I'm not backing down.

Personal, about astrology and literacy, from Eric Francis to my old friends and new friends in the town of Planet Waves — and a few words from Alice A. Bailey.

By Alice A Bailey — from Esoteric Psychology

Good morning.

I’m sitting at my desk watching files copy (soon to go out with my camera into the lovely late-morning). Just as Mercury went retrograde, a power outage damaged a 20TB disk drive, and I’m rescuing items from that drive so I can erase it and start over. Along the way I am dusting off ancient old drives looking for places to temporarily stash things. Finding all kinds of interesting stuff as I do…

I remember when I didn’t know the word “terabyte.” Aah how I long for the good old days when gigabytes were considered huge. Giga! Like wow. I thought mega was special…this copying project has gone on for days and days…

Lately as part of my ongoing master’s degree in digital and A.I. studies, besides copying files, I’ve been watching the YouTubes of a young man named Casey Simpson. You will not regret tapping on the video below — it’s not that often someone who actually tells me something that I don’t know (every 30 seconds).

A Massive Depletion in Literacy

And what I did not know is how bad the literacy crisis is, particularly here in the United States. As Casey is demonstrating, this is connected to a society-wide obsession with iPads and “phones,” which is especially dangerous for young children, teenagers and older folks.

This means overindulgence in, and addiction to, extremely stupid video games (for the toddlers) and wasting countless hundreds of hours watching TikTok and Instagram shorts. And it means obsession with appearances and glamour. Ohhh! An influencer!

The result is a severe depletion of literacy, which creates a depletion of inner identity — of an inner locus of personal experience. Especially in young kids, this is creating a violence epidemic, as well as students entering top colleges and universities unable to do basic arithmetic and read a basic sentence. Many adults still recognize words but “don’t have time” to read. Many cannot draw an inference, sum up a paragraph or recognize a joke unless it’s labeled, “This is a joke. Laugh in five seconds.”

My McLuhan studies bookshelf.

How Planet Waves Is and Is Not Responding to This

What most online services are doing in response is dumbing down. Yes, the great race to the bottom! Be as idiotic as the other guy! Don’t say anything meaningful!

Ugh.

This has gone on for a while, but lately it feels like attempting a high-dive into a glass of water. I am not doing that; neither me nor my print-oriented editorial team (the Four Graces — Alison Ogden, Elizabeth Shepherd and Lisa Yorke, supported by our reading-obsessed technician Natalie Tolliday who probably reads more than the rest of us combined) are having NO part of making Planet Waves any less literate.

I recognize we distribute in digital form. We have no choice, though we make as much printable and downloadable as possible (the annual editions, for example, and more lately, our almanack and horoscopes). But we are not in or of the digital mindset. We offer context, texture, and real ideas that are connected to one another. We publish to a print standard — not a digital standard.

I Write for Adults and I’m Not Backing Down

While I don’t run my stuff through a grade-level checker, I aim my vocabulary and sentence structure at a level that an intelligent young adult, or ordinary adult, should be able to follow (I try to avoid fancy words and complicated sentences, for readability; we do the work to make it easier for you).

And yet that, it would seem, is way too smart for the United States.

But I’m not backing down; I am not succumbing to the rising tide of stupidity, and I know that my readers value this tremendously — by this, I mean being spoken to as if you’re still in possession of your natural and cultivated intelligence.

Astrology requires literacy, reading and writing. Digital astrology is vapid, and if it can be reduced to a “short,” it’s irrelevant as astrology because there is no context possible. Unless you count applying makeup whilst talking about the big aspect.

Manhattan summer dusk, some time pre-‘covid’ in the days of the iPhone 6. Photo by Eric.

No False Dividers or Spiritual Bypass

My articles, while a little long, are more like condensed books that give full treatment to a topic. If you want to read books and don’t have time, reading one of my articles will leave you with a good feeling, something to think about, and in a mood to reflect on your own life.

My goal is always to guide you toward yourself, no matter what I’m covering.

I do something else that I think is unusual: I place no false divider between the “mundane” and the “spiritual.” This is the usual chop.

In both seeming facets of life, I strive to go deeper than appearances and the epidemic of what Alice A. Bailey calls the “world glamour.” I never use astrology as spiritual bypass (explaining things away to some cause or purpose outside of you).

There is no jargon, no coded language, the Anunnaki are not invited and I leave Lemuria to the real experts (audio below my signature). In other words, despite my formidable New Age background, I keep it real. With astrology, it’s easy to lay on the frothy bullshit, especially if most people can’t tell the difference.

And when the fit hits the shan, you expect me to show up and provide coverage — fast and complete. And I do — happily, because I love to, and as a matter of civic duty. I earn my press card every day.

One of my astrology bookshelves.

Several Adaptations

At the direct suggestion of Marshall’s son Dr. Eric M. McLuhan (who evaluated Planet Waves), I write my articles in short sections of a few hundred words. He said: use subheaders.

I have modified that and I offer lots of photos between sections. The photos are designed to add beauty and either illustrate the article or provide a counterpoint.

In other words, if I’m writing about a global disaster, I might use nature photos. The pictures are always designed as photo essays (another all-but long lost art). Photography for me is a lifetime endeavor, to which I bring as much commitment and love as I do my writing. (All photos distributed with Planet Waves are scaled large enough to make a nice print.)

I also work in audio and (reluctantly) in video. Different minds take in things different ways. I learn from expressing similar ideas in different media. In video, I do straight presentations and also interviews; and my newish chart cam is a thing of beauty: I can draw the chart while you watch. Oh, that: I prefer handmade or at least hand-annotated charts. I want the human touch in all that I do.

We Are Here to Take Care of You

To my subscribers, customers, clients and financial supporters — thank you for supporting what really has become the unicorn of astrology — Planet Waves. Thank you for keeping your subscription active. If you are on a limited income, we will take care of you because that is why Planet Waves exists. Reach out. Our relationship is mutual. We are not a “subscription service.” We are a little town or villa.

Always know — your membership supports multiple layers of proofreading, hand-coded pages and exactly NO subscriptions to large language models, who can all go jump in a lake of zeros, ones and subatomic particles.

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ — that is a Lakota expression for “all my relations” or “we are all related.” It’s similar to dharma — acting as if to hold the world together.

Please join me in that endeavor. It is our turn to take care of the world.

Comments and questions welcome — please take a minute if you’ve read this far.

With love from green Greene County,

PS — This is what I don’t do. The male voice is health freedom guru Sayer Ji; the female voice needs no introduction.

PPS — Please take a few minutes and see what Casey is up to. He’s a former Nickelodian kid star (he played Rickey) and my all-time favorite YouTuber (and one of the most intelligent beings I’ve ever encountered). He tells the truth. He is observant. His parents do not support his career as a YouTuber and actor. I guess they want him to work in the Post Office (like my father told me to do) or be a lawyer or something. I am honored to support him on Patreon at the highest level. I consider it the very least I can do, and I’ll be doing a radio piece featuring him in August. I have no children. He is the future.