Book Review: Classical Medical Astrology

Warning: Don't try anything in this book at home. The medical establishment (or more accurately, its government representatives) may come to your house and confiscate your astrology books and throw you in jail. If this happens, it's not my fault. Ha, ha, only serious.

Now that the disclaimer's out of the way, I've posted a bit on my other blog about the health care industry in America, it's problems, and the purported attempts to fix it. I say "purported" because I haven't seen anything in the recent health care reform debate to indicate that the root of the problem is even known. Yes, there is waste, and it's also true that prescription drugs and hospital visits are appallingly expensive. But here's the thing: the prescription drugs and hospital visits would be worth every penny if they worked. By "worked," I mean that if you take a prescription or visit the hospital, the problem that induced you to seek help is gone, permanently, at some point in the near future. If you have to keep taking the drugs, the treatment didn't work; the problem is still there, it's just being masked by the drugs. If you have to go back to the hospital because your cancer came back somewhere else, the treatment didn't work.

Now, hospital visits and prescriptions work well for things like a broken arm, or strep throat. For other conditions like high blood pressure and acid reflux, treatment (not a cure) is the best we can hope for. But what if there are alternative methods that would work better and cost less? Should we really refuse to consider them just because they don't conform to our scientific model?

The alternative option I want to talk about today is outlined in Classical Medical Astrology: Healing with the Elements by Oscar Hofman. This book is not for beginners, but astrologers will find the basic concepts of medical astrology here and pointers to other sources. Non-astrologers may want to read the book anyway for a new perspective on what is possible using this method, and what was done in the past. The book starts with some background history, then goes on to explain the classical medical model, including the four humors, which correspond to the four classical elements. After describing how astrology fits in to this model, the book has some case studies that serve to illustrate the different concepts. There is also information about using herbs and crystals to help in treatment.

Now, none of this will ever be FDA-approved. Medical astrology just doesn't fit the model. Double-blind testing doesn't work if different people respond differently to treatments, which for that reason have to be customized. But please remember that the current scientific medical model got us where we are today. For better results, we may have to expand the model.

Book Review: Natural Born Soulmates

Yes, I'm reviewing another "Law of Attraction" book about finding a soulmate. I'm still recommending The Soulmate Path: Find the Love You Want and Strengthen the Love You Have, but Natural Born Soulmates: Follow Your Inner Wisdom to Lasting Love by Lauren Thibodeau has a slightly different target audience and covers a different set of issues.

The first key concept that sets this book apart is the division of soulmates into three categories: "Karmic Connections" who present you with unfinished business that needs to be cleaned up, "Balance Partners" who offer support and lessons (but not necessarily pleasant lessons), and "Heartmates"who are people to we can build happy, healthy and growing passionate relationships with.

The second key concept is a list of five attitudes that commonly block us from finding Heartmates, and keep us stuck with Karmic Connections or Balance Partners. I'll just list them, as they basically speak for themselves:

1. I'd rather be anything but alone.
2. But I see such potential.
3. It's just that I love you so much.
4. I won't be hurt like that again.
5. All of the good ones are gone.

If at least one of the above five statements sounds familiar, then this book will have something helpful for you. The book does claim to be written for women, but the advice and concepts pretty much apply to everyone. And I promise this will be the last soulmate book I talk about at least for a few months.

Book Review: The Vibrational Universe

I should probably start off with a warning: this review is going to be about yet another "Law of Attraction" book. The Vibrational Universe: Harnessing the Power of Thought to Consciously Create Your Life by Kenneth James Michael MacLean definitely falls into that category. But please bear with me, and don't say "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt" just yet. The book actually raises an important point which, in my opinion, is worth the price of admission. We tend to think of emotion and reason as two separate things. This book says that your ability to reason is affected by your emotional state, and that sufficiently negative emotional states can inhibit the ability to reason entirely. The corollary is that we're better able to deal with problems that come up if we can find something to feel better about first.

To that end, the book includes a scale of emotions, ranging from apathy at the extreme negative end, to serene bliss at the extreme positive end. This is important because changing our emotional state only works well a couple of steps at a time. It's hard to go from apathy to enthusiasm, but taking a couple of steps up through grief and anger works better. This also means that you can't lift someone else's mood if you're too far above them on the scale without approaching them, at least temporarily, from a lower spot.

