Book review: Star and Stone

A short background is in order before reviewing Star and Stone: 

During the editing of Asteria, El Maximo Exponente de la Magia took it upon himself to teach me how to rub my dice... ahem! Geomancy. I told him several times I am divination challenged but instead of being discouraged by that, the illustrious Professor patiently assisted me in the learning process while drastically punishing me whenever I made mistakes: "You think with your weewee!" he kept saying. In my defense, those were readings about sex so... 

Anyway, I kept asking him to make videos on his YT channel to explain wtf he was trying to teach me because my mind works better by processing visual images of concepts. So to me it's useless I can understand every word of a sentence and the sentence as a whole because if my mind cannot create an image of the essence of that sentence... cannot compute. "No!" answered the grumpy Manticore, "no one learns geomancy from videos" he continued while grumpily instructing me onward. (Raise your hands if you want the meanie to keep posting woowoo videos!!! Hasn't posted in ages ffs!!! Carelessly keeps growing a beard instead...) I asked him to write a damn book about it several times, each time getting another grumpy "No!" because apparently "no one reads books on geomancy."

At some point he must've received a pretty request because he started writing like a mad man!!! I found myself assaulted by emails with more and more stuff from his draft to the point I stopped reading them because it was A LOT and... I hate to read. Despite some difficulties along the way, that may or may not have been cause by yours truly, the illustrious meanie championed his book to a glorious ending in a very short amount of time for a 400+ page book - many words!

He then recruited the genius Sénor Shaman to render the draft in the same clever software we used on Asteria. The two began a long, slow process of editing... which got me pissed! Because we have another book on the way and cannot drop it before "Rubbing Dice" got published... so I volunteered to help out and speed up the editing process. 

The result is Star and Stone got published sooner than it was initially announced! No need to thank me because I did it out of selfish reasons. Also, we didn't end up cursing each other every second like back during Asteria :D Oh, and it's not my fault Mr. Meanie published it more than a week later rather than the very second it was done!!! Not my fault I'm double Puer and aiming for order and stability fast (Populus), while Nick's Albus and poopy Tristitia, wise and serious and ever sooooo slooooooow, aiming for Greater Fortune...

This brings us to the topic of this article, namely the review. Because I found myself in the situation of actively taking part in the editing process, I had no choice than to actually read through it. I found it simple to understand even for morons like myself who knew very little about this divinatory method, or any other for that matter. 

Besides going through the geomantic figures and explaining them in detail, from both European and Arab perspectives, the book also includes the associations between the figures and the lunar mansions. While these associations would seem off, they add another layer of meaning and thus bring more diversity with respect to interpreting the individual figures in readings. Any beginner reading this book is likely to find themselves overwhelmed by the many associations Nick has produced for each geome. But this is nothing to worry about because the information is delivered gradually and even I know the meanings apply based on the question, so there's no need to know ALL of them ALL the time. 

Beginners are also presented with the traditional and more modern methods for generating the figures and receive explicit visual aid whenever the situation calls when it comes to arranging them on the shield. Several methods of interpreting the shield are presented, containing detailed information on each group of figures, from the Mothers to Judge and Sentence. Techniques such as the Way of Point and interpreting the Triplicities are offered to help people expand their interpretations.

But that's not all! Astrological techniques are also presented and the methods of using them in a reading are explained in detail. Those with little to no astrological knowledge should not become frightened because of this! Whatever astrological information is presented is limited to its application for geomantic purposes. It is also brief and to the point, so the reader will not get bogged down in useless details. 

On top of that, Mr. Farrell lends a helping hand to beginners by eliminating the need of using much of the modern astrological methods and their application in geomancy. While he speaks of them and offers them inside the book, he veers the reader towards a simpler approach based on a renaissance guy who was apparently a great dice rubbing champion, named Cattan. For some time I found it funny that Mr. Farrell, the epitome of Britishness, would follow some French guy... until the editing process had me stumble across the fact Cattan was in fact Cattano, and he was Italian. The sneaky meanie said nothing about this all that time and instead left me rambling on about that. But it seems fitting for someone who's living in pretty Italy to follow an Italian. When in Rome... (I wouldn't know because I'm not there...)

