Did you ever wish you had your own personal advisor who could help you understand the surprising, confusing, and challenging events happening in your life? In his book, “What the Hell Is Going On in My Life?” astrologer and bestselling author, Larry Schwimmer provides those answers.
Schwimmer has created a book as original as Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs! He shows you how your birthdate answers questions about your life and gives you the solutions to improve it in these personality, money, communication, family, romance, marriage, sex, health, investing, travel, career, friendship, and self-understanding. He then reveals a simple technique for using your birthdate to make decisions on the specific dates they will be successful.
“The most recent Harris Poll states that 31% of Americans believe in astrology. This book is uniquely written for people who've always wanted to learn how to use astrology in their life without having to study the complexities,” says Schwimmer. His book provides answers to questions such
• “When will I fall in love?” • “When is the best time to get out of my dead-end job?” • “Why do I attract relationships that don’t work out?” • “When is the best time to make a profitable investment?” • “When will I find the thing I’m meant to do in life?”
Schwimmer gives readers access to a free web site where they can customize his book to their needs. By simply inputting their birth information they will immediately find out "what the hell is going on in their life." No other astrology book offers this.
Schwimmer shares the secret to how this is done, “Based on your exact time of birth, significant astrological events called ‘transits,’ occur every year. These transits reveal the major events and themes that will occur in your life. By knowing how your transits are affecting you, you can prepare for problems and take advantage of opportunities.”
Readers can quickly look up their personal transits to learn what is happening in their life today and what will likely happen in their future.
In addition to helping readers understand why their life changes each year, this book provides insights and advice whenever readers have an important question they want answered or a decision they need to make. With fascinating stories about how these transits have changed people’s lives, Schwimmer gives readers a compelling perspective on the value of astrology. This book is a life manual for understanding the major transitions in one’s life.
Use your birthdate to learn about these areas of your life and the best dates • Meet a New Romantic Partner • Find a New Job • Change Careers • Get Married • Start a Family • Buy a Home or Real Estate • Profitably Invest
This is a book review by: DELL Horoscope Magazine, November 2013, pp. 22-23 by Chris Lorenz
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN MY LIFE? – Using Your Birthdate to Find Answers About Relationships, Career, Money, Sex & Health by Larry Schwimmer; S&A Publishing, San Francisco, CA; 2013, paper, 535 pp., (6” X 9”), $27.95, ISBN 978-1481163644
Most followers of astrology realize that Sun-Sign columns only scratch the surface when explaining relationships, professional developments, or anything else in life that’s really important. Yet learning all he planetary symbols, what aspects are, and the many other technical details of astrology is often too overwhelming, especially when you just want to know why something is happening and when it will go away, or when a better opportunity will arrive.
Larry Schwimmer has stripped down the many confusing tools and methods to just a few basics in his practical, no-nonsense astrology guide, What the Hell Is Going On in My Life? While many astrology books are overflowing with jargon, the author presents what he refers to as the “New Astrology,” which is based on outer-planet transits through the twelve houses. The five traditional outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, and the twelve houses represent twelve areas in one’s life. “When a transit visits one of the Houses in your birth-chart, it causes special events to occur in your life as a result of its influence,” he explains.
And that’s as deep as the astrology jargon gets in this book. Over the course of twelve chapters—one for each house—Schwimmer describes the influence of the five outer planets as they set up conditions that bring the major events in your life. At the beginning of each chapter, the house under discussion is described in depth, and then followed by a section for each outer planet. For example, the first house concerns your outer personality and your physical appearance. In the Jupiter section in this chapter, we discover that this is a good time to accomplish personal goals and contact important or powerful people. One may benefit from personal growth activities, especially advancing one’s education. Luck, self-confidence, and recognition are all available during the one-year that Jupiter is in this house.
Another example: the seventh house is about partnership and includes both marriage and business relationships. Naturally, when beneficial Jupiter passes through the seventh house, new relationships opportunities arrive. But when Saturn enters your seventh house, you become much more serious about your relationships. They get tested, frustrations arise, and you may see the need to end a long-term affair because it’s impractical or has too many problems than can’t be fixed. “Saturn’s influence is a time of testing that will determine whether your relationship will deepen and become real or impermanent in your life,” the author writes. The section on Saturn’s transit through the seventh house is 11 pages long, and concludes with a list titled “Considerations, Actions, Decisions during Saturn in 7th House.” The eight items in this list summarize and encapsulate the essence of this important two-and-a-half-year transit.
