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Ed Augusts

Stream of Consciousness – *sentimental about my childhood and parents *unsure what the ghosts mean — who or what process allows that?  It is onerous and confusing for humans (especially kids!),  & probably the ghosts, too. *prolific and obsessed in my writing,  *90% of my writing is in boxes left-over from the 1960’s and 1970’s. When I organize that writing — as I’m about to try! — another Ed Augusts will emerge... *intense and accurate in my readings. Look on Readings as not just entertaining for me and clients, but the astrology, especially, as a forensic science. *took my childhood as it came, without complaints, since kids don’t know any better, but not sure what to do with my maturity.  *started from loneliness and may end-up in loneliness.  *why do I end-up in countries, states and province where there are so many extremes of temperature and politics?  *What did I and everybody else I know do wrong (or maybe right?) to make us turn-up here in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, a time of mass stupidity, lower standards, especially in education; corporate greed, and the almost total ignorance by humans. who are closer to their dogs than they are to the gods. *They feed prime cuts to their dogs, less to their children, and nothing at all to the gods except a candle once every blue Moon… when they want something! *But all in all, I’m not as sure about the gods as I am about the ghosts… after all, if you’re in a haunted house, ghosts can be very clearly sensed. *Which means… a haunted house is easier to understand than the planet earth.

Here is a detail from a painting I did of my childhood home in the Santa Clara Valley just before it became widely known as “Silicon Valley”.  It doesn’t look like the realm of Apple or Google, does it?  That’s because this building, although part of the same row of orchards that included the future Apple campus, was torn down when Steve Jobs was in 4th Grade… 7 years before Larry Page and Sergey Brin were born. So, really… this childhood home of mine is from a lost, gone age… the age of rural central Santa Clara County, a place that has long-since been paved-over.

Believe it or not,  this is a haunted painting...  Figures that I never intended, show-up in the windows and porch.. (I can see at least three in the detail shot, right now!  Maybe you can, too!) I have a theory:  I was thinking… thinking… remembering…  as I painted it…  at some point I caught the ESSENCE of the house… and that’s when “spirits” began to manifest in the painting as well.  Why do I even THINK about spirits and hauntings?  My experiences in my childhood made it obvious to me that some kind of spirit world — or the penetration by unexplained forces or beings from some other world into this one — actually exists.  A person has to trust their sensory data, and if others hear or see the same strange phenomena, then it’s either a group hallucination or it’s something happening in consensus reality.  No, no, I’m not trying to sponsor or sell memberships in any paranormal societies… this is part of my life, but I’m not trying to sell these particular beliefs to anyone.

I would say I had a very peculiar childhood which, because I have almost a perfect memory for incidents going back to near-birth, have been the subject of numerous stories and articles, as I have felt the strong need to wrestle with the (literally!) demons of my childhood and its loneliness. I sympathize with all those who have had disastrous childhoods, and part of my philosophical speculations and religious mysticism has been spent searching for the reasons why the young, as well as the old, suffer. Yes, the aged suffer, and the innocent suffer, and most of the people in between suffer!   Of course, a lot of us have a very GOOD time, too, and as I get older it remains paramount to me that we must squeeze as much pleasure as we can from life, because there are factors all around us which, with an iron-gloved inevitability, eventually squeeze all the life out of us.  We must squeeze life before it squeezes us, how’s that for a Mission Statement?  Ha, ha!   (Please note: WHEN and HOW MUCH we get to squeeze life, or life gets to squeeze us, so-to-speak, is most often shown in one’s natal chart… it sure was, in mine!)

Back to the tragedy and suffering of life:  What led Gautama (or Gotama) to found Buddhism — this recognition of universal suffering, only partly mitigated by the wonderful pleasures of life — led me upon a curious path, astrology…  magic… the incredible strength in one’s will power… which now has climaxed in my discoveries having to do with actual rebirth (and rebirthing rituals),  the Womb Pool, Cosmic Science, comparative philosophies of many dozens of kinds, from East and West, from gnoshing to Gnosticism.

