Episode 3: Let’s Get Into Some Theurgic Astrology (RIP Podcast Episode #2.5)

Today I talk about (1) the attempted recording that became a death descent into ritual transformation, (2) how I work my astrology practice (and so can YOU!), and (3) watch the transmutation of #1 play out as I start to feel more comfortable talking into the mic.

Contact: @mindfulnecromancy on IG

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Today I'm going to tell the story about how I tried to record an episode yesterday, and I guess I guess I succeeded in recording the episode. I just don't know if I'm going to publish it because it turned out to be utterly what I needed and not what I intended the episode to be at all. And what I learned from it, because I learned so much about how to describe what it is that I do here. So yesterday I got on to voice notes and had every intention of recording like a for fun episode about Bugs Bunny being one of the many faces of Mercury. And it went so far down below the tracks. I would say it's off, but it was really beneath the tracks from Bugs. Because I immediately ran into that crossroads where what you want to say, you just know that ain't it. And you gotta just, it's like a record scratch. And all of a sudden, what is really happening on the inside is so much more authentic and real and visceral, and is like demanding that you address it and name it. And I know this from my therapy practice. If you don't do that work, you're going to be, I mean, you're wasting your time, you're perpetuating old nasty things, and you're essentially figure skating across a shallow and brittle and just superficial level that resonates with nobody, first off, and just feels icky and disgusting and always just takes you further and further away from an integrity and like fragile ice is liable to collapse and shatter underneath you to who knows what kind of realistic manifestation of the icy depths. So instead of having that happen in some sort of externally imposed way, like I discussed in my last episode, in those moments, you got to look at that crossroads and say, yeah, okay, we're taking the path down. So I ended up recording, it was like almost 45 minutes long. Maybe I'll post it someday, but like not right now. It feels a little like self-aggrandizing or something like that when you don't even know how I work. And it made me think, oh wow, you know, this is an excellent opportunity to take what happened yesterday and describe it to you so that you can get a sense of what my work is like as an astrologer, as a practitioner generally, like as a psychotherapist, as a magical practitioner, all of the above. So well, I already gave you a nice introduction to the crossroads that if you're listening hard enough, you will be confronted with. Now, is your audience always down to descend with you to the depths? Like, not always, like the right people are gonna be riveted and be like, oh my god, yes, me too. How do I do that? More like you just spoke to something in my heart. The wrong people are gonna be like, you fucking weirdo. So there's that piece. But the work that I do is fundamentally theurgic. And what is theurgy? It is the process of purifying yourself. Whatever, you know, asterisks yourself means. It means many, many things. I just don't want to digress. It's the process of purifying yourself by invoking God. In any of his many faces, don't get hung up on the name I'm using for God. I rarely like to use the masculine Abrahamic style name for God myself, so the fact that I wanted to do it today is funny. I think it's because I I feel like I'm, you know, being radical against myself, which is always fun. But it theurgy is the process of invoking the different faces of God to purify yourself spiritually. And the way I take this to mean, and this is informed by my therapy practice at its most materialist protocol-driven level, at a depth psychology level, at a systemic relational therapy level, but also informed definitely by my own spiritual work and experience firsthand on myself and as a practitioner helper with others. To me, astrology, at least the way I like to look at it, is that you are utilizing the transits and their mundane manifestations, their intrapsychic manifestations, their spiritual trans manifestations, to as opportunities to go and, you know, as a psychodynamic therapist would say, work through different complexes, different old stories, different ways you've been conditioned by life and the world in order to access something truer and deeper. So very much the idea of the great work being the pursuit of your true will and