The German government sponsored a scientific study of dowsing, which is a form of magical divination used to locate underground sources of water. After ten years, the chief researcher testified, "It absolutely works, beyond all doubt. But we have no idea why or how." An assertion like that might also apply to the mojo you'll have at your disposal, Aries, as you forge new alliances and bolster your web of connections in the coming weeks. I don't know how or why you'll be such an effective networker, but you will be.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke urged an aspiring bard to change the way he imagined the Supreme Being. "Why don't you conceive of God as an ally who is coming," Rilke said, "who has been approaching since time began, the one who will someday arrive, the fruit of a tree whose leaves we are? Why not project his birth into the future, and live your life as an excruciating and lyrical moment in the history of a prodigious pregnancy?"

How would your life change if you made this idea your working hypothesis?
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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 United States Congress spends an inordinate amount of time on trivial matters. For example, 16 percent of all the laws it passed in the last two years were devoted to renaming post offices. That's down from the average of the previous eight years, during which time almost 20 percent of its laws had the sole purpose of renaming post offices. In my astrological opinion, you Tauruses can't afford to indulge in anything close to that level of nonsense during the next four weeks. I urge you to keep time-wasting activities down to less than five percent of your total. Focus on getting a lot of important stuff done. Be extra thoughtful and responsible as you craft the impact you're having on the world.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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A reader named Michael McCarthy wrote to say he plans to start a new religion, the "First Church of the Rude Awakening." It will be based on the principle that having a pleasant life cannot serve as a motivation to seek enlightenment and salvation. McCarthy believes that no one ever bolts up out of bed one morning and says, "I'm so happy, I think I'll go meditate and pray and make myself into a better person for as long as it takes, so I can find God and say thanks."

Disprove this theory. Detonate an epiphany precisely because you're in an excellent mood.
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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.

What if your unconscious mind has dreamed up sparkling answers to your raging questions but your conscious mind doesn't know about them yet? Is it possible you are not taking advantage of the sly wisdom that your deeper intelligence has been cooking up? I say it's time to poke around down there. It's time to take aggressive measures as you try to smoke out the revelations that your secret self has prepared for you. How? Remember your dreams, of course. Notice hunches that arise out of nowhere. And send a friendly greeting to your unconscious mind, something like, "I adore you and I'm receptive to you and I'd love to hear what you have to tell me."

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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In Frederick Buechner's book On the Road with the Archangel, the star is the archangel Raphael. This supernatural helper has a tough gig: gathering the prayers of human beings and delivering them to God. Here's how he describes the range of pleas he hears: "There are prayers of such power that you might say they carry me rather than the other way around. There are prayers so apologetic and shamefaced and half-hearted that they all but melt away in my grasp like sad little flakes of snow. Some prayers are very boring."

Compose a prayer that's so powerful and entertaining that it could thrill an archangel.
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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.

In his book Our Band Could Be Your Life, Michael Azerrad says that the Cancerian singer-songwriter Steve Albini is a "connoisseur of intensity." That means he's picky about what he regards as intense. Even the two kinds of music that are often thought of as the embodiment of ferocious emotion don't make the grade for Albini. Heavy metal is comical, he says, not intense. Hardcore punk is childish, not intense. What's your definition of intensity, Cancerian? I see the coming weeks as prime time for you to commune with the very best expressions of that state of being. Be a connoisseur of intensity.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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The German word selig can mean "ecstatic," "blessed," or "holy." It implies that profound bliss can be a divine gift; that deep pleasure may generate or come from spiritual inspiration.

The English language doesn't have a term comparable to selig, maybe because our culture regards ecstasy with suspicion. Religious people tend to believe that the blessed are those who are good and kind, certainly not those who are skilled at cultivating rapturous states. People who worship rationality, on the other hand, like intellectuals and scientists, often think of ecstasy as at best an irrelevant state, and at worst a nonproductive or deluded indulgence.

What would you have to do to place yourself in intimate alignment with the values embodied by the word selig?
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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.

There's a butterfly sanctuary at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It's called the Enchanted Garden. As you enter, you see a sign that reads, "Please do not touch the butterflies. Let the butterflies touch you." In other words, you shouldn't initiate contact with the delicate creatures. You shouldn't pursue them or try to capture them. Instead, make yourself available for them to land on you. Allow them to decide how and when your connection will begin to unfold. In the coming week, Leo, I suggest you adopt a similar approach to any beauty you'd like to know better.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Is there really such a thing as free will, or are our destinies shaped by forces beyond our control?

Here's one way to think about that question: Maybe some people actually have more free will than others. Not because they have more money. (Many rich folks are under the spell of their instincts, after all.) Not because they have high-status positions. (A boss may have power over others but little power over himself.)

Rather, those with a lot of free will have earned that privilege by taking strong measures to dissolve the conditioning they absorbed while growing up. They've acted on the advice of psychologist Carl Jung: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
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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 ever fantasize about a more perfect version of yourself? Is there, in your imagination, an idealized image of who you might become in the future? That can be a good thing if it motivates you to improve and grow. But it might also lead you to devalue the flawed but beautiful creation you are right now. It may harm your capacity for self-acceptance. Your assignment in the coming week is to temporarily forget about whom you might evolve into at some later date, and instead just love your crazy, mysterious life exactly as it is.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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In her book Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes suggests that we all need to periodically go cheerfully and enthusiastically out of our minds. Make sure, she says, that at least one part of you always remains untamed, uncategorizable, and unsubjugated by routine. Be adamant in your determination to stay intimately connected to all that's inexplicable and mysterious about your life.

