Apotheosis

If we are to believe everything we read on the Internet, there was an event last Tuesday night which changed the world!  Not seen in over 2000 years, the "Star of Bethlehem" was reappearing in the Heavens! 

Dramatic!  Rare!  Magical!  Behold!

Ooh, shiny!

I jest, of course, but the clickbait just got to be too much. Also, when people get caught up in the good feelings of drama and fantasy, they tend to develop an acute allergy to reality and facts.

Jupiter and Venus conjoin every 13 months or so on the average, and their conjunction in 1988 was significantly closer. Furthermore, Venus goes retrograde between July 25 and September 6, so this conjunction is only the first one in a triple conjunction between the two planets. (Now that's a little more rare; it happens about once every ten years.)  The first encounter is the closest, however, and there is actually plenty of omens and portents in the Heavens overall at that moment which are worthy of inspection.

Starting with the focal matter at hand, we have the celestial tango of the Greater and Lesser Benefics under the solar spotlight in the Sign of Leo.  Love meets charity, beauty bonds with bounty.  In and of itself, aside from a very weak square to Saturn retrograde in Scorpio, there are no drawbacks here whatsoever.

Propping up this beatific conjunction are trines to Uranus in Aries and Luna in Sagittarius.  There is a strong impulse for sudden change here, change in an independent and perhaps unorthodox manner, coupled with idealistic optimism.  These three assemble a Grand Trine in the Fire signs, adding fuel, power and balance to this impetus.  The Grand Trine itself is somewhat transitory, as Luna forms one of its vertices, but it makes that snapshot in time all the more significant.

The only thing that would have made this conjunction more auspicious is if it were just a few degrees further along in the Zodiac.  Then it would have conjoined with the fixed star Regulus as well.  Regulus is Cor Leonis, the Heart of the Lion, one of the four Royal Stars of Persia, and the "kingmaker" among the stars.  In this case, however, Jupiter would hand over his sceptre to a new Cytherean Queen.  If one is looking more towards a spiritual omen, it would be more the case of "God is coming back and boy is she pissed!"  Despite the precise conjunction not really being there, the path of the triple conjunction does pass over Regulus, so I anticipate seeing more women rise to positions of power in the future.  This heralds a change in the governmental order of things, and Pluto hovering in Capricorn would back that up.  (The last time Pluto hung out in Capricorn, France and the American Colonies had their revolutions.)

The patriarchal structure will not go unopposed, literally, as a Sol-Mars conjunction in Cancer is trying to extinguish Luna's enthusiasm by fighting Fire with Fire.  That conjunction having a trine to Neptune retrograde in Pisces supports that resistance through belief systems and disinformation.  One can even see shades of the Emanuel AME and black church burnings in all of this.  As would be indicated by the outpouring of forgiveness from the victims and the subsequent "Hate Won't Win" campaign catching Fire, so to speak, the benefic conjunction supported by the Grand Trine prevails, with an assist from Pluto opposing the Sol-Mars conjunction. 

So this is indeed an auspicious snapshot of the Heavens, but the Star of Bethlehem it is not.  However, if you want to look for the next solid candidates to herald the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, look to the Grand Conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius close to Winter Solstice 2020 and Spring Equinox 2080.  Their close encounters bring each other within 6 arc-minutes of one another, which is 4 times closer than this last Jupiter-Venus conjunction.

Esoteric Orders: A Survival Guide
          Section I: How To Find An Esoteric Order

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You’ve always known you’re a little different.  Going to school was always mentally tough, not because of the coursework, but because you never really fit in.  You always knew when your best friend was having a rough day, because you could feel it in your gut.  You could see things other people couldn’t see, and you couldn’t say anything, because people would laugh and call you crazy.  So you kept it all inside, alone and afraid to tell anyone.  What people called anxiety, you called survival.

