Art of Prediction

I have read “Art of Prediction” from beginning to end multiple times and after each reading I have come across an as yet undiscovered trait for myself that helps me improve my understanding on the subject of astrology.

The assumption in this book is that the reader is already familiar with the basics of astrology and understands the various qualities and traits of planets, houses of the horoscope and signs like Aries, Taurus etc. Perhaps Mr. Bhasin intended this book to be read immediately after his book on “Astro Sutras”. That is probably the reason why the author does not talk about the basics and directly proceeds to introducing the harder, difficult to grasp concepts of astrology e.g. retrogression, medical astrology, combinations or yogas for foreign travel, making money etc. directly in the first chapter.

As with the other book, my complaint with the author about the (dis)organization of the book remains. You can feel the jump between various topics covered in a chapter and a topic being covered in multiple chapters. Also, there was no need for a chapter on how to calculate a birth chart in such an advanced book and accord much less importance and detailed treatment that it rightly deserves.

In spite of the complaint(s), there is little or no doubt in my mind that Mr. Bhasin is a great astrologer and a learned person because one cannot come up with such subject matter in vacuum. Both of the books that I have mentioned here are extremely faithful to the ancient works on astrology and there are frequent references to other texts - as an example, while explaining that second house in a horoscope is very relevant for marriage, a line that a lot of astrologers do not take, the author diligently quotes for a shloka in Savartha Chintamani. This proves the depth of knowledge the author possesses on this subject. Factors like lack of organization of subject matter in books are superficial in comparison.