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: 

 

"The blossoming of the flower is a manifestation of universal law flowing through the plant; it is the will of the Infinite made manifest in the finite.  Illumination is the blossoming of the soul in man; it is just as natural, simple, and inevitable as the flowering of the rose. [...] When through realization we come to understand the divine energy that causes us to exist and grow, we cease to impede its natural flow in and through ourselves. " 

 

That's from Manly P. Hall's Self-Unfoldment by Disciplines of Realization, arguably Hall's best book and one of the classics of the Golden Age of American occultism.    

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.

 

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use the button below to access my online tip jar. If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

With that said, have at it!

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

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com!  

Comments

Improved Sleep

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a practice of placing a basin of water at the head of a bed to improve mental clarity and lucid dreaming capability?

Re: Improved Sleep

[ecosophia]

Good question. Presumably, since you've heard of it somewhere, somebody does it, but I'm not familiar with it.

[(Anonymous)]

"Synchronicity" was not really part of my vocabulary before your post on the topic, so I'm very ignorant about it. Meanwhile I've seen a lot of discussion here of Neopagans and others who think that they're serving gods but, people here believe, may actually be serving something else.

Can a synchronicity that seems to be leading someone to aid and/or to a relationship with a god, actually be leading them into the control of malign entities? (Like Beckett's claim of a relationship with the Morrigan which a commenter here mocked?)

[ecosophia]

What determines the grade of entity you contact is your own state of consciousness. If your mind's in a grubby place, you're not going to contact anything less grubby, while if you raise your state of consciousness through spiritual practice, you end up keeping a better grade of company. That's what leads people to think they're serving gods when they may be hanging out with something considerably less positive.

[(Anonymous)]

Last week I mentioned picking up the LBRP for addressing an internet addiction. It seems to help a lot, but I’ve realized part of it is also built up habits. I know I need to build knew habits; my current objective is to build a decent evening routine without internet, then I’ll target building a morning one, and I’ll keep at it, building new computer free habits until such time as I’m happy with the role the internet plays in my life. I’ll also resume journaling starting October 1. Now my questions:

1) I’ve got a weird imagery problem with the LBRP: Michael is described as wearing red and green, which in my mind is apparently strongly associated with Christmas. So when I imagine his presence he’s sometimes covered in Christmas ornaments and lights. I can make them vanish, but it takes a bit of effort to do it. Is this sort of thing normal? I assume it’ll get easier with practice, but it’s still a tad irritating...

2) I’ve started remembering dreams. I think I haven’t remembered any since I was a kid; but several days in a row now I’ve remembered a dream. Is this a common occurrence when someone starts banishing?

3) Is there a problem with vibrating the names of the archangels? I saw you say you don’t, but I’ve been doing it since I started, and it seems to work for me.

4) Would “I live an analog life” be a good affirmation to use here to further my goal of reducing the internet’s role in my life?

[ecosophia]

1) Don't make it generic Christmas red. Make it the color of flame -- he's the archangel of fire, after all.

2) Yes. If you want to explore your dreams, keep a notebook by your bedside and write them down as soon as you wake up.

3) No, some people do it that way; I simply learned it otherwise.

4) Nice, short, simple, and sweet. Go for it!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm getting quite worried about a civil war possibility. It’s gone from being implausible (June) to likely enough I need to plan for the possibility. This means assessing where I am, what I have, what skills I have, etc.

I’m starting on the practical elements, but I’m realizing I’m very fragile. I’m middle class, and Trump’s victory in 2016 shook me. I don't think I'm still that fragile, but I know I'm still very sheltered, and extremely fragile. If things go the way it looks like they could, I’m worried I’m going to just fall apart. Do you have advice on how to build mental strength to be able to handle the likely events of the future?

I have a little less than two weeks of Qabalistic magic (LBRP) at this point. Not enough to be useful as is, but figured I’d add this.

[ecosophia]

Sure. Keep working with the LBRP, and consider adding a few other basic practices -- a daily discursive meditation and a daily divination are good choices. (You can learn about discursive meditation here -- start at the bottom.) Those will begin the process of strengthening your subtle bodies, which is a core part of what you need to do. Get much more sleep than you think you need -- most middle class people these days get much less rest than their bodies actually require -- and make sure your diet has plenty of animal foods in it, since those help keep you focused on the material plane. If you haven't yet thrown away your television, do so as soon as possible -- it's a major stress generator, among other things -- and consider doing a complete media fast, no internet, no media at all, one day a week. Those will do for starters. Down the road a bit I'll be posting a series of things on training the will, which will also be helpful, but one step at a time!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm fascinated by the Plutonic Current, and am planning to discuss how it's fading out around us. Since what you contemplate, you imitate, this seems risky, as the cult of Uglicism is rather unpleasant. If Pluto and Ceres are polar opposites, then could I use this to my advantage by spending time looking at Romanticism to balance out the influence of focusing on Uglicism?

