Charlie Obert

Stoicism, Victimhood and Empowerment

This is a short sequel or postscript to my previous essay on Stoicism. In that essay I talked about the tools that the stoic system gives for dealing with difficult times. In this essay I want to talk about how Stoicism is a kind of natural antidote and corrective to a tendency in some political circles for people to view themselves primarily as victims of an unfair system or of other groups.

When you understand stoicism, it is obvious that people with such a victim mindset are giving their power away.

That is what I want to consider here. Continue reading “Stoicism, Victimhood and Empowerment”

Spiritual Support Systems – Stoicism

In the previous post in this series about dealing with effects of the lockdowns, I looked at some of the psychological and spiritual effects of the lockdown measures on us – not covid, but the lockdowns. I think it is time we become aware of and own these psychological effects so that we can start to heal from them.

This post will be the first of several looking at what I am calling spiritual support systems – ways of looking at the world that give us mental and spiritual tools for dealing with bad fortune, or situations that are outside of our control.

In this essay we will look at Stoicism.

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Stoicism is a school of philosophy that goes back to our Hellenistic and Roman heritage. It has been very influential, and its teachings have had a profound affect on what came after, including a formative influence on the young Christian tradition. Some of the writings of the early Church Fathers sound like they could have been taken straight out of a Stoic manual. It is a useful philosophy and set of psychological techniques for dealing with misfortune, or better, for the ups and downs of fortune.

The modern cliche of stoicism, as a hard and unfeeling philosophy that is all about gritting your teeth and bearing with pain and not allowing yourself any pleasure, is a misleading caricature. Done correctly, stoic techniques can help you maximize positive states of mind, including pleasure and good fortune, and minimize the effects of misfortune by taking control of your reaction to it.

I want to recommend some classic Stoic writers and texts that are well worth researching and learning from. Continue reading “Spiritual Support Systems – Stoicism”

Astrology and Politics: Drawing the Line

“In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is – nine times out of ten – proof that you ought to publish it.” ~ G.K. Chesterton

This post is inevitable, and I have seen it coming for a long time. I’d really rather not publish this, but I think it important that I do.

I need to make clear where I stand on the issue of mixing astrology and politics – or, to be more precise, of astrology being taken over and forced to follow a political and social agenda. I think this will corrupt and ultimately destroy traditional astrology, and I won’t let that happen.

This post is where I draw the line. Continue reading “Astrology and Politics: Drawing the Line”

Dealing with Effects of the Lockdowns

Being an astrologer, paying attention to the issues that people bring to a reading can give me a sense of the sorts of issues that are common in our culture at this point in time.

Based on what I am seeing, I think it is time that we start to address the problems caused by the lockdowns and other measures being taken to deal with the covid pandemic.

Let me be very clear here: I am not making ANY statement about covid-19, or how dangerous it is, or what treatments or preventive measures do or do not work.

I want to look at the psychological and spiritual effects of the measures that our cultures have put in place to deal with the disease.

So how does it affect people, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, when you do these things?

Wearing masks and other facial coverings when around others.
Being around other people who are all masked.
Keeping outside of the range of touch. Essentially forbidding touch.
Avoiding visiting with people outside of your household.
Frequently washing, disinfecting, taking other measures to deal with an invisible threat.
Constantly testing to see if you have an illness you may not be able to detect.
Constantly monitoring disease statistics; focusing on that one subject.
Having news and other media that is constantly reminding you how horribly dangerous the situation is.
Shutting down “non-essential” businesses and gathering places.
Replacing face-to-face, in-person meetings and activities with online virtual connections.
Effectively shutting down churches. If you are Christian, shutting down communion, sharing the common bread and cup.

We have been so focused on the disease, that we have neglected to pay attention to the effects of what we are doing to ourselves, individually and as a culture, to deal with the disease.

And remember, the majority of us have been dealing with these measures for over a year now. It takes about a month to establish a new and permanent habit. That means the effects of the lockdown measures on us are now our regular routine, our way of life. They permanently affect how we think, how we feel, how we function.

From what I am experiencing myself, and seeing around me, the effects are severe, detrimental, and very stressful.

Continue reading “Dealing with Effects of the Lockdowns”

Dealing with Death

These thoughts were triggered by a Facebook post I saw, talking about seeing signs of upcoming death in astrology data. More importantly, the question arose as to how to appropriately talk with a client about death when it is a real possibility, or when the client knows it is likely.

I’ve already done some writing about dealing with suffering and death in my book on Saturn, and there will likely be some overlap in that writing with what I am saying here.

I want to sort this essay into a few separate issues:
– Can astrology data show indications of possible or likely death?
– How do we as astrologers talk with our clients about this?
– Why we as astrologers need to come to terms with death.

