Alkaid-The Tail of the Great Bear Protection Talisman

My current chart for May is a fixed star Alkaid protection talisman. Alkaid is the furthest star in the tail of the Great Bear, the Cauda Ursae Majoris.

Hermes on the 15 Fixed Stars says that of the Tail of the Great Bear that it,

"...is strong against incantations and against assassins and gives security from them, and if with this is placed the tooth of a wolf it protects also from robbers and thieves."

Definitely a great all around protection talisman as you usually don't combine protection against spiritual AND physical attack.

Nigel Jackson's wonderful Alkaid image of a pensive man, which you can see above to left, looking very much like a darvish, a Sufi in other words, points us towards some of the other interesting associations of the Great Bear.

As one of the circumpolar constellations, the Great Bear, in the northern temperate latitudes, never sets. Instead it circles round Polaris, the Pole Star turning on the axis of the Cosmos. The Great Bear points us astronomically towards that spiritual realm that itself never sets, the Divine Realm of the Platonic Ideas that do not change or pass away.

The Great Bear puts us in mind of the Sufi idea of the Qutb, the Pole, the person who is the spiritual center of the age. Often hidden, the spiritual life of our time revolves around this person.

So many threads, paths and spiritual byways with regard to guidance and spiritual orientation cluster around the constellations of the Big & Little Bear! Note, for instance, that Hermes on the 15 fixed stars, points to a magnet as associated with Alkaid.

I am very much looking forward to creating Alkaid mirrors and having Alkaid silver talismans. I am also excited about working magically with the constellation of the Great Bear!

More information on Fixed Star Talismans

Where's MY $100 Million? Financial Astrology Example & Discussion

I thought I would share an example of another successful financial horary analysis along with some discussion of these questions in general.

I had a client who had a very large position in Fedex stock and wanted to close it out, selling all of the stock. They called me in the evening, anticipating that the stock would drop at the opening of trading the next day.


Question: Should I sell $200,000 of Fedex stock tomorrow? [client
expected price to drop wanted to sell immediately]
Time Question Received & Understood: 8:09 pm CDT, April 23, 2009
Place Question Received & Understood: Iowa City, IA 41 N 39 91 W 31

The meaning of the astrological factors are fully explained in the
analysis below.

Astrological Factors Considered:

In this chart 7 Scorpio rises and it is Moon hour. As the Moon rules water signs by day and night the chart is radical or rooted which means it has internal signs of accuracy.

As Scorpio rises you are signified by Mars, who is highly dignified by sign and term in the 5th house.

The Moon signifies action and is peregrine and thus weak in the 6th house.

The 2nd house of money is ruled by Jupiter, who is dignified by term in the 4th house.

Jupiter, also rules the 5th house of speculation. Venus, in the final degree of Pisces, her exaltation and very slow, about to go into detriment, is in the 5th house.

The Moon sextiles Jupiter, significator of money. Mercury sextiles Mars, your significator.

Analysis:

Your significator Mars is very strong and in the 5th house of speculation. The 2nd house of money is ruled by Jupiter, natural ruler of wealth, who also rules the 5th house of speculation. The Moon sextiles Jupiter.

My previous methodology with this type of question, Should I sell my gold stocks? has been to look to the rulers of the 1st, 5th and 2nd, and if they are afflicted, then the stock drops. In this case the significators are strong so the stock should increase in value.

Results:

Fedex stock rose on April 24, 2009. See

Google Fedex stock results

+1.02 (1.85%) Apr 24 - Close


Ok, now before I get a rush of excited e-mails and calls, all hoping to strike it rich, let me add some caveats to this example and the gold stock example whose link appears above. I have never been able to get horary to work for trading, in particular day trading doesn't work. In other words I haven't been successful with the tactical use of horary for financial questions.

The situations when horary does seem to work are what might be termed strategic. "Should I go into stock market?" That works. "Should I liquidate my holdings?" that works, as we can see above. But "Should I sell X corp at 3 & 3/8s?" doesn't seem to work.

My view would be that the emotional punch is missing with trading questions. They just aren't important enough emotionally and are asked too frequently to make good horaries.

Another factor may be personal. Don't get me wrong, I like making money, but for some reason I have a personal distaste for the tactical trading questions. Maybe because they strike me as the middle & upper middle class equivalent of the blue collar folks that ask me about winning the lottery. Everyone hoping and dreaming for their salvation by the almighty dollar.

So far I have seen plenty of financial astrological trading systems. This is a great business to get into, by the way, because there is always a demand and people are willing to pay lots of money for it. I always wonder, however, why anyone would sell a system for making huge amounts of money, rather than just quietly using it themselves? Same thing I say to people that want to buy lottery talismans, if they work, why wouldn't I use them once, win the $100 million Powerball and retire? Why would I need to sell lottery talismans or stock/forex/futures etc, trading astrology?

