Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight as I write this, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Let's start things out with a quote again: 

 

"There are faculties in the soul of man which correspond to the subtler planes of existence, which exert an influence on these planes, and are in turn influenced by them.  Most people ignore the existence of these planes and these faculties, yet if we observe life as it goes past us, we cannot fail to be struck by the fact that there are tides and eddies in the affairs of men which cannot be explained by the material sequence of cause and effect.  It is these subtle tides and eddies that the occultist studies, and he has been able as a result of his studies to formulate certain definite laws with regard to them." 

 

That's from Dion Fortune's Practical Occultism in Daily Life, one of the books of hers that did an enormous amount to shape my understanding of magic and the occult.   

Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. (Any question received after then will not get an answer, and will likely just be deleted.) If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

 

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With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***

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Comments

Death & Dying

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I’ve been doing a lot of exploring in terms of spiritual teachings, particularly after-death concepts. The teachings are all over the place, as you likely know. Most recently, I was listening to an audiobook about death and dying from a Buddhist perspective. I was not aware of just how harrowing the (Tibetan) Buddhist perspective on death was before now. According to these teachings, the last thought at death potentially determines everything else that comes after—various terrifying encounters with 52 wrathful deities and 48 peaceful ones (or something like that)—and then one’s reincarnation (where a person would likely end up as a donkey or other animal because their thoughts and karma were all over the place, with a human reincarnation—and thus, the prospect of awakening—very unlikely, etc.)

This struck me as fairly frightening—and then depressing. I suppose the universe doesn’t owe me or anyone else countless opportunities to clean themselves up and get with it, but the prospect of turning into a donkey and falling so far away from waking up is terrifying. I understand that Plotinus and other Westerners have posited similar after-death concepts, with the possibility of continual devolution to the point of becoming a plant. Then, on the other hand, there are the innumerable near-death experience and mediumship accounts of our current era in which experiencers return with a sense that Reality is much less exacting, much more forgiving and accepting of human foibles and weaknesses than more ancient concepts. Mediums tend to agree with this overall view, for whatever that’s worth.

What, in your view, is most essential to preparing oneself for a good death, good afterlife, and good rebirth? Which picture is more accurate—the Tibetan/Transmigration view or the contemporary NDE/mediumship view (or neither?). Any recommendations of previous articles, books, etc, are extremely welcome.

Thank you very much!

Re: Death & Dying

[ecosophia]

The religions of the Piscean era -- of which Mahayana Buddhism is one -- for some reason put a lot of time and energy into trying to scare people into obedience by threatening them with a horrible fate after death. That seems very counterproductive to me. The teachings that I follow derive partly from the Druid Revival tradition and partly from Western occultism, with its Pythagorean and Platonic roots; I draw on both because their accounts are clearly talking about the same thing, and each fills in blanks in the other.

First, the universe is not out to get you, and if the faith you follow leads to being assaulted by 52 wrathful deities when you die, you're probably doing something wrong. Your last thought means a lot less than the state of consciousness you're in when you die, and that's far less important than your overall state of consciousness in the last years of your life. When you die, if you practice religious devotion of any kind, you can expect the deity you worship, or an angel or emissary of that deity, to be there to help your soul through the process of shedding your material body and dealing with the transition -- that's one of the good things about religion. You may or may not be lucid during this process -- a lot of people go through it in something close to the dream state -- but it can be a very luminous and happy dream.

After a period of a few days, you pass through the second death (the shedding of the etheric body) and become conscious on the astral plane. Where on the astral plane you end up is determined by the state of consciousness you've reached in your mature years, and depending on that, it can be heaven or it can be hell. (In the occult view, this experience is where the idea of heaven and hell come from.) There are various stages in this part of the afterlife, but basically what you're doing is reliving the memories of the life just finished so that their lessons can be absorbed by your immortal soul. When that's finished, depending on how far you've developed on the mental plane, you may or may not waken to consciousness on the lowest level of the mental plane. If you do, you have some choice about some of the details of your next life.