This brief “BIO” is probably not the place for me to go into any great detail on these subjeccts, but I have written about them, and am always glad to discuss them with clients and friends.  Years ago, I was a guest on radio and television, as well as performed at psychic fairs and written widely about Astrology, in particular, but have always sought out knowledge and experience wherever I could find it.

I have a B.A. “With Distinction” in “New College”, at San Jose State, because I was invited into special program called “Tutorials in Letters and Sciences” fresh out of high school, an “honors at entrance” kind of opportunity, top-performing, high-test-score kids from around the nation; and I couldn’t get back into mainstream classes after that, so did “New College” instead, and a bit of graduate work at San Francisco State. I have worked in “caring profession” kinds of jobs, suiting  my 6th House natal Jupiter, ranging from Stanford University, where I taped audio material for the blind for several years, to IRTI, a company which sold equipment used by the handicapped. I have also cared for each of my disabled, incapacitated parents without help from anyone else in the family, which has taught me much patience and empathy and an ironic view of family life. Ha! And they think I’M the “Black Sheep!”. That photo (I’m on the right), is me as Senior Class Vice President, or as I liked to call it,  “President of Vice”, (ha! ha!) at Santa Clara H.S. in Santa Clara, California. Skip Lazarus was the Senior Class President.  and Sue Hartzell was Treasurer.  (Spring, 1966)

 

Here I am, at about 6 years of age, with Kriksis and Blackie at our orchard home on Pruneridge Road west of Saratoga Avenue. Our closest neighbor was about a half-mile away, which sounds great for a child, but actually led to being singled-out for trouble by ‘standing out’.  The isolation  was terrible.  My dog Kriksis was killed soon after this photo was made by a man who worked in the orchard;  he came over one night after everyone was in bed. He must have been carrying a shovel, because that’s what he broke Kriksis’ back with before vanishing into the night.  Both dogs attacked him as he approached the house.  Good, faithful dogs!

I also had an art teacher in Middle School who tried to strangle me in class.. He lost his art job and went to jail, but it wasn’t because he tried to strangle me, it was because of a brawl he got into.  Our whole neighborhood was repeatedly sprayed with the pesticide D.D.T. when I was a child, and this later caused a cluster of cancer cases among the people who lived in that area.

I have ample proof from my own experiences that life is hard, full of strange, difficult, and sometimes dangerous characters, that society itself does not always help, and that life in the woods is not necessarily a wonderful escape from the evils of the world.

I have written a 220+ page bio called “Strange Adventures of Ed Augusts,” which details about 30 unusual episodes. I have Illustrated it myself, and hopefully it will soon emerged as a new Kindle ebook and perhaps available on CreateSpace as well.

Anyway, as to losing people who are dear to you, God!  I know what it’s like!  Because tragedies don’t stop in any one decade, they continue mounting up over time. Culminating in 13 or 14 years of my taking care of both my father and mother in their last years. I would like to think the Universe is in a rewarding mode now for the patience and serenity with which I had to wait, for years and years, as nature took its course, but I also believe miracles come from within as well as from without.

