Secondary Progressions Explained: Birth Chart of Ram Dass

​     The different ways of progressing a natal chart in time are unique in that they are at once timing techniques for seeing when certain themes might be active in our lives and they add a layer to the natal chart, so they also pertain to self-knowledge. 

          There are many ways of progressing a natal chart. Secondary progressions are my main focus. Secondary progressions progress the chart one day forward past birth for every year lived.
 
     Progressions are a rather fractal perspective on time. Fractals are parts of the whole that are almost identical to the whole. Our world is full of fractals. As above, so below. As within, so without. As on the 32nd day after you were born, so on the 32nd year after you were born.

​          With secondary progressions (SP) the chart progresses slowly. It takes 30 years for the sun to change signs with SP. It takes about 28 months for the moon to move through one whole sign in a SP chart and It takes 28.5 years for the SP moon to go around the whole chart. We mainly look for perfections of aspects from the SP chart to the natal chart, perfection of aspects in the SP chart and planets changing signs in the SP chart. Since the moon is the fastest moving body in the SP chart, we will see the most action from the SP moon.

          We are going to look at the chart of Ram Dass (aka Richard Alpert) to illustrate secondary progressions in action. Ram Dass was a professor and head of the psychology department at Harvard in the 1960’s. He was friends with fellow psychology professor Timothy Leary and together they started doing experiments with psilocybin and LSD. Their research was focused on the potential therapeutic benefits of these substances.
 
They were eventually both fired for mistakes they made in these experiments. Alpert eventually went to India, underwent a profound spiritual transformation and came back to America after a few years to talk about what he had learned. He wrote and gave us the book Be Here Now, which has sold billions of copies and is considered a “…monumentally influential and seminal work, [which] still stands as the highly readable centerpiece of Western articulation of Eastern philosophy, and how to live joyously a hundred percent of the time in the present, luminous or mundane.” ( https://www.ramdass.org/about-ram-dass/ )

          His progressions are good example to use thanks to the major transformations his life underwent. We would expect to see major shifts in the progressed chart coinciding with the major shifts in his self-perception (who he was destined to be) and in his outer life (timing of fated events).

          I am specifically going to focus on his secondary progressed mercury.
Ram Dass was born with Mercury at 4°29`Taurus, on April 6, 1931. About 13 days after he was born, Mercury stationed retrograde at 13°24`Taurus. So around his 13th birthday, his progressed mercury stationed retrograde at 13°24`Taurus. There is not a lot of information available about his early life so I’m not sure what shifts this initial change of direction for mercury were about, but when it stations direct years later, things start to get very interesting in his life.

          Forward to 1954, Alpert graduates with his M.A. in Psychology, and is recommended for Doctoral studies at Stanford where he starts writing his doctoral thesis in 1955. In 1954 Alpert was 23 years old. His progressed chart for 1954-1955 features the inferior conjunction of a still retrograde progressed Mercury to the progressed Sun.

In 1958 Alpert accepted his first employed position at Harvard as an assistant professor. 1958 is also when progressed Mercury perfected a sextile to his natal Venus, from his 11th house of hopes & dreams & friends to his 9th house of God, philosophy & higher education. By now, progressed Mercury had retrograded back to 6°Taurus.

          A life-changing, fated, destiny-forming moment came March 6, 1961, when Alpert took his first dose of psilocybin, at Tim Leary’s house. He describes it as a moment that changed the entire trajectory of his life. It was a month before his 30th birthday and his retrograde progressed Mercury was at 5°23`Taurus, within 1 degree of perfecting its re-alignment of his natal Mercury at 4°29`Taurus.

          Throughout 1961 & 1962, as progressed mercury retrograded closer to exact alignment with natal mercury, Alpert, along with Leary deepened their research at Harvard into the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. In 1962 the two of them formed the non-profit International Federation for internal Freedom (IFIF). On April 20, 1962, Alpert assisted in the famous “Good Friday Experiment” conducted by a Harvard Divinity School graduate. It was “the first controlled, double-blind study of drugs and the mystical experience”. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass )

          

April 11, 1963, just after his 32nd birthday, progressed Mercury returned by retrograde motion to its natal position at 4°29`Taurus. Then on May 27, 1963 Alpert was fired from Harvard, along with Leary. ( http://www.psychedelic-library.org/look1963.htm ). Progressed Mercury was now at 4°27`Taurus, officially behind its natal position. Progressed Mercury retrograding behind its own natal position seems to be an important indicator of an important rewind and reset moment in his life.

          From 1963-1967 Alpert wrote a series of books about mysticism and psychedelics while living at the famed Millbrook estate. While he was seemingly “active” and productive during these years, he has said that he felt he was growing stagnant there and not serving his true purpose in life. From the time he was let go from Harvard until the time he left for India for the first time in 1967, progressed mercury moved less than one degree, and still in retrograde, backwards motion.

By mid-1967 progressed Mercury was at 3°34`Taurus and considered officially stationed, ready to turn direct. It would not turn officially direct until the middle of 1968 though! And it would not have actually moved more than a few minutes of arc until mid-1970! Progressed mercury stayed at 3 degrees Taurus from 1965-1971! By 1971 progressed mercury moved back into 4 degrees Taurus and Alpert had completed his transformation into Ram Dass. He had returned to America in 1970 and by 1971, his most well-known book, Be Here Now, was published and transforming the western world.

          Throughout the 1970’s progressed mercury remained conjoined with natal Mercury with an orb of about 4 degrees. Progressed Mercury now moving forward and conjunct his natal Mercury, began a flurry of teaching, traveling, and lecturing, writing and working with different foundations, which are all part of his legacy and what he became known for and all very mercurial and 11th house topics.

Aside from progressed Mercury’s solo journey and relationship with its natal position, from 1967-1973 progressed mercury perfected and remained in a tight trine with natal Neptune. Neptune is mostly associated with spirituality, limitlessness, compassion, drugs, the ineffable and mysticism. And here is when he established himself as the western world’s favorite speaker (Mercury) on these topics.

          The trajectory remained the same throughout much of the 80’s and 90’s and progressed mercury didn’t make too many changes either, until December 1996 progressed mercury changed signs from Taurus to Gemini, and from his 11th house to his 12th house. Two months later, at age 65, he suffered a major stroke that would change his life forever. The stroke, “left him with expressive aphasia, which he interpreted as an act of grace. He stated, "The stroke was giving me lessons, and I realized that was grace—fierce grace ... Death is the biggest change we'll face, so we need to practice change."

Reflecting the 12th house nature of the change, his new condition made it very difficult to speak. Up until now, speaking was his life’s work and a major part of his identity. The 12th house can be a place of isolation and, by some accounts, the very deep spiritual peace that sometimes arises from isolation.

          While it became more difficult to speak and write after the stroke, he did continue to make appearances and publish a few books, up until his death in December 2019. There is more detail we could go into just using his progressed Mercury alone, but that was the highlights.

          Secondary Progressions are a fun and elegant technique, whether for leaning into the unfolding of who you are and have been and are destined to become, or timing important turning points in that story.
 
          When I am reading someone else’s progressions for them, what part of the progressed chart I focus on will depend on who they are, what they are looking for in the moment, and how much time we have. The way I have my packages set up promotes looking at more of a variety of techniques in one session and not spending more than 30 minutes on any one technique, but the customizable packages could absolutely be curated in such a way that we can go deeper into progressions, for a whole hour or more, if you would like to.