Eric Francis
Encyclopedia
Eric Francis is an American
investigative reporter
, essayist, author
, editor
and photojournalist. As an investigative reporter, he has specialized in corporate fraud
and toxic torts litigation involving some of the world's most powerful corporations -- General Electric
, Monsanto Company and Westinghouse.
He is the founder, editor
and publisher of Planet Waves, Inc., an internet publishing company that created the Planet Waves internet sites. Planet Waves Daily Astrology & Adventure publishes four times daily with a focus on astrology, politics, sexuality, relationships and photography. The relationship focus of Planet Waves is on polyamory
.
Since 1994, he has worked as a research astrologer
specializing in minor planets and other newly-discovered objects, particularly the centaur minor planet group, as well as a horoscope
writer and astrology teacher widely published in North America
, the United Kingdom
and Australia
. He has taught at the Northwest Astrology Conference, the NCGR conference and is on the faculty for the 2012 United Astrology Conference.
He continues to be active as a journalist in non-astrological fields, particularly on sex education and occasionally organochlorine issues and civil rights, most recently writing for The Ecologist
in the UK.
Planet Waves publishes the Dioxin Dorms website, which gives a comprehensive history of the dioxin incident at SUNY New Paltz and internationally dating back to 1929, for which he is best known as a journalist.
In 2005, while based in Paris, he created Book of Blue, a fine art photo studio and series of online books. In a 2008 article, the (Kingston, NY) Daily Freeman
said, "Though his camera lens, Coppolino has captured provocative and captivating images from around the world. He has gained international recognition for delivering a fresh and positive twist of world thought and culture with his photographs." He describes the project differently: "Spiritually and sexually intimate, these are images and narratives about gradually discovering myself through the exploration of relationships and art."
In August 2009, as the author and photographer of Book of Blue, he presented his photography and its corresponding psychological theory at the American Psychological Association
's Toronto world congress. The theme was, "Inner Goddess and Inner Gaze: Reconstructing Female Self Image."
bookstore called Aquarius Rising Books. She taught him the rudiments of newspaper reporting, and astrology. He purchased his first deck of tarot cards from her store as well.
He took a position as senior editor at Whitaker Newsletters, Inc., assigned to Health Professions Report. He covered the American Medical Association, the American Nurses' Association and other medical industry issues, at the height of the nursing shortage in the late 1980s, grooming himself for a position at The Wall Street Journal
, where his boss, Joel Whitaker, was a former editor.
However, he moved into investigative journalism. In 1989, he founded the Student Leader News Service (SLNS) in New Paltz, New York (originally called New York State Student Leader). SLNS covered higher education for the State and City University systems in New York. SLNS functioned as a statewide news service in New York that covered the state capital in Albany, and the State University of New York
central administration, providing content for student newspapers and student governments across the state and to some extent nationally.
The news organization chronicled the chronic budget cuts and tuition increases of the time, and provided the first dependable student news entity covering the State University Board of Trustees and the New York State Legislature. The New York Times described Francis as one of the few people not the state payroll who understood the state budget. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00611FA3C5C0C728FDDA80894DB494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fS%2fState%20University%20of%20New%20York
SLNS had major scoops picked up by New York City daily newspapers and state wire services, including one on the lavish spending habits of student government leaders during the budget crisis of the early 1990s. That article resulted in a New York Times editorial called Mopping up the CUNY Slush.
) disaster of Dec. 29, 1991, one of the only reporters to do so after the first month of what became a decade-plus cleanup that had cost state taxpayers $50 million as of 1997.
His coverage of this event led to his expanding coverage of dioxins and PCBs into an international story that has appeared in Sierra, The Las Vegas Sun, The Ecologist and many other newspapers and magazines.
Considered among the worst indoor PCB releases in the long history of the chemical, the New Paltz incident involved a series of nearly simultaneous transformer fires and explosions on the state college campus, which occurred while most students were on winter holiday. Testing conducted by the state's contractors revealed that contamination had spread widely in Bliss, Capen, Gage and Scudder residence halls, as well as the Coykendall Sciences Building and Parker Theater.
Subsequent negligence led to pipes freezing in Coykendall and Parker, spilling millions of gallons of contaminated water onto the campus and into the local estuary system during the winter of 1992. His reporting, which appeared in more than 175 articles published locally and internationally, established that the dormitory buildings were re-occupied prior to being adequately tested or cleaned, yet with students, parents and staff being given reassurances of safety by campus and local government health officials.
