Journal

In the first post in this series, The Sorcerer State, I talked about understanding our current predicament as that of a Sorcerer State, where those mindlessly casting the persuasion spells are breaking some very basic rules of effective magic.

In this post I want to talk about one group of those basic rules – of Equilibrium, Balance and Reaction. You can sum them up in this way:

– All systems will always tend towards maintaining a state of equilibrium. This is not stillness but a dynamic, oscillating and cyclical movement, an orderly movement around a center.

– Any disturbance of equilibrium will create a reaction in the opposite direction. The more extreme the original deviance from equilibrium the more extreme the reaction.

– The best way to keep a state of balance is to avoid extremes because they create extreme polarization and tension.

It will be pretty clear that I am writing this from the perspective of a resident of the US, so my comments are colored by that.

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I did a post earlier this year on this topic: Cycles and the Shape of Decline.

That post is about the topic of cycles and equilibrium, of growth and decline, where I talked about our country wanting to pursue a policy of straight line unlimited growth – and, if that growth was not actually happening, to manipulate the news and the numbers to make it appear it was happening, That’s a very good example of pushing a system out balance to an extreme that calls for an extreme reaction back.

The image above is referring to the state of our economy, where the blue wave shows the actual condition our economy is in and the red jagged line shows the official narrative – and if I am right we are in for a serious correction. That wave shape applies to other sorts of cycles also – the wave is the graph of a pendulum moving through time.

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There is another dimension to this media manipulation, which is to push people to wildly polarized extremes. I talked about the tendency to paint things in black/white good/evil dichotomies. That groups people in one extreme camp or the other and pits them against each other.

I will be exploring both these points in this essay.

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I want to use a useful analogy here that I saw in John Michael Greer’s book, Dark Age America, in a chapter discussing ecology and the environment. Take a bathtub mostly full of water, and move your hand in it. If you move your hand gradually you will get a series of gentle waves in reaction, and if you remove your hand it gradually returns to rest. The more strongly and rapidly you move your hand, the bigger the waves become, until past a certain point the regular wave pattern breaks down and you get chaotic movement, likely with water splashing all over the floor.

That is the point I think we are approaching now. The persuasion in the media, which is wildly out of balance and out of touch, is like wildly slapping the water over and over in a single direction, rather like trying to pile all the water up in half the tub and pretend the other half doesn’t exist.

At this point the very best thing to do is take your hand out of the tub and Back Off.

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Another dimension of this rule of balanced movement is what I think of as Riding the Wave. Any sort of action is most effective when it is going in harmony with a larger current – riding the wave – and attempting to go against the wave both runs into extreme resistance and also pushes an out of balance system even further out of balance, inviting a yet stronger and more extreme backlash reaction when it does come.

From where I am sitting the politics of 2020 in the US (and apparently in England, much of Europe and even Australia) was a move of desperation, of people who knew they were losing control and tried taking extreme measures to keep it, crossing a line more and more from persuasion into coercion. That control can be powerful, but it is also very brittle – which invites and makes inevitable an extreme reaction, an extreme swing back the other way. That swing back is being desperately resisted, and the longer that happens the worse the inevitable backlash will be.

That persuasion included extreme measures to shut down all alternate points of view, and to harass, vilify, slander and attack those disagreeing with the mandated points. This extreme coercion and censorship was taken to the point of un-personing people who resisted the coercion. (I experienced some of that first hand a few years back, when I had Twitter and Facebook cancel mobs after me to destroy my reputation because I had made some statements that were taken to be politically incorrect. It is all kinds of no fun to be on the receiving end of that.)

In a nutshell I think that is what happened with the covid mania in 2020 and its political ramifications – it was a violent swing in one direction in attempt to maintain control, and it worked for awhile, but only by using some pretty brutally extreme coercive techniques. This was like trying to take a pendulum that was already far over on one side and about to swing back, and using extreme force to push it even further in that same direction.

Here is a quote from Blavatsky that describes this process of equilibrium and reaction with the eastern term karma.

It is man who plants and creates causes, and Karmic law adjusts the effects, which adjustment is not an act but universal harmony, tending ever to resume its original position, like a bough, which, bent down too forcibly, rebounds with corresponding vigor. If it happens to dislocate the arm that tried to bend it out of its natural position, shall we say it is the bough which broke our arm or that our own folly has brought us to grief?

– H P Blavatsky, Key to Theosophy pp 211-212

The net result is that we have a system that is wildly out of balance and desperately trying to act like everything is going just fine, thank you very much. I expected we will be seeing more than a few dislocated arms in the coming days.

