How electional astrology jump-started my career and landed my first client

It may come as a surprise to many of you, but I actually got my career start in astrology specializing in business and commerce.

Before I was a professional astrologer, I worked 40 hours per week as a peer-to-peer counselor making about 10 dollars an hour after taxes. I was a bottom-tier cog in the machine of corporate healthcare, desperately trying to make money while doing something ethical for work while I applied to graduate school.

I had no way of making a difference at my place of work - it was a toxic environment where no real change or healing happened. I could barely afford to live and pay rent for the one room I rented in a gross house full of hippies who wouldn’t clean up after themselves. When I wasn’t working, I had little to no energy for my spiritual practices or esoteric studies. Saturn was going directly over my Capricorn Stellium and opposing my Cancer Moon, making me miserable, depressed, and unable to find a way out.

I truly hated my life.

In this pitiable state, I started doing regular Jupiter magic. At first, just to help me get into grad school, but it started opening up doorways to practice astrology - more and more people in my community started reaching out about having me read their chart, and I started doing more readings in my off-hours to make some extra money on the side.

I didn’t go to grad school, but I kept up the Jupiter magic to assist me with reading charts. I asked for explicit help from Jupiter to strengthen my craft as an astrologer and overcome my natural shyness so that I could take up more space and offer more when doing astrology readings.

While I was working this magic, I suddenly found myself sitting at a dinner table with several enthusiasts of astrology and magic - one of whom was a wealthy owner of an investment company.

He and I really hit it off - we both studied classics in school and brought our love of ancient history to our love of spirituality. Eventually, he started asking me about the practical, financial applications of classical astrology as I studied and practiced it.

I told him that astrologers had compiled a huge body of knowledge of financial astrology by applying the techniques of astrology to business over thousands of years. Being the proud owner of a Capricorn stellium, I had naturally spent a long time studying the dollars-and-cents aspects of ancient astrological discourse and was well-versed in the techniques of using celestial transits and techniques to generate wealth and guide the growth of business, even if I didn’t have my own business to apply them to.

After we initially met, he reached out about meeting to discuss bringing me on as a consultant to do elections for major product launches, meetings, etc., and give predictions and magical remedies based on the natal charts of the management.

He let me pick the time for the meeting. I made the best astrological election that I could - finding the most astrological auspicious moment possible.

And it worked. Within 10 minutes, we came to an agreement where he would give me a retainer of 1500 for 20 hours of work each month – essentially paying me 75 an hour, and give me commissions for elections I did – calculated from profits and upsells. This at a time when I had been working for 10 bucks an hour as a peer-to-peer counselor 40 hours a week.

I left that low-paying job, and suddenly found myself with another 35 hours per week to study astrology, engage in spiritual practices, and build my business and client base.

Don’t get me wrong: building my business since then has not always been as easy. There have been lots of ups and downs, twists and turns, and some serious rough patches – an inevitable part of the journey for any entrepreneur.

But throughout all of it, the mechanics and know-how of financial astrology have served as a reliable touchstone, a source of grace, and a maximizer of success. I wouldn’t be here today without it.

As the economic climate around us has made self-employment and entrepreneurship much harder, I have felt a greater pull to share the skills and knowledge that I have which contributed to my own success and – even more importantly – my financial stability despite the goings-on around me.

I believe we can ultimately reconnect with our magic and restore heaven on earth for everyone through mindful, ethical, magical business. I’ve aimed all my teachings, classes, live sessions, etc. at cultivating a life where all one’s needs are met without giving away your power to someone else’s greed or draining yourself at a toxic, laborious, soulless grind like I had to.

For this reason, I am offering a 25% discount for anyone who wants to meet with me to discuss their own business. In this session, I will analyze your natal chart for strengths and talents I see for making money and manifesting abundance. I will also give predictions for the financial circumstances and events that will arise during the next few months - I will show you the upcoming waves and cycles in your future, and show you how to harness them for maximal financial success.

And for anyone who signs up, I’ll also give one free election – something that I normally charge $250 for beyond the scope of a natal chart reading.

You’ll leave the session with a clear understanding of the financial and talents for business that you have in your natal chart, as well as an understanding of your problems areas and how to improve them, and a sense of the immediate future and how to prepare.

If you’re excited about aligning your business with the stars, working with your natal talents instead of against them, and knowing your financial future and how to best prepare, then I invite you to sign up for a reading with me.

You can sign up by clicking the button below.

A Traditional Method of Sun Magic for Peace, Vitality, and Psychic Activation

“If I had to choose a religion, the Sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

 “You say we [Christians] worship the sun; so do you.”
― Tertullian

The Sun does indeed, as Bonaparte said, universally give life to all things on earth. Its bright rays coax and stimulate all plant life and provide nourishment and vitality to all human and animal life. Without its light, life on earth would wither away and perish.

