A serious and well-illustrated overview of the mansions of the Moon, bringing together material from most of the available traditional sources.
The heaA serious and well-illustrated overview of the mansions of the Moon, bringing together material from most of the available traditional sources.
The heart of the book, the "cookbook" section that describes each of the 28 mansions, is solid and complete. The book also features a number of chapters and appendixes giving alternative readings and names for the mansions. These are all quite brief and don't seem especially useful for the modern user. There is also a detailed ephemeris at the back of the book listing the position of the Moon in the mansions until 2033.
The main thrust of this book is about magic and only secondarily astrology. The mansions of the Moon have always been regarded as times which are auspicious or inauspicious for practicing different types of magic, and this reader found there to be a rather creepy emphasis on black magic--causing harm to others. This was clearly a preoccupation of the medieval sources. A key aspect of each mansion is how to create and use a talisman to work its magic.
The book is brief, and even though this is a second edition there are some copyediting issues. But the illustrations by Nigel Jackson are vivid and excellent, and designed for use in creating the talismans for the mansions.
I have not yet worked with the mansions of the Moon, but I would like to do so, and this book has provided me with a tool to get started. If you're interested in this byway of the astrological and magical world, then this book will give you a solid introduction to it....more
A fascinating and authoritative overview of "evolutionary astrology"--a relatively new thing that examines the birth chart for clues to a person's pasA fascinating and authoritative overview of "evolutionary astrology"--a relatively new thing that examines the birth chart for clues to a person's past lives and the intentions behind the current one.
The author spends a whole chapter trying to persuade the reader of the validity of reincarnation. I skimmed that chapter, since I am already a firm believer in reincarnation, although I realize that many Westerners (and, for all I know, an increasing number of Easterners) have difficulty in accepting it. But, as Forrest also asserts, belief in reincarnation is not necessary in order to be able to realize the benefits offered by this approach.
And those benefits are many. With evolutionary astrology, the birth charts shifts from being a snapshot of the soul to being a plan for one's life, complete with a history, a goal, and tasks that must be accomplished in order to realize it. The whole chart is an expression of this plan, but the particular focus is around the so-called Nodes of the Moon: the points in space where the orbit of the Moon intersects the ecliptic, or the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. The South Node, the point where the Moon dips below the ecliptic each month, symbolizes the past life. The North Node, where the Moon rises again above the ecliptic, symbolizes the goal of the current life. The rulerships and aspects affecting these points provide the details.
I have only just begun to experiment with this, but already it appears to be a powerful technique, and certainly an interesting and creatively exciting one. The author is at pains to stress that a birth chart does not have enough detail in it to construct the exact particulars of a previous life; rather, the astrologer can use it to build a lifelike story or parable of the previous life--a story that has the same meaning and emotional impact as the actual life, whatever that was. It's not about uncovering the facts of that life, but its truth, which is what matters as far as the current life is concerned, for we are all born to work on the business left unfinished by our previous births.
The author uses the word karma to talk about this unfinished business, and I confess that I, with my Buddhist training (such as it is), am not altogether comfortable with the way this word is bandied about in New Age literature. In the Buddhist teachings, which are deep and exact, karma is an impersonal and, as it were, mechanical force that acts somewhat like gravity, conditioning and shaping almost every action and event in some way, and operating over great spans of time and countless lives. The New Age notion of karma seems more loosey-goosey, operating with a relatively crude sense of "balancing the books" and "payback." According to the Buddha himself, karma is a profound mystery and directly knowable only to one who has attained a high degree of sensitive clairvoyance. I'm not sure that it makes much difference when it comes to interpreting a chart in the light of evolutionary astrology, but it might be interesting to explore this approach from the point of view of a more precise understanding of karma.
The author writes in a folksy and conversational style that might make the material more accessible for many readers, although this reader found it to be a bit too casual. But this is one of the most exciting works of astrology that I've read, and I'm eager to explore the ideas and methods that Forrest lays out here. If you're an astrologer, this book gives you everything you need to start opening the door to your past life and to your highest good for the present one....more
An interesting and persuasive take on how ancient warfare was conducted, written not by an academic historian but by a war-gamer and graphic artist.
ThAn interesting and persuasive take on how ancient warfare was conducted, written not by an academic historian but by a war-gamer and graphic artist.
The author follows the history of fighting formations, starting with the Greek hoplite phalanx and concluding with the Roman's triplex acies or triple formation, examining the nuts and bolts of how they were equipped, ordered, and put through maneuvers. Although not an academic, the author is conversant with ancient Greek and Latin and reads the ancient sources carefully to find what they were really saying. An interesting bonus is that he uses his graphic skills to present detailed diagrams of the various formations and their movements. Along the way he makes many deductions that lead him to conclusions different from the received academic wisdom of how ancient armies behaved and fought.
