Bob Makransky's Astrology Corner 

www.dearbrutus.com  

presents:

MAGICAL ALMANAC for January 2010

In this issue: What is Magic?;  Dr. Jones' Methodology

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What is Magic? 

Magic is simply a matter of tuning out the constant static of society and the babble of other people, and listening to your own heart.  You don't need a guru, or a therapist, or a life coach, or anyone to tell you how to listen to your heart.  All you have to do is remember the original knowledge you were born with. 

Look at the teachers, churchmen, scout leaders, politicians, media manipulators, businessmen, and academics whom you have permitted to define your opinions and aspirations.  You know in your heart that this is all a con, a lie, a trap, but you don't see any way out of it.  There is a way out, however.  The path to true freedom lies in your own heart. 

Magic is a point of view, a different way of looking at everyday life.  The magical point of view, however, is not at all like the point of view which enables you to operate in society, and to fulfill the expectations of other people. 

For example, our present-day society believes, and has taught you to believe, that spirits don't exist.  They do, however.  You know this in your heart.  You have had psychic, paranormal experiences yourself.  Everyone has.  Those that say that haven't are lying to themselves (deliberating misinterpreting information that is right there in front of their eyes).  You know in your heart that what society says about magic is false.  Why on earth would you believe that society is telling you the truth about anything?

            Magic is not a matter of altered states of consciousness, or of ooga-booga rituals.  Rather, it's a matter of taking a good, hard look at your present situation.  Magic means examining your everyday life and yourself objectively.  Magic requires seeing yourself with no personal feelings at all, as if you were a detached critic.  Our society teaches us that magic is an escape from reality.  On the contrary, the practice of magic entails directly coming to grips with reality. 

Magic is as ancient as humankind, but it has been forgotten in all the rush to make a buck and to fulfill other people's expectations.  Now the time for magic has come around again.  Magic and astrology will rise once more if the human race is to survive, not to mention prosper. 

            These are heady times.  We can all feel the change in the air, the crackle of energy.  We sense that human consciousness is going through a fundamental transformation.  The human race is coming to a crunch.  Human society and human consciousness are on the brink of a major breakthrough; or else of self-destruction.  More and more people are casting about looking for straight answers that they're not getting from their governments, media, academics, or churches.  Luckily all the answers and tools you need are right there, in your own heart, if you could only connect to it.  The practice of magic will help you to make that connection.

Magic can be defined as the intentional manipulation of luck, by means of the deliberate cultivation of intuition.  Most people believe that luck and intuition are haphazard affairs.  Magicians, however, seek to control them. 

Is magic real?  It most certainly is, but not in the sense in which the popular media, such as the American television program Charmed, would have you believe.  On television and in movies magicians are portrayed as having special powers that they are born with, such as freezing or repelling enemies, making things appear and disappear, and so forth.  This is untrue (however, the scene in which Kim Novak bewitched Jimmy Stewart in the movie Bell, Book, and Candle is actually not that far off the mark).  Magicians are like everyone else, but perhaps are more psychic and intuitive than the norm.   The difference between magicians and most people is one of degree rather than of kind. 

Magicians tend to be more rebellious than average, and less fearful of the consequences of their rebellion.  Ever since childhood they've known that they were different somehow, that they didn't fit in; and most likely they were castigated for this by their family and schoolmates.  Magicians tend not to trust in what they were taught – in what everyone around them is taking for granted – and they tend to be more ready to fly with their impulses than are average people. 

This misperception about magic and magicians is a shame, since the truth about magic is far more interesting, compelling, and personally applicable in our own lives than the false stereotypes which appear in the popular media.

It's not that magicians have supernormal powers.  Rather, from the magicians' point of view, most people are walking around with both hands – their intuition and intent – tied behind their backs.  They are paralyzed by their fear of disapproval.  They learn this fear from their parents and society, and they pass it on to their own children in turn. 

Thus, to most people, magicians' use of their "hands" seems like the use of supernormal powers.  However, magicians have no power beyond what most people possess – they just use their power.  They use their intuition to process incoming information, and they use their intent to influence the outside world. 

Most magicians don't even know that they are magicians.  They do not understand or consider what they are doing to be magic, since it comes so naturally to them.  Magicians who happen to be Christians or capitalists would scoff at the idea that they are magicians using magic.  But anyone who applies the techniques of magic to get what they want from life, anyone who has some degree of mastery in the use of intuition and intent, is a magician.

A story about General George Patton provides an example of the magician in all of us.  In the middle of the night on Christmas eve during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, General Patton jumped out of his bed and called his secretary in to take an order.  During his sleep he had intuited that the Germans would mount an attack at a certain spot the next day.  In anticipation of this move, Patton decided to mount an attack of his own to preempt the German offensive.   When Christmas day dawned Patton's counterattack hit the Germans just as they began and stopped them cold, thus averting what could have been a serious threat to Patton's flank.  A few days later, commenting on this episode, Patton told his secretary:  "To tell you the truth, I didn't know at all that the German attack was coming.  In the future some people will call it luck and some will call it genius."

"What would you call it, General?" his secretary asked.  Patton paused and then replied, "Determination." 

What Patton termed "determination" is what magicians refer to as "intent".  Intent is the driving force behind magic. 

Actually, we are all magicians. We are all performing magic all the time.   Just to exist in this world requires considerable magical ability and prowess.  Anybody who is highly successful and original, such as Bill Gates, for example, is using the principles of magic unknowingly.  The appellation "magician" in fact transcends species.  Magicians are born amongst all species:  there are hawk magicians, whale magicians, oak magicians, and so forth.  Magicians of any species are recognizable since they are basically outsiders who go their own way and prefer solitude to the company of other members of their species. 

Human magicians actually have more in common with animal or plant magicians than they do with other humans who are not magicians.  What magicians pay attention to and seek in everyday life is quite different from what most people pay attention to and seek.  Most people seek security; magicians seek freedom.  These two goals are incompatible.   

Most people believe that they and the world surrounding them are real.  Magicians believe that the world and the self are merely projections, like a movie on a screen or the shadows in Plato's cave. 

Where most people seek to manipulate the world for their advantage and convenience, magicians seek to manipulate their perception.  That is to say, magicians change the world by changing their perception of it, rather than by fussing about trying to make things happen outside themselves. 

Where most people are guided by the conventional thinking of their culture and epoch, magicians, both black and white, are guided by spirits until they get their own intuition and intent working.  Unlike the Abrahamic religions (which includes rationalistic materialism – the pseudo-science practiced in academia), magic is not a belief system:  it is a cognitive system.  It is a way of apprehending rather than thinking.  It is a way of acting rather than talking.  Magicians receive their approbation directly from the Spirit – not from society's pat on the head for being a good little doggy. 

The chief difference between average people and magicians is that average people always seem to be looking for a free ride or escape from their problems.  They hope and believe that they will someday have an epiphany; or meet a true guru or a soul-mate; or win the lottery; and from then on all their problems will be solved.  However, even people who have had epiphanies, or met true gurus or soul-mates, or won the lottery, found that this didn't particularly solve anything for them.  Do you honestly believe that the rich and famous are any happier than anyone else? 

Hoping for some fantasy to come true in order to be happy is absurd.  It's like believing in Santa Claus.  Life just isn't like that, except in the movies; and magicians, unlike average people, are supreme realists.  Most of what magicians do isn't done by supernormal means, but by facing squarely the way things really are, instead of the way they have been taught to perceive them by their parents and society.

Most people chafe and struggle against their circumstances, and pine for a fantasy which will release them from their bondage.  Magicians, unlike most people, start from right where they are.  They accept the situation in which they find themselves right now.  Magicians take responsibility for their present situation instead of trying to escape from it.  In other words the secret of magic, which is commonly misunderstood, is to adapt to circumstances rather than try to dominate or control circumstances.  It's by adapting yourself as best you can without losing your hope and intent, without letting your circumstances crush you or surrendering to your self-pity, that you can change your circumstances. 

The first step in magic is to get beyond your assumptions.  This means seeing them clearly in the first place.  It implies seeing yourself as others do, for starters. 

Magicians don't take anything for granted.  They have no specific expectations, and the only assumption they make is that whatever happens will be a big surprise.  Isn't it usually the case that when the solutions to our problems do come, they scarcely ever happen the way we anticipated and fantasized? 

Thus, magicians don't have to think as much as most people do.  They don't have to worry, or plan, or scheme about the future.  Nor do magicians hide their shame from the past.  They don't care as much as most people do about what has happened or what will happen.  They know they have no real control over either their past or future, so they don't have to defend what they did or worry about what they might do. 

The terms "magic" and "shamanism" or "witchcraft" are interchangeable.   The main difference between paganism and magic is that paganism is a religion and magic is a technology.  However the two are closely entwined for many practitioners, although you can be a magician without being a pagan.  Indeed, in the literal sense of the word, there are Christian magicians, Buddhist magicians, Hindu magicians, scientist magicians, banker magicians, star athlete magicians, and so on.  Anyone who is using magic to further their intent – i.e., operating on direct knowing rather than thinking, whether they are conscious of what they are doing or not – has to be considered a magician.  Thus while many pagans are also magicians, not all magicians are also pagans.  

            Magic can be considered a spiritual path.  It is a path in which you are given a lot more power and knowledge than you have earned (usually by spirits, which is the reason why magicians invoke them).  In trying to control this power you are forced to put the rest of your life in order.  Thus power is the spur and motivation to action.

            What is power, then?  It can be considered the same thing as luck, freedom, or responsibility.  Power and freedom are the same thing.  They both arise upon taking responsibility for your own destiny instead of just drifting along, or buying into society's version of what is good and desirable.

            What is responsibility?  It is not blaming other people, or God, for your own unhappiness.  Rather, it is understanding that you have deliberately, if unconsciously, chosen the situations in which you find yourself.

            For us as individuals to try to reconstruct magic in this dark age of materialism is tantamount to an intellectual adventurer a thousand years from now who stumbles upon some relic PC's and, knowing of legends that the ancients had machines which could think,  sets out to reconstruct computer knowledge by himself. 

Magic, like computer science, is most effective if society as a whole is devoting much of its energy to it.  One or a few scattered individuals working alone can't accomplish much.  Magic is an ancient knowledge which it is now our duty as a society to reconstruct if the human race is to survive, not to mention progress.  This is what the much-vaunted coming transformation of consciousness is all about.  Over the coming century, as society collapses and things start to fall apart and people lose their faith in society's lies, magic and astrology will become the world religion once more.  But it's not a "religion".  It's just a matter of getting beyond beliefs, opening up your heart, and seeing things as they are. 

FAQ's

            Does magic really exist?  The answer is yes.  It most assuredly does exist.  The problem is that existence doesn't exist.  Another way of saying this is, "You create your own reality."  For example, the realities of children and primitive peoples are indeed magical, so for them magic exists.  They can see it at work all the time.  However our modern society trains us to reject our intuition and inner feelings about the nature of our world.  By the time we reach adulthood most of us have shut down our intuitive channels and rejected the belief that we have power over our world.

In fact, our social training teaches us the contrary belief:   that we are helpless, at the mercy of forces beyond our control.  It is obviously not in society's interest to have dreamers and free-thinkers walking around pursuing their own visions and going their own way; or so society believes.   It is society's purpose to train armies and a labor force, to have at its disposal mindless robots who will do as they are told rather than ask questions and think for themselves.  Therefore, by the time most people in our society reach adulthood, they have been taught to ignore their own hearts' messages and to fear their innate magical powers.

Do magicians have supernatural power?   This depends upon your definition of "supernatural."  Magicians do have supernatural power, but so does everybody else.  Magicians have just developed their power.  Magicians have not permitted their social training to erase as much of the power they were born with as most other people have done; or else they have recuperated it through magical training.

What is "power"?   It's the same thing as luck.  Luck is actually a better word for it, but the term "luck" as commonly used connotes something outside of our conscious control.  We think of power as something we can consciously command.  In fact, this isn't really true:  it is power which commands us.  But at least we are consciously aware of what's happening.  Luck, on the other hand, seems serendipitous because we don't see the connection – how we are making our own luck. 

What about powers like psychic healing, seeing auras, crystal gazing, knowing the future, communicating with spirits, astral projection, etc.?   These are all abilities which can be developed with practice.  Some people have such gifts from birth due to their karma from past lives and their particular purpose for incarnating in this lifetime. 

What about stopping one's enemies with a psychic blast, or making things appear or disappear, or bewitching people?   For the most part the powers that magicians have on television or in the movies are fantasy.  One thing that is factually correct about how magicians with special powers are portrayed in the popular media is that having special powers isn't much help in dealing with everyday life.  Bewitching other people is possible.  Everybody is doing it to everyone else, albeit subconsciously, already ("love at first sight" is an example).  This will be explained in a later Magical Almanac article.     

Do vampires really exist?  Of course (see the December 2008 issue of Magical Almanac for details).  Suffice it to say that what vampires do is only an extreme form of something most people are doing to each other all the time anyway, namely sucking other people's energy (invading other people's space).

I've tried using spells I've gotten out of books, but they don't work.  This is because other people's spells are pretty much useless.  It's your own intent that matters, not the words you say.  To make spells work you have to have faith.  It's the certainty that a spell will work which makes it work. 

Do we really create our own realities?  Much of the time it would seem that this isn't true.  It appears to us that things just happen.   But what about our dreams?   Do we create them, or do they just happen? 

Earlier it was said that existence doesn't exist.  What this means is that what we experience when we are awake is just a dream.  This is literally true.  It certainly seems that what we experience in the everyday world, while we are awake, is real.  However the dreams we had last night certainly seemed real also at the time we were dreaming them. 

Similarly, it is merely our belief that what happens to us while we are awake is real, that makes it real.  Just as when we awaken from a dream we realize that it wasn't real, so too is there a point of view from which we can awaken from being awake and realize that being awake isn't real either.  That point of view is magic. 

Most people intuit that magic is real, that it does work; and that the scientists and academics are lying to them when they deny this fact.  This is because we still remember from childhood that the world is magical.  Usually this memory is unconscious.  On a conscious level our social training has made us forget what we knew as children:  that the world is basically a happy place; that the sun and wind and clouds and rain are alive, and can talk to us and tell us their secrets. 

Unfortunately for the seeker after truth, there is lots of misinformation floating around.  New Age writers are often no more truthful than are scientists and academics.  This is because lots of people who are ostensibly into magic don't really want true information.  For them it's just an image they have of themselves, but they're actually afraid of true knowledge, as well they should be.  To be a true magician requires tremendous courage and willingness to follow one's own intuition and intent, no matter what society or other people think.  Don't believe for a minute that anyone is going to strew your path with rose petals – quite the contrary! 

Being a magician necessitates uncompromising honesty with oneself.  It entails, for example, facing the fact of your death directly, every day in every way.  It entails seeing yourself clearly, with all your flaws and selfishness.  It entails giving up the belief that you're special:  that anyone, including God, owes you anything or will help or protect you.  It entails understanding that you aren't going to suddenly have your luck change without you taking 100% responsibility yourself for making your dreams come true. 

The reason why many people are afraid of magic isn't because they're afraid it is evil, which is what society has told them.  Rather, it is because they are afraid of taking 100% responsibility for and control over their own lives.  It is much easier to believe in fables like "You will go to heaven when you die" or "Your investments will still be solvent when you're ready to retire" or "Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were flukes – that'll never happen again."  It's easier to fall under the spell of the lullabies which society sings to us to keep us from thinking for ourselves than to face up to the truth.   

The truth is that there isn't any security in life.  Neither God nor society care about what happens to you.  You have no one and nothing to rely upon except yourself.  

Magicians train themselves to take full responsibility for their lives.  This gives them confidence in dealing with whatever may come, be it illness, poverty, death, or whatever else may happen.   This is the basic tenet of magic.  It is a truth that many people are afraid to face because they don't understand that being vulnerable and defenseless does not necessarily mean being helpless and powerless.   

(Copyright © 2009 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved).