Next comes rebirth. Your state of consciousness, the state of your karma, and the pressure of your destiny (the will of your higher self) all determine what this is. Under most circumstances, if you've reached the human level, you stay there until you're ready to go further. It can happen, if you mess up badly enough, that you can be reborn as an animal to absorb certain lessons you didn't develop the first time around; this is akin to being sent back a grade in school. Under most circumstances, though, you'll be reborn in a human body, and your parents, family, environment, and circumstances will be such as to assist you to confront your most important karmic issues and develop those human capacities you haven't yet developed.

As for what you can do, there are three things: ethical virtue, religious worship, and the practice of spiritual disciplines. Ethical virtue sees to it that you generate positive karma and help make sure the karma you face in your next life is easier than the one you had to deal with in this life. Religious worship sees to it that you have a connection with a deity who will help you in death as well as in life. Spiritual disciplines raise your level of consciousness so you can spend the time between lives in the heavenly rather than the hellish aspect of the astral plane, and it also brings you closer to the time when you can pass out of human incarnation and rise to what the old Druid teachings call Gwynfydd, the Luminous Life.

“In Praise of Johnny Appleseed”

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John!
“In Praise of Johnny Appleseed” went a bit better this week. I still sat down sweaty, but… after last week’s Conan-pushing-the-millstone experience, I figured I’d call for more motive power. I looked at a map of the Ohio River, played “Mississippi Queen” by Mountain, and then recited the poem. Worked.
While catching my breath, I looked at my recently departed dog’s picture on my ancestor altar. One of his better tricks was going to a person by name. So… I said, “Go find Samuel Clemens. Ask for help.”. Among our national ancestors, I figured he would be among the most interested in averting a civil war… and probably favorable to the use of steamboats in magic.
Then, I read your post entitled “The Root of Madness,” and pondered how it is that a good chunk of the US population can’t hear itself. Today, I woke up thinking about “The War Prayer.” Hmm… “God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two – one uttered, the other not.” Sounds right to me. I guess all I can do is take the advice to pay attention to what I’m thinking and saying.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_War_Prayer
Speaking of war – and please forgive me for being both new and dismal – what do Druids do when war (magical or temporal) becomes unavoidable?
Apologies for asking for a single source for the Celtic Pantheon last week. My background is in English lit, so I’m used to thinking of the Greek and Roman Pantheons as they appear in Renaissance and Enlightenment era arts. (You know – the ones that look like the bridge of the Enterprise.) Let me try again. The Druidry Handbook holy day ritual for Alban Elued invokes Esus. Is there anything short and online written by and for Druids that I can read for background?
Many thanks,
Rusty

Re: “In Praise of Johnny Appleseed”

[ecosophia]

It sounds to me as though Sam Clemens got the message and sent some help! It used to be quite traditional for the dead to talk to the living by way of thoughts suddenly surfacing on waking. As for war, as with most things about Druidry, one size emphatically does not fit all. Each Druid has to make his or her own decision in matters of conscience such as that. I don't know of anything short and online on Esus; you might just have to invite him and learn about him from the experience!

[(Anonymous)]

1) Two weeks ago I asked about an apparent astral parasite, and think I have something else going on: I recognize it as provisional living. During one of my journaling sessions my subconscious went straight to "It's porn's fault". I asked how because it didn't make sense, and then it said "Porn is the root of all my problems."

I've then found my subconscious outright asking to talk about porn, since that would be easier. Each time I've defused it by asking if it'll actually be willing to address the porn problem, each time it says no and then I'm able to get it back on track by saying it has to pick one.

At this point my plan is still to address other problems first, since the issue is that I think porn has been so heavily weighted with emotional energies that I won't make much headway there for a while.

Is there a way to tell if it's just provisional living or there's an astral parasite involved? Either way, I plan to continue with journaling and working my way through LRM, and I'm far from sure it makes a difference...

2) One of the biggest issues I have is that I have what I'll be generous and call some entitlement issues. I feel I deserve a lot more than I have, and that I shouldn't need to work for it since the universe ought to just give me whatever I happen to want. I grew up very much upper middle class, and recognize this as a major issue with my class, and now I'm recognizing it in myself and I don't like the fact it shapes so much of my behaviour and attitudes towards the world.