The format is the same for each outer-planet transit in each house. The advice is immensely practical, and this is the author’s stated goal; astrology can be use as a decision-making tool. His background as a corporate executive for Nabisco (Smith-Barney-CitiGroup, H&R Block) keeps him focused on making astrology efficient, relevant, and growth-oriented. His introduction to “New Astrology” comes across like a think-positive business seminar, a pep talk aimed at convincing skeptics that astrology really does work and that it can change your life for the better by using this streamlined version.
To be sure, astrologers have been writing practical, streamline versions for decades now. Grant Lewi’s Astrology for the Millions comes to mind, which was published in 1940 and includes practical advice about transits—not only the outer-planet transits, but also the faster moving ones. That book was and continues to be a bestseller. And then Schwimmer’s astrology teachers—Robert Hand, James Braha, Frances Sakoian, and Louis Acker—have each written popular books about the transits, as has Dell Horoscope’s regular contributor Alan Oken.
Where Schwimmer excels is in the sheer depth of description for each outer planet through each house. The writing style is easy to follow and comforting in the sense that it provides real answers to real-life situations. The three outer-planet transits that are the most distant from the Sun—Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto—are often the most difficult to navigate, but here again Schwimmer’s guidance can be quite helpful.
Transiting Uranus often disrupts lives, but the commonsense approach is to embrace newness and change, especially in the areas of life that have become rigid or overly restricted. Neptune may bring confusion, deception, or illusion, but used in the most constructive way, it can bring a deeper connection to the world you life in. Neptune may bring inspiration, faith, and mystical experiences. Pluto can be the most devastating, with power struggles and breakdowns. Looked at in a positive way, Pluto can be seen as a powerful friend who shows you the way through the inevitable changes that must come. Be prepared by knowing which house Pluto is transiting. In 500+ pages, Schwimmer presents the encouraging and productive ways you can benefit form each outer-planet transit.
When is the best time to change jobs? Is love in your future? Is it a good time to make a big investment? Everyone asks questions like these throughout their lives, but it's hard to know the answers. In What the Hell is Going on in My Life, Larry Schwimmer introduces a "new" astrology that can help you answer some of these questions.
The book begins with an introduction to the basic ideas around astrology, all of the famous people who have been using astrology, and how you can use astrology to make decisions. I will admit that I know quite a bit about astrology since I have a friend who is an astrologer and taught me all about the "old" astrology years ago. So the introduction and the first few parts of the book were a bit slow for me. I think they'd be an interesting introduction for those who are not knowledgeable about astrology, though.
Where I really got into the book was the "meat" of it, which begins with Part V. This is where Schwimmer begins going from house to house (there are 12 houses in the astrological chart) explaining the significance of the transits of the five outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto). If this has started to sound confusing to you, I promise that those first several parts of the book will put it all into perspective in an easy-to-understand way.
Schwimmer describes each house and what it is all about. Then he goes into detailed descriptions of what you may find your life focusing on when each of the five outer planets transits through that house. For example, the 1st house rules your personality and outer appearance. Jupiter passing through this house can make you feel optimistic and cheerful, and it can bring opportunities for personal growth. You may decide to better yourself in some way, whether physically or emotionally. On the other hand, when Saturn passes through the 1st house, you may spend time re-evaluating your personality and personal goals. You'll feel more serious and introspective.
You may now wonder how you will know which planets are in which houses of your astrological chart. Part IV of What the Hell is Going on in My Life provides information about obtaining those details. Schwimmer has set up a website where you can get a free list of the five outer planet transits. The list also provides details on your natal chart. The list is very simple; it doesn't provide a detailed astrological chart. It provides just enough data to help you apply the information you'll get from the book.
If you're interested in astrology and would like to see how amazingly accurate it can be, definitely check out What the Hell is Going on in My Life by Larry Schwimmer. If you're already well-versed in astrology, you probably won't get as much out of this, although it was a nice recap of the effects of the five outer planets.