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About the author:  Bob Makransky is a systems analyst, computer programmer and professional astrologer.  He lives on a farm in highland Guatemala where he is a Mayan priest and is head of the local blueberry growers' association.  Check out his free downloadable Mayan Horoscope software, free downloadable Planetary Hours calculator, free downloadable Primary Directions / celestial sphere mathematics textbook, complete instructions on how to channel by automatic writing and how to run past life regressions, articles, books, stories, cartoons, etc. etc. at www.dearbrutus.com

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Life Reading by Bob Makransky

Overall potentials and possible problem areas in life, with specific recommendations regarding career, love life, etc. together with answers to any particular questions you might have regarding your life or horoscope.  Includes trends for the next 3 years.  Send time, date, and place of birth with check for $150 to:  Bob Makransky – Apartado #36 – Coban, Alta Verapaz – Guatemala; or e-mail Bob for info on how to wire transfer payment (mak(at)dearbrutus.com).

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Books by Bob Makransky

Check out www.dearbrutus.com for complete reviews and excerpts; order by snail-mail (see below):

ARE YOU READY FOR REAL, IN-DEPTH ASTROLOGY?

ARE YOU READY FOR REAL, IN-DEPTH MAGIC?

Thought Forms

by Bob Makransky

Astronomical and astrological explanations of Mercury's synodic cycle – its cycle of phases as it circles the sun, with tables 1900-2050.

Complete delineations for Superior and Inferior Conjunction, Greatest Eastern and Western Elongation, Stationary Retrograde and Direct, and their intervening phases in the natal, progressed, and transiting horoscopes.

Explanation of the astrological / magical view of mind (the theory of Thought Forms):  what consciousness is, how it arose, and whither it is going.

Basic course in white magic with detailed instructions on:  How to Channel and Banish Thought Forms; Creative Visualization; How to banish the Black Magicians in everyday life; How to Cast out Demons; How to use Tree Spirits.

     "Bob Makransky is a knowledgeable, purposeful and entertaining writer."  

– Paul F. Newman, The International Astrologer

     "Steady Diamond Fire readers are well acquainted with the genius of Bob

Makransky.  Highly recommendable."  – Joseph Polansky, Diamond Fire

     "Readers have become familiar with [Makransky's] fresh insights into different facets of  astrology.  In this book Thought Forms he is especially provocative and I strongly recommend its purchase and study." – Ken Gillman, Considerations

     "I will fully agree with the statement that `You've never read a book like this before!'  The  material is fresh and woven very skillfully to conclusion.  I look forward to his next installment of the trilogy."  – Marion MacMillan, SHAPE

           An indispensable reference you'll consult every time you read a chart!

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BASIC COURSE IN WHITE MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS!

Magical Living

By Bob Makransky

Winner of the Sacramento Publishers' Association awards for Best Nonfiction and Best Spiritual book of 2001!

Magical Living  is a collection of essays which give detailed, how-to instructions on channeling spirit guides, communicating with plants and nature spirits; together with inspirational essays on managing love relationships, handling oppressive people, and dealing with hurt.  

–    "I love this little book! ... Carry this book with you, read and reread the essays, and connect with joy. " – Kathryn Lanier, InnerChange magazine

–     "He writes beautifully, clearly, elegantly …  he is incapable of an unoriginal     thought."  –  Joseph Polansky, Diamond Fire magazine

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TO ORDER THOUGHT FORMS OR MAGICAL LIVING:

Cost: $19.95 for each copy of Thought Forms; $14.95 for each copy of Magical Living

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Almanac for January 2010

The purpose of this almanac is to list the most important astrological events each month to help you plan your life in harmony with cosmic currents. You can easily select the best times each month to advance, hold back, confront, avoid, accept, refuse, yield or stand your ground, in order to enhance your chances of success.

Mutual transits are points of inflection, or moments when things could go one way or the other.  Often on these days something is discovered, some truth revealed, or a new door opens to us.  There are days with favorable times to begin new ventures, to approach others for favors, to initiate healing, to pray or cast spells, to energize amulets and crystals, and so forth.  Conversely, in the case of inharmonious aspects, avoidance of these activities is recommended.

What we are trying to do is to tune into the ambient rhythms of the cosmos.  We tend to be alienated from the universal harmonies because of our stressful life styles:  we feel disconnected, isolated, powerless, adrift and alone in an uncaring universe.  We have lost our sense of being part of an eternal, ongoing process. 

Astrology can help us to regain our sense of connection to the universe and to the earth by teaching us how to look at our daily lives as a series of lessons.  Astrology teaches detachment:  we learn that by paying attention to and adapting to the cosmic rhythms, we can come to a deeper sense of connection to the universe and a greater sense meaning and purpose in our personal lives.

The table below includes transiting conjunctions and oppositions of the planets other than moon; Stationary Retrograde and Stationary Direct positions; and the Greatest Western and Greatest Eastern Elongation positions of Mercury and Venus.  If the zodiacal degree of the transit conjoins or opposes a planet in your own natal horoscope within two degrees orb, then be alert to what happens this day (and the day before and after).  This is a time when the universe sends you important new information.  The nature of the event is symbolized by the transiting planet(s); the nature of your response is symbolized by the natal planet(s) at or opposed to the longitude of the transit.

For example, on January 27, 2010 Venus opposes Mars at 10 AQ/LE 50 opposition Barack Obama's natal sun at 12 LE 33, which might bring the President a FORCEFUL SOCIABLE event which requires considerable DETERMINATION on his part (some friend, family member, or intimate has an emotional crisis which he has to deal with).

To launch projects, make prayers, or cast spells, one should use the times in this table in conjunction with the Planetary Hours.  Look for a relevant Planetary Hour within 24 hours before the exact time given in the table below.  This table is in Eastern Time:  in the Central time zone subtract an hour; in the Mountain time zone subtract two hours; in the Pacific time zone subtract 3 hours; from the times listed here.  To use Planetary Hours, download the free Planetary Hours calculator from the Magical Almanac files http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Magical%20Almanac/ or from http://www.dearbrutus.com/body_planetaryhours.html.   This is an Excel worksheet with complete instructions; however when you open it, it will ask if you want to disable the macros.  Since it won't work with its macros disabled, click on "Enable Macros" (you may have to have previously reduced the Excel security protocol: Tools => Macro => Security => Low).

            To make a prayer or cast a spell (for detailed information see the BOS file posted at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/):  at the chosen time clear your mind, light a candle and make a fervent, heartfelt wish – imagine the scene of your wish coming true as though it were happening right now, all around you.  If other people are involved (e.g., if asking for a favor), imagine that you are looking them right in the eye and talking to them as if they were right there in front of you.  Let yourself feel the feelings you actually would feel if your wish were to come true.  Then watch closely to see how the candle burns:  if it's difficult to light it, then it will be difficult for your wish to come true.  If the flame burns steadily and brightly, the wish will come true.  If the flame smokes or is feeble, or the candle falls over, forget it. 

       Keyword Interpretations for Transiting and Natal Planets:

(Detailed interpretations for the transiting and natal planets are filed in the How to Use Magical Almanac Tutorial folder at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Magical%20Almanac/)

1/04/2010 @ 14:06 = 14 CP 19 = Mercury inferior conjunction sun = Something that was hidden comes into plain view, giving you deeper insight and understanding about a current problem or relationship.  You realize that you must go it alone, make it on your own, not depend on or rely on other people.  Decisive action on your part may be required to be true to yourself and hold your own. You may have to get something straightened out with someone – use a sun hour for this if it is a matter of enforcing your own will, or a Mercury hour if the person's collaboration is sought.   

1/05/2010 @ 5:40 = 13 CP 27 = Mercury conjunct Venus = Get things straight with a loved one or friend (Venus hour), clear up misunderstandings (Mercury hour).  Don't let communications problems bog you down; plan to enjoy yourself.  A good day for dating, travel, recitals, art exhibits, parties, children. 

1/11/2010 @ 11:06 = 21 CP 32 = Venus superior conjunction sun = Brings up issues of intimacy, self-worth, relations with others generally.  May bring disagreement, conflict, tension.  Your credibility or reputation may come under attack, or in some other way your self-image is bruised.  However you are able to maintain your ιlan and poise even though you are in a disadvantageous position.  You stand up for yourself or reach out to fulfill your own desires. You may make a forward-going move in an intimate or family relationship.   This should be done during a Venus hour if the purpose is to join with others; or during a sun hour if the purpose is to make your own wishes come true.

1/13/2010 @ 10:56 = 4 LI 39 = Saturn Stationary Retrograde = You must confront obstacles directly now (use Saturn hours for this). You cannot shrink from difficulties but must hold your ground and secure your position in life.  Good for making a new start after things have bogged down.

1/15/2010 @ 2:12 = 25 CP 01 = New Moon

1/15/2010 @ 11:53 = 5 CP 33 = Mercury Stationary Direct = A new departure or new outlook on your current affairs.  You may get past a blind spot or something that was hindering you, or launch new projects or relationships which become important later on.  You are able to take things in stride, let go of a hang-up, lighten up and be joyous.  Use Mercury hours to reason with other people.

1/27/2010 @ 0:30 = 10 AQ/LE 50 = Venus opposition Mars = Disappointment or conflict in an intimate or social relationship.   Not a good day to meet with others or try to reach agreement.  It is a good day, however, to break things off (or do a Scat ritual to get rid of a lover who has outlived his / her usefulness – use a Mars hour for this). 

1/27/2010 @ 4:00 = 12 CP 34 = Mercury Greatest Western Elongation =  New possibilities and horizons open up; new beginnings are made.  There is a need for optimistic self-appraisal, a hopeful attitude, and a willingness to take risks and fly with gut-level impulses.  You may have to incorporate other people's viewpoints and feelings in formulating your own plans and designs; take a longer or broader view.  Mercury hours are the best times to approach others. Your own leadership and fresh ideas may prove decisive.

1/29/2010 @ 14:43 = 9 AQ/LE 48 = sun opposition Mars = Avoid conflict, especially with men.  You cannot enforce your own will now, so try to be patient in the face of obstruction and frustration.  If you must confront others, use a sun hour.  It is, however, a good day to do a Scat ritual to get rid of any man in your life who is bringing you down (use a Mars hour for this).    

1/30/2010 @ 1:19 = 10 LE 15 = Full Moon

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Dr. Jones' Methodology

In his books (particularly Essentials of Astrological Analysis) Dr. Marc Edmund Jones established a framework of metasymbolism to analyze the meanings of various factors in the natal horoscope (such as retrograde planets, aspects, planets in ruler / detriment, etc.). This system consists of three principles: preponderance, absence, and negative indication (which is a special case of absence).

When there is a preponderance of some factor in a natal chart (for example, a preponderance of retrograde planets, or of square aspects, or of planets conjunct critical degrees) the native's life is skewed at that point. What is shown is a weight, a self-consciousness, a sense of onus or burden, a heavy responsibility which the native must bear and bear up under. There is a depth and compulsion to act with thoroughness in this area of life, but also a heaviness and slowness. Even if the horoscope factor is nominally good, a preponderance of it becomes a source of imbalance in the life. For example, a preponderance of planets in their ruling signs comes on strong, is domineering and positive in its opinions – that is, liberates an unwieldy amount of energy and creates problems in the life.

When there is an absence of some factor in the natal horoscope, then in the area of life symbolized by that factor there is lightness, a freedom of action, and a lack of compulsion, which on the negative side can become a lack of motivation, interest, and understanding.  The absence of some horoscope factor shows a freedom from responsibility, but with a concomitant lack of attunement to the environment.

By way of example, when there is a preponderance of retrograde planets (five or more) in the horoscope, the natives are the slaves of their impulses. They are mavericks who put out the minimum amount of conformity necessary for survival in their social milieu. They are armored in their obstinacy, determined to carve out their own niche in life, on their own terms.  As a result, their lives tend to lack cohesion or direction – rather, they have a patchy, makeshift quality which comes from living by feel rather than by plan.  These natives have a burning need for emotional privacy, and can be impervious and rough in their handling of other people, because they're too bent upon their own inner vision and fancies to pay much mind to the sensibilities of others.

Conversely, an absence of retrograde planets in the horoscope gives a rather naive and hopeful outlook on life.  These natives have an unquestioning acceptance of rational and socially approved solutions.  They avoid making impulsive errors by avoiding impulse, and are too easily swayed by logic, by their conscious mind, to put much stake in following their hearts.  They try to base their behavior on abstract standards of fairness and reasonableness. They are overly compliant because they never feel that they're standing on solid emotional ground; thus, other people who are surer of what it is they want easily impose on these natives.

The precise definition of what constitutes a "preponderance" or "absence" is open to adjustment depending upon the particular horoscope factor under consideration.  For rare phenomena (such as stationary planets), three out of ten planets in a chart fitting the criterion is enough to constitute preponderance. Similarly, for very common phenomena (such as the presence of aspects in a horoscope, where a complete absence is unheard of), half the statistically expected number can be considered an absence. The point is that what is being shown by preponderance is a weighting in a given direction, and by absence a lack of pull in that direction.

For example, when there is a preponderance of aspects in the horoscope (at least three times as many Ptolemaic aspects as the orb in degrees – for example, at least eighteen Ptolemaic aspects within 6° orbs), the natives are critically dependent upon validation from other people for an assessment of their own worth. Since aspects are the lines that tie us to other people – compel us to seek their approval – a preponderance of aspects shows natives who are overly concerned with their images, with the impression they make on others, with being right.  Therefore, they are easily bent out of shape by rejection, and they take other people's reactions too much to heart. They lack inner stability because their moods rise and fall with their current status in other people's eyes.

Conversely, an absence of aspects (less than the number of degrees in the allowable orb –that is, less than six aspects within 6° orbs) in the horoscope shows a relative freedom from worry about status in society. These natives are not particularly concerned with, motivated by, or even consciously aware of what other people think of them.  They are naive and uninhibited, and say whatever's on their minds.  Others accept these natives because they accept themselves, are at ease within themselves, and have a frank and natural manner. On the negative side, they can be headstrong, solipsistic, and aloof.

The third principle or metasymbolic technique for isolating the meaning of a horoscope factor is called negative indication, and it is a special form of absence.  It occurs when there is a well-defined set of related horoscope factors (such as four triplicities, three quadruplicities, angular / succedent / cadent etc.) and all but one of them are represented in the natal horoscope.  Whatever is symbolized by the missing factor is emphasized in a negative way – that is, as a parody, an exaggeration of the symbolism, an intellectualized, artificial version constructed as if in compensation for a felt psychological lack or need.  The interpretation is similar to that of the preponderance, but with a twist:  the behavior is put-on rather than heartfelt; the native acts on mind rather than on feeling.

For example, an absence of planets in fire signs makes for peppery, ornery, theatrical Prima Donnas. This is in contrast to the aristocratic bearing and quiet air of self-assurance that characterizes the preponderance of planets in fire signs. Both the preponderance and the negative indication have a manner that is competent, dominating, and superior; but the preponderance assumes it where the negative indication asserts it.

An absence of planets in earth signs makes for natives who are busy and buzzing all the time, without actually accomplishing very much. In contrast to the down-to-earth, practical self-pacing of people with a preponderance of planets in earth signs, these natives are finicky, fastidious, and never quite comfortable with things.  Both the preponderance and negative indication are thorough and conscientious, but the preponderance has a clear sense of the possible (what they are comfortably capable of), whereas the negative indication is over-reaching and over-exacting of both themselves and other people.

An absence of planets in air signs makes for natives who talk a lot but don't say much of anything.  Albeit sociable and gregarious, they are vague and uncommunicative on a feeling level.  This contrasts with the preponderance of planets in air, which identifies people who are sharp, analytical, articulate, and tart.   Both the preponderance and negative indication avidly seek relationships, but the preponderance has a clearly defined sense of who they are and what they stand for, where the negative indication is not actually comfortable with people, but go through the motions of what they feel is expected of them.

An absence of planets in water signs makes for natives who are cheerful, flighty busybodies rather than actually sympathetic or helpful to anyone.  This contrasts with the sense of conscience and obligation to life which characterizes people with a preponderance of planets in water signs.  Both the preponderance and negative indication are intimate, candid, and direct, but the preponderance possesses an inner dignity where the negative indication tends to be prissy and perfunctory.