[ecosophia]

Yes, or you could focus on beauty of any type that strongly appeals to you, whether or not it comes from the Romantic movement.

The Johnny Appleseed Report

[(Anonymous)]

Hiya John!
This week, I read “Johnny Appleseed” during my rehearsal of the Alban Elued ritual from The Druidry Handbook. (Open, SOP, AE, ask blessings and read, close.) Nailed it. I forgot to visualize a steamboat this time, but I did get the sense of a big engine running right along. (Yes, I like Philip José Farmer, why ever do you ask?) Seems a method for reading finally arrived for me… er… unless you want it changed, of course.
And, as usual – Anybody else wanna weigh in?
In other news, the ideas of your circle are moving into the mainstream. Judith Acosta penned “Ten Great Deceptions Designed to Destroy the Republic” for American Thinker. Boy-O, this stuff sounds familiar.
And another other thing – The idea of salvaging science keeps coming up here and in some other venues. Well… is it possible to reconnect science to the sacred, or at least to a better sense of ethics?
Speaking of ethical considerations – We Green Wizards here at Tower 440 might have a new motto. “Gather what you can. Share what you have.” The favor of your opinion is most welcome.
Rusty… I mean… Heliotrope Exogenous Tulip

Re: The Johnny Appleseed Report

[ecosophia]

Delighted to hear it -- and not surprised that the Not For Hire put in a spectral appearance. As for my ideas moving in toward the mainstream, I've been watching that with wry amusement for some time. Being on the fringes can be a position of remarkable power, so long as you don't mind never being credited for your work.

Science has to be reconnected to the sacred if it's going to survive at all. You might look at Rupert Sheldrake's work as an example.

It's a fine motto!

-- Carnelian Apoplectic Wombat

Books on Greek Deities...

[lunarapprentice]

Last Monday, Kimberly Steele had asked about book titles on the Greek gods. I missed the window to reply then, and I hope Kimberly and JMG find this late reply helpful.

In terms of classical sources, Ovid’s 'Metamorphoses' is a primary source from which many contemporary retellings derive. It’s a good read in its own right, and I think it has more feeling than most modern retellings; Ovid respected the belief people had in these myths. Another source which is relatively comprehensive, though rather dry and terse, is Apollodorus’s 'Library of Greek Mythology' (it’s a book). There is a classical Roman discussion of the gods by Cicero, 'The Nature of the Gods' (and is bound in the same volume with 'On Divination').

A excellent contemporary retelling is 'The Wisdom of the Myths, How Greek Myths can Change Your Life', by Luc Ferry. He retells a large swath of the myths, helpfully organized into linked themes. He gets into some helpful exegesis. As good as the book is, there are problems: Luc Ferry is an atheist, and argues that the ancient Greeks were, to all intents and purposes, atheist, as the myths really don’t get into the afterlife. But he neglects the explicit devotional stances of Socrates/Plato, and ignores the development of Hellenistic religious ideas as expressed in Neoplatonism. (Digression alert: Luc Ferry is real privileged schmuck. He is a former French Minister of Education, who last year opined that the police should gun down Yellow Vest protestors in the street. Here is a source on that:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6570491/Police-use-shoot-kill-tactics-Yellow-Vest-protesters-former-education-minister-says.html )

I recently discovered a modern scholar and apparent devotee of the Greek gods, Karl Kerenyi, a Swiss of Hungarian origin (died 1973), who was prolific in his writings on the gods and goddesses. I understand he was a friend of, and collaborator with, Jung. Karenyi has at least 15 titles which include:

The Greek Gods
The Religion of the Greeks and Romans
Zeus and Hera, Archetypal Images of Father, Husband, and Wife
Hermes, Guide of Souls [applies to incarnated souls I understand]
Goddesses of Sun and Moon
Athene, Virgin and Mother in Greek Religion
Dionysus, Archetypal Image of indestructible Life

That’s my belated 2 cents.

BTW JMG, what’s your opinion of Kerenyi?

Re: Books on Greek Deities...

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. I haven't read much Kerenyi, and it's been a long time; if he ran with Jung, he's probably worth a try.