As a layman, I can't comment on the accuracy of the material presented; but I can say that I found it convincing. After reading this book I have a much clearer idea of how ancient armies deployed themselves and how their battles were actually conducted. If you have an interest in ancient military history, then I'm tempted to say that this book is required reading....more
A refreshingly different tale of an orphaned Anglo-Irish boy who has been raised as a native in Lahore, and whose life takes on a sense of purpose wheA refreshingly different tale of an orphaned Anglo-Irish boy who has been raised as a native in Lahore, and whose life takes on a sense of purpose when he meets a Tibetan monk and finds himself swept as a bit player into the Great Game of Central Asian intrigue. Filled with the sights, smells, and dialogue of the people of India under the British Raj....more
There is an increasing number of published accounts of what might be called the spirit world--the nonphysical realms that exist apart from the world of physical matter--and they often have very different things to say about it. Michael Newton's books have a high level of credibility since they are based on hundreds, or maybe thousands, of cases of hypnotic regressions. Finding consensus between so many different witnesses, Newton was able to put together a consistent picture of what happens to us between lives. It makes for fascinating and very important reading.
For my part, I'm very grateful for the work that Newton did (he himself died in 2016), but many questions remain. For me the jury is still out as to what to expect when I die, but if things go along the lines described by this author's hypnotic subjects, then that would be fine with me. According to them, Earth is a tough training ground, and when we die we return to our true habitat of love and mutual accord.
I found I was not believing anything that I was reading, and that I didn't care about what was going on. The difference between "archetypal" settings I found I was not believing anything that I was reading, and that I didn't care about what was going on. The difference between "archetypal" settings and characters, and "cliche" settings and characters, is not much, I think. Time to read something different!...more
I was waiting for something to happen, and, by page 130, almost nothing had. What this author likes and is good at is describing people's personalitieI was waiting for something to happen, and, by page 130, almost nothing had. What this author likes and is good at is describing people's personalities at great length. He has an interesting situation and some potentially good characters, but he's like a chef who has assembled great ingredients, and then does not make the dish.
I was also not in harmony with the author's seeming snobbishness and a tone that was trying to be comic.
This slim volume by a Tibetan monk and meditation master is perhaps the best single volume on shamatha meditation available in English.
In 1988, in a rThis slim volume by a Tibetan monk and meditation master is perhaps the best single volume on shamatha meditation available in English.
In 1988, in a retreat center near Castle Rock, Oregon, a group of meditators embarked on a year-long retreat devoted to shamatha or "calming the mind." The leader of the retreat, Gen Lamrimpa, gave a series of talks at the outset to set the retreatants on the right path. The talks were brief but rich in the knowledge gained from Lamrimpa's many years of solitary practice and study in the mountains above Dharamsala, India. Above all, they were practical: these were the things for a practitioner to know when embarking on a program of serious meditation.
The talks, in edited form, are reproduced here in this little book. I've been practicing shamatha off and on since 1986, and I feel as though an inestimable treasure has come into my hands. The view of the practice, the nine levels of shamatha, obstacles and antidotes--they're all here, and given by someone who has a lot of first-hand experience.
If you're interested in shamatha meditation, don't even think about it--get this book....more
This book is actually really good, but for me, a general reader, it is much too long for what I was able to take away from it. The title and subtitle This book is actually really good, but for me, a general reader, it is much too long for what I was able to take away from it. The title and subtitle of the book seem to be aimed at the general reader, but I found myself wading through countless pages of archaeological data, including things like tables of radiocarbon dates for lists of artifacts and detailed diagrams of various specific digs in the Central Asian steppes. All this material is really aimed at colleagues, professional archaeologists, who will appreciate that material and even perhaps geek out over it.
I'm very interested in the Indo-Europeans and in their role in shaping history, and this book has much to say that is right to the point of that, but it seems that the field is a controversial one, and the author is conscious of having to persuade many skeptics within his own field. In his final chapter he confesses:
I have used a lot of archaeological detail in this account, because the more places a narrative is pegged to the facts, and the more different kinds of facts from difference sources are employed as pegs, the less likely it is that the narrative is false.
I'm sure this is true enough, but the data should really be on a website for the interested reader. The book itself should have had just a representative summary of that data, and concerned itself with narrating the history of the evolution of the steppe cultures of Eurasia and how they impacted the civilizations ringing those steppes. It's a fascinating story, but in this text it emerges only as oases of narrative in a desert crossing of data.
As for the narrative itself, it sounds plausible. The author tries to reconcile the views of Eastern and Western researchers, and finds that the steppe cultures, though warlike in many ways, did not interact with each other or with outsiders only via conflict, but often by way of trade and intermarriage, and that they had a high level of technical culture of their own, which fertilized those sedentary civilizations on the rim of the steppes.
But this 550-page book should be maybe 250 pages, tops....more
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