In the film Fight Club, the character played by Brad Pitt storms into a convenience store with a gun, then herds the clerk out back and threatens to execute him. While the poor man quivers in terror, Pitt asks him questions about himself, extracting the confession that he had once wanted to be a veterinarian but had dropped out of school. After a few minutes, Pitt frees the clerk without harming him, but says that unless he takes steps to return to veterinary school in the next six weeks, he will hunt him down and kill him. In my opinion, that's an overly extreme way to motivate someone to do what's good for him. I wish I could come up with a less shocking approach to coax you into resuming the quest for your deferred dreams, Aries. Can you think of anything?

Want more help in exploring the Great Mystery that is your life? I discuss your coming week in greater depth in your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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Thousands of amazing, inexplicable, wondrous, and even supernatural events occur every day. And yet most are unreported by the media. The few that are cited are ridiculed. Why? Here's one possible reason: The people most likely to believe in miracles are superstitious, uneducated, and prone to having a blind, literalist faith in their religions' myths. Those who are least likely to believe in miracles are skilled at analytical thought, well-educated, and yet prone to having a blind, literalist faith in the ideology of materialism, which dogmatically asserts that the universe consists entirely of things that can be perceived by the five human senses or detected by instruments that scientists have thus far invented.

The media is largely composed of people from the second group. It's virtually impossible for them to admit to the possibility of miracles, let alone experience them. If anyone from this group manages to escape peer pressure and cultivate a receptivity to miracles, it's because they have successfully fought against being demoralized by the unsophisticated way miracles are framed by the first group.

At the Beauty and Truth Laboratory we're immune to the double-barreled ignorance. When we behold astonishing synchronicities and numinous breakthroughs that seem to violate natural law, we're willing to consider the possibility that our understanding of natural law is too narrow. And yet we also refrain from lapsing into irrational gullibility; we actively seek mundane explanations for apparent miracles.
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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 Powells.

Financial columnist Bill Fleckstein says that by its very nature, capitalism continually cycles through periods of boom and bust. You can't have one without the other. The American economy is in trouble because for many years the federal government suppressed the down times in an effort to create a state of perpetual boom. The backlogged busts are now kicking in all at once. I bring this to your attention, Taurus, in the hope that you won't make a comparable mistake in your own sphere. Some tightly wound part of your life needs to unravel for a while. I advise you to consider going on a brief hiatus or sabbatical.

Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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You Are Almost Everything

You taste delicious

Animals understand you

Your importance is unusual

The funny faces you make are interesting to look at

You fight for power in all the right ways

Gratitude pours out of you

You have strong feet

No one can overflow as well as you can

You are famous with God

A lost tribe salutes you from the other side of the veil

You belong to yourself
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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 Powells.

Even if you have no plans to get married, I suggest you enter the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, in which rival designers compete to create beautiful bridal gowns using bathroom tissue. You just might win, thereby earning the cash prize. Why do I say that? Because according to my reading of the omens, you now have a special skill at conjuring up cheap elegance in service to your urge to merge. You have an unusual knack for turning things of little apparent worth into valuable aids to intimacy.

Want to hear more about the hidden factors influencing your life? Listen to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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The 17th-century surgeon Wilhelm Hilden had an interesting theory about healing. He developed a medicinal salve that he applied not to the wound itself but rather to the weapon that inflicted it. Though today we may sneer at such foolishness, the fact is that Hilden's approach has great potential if used for psychic wounds. Jesus understood this when he articulated the revolutionary formula, "Love your enemy." More than any other action, this strategy has the power to cure you of the distortions your enemy has unleashed in you. Try it out
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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 Powells.

In recent years there has been a rash of climbers shedding all their clothes on Mount Everest. A sherpa by the name of Lakpa Tharke claims the world's record for high-altitude nudity, having stood skyclad for three minutes at the 29,035-foot summit. Some Nepali authorities are seeking a ban on such displays, believing that it defiles the revered mountain. "How would Westerners feel about people stripping in church?" they ask. Not meaning any disrespect to them, I urge you, Cancerian, to make "in the buff on the holy mountaintop" your power metaphor of the week. Blend sacredness and nakedness in any way that appeals to your imagination, especially if it's in high places or makes you high.

What blessings will life bring you? What challenges will you be invited to dive into? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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The English language is in a state of rapid ferment. New words are barging into the dictionary at an unprecedented rate, even as old familiars fall into disuse. There's one exception to this trend: profanity. Hoary favorites like "fuck," "shit," and "asshole" have gained an acceptance unthinkable 30 years ago, but fresh curse words are rarely coined.

At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we find the overused classics inadequate for expressing our evolving rage at injustice, ignorance, and ugliness. Furthermore, as deadening clichés, they don't satisfy the pronoiac mandate to use language with sonorous precision.

There's another problem. Anger has become one of the trendiest emotions of all. In moderation it can be a righteous force for constructive change. But its hackneyed omnipresence means the vast majority of its outbreaks are trivial. The paucity of colorful obscenities is aggravated by an abundance of frivolous fury.

