Kamidana: A Devotional Approach to the Astrological Spirits

Much magic, both traditional and modern, is of the "Hurry up and give me X, Y or Z?" variety.

Certainly in the Solomanic and Goetic grimoires the magician never flinched from ordering the spirits to show up pronto and give him what he wanted. I can't say this is untraditional nor can I really condemn the approach, but I've increasingly been pulled towards a more devotional approach to the celestial spirits.

Partly this comes from the approach of Picatrix. In fact the most detailed planetary invocations found at Bk III, chapter 7 of Picatrix are explicitly said to be from the astral religion of the Sabians of Harran. There's a certain amount of asking for specific stuff, but not much "get going" instead there's a lot more listing of the attributes of the spirits and being respectful and complimentary.

I've also been quite influenced by my immersion in Japanese culture, first through Zen and then through frequent trips to Japan. This year I decided to put together a kamidana, which is a small household Shinto shrine. You can see more about my kamidana.

In Japanese practice, you can definitely ask for stuff and both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples have talismans. But there's very little coercion here and a lot more respect and devotion. I certainly wouldn't say it's the only way, but I can tell that this is the way I'm drawn to.

I sell house tools, not houses!

As a Sun Pisces, one of the more difficult things I deal with are frequent "HELP! HELP! Save me!" e-mails. Some poor soul is in dire straits, usually financially and is desperately seeking instant change in their unfortunate surroundings. I'm careful to explain that I can't guarantee the results of talismans and I strongly advise clients not to spend their last dollar on talismans in hopes of being instant billionaires. I flat out tell people that ask about the lottery not to buy a talisman.

Certainly from the client standpoint the results are what matters. That's what the client thinks they are buying. They want to buy a house, so to speak. From the perspective of the mage/talisman seller, the talisman is a tool. If you want to build a house, i.e. get results, talismans are very useful, in fact you might not be able to get the result, i.e. build the house, without a talisman. But just buying a lot of house tools and wood, won't get you a house, you will have to get the land and then pitch in and build it. One of the things I really like about Jason Miller's financial magic, is that he says you can't do it in vacuum, you need to budget and make other practical financial steps with magic one part of the overall plan.

While I'm definitely sad about the end of my jeweler's casting metal talismans, I am increasingly feeling pulled away from talismans as instant panacea towards being a celestial priest. The priestly focus is more on establishing and maintaining a positive relationship with these incredibly benefic spiritual beings. More on aligning ourselves to positive spiritual forces and getting the ego out of the way so they can manifest through us as opposed to a sort of spiritual "gimme, gimme" Obviously we need to take care of our physical wants, but having that as our main purpose and single goal in our magical work is problematic.

The happiest clients I have tend to be experienced magic users, they understand what's possible with magic and appreciate the power of the astrological spirits. But I don't want to foreclose newbies, instead I want to keep moving towards the idea of talismans and other magic work as tools that need our contribution and depend on our situation, rather than instant guaranteed results.

More on the Planetary 3rd Order

Folks, I am very pleased to add some additional diagrams, tables and explanation to the 3rd Planetary Order page.

I got some really interesting and useful information from several posters, including Claire Pruitt on Facebook. First it was pointed out that the 3rd Planetary Order corresponds to the triplicity rulerships.

Then Claire pointed out the order of the planetary minutes was the 3rd planetary order (she calls the planetary minute order) and planetary seconds were in days of the week order.

I was then able to go back and using modular 7 arithmetic steps to deduce why the planetary minutes and seconds have these order. Note that while modern scientists like to use decimals so they use tenths, hundreths, etc of a second, the traditional method was base 60, so a hour has 60 minutes, a minute 60 seconds and a second, 60 thirds.

We can go back endlessly determining which of the 3 planetary hour sequences applies. Very cool!

Third Planetary Order

While it's easy to let my conscious ego self set goals, sometimes it's very interesting to just let myself be guided in my study and contemplation.

