Three years before Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code came out, my book The Televisionary Oracle was published. In it, I riffed extensively on Mary Magdalene's role as Jesus's consort, collaborator, and co-creator of Christianity--similar in ways to Brown's themes. Sales of my tome are approaching 10,000, while Brown's have topped 61 million. Why the contrast? His work is a linear detective story, while mine is an experimental blend of magical realism, prophetic philosophy, and oracular poetry. His characterizations and plot hew to established conventions of mainstream fiction, while mine spring from my muse and real life. The difference between our approaches is comparable to the choice you have ahead of you, Aries. You can opt for greater popularity and loyalty to convention, or you can choose to be more of a secret as you rigorously follow the promptings of your inner voice.

Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your destiny in the coming week, check out your Expanded Audio Horoscope. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Have you ever seen the game called "Playing the Dozens?" Participants compete in the exercise of hurling witty insults at each other. Here are some examples: "You're so dumb, if you spoke your mind you'd be speechless." "Your mother is so old, she was a waitress at the Last Supper." "You're so ugly, you couldn't get laid if you were a brick."

I invite you to rebel against any impulse in you that resonates with the spirit of "Playing the Dozens." Instead, try a new game, "Paying the Tributes." Choose worthy targets and ransack your imagination to come up with smart, true, and amusing praise about them. The best stuff will be specific to the person you're addressing, not generic, but here are some prototypes: "You're so far-seeing, you can probably catch a glimpse of the back of your own head." "You're so ingenious, you could use your nightmares to get rich and famous." "Your mastery of pronoia is so artful, you could convince me to love my worst enemy."
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can the buggers is to use a larger can. So says Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving Systems Dynamics. I urge you to keep that in mind during the coming week, Taurus. You or someone close to you may suffer from a blissful mania or temporary insanity that leads them to think that liberating the canned worms is a wise idea. Maybe it will ultimately prove to be the right thing to do, but it could cause a ruckus in the short run. In any case, make it your job to have a barrel-size can on hand for the re-containment.

Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Charles Darwin said the "survival of the fittest" is a central factor in the process of evolution. What exactly did he mean by that? He makes it clear in his book, The Origin of Species: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."

What would you have to do to make yourself superbly fit according to Darwin’s definition?
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Recently a team of a thousand workers spent a week scraping off 600,000 wads of chewing gum that had become bonded to the surface of Beijing's Tiananmen Square. If you choose to accept it, Gemini, your assignment in the coming week is to carry out a procedure comparable to China's massive, intricate effort to wipe the slate clean. It may be time-consuming and a bit excruciating--the equivalent of shuffling around for hours on your hands and knees--but in retrospect I think you'll be very glad you did it. Its surprisingly cathartic effect will make you smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier.

What blessings will life bring you? What challenges will you be invited to dive into? To explore the ripening trends even further, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Are other people luckier than you? If so, psychologist Richard Wiseman says you can do something about it. His book The Luck Factor presents research that proves you can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, he says, but a habit you can develop. How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.

Name three specific actions you'd like to try in order to improve your luck.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

This will be an excellent time--maybe one of the best weeks ever--to try herding cats, coaxing hermits to do karaoke, and getting anorexics to eat veggie burgers with all the fixings. In other words, Cancerian, the once-inconceivable may become likely. The adventures you swore you would never have the courage to attempt are suddenly within your capacity. You can at least partially dissolve the one fear you've always believed would hobble you forever.

Need a few more whacks applied to your mental blocks? A few more caresses administered to your growing edge? Cruise on over to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness? Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder? Trick questions! The answers may depend, at least to some degree, on what you believe is true.

Formulate a series of experiments that will allow you to objectively test the hypothesis that the universe is conspiring to help you.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

According to the Bible, the apostle Thomas did not immediately accept the other disciples' reports that Christ had survived his crucifixion and come back to life in a resurrected body. "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side," Thomas said, "I will not believe it." Later Christ appeared in person to Thomas and invited him to put his hand in the actual wound. Moral of the story: The person who doubted was given a special privilege. Let that be your guiding thought in the coming week, Leo. Demand proof. Seek actual evidence to bolster your faith.

Where do you want to go? Who do you want to be? For more clues, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Become a rapturist, which is the opposite of a terrorist: Conspire to unleash blessings on unsuspecting recipients, causing them to feel good.