Still, I think that astrology could be used for trading. I don't think horary works very well for it. The real problem is that any astrological system for trading that is available for sale clearly isn't amazing enough to keep quiet about! If it really worked on the massive scale people hoped for it would be a deep, dark secret.

Now this could simply be realistic in that it is likely that a true astrological trading system would have to be used in conjunction with good trading skills, knowledge and luck. It would give an edge, not guaranteed millions. But who wants that? The whole selling point is easy, quick millions!

So, the likely response to this post is going to be e-mails from those wondering how they can make millions with astrology and others with wonderful financial astrological techniques that they are very hopeful about but haven't quite worked the bugs out yet.

My advice is to look at your natal 2nd and 5th houses, if these house and their rulers aren't highly dignified, it ain't going to happen folks!

Resources for Hermeticism

One of the things that I find compelling about traditional astrology and traditional astrological magic is the fact that they can be explained logically, that they have a coherent philosophy that supports them.

Contrast this to modern astrology. If you ask a modern astrologer, "How does astrology work?" You get one of two answers. Either they start waffling about sun spots, or magnetism or gravity or string theory or they say "synchronicity". Both of these answers are problematic. There is not the slightest bit of evidence that any scientifically detectable energy, ray or field has anything to do with astrology. We can be sure of this when we consider horary astrology, since how on earth rays or magnetism could be involved with the time of a question, I don't know!

I've actually had modern astrologers throw up their hands when asked this about horary. They acknowledge that horary is a type of astrology, but they don't know how to do it or how it works. The theoretical problems it causes for a mechanical or energetic causality, they'd rather not think about.

Synchronicity doesn't help either. Jung posited it as an "acausal connecting principle" i.e., literally a non-causal causal link, but more likely a non-physical/non-energetic causal link. Ok, so we have a non-connecting connection! Not much of an explanation, in fact, a deliberate refusal to explain on Jung's part, probably because he would have had to posit a spiritual connection, which would have been wholly unacceptable at the time.

While traditional astrologers and astrological magicians may not necessarily be able to articulate the philosophy that underlies their work, at least there is one! Hermetic philosophy gives a logical, coherent, and elegant explanation as to why astrology and magic operate. Understanding Hermetic philosophy gives practical assistance to your astrological and magical practice because it helps you think like our traditional predecessors and understand why they did what they did. It also opens up the possibility of astrology and magic as a spiritual path.

I recommend starting with my two newest videos:


History of Hermeticism


Hermetic Gnosis: Spiritual Hermeticism

These are just introductions, however, this is too deep a subject to be taught in a 6 and a 9 minute video!

Here are some additional articles on my website


Hermes Trismegistus


Hermeticism: A Practical Path to Gnosis


Hermetic Dreaming


Hermetic Election from the Discourse on the 8th and the 9th


For further reading I recommend Garth Fowden's Egyptian Hermes a very sympathetic secondary source on the history of Hermes Trismegistus and Hermeticism


I also recommend Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum translated by Brian Copenhaver" which is an excellent translation of the philosophical Hermetica


Finally Renaissance Astrology is the sole source for a very important text of practical Hermetica, the complete English translation of the
Kyranides a key Hermetic text on the occult virtues and powers of plants, animals, birds and stones, with numerous Hermetic talismans
and images.


Your astrological and magical practice, not mention your mind and spirit, will be immeasurable enriched by an acquaintance with Hermetic philosophy and our illustrious patron, Hermes Trismegistus!

New Video: Hermetic Gnosis & Spiritual Hermeticism

I am pleased to present a new video, Hermetic Gnosis: Spiritual Hermeticism

This video focuses on the philosophy of Hermeticism, its practical application in astrology and magic and mystic union with the One through Hermetic ascent.

Nowadays the term "spiritual" is often used as a synonym for psychology. Numerous sites offer "spiritual astrology", i.e., modern psychological astrology. Traditional astrology, because of its predictive focus, is sometimes dismissed as worldly and mundane, ironic given the unconscious atheistic/materialist philosophy that underlies modern astrology.

In fact, traditional astrology and astrological magic are entirely predicated on the reality of the spiritual and while being a means for obtaining worldly powers and things, also function as the preparatory studies for Hermetic gnosis, the mystic union with the One, and as integral parts of the theurgy (literally "god work") of ritual used for Hermetic gnosis.

I hope viewer find this video interesting and illuminating!

More information on Hermetic Gnosis

Why Do You Use the Tropical Zodiac?

Not a week doesn't go by that I don't get asked, "Why don't you use a Zodiac based on the REAL STARS?" usually along with some sort of breathless comment about those idiot ancient astrologers who along with not having plasma screen TVs or SUVs, thought the world was flat and DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS A 13TH SIGN!!!!" This discussion just seems to attract all caps and lots of exclamation points.