Do you have advice on how to overcome this? I'm planning to continue to journal on the topic and try to address it and deflate my over developed ego, as well as making a habit of getting up to actually do things I need to do even if I don't want to do them, but is there anything else I can do to accelerate the process of dealing with this?

[ecosophia]

1) Fascinating. No, there's no easy way to tell whether something like that is an astral parasite or an internal habit; over time, it may become clear, if (for example) the habit seems to have a very definite consciousness of its own.

2) You're fighting to overturn a lifetime of programming. Modern industrial society feeds the notion of entitlement to its inmates, since that makes them easy to manipulate. The crucial point is to be aware of it, recognize that it's cultural programming, and keep challenging it; that you can see it clearly shows that you've already won more than half the battle.

[tutti_quanti]

I'd heard about this story a few weeks ago and almost mentioned it here, seems more apropos now however. This fellow was electrocuted and "died" for 11 minutes:


“All of a sudden, I just woke up in a place that seemingly I’d always been. It was black and it kind of seemed like space,” said Tapp.

“I wasn’t Adam, I wasn’t a paramedic, I wasn’t anything. It was just like this raw form of consciousness where I was just existing very happily and pleasantly.”

Tapp said he then felt a “frequency” wash over him and saw what looked like “gasoline on water with all these geometric shapes and patterns,” adding that something was communicating with him through “thoughts and feelings and emotions.”

“I just started fading into the fabric of the universe. It was so warm and peaceful and pleasant.”

His sense of time was a bit confused, but what was more surprising is that he didn’t feel quite at home in his body.

“It actually took me a while to feel comfortable in my body again. Just breathing — I was so hyper-aware of having to take a breath,” he said.

“It took me a couple months — I just felt so foreign in my body.”

“What I take away from it is this absolute, unequivocal feeling that death is supposed to happen. It might not be pleasant and we might not want it, but it is supposed to happen and it is very literally a necessary part of all life.”

https://globalnews.ca/news/6511832/near-death-experience-london-man-shares-what-its-like-to-die-and-then-come-back/

[ecosophia]

Nice. That's one way some people experience the immediate after-death state.

Discursive Meditation for Kids

[tunesmyth]

Last week, you wrote, “Children used to be taught simple forms of discursive meditation as soon as they could talk clearly. There should be no trouble with it at all.”

Are you willing to expand on what these juvenile forms of discursive meditation might look like? Or do you know a source that describes them?

Re: Discursive Meditation for Kids

[ecosophia]

Sure. Children were taught to keep a notebook in which they wrote down passages in the books they read that struck them as important, or moving, or worth serious thought; those passages then became themes for meditation. Selected Bible verses were also common themes for discursive meditation. Another common approach was to take a list of virtues, and devote (say) a month to each of them; the child would spend a little time each morning thinking about that month's virtue, and then would try to do every day at least one thing that expressed that virtue in everyday life. Ben Franklin talks about doing this in his autobiography, iirc.

Plane Metaphor

[tunesmyth]

As it’s been a source of some discussion in recent weeks how we can bridge the gap between the physical and the spiritual via the astral and etheric planes, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it. You’ve described the planes as discrete and not continuous, with points of contact. Does this look like a rainbow— the red band is clearly a separate area from the red band, but there is no actual clear dividing line between the two colors— rather, there is a transition where the two colors blend? And so, as the material plane has some overlap with the etheric plane, so also the upper etheric blends with the lower astral, and the upper astral blends with the lower spiritual, and so forth?

Re: Plane Metaphor

[ecosophia]

A rainbow is a very good metaphor for it, because those overlap zones unquestionably exist -- despite which, in practical matters, it usually works best to treat the planes as discrete and not continuous.

[(Anonymous)]

What would happen if someone was foolish enough to try "The Devil Game"? Would there be any effect?

*link: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Devil_Game

[ecosophia]

There might be. It would depend entirely on the level of concentration and intensity of will the person has, and on whether the entity he's summoning wants to talk to him.

[(Anonymous)]

Some questions.

How important is it to fully extend your arms upward in the Hammer Sign?

How important is it to do it in the center of the space? (The center of the space has a light fixture I'd hit.)