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If I look at the last few years of my life, – since 2016 in a larger frame, and definitely since 2020 and the covid mania – I experienced what seemed to me like our culture taking a very violent swing hard left, and painting me as an enemy of society and extremist in the process. I in turn personally responded by taking a rightward swing in my own opinions for awhile – that was my semi-conscious reaction to reach some sort of balance. This past year, as I calm down and become more aware, I am trying to settle back to a more balanced and equilibrated place, recognizing the best of my experience on the right side of the spectrum while backing away from some of their distinctive imbalances.

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I want to talk some more about this tactic of painting things in stark extremes, setting up polarized opposites against each other. This involves labeling actions, and people, in terms of extreme binaries, like:

– White/Black

– Good/Evil

– Us/Them

That last one, Us/Them, is the worst, since it sets people at each other’s throats and creates violent divisions and fractures in social groups – families, clubs, work groups, churches and so on. Friendships were destroyed, groups and families were torn apart, both on political lines, and on attitudes and actions towards the mandated covid directives of vaccination, masking, distancing and so on. This divided groups on sharp binary lines that fractured any sense of tolerance or cooperation. I know I personally lost my main social communities over those issues.

This Us/Them division is related to the general attitude in our society of lack of context, where something can be good for me or for Us and I can ignore all the rest of Them out there because they don’t count – or, I can ignore the greater world and leave it out of account. It’s the isolation of exploitive selfishness, and it is an attitude that runs very deep in our culture.

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In trying to manipulate these extreme divisions, part of the way MSM – Mainstream Media, aka Legacy Media since it is in the process of being obsoleted and superseded – MSM appears to be trying to deal with these extreme divisions by getting us involved in yet another holy war abroad as a way of uniting popular sentiment. This has been done before, several times even in my own lifetime. The problem is that this does not seem to be working very well anymore; too many people recall the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Ukraine situation now seems to be falling apart and backfiring. I suspect there may be another try in the Middle East, but there is already a wide split in American culture on conflicts there – and that split is there whether or not MSM acknowledges the split or tries to shut down open discussion. These divisions do not miraculously disappear by declaring a false state of Unity that very quietly (or maybe not so quietly) erases half of the country.

Past a point, finding an external enemy as a way of papering over domestic problems and divisions quits working, and I suspect we are well past that point already.

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There is another metaphor for our unbalanced state that I used in an earlier post, one that is particularly apt for the direction our economy is going, and related to that, the government’s actions in funding wars around the world. In some ways our country is like a way over-inflated balloon that is springing leaks, and the strategy to deal with that is to keep frantically pumping more and more air into it to compensate… you can visualize where that will end up.

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Given that we are dealing with a grossly unbalanced and unstable state of affairs, what can we do about it? How can we personally respond to keep from exacerbating the situation and getting caught up in the violent wild swings over the next few years?

Take the bathtub analogy again – when the waves get too disorderly and water starts splashing all over the place, this is a really good time to back away from the tub and wait a bit until the water calms down.

This is a very good time to avoid conflict.

Individually, it is a good time to keep from giving in to violent mood swings, or to get caught up in rage, blaming and yelling. It is good to moderate one’s own emotional responses by getting some distance and perspective from them. This takes some time, some perspective, and some emotional maturity to be able to get a distance from your own emotions to moderate them. It also means taking responsibility for your own emotional reactions rather than blaming them on an outside force.

I find it very helpful to remember that the violent mood swings, pitting people against each other, are part and parcel of the manipulation techniques used to keep people under control by having them rip each other down. By staying calm and refusing to play the rage and blame game I am helping to break the spell.

This is also a very good time to cultivate compassion and understanding – to remember that there are usually more than two sides to an argument; that no one side has a monopoly on Rightness – and to remember that the opposite of a bad idea is usually another bad idea, and to seek another option closer to the middle.

In other words, the best thing to do now is to cultivate a sense of balance and equilibrium in yourself.

For myself, I find it absolutely essential to have a regular prayer and worship life to keep balance – one that includes humility and self-examination – and to take advantage of my faith without falling into the trap of seeing myself on the one Right side while every one else is on the Wrong side. This also means to stay away from the trap of getting caught up in a need to convert others to My Side which has The capital T Truth. Tolerance, understanding and compassion are all virtues that badly need cultivation right now. Remember that the word virtue means power or force, and cultivating these virtues of self-control, discipline, balance, compassion and forgiveness are all very empowering. The closer you are to calm equilibrium the harder you are to knock off balance – anyone who has studied anything about martial arts knows that as soon as your opponent loses their cool and gets angry that the match is over, given skill and patience.