The rest of the book won't have many surprises for those of you who have been following this blog for any length of time, but the book is a very good introduction to the Law of Attraction and related concepts.

Divination and the F-word

I'm going to start this article with the f-word, just to prove a point. Here goes: fortune-telling. There, I said it. Those of you who do Tarot and/or astrology readings are most likely chuckling silently (or laughing out loud) right now, while the rest of you are wondering if you missed a joke. Well, you did. The joke is that tarot and astrology would be nothing more than slightly more effective psychoanalysis if they had nothing to do with fate and the future, but we as readers do everything we can to hide from that fact.

Let's start with an admission. All of us who do readings, if we are any good, at least at times know what is going to happen. We can argue about whether it's fated by the planets or our intuition is looking at a possible future, and we can hide behind archetypes and psychological complexes, but the basic fact that foreknowledge does occur is still there. And it's not going away.

Now that we've acknowledged the elephant in the living room, I'm going to tell you that it's not really an elephant. Here's what an old-school philosopher (Ptolemy) had to say on the subject:

For, first of all, it is necessary to consider that even for events that will necessarily result, the unexpected is apt to cause delirious confusion and mad joy, while foreknowing habituates and trains the soul to attend to distant events as though they were present, and prepares it to accept each of the arriving events with peace and tranquility.

This is true as far as it goes, but it leads to something we all as readers should consider: our clients worry about the future. That's why they come to us. If we can tell them what's in (or could be in) their future, they can stop worrying about it, and instead think about something more useful and important: what to do about it.

2012: An Alternate Prediction

I'm sure you've heard about the predictions around 2012. Most predict either a violent cataclysm or universal enlightenment. I have a prediction of my own, which is in some ways not so bad, but even more frightening in others.

Here goes: All of the books on psychic development I've read say that everyone has psychic abilities. With Neptune entering Pisces in February 2012, it's quite possible that these psychic abilities will awaken on a large scale, and there's some anecdotal evidence that the process has already begun. There are books in every Borders and Barnes and Noble that I've been to that have methods of awakening these capacities that are known to work.

Not so bad on the surface, but think about it. There would be people all around you who know what you're thinking, your dirtiest fantasies, and your most shameful deeds. It could usher in a new era of peace based on understanding and compassion if handled correctly, or all hell could break loose. My money's on the latter, followed by the former. In any case, you can help by investigating the matter yourself. It will definitely be better to develop these abilities in a conscious, controlled manner. I recommend You Are Psychic: The Art of Clairvoyant Reading & Healing for you High Priestesses, and You Are Psychic!: The Free Soul Method for the Magicians.

Book Review: The Soulmate Path

I have a theory developed while reading The Soulmate Path: Find the Love you Want and Strengthen the Love You Have by Monte Farber and Amy Zerner. The authors don't explicitly state this theory in their book, but it seems to be implied by what they've written. So here goes: soulmates are not born, they are grown. A soulmate relationship is not necessarily predetermined before birth, but is definitely a result of a process in which two people acquire a deep understanding of each other, and a closeness that results in the two preferring each other's company to anyone else's.

The authors have a method of finding a soulmate that I haven't seen anywhere else:

...if you put your efforts into becoming yourself fully and do your best to realize your potential and find out who you are and what you are capable of, you will become the kind of person your Soulmate will want to meet and stay with.

Well, that sounds like a well-defined, workable plan to me, so I'm trying it. The book also has very helpful advice for how to deal with issues such as children, abuse and commitment, and some delightful stories about how the authors found each other, and a set of affirmations toward the end for those of you who are into that sort of thing. I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to find a new relationship or improve an existing one.

My Online Readings: an Update

I've been doing free readings online at The Free Tarot Network for a little over a month. The readings have gone well, and I've gotten some positive feedback. It still amazes me (though I know it shouldn't) that I can do a reading for someone thousands of miles away and have a relevant card come up.

I've also noticed that the reading requests tend to cluster around themes that are also active in my life. A couple of books that I've read said that would happen, so maybe that's a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it is what it is. In any case, I'm learning as much from the readings as the people I'm doing the readings for.

The most important thing I've learned so far is that sometimes having the right answer isn't as important as asking the right question.