In the coming days, many of your important tasks will be best accomplished through caginess and craftiness. Are you willing to work behind the scenes and beneath the surface? I suspect you will have a knack for navigating your way skillfully and luckily through mazes and their metaphorical equivalents. The mists may very well part at your command, revealing clues that no one else but you can get access to. You might also have a talent for helping people to understand elusive or difficult truths. Halloween costume suggestions: spy, stage magician, ghost whisperer, exorcist.

When they say "Be yourself," which self do they mean? Certainly not the self that wants to win every game and use up every resource and stand alone at the end of time on a mountain of pretty garbage. So which self is it? For guidance, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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HELP WANTED. Practical dreamers with high emotional intelligence needed to become experts in the following subjects: the art of possessing abundant resources without feeling greed or a sense of superiority; the science of cultivating luxurious comfort in a way that does not lead to spiritual sloth; and a knack for enjoying peace and serenity without diluting one's ambition.
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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.

The coming week could have resemblances to the holiday known as Opposite Day. Things people say may have meanings that are different or even contrary to what they supposedly mean. Qualities you usually regard as liabilities might temporarily serve as assets, and strengths could seem problematical or cause confusion. You should also be wary of the possibility that the advice you get from people you trust may be misleading. For best results, make liberal use of reverse psychology, freaky logic, and mirror magic. Halloween costume suggestion: the opposite of who you really are.

Take inventory of the extent that "No" dominates your life. Notice how often you say or think: 1. "That's not right." 2. "I don't like that." 3. "I don't agree with that." 4. "They don't like me." 5. "I'm not very good." 6. "That should be different from what it is." For help in retraining yourself to say "Yes!" at least 51% of the time, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Most religions designate a special class of people -- priests, rabbis, ayatollahs -- to oversee official communications with the Source. This has led to a prevailing assumption, even among those who don't follow an established faith, that we can't initiate a divine conversation without the aid of a professional class of trained mediators. Among some sects of the ancient gnostics, in contrast, everyone was regarded as a potential prophet who could experience epiphanies worthy of becoming part of the ever-evolving doctrine.

As you create your own spiritual path, experiment with this approach. What might you do to eliminate the middleman and commune directly with the Source?

Name the ways you already use this approach, and brainstorm about others you might like to try.
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The preceding oracle comes from my new book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.

I don't have a big problem with your tendency to contradict yourself. I'm rarely among the consistency freaks who would prefer you to stick with just one of your many selves instead of hopscotching among all nine. In fact, I find your multi-level multiplicity interesting and often alluring. I take it as a sign that you are in alignment with the fundamentally paradoxical nature of life. Having said all that, however, I want to alert you to an opportunity that the universe is currently offering you, which is to feel unified, steady, and stable. Does that sound even vaguely enticing? Why not try it out for a few weeks? Halloween costume suggestion: an assemblage or collage of several of your different personas.

How's your fight for freedom going? Are you making progress in liberating yourself from your unconscious obsessions, bad habits, and conditioned responses? For assistance and inspiration, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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The Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi lead many peaceful rebellions against oppressive governments, first in South Africa and later in British-controlled India. At first he called his strategy "passive resistance," but later disavowed that term because it had negative implications. He ultimately chose the Sanskrit word satyagraha, meaning "love force" or "truth force." "Truth (satya) implies love," he said, "and firmness (agraha) is a synonym for force. Satyagraha is thus the force which is born of truth and love."

Give an example of how you have employed satyagraha in the past, and another example of how you might invoke it in the future.
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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.

An avocado tree may produce so much fruit that the sheer weight of its exuberant creation causes it to collapse. Don't be like that in the coming weeks, Cancerian. Without curbing your luxuriant mood, simply monitor your outpouring of fertility so that it generates just the right amount of beautiful blooms. Be vibrant and bountiful and fluidic, but not unconstrained or overwrought or recklessly lavish. Halloween costume suggestion: a bouquet, an apple tree, a rich artist, or an exotic dancer with a bowl of fruit on your head.

Assume that your drive to experience pleasure isn't a barrier to your spiritual growth, but is in fact essential to it. Proceed on the hypothesis that cultivating joy can make you a more ethical and compassionate person. Imagine that feeling good has something important to teach you every day. For inspiration in practicing this approach, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Say this: "Novel intuitions are now erupting from my smart heart, awakening me from any trance I've been ensnared in. I am hereby breaking and escaping obstructions that have hindered my ability to express my soul's code. All of my unique capacities are being unleashed, all of my potentials activated. I recognize that I'm a miraculous work of art, a masterpiece unlike any other ever created in the history of the world."

Say this: "I am a genius. I am a lucky, plucky, good-sucking genius."
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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.

