With this post we continue a monthly chapter-by-chapter discussion of The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Lévi, the book that launched the modern magical revival. Here and in the months ahead we’re plunging into the white-hot fires of creation where modern magic was born. If you’re just joining us now, I recommend…
Tag: astrology
The Flight from Prediction
I think most of my readers know that my academic background, such as it is, is in the history of ideas. To some extent that was simply the best option I could find when I returned to college in 1991 to complete my degree. Then as now, the University of Washington didn’t offer a major…
The Grand Mutation: An Astrological Interlude
Over the last year, and especially over the last month, I’ve fielded a flurry of questions about the astrological meaning of the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that took place on Monday. I’ve been intrigued to note that quite a few of those questions have come from people who admit they don’t know much about…
The Astrologer of Narragansett Bay
A month ago I recounted the story of Johannes Kelpius, the German occultist who crossed the Atlantic in 1694 with his fellow initiates of the Chapter of Perfection to make a new life for themselves in the woodlands of eastern Pennsylvania. That made a good starting point for the discussion I want to set in…
An Astrological Interlude: Aries Ingress 2020
Before we go on to the next vignette from the magical history of the United States, it’s time to glance over the annual Aries ingress chart for the United States and glean what we can of the next year of American history from that source. Readers new to this blog may not yet be aware…
September 2019 Open Post
This week’s Ecosophian offering is the monthly (well, more or less!) open post to field questions and encourage discussion among my readers. All the standard rules apply — no profanity, no sales pitches, no trolling, no rudeness, no long screeds proclaiming the infallible truth of fill in the blank — but since there’s no topic,…
An Astrological Interlude: Libra Ingress 2019
A few days from now we’ll have arrived at the northern hemisphere’s autumn equinox, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator to bring spring to my readers in Australia and fall to me and my neighbors here in North America. The equinox is an important holy day to Druids and members of various other nature-centered…
An Astrological Interlude: Aries Ingress 2019
Today is the northern hemisphere’s spring equinox, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator to bring summer to the end of the planet with polar bears and winter to the end with penguins. Nature worshipers of various kinds will be celebrating the equinox today, Druids among them, but this is also a day that matters…
An Astrological Interlude: Libra Ingress 2018
The autumn equinox is nearly on us, and with it comes the mainstay of the political astrologer, the ingress chart. Regular readers who’ve been following the discussions here for the last six months already know that the branch of astrology that forecasts trends in politics and society is called mundane astrology, and that horoscopes cast…
An Astrological Interlude: Brexit
The noise and bustle generated by the ongoing three-ring circus of US politics in the era of Trump can make it hard sometimes to notice that performances just as colorful, and sometimes as absurd, are under way in other countries as well. One example that’s been on my mind of late is Brexit: the impending…