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."

The hypocrisy of the wannabes

Photo from here

Ever since I found myself involved in the occult universe I realized that, besides the obvious fact it dealt with things considered out of the ordinary by the vast majority, it was very different from any other environment I had frequented beforehand. Despite the fact occultists engage other levels of reality, something that would grant them a greater perspective over the world at large, at least in theory, for the most part they remain as human as any other person and often show their flaws of character just like another, in some cases even more so. 

I felt disappointed by this at first because the image I had constructed in my mind about magicians in general was totally different. It's not that they had no flaws but that they undergo a constant work to correct them, thus cancelling out any imperfection of their mundane self with the aim of clearing the path for their Higher Self to manifest more easily. I was wrong!

This does not mean my view of magicians was centered upon them engaging solely into mystical work. On the contrary, I saw them as being more perfected vectors for generating change in the material realm. But in my view those changes would be generated by a heightened awareness those individuals would have on the world around, something that would allow them to generate the changes much faster and with greater ease. I was wrong!

The eerie twelfth house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

This article marks the end of the first series of articles I've done so far: astrological houses. You can also find it translated en Español by Señor Shaman on his blog. I might start another series in the future if the opportunity arises and if I find at least a tiny amount of inspiration to write it. I hope those who read through these articles will find at least some information useful and I apologize for not having covered every area of life attributed to each house. I did not do that because there are already free sites that discuss astrological houses and there is a possibility they will list many more than I have, from both a modern and older perspectives and even discuss them to some degree. Truth be told, there are so many particularities to life that have to be allocated between just twelve sectors of the chart and the actual process of attributing them can prove very cumbersome. Instead, I chose to focus more on the connections between the houses and try to show that many areas of life can be related to more than one astrological house.

I also apologize for not writing the article on the twelfth house in the way I've written the rest of the articles in this series. That is to say, I will not discuss it in detail. The reason for this is that I have already announced I am working on a future project alongside Señor Shaman and Lord Manticore as a followup to Asteria. As stated in that article, the future book will be structured on several stand alone articles that address several topics related to astrology which can prove useful for occult practitioners.

The convivial eleventh house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

I used this word to describe the eleventh house because I came across it in the draft of El Maximo Exponente de la Magia's future book on rubbing your dice (geomancy), where the illustrious Professor uses it to describe Albus in the first house. I Imagine it shall be a glorious book and I shall review it on this blog after it gets published. 

Speaking of Mr. Farrell, he assigns the Higher Self (Higher Genius, in his ever so Pagan views) to the eleventh house. He likely does that based on ancient Hellenistic attributions of this house, it being the joy of Jupiter and the house of the Good Genius (or Daemon). As a result this house signified good things, especially those of a spiritual nature since it is located above the horizon (Asc-Dsc axis) and thus its associations were with the celestial realm. It is opposite the fifth house, the joy of Venus, which covered good things of an earthly nature. 

I will extrapolate a bit on the subject on the Higher Self and its attribution to the eleventh house while risking to provide a major spoiler for the article on the twelfth house (or maybe I'm providing this spoiler on purpose). The way I see it the Higher Self is one's divine spark which in essence is the Supreme Creator, regardless of religious and spiritual views. It would thus be extremely superficial to attribute it to a single house, especially since it transcends the zodiac entirely. You might come across various occultists who advertise classes for getting in touch with certain personal spirits, in way that will greatly praise that spirit, ofttimes calling it transcendental and whatnot. Mind you, that is still a spirit and not your divine spark. I have addressed these things to a degree in my Magical Words.

The cosy fourth house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

The fourth house is the last of the angular houses in the order of strength assigned to them when calculating planetary dignities. You can look up Asteria for more detailed information on that. Señor Shaman and I speak of both essential and accidental planetary dignities there, alongside many other topics of great relevance in astrology with respect to its use occult applications. Like all angular houses, its energies are strong and so they have a great impact over the native. 

If we are to look at a natal chart, the four angular houses form a cross that represents the four major areas in the life of the person: self, relationships, career, family. Life usually pulls a person into many directions, but these four houses have the strongest pull because, aside from being the strongest, they form squares and oppositions between them that have the potential of generating great tensions in the life of any individual and they do so in many cases. The first and seventh houses are in opposition meaning the native needs to balance their life with respect to their self and their partner, but the squares between these two houses with the tenth and fourth can produce many problems for them when it comes to finding that balance.

The commanding tenth house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

I think this title is very fitting with respect to this particular house. The tenth house is (usually) "at the top" of the chart because it (usually) depends on the Midheaven, the highest point the planets will reach in the sky from an earthbound perspective during their "travel" from the Ascendant towards the Descendant. Since height is usually considered a position of status, those who hold the high ground usually having an advantage over others, the areas of life covered by the tenth house usually govern all other areas covered by the rest of the houses. This house is angular so its strong energies enforce that.

And since I began so abruptly, I might as well follow my own lead and say governments fall in the tenth house. The tenth house is opposite the fourth and the latter does represent countries, so it is fitting that the government is "above" the country in a sense they rule it. Back in the day this was the house of the king and for hundreds and even thousands of years kings had absolute power over their kingdoms, so this symbolism of the tenth house being above all others makes more sense from this perspective than the one on governments. During modern times and coming into the current ones, dictators would best fit this symbolism.

Governments are usually made of people who are part of one or several parties that get to form a majority in parliament, that majority allowing them to form a government. There are quite a few differences between countries when it comes to forms of government and how each government comes to power, but I chose a simpler and more general depiction of the process to make it easier for anyone to understand. So it is in fact the majority in parliament that has the power to rule, governments being merely the extension of that majority, that actually performs the process of ruling.

The mirroring seventh house

Version en Español aqui. Gracias, Señor Shaman!

I chose the term mirroring because selfless would've been cheesy, with respect to the title I gave to the article on the first house. There are several reasons why I chose this term and I hope they will transpire from the rest of the article.

One of these reasons bares a more pronounced psychological (microcosmic) component for the sole reason the seventh house is the area of life in which the self (first house) is reflected back onto itself through its interactions with the world. From a seventh house perspective, the first is a microcosm while the seventh is a macrocosm from the perspective of the first. However, the seventh house is also part of one's microcosm because when a person interacts with the other his or her macrocosmic interaction generates reactions inside their microcosm. The same applies for the other person. Those reactions represent various states of consciousness and in most cases they reflect back into the macrocosm, but they do so based on each person's unique microcosmic particularities.