Palatable Occultism?

Slate has an article up today about the resurgence of occultism in popular culture. Or, more specifically, the resurgence of certain occult-related practices that don't go as far as doing actual magick. The author of the article calls these practices "the palatable occult." As I see it, this is a good start but it has a lot further to go before we are ever going to see magick itself go mainstream. I'd love to see that, of course, but my question is whether enough people are ever going to be ready for it to become a real mass movement.

“New Age,” as ye old boomers called it in the ’70s, has come back in a major way this decade, shedding its corny rep for well-designed apps and sleek websites. What once was considered fringe or weird or from another era—talking about astrological charts on a first date, getting your aura read with friends, sound baths—is now kind of just regular among millennials (at least according to various market research firms who track the spiritual industry, one pegging the “mystical-services market” as a $2.2 billion industry). I call it “the palatable occult.”

My first genuine experience with the palatable occult didn’t happen until 2017. Several of my friends were already occult curious or occult serious, and I had smelled my fair share of ancient burning wood, held crystals at friends’ homes, and got a tarot reading from a guy I dated briefly. (I pulled the “death” card, which he quickly explained didn’t mean I was going to croak but was a metaphor for transition.) I remained cynical. The trend seemed silly and manufactured, a distraction from the all-consuming Trump-era resistance, and the result of a nefarious and ascendant wellness industry that just wanted to take my money.

What I find fascinating about this is that "palatable" here feels a lot like "ineffective." Not that there's anything wrong with Tarot or astrology, you understand - I use both all the time in my personal practice. Crystals too, at least when I'm making talismans and the like. But the thing is, I have magical operations posted here, on this blog, that really work. I don't mean they kind of work, like doing casual Tarot readings and checking out horoscope websites. The Enochian magick in my published books really works too. And for the whole time I've been putting this stuff out, it's been a struggle to get people to pay any attention to it.

A Nearby Black Hole?

About a week ago Salon put up an article suggesting the possibility that the hypothetical "planet nine" might be a small black hole. Small is relative here - planet nine is estimated to be between 5 and 15 times the mass of Earth based on gravitational anomalies measured by astronomers. But the size is also such that scientists believe said black hole would not be large enough to have formed from the usual process of stellar collapse. It must instead be a "primordial black hole" formed during the early days of our universe, an object that so far is only theoretical.

Now, a new scientific paper explores a very different theory: what if Planet 9 were not a planet at all, but rather a primordial black hole — a hypothetical type of small black hole that formed soon after the Big Bang, in the early Universe, as a result of density fluctuations. Such a novel idea might explain why powerful telescopes have never detected so much as a flicker from the theoretical distant, massive planet. Likewise, black holes do not emit visible light at all; rather, they absorb all photons that pass their event horizon, while occasionally emitting energy in the form of (theorized but never directly observed) Hawking Radiation.

In the paper, astronomers Jakub Scholtz of Durham University and James Unwin of University of Illinois at Chicago theorize that the elusive Planet 9 could be an old, very small black hole. "Capture of a free-floating planet is a leading explanation for the origin of Planet Nine, and we show that the probability of capturing a PBH [Primordial Black Hole] instead is comparable," the astronomers write in the paper. The two scientists reached this hypothesis in a novel way, by observing that two different phenomena could be related: first, the observation of peculiar orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (meaning bodies orbiting our sun beyond Neptune), which might be explained by the presence of a distant planet with 5 to 15 times Earth's mass; and second, the number of "microlensing events," meaning telescope images that had been distorted by gravitational lensing of the kind caused by black holes or other massive, compact objects.

"There is a growing body of observational anomalies connected to the orbits of trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs)," the paper states. "These observations have been taken as evidence of a new ninth planet in our solar system, called Planet 9, with mass of [about] 5 − 15 [Earth masses] and orbiting around the Sun at a distance of 300−1000" times the Earth to Sun distance. Second, there is set of gravitational anomalies recently observed by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE)," they continue. "The lensing objects are located towards the galactic bulge, roughly 8 [kiloparsecs] away. These events correspond to lensing by objects of mass [of about] 0.5 [Earth masses] to 20 [Earth masses] and could be interpreted as an unexpected population of free floating planets or Primordial Black Holes."

Down With Scorpio Spam

Recently the Reddit astrology forum posed an important question - are Scorpios responsible for more than their share of Internet trolling? At least a handful of people on the forum think so. While it may seem ridiculous at first, it is true that birth season does affect brain development in certain ways. There has been little research on how this might increase online trolling, but there also are no studies to rule it out. Anyway, I'm a Taurus, the opposite Sun sign - I'm already predisposed to find Scorpios kind of a pain in the butt, right?