[ecosophia]

You can also do the Hammer Sign at the eastern quarter, standing where you'd stand to trace the pentagram to the east. Does that help?

Mishaps, Merlin and Mushrooms

[boulderchum]

Salutations JMG! My recent reading through Mystery Teachings from the Living Earth and the recent Cosmic Doctrine have felt as if you or something is speaking to me, as if it's finally the right time for me to internalize the lessons needed for the upcoming stage in life. It's really quite something to feel, so thank you.

1) On a previous Magic Monday somebody mentioned getting physically injured and having bad luck after the invoking form of the LRP. I didn't get to reply in time, but I've noticed the exact same thing - breaking things on the jobsite, bad luck and misfortune cropping up. Not in an extreme way, but days where I miss my LRP practice seem less eventful than days where I open the morning with a LIRP (yes I always banish at the end of the day). I'm not going to let it stop me though, I'll try a hoodoo bath and get my friend to perforate just outside my etheric body with a sharp knife in case it's some sort of entity. Could this be a karmic effect?

2) I'm planning to begin the Mysteries of Merlin on the Winter Solstice, and I think I might have passed the Ovate grade by then (despite the current round of delays). Do the rituals build momentum by being performed at the Ovate grades first, or would it be equally effective to start the Merlin rituals in the Bardic grade?

3) I won't be able to apply this knowledge for quite a while, but I'm still curious: what do you know about the magical dimensions of mushrooms?
It strikes me as odd that there is a massive body of astrological lore about herbs and trees, yet there is an entire Kingdom of organisms that are overlooked. A kingdom of life that is closer to animals than plants (they exhale carbon dioxide!), builds huge mycelium networks that look and function suspiciously like the neural networks of the brain, is capable of terrestrial bioluminescence, contains species with an antibiotic capability thousands of times higher (when compounded) than most commercial drugs, plays a significant role in the pollination cycles of bees, can break down toxins and oil spills in the soil, and is responsible for giving us bread and beer! If there's no magical book on the powers of mushrooms, then I intend to write one someday in the far future!
That being said, some caution would seem to be prudent. Fungi literally feed on death (although some feed on captured nematodes, and others are mutualistic with tree roots) and are clearly a telluric current phenomenon, which has its own risks if mishandled. Their position as the garbage disposal of nature that turns everything dead into fertile soil is quite Saturnian, which is to be respected and not treated lightly. Furthermore their connection to faery lore would imply that a mushroom worker might inevitably bump shoulders with some of the most powerful terrestrial spirits on the planet, which ought to make the hair on the back of anybody's neck stand up.

Risks being considered, what magical and ritual precautions would you suggest for working with fungi (beyond the obvious toxicological safety standards)? And if I've missed any resources like your Natural Magic Encyclopedia for fungi, I'd appreciate a pointer in the right direction.

Re: Mishaps, Merlin and Mushrooms

[ecosophia]

1) It may be ordinary karmic culmination -- the tendency of spiritual training to bring a bunch of unresolved karma into focus in a hurry. Certainly going ahead is the right thing to do.

2) You should certainly do the Ovate Circle version first. It definitely builds momentum.

3) There's very, very little on that subject, and for good reason. Fungi don't just feed on death, they are the primary vessels for death-energies in nature. Death is part of nature, and both necessary and good in its place, but messing with death-energies magically can involve some pretty spectacular risks. If you feel called to research that, by all means, but be careful.

Questions from a rootless capitalist financier

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

Thanks very much for your work. I am working through “Paths of Wisdom while also reading the “Weird of Hali” series and enjoying it immensely despite never having been a huge Lovecraft fan! A mixed bag of initial questions if I may...

1. Does the mage operate in what Henry Corbin called the “active imagination”? It seems to me that what Corbin references as the intermediate world, the “na Koja Abad” corresponds to Tiphareth in Hermetic magic? I know Corbin was a mason but I cannot find any reference to magic or the golden dawn in his works. I find this strange given it seems there is an obvious resonance?