Do we have some interests in common? I hope so, because that will make our association even better! I AM A WRITER, and I am very happily writing SHORT STORIES on this site for more info on those. Every once in awhile a collection of those stories comes out. YES, I’m an Astrologer, but in the recent past I’ve also had a 12,000-volume BOOKSTORE in my HOME. I’ve finally sold off my non-metaphysical books… but still have the ‘core collection!’ Not only do I have some BOOKS on the following subjects, but I have such a vivid interest in these subjects, that I am offering LEARNING MODULES in which anyone can make fast, beneficial progress in learning obscure topics and unusual philosophies, including what is sometimes called ‘occultism’.  The topics are as varied as:  Astrology (for which, see any of my books such as:  The Mercury Book, Christian Astrology, Augusts Astrological Archive, Chinese Western Astrology;  or, Astrology, God and Humanity: Reassessing Our Notions of God; Palmistry, (see my YouTube series on Palmistry!), Tarot (Waite Rider, Grand Lenormand, my own 234-card deck, and the New Orleans Voodoo Tarot as well as my 2013 ebook, “Great Secrets of the Tarot.”), Divination, I Ching, Eastern Mysticism, Prehistory, Paleogeology and Climatology, Seismology, Tsunamis, Asteroids and Meteors, Near-Earth Objects, (no, I was not any kind of “2012 disaster” believer, (but I wrote a spoof on epic disasters in my “Semi-Mesozoic Pizza with Primordial Anchovies“, 2008);  (my interest in geology and earthquakes is quite serious; I also wrote “Can Earthquakes Be Predicted?” a little chapbook back in 1971, one of the first known efforts to link astrology with seismic events);  Positive Thinking, some aspects of Real Estate and Success Magic,  (see my:  Meditations on Real Estate, 2008); Will Power, Magic, White & Black Magic, Voodoo, Santeria, Witchcraft, the Druids, Megaliths, Celts, (some of which was the basis for my “Magic Wands” book in 2008);  Egyptology and Pyramids, Herodotus, the Ancient Mediterranean  the Ancient Origins of Astrology, etc., the Greek Gods, Gnosis and the Gnostics, UFOlogy and Aliens;  Lilith, Isis, Osiris, Diana, Attis & Cybele, Jesus Christ, of course…  (In fact, I have a great and wonderful interest in Jesus.  My quest to go beyond the material attributed to Jesus is what led to my writing “Christian Astrology” in 1997). Jewish Wisdom & Folklore, Ghosts, Poltergeists, Spirit Possession, Invocations and Evocations, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, the Golden Dawn, William Butler Yeats, Algernon Blackwood, (one of those wonderful British authors, along with Hodgson, and the American, H.P. Lovecraft, who excited in me a desire to write horror and sci-fi, of the kind you see in many of my short stories); Aleister Crowley, Colin Wilson, Urban Legends, Urban Architecture, and many other interests such as Recovered Memories, keeping Memoirs, recording and interpreting Dreams as well as waking visions, the basis of my “Dreams & Visions” book which I published in 2008;  Reincarnation and rebirthing, which was the focus for experiments I made in 2007, as seen in my e-book “The Sacred Womb-Pool”; healing through herbal and Ayurvedic therapies and strategies, which helped me heal myself of grave illness going back to 1985;  Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.  TOO MANY INTERESTS TO MENTION!   For a list containing more of my titles that are being sold in paperback and hardcover format, please visit Lulu.com  ( http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2237406 )

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I am a first generation immigrant, of the Latvian ethnic group in Northern Europe, really closer in spirit, since they fish the same ocean, the Baltic, to Scandinavian than it is to Russian, German, etc. , and although the Lithuanians are right next door, and the languages are closely related, we didn’t get as many influences from Poland so there are not so many “Z’s” and “Zh’s”, etc. in our words. It is a Romance Language, I don’t know how that is possible, but the roots of Latvian are not slavic, such as Russia, Ukraine, and much of Eastern Europe, it is a true Western ‘Latin’ Language. How that happened, we’ll have to consult a philologist o maybe Dr.Phil. (see: my baby picture!) The Baltic is what we have in common with Norway, Sweden, and Finland so why the Latvians who are just a handful of miles across from Swedish waters aren’t termed ‘Scandinavians’ is not well understood by me, personally, who feels a closer kinship to Stockholm than, say, St. Petersburg.

There are perhaps three million Latvians in a country the size of Pennsylvania, but Oh! what a country! Latvians have survived as a race, as a people, going back into prehistoric times, when they were on the trade routes both by land and sea that brought products such as amber jewelry, the fossilized sap of primordial trees, found on the white sandy beaches of the Baltic, across the length and breadth of Europe. The tales and stories and songs that were passed down in the oral tradition by the Latvians go back to ancient times and take up many, many volumes. A spoof about this very fact was perpetrated in the early 1960’s, I believe, with a bogus volume entitled “SexSongs of the Ancient Letts”, although what’s bizarre is that such a volume could actually have been done because at least a volume or two of that kind of earthy material could easily be culled from the vast array bequeathed to the modern world by rhapsodically nature-loving, freethinking Latvians from past ages. There is no doubt about how the Latvians preserved their heritage in the days before writing things down had been invented; the songs and sayings and stories were told during the long, cold evenings before television, before radio and newspapers, before electricity, and thus passed down from generation to generation. My  father (see photo!)..at right!  .. had innumerable songs and poems and pithy sayings committed to memory. At the slightest provocation he would launch into declaiming one of these ancient wise-tales or poems. And wise tales they were, too!