Twitter user @colleentie recently drew attention to a screenshot of a Reddit post arguing, essentially, that Scorpios, aka those with birthdays from Oct. 23 through Nov. 21, are out of control online. In a post titled, “MODS: Please start banning Scorpio spam,” the poster complains that members of the sign are responsible for a disproportionate amount of garbage posts on the subreddit, and must be stopped. The thread goes on, “I’ve used this subreddit for 3-4 years now, and in all of that time, one of the constants here, has been a continual flood of attention seeking threads, written by Scorpio natives. No other sign’s natives do it to anywhere near the same extent, and I and several other people here are getting utterly sick of it.” Not everyone agrees with the assertion that Scorpios have hijacked the board—apparently there’s some indication that the spam may be part of a larger rash of obnoxious sun-sign threads.

While the thread only got a moderate amount of attention and responses, the idea that a Reddit community about astrology could more or less ban one of the 12 astrological signs from participation on account of insufferable behavior is too delicious not to contemplate further. Yes, there exists a species of online troll whose venue of choice is an astrology board, and today we learned that troll is a Scorpio. Maybe it was written in the stars all along—if one sign was going to get banned from the zodiac, it would be Scorpios, wouldn’t it? According to the cosmic authority that is Astrostyle.com, Scorpios are “a little bit TOO intense at times” and “can be protective and magnetic but also secretive, possessive and vengeful,” which happen to be the exact characteristics of people bound to create drama online. So sorry, Scorpio trolls of Reddit: Apparently, you’re in retrograde.

To be clear, I do have a few Scorpio friends and I don't find any of them a pain in the butt. If I did, they would no longer be friends and that would resolve the issue right there. There is some kind of tongue-in-cheek banter among astrologers in general, though, that Scorpios are more likely to be over-dramatic than natives of other signs. In my experience, Scorpios tend to get really excited about projects at the beginning and do a bunch of work but then lose interest and disappear. Or maybe that's a function of the particular people and more of a coincidence than a trend. It's hard to say.

At any rate, this might be a new avenue for research regarding astrology and its reliability. If we could show that Scorpios are more likely to be trolls, that's a positive correlation that would have to be explained. And maybe that would lead us to a better understanding of whether or not astrological forces shape our lives and how those forces work. Either that, or it would just feed the trolls some more.

New Nibiru Rapture Tomorrow!

David Meade is back. After being relentlessly mocked here on Augoeides over last year's Rapture/Nibiru end of the world conspiracy theory, the dude has no idea when to quit. Now he's made a new prediction that's exactly the same as the last.

Oh, except that it happens tomorrow. Cue the mass hysteria!

According to conspiracy theorists, codes in the Bible suggest the end of the world is imminent, with Earth set to be destroyed tomorrow, April 23. One theory suggests the end times dates back to astrological constellations appearing on November 23, matching the book of Revelation 12:1-2. The passage signals the start of the Rapture and the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The passage 12:1–2 reads: “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.” It is thought that Virgo is the woman from the passage. On April 23, the sun and moon will be in Virgo, as will Jupiter, which represents the Messiah. Experts at first dismissed this claim when they discovered this alignment happens very 12 years. However, the conspiracy theories claim another planetary alignment, representing “the Lion of the tribe of Judah’, will make this time the Rapture.

Christian conspiracy theorist David Meade is the main expert suggesting the end times are here. Mr Meade also predicts a mythological planetary system known as Planet X or Nibiru will appear in the sky on April 23. He claims it will then pass the Earth in October, causing the start of the Rapture with huge volcanoes and volcanic eruptions due to its gravitational force.

Bakker Says Eclipse Was God's Wrath

Yesterday millions of people all over the United States enjoyed viewing a rare total solar eclipse. But there's one person who didn't enjoy it a bit - evangelist and bad potato soup entrepreneur Jim Bakker. Bakker recently informed his listeners that the eclipse was sent by God because the Almighty is "still mad at the Obama years."

“God came to me in a dream and said I should tell the world that I am plunging the world into darkness to remind people I’m still mad at the Obama years,” Bakker said recently on his online radio show. “Obama legalized witchcraft, sexual deviants getting married and schools started teaching transgenderism.”

Joel 2:31 KJV The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.

— The Jim Bakker Show (@JimBakkerShow) August 20, 2017

Bakker said it would take eight years of the Trump administration for America to “get right with God.”