I approached this book as a skeptic, but I thought I'd give it a shot, and see how it went. I hoped that it would be at least above-average, but it turned out to be pretty bad as far as I'm concerned, due to two main reasons:
1. I feel like the author wasn't sure if this should be a very brief primer on new astrology and transits or if it should be more like a reference guide that you consult when you have questions. Maybe it's possible to have a book that does both, but it's not this book. It seemed like half of the time, the author presented this as an introduction to new astrology and transits, and the other half as an encyclopedia/almanac on transits and astrology.
2. The writing style; where to begin. First off, this book was poorly edited. I mean, I understand that some mistakes will still slip through despite multiple rounds of editing, but this was ridiculous. At times it seemed like the only proofreading that occurred was a round of spell check in Microsoft Word. At one point there was a three paragraph example about one of the author's clients, and the name changed from one paragraph to the next. I understand that the author changed the client's name for privacy reasons, but that is inexcusable. The word choice and grammar was poor. In the beginning of the book, it seemed that the author would italicize random phrases every three or four sentences, I guess to create a sense of urgency, but that was unnecessary, since the author's tone of voice already created a sense of urgency. Additionally, it seemed ridiculous for the author to use a tone of voice that would create a sense of urgency in the first place. It made the book feel like one of those scams where people tell you that for a "relatively" small fee, they can tell you what's going on in your life, which I would assume is the exact opposite of the feeling the author wanted to engender.
Honestly, I had hoped for this book to do well. But instead, I couldn't even finish it, because overall it was unfocused and had a poorly matched writing style and basically no editing.
I've been studying astrology for over 40 years and I've read a lot of books on the subject. It's not easy to appeal both to astrologers and non-astrologers alike, but Larry Schwimmer has achieved that goal admirably in his impressive 535-page book. I should know, because I was one of his editors! His engaging writing style is filled with countless true-to-life stories of real people facing challenging situations and wondering what to do. By focusing on the 5 outer planets transiting the 12 Houses of the birth chart, Larry shows how to recognize long-term cycles affecting your life, and how to use that information to make decisions at specific times for the most favorable results. Probably the most unique gift in the book is the Free Transit Calculator which you can use with past, present, or future dates to find out which transits are affecting you. Then, you can easily look up your transits in the well-organized book for a clear explanation of what they mean and ways to deal with them. Best of all, you don't have to be an astrologer to use the treasure map of astrology to improve your life! You'll find this book highly readable and immediately useful in timing your decisions for the most successful outcome. The smartest decision you can make right now is to buy the book and find out "What the Hell Is Going On in My Life?"
Filled with entertaining stories about how the “new” astrology played a part in decision making in people’s lives, What the Hell is Going On in My Life?: Using the "NEW" Astrology to Find Serious Answers, was a fun and interesting read.
Appreciative it was a book of advice written in a sensitive manner vs. an ‘in your face’ style of self-help book was refreshing. One could take away useful information and choose to apply it to their life, or not, without feeling the book was read in vain.
Larry Schwimmer offered a free transit calculator to assist his readers in understanding how they could use the new astrology to improve when, where, and how to make more productive decisions.
As a new fan of the “new” astrology, I’ll be updating my transit calculator when needed and taking advantage of the advice.
I went out on a whim when deciding that I wanted to give this book a try. I have always been very hesitant of astrology. Once in a while I'll read my "daily horoscope" online or pick up a book in the bookstore and read about the Aries person. However, each book always seemed to have something in it that completely contradicted the other, and I never understood the concepts of the moon and the planets and star alignments, etc.
Schwimmer's book makes it EASY to comprehend astrology! I don't have to learn all of the technicalities in order to understand his book. It is amazing what I have learned about myself, AND there aren't the contradictions that I have found in other books. "New astrology" is very intriguing. Whether or not you are a believer in astrology, I recommend this book just for the sake of giving it a try!
For some reason I just can't bring myself to get past the first few chapters. This is actually no reflection on the book, but It's just not something I'm personally in the mood to read. I'll give it a few months and give it another go.