Astrology, Magic and Self-Knowledge

You can get something to happen by having a clear plan of what you’re trying to achieve, and going out and doing it. That is Mars, with a bit of Saturn-shaping. It is generally how the world works.

But you can also use magic. This is the outer planets. With magic, it is not about a sharply defined subject (you) imposing its will on a sharply defined object (the world.)

It involves a more subtle understanding of how the world works, in which subject and object are one. The word magic comes from the ancient Greek magos “one of the members of the learned and priestly class”, which in turn comes from the old Persian magush, possibly meaning “to be able, to have power.”

That last one sounds about right – to be able, to have power. I don’t know about it having much to do with priests and scholars, though: they are good for performing other people’s rituals and preserving other people’s words, but I don’t think of them generally as having much power of their own.

(Incidentally, I don't think JK Rowling understands anything about magic, but I think Philip Pullman does.)

So magic means you can get things done, but on a basis of inner power. Which isn’t something you can acquire, nor is it something you’d claim to have, or even a word you’d use. That is a crude, worldly, exoteric way of thinking. No, it comes from having the right relationship to yourself, self-knowledge, being at ease with who you are. It gets called ‘esoteric’, like some hidden yogic mystery that you have to go to Tibet to acquire, or to a Toltec Master. But that’s because over the centuries we’ve had it knocked out of our culture, first by Christianity, and latterly by the modern establishment religion, science.

Establishments find it easier to function if people look to them for guidance rather than to themselves. They will often insist on it. I suspect it’s always been that way, at least to some extent. I expect it.

So it’s about having the right relationship to yourself, and to the world. You can’t separate the two. And then you get things to happen not by pushing events, but by creating space for them. This is particularly Neptune’s realm. You mentally, emotionally, intuitively align yourself with the event you want to unfold, you keep yourself aligned, and you wait for it to happen, or for the opportunity to present itself.

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Awareness is vital here. You can’t just magic anything into being.  It’s no good wanting 2 plus 2 to equal 5, for example. And you can’t easily go against a strong natural force, like rabbits eating your lawn. But you might get the clouds to rain! And if you just ‘want’ something, well it won’t have much power unless it is something – or someone! – you really need, that makes intuitive sense as well.

And you don’t know the precise nature of the outcome, because it’s not like pushing billiard balls around a table. If anything, it’s about being the pocket and waiting for the balls to drop in, in the trust that it will be the right ones. But you probably don’t know which the right ones are.

It’s plugging into a wider wisdom that seems to know what’s right for us. We don’t know what’s right, not precisely, and not beyond a limited degree.

But we can take steps, the future needs constant dreaming into being. That full alignment of ourselves is central. And with that we can do ceremonies, rituals. We can create them ourselves, like I did in my Neptune ritual, which bore fast and powerful results. And it was based around a myth involving Neptune and Odysseus. And I didn’t know what I wanted, just that I needed to move forward.

I don’t entirely like the word magic, because we are dealing with a natural, albeit often unrecognised, means of action. And magic has connotations of Will in the narrow sense. People often use the word ‘manifest’ these days, which relates, but it is clichéd and often wrong-headed.

I think the word that probably comes closest to what I’m talking about is prayer! Yes, praying to whatever you conceive of as ultimate. I suspect the Catholic saints work quite well. Not so sure about the Christian god, he’s so twisted, but even then it probably works to some extent. I think I prefer the natural world in its entirety. It’s tangible, it’s there, it’s real. It’s not some being you’re not quite sure about, or a cosmic idea. What is there apart from the natural world? It is everything, so why not pray to that? We are part of it, we are intimately connected to it. Unlike god, whose good books we have to keep in.

So praying as directing your intention out there into the natural world. But with integrity, with the sense that you are fully aligned with what you are doing. And it doesn’t have to be just for yourself. It can be for others, help for others. We can use magic there as well. Of course, we can’t know what’s best for others – we don’t even know what’s best for ourselves – but sometimes it’s obvious, like health, or life, or something they really want.

It’s that inner alignment that is key. Self-knowledge. That is where the power to produce results comes from. And that is the chief task of life, finding who we are, building a self.

Often with astrology readings, people’s difficulties, and even illnesses, seem to me to come down to a disconnection from who they are. That deep feeling you have when you are at ease with yourself, when the voices that tell us we should be this or that, or that we’re just a pile of crap, are quieter than usual -  not entirely gone, that would be remarkable.

