Divining with Achi and Tara is a book on Tibetan methods of prognostics with dice and prayer beads (mala). Jan-Ulrich Sobisch offers a thorough discussion of Chinese, Indian, Turkic, and Tibetan traditions of divination, its techniques, rituals, tools, and poetic language. Interviews with Tibetan masters of divination introduce the main part with a translation of a dice divination manual of the deity Achi that is still part of a living tradition. Solvej Nielsen contributes further interviews, a mala divination of Tara and its oral tradition, and very useful glossaries of the terminology of Tibetan divination and fortune telling. Appendices provide lists of deities and spirits and of numerous identified ritual remedies and supports that are an essential element of a still vibrant Tibetan culture.

Internationally renowned teacher Oscar Hofman uses 24 case studies to demonstrate how the rich symbolism and myths behind the fixed stars can add a deeper and more spiritual dimension to astrological chart delineation. Formula 1 driver Nikki Lauda had his notorious accident in which he suffered serious burns to his face, when the fixed star Achernar was activated by progression. This star is connected to the story of Phaeton who, overestimating his powers, tried to steer the solar chariot through the heavens, lost control and came down in flames. In the chart of Nicolai Tesla, unsurpassed genius in electrical design and invention, the Sun is on the fixed star Castor on the IC; Castor is the dying brother of the famous heavenly twins Castor and Pollux. One of the critical events in Tesla’s youth was the death of his elder brother who was killed by a horse. The heavenly Twins, represented in the zodiac by the sign Gemini, are known as horse tamers.