Astrology School History

As the White Eagle teachings was being delivered through the Lodge’s founder Grace Cooke, her eldest daughter Joan Hodgson became intrigued by the astrological references often used.

So, when asked what she’d like for her 21st birthday, Joan quickly replied: ‘a library of astrology books’.

The first horoscopes and courses are launched

Joan studied astrology so incessantly that she quickly became proficient at it.

She soon began to read the personal horoscopes of our members. And before long, they began to enquire about learning this skill for themselves.

This eventually led to the launch of our first beginners' correspondence course in 1941. The first such course of its kind in the UK.

Wisdom in the Stars is published

Joan also wrote about astrology for Angelus, the Lodge magazine at that time. Her series of articles, which explored the esoteric significance of the 12 signs of the zodiac, was later compiled as a book titled Wisdom in the Stars, which was published in 1943. It continues to be printed to this day. 

She also published: Planetary Harmonies and Astrology: The Sacred Science and continued to lead the school until her death in 1995.

Joan’s work outside the Lodge

Directly after the Second World War, and during the 1950s and 60s, Joan’s involvement in the astrological world outside the Lodge developed significantly.

She was a founder member of the Faculty of Astrological Studies, the largest teaching body in UK astrology today, and also took part in the big tropical vs. sidereal zodiac research project undertaken by a number of major astrological figures in the 1960s.

White Eagle Lodge Astrology School is launched

In the early 1970s, Joan wrote the advanced correspondence course. Then, in 1976, the astrological side of the White Eagle Lodge work was officially constituted as a school.

The current head of astrology, Simon Bentley, joined us in the early 1970s and for many years acted as Joan’s senior tutor and administrator. He now runs the school, as Joan did, from the White Eagle Lodge headquarters in Hampshire.