American Trickster & a Sorcerer's Redemption (+ Astrology Deep Background)

(Art by Michelle Horsley)

Part One: The War Tower is All Over

“The war tower is all over. Go, Ghost! Oh, shit. Fuck. Fucking shit, fuck. Fuck, call us Castaneda! Fuck him and the book series he wrote in on!” (Garbled AI transcript of audio recording.)

American Trickster, the new 600-page biography of Carlos Castaneda by Ru Marshall, twenty years in the writing, came at a critical moment. Reading it has precipitated a kind of energetic recapitulation for me, a “life review.”

There are no coincidences...

It is the month after I submitted the manuscript for Crucial Fictions, in which—with strong qualifications—I used Castaneda’s writings on “the second attention” as part of my thesis regarding parallel memory tracks, pertaining both to trauma and the numinous.

Initially, it was only the latter I was interested in; but the overlap with trauma and the compartmentalization of memory became undeniable as I was finishing up the manuscript, and altered my thesis dramatically (as I wrote about in “God’s Orphans”).

Because of this, I did a casual search for the biography, which I first heard about several years ago and that I knew had been inexplicably delayed. I discovered that it was out next month and wrote to the publishers to request a review copy, promptly received it, read it, and wept.

Figuratively. Not literally, because, as bleak, sordid, and depressing as the book’s portrait of Castaneda is, it rarely attains—or really aspires—to tragedy; or even to pathos. This is perhaps its most critical failing.

Like Amy Wallace’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, only more so, American Trickster portrays Castaneda as a writer, a “sorcerer,” a “cult leader,” a human being, in a way that is unequivocally damning. The technical term for this (I looked it up) is “hamartography”: the opposite of a hagiography.

The book presents mountains of testimonials and evidence that demonstrate, beyond all argument, that Castaneda’s application of sorcery—of the teachings presented by his books—in the real world, in the “first attention,” was an unmitigated train wreck. Short of a few traumatized cult members and probable academic con-conspirators (such as Michael Harner), it is hard to find any positive testimonials about Castaneda—convincing ones at least. This, in itself, is quite a testimonial.

The question this leaves me with is: how did something that started out so well, end up so badly?

Collaboration through Surrender (New Astral Gateway at COJ?)

There are no coincidences.

As below, so above; as without, so within.

The fault is in ourselves, perhaps; but the stars are also involved. They are moving within us, or moving us from within. And as Jung once wrote, famously: “The gods have become our diseases.”

Recently, I went from fathoming God back to mapping Hell at Children of Job. I blame Mrs. Horsley and her brother; but then, that’s family constellations for you: no way to avoid them! As above, so below.

Mrs. Horsley is into astrology (as is my sister). I’ve been more skeptical about it in recent years, as part of my movement away from the occult. But then, moving (tentatively) back towards the occult, via Rudolf Steiner, I have been drawn back to astrology.

This spring, Mrs. Horsley had a reading with the top-tier (and very expensive) astrologer, Stephen Forrest. He told her she was, by nature, or destiny, a psychic healer exploring spiritual consciousness! Not a hell-mapper at all. Since then, I’ve been encouraging Mrs. Horsley to focus more on astrology. One way has been by getting her to do horary readings (What are they? And: a case study).

In fact, this coincided with the Castaneda complex re-emerging into my consciousness, which felt karmic and was the continuation of an on-going soft crisis that began a few weeks earlier, around trauma and the occult and my “luciferic” past. Riding an astral wave of reckoning, I asked her to do an horary reading about me and don Juan. Then a second one.

A few days ago, I listened to a “Captain’s Log” cassette from early August 2007. I had just done an astrology reading with Lyn Birkbeck. The astrologer who turned me onto Castaneda. He had talked to me about my North and South nodes. This seemed relevant, so I mentioned it to Mrs. Horsley. She found Forrest’s description of my particular nodes online. It fit so well I felt tears welling up.

I asked Mrs. Horsley about my current transits. She provided them.