A myriad of ancient cultures - Egyptian, Greek, Babylonian, Sumerian, Vedic, the list is endless – have all venerated the Sun or a solar personification as either the supreme deity or one of several supreme deities. Given the primality of the Sun in the generation of life, is it any wonder that, throughout times and places of human cultures, so many have worshipped the Sun?

You could even make the case (as some clearly have, per Tertullian) that other religions such as Christianity or Judaism are actually just sun-worship, when you take away the cultural and historical underpinnings and compare it plainly to other solar rites of ancient time and place.

While the Sun’s rays have clear physical benefits and generative powers, rays of sunshine can also carry energies and spiritual power that a trained mage, esotericist, or spiritual practitioner can utilize. The Sun’s power will cleanse and invigorate the physical and subtle bodies, helping to clear the mind, bring a sense of stability and presence, and reinvigorate the body and one’s sense of purpose.      

Here’s something you can do right now to start connecting with the life-giving energy of the Sun. It only takes about 5 minutes. It can be done any time of day, but it is best during the morning or evening.

Meditation for Accumulating Solar Light

Go outside and stand with your bare feet on the earth, shoulder-width apart. Become aware of your peripheries, and take a few deep breaths. This should help you feel more centered and grounded in your body.

Once you feel centered and grounded, trace out the places where the earth meet the sky from where you are standing. This is called the local horizon. It may be very flat if you live in the plains, or quite varied if you live in the hills or mountains or around trees. If you’re by a building, that building’s outline will become part of your local horizon.

When you complete this portion of the exercise, you will have a greater awareness of yourself within your own place, and opens you up to receive more solar vitality. There is an ancient ritual that connects spirits of the horizon to the Sun, and we’re connecting with them here too.

Finally, determine the location of the Sun in the sky at the moment you are doing this practice. Close your eyes, and imagine a connection between yourself and the Sun developing. As you connect to the Sun, imagine the Sun pouring its light into your body. Try to feel its rays penetrating and piercing your physical body, emotional centers, your mind, and every aspect and dimension to your awareness.

Keep watching your breath, and allow the energy from the Sun to naturally fill you up. The longer and more vividly you can maintain a connection to your visualization and to the energy that you feel, the more effective this exercise will be. All you have to do is maintain your focus.

You may feel it helpful to have your palms facing up. The purpose of this is simply to aid in the accumulation of Solar chi, so find a position for your palms (high, low, outstretched, close to body, etc.) that actually feels like it’s helping you to accumulate the solar energy. Can you feel more sun-chi enter your vessel? If not, readjust your hands.

At first, you will just be imaging or visualizing this. People who have a daily meditation practice, however, will over time feel the energy pouring down from the Sun into them. As you practice consistently, you will feel the Sun cleansing you and purifying you more and more.

At sunrise or sunset, as the Sun is cresting your local horizon, this meditation can become quite powerful. During this time, you can do this meditation with your eyes open and staring at the Sun, because of the natural dimming of its rays at this time. This can open up psychic centers quite quickly. Some of my students have been shocked at the pace of their development seeing auras, energy, spirits, and more through practicing at sunrise or sunset consistently.

Don’t go for more than a few seconds to start. Start when the Sun is only a sliver, and then slowly work your way up to bigger and bigger slivers. With practice, you can extend the duration – some practitioners have spent entire days staring at the Sun. Imagine what kinds of things you’d see then.

It’s pretty simple – get your bare feet on the ground, trace out your horizon, and pull solar energy to you to cleanse your aura, quite your mind, open up psychic awareness, and more. It only takes 5 minutes. No tools, recitations, or magical formulae needed.

This kind of solar magic or energy work may be different from a lot of what traditional occultists and esotericists label as “magic” – generally, engaging in a ritual to call in a spirit to help you accomplish something. I like to refer to this as evocation or conjuration magic to distinguish it from other kinds of more energetic magic, because it works through summoning external spirits instead of just activating the energy of your own spirit.

That kind of magic is very effective too, and I teach it extensively in my course Gnosis, but working with the energy of your own spirit is also very effective. Here, you’re using your magic serve as a vortex to pull in energy from the Sun.

I teach a lot of this kind of magic in GNOSIS –magic with the power of your own energetic body, instead of just working with spirits. We go through multiple different meditations for accumulating power, as well as several different practices that incorporate and integrate the natural world like this one did. And of course, we apply all that power into our evocation magic – calling down spirits – as well.

