Ancient Tower Press
Celebrating the Sacred Mystery
Book Catalog
Astrology in the Era of Uncertainty
472 pages
published November 2023
ISBN: 978-0-9747626-4-7
$29.95 + Shipping and Handling
We live in a difficult time. The world is changing in ways that are often complex, confusing, and disruptive to our lives and that can’t easily be anticipated. Within such a world, there is a renewed hunger for more direct access to personal gnosis, not dependent on external authorities. Each of us craves a reliable internal compass with which to navigate a world that, in the throes of very large, seemingly insolvable environmental, political, economic, social, racial and cultural problems, is increasingly uncertain.
While astrology may not be able to directly address these global issues, it can help us to cope in meaningful ways by reminding us, through an ongoing, ever-evolving conversation between psyche and cosmos, that we have a place and a purpose in the larger scheme of things. Out of this conversation can come not just a clearer sense of identity and purpose, and a greater capacity to effectively navigate one’s life, but also a communion with numinous, sacred mysteries.
To reach this deeper level, we must go beyond the rational approach to astrological symbolism that evolved during the Hellenistic era and reclaim our more mystical and mythopoetic roots. This book shows how we got to where we are now, and where we can go from here.
Astrology and the Archetypal Power of Numbers, Part Two
651 pages
published May 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9747626-3-0
$39.95 + Shipping and Handling
As we move through the numbers from Zero to Ten we observe a process by which Spirit enters ever more deeply into Matter, manifest as consciousness, available to humans and, in some way unknown or unrecognized by science, to all living things. As suggested in Part One, consciousness is hardwired into the living fabric of the manifest universe itself. This omnipresence of consciousness can be understood as Divine Intelligence, evidenced everywhere within the natural world as an ordering of reality according to principles that are at once pragmatic and archetypal. These ordering principles can be understood through a reference to number and through an observation of the patterns in which they appear. The patterns themselves manifest in a wide varieties of ways; some that can be observed and measured by science and others that can be better intuited through the metaphorical language of astrology.
In this book, I examine how number underlies the construction of the birthchart – both in general and specifically within a particular chart – so that we can better understand how Spirit, or the gods and goddesses of the mythopoetic worldview, enter into our experience. At the same time, we will gain insight into how the exercise of consciousness in harmony with the patterns in a birthchart can contribute to the alignment of an individual life or an entire civilization with the natural law that embodies Divine Intelligence. The archetypal principles underlying number in general that were explored in Part One will be mapped more specifically to various dimensions of the birthchart.
Astrology and the Archetypal Power of Numbers, Part Two is the third book in The Astropoetic Series.
To view the Table of Contents for this book, go here.
To read the entire Introduction, go here.
To read reviews and endorsements, go here.
To purchase a copy, go here.
Astrology and the Archetypal Power of Numbers, Part One
362 pages
Published January 2011
ISBN: 978-0-9747626-2-3
$19.95 + Shipping and Handling
Using The Theology of Arithmetic by Imablichus (translated by Robin Waterfield) as a primary source and point of departure, the book aims to give a visceral sense of number in a qualitative sense, weaving together a collage of ideas from mythology, cutting-edge science, history, politics, and personal experience.
Building upon the astro-logic of the chakras, introduced in Tracking the Soul With An Astrology of Consciousness, this new book shows how an integration of the chakras is implicated in our collective evolution.
The book explores how number is 'pre-existent to consciousness' – encoded in our collective psychology as human beings, and in the construction of the universe of which we are conscious. The more deeply we go into this great mystery, the more apparent it becomes that not only does the world shape us into becoming who we think we are, but that as we participate consciously within the world, we help shape the animus mundi, or soul of the world.
This book is Part One of a two-volume series. Subtitled A Contemporary Reformulation of Pythagorean Number Theory, it takes the reader on a meandering exploration of Pythagorian teachings about number, showing how the divine intelligence at the heart of number manifests in personal experience, collective history, mythology, politics and culture.
Astrology and the Archetypal Power of Numbers, Part One is the second book in The Astropoetic Series.
To view the Table of Contents for this book, go here.
To read the entire Introduction, go here.
To read reviews and endorsements, go here.
To purchase a copy, go here.
Tracking the Soul With an Astrology of Consciousness
470 pages
Published January 2007
ISBN: 978-0974762616
$24.95 + Shipping and Handling
Although few astrologers would argue that any birthchart is written in stone, beyond the exercise of free will, choice or consciousness, little is written about the subjective interplay between astrological symbolism and the consciousness exercised in relation to it. This book — the first in a series elaborating an astropoetic approach to astrology — is an attempt to remedy this omission through an integration of astrology with the chakra system. Tracking the Soul With An Astrology of Consciousness includes a comprehensive system of spiritual psychology, detailed astrological case studies for each chakra, anecdotes from the author’s personal experiences as an astrologer and student of Yogi Bhajan and Swami Muktananda, and suggestions for working with the system in an open-ended way.
The chakra patterns formed in the birthchart are not fated to be lived the same way throughout a lifetime, but rather represent the point of departure for a lifelong journey of self-discovery and growth, as well as the unconscious default to which we revert in times of stress and crisis. As these patterns are activated in real time by transits and progressions, we experience periodic opportunities for making more conscious choices in relation to our patterns, and bringing them into higher, more authentic, more empowered forms of expression.
