The voracious second house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

I was initially going to say precious instead of voracious in the title and I hope the article will show why I chose the latter. 

The second house is usually known as the house of money. More specifically, this house covers the native's personal money, money he or she has made by themselves or money which come into their possession without any further obligations. I am saying this because loans fall in the eighth house and although the money received from loans is (in many cases) at the individual's disposal, he or she will have to pay it back under certain conditions. 

These conditions include specific time frames and certain added interest in many cases, along with others that depend on the initial deal (seventh house) that was struck between the native and the creditor. The creditor can be a family member (fourth and third houses, depending on the kind of relative), a friend (eleventh house), a bank (tenth house), a co-worker (sixth house), a loanshark (I would place that in the eighth house) and various other people, including your significant other or a stranger (seventh house).

The demanding sixth house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

I hope this article will reflect the reasons I am calling this house in such way. In general, the sixth house can be seen as a house of servitude. It was very much so in ancient times as it was regarded as being the house of slaves and servants. 

While slavery mostly ceased to exist over time, it is still practiced even in the 21th century although a lot of times in different forms than the stereotypical understanding of the word. A simple example is people who are forced into working in the sex business and who are, objectively, slaves to their masters. I am of course referring to prostitutes and even some people who appear in adult movies, although not all those people do those things out of necessity or because life has placed them in a position of weakness which made it possible for them to be forced and compelled into doing that stuff. I am also referring to those who are outright sex slaves to people who, generally speaking, have the wealth (second house), authority (tenth house) and influence (I would say influence is a combination of several houses - feel free to write to me which one you think fits best) to use people like that constantly.

There are indeed some, both female and male, who perform those things because they enjoy themselves doing it and this represents a neat crossover from the fifth house. This also applies to those athletes I've mentioned in the previous article and many other people out there in various other fields like artists and so on. But the harsh reality is many people are indeed forced to sell their bodies and are treated as slaves, something which represents a not so neat crossover with the fifth house. Child slave labor also falls into this category and there have been many reports, news and documentaries of poor children who perform assiduous work for long hours and who are being paid next to nothing. If you think about it, one of the reasons people in the past had children was to have more hands for working the land and doing all sorts of chores around the home. This is something that still takes place in our time in many rural communities.

The pretty fifth house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

I am calling this house pretty because for the most part, it is. It does have its darker sides to it and I will discuss them further on. I was going to call it prettiful as a gesture of appreciation towards someone I highly admire, but I think that will make things harder for Señor Shaman to translate :D

The fifth house is a succedent house and so it is stable energetically. This does not mean natives will benefit from its pleasures all the time and with the same intensity, but that it does provide a stable environment for them to manifest themselves. It also does not mean the natives will be successful when it comes to indulging in its pleasures, but they are free to try all the time. 

Based on the universal attribution of houses to zodiac signs the fifth house is a Fire house, meaning it calls for action. It is also trine the first house, making it easy for the native to enjoy its spoils in some form or another. Being a house of pleasure and fun, this house covers quite a few areas of life and more than enough activities that can range from eating a strawberry breakfast to a romantic candlelight dinner and from drinking a beer while watching a sports match from the comfort of your armchair to sipping expensive champagne in some exclusive nightclub. (And to snorting coke off of hoes' tits on a tropical island - had to say that!)

The superior ninth house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

It seems I will have to post an article for each of the twelve astrological houses following the one I posted a few days ago. Sheesh... damn you, beyond!!! As in the previous case, I will do it based on what I've come to understand about this house based on actually working with it magically.

Following the lead of the previous article on the topic, I refer to this house as superior alluding to an inside joke between me and El Maximo Exponente de la Magia. I am also doing this because the ninth house covers the higher mind, as opposed to the third house (the two being in actual opposition inside the chart) that covers mental faculties one uses in ordinary day to day activities and for addressing trivial stuff. 

The ninth house is thus superior to the third, so to speak, as it covers areas of life that are more advanced than the ones covered by the former. Thus, everyone who's able to actually speak is running their mouth on a daily basis, more or less, depending on individual nature. But the ninth house covers intellectual speech one usually uses in all sorts of scenarios requiring oratory skills to deliver various forms of knowledge. It is no wonder then that teachers are covered by this house, since they have to impart knowledge to their students and must do so by (usually) using a more elevated and grammatically correct speech. 

The mysterious eighth house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

The eight house is somewhat of a black hole in astrology in my opinion. I am saying this because it covers death, as in something beings undergo without the possibility of undoing. I am also saying this because, like a black hole, this house has remained muchly unexplored in my opinion.

A lot can be discussed about it yet little can be said for certain, even among astrologers I dare to say. There are several reasons for this and one merely needs to look at how this house was seen throughout history as besides death and things connected to it (burials, wills, etc.), it also became associated with the wealth of the spouse (likely based on horary considerations) and over the last century sex and intimacy became associated with it. Moreover, stuff like surgeries and transplants were allocated to this house and it also bears important psychological components, fears being assigned to it. 

I am not into psychology and I do not know how this science deals with fears, how they have been analyzed and catalogued. I am sure someone like Scott is way more able to discuss these things from a scientific perspective. What I can say is that I have been actively working with the energies of this house more than once, both on myself and on others, both for pretty things and for less pretty ones. By the way, the angel of this house is Susul and here's his sigil in case anyone is curious to take a quick dive into it:

El Maximo Exponente de la Magia

A few days ago, Mario (the artist who made the splendid cover for Asteria - link to the right of the page) posted a thread about receiving his copy. Besides mentioning querido Shaman and yours truly, Mario also named Lord Manticore, whom he referred to as El Maximo Exponente de la Magia (fireworks effects!), an even more superior over the top title than the ones I've been calling good ol' Nick by so far.

So big up for you, Mario!

Therefore, henceforth, I will be using this title of Nick's more often and I've already started doing it in my recent articles. Besides finding it to be a pretty title, I think it fits perfectly with the vast superior over the top magical experience and knowledge Mr. Farrell has acquired so far. I imagine he must be some kind of Magister Templi (at least) by now, something he no wanna talk about. I also imagine he's one of the few, if not the only, people alive with direct connection with the original Golden Dawn current (yea, that of Mathers&co), through his contacts of the former Smaragdum Thalasses aka Whare Ra temple down in Kiwiland. But he no wanna talk about that either. Prolly because now he's ever so seriously Pagan and sticks to his ever so serious Pagan stuff in an ever so serious way.

Decan talisman - First decan of Virgo

And another quick post on a pretty decan talisman, this time for the first decan of Virgo, decan of Sol. 

Latin Picatrix:

"A beautiful girl covered over with a woolen sheet and holding in her hand a
pomegranate. And this is a face of sowing, of plowing, of the making of trees to sprout, of gathering bunches of grapes and of the good life."

Arabic Picatrix:

"The image of a virgin maid wearing an old dress and holding a pomegranate in her hand appears in the first phase of [Virgo]. This is the phase of the Sun, and it denotes plowing and planting, grass and plants, buildings and wealth, and righteousness."