So for me an astrology reading is about finding out who that person is, and what they are habitually doing that conceals them from who they are. That’s part of it. It’s not just that we do things that get in our own way. The deeper self also has to be built over years and years by acting on that which is original to you, taking your gifts and talents seriously (it took me years to take my interest in astrology seriously), creating your own spring of knowledge and understanding. Not letting yourself be drowned out by all the voices telling you what to think and how you should be living. At the same time, that oppositional pressure, those demons, can be exactly what are needed to push us to change.

So to be powerful in acting magically, in manifesting, usually takes years. Which doesn’t mean some people aren’t naturally gifted at it while being a mess with the rest of their lives! But it involves a very different way of thinking to the usual Saturnian mode, cause and effect as a product of personal will. There is a place for this, of course, for everyday tasks. But even then, it needs to be in the service of Neptune. 

Saturn can easily dominate Neptune, and then everything goes wonky. Like trying to make an artist (Neptune) work 9 to 5 (Saturn). 

For the bigger things, we need Neptunian causality, to coin a phrase. To move house, for example, you need to dream it, and don’t be afraid to dream what you really want. 2 plus 2 can’t equal 5, but if you really need something, if it would help your life move forward - and that is the key – it is surprising what can happen in ways you wouldn’t have thought. Nature provides. Plants and animals are provided with what they need, so why shouldn’t we be? We have different needs a lot of the time, but we are part of nature, so nature will provide. That is what she does.

Astrology: Interpretation or Propitiation?

I have had Jung’s idea of the objective reality of the psyche in my mind today. It sort of inverts the usual way we think about things, in that the mind is by definition subjective, and everything else ‘out there’ is objective.

So what it is saying is that the mind is not us. Kind of.  Or rather psyche, the Greek word for soul (which psychology would do well to remember.) The psyche is ‘out there’, it is not under our control. It has its guiding presences, separate to our usual notions of our self, which have been there all along.

If you think about it, what we think and do is emotionally based. We do things because we want to. We are not in control of what we want, it presents itself and we act.

I am in control of my thinking, up to a point. But I am thinking about this subject, writing about it, because I want to. And the wanting came from somewhere else.

Poor human beings, thinking they are in control! We are like the froth on the ocean. But there is a powerful, meaningful, numinous presence there that makes sense of everything once we see we are the froth. A bit more than froth, but not a lot more.

I often say that the planets in astrology are the different bits of us. I suppose that is a good starting point. But they are also not bits of us. They are separate from us, they have their own life, they are gods. All the significant forces within us are not us. We are each directors in our own play. The script is there, and we can be creative with it up to a point. The actors are there, and each actor needs to be left to play his/her part in their own way. With us, the director, paying full attention.

So I think when it comes to chart interpretation, we can either see the chart as ‘my’ psychology (which has its place), or as a bunch of gods that need to be propitiated. This is clearest when it comes to the outer planets, Uranus Neptune and Pluto. These planets are invisible to the naked eye and are therefore outside the bounds of ordinary consciousness.

I wrote a piece a couple of years ago in which, looking for a direction forward, I did a ritual to Neptune. It took me, on and off, a couple of days driving around Cornwall. 2 weeks later we had found a house to move to (although that hadn’t been my specific intention), the move went smoothly, and a new life slowly began.

Neptune is what you imagine, what you dream, and at the time (as now also) I was undergoing some major Neptune transits.

So that can be the way of it. We may not know the way forward, but the gods surely do.

During that ritual time, Mars turned up in my van one night. Huge, in his armour. So the inner planets as well, they are not us. I think that Pluto, who turns up regularly, was also there. Yeh, he just told me. I remember now.

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And it’s about bringing astrology away from numbers and towards a relationship with the gods. Because that’s what astrology is about, it is about creating this living relationship. If astrology draws you, it is the gods drawing you, commanding you, even, taking you to your encounter with fate.

Astrology cannot be learnt in classes, though they can help. You become an astrologer when, like the tribal shaman, the gods choose you. They may make you ill until you learn to listen. They can keep you ill for decades if necessary, or keep your life just not working whatever you try. That is what I think a lot of these modern diseases like ME are: they are soul diseases. But we do not have the elders or the traditions to recognise it.