If you’re interested in that kind of magic, you can join gnosis when it’s available again in a few weeks. Until then, this practice will serve as a great daily exercise for you – especially if you’re new to this kind of energetic approach to magic.

Astrological Talismans and their Functions

Astrological Talismans and their Functions

Allow me to introduce you to one of the oldest tools of magicians and witches: magical talismans.  

Throughout the entire history of magic, astrologers and sages have fashioned magical, astrological talismans by impressing esoteric, magically activated symbols and images impressed into special magical materials such as metals, gemstones, and fabric. When crafted at an astrologically precise moment, talismans will call down astral energies and spirits from the planets and stars above.

In turn, these energies and spirits will, in turn, empower the astral magician to live a life of empowerment, joy, and total flourishing for themselves and those around them - the ultimate goal of all magic.

Talismans give mages the opportunity to seek allies from the stars that can help them quickly and efficiently bolster and heal challenging parts of life. The practitioners of our craft have traditionally used talismans for good health, protection, abundance, creativity, love, and more.

Currently, Ancient Astrology offers magical talismans for Venus and Jupiter, the two purely benefic, compassionate planets of the astrological tradition. As more talismans are offered, this article will become updated.  

Venus

Venus is a benefic planet. This means that she provides good fortune, success, and happiness. Her energy and character are associated with things, people, and situations that people generally like and enjoy. meaning that she is inherently helpful and desires to provide us with things we naturally like and are drawn to.

Venus is classically aligned with the nighttime, as a member of the nocturnal sect. The nighttime has associations with materiality and the physical world. For this reason, Venus provides us with physical, material blessings: good health, lovers, close friends, and creature comforts.

Romance is one of the most common things that people pray to Venus for. In fact, people have petitioned Venus for romance and intimacy for literal thousands of years. Venus magnetizes lovers to you, and likewise makes you magnetic to other people. Venus often does this by playing off your strengths, and finding people who like you for who you are, instead of who you could be.

In a similar vein, people will also use Venus talismans for friendship. Venus magnetizes people to you who you will naturally like and find agreeable. If you are feeling lonely, or feel a lack of connection with friends and companions, Venus will find people to fulfill that need.

A less common concern, though not any less important, is health. As the provider of material blessings, Venus blesses your body too. Venus will nourish your physical form and ensure that your body is provided with the nutrients it needs. People who use Venus talismans for health oftentimes find sudden new information related to the specific needs of their body coming through. By adjusting their diet and lifestyle accordingly, the individual’s vitality improves dramatically.

As an aside, a quick survey of ancient magical texts will show you just how much experience Venus has working with ailments, as hundreds of designs and formulae exist for talismans that are designed to protect good health, ward off disease, or in some cases treat specific ailments like malaria or even cancer.

The final, commonest use for Venus talismans I will share is for artistry and creativity. Musicians, composers, sculptors, painters, and even bricklayers and carpenters will benefit from having a Venus talisman close-by. Venus rules over all aesthetics and beauty, in whatever medium beauty may be captured.

Venus speaks directly with the Muses. People who are suffering from any kind of writer’s block or creative dry spell will find that Venus talismans offer great support. They can unblock suck beauty from within the psyche and allow creative spirit to flow again.

Jupiter

Like Venus, Jupiter is a benefic planet in classical astrology, associated with good things and pleasant topics. Unlike Venus, however, Jupiter is the benefic planet associated with daytime and the diurnal sect instead of the nocturnal sect. The daytime carries connotations of the spiritual, mental life, abstract life, as opposed to the material life.

In a word, Jupiter provides for the needs of the spirit as opposed to the needs of the body. Astrologers and mages have called upon him for thousands of years to help with such topics as spiritual insight, wisdom, guidance for one’s path and purpose in life, access to spiritual teachers, as well as manifesting abundance.

The last of those options is the most common reason that people petition Jupiter – money magic. On the whole, the contemporary spiritual really hypes up the abundance and financial components of Jupiter’s spiritual blessings. And to be sure, Jupiter talismans will answer prayers for money, business,

However, these aspects to Jupiter are somewhat derivative of more foundational, and ultimately more rewarding blessings that this benefic planet will provide you. More than riches and a high number in the bank account, I would wager that people want to feel connected to their purpose and mission in life. People want to remember and connect with the reason that they came to the material world.

Jupiter will provide you with a connection to your purpose. Jupiter will connect you with people, resources, books, and traditions that help you to remember and wake up. Jupiter can give you spiritual practices that resonate with your path and mission, and help you to fill your destiny with wind in your sails and the breath of the divine under your feet.