My family has a history of moving around, not like gypsies, but exiles, often those who impose exile upon themselves. A great-uncle didn’t like the looks of the turbulent beginning of the First World War and took off heading east around 1915 or so, without any money to speak of, and ended-up slipping through the guarded border into China and migrated all the way down to Shanghai, on the coast of the China Sea; found some kind of work, found a Russian or a Latvian woman there, and started a family, sent some photos and stories of his exploits back to his folks during the 1920’s and early 1930’s, started some kind of shop, but nobody remembers anymore what kind of shop, what things he sold, I have the vaguest memory of “furniture” or “antiques”… He prospered for awhile, (nearly everyone prospers — for a while!) –but then was never heard of again in the chaos and
 war that ravaged China from 1937-on, followed by the holocaust of war that hit Europe.. What can be more romantic, though, than traveling at least six thousand miles from the icy Baltic to Shanghai, China.. surviving, and setting up a life there? Prospering? My father’s side of the family was more steadfast, by the way. My father had 3 brothers. But they all fell in battle or disappeared into obscurity after the war, he never found whatever became of them all. .

My grandfather, (photo, at right, with grandma!) on my mother’s side, was not going to be outdone by my great-uncle, and by time the uncle left town, my grandfather had already packed up his family and left, as well. He didn’t like the looks of the First World War, either, and took off with his family, including my very young mother, into the Ural Mountains that mark the border between Europe and Asia. It was never known why he chose the Urals or felt he needed to go more than a thousand miles in that direction, toward sheer isolation, but the family spent three or four years not too far, really, from where the Tunguska event, what is thought now to have been a comet, had smashed millions of acres of forestland maybe 8 years earlier, though I don’t think Grandpa had any ideas about that place.

Grandpa was a healer, a shaman. He had concocted a method of using birch bark and probably the bark of other trees as well, for healing purposes. Mom vividly and excitedly told me how he had carved symbols which she didn’t understand into the bark, with suitable words or incantations, and then pressed the bark against the afflicted woumd. This may have proved to be a profitable sideline in the days when doctors were few and far between and doubled as horse-doctors anyway out in the rural villages. Grandpa, who had come to own a cherry orchard and nice farmhouse largely through these reputed talents of his, brought the family back home after all the fighting was over, just after 1920. He must have had some powers of some kind!  The family stories agree that he did.

The family home, in Durbe, not far from the Latvian port of Liepaja, was right up against the ruins of a castle, a fortress dating from the incursions of the Teutonic Knights in the 1300’s. Ah! How I would have loved to grow up with the ruins of a castle in the backyard! There was a building in back of the house where Grandpa made a secondary living dyeing linens and clothing, reputedly haunted. A long, long human arm would reach down from the dark rafters at night toward anyone unwise enough to be there after dark., sending people (usually kids!) screaming! Or so I heard! Maybe Grandpa was playing a joke, or maybe it had something to do with the castle ruins 50 feet away.

It was about that time that grandpa acquired a trunk full of silver, old coinage dating from hundreds of years earlier. My mother, and my brother, not ones to make up stories, separately agree on this historical fact that this trunk full of silver coins once existed, where it had come from, nobody knew; whether grandpa had earned the money through his healing practices, or had dug it up from the castle ruins nextdoor, was never explained down so far as me… but when my father and mother showed up at grandma and grandpa’s door on their way out of the country as the Russians moved in from the east, and distant bomb blasts could be heard, they were given big handfuls of silver, gobs of it, to take along on their journey, and it is undeniable that my parents and brother were able to live out the last horrible year of World War Two in comparative style, moving to Bavaria and living there until their fortune ran out at the very end of the war and they descended to near-starvation… But those old silver coins had had value! Notone of them did I ever get to see, since the very last one was used to buy potatoes, milk, etc, from farmers who still had food, as the chaotic end of W.W.II was at hand, and life in a Displaced Persons’ Camp, 1945–1950, along with many other displaced refugees who couldn’t go home without fear of a death sentence, was ahead of them.

