THE "GANDALF'S" FIRE IN FROSTBURG, MARYLAND

Following is the press release I sent out concerning my prediction of the Gandalf's fire, which I warned them about the preceding spring. There were many potentials for disaster, and fire was but one of them. A lot of astrological work would have been necessary to find several possible disaster times and analyze each one of them to hone down the potentials of that particular time. I told them all of this, and I offered to work with them for free to prevent it, yet they refused to accept my help. Here is the article:

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FROSTBURG ASTROLOGER WARNED OF GANDALF'S DISASTER LAST SPRING

A Frostburg astrologer and feng shui consultant, who calls himself "Erik the Vermilion", gave two reports to the employees of Gandalf's Pub last spring, 2003. Both of these reports were reportedly shown to the management of Gandalf's. Both of the Gandalf's reports warned of danger to the Gandalf's property, specifically there was warning of a danger from fire. Erik the Vermilion said that he offered to work with Gandalf's for free to track the stellar influences for the future, and thus to prevent the disaster, but that his offer was not taken seriously.

Here are quotations from Erik the Vermilion's feng shui report about Gandalf's:
"The Kitchen: For those who ... work in the kitchen, the room...is a sha (killing) room, according to the invisible energy there."

"There is some danger...from stirring up the sha-qi by so much activity there."

"To make this room to be auspicious, the door would have to be moved, and the ceiling would have to be made even."

"Curing the negativity in the kitchen - the best way would be to relocate the door. Unfortunately, this would probably entail changing the entire layout of the areas surrounding the kitchen on the main-street side of it, as well as rearranging all of the furniture therein."

The following quotation is about a particular area of the kitchen: "This is the area holding the rearward part of the working tables. It occupies perhaps two thirds of the kitchen. It is an inauspicious area....It conduces to problems...in the lives of those who spend much time in the area. For them, extraordinary caution is advised regarding...fire, and accidents....one of its denizens has already been made homeless by a fire."

"Examples of the Fulfillment of these Foretellings: Case 2: Two of the cooks and one of the regular patrons were rendered homeless by a fire in their abode. The fire was contained in the bedroom of the cook who spent the most time in the back area of the kitchen [Gandalf's kitchen -- this was the area giving danger from fire], and the other two victims were driven out of their house by the loss of heating caused by the fire, if I am not mistaken. The cook, in whose room the fire took place, was born with a birth's star that is exhausted by Gandalf's. You can see him often being exhausted there, he often has the exhausted look, while the workers in the kitchen, who may have different birth-stars, bedroom door directions, karma, and so on, do not usually look to be so exhausted as does he.

"The particular area of the kitchen in which he spends most of his time while working contains the warning: `extraordinary caution is advised regarding...fire.'

"The yearly stars at the door of Gandalf's and at the door of the bar, where the said cook also spends much time, are stars that "Ke" (Chinese="kill") the cook's birth's star. The yearly star at the door of the game-room is the most hazardous star, that can cause any manner of misfortune.

"The other cook, who was victim to the fire, was born the same year as was the primary victim, and, so, his birth's star is the same, and that increases his vulnerability. I did not learn the birth's year of the third victim, prior to the production deadline of this lovely booklet, and, so cannot say what his year's star might be."

The following quotations show the positive side of Erik the Vermilion's feng shui report:
"Case 3: The combination of stars at the main doors of Gandalf's, and also specifically affecting the restaurant and the barroom, are the stars of scholarship, literary success, and creativity. To any Frostburger, it shouldn't need to be said that by far the bulk of the scholars, successful writers, and creative people of Frostburg foregather in Gandalf's."

"Case 4: My birth's star is the star of writing and documents. According to the list of effects for Gandalf's as a whole, for the restaurant, and for the barroom, the denizens of those places will write more, if the indication is confirmed by other considerations. My birth's star is a confirmation. I haven't written much for several years, but now that I have been spending lot time in those places, I have written numerous horoscope reports, and also this booklet."

So much for the feng shui report. Now let's look at the astrology report:

"Steps must be taken - ...steps will have to be taken to prevent a disaster involving Gandalf's....so that you will know for what to be alert..., I shall give some information.

"Who Will be Involved - It appears to me that it will involve all the people who work at Gandalf's....Unreliable people without discipline and order, excited about a nuisance, and rebelling against corruption I will expect to be involved. Elders and youngers are both likely involved."

"What Will be Affected - It would affect the property or building of Gandalf's, and...its condition...; any speculative enterprise going on at that time; any political involvement, the reputation, credit, and power of Gandalf's; any social doings that are related to the professional affairs of Gandalf's would also be affected; relationships with other organizations. Insurance or taxes may be concerned."