Mages often prayed to Jupiter for teachers and guides. We practitioners of the craft are often in a bind: we constantly strive for more knowledge, more insight, more wisdom of the deepest, most arcane arts. But the very secretive, esoteric nature of our craft makes finding teachers and helpers along the path more challenging. Jupiter will open the doorways you need to find the texts and teachers that will help you to grow as a mage.

As you connect with your mission and purpose, rediscovering your spiritual gifts and talents, you will naturally be able to offer something back to the world, and lift others up as Jupiter has lifted you up. In return, you will receive the financial compensation you deserve for the ways in which you help others.

In a word, Jupiter will only make you rich by making you into the kind of person who deserves to be rich, wealthy, and abundant. And if you choose to petition Jupiter in this way, you will literally get the best of both worlds, able to have your cake and eat it too, even if you have to wait a little longer for those riches to arrive.

How to use talismans

The most common way people used talismans was by wearing them on their person, ideally touching their skin. That way, the spirit connects immediately with the mage’s energetic structure, and can begin helping them to manifest their intention.

Worn this way, talismans can last forever. The energy and spirit they contain will help the mage with their spellcasting for as long as needed. So long as the magician keeps giving offerings of oil and incense at least once a year, the talisman’s essence will still be there to serve.

Talismans can also be placed under one’s pillows while sleeping, or in one’s school while walking, depending on the nature of your intention. Talismans for good health can be used to charge drinking water by being placed in a glass. Some recipes even claim that specific diseases and ailments can be healed this way if used consistently.

Clearly, don’t put any lead or mercury talismans in your drinking water. Copper, brass, bronze, and iron are fine in small quantities. Silver, gold, and tin should be used sparingly.

However, talismans can also be used in a one-off manner to accomplish a more powerful but temporary effect. Talismans were often buried at places of business to bring success and good fortune, or on the doorstep to bring protection and peace to the home. A talisman placed at a courthouse could help you win a trial and influence the jury in your favor.

Realistically, the uses of a talisman are only limited to the magician’s creativity. Any places where planetary energy may be useful, the talisman will work its literal magic. That’s why magicians have used talismans for over five thousand years: they’re easy to make if you have the tools, they work for almost every conceivable purpose, and they last forever. You literally can’t go wrong.

Ancient Astrology offers affordable magical talismans in a traditional style. Decorated with divine names, epithets, and sigils from the western esoteric tradition, our talismans will help you to flourish in your life and augment your own spellwork.

Harnessing the Powers of Fate - The Real Magic of Astrology

I am sitting down to write this article just after finishing an extended session of meditation and spiritual practice, one of my favorite things to do on the weekends as the civilized world around me enters a lull, giving me the space I need to spend hours in quietude away from the distractions of the world.

My mind is clear and alert. I feel my heart open as I write words and convey meanings from a centered space, and contract if I stray from my message, guiding me through creative, exploratory space.

And as I sit here and write, my body hums with energy. I feel it floating above the world in a cloud of peaceful knowing. The energy centers in my body are alive with heat and vibrational power. The light of the Sun, which I have worked with very intensely on this day, courses through my channels.

This state that I occupy now - where my mind is still, my heart open, and my body is radiantly alive - is the true aim of astrology.

Most people think of astrology purely in terms of examining natal charts. You find the time that someone was born, and you use certain interpretive techniques to determine their personality, fate, life purpose, fate, etc.

While astrology can do all of these things with extreme effectiveness and accuracy, they are merely steps along the way to much grander practices and insights. The actual goal of astrology is not knowing how to describe someone’s personality with a natal chart. Nor is it to predict someone’s future. Knowing yourself and your future are only the fundamentals - they are the first gifts and blessings for mages and spiritual practitioners.

Real astrology is a spiritual practice - a school of disciplines and techniques that acquaint you with astral energy, and then show you how to harness that astral energy for your own spiritual development and cultivation of magical power.

I understand that I am doing something fairly radical - I am offering a new, wider definition of what ASTROLOGY truly is:

Astrology is a school that trains aspirant mages to awaken themselves to their nature and purpose, connect with the energies of the planets and stars, and harness their power to transform their lives and the worlds around them. In short, to use the energy of the planets to create heaven on earth for all beings.

To many people, this may seem like an extremely foreign, even misguided notion. But this is only because contemporary natal chart analysis has been divorced from the rest of the spiritual practices that used to comprise the discipline of Astrology.

In fact, today astrology is almost never taught alongside spiritual practice and magical development, and so seekers and aspirants have grown accustomed to learning an astrology independant from its magical power. And now this sad state of affairs has become the new normal - the diminished status quo for the rich, layered practice of astrology.