These few examples illustrate the usefulness and versatility of Dr. Jones' methodology.  It not only provides us with a useful investigative tool for delineating the meaning of any horoscope factor, but it also gives us a technique which can be directly applied to the interpretation of a natal horoscope.

(Copyright © 2010 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved).

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Statement of Purpose:

In point of fact, this ezine is not about magic, or paganism, or shamanism, or witchcraft; it's not even about astrology.  It's not about belief systems at all – rather, it's about getting beyond belief systems and analyzing what's really going on beneath the surface.  What is the point of rejecting one false belief system – the materialism which was inculcated into most of us from childhood – only to adopt another false belief system?  All belief systems are false, because what's really going on out there in the universe has nothing to do with belief (mind).  The universe is made of feelings (intent); not objects (thought forms).  The only cogent reason to adopt a variant belief system from the one in which most of us were raised is to provide a counterpoint or contradiction – another point of view – which will allow us to weasel between the two and ultimately not rely upon beliefs at all. 

Although we have been taught that we are abiding, separated individuals embedded in a matrix of space and time, the fact is that this is indeed merely a (false) belief.  As explained in the essay on Channeling Spirit Guides*, "In fact, our existence is multidimensional.  We not only exist in an infinite number of past and future lives, but we are also infinitely ramified in all the probable realities which branch off from this present lifetime.  …  Not only that, but within the confines of a single probable reality of a single lifetime, which is all we normally pay attention to or consider to be `ourselves', we are still multiple personalities.  That is to say, we are not the same person from moment to moment, but in fact shift from one to another subpersonalities, or thought forms, in response to this or that changing stimulus. … (We) are not solid, continuing, individual beings, but rather are a flux of thought forms (images, opinions, beliefs, and expectations learned from our parents and society) being urged this way and that by spirit forces."  Ponder these things well, because they are true.   The sooner each of us as individuals wakes up to this fact – that we are actually nothing but a momentary conjunction of tendencies – the sooner we can stop running about hither and thither and take command of our lives and destinies; and perhaps really accomplish something to save the earth and the human race.  That's what the practice of magic is all about. 

*filed in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/

* * * * * *

Nothing is lost; nothing is won; nothing defended; and nothing undone.

Bob Makransky's Astrology Corner 

www.dearbrutus.com  

presents:

MAGICAL ALMANAC for December 2009

In this issue: Kidraising;  Astrolocality

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            Kidraising for Fun and Profit

It isn't all that hard to be a good parent.  We all want to be good parents; we all try to be good parents; so with that motivation we're bound to succeed.  Being a good parent is simply a matter of:  1) following our own hearts, and 2) ignoring everything society has taught us about childraising.

Fundamentally, it's not our job as parents to teach our kids how to get along in society – to worry about their achievements or how well they're doing socially – much less to chastise them for not "measuring up".  Society has its Gestapo of teachers, coaches, clergymen, scout leaders, etc. – not to mention the pressure of peers, advertisers, and the media – to whip kids into line, to teach them to be "good citizens" and "team players", to "fit in" and "belong".  So kids don't need more of that crap when they get home.

What kids need from their parents is love.  They don't need criticism, blame, or guilt; they don't need unfavorable comparisons with other kids;  they don't need to be belittled or patronized, or to be treated rudely because their parent had a bad day at work.

When our kids come home with a lousy report card, or when they've committed some other atrocity against society, do we chastise them and make them feel bad; or do we commiserate with them and try to make them feel good?  They already feel bad at having transgressed society's expectations (even if they feign defiance).  Therefore, to clamp down on them, to try to impose our will on them, is not going to help them any; and if they have any gumption at all, some day they'll spit it all back in our faces.

Babies do not come into this world grumpy and truculent and spoiling for a fight.  Babies come into this world too spaced-out and vulnerable to be pugnacious.  Therefore, if there is anger and fighting going on in a parent-child relationship, then it is logical to assume that the parent is 100% to blame for the situation.

            Parents are confused, they are cowed and daunted by the sanctions society has in place if they fail in their role as taskmasters.  Parents have to understand that it's okay if their kids are failing their grade or getting into fights or doing drugs or are unmarried and pregnant.  If the kids are doing antisocial things or inviting dire consequences by their behavior, then obviously they're unhappy and out of kilter with their environment.  It's a parent's duty then to say, "Hey, what's bugging you?" rather then "Shape up or ship out!"  And if they don't want to talk to you, then you leave them alone.  You give them space, respect their feelings and their right to make their own decisions.

            Parents have to stop worrying about how their kids' behavior and achievements reflect back on them.  Who cares what the teachers and the neighbors think?  Our kids' feelings are more important.  It's not a question of taking sides with the kids, but rather entails seeing things from the kids' point of view.  It's not so much a matter of standing up for the kids, as standing by them.  The teacher has the whole system backing him or her up;  surely the kids deserve an impartial advocate, even if they're guilty as hell.

            Society drives a wedge of guilt into the parent-child relationship even before the kids are born.  The common fear (particularly with a first baby) that our kid might be born crippled or handicapped or something is actually fear that we won't be able to love the baby if it doesn't fulfill society's expectations.

            Society puts a lot of heavy guilt trips on parents to make them feel ashamed of their kids ("Have you heard what Sarah's boy has done now?"); and parents pass those same guilt and shame trips on to their kids ("You have failed me, son.").  Parents have to be reassured that no matter how their kids turn out, it doesn't mean that they failed as parents.  Even if the kids turn out to be like Heliogabalus, if the parents gave them true love, then they did their job well.  Even if the kids are truly weird or nasty – even if they masturbate publicly or torch the neighbor's cats – that is not the parents' fault, responsibility, or problem.  It's the kids' problem.

            It is not the parents' job to mold kids' characters or guide their development; to see that they have all the advantages or to teach them how to compete and succeed.  The parents' only job is to love their kids, to be able to say to them, "Well, you certainly screwed up there, but don't take it to heart.  You learned a lesson, you'll go on living and breathing, etc. etc." – whatever the kids need to hear at that moment to cheer up, to recover their sense of self-worth.  That's what kids need from their parents, and it's the only thing they need – ultimate acceptance, no matter what they've done.  And it's the parents' job to supply this.

            We're not talking about indulging kids, letting them run rampant.  In a "normal" parent-child relationship, the kids are taught to fear the parents' disapproval.  But there are some parents who reverse the usual roles, and fear their kids' disapproval.  Usually these kids become real hellions and grow up drunk with power, with little respect for other people's space.  We're not talking about switching approval / disapproval roles;  we're talking about dispensing with approval / disapproval altogether.  Approval is as damaging as disapproval. To say to a kid, "I love you because you fulfill my expectations and make other parents envy me." is as nasty a thing to say to a kid as, "I don't love you because you bring me no glory."  To discipline our kids, all we have to do is say to them, "Hey, I don't like what you did there for these reasons … ."  Period.  Say it once, calmly, as you would do with another adult.  Don't hammer at the kids and wipe your bad vibes all over them.

            We must be willing to apologize to our kids when we've overstepped ourselves and made them feel bad needlessly; and this doesn't mean a half-hearted, "Oh well, maybe I overreacted there, but still you shouldn't have … ."  It means a full, complete cop:  "Sorry.  I guess I got on your case about nothing."

            The way we can tell if we're blowing it is:  if we feel annoyed or disappointed in our kids, then we're wrong.  If we ever feel anything other than good about our kids, accepting of our kids, sympathetic to our kids, then we're wrong.  If we can't feel good about our kids at all times, then we're blowing it.  This is why raising kids is such a terrific spiritual reality check – it shows us precisely how far away we are from enlightenment.

            The trick is to tell kids what they're doing wrong calmly and collectedly, without releasing a dart of anger, impatience, or annoyance.  Of course, to be able to do this we have to have our own self-importance under control – to be light and detached (rather than to permit ourselves to be sucked into our kids' bad moods).

            If parents were enlightened beings, perhaps then they would have a moral right to interfere in their kids' lives.  If parents were exalted beings (as their kids believe them to be), maybe then their approval or disapproval would have value.  But the fact is that parents don't have any more of a clue as to what's really going on than their kids do.  The only guide they've got is what their own parents drummed into them:  fear of disapproval.

            We should act towards our kids exactly the same way that we wished our parents had done for us when we were kids.  It's trite to say it, but inevitably, 100% of the time, when we are angry at our kids about something, what we are angry at is precisely what our parents used to get angry at us about. 

            From whom did we learn that this behavior (what our kid is doing) is unacceptable?  Why does this behavior anger us?  Not the ostensible reason – what we are telling ourselves and the kid – but rather the actual reason why we find such-and-such a behavior objectionable:  what our kid is doing openly that our parents forced us to repress.  See, we all tell ourselves that we're angry at our kids because of this or that very valid reason.  We all have impeccably logical reasons why we must bend our kids out of shape; close our hearts to them by labeling their feelings "acceptable" or "unacceptable";  force them to knuckle under to us in exactly the same fashion that our parents forced us to knuckle under to them.  We thereby pass our own anger at our parents for having forced us to knuckle under on to our kids, as if to say to our parents, "See, Mommy and Daddy!  I forgive you for having closed your hearts to me and having put more importance on your bullshit images than on my true feelings – my need as a completely vulnerable infant for the greatest tenderness, delicacy, and respect – for I have done the same thing to my own children!"  And so it goes:  the torch of self-hatred is handed down from generation to generation.  It only stops if we quit getting angry at our kids altogether, no matter what they do or don't do.  This is not all that hard to accomplish once we make the connection that in spite of all our wonderful logic and self-justification, all we're doing when we're angry with our kids is upholding that side of our own parents which we despised the most.

            To a kid his parents are God incarnate.  If a kid feels he can trust his parents, then later on he'll naturally trust in God.  Another way of saying this is, upon becoming parents we take upon ourselves the mantle of Godhood willy-nilly.  This is a very serious presumption and responsibility.  Most of us blow it.  But the point is, since we are masquerading as God, we should at least do a good job of faking it.

            This means giving our kids 100% acceptance and forgiveness, no matter what they've done (just as God does for us).  Check out how God deals with us:  when we screw up, does God dramatically appear in a burning bush and give us hell?  No, God doesn't do that; God leaves us alone to stew in our own juice and to figure things out for ourselves.  To treat our kids like God treats us means not making them feel worse about themselves, but rather better, as if they were still worthwhile beings, worthy of salvation and redemption, no matter how sinful they may have been.  It means not being angry with them but rather tender with them; feeling what they feel instead of trying to make them feel our feelings (agree with us).

            Most parents have truly loving impulses; but society sends parents the wrong messages – it makes them feel guilty about being  "weak" or "soft-hearted" or "spoiling" kids.  Parents just have to know that feeling with their kids – withholding all negative judgment, criticism, and blame, is okay;  that it's fine to be completely tender and sympathetic all the time; that it's not a sign of weakness to understand things from the kids' viewpoint.

            When you get annoyed with your kids, think of this:  if they were to die in the next moment, would you still give a damn about whatever you are angry at them about?  Is that what you would want your last message to them to be – annoyance over some stupid triviality?

            The next time you jump on your kids for something, think about how you would feel if they were to die in your arms in the next moment; and ask yourself if whatever you're on their case about is worth trashing the short time you will spend on this earth together.

(Excerpted from Magical Living, Copyright © 2001 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved).

* * * * * *

About the author:  Bob Makransky is a systems analyst, computer programmer and professional astrologer.  He lives on a farm in highland Guatemala where he is a Mayan priest and is head of the local blueberry growers' association.  Check out his free downloadable Mayan Horoscope software, free downloadable Planetary Hours calculator, free downloadable Primary Directions / celestial sphere mathematics textbook, complete instructions on how to channel by automatic writing and how to run past life regressions, articles, books, stories, cartoons, etc. etc. at www.dearbrutus.com

* * * * * *

GREAT NEWS!!!

Ken Gillman has announced that the entire oevres of Considerations magazine (1983 – 2006) – the best astrology magazine ever published – is now available free at:

www.freeconsiderations.com

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Life Reading by Bob Makransky

Overall potentials and possible problem areas in life, with specific recommendations regarding career, love life, etc. together with answers to any particular questions you might have regarding your life or horoscope.  Includes trends for the next 3 years.  Send time, date, and place of birth with check for $150 (personal checks are okay, but money orders negotiable only in the U.S. are not) to:  Bob Makransky – Apartado #36 – Cobαn, Alta Verapaz – Guatemala; or e-mail Bob for info on how to wire transfer payment (bmakransky(at)yahoo.com).

"I want to thank you for doing my chart, and for the things that you pinpointed for me. It has been extremely helpful to me, and I am working hard at changing and growing and learning. Your work serves as an incredible service to those who seek direction and understanding of the blocks and challenges that we all have. Many, many thanks." –  D.F.

* * * * * *

Books by Bob Makransky

Check out www.dearbrutus.com for complete reviews and excerpts; order by snail-mail (see below):

ARE YOU READY FOR REAL, IN-DEPTH ASTROLOGY?

ARE YOU READY FOR REAL, IN-DEPTH MAGIC?

Thought Forms

by Bob Makransky

Astronomical and astrological explanations of Mercury's synodic cycle – its cycle of phases as it circles the sun, with tables 1900-2050.

Complete delineations for Superior and Inferior Conjunction, Greatest Eastern and Western Elongation, Stationary Retrograde and Direct, and their intervening phases in the natal, progressed, and transiting horoscopes.

Explanation of the astrological / magical view of mind (the theory of Thought Forms):  what consciousness is, how it arose, and whither it is going.

Basic course in white magic with detailed instructions on:  How to Channel and Banish Thought Forms; Creative Visualization; How to banish the Black Magicians in everyday life; How to Cast out Demons; How to use Tree Spirits.

     "Bob Makransky is a knowledgeable, purposeful and entertaining writer."  

– Paul F. Newman, The International Astrologer

     "Steady Diamond Fire readers are well acquainted with the genius of Bob

Makransky.  Highly recommendable."  – Joseph Polansky, Diamond Fire

     "Readers have become familiar with [Makransky's] fresh insights into different facets of  astrology.  In this book Thought Forms he is especially provocative and I strongly recommend its purchase and study." – Ken Gillman, Considerations

     "I will fully agree with the statement that `You've never read a book like this before!'  The  material is fresh and woven very skillfully to conclusion.  I look forward to his next installment of the trilogy."  – Marion MacMillan, SHAPE

           An indispensable reference you'll consult every time you read a chart!

* * * * * *

BASIC COURSE IN WHITE MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS!

Magical Living

By Bob Makransky

Winner of the Sacramento Publishers' Association awards for Best Nonfiction and Best Spiritual book of 2001!

Magical Living  is a collection of essays which give detailed, how-to instructions on channeling spirit guides, communicating with plants and nature spirits; together with inspirational essays on managing love relationships, handling oppressive people, and dealing with hurt.  

–    "I love this little book! ... Carry this book with you, read and reread the essays, and connect with joy. " – Kathryn Lanier, InnerChange magazine

–     "He writes beautifully, clearly, elegantly …  he is incapable of an unoriginal     thought."  –  Joseph Polansky, Diamond Fire magazine

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TO ORDER THOUGHT FORMS OR MAGICAL LIVING:

Cost: $19.95 for each copy of Thought Forms; $14.95 for each copy of Magical Living

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Almanac for December 2009

The purpose of this almanac is to list the most important astrological events each month to help you plan your life in harmony with cosmic currents. You can easily select the best times each month to advance, hold back, confront, avoid, accept, refuse, yield or stand your ground, in order to enhance your chances of success.

Mutual transits are points of inflection, or moments when things could go one way or the other.  Often on these days something is discovered, some truth revealed, or a new door opens to us.  There are days with favorable times to begin new ventures, to approach others for favors, to initiate healing, to pray or cast spells, to energize amulets and crystals, and so forth.  Conversely, in the case of inharmonious aspects, avoidance of these activities is recommended.

What we are trying to do is to tune into the ambient rhythms of the cosmos.  We tend to be alienated from the universal harmonies because of our stressful life styles:  we feel disconnected, isolated, powerless, adrift and alone in an uncaring universe.  We have lost our sense of being part of an eternal, ongoing process. 