"What Might Happen...

"Concern over finances and budget. Difficulty over budget....
"Malfunction [the furnace malfunctioning was the cause of the fire]
"Increased inharmonious interaction with those in Gandalf's domestic environment....Shared suffering. Disruption...of the group.
"Public relations, bad publicity, private affairs coming to public notice.
"Legal involvement.
"Fatigue, sickness, lack of vitality....
"Public disgrace, fall from power, discredit.
"Lack of trade, opportunity, or security;...business failure,....Inhibited development. Compelled by circumstances to be modest and simple.
"Danger of...bereavement.
"Probable loss of property
"Changes unfortunate. Test and trial.
"Mysterious circumstance. Occult experiences [these reports]."

Erik the Vermilion said in his report, "I have wished to help folks to prevent disasters in their lives, using astrology, which I can do....

"Before I go into the foretelling and prevention for Gandalf's, let me tell to you two cases' histories.

"The first one I told a mother to watch out for the safety of her baby on a particular day [it was in a particular two-hour period]. I told her [two weeks] in advance. When the day came, she had forgotten about the warning, and the Daddy caused the baby to fall on her head from a car's seat [onto the pavement] while she was being laden into the car. Had the Mommie remembered the day, she could have been watching the baby more carefully, or even asked the Daddy to be more careful with her.

"Another example is a horse-breeder in Romney, West Virginia. He was to be wedded, and, so, for his wedding present I gave to him a disaster prevention phase two. [Phase one deals with habits and lifestyle, based upon the person's birth's chart. Phase two considers the timing of the danger.] The nearest time of danger was on his wedding day. I was not invited to the wedding, so I gave the gift to a mutual friend, whom I knew would see the groom the night before the wedding, so that he could read the report, and be more careful the next day. The courier did not give the document to the groom, and so, he was not forewarned. After drinking liberally, he was asked to mount one of his horses with his tuxedo, to be videotaped. The girth was loose, and he fell off of the horse and had to be hospitalized. Had he been forewarned, he could have drunken less, and been more careful in adjusting his tack."

Erik the Vermilion has declared that, due to the immense amount of time it takes to prepare these reports, and the lack of being taken seriously, henceforward he will do them only for paying customers. The URL of his website is http://erikthevermilion.com. Erik is the author of two feng shui booklets, "Feng Shui of Western Maryland" and "Feng Shui for House Hunters", both available through him.

Here is the commentary of one of the kitchen workers who read the above press release:

Erik, i have read your report and it is remarkable.
Much of it is so true, and I do remember that you warned of trouble a long time ago
and that people were mad at you for it.

I also bought a copy of that report at the time and tonight i'll look at it again.
Wow.
Well, I'd like to buy a feng shui report sometime in the coming months.
what are the rates?
wait maybe they're on the site.
talk to you soon.

HORARY CASE STUDY #2

Here is the question, which I received by email:

"A quick question--how does the immediate future (next week or two) look with regards to buying a car?"

The querent's email was sent March 30 at 1:29 pm. However, I asked my own question, "Should the querent buy a car, etc.?" at about 4:20 pm the same day. This is a good way to relieve any doubt about the timing of the question.

I become the querent and he becomes the quesited. The quesited is always ruled by the 7th house. Rulership of every quesited by the 7th house I discussed in another message.

I sent a reply, which I afterward felt was not clear, then I clarified it with a phone message to his answering machine. Here is the first replying:

"Hi XXXXX. Chart says better to wait. Mercury has to do with any commerce, and with moving about, and is at the last degree of a sign, which means, like getting to a movie in the last ten minutes, as a comparison.

Also, it is about to go retrograde, which means you could change your mind after buying the car; in other words, some information could be missing.

Treating it as a general "yes/no" question, regardless of what the question may have been, the answer says "no". From a strictly material standpoint, it says "yes",

but if you want to include higher, more comprehensive considerations which could affect your future, then the answer is "no". [note: this is a transposition error, the material answer was "no", and the "higher" answer was "yes"]

Lastly, the moon is in "too early for now" degrees, so that what you want to accomplish or decide would have to wait about a year and a half.

Therefore, any car you purchase before that time, should not be immediately, but should be a temporary economical measure, rather than a big investment.

If you have another source of info, it is alway wise to do a double or triple check. But it doesn't work with "horary" astrology as the second check, only as the first.

I could do a Chinese question as a backup, but that would still be consulting the same "expert", I.

But my confidence in the interpretation of this chart approaches closely to 100%, I would have to say."