How can you purge the clichéd ire that dilutes the useful, inspired stuff? One good method is to make fun of it by expressing it bigger than life. Try this. Go alone to a place where it's safe to feel blind rage. Envision a person or thing you love to hate, then unleash the following mantra 15 times in the most vulgar tones possible: "You miasmic heap of shaved-off cemetery warts. You mangled preen of politicians' tongue scabs. You brackish tripe of experts' ego tinkles. You fragile crap of orphaned tyrants. You demented cluster of fickle weasel vows. You curdled slosh of rotting fracas-spawned opinions."
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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 Powells.

The feats you're pulling off may not appear spectacular to a casual observer. But in my view, they are some of the most interesting accomplishments you've enjoyed in a while. Here's a brief description of some of your subtly glorious breakthroughs: 1. You've made yourself less susceptible to being manipulated by guilt or pushed around by bullies or fooled by phonies. 2. You're getting smarter about how you treat the people and things you love. 3. You're at the peak of your ability to discern the difference between rash risks motivated by fear and smart gambles driven by authentic intuition.

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. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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In order to live, you've got to be a demolisher. You take plants and animals that were once alive and rip them apart with your teeth, then disintegrate them in your digestive system.

Your body is literally on fire inside, burning up the oxygen you suck into your lungs.

You didn't actually cut down the trees used to make your house and furniture, but you colluded with their demise.

Then there's the psychological liquidation you've done: killing off old beliefs you've outgrown, for instance.

I'm not trying to make you feel guilty—just pointing out that you have a lot of experience with positive expressions of destruction.

Can you think of other forms this magic takes? As an aspiring master of pronoia, it's one of your specialties--a talent you have a duty to wield with energetic grace.
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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 Powells.

Using a stopwatch, a sports statistician once figured out that the average baseball game has about nine minutes of action. The proceedings may last three hours from beginning to end, but the ball is actually in play just five percent of the time. What happens during the remaining 95 percent? Mostly a lot of standing around. I believe it'll be that kind of week for you, Virgo. The good news is that when the flurries of activity do erupt, they will be packed with drama and intrigue that you can really use.

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. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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Cancer cells are constantly developing in our bodies. Luckily, our immune systems routinely kill them off. Similarly, our minds always harbor pockets of crazy-making misconceptions and faulty imprints. They usually don't rise up and render us insane thanks to the psychic versions of our immune systems.

How can you stay strong in your ability to fight off sickness and madness? You know the drill: Eat healthy food, sleep well, get physical exercise, minimize stress, give and receive love. But as an aspiring pronoiac, you have at your disposal other actions that can provide powerful boosts to your immune system. Here are examples:

Scheme to put yourself in the path of beautiful landscapes, buildings, art, and creatures.

Exercise your imagination regularly. Get in the habit of feeding your mind's eye images that fill you with wonder and vitality.

Eliminate uhs, you knows, I means, and other junk words from your speech. Avoid saying things you don't really mean and haven't thought out. Stop yourself when tempted to make scornful assertions about people.

Every night before you fall asleep, review the day's activities in your mind's eye. As if watching a movie about yourself, try to be calmly objective as you observe your memories from the previous 16 hours. Be especially alert for moments when you strayed from your purpose and didn't live up to your highest standards.

With a companion, sit in front of a turned-off TV as you make up a pronoiac story that features tricky benevolence, scintillating harmony, and amusing redemption. Speak this tale aloud or write it down.

Take on an additional job title, beautifier. Put it on your business card and do something every day to cultivate your skill. If you're a people person, bring grace and intrigue into your conversations; ask unexpected questions that provoke original thoughts. If you're an artist, leave samples of your finest work in public places. If you're a psychologist or sociologist, point out the institutions and relationships that are working really well. Whatever you do best, be alert for how you can refine it and offer it up to those who'll benefit from it.

If you're going through a phase when you feel you have nothing especially beautiful to offer, or if you think it would be self-indulgent to inject your own aesthetic into shared environments, turn for help to great artists and thinkers. Sneak O'Keeffe or Chagall prints onto unadorned walls in public places, for instance. Memorize poems by Rilke and Hafiz, and slip them into your conversations when appropriate. Program your cell phone so that its ring is Vivaldi's Stabat Mater in C Minor. Scrawl passages from Annie Dillard's Teaching a Stone to Talk on the walls of public lavatories.
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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 Powells.

"I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening," wrote occult philosopher Aleister Crowley in his flowery neo-Victorian style. "I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning." I think that formulation will serve you well in the coming days, Libra. There's little to be gained from clinging compulsively to your hopes and fantasies about what's true. Just the opposite: Momentous strength will rise up in you if you question everything you hold dear or assume to be fact.

Do you want further explorations of the intriguing twists and turns of your personal evolution? Check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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The Shinto monks of Iso, Japan, have a curious custom. Every 20 years since the year 772, they've dismantled their central shrine and rebuilt it from scratch. In so doing, they pass down the knowledge of their sacred construction techniques from generation to generation. It's also an effective way for the monks to participate eagerly in the transitoriness of life, rather than merely being resigned to it. They practice the art of death and rebirth not just in meditation but through a practical long-term ritual.