And to be an astrologer, you need to know something. Real knowledge that only the gods can give you, often by tearing your old life apart, getting you to look beneath the surface of life, beneath the conventional wisdoms and superficial judgements. You taste the dark earth.

This is why astrology’s search for respectability is such a fool’s errand. The judgements of the market place, of the academy, of science, of the man in the street, of institutional religion are superficial. They do not hear the same drum. Their considerations are more obviously practical, and in a way that is fair enough. Religion included: its concerns are largely influence and control. And that includes astrology-as-religion.

If the gods have their eye on you, if Pluto has abducted you, you cannot live by the same rules as other people. Your gaze is turned somewhere else. You can pretend to be normal, but people will often feel there is something different about you. And it’s really important not to care about what other people think, and really important to care what the gods think, so to speak. It can be difficult not to mind what others think, but learning that is central, it forges who we are. Without that, where is the pressure to change? It’s a matter of loyalties and where they lie.

 And there is such freedom in this. It’s not like the gods ‘telling’ you what to do. It’s more like you are free, as Jung put it, to do what you have to do. The spirit is free. But again, this is easier said than done, because where are the usual sources of security, what can you hold on to? It’s rather like death and why we’re afraid of it. But if your life is those gods, then I don’t think it matters if you are alive or dead.

A Ramble Around Soulfulness

I suppose I’m always grappling to have a soul. And I get glimpses occasionally of how to do it in this culture, where for a long time we have been truncated by what Jung’s spirit guide called ‘the poison pill of science’.

I’ve been influenced more recently by Patrick Harpur’s book The Philosopher’s Secret Fire, in which science is presented as a series of mythologies. I like to view everything as mythology, and that way you don’t need to oppose anything. For when things are soulful, there is flow, you let the whole of reality flow through you.

Fundamentalism, the idea that there is only one true reality, whether scientific, Islamic, free-market capitalist, liberal democratic or whatever, stands in the way of soulfulness, that flow that connects the individual to the whole universe. BUT.. fundamentalism is just another mythology, it’s just a story that things are only one way. Viewed like that, it doesn’t need to be opposed, you can just let it flow through.

I think there’s probably always been fundamentalism, or degrees of it. It happens whenever we try to fix things as like this or like that. It’s probably human nature. So that’s another reason not to oppose it. Which is different to disagreeing with it. 

Soulfulness and inwardly taking a stand against a group of people – whether it’s bankers or right wing politicians or Monsanto or hippies or lefties – are not compatible. That doesn’t mean not protesting at some of the things people do. But to do that, and not become inwardly polarised and dismissive, is difficult and, I think, quite unusual.

I often come back to the 4 elements in astrology. I can overlook them because they are so basic, but they are powerful and tell us a lot. They each have their soulfulness.

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Incidentally, one of my arguments for science being a sub-branch of astrology – instead of, impertinently, science claiming to stand in judgement over astrology – is that astrology is a system of knowledge that uses all 4 elements, whereas science really only uses 2, Air and Earth, and is therefore only a partial system. Science theorises (Air) about observed results (Earth). Astrology also sees intuition (Fire) and feeling (Water) as means to knowledge. This is why I find it hard to get my head around the academic study of astrology, or any of the arts and humanities, because academia is nowadays in thrall to such a large extent to science and its dry and partial methods.

At a seminar I was at many years ago, Liz Greene pointed out that if an element is lacking in a person’s chart, it can become a major focus of that person’s life (can become – they may also live quite happily without it!) If we have several planets in an element, she said, that element is well-adapted in us, it is civilised and easily useable. If it is lacking, on the other hand, it is undifferentiated from Nature, and therefore can carry for us the raw power and creativity that you find in Nature.

The classic example is Einstein, who had just one Air planet, Jupiter in Aquarius in the 9^th, square to Pluto and opposite Uranus. Yet his ideas changed the way we saw the universe, they had that kind of raw power. Aquarius is science and innovation, Jupiter is philosophical and expansive, the 9^th House is ‘higher’ learning and teaching. (As Neptune has passed over his Jupiter in the last few years, so has Facebook been filled with bogus Einstein quotes!)