Here is my explanation of the reply above:

I handle "yes/no" questions as taught in the Marc Edmund Jones book about Horary astrology. Only I use a different method to determine which house rules the question. Here is why I use a method different from his: he says, in the same book,

that the real question is ruled by the house having the part of fortune. So, if somebody is asking about money, but the part of fortune is in the 7th house, then they are really asking about relationships, the money is not the real question.

Therefore I always use the house having the part of fortune as the house of the question. Then he says, using only the "karmic 7" planets Sun Moon Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter Saturn, take the lo'ward of the sign on the cusp of the house,

and the lo'ward of the sign on the cusp of the opposite house.

In the chart under our consideration, the part of fortune was in about 4 degrees of Capricorn, in the 4th house. I didn't calculate the part of fortune to the degree and minute, but just mentally thought, "Moon is a trine ahead of Sun,

minus about nine degrees." So I mentally went forward from ascendant to 13 Capricorn and subtracted 9 degrees to get 4. It could be 3 or 5, but, since it is not near a house's cusp, there is no need to be too precise. We know it is in the 4th house,

and that is all we are looking for, what house is it in?

I am going to post this right now, and post the finished version in about ten minutes. Remember to check the product links in the right column, and the soul mate link too.

o K I just posted, and am now continuing: The old sources say the part of fortune is calculated in reverse at night, that is you measure from the Moon forward to the Sun, then project from Ascendant. But then it says the other part (I forgot the name of it;

maybe part of spirit) -- any way they are calculated the reverse of each other. The other part in the daytime is from Moon to Sun, and at night from Sun to Moon. And the part of fortune daytime from Sun to Moon and night from Moon to Sun.

But then it says that their meanings are reversed at night, so that now the other part at night means what the part of fortune meant in the day. If that is confusing, the bottom line is to calculate from Sun to Moon both day and night,

and for convenience call it the part of fortune at night even though it is the part of something else.

So now we have part of fortune in fourth house. Jupiter is lo'ward of fourth house, and the opposite house is the tenth, and Mercury is the lo'ward of the tenth.

So now Marc Edmund Jones says to see what is the mundane aspect between these two planets, the lo'ward of the house of the question, and the lo'ward of the opposite house.

Let me take an aside here to say that his question does not concern cars so much as it concerns his credit, reputation, ability to interact in a purposeful way with the community.

Since he is ruled by the 7th house in this chart, the part of fortune is in his tenth house. So the real question on his mind is whether, for example, additional repairs to the car may disrupt his ability to report to work on time, or to drive to work, possibly.

Here I try to be too detailed without interviewing him. That is wrong. Details should come from interview. I conjecture what the details might be, and that is too risky. Marc Edmund Jones gives meanings for the part of fortune in the various houses.

I left that at home.

A mundane aspect means how far apart are the two signs? For example, all fire signs are 120 degrees apart, by mundane aspect. Libra and Scorpio are 30 degrees apart. So no matter what degrees the planets are in,

if one is in Libra and one is in Scorpio, they are in a mundane semi-sextile, 30 degrees. In other words if Mars is in 3 Libra and Pluto is in 27 Scorpio, their precise aspect is a sextile, which is 60 degrees +/- 8 degrees.

So they are in 60 degree aspect. They are precisely 54 degrees, but that is within 8 degrees of 60.

But they are in signs that are adjacent to each other, so Mars and Pluto, in this example, are in a mundane 30 degree aspect.

Here is another aside, that has nothing to do with the chart that we are studying. Why do I use 8 degree orb? Because Edgar Cayce, when in trance, was the voice of God, and he used 8 degree orbs in his readings.

I did an analysis of the book somebody put together of his astrological readings, and found the following: whenever Edgar Cayce said that somebody had spent time on Venus in between the past life's time and this one,

the Sun would be within 8 degrees of a major (Ptolemaic) aspect to Venus. Conjunction, Sextile, Square, Trine, Opposition. In every case this was so. No planet was more than 8 degrees from the exact aspect to Sun in such readings.

There is a lot to be learned from this paragraph alone.

Back to the case study: we are looking for a mundane aspect between Jupiter, lo'ward of the fourth, and Mercury, lo'ward of the opposite house, the tenth.

Mercury in Aries, Jupiter in Virgo, that is a mundane quincunx, or inconjunction, which means "not conjoined" by aspect. To be precise, it is a quincuncx, because a semi-sextile would also be an inconjuction.

Now, Marc Edmund Jones said if the mundane aspect is conjuction, sextile, or trine, then the answer is "yeah", and if any other aspect, the answer is "no". Thus, a quincunx says "no".