So technically, from my understanding, Nick is presenting the reader with a choice to use more modern methods while also offering him or her the option to follow a more direct path. Although this path also consists of various technicalities, there is no need to pay attention to astrological stuff like planetary dignities and all that. There is also little need to pay attention to aspects, except as a means to expand the reading by getting into more minute details. 

If I'm not mistaking, the final section in Chapter 7 of the book is a perfect example of how a reading delivers very similar answers when applying both methods used by those who use more modern techniques, as well as Cattan's method Nick is putting forward. Cattan's is simpler, in my opinion, and the fact the last sections of Chapter 7 put together his requirements to judge a reading and apply them in practical examples is very helpful. The several steps one is to take when judging are laid out clearly and anyone starting to rub their dice can simply do that, observe those steps, and go back through the book to the appropriate section to get whatever information they need to judge each step. This will lead the person towards calling a final judgement on the question. 

There is a whole lengthy chapter dedicated to each figure in each astrological house too, something that will make it easier for people to figure out how the situation they're inquiring about is going to play out. These descriptions are not too long bu to the point, and they play well with the overall general information about each figure at the beginning of each section in that article. There is also a description on the astrological houses that will allow a better understanding of them and where to look in the chart based on the question asked. These descriptions are also to the point and although not too detailed, they cover a wider range of questions for each house. 

Truth be told, it would've made little sense to talk about the houses in more detail because in geomancy people only need specific areas of life covered by each house so they'd know what to ask for. Otherwise, there's many astro sites out there one can look up for details on houses and you can also check out my series on astrological houses. Star and Stone also contains a series of questions specific to each house so that any beginner would have it easier for them so this made it even more unnecessary to add more detailed descriptions of the houses.

Several other helpful techniques are offered and explained plainly and in detail, such as company, perfection, and so on. In all cases, Nick adds his thoughts on the matter and I find them helpful because they allow people to focus on what is most important when it comes to getting a clear answer. Besides simple questions that result in Y/N answers, for which he instructs people how to phrase and so on (this is important and should not be laughed at or overlooked), he also provides means for interpreting readings based on other types of questions. This can prove helpful in quite a few scenarios so one is covered from that angle as well. He emphasizes on the fact the Court trumps everything, but the Court itself is not black&white. This means that while it can show a definite Y/N answer, it too has particularities that offer a more thorough understanding of the state of affairs surrounding the question.

Nick also sprinkled some magical dust into it, in the form of simple operations one can use to consecrate their dice, or coins, or whatever other physical utensils they use for this purpose. Naturally, everyone is free to use whatever consecration method they please, but Nick chose a method involving Uriel because he is the archangel of the Earth element and geomancy is attributed to this element. A brief invocation of Thoth-Hermes is also available as an example of an entity one can call on to assist in the divination. 

I guess he's not gonna be pissed if I were to share some image from the book, especially those containing Shaman's pretty diagrams:

That "meh" is of strategic importance there, otherwise it would've had to be replaced with a few more words and the table would've jumped page. So you'd have to deal with it.

All in all, I find Star and Stone to be a good book that will teach people how to rub their dice! If I (me!!!) was able to learn merely by reading through it, even a bit, then I'm sure anyone will learn much more by studying it in more detail! I did manage to do a decent interpretation on a certain online reading during the time I was helping out with the editing and my interpretation got a sexy Like and a superior thumb's up, so I think my dice rubbing skills have leveled-up in the mean time, without me even realizing it. Imagine what someone who actually reads the book and follows through in applying its methods can do.

And this marks the birth of the muchly anticipated Lord Manticore House!!! Look to the left of the page for the links. I will resume to say it promises to be at least a decent leap forward in occult literature that shall spawn superior overthetop forces which are likely to pull the occult universe into the next age of its development. Just look at the sexy hot af logo it's got - dotcha just wanna stroke it to death? (Likely your death! Or my own...)

I dedicate my efforts to help with the editing to Red Panda. I realize there might be minor spuch here and there, but it seems we cleared out all major inconveniences and truth be told, it was damn complex. It is also proof for why I constantly need to babysit these two when they're playing with the editing software :D There are two minor inconveniences that kinda piss me off because they could've been easily avoided had I been focusing till the last second of the process, so if you happen to dislike a certain page reference for instance, it's on me - Nick had given me the correct instructions.

Stick around for more ;)

Hate on, dum-dums!

The Great Gazoo