Astrology can help us to regain our sense of connection to the universe and to the earth by teaching us how to look at our daily lives as a series of lessons.  Astrology teaches detachment:  we learn that by paying attention to and adapting to the cosmic rhythms, we can come to a deeper sense of connection to the universe and a greater sense meaning and purpose in our personal lives.

The table below includes transiting conjunctions and oppositions of the planets other than moon; Stationary Retrograde and Stationary Direct positions; and the Greatest Western and Greatest Eastern Elongation positions of Mercury and Venus.  If the zodiacal degree of the transit conjoins or opposes a planet in your own natal horoscope within two degrees orb, then be alert to what happens this day (and the day before and after).  This is a time when the universe sends you important new information.  The nature of the event is symbolized by the transiting planet(s); the nature of your response is symbolized by the natal planet(s) at or opposed to the longitude of the transit.

For example, on December 28, 2009 Venus conjoins Pluto at 3 CP 10 in opposition to Barack Obama's natal Venus in 1 CN 49, which might bring the president a REVEALING, SOCIABLE event which heightens his sense of INTIMACY (something he discovers about a friend or family member which gives him greater insight).

To launch projects, make prayers, or cast spells, one should use the times in this table in conjunction with the Planetary Hours.  Look for a relevant Planetary Hour within 24 hours before the exact time given in the table below.  This table is in Eastern Time:  in the Central time zone subtract an hour; in the Mountain time zone subtract two hours; in the Pacific time zone subtract 3 hours; from the times listed here.  To use Planetary Hours, download the free Planetary Hours calculator from the Magical Almanac files http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Magical%20Almanac/ or from http://www.dearbrutus.com/body_planetaryhours.html.   This is an Excel worksheet with complete instructions; however when you open it, it will ask if you want to disable the macros.  Since it won't work with its macros disabled, click on "Enable Macros" (you may have to have previously reduced the Excel security protocol: Tools => Macro => Security => Low). 

            To make a prayer or cast a spell (for detailed information see the BOS file posted at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/):  at the chosen time clear your mind, light a candle and make a fervent, heartfelt wish – imagine the scene of your wish coming true as though it were happening right now, all around you.  If other people are involved (e.g., if asking for a favor), imagine that you are looking them right in the eye and talking to them as if they were right there in front of you.  Let yourself feel the feelings you actually would feel if your wish were to come true.  Then watch closely to see how the candle burns:  if it's difficult to light it, then it will be difficult for your wish to come true.  If the flame burns steadily and brightly, the wish will come true.  If the flame smokes or is feeble, or the candle falls over, forget it. 

     Keyword Interpretations for Transiting and Natal Planets:

(Detailed interpretations for the transiting and natal planets are filed in the How to Use Magical Almanac Tutorial folder at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Magical%20Almanac/)

12/01/2009 @ 15:34 = 22 PI 42 = Uranus Stationary Direct = An unexpected (serendipitous or calamitous) event may shake you out of your ordinary routines and doldrums.  It's a message to relax and go with the flow.  This is a good time to make prayers or cast spells to free yourself of hindrances and realize your dreams, ideals, and highest aspirations (use a sun hour and a white candle).

12/02/2009 @ 2:31 = 10 GE 15 = Full moon

12/07/2009 @ 4:10 = 2 CP 25 = Mercury conjunct Pluto = You can see very clearly what is really going on beneath the surface.  You are objective and disinterested and can facilitate accord (use Mercury hour to approach others).

December 7th is the day they burn the devil in Guatemala.  Everyone cleans out their houses and burns the trash in the street in front of their house at dusk.  Because this day has the intent of casting out evil, it is a good day for anyone to clean their home of negative influences.  Negative thought forms collect especially in rooms where fights have taken place or where evil people have been; and they tend to aggregate around windows, doorways, pictures on the wall, bookshelves, etc.  Light a censor with an acrid incense such as copal or patchouli, and walk around each room wafting the smoke this way and that, especially at windows, pictures, TV and computer (especially the TV and computer), furniture, etc.  As you waft the smoke, intend the cleansing of the room and its objects of negative thought forms.   I like to make a cross of incense smoke in each doorway.  This smoke cleansing should actually be done more often than once a year, and especially after there has been fighting, or visits from negative people.  My teacher has me incense out my house every week. 

12/16/2009 @ 7:03 = 24 SG 40 = New moon

12/18/2009 @ 17:11 = 17 CP 16 = Mercury Greatest Eastern Elongation = Things are pushed to the limits, to the edge of what is acceptable.  There may be a breakdown in communications, or you have to take a detour from your normal mode of action.   You may have to put on the brakes, shift perspective, or adapt your own opinion to the necessities of the time.  You have to see the larger picture now, be open to other people's ideas and points of view.  This can result in a better understanding and deeper appreciation of other people's viewpoints, and of where your own limits lie.

12/20/2009 @ 8:27 = 19 LE 42 = Mars Stationary Retrograde = Intense involvements with other people (though not necessarily conflictive).  You have to take a position, stand up for yourself, be willing to fully commit yourself (use a Mars hour).  Good day to cast spells for protection and guidance – for yourself or someone else – in athletic contests, for going to war, or for courage generally (use a Mars hour and a red candle). 

12/21/2009 @ 4:37 = 24 AQ 18 = Jupiter conjunct Neptune = Inspiration, benevolent impulses, divine guidance.  You may have an opportunity to share wisdom or reach out to other people in a spiritual way; or you may receive a spiritual gift from others.  Good day to trip, or to cast spells for enlightenment.  Also an excellent day to start channeling your spirit guides – if you are not doing this already, what are you waiting for?  It's really easy!  This is your point of entry into the world of magic, of doing it instead of just thinking about it or wishing for it.  Use a Jupiter or moon hour, and follow the instructions in the Channeling Spirit Guides article posted at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/

12/24/2009 @ 12:28 = 3 CP 03 = sun conjunct Pluto = Deep insight into others' motivations may bring the solution to a problem (tackle it during a sun hour).  You are detached, objective, and confident of your abilities now, and are in a decisive mood. 

12/26/2009 @ 9:40 = 21 CP 47 = Mercury Stationary Retrograde = A breakthrough, perhaps quite unexpected, in your current situation or relationships. You see yourself in a new light, in a new role vis a vis other people, and need tact, aplomb, and confidence in your own abilities. You get past a blind spot – a sticking point or hang-up – that was holding you back, by looking at things from a new point of view.  Good day to address intransigent people or tackle intractable problems (approach them during a Mercury hour). Your optimism and enthusiasm are fired up and you are able to make progress in the realization of your life goals.  

12/28/2009 @ 1:47 = 3 CP 10 = Venus conjunct Pluto = There may be hidden feelings or unspoken agendas that must be addressed consciously to avoid hurt.  Objectivity (rather than obsessiveness) is called for – seeing clearly the other person's motivations. 

12/31/2009 @ 14:14 = 10 CN 15 = Full moon (lunar eclipse)

* * * * * *

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Astrolocality

Of the few modern astrological techniques which seem to work quite well, astrolocality mapping is without question one of the most useful.  The basic idea is to erect a horoscope for the same Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time) as the birth chart, but for the location on the earth where the native lives (or plans to travel) at the present time.  Thus the planetary positions in celestial longitude remain the same as in the birth chart, but the angles (ASC and MC) differ.  The essential point is to observe what planets conjoin or aspect the angles for the new location. 

One way to calculate the relocated angles using standard astrological software is to erect a chart for the UT (or GMT) of birth, but for the intended location.  It is also possible to project the loci of points where a given planet conjoins the horizon or meridian onto a world map (but this requires special software).  What emerges is a map with horizon (sinusoidal) lines running across it; and meridian (due north and south) lines running straight up and down.  The idea is that these lines show favorable or unfavorable places on the earth.  And in fact, they often do.  However, while existing astrological software makes erecting these maps quite simple, the fact is that no existing astrological software does the job correctly, because the existing theory of astrolocality mapping is still in development.  This article has some suggestions based on personal experience to assist in the process of wisely selecting propitious (or avoiding unpropitious) places based on the astrolocality technique.  And although I can't produce full maps (no one can at the present time because no one has yet done the requisite programming), I am available for consultations on specific projected locations.

Note first of all that one must use very narrow orbs of inexactitude, which implies a very exact time of birth.  Commercial astrolocality services and software providers downplay this most important point, since so few people know (or have rectified) their birth times to within a minute.  A difference of four minutes in the time of birth throws the planetary lines out by about sixty miles on the earth; so if the birth time is not accurately known, the technique is largely useless.  On the other hand, astrolocality mapping of places where a native has lived or had extraordinary experiences can provide a useful check on the accuracy of a trial rectification.  As a matter of fact, I have yet to see an exactly rectified horoscope that doesn't yield at least one partile conjunction or opposition in longitude between a natal planet or angle in the birth horoscope, and a place on earth where the native has lived for any amount of time; with apropos astrological symbolism (consider e.g. the examples from my own horoscope, mentioned below, which have very close orbs).  It really is necessary to use tight orbs – say, half a degree of longitude in measuring aspects to angles; or 30 miles on earth – at the outside; and I prefer using 10' of arc in longitude and 10 miles on earth when I am counseling clients on favorable places to which to relocate or vacation.  The astrological effect falls off rapidly beyond this orb.  

Another important point about commercial astrolocality software is that it only computes Ptolemaic aspects (sometimes only conjunctions and oppositions); whereas all multiple-of-thirty degree aspects can be significant in astrolocality work, and should be taken into account.  Not only that, but the cardinal points (0° Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn) and even the other sign cusps can be significant.  Take a look at the critical degrees too:  the angles of the astrolocality chart cast for the place where I have lived for the past 35 years has no aspects whatever to any natal planets in my chart; but the ASC is exactly (within 1' orb) conjunct a critical degree.

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of difference between horizon and meridian lines insofar as interpretation is concerned; but I term the horizon lines "karma" lines and the meridian lines "success" lines, because the former do seem to relate more to subjective, emotional experiences – life lessons; and the latter tend to relate to outward, societal issues:  success – or lack of same. 

As an example (see the TR Charts folder in the Magical Almanac files, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files), consider Theodore Roosevelt's chart relocated for Medora, ND, where TR went into the ranching business; had some great adventures; and eventually lost his shirt when a devastating winter killed all his cattle.  The MC for Medora is 2 AQ 38, trine natal Uranus at 2 GE 31, and square natal Mercury (which is combust and opposition Pluto) at 2 SC 58. 

TR's chart relocated for the Battle of San Juan Hill, Cuba – which he termed the greatest day of his life – has 11 GE 42 rising, sextile natal Saturn at 11 LE 40. 

TR's chart relocated for Washington DC has 21 GE 23 on the ASC, conjunct his natal Jupiter in 21 GE 05. 

Another important point to remember is that planets which are strong in the natal chart – which are unaspected or well-aspected; or at the least strong by sign, angularity, conjunct a bright fixed star, etc. – will point to places which are fortunate for the native.  Planets which are afflicted or otherwise weak will only bring pain or disappointment. 

For example, the ASC where I went to college (Hartford) is located at 4 SC 34, square my natal moon in 4AQ38.  My natal moon opposes a Venus-sun-Saturn-Pluto conjunction on the MC, and trines Neptune.   Now, I wasn't particularly happy at college; and in fact I never graduated (which fits the lunar symbolism).  On the other hand, I got into psychedelic drugs (Neptune) and the hippie movement at college, which definitely changed my life for the better. 

The ASC for Buffalo, where I spent a rather sad few months in my youth, is located at 29 LI 26, square my afflicted Venus at 29 CN 36.  I got busted coming into the US from Canada to visit an ex-girlfriend, and had to spend the winter freezing my butt off awaiting trial, and watching her screwing everyone in sight but me. 

The MC where I spent a tough but liberating year and a half (Santa Rosa CA) – overworked, underpaid, and stressed-out; but at the same time disciplined and tough (have never been in such good physical shape before or since then) – is located at 24 GE 35, conjunct my natal Uranus at 24 GE 37 (Uranus forms a duet with Mars in the natal chart). 

The DESC where I journeyed for 4 months to South America (to visit an old college buddy who'd gone off to live alone in the jungle and was about 87% nuts by the time I arrived) is located at 12 LE 35, conjunct my natal Pluto at 12 LE 50 and my natal Saturn at 11 LE 55.  It was a pretty intense and sobering experience (particularly once when I got lost in the jungle), but nowhere near as bad as I might have feared had I known that I was heading straight into the heart of my Saturn-Pluto conjunction.. 

Once I was driving across the country with a few pounds of marijuana under the front seat of my car, when I was stopped by cops in Albuquerque who asked for my license; and then suddenly they called six more police cars and surrounded me.  After about 15 minutes of suspense the cops came to my car, returned my license, and told me to have a nice day.  For me Albuquerque has an ASC of 8 LI 35, conjunct my natal Neptune in 8 LI 31 (my natal Neptune mediates my sun – moon opposition since it is the point of a wedge which trines moon and sextiles sun-Saturn-Pluto on the MC, so for me Neptune is highly favorable). 

It might be asked why I haven't moved to a place which is more favorable to me.  The answer is that I didn't discover astrolocality until I had already moved to my present abode, where I have lived for the past 35 years.  Anyway, it's exactly conjunct a critical degree here, which is bad for material things but good for spiritual things; and that is exactly correct:  I've gone bankrupt in two agricultural businesses I started here, but I've made some amazing spiritual connections with my Mayan neighbors (for more information on critical degrees, see http://dearbrutus.com/critical_degrees.html).  Moreover, the only really good aspect in my otherwise afflicted natal chart is the Mercury – Jupiter trine; and I guess I'm just not an Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, or Texas kind of person. 

If you would like me to calculate favorable places to relocate or vacation, I charge US $50 for this service (see Life Reading info above on how to make remittance).  I don't calculate a whole map but merely offer advice on a few places or general areas of your choosing; and need to know what you hope to accomplish there (to have fun; to make money; to find love or spiritual illumination; whatever).  Remember the caveat about exact birth times:  if you don't know your exact birth time (to within a minute) then the astrolocality technique is useless. 

* * * * * *

Bob recommends:  The very best book (and one of the least expensive) for a complete beginner to learn astrology is Ronald Davison's Astrology.  Free software to calculate your natal horoscope and the charts of your friends and relations can be downloaded from: http://www.astrowin.org/  or http://www.magitech.com/%7Ecruiser1/astrolog.htm 

* * * * * *

Bulletin Board:

* * * * * *

Bob Recommends: this is a great website for learning how to channel (Slade can give personal attention which Bob doesn't have time to do):

Shift Your Spirits – Slade Roberson
83% fewer hearts and flowers than the leading New Age blather
 http://sladeroberson.com/

* * * * *

Wicca Spirit Newsletter

Wicca Spirit Newsletter for Wiccans, Pagans, Witches, & Seekers

Wiccan / Pagan Newsletter has loads of information you can USE, with  

resources, classes, free pagan classifieds, forums, discussion 

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poet?  - let us showcase your work!   http://www.wiccaspirit.net/

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Diamond Fire Magazine

"The best metaphysical magazine in America." – Bob Makransky

Astrology, metaphysics, Jewish Kabbalism, Christian mysticism, channeling, dowsing, consciousness, spirituality, and much more!

e-mail:  DiamondFireMagazine(at)comcast.net

subscriptions:  $40 / year; $70 / 2 years

Malchitsedek Productions

P.O. Box 7368

North Port, FL 34290  USA

* * * * * *

The Magician's Creed

You are the people,

You are this season's people –

There are no other people this season.

If you blow it, it's blown.

                                                           – Stephen Gaskin

I. The human race is in imminent danger of self-destructing and dragging our mother earth down with it.

II. There will be no miraculous salvation due to so-called Mayan 2012 prophecies; or Jesus' or the Mahdi's return; much less from the irresponsible governments, corporations, media, and academics who go us into this mess in the first place.

III. The theory of probable realities states that each individual person decides the fate of the entire universe.  If you truly choose to save the world, you will wind up in a probable reality in which the world is saved. 

