On a January morning in 1943, the town of Spearfish, South Dakota experienced very weird weather. At 7:30 a.m. the temperature was minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit. In the next two minutes, due to an unusual type of wind sweeping down over nearby Lookout Mountain, thermometers shot up 49 degrees. Over the next hour and a half, the air grew even warmer. But by 9:30, the temperature had plummeted back to minus 4 degrees. I'm wondering if your moods might swing with this much bounce in the coming weeks. As long as you keep in mind that no single feeling is likely to last very long, it doesn't have to be a problem. You may even find a way to enjoy the breathtaking ebbs and flows. Halloween costume suggestion: roller coaster rider, Jekyll and Hyde, warm clothes on one side of your body and shorts or bathing suit on the other.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Life is a vast and intricate conspiracy that's guaranteed to keep you well supplied with blessings.

What kind of blessings? Ten million dollars, a gorgeous physique, a perfect marriage, a luxurious home, and high status?

Maybe. But it's just as likely that the blessings will be interesting surprises, dizzying adventures, gifts you hardly know what to do with, and conundrums that dare you to get smarter.

Novelist William Vollman referred to these types of blessings when he said that "the most important and enjoyable thing in life is grappling with a complicated, tricky problem that you don't know how to solve."

Sculptor Henry Moore had a similar idea. He said, "The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is -- it must be something you cannot possibly do."

So in other words, pronoia does not guarantee that you will forevermore be free of all difficult experiences.

It doesn't ask you to pretend that everything is sweet and harmonious all the time.

On the contrary, when you embody the spirit of pronoia, you build your optimism by loving your challenges, not repressing them.

You know that your problems are gifts from the Goddess that are designed to make you smarter and wilder and kinder and trickier.

You welcome each fresh puzzle as a potential source of your future bliss, as an exciting teaching that will usher you to your next breakthrough.

To hear or read the rest of the essay "Shadow Blessings," go here.

How dare you be so magnetic and tempting? What were you thinking when you turned up the intensity of your charm to such a high level? I suggest you consider exercising more caution about expressing your radiance. People may have other things to do besides daydreaming about you. But if you really can't bring yourself to be a little less attractive -- if you absolutely refuse to tone yourself down -- please at least try to be extra kind and generous. Share your emotional wealth. Overflow with more than your usual allotments of blessings. Halloween costume suggestion: a shamanic Santa Claus; a witchy Easter Bunny.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Scientists have confirmed what we all knew: You do indeed have a little voice in your head that warns you when you’re about to do something dumb. It’s called the anterior cingulate cortex, according to white-coated authorities at Carnegie-Mellon University. If you’re receptive to it, it’s as good as having a guardian angel.

"Don’t do it," the voice whispers when you’re on the verge of locking your keys in your car or leaving the bar with the cute drunk you just met. "Go back," it murmurs as you start to walk away from a huge, though initially inconvenient, opportunity.

In the last ten days of November and the month of December, I suspect there will be wild-card interludes when you can enjoy smart gambles, daring stunts, cute tricks, and mythic escapades. But the next three weeks will not be like that. On the contrary. For the immediate future, I think you should be an upstanding citizen, a well-behaved helper, and a dutiful truth-teller. Can you handle that? If so, I bet you will get sneak peaks of the fun and productive mischief that could be yours in the last six weeks of 2015. Halloween costume suggestion: the most normal person in the world.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Congratulations. Every cell in your perfect animal body is beginning to purr with luminous gratitude for the enormity of the riches you endlessly receive. You are becoming aware that each of your heart’s beats originates as a gift of love directly from the Goddess herself.

Any residues of hatred that had been tainting your libido are leaving you for good. You are becoming telepathically linked to the world’s entire host of secret teachers, pacifist warriors, philosopher clowns, and bodhisattvas disguised as convenience store clerks.

Members of the gazelle species known as the springbok periodically engage in a behavior known as pronking. They leap into the air and propel themselves a great distance with all four feet off the ground, bounding around with abandon. What evolutionary purpose does this serve? Some scientists are puzzled, but not naturalist David Attenborough. In the documentary film Africa, he follows a springbok herd as it wanders through the desert for months, hoping to find a rare rainstorm. Finally it happens. As if in celebration, the springboks erupt with an outbreak of pronking. "They are dancing for joy," Attenborough declares. Given the lucky breaks and creative breakthroughs coming your way, Cancerian, I foresee you doing something similar. Halloween costume suggestion: a pronking gazelle, a hippety-hopping bunny, a boisterous baby goat.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Push hard to get better, become smarter, grow your devotion to the truth, fuel your commitment to beauty, refine your emotional intelligence, hone your dreams, negotiate with your shadow, cure your ignorance, shed your pettiness, heighten your drive to look for the best in people, and soften your heart -- even as you always accept yourself for exactly who you are with all of your so-called imperfections.

