self focus)
Numerology is the mainstay
of my life. I am a professional numerologist/astrologer.
Not the sidewalk gypsy kind of fortune teller who says only what you want
to hear but a serious, full-time (tax filings and all), metaphysical reader
who's been at it for 24 years. My clients have included the entire
gamut of the human spectrum, all professions, cultural backgrounds, ages,
races, religions, and sexual preferences. My profession started as
a "thing," as we used to call hobbies, pastimes, and interests back in
the 60s and 70s. On a hot day while bookstore shopping in an old
part of Houston, I went into a health food store to buy some iced tea.
I'm not fond of so-called "natural" products but I was walking, and this
was the closest place in 92 degree weather. After buying my beverage, I
wandered to the back of the store, where I found a large bookshelf filled
with books on everything from "channeling," the practice of reverting to
another place and even another time
(I wasn't in the mood to channel out of my body,
so I bypassed that section), to tarot, palmistry, astrology and, lo and
behold, a lone book with the number 3 on the cover. The latter was
a book on numerology. Throughout my extremely bored times during
high school and college lectures, as well as while just sitting and thinking,
I had scribbled the number 3, so I went straight for the numerology text.
I took the book to a nearby table and began reading. I then found
out why I had scribbled the number 3 so often. This was the beginning
of a very long love affair with numerology. I left the store with the numerological
work, as well as books on tarot, palmistry and astrology. My shopping
trip and my day were complete.
As the years passed, I gave readings for friends, co-workers, girlfriends, and anyone else who asked for information. When I began my metaphysical journey, I figured that the simplistic definitions provided in the many numerological works I read would tell me some of what I wanted and needed to know, but something was lacking. Through my experience in giving readings, I found that the missing ingredient was my own contribution to numerology based on the "intuitive" feelings I got during many readings as well as the trends I saw in people's numerological charts. I also felt a need to incorporate astrology. I noticed some interesting correlation between the date of birth and certain planetary influences I had studied in astrology, though astrology and numerology texts I read didn't address any correlation between numbers and planets. After I began developing and using my theory on how numbers were influenced by the heavens, I discovered that certain Hindu numerologists had been using a version of this system for centuries. Not only did this show me I wasn't being overly creative, but it also was yet another of the many examples I had noticed over the years of how ideas are universal. Around that time, I also stopped using "name numerology," i.e., using the numerological value of the letters in a person's name. Names are cultural and social, whereas birth dates are universal.
In 1988, a woman I was dating told me to go professional with my skills. I had been raised in a working class "steak and potatoes" environment, and the thought of charging for what I saw as a hobby seemed as close as the Moon. I figured my girlfriend was just so enamored with me that she wasn't thinking straight at the moment. We were having lunch in a Taco Bell at the time, and a man at a nearby table had asked me for a reading when he heard me giving my girlfriend information. I finally gave in to her suggestion and told the man I would read for him. At the end of the five-minute reading, he handed me 5.00 without my asking. All I could say to myself was, "I'll be damned!" That utterance was 12 years ago. In 1995, after 24 years of many a different careers and jobs including, jack-hammer operator for a day, delivery man, warehouse worker, office clerk, library assistant, part-time movie and television bit part extra, mid level manager at an oil company, convenience store clerk, long-term substitute teacher, and occasional junior college lecturer, I "bit the bullet" and went into giving readings full-time. As the Grateful Dead once sang, "It's been a weird, wonderful, trip," having given over 12,000 readings in my home, at clubs, restaurants, at psychic fairs in 3 (there's that damn number 3 again) states, at the Texas Renaissance Festival, as a host of a weekly radio talk show, as well as through a few major psychic lines. My private clients have been as far away as England.
Do I use just "cold, hard, numbers" and astrological insights in my readings, as one woman once asked me. As I said earlier, I throw in a bit of the old-fashioned intuitive, otherwise known as "psychic," ability that God gave all of us. This intuition first came on strong when I was a boy during the Cold War 60s. Everyone who talked geopolitics felt the US and the Soviets would destroy the world in a nuclear holocaust, but I wasn't worried because I knew it wouldn't happen. I also knew that the U.S. involvement in the War in Vietnam would end in 1973. I predicted that the United States combat deaths in the Allied war with Iraq would be between 75 and 150. I had an "inkling" about the L.A. riots occurring but knew I would not suffer from them, and I didn't. I moved myself, my ex-wife, and our newborn cat, Shiva, out of Los Angeles December 31, 1993 because I felt that yet something else devastating was about to occur. The big quake hit Los Angeles January 17, 1994. During my radio talk show Number Crunching With Karl Mason at KGLE in Carson City, Nevada in 1993, I predicted that President Clinton would pull off some "magic" in 1996 that would get him re-elected and that he would continue to pull tricks out of the bag to keep himself in office. I also told many of my psychic line callers that Dallas would win the National Championship in 1996, even though I am one of the few hetero American men who doesn't follow sports. I also have predicted the winning team in games, as well as the point spread.