[chronojourner]

Hi JMG,

A friend of mine asked me if there were a spell to break or otherwise negate magic intended to reflect spells back on the caster. I told him that I didn't know and certainly had never heard of one. Have you heard of such a spell? If anything like that exists, I don't know about it.

Thanks!

[ecosophia]

Oh, sure. You can play magical volleyball with spells, tossing them back and forth until everyone's liberally smeared with the consequences. I don't use or teach such spells, though; people who fling around noxious magic deserve what they get.

[causticus]

Hello JMG,

There's a particular "condition" (if we could call it that) I've had for as long as I remember. That is, I tend to feel a lot more calm, tranquil, clear-minded and creative on cloudy/overcast days than I do when it's sunny. Cool weather also helps in that regard too and I tend to love rainy days. In fact when it's sunny and hot I often feel quite lethargic and uninspired.

(1) Have you heard of this sort of condition before? And it might have something to do with a sensitivity to etheric energy? Possibly related, but busy/frantic activity makes me want to hide and retreat, and the times of the day when less human activity in general is going on is certainly calmer for me.

(2) Earlier today I watched a video of a very recent pro-Trump gathering in Maine and the main speaker there was a young woman who just a year ago was a staunch Democrat and suddenly switched to giving Trump a chance after Wokesters invaded her internet knitting community (yes, they try and subvert/take over even those!!) and demanding that everyone there start paying lip service to all the usual woke causes...or else, "Reeeeeeeeeeeee!". She was taken aback by this and then she attended a Trump rally just to see what all the fuss was able and discovered that, whoah....these are just normal, friendly people! And not the hopelessly irredeemable demonspawn the media had told her Trump supporters are. Fast forward about 8 months later and she's a super enthusiastic Trump supporter, and not only that, a very skilled public speaker. Anyway about halfway through her very rousing speech (IMO) a few people in the crowd suddenly pointed up at the sky, and lo and behold, there was a Bald Eagle very closely circling overhead!! The people in the crowd exclaimed, "look, it's a sign!" Then later on social media I read various people reporting Eagles circling over similar pro-Trump gathering. Of course, I assume there must be something extra-normal to all of this. Knowing that the Eagle is associated with gods like Zeus/Jupiter who preside over matters of statecraft and justice, I see that this has to be more than a mere coincidence. Could this be a good omen for Trump? And have you heard of omens or signs like this happening before?

3. Following up on your recent blog, it seems like there is going to be a massive return to traditional religion following the fallout of the Woke scourge, among other things. And am I right it's going to be nearly all in traditional/established religions, as opposed to fringe or new/faddish ones? You mentioned before that you see the various flavors of Neopaganism and pseudo-Occultism going the way of Theosophy. It seems like the spiritual needs for people is something reliable and established; something that could fulfilled the Spenglerian 'Second Religiousness' (This is one of the reasons I'm studying up on Mahayana Buddhism to supplement my magical studies; there's a lot of themes in it that can square with Christianity, without getting stuck in the very narrow theological and cosmological boxes that's Christian dogma)

[(Anonymous)]

I have the same reaction to sunny days. I hate summer.

Quillette had several articles on Knitgate a few years ago.

[(Anonymous)]

How do you tell if you have an energy blockage in the womb center, and what is the best way to unblock it?

I am working through the DMH, but haven't yet done the Grail workings. Earlier this year, I did the workings to awaken both currents, and since then almost every time I invoke Spirit Below I get a rush of energy during the SOP.

So I thought things were going well, but several months ago I pulled my lower back, and the pain still isn't going away even after many appointments with an osteopath. There is a specific point which is stiff and aches in the lumbar region of my spine which aligns perfectly with the womb center in front. I know you can't give medical advice and I will continue to consult the osteopath and a doctor, but I was wondering if you had advice about the energy side of things.

Thank you!

[ecosophia]

You might consider doing some of the expansions of the SoP and invoking healing for your back and the womb center, if you're not already doing this. That's a good gentle way to unblock energy blockages.

[temporaryreality]

Would you be able to say a bit about guardian angels or guardian spirits and if those are the same or if they're related in any way to one's higher self? Is contacting and working with such beings/aspects part of any particular magical or occult system, and what might that require and entail? Do you recommend any written works on the topic?

Thanks!

[ecosophia]

Guardian spirits aren't the same as the higher self. In Dion Fortune's The Cosmic Doctrine, which has a fair amount to say about the matter, your guardian angel is an emanation from the Solar Logos -- the god, or high god, of this solar system -- and its job is to help your higher self evolve through the sequence of lower selves it creates in each of its incarnations. The ritual for the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is a very advanced practice, suitable only for those who have a comprehensive mastery of either the mystical or the magical path -- and if you're ready for that, you've already learned enough to know how to do it.