My father and mother had me when dad was already 45 years old, so his life goes back to the first years of the 20th Century when Latvia was still under the Russian laws that kept people in serfdom and in servitude to land barons, many of them German, who had long-since divided up the country. My dad was born in a field of rye where grandma had been helping work the land, the cry went up that a new “subject” had been born, and she was given the rest of the day off to go home and tend the new-born, but I guess she had to be back at work again the very next day! The fact dad was born while serfdom still existed, has made it possible for me to tell people that “my family lived under slavery… my father was a slave!” And that is actually the truth, since any system that “owns” and “controls” the inhabitants of a land is definitely practicing slavery. The serf system was abolished in the Russian-owned provinces such as Latvia, just two years later, in 1905. was an engineer, and served in the Latvian Navy.

My older brother Gvido Augusts is well known for his art works, particularly among Latvians. His paintings have been collected and displayed widely, and he’s appeared in many one-man shows. His first one-man shows were in 1962, at Sterling Gallery in Palo Alto and at Vorpal Galleries, in San Francisco’s North Beach district. His paintings are in private collections all over the world. I could practically build a gallery just for his art work which was left in my safekeeping through our parents.

Latvia was a bone that was chewed and tugged at by Germany in the west and Russia in the east over the past 1,000 years. Amber, as I said above, comes from the shores of the Baltic Sea, here, and is still being found today, and most Latvians own amber jewelry. Many Latvians, including my family, were scattered abroad in the diaspora following W.W.II, and these people, as well as the ones who stayed home and endured 50 years of Soviet tyrrany, are a very durable, long-lived, strong-willed group of survivors who have lived through Hitler and Stalin and the icy Baltic Sea climate. There is a hearty fondness for life and love, a rollicking sense of pleasure and excitement which goes right back to the Pagan days of yesteryear, before Latvia was conquered by the grim Teutonic Knights from Germany who brought “the sword and the cross” with them. Many Latvians are very strictly conservative, stodgy “right wing” types, and, this is their right, because of what they have seen and experienced. I remember as a small child seeing “These Names Accuse“, a book that I’m sure was left around the house for me to see, which detailed the torture of Latvians by Soviet thugs, the NKVD, it was called. It included gruesome photos of the “before” and “after” shots of some prominent Latvians whose faces had been taken apart during tortune. Those were cold, cruel times. All the people of any influence and power had been hauled off, with their families, to slave camps in Siberia, if not simply killed outright. That’s the reason so many other Latvians, fearing the worst, fled before the Russians arrived. That generation and all its heartaches and regrets, which filled my childhood with their sadness, has now pretty much passed-away, but succeeding generations will “never forget!”