A perhaps cruder example is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has one earth planet, Moon in Capricorn in the 6^th House. From the body-building Mr Universe to the Terminator, the emphasis has been on raw earth power. The Moon is embodiment, the 6^th House is health, Capricorn has practical ambition.

Last night I was back in my yurt after several weeks off because of the weather. The yurt is in a field with a mare and foal, up and behind the house. When it’s cold and wet it’s not so good, but when it’s warm it’s like heaven. It’s silent, with a view over the Teign valley. And in many ways it’s the Earth element.

I have one personal planet in Earth (Mars) and one sort-of-personal planet in Water (Jupiter). I am drawn to people and situations that have those elements, they can carry a deep attraction for me because I don’t experience them readily for myself. I carry Air and Fire in me, I don’t need to go and find them. But when I go to the yurt after a break, I remember earth, soulful earth, which I tend to forget about. My partner has 5 planets in water, and that has a deep draw for me, being around her I learn water.

Of course, those elements can be soulless. A bank, for example, could easily be soulless earth (though remember TS Eliot worked in one!) You could say that Neptune is the planet of soulfulness: it flows, it connects, it feels. And you could say that Saturn is the planet of soullessness: it can value things and people one-sidedly in terms of usefulness and money. Of course, Neptune can be in a bit of a dream, never quite connecting with life, never quite growing up. And Saturn can be the opposite, connected and real.

I like the combination of Saturn and Neptune: the embodiment (Saturn) of Soul (Neptune). Saturn needs to be in the service of the outer planet Neptune, but it’s often the other way round, because Saturn is the more obvious, tangible planet. Saturn, for example, trying to make something 9 to 5 that can’t be 9 to 5. Saturn, for example, as manager in the Health Service (Neptune), where counselling is given in a series of 6 sessions, the aims clarified at the start and the outcome measured at the end. People, of course, do not work that way. This is Saturn dominating Neptune.

As William Blake said, the Body is that part of the Soul which the 5 senses perceive. Neptune is so much bigger than Saturn.

Astrologers and the Academy

I’ve just been watching the video below by Robert Hand, and it’s got me pondering (again) the place of academia and the teaching institutions within astrology. I suppose my big reservation is that they become the source of authority, the definers of the canon of knowledge, to which many astrologers automatically look. A certificate, or an MA from them makes you a real astrologer in a way that astrologers without those formal qualifications are not. I think a lot of people think that way.

It is like the relationship between a novelist (practising astrologer), a creative writing course (the teaching institutions) and literary criticism (the academy.) Each of these has its place, its value. But make no mistake: it is the novelist who is at the top of this tree, he/she is the guardian of the inspiration that spawned these auxiliary branches.

And it is the same with astrology. Astrology is about reading charts, it is about synthesising symbols so that something original and energising and particular to that person (or situation) emerges. It is that ability that brings in something transformative, and gives a sense of the numinous.

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I am not saying that astrologers in academia or the teaching institutions do not have that ability. I am sure that many of them do, to a greater or lesser degree. But that inspirational quality is crucially dependent on what I call metaphysical autonomy, which not many people have, though most people think they have it. It is to do with having your own independent relationship with what you feel to be ultimate, and this is usually a hard-won thing. It often involves finding the confidence to put yourself on an ‘equal’ footing with those who have been your teachers. Then, if you like, the channels are free, unfettered by derivative pre-conceptions, or any conceptions at all.

But it is evident that in the astrological world, the practising astrologers are not at the top of the tree. The top of the tree is occupied by the high priests and priestesses within the institutions. They are commonly regarded as the authorities.

I am not complaining. I would not expect it to be any other way. Religion has always been like this, and institutionalised astrology has all the characteristics of a religion. And religions usually have a ‘heretical’ fringe. Heresy comes from the Greek word hairein meaning ‘to choose’, and that says it all really. The heretics are those who choose, whose ultimate source of authority is within, rather than without in the form of books and high priests/esses. And if you are a high priest/ess of astrology, that inner authority easily turns into a love affair with the authority others give you. It becomes part of who you are, and the inner connection is compromised. I have observed this a lot.