In another show, Bakker said that the end is closer than anyone realizes.

“You people that are mocking the prophets, you better be careful because God’s raised up the prophets to warn us and to teach us … I’m telling you, people, if you don’t know we’re in the last days, you’re so deceived,” Bakker said.

Jim, you just don't get it. I'm not mocking the prophets. I'm mocking you! Now let's break down just how stupid this assertion about the eclipse really is.

Eclipse or Apocalypse?

Next fall, much of the continental United States will experience its first total solar eclipse in almost a century. American astronomers are looking forward to the event and are getting ready to take advantage of the opportunity to observe one of these eclipses without having to travel around the world. Total solar eclipses in general are unusual, but not that rare. What's rare is to see one without leaving home, since they only are total from particular locations.

Of course, it's not just the scientists who are interested in the event. Some apocalyptic Christians believe that the eclipse is yet another sign of The End of the World. You know, like that "blood moon" series of lunar eclipses in 2015 that heralded precisely nothing, unless, I suppose, your idea of an apocalypse is the election of the Trump Administration.

Gary Ray isn't worried about just travel plans and adequate eye protection. He's focused on the Rapture. Ray, a writer for the evangelical Christian publication Unsealed, views this eclipse as one of several astronomical signs that the day when Christians will be whisked away from the Earth is fast approaching.

"The Bible says a number of times that there's going to be signs in the heavens before Jesus Christ returns to Earth. We see this as possibly one of those," Ray said about the eclipse. He is even more interested in another astronomical event that will occur 33 days after the eclipse, on Sept. 23, 2017.

The Book of Revelation, which is full of extraordinary imagery, describes a woman "clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head" who gives birth to a boy who will "rule all the nations with an iron scepter" while she is threatened by a red, seven-headed dragon. The woman then grows the wings of an eagle and is swallowed up by the earth.

Ray says that image will be created in the sky on Sept. 23. The constellation Virgo - representing the woman - will be clothed in sunlight, in a position that is over the moon and under nine stars and three planets. The planet Jupiter, which will have been inside Virgo - in her womb, in Ray's interpretation - will move out of Virgo, as if she is giving birth.

The first big problem there is that the whole idea of the Rapture is poorly supported in scripture. It's an innovation interpretation that came out of Millerism and only dates to the early 1800's. It's very likely that the original First Century Christians would likely have not even recognized the doctrine. The Book of Revelation doesn't say anything about Christians vanishing or flying up into the air aside from the 144,000 elders, which doesn't fit the "Rapture timeline" that the Neo-Millerists like so much. The idea comes from 1 Thessalonians 4:17, which to me and many mainstream Christians doesn't read like a literal statement.

But if we ignore that part, and treat September 23, 2017 as the date of Christ's return, I suppose what we really have is yet another date for the apocalypse. "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man," remember? That's from Mark, the oldest of the Gospels. Revelation, on the other hand, only dates back to the Second Century. Based on that, I'm going to go ahead as usual and make my prediction. The eclipse will come and go, September 23rd will come and go, and nothing particularly revelatory or apocalyptic will happen.

That's the prediction I always make, and longtime readers know that I've never been wrong. The same can't be said for the apocalyptic doomers.

The Chart Victor Calculation

So I went and changed my mind. I was going to kick off the Zodiacal Work with Aries this week, but since next Monday I'll be posting the text of my Introduction to Enochian Magick talk, I decided that I would post Aries the week after that so I can post all of the zodiacal work in an unbroken 12-week series.

If you are disappointed that Aries isn't up today, though, you can go ahead and take a look at my Angels of the Zodiac presentation from last August. I use Aries as my example, so the Aries post is going to look a whole lot like what I have outlined there, including the sigil on the Kamea and the selection from Liber 963.

Instead, I decided to go ahead and post the Chart Victor calculation, because I have found that knowing your Chart Victor is important when performing any sort of zodiacal operation. In Arabic, the Chart Victor is called Al-Mubtazz which means "the victor" or "the winner." This gets corrupted into English as "almuten," which is what most commercial astrology programs that perform the calculation call it. In simplest terms, for every given chart there is generally one planet that is stronger than all the others. That planet is the Chart Victor.

I originally learned how to perform this calculation from Benjamin Dykes, who found it in among the works of Abraham ibn Ezra. Dykes' book, The Search of the Heart, goes into great detail regarding the application of the method and includes never-before-translated astrological material from the Twelfth Century. This article will cover the calculation and briefly discuss its basic application for zodiacal operations, but if you want to know more I highly recommended picking up a copy of the book for yourself.

