Acknowledgments
Illustrations
Introduction: Why Black Moon Lilith?
1. What is Black Moon Lilith? In astronomy; The four astrological Liliths; The Dark Goddess in myth & religion; Lilith in the arts; The psycho-spiritual nature of Lilith
2. Interpreting the Black Moon: Looking for Lilith; Black Moon through the Zodiac
3. Famous Black Moon people Black Moon Beatles
4. Black Moon in the houses
5. Black Moon Lilith with the planets The personal planets, Mercury, Venus & Mars; The social planets Jupiter & Saturn; The outer planets Uranus, Neptune & Pluto; The new solar system; The lunar nodes
6. Lilith's dark mirror Lilith in relationship; Lilith speaks: a dramatic monologue
Appendix: Astronomy notes
Chart data
Bibliography
Ephemerides
At first I thought this was a "me-too!" book, but then I saw it was a sequel to the author's previously published Living Lilith (see above).
The short review is that this is more of the same. The author has learned nothing, nor does she wish to. Books like these amount to Astro-Fantasy (Astro-Fiction, if you like), which has as much relation to astrology as Science Fiction has to science. In Sci-Fi we note a trend for enchanting seductresses with big boobs & skimpy outfits, ever ready to lure unsuspecting astro-sailors into their grasp. Like the sirens of old. In the Black Moon division of Astro-Fi we find exactly the same thing. If you're a Sci-Fi buff, that's all the more I need to tell you. Get this book & revel.
The long review.
The real challenge in reviewing this book is to meet the Black Moon head-on. I've been pouring over the text for two days and haven't found it. In Chapter 1 we learn the Black Moon is the empty second focal point of the Moon's orbit around the earth. This is according to Kepler's laws, where all orbits are eliptical and have two focal points.
But when I Wiki the same topic, Orbit of the Moon, I learn that The Earth and Moon orbit about their barycentre (common centre of mass), which lies about 4700 kilometres from Earth's centre (about three quarters of the Earth's radius).
The barycentre isn't empty. It's part of the earth. Nor does Wiki make any mention of any secondary orbital focal point. Empty or not.
Why is this? It might be because the Earth/Moon dyadic pairing is strongly influenced by the Sun, such that there doesn't seem to be a secondary focal point to the Moon's orbit. Here you will find a sketch of what the Moon's orbit around the Earth really looks like - nothing like what you thought.
This is from Wiki, but is not accurate. It shows perhaps 1/10th of the Earth/Moon orbit, yet shows four full moons. Four full moons (or four new moons, makes no difference) is one-third of the Earth's annual orbit. The Moon's "orbit" around the Earth is three or four times more strung out than what this diagram shows. However, the separation between the Earth line and the Moon line (look closely) is probably fairly close. The Earth is 372-ish times as far from the Sun as the Moon is from the Earth. Interplanetary distances really are vast. The misleading diagrams we make trivialize them.
In other words, the eliptical idea of the Moon's orbit is a nice thought, but in fact, the Moon orbits the Sun, not the Earth. The Moon in fact weaves in & out of the Earth's orbital path. At every new moon, the Moon has moved 1/13th of the earth's orbit - just as we have. The Moon dances around us. It only appears to circle us. Go look at the diagram, and then puzzle it out. Now do you understand what the Moon's "orbit" looks like?
Where is this "empty focal point" that Hunter insists upon? By process of elimination, it must be the Earth's empty focal point in its orbit around the Sun, as this is the only point available. As the eccentricity of the Earth/Moon orbit is 0.016710219 (rather small), that empty point must be rather close to the Sun itself. Which means the "Black Moon" that Hunter speaks of must closely shadow the Sun, completing a full transit of the zodiac every Earth year. At some moment during the year the "Black Moon" will be behind the Sun, at some point it will be ahead of the Sun, and at other times it will be conjunct the Sun. But in general, a guess would be that the Earth/Moon empty point is never more than three or four degrees from the Sun, if that.