My mother is seen, (photos, at left, and farther down the page!) just before her marriage at 18 years of age in the top 2 pix, and with an innocent look at age 16, in the following picture. Glamorous youth and youthful success, an up-and-rising husband, and her first son, gave way to middle age spent in war and exile. She had me rather late in life, when she was already 36. As I grew up, she revealed a mystic nature. Our home in the orchards that later became ‘Silicon’ Valley was absolutely haunted. Strange noises frightened both of us, but Dad was unconcerned, or pretended not to hear. Mom protected us with “Sveti Raksti”, holy writings, little lines of sacred texts which she put under the pillows, between the mattresses, and under the beds, and other places in the house. This was something she’d learned from her parents, who in turn had passed it down to them. She was a good example to me of a mystic. She spent at least 2 hours every day praying when I was a small child. Constantly whispering prayers to God! I don’t know exactly what she was praying for, so I don’t know if God granted her any requests. She was, however, very often terribly sad, and then inconsolably heartbroken, when she got the news that both her parents had passed away, within a month or two of each other, in the ‘old country’.. She had longed to see them again, not a day went by that she didn’t feel estranged from a reality that should have been hers, —the caring love of her family! That was a prayer that was never answered, and there is nothing like that now in our family, from what I can tell, nobody cares whether anyone else in my family lives or dies… what a shame!. Yes, that generation, the generation left behind, is all gone, as is, now, the generation and many of their children, who came out of Eastern Europe following the War, leaving behind many very successful descendants, and many shattered minds and unfulfilled lives of the children, particularly, of those who emigrated. The emigrants were gladly taken by Canada and the United States, Australia, Britain, and other western countries after the war, as it seemed like the next war would be with Russia, and Latvians are by and large, Russia-haters, at least the Stalinist type of Russia…which occupied their land for 50 years, and still make things tough for them, since they’re so close and linked via pipelines, power lines, etc. To this day, there is NO love lost between Russians and Latvians, and almost a third of Latvians ARE Russians, now, thanks to their moving in from Russia during Soviet times, and constant misunderstandings and feuds, from what I understand, still go on between Latvians and Russians in Latvia, as they do in Russia, as well. The Russians in Latvia don’t have any other place to go, so they stay, but life is hard for them. 90%+ of prostitutes in Latvia, for example, are Russians. The “Latvian” women who go to Western Europe and practice this trade all have Russian names, not Latvian names, so I have noticed from documentaries and what I’ve read.

The natural fun-loving ways of some ‘neo-Druid’ types who embrace the ‘Old Ways’, have been suppressed over recent centuries by the prevalent Latvian Lutheran Church.. I was the sad-faced boy who was dragged to church every Sunday, practically the only one of my generation… and who endured the sad, yet imposing, black-robed figure at the altar and the creaky old-time hymns. These small congregations were sad ones. They had all lost their native land and were living in exile on the far side of another continent, had lost all they owned when they fled the Communists, and had big families back in their old homelands, which they would never see again. So, yes, it was a sad lot, and from what I, as a child could understand, church sessions were dreary times of being preached-to about overcoming the sadness and loss which is man’s inheritance for the sins of Adam and Eve, a couple of hundred generations ago. Even then, I disputed all of this. None of it was fun, little of it made sense, and I was always glad to be out of there. Unfortunately, my mother was firmly a Latvian Lutheran, although my dad seemed to have freethinking ideas which he expressed every so often in surprising ways, and I think he went along to church just to humor Mom and maybe see other countrymen in the only place where they all got together. I wish someone in my immediate family had been a pagan, that would have been a refreshing change-of-pace. I didn’t meet any pagan Latvians until I lived in Canada for awhile in the 1980’s and got to dance around a few fires at night in the woods. It is, needless to say, a whole other world. I have suffered as I believe many exiles have suffered. At one point I was fed-up and a little real estate empire of mine had come crashing down in my mid-30’s, and I exiled myself up to Canada, and that’s where I first became a book scout and then a bookdealer, and also dedicated myself to doing readings professionally, instead of as a mere hobby, as I had since about 1969 or so when I attended classes and lectures in San Francisco’s Town Hall Metaphysical Bookshop, run by Fritzi Armstrong and Gavin Arthur, who read my chart at one time… a famous name in mid-20th Century astrology — Gavin Arthur!  Ultimately I became what I already was, and still am — a lone practitioner with my own brand of religion and philosophy which is focussed on astrology and things which tie-in with astrology such as the concept of Karma, rebirth, reincarnation etc., as you will see in other places on this site.. Not part of a group of worshippers, but founding and maintaining my own spirituality, which always meant exploring, investigating, and taking the best of what I personally found that explained day-to-day life on earth and the purpose of our existence. I delved into magic at one point, of course, having the blood of my grandfather in me, curious about nature’s ways, particularly, always more than willing to find a trunk of silver if it was buried nearby, ha ha! and determined to learn how to use sheer Will Power to effect change, as well. And along this path I discovered how incredibly important Astrology is, and wish the northern peoples had discovered and used it like those in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, etc., had done for the past five thousand years. I think those northern nights were often too cold to watch the transits of the planets, and that made all the difference.