The magical application of this method for zodiacal operations has to do with the dignities or debilities acquired by the Chart Victor when it is in the sign with which you are working. Ideally, you want to perform a zodiacal operation for a particular sign when the Chart Victor is the ruler of the sign, or exalted in it. Rulership is the most favorable dignity, followed by Exaltation. You should always avoid performing an operation for a particular sign when the Chart Victor is debilitated in the sign by Detriment or Fall.

The condition of the Chart Victor should be examined along with the application of simple electional timing. That is, you should not perform operations on a void-of-course Moon or when the Moon's final aspect is a square or opposition. If that doesn't make sense, go ahead and review the electional timing article before proceeding further into this one.

The Origin of the Moon

In the comments on one of my elemental work articles, I was asked why I traced the sigils of the Kings onto the lunar kamea, rather than onto that of a planet harmonious with the element. My answer was that the Moon rules the entire elemental realm, and therefore it is more appropriate to use the lunar kamea than that of any other planet. Likewise, the Moon is the final dispositor of magical energy flowing into the material world, and plays an important role in electional timing.

I recently came across this article that offers an additional explanation - the Earth and the Moon are formed of the same stuff. This is not a new concept - that the Moon is the result of a collision between two planets that happened during the early days of the solar system. But there are a number of problems with the idea. Planetary physicist Sarah Stewart has now published a new version of the "Giant Impact Hypothesis" that explains more of the data than the previous model could.

This week in the journal Nature, she, postdoctoral fellow Matija Ćuk (now a researcher at the SETI Institute) and two other colleagues propose a new theory, one that Stewart argues offers a solid explanation for the chemistry and tilt of the moon based on a single, high-energy collision.

“You have the one event and then you stand back and just watch and everything will happen on its own,” she said of the new scenario. But just because it's set off by one event doesn't mean it's not a complicated process, so buckle up.

Stewart and Ćuk have been working on their model — call it Giant Impact With a Twist — for a few years. It starts with a crash. But instead of striking Earth at an angle, they argue that the collider, which scientists call Theia, smashed into our planet head on. The high-energy impact would have melted the collider and the Earth and mixed them together, explaining how the planet and the moon could condense from the same swirl of material and take on the same chemical signatures.

Simple Electional Timing

Have you ever cast a spell that seemed to go just fine, but produced few or no results? The problem might have been the prevailing astrological conditions at the time you cast it. Electional astrology is an entire sub-field of astrology dedicated to finding the best and most opportune times to do just about everything, including casting spells.

The trouble there is that most magicians are not skilled astrologers and don't necessarily want to put in the necessary time to learn all the intricacies of the discipline. We just want to cast spells and have them work. So today I'm going to tell you about a simple method that can help you do some effective electional work without having to learn too many involved astrological concepts.

In order to use this method you only have to pay attention to the sign of and aspects formed by a single planet - the Moon. I know, it's not actually a planet according to the modern definition of the word. But it is the closest heavenly body to Earth, and it moves through the entire zodiac every 28 days or so. As it does, it makes aspects with all the other planets.

To start off, here's some basic terminology. Aspects are specific angles formed between planets in the sky. For the purposes of this method, I am only talking about the Moon and any of the other planets. A Conjunction is when two planets are in the same location, an angle of 0 degrees. A Sextile is an angle of 60 degrees, a Square is an angle of 90 degrees, and a Trine is an angle of 120 degrees. Finally, an Opposition is an angle of 180 degrees.

Some modern astrologers have proposed other kinds of aspects, but it's only those five that we need to worry about for the purposes of this method. As the Moon moves through all twelve signs of the zodiac, it enters a sign, and then makes each aspect in that sign as it passes through. Looking at this process gives us the two pieces of information that we need to make a simple electional determination for a magical operation.

Dating the Antikythera Mechanism

The so-called Antikythera Mechanism, a device originally composed of a complex series of bronze gears, was discovered in 1901 off the coast of Antikythera, an island in the Aegean Sea. According to experts who have examined the device, it appears to have been used to determine the position of the sun, moon, and planets at specific times. In effect, it was the first known mechanical astrological calendar.

Researchers have now determined that based on its settings, the device could be as much as a hundred years older than previously thought. This is significant because precise dating of the device could help determine the mathematical principles that went into its construction.