2. My current practice is the Golden Dawn tradition is to do a daily banishing per Paths of Wisdom combined with daily meditation (10 mins) on Fortune’s the Cosmic Doctrine. I am approaching 2 months of this and plan to add in Middle Pillar after this 2 month period. Would I be correct in thinking this is adequate daily practice for the next year or so?

3. I am having trouble determining which deity I am being called to follow. I have felt called to Asia since I was young - I now live there and speak Japanese to a high degree of proficiency. However the gods of Japan have never spoken to me whilst I have had spiritual experiences praying to the god of the Bible and when I read the qu’ran. So I’m trying to work out why I would have these conflicting spiritual experiences- a call to Japan but then no spiritual answer when I get there followed by a resurgent experience with the Abrahamic “God of my fathers” (hence the interest in Corbin). Any tips on how to find the way forward? Could there be some way to combine these paths of mono and poly theism à la Dion Fortune?

4. Are there useful magical applications of the Japanese language? I am just plunging into the world of Kotodama (requires enhancing my kanji knowledge) but at this point I wonder if I should pack the whole thing in and learn Hebrew!

Many thanks
Rootless Brit Banker

Re: Questions from a rootless capitalist financier

[ecosophia]

1) The active imagination is one of the primary tools of the mage. If Corbin was an initiate of a magical lodge, he was likely forbidden by his oaths of initiation from talking about magic too openly -- that was quite common in his time.

2) That's a very good set of practices. The one thing I'd encourage you to add is some form of divination; Tarot might be a good choice, since you're doing Golden Dawn work.

3) The call to Japan may not have been spiritual in nature -- it may have been that you had karma to work out there, or that you needed something in Japanese culture. If the god that calls to you is the Abrahamic god, go with that.

4) Here again, if you're doing Golden Dawn work, do it all the way and learn Hebrew. You can always do something else later, when you've mastered the Golden Dawn system.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

I'm starting a long-term magical project of personal transformation. The aim of the project is to become charismatic and seductive to members of the opposite sex (I'm a man). Currently I don’t fit this profile for what I assume are psychological reasons. I have a deeply ingrained feeling of inferiority, a sense of being unlovable, and an insecurity that I believe gets projected into my behavior and affects my relationships with women.

I'd like to get your feedback on how to turn this into a reality. Following your advice on magical ethics, I decided to focus on changing myself rather than overriding the will of anyone else.

In general, I see the work as consisting of two parts:

i. Removal of limiting unconscious beliefs: feelings of inferiority, unlovability, insecurity, lack of self-confidence, low self-esteem, and so on.

ii. Substitution with alternate beliefs: confidence, high self-esteem, love of life and women

I believe that I have to change myself on a deep level, not just on a superficial one. It can’t be a matter of changing external behavior alone, since behavior is usually a reflection of underlying beliefs in the unconscious. I see the unconscious mind as being central to this project, because it guides our behavior most of the time. I have to change the unconscious first, and the behavior will follow suit. (As an aside, lots of contemporary dating advice tells men to make superficial changes like adopting a certain persona or appearance – I consider this to be ineffective because people are excellent judges of fakeness). I want to become the kind of man that women legitimately love and want to be with, for myself, not because I’m putting on a façade.

Given the above, I have the following questions:

1. What should be the general direction of the project? Should I deal with each issue in turn (for example, start by addressing the feelings of inferiority, then the unlovability, and so on) or take some other approach?

2. What kind of magical techniques are suitable? For the record, my background is in the Golden Dawn tradition (I’m almost done with LRM), and I have some basic knowledge of natural magic. I’m also familiar with more conventional psychotherapies like CBT. My daily practice consists of the LBRP, MP, tarot divination and meditation , which I’ve done daily for about 8 months (pretty introductory stuff, I know). Do I have enough tools to get the job done?

3. I get the impression that this is the work of several years. Do you have any general advice for me (or anyone in the commentariat who might share my aim) before I get started with this project? Are there any blind spots I should pay attention to?

4. Are you familiar with anyone who's attempted something similar, and if so, can you share some of the lessons learned?

[ecosophia]

Good. Your attitude is the kind that leads to constructive results.