IV. The only chance for survival – not to mention prosperity – is for each individual to reject society's mutual suicide pact and make saving the earth and future generations their NUMBER 1 PRIORITY (as opposed to something they may get around to someday).  This is the magician's equivalent of the Bodhisattva's oath. 

V. Rejecting social conditioning means eradicating all trace of self-pity.  Only by clear, sober, objective thinking – as opposed to the endless loop of yada-yada nonsense emanating from society – can each individual save him/herself and the earth.

VI. This type of thinking is based upon what each person's heart tells them.  It is different for everybody; and everybody has to find their own answers for themselves by examining their own habitual thoughts, moods, and concerns minutely.  To do this magicians use various techniques, including:

            a)  techniques of self-analysis such as Active Imagination and Recapitulation.

            b)  techniques of transformation such as resorting to tree spirits and the earth.

            c)  techniques of hopefulness such as Creative Visualization. 

VII. Detaching from society's conditioning of self-pity necessarily implies taking complete responsibility for oneself rather than wallowing in helplessness or daydreaming.  To do this magicians:

            a) channel their own spirit guides themselves for information and advice;

            b) go to nature spirits for validation rather than seek the approval of other people or society;

            c) become as self-sufficient and frugal as possible, including growing at least some of their own food and reducing their needs to the bare minimum. 

VIII. The goal of magic is to make everyday life more dreamlike; to be able to feel comfortable in situations beyond one's control.  Feeling relaxed and in good shape even in the midst of a maelstrom is called "enlightenment".  Enlightenment doesn't mean light as opposed to dark; but rather light as opposed to heavy. 

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Statement of Purpose:

In point of fact, this ezine is not about magic, or paganism, or shamanism, or witchcraft; it's not even about astrology.  It's not about belief systems at all – rather, it's about getting beyond belief systems and analyzing what's really going on beneath the surface.  What is the point of rejecting one false belief system – the materialism which was inculcated into most of us from childhood – only to adopt another false belief system?  All belief systems are false, because what's really going on out there in the universe has nothing to do with belief (mind).  The universe is made of feelings (intent); not objects (thought forms).  The only cogent reason to adopt a variant belief system from the one in which most of us were raised is to provide a counterpoint or contradiction – another point of view – which will allow us to weasel between the two and ultimately not rely upon beliefs at all. 

Although we have been taught that we are abiding, separated individuals embedded in a matrix of space and time, the fact is that this is indeed merely a (false) belief.  As explained in the essay on Channeling Spirit Guides*, "In fact, our existence is multidimensional.  We not only exist in an infinite number of past and future lives, but we are also infinitely ramified in all the probable realities which branch off from this present lifetime.  …  Not only that, but within the confines of a single probable reality of a single lifetime, which is all we normally pay attention to or consider to be `ourselves', we are still multiple personalities.  That is to say, we are not the same person from moment to moment, but in fact shift from one to another subpersonalities, or thought forms, in response to this or that changing stimulus. … (We) are not solid, continuing, individual beings, but rather are a flux of thought forms (images, opinions, beliefs, and expectations learned from our parents and society) being urged this way and that by spirit forces."  Ponder these things well, because they are true.   The sooner each of us as individuals wakes up to this fact – that we are actually nothing but a momentary conjunction of tendencies – the sooner we can stop running about hither and thither and take command of our lives and destinies; and perhaps really accomplish something to save the earth and the human race.  That's what the practice of magic is all about. 

*filed in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/

Bob Makransky's Astrology Corner 

www.dearbrutus.com  

presents:

MAGICAL ALMANAC for November 2009

In this issue: What We Can Learn from Plants;  Configurations

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What We Can Learn From Plants

This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days.   But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge.   "I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard," she told me.   "In  my  former  life  I  was  spoiled  and  did  not take spiritual  accomplishments  seriously."    Pointing   through the window of the hut she said, "This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness."   Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms.    "I often talk to this tree," she said to me.   I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words.   Was she delirious?   Did she have occasional hallucinations?   Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied.   "Yes."    What did it say to her? She answered,   "It said to me,   `I am here – I am here – I am life, eternal life.'" 

-  Viktor Frankl,  Man's Search for Meaning

            What we can learn from plants is how to be joyous.  We can't learn that from other people, usually, because the setup with other people isn't to be joyous; on the contrary, it is to be fearful, close-hearted, and uptight.  Therefore, to learn to be joyous, we have to go to the plants.  If we can first learn to be joyous from the plants – who aren't out to cause us grief – we can then learn to be joyous with our fellow humans.

Of course, the joy we receive from plants doesn't have all the ego zing of a sexy partner, or a mother's approval, or the boss's congratulations; but it's always there.  That's the nice thing.  No matter how horribly our lives are going, or how much rejection other people heap upon us, the plants are always there being happy.

At a nearby airport there is a hedge in front of the entrance for departing passengers, and when the wind blows across the hedge the shrubs wave "Bye-bye!  Bon Voyage!  Feliz Viaje!"  to all the passengers.  Nobody pays any attention to them, but the plants don't care.  They don't need people's acknowledgment and validation to be happy.  They're just there, pouring love out into the world.  That's their job, and the people passing by receive that love whether they're consciously aware of it or not.

The plants are what keep this from being a hell world.  There are no plants in a hell world.  The plants in this world are not just the bottom of the food chain; they're anchoring all of us uptight animals to the earth's love.  They aren't just the source of all our oxygen; they're the source of all our joy.  They just sit there casting joy out all over the place.

What we can learn from plants is that there is love surrounding us all the time, every minute, had we but the wit to see it, feel it.  We are being offered love all the time, but we reject it because we don't understand that's what love is.  We think love should be zappier, instead of quiet and peaceful and waving in the wind.

The love which plants offer us – the sound of leaves rustling, the smell of pine needles – is all there is.  This is not a poetic metaphor:  it's a cold, hard fact of life.  If we want / need / desire something to make us happy beyond what the plants offer us, then we're just out of luck, because that's all there is.  If we can't find happiness in what's going on outside our windows right this minute, then we're just out of luck. 

To tune into plants is quite simple.  First of all, you must have the conviction that there is indeed something you can learn from plants.  You can't go in there with the attitude that you're better, smarter, or superior to a plant.  We're all taught that we're superior to plants, just as we're taught that we're superior to other people.  And just as we don't pay much attention to the people we think we're superior to, we can't tune into the feelings of plants if we think we're superior to them.  It isn't hard to overcome this prejudice if we just bear in mind that in the only thing that really matters in life – being joyous unto one's self – plants have it all over us humans.

Go to the plants every single day, for at least fifteen minutes or half an hour.  Go sit out under a tree – perhaps during lunch break.  It's better to make such a space for yourself during the day, as a break from the buzz-buzz, but do it at night if you can't find time during the day.  But go every day, preferably alone, without fail.  Make it the most important item on your agenda – that this brief time you take for yourself with the plants is inviolable.  If you make such a firm decision – that being joyous is an unalterable priority in your life – then the joy itself will follow naturally.

            No specific instructions are needed on where you should go or what you should do there.  If there's some specific tree or woods or meadow that calls your attention, then go there.  If not, just go where you feel like going, or where you conveniently can go.  Get away from people, if possible, and do what you feel like doing.  There is no particular procedure, and you should have no particular expectations.  Maybe the plants will start talking to you;  if you ask them to nicely, they will.  If not, you may never feel anything out of the ordinary except for a subtle feeling of relaxation, a general lightening up of your entire life, as time goes on.

What the plants are offering us is true love, if we take the trouble to avail ourselves of it.  They will give it to us whether we feel what they are doing to us or not, whether we are consciously aware of it or not.  So don't worry if you can't seem to feel with the plants in the beginning.  All you have to do is to make a firm commitment to put yourself under their tutelage, and they will find a way to do the rest.           

Be assured that the plants are actually acting on you.  It takes a while to pick up the thread of what they're doing to you, but after a while you find they can calm you down and soothe you, no matter what kind of frenzy is going on in your world of people.

In other words, the interactions we have with plants are of a different order than the interactions we have going on with people.  We interact with plants on an intuitive level, a feeling level; whereas we interact with other people on a thought form level (of images, expectations, defenses, competition, etc.).  Most of us have forgotten how to relate on a feeling level, but the plants themselves will teach us how to do this if we make a serious effort to learn, in a day-by-day fashion.

You can't expect immediate results, but surely after six or eight months of going to the plants every day you should at least be beginning to understand what the plants are doing to you.  When you get to the place where your hiatus with the plants is the high point of your daily routine – the part of your day which you most eagerly anticipate – then you can be said to have arrived:  to understand what we can learn from plants.

(Excerpted from Magical Living, Copyright © 2001 by Bob Makransky.  All rights reserved).

* * * * * *

About the author:  Bob Makransky is a systems analyst, computer programmer and professional astrologer.  He lives on a farm in highland Guatemala where he is a Mayan priest and is head of the local blueberry growers' association.  Check out his free downloadable Mayan Horoscope software, free downloadable Planetary Hours calculator, free downloadable Primary Directions / celestial sphere mathematics textbook, complete instructions on how to channel by automatic writing and how to run past life regressions, articles, books, stories, cartoons, etc. etc. at www.dearbrutus.com

* * * * * *

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Life Reading by Bob Makransky

Overall potentials and possible problem areas in life, with specific recommendations regarding career, love life, etc. together with answers to any particular questions you might have regarding your life or horoscope.  Includes trends for the next 3 years.  Send time, date, and place of birth with check for $150 (personal checks are okay, but money orders negotiable only in the U.S. are not) to:  Bob Makransky – Apartado #36 – Cobαn, Alta Verapaz – Guatemala; or e-mail Bob for info on how to wire transfer payment (bmakransky(at)yahoo.com).

"I want to thank you for doing my chart, and for the things that you pinpointed for me. It has been extremely helpful to me, and I am working hard at changing and growing and learning. Your work serves as an incredible service to those who seek direction and understanding of the blocks and challenges that we all have. Many, many thanks." –  D.F.

* * * * * *

Books by Bob Makransky

Check out www.dearbrutus.com for complete reviews and excerpts; order by snail-mail (see below):

ARE YOU READY FOR REAL, IN-DEPTH ASTROLOGY?

ARE YOU READY FOR REAL, IN-DEPTH MAGIC?

Thought Forms

by Bob Makransky

Astronomical and astrological explanations of Mercury's synodic cycle – its cycle of phases as it circles the sun, with tables 1900-2050.

Complete delineations for Superior and Inferior Conjunction, Greatest Eastern and Western Elongation, Stationary Retrograde and Direct, and their intervening phases in the natal, progressed, and transiting horoscopes.

Explanation of the astrological / magical view of mind (the theory of Thought Forms):  what consciousness is, how it arose, and whither it is going.

Basic course in white magic with detailed instructions on:  How to Channel and Banish Thought Forms; Creative Visualization; How to banish the Black Magicians in everyday life; How to Cast out Demons; How to use Tree Spirits.

     "Bob Makransky is a knowledgeable, purposeful and entertaining writer."  

– Paul F. Newman, The International Astrologer

     "Steady Diamond Fire readers are well acquainted with the genius of Bob

Makransky.  Highly recommendable."  – Joseph Polansky, Diamond Fire

     "Readers have become familiar with [Makransky's] fresh insights into different facets of  astrology.  In this book Thought Forms he is especially provocative and I strongly recommend its purchase and study." – Ken Gillman, Considerations

     "I will fully agree with the statement that `You've never read a book like this before!'  The  material is fresh and woven very skillfully to conclusion.  I look forward to his next installment of the trilogy."  – Marion MacMillan, SHAPE

           An indispensable reference you'll consult every time you read a chart!

* * * * * *

BASIC COURSE IN WHITE MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS!

Magical Living

By Bob Makransky

Winner of the Sacramento Publishers' Association awards for Best Nonfiction and Best Spiritual book of 2001!

Magical Living  is a collection of essays which give detailed, how-to instructions on channeling spirit guides, communicating with plants and nature spirits; together with inspirational essays on managing love relationships, handling oppressive people, and dealing with hurt.  

–    "I love this little book! ... Carry this book with you, read and reread the essays, and connect with joy. " – Kathryn Lanier, InnerChange magazine

–     "He writes beautifully, clearly, elegantly …  he is incapable of an unoriginal     thought."  –  Joseph Polansky, Diamond Fire magazine

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TO ORDER THOUGHT FORMS OR MAGICAL LIVING:

Cost: $19.95 for each copy of Thought Forms; $14.95 for each copy of Magical Living

+ Postage of $8 / book to North America; $15 / book elsewhere.

Send check or money order to (personal checks are okay, but money orders negotiable only in the U.S. are not):

                       DEAR BRUTUS PRESS

                       APARTADO POSTAL #36

                       COBΑN, ALTA VERAPAZ

                       GUATEMALA

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Almanac for November 2009

The purpose of this almanac is to list the most important astrological events each month to help you plan your life in harmony with cosmic currents. You can easily select the best times each month to advance, hold back, confront, avoid, accept, refuse, yield or stand your ground, in order to enhance your chances of success.

Mutual transits are points of inflection, or moments when things could go one way or the other.  Often on these days something is discovered, some truth revealed, or a new door opens to us.  There are days with favorable times to begin new ventures, to approach others for favors, to initiate healing, to pray or cast spells, to energize amulets and crystals, and so forth.  Conversely, in the case of inharmonious aspects, avoidance of these activities is recommended.

What we are trying to do is to tune into the ambient rhythms of the cosmos.  We tend to be alienated from the universal harmonies because of our stressful life styles:  we feel disconnected, isolated, powerless, adrift and alone in an uncaring universe.  We have lost our sense of being part of an eternal, ongoing process. 

Astrology can help us to regain our sense of connection to the universe and to the earth by teaching us how to look at our daily lives as a series of lessons.  Astrology teaches detachment:  we learn that by paying attention to and adapting to the cosmic rhythms, we can come to a deeper sense of connection to the universe and a greater sense meaning and purpose in our personal lives.

The table below includes transiting conjunctions and oppositions of the planets other than moon; Stationary Retrograde and Stationary Direct positions; and the Greatest Western and Greatest Eastern Elongation positions of Mercury and Venus.  If the zodiacal degree of the transit conjoins or opposes a planet in your own natal horoscope within two degrees orb, then be alert to what happens this day (and the day before and after).  This is a time when the universe sends you important new information.  The nature of the event is symbolized by the transiting planet(s); the nature of your response is symbolized by the natal planet(s) at or opposed to the longitude of the transit.

For example, on November 4, 2009 Neptune changes station at 23 AQ 41 in opposition to Barack Obama's natal Uranus in 25 LE 16, which might bring the president an UNUSUAL event which enables his LIBERATION (a spiritual or emotional breakthrough).

To launch projects, make prayers, or cast spells, one should use the times in this table in conjunction with the Planetary Hours.  Look for a relevant Planetary Hour within 24 hours before the exact time given in the table below.  This table is in Eastern Time:  in the Central time zone subtract an hour; in the Mountain time zone subtract two hours; in the Pacific time zone subtract 3 hours; from the times listed here.  To use Planetary Hours, download the free Planetary Hours calculator from the Magical Almanac files http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Magical%20Almanac/ or from http://www.dearbrutus.com/body_planetaryhours.html.   This is an Excel worksheet with complete instructions; however when you open it, it will ask if you want to disable the macros.  Since it won't work with its macros disabled, click on "Enable Macros" (you may have to have previously reduced the Excel security protocol: Tools => Macro => Security => Low). 

            To make a prayer or cast a spell (for detailed information see the BOS file posted at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/):  at the chosen time clear your mind, light a candle and make a fervent, heartfelt wish – imagine the scene of your wish coming true as though it were happening right now, all around you.  If other people are involved (e.g., if asking for a favor), imagine that you are looking them right in the eye and talking to them as if they were right there in front of you.  Let yourself feel the feelings you actually would feel if your wish were to come true.  Then watch closely to see how the candle burns:  if it's difficult to light it, then it will be difficult for your wish to come true.  If the flame burns steadily and brightly, the wish will come true.  If the flame smokes or is feeble, or the candle falls over, forget it. 