In exploring the ways in which chakra patterns are identified, activated and approached with conscious intent, Tracking the Soul With an Astrology of Consciousness presents a comprehensive approach to personal growth.
Tracking the Soul is the first book in The Astropoetic Series.
To view the Table of Contents for this book, go here.
To read the entire Introduction, go here.
To read reviews and endorsements, go here.
To purchase a copy, go here.
The Seven Gates of Soul
457 pages
Published August 2004
ISBN: 978-0974762609
$29.95 + Shipping and Handling
The Seven Gates of Soul traces a fascinating 6000-year history of ideas about the soul. Using the ancient Mesopotamian myth of goddess Innana’s passage through seven gates as a metaphor, I explore the barriers to a true understanding of soul erected by religion, philosophy, science, and psychology, while offering insightful solutions.
In Part One, I examine the religious concepts of immortality and sin, showing how these ideas interfere with the soul’s ability to understand its journey as a neutral learning process, taking place in the here and now. In Part Two, i look more closely at the limitations of the rational mind, the scientific notion that our understanding of truth must be objective, science’s insistence on causality as an explanation for everything, and other implications of the scientific worldview, In Part Three, I track the history of science’s influence on psychology, and shows how, liberated from its scientific trappings, all psychological process is the reflection of an intimately personal struggle toward spiritual awakening.
Throughout the book, but especially In Part Four, I demonstrate in some detail how a modified form of astrology can help us transcend the barriers posed by these other disciplines and add a rich dimension to our understanding of ourselves that is currently missing in our culture. Taken as a whole, the book is a multi-disciplinary approach to an age-old question that breathes new life into the quest of every individual for a life of deeper meaning and purpose.
How Two Horses Running
Earned His Secret Medicine Name
98 pages
published September 1993
ISBN: none
$9.95 + Shipping and Handling
How Two Horses Running Earned His Secret Medicine Name is the story of an Osage Indian boy, growing up in the Ozarks at the turn of the 19th century, when Thomas Jefferson was president, and the new stolen nation of the United States was forever changing the lives of the indigenous peoples already here.
Within the context of this historical backdrop, Two Horses running is coming of age - coping with the usual demands of the everyday life of his people, as well as his own volatile emotions in the face of events beyond his control, including a personal tragedy for which he feels responsible. Helping him through all of this is a wise and mysterious mentor named Laughing Eagle, whose true identity is not revealed until the end of the story. Under Laughing Eagle's tutelage, Two Horses Running becomes a hero to his people and earns recognition by his tribe for bravery in the face of impossible odds.
Suitable for children as well as adults who never got the recognition as children that they always craved, the book is meant to read aloud and savored, a bit at a time, stopping at appropriate places to maintain suspense.
How Two Horses Running Earned His Secret Medicine Name is beautifully illustrated by the prolific Ozark's artist Michael McClure, known for his colorful landscapes, portraits and local murals, More of his work can be seen on his website.
To purchase a copy, go here.
Full Moon Meditations
238 pages
published May 1993
ISBN: none
$14.95 + Shipping and Handling
This book is a compilation of essays written from 1977 - 1992. Each was written as a free-form exercise in interpreting the chart for each Full Moon throughout this period. These interpretations were not an expression of traditional astrology, in which the placement of planets in signs and houses, in aspect to each other, serves as the basis for a delineation of possibilities, but rather as an intuitive exercise in feeling my way into the zeitgeist of the times.
Many of the meditations are quite personal, documenting my own process of making sense of life's experiences, while weaving together whatever bits and pieces of wisdom, homegrown or borrowed, I happened to be harvesting at the time. As has become the fashion since, I wrote many of these pieces from the perspective of the collective "we," having abandoned this style since through the deepening realization that we don't all experience the astrological dynamics du jour in the same way. Nonetheless, this collection shows the gradual evolution of my style and thought process over the course of 15 years.
included in this collection are also the Skylight Series - an early precursor to Tracking the Soul With an Astrology of Consciousness - in which I weave together astrology and yogic philosophy; as well as an article about the power of the Full Moon as a portal to significant self-reflection and insight; plus three additional essays from my days as a workshop presenter at the Long Dance in the magical New Mexico desert.
The Birth of the Shining One
144 pages
published September 1988
ISBN: 0-912949-23-6
$8.95 + Shipping and Handling
My first book was published in 1988 and is now out-of-print. It was written during a more innocent age, as a kind of New Age manifesto, outlining a vision of what might be possible if we could only all actualize our full potential as unique individuals and pull together and work, beyond our personal needs, for the well being of the whole. The belief in this possibility was perhaps a bit naive, given historical developments over the past 30+ years, but much of the wisdom underlying this vision stands rooted in perennial philosophy, and even now, with the more mature perspective of hindsight, I stand by it without embarrassment or apology. My only regret is that we have not yet seen the manifestation of the vision I had in my reckless youth, while my most fervent hope is that one day we will.
From the Foreword
Sun Bear once said that if a philosophy does not grow corn, he is not interested in it. I agree. I am not interested in words and ideas that are not applied and lived. Joe lives what he believes. There is reality and substance to his words. He has something unique to offer to us all. He is a special friend, a brother, a co-worker. May The Birth of the Shining One succeed in touching many hearts. It is a powerful and insightful volume, designed to awaken in us what we have always known, but what we so often forget in this sensory land of wonder and challenge. I am happy to welcome its light into the world.
Ken Carey, August 1988