So, to address a point Robert Hand makes, I (unlike Hand) am glad that astrology is not regulated by the government. I think formal training in astrology can be a great thing, but not all of us have done that, and government regulation would mean I for one could not practise as an astrologer. (I have, after all, got Mercury in Aquarius opposite Uranus.) I think if you are that way inclined, it is perfectly possible to train yourself in astrology. It’s not that difficult. The hard part is the inner work, and that can easily be circumvented in a certificate course or an MA. The real qualification is an initiation, or a series of initiations, that life will usually provide if we are open to it: Pluto transits, Neptune transits that destroy unreflective attitudes and awaken us to sources within.

Astrology is an inner thing, but as with any religion, the emphasis can end up on words and intellect and who knows the most, technical proficiency. The wrong kind of knowledge.

Moon and Venus in Cancer

My router is bust so I’m offline and I’m going to post this at the local library in Exeter. That also means no pics or charts.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow we have Moon and Venus in Cancer. Excellent time for nourishing yourself, buying things you’ve denied yourself but which you can afford, doing those creative things – in my case writing an astroblog – which can get squeezed out. The Moon is what you feel on a basic level, what you need to be OK, Venus is valuing that, and Cancer is taking care of that, nourishing it.

Venus is square Uranus and opposite Pluto, and the Moon has been passing across that t-square. So it’s a very good time for unearthing your feelings (Pluto), making them conscious (Uranus) and transforming them (Pluto) by being nice to yourself!

It’s the Sun, the Hero, that gets most of the attention in our culture, particularly I think in the USA, where it is sacred to die a hero, and it can seem like most films are about heroes. But it can also be a way of avoiding oneself. It gets very hard and superficial.

This is where we need the Moon, who needs to be given equal weight to the Sun. The Moon is hidden, she is personal, she does not make the big noise that the Sun makes. The present planetary ecological crisis is, you could say, an externalisation of a Sun-Moon imbalance within individuals.

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The one-sided Moon is childish and timid. The Sun and the Moon need each other. On their own they cannot live fruitfully. The Sun may have the brilliant ideas and the drive, but the Moon knows how to go about things, how to make sure everything feels right before we do something, how to be patient, how to ensure everyone – including oneself – is taken care of.

I think on an inner level the feminine needs to be the leader. And maybe on an outer level too. Dangerous territory. In our culture you’re not allowed to generalise about men and women unless the women are favoured. The women leaders we get are usually trying to be like men, and that’s not what I mean. Maybe Angela Merkel, Germany’s leader, has something of it. With Sun in Moon-ruled Cancer, she is trying to hold Europe together while keeping her own people happy. She doesn’t swashbuckle, she doesn’t make displays of power like Margaret Thatcher did.

The Mayan 2012 prophecy. It’s like the Chinese creating a Merlin bandwagon. Does anyone have any direct insight into Dec 2012, or is it just a blind bandwagon?

Venus is in Cancer trine Neptune, Moon is in Taurus. Nice! Very nice! Just keep plucking those grapes!  With the t-square from venus to uranus-pluto, this isn't about self-indulgence, it's about what you need. Earth Mother at your service.

I'm quite impulsive. Moon in Sag. Works out well sometimes. Sometimes it's crap. Began my blog in 2006 under Merc retro in Leo. Began this twitter thing under Merc retro in Leo. Both spur of the moment. But Merc Retro is quite thoughtful. It has a bad press.

Is Tweeting about saying something, or is it just about links?

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 David Cameron is quite gifted academically. They are not always the best judge of people. Look at Andy Coulson. People in top jobs wouldn't be there if they didn't know what was going on. Like Coulson and the hacking. Cameron gave him a '2nd chance'. So Libran. His advisers must have been tearing their hair out. Librans want to think the best of everybody. But they can be very judgemental if you are critical of people. Like you are a bad person for thinking like that. Now Scorpio, they will call a spade a spade. Or if they're from Yorkshire, a bloody shovel.

Gu Kailai, the chinese businesswoman on trial for murder. Sun conj Venus in Scorp opposite Mars. Moon in Cap. Ambition and deadly charisma. Like the female spiders who kill after mating. Neil Heywood, her victim. A Libran. Probably thought Gu Kailai was his best friend.

Fate and Free Will in Astrology

Modern astrologers are usually at pains to emphasise that the chart does not take away our choice, our free will. And that’s well and good. But the fate aspect, the 'it is writ' aspect remains. The idea of fate was integral to astrology's beginnings, and I think we tend to play it down these days because fate doesn’t fit with modern science or our notions of individuality. This applies even more to prediction, which has a big ‘we don’t go there label’ attached to it. But that is just a craven concession to science.