1) The approach I'd suggest is to go deep. All those issues are knotted together in the deep places of your mind, and probably linked to old karma and past life experiences. To overcome them you need to awaken to a higher level of consciousness than the one you currently are at. That requires a balanced program of spiritual development combined with specific magical work to unravel the issues. Don't worry about individual symptoms; work on transforming yourself by coming into contact with suitable magical energies, which can straighten out the mess.

2) The Golden Dawn tradition is extremely well suited to this sort of thing, but you're going to need to add to your current toolkit. I'm going to risk tooting my own horn a bit and suggest that once you've finished LRM you go on to Circles of Power, which has the additional rituals you need. Once you've mastered the basic ingredients of magical ritual, you can then pursue workings for spiritual development and combine that with the creation and consecration of a talisman of Venus, and quite probably other Venereal magical workings -- for example, evoking the intelligence of Venus and asking for that entity's advice and help would be smart, once you get to the point of being able to do that.

3) Before you start, think hard about what the endpoint of your work will be. Do you want to end up happily married to a woman who loves you? Or do you want to end up having lots of women interested in you for less permanent relationships? Those are not the same thing by a long shot, and you really do have to choose between them.

4) I don't happen to know anyone who's tackled that specific set of issues, but doing magical work to transform unhelpful aspects of one's personality is all but universal among serious Golden Dawn mages. My advice above is drawn from that experience, on my own part as well as that of others. The most important advice I can offer, again, is not to address symptoms. Call the appropriate magical energies into play and let them address the problem at the level of root causes; the symptoms will then dissolve of themselves.

[ganeshling]

Hi JMG,

In the last update on your mundane astrology project you wrote... And I hope it's OK to mention it here - if not, please delete this post... You wrote that a T-square is usually resolved by the sign and house that would be the 4th corner of the square. I have a couple of questions on that:

1) Does it still work for natal astrology?

2) If yes, how does it work when the square is not perfect (is it ever?)? I have a T-square in my natal chart with a little complication: the central planet is in the first degrees of its sign while the side planets are both in the last degrees of theirs. The house for the 4th corner of the square is clear enough. The sign is a little more difficult because it can be either the late degrees of one or the early degrees of the next. How would it be calculated here? Or should I take both signs into account?

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, very much so.

2) The fourth point is in exact opposition to the fulcrum point; if the central planet is 2° Capricorn, for example, the fourth point will be 2° Cancer.

Process-based occult philosophy?

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, do you know of any streams of Western occult philosophy which emphasize understanding things as processes rather than as essences?

This question came to my mind after thinking about your answer to the question on Western nominalism denying metaphysical phenomena.

The general trend to do this seems widespread in Asian systems of esotericism from Daoism to various Indian schools.

However, correct me if I'm wrong, but Western esotericism, at least post-Heraclitus, has more of a realist, essentialist focus?

Thank you

Re: Process-based occult philosophy?

[ecosophia]

We don't have one of those yet. I'm hoping that someday, someone will use Whitehead's process philosophy as the basis for a philosophy of occultism, but it may be a few centuries before that happens.

[(Anonymous)]

I've determined the city I call home is going to have hard times in the next few years (mix of divination, news, and intuition). I've decided that I thus ought to move fairly soon, but I'm fairly sure I'll be able to take my time with planning it. I want to avoid moving again, and set down roots where I move to for the rest of my life (since I'm in my 20s and in good health, probably a few decades).

I have a basic grasp of Qabalistic magic, and have come up with the following steps as being the best course of action:

First, I'll take a look at what I can gather on the places which look promising. I live in Canada, don't want to leave the country and know I want access to passenger rail. This limits it to a very small number of cities/towns, so I'll be able to look at all of them. I'll make a list of cities/towns which look promising.

Second, I'll perform divination on the locations which look promising, as well as a general divination to see if I'm missing something overall. If the divinations suggest I've missed something important (ex: all look really bad, or the general divination says something really unexpected) I'll loop back to the first step, otherwise I'll pick a few of the most promising towns to visit.

I'll spend a day or so in each town, get a sense of the general vibe, and then if it looks good perform a final divination; if that final divination looks promising, then I'll start planning to move; otherwise, I'll loop back to a prior step.

1) Does this sound like overthinking it?