I hope your father didn't beat you or scream at you or molest you. If he did, I am so sorry for your suffering. I also hope that your father didn't ignore you or withhold his best energy from you. I hope he didn't disappear for weeks at a time and act oblivious to your beauty. If he did those things, I mourn for your loss. Now it's quite possible that you were spared such mistreatment, Leo. Maybe your dad gave you conscientious care and loved you for who you really are. But whatever the case might be, this is the right time to acknowledge it. If you're one of the lucky ones, celebrate to the max. If you're one of the wounded ones, begin or renew your quest for serious and intensive healing. Halloween costume suggestion: your father.

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show." So begins Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield. I'd like to inspire you to write a story of your own that begins like that. For help, tune into your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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In ancient Rome, gladiator contests were as popular as today's football games. The warriors back then were not hired heroes as they are now, however. They were slaves or convicts who were forced to fight. Even if they won, they were usually required to return and risk their lives another day. Now and then a grizzled veteran of countless struggles-to-the-death was awarded with the ultimate prize: a wooden sword, symbolizing the end of his role as a gladiator and the beginning of his life as a free man. I'm telling you this because I believe you have earned your own personal equivalent of the wooden sword. Make one for 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.

Do you know how to tell the difference between superstitious hunches and dependable intuitions? Are you good at distinguishing between mediocre gossip that's only ten percent accurate and reliable rumors that provide you with the real inside dope? I suspect that you will soon get abundant opportunities to test your skill in these tasks. To increase the likelihood of your success, ask yourself the following question on a regular basis: Is what you think you're seeing really there or is it mostly a projection of your expectations and theories? Halloween costume suggestions: a lie detector, an interrogator with syringes full of truth serum, a superhero with X-ray vision, a lab scientist.

I invite you to keep a running list of all the ways life delights you and helps you and energizes you. Describe everyday miracles you take for granted . . . the uncanny powers you possess . . . the small joys that occur so routinely you forget how much they mean to you . . . the steady flow of benefits bestowed on you by people you know and don't know. What works for you? What makes you feel at home in the world? For inspiration in this noble effort, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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The "Kumulipo" is an old Hawaiian prayer chant that poetically describes the creation of the world. The word literally means "beginning-in-deep-darkness." Here darkness doesn't connote gloom and evil. Rather, it's about the inscrutability of the embryonic state; the obscure chaos that reigns before germination. Talk about the last time you dwelt in kumulipo.
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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.

I am officially protesting you, Libra. I am staging a walkout and mounting a demonstration and launching a boycott unless you agree to my demand. And yes, I have just one demand: that you take better care of the neglected, disempowered, and underprivileged parts of your life. Not a year from now; not when you have more leisure time; NOW! If and when you do this, I predict the arrival of a flood of personal inspiration. Halloween costume suggestion: a symbolic representation of a neglected, disempowered, or underprivileged part of your life.

All of creation loves you very much. Even now, people you know and people you don't know are collaborating to make sure you have all you need to make your next smart move. But are you willing to start loving life back with an equal intensity? The adoration it offers you has not exactly been unrequited, but there is room for you to be more demonstrative. For help in cultivating this approach, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Beauty and Truth Laboratory researcher Romney Austin adorned her Honda Civic with her first-ever bumper sticker, "Give Yourself to Love." While proud of announcing her compassionate philosophy to the world, she was also nervous. Hadn't she raised the pressure on herself to live up to her noble ideals?

A week later, she snapped. A guy chatting on a cell phone in a Lexus SUV cut her off in traffic, and road rage moved her to give him a middle-finger salute. Soon she added a new bumper sticker to the left of the first: "Get In, Sit Down, Shut Up, Hold On."

When I asked her about the contradiction, she confessed, "I've just accepted that I've got a split personality."

A week later, her conflicting sides reached a compromise. Romney pasted the word "and" in the space between the two stickers, to create a new thought: "Get In, Sit Down, Shut Up, Hold On, and Give Yourself to Love." She called to announce the good news: "I'm whole again!"
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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 so fine and yet so terrible to stand in front of a blank canvas," said French painter Paul Cezanne. Many writers make similar comments about the excruciating joy they feel when first sitting down in front of an empty page. For artists in any genre, in fact, getting started may seem painfully impossible. And yet there can also be a delicious anticipation as the ripe chaos begins to coalesce into coherent images or words or music. Even if you're not an artist, Scorpio, you're facing a comparable challenge in your own chosen field. Halloween costume suggestion: a painter with a blank canvas.

What is the obvious secret you can't quite see? How could you turn your challenges into daily gifts for yourself? For clues to mysteries like these, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Every act of genius, Carl Jung said, is an act contra naturam: against nature. Indeed, every effort to achieve psychological integration and union with the divine requires a knack for working against the grain. The 18th-century mystic Jacob Boehme recommended the same technique. The great secret to becoming enlightened, he said, is "to walk in all things contrary to the world." Qabalist teacher Paul Foster Case agreed: "The basis of the spiritual approach to life, the foundation of the everyday practice of a person who lives the life of obedience to esoteric law, is the reversal of the more usual ways of thinking, speaking and doing."

Name the ways you already use this approach, and brainstorm about others you might like to try.
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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.