     Keyword Interpretations for Transiting and Natal Planets:

(Detailed interpretations for the transiting and natal planets are filed in the How to Use Magical Almanac Tutorial folder at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Magical%20Almanac/)

11/02/2009 @ 15:19 = 10 TA 30 = Full moon

11/04/2009 @ 13:27 = 23 AQ 41 = Neptune Stationary Direct = Unusual or other-worldly occurrences or intimations may provoke powerful attractions or repulsions on your part.  This is a good time to make contact with the spirit or astral world, or to try out new spiritual activities and rituals (do these during a lunar planetary hour). Also an excellent day to start channeling your spirit guides – if you are not doing this already, what are you waiting for?  It's really easy!  This is your point of entry into the world of magic, of doing it instead of just thinking about it or wishing for it.  Use a moon hour (e.g. at Washington D.C. there is a moon hour between 7:36 and 8:26 am on Wednesday).   At the chosen time, light a white candle, then just follow the instructions in the Channeling Spirit Guides article posted at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/

11/05/2009 @ 3:04 = 13 SC 02 = Mercury superior conjunction sun = New information comes to light which gives you a surge of confidence and self-certainty; a burst of insight or understanding.  A good day for making moves, for travel, for joining together or communicating with others, and for making forward-going progress in personal and business relationships.  Sensitivity and receptivity to other people's views are required.  Also good for scheduling meetings, communicating ideas (Merc hour) or making important decisions (sun hour).   Also good for prayers and spells for understanding and wisdom (use a blue candle).

11/16/2009 @ 14:15 = 24 VI 34 = New moon

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Configurations

Aspects show interactions between the native and his or her immediate environment.  Aspects do not refer to inner states so much as to the events and relationships – good or bad – that happen to a person.  This is why unaspected planets are actually "stronger" than even well-aspected planets, since they sidestep the whole issue of winning vs. losing.  Natives with well-aspected charts tend to get things to click for them.  Well-aspected charts show an ease of self-mobilization:  these natives are able to get along with others – and with the way things are – with a minimum of pother.   Natives with afflicted charts, on the other hand, stumble over every pebble; balk at every mischance; take the things that happen very personally rather than shrug things off.  Whether this mindset attracts difficult circumstances; or whether the difficult circumstances condition the negative mindset in the first place; is moot.  The point is that well-aspected charts tend toward the happy-go-lucky; and afflicted charts make for Hard-Luck Harrys. 

Aspects cannot really be looked at in isolation but must be considered in terms of the greater configurations to which they belong.  Configurations can be considered to be complex aspects; i.e., aspects which in­volve three or more planets.  As might be supposed, configurations symbolize a more complex type of social interaction than do simple aspects. They even seem to take on a life of their own, in a sense, and often can be described without reference to the par­ticular planets involved. Their usefulness in horoscope delineation lies in the fact that (in those horoscopes in which they occur) they tend to tie a chart together by provid­ing a focus or central theme for the chart as a whole.

We will discuss three types of configu­rations in this article: the grand trine, the grand square and the T-cross. 

A grand trine is a configuration of three planets which are mutually trine; i.e., they form an equilateral triangle.  Usually these three planets will all lie in signs of the same element: Fire, Earth, Air, or Water.

A grand square is a configuration of two mutually square opposition aspects; i.e., the four planets involved lie on the corners of a square.

A T-cross is a configuration of three plan­ets, two of which are in opposition and mutually square a third (called the short leg of the T-cross).  Usually the planets in­volved in a grand square or T-cross will all lie in signs of the same quadruplicity or mode: Cardinal, Fixed, or Mutable.

For this analysis we will employ wide orbs for the aspects: seventeen degrees when the Sun is involved; twelve-and-a-half degrees when the sun is not but the Moon is; and ten degrees when neither the sun nor the moon participates in the aspect.  The idea here is to make connections.  In point of fact, when there are three planets in the three signs of an element – even if not within orbs of trine – then the chart acts very much like a grand trine anyway.  Similarly, four planets in the four signs of a quadruplicity act very much like a grand square, even if out of orb. 

The Grand Trine is a configuration which symbolizes ease and easiness.  With a grand trine in your chart, you are light in spirit – breezy and perfunctory in dealing with other people.  You don't take criticism or disappointments to heart, but rather shrug your shoulders and turn your attention toward the things which do seem to he working for you. You never lose your zest and enthusiasm for life.  You are sociable and outgoing; but you are not driven (as natives of the grand square are) to seek approval.  Rather, you are able to find a role  – symbolized by one of the four elements – in which you can validate yourself.  Even in the face of outside rejection, you remain cool, calm and unruffled – at peace within yourself.  You are deft at handling other people and pursuing your own ends with­out causing undue fuss or strain.  You are detached, always maintaining your emo­tional distance and private space.  Other people may complain that you are too remote and noncommittal in relation­ships – unwilling to compromise with oth­ers, no matter how friendly and superfi­cially sympathetic you may be.  The lesson of the grand trine is to learn generosity and compassion, rather than to hold yourself apart in supercilious disdain for emotional turmoil and sticki­ness. This means learning to open your heart to others, even if it means getting your hands a little dirty.

Grand Trine in Fire signs is the mark of a real character – flamboyant, bombas­tic, ironical and irreverent. You like being in the limelight, holding forth at center stage.  Although you can at times play the vain and prissy prima donna, at your best you are able to uplift others with your imp­ish humor and sense of delight.

Grand Trine in Earth signs is like the tortoise in the famous race – slow, steady and plodding, but also optimistic and never losing sight of the ultimate goal.  You are thorough and dutiful, and enjoy serving others. While you tend to be overly conservative – even stodgy or fond of that com­fortable rut – you are practical and deliber­ate, and keep on an even keel no matter what's going on around you.

Grand Trine in Air signs is bright, ar­ticulate, and quick to pick up on and ad­dress openly whatever feelings are in the air.  You have a wry sense of humor, which on the negative side can make you overly fascinated with your own cleverness, and hence dogmatic and opinionated.  But you are never at a loss for words, and are a good communicator because of your ear­nestness and insight.

Grand Trine in Water signs is sensi­tive and unassuming, and delights in being helpful and quick to anticipate others' needs.  You have a softness which disposes people to treat you kindly, and even to indulge you in your quirks and to overlook your smugness         and self-approbation.  You win others over because you are a sympathetic listener and have a warm and gentle touch.

Two Grand Trines in the chart –  whether or not they are interlaced to form a grand sextile, can be considered too much of a good thing, as this configuration gives you a relaxed, laid-back approach to others but also deprives you of ambition and drive.  Although you are philosophical and able to take whatever befalls you in stride, you are also rather lazy and lackadaisical – an infuriatingly inert object to anyone whose lot it is to try to get you moving.  It isn't that you aren't punctilious in carry out assigned tasks; but you are faintly annoyed by mundane affairs and have little initiative, largely because there is nothing you care enough about to work up a sweat over. Thus, while you're cheerful, optimistic and cooperative, you may lack the force of will necessary for true leadership

The Grand Square symbolizes great tension, strain, and fortitude. With a grand square in your horoscope you appear outwardly to be confident, poised, friendly and outgoing – even a bit saucy, mischievous, or bantering.  You project a blithe, self-assured front; but you maintain this facade of apparent calm by holding your true feelings in rigid check.  Your superficial placidity is act you put on to convince yourself (by convincing others) that you really do have your life under control; whereas inwardly you feel torn apart and confused about your place in the social scheme.  Although probably no more burdened by self-doubt and self-dislike than anyone else, you are nonetheless driven by a greater sense of urgency than most people to win the approval of others.  Your nonchalant exterior is belied by your intensity – your covert manipulations and your feeling that you must cling desperately to things (such as relationships) in order to keep them from disintegrating.  The people around you may complain that you are self-obsessed and indwelling, even when (especially when) you are making great sacrifices for their sake.  The lesson of the grand square is to learn to lighten up; to not take yourself so seriously, as if the whole world depended on you.  Try to relax your grip on both your own feelings and your relationships with others.

The T-Cross, like the grand square, is a configuration of intensity, of holding feel­ings under tight control. But unlike the grand square native, you make no pretense of superficial tranquility to disguise the war going on inside you.  The grand square is pulled in all directions at once; whereas the T-cross has one aperture (the short leg) through which all frustrated energy can be directed.  You are concentrated and intent upon the path beneath your feet, and you will not be deflected.  This is your super self-­seriousness – the part of you which is ob­durate, intolerant and not to be trifled with (and also lacking in objectivity and perspective).  If you used this force of will creatively, if you put it at the service of your dreams and ambitions, you could accom­plish great things in the world.  Viewed more positively, your T-cross is your dynamic, determined, risk-taking side.  But your tendency is to use it to puff your­self up, to go through empty motions, to fan the breeze with vague discontent.  That's why you never seem to get anywhere in life, no matter how much effort and good faith you put forth; you are just running around in little circles.  The lesson of the T-cross, like that of the grand square, is to lighten up, to drop the thorny, easily-offended posture, to auto­matic pulling away from other people and into yourself.

It is instructive to compare the T-cross with the Wedge (an opposition mediated by a sextile-trine); and the short-leg planet of the T-cross with the mediating planet of the Wedge.  The T-cross has an intensity, a drive, an extremism, which is missing in the complacent, self-satisfied Wedge.  The short-leg of the T-cross represents the natives' flaw rather than their forte – a hindrance rather than a reliance; a defensiveness instead of a facility.  The short-leg is a pushy, overreaching / overdone tendency, which puts you out of synch with the speed of your environment:

The grand square and T-cross will not be delineated by quadruplicity (Cardinal, Fixed or Mutable), as this is better ad­dressed under the topic of the Natural dispo­sition.   However, the house position of the short leg of the T-cross is often quite revealing in terms of the particular circumstances in life upon which the T-cross native brings all frustrated energies to bear. Although a great deal of dedication and persistence are applied to the area of life symbolized by the house in which the short leg lies, there is also a lack of perspective here (a self-obsession) which makes for difficulties in bringing forth positive and satisfying result results.

Short Leg of T-Cross in Houses

lst House:  Your struggle is to be believed and accepted by others. You have a cool, commanding, take-charge persona which seems to need nothing from no one, and effectively pushes away their comfort and support.

2nd House:  Your challenge is to be free of concern over the material side of life.  Because money is of so little importance in your scale of values, you need a lot of it in order to maintain your blithe indifference to it.

3rd House:  You need to be clearly under­stood. To that end you lay down strict ground rules on all communications, which makes it as hard as possible for others to approach you.

4th House:  More than anything, you want to be able to stand on your own two feet, not to have to depend on anyone for your psychological security.  You therefore re­quire a network of supporters whose assis­tance you can eschew or rebel against in your drive for independence.

5th House:  Your aim is to enjoy yourself, to be loose and free of strings and attach­ments. You set about the task of disencum­bering your life of extraneous entangle­ments with the utmost discipline, purpose­fulness and grim determination.

6th House: You take pleasure in serving others and deferring graciously to their needs. It is only peoples' customary indif­ference and ingratitude which so often leaves you feeling used and put upon.

7th House: You are compelled to relate to other people on an intimate level, to seek harmony by being direct, straightforward and respectful of their personal space. You therefore carefully establish where your own limits lie, and you insist upon your emotional privacy.

8th House:  Your struggle is to learn to be tolerant, accepting, and yielding with others. To this end you require their complete cooperation, and can be impatient and tough-minded when it is not forthcoming.

9th House:  Your challenge is to be under stood clearly; to he comprehensive, profound and objective in your dealings with others. Thus you cling unwaveringly to a mindset of emotional neutrality noninvolvement, and noncommittal aloofness.

10th House:  You need to be respected; to have others look up to you as a model of personal dignity and deportment. There­fore, you are extremely sensitive to any offense or affront, and can be touchy, prissy and huffy.

11th House:  You desire to be liked by others and to be appreciated just for your­self.  To that end you disdain social polish and artificial delicacy in favor of a brash, brusque and bluff personal manner.

12th House:  Your struggle is to connect with others on a heartfelt level: to cut across all trivial pretense and artifice. Thus you can be impatient with others' view­points and insensitive about their feelings.

Two T-crosses in a horoscope is, oddly enough, something of a benefic circum­stance. Where one T-cross symbolizes a driving intensity, two of them can have a leavening effect. Precisely because you do feel so heavily burdened or held back in two different directions, you are able to pull some of the obsessive energy out of both of them, and to take a broad, expansive, philosophical overview of yourself and your situation in life.  Although heavy in spirit, you nonetheless possess a simplicity of manner, sincerity, and dedication which contrasts with the fussing and fuming characteristic of only one T-cross.  You stand for something greater than your self, which lends a humility to your character and a benevolence to your disposition. 

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Bob recommends:  The very best book (and one of the least expensive) for a complete beginner to learn astrology is Ronald Davison's Astrology.  Free software to calculate your natal horoscope and the charts of your friends and relations can be downloaded from: http://www.astrowin.org/  or http://www.magitech.com/%7Ecruiser1/astrolog.htm 

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Bulletin Board:

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Bob Recommends: this is a great website for learning how to channel (Slade can give personal attention which Bob doesn't have time to do):

Shift Your Spirits – Slade Roberson
83% fewer hearts and flowers than the leading New Age blather
 http://sladeroberson.com/

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Wicca Spirit Newsletter

Wicca Spirit Newsletter for Wiccans, Pagans, Witches, & Seekers

Wiccan / Pagan Newsletter has loads of information you can USE, with  

resources, classes, free pagan classifieds, forums, discussion 

group,  & much more. Brand new and growing. Are you a writer? artist? 

poet?  - let us showcase your work!   http://www.wiccaspirit.net/

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Diamond Fire Magazine

"The best metaphysical magazine in America." – Bob Makransky

Astrology, metaphysics, Jewish Kabbalism, Christian mysticism, channeling, dowsing, consciousness, spirituality, and much more!

e-mail:  DiamondFireMagazine(at)comcast.net

subscriptions:  $40 / year; $70 / 2 years

Malchitsedek Productions

P.O. Box 7368

North Port, FL 34290  USA

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The Magician's Creed

You are the people,

You are this season's people –

There are no other people this season.

If you blow it, it's blown.

                                                           – Stephen Gaskin

I. The human race is in imminent danger of self-destructing and dragging our mother earth down with it.

II. There will be no miraculous salvation due to so-called Mayan 2012 prophecies; or Jesus' or the Mahdi's return; much less from the irresponsible governments, corporations, media, and academics who go us into this mess in the first place.

III. The theory of probable realities states that each individual person decides the fate of the entire universe.  If you truly choose to save the world, you will wind up in a probable reality in which the world is saved. 

IV. The only chance for survival – not to mention prosperity – is for each individual to reject society's mutual suicide pact and make saving the earth and future generations their NUMBER 1 PRIORITY (as opposed to something they may get around to someday).  This is the magician's equivalent of the Bodhisattva's oath. 

V. Rejecting social conditioning means eradicating all trace of self-pity.  Only by clear, sober, objective thinking – as opposed to the endless loop of yada-yada nonsense emanating from society – can each individual save him/herself and the earth.

VI. This type of thinking is based upon what each person's heart tells them.  It is different for everybody; and everybody has to find their own answers for themselves by examining their own habitual thoughts, moods, and concerns minutely.  To do this magicians use various techniques, including:

            a)  techniques of self-analysis such as Active Imagination and Recapitulation.

            b)  techniques of transformation such as resorting to tree spirits and the earth.

            c)  techniques of hopefulness such as Creative Visualization. 

VII. Detaching from society's conditioning of self-pity necessarily implies taking complete responsibility for oneself rather than wallowing in helplessness or daydreaming.  To do this magicians:

            a) channel their own spirit guides themselves for information and advice;

            b) go to nature spirits for validation rather than seek the approval of other people or society;

            c) become as self-sufficient and frugal as possible, including growing at least some of their own food and reducing their needs to the bare minimum. 