A 2006 study dated the device to 150-100 B.C. But a new analysis of the mechanism's eclipse-tracking dial by scientists at the University of Puget Sound in Washington and the National University of Quilmes in Argentina indicates that the device's built-in calendar likely began at 205 B.C.

This suggests that the Antikythera Mechanism must be at least 50 to 100 years older than previously thought. If that's the case, the researchers say, the device could not have relied on trigonometry, which emerged during the 2nd century B.C. Instead, it was probably based on arithmetical principles the Greeks borrowed from the Babylonians.

For now, the mystery of who built the device remains unsolved. While some experts have linked the mechanism to legendary Greek thinkers like Archimedes and Hipparchus, the new study suggests it's too early to say for sure.

“We know so little about ancient Greek astronomy,” study co-author Dr. James Evans, a professor of physics at the University of Puget Sound, told The New York Times. “Only small fragments of work have survived. It’s probably safer not to try to hang it on any one particular famous person.”

Given the nature of astrology, it's also possible that these experts are wrong. For an astrologer, the device would be less useful if its starting date was the date on which it was built. Just like with a modern ephemeris, it would make more sense to have it start 50-100 years earlier so that it could be used to calculate birth charts for older adults. That amount of time is exactly the discrepancy found by these researchers.

As the research continues, I'm looking forward to hearing more about how the device works and how accurate it would have been over time. It just goes to show that ancient people were as smart as we are today, except that they were working from a more limited knowledge base.

Is Astrology Harmful?

Too many skeptics suffer from the delusion that belief in anything that has not been 100% verified by formal science is fundamentally dangerous to one's well-being. For years, the James Randi Educational Foundation has been calling on newspapers to ban horoscope columns. This is because even though any astrologer will tell you that they're basically useless without more information, they somehow nonetheless pose some poorly-defined existential threat to modern civilization.

Today IO9, which I usually enjoy, has an article up that once more tries to explain why astrology is harmful. For the purposes of this post I'm not going to get into whether or not astrology works. I do make use of it in my spiritual and magical work, but the fact is that it has yet to be verified by orthodox scientific research. So for the moment I'm willing to play in the skeptical sandbox to point out that even if we operate under the assumption that astrology is 100% nonsense, the idea that it is somehow especially harmful is just plain silly.

To start with, basic psychology tells us that people are wrong about things all the time without necessarily incurring any real harm from their inaccurate beliefs. In fact, as a perfect example of this, the author of the article clearly doesn't have a solid understanding of how astrology works. I get that he considers it nonsense and not worth his time, but presumably he was paid for this article. Couldn't he have done a little more research? Statements like this one show that whatever he did was inadequate.

It didn't help the astrological cause back in 2011 when an entirely new version of the zodiac was proposed, thus shifting everyone's sign from its mythical original position. Indeed, the whole premise behind astrology is predicated on some rather flimsy parameters; what we call "months" are actually cultural — and not cosmological — constructs. Moreover, our expanding universe, and all that's within it, is in a constant state of flux.

The truth is that most actual astrologers didn't care about this "controversy" one bit. The difference between tropical and sidereal astrology is well-known, and is one of the main differences between Western astrology and its Vedic counterpart that's practiced in India. The "new order" is just the sidereal order, and if you got a chart from an Indian astrologer it would match the "new" schema, aside from the supposed "13th sign."

As far as that goes, the only way in which you even get an extra sign is if you conflate astrology with astronomy, which skeptics are always telling people not to do. Tropical astrologers don't treat the signs as the literal result of a planet overlapping with a constellation. Rather, they divide the year into twelve parts and use the constellation names as convenient labels. So pointing out that a thirteenth constellation touches the ecliptic doesn't mean anything to an astrologer, especially a Western one.

Censoring Alternative Religions

As I mentioned back when David Cameron first proposed filtering "esoteric web sites" in the UK, Internet filtering is pretty much always a disaster. Companies have been trying to create working algorithms since the early 1990's, with at least one company back then even going so far as to have employees manually categorize web pages. Even their filtering software failed to distinguish objectionable content from informative pages, and when faced with pattern recognition that a human being can't do correctly, a computer is going to fail every time.

Nonetheless, companies are still creating filtering software products and hoping that customers will be too ignorant to realize that what they're selling is essentially snake oil. Recently a Missouri library was sued over the "Netsweeper" software that it used to filter Internet content. In addition to legitimately objectionable material, it blocked references to Wicca, Native American spirituality, astrology, and other alternative religion sites.