Yet astrology has always been a spiritual practice - a magical discipline focussed on empowerment and manifestation. Only in recent times has the practice of chart-reading become isolated from the energetic, spiritual components. But traditionally, the mental, academic study of the stars were only the first steps on a journey to totally engagement with spiritual practice and magic.

I have always aimed to correct this with my own platform. From the very beginning of my career offerings readings, I have given people remediations, meditations, and magical practices to engage in as a practical way to help their spiritual development. I teach GNOSIS, a course specifically geared to teach the fundamentals of reading charts as the first steps on the way to becoming mages and adepts. This aim also guides me to write this article.

If this picture I am painting of astrology as a complete spiritual practice is new to you, then you may have a great number of questions. If readings charts is only the beginning of astrology, what else is out there? What comes next after learning the components of charts and coming to know the planets? What are these mysterious pieces of magic and spirirtual power that you claim I am missing?

I want to answer these questions in as clear detail as possible, and eliminate any confusion you may have. I want to paint a picture for everyone reading this article of everything else that astrology has to offer. I want to put chart reading in its proper place at the beginning of a magical curriculum designed to help you know thy self, know thy future, and know thy power.

I am going to walk you through the three gates that, in my mind, comprise the entire school of astrology. What all three of these gates have in common is the cultivation of mages who can use the power of the stars to connect to divine awareness, and manifest and a world of beauty and harmony. To develop mages who can harness the power of the planets to tend the celestial paradise of the Earth.

Throughout all three of these gates, the aspirant mage deepens their connection to all the astral energies, learning how to pull greater and greater amounts of astral light into themselves to transform the world around them.

As they progress, they move from competency in assesing the energies of planets in charts, to working with the consciousnesses of planets themselves, to harnessing astral light and power to become a totally awakened, attuned mage in the service of all other beings within this celestial garden that we call home.

The First Gate: Horoscopy

In the first level, the aspirant begins quieting their mind and connecting to their energy through meditation and spiritual disciplines. The power of the mage is always there, but the conditioning of the mind has made it difficult to access. Indeed, it has caused many of the channels and energy centers to stagnate and become blocked. Through gentle yet consistent meditation, the native slowly begins to unblock these centers and open them up.

In addition to learning to connect to their own energy, the aspirant learns how to connect to the energy of the planets. Our starry brethen constantly emit their rays down to the earth. To learn how to harness them and control them for manifestation and the cultivation of power, the aspirant must begin by learning how to feel them.

Many different approaches exist to effect this work. In GNOSIS, I teach formal and informal practices. The formal practices are open-eyed meditations meant to connect people to their own starry self and the energy that it emits. The informal practices are geared at reorienting the aspirant towards the truly important components of life and magic in their everyday lives.

At the same time, they learn how to read star charts - what I refer to as horoscopy, and what mostly people consider to be the sum total of astrology. This crucial step takes up the majority of the time and effort of the first gate. It has three purposes:

1. The aspirant learns how to determine their own reason for incarnating in this world - the work that they came here to do. In fact, the natal chart is the individual’s failsafe to ensure that they know why they are here, and what kinds of support and obstacles they will face as they engage in their work. This is the natal portion of horoscopy.

2. The aspirant learns to determine when in the future certain planetary energies will be strongest and the opportunities will arise to work with them most effectively. This especially applies to preparations for magical rituals and conjurations. This is the electional portion of horoscopy.

3. The aspirant learns to divine the future and determine what events and circumstances will shape all our lives, to chart the ebbs and flows of civilizations and cultures, and even identify and prepare for such things as natural disasters and immense changes in the natural world. This is arguably the most important piece of Horoscopy - as you cannot effectively tend this celestial garden unless you understand the ebbs and flows of that garden. This is the mundane portion of horoscopy.

Horoscopy involves a great learning curve and takes time. While they study, the daily practice of introductory meditations and spiritual practices ground the individual and prepare them for more intermediate practices. By the time that they have learned and integrated the fundamentals of horoscopy, they will be ready to move onto more intermediate practices within the second gate.

Horoscopy is itself a vast discipline, and the aspirants do not pass to the second gate because they have mastered it - they pass through it because they have gained noticeable skill in reading charts, have officially identified their own life purpose and mission, and have cultivated a sense of stillness and spiritual awareness that permeates their entire life.

The Second Gate: Theurgy and Alchemy

By the time the aspirant reaches the second gate, their meditative awareness has stabilized, and their mental studies of horoscopy have deeply introduced them to the energies and workings of the planets. They have earned the title astrologer - they know the energies of the planets and can read charts, and have thereby become official members of the school of Astrology.

Traditionally, the aspirant would not have begun engaging in conjuration of the planets until this stage was complete, but for various reasons I myself teach some of the fundamentals of the second gate alongside the first.