His investigative articles on the issue, which went from a local to international, have been published in Sierra http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200103/conspiracy.asp, the magazine of the Sierra Club
, the Village Voice, Woodstock Times
, the Las Vegas Sun
,The St. Louis Journalism Review, Lies of Our Times, and other national and international publications.
His persistent coverage of the transformer accident that led to PCB and dioxin contamination in several dormitories at SUNY New Paltz resulted in his being banned from campus as an alleged public nuisance on May 5, 1993. Challenging the ban, he brought a federal lawsuit against the State of New York (in the persons of college president Dr. Alice Chandler, and assoc. vice president for student affairs Dr. L. David Eaton), on freedom of speech and equal protection grounds (1st and 14th amendments) represented by civil rights attorney Alan Sussman. In the summer of 1994, the case was settled out of court, he was paid $20,000.00 damages, and the ban was rescinded with an acknowledgement from the state that his civil rights "may have been violated." .
More recently, his independent testing confirmed that the dormitories - particularly, Capen and Gage residence halls - remained contaminated with PCBs in 2004, 13 years after the transformer incidents there. In 2007, he worked with students and members of his creative team to build the DioxinDorms http://dioxindorms.com internet site, which gives the history of the New Paltz issue as well as considerable historical background about the global PCB and dioxin situation.
His wider reporting on PCBs and dioxins, based largely on the record of a federal lawsuit titled Nevada Power vs. General Electric
et al., established that the manufacturers of both PCB chemicals and equipment knew for 50 years that their products were dangerous and even deadly, and that they were contaminating their employees and the environment, but concealed this information from the government, the media and the public. Titled "Pandora's Poison," the article also uncovered a series of memos between Monsanto Co. and its safety testing lab which indicated both companies conspired to hide the clear cancer-causing effects of PCBs in rat studies. The lab, Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, was later the at the center of a scandal that consumed the reputation of nearly every major safety testing lab in the country, as the FDA found most to be operating fraudulently.
Francis is the founder of Generation
(published Sept. 1984–present), an award-winning weekly student magazine at the University of Buffalo.
There were more personal reasons, as well. "I felt that as an investigative reporter, I was not reaching people," he said in 2006. "They were not getting the message. I needed to write in a more personal way."
His astrological teachers included David Arner, who among other things taught him classical astrology; Laurie A. Burnett, who introduced him to Barbara Hand Clow's work on Chiron
as well as the work of Alice Bailey
; minor planet pioneer Melanie Reinhart
; German minor planet specialist Robert von Heeren, who gave him the ephemerides
for Pholus
and 1992 QB1
; and David R. Roell, who taught him the basics of interpreting an astrological chart.
With one exception—Barbara Clow—all of his astrological mentors, and his most important non-astrological mentor, have been musical composers.
Through reading his work it's apparent that he was influenced greatly by Joseph Trusso, a mentor and his Gestalt-based Holistic Therapist, with whom he worked as a client for many years in Woodstock, NY (also a musical composer). He was also influenced by the Hakomi Therapy movement, a body-centered method of therapy practiced mostly in the United States and Canada. Brad Blanton
's work on Radical Honesty
has been another significant influence.
Through his astrological career, he has been a prolific writer, as well as working individually with clients until early 2006. Much of his work has focused on the developments of the minor planets, such as Chiron
, Pholus
and Quaoar
. He was quoted recently in The Wall Street Journal
http://www.planetwaves.net/contents/wsj.html on the subject of minor planets and the change of classification of Pluto
and Ceres
.
His essays and horoscopes have been published continuously in Chronogram
magazine in the New Paltz, NY area since 1996.
Francis is the founder, editor and publisher of Planet Waves http://www.planetwaves.net, a general interest web magazine formed in 1998, which features writings and photographs by Francis and many other writers on a diverse array of subjects including astrology
, cultural astronomy
, politics
, sexuality
, and spirituality
. The publication offers a wide diversity of both free and subscriber content dating back to around 1998, but has the unusual practice of giving complimentary subscriptions to premium services to anyone who asks. Planet Waves originally appeared as an article series reported from Germany on the website of Rob Brezsny
, though Francis had been on the Net for about two years prior.
Planet Waves, Inc. has expanded its portfolio to include a subscriber-sponsored annual edition called Light Bridge, and many other self help astrology products.
Between 1996 and 1998, Francis hosted Radio Navigator on Radio Woodstock, a Sunday night talk radio program covering astrology, personal growth, politics, ecological issues and sexuality, frequently but not always viewed through the frame of astrology. The complement of subjects covered on this program is reflected in the content of Planet Waves today.
