Ivo Dominguez Jr. - Practical Astrology for Witches and Pagans: Using the Planets and the Stars for Effective Spellwork, Rituals, and Magickal Work

First published in 2016 by Weiser Books, an imprint of

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

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San Francisco, CA 94107

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Copyright 2016 by Ivo Dominguez, Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

ISBN: 978-1-57863-575-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

Cover design by Jim Warner

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Cover photograph Lincoln Harrison Photography. Cole Bay, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania, Australia. Additional rights required if sold.

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This book is dedicated to my beloved James Conrad Welch, to James Eric Dickinson, Michael Glen Smith, and to all my kith and kin in the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel. A special thanks to T. Thorn Coyle who requested that I write this book more than once. And a thousand blessings to Ellen Riordan, my first teacher of Astrology.

It has often been said that the West lacks a sacred language with the subtle and specific spiritual vocabulary of a language such as Sanskrit. We actually do have such a language, a rich symbolic language, and it is Astrology. More often than not, people think of Astrology as a tool for divination or the exploration of one's personality. Astrology is considerably more than that. It is a sacred science, a highly descriptive symbolic language, a technology that can be applied to all aspects of Magick, and much more. Unfortunately, most books on Astrology are written either for the specific needs of astrologers or as entertainment for the masses. Moreover, the vast majority of astrologers are not involved in Magick or Witchcraft and as such have little awareness of our uses for Astrology. I had the good fortune of taking an interest in Astrology in the early 1980s, not long after I had put my feet on the path to become a witch. I am thankful that I had access to teachers of both Astrology and Witchcraft so that my evolution as a practitioner included an organic synthesis of these disciplines. Over the years, I have had many friends and students ask me to write a book about Astrology for magickal practitioners. This book is my response to their request, and an effort to share the gift that I was given so many years ago by my teachers.

People are often daunted at the prospect of learning enough Astrology for it to actually be useful in their magickal practices. It is true that Astrology is a huge field of study and it could take several lifetimes to achieve mastery. The same can be said of Mathematics, but many people are able to learn enough math so they can function in their day-to-day life and manage their finances. My intention with this book is to teach the core concepts of Astrology so that Witches and Pagans would then be able to truly apply Astrology to their practices. The use of jargon cannot be avoided in any technical field, but I have kept the use of jargon to a minimum and have defined the terms that I've used in this book. When I learned Astrology, I was required to learn how to do the calculations to cast a chart by hand, and then take the numbers and transcribe them onto the chart. Because most of the people reading this book want to be able to use Astrology for spiritual purposes, not necessarily become astrologers, there will be very little math in this book.

I remember when I was in high school, there was a three-ring-bound manual on human anatomy that contained within it a section made of clear acetate sheets printed with the different systems in the body. By flipping the sheets, you could remove one layer at a time, starting with the skin and ending with an opaque sheet that had the bones printed upon it. Looking at all of it at once was quite a visual jumble, but looking at one sheet at a time or a handful of sheets at a time made it easy to learn anatomy. The same principle applies to learning Astrology, except there are more sheets than there were in my human anatomy manual. Each chapter builds upon the next and provides a systematic introduction to the basic building blocks of Astrology. Material in each of the chapters references other chapters in the book as a way of encouraging you to see the connections between all the pieces. Some of the information is repeated more than once, and this is intentional as repetition is an important part of learning. Moreover, this is a book you will want to read several times in order to fully absorb the ideas and the techniques. Writing a book like this one is much like taking a beloved but lengthy novel and turning it into a movie. Much must end up on the cutting room floor if it is to remain a manageable length. For those of you who have studied Astrology, you may find that some concepts and techniques that you hold especially dear have been omitted. At the end of the book, there are suggestions on what areas of study should be pursued next.

I strongly encourage you to keep a journal as you read and make notes of any questions that occur to you; most of them will be answered as you continue reading. If you have books on herbs, crystals, spell work, and so on that make references to astrological correspondences and correlations, you may wish to have these next you as you read. This way, as astrological concepts are covered in the book, you may look at materials you have already read with new insights and understanding. Too often, references to astrological concepts in tables of correlations and correspondences, the choice of symbols or colors for an altar, the recipes for incense, and the rest are nothing more than rote transmissions without any understanding of the underlying principles. It is my hope that after reading this book you will be able to look at your reference books that provide correspondences for herbs, oils, crystals, and so on and understand how and why there is a Planet or a Sign associated with them. Additionally, you should be able to look at recipes or magickal formulae and begin to understand them as a combination of energetic ingredients as described by their Planets. Using Astrology as a tool you will be able to create new recipes, rituals, and spells based on the knowledge that the physical ingredients are representations and anchors for particular types of energy.

If you don't already have an astrological calendar or datebook, plan on getting one because many of the techniques presented will only be useful if you can look up the current astrological conditions. You may also wish to search online, find a few websites that provide free astrological charts, and bookmark them. If you have a smart phone, a variety of apps are available that may be helpful as well. It will also be useful to have a copy of your birth chart. If you do not already have one, you will need your date of birth, time of birth, and location of birth to have a chart cast. I also suggest having an assortment of colored pencils, markers, and paper as there is no better way to learn how to write the glyphs, the symbols of Astrology, than by doodling them again and again and again. It is not that much different than a child learning to write.