Howard Sasportas was born in Hartford, Connecticut, USA, at 1.46 am EST on 12 April, 1948. His parents, Max and Edith Sasportas, came from a long line of devout Sephardic Jews, and although he was later to become open to all dimensions of the spiritual life, these roots remained of great significance to him. He received his B.A. from Tufts University and took a Masters degree in Humanistic Psychology from Antioch University. He moved to London in 1973, and in 1979 he was awarded the Gold Medal for the Faculty¹s Diploma Exam. In the same year he became a tutor for the Faculty, and also began to establish himself as an immensely popular speaker at the Astrological Association of Great Britain.
Howard continued his exploration of psychology and spiritual studies as well as astrology over the following years. He was a graduate of the London-based Psychosynthesis and Education Trust and also of the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology founded by Ian Gordon-Brown and Barbara Somers. In 1983 he and Liz Greene founded the Centre for Psychological Astrology, for which he remained co-director until his death. From 1987 to 1991 he was series editor of Penguin¹s Arkana Contemporary Astrology Series. He authored two books on his own, The Twelve Houses and The Gods of Change, co-authored The Sun-Sign Career Guide with Robert G. Walker, and produced four volumes of seminars with Liz Greene under the Seminars in Psychological Astrology Series published by Samuel Weiser, Inc: The Development of the Personality, Dynamics of the Unconscious, The Luminaries, and The Inner Planets. He was constantly in demand, in Great Britain and internationally, as a teacher and lecturer, and also maintained a full astrological and counselling practice.
In his later years Howard battled constantly with chronic ill-health. He bravely endured two major back operations in an attempt to correct a congenital spinal disorder known as ankylosing spondylosis. These operations virtually crippled him. At the same time he had to face the remorseless progress of AIDS, to which he finally succumbed. Toward the end he gave much of his time to the Oasis Centre in North London for AIDS sufferers, and although wheelchair-bound in his last year, he continued to travel and lecture worldwide. His final triumphant lectures were given from his wheelchair, between blood transfusions and nights in hospital, at the Easter 1992 UAC Conference in Washington, DC. Howard died at 5.11 pm BST, on 12 May, 1992.
Direction and Destiny in the Birth Chart was published by the CPA Press in 1998, on the sixth anniversary of Howard’s death. It contains three of his best seminars given at the CPA.