So, the best way to help our society ride the changes coming is to first establish a center of equilibrium in yourself. I am convinced that prayer from a place of calm and balance is far more powerful and effective, and frankly I think we can be greatly helped by many people devoting themselves to such prayer.

When you are not in a place of calm and balance, prayer is one of the best things I know to help move you there.

I also suspect that there will be periods where things can get unstable enough that taking direct public action will be dangerous – there is a potential for actual violence at a local level. Sometimes the best advice really is to stop thrashing the water and back away from the tub until the water calms down.

Don’t just Do Something, Sit There!

There is something to be said for regularly getting to a place of silence, stillness and balance before taking any action. Also, a lot can be done with prayer from a place of silence.

If you are in motion and off-balance, it really helps to slow down and stop moving to regain balance before moving again.

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Part of why I am writing this series right now, at this point in time – I talked about how much of the MSM sorcery is exacerbating things in an extreme direction. I am convinced we are in the midst of a growing swing back from the excesses of 2020 and earlier – aka a backlash – and with this post, if I read things correctly, I am riding that wave and taking advantage of its momentum.

I write this next note for those who have felt frustrated, isolated and unhappy with the direction things have swung in the past few years:

Take heart; you are not alone. Keep your signals out, online and locally – you have friends.

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Here I want to sum up where the whole series on the Sorcerer State is going. To make it through the rough years of transition ahead, both personally and as a group, I convinced we are wanting to move in these directions:

– away from extreme polarization and towards equilibrium and a balancing point in middle.

– away from adversary attitudes and blaming, and towards forgiveness and cooperation.

– away from exploitive, adversary persuasion/marketing and towards dialog and truth.

– away from selfishness and self-isolation towards community, context, ecology, working in harmony with the larger whole – moving with the currents of the greater world.

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In the next essay in this series I want to talk about another set of laws related to effective magic and living an effective life – the laws of Truthfulness, of Honesty and of Trust.

Stay tuned.

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Image of pendulum from Wikimedia Commons.

In the post I want to look at the inception chart for the city of Baghdad, founded in 762 as the capital city of the Abbasid dynasty, which dominated Arab and Islamic civilization for a period of 500 years until it was conquered by Mongols in 1258.

It is generally recognized that this inception chart of the city of Baghdad is an astrological election, likely the single most famous elected chart in the history of astrology. It is the deliberately chosen foundation for a religious dynasty.

[A note on the chart diagram – the symbol near the Midheaven that says ‘AP Spirit A’ is the Lot of Spirit – AP stands for Arabic Part – and the symbol to the right of the Midheaven with a small Sun and Moon symbol is the Sun/Moon midpoint.]

Looking at this chart in the light of my current work with the two major Lots of Fortune and Spirit makes sense of it at a whole different level – in fact, without the Lots it is highly problematic. The Lots are the key to the entire chart. Continue reading “Baghdad and the Lots”

The Sorcerer State

This is a sequel to my previous post, Saturn and Neptune: The Fight for Our Minds

In this post I want to talk about the mind-control state me we live in; to become aware of it and recognize it; to recognize some of the main techniques, how it snares and controls people.

I also want to talk about the big mistakes it is making, and why it is destined to boomerang and collapse.

And finally, I want to touch on ways to break out of the control. In my experience that can be a long and painful process, so I will be sharing some of what I went through.

So what do I mean by Sorcerer State? Continue reading “The Sorcerer State”

In this post I want to talk about using the four solar Cardinal Ingress charts in conjunction with personal natal charts.

It is common to look at New Moon charts, both stand-alone and in conjunction with a natal chart, to get an idea of what the upcoming month will be like. It is also sometimes used for a sort of simple astrological magic by using the time of the New Moon to “set your intentions” for the month ahead. If you know much at all about magic this is not a good practice; the time of the New Moon itself is traditionally considered particularly weak and malefic and will warp any intentional magic done then. If you are attracted to this practice, consider planning prior to the New Moon itself, and if you want to do a change-working meditation, wait until the Moon is past the dark phase and is starting to wax again.

New Moons are worth looking at, as they can give you information on what the tone of the upcoming month will be like. I think they are best used in conjunction with a natal, as the most important aspect of the New Moon chart is how it intersects and activates the natal. Like with Solar Returns, I find I get most meaningful results if I draw up the New Moon for my birthplace, although some people prefer to use your current location.