Can you think of an analogous custom you might create for your personal use?
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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 Powells.

In her book Waiting for God, French mystic and political activist Simone Weil (1909-1943) wrote a passage I'd love for you to keep in mind during the coming weeks: "When an apprentice gets hurt, or complains of being tired, the workmen have this fine expression: 'It is the trade entering his body.' Each time that we have some pain to go through, we can say to ourselves quite truly that it is the order and beauty of the world that are entering our body." I encourage you, Scorpio, to adopt this redemptive attitude about the suffering you have been experiencing.

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. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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Oceans are not exactly teeming with life. In fact, they're mostly barren, and could rightly be called "wet deserts." Likewise, not all your emotions, even those that come in floods, are fertile. Some are automatic reactions that have discharged thousands of times since they were first programmed into you many years ago. They're mechanical, not organic. They became fixtures when you were a very different person than you are now. Identify these.
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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 Powells.

In his memoir, radio talk-show host Michael Krasny notes that he is "the inverse of writer Saul Bellow, who said that he was a bird and not an ornithologist." Even if you are usually more like Krasny, Sagittarius, I suggest that you be like Bellow in the coming weeks. In my astrological opinion, you need to be an embodiment of wild nature, not an observer and appreciator of wild nature. It's time for you to be a geyser, not an architect who critiques fountains; a bonfire, not a candle-gazer; a horse, not a gambler who bets on the ponies.

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. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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Celebrate Unhappy Hour at least once a month. During this ritual blowout, you have license to complain and rant about everything that's driving you crazy. Get a sympathetic listener to be your receptacle or deliver your blast straight into the mirror. If you prefer, write it all down. One way or another, grouse nonstop about your secret shame, raw sorrow, bottomless wrath, unspeakable guilt, and unnerving twists of destiny. Feel free to unleash guttural moans or rueful cackles.

If performed regularly, Unhappy Hour serves as an exorcism that empties you of psychic toxins. Pronoia will then have a chance to flourish as you luxuriate more frequently in rosy moods and broad-minded visions.
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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 Powells.

A new Hawaiian island is in the process of creating itself. Called Loihi, it's an active volcano that still lies beneath the sea. As it vents lava in the millennia to come, it will eventually accumulate enough mass to rise above water level and make itself available for trees to grow on and animals to nest in and humans to dance on. In the coming days, Capricorn, I invite you to regard this as an important symbol. Think about what part of your life has a metaphorical resemblance to the threshold that Loihi will be approaching about 10,000 years from now: emerging out of the depths and breaking above the surface.

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. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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Yua is a term the Yupiit people of Alaska use for the spirit that inhabits all things, both animate and inanimate. A rock, for instance, has as much yua as a caribou, spruce tree, or human being, and therefore merits the same measure of compassion. If a Yupiit goes out for a hike and spies a chunk of wood lying on a frozen river bank, she might pick it up and put it in a new position, allowing its previously hidden side to get fresh air and sun. In this way, she would bestow a blessing on the wood's yua. (Source: Earl Shorris, "The Last Word," Harper's, August 2000)
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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 Powells.

Between 8 and 9 o'clock one morning, I made a 30-mile roundtrip from San Francisco to Marin County, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge twice in the process. In that brief time, I drove through five different micro-climates, some of them twice: 1. dense, blinding fog; 2. heavily overcast skies but no fog; 3. totally bright and sunny; 4. wispy fog with sun pouring down through it, creating a blend of grey and gold; 5. partially sunny with rolling bubbles of fog visible in the distance. Judging from your current astrological omens, Aquarius, I'm guessing that what I experienced is an apt metaphor for what your life will be like in the coming days: a quick-shifting kaleidoscope of vivid moods and rich textures. Celebrate each scene, knowing it will soon give way to a new one.

Got enough clues to chew on for a while? If you need more, give yourself the luxury of your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE for the week ahead. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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If you've ever watched The Simpsons TV show, you've probably heard Homer Simpson's favorite toast. "To alcohol," he proclaims, "the cause of and solution to all of life's problems." My own salute is different. "To the Divine Trickster formerly known as God," I say, "the cause of and solution to all of life's problems." Compose a prayer in which you simultaneously curse and thank the Primal Source.
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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 Powells.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told The Washington Post the following fun facts: "There are more molecules of water in a cup of water than cups of water in all the world's oceans. This means that some molecules in every cup of water you drink passed through the kidneys of Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Abe Lincoln, or any other historical person of your choosing." Your assignment this week, Pisces, is to choose three heroes you'd most like to be influenced and inspired by. Every time you drink water, be conscious of the fact that some of it was once inside the bodies of those exceptional people. Say a prayer that their mojo will become available to you.

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 week ahead. You can also listen to my three-part long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2008.

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You are a metropolis of 50 trillion citizens, says biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton. Each of the cells in your body can be considered a sentient being in its own right. They all act together as a community, performing an ongoing act of prodigious collaboration.
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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 Powells.