An early example of this was my meditation on the relationship between the Chaldean Order and the sequence of the days of the week. Each day of the week is ruled by a planet and by going through the 24 hour sequence of the planetary hours, arranged in the Chaldean Order (slowest to fastest planet) the first hour of every day is ruled by the planet that rules the day, giving us the order of the days of the week. Exploring this led to the discovery of beauty and order, in the planetary hours star of the week, which you can see on my Planetary Hours page

Recently I stumbled across another piece of the puzzle, which was that the sequence of days of the week for leap days, February 29th, were in the Chaldean Order! So not only did the Chaldean Order change into the days of the week, but the days of the transformed back into the Chaldean Order! How did this happen? My exploration had begun and I give a detailed explanation on my new Third Planetary Order page.

As you will see, I learned what modular arithmetic was and discovered that the Chaldean Order and the days of the week sequence are fundamental 7 fold orders, but that there is an additional fundamental 7 fold order, which I call the Third Planetary Order. What use this order may have for astrological prediction and magical power remains to be seen, but the incredible order and symmetry of the Cosmos is once again revealed.

Free or Controlled Thought & Discussion?

I recently received a mass e-mailing of a pdf entitled, "AMERICA IS BORN Out-of-Sample Tests and Predictions for the Regulus USA National Horoscope" by the anonymous Dr. H. This is another in his series of mundane/geo-political astrology works.

Whatever the merits of his work, I was highly disturbed to find this in the front of the pdf.

"DISCLAIMER
Regulus Astrology LLC asserts the moral authority to prohibit any astrologer from making any prediction of harm for any American, its elected officials, or the President based on the Regulus USA National Horoscope . By continuing to read this document the reader agrees to the conditions of this disclaimer."

Aside from the question of the propriety of death prediction, Dr. H is asserting that he has total control over how you, the reader, use the ideas and information contained in his article, in particular his personal view as to what the correct US birth horoscope is, which he proprietarily terms the "Regulus horoscope"

Now there is no doubt that Dr. H, like any author has the right to stop people from simply copying and plagiarizing his work. But under US law it is not possible to copyright or patent ideas or information. This is because of the importance of the free interchange and discussion of ideas.

What Dr. H is doing is copying the hard ball corporate tactics of the large software companies like Microsoft and their end user license agreements ("EULA"). A EULA is a private contract and thus can go beyond what is allowed under copyright and patent law.

Just by reading Dr. H's article, Dr. H insists that he can tell you what you can and cannot do with the information in it. This is like the first ornithologist to discover a bird insisting that no one can talk about the bird, without the ornithologist's permission. Dr. H could just as easily start charging for any use of the "Regulus horoscope" or start censoring people's opinions of it.

This is a direct attack on a key principle: free debate and exchange of ideas and information. The horoscope of the US is not a private possession of some individual, that they can use, abuse, charge for and control. We all, including Dr. H, benefit from the free interchange of knowledge. Personally, I am boycotting Dr. H and any discussion of the "Regulus horoscope" until he removes this disclaimer and makes clear his acceptance of the free interchange and expression of astrological ideas and information.

NEWS FLASH As of June 22, 2015, Dr. H e-mailed me and indicated that he had removed the disclaimer on his article. This is great news and Dr. H is to be commended for his commitment to the free interchange of ideas.

Horary and Electional Testimonials

Whenever I get positive feedback, I always ask if I can use it as a testimonial.

I now have a 43 page Word document filled with testimonials, but then I seem to forget to post them.

In the past two days I've got a very glowing horary as well as electional testimonial, so I thought I would post them.

The horary is interesting because I tend to have a lot of trouble with lost item horaries, and in fact this one didn't lead to recovery, but nevertheless had some very interesting results. Here is more information on Horary Astrology.

June 17, 2015

Hi Christopher

Are you interested in feedback on how uncannily accurate your Horary reading was? I know you're busy but I am really astounded! (I'm actually speechless about it but I can type effectively) :)

While I never found the will, you pinpointed within a couple feet exactly where he hid the combination and keys to his safe. (The safe only contained his property titles) If I were a stranger that walked into my Brother's house solely with your information, I would have found the combination/key safe numbers within 10 minutes.

Unfortunately my brothers had to drill open the safe before I received your response. The card and keys were within inches of the chimney. They were within 2 feet of the furnace (heating system) and were up high on a heating vent in the basement. The reference to 'where animals are kept', he hung a treasured Wolf picture within inches of the keys.

Also that you said I may already have the will unknowingly? Well I am the beneficiary of his bank accounts, so that in itself is very significant and amazing that you would pick up on that.