On the larger mundane level it is common to look at the cardinal ingresses for predictions relative to a nation. It is most common to use only the Ingress into Aries as the start of the year. Uranian astrologers use the Capricorn ingress for this purpose, and there is something to be said for that since that Ingress corresponds most closely to the New Moon phase, whereas the Spring Aries Ingress is more like the emergence into the world that starts with the Moon at the waxing quarter. I personally find that all four ingresses are important.

What I am arguing for in this post is using the solar Cardinal Ingress charts to map to individual natal charts as a way of seeing a larger context of activity for the period – and not just for heads of state to do mundane analysis, but for ordinary people. Continue reading “Aligning with the Cardinal Ingresses”

This is the third of a series of posts in which I am talking about the upcoming series of Cardinal Ingress charts from now through the middle of 2026.

First  is the Graphic Ephemeris post – A Graphic View of the Coming Changes.

And the second is the Ingress series post, The Shape of Ingresses to Come.

As I pointed out, we have the rare occurrence of all five of the outermost planets, from Jupiter on out to Pluto, all changing signs in a brief period of time.

I want to tie this post in with the theme of a video on Vimeo that I did a few years ago, The Grand Conjunction 2020 and Beyond,  about the Jupiter/Saturn Grand Conjunction, in which those two planets started a new series of conjunctions in Air signs.

The theme of that video is that we are in a period where the main focus of control and warfare is the media, and we are in a period of increasingly obvious media pressure for control of our minds and behavior. That connects with the main theme of this Ingress series.

I want to start with the most prominent, and likely most important, sign change going on here. Continue reading “Saturn and Neptune: The Fight for Our Minds”

This post is part of an experiment that I am doing where I am looking at the astrology of the entire world. I am working with charts of the Cardinal Ingresses where I leave off any local Ascendant or Midheaven, and place the wheel so that the Sun is right at the top of the chart. So, at Spring Equinox Aries is at the top, at the Summer Solstice Cancer is at the top, and so on. That visually highlights the four cardinal ingress points as the axes of the world chart. It also shows the positions of all the planets and the nodes, which are the same everywhere in the world.

I am concentrating on planets aligned with the four cardinal axes, and with major planetary aspects, especially to those axes. I am not doing anything with house meanings since they are measured off an Ascendant and Midheaven. I am confident that the cardinal points do act like world angles, but I am not confident in assigning them to particular points – e.g., is the Sun on an Ingress to be assigned to the first house cusp, or the tenth, or some other – or, does it vary by season? That is why I am not confident in assigning house meanings – I think it takes a specific location to do that.

I want to look at some of the Cardinal Ingresses in the series from April 2024 through June 2026, and I am highlighting major shifts here. I am experimenting with viewing these as a series, leading up to some major changes that surface in mid-2025 and culminate and clarify in 2026. I sketched out the series of planets all changing signs in a short space of time in my previous post on A Graphic View of the Coming Changes.

My comments and interpretation here are very tentative, and I am trying to leave them open-ended, but I will share my own conjectures as to where things are going. Continue reading “The Shape of Ingresses to Come”

We have some major astrological shifts coming up in the space of the next two years. Rather than just print out a transit listing which would show all the important dates, I want to use a graphic ephemeris to show all the changes in an economical and easy to scan form. The opening image shows the graph of planetary movements of 2024 through 2026, and we will read the graph here. Continue reading “A Graphic View of the Coming Changes”

After all these years practicing astrology I am still not sure quite what to make of that little Beastie.

This post was triggered by a discussion on John Michael Greer’s ‘Magic Monday’ blog on ecosophia.net, where he fields questions in the area of occultism.

Here is the thread I’d like to quote:

Q: Why do so many astrologers still use Pluto as a planet when astronomers voted in 2006 to demote Pluto to dwarf planet status? Continue reading “Pluto’s Swan Song”

The Feast of the Transfiguration was yesterday (August 6), and while I was at Mass it gave me plenty of time to think about the Solar symbolism of the day.

I mentioned in my previous post, Astrology and the Catholic Church Calendar, that this Feast coincides with the Sun being at 15 degrees Leo, right in Midsummer at the center of the sign the Sun rules. The revealing of the shining glory of the Sun of God on a Solar holiday is too obvious a connection to ignore.

While I was reciting the Lord’s Prayer with that in mind, it occurred to me that I should just pay attention to what that prayer says in ordinary English. Continue reading “Our Father in the Sky”