The ACLU sued last year on behalf of Salem resident Anaka Hunter. Salem is a largely Christian community of 5,000 residents in the Missouri Ozarks. Hunter was researching death and death rituals in minority religions in an effort to get more in touch with her Native American roots through spirituality, the ACLU said.

The library’s filtering software blocked access to sites about Wicca, a pagan religion that worships nature and involves witchcraft. Hunter was also unable to access sites about Native American religions. The suit said the library’s Netsweeper software blocked sites such as the official webpage of the Wiccan church; the Wikipedia entry for Wicca; Astrology.com; and the Encyclopedia on Death and Dying, which contains discussions on death and death rituals for several cultures and religions.

Sensibly, the judge ruled that the filtering software was out of line and could not be used as long as it censored alternative religious content. It should be clear that spirituality is not obscenity, whether or not it's part of a mainstream religious denomination, and libraries have a compelling public interest to provide information about it. But companies know that their filters don't distinguish sites well, so they generally default to blocking everything even marginally related to categories defined as restricted. Libraries need to be especially cautious when working with filters, to make sure that legitimate information sources are always available to their patrons.

Birth Season and Brain Development

Twenty years ago when I was considering going for a graduate degree in neuroscience this was one of the studies that I wanted to perform if I eventually became a research scientist. It occurred to me as an undergraduate that some of the tenets of astrology might be derived from observations based on birth seasons. I live in Minnesota, where the seasonal variations are quite severe, and it only made sense that the month in which a child was born would influence how they experienced their first year of life, and potentially set them on a cycle of activities that could influence their personality development. For example, a baby born at the beginning of winter would spend his or her first several months indoors, while a baby born at the beginning of summer would have access to outdoor exposure right away. Now a neuroscience researcher has performed such a study, and identified a specific brain characteristic that seems to correlate with birth seasons.

The season we’re born in can have far-reaching consequences. For instance, Spring babies are more likely than others to develop schizophrenia later in life, whereas Summer babies tend to grow up to be more sensation seeking. There are many more of these so-called season of birth effects. Scientists aren’t sure, but they think such patterns could be due (among other things) to mothers’ and infants’ exposure to viruses over the Winter period, or to the amount of daylight they’re exposed to, either or both of which could influence genetic expression during early development. Now Spiro Pantazatos, a neuroscientist at Columbia University Medical Center, has studied links between season of birth and brain structure in healthy adults. He thinks the association between season of birth and psychiatric and behavioural outcomes later in life could be mediated by genetic factors that affect the growth of the brain.

Pantazatos has analysed MRI brain scans taken from 550 healthy men and women at hospitals in London, England. In one analysis he looked to see if there were any particular areas of the brain that differed between people according to the season they were born in. He defined the seasons as follows: Winter (Dec 23 to March 19); Spring (March 22 to June 19); Summer (June 22 to September 21); and Fall (September 24 to December 20). For the men only, he found that those born in the Fall and Winter tended to have more grey matter in a region known as the left superior temporal sulcus (STG), as compared with men born in Spring and Summer. Looking month by month, men born at the end of December tended to have the most grey matter in this region; men born at the end of June tended to have the least.

This particular correlation between season and brain structure only seems to hold for men, but with the way that protosciences work that could be enough to suggest a relationship between birth season and particular traits. The sifting process of information gathering in such disciplines is based on holding onto information that seems to valid and discarding relationships that fail to hold up over time. It is far more vulnerable to error and cognitive bias than formal scientific inquiry, but the observations thus accumulated can suggest potential areas for more rigorous inquiry. It's too bad that anything dubbed "paranormal" has gotten so little attention in academic circles, but some of that is starting to turn around with studies like this one and others relating brain activity to altered states of consciousness such as those employed in both meditation and magical operations.

Astrology and Science

Lately the results of a survey have been going around the Internet claiming that nearly half of Americans believe that astrology is a legitimate science. The survey's promoters have been arguing that this shows how ignorant Americans are, when in fact the results are being interpreted to support that particular agenda. The results of the survey are quite ambiguous, perhaps even by design.

According to a new survey by the National Science Foundation, nearly half of all Americans say astrology, the study of celestial bodies' purported influence on human behavior and worldly events, is either "very scientific" or "sort of scientific." By contrast, 92 percent of the Chinese public think horoscopes are a bunch of baloney.

What's more alarming, researchers show in the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study, is that American attitudes about science are moving in the wrong direction. Skepticism of astrology hit an all-time high in 2004, when 66 percent of Americans said astrology was total nonsense. But each year, fewer and fewer respondents have dismissed the connections between star alignment and personality as bunk.