For a year, he was the astrologer for Woman magazine, one of the most respected magazine titles in the UK.
His writing has been published on numerous astrology Websites, including StarIQ.com, astrology.com. For four years, he was a fixture on the website of leading UK astrologer Jonathan Cainer
. Francis wrote Cainer's daily horoscope during numerous vacations, and for two years carried Francis' regular feature, Astrology Secrets Revealed, a question and answer and astrology news feature.
Between 2002 and 2006, Francis stood-in for Cainer's daily horoscope about 75 times, which columns appeared in the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail
, the Melbourne Herald Sun and the Sydney Daily Telegraph and on People.com, Hola.com, Cainer.com and other daily web pages. He recently stood in for prominent Australian astrologer Yasmin Boland on Australian Yahoo, was on maternity leave.
His writing has also appeared in The Mountain Astrologer http://www.mountainastrologer.com/, The Journal of Bisexuality http://www.bisexual.org/resources/journal/, Loving More http://www.lovemore.com/home and the Seattle-based Society for Human Sexuality's website, sexuality.org http://sexuality.org.
He has presented at astrology conferences in the United States, Canada and the UK, and has conducted workshops on a diversity of other human potential and humanistic subjects. In addition, he has been a speaker on governmental issues including higher education, land use rights, and corporate responsibility on the topic of chlorinated compounds.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
investigative reporter
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
, essayist, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, editor
Editor in chief
An editor-in-chief is a publication's primary editor, having final responsibility for the operations and policies. Additionally, the editor-in-chief is held accountable for delegating tasks to staff members as well as keeping up with the time it takes them to complete their task...
and photojournalist. As an investigative reporter, he has specialized in corporate fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
and toxic torts litigation involving some of the world's most powerful corporations -- General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
, Monsanto Company and Westinghouse.
He is the founder, editor
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
and publisher of Planet Waves, Inc., an internet publishing company that created the Planet Waves internet sites. Planet Waves Daily Astrology & Adventure publishes four times daily with a focus on astrology, politics, sexuality, relationships and photography. The relationship focus of Planet Waves is on polyamory
Polyamory
Polyamory is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved....
.
Since 1994, he has worked as a research astrologer
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
specializing in minor planets and other newly-discovered objects, particularly the centaur minor planet group, as well as a horoscope
Horoscope
In astrology, a horoscope is a chart or diagram representing the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, the astrological aspects, and sensitive angles at the time of an event, such as the moment of a person's birth. The word horoscope is derived from Greek words meaning "a look at the hours" In...
writer and astrology teacher widely published in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. He has taught at the Northwest Astrology Conference, the NCGR conference and is on the faculty for the 2012 United Astrology Conference.
He continues to be active as a journalist in non-astrological fields, particularly on sex education and occasionally organochlorine issues and civil rights, most recently writing for The Ecologist
The Ecologist
The Ecologist is a British environmental publication founded in 1970 by Edward Goldsmith. It addresses a wide range of environmental subjects and promotes an ecological systems thinking approach through its news stories, investigations and opinion articles. The Ecologist encourages its readers to...
in the UK.
Planet Waves publishes the Dioxin Dorms website, which gives a comprehensive history of the dioxin incident at SUNY New Paltz and internationally dating back to 1929, for which he is best known as a journalist.
In 2005, while based in Paris, he created Book of Blue, a fine art photo studio and series of online books. In a 2008 article, the (Kingston, NY) Daily Freeman
Daily Freeman
The Daily Freeman is a seven-day-a-week morning newspaper in Kingston, New York, the Ulster County seat. Serving all of Ulster County and parts of three other counties in the Mid-Hudson Valley, the broadsheet publication has a weekday circulation of approximately 22,000.In addition to its Uptown...
said, "Though his camera lens, Coppolino has captured provocative and captivating images from around the world. He has gained international recognition for delivering a fresh and positive twist of world thought and culture with his photographs." He describes the project differently: "Spiritually and sexually intimate, these are images and narratives about gradually discovering myself through the exploration of relationships and art."
In August 2009, as the author and photographer of Book of Blue, he presented his photography and its corresponding psychological theory at the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
's Toronto world congress. The theme was, "Inner Goddess and Inner Gaze: Reconstructing Female Self Image."