The second gate throws the astrologer into the myriad of planetary energies in the above and the below. No longer just connecting to the energy of the planets internally or within charts, now the aspirant connects with the planets as they are above, and their vast manifestations and instantiations within the material realm below.

The upward direction is theurgy - the conjuration of spirits and energies from the planets above into one’s life. In the first gate, they regained memory of their soul’s purpose; in the second, they pull in the spirits to help them fulfill that purpose. Through theurgy, the astrologer learns how to mechanically pull in vaster and vaster beings from the realms above to aid them in their work.

The downward direction is alchemy - the understanding of the planets as they reveal themselves in the entirety of the material world. They must master and understand the vast tables of correspondences between celestial energies and the plant, gemstone, and animal kingdoms, as well as the human body. They must also learn how to use these objects to heal and transform their own lives and the lives of those who come to them in need.

The test for the third gate involves the preliminary levels of external, material mastery - in order to move on, their spiritual cultivation and awareness must have some effect on the world. It must be externalized, they must show that their magic works in some concrete sense. In short, they must be visibly tending the garden. Have they cast spells through magic that worked? Have made their lives and the lives of those around them better? Can they heal others and themselves with the use of plant and mineral allies?

Both of these disciplines take decades to master, and their work does not conclude when the astrologer passes through the third gate. Many astrologers choose one of these disciplines as their speciality even after moving on to the third gate, while others gravitate towards unravelling the deeper layers of horoscopy and star charts.

The Third Gate: Mageia

After the astrologer has passed to the third gate, they have gained a solid understanding of the energies of the planets within the world around them. They know how to call down celestial spirits. All the while, their meditative awareness has continued to stabilize and deepen. Because their inner practices have external results, they have earned the title of adept. They are no longer purely in training - now their magic can measurably work some kind of concrete change in the world around them.

At this point, adepts are ready to begin learning real magic - harnessing the energy of the planets and stars purely within themselves to effect great, sometimes immediate change within the world. While they have been learning about real magic and preparing for real magic all along, now they are ready to begin training with it directly.

In real magic, the adept learns how to manipulate and control their own energy centers and energy field to mechanically pull in energy from above, and then emit that energy to create change within the world. This happens through the use of the mind in tandem with the energy of the body - the whole person of the comes together to powerfully tend the garden of the earth.

An analogue to the difference between second gate and third gate styles of magic is the difference between outer tantra and inner tantra: the former works through altars, incantations, mantras, and material implements and tools of all kinds to call in the desired energy; the latter uses none of those things, as the adept has learned how to bring that energy in without the use of anything external.

A byproduct of this is thaumaturgy - or miracle-working. At this point, the adept’s mind can become so centered and calm, and their energy so exceptionally well-directed, that they can effect the miraculous in the world outside of them with the use of their energy in tandem with their will.

If an adept is able to do such a thing, they have earned the title mage. The will, mind, and body have come into such a level of integration that they have an effect on the world which can only be described as magical in the most fundamental, original sense of the word. The most profound way to use this skill is in the profound healing of the earth and its inhabitants.

This skill takes decades and decades to master. Members of the school of astrology shall spend the rest of their life deepening and perfecting this skill.

This kind of ability is in fact the end goal of the school of astrology. I recognize that this flies in the face of the wisdom of other spiritual traditions. But in this school, pursuit of this power recognizes our ultimate reason for being upon this earth, echoed in the ancient hermetic writings: human beings have descended from the stars above to this world to tend the garden and make this world ever more beautiful.

Human beings did not come here to work through karma, or pay a debt, or out of misguided desires for cookies and sex. We came here as divine beings to be of service to each other and to the Earth. Thaumaturgy is a necessary piece of that.

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Conclusion: Real Magic and Real Astrology are the Same

In the image I have accompanying this article stands a mage - the final conclusion and end result of the path of Astrology.

There is a reason why the western unconscious has linked wizards and magicians to the power of the stars: we know deep down that those people who study the stars and work with starlight have the power to effect concrete change in the world that no one else can. It is their responsibility and work to use their understanding and power over starry energy to transform the world around them for good.

But now, the explicit terminus of the astrologer as the mage has been forgotten. We no longer even see these disciplines as related. The farthest that many astrologers go is to the second gate. Indeed, Western Esotericism and all its schools and traditions almost never go beyond the second gate. And I am providing that “almost” simply to be charitable - in all my studies and exposure to these traditions I do not know of a single one that teaches what I am describing here.

This is my advice to you: instead of seeing your studies of natal charts as concluding with life descriptions and a rote understanding of the planets, I welcome you see the mastery of real magic as the culmination of the study of natal charts. Horoscopy is only the beginning. And astrological magic and summoning planetetary beings is not conclusion.