Not surprisingly, those with less science education and less "factual knowledge" have become increasingly willing to accept astrology as legitimate science, with 65 percent of such individuals considering the pseudo-science credible in 2012, up from 48 percent in 2010. Young people are also especially inclined to offer astrology scientific legitimacy, with a majority of Americans ages 18 to 24 considering the practice at least "sort of" scientific, and the 25-34 age group is not far behind them.

Do you see the problem? I'll give you a hint - the survey was designed with the following options. Respondents had to classify astrology as "not at all scientific," "sort of scientific," or "very scientific." Only 10% of respondents actually selected "very scientific," with 32% selecting "sort of scientific." But the survey promoters group both of them together so that they can breathlessly argue that "42% of Americans think astrology is a legitimate science!"

Zodiacal and Elemental Hours

One of the most basic magical techniques is the tuning of one's working space to match the influence or spirit being conjured. As I discuss in Mastering the Mystical Heptarchy, modern magicians often accomplish this by relying on the Greater Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram or similar ceremonial forms, but during the Renaissance a system of hours was used that was believed to follow the natural flow of spiritual currents in the universe. As a modern magician my general practice is to use both, which seems to augment the effectiveness of my rites quite nicely.

The most well-known aspect of this system is that of the planetary days and hours based on the Chaldean Order, which breaks each 24-hour period from sunrise to sunrise into twelve day and twelve night hours. These hours vary in length depending on the season, with night hours longer during the winter and day hours longer during the summer. The system works quite well for planetary magick - the hour was generally considered to be more important than the day, so when timing an operation for a particular day the most auspicious time could be selected. However, it would be convenient to extend this system for work with the signs of the Zodiac and classical elements along authentic Renaissance grounds. From my introductory studies of traditional astrology I believe that I may have worked out just such a method.

Studying Traditional Astrology

A note about the "Magick Monday" plan - there won't necessarily be a Monday post every week, but the idea is that if there is one it will be related to actual magick rather than weird news, cryptozoology, religion, or what have you. Enjoy!

Over the weekend I joined a local discussion group that is studying traditional astrology. Traditional in this context means up to around the eighteenth century or so, when the modern ideas that most of us are more familiar with began to take hold. I first attended a talk on this older form of astrology back in 2010 and one of the key concepts from traditional electional methods, the Mubtazz or Victor of the chart, was incorporated into a series of zodiacal workings performed by my magical working group from 2010-2011. Those workings proved quite effective for accomplishing both mystical and practical goals, and also provided me with much of the data I gathered on EMF and evocation.

For those of you who are used to working with modern astrology, the traditional version has some key differences. The most basic is in the overall approach. Modern astrology operates from the perspective that for the most part your chart represents your mind and is therefore largely psychological. Traditional astrology, on the other hand, looks at the chart as a collection of macrocosmic forces that act upon you in addition to the components of your mind. In effect, it focuses much more strongly on macrocosmic events than its modern counterpart. This allows the traditional form to be approached in a more empirical manner, in which specific predictions can be tested against real-world events. In this way its approach is more similar to that taken by Vedic astrology, though there are many technical differences between the two systems.

Astrology on Wall Street

It's well known among investors and financial analysts alike that predicting financial markets is extremely difficult and it's pretty much mathematically impossible for anyone to get it right all of the time. I suppose, then, it's no surprise to see traders looking for any advantage they can get, even if it comes from a paranormal source. Apparently, thousands of traders are now relying on astrology to help them make investment decisions.

According to MarketPlace, reports Wall Street and Tech, “at least 3,000 traders are currently paying $237 each year to subscribe to financial astrologer Karen Starich’s newsletter, while a couple thousand more subscribe to Arch Crawford’s astrology-based financial forecasts.”

This is the first report I've seen that includes the actual numbers, but I will say that I've heard rumors going back decades that many major Wall Street figures at the very least take astrology into account alongside conventional analysis. My guess is that the practice would not endure unless there was something to it, no matter what the skeptics say. What that something is, though, is open to debate. As a magician, I believe that esoteric relationships exist between the planets and various archetypal concepts and forces. However, as a scientist, I also am familiar with research suggesting that while such a relationship may exist, it is small enough that it does not fully explain our fascination with the subject.

Now THAT'S Saturn!

Check out this awesome picture of Saturn taken by NASA's Cassini space probe. That's not CGI, it's what the planet Saturn really looks like from that particular angle, with the sun behind it illuminating the surrounding rings.