They spoke directly to this sorcerer’s corner I am now in. It was then that I had the thought: “Maybe it’s time to take a new turn at CoJ? Blend hell-mapping, God-fathoming, and the occult, via a dab of practical astrology? It might even help to nudge Mrs. Horsley into her own North node—the psychic healer and explorer of consciousness node—by nudging people to her?”

It seemed worth a try anyway.

From Hell-Mapping to God-Fathoming: My Mission-Trajectory

Christian astrology is a very old tradition. Despite centuries of Christian-fear-mongering around it. This was based in power politics, in which the notion that all powers were to be subservient to Christ (good idea) was transposed into a worldly context, in which all non-Christian forms of understanding or spiritual observance were deemed as heretical, or even demonic, by the Church, and outlawed (bad idea).

Yet many outstanding Christians have also been aware of and interested in astrology. It is even a kind of “secret” (i.e., embarrassing) tradition.

This is what Stephen Forrest said about my North and South nodes. Anyone who has followed my online output even a little bit will easily recognize the trajectory. Those who haven’t can get a very quick, penetrating idea of it (think: “from hell-mapping to God-fathoming”).

What the North node/South node praxis makes clear is our life purpose, our mission, our optimal orientation and trajectory, moving from the past (South), which represents our natural ability or talent, to the future, which signifies the capacities we are here to develop.

As such, it gives a fair summation of the purpose of this site, the online groups I run, and the sort of folk who are attracted to them (to me).

You may want to think about your own life, and how encouraging it might be to find your own mission-purpose spelled out, in such clear and irrefutably accurate terms.

South Node Scorpio in the 3rd house (6°) // North Node Taurus in the 9th house (6°)

In previous lifetimes, the soul became a master of the underworld of the mind. With the South Node in Scorpio in the 3rd house, you have lived as the one who could see what others refused to name. You were the investigator of secrets, the keeper of dangerous knowledge, the person who asked the questions that made people uncomfortable.

Words were never neutral for you—they were weapons, shields, surgical instruments, or keys to locked rooms. You learned to read between every line, to sense the unspoken charge beneath ordinary conversation, and to survive by knowing more than you revealed.

There is a strong past-life memory of intensity in communication: interrogations, confessions, occult study, whispered alliances, or the lonely work of translating hidden truths into language. The mind became a place of both power and exile.

You grew skilled at penetrating mystery, but you also carried the Scorpio wound of the 3rd house—the sense that information itself is perilous, that intimacy through words can destroy as easily as it connects, and that safety lies in controlling what is known and what remains concealed.

This lifetime asks for a profound reorientation. The North Node in Taurus in the 9th house invites the soul to leave the compulsive investigation of shadows and move toward a quieter, more embodied relationship with meaning.

Taurus in the 9th is the path of the contemplative, the one who finds truth not by digging deeper into complexity but by resting in simplicity and presence. It is the evolution from “What is hidden here?” to “What is lasting, nourishing, and real?

Where the Scorpio 3rd-house past specialized in mental intensity and the exchange of charged information, the Taurus 9th-house future asks you to develop faith in direct experience, in the wisdom of the body, and in knowledge that can be lived rather than merely understood.

The 9th house calls for a broader horizon—philosophy, nature, spiritual path, long journeys of the mind or spirit—while Taurus insists that these explorations remain grounded, sensual, and free of unnecessary drama.

Personal growth, in Forrest’s terms, lies in the conscious choice to release the old strategy of surviving through psychological acuity and control of information. The soul is learning that not every mystery needs to be solved, that silence can be fertile rather than dangerous, and that truth can be simple, steady, and shared without losing its power.

The work of this life is to let the mind become a garden instead of a detective’s office—to cultivate beliefs and understandings that feed you over time, and to trust that what is genuinely valuable does not have to be wrestled from the dark.

When you orient toward the North Node, the old Scorpio gifts are not discarded; they are transmuted. The capacity to see deeply becomes the capacity to see clearly and then rest. The intensity that once protected you becomes the depth that allows you to recognize real wisdom when you encounter it.

This is a journey from the sharp edge of knowing too much toward the quiet confidence of knowing what matters—and letting that knowledge live in the body, in daily practice, and in a wider sky.

If interested in knowing about your nodes and life purpose, contact Mrs. Horsley

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