its unfolding in the world. And it's amazing. There are so many different ways that people can do this. The ways that I practice are, well, I speak a lot of different languages, so to say. Symbolic languages and practitioner languages. But no matter what way you what methodology you use, what s language system, what uh philosophical system, what rituals and tradition and lineage or lack thereof, it's all too. It's like there is a visceral, I'm gonna overuse that word so much. It's like an electrical current that you have inside of you. And and that is, of course, like the divine emanation, like what the way that you manifested here on this material plane. And whether you're taking that at the most like rational materialist level or the very, very highest, you know, theological level, which, you know, whatever. What are people doing when they're working through trauma in therapy? They're trying to get back to quote unquote their original self. And of course, you know, that's that phrasing is like I consider tenuous because what is original, everything is constructed, you know, in the moment. So even with trauma, you're not going back to a pre-traumatized state. You're you're looking for post-traumatic growth, which is like a post-traumatized state where it's actually, you know, you can't go backwards. You gotta move into a what's what's the phrase I'm looking for? Into a new normal. A new good normal, hopefully. Good being, you know, a far transcendent definition of good than just the like, I don't like this, it's unpleasant, kind of like a good bad. That's that's a whole other topic. Maybe for a future recording. But there is truth to the fact that with your hardwiring, gifted genetically and biologically, there is a certain way that you are the folds in your brain have grown, how your synapses fire, what your consciousness is going to look and feel like based on your physical and physiological system. There is a certain you-ness that comes from both biology as well as culture, the family that you were born into, the multiple lineages within that family, how they mix and interplay in unique ways, the time period that you were born into, the social, political, geographic, economic, etc., context that you're born into, all of these things make you a uniquely, well, a profoundly unique person. And what happens, I see, and I think this is to me the point of psychotherapy, although the individual's goals, of course, can, you know, they're whatever they, the, the person's goals are. The purpose of therapy is really to unburden oneself and sloth off the unhelpful conditioning, the conditioning that's sort of like a wet blanket thrown onto you in a way that traps you or distorts your your ability to access your own power. It really is always kind of about empowerment. Everyone has power, it's just how are you using it? Are you using it consciously and intentionally? And so I think I'm sure if I wanted to like write a book about this, I could uh find multiple different, you know, core factors, as they say, about what what the purpose here is. But it's to find your sense of conscious power and as I said before, sloth off the old stuff so that you can be your truest, most innermost perfect truest, most innermost manifestation and embodiment of your knowledge. And of course, you know, who you are, like I said, it is socially constructed, but there is social construct that leads to growth and activism and change and contribution and sharing of one's gifts to embedter yourself, your family, your community, society, and so on. That is what we're looking for. And don't get caught up, please, in activism as meaning some particular sort of definition at any given point in time, but it's literally in the sense of being active, an active player in your life. And so, I mean, this is what psychotherapy always is. Really, psychotherapy runs into, you know, kinks when someone is like, Well, I would prefer to not be empowered, and you're like, oh, well, now we have to look at that. Other than that, almost all goals are to, well, I would say maybe sometimes therapeutic goals are thaumaturgy, which is, you know, affecting the world around you in like, I want a better marriage, I want more money, et cetera, et cetera. But like, when are when are theurgy and thaumaturgy like not intertwined? You know, it's so embarrassing. I'm like one of those kids who reads a lot of books but has never heard someone say the word. So I need to make sure I'm not mispronouncing these. I'm pretty sure I'm not. I've been around a while. I've learned a lot from a lot of teachers, but you never know.