Taken by NASA's Cassini robotic orbiter, the shot was captured from the dark side of Saturn as the Sun's bright rays illuminated every piece of dust and debris circling the planet. Cassini has offered astronomers a never-before-seen look at Saturn and revealed more information about the planet than any craft before it. The craft has taken so many pictures of the ringed wonder that they were recently made into a short flyby film that looks like it was created by George Lucas rather than a robotic space explorer.

In Qabalistic magick Saturn is related to Binah, which encompasses both the vision of wonder and the vision of sorrow. It's considered both an astrological malefic and the lord of initiation. And in this picture you can see all that, and so much more. This is going to become my magical image of choice for years to come.

The Cassini probe was launched in 1997 and took a further 7 years to reach Saturn's orbit. The total cost of its overarching objective of studying the ringed planet stands at a staggering $3.26 billion. However, the wealth of information it has wrought — including amazing pictures like the one above, and recordings of massive lightning storms on the planet — have already made it one of the best investments in space exploration. Hopefully Juno — which began a 5-year trek to Jupiter just last month — will bring us some equally stunning shots of Saturn's neighbor.

Let's just say that I'm really looking forward to seeing those photos of Jupiter, as they promise to be similarly remarkable.

Mercury in July

You probably have noticed that the number of articles posted here declined dramatically in July. This was partially due to my being away for Convergence over the weekend of the 4th, but mostly because Mercury essentially unloaded on me over the course of the last couple of weeks. Now, problems related to Mercury do manifest from time to time, but I found it odd that so many of them seemed to hit at once.

1. My PC died. This turned out to be pretty easy to fix - the problem was the CPU fan went out and the machine was overheating.
2. I took my car in to a mechanic because it was making a noise that I thought was from something in the exhaust. It turned out that the problem was inside the engine and would cost substantially more to fix than the car is worth. I decided I would be better off buying another car with a lot fewer miles, since in my experience replacing or rebuilding an engine isn't worth it unless you can do the labor yourself.
3. My Internet router died. Replacing it wound up being a serious pain. The first one I got was nice but I couldn't get it to connect to my ISP for some reason that tech support couldn't help me with. I returned that one and picked up the recommended model, which worked at first but died the next day. I exchanged that one for another of the same model and that one appears to be working.
4. The one issue I'm still having is that my phone, which is on a VOIP router, is still down. For some reason it seems like the VOIP router can't connect properly to the new Internet router. I'm still in the process of getting that fixed, but at least I have Internet back.

I would say that some of this was related to the record hot weather here in Minnesota, and maybe that had something to do with the car. But the thing is, my home is air conditioned and there's no reason to think that the heat would have affected the various electronics. Even during the big heat wave the temperature stayed the same inside my house.

I took a look at the astrology and my best guess is that Mercury was in sextile with both Saturn and Mars, the major and minor malefic. Sextiles are not normally considered negative aspects, but one of the things I realized is that as I replaced these various failing components I found that I liked the replacements a lot better. The old CPU fan that came with my PC was rather loud when it ran on full and the new one is whisper-quiet. The car I bought, a Chrysler Sebring (I'm a convertible enthusiast), is much nicer than the Sunfire convertible it replaced. The router seems to be working about the same, but we'll see how that goes over the next couple of months.

So the normal interpretation of a sextile, as an opportunity for positive action, seems to fit my situation pretty well. I just wish it hadn't been quite so expensive to take advantage of it.

Success With Planetary Magick

Remember my article on the series of astrological conjunctions that would be happening last month? In it I recommended that magicians take advantage of those aspects in order to augment any spells they were planning on casting involving Jupiter, Mercury, or Venus, and on May 10th I did so as well with a planetary healing ritual for a friend who has been experiencing chronic health problems over the course of the last year. For those of you who don't do a lot of healing magick, chronic health conditions are usually the worst to cast against. In many cases what you wind up with is a sort of magical "holding action" that temporarily alleviates some of the symptoms and then fades over the course of the next few days. You can sometimes hold symptoms at bay longer by casting over and over again, but the root condition generally remains unresolved.

In Liber 777 "miracles of healing" are associated with the path of Mercury. With all of the Mercury aspects that were going to be occuring between the 11th and the end of the month I figured that this would be one of the best possible times to perform a healing ritual. I'd also been working with the planetary magick schema that I presented at Paganicon back in March over the last couple of months, so a Mercury rite dovetailed nicely with my ongoing practice. The basic structure that I used is essentially the one outlined in that article, with a couple of additions intended to facilitate taking advantage of the upcoming conjunction.