2) Are there other things you think I should do from an occult perspective?

[ecosophia]

No, you're not overthinking it. How are your astrological skills? If you can erect and interpret a chart, try casting a chart for each place as though you were born there, at the exact moment you were actually born (correcting for time zones, etc.) That will rotate some of your natal planets into different houses. Such a relocation chart is extremely good at predicting how a place will affect you. For example, moving from the West Coast to the East Coast rotated my natal Jupiter out of the 8th house into conjunction with my midheaven, and the result has been exactly the sort of sharply improved prosperity you get with Jupiter at midheaven...

Divination

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Mr. Greer,

Do you have any thoughts or advice for beginners to get started with a form of divination that gives yes/no answers?

Re: Divination

[ecosophia]

Geomancy is extremely good at that, and easy to learn, so long as you don't overthink it. (This is a common mistake of beginners.) My books Earth Divination, Earth Magic and The Art and Practice of Geomancy are the standard introductions these days -- you don't need both, either one will give you everything you need.

[emmanuelg]

Hi JMG,

I thought I would try a Geomantic reading with the question,
"Will Donald Trump win the 2020 US election?"

This seems to be a third-party question, so I think the Querent house should be 10, and the Quesited house should be the tenth house counterclockwise (using the tenth house as house 1); If I have counted correctly, that would be the usual house 7.

Does that sound correct so far?

And while we are talking, is there a Geomantic equivalent to the mundane horoscopes that are cast about the future courses of nations?

Thanks for any information you and the commentariat can give on these questions!


Cheers,

E. Goldstein

PS-- The results of the reading were not too unexpected. I mostly want to make sure I am doing the rotation of houses correctly, and see if you are aware of any historical special cases that apply to this sort of question.

[ecosophia]

Yes, you did the rotation correctly -- well done. (A lot of people mess that up.) As for mundane geomancy, the old books routinely give geomantic charts where the question is "How will the kingdom fare for the next year?" and each house is read as in an astrological ingress chart -- the first house tells you the condition of the common people, the second house tells you the state of the economy, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

What do you see as the limits or faults within the neo-Platonist movement?

[ecosophia]

It would take a book to answer that question, not least because the Neoplatonist movement covers a lot of territory -- Plotinus doesn't have the same strengths and weaknesses as Iamblichus, and the Christian Neoplatonism of pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite is another kettle of fish again.

[(Anonymous)]

It seems you speak of the madness/demon possession of the "comfortable classes" but also as well the madness of the "left".

Are the "comfortable classes" the (nearly) the same as the "left" in how you use those terms?

Are not the "Comfortable classes" filled with both left and right wingers?

[(Anonymous)]

"Are not the "Comfortable classes" filled with both left and right wingers?"

As someone who's in the comfortable classes and identifies as being on the right, no. A sizable portion of the class fled when Trump won the primaries in 2016; most of those who stuck around left once he won the general; and most of those who stuck around are leaving now that it's become clear the Republican Party is now quite effectively under the control of those people.

[(Anonymous)]

You say most of what is asked of you here is bunny slope questions and concerns.

What might be an example or two of a triple diamond slope question?

What questions do you want to see people asking more of?

[ecosophia]

1) Specific advice on the construction of a complex magical ritual using some of the more advanced techniques -- say, how to construct, consecrate, and use a flashing tablet -- asked by someone who knows what those are and simply needs some pointers about the obscure parts of the instructions. That would be well up there on the tough slopes.

2) I don't object at all to bunny slope questions. I do object to the kind of question that anyone can answer with five minutes spent on a search engine.

[(Anonymous)]

A patient at the psychward at my work threatened to kill me today. He might try sucker punching me.

I cannot take special items onto the floor...what can I do to protect myself?

[ecosophia]

Since I have no way of knowing what training you have in magic, if any, or what the protocols are for dealing with violent patients, or any of the other relevant facts, I have no idea.

Saturnine Musings

[kallianeira]

Hello JMG, Thank you for your continuing generosity in hosting this space and fostering the fabulous and illumining discussion which ensues.
With the themes with which this week's MM has begun, it is obviously opportune for me to continue in kind.

