A Crooked Vessel
Addendum to the Devil in Castaneda
In early September, I asked Mrs.Horsley to do an horary on the following question:
How closely did Carlos Castaneda’s sorcery adhere to principles of goodness, beauty and truth?
The response:
The chart is very representative. I can probably answer more questions from it, if you have any.
Verdict: Overall Castaneda’s work is strong intellectually, weak in moral forthrightness, and dark in its aesthetic.
* Truth: The work is intellectually sophisticated and genuinely engaged with the domain of higher knowledge but the Truth it purports is veiled, and at the “end of its integrity”. It is not transparent, and it is not durable.
* Goodness: Is not in the open. It is shadowed by Mars, and Mars, the malefic, occupies Castaneda’s own house. Whatever goodness there is does not show itself; what shows itself is Mars — the man is a flawed vessel.
* Beauty: The beauty is dark, intense, not harmonious. It is the beauty of the abyss. Not clean. Compromised.
Strictures Against Judgement
The Moon is combust i.e., within 8°of the Sun, and applying to get closer. The judgment being brought to this question is itself obscured. The querent may be drawn to Castaneda’s work (Moon applies to the Sun in the 9th) but the approach burns away clarity. This is not a chart where the querent sees the matter plainly. It is a chart where the querent is still inside the veil. He is asking about the truth from within the dark, which is exactly the position from which such a question is usually asked.
But overall, the chart is radical and can be read.
Significators
Querent (Jasun): Jupiter (Sag Asc) at Leo 15°, 8th house.
* Querent is inside the domain he is asking about. Jupiter in the 8th house is the seeker in the house of hidden things — the occult, the transformative, the buried. A question about Castaneda’s sorcery is an 8th-house question, and the querent’s own significator sits there. He is not a detached critic standing outside the tradition. He is a participant in it.
* Querent’s judgment is doubly obscured. The Moon — his co-significator — is also in the 8th house, and it is combust, 7°00’ from the Sun and applying closer. Both of the querent’s significators sit in the house of hidden matters, and one of them is burned. He is too close to the subject to see it plainly. This is the central caution of the chart: the man asking “how closely did this adhere to truth” is himself standing in the dark.
* The querent approaches with pride. Leo is magnanimous but also proud, dramatic, and self-referential. The inquiry is bound up with his own sense of self, his own desire to be illuminated, his own standing as a seeker. He wants the truth, and he wants it to enlarge him.
* The querent is static. Jupiter has no applying aspects. The querent is not acting on the matter, he is contemplating it. He has no forward motion. He is waiting, observing, turning the thing over. Jupiter separates from a trine with Saturn (discipline, restriction, the past) and a square with Venus (beauty, values, love). Both are separating — past events. The querent has already moved through a period of restriction and a conflict with beauty or value. He is not in the middle of those now.
Castaneda: 7th house — Gemini 23°, ruled by Merc
Castaneda’s teachings: 9th house — Virgo 11°, ruled by Merc
Goodness: Jupiter (greater benefic) and Venus (lesser benefic).
Beauty: Venus.
Truth: Mercury and the Sun.
Note that Merc rules both the 7th (Castaneda) and the 9th (his sorcery). Mercury is the central significator of the entire question.
Truth/ Mercury Virgo 29° in the 9th house.
This is the strongest essential placement in the chart.
Mercury, the planet of the mind, communication, and truth, is in its own sign, in the house of philosophy and higher wisdom.
As a testimony for the intellectual quality of Castaneda’s work, this is strong: the body of work is sophisticated, well-crafted, and genuinely connected to the domain of higher knowledge.
But not so fast! Merc is greatly afflicted ie
* “Under the beams”: Only 11 degrees from the Sun. Merc is obscured by the Sun, not visible. The truth is present but veiled. The work is not transparent.
* At the last degree of Virgo. It is about to enter Libra and lose its domicile dignity. 29 degrees “marks an end, a critical transition, or a loss of integrity.”
The chart appears to be strong in form, obscured in essence, and at its end.
Goodness/ Jupiter (and Venus)
* Jupiter (the greater benefic, natural significator of goodness) sits at Leo 15° in the 8th house. Leo confers moderate essential strength but the 8th house is anathema to Jup. Goodness is occluded — operating in the dark?
* Venus in Scorpio 0° in the 10th house is in detriment — the sign of Scorpio reiterating Jup’s 8th house condition.
Beauty/ Venus Scorpio 0° in the 10th house
* Venus is the natural significator of beauty, and she is in the sign of her detriment. The 10th house is angular, which gives her strength of placement, but the essential dignity is compromised. Scorpio is a sign of intensity, secrecy, death, and transformation — beauty here is dark and not harmonious. It is the beauty of the abyss. Not clean.
Castaneda
* Mars (the lesser malefic) is in fall in Cancer in the 7th house — Castaneda’s own house. Mars is the traditional ruler of Scorpio and the 8th House. It’s reinforcing the dark intimations undermining Goodness. Mars’s presence in Castaneda’s house indicates that his domain is afflicted. Suggests aggression, manipulation, or a dark quality in the man himself.
Applying Aspects
1. Moon conj Sun: The querent’s judgment (Moon) moves toward the Truth (Sun, in the 9th house) but the approach causes combustion — the Moon is obscured as it nears the Sun. The querent is drawn toward the Truth of the matter, and loses clarity in the process?
2. Sun sext Mars: The Truth (Sun) supports the malefic in Castaneda’s domain. There is a genuine connection between Castaneda’s work and Truth, but Mars is in fall, Castaneda is weak, and the connection is to a “flawed vessel”.
3. Moon sext Mars: Reinforces the same theme — the querent’s judgment is favorably disposed toward Castaneda, but Castaneda is a “flawed vessel.”