History
The history of the White Eagle School of Astrology is bound up with the story of the White Eagle Lodge itself. As the White Eagle teaching was being given through the instrumentality of the Lodge’s founder Grace Cooke, Joan Hodgson, her elder daughter [see photo], noticed that he sometimes used astrological references. Intrigued, she determined to find out more about the subject, and when asked what she wanted for her twenty-first birthday (which occurred about eighteen months before the Lodge work officially began) she requested ‘a library of astrology books’.

White Eagle Lodge horoscope  London, 15.40, 22 February 1936. Although the astrological side of the Lodge work began soon after the Lodge itself, it was not officially constituted as a School until 1976:  10h. 03m. 50s. 7 April 1976 at Liss, Hampshire. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WAS NOT AN ELECTION – it just ‘happened’ (and fortunately I and one other had the presence of mind to take the exact time).

Branch of astrology
Esoteric, but not quite as that word is usually understood. Our astrology is spiritually based but also down to earth and practical.

The First Horoscopes and Courses
This was not then a greedy desire: there were only about ten or a dozen astrology books in print and available in the UK. Her wish was granted, and from then on she studied the subject incessantly. She quickly became very proficient and inevitably Lodge members began to ask her to read their personal horoscopes.
They also began to ask to be taught astrology, which resulted in the publication of the first edition of our beginners’ correspondence course in 1941. As far as we know it was the first such course in the UK in modern times.

Wisdom in the Stars
Joan also wrote about astrology for the then Lodge magazine ANGELUS, and a series of articles she wrote there about the esoteric significance of the twelve signs of the zodiac was compiled as a book and published in 1943 under the title it still has today: WISDOM IN THE STARS. It has never been out of print.

After World War II
Directly after the Second World War and during the 1950s and 60s Joan was much involved in the astrological world outside the Lodge. 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.

More Recently
In the early 70s Joan wrote the advanced correspondence course and in 1976 officially constituted the astrological side of the White Eagle Lodge work as a school. She published three further books and continued to lead the School until her death in 1995. The current Principal, Simon Bentley, came into the work in the early 70s and for many years acted as her senior tutor and administrator. He now runs the School, as Joan did, from the White Eagle Lodge headquarters in Hampshire.

Courses
Our astrology correspondence courses can guide you from complete novice to professional practitioner. Advanced students have to have taken either our beginners’ or preparatory course and passed our certificate exam.

Enrolment periods and dates
Students may enrol at any time. No time limit for completion.