My purpose and intention in my Astrological work, is to answer questions; to clarify and simplify and enrich people’s lives with knowledge which they otherwise might never obtain, and evoke spiritual realizations of an important purpose behind the experiences we have and the choices we make. I am not a “Super-Spiritualized” Astrologer, however, I don’t  float around on the ‘Astral Plane’, nor am I really a spiritualist, I like to keep things practical and useful, because this helps people the most. But I’d like to think that I’m a compassionate man; I’m a good person to talk to when someone finds they’re in some difficulties which perhaps Astrology or the Psychic Arts could help sort out! I do Natal Charts, Transits, Timing for Events, Chart Comparisons, and Geographical Astrology.  Astrology can be done very easily via e-mail. E-mail your questions and concerns, giving full birth data so that I can cast the proper chart. I e-mail you the answers you seek, often in a number of modules, and you can join in, with further questions. This can sometimes (rarely) be done on a SAME DAY basis, depending on how busy I am. Telephone sessions are also available but I often feel flat-footed on the phone since I prefer researching, typing, etc, to using that lobe of my brain which extemporizes mere intuitions.. I prepare in advance, you call me at an appointed time, I call you back, if you like, I have unlimited long distance available to Canada and the United States. Charts and/or counselling, written or live, on the phone, are the same price.

On the metaphysical front, I have operated several book stores and ‘New Age’ book shops, one being Mystic Books in Mountain View, California, with my then-partner, Nikki.  But on both the used & rare book level as well as the astro-consultation basis, the “walk-in” concept is very difficult to maintain in the Day of the Internet. MOST used & rare book stores have gone, or are going, out of business. MANY psychic and astrological stores have changed to mail-order and internet, instead. The ONLY book sellers or occultists who are going to be having walk-in stores are those who own their buildings. Nobody paying market rents can make money with either collectibles or psychic/astro consulting work.   I now live in Arizona, and do a lot of writing and research. (SEE MY BLOG!)  The LEARNING MODULES are coming along. More than 200 books will go into making these modules, and I hope you have a desire to learn along with me in making the ‘course’ which these modules represent, a part of the SPIRITUAL LEARNING EXPERIENCE of your life!

I have designed my own Tarot Deck and also use several Tarot Decks including the “Waite-Rider” and the “Astro-Mythological” or “Grand Lenormand” Deck. I find that Astrology offers the most insight about major problems and situations, but that immediate concerns can often be handled through the magic of the Tarot. Tarot readings rarely last an hour.

I have always GUARANTEED my Readings, in this way: If, during the course of a reading you find that you are not enjoying or learning from what I am saying, you are very welcome to cancel and pay nothing. I don’t want your money if you are not happy with what I’m telling or, or just told you! I’m sorry, but I NEVER do “free readings” , or answer questions for free.. A client must feel they’re engaged in something important, powerful, and useful when corresponding with me or talking with me; and “wanting something for nothing” means nothing very important is going on.  There is an exchange of goods for services;  if you ask someone to work for free, you won’t get a very inspired or useful product.  So PLEASE don’t ask for free or “sample” services! I am, however, very generous with people during follow-ups, further details, etc., following an initial paid reading.

Okay, enough ethnicity and history for now! Just think of me as a big guy (6′ 3″, 225 lbs), originally from a cold, northern realm! If its hard for you to think Latvian, then think Baltic, and if you can’t think Baltic because it sounds similar to Balkan… which is a thousand miles south… then think Scandinavian.. its the other side of the same pond!

There’s a photo of me and my niece Maija on Waikiki in about 1977.(Four vacations to Hawaii.. never enough! But I’m always glad to get off the islands again & back to the mainland after a few weeks there!  (I start dreaming about long, long “straight-away” highways you don’t see on the islands!)

Your personal background is no barrier when it comes to my Interpreting a Chart or other procedure. I’ve done perhaps a thousand readings in my life, so I can “tune in” on anybody! …. “NO CHARGE” if I can’t!

Thanks in Advance, ——–Ed