Journalist
Eric Francis' first journalism job was as a staff reporter for the Echoes-Sentinel in Warren Township, New Jersey. This was a straightforward municipal reporting assignment (covering the Township Committee, the Planning Board and related functions), but it was his editor at this newspaper, Florence Higgins, who was the person who introduced him to astrology. Higgins moonlighted as a professional astrologer and owner of a New AgeNew Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
bookstore called Aquarius Rising Books. She taught him the rudiments of newspaper reporting, and astrology. He purchased his first deck of tarot cards from her store as well.
He took a position as senior editor at Whitaker Newsletters, Inc., assigned to Health Professions Report. He covered the American Medical Association, the American Nurses' Association and other medical industry issues, at the height of the nursing shortage in the late 1980s, grooming himself for a position at The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, where his boss, Joel Whitaker, was a former editor.
However, he moved into investigative journalism. In 1989, he founded the Student Leader News Service (SLNS) in New Paltz, New York (originally called New York State Student Leader). SLNS covered higher education for the State and City University systems in New York. SLNS functioned as a statewide news service in New York that covered the state capital in Albany, and the State University of New York
State University of New York
The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...
central administration, providing content for student newspapers and student governments across the state and to some extent nationally.
The news organization chronicled the chronic budget cuts and tuition increases of the time, and provided the first dependable student news entity covering the State University Board of Trustees and the New York State Legislature. The New York Times described Francis as one of the few people not the state payroll who understood the state budget. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00611FA3C5C0C728FDDA80894DB494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fS%2fState%20University%20of%20New%20York
SLNS had major scoops picked up by New York City daily newspapers and state wire services, including one on the lavish spending habits of student government leaders during the budget crisis of the early 1990s. That article resulted in a New York Times editorial called Mopping up the CUNY Slush.
Coverage of PCBs and Dioxins
As editor of SLNS, he covered the now-infamous SUNY New Paltz PCB (polychlorinated biphenylPolychlorinated biphenyl
Polychlorinated biphenyls are a class of organic compounds with 2 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl, which is a molecule composed of two benzene rings. The chemical formula for PCBs is C12H10-xClx...
) disaster of Dec. 29, 1991, one of the only reporters to do so after the first month of what became a decade-plus cleanup that had cost state taxpayers $50 million as of 1997.
His coverage of this event led to his expanding coverage of dioxins and PCBs into an international story that has appeared in Sierra, The Las Vegas Sun, The Ecologist and many other newspapers and magazines.
Considered among the worst indoor PCB releases in the long history of the chemical, the New Paltz incident involved a series of nearly simultaneous transformer fires and explosions on the state college campus, which occurred while most students were on winter holiday. Testing conducted by the state's contractors revealed that contamination had spread widely in Bliss, Capen, Gage and Scudder residence halls, as well as the Coykendall Sciences Building and Parker Theater.
Subsequent negligence led to pipes freezing in Coykendall and Parker, spilling millions of gallons of contaminated water onto the campus and into the local estuary system during the winter of 1992. His reporting, which appeared in more than 175 articles published locally and internationally, established that the dormitory buildings were re-occupied prior to being adequately tested or cleaned, yet with students, parents and staff being given reassurances of safety by campus and local government health officials.
His investigative articles on the issue, which went from a local to international, have been published in Sierra http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200103/conspiracy.asp, the magazine of the Sierra Club
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the conservationist and preservationist John Muir, who became its first president...
, the Village Voice, Woodstock Times
Woodstock Times
Woodstock Times is a small weekly newspaper in Woodstock, New York that is circulated every Thursday. It was established in 1972 by its current owner Geddy Sveikauskas of Ulster Publishing.The editor is Brian Hollander.-External links:*...
, the Las Vegas Sun
Las Vegas Sun
The Las Vegas Sun is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper. It is one of Las Vegas, Nevada's two daily newspapers. It is owned by the Greenspun family and is affiliated with Greenspun Media Group....
,The St. Louis Journalism Review, Lies of Our Times, and other national and international publications.
His persistent coverage of the transformer accident that led to PCB and dioxin contamination in several dormitories at SUNY New Paltz resulted in his being banned from campus as an alleged public nuisance on May 5, 1993. Challenging the ban, he brought a federal lawsuit against the State of New York (in the persons of college president Dr. Alice Chandler, and assoc. vice president for student affairs Dr. L. David Eaton), on freedom of speech and equal protection grounds (1st and 14th amendments) represented by civil rights attorney Alan Sussman. In the summer of 1994, the case was settled out of court, he was paid $20,000.00 damages, and the ban was rescinded with an acknowledgement from the state that his civil rights "may have been violated." .