At the same time, though, Estes believes you need to keep your unusual urges clear and ordered. Discipline your wildness, in other words, and don't let it degenerate into careless disorder.
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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.

Novelist Jeffrey Eugenides says he doesn't have generic emotions that can be described with one word. "Sadness," "joy," and "regret" don't happen to him. Instead, he prefers "complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions," like "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy" or "the excitement of getting a hotel room with a mini-bar." He delights in sensing "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" and "sadness inspired by failing restaurants." In the coming days, Libra, I think you should specialize in one-of-a-kind feelings like these. Milk the nuances! Exult in the peculiarities! Celebrate the fact that each new wave of passion has never before arisen in quite the same form.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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The seeds of the lodgepole pine and jack pine trees are so tightly compacted within their protective cones that they need flames to free them. It's only through the help of periodic conflagrations, then, that they're able to reproduce. Fire-dependent and fire-resistant, they can tolerate temperatures of 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.
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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.

After analyzing your astrological omens for the coming weeks, I decided that the best advice I could give you would be this passage by the English writer G. K. Chesterton: "Of all modern notions, the worst is this: that domesticity is dull. Inside the home, they say, is dead decorum and routine; outside is adventure and variety. But the truth is that the home is the only place of liberty, the only spot on earth where a person can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. The home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of set rules and set tasks."

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Philosopher Robert Anton Wilson proposed that the single greatest contribution to world peace would come from there being over seven billion different religions -- a unique spiritual path for each person on the planet. The Beauty and Truth Lab urges you to get started on doing your part to make this happen. What will your religion be called? What rituals will you perform? Write down your three core tenets.
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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.

My general philosophy is that everyone on the planet, including me, is a jerk now and then. In fact, I'm suspicious of those who are apparently so unfailingly well-behaved that they NEVER act like jerks. On the other hand, some people are jerks far too much of the time, and should be avoided. Here's my rule of thumb: How sizable is each person's Jerk Quotient? If it's below six percent, I'll probably give them a chance to be a presence in my life -- especially if they're smart and interesting. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, Sagittarius, this gauge may be useful for you to keep in mind during the coming weeks.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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"Believing" in God is like "believing" in the taste of fresh-baked bread without ever having tasted actual fresh-baked bread. But what if you could commune with the Divine Wow through up-close, personal encounters that are as vivid as eating fresh-baked bread? Some people have. You could, too. Formulate the intention to do so.
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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 French painter Cezanne painted images of a lot of fruit in the course of his career. He liked to take his sweet time while engaged in his work. The apples and pears and peaches that served as his models often rotted before he was done capturing their likenesses. That's the kind of approach I recommend for you in the coming days, Capricorn. Be very deliberate and gradual and leisurely in whatever labor of love you devote yourself to. No rushing allowed! With conscientious tenderness, exult in attending to every last detail of the process.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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In Judeo-Christian cultures, many people associate the sky with the masculine form of God. According to this bias, the Supreme Father rules us all from on high -- up, away, far from here. But if you were an ancient Egyptian, the sky was the goddess Nuit, her body its very substance. She was a loving mother whose tender touch could be felt with each new breath.

For one day, act as if you and the sky goddess are in constant contact.
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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.

"Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it." So said the eccentric, outspoken, and hard-partying actress Talullah Bankhead (1902-1968). Can you guess her astrological sign? Aquarius, of course. Her greatest adventure came from trying to keep up with all the unpredictable urges that welled up inside her. She found it challenging and fun to be as unique as she could possibly be. I nominate her to be your role model in the next four weeks. Your assignment is to work extra hard at being yourself.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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In some ancient Greek dramas, a god showed up out of nowhere to cause a miraculous twist at a crucial point in the tale. This divine intrusion was referred to as theos ek mechanes, literally "god from a machine," because the symbolic figure of the god was lowered onto the stage by a crane. In modern usage, the term is Latin -- deus ex machina -- and refers to a story in which a sudden event unexpectedly brings about a resolution to a baffling problem.

Write a tale in which you're the beneficiary of such an intervention.
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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 Dardanelles Strait is a channel that connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, separating Europe from Asia. In some places it's less than a mile wide. But the currents are fierce, so if you try to swim across at those narrow points, you're pushed around and end up having to travel five or six miles. In light of the current astrological omens, I'm predicting that you will have a comparable challenge in the coming days, Pisces. The task may seem easier or faster than it actually is. Plan accordingly.

It's not too late to hear my long-range, in-depth explorations of your destiny in 2013. What new influences will be headed your way in the coming months? Each report in the three-part series of EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES is 7 to 9 minutes long. A new short-term forecast for this week is also available. Get help as you fine-tune your life to be in closer and closer alignment with your soul's code! Sign in to access the 'scopes here.

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Neither God nor the gods are dead, but they seem to be disappearing because so few of us are capable of carrying on authentic relationships with them anymore. The materialist delusion rules: Millions believe that nothing's real unless it can be perceived by the senses. Churches and temples are full of ethical people, but many of them have no clue about how to know or feel or converse with the divine intelligences.

What can the deities do, having been banished from our conscious knowing? Jung said they have no recourse but to worm their way into our lives as sickness and pathology. Repressed, they come in the back door.

Which of your maladies or pains might be gods in disguise? How might you get them to take off their masks and begin knocking on the front door?
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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.