, or doing a small act of kindness - the possibilities are limitless and the positive effects will ripple outwards to counteract the tsunami of  unpleasant stuff which we'd all be better off having less of in the world right now.