Before bringing your work as a rapturist to strangers, practice with two close companions. Offer them each a gift that fires up their ambitions. It should not be a practical necessity or consumer fetish, but rather a provocative tool or toy. Give them an imaginative boon they've been hesitant to ask for, a beautiful thing that expands their self-image, a surprising intervention that says, "I love the way you move me."
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

July 4, 1776 is generally regarded as the day the 13 American colonies issued the Declaration of Independence, thereby asserting their right to be free of Britain's rule. But the fact is that only two members of the Continental Congress signed the document on that day. Most of the other 54 men waited until August 2. In a similar way, Virgo, a process you thought was fully climaxed this week will not reach its full ripening until early August. I suggest you reserve making your final conclusions until then.

Want to explore the coming week even further? Dig deeper? Push harder? Consider tuning in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Here's the catch about pronoia: Life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it, but it doesn't necessarily give you exactly what you want, exactly when you want it. Talk about the differences between what you want and what you need.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Your patron saint for the month of July is Dublin professor James Mays. A few years ago he made a major splash in the literary world. While researching the work of Libran poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Mays discovered 300 previously unknown poems written by the co-founder of England's Romantic Movement, doubling what had long been thought to be his total output. I predict that in the coming weeks, Libra, you too will make a breakthrough that will give you access to a fresh trove of creative resources that have been hidden from your view.

Need more help with your riddles? Crave more support in your efforts to build your courage? Check out your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. nd to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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You are potentially a genius. Maybe not in the same way that Einstein and Beethoven were, but still: You possess some exceptional capacity that is absolutely unique. You're a masterpiece unlike any other that has ever lived in the history of the world.

Furthermore, the precise instructions you need to ripen into your genius have always been with you, even from the time before you were born. In the words of psychologist James Hillman, you have a soul's code.

You might also call it the special mission you came to Earth to carry out; the divine blueprint that contains the open secret of how to be perfectly, unpredictably yourself; the master plan that is your heart's deepest desire.

Would you like help in deciphering it? The Divine Intelligence Formerly Known as God is always on call, ready to help. It's your birthright to ask Her a specific question every day about what you need to do next to express your soul's code; it's also your birthright to receive a response.

The divine revelation may not be as unambiguous as a little voice in your head. It might appear in the form of a TV commercial, an odd dream, or an encounter with a stranger. It could be demanding and difficult, delivering information you'd rather not have to deal with. Or it might show up as a clear and simple feeling of knowing exactly what to do, and it could be easy and fun.

What question will you ask the Divine Wow today?
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Like a bird, you seem to have the ability to defy gravity lately. You're acting with the expansiveness that comes from having a wide-ranging, high-in-the-sky view of life. Sometimes you remind me of a thunderbird, which among Native Americans was a mythical raptor that carried messages between spiritual beings. Its eyes unleashed lightning and its enormous wings beat so hard that they spawned storms. But sometimes, Scorpio, you're more like a nightingale--a small, graceful songbird that sings beautiful, complicated songs at night when no other bird is singing. Congratulations on your versatility. Only you could pull off being half-thunderbird and half-nightingale.

No one knows you better than you do. But maybe you'll be inspired to dig up even more self-knowledge if you tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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In response to our culture's ever-rising levels of noise and frenzy, rites of purification have become more popular. Many people now recognize the value of taking periodic retreats. Withdrawing from their usual compulsions, they go on fasts, avoid mass media, practice celibacy, or even abstain from speaking. While we applaud cleansing ceremonies like this, we recommend balancing them with periodic outbreaks of an equal and opposite custom: the Bliss Blitz.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

A garbage strike turned out to be a lucky break for two people in Illinois. Brother and sister Ezekiel and Karen Garnett had bought a lottery ticket but then carelessly thrown it out. Many days later they heard that the winning $10.5 million ticket remained unclaimed. Was it theirs? They sifted through two weeks' worth of trash, which remained uncollected outside their house because sanitation engineers had walked off the job. Voila! They found the precious ticket. Now I predict you'll be visited by a comparable sequence, Sagittarius--a glitch that leads to a happy ending. It may be that an asset you've neglected or squandered will return to you because of an inconvenience. Or perhaps you'll realize how valuable a certain experience is only after you've lost it, whereupon you'll recover it against all odds.

What greater adventure is there than exploring the enigmas of your unique destiny? For more hints, listen to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Is there anything more dangerous than getting up in the morning and having nothing to worry about, no problems to solve, no friction to heat you up? That state can be a threat to your health. If untreated, it incites an unconscious yearning for any old dumb trouble that might rouse some excitement.

Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It's as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself--indeed, you make yourself--through the riddles you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

If you usually wear your baseball cap backwards, this will be a favorable time to turn the peak toward the front. If it's normally facing forward, I suggest you turn it around. In fact, everything you try in the coming week will have extra luck and grace if you approach it a bit askew or do it the reverse of your customary habit. The cosmic tables have turned, and the best way to capitalize is to flip-flop yourself.

