Astrological Spirit of a City

I was just asked where to find instructions in obtaining the guardian/angel astrological spirit governing a particular city.

From an astrological standpoint you would go about this in the same way as you would with any chart, normally we think of natal charts for this, but you can get the name of the spirit of any moment, by looking at the chart for the time, date and place.

I use Agrippa's method from Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Bk III Chapter 26. Very interesting that yesterday, I put this chapter up on my website! I am currently working on my new Traditional Natal Astrology Course and am including some magical natal astrology as part of the course.

Basically I use the "Arabian" method in which you assign a letter to each degree of the Zodiac starting with 0 Aries. Another method that Agrippa describes is starting with the degree of the Ascendant, but then this would vary for every chart.

Then we determine the five hylegical places. These are used in natal length of life calculations and are the degree of the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, Part of Fortune and prenatal syzygy. The prenatal syzygy is the New or Full Moon immediately preceding the chart date.

We take the degrees, find the letters that correspond and this is the name of the spirit of that particular time, date and place. Quaero Lux has a special online daimon name calculator I kept getting different English results until I realized it didn't have J, V or W, following Latin spelling.

The problem for a city is that sometimes we don't know the date, but even more problematic is the time, that a city was founded. For example, Iowa City, IA, my location, was founded on May 1, 1839 and had to be founded before midnight legally, so officially it was founded at 11:55 pm, but the account then says that dawn came early!

Of course, this is not the only method. Our illustrious predecessors would have also used dreams and visions, plus direct contact with spirits to obtain this sort of information.

It's interesting but I've often speculated that the angel of America, likely a Dominion or at least Archangel in the Celestial Hierarchy attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite, looks like the Statue of Liberty, "give me tired, your poor..." while the demon or fallen angel of America has the head of an eagle, a sort of Assyrian mailed body and is clutching the 13 arrows like the US seal, but they are dripping with blood.

Deneb Algedi Mirrors & Talismans

I was very pleased with our recent Deneb Algedi election! I had my best mirror etching yet, thanks to help from my wife Kathleen, with the stencil cutting. I got a real sense of peace and contentment from doing this election. We had a lot of participation from Spiritus Mundi members and a lot of Deneb Algedi talismans made.

I wanted to mention that we now have Deneb Algedi small and large mirrors available! Deneb Algedi is the Tail of Capricorn, excellent for peace, particularly in the home, safety and "increase of wealth" And seriously folks, as much as I like wealth, I suppose peace, particularly peace of mind is what I am really looking for. Though wealth is nice, too!

The small Deneb Algedi mirrors are 3 x 3 inches, and $79.95 plus shipping

I had just one 10 x 10 inch Large Deneb Algedi mirror (I kept the
other one for myself!) and it is $199.95 plus shipping.

All of the mirrors are hand etched by me personally and consecrated.
This is a picture of both my large and a small Deneb Algedi mirror on my fixed star altar.

I have three working altars, the fixed star altar and a Mansions of the Moon and planetary altar, this is an slightly older version of the planetary altar with a few non-planets on it.

Wade says that the casting of silver Deneb Algedi talismans went very
well and you can pre-order silver talismans for $199.95 plus shipping

Which One is the BEST???

In traditional astrology it is not unusual to have variant lists, for example there are many house systems, eg Placidus, Regiomontanus, Porphyry, Campanus, Alcabitius, different lists of terms, eg Ptolemaic, Egyptian, different lists of Mansions, eg Picatrix Bk I, ch 4, and Picatrix Bk IV, ch 9. I am often asked "which is the BEST one?" with the unconscious assumption that there can be only one that is best.

This almost automatic assumption is conditioned by our world view. When science says that cholesterol is deadly, no, a new study says cholesterol is vital for life, no, wait, a new study says cholesterol kills on sight, we seem to roll with that as confusing as it may be, because we have unconsciously accepted scientific objectivism, which holds that there is one, single objective reality out there separate from us and if we eliminate all subjectivity (BAD MONKEY!) we can find the ONE TRUE ANSWER, which we know must exist to all questions.

The typical approach used by contemporary astrologers, both modern and even those trying to be traditional, is to try to be "scientific" and experiment, to test different house systems or lists. One standard method is to look at one's birth chart using different house systems and then decide which one is "most accurate" "Oh, I am definitely more of a Pisces than Aquarius rising!" Of course this is highly subjective, not that I necessarily object to subjectivity, but it is a bit odd to be trying to find "objective" reality that way! Additionally these tests look at an extremely tiny sample, just one's own birth chart is often all that is used, or perhaps a few celebrities or relatives, again suspect from a "scientific" viewpoint.

Finally, the real problem of this sort of testing is one that plagues modern astrology in general. Because modern astrologers are so keen on evolution, progress and individuality, they are constantly inventing new methods, "A NEW TECHNIQUE that REVOLUTIONIZES astrology" It never seems to work for anyone else and eventually stops working for them. We may not necessarily understand why traditional astrologers used a particular technique, but stop using or change and watch your results get more and more inaccurate.

But why are we so intent on finding the "BEST" which must be a single method, good for all time, for everyone. We can look to our modern worldview and objectivist thinking. Since this is our basic modern view of reality, we are therefore confused by the fact that Robert Burns, for example, says, "My love is like a red, red rose" while Shakespeare says, "Love is a smoke and is made with the fume of sighs" Well, which is it? While this is perhaps a bit facetious an answer, here is one a bit closer to the mark, traditionally in Europe white is worn for weddings and is thus a happy color, while in parts of Asia white is associated with funerals and is a negative color. Is white positive or negative?

Where we get confused is classing love and this color symbolism as merely subjective and thus conventional, simply randomly assigned. Or we fall into total relativism, saying that if there is not one single objective reality that all views of reality are equally valid. It seems to me that there is a middle path here, of recognizing that there are a variety of systems, paths and approaches, some better mappings of reality than others, and that we are personally suited to some and not to others. Finding a path with "heart" that is appropriate to you, is our quest.

So, probably the best approach with these variant house systems, Mansion listings, etc., is to follow the shoe size example. My shoe size in the US is 10 in Europe 44. Which is my REAL, CORRECT size? Well if I am buying shoes in Cedar Rapids, 10, in Dusseldorf, 44. If you are using the book I mansion, use them! The book IV mansions, use them! Regiomontanus or Placidus, use either, just pick one and stick with it, don't jump around chart by chart.

New Planetary Charity Page!

I have a new Planetary Charity page.

Planetary charity comes from the Vedic astrology of India and is a great way to work with the energy of planets that are too afflicted in our birth charts to use their talismans.

By doing charity and dedicating it to a planet, we can work with the energy of the planet and help diminish its negative effects on us. Of course, planetary charity is not just for planets that are afflicted in our natal chart, it can be used to good effect with all planets.

In doing planetary charity we time the donation we make according to the nature of the planet we wish to propitiate, making the donation on the planetary day and hour ruled by the planet. We make the donation to a person, organization or thing ruled by the planet and ideally the donation itself is an item ruled by the planet. Typically, however, it is more practical to make a monetary donation. We start by invoking the planet and making a vow to make a set number of donations, at the appropriate time. We then carry out the planetary charity.