M. Kelley Hunter is confused about this. Frankly, so am I. In the Astronomical appendix she asks the opinions of others, David Cochrane of Kepler among them. Cochrane's sharp - sharper than me. I doubt he was confused. Presumably he told Hunter, who either didn't believe him, or didn't understand him. Here is some of what Hunter says in the Astronomical Appendix:
There are three choices [for the Black Moon]:
1. Topocentric, from the Earth's surface, which would obviously vary by latitude & longitude;
2. Geocentric, from the center of the Earth. . .
3. Barycentric, from the Earth-Moon barycenter. . .
Published tables are geocentric-based. (pg. 174)
The Unicorn Connection
The Black Moon is often considered synonymous with the Lunar Apogee, the furthest point of the Moon from Earth. The data is workably close, pointing to the same zodiacal point, yet it is not precise. . . The Black Moon as second focus of the Moon's orbit is near the Earth. . . The Lunar Apogee is the point at which the Moon is furthest from Earth, most free from Earth and most open to divine influence. Using the mean Black Moon gives us a "clean," archetypal position.
. . . French astrologer Luc Bigé opens further mythic dimensions of Black Moon Lilith by naming the five points on the long axis of the Moon's orbit.
1. The Lunar Perigee he calls Priapus, a phallic god of rustic origin. . .
2. Earth is our home ground.
3. The barycenter . . . is called Hecate. . .
4. True Black Moon [note: not the mean BM - Dave] the empty focus of the ellipse . . .
5. The Lunar Apogee, or mean Black Moon, is seen as the Unicorn.
Don't get bogged down trying to understand it all! Use whatever positions of Black Moon you can find & see what you discover as you enter the labyrinth.
- all from pg. 175
In this book, M. Kelley Hunter delineates the mean Black Moon as it's a relatively stable point (whatever it is), since the true Black Moon position varies wildly. See the diagram on pg. 15.
So lemme see . . . The true Black Moon, the empty point in the ellipse, is a point that doesn't seem to exist, since the Moon in fact does not orbit the Earth to start with. The lunar apogee (point of greatest distance from the Earth - a completely different point) is the mean Black Moon, but it could also be a sickly small white horse with one horn. And despite whatever the author says in the book, you can just make it up anyway.
Which is more latitude than the old Sci-Fi writers would give. They expected you to follow the plot & stay around to the end of the book.
Which brings up the question, Who is M. Kelley Hunter & why is she writing these books? Aside from the obvious need to call attention to herself, that is.
At her website, she has commentary on the recent (January 2011) flap over the shifting zodiac & the 13th sign, Ophiuchus. Of the 13th sign, she says (scroll down),
And it's fabulous that Ophiuchus, the "13th constellation," the Serpent Charmer, has risen into the collective consciousness. We need this powerful archetype of a healer, a shaman.
Which will probably be gone by the time you find this, buried in some distant corner of Hunter's website, or perhaps deleted altogether. It merely confirms that Hunter does not understand astrological fundamentals. Blather like this leaves us wide open to attacks from even more ignorant astronomers. Which are eagerly taken up by a fawning media. Astrologers like Hunter are our own worst enemies. Astrology is a noble & wonderful science. It can heal the sick, it can work wonders. Why do we wound ourselves with dreck like this? Why?
I looked up Luc Bigé (Hunter gives his name as "Luc Bige"). In 1993 he wrote a 268 page book on sun signs, La Symphonie du Zodiaque (French transpersonal astrology. Here is an excerpt from the blurb on the back: Aucun signe n'est << bon >> ou << mauvais >>, il est. Chaque signe est presente avec ses differents niveaux de conscience, du niveau des principes au niveau transpersonnel en passant par les niveaux socio-culturel et individuel. ). The picture on his FaceBook page shows a pleasantly bald middle aged man, with beard and glasses. He likes Alan Oken. So do I, as a matter of fact.
The final question is one of market. So far, the author has published with two small specialty houses. They're not big enough to give her any real sales, moreover, as both are astrological specialists, publishing books of fantasy tends to hurt their overall reputations. M. Kelley Hunter would be better served, methinks, if she took her existing books, tarted them up a bit, dumbed them down a triffle, and sold them to a major New York / London publisher. A big publisher has the means to get Hunter's books to the market that would most profit from them. Lots more sales than Wessex or the AFA could ever imagine. I'm serious.
AFA, 210 pages.