More recently, his independent testing confirmed that the dormitories - particularly, Capen and Gage residence halls - remained contaminated with PCBs in 2004, 13 years after the transformer incidents there. In 2007, he worked with students and members of his creative team to build the DioxinDorms http://dioxindorms.com internet site, which gives the history of the New Paltz issue as well as considerable historical background about the global PCB and dioxin situation.
His wider reporting on PCBs and dioxins, based largely on the record of a federal lawsuit titled Nevada Power vs. General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
et al., established that the manufacturers of both PCB chemicals and equipment knew for 50 years that their products were dangerous and even deadly, and that they were contaminating their employees and the environment, but concealed this information from the government, the media and the public. Titled "Pandora's Poison," the article also uncovered a series of memos between Monsanto Co. and its safety testing lab which indicated both companies conspired to hide the clear cancer-causing effects of PCBs in rat studies. The lab, Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, was later the at the center of a scandal that consumed the reputation of nearly every major safety testing lab in the country, as the FDA found most to be operating fraudulently.
Francis is the founder of Generation
Generation
Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....
(published Sept. 1984–present), an award-winning weekly student magazine at the University of Buffalo.
Astrologer
After years covering industry and government, Francis had what he jokingly describes as a "conversion experience" and began investigating astrology after reading the daily horoscope of Patric Walker (1931–1995) http://planetwavesweekly.com/book/chapter3.html. The synchronicities between 'real life' and what appeared in Walker's daily column in The New York Post were particularly stunning given the type of journalism work he was doing at the time, requiring copious research and documentation: seemingly the opposite of a horoscope column.There were more personal reasons, as well. "I felt that as an investigative reporter, I was not reaching people," he said in 2006. "They were not getting the message. I needed to write in a more personal way."
His astrological teachers included David Arner, who among other things taught him classical astrology; Laurie A. Burnett, who introduced him to Barbara Hand Clow's work on Chiron
Chiron
In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur among his brethren.-History:Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents...
as well as the work of Alice Bailey
Alice Bailey
Alice Ann Bailey , known as Alice A. Bailey or AAB to her followers, was an influential writer and theosophist in what she termed "Ageless Wisdom". This included occult teachings, "esoteric" psychology and healing, astrological and other philosophic and religious themes...
; minor planet pioneer Melanie Reinhart
Melanie Reinhart
Melanie Reinhart is an astrologer and author based in the United Kingdom. She has taught for several well-known astrological schools in the UK and abroad, including the Faculty of Astrological Studies, the Centre for Psychological Astrology, the London School of Astrology, and Astro*Synthesis...
; German minor planet specialist Robert von Heeren, who gave him the ephemerides
Ephemeris
An ephemeris is a table of values that gives the positions of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times. Different kinds of ephemerides are used for astronomy and astrology...
for Pholus
5145 Pholus
5145 Pholus is a centaur in an eccentric orbit, with a perihelion less than Saturn's and aphelion greater than Neptune's. Pholus has not come within one astronomical unit of a planet since 764 BC, and will not until 5290. It is believed that Pholus originated as a Kuiper belt object.It was...
and 1992 QB1
(15760) 1992 QB1
', also written 1992 QB1, was the first trans-Neptunian object to be discovered after Pluto and Charon. It was discovered 1992 by David C. Jewitt and Jane X. Luu at the Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. It is now classed as a classical Kuiper belt object, and gave rise to the name cubewano for this...
; and David R. Roell, who taught him the basics of interpreting an astrological chart.
With one exception—Barbara Clow—all of his astrological mentors, and his most important non-astrological mentor, have been musical composers.
Through reading his work it's apparent that he was influenced greatly by Joseph Trusso, a mentor and his Gestalt-based Holistic Therapist, with whom he worked as a client for many years in Woodstock, NY (also a musical composer). He was also influenced by the Hakomi Therapy movement, a body-centered method of therapy practiced mostly in the United States and Canada. Brad Blanton
Brad Blanton
W. Brad Blanton is an author, seminar leader, and twice candidate for United States House of Representatives , both times as an Independent running against Republican incumbent Eric Cantor in Virginia's Seventh Congressional District...
's work on Radical Honesty
Radical Honesty
Radical Honesty is a technique and self-improvement program developed by Dr. Brad Blanton. The program asserts that lying is the primary source of modern human stress and that practitioners will become happier by being more honest, even about painful or taboo subjects...
has been another significant influence.