"A very little key will open a very heavy door," wrote Charles Dickens in his short story "Hunted Down." Make that one of your guiding meditations in the coming days, Leo. In the back of your mind, keep visualizing the image of a little key opening a heavy door. Doing so will help ensure that you'll be alert when clues about the real key's location become available. You will have a keen intuitive sense of how you'll need to respond if you want to procure it. Halloween costume suggestion: proud and protective possessor of a magic key.

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What fresh blessings will life bring you? What questions should you be asking? To explore the ripening trends further, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Although we are all born geniuses, the grind of day-to-day living tends to de-genius us. That's the bad news. The good news is that you have the power to re-genius yourself.

I'm going to give you a ritual called "Re-Genius Yourself," which you can use to jump-start the process. Below is an excerpt. To hear or read the entire ritual, go here.

You came into this world as a radiant bundle of exuberant riddles. You slipped into this dimension as a shimmering burst of spiral hallelujahs. You blasted into this realm as a lush explosion of ecstatic gratitude. And it is your birthright to fulfill those promises.

I'm not pandering to your egotism by telling you these things. When I say, "Be yourself," I don't mean you should be the self that wants to win every game and use up every resource and stand alone at the end of time on top of a Mt. Everest-sized pile of pretty garbage.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the self that says "Thank you!" to the wild irises and the windy rain and the people who grow your food.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the rebel creator who's longing to make the whole universe your home and sanctuary.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the dissident bodhisattva who's joyfully struggling to germinate the seeds of divine love that are packed inside every moment.

When I say, "Be yourself," I mean the spiritual freedom fighter who's scrambling and finagling and conspiring to relieve your fellow messiahs from their suffering and shower them with rowdy blessings.

The ancient Hindu text known as the Kama Sutra gives extensive advice about many subjects, including love and sex. "Though a man loves a woman ever so much," reads a passage in chapter four, "he never succeeds in winning her without a great deal of talking." Take that as your cue, Virgo. In the coming weeks, stir up the intimacy you want with a great deal of incisive talking that beguiles and entertains. Furthermore, use the same approach to round up any other experience you yearn for. The way you play with language will be crucial in your efforts to fulfill your wishes. Luckily, I expect your persuasive powers to be even greater than they usually are. Halloween costume suggestion: the ultimate salesperson.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson: "He who is in love is wise and becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: "Love, love, love: That is the soul of genius."

Krishnamurti: "The problem, if you love it, is as beautiful as the sunset."

Henry David Thoreau: "There is no remedy for love but to love more."

Erica Jong: "Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more."

I encourage you to be super rhythmical and melodious in the coming days. Don't just sing in the shower and in the car. Hum and warble and whistle while shopping for vegetables and washing the dishes and walking the dog. Allot yourself more than enough time to shimmy and cavort, not just on the dance floor but anywhere else you can get away with it. For extra credit, experiment with lyrical flourishes whenever you're in bed doing the jizzle-skazzle. Halloween costume suggestion: wandering troubadour, street musician, free-styling rapper, operatic diva, medicine woman who heals with sound.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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A common obstruction to a vital intimate relationship with another human being is what I call the assumption of clairvoyance. You imagine, perhaps unconsciously, that your partner or friend is somehow magically psychic when it comes to you -- so much so that he or she should unfailingly intuit exactly what you need, even if you don’t ask for it.

This fantasy may seem romantic, but it can single-handedly sink the most promising alliances. To counteract any tendencies you might have to indulge in the assumption of clairvoyance, practice stating your desires aloud.

I expect you to be in a state of continual birth for the next four weeks. Awakening and activation will come naturally. Your drive to blossom and create may be irresistible, bordering on unruly. Does that sound overwhelming? I don't think it will be a problem as long as you cultivate a mood of amazed amusement about how strong it feels. To help maintain your poise, keep in mind that your growth spurt is a natural response to the dissolution that preceded it. Halloween costume suggestion: a fountain, an erupting volcano, the growing beanstalk from the "Jack and the Beanstalk" fairy tale.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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"I’ve been practicing radical authenticity lately," my friend Brandon told me. "I’m revealing the blunt truth about unmentionable subjects to everyone I know. It’s been pretty hellish -- no one likes having the social masks stripped away -- but it’s been ultimately rewarding."

"I admire your boldness in naming the currents flowing beneath the surface," I replied, "but I’m curious as to why you imply they’re all negative. To practice radical authenticity, shouldn’t you also express the raw truth about what’s right, good, and beautiful? Shouldn’t you unleash the praise and gratitude that normally go unspoken?"

