Not All Diplomas Are Created Equal

I hold a diploma in Acting

Quite a while ago, on the diploma course at Central

Lucky me.

This is what 3 years at the Central (these days Royal Central) School of Speech and Drama would get you way back in the day before the turn of the millennium and before the institution was elevated (?) in academic status and absorbed by London University. Now you can get a degree.

Lucky you.

A degree will allow you to access tenure track teaching positions. A diploma does not do that.

In 40 years as an actor in four continents no-one has ever asked to see my diploma, except once in China when I was being considered for a quasi-tenured teaching position.

(There is a long, involved, and to those who are not captivated by the subject, rather tedious history of my attempt to establish a modular conversion course from diploma to degree at Central ⎯ for a moment it looked likely to succeed but, alas, the opposing forces were too strong. The tarot card that applies is the 8 of cups, the title of which is: The Lord of Abandoned Effort, the astro correspondence of which is: Saturn in Pisces. If this does captivate your attention, I am available to tell the whole sorry saga in person in detail over strong drink.)

Therefore I have evolved a method regarding said diploma. This is it:

1. Photocopy the diploma using quality card stock.

2. Laminate the copies.

3. Use them as place mats for dinner parties.

If you follow this method, conversation at the table will never flag, because even the simplest enquiry over the boeuf bourguignon on this curiosity will swiftly lead to an impassioned denunciation of the current state of British (and elsewhere) training for the stage. How young actors in general have no diction, no articulation, no breath support. How few of them can distinguish between the minimal silence in the hands of a master like Mark Rylance and the fluent eloquence required for Shakespeare or for Shaw in the hands of the greatest 20th century exponent of verse speaking, Sir John Gielgud (if they know who he was). How most of them need (horror!) amplification.

Unfortunately I cannot show you the original of my Diploma in Acting, it has gone the way of all-devouring time. So I here offer an artist’s impression as a substitute.

When it comes to astrology, I have no formal qualification, although I have studied seriously with various schools to a greater or lesser extent. Sometimes following a diploma course, with others simply attending a few, or just a single class. Some of them are, in no particular order:

The Faculty of Astrological Studies

Mercury Internet School of Psychological Astrology

The Centre for Psychological Astrology

The Astrology University

The Star School

Dwarf Planet University

Skyscript Astrology

Asteria Teaching

Stephen Forrest Astrology

Astrology Hub

The Sophia Centre

The London School of Astrology

As of this writing, as I say above, I claim no qualification from any of these schools ⎯ it’s important that I make that clear ⎯ more than one school has strict ethical guidelines on that point.

At this point, I should say that there are many excellent astrologers who are to greater or lesser extent self-taught. This is where Uranian rulership applies because it is the cosmic energy of the maverick.

On the other hand, many mavericks would benefit from some academic rigor in their work.

Among the burgeoning quantity of online astrologers who opine on YouTube, I do follow a few podcasts:

Pam Gregory, not only because as a stranger in a strange land, it is a tonic to hear a British accent from time to time, but also for the (to me) semi-plausible, but wilder, shores of woo-woo optimism. In that department Ms Gregory leads the field.

Dan Waites at World Astrology Report for close analysis of planetary cycles in time and correspondences in history. Not only does Dan present well and entertainingly, and although still a young man, he is, in my estimation already a considerable expert, and is likely to continue developing his astrology to a rarified level (No, I haven’t seen his chart).

Chris Brennan at The Astrology Podcast for high level discussion all over the art and craft. He is an expert too. (Thankfully he now usually posts a timeline so you don’t have stay for the whole long form, I mean who has two hours? You can click forward and back to the bits which interest you.)

Too many, too much?

Answer: yes without question, far too many, far too much.

But then to the Mercurially curious, no.

With a Gemini Moon in the 9th it is quite natural for me to take a diverse approach, inevitable in fact, and I believe it is actually a correct eccentricity in the way I learn. Fortunately, I have a Sun Saturn conjunction at the other end of my chart, and when that works well, I am able to deploy some focus.

At one time it seemed as if all the astrologers in my acquaintance were giving rulership of astrology to Uranus. In other words to that within and without which is maverick. But lately it has seemed to me that the ascription is now commonly given to Mercury. This is also reasonable, to ascribe it to the trickster God of disseminating information.

But I wonder if this continues a process of rationalization of an art which will never be wholly rational ⎯ I read lately that certain scientists are once again pursuing statistical analysis relating to astrology (good luck with that). The equivalent in the training of young actors is the academicization of the craft, the extent that young actors who attend our training institutions now graduate with a degree, (lucky them), (and often an obscene load of debt ⎯ in my day the authorities paid me and I have been grateful these forty years. The debt that attends tertiary education in all fields is one example among many of how my children’s generation has been betrayed by my own). Actors are now taught by people who may never have done it, but know how to do it and write books to prove it. I was taught by people who merely did it for a living. I know which I prefer.

Oh dear, I have become a curmudgeon.

I could write splenetic articles for The Oldie magazine deploring declining standards everywhere ⎯ but I am not alone ⎯ witness last year’s (2024) protest resignation from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London by leading voice teacher Patsy Rodenburg.

On the other hand, there is no question but that astrology in general is vulnerable to intellectual sloppiness, quackery and charlatanism. And why not? After all, you can find a charlatan, a quack, a sloppy practitioner in most walks of life up to and including … well perhaps we can all think of someone highly placed in the world’s eyes who qualifies for that description?

And on the other, other hand the Diploma as offered by The Faculty of Astrological Studies, a British school founded in 1948, is a course of in-depth study over a minimum of three years, but with the excellent flexible feature that the student can take as much time as they wish. Many senior diplomates have taken a decade or more to gain this qualification. Hence this diploma, a combination of both Uranian and Mercurial influence in its Saturnine structure, is widely respected throughout contemporary astrology, and one of these years I may get around to attempting to finish it.

In the meantime, I continue with the spiritual smorgasbord that is the access to the many modes of esoterica available in our times. And I have a foreboding feeling that this extraordinary access may not last.

I’m linking and juxtaposing the two disciplines, acting and astrology because in odd ways they mirror each other, although, as we have seen, a diploma in one does not equal a diploma in the other.