Astrology, as I understand it, began with the observation of correspondences between sky events and earthly events. Nowadays we do not observe most of what we talk about as astrologers. But originally it was observed. When Mars and Jupiter come together in the sky, a prince will go to war. I just made that one up, but if you read Bernadette Brady’s stuff on Visual Astrology, you’ll see it was a bit like that.

Note it doesn’t say the eldest son of a successful father (Jupiter) will be dealing with personal issues of aggression (Mars), which he may choose to express safely with his therapist while exploring the childhood issues that led to this rage. (Yuk). No, a prince will go to war. (Come to think of it, Obama took out bin Laden last year under a Mars-Jupiter conjunction in Aries.)

It is writ. This seems to be how ancient astrology began and how it continued. For medieval astrology, the emphasis was also on it is writ. If you have such and such a chart, then you will be of high rank, or you will be a priest. We rationalise this away nowadays by saying that in earlier times people’s choices were much more limited, and so it was much easier to predict how their life would turn out. That seems true enough, but again it seems to also contain another wriggle away from Fate.
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The idea of Fate is deeply unpalatable for any modern, ‘thinking’ person. It seems like primitive superstition, and of course we astrologers don’t want to seem like that. We are desperate to be taken seriously while being ridiculed at every turn by the modern establishment priesthood, the scientists. But Astrology began with Fate. Are we being true to astrology if we try and say it’s all about free will and personal choice?

In his book A Complete Guide to the Soul (sounds like a publisher’s title) Patrick Harpur likens Reality to an embroidery, crafted and patterned on one side, and covered in loose hanging threads on the other side. The patterned side is Fate, the other side is free will. Reality is both fate and free will. To the rational mind they appear as contradictory notions.

But reality IS contradictory. Of course we have choice, and sometimes that is hard to face up to. But there is also a sense in which our lives are pre-ordained. You look back and you see the pattern to your life, a kind of inevitable unfoldment, and you see the events, sometimes painful, that happened at just the right time to help you along your way. You may have glimpses of the future, or you may have experience of clairvoyants who do.

Free will is what is more immediately apparent to most of us. Fate is harder to see, and that’s probably just as well because it belongs outside of time and we, for now, are trying to live within time.

These 2 poles are embodied by the signs at the opposite ends of the zodiac, Aries and Pisces. Aries is the first sign, the newborn, and his life is about choice and action. That is what is real to Aries. Pisces is the ‘old-soul’ of the Zodiac, and her life (feminine sign) is about submission to the will of the gods. Life is a journey from Aries to Pisces, from free will to fate.

It is hubris to think that we are masters of our destiny, that our life is a product of our choices. It is, up to a point. But those choices need to be made in the context of what the gods want.

We are obviously fated physically – our bodies will die, we have 2 arms and 2 legs and there is nothing we can do about that. But the soul is also fated. Astrology describes the soul through the 10 planets. And they are gods, gods that work through us, that have their own designs. A life that works involves being sensitive to that, sensitive to that deeper spirit in things, being true to that Fate.

For a man, the Anima shows him his fate. I think it usually comes a bit later in life, once the master of the universe has been knocked out of him. It may come in the form of a woman who has that quality of listening to an influence from somewhere else that he finds irresistible, and through which he starts to listen for himself. Or he may be trashed by some nasty siren, and that again forces him inwards. Whatever.

Our individual consciousness is tiny compared to the consciousness of the cosmos. How can we possibly hope to navigate our place in the cosmos purely by our own individual efforts? That is the hubris of modern rational man, of being above and in control of Nature. If we put down our oars, there are currents beneath, there is a spirit within us that has eyes and ears. The art of living lies in paying attention to the inner sense, and not worrying about rational notions such as ‘achievement’, ‘purpose’, ‘being useful’, ‘helping others’.

Man is the animal who doesn’t know who he is. A tree knows how to be a tree, a sheep knows how to be a sheep. But people often don’t know how to be people. That’s why the world doesn’t work very well, because people get wrong notions of what it is to be a person, and they pass them on to others. But it’s not easy knowing how to be a person. It usually takes many years.