Continue reading “Dealing with Death”

Interview Video

This post is announcing a new video that I posted to Vimeo. I was interviewed by Kenneth Miller as part of the International Astrology Day event hosted by Kepler College on Saturday, March 20, 2021. Here is the link to the video – Astrology Day Interview.

This was fun – Kenneth is a good and flexible interviewer, and I got a chance to talk about my astrology background, describe my books, and talk about book projects I have in progress.

Mercury – As Above, So Below

On the Border Between Worlds

I am finishing up the first full draft of my book on the philosophy of astrology; the working title is, The Divine Dimension: The Spiritual Roots of Western Astrology. This is my attempt to go back to the roots of our western astrology in the Greek Platonist tradition, and think through the underlying philosophy and worldview.

There is a single core issue that is an underlying theme of our western philosophical tradition, reaching from the early Greek era, what we now refer to as the PreSocratics, all the way through to the world we live in today. The core issue is, the Mind/Matter dichotomy. Basically, we have a Mind in here and a world of Matter out there, and we need a way of thinking about how they connect.

In the Platonist worldview we are living in two worlds or dimensions at once, eternal and temporal. We access the eternal dimension by looking inward, within our minds, and we access the temporal, physical dimension by looking outward, sensing and perceiving the material world. Inner/mental and outer/physical really are two distinct dimensions of experience. Both are part of being human, and you can’t reduce either of them down to the other without leaving out a whole domain of experience. You can’t collapse inner experience down to an epiphenomenon or side effect of matter, and you can’t collapse outer sensory experience down to an effect of the inner, the Mind.

These are two dimensions of our full human experience; and they are related, they mirror each other, they are connected.

Platonism approaches the situation by making the eternal dimension primary and viewing the temporal world of matter as secondary and derived. Platonists view knowledge of the world as inherent in our minds and ultimately retrieved from within. The Aristotelian side of the Greek tradition starts in the other direction, with our deriving our knowledge of the world from outer experience, and abstracting from that to move to inner knowledge. They are trying to get at the connection from opposite directions, and both of them have valid points to make.

In this post I want to try looking at this from a somewhat different perspective, focusing on the role of the planet Mercury. Continue reading “Mercury – As Above, So Below”

Socrates and Hitler: Good and Evil Daemons

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
– Isaiah 5:20

“Evil comes from a failure to think. It defies thought for as soon as thought tries to engage itself with evil and examine the premises and principles from which it originates, it is frustrated because it finds nothing there. That is the banality of evil.”
– Hannah Arendt

In my previous post on Socrates and His Daemon I argued for the activity and guidance of higher intelligences in our lives, daemons who connect us to our highest good. This is a wonderful and comforting thing.

However, we need to pay attention to the other side of the mirror. If you are going to be open to the possibility of dealing with good and helpful daemons, you need to be aware of the possibility of evil daemons, those whose influence cause pain, harm and destruction.

Just because an intelligent spirit is discarnate does not mean it is a truth-telling force for good. All daemons are not created equal. You need a way of distinguishing helpful and harmful forces. You need what is called discernment of spirits.

In the previous post we looked at an extreme example of the influence of a positive daemon. To balance that, I want to look at an extreme example of the influence of evil, and the distinct possibility of possession by an evil demon.

Adolf Hitler. Continue reading “Socrates and Hitler: Good and Evil Daemons”

Socrates and His Daemon

Socrates and his Daemon

Essay by Charlie Obert, December 2020

In this earlier post on Plato I argued that we need to take the presence of the Gods seriously in the dialogs of Plato, and in the Platonic tradition in general. Our modern approach of discarding the gods as primitive and “mythological” does not do justice to the full context of the material.

In the Platonic model there are chains of intermediate gods, from the highest to the lowest, forming a connecting bridge between the source of all and our physical existence. These can be referred to as different levels of gods. It is also common to see the intermediate levels referred to as daemons.

On a personal level, each person is assigned a guardian daemon at birth, who presides over us throughout our lives, and is there at death to accompany us to our judgment. Here I want to talk about what may be the most famous personal daemon of recorded history:

The daemon of Socrates. Continue reading “Socrates and His Daemon”

The Good Life

Essay by Charlie Obert, November 2020

Before you start reading this essay, consider the title, The Good Life, and just notice what comes to mind. How do you imagine the Good Life? I will ask you to consider that same question again at the end of the essay.

This is part of a series of posts in which I am looking at ways we can recover the Platonic tradition to give a firm foundation for making sense of astrology. I think it makes a lot of sense of life in general. I will cover one approach to it here that may sound abstract and theoretical at first glance, but that actually is very useful in a down to earth and practical way. Continue reading “The Good Life”