He has 6 properties with quite a few tenants that I have to try and manage along with the incredible sorrow of the loss of my dearly loved Brother. Plus I'm caring for my Father who has dementia. Omg. The legal and time consuming factors of probate seem too much for me to deal with without Kelly's direction of who he wanted to inherit his properties.

I'm interested in pursuing this further with another Horary question and analysis, but I will completely understand if this is potentially draining or not your favorite thing to be involved in. There is suspicion that someone removed the will from his home hence your observation there is mystery involved. And that the will is far away from me (if I understood your statement correctly) it would make sense.

No matter what you choose, I will respect that and have much gratitude to you for what you've presented via Horary.

Very Best regards,

SS

The election is also interesting, these are quite evident results which we don't always get. Here is more information on Electional Astrology.

June 18, 2015

I think I told you how many good things happened here with the electional chart you gave us for August, 2013 when we moved here. If I didn't shout enough, I'm shouting more. Thank you so much for your talismanic work and astrological work. Our income has increased, my husband's health is now at the point that if he continues improving in his weight and A1C levels in his blood, the doctors will take him off his insulin (type 2 diabetic). My dad came out of the blue on my birthday to gift me this house we're buying before he dies (he's 85) like whammo. Unreal.

RS

The Reassurance Reading

As horary astrologers doing readings for others and as horary clients, it's useful to recognize what I call the reassurance reading.

Probably the most common examples of these are querents asking "When will I get a job?" and what could also be called a rebound reading, asked when a relationship ends and the querent asks, "When will I have a relationship?" or "Will I ever had a relationship"?

"When" is a red flag, because it assumes a yes answer and just wants to know when it will take place. "When will I be elected president of the US?" in 2016 or 2020? Generally I deal with "when" questions by rephrasing them as "Will I get X and if yes, when?" which works fine as far as me judging the question.

The problem is from the client's perspective. With certain types of questions the querent gets upset with a "no" answer. The whole point of the reading from their standpoint was to get a "yes", that's what they are paying for! Unconsciously they are seeking reassurance, in the job context, that despite their current problems they will get a job eventually, in a romance context, again despite their current problems that they will eventually have a relationship.

Now my impression is that for a lot of readings, like psychics or modern astrologers reading natal charts, that clients and fortunetellers are on the same page: the client will get a vaguely positive reading, no matter what. With traditional horary, however, negative readings are not only always possible, they are more frequent than positive readings. This is logical isn't it? How often would you pay $60 to ask about a relationship that was going great or when you have a great job. You do a horary when you get worried and when you get worried there are clearly going to be times when that's justified. I had someone complain about my Horary CaseBook that there weren't more positive readings! Well, yes if I could just get clients to ask questions when the situation was positive and the answer was yes. Similarly I have clients complain, "Both the readings I got were negative!" I understand that it is perfectly natural to blame the messenger.

There is a place for reassurance readings and it is fine for clients to seek them, but traditional horary practitioners, to be fair to the client, should alert them. With a traditional horary reading both a yes and a no answer are always possible. Just today I had a potential client that wanted an emergency double price reading, but wanted to ask "When will I get a job?" I asked them, as I routinely do with querents who want to ask this question, "Will it be worthwhile to pay and get a 'no' answer?" If so I am happy to do the reading. If a "no" is not helpful or you hadn't even considered the possibility of a "no" don't get the reading!

I have a similar rap for the rebound relationship readings. It is not unusual for querents to ask about a particular relationship get a "no" and then want to ask a general "When will I have a relationship?" reading. I try to discourage this since I find that the previous relationship often pops up. Until a particular person or relationship is off the emotional radar, so to speak, it doesn't make sense to ask a general relationship question with no one in mind.

Obviously all horary astrologers have to decide how to deal with these issues for themselves. I suppose I could just take the question and then zap 'em with the no, but as noted I'm moving towards making sure they know the options, that seems fairer. Of course if one's readings generally come up positive this issue won't arise, but then a rather high level of customers dissatisfaction with accuracy arises. Ultimately, there's no way around the fact that clients often don't or won't get what they want. Traditional horary doesn't do reassurance readings, not if it is done properly. Fitting client expectations to one's methodology is key because then we get the repeat customers who are very happy with the ability to get accurate, precise predictions because they want the truth, be it negative or positive.