New Age – Palmistry, Astral Projection, Radiesthesia (pendulums), Chinese and Tibetan Philosophy and Herbs.

How a book on Astral Projection made it into my library is beyond me, but I suppose palmistry fits into the New Age category, though I never made a study of it. As for pendulums, I must admit that I have a knack with them. I have used them to accurately predict the sex of unborn children, and to test the freshness of food, though not much else.

The next two books relate to Chinese philosophy – the Tao Te Ching, which philosophy I find the most sympathetic to my own personal attitude to life, having gleaned this from my experiences with consulting the I Ching. Tai Chi sounds an attractive way to balance body and soul, but I have never practiced it. Both these books are large format paperbacks and thus fittingly in a watercourse way penultimately finish the exhibition of books in the medium sized bookcase.

The Tibetan Book of The Dead was the inspiration for the following game. I used to have a board on which it was played but it seems to have gone missing.

And finally, two books on Herbs - the comprehensive Mrs M Grieve’s: A Modern Herbal, a large hard covered book filled with invaluable information on the uses of herbs, and The Handbook of the Bach Flower Remedies, also in hard cover, which is the basis for an interesting system of healing using dilutions of certain flowers.

So after this it’s on to bigger & possibly better things when I set about displaying some, not all, of the contents of the large bookcase. It’s an interesting collection with a number of rare and unusual books, not to mention old penguins and other imprints.

New Age – Amulets, Charms & Talismans

There’s not much to write about amulets, charms and talismans, as the books are pretty self explanatory, and there are only a few of them on the subject anyway, so I’ll tack some oddities onto the end of this post.

C G Jung – Man and His Symbols - another essential book on the New Ager’s bookshelf.

Nostradamus and his ilk, prophecies…

Next – the last of the New Age books and indeed the contents of the medium bookshelf.

New Age – I Ching

The I Ching or Chinese Book of Changes is the only divinatory system I consult with any regularity these days. I have always found its advice to be spot on. It was famously used in the Phillip K Dick novel, The Man in the High Castle.

I have discovered that I have quite a few versions of the I Ching, but I think the Richard Wilhelm version (translated by Cary F Baynes with a forward by C G Jung) is the best by far.

Interestingly enough one can draw up a hexagram through binary numbers as below:

Think of a number, say 62

62 by 2 = 31 (quotient 0)
31 by 2 = 15 (quotient 1)
15 by 2 = 7 (quotient 1)
7 by 2 = 3 (quotient 1)
3 by 2 = 1 (quotient 1)
1 by 2 = 0 (quotient 1)

The hexagram for the number 62 is derived by counting 0 as a broken line and 1 as an unbroken line resulting in Hexagram 43 Kuai (Breakthrough/Resoluteness) –quite a favorable hexagram.

Anyway, here are the various versions of the I Ching in my possession except the Alfred Douglas (no he was not Oscar Wilde’s lover) version, published by Penguin in 1971 which is too battered to scan and moreover at my workplace. It is however one of the better versions of the I Ching and readily available second hand.

Next – Amulets, Charms and Talismans

New Age – Numerology

Numerology as the name makes obvious, is the study of the significance of numbers in a person’s life. Some people even change their names (I’ve known a few) to get a better numeric outcome. You don’t want to be stuck with bad luck numbers.

To complement other books in the New Age category, I have several books on the subject.

And I Ching Numerology…

…which leads me into the next post – I Ching

New Age – Books on the Tarot

There are not half as many books on the Tarot as there were on Astrology. What I have in my library are below, starting with Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth and The Equinox an essay on his own Thoth Tarot designed by Lady Frieda Harris. I do have a pack of the Thoth Tarot cards and they are very beautiful and powerful.

Another major Tarot pack was the Rider Waite pack designed by Pamela Coleman Smith. I have a miniature pack of these – handy for carrying around should I feel inclined.

The below book is a hard cover of Arthur Edward Waite’s Pictorial Key To The Tarot.

Two more books on the Tarot – The Devil’s Picture Book, A Complete Guide to Tarot Cards: Their Origins and Their Usage by Paul Huson and The Definitive Tarot by Bill Butler.

Next - Numerology

New Age – Astrology – The Final Post

This entry will display the last of the Astrology books - a mixture of the frivolous and the serious.

So here they are:

Grant Levi’s Astrology for the Millions and Heaven Knows What for a start.

Followed by a few books on Synastry – the study of relationships within star signs.

And finally Marc Edmund Jones Guide To Horoscope Interpretation and an Ephemeris for the years 1890 to 1950, a rather handsome (though battered by time) hardcover book.

Next - Tarot

New Age – Astrology in Popular Culture

Every man and his dog must have had a copy of Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs on their bookshelf back in the 1970s. As did I, as well as a copy of Linda Goodman’s Love Signs.

Perhaps not as well known as Linda Goodman, Liz Greene also produced books with similar titles. I preferred her interpretations – they had a more intelligent approach. I always thought her book on Saturn was an excellent book on that much maligned planet. I was interested in Saturn as my own horoscope has a very dominant Saturn, which I figure has given me my phlegmatic and stoical approach to life along with a certain dour seriousness and an appreciation for black humour.

Another book in the popular context is Moon Signs by Sybil Leek and Sun Sign Revelations by Marie Elise Crummere.

Back to the more studious side of Astrology there is also A Handbook for the Humanist Astrologer by Michael Meyer and Astrology for the Aquarian Age by Alexandra Mark

Next – yes, you guessed it, more Astrology

New Age – Astrology of the Oriental Kind

As well as conventional (if you could call it that) Astrology I also have several books on Chinese Astrology. They more or less vary in quality of information, but here they are anyway.

Next - and yes, there's more Astrology

New Age Books – More Astrology

Every self respecting Astrologer would probably have in their library a copy of The Sabian Symbols by Marc Edmond Jones.

The Sabian Symbols were developed in San Diego in 1925 by Marc Edmund Jones, a well known astrologer, and Elsie Wheeler, a spiritualist medium. They consist of 360 word images corresponding to the 360 degrees of the zodiac (each zodiac sign has 30 degrees)

They add depth to a horoscope and are vividly pictorial. These days apparently they are used as an oracular device.

To give an example:.

Today (28 July 2009) the planetary position for the Sun is 05.04°: in Leo

The Sabian symbol for this planetary position is “Rock Formations Tower Over A Deep Canyon”

An Astrological Mandala by Dane Rudhyar is another reference and reinterpretation of the symbols.

The books displayed below are texts relating other oracular systems to Astrology and various old astrological books I picked up second hand, which were once owned by an Ernest S McIntyre in the 1930s. Waite’s Compendium contains Ernest’s notes on the mental characteristics of the planets.

Next - Yet more Astrology