What all these things bring you towards is the total mastery of your magical power. And once you have reconnected yourself towards that, you can start doing the work of your spirit, of creating powerful, healing transformation upon an earth who so desperately needs your power right now.

And this is why I tell all my students, all my classes, again and again:

Own your power.

Not just for you, but for everyone else here who is waiting for miracles to happen.

-Merlin

Four Mistakes That Ruin Magical Rituals (and How to Correct Them)

The first time I did a magical ritual, it was exactly by the book.

It was so by the book, in fact, that I wrote down all the instructions and words to say on a piece of paper and brought it in with me into the ritual. I would pause and break my concentration every 50 seconds or so in order to read what I had written verbatim, I brought the exact offerings I needed, and I flawlessly followed the text’s instructions.

Needless to say, nothing came of that ritual. None of my wishes came to fruition, and the whole thing felt very stale. I was so focused on “getting it right” that I forgot about a lot of the more subtle aspects of magic that actually matter.

After years of studying magic, I have corrected these mistakes and had a lot of success using magic to get the things I want.

…And as the years have gone by, I’ve seen a lot of other would-be magicians making similar mistakes. This is totally understandable, as nobody really talks about them.

To help my friends, allies, and students along the path, I’ve compiled a list of four major mistakes I see people making that took me a long time to even recognize.

Once I identified these errors and started correcting them, my whole magical practice really took off, and it became a lot easier to use magical ritual to manifest what I want. I am absolutely certain that the same thing will happen for you.

1. Choosing the Wrong Spirit for the job

You don’t summon Saturn, Astral God of Death, to bring you a lover. You don’t summon Venus, Astral Goddess of love and harmony, to give you victory in battle.

This is a no-brainer, but I see people making this mistake all the time - even some fairly well known magicians and authors who should, quite frankly, know better. Make no mistake - the ancient texts are very clear on this point: you can never summon a planetary spirit to do something contrary to its nature. Saturn will not raise the dead, and Venus will not separate lovers or help you win a lawsuit.

If you doubt me, have one person summon Jupiter twice a week for 5 months to bring in wealth, abundance, and significant business growth, and have another person summon Mars. Let’s see who’s richer at the end!

To solve this problem, you must deeply familiarize yourself with the significations of each planet. Read source texts like the Picatrix, Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Vettius Valens’ Anthology, and Abu Ma’shar’s Great Introduction for starters. This will give you a much deeper sense for the topics of each planet, and how specifically they can help you.

Once you have done that, engage in a thorough analysis of what you are trying to accomplish. Be diligent and exacting to determine who will help you the most, and what you need the most. If you are a business owner who wants more money, maybe what you really need help with is marketing and sales. That’s Mercury’s domain, not Jupiter’s. But if you are trying to win a lawsuit, Mars alone will give you the drive necessary to overcome your opposition, not Mercury or even the Sun.

2. Overemphasizing The Structure of the Ritual

This one’s for you, oh sacrosanct, holier-than-thou ceremonial magician who has stumbled upon my blog.

Look, I get it. Structure is important. In fact, it’s crucial. You need some kind of structure, order, and consistency with your magical practice in order for rituals to work. Certain chants, prayers, images, gestures, etc. performed in a certain order will objectively aid in opening the doorway for certain celestial entities, and some won’t.

HOWEVER. You can format, structure, and order magical rituals in a thousand different ways. I have read and studied at least six different approaches to summoning astrological deities. They all differ tremendously, but they all work when done consistently.

Take an example: based off of your run-of-the-mill neo-pagan or Golden Dawn magical practice, you might consider magical circles indispensable. But far more ancient grimoires such as the Picatrix make no mention of them in the standard methods for summoning planetary deities.

So do you need a magical circle? All I can say is that I’ve cast powerful spells with and without one.

Structures are necessary, but they are not sufficient. This means that you cannot operate an effective ritual without some kind of structure and order, but they do not contain any power in and of themselves to actually manifest what you desire. Many people get the structure down, and then they think they’ve mastered magic. Structures are not the end in themselves – structures are only the beginning.

To overcome this issue, you need to pick a structure (a relatively simple one, ideally, unless you have been doing this for over a decade), use that same structure consistently, and then move on to the aspects of magic that actually give you results. And this leads me quite naturally to the third mistake people make….

3. Not using your own power.

What actually makes magical rituals extraordinarily powerful is…well, it’s power! To get the juices of your ritual really flowing and coursing through you, you need more power. The ritual structures merely channel and guide that power, and without it they’re like dead electrical wires or lakes that have totally dried up, leaving just a cracked hole in the earth.