VIII. The goal of magic is to make everyday life more dreamlike; to be able to feel comfortable in situations beyond one's control.  Feeling relaxed and in good shape even in the midst of a maelstrom is called "enlightenment".  Enlightenment doesn't mean light as opposed to dark; but rather light as opposed to heavy. 

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Statement of Purpose:

In point of fact, this ezine is not about magic, or paganism, or shamanism, or witchcraft; it's not even about astrology.  It's not about belief systems at all – rather, it's about getting beyond belief systems and analyzing what's really going on beneath the surface.  What is the point of rejecting one false belief system – the materialism which was inculcated into most of us from childhood – only to adopt another false belief system?  All belief systems are false, because what's really going on out there in the universe has nothing to do with belief (mind).  The universe is made of feelings (intent); not objects (thought forms).  The only cogent reason to adopt a variant belief system from the one in which most of us were raised is to provide a counterpoint or contradiction – another point of view – which will allow us to weasel between the two and ultimately not rely upon beliefs at all. 

Although we have been taught that we are abiding, separated individuals embedded in a matrix of space and time, the fact is that this is indeed merely a (false) belief.  As explained in the essay on Channeling Spirit Guides*, "In fact, our existence is multidimensional.  We not only exist in an infinite number of past and future lives, but we are also infinitely ramified in all the probable realities which branch off from this present lifetime.  …  Not only that, but within the confines of a single probable reality of a single lifetime, which is all we normally pay attention to or consider to be `ourselves', we are still multiple personalities.  That is to say, we are not the same person from moment to moment, but in fact shift from one to another subpersonalities, or thought forms, in response to this or that changing stimulus. … (We) are not solid, continuing, individual beings, but rather are a flux of thought forms (images, opinions, beliefs, and expectations learned from our parents and society) being urged this way and that by spirit forces."  Ponder these things well, because they are true.   The sooner each of us as individuals wakes up to this fact – that we are actually nothing but a momentary conjunction of tendencies – the sooner we can stop running about hither and thither and take command of our lives and destinies; and perhaps really accomplish something to save the earth and the human race.  That's what the practice of magic is all about. 

*filed in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/

Bob Makransky's Astrology Corner 

www.dearbrutus.com  

presents:

MAGICAL ALMANAC for October  2009

In this issue:  Science Debunked;  War Charts

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Science Debunked

            Materialistic science,(1) like most fundamentalist religions, is extremely unreasoning and bigoted.  When confronted with phenomena which don't fit its presuppositions, it closes its eyes and pretends that such phenomena don't exist.  There is plenty of evidence, from all times and civilizations, that magic and astrology work, that spirits exist and can communicate with people, and so on.  Indeed, about the only civilization on earth up to this time which rejects these notions is ours.  "We know better now" say the scientists.  How do they know this?  Have they examined the subject objectively?  No, they haven't done this.  Even to suggest such an investigation during this dark age of rationalistic materialism would require the utmost intellectual courage and devotion to the truth.  The results would bring down ultimate rejection and vituperation on one's head from the academic establishment.    This is what happened to Carlos Castaneda.

Materialistic science believes that it is describing an objective, factual reality.  In fact it is, like everyone else, creating its own reality.  Scientists are not discovering the laws of nature; they are inventing them.  The true pioneers of science – the Einsteins, Plancks, and Heisenbergs – are well aware of this fact even if the run-of-the-mill scientist is not.(2)

It is important to remember that science is a body of knowledge that has been built up over many thousands of years by many thousands of thinkers working from many different points of view and philosophical perspectives.  However it has happened here and there that science has fallen into the hands of unreasoning zealots with a particular ideological axe to grind; and when that has happened science, in the sense of being an objective search for intellectual truth, winds up being a polemic to defend some political agenda.  That is what occurred in Communist Russia with Lysenkoism and in Nazi Germany with "Aryan science"; and that is what has happened in capitalistic academia over the past century with the cult of materialism.  The materialists with their statistical version of truth, perhaps in overreaction to the fundamentalist Christian creationist view, have completely abandoned any pretense of intellectual objectivity.  As a result a non-academic version of science has developed to investigate such important matters as the thousands of reports – which tend to be quite similar in content – of after-death experiences by people who were revived; of psychic healing; of past life memories; of spirit communications; etc. (not to mention astrology).  What we are debunking here is not the body of knowledge which is science, but rather the smug narrow-mindedness of materialism.  The materialists have such absolute power in academia and the media, and have so confused the issue with disinformation and cowed their critics with ridicule, that any criticism of materialism and its dictatorial tactics is touted as an attack on science itself. 

Modern physics says, in a nutshell, that the universe is not how it appears to be to our normal, everyday perception.  This is precisely what magicians and Buddhists have been saying all along.  It's great that some of academic science has finally caught up to what mystics have been saying for thousands of years.  However, the materialistic life sciences such as biology and psychology, not to mention neuroscience, are still back in the dark ages.  They haven't yet figured out what modern physics is saying.  Biology and psychology are still laboring under the old "linear time, objective space" view.  Wake up, people!  Materialism cannot comprehend that time and space are completely subjective (learned rules of behavior).   There is NO objective reality consisting of solid, discrete objects out there; all there is, is a dream, a mass hallucination, which we have been trained to interpret with the illusion of orderliness (time and space).  There's no way that what is really going on can be described by materialism except by lying, by asserting that e.g. astrology, psychic phenomena, precognition, past lives, etc. don't exist.  Since practically everybody has experienced these things at one time or another for themselves, most people know where the truth lies.  However everyone's afraid of being ridiculed if they have the temerity to point out publicly that the emperor is stark naked.  Most people – including many scientists who would never admit this openly for fear of reprisal – know damn well that it's materialistic science that's the lie, not magic or astrology. 

We must constantly keep in mind that materialism is a religion like any other.  It is an opinion which has no factual basis.  It is merely a matter of faith amongst true believers, who happen to be in the majority and in absolute control of academia at the present time.  When Georg Cantor invented set theory a century ago he was assailed by orthodox mathematicians not only because he tried to develop a calculus of infinite numbers, which was considered outside the bounds of proper scientific inquiry, but also because he invented a new type of proof which orthodox mathematicians rejected.   Eventually a new generation of mathematicians came along which accepted Cantor's ideas, and now set theory is very much at the center of modern mathematical thought.  The point is that what is accepted as proper science at a given time is a popularity contest pure and simple.  There is nothing objective about it.   And the materialistic definition of truth – statistical significance – is merely a definition of truth, not the definition of truth.  Indeed, it is a rather lousy definition:  statistics is not a measure of truth but rather of ignorance.(3)

There is nothing to prove or disprove in magical science; there's nothing to debate.  Magical science is a collection of pointers put together by more experienced practitioners to help their neophyte brethren understand what they are experiencing and where they are going, which is why magical and astrological texts written hundreds or thousands of years ago still speak to us today.  Magical science makes no pretense of describing reality because 1) there is no "reality" and 2) all descriptions (thought forms, concepts, belief systems) are false.   

As long as we only look at this one little piece of the universe over here, things moving at slow speeds, then the old, Newtonian description works pretty well.  But when we look at things moving near the speed of light, we need a new, Einsteinian, description to fit the observed facts.  Similarly, when we look at this little piece of the universe over there, that which can be apprehended with the mind, then materialistic science works pretty well.  But when we look at that which can only be apprehended with intuition; with feelings; by direct knowing; then materialistic science fails miserably.  Materialistic scientists get around this by saying that there is no way to quantify feelings and intuition – subjective experience – and therefore these are not a proper subject for scientific inquiry; as if there is any other sort of experience besides subjective experience.   

That magical science cannot be quantified statistically doesn't address the issue of whether magic and astrology are true.  It is merely a commentary on the limitations of the materialistic approach to scientific inquiry.  Magical events are too unique and ephemeral to be measured in a materialistic way because they are not mental abstracts but rather feelings.  Take omens, for example, which have meaning only to the person for whom the Spirit is manifesting but not for anyone else who might be present.  This doesn't mean that omens don't exist or are merely a figment of one person's imagination.  Rather, it means that statistical analysis – the current criterion of scientific truth – is too crude an instrument to encompass or measure magical phenomena.  Statistical significance is no more a measure of truth than biblical authority is a measure of truth.  Both statistics and the Bible merely represent different opinions as to where truth is to be found.  Magicians reject both of these definitions of truth^.(4)  

Laboratory statistical studies to prove or disprove "ESP" are ridiculous.  Magical science just doesn't work that way.  For example, when I do rituals to invoke spirits, sometimes I feel the spirits' presence and sometimes I don't.  You can't go into magic making arrogant demands; you can only humbly invite, which is why statistical studies of psychic phenomena will always come up empty. 

If psychic phenomena, which are commonly experienced and have been reported by many people throughout human history cannot be measured statistically, then the obvious conclusion is that statistics are irrelevant to what is actually going on.  The cult of materialism which has captured and imprisoned science has particularly corrupted those fields, such as psychology and anthropology, which would otherwise be most helpful in understanding what psychic phenomena (altered states of consciousness) really are, and by contrast what everyday life (an unaltered state of consciousness) really is.  The absurdity of the materialist position is illustrated by the ongoing argument in biology over whether animals possess consciousness.  This sort of shameless arrogance makes one wonder whether sociobiologists possess consciousness.(5)  It's precisely the same as the Nazi theories of superior race; and it's used to justify the same sort of cruelty and butchery. 

Magical science is a science in the exact same sense of the word as materialistic science.  However, the reality it describes and the techniques it uses are quite different from those of the materialists.  The magician's worldview is no more true nor false than the materialistic, Christian, Islamic, etc. worldviews.  You create your own reality.  All worldviews are false because they are not and can never be true.  What is really going on out there in the universe cannot in any way be comprehended by mind and its intellectual constructs (thought forms).  It can only be apprehended with feeling, by direct knowing.   The reason why we adopt the magicians' worldview, knowing that it is false, is to set up a counterpoint or contradiction with the everyday worldview.  This gives us a means of detaching from both worldviews, from intellection, altogether.  Then feeling – intent – takes over. 

There is no reason why the universe is the way it is.  The idea that e.g. competition for scarce resources is the driving force behind evolution is the obvious conclusion that a capitalist would come to; just as the idea that things are the way they are because that is God's will is the only explanation that a Jew, Christian, or Muslim needs.  But to a magician there is no reason for anything:  things are the way they are as the result of completely random processes, and seeing any kind of order in how things are is narcissistic, post hoc, wishful thinking.  There is no reason for anything.  There is no reason, period.  The only thing which exists in the universe is feelings, which we have termed "intent".  And these cannot be apprehended by mind. 

The present race in cognitive science to solve the mystery of consciousness is never going to be won by materialism.  As long as you are looking south, you'll never see the pole star; and as long as you are looking outside yourself you'll never understand what consciousness is.   Concepts are not an adequate tool for understanding consciousness.  Only materialistic hubris would believe that.  We have gone as far as we can with concepts.  The philosophy of materialism – very much like the philosophy of fundamentalist Christian creationism – refuses to acknowledge this fact, that its tools are outmoded and new ones (namely intent: direct knowing as opposed to knowledge that can be communicated verbally) must be employed to proceed further.  Just as Christianity retarded the progress of science for millennia, so too is materialism retarding the progress of science at the present time.

Materialistic platforms such as the Skeptic magazines and the websites which "objectively" criticize astrology are star chambers.(6)  Like the Inquisition which forced Galileo to recant what he knew was the truth, modern scientists decry the truth of subjectivism.  Modern scientists, like the Catholic church of old, have a vested interest in keeping their own teachings predominant.  Anyone who dares to contradict these teachings is pilloried just as Galileo was.  Carlos Castaneda, for example, who has brought us the most important new information of the past few millennia, was smeared, vilified, and drummed out of academia. 

Look at the diatribe against astrology a few years ago by 186 famous scientists, none of whom bothered investigating astrology before denouncing it!   Thirty years ago French researcher Michel Gauquelin proved the existence of an astrological effect statistically, and his results have been replicated independently by other researchers.  He did what these guys say they want:  he proved the existence of an astrological effect according to the canons of materialistic truth.(7)   Yet materialistic scientists still reject astrology.  What does this say about scientists' pretensions to being champions of truth?  Indeed, the materialistic model is a classic case of bad science:  discarding any information which contradicts its preconceived assumptions. 

Anthropology, economics, and psychology are the quintessential sciences because they make no pretense to studying anything beyond human nature.  However all science is merely the study of human nature; or of human cognition, if you will; or of modern human cognition would be better said, since ancient humans' cognitive processes were very, very different from ours. 

All that science studies is the way that humans make sense of the world.  All materialistic scientists are doing is peering into a mirror and calling that the universe.  Science is not the study of an objective reality, because there is no objective reality.  Just because two humans can get together and agree that a ball, for example, is red and round and a foot in diameter doesn't really say anything about that ball.  Rather, it is a description of how humans in our society make agreements amongst themselves. 

This is a very difficult point to grasp, or to agree with, even if grasped.  This is because we are so indoctrinated with the assumption that we are separate perceivers of an outside reality.   Look at it like this:  two Communists reading the same political news item in the newspaper will usually come to the same conclusions about it even if they can't confer on it beforehand.  They already agree about the nature of their reality:  they see everything in terms of class struggle, rich exploiting poor, and capital and labor continually at odds.  Therefore anything that happens they will fit into that worldview, and they will agree on what really happened in that news story.  Similarly, two capitalists reading the same news story will agree with each other on what actually happened in that news item.  However, their view of the occurrence will probably be very much at odds with the interpretation of the Communists.  Similarly, materialistic scientists confronted with objective phenomena try to fit them into their pre-conceived worldview, which a priori excludes astrology and magic. 

I believe that most people know in their hearts that materialistic science is wrong when it denies the truth of magic and astrology.  Of course, magical science cannot be proven true by materialistic canons of truth any more than Galileo could prove the validity of Copernican theory by appealing to the Bible, as the Inquisitionists of that time demanded.   For one thing, materialistic science is based upon completely different presuppositions than magical science, such as linear time(8), duality, the existence of an objective reality, and that statistics measure truth.  Materialistic scientists and magicians are not looking at the same phenomena.  Or rather, they are, but from irreconcilably contradictory points of view; or better said, different taken-for-granted cognitive assumptions.  The materialist looks outward for answers, whereas the magician looks inward.   But I believe that in the next century conventional science will evolve to include what is now considered magic.  Then it won't be considered magic at all.  Modern science is in fact magic, but its practitioners don't call it that or understand it in those terms because they are blinded by the tenets of their religion, the chief one being that the world is mechanistic rather than alive.   That it's something we can stomp on with impunity and it will never stomp back. 

The ideal of materialistic science is a hell world, and that's where they're taking us.  In societies where they have a modicum of respect for life they don't do vivisection or Auschwitz-type medical experiments, so they don't learn all the neat things you can learn by cold-bloodedly destroying other beings.  Materialism is basically a form of black magic. 

It's not only the animal and human sacrifices that present-day scientists are involved in that mirror disrespect.  Just the way astronomers look at the stars, with no ability to feel what they are seeing, is disrespectful.  Probably most astronomers were originally drawn to astronomy by a sense of awe, but the disrespect which is part and parcel of materialism soon confuses young astronomers.  And God help them if they avow before their inquisitional fellows an intuitive acceptance of the veracity of astrology or magic!

The materialists' argument – like their capitalist masters' argument – is that "it works."  But so does a scorched earth policy against Mayan Indians work to isolate guerrillas.  And so did the bombing of Hiroshima work:  undoubtedly that saved many lives on both sides.  But the underlying assumption in both cases is mistaken.  It doesn't lead to happiness or joy.  Shameless cruelty works really well; but it makes for a hell world.   Shameless arrogance and contempt are an intrinsic component of materialism in all of its forms (standing above and subduing nature – and other people – instead of approaching them humbly and respectfully).   Besides, capitalism and materialism don't "work".  At this point in history it is very clear exactly how well capitalism and materialism are "working", and exactly where these destructive mindsets are leading us. 

