by Ronnie Pontiac.
Without trepidation I present this approximate translation of a rare manuscript found among the papers of a Russian emigre who spent his later years in poverty working at the Renault plant outside Paris. He was notorious in the refugee community for his Occult interests.
“He was a cordial host, but his thirst for solitude was stronger than his sense of hospitality. There were times when he would be sitting in company and it was as if he wasn’t there. He would listen, but not hear. Be silent. Close his eyes. Fall asleep. Hover somewhere inaccessible to us. They called him a wizard, a witch doctor, a sorcerer.” Vladislav Khodasevich, Necropolis
I never wanted to get involved in this thing. I thought it was absurd from the start. To read the stars as an excuse for advising people about the most important challenges of their lives? Why would I even want to know about their problems? Let them keep their troubles to themselves. Only weaklings run around crying to everyone of their suffering. The wise know we all have difficulties to face. Can you imagine respecting someone who shares their worst fears with you because they believe you can read the stars and tell them what to do? How can you not laugh at such a person, at such naive faith in the course of the universe? So, that is why I never take money when I read people’s birth charts. It would be too ridiculous. I ask them to give to charities instead, and they do.
How did I get stuck with this you might ask? The old man knew what he was getting me into, but he never warned me. He didn’t explain to me that I would endure an endless stream of seemingly impossible revelations about myself and others. He certainly didn’t tell me about the burden of knowing the art. It’s no better than being a doctor. When people are in pain, and you know a way to help, even if you can’t explain how it works, what kind of person would you be if you refused? At least doctors get respect, whether they deserve it or not. To read the stars is to invite the ridicule of ordinary men. The old man didn’t tell me when you help somebody they tell other people about it. When that somebody is the Tsar of all Russia then flows the never ending river of lost people searching for answers.
Try to tell them the Tsar no longer sees you. Try to tell them some Frenchman with Tarot cards is in favor now. Go and bother the Tarot readers then. This is their day to be popular. Why undermine the happiness of the card shufflers by bringing yourself to my doorstep? Tell them that a Siberian peasant is the most respected spiritual presence in the imperial palace. Tell them that he chooses ministers and changes the fates of entire villages. They don’t care. They want light shed on their own problems. Let the whole world burn, so long as they know what to do about the house they want to buy.
What sort of curse is this art, I refuse to call it a science. How can one practice it in a world of armies and businesses? What prehistoric magic survives in these planetary sigils and progressions of angles? What angels remain in our god forsaken world to lend their miraculous serendipity to a discredited art? It throws into doubt the very foundations of respectable ideas about reality. What intelligent and urbane human being could possibly accept a world where the stars reveal his every secret? How can the position of Saturn on the horizon at birth tell stories a man doesn’t want told? How do these symbols repel the ignorance of the smug and the hypnosis of the fearful? I know simpletons simply accept that it works. How I wish I could be so devoid of conscience. But as a human being I feel have the right to know what’s going on.
What have I seen, you ask, as if I am the veteran of a war. What you’re really asking for is proof. But I don’t have proof. Astrologers claim to explain the principles and dynamics of the influence of an asteroid on the duodenum of a scarecrow, but I don’t understand how they can sleep at night. Maybe they really believe their own nonsense. Maybe they honestly think they’ve figured out how to stick pins in that most enormous and mysterious butterfly, with wings that sparkle stars. Don’t they realize, no matter how many times it works, that doesn’t guarantee it will work the next time? Yes, yes, I know, I’ve experienced it myself. The uncanny navigation of a client’s relative’s dying. The stubborn illness cleared up by a new understanding. The career blossoming in what had been a fallow field. The happy marriage despite an unhappy courtship. The messages years later witnessing pivotal influence. All the snares that whisper certainty. But there is no certainty. No certainty about how or why it works.
I’m familiar with all the theories. The magnetic resonances and subtle gravities of the relatively nearby celestial objects. The mandala like synchronicity of influences that make alike all things that share a designated moment of existence. The fifth essence, the ether, the astral, it’s all the same to me. How can the movements of the planets weave the substance of our experiences? All of Moscow laughed at me when I warned there would be lost wealth, then the day came when the planet in question left the hot air of Sagittarius and landed in the cold factual earth of Capricorn. All those proud rational men obediently danced the waltz of the stars and each took the very actions required for them to lose their fortunes. Even now they sneer at my predictions, unable to remember that they could have avoided it all by listening to what I said. But why should they listen? I wouldn’t.
So the old man has the last laugh. I scoffed at his belief in star reading, so he fixed me good. Now I can’t look at anything or anyone without identifying their planetary signatures. I can see the terrible events unfolding like a dark cloud that spreads from St. Petersburg over all of Russia, but I can’t do anything to stop it. It’s not that I’m another Cassandra. People believe me all too easily. I’m not one of those charlatans that has to work all day to keep my shingle in the public eye. It’s just that everyone wishes to hear only about themselves. As if the Trojans believed Cassandra about the imminent fall of Troy, but each of them ignored that, because they urgently needed to know about their love lives.