You have the power. You can change your reality in the blink of an eye. Within you is the vast power of your own spirit, which dwarfs the power of any other spirit that you could call upon for help.

Unfortunately, most people don’t actually use their own power in ritual. They follow the format they read in some book, call in the spirit, make offerings and exchanges, and then close out. Now just reading that description, you can already tell that such an approach won’t be very effective or noteworthy. Quite frankly, it doesn’t even sound that magical.

Most people never enter into trance, they never turn on their astral sight, they never call up their own energy, and they certain don’t channel all that power into manifesting a desired outcome through magic.

Many don’t even know that you can do that!

But it’s totally possible, and totally accessible. It simply requires things that most people don’t have patience for: dedication, discipline, and practice.

You need a daily meditation practice where you are watching your breath, settling into stillness, detaching from your thoughts, and sinking your presencwe into your body. Such a practice will put you into a light trance, open up your astral sight, and deepen your awareness of the vast reserves of energy that are coursing through your body.

The vast majority of magicians and conjurors I know do not meditate every day. I find this shocking, and I cannot in good conscience allow people who visit my site looking for information and guidance to make the same mistake.

In fact, this is something that we will be practicing and working with a lot in my upcoming course, GNOSIS, and the practices of meditating and cultivating your connection to your own power will form the bedrock of your astrological ritual.

The best part about this is that you will get better and better at summoning up your own power and casting from that space the more and more you practice it. The sky’s the limit. Fast forward to three decades from now and your power will be unstoppable.

4. Forgetting who you really are

Has anyone told you that you are a God lately? No? Well let me do that now: You are a God.

You’ve simply forgotten and lost touch with your divine identity. But fear not, dear reader, for if you are reading this post then you are already in the process of waking back up to your true self, and have probably been doing so for a long time.

Many people I know see themselves as somehow subservient to or lower than the spirits and deities they summon. They placate and prostrate before higher beings from the vantage point of a poor, lowly human.

Now, one of two things will happen if you take this approach. First, the spirit will be uninterested, do nothing for you, and move on. In brief, nothing will happen.

Second, the spirit will be interested, and will take advantage of you. They’ll answer your petitions, but they will make you work for it. You will find yourself overwhelmed and at the service of someone else. The spirit starts getting what it wants more than you get what you want. And then they’ll start asking for more and more of you in exchange for what you are asking of them. It’s unsustainable.

I want to shift your thinking with this. You are equal in dignity and power to every being that you summon. Arguably, you have greater dignity and power because you’re the spirit that consciously chose to come down into this messy, gritty world of material existence and make a difference. You’re the front line, they’re the reserves.

Think of yourself as a powerful being who is summoning contractors and allies to aid in the enactment of your will. You are the manifestor, you are the one in charge, you make the final decisions. But you can’t do Jupiter’s work as well as Jupiter does, nor can you “Venus” as effectively as the planet Venus. So you call upon them to help you out, not unlike homeowners contacting a contractor to fix and build things they cannot do themselves.

Related to mistake number three: it is your power that makes the change. The spirit simply adds its own power in addition to yours to make more change happen. You are using their power to help you, instead of being at the spirit’s mercy.

The next time you cast a spell, spend some time in meditation beforehand feeling into your true identity as a microcosm of the total macrocosm. Once you feel connected and reattuned to your absolute self, perform your magic from that space.

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So to sum up: aspiring magicians will very commonly summon the wrong spirit to help with the job, focus way too strongly on the structural format of a ritual, fail to tap into and access their own power, and forget their true identity.

To correct this, you need to dedicate yourself to rigorous research to determine the proper spirit, memorize and integrate a ritual, dedicate yourself to the daily practice of power cultivation, and cast from an awareness of your true, absolute identity.

If this approach sounds more difficult than reading a passage from a book out loud with some candles burning around you, that’s because it is! Real magic takes work, effort, diligence, and patience. No one becomes a master overnight, not even at a weekend intensive.

And more often than not, it requires a teacher. This is another reason why I am offering a new course on astrology and astrological magic, because I know from experience how hard it is to try and walk this path alone.

But all of this work is well worth it. I guarantee you that if you adjust for these four mistakes, your whole magical world will completely transform.

You will know who exactly to contact, you will stop breaking your concentration in the middle of a ritual to take a peek at what line to say next, and you will cast with the awareness of your highest self while drawing on the power of your spirit as you watch the energy fill the room around you and the space within you.

It is at this point that you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are a genuine magician, because you can see and feel the magical power from an altered state of consciousness. And then you can see your life transform around you in real and tangible ways.

There is nothing more exhilerating than this. You will never go back.