Of course, this is just modern "progress" propaganda since every educated person since about 100 BC knew the Earth was round and ancient & traditional astrologers knew exactly what the traditional Tropical Zodiac was.

I'm going to give a quick answer here, but you can see a more detailed explanation on my website at Tropical, Sidereal & Constellational Zodiacs: The Power of World View.

First off, what's a Zodiac? In essence standing on earth you look up in the sky at the path of the Sun which from Earth looks like it orbits the Earth. All the planets orbit in the same basic plane as the Sun. If you want to know exactly where the planets are, you divide up the 360 degree circle of their orbit. That's the function of a Zodiac.

Now the path of the Sun is called the ecliptic and it more or less passes through 12 constellations, groupings of stars. This is the origin of the 12 signs of the Zodiac.

The Tropical Zodiac, used by Western astrologers for the last 2000 years, is oriented to the Seasons, not the stars. It has 12 signs of 30 degrees each. A great deal of the meaning of each sign comes from its seasonal orientation. For example, the Sun goes into Aries in the Spring. Aries fits this because it is a moveable (traditional term, modern cardinal) sign, showing change and it is a fire sign, and it stars to warm up in the Spring. The whole traditional system is really big on order and the Tropical Zodiac is nice and orderly, 12 signs, divided into 4 elements (fire, air, water & earth), the aspects all fit the number 12 and so on.

The Sidereal Zodiac, used by the Vedic astrologers of India, is falsely claimed to correspond to the "REAL STARS" It doesn't! It has 12 signs of 30 degrees just like the Tropical Zodiac. Only the start point is oriented to the fixed stars.

If you want a Zodiac that exactly corresponds to the "REAL STARS" you have to go with what I call a Constellational Zodiac because the the people that push it haven't figured out what to call it, other than confusing it with the Sidereal Zodiac. Typically the Constellational Zodiac has 13 sign/constellations that are highly irregular. To use this you have to throw out the seasonal meanings of the signs because the signs have moved and aren't in the same season any more. Can't follow the "REAL STARS" and not the "REAL SEASONS" Big chunks of astrological technique, even modern astrological technique, have to be tossed.

At this point no practicing astrologer uses the Constellational Zodiac basically because they would have to start from scratch and invent their own new system of astrology. It's just something to hassle astrologers about because it instinctively makes sense to moderns to look for a physical (ie non-spiritual) explanation for everything. Even if modern astrologers can't explain why they use the Tropical Zodiac, they do know that it works!

Still this is why I finally got my act together and explained the whys, wherefores and underlying rationale for the Tropical Zodiac. The ancient astrologers knew that the Tropical Zodiac didn't correspond to the constellations and if you learn a bit about traditional astrology and how they thought, you'll understand why they chose it. I go into much greater detail, as previously advertised at Tropical, Sidereal & Constellational Zodiacs: The Power of World View.

Joseph Smith: Talismans and Esotericism

I have recently added new Joseph Smith Jupiter Talismans to the Renaissance Astrology website. Joseph Smith is, of course, the founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons.

The so called Joseph Smith Jupiter talisman is actually a talisman design from early 19th century esoteric author or rather compiler, Francis Barrett. Barrett's The Magus was published in London in 1801 and is made up of selections from Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy, the Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy attributed to Agrippa and the Robert Turner's 1655 translation of the Heptameron of Peter of Abano. Barrett made a few modifications and modernized the spelling and syntax of these selections.

Smith was reported to be carrying a "Masonic medal" when he was killed. This was generally accepted until it was discovered that the medal was in fact a Jupiter talisman! Then its very existence became controversial.

Certainly the interest of Smith in the esoteric cannot be controverted. For example, the influence of Freemasonry on Mormon temple ritual is clear. Here are some additional resources on Smith and esotericism by Lance Owen,
Joseph Smith: America's Hermetic Prophet
Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection-Part 1
Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection-Part 2
Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection-Part 3

History of Hermeticism Video

I've added a new Youtube video Hidden Wisdom: the History of Hermeticism.

Hermetic philosophy and the Hermetic arts of astrology, alchemy and magic, that depend on Hermetic philosophy, are a key Western esoteric path, exerting all sorts of cultural influences in the West.

I will be producing additional videos on Hermetic philosophy and applications of Hermeticism and here are some additional resources from my website



Hermes Trismegistus: Hermetic Philosophy, Astrology & Magic


Hermeticism: A Practical Path to Gnosis

Hermetic Dreaming

Election of Hermes Trismegistus from the Discource on the Eighth & Ninth

Hermes on the 15 Fixed Stars