I'm pondering planetary charity or perhaps less formally an offering for Saturn. Namely, to tend a local cemetery. Although the grass is mown by Council, many of the old graves are neglected. They are covered in leaves, branches and bark from the surrounding eucalypt trees which are resistant to decomposition. The acid they leach is destructive to the sandstone structures.

According to Cornelius Agrippa, "all stinking places, dark, underground, religious and mournful places, as churchyards, tombs, and houses not inhabited by men, and old, tottering, obscure, dreadful houses, and solitary dens, caves and pits, also fishponds, standing pools, fens and such like are appropriated to Saturn." (thank you C. Warnock of Renaissance Astrology)

Cemeteries and decay being germane to Saturn, I'm diffident as to whether He would appreciate attempts to counter entropy there. (It seems possible He would consider tidying the graves to constitute interference...) Is tending disintegrating graves likely antithetical to His pleasure in disintegration? My personal aesthetic sense would argue for the reverse: there is a nice resonance between this activity and the wabi aesthetic (pointing out the beauty in that which is worn out, breaking down) and the cemetery/fungus axis. It's not as though I'd be restoring graves which are tumbledown and out of kilter, merely removing the rubbish that detracts from their peculiar wabi kind of beauty.

Not that I find them spooky at all, but do cemeteries' inhabitants generally present any threats to a well-wishing visitor? I don't have any personal connection to those buried around here and I perform a daily LBRP... are there other things to be watchful of?
I am also fascinated by Fungi, in a less active way than boulderchum, which are obviously among Saturn's interests and active in these places.

Not specially wanting reassurance for the good sense of my plot(!), but insights nd comments on this theme from you and others would be welcome.

Scintillating Iridescent Elver

Re: Saturnine Musings

[ecosophia]

You can certainly clean up a cemetery as an offering to Saturn. You're reaping grass and weeds, and Saturn is the reaper; you're also offering respect to those who came before you, and Saturn always appreciates that.

[(Anonymous)]

1. In Dion Fortune's Practical Occultism in Daily Life, it's suggested to meditate over experiences that connect similar problems so that memories from past lives that relate to the problem bubble up. What kind of problems/experiences are being talked about here? Are there examples you could provide?

2. I'm not sure if this a common experience, but when I was a kid I'd been able to get goosebumps at will a few times. The frequency and the success rate has been considerably higher since the past couple years, especially during meditation. It starts in the head or the heart region, travels in waves to the edge of the body. Is there any insight you could provide to help understand this?

nomad

[ecosophia]

1) Look for situations in your life that keep repeating. The same kind of relationship problems, say, with different partners, or the same kind of job problems at different jobs -- anything where the same unwelcome pattern pops up repeatedly. Meditate on those.

2) I've never read of this before and have no idea what to make of it.

Catholic saints

[(Anonymous)]

Hey jmg

I have been working with one of the catholic saints, Columba, and I have 2 questions about them.
1-in terms of occult philosophy what is a saint?
2- do you think the catholic saints are as much as they used to if you have anything to do with the Catholic Church, considering the state it’s in?

Re: Catholic saints

[ecosophia]

1) Every spiritual tradition I know of recognizes that some people are of such a high degree of spiritual standing that when they die, they remain active on the inner planes, and may be contacted by the living for help, guidance, and blessing. Sainthood is the Christian version of that concept.

2) The Catholic church has had a very checkered history. If the saints didn't abandon it in the 10th century, when the Papacy was handed out by a wealthy prostitute to a succession of her lovers and offspring, they're probably not going to bail on it now.

[(Anonymous)]

Does anyone else find that for a couple of days after a hoodoo bath you feel better, but also angrier?

[ecosophia]

Hmm! I've never had that happen. Anyone else?

[(Anonymous)]

In the different places you've lived, what have the rooms you've done magic in looked like? Have you ever had one that looked like the stereotypical wizard's lair? :)

Can you do ceremonial magic and alchemy in the same room?

[ecosophia]

Alas, no! My working rooms are always cluttered, with a desk on one side and lots of bookshelves. I do my writing in the same space where I practice magic -- and yes, I've also done alchemy in the same space.