Science doesn't have to be so cruel and heartless.  You don't have to rape the universe for knowledge.  You can ask it nicely what you want to know.  Luther Burbank produced many new varieties of plants by talking to them.  According to Rudolf Steiner, that is how all the fruit crops which people now use were developed from wild plants.  Ancient Mesoamerican magicians created maize from the native grass teosinte thousands of years ago in a manner which thoroughly baffles modern botanists, since the genetic manipulation techniques required for this transmutation have only existed for the last twenty years. 

By choosing materialistic science in its current, heartless manifestation we are foregoing the experience of the world as joyous.  Rationalism doesn't have to be divorced from magic, which is as much a science as physics or biology.  Magical science just operates on different assumptions.  Actually it is a different cognitive system altogether.   Indeed, Sir Isaac Newton – the founder of modern science – was a magician.  In John Maynard Keynes' words, "Newton was not the first of the age of reason.  He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians."  The majority of Newton's writings have been suppressed by the materialistic Inquisition because they dealt with magic and alchemy.(9) 

Materialistic science was well suited to agricultural and industrial human society.  It led to a great deal of material progress.   But there are too many people now; and they're messing the earth up.  That sort of crabbed, arrogant, and shameless mindset won't work anymore.  Materialistic science has perverted the quest for intellectual truth and embraced a smug, shallow sophistry in its stead.  What the human race desperately needs, and is now ready for, is a new worldview, based upon broader principles of intellectual truth than any which materialistic science can ever encompass.  We have to start – or restart, since these were our guiding lights when humans were still hunter / gatherers – setting aside all our intellection, our opinions and beliefs, and opening our hearts to what the earth is trying to tell us. 

            One nice thing about magical science is that it really doesn't matter whether it is true or not.  It's the best bet.  Materialistic religion assumes that everything's all screwed up, but someday science will figure it all out.   Magic, by contrast, assumes nothing.  If we are going to be saved, it will be by our own efforts; by being wide awake instead of pulling woolly assumptions over our eyes to lull ourselves into a stupor.  We must take 100% responsibility for our own salvation. 

Magicians believe that the God Materialism is leading us to hell in a handbasket.  Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are good examples – loud and clear warnings to anyone who's not asleep – and yet they're still building them.  It is true that materialistic science and technology have brought many people a high level of comfort and convenience, but at the cost of bankrupting their spirit and joy.  Are you happy in your work, your relationships, your life?   Do you know anyone who is?  

Magic and astrology were the world religion once, and they shall be the world religion again, because people have had enough of the emptiness, meaninglessness, and short-sighted stupidity of materialism.  E pur si muove!

NOTES

(1) By the term "materialism" is meant the belief that, in the words of cognitive philosopher Daniel Dennett,  "there is only one sort of stuff, namely matter – the physical stuff of physics, chemistry, and physiology – and the mind is somehow nothing but a physical phenomenon.  In short, the mind is the brain." – Dennett, Daniel Consciousness Explained, Penguin 1991 p. 33. 

The science of magic, by contrast, takes the Idealistic view that the physical world, including the physical body and brain, are merely projections of the mind, in exactly the same way that the body we have while we are dreaming is a projection of the mind.  Being awake is merely a more highly evolved form of dreaming, and it is only our belief that what is happening to us is real that makes it seem real (whether we are awake or dreaming). 

(2) "Philosophically … the implications of quantum mechanics are psychedelic.  Not only do we influence our reality, but in some degree we actually create it.  … Metaphysically, this is very close to saying that we create certain properties because we choose to measure those properties."  - Zukav, Gary, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Bantam NYC 1980, page 28

(3)  Statistics are not a measure of truth but rather a way of obfuscating truth.   The best proof of this is that astrological and magical phenomena cannot be measured statistically.  For example, materialist critics of well-documented cases of past life memories dismiss this evidence as "anecdotal"; as if statistics was something other than a bunch of materialists telling each other anecdotes.  Just choosing what to measure or ignore is a completely subjective opinion. 

(4)  However consensual validation – two or more people witnessing the same event and agreeing on what they witnessed – is obtainable even with magical events when the participants have been trained – or are able from birth – to intuit such things.  At Mayan ceremonies, for example, pretty much everyone can pick up the messages which the spirits are sending.  Similarly, replication of results by other researchers is as applicable to magical science as to materialistic science: that's how we learn it in the first place, and how experienced magicians train neophytes.

(5) Of course this depends upon how you choose to define "consciousness".  Magical science is Panpsychist in that it considers that any being who can feel feelings possesses consciousness.  Thus everything that lives – animals, plants, bacteria; even so-called inanimate objects such as our possessions, rocks, even mountains (especially mountains!) and caves possess consciousness.  Since Sociobiologists are apparently incapable of feeling feelings, they are the only beings in the universe who do not possess consciousness. 

(6)  Although the materialists are quite correct that tests to prove the competence of astrologers are usually embarrassing failures, the fault, Dear Brutus, lies not in astrology but in the stigma which the materialists have heaped upon astrology, so that very few first-rate minds are attracted to the field.  Part of the problem, too, is that the materialists demand an impossible standard of accuracy which astrology, because of its very nature, is incapable of providing.  The universe is not as mechanistic as the materialists would like to believe; rather, it is a matter of free will and of possible outcomes.    Astrology cannot predict that e.g. "at 12:37 pm on August 3rd you will slip on ice and break your left arm above the elbow."   Psychics – and psychic astrologers – can sometimes do this; but they use intuition to do it, not astrology.  To demand such accuracy from astrology qua astrology is unreasonable and silly. 

(7) see Dean, Geoffrey, Recent Advances in Natal Astrology, Astrological Association

(Australia) 1977, page 380 ff for details.

(8)  Where materialistic science sees time as linear, magic sees time as rhythmic.  Materialistic science measures points and intervals along a well-ordered continuum, whereas magical science measures cycles upon cycles.  This is what astrology is all about:  the moment of birth can be viewed as a point along a linear continuum, as it is in rationalistic materialism; or, conversely, it can be viewed as a stage in the unfoldment of potentialities on various levels – i.e. as the intersection of many different interpenetrating cycles, as it is in astrology. 

Time is not linear.  Everything that has ever happened, and ever will happen, in all lifetimes and realities, is all going on at once, in an eternal NOW moment.   It is more accurate to describe time as an emanation of birth – death – rebirth; and what we see as linear time is but a fragmentary way of apprehending this phenomenon which has evolved in tandem with human society.   Linear time is a completely human invention, like golf or the latest Paris fashions; a set of rules which have no reference to anything outside of human experience.   Linear time is predicated on linear thinking.  When thinking stops – when the constant internal dialogue which most people engage in from the minute they awaken to the minute they go to sleep ceases – then so too does linear time. 

(9)  Keynes, John Maynard, Newton, the Man; from Newman, James, The World of

Mathematics, Simon & Schuster NYC 1956 pages 277, 282: "A large section (of

Newton's papers), judging by the handwriting amongst the earliest, relates to

alchemy – transmutation, the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life.  The scope and

character of these papers have been hushed up, or at least minimized, by nearly all

those who have inspected them."    

(Copyright © 2009 by Dell Horoscope magazine.  All rights reserved).

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About the author:  Bob Makransky is a systems analyst, computer programmer and professional astrologer.  He lives on a farm in highland Guatemala where he is a Mayan priest and is head of the local blueberry growers' association.  Check out his free downloadable Mayan Horoscope software, free downloadable Planetary Hours calculator, free downloadable Primary Directions / celestial sphere mathematics textbook, complete instructions on how to channel by automatic writing and how to run past life regressions, articles, books, stories, cartoons, etc. etc. at www.dearbrutus.com

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Life Reading by Bob Makransky

Overall potentials and possible problem areas in life, with specific recommendations regarding career, love life, etc. together with answers to any particular questions you might have regarding your life or horoscope.  Includes trends for the next 3 years.  Send time, date, and place of birth with check for $150 (personal checks are okay, but money orders negotiable only in the U.S. are not) to:  Bob Makransky – Apartado #36 – Cobαn, Alta Verapaz – Guatemala; or e-mail Bob for info on how to wire transfer payment (bmakransky(at)yahoo.com).

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Books by Bob Makransky

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ARE YOU READY FOR REAL, IN-DEPTH ASTROLOGY?

ARE YOU READY FOR REAL, IN-DEPTH MAGIC?

Thought Forms

by Bob Makransky

Astronomical and astrological explanations of Mercury's synodic cycle – its cycle of phases as it circles the sun, with tables 1900-2050.

Complete delineations for Superior and Inferior Conjunction, Greatest Eastern and Western Elongation, Stationary Retrograde and Direct, and their intervening phases in the natal, progressed, and transiting horoscopes.

Explanation of the astrological / magical view of mind (the theory of Thought Forms):  what consciousness is, how it arose, and whither it is going.

Basic course in white magic with detailed instructions on:  How to Channel and Banish Thought Forms; Creative Visualization; How to banish the Black Magicians in everyday life; How to Cast out Demons; How to use Tree Spirits.

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Makransky.  Highly recommendable."  – Joseph Polansky, Diamond Fire

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           An indispensable reference you'll consult every time you read a chart!

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BASIC COURSE IN WHITE MAGIC FOR BEGINNERS!

Magical Living

By Bob Makransky

Winner of the Sacramento Publishers' Association awards for Best Nonfiction and Best Spiritual book of 2001!

Magical Living  is a collection of essays which give detailed, how-to instructions on channeling spirit guides, communicating with plants and nature spirits; together with inspirational essays on managing love relationships, handling oppressive people, and dealing with hurt.  

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Almanac for October 2009

The purpose of this almanac is to list the most important astrological events each month to help you plan your life in harmony with cosmic currents. You can easily select the best times each month to advance, hold back, confront, avoid, accept, refuse, yield or stand your ground, in order to enhance your chances of success.

Mutual transits are points of inflection, or moments when things could go one way or the other.  Often on these days something is discovered, some truth revealed, or a new door opens to us.  There are days with favorable times to begin new ventures, to approach others for favors, to initiate healing, to pray or cast spells, to energize amulets and crystals, and so forth.  Conversely, in the case of inharmonious aspects, avoidance of these activities is recommended.

What we are trying to do is to tune into the ambient rhythms of the cosmos.  We tend to be alienated from the universal harmonies because of our stressful life styles:  we feel disconnected, isolated, powerless, adrift and alone in an uncaring universe.  We have lost our sense of being part of an eternal, ongoing process. 

Astrology can help us to regain our sense of connection to the universe and to the earth by teaching us how to look at our daily lives as a series of lessons.  Astrology teaches detachment:  we learn that by paying attention to and adapting to the cosmic rhythms, we can come to a deeper sense of connection to the universe and a greater sense meaning and purpose in our personal lives.

The table below includes transiting conjunctions and oppositions of the planets other than moon; Stationary Retrograde and Stationary Direct positions; and the Greatest Western and Greatest Eastern Elongation positions of Mercury and Venus.  If the zodiacal degree of the transit conjoins or opposes a planet in your own natal horoscope within two degrees orb, then be alert to what happens this day (and the day before and after).  This is a time when the universe sends you important new information.  The nature of the event is symbolized by the transiting planet(s); the nature of your response is symbolized by the natal planet(s) at or opposed to the longitude of the transit.

For example, on October 9, 2009 Venus opposes Uranus at 23 VI/PI 46 conjunct Barack Obama's natal Mars at 22 VI 35, which might bring the president a SURPRISING, SOCIABLE event which enables his ADVANCEMENT (perhaps through the aegis of a male friend or acquaintance). 

To launch projects, make prayers, or cast spells, one should use the times in this table in conjunction with the Planetary Hours.  Look for a relevant Planetary Hour within 24 hours before the exact time given in the table below.  This table is in Eastern Time:  in the Central time zone subtract an hour; in the Mountain time zone subtract two hours; in the Pacific time zone subtract 3 hours; from the times listed here.  To use Planetary Hours, download the free Planetary Hours calculator from the Magical Almanac files http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Magical%20Almanac/ or from http://www.dearbrutus.com/body_planetaryhours.html.   This is an Excel worksheet with complete instructions; however when you open it, it will ask if you want to disable the macros.  Since it won't work with its macros disabled, click on "Enable Macros" (you may have to have previously reduced the Excel security protocol: Tools => Macro => Security => Low). 

            To make a prayer or cast a spell (for detailed information see the BOS file posted at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/Magic%20101/):  at the chosen time clear your mind, light a candle and make a fervent, heartfelt wish – imagine the scene of your wish coming true as though it were happening right now, all around you.  If other people are involved (e.g., if asking for a favor), imagine that you are looking them right in the eye and talking to them as if they were right there in front of you.  Let yourself feel the feelings you actually would feel if your wish were to come true.  Then watch closely to see how the candle burns:  if it's difficult to light it, then it will be difficult for your wish to come true.  If the flame burns steadily and brightly, the wish will come true.  If the flame smokes or is feeble, or the candle falls over, forget it. 

     Keyword Interpretations for Transiting and Natal Planets:

(Detailed interpretations for the transiting and natal planets are filed in the How to Use Magical Almanac Tutorial folder at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagicalAlmanac/files/How%20to%20use%20Magical%20Almanac/)

10/04/2009 @ 2:11 = 11 AR 10 = Full moon

10/04/2009 @ 17:06 = 23 VI 57 = Mercury opposition Uranus = There may be some tension or conflict based on misunderstandings or differing interpretations.  There seems to be pigheadedness on all sides.  Best just to cool it now.

10/05/2009 @ 19:15 = 24 VI 57 = Mercury Greatest Western Elongation = New possibilities and horizons open up; new beginnings are made.  There is a need for optimistic self-appraisal, a hopeful attitude, and a willingness to take risks and fly with gut-level impulses.  You may have to incorporate other people's viewpoints and feelings in formulating your own plans and designs; take a longer or broader view.  Mercury hours are the best times to approach others. Your own leadership and fresh ideas may prove decisive.

10/08/2009 @ 2:35 = 27 VI 32 = Mercury conjunct Saturn = There is a call for sobriety and serious-mindedness.  You may need patience in dealing with others, but you can understand their viewpoints objectively and are called upon to facilitate or teach.  Good for long-term commitments and undertakings. 

10/09/2009 @ 18:01 = 23 VI/PI 46 = Venus opposition Uranus = This may bring sudden estrangements or disruptive actions by a friend or family member.  It may be best to leave the other person in peace and go your own way; unavoidable contacts should be made during Venus hours.

10/13/2009 @ 0:34 = 17 AQ 10 = Jupiter Stationary Direct = This may bring an opportunity to lighten up, join together with others, and take a detached, generous, and conciliatory overview.  This is a good day to make prayers or cast spells for money.  Use a Jupiter hour (for example, In Washington D.C. Jupiter holds the Lower Meridian during a Jupiter hour at 9:12 am on Monday).  At the chosen time, light a green candle and imagine that you have plenty of money for all your needs and never need to worry about money ever again!  It's better to visualize what you are going to do with the money to progress in life and help others, rather than to imagine self-indulgence.  Feel how happy and joyous it makes you that you can be philanthropic and give money to others who need it and to help save the earth!

10/13/2009 @ 6:52 = 28 VI 09 = Venus conjunct Saturn = Tact and discretion are needed in addressing the feelings of a friend or family member, or else feelings may be hurt on both sides.  On the other hand, this is a good day to break things off, or to cast a Scat spell to rid yourself of a lover who has outlived his or her usefulness.  Use a Saturn hour.  Light a black candle and imagine your ex is standing right in front of you and telling you that they've decided that they've had enough of you.   Don't feel rancor; feel relief.   It's important that you don't do this creative visualization. in a mood of anger, particularly if your ex is a vampire who is sucking your energy by provoking your anger.   You have to call it quits in the C.V. – not take pleasure when they get their comeuppance (as you do in normal daydreaming).  Take deep breaths, or jump up and down and shake your body, until you are calm and in command of yourself.  Then imagine taking your erstwhile lover's hands in both of your own; look him or her squarely in the eye; and say in your own words and using your own sentiments, "It's had its good times, hasn't it?  But now it's time we each went our own way."  Then wishing him or her the best of luck in their future journey, turn around, wipe your hands of it, walk away, and don't look back.