This is using the tropical zodiac, which would have to do with strictly mundane considerations. If the initial querent (who is the quesited in this chart) had been interested in more spiritual considerations, the sidereal zodiac could have been used,

if he were a disciple or an initiate. For an ordinary person, spiritual considerations are revealed by the planets and houses, such as the 8th for ghosts, Neptune for psychic images, and so forth.

I am in the habit of giving the spiritual considerations priority over the mundane considerations. I made a mistake in telling him that the tropical chart said "yes". It said "no", as we just observed above.

I think that probably I took the querent as a disciple and used the esoteric rulers of the signs. Then afterward, when I wrote the report to him, I misremembered how I had arrived at the resulting "yes" answer. Esoterically, in the sidereal zodiac,

Scorpio is on the fourth cusp, ruled by Mars. Sidereally, Mars was in Taurus. The tenth house (opposite to the fourth) sidereally is ruled by Taurus and Vulcan. I don't have an ephemeris for Vulcan, but it probably stays within 7-8 degrees of Sun,

although some say 11 degrees. I assume 7, and trust that God will speak to me from within to warn me in the event of any serious error resulting from this assumption. This would put Vulcan in Pisces, which is in mundane sextile to Mars in Taurus,

and a sextile gives a "yes" answer, remembering that it is a "yes" answer from an esoteric standpoint, not a purely material one.

I certainly hope that you will email me if you have any questions about this. My email address is to be found on my website, for which see link in upper right column.

Whenever Moon is in 0-2 degrees of a sign, it is too early to do anything. In fixed sign and cadent house, Moon will take two years to reach 3 degrees of Leo. That is when his real wish can be fulfilled. However, since Moon was in North latitude,

the time is shortened to between 1 and 2 years, averaging 1 1/2 years.

However, he needs a car, and so I intended to advise him to buy a car after Mercury finishes retrogration and picks up a little bit of speed in direct motion. But I meant to say to him to be thrifty and conservative for now,

then to buy a more serious vehicle after a year and a half, more in keeping with his wishes. I had to clarify this on the telephone, because it was not clear in my email message to him. In other words,

he probably wants a nice and more expensive car now, but the chart says get a cheaper quickie, a "disposable" model now, then a better one in a year and a half (about).

I also told him that Mercury retrograde could be a good time to buy a car if it is one he tried to buy before but couldn't, or which he has been meaning to buy for a long time, but never got around to it. If that were the case,

then it would be the revival of an old matter, and not the beginning of a new one, and, hence, appropriate for Mercury retrograde.

His last two email messages to me follow, one before I left the phone explanation, and one after:

"OK, thanks. A year and a half is a bit too long to wait (the wheels may have fallen off my car by then), but I can at least control my buying impulses until Mercury goes direct again."

I had jokingly put "cah" in the "subject" box, as if New England accent.

"I got your voice message regarding the cah, and it makes a little more sense now. It wasn't a luxury vehicle I had in mind, so that's not a problem. I can wait until Mercury turns direct,

but telling a gemini to wait for a year and a half is probably like telling a libra to make up his mind in the next 10 seconds."

He just said he is not thinking of a luxury vehicle. Still there has to be more to the story, or else the Moon wouldn't say year and a half. There is something in the back of his mind that he wants, in relation to the car question,

that must wait that long, given the current momentum of himself and of things.

Here is a note about what happens when you try to use Horary astrology as a backup check for other sources of information, such as psychics, and so on. I once had a client who used to ask me many many questions.

Every time the answer had 27-29 degrees, the last degrees of a sign, on the ascendant. Most of these questions were feasibility checks about enterprises he was wanting to do. So, going by the book,

I had to tell him that none of the enterprises would work. There is an exception to this, which is if a planet or cusp of the querent is within fifteen minutes arc of the Horary ascendant.

This could be also the querent's progressed chart or Solar return chart, which I have frequently seen to be the case. I suspect that also Lunar returns and diurnal charts will work this way, but have no experience in the matter,

it just makes sense if it works. Come to think of it, I have seen times when the querent's diurnal ascendant is the same degree as horary ascendant. Just watch out for this if you get too early or too late degrees, o K?

Any how, after I did about a dozen of these charts, he told me that he was using me as a double check for answers he was getting from a psychic and from another astrologer.

He said that some of the projects I had vetoed had been okayed by them. From this I learned the principle, if the last 3 degrees are on the ascendant, it usually means that you already have the answer. It may also mean that the chart is unusable,

which is what tradition says. But, I don't know, maybe the chart is usable. But when I get such an ascendant, I say, you already know the answer to this.