I want to thank this reader for leaving the above review!!! I also want to ask him not to be harsh on Nick, as he merely edited a text that was already written by someone who is not an A student (me), and Jaime. I also told Jaime to write in her own usual style as well so that the authenticity of her experience would be reflected more, even if it was something of a highly subjective manner. The reason behind the awkward writing style is a) English is not my native language, b) I wanted the information to be as concise and straightforward as possible, and c) I wanted the nature of the text and the book as a whole to reflect the fact that this is merely a breakthrough into what is mostly uncharted magical territory. And truth be told I am glad Nick kept the writing style simple and direct.
There were a couple of books that sold without Nick's editing, so I can only imagine what this reviewer might have thought upon reading that version of the text. And I wouldn't blame him! Nick offered to edit the text only after the book was published and he did so free of charge. He's a dear, and I cannot thank him enough for that! Especially since he edited it on the Solstice instead of doing a rite to Helios in his newly made GD-PGM magical system, or dealing with his own projects, or just lazying around on a nice Sunday.
Anyway, I want to apologize to those readers who bought the initial version of the book in case they were appalled by the writing style! That is usually my style, as I am in no way an erudite or a scholar. I also want to offer them the version edited by Nick for free in case they are interested in reading that as well. And also in case they haven't returned the book by now. Therefore I invite them to send me an email to alex.scaraoschi@gmail.com with a photo of their copy without Nick's name on the cover asking for the pdf version of the manuscript.
I also want to say that the reason we pushed on with the initial manuscript is that Mercury retrograde was drawing near. Initially we had no predetermined deadline, but with a couple of days left until Mercury's retrograde station we asked ourselves whether it would be better to postpone the release of the book until after Mercury goes direct again, publish it during Mercury retrograde, or before the planet's retrograde station. A quick brainstorm and a few divination sessions later and we decided it would be best to publish the book prior to Mercury's retrograde station because the energies prior to that time would allow the book to reach more people. So that made us rush the manuscript and compile the text in the appropriate order so that we'd meet the deadline. Which we did eventually, fully knowing that editing still needs to be done on it. We did not, however, expect for it to have such a positive reception right from the start! (Thank you divination!)
Not only that, but the extremely pretentious KDP requirements for page format were a pain to navigate through, and even with a lot of trial and error, a vast amount of verbal curses, as well as Nick's intervention, the overall layout is still off from what I wanted it to be - thank you KDP!!! Grrrr!
I want to expand a bit more on point c) above. I think for a breakthrough to happen in any field there needs to be enough focused attention and energy into one direction in order to push the boundary of knowledge beyond the place it was previously found in. In my opinion this is done mostly through action, but by making use of whatever bits of knowledge already available. The book itself presents what the authors came to know about Chiron which in turn allowed them to make their way towards encountering the entity and eventually to work with it. It would have made little sense for us to push more of our VPG (verified personal gnosis, as THE magical authority of our times would say) into it, and instead we allow the reader to perform their own work and come up with their own conclusions upon experiencing what it is they will experience.
What made it even worse is the lack of material on Chiron, especially from ancient sources. Jaime was willing to go to a number of libraries in order to dig through the books there for anything on Chiron, but the whole virus crisis prevented her from doing so. Thus we resorted to comb through the internet for whatever material we could find, especially that of a scholastic nature. Fortunately, we found just enough that allowed us to expand on the information presented in the book. There is probably more material out there, but we failed to come across it, in which case I apologize for not being diligent enough when it came to researching the project. As for the astrological details, we also resumed to offer what we consider to be the key details when it comes to Chiron's influences in one's life and leave it to the individual reader to expand on that through their own work and experiences.
Because that's what a breakthrough does, right? It creates an opening and those who follow through that opening start to investigate whatever it is they find on the other side. This does not mean Jaime and I will stop working with Chiron and enrich our experiences with him. I do not know what Nick will do in this case, but I imagine he could construct one of his innovative Pagan-ish, neo-Hellenistic GD-flavored rituals around the simple ritual found in the book if he wants to work with Chiron.
And I for one imagine that working with Chiron would open newer doors to occultists. I have not talked about this in the book because I was still pondering the possibility at the time, but that "rainbow bridge" between the limitations of Saturn and the "higher consciousness" of the outer planets, which is what Chiron is often referred to by many modern astrologers, seems like it has worked in my case. I cannot elaborate more on this subject because I have made a promise to maintain secrecy, but about about an year or so into working with Chiron the method of working with Uranus and Neptune was revealed to me. I haven't researched into what exactly has caused that information to be shared to me, but I'm pretty sure the old master had something to do with it.
Moreover, there are a number of trans saturnian bodies out there and every one of them has a form of consciousness, so it would be interesting if Chiron would help occultists that are working with him access those forms of consciousness. I am not referring solely to the outer planets and planetoids found in the outer solar system, but even to smaller celestial bodies that orbit in that neck of the woods. There is, for instance, one such body that some modern astrologers consider when interpreting both natal and synastry charts and that is an asteroid named after another centaur. Asteroid Nessus (7066) represents abuse and its energies can highly affect the lives of individuals and couples alike based on its location in charts. So it would be interesting to experiment towards getting to work with the energies of Nessus with the help of Chiron, among other things.
All in all, I think this could be the start of building a new tradition based on ancient forces that come into play in our daily lives through newly discovered pieces of creation. I am aware I might be aiming too high with this statement, but only time will tell.
In the end I want to thank the person who has made this review! I thank them for the energy they spent into buying the book, the time they took to read it and review it, and also for their honesty! And their review resulted in this article, which I had no previous plan of writing, so I thank them yet again!
Hate on, dum-dums!
The Great Gazoo
No comments:
Post a Comment