As you contemplate what you want to be for Halloween, don't consider any of the following options: a thoroughbred racehorse wearing a blindfold; a mythic centaur clanking around in iron boots; a seahorse trying to dance on dry land. For that matter, Sagittarius, I hope you won't come close to imitating any of those hapless creatures even in your non-Halloween life. It's true that the coming days will be an excellent time to explore, analyze, and deal with your limitations. But that doesn't mean you should be overwhelmed and overcome by them. Halloween costume suggestions: Houdini, an escaped prisoner, a snake molting its skin.

Grace emerges in the ebb and flow, not just the flow. The waning reveals a different blessing than the waxing. Where are you in the great cycle of your life? For inspiration in figuring it all out, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Every January 1, many people make New Year's resolutions, promising to embark on programs of self-improvement. But your assignment now, should you choose to accept it, is to create a list of ANTI-resolutions.

Here are some questions to guide you: 1. What outlandish urges and controversial tendencies do you promise to cultivate in the coming months? 2. What nagging irritations will you ignore and avoid with even greater ingenuity? 3. What problems do you promise to exploit in order to have even more fun as you make the status quo accountable for its corruption? 4. What boring rules and traditions will you thumb your nose at, paving the way for exciting encounters with strange attractors?
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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.

"Does anyone know where I can find dinosaur costumes for cats?" asked a Halloween shopper on Reddit.com. In the comments section, someone else said that he needed a broccoli costume for his Chihuahua. I bring this up, Capricorn, because if anyone could uncover the answers to these questions, it would be you. You've got a magic touch when it comes to hunting down solutions to unprecedented problems. Halloween costume suggestion: a cat wearing a dinosaur costume.

Whether it's your time to ferment in the shadows or sing in the sun, fresh power to transform yourself is on the way. Life always delivers the creative energy you need to change into the new thing you must become. For more help in understanding it all, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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Speak the following lines out loud:
I love everything about me
I love my uncanny beauty and my bewildering pain
I love my hungry soul and my wounded longing
I love my flaws, my fears, and my scary frontiers

I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself
I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself
I will never refuse, abandon, or scorn myself
I will always amuse, delight, and redeem myself
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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.

The Live Monarch Foundation made a video on how to fix a butterfly's broken wing (tinyurl.com/FixWing). It ain't easy. You need ten items, including tweezers, talcum powder, toothpicks, and glue. You've got to be patient and summon high levels of concentration. But it definitely can be done. The same is true about the delicate healing project you've thought about attempting on your own wound, Aquarius. It will require you to be ingenious, precise, and tender, but I suspect you're primed to rise to the challenge. Halloween costume suggestion: herbalist, acupuncturist, doctor, shaman, or other healer.

You can learn to be lucky. It's not a mystical force you're born with, 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. For more help, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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For some seekers, spiritual enlightenment is the ultimate commodity. They believe that through diligent meditation and self-improvement, there will come a day when it will no longer elude their grasp. Breaking through to the singular state of cosmic consciousness, they will forever after own it, free and clear. Permanently illuminated! Never to backslide into the dull ignominy of normal human awareness!

Here's what I have to say about that: It's a delusion.

The fact is, the nature of perfection is always mutating. What constitutes enlightenment today will always be different tomorrow. Even if you're fortunate and wise enough to score a sliver of "enlightenment," it's not a static treasure that becomes your indestructible, everlasting possession. Rather, it remains a mercurial knack that must be continually re-earned.

If you want to befriend the Divine Wow, you must not only be willing to change ceaselessly -- you have to love to change ceaselessly.

Lucky you: All of creation is conspiring to help you live like that.
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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 not a good time to wear Super-Control Higher-Power Spanx, or any other girdle, corset, or restrictive garment. In fact, I advise you not to be a willing participant in any situation that pinches, hampers, or confines you. You need to feel exceptionally expansive. In order to thrive, you've got to give yourself permission to spill over, think big, and wander freely. As for those people who might prefer you to keep your unruly urges in check and your natural inclinations concealed: Tell them your astrologer authorized you to seize a massive dose of slack. Halloween costume suggestions: a wild man or wild woman; a mythical bird like the Garuda or Thunderbird; the god or goddess of abundance.

Somewhere there's a treasure that has no value to anyone but you, and a secret that's meaningless to everyone except you, and a frontier that harbors a revelation only you would know how to exploit. Why not go in search of those things? For inspiration, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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The Golden Rule is a decent ethical principle, but it could be even better. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" presumes that others enjoy what you enjoy. But that's wrong. There are many things you'd like to have done unto you that others would either despise or be bored by. Here's a new, improved formulation, which we call the Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they would like to have you do unto them.

Using this improved formula is not just a virtuous way to live, but is also the best way to ensure the success of your selfish goals. The rituals and spells of various occult orders purport to be supercharged techniques for imposing your personal will on the chaotic flow of events, but I say that practicing the Platinum Rule outstrips all of them as an exercise to enhance your power and happiness.
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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.