Got enough clues to chew on for a while? If you need more, give yourself the luxury of listening to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the week ahead. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Conventional wisdom implies that the best problems are those that place you under duress. There's supposedly no gain without pain. Stress is allegedly an incomparable spur for calling on resources that have been previously unavailable or dormant. Nietzsche's aphorism, "That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger," has achieved the status of an ultimate truth.

We half-agree. But it's clear that stress also accompanies many mediocre problems that have little power to make us smarter. Pain frequently generates no gain. We're all prone to become habituated, even addicted, to nagging vexations that go on and on without rousing any of our sleeping genius.

There is, furthermore, another class of difficulty--let's call it the delightful dilemma--that neither feeds on angst nor generates it. On the contrary, it's fun and invigorating, and usually blooms when you're feeling a profound sense of being at home in the world. The problem of writing this book is a good example. I've had a good time handling the perplexing challenges with which it has confronted me.

Imagine a life in which at least half of your quandaries match this profile. Act as if you're most likely to attract useful problems when joy is your predominant state of mind. Consider the possibility that being in unsettling circumstances may shrink your capacity to dream up the riddles you need most; that maybe it's hard to ask the best questions when you're preoccupied fighting rearguard battles against boring or demeaning annoyances that have plagued you for many moons.

Prediction: As an aspiring lover of pronoia, you will have a growing knack for gravitating toward wilder, wetter, more interesting problems. More and more, you will be drawn to the kind of gain that doesn't require pain. You'll be so alive and awake that you'll cheerfully push yourself out of your comfort zone in the direction of your personal frontier well before you're forced to do so by divine kicks in the ass.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Iran made a strong overture of peace to the United States in the spring of 2003. According to The Washington Post, the Iranians offered to recognize Israel, promised to stop supporting terrorist groups, and asked for diplomatic talks concerning their nuclear technology. Tragically, the Bush administration ignored the proposal, missing a chance to cool down tensions that have led to today's crisis. My analysis of the astrological omens suggests that you now have a comparable window of opportunity in your personal life, Aquarius. Peace feelers are appearing. You'll soon have a fresh opportunity to dissipate simmering stress before it erupts into conflict. Even better, you'll be in a good position to negotiate pretty favorable terms for yourself. Don't imitate Bush and company.

How much do you want to know about your destiny? How far do you dare to go? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your Expanded Audio Horoscope for the coming week. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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To many people, "sacrifice" is a demoralizing word that connotes deprivation. Is that how you feel? Do you make sacrifices because you're forced to, or maybe because your generosity prompts you to incur a loss in order to further a good cause?

Originally, "sacrifice" had a different meaning: to give up something valuable in order that something even more valuable might be obtained. Carry out an action that embodies this definition. For instance, sacrifice a mediocre pleasure so as to free yourself to pursue a more exalted pleasure.
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

If I'm reading the astrological omens correctly, this would be an excellent time for you to apply for a job as a crocodile trainer, audition for a supporting role in a TV soap opera, or give motivational speeches to five-year-olds. For that matter, it wouldn't be outlandish for you to use a chainsaw to create sculptures from dead trees, make a home video of yourself entitled "The Dancing Chef" or "The Wise-Ass Guru," or write a research paper on orca whales and quantum physics. In other words, Pisces, consider trying things you've never considered before. Ask yourself if maybe you possess hidden talents that you haven't even begun to cultivate. Be receptive to the possibility that your destiny is more open-ended than you've ever imagined.

Want to go even further in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss the possibilities for the week ahead in more depth in your Expanded Audio Horoscope. And to hear your long-range preview for the next five months, go here and click on the link "2 Weeks Ago (06/20/2006 - 06/26/2006)."

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Many concepts we use to interpret our experience originated in books written by people who are long gone. That's why philosopher Norman O. Brown (who died in 2002) says in his book Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis, "The bondage to books compels us not to see with our own eyes; compels us to see with the eyes of the dead, with dead eyes. There is a hex on us, the authority of the past; and to exorcise these ghosts is the great work of magical self-liberation."

Melville Davisson Post (who died in 1930) echoes the theme in his book Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries. "It is the dead who govern. Look how they work their will upon us! Who have made the laws? The dead! Who have made the customs that we obey and that form and shape our lives? The dead! All the writers, when they would give weight and authority to their opinions, quote the dead. Our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails!"

Whose dead eyes do you see with? What would it be like to see the world without them?
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.