unknown 13:02

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So all this to say. That's the work that I like to do, whether it is through astrological consultation individually, which can look all sorts of fun different ways. Like what happened yesterday is I was sitting, I took on the roles of my, you know, a really, really exact malefic T-square that I have in my natal chart. And really, it's kind of a grand cross, but the, you know, the the little innocent non-malefic, well, okay, Mercury is ambidextrous. It's a little bit of a neutral alignment there. But anyway, I had to sit around the circle with these different roles and do it was more than sort of like an IFS parts work, which of course I love to do. It's the internal system, but it was more of like an active role play and astrodrama, which is just psychodrama, but with astrology. Ugh, I don't want to privilege one over the other. But what I did was I I stepped into those roles and I had them converse and like honestly yell at each other. They had to yell at each other and receive what the other person hear heard and integrate those different perspectives and say, you know what? Fuck you. This is my this is the issue I have with you, my dude. And then, you know, get it off your chest. And the other person's like, okay, we're not vibing. I got it. You're pissed at me. You've been pissed at me for like 25 years on this particular note, but okay, I heard it now. And get into more of a, I guess you could say right relationship. Although I don't know, that sounds so like chooggy, even if it's true. I'm sure if I dug into the roots of that phrase and where it came from, I'd feel like it was less chooggy and I'd have a lot of respect for it. That's usually how that goes. But they were able to, it's like in good couples therapy or any kind of family therapy, like when they're able to hear each other and understand each other's perspectives, they transcend the conflict that's been existing that everyone has been like stuck in. That's like their only kind of framework for the issue at hand. And they they transcend that and move into a completely different realm of possibility and different potential solutions and outcomes. And everyone kind of shakes hands at the end of the day. And you know, they can shake hands while being still very different from one another. Like no one has won per se. Everyone has won, and no one has won. And that's one as in won the award, like W-O-N. So that is a form of spiritual and astrological, particularly astrological work that I love doing. Whether it is, I love to do this in person, in groups, have have people evoke their particular planetary placements or the placement of a transiting planet that's hitting their moon or what have you. And, you know, they can play the roles between each other, find these different resources, but really you are. You are in the ancient Greek sense, like the gods are active and alive in us. And you are consciously and intentionally accessing those, the gods, to bring them in and transform your life and get to that theurgic purification, constantly unfolding, constantly shedding in in order to bring about your highest, truest will. So that's a little glance into what that looks like. I love it because in terms of astrology, like I, you know, it's it's really I find it fun because I'm a big fat fucking nerd to learn all of the significations and the different timing techniques and all sorts of like different nerdy systems from like ancient, you know, our ancient ancient philosophical and magical and epistemological and whatever logical traditions that you want. But in this way, a person can do really deep work without without being like, oh God, I need to like, you know, spend the next 10 years of my life studying this before it really is gonna make a difference and move the needle. It is very much, you know, obviously I can tell you about what your upcoming transits are and what kind of ways we can make predictions using that. But at the end of the day, if you're making predictions, it's sort of the fate aspect of it. Like there's always fate, but you get to play with fate in the sense of are you going to see and take and experience fate as something that happens to you as a passive, frankly, a victim? Yeah, your moon is always going to get catastrophically run over by Saturn as it goes through, sorry, Pluto as it goes over a retrograde that can last years and years and years. Okay, not everyone, but like some of you. Are you going to lean into that as something that you can use to like create incredible transformation and depth and and and richness from? Literally, maybe literal richness. Or are you going to be like, wow, this has been grinding me down, and I basically don't see any point in being here anymore? It's the same fate, it just depends on what relationship that you have to it, and that makes so much of a difference. I think that's a really great way to square the age-old question of if there is fate, how is there free will? Though I don't know, I'm sure people could get into the weeds on that. And I am not well-versed enough in not smart enough, frankly, to like go and have that debate. Frankly, I'm fucking bored of debates. That's a whole other topic about why I do this work. But even that, even that, this the squares and the oppositions between the planets that I had yesterday, it was not a debate. It was, I need you to know this from my perspective and integrate it. And now we switch places and vice versa. And again, it's that Jungian individuation. You'd see it as in integration. All of these different framings are really kind of different facets of the same overarching, I would say, goal, but of course, from what we actually know, the goal is simply always unfolding and there's always more to do, which is kind of fun and eternal and beautiful if you think about it that way. So let's not think about it as this sort of concrete, you know, Western consumerist idea of a goal. Because like, when do you achieve enlightenment? Shut the fuck up. I know if you're anything like me, you've had people at points in life be like, you're almost enlightened, or like, this is how you achieve enlightenment, or like, I've gotten enlightened in this way where it even that framing isn't accurate because the particular ridiculous and terrible experience I had with someone like speaking as though they were the arbiter of like when people hadn't had been enlightened and such, but that's insane. It's absurd to think about it that way because it's not something that you like achieve and then you're like, oh, okay, done. I rest now. If you're even listening to this, I know you don't think about it that way, but it was just a funny little, a funny little digression story. So, regardless, this is an ever-unfolding process, which means you can keep going with it deeper and deeper and deeper. There's always more goodness for you out there in the world. So if this resonates, I would love to hear from you. But right now I don't have a website or an email address or any way for you to contact me. Actually, that's not true. I have an Instagram. It's at mindful necromancy, at mindful necromancy on Instagram. So you can go and follow me or DM me there. Other than that, I'm gonna work on those other ways of contacting me to schedule. I really, yeah, this is new to me because the way I consult and have led workshops and practice and group work before has been really local, like literally like a mouth to mouth.

unknown 21:42

Mouth to mouth.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Word of mouth. Sure, mouth to mouth. Why not? But I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. There's no sexual harassment going on here, gross. Word of mouth. And so I look forward to putting those together, but TB. So thank you for listening. This is really fun because I'm starting to access this kind of softer place. Maybe it's just today, who knows? The recordings I've done are all kind of on the fly, but it's going to be speaking of unfolding, interesting to see how my voice and how I present things to you and what I have to offer you unfolds because, well, go back and start listening from the beginning. So have a lovely day and talk soon.