Your parents made you go to church every Sunday, but you felt like you didn’t fit in there, either.  Your pastor said that the pentagram is evil and Satanic, but there was always something about it you liked.  There were other things your priest said at church that just didn’t jibe with what you read in the Bible.  You looked up the word “occult” once in the dictionary, because you were taught in Sunday School that the occult was "a tool of the Anti-Christ", but you found out the word comes from the Latin “occultus”, meaning nothing more than “hidden”.  Unlike the masses, you still have your critical thinking skills turned on.

Mythology had always intrigued you, especially the Greek and Egyptian.  There was always something about the tales of Apollo that resonated with you.  You also couldn’t help but notice some parallels with the religion you were brought up with, too.  You’ve wondered what the early church was like.  It couldn’t have been as political and screwed up as it is now, or in the Middle Ages, for that matter.  Besides, you’ve always thought of yourself as more spiritual than religious.  You’ve always felt there was a “Higher Power” out there, whatever he, she or it is.  You never felt or found that connection, however, in church.

So one day, the moment hit you.  You were tired of feeling alone and seeking by yourself, so you decided to look for a group of people who shared the same curiosity, mindset and beliefs that you had.  You weren’t exactly sure what you were looking for, but you were going to look for it anyways.  You talked to a couple of friends, the ones that weren’t muggles, and they had heard whisperings about a group or coven nearby, but nothing that really piqued your interest.  The only other connection you had was the one in the wall that led to the Internet.

There’s a reason why the Web is called World Wide.  You can find anything you want there (and a whole lot more of what you don’t want).  You signed up to a few Yahoo groups, joined a few on Facebook, stumbled upon alt.magick and ran away almost screaming.  You asked a few newbie questions, got chided a bit from the old guard, but also got a referral to a website that apparently is everything you’re looking for.

So you type in the web address, and the browser pulls up a very well-designed, good-looking site.  Obviously, these people know what they’re talking about.  They profess a long-standing history, and are offering to share age-old secrets that will transform your life.  You could be part of a world-wide society of like-minded people for the first time in your life.   They even have training courses through their "online cyber-circle".  All you need to do is click on “Sign Me Up”, send your money through PayPal and you’re in!

And maybe that worked out for you!  There are plenty of esoteric organizations out there with rock-solid teachings, taught by smart, knowledgeable mentors, run by compassionate and wise leaders.  However, there are also plenty of organizations whose members are sycophants, teachers who are charlatans, and leaders who are charismatic poseurs.  Some of these groups suck so much time, energy and money out of their members, and demand such tight control of their lives, that they could be easily classified as cults.  Others are more insidious; they have bright, nurturing teachers, but unwittingly, they are psychological enablers for a horribly toxic chief.  You’ll never see that stuff, though, from the “ooh, shiny” website.

But how does someone, completely new to the scene, who doesn’t know anyone in the esoteric community, know who to trust and who to avoid?  It’s not like you can drop a couple hundred dollars and have an online service do an “occult background check” on someone.  Querying the community just seems to go around in circles.  Ask a dozen people about an Order and you’ll get two dozen opinions, along with a whole lot more confusion than when you started.  In exasperation, you go back to your gut, and that “Sign Me Up” button sure would feel good right about now.

Not so fast.  The Quest for the Great Work is one that lasts a lifetime, no matter when you start.  A lapse in judgment now, regardless of whether it is based in a lack of information or lack of wisdom, can send you on a detour of several years.  Then, when you leave that Order with a pretty website and an easy sign-up button, you will find yourself essentially right back where you started, more battered and bruised, psychologically or otherwise, than you originally were.  At that point, you might even walk away, feeling jaded and tarring the entire community with the same tainted brush.  (And who could blame you, really?)

We, the writers, have taken those detours and suffered those lumps.  We write now so that you don’t fall into the same organizational pits that we did.  We cannot tell you which Order, coven or mentor is right for you, but with this guide, we hope to clue you in on which types of Orders, covens or mentors are wrong for any seeker of the Light.

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Next Chapter:  Orders in the Age of the Internet