Through his astrological career, he has been a prolific writer, as well as working individually with clients until early 2006. Much of his work has focused on the developments of the minor planets, such as Chiron
2060 Chiron
2060 Chiron is a minor planet in the outer Solar System. Discovered in 1977 by Charles T. Kowal , it was the first-known member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs, with an orbit between Saturn and Uranus.Although it was initially classified as an asteroid, it was later found to...
, Pholus
5145 Pholus
5145 Pholus is a centaur in an eccentric orbit, with a perihelion less than Saturn's and aphelion greater than Neptune's. Pholus has not come within one astronomical unit of a planet since 764 BC, and will not until 5290. It is believed that Pholus originated as a Kuiper belt object.It was...
and Quaoar
50000 Quaoar
50000 Quaoar is a rocky trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper belt with one known moon. Discovered on June 4, 2002 by astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the California Institute of Technology from images acquired at the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory, it is thought by...
. He was quoted recently in The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
http://www.planetwaves.net/contents/wsj.html on the subject of minor planets and the change of classification of Pluto
Pluto
Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
and Ceres
1 Ceres
Ceres, formally 1 Ceres, is the smallest identified dwarf planet in the Solar System and the only one in the asteroid belt. With a diameter of about 950 km, Ceres is by far the largest and most-massive asteroid, comprising about a third of the mass of the asteroid belt. Discovered on 1 January 1801...
.
His essays and horoscopes have been published continuously in Chronogram
Chronogram
A chronogram is a sentence or inscription in which specific letters, interpreted as numerals, stand for a particular date when rearranged. The word, meaning "time writing", derives from the Greek words chronos and gramma . In the pure chronogram each word contains a numeral, the natural chronogram...
magazine in the New Paltz, NY area since 1996.
Francis is the founder, editor and publisher of Planet Waves http://www.planetwaves.net, a general interest web magazine formed in 1998, which features writings and photographs by Francis and many other writers on a diverse array of subjects including astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, cultural astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
, and spirituality
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
. The publication offers a wide diversity of both free and subscriber content dating back to around 1998, but has the unusual practice of giving complimentary subscriptions to premium services to anyone who asks. Planet Waves originally appeared as an article series reported from Germany on the website of Rob Brezsny
Rob Brezsny
Rob Brezsny is an American astrologer, writer, poet, and musician. His weekly horoscope column Free Will Astrology , has been published for more than 28 years, runs in 120 periodicals, and can be subscribed to for free via email.- Career :Brezsny is the first well-known horoscope columnist...
, though Francis had been on the Net for about two years prior.
Planet Waves, Inc. has expanded its portfolio to include a subscriber-sponsored annual edition called Light Bridge, and many other self help astrology products.
Between 1996 and 1998, Francis hosted Radio Navigator on Radio Woodstock, a Sunday night talk radio program covering astrology, personal growth, politics, ecological issues and sexuality, frequently but not always viewed through the frame of astrology. The complement of subjects covered on this program is reflected in the content of Planet Waves today.
For a year, he was the astrologer for Woman magazine, one of the most respected magazine titles in the UK.
His writing has been published on numerous astrology Websites, including StarIQ.com, astrology.com. For four years, he was a fixture on the website of leading UK astrologer Jonathan Cainer
Jonathan Cainer
Jonathan Cainer is a British sun-sign astrologer who writes a daily column on his website, which is reproduced in Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun newspapers in Australia and the Daily Mail newspaper in Britain, in addition to a variety of Internet sites in five or so different languages, including...
. Francis wrote Cainer's daily horoscope during numerous vacations, and for two years carried Francis' regular feature, Astrology Secrets Revealed, a question and answer and astrology news feature.
Between 2002 and 2006, Francis stood-in for Cainer's daily horoscope about 75 times, which columns appeared in the Daily Mirror, Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, the Melbourne Herald Sun and the Sydney Daily Telegraph and on People.com, Hola.com, Cainer.com and other daily web pages. He recently stood in for prominent Australian astrologer Yasmin Boland on Australian Yahoo, was on maternity leave.
His writing has also appeared in The Mountain Astrologer http://www.mountainastrologer.com/, The Journal of Bisexuality http://www.bisexual.org/resources/journal/, Loving More http://www.lovemore.com/home and the Seattle-based Society for Human Sexuality's website, sexuality.org http://sexuality.org.
He has presented at astrology conferences in the United States, Canada and the UK, and has conducted workshops on a diversity of other human potential and humanistic subjects. In addition, he has been a speaker on governmental issues including higher education, land use rights, and corporate responsibility on the topic of chlorinated compounds.