Friday, June 16 | Alice Bailey's Birthday TODAY would be the 126th birthday of Alice A Bailey. She wrote one of the most influential astrology books that hardly anybody ever read. Admittedly, that's because it's not easy and scarcely makes any sense at all,  unless you're playing Dark Side of the Moon backwards while you read it by candlelight on a few glasses of absinth, until -- it makes perfect sense...for a moment. In this respect, it's first-rate occult literature, evocative and mind-bending, called Esoteric Astrology. It's part of a much larger body of work, A Treaties on the Seven Rays (it's volume three of that group, which also includes Esoteric Psychology, which was too mind-bending for me, but my old therapist Joe read it and all he would say was it was really out-there, which is noteworthy because he is too). This, in turn, factors among many more books written by Bailey between the 30s and the early 50s, helping bridge the original New Age movement of the late 1800s with the modern spiritual revival that began in the 60s. She was influential in the lives of many, and was close friends with one of the great heroes of 20th century astrology, Dane Rudhyar. For those who follow Mayan astrology, today is both Baily's solar birthday and her Mayan birthday -- Every 42 years the dates will correspond with each other. She was born 3 Ahau (3rd day of the Etznab pulse). Thanks to Carol Burkhart for the Mayan detail.