Brandon sneered. He thought my version of radical authenticity was wimpy. I hope you don’t. As a budding lover of life, you have a mandate to be honest in both ways.

"Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again." So says Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield. Can you guess why I'm bringing it to your attention, Sagittarius? It's one of those times when you can do yourself a big favor by sloughing off the stale, worn-out, decaying parts of your past. Luckily for you, you now have an extraordinary talent for doing just that. I suspect you will also receive unexpected help and surprising grace as you proceed. Halloween costume suggestion: a snake molting its skin.

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Sometimes it's a challenge to try to figure out what's important and what's not important. If you'd like more of my input, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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A thousand years from today, everyone you know will be long dead and forgotten. There’ll be nothing left of the life you love, no evidence that you ever walked this planet. That, at least, is what the fundamentalist materialists would have you believe.

But suppose the truth is very different? What if in fact every little thing you do subtly alters the course of world history? What if your day-to-day decisions will actually help determine how the human species navigates its way through the epic turning point we’re living through?

And finally, what if you will be alive in a thousand years, reincarnated into a fresh body and in possession of the memories of the person you were back in this era?

These are my hypotheses. These are my prophecies. Which is why I say: Live as if your soul is eternal.

Speaking on behalf of your wild mind, I'm letting you know that you're due for an immersion in revelry and festivity. Plugging away at business as usual could become counterproductive unless you take at least brief excursions to the frontiers of pleasure. High integrity may become sterile unless you expose it to an unpredictable adventure or two. Halloween costume suggestion: party animal, hell raiser, social butterfly, god or goddess of delight. Every one of us harbors a touch of crazy genius that periodically needs to be unleashed, and now is that time for you.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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Some religious traditions teach the doctrine, "Kill off your longings." In their view, attachment to desire is at the root of human suffering. But the religion of materialism takes the opposite tack, asserting that the meaning of life is to be found in indulging desires. Its creed is, "Feed your cravings like a French foie gras farmer cramming eight pounds of maize down a goose's gullet every day."

At the Beauty and Truth Lab, we walk a middle path. We believe there are both degrading desires that enslave you and sacred desires that liberate you.

Psychologist Carl Jung believed that all desires have a sacred origin, no matter how odd they may seem. Frustration and ignorance may contort them into distorted caricatures, but it is always possible to locate the divine source from which they arose. In describing one of his addictive patients, Jung said: "His craving for alcohol was the equivalent on a low level of the spiritual thirst for wholeness, or as expressed in medieval language: the union with God."

Psychotherapist James Hillman echoes the theme: "Psychology regards all symptoms to be expressing the right thing in the wrong way." A preoccupation with porn or romance novels, for instance, may come to dominate a passionate person whose quest for love has degenerated into an obsession with images of love. "Follow the lead of your symptoms," Hillman suggests, "for there's usually a myth in the mess, and a mess is an expression of soul."

To hear or read the rest of this essay "What If Your Desires Are Holy," go here.

I hope you will choose a Halloween costume that emboldens you to feel powerful. For the next three weeks, it's in your long-term interest to invoke a visceral sense of potency, dominion, and sovereignty. What clothes and trappings might stimulate these qualities in you? Those of a king or queen? A rock star or CEO? A fairy godmother, superhero, or dragon-tamer? Only you know which archetypal persona will help stir up your untapped reserves of confidence and command.

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Want more clues? Need further insight? For more evocative questions and pithy suggestions about your unfolding destiny, check out your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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In The Book of Embraces, Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano writes, "The fishermen of the Colombian coast must be learned doctors of ethics and morality, for they invented the word sentipensante, or 'feeling-thinking,' to define language that speaks the truth." Describe a time when you pulled off the feat of thinking with your heart and feeling with your head.

It's time to stretch the boundaries, Pisces. You have license to expand the containers and outgrow the expectations and wage rebellion for the sheer fun of it. The frontiers are calling you. Your enmeshment in small talk and your attachment to trivial wishes are hereby suspended. Your mind yearns to be blown and blown and blown again! I dare you to wander outside your overly safe haven and go in quest of provocative curiosities. Halloween costume suggestions: mad scientist, wild-eyed revolutionary, Dr. Who.

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How much do you want to know about your life? How far do you dare to go in your quest for self-mastery? For more insight into your intriguing fate, tune in to your EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPE.

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SACRED ADVERTISEMENT. The oracle below is excerpted from my book PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings.
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When you’re an aspiring master of pronoia, you see the cracks in the facades as opportunities; inspiration erupts as you careen over bumps in the road; you love the enticing magic that flows from situations that other people regard as rough or crooked.

"That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal," wrote poet Charles Baudelaire, "from which it follows that irregularity -- that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment -- is an essential part and characteristic of beauty."