Now that I've spilt my
ego over the Internet, what else do I do or enjoy? I've traveled
over 50,000 miles in our large and wondrous nation, with a few forays into
Mexico and one into Canada. I have written poetry, short stories,
and a science fiction novella, all of which I've not tried to get published,
and now I am working on a book about my method of giving readings, Strictly
By The Numbers.
My favorite serious music composers are: Erik Satie, Dvorak, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Brahms, and Antonio Carlos Jobim. I used to be a percussionist, playing everything from timpani to vibraphone to a drum set. My all-time favorite groups and musicians are: Carlos Santana, Cream, The Rolling Stones, J. Geils Band, The Blasters, Antonio Carlos Jobim (my greatest musical and emotional inspiration, as well as the father of the Bossa Nova), Art Blakey (his drumming style is mine) and Ginger Baker: (his drumming style also is mine)
My one and only real regret in life is that, because of parking problems, I wasn't able to get into a Jobim concert in Los Angeles in 1993. He died the next year. I felt as though my second father had died.
My favorite authors of years past are: Henrich Boll, Peter Handke, Hermann Hesse, Jerzy Kosinski (the name of this page came from a book he never wrote), and Charles Bukowski. I was into the "Buk" long before he became an idol of the X Generation. Nay, while most of them were in diapers or not yet born. Nowadays my reading is centered around astrological texts, Internet and computer related news, business news, and current event articles (my mental and academic needs have changed with my direction).
Speaking of the letter "X," shows I have and still enjoy are: X Files, the original Star Trek, the original Outer Limits (the best science fiction program of all time). I prefer the original Star Trek series over the overly politically correct Next Generation series and all the other overdone science fiction spin-offs (worm holes be damned; give me an old-fashioned bug-eyed alien creature invasion any day of the week). I also love watching drama, and mysteries over most movies, as well as an occasional good comedy. I began learning software programs at the late age of 36 and through trial and many an error, I became a minor Windows 95/98 expert. I surf the Net and check the news groups almost every day.
Does my photo remind you of anyone? Among those I've been told I look like are: Mike Myers, Robert Blake (In Cold Blood, Barretta), Wes Studi, who was the lead in Geronimo, which also starred Gene Hackman. At Wes' baby shower in 1993, a woman came up to me and asked if I was his brother, to which I replied, "No we're from different tribes." Wes Studi is Cherokee, and I am part dirt farmer Aztec or, Azteca, as they say in Mexico.
I am half Mexican Indian and half Polish. I was the 3rd son (there's that number 3). My mother immigrated to the States after spending the early 40s as a slave laborer for the Germans. She didn't want to return to communist dominated Poland, and the Allies offered her 4 countries for resettlement. That's right, she chose the USA. One of her uncles had died fighting the German invasion in 1939, and her parents, a brother and several other relatives were killed during bombing raids and crossfire between the advancing Soviets and the retreating Germans during the latter days of the War. Irony of ironies: her parents, aunt, and brother went into a cellar to hide out from artillery fire. They all were killed by a stray shell, yet the house they had fled was untouched. My dad was one of the original US Army Rangers in World War 2 and one of the few who barely got out alive of the Rapido River massacre, but he didn't meet my mother in Europe. He was a Harley riding auto mechanic in South Texas at the end of the war, and she was a house-keeper. In 1992, while living in Los Angeles, I suddenly woke up from a nap one afternoon and thought, "dad's dead," but I wrote off the feeling to post L.A. riot shell shock. Less than a week later I helped carry my father to his grave. He always told me to follow my dreams. Towards his latter years our old souls came closer together, and we began to think more and more alike. I cry sometimes when I think about him.
I rescued a half-starved kitten from the San Fernando Valley in mid 1993. After she had lived with me a few months, I found her voraciously chewing on a copper statue of the Hindu deity Shiva that I kept on my dining table. From that point on, she was named Shiva. Shiva and one of her kittens suddenly died in the Fall of 1996, but 3 (here we go again with that number 3) of her babies remain healthfully obnoxious as ever. This is my 3rd (see what I mean?) generation of cats. I don't believe they really are cats, but gluttonous hogs with very pointed ears and fur.
I have 3 mottos (that's right, the damn number 3 again):
Revised May 5, 2000 (Avoiding Mercury Retrograde)
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