Over the years, countless thousands of people have studied astrology with Steven Forrest. A couple thousand have done it in his flagship Apprenticeship Programs. Those intensives met regularly in California, Kansas, and North Carolina, plus Australia and Italy starting in 1998. He has also taught countless weekend workshops around the world. His annual programs in China, for example, which have run since 2011, have introduced many hundreds of Asian students to the methods of evolutionary astrology. Beyond those face-to-face meetings, there are serious students whom Steven has never met personally. They have been studying with him via his bestselling books or his many videos and recorded lectures. Some have attained high levels of mastery.

All of that teaching has been a good thing, but the problem Steven has always faced was “the little red schoolhouse” syndrome – beginners and advanced students all in the same room at the same time. How could he meet such a wide spectrum of needs? Another expression of the same underlying issue has simply been the inherent potential chaos of such a multifaceted system – astrology is complicated and students have often been confronted with the whole thing all at once. It’s simply too much for most people. It leads to confusion. Maybe, for example, Steven is teaching an advanced program on the solar arcs of the nodal axis. A new student signs up, unsure of exactly how many signs are in the Zodiac. Someone who should buy The Inner Sky goes to his online shop and settles on The Book of Neptune – it’s a fine book, but it is not a good starting place. That, or someone with an established professional practice signs up for a class in which Steven is patiently explaining that the Zodiac contains twelve signs