[chronojourner]

Excellent point!

[(Anonymous)]

A question for JMG and everyone else here:

I have seen JMG and many others describe the hyper-woke social justice crowd as religious in their behaviour. This make sense to me based on my experience of being surrounded by that particular culture and having to deal with it in most social interactions. However, it also made me wonder two things:

Do people in this ‘religion’ ever have religious experiences that derive specifically from the religion of wokeness (or whatever one calls it)? Obviously, there are subscribers to the ideology who are also involved with various forms of spirituality which, while some are culturally linked to critical theory ideology, are not identical to it. But are there people who are otherwise athiests, or not involved with spiritual or religious practices, who have religious or mystical experiences that seem to derive from social justice ideology ITSELF?

I figure this is pretty much the only place I could ask such a question. Please respond if you have any examples of this happening, I am very curious!

(The other thing I wonder is ‘what, then, are they worshipping?’ I realised recently that it might be oppression—it is immanent everywhere, just below the surface, and they are attuning their senses ever more finely to its subtleties, spending time sitting with it, constantly striving to know it and respond, to make its all-pervasive influence more visible…If you have other ideas I’d be interested to hear them too)

[temporaryreality]

Here's one article that ran in my local paper: https://apnews.com/4afb2c5488043dbd7e4ae79530ae9802

Plus a couple gathered from a search for "BLM protesters religious experience": https://religionnews.com/2020/06/15/why-black-lives-matter-is-a-spiritual-movement-says-blm-co-founder-patrisse-cullors/

https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Far-from-being-anti-religious-faith-and-15564914.php (this last one has a bunch of ads, rather annoying, but there's an article to be found in there among them)

[(Anonymous)]

I have a few questions saved up:

I am studying the Dolmen Arch with a friend; are there any practices/exercises that would be enhanced by doing them together? Is there anything in particular you recommend for taking advantage of having another person on the same path to work with? (we also live together, in case it’s relevant)


I was meditating on why one faces south to open and close the DA SOP, while in the DMH it is east. What I came up with is that perhaps the east has a quality more related to initiation while the south is more related to accumulating energy. In the DMH there is also a grove, which is opened facing south and serves the energy accumulating role; however, in the DA there is no grove so the SOP serves that purpose. On the other hand, in the DA there are completion exercises which serve an initiatory role, while perhaps the SOP has to take on more of the initiator function in the DMH. Is this thinking on the right track at all?


Why is the speaking part of the earth gate structured differently (more like the DMH) than other gates in the Dolmen Arch SOP? Is this simply to show that variation is alright? Or is it related to earth’s position in between the first 3 elements and the 3 realms of spirit?
Is there any issue with making it follow the same pattern as the other 3 elements?

Thank you for Magic Mondays and your writing!
Bewilderness

[ecosophia]

1) The old correspondence course I used as a basis for the book didn't discuss that possibility, and I never had the chance to field test group workings in the DA system. By all means experiment and let me know what you think!

2) Some Druid traditions focus on the south, others focus on the east. Others do a mix of the two. I make a point of giving different instructions for each of the practices I teach, as a trap for would-bve fundamentalists.

3) Excellent! There are several places in the book where I inserted things to see if people were paying attention. You can certainly do it the same way as the other three elements.

[open_space]

Good evening JMG!

I have a few questions today but first I wanted to say something. This must be the most obvious thing but I think this work has made me grow, a process that I had left in pause for a long while and had forgotten the feeling of what it is to move in a pattern different than a circle. The divination, mediation, ritual and journaling is quite a combo for self transformation and I wanted to thank you for structuring the practices the way you have, which is something I don’t see in other resources on Magic. Having a course laid out instead of just a set of practices without any structure is invaluable for a solitary student in this time and age! Even though I am not particularly good at any of those yet, the emphasis on discipline you put into your books has brought to my attention why I don’t seem to move myself into any direction I have wanted to go so far. I just didn’t know how to work in a structured and disciplined way for a prolonged period of time. I have felt for too long that I need to know what I want to do for the rest of my life in a single day. In the first few months I really wanted to go full steam, went crazy about it and it was all I read and all I thought about but a few months in now I have realized a lesson I had not learned before in my life and find myself much more productive by not making myself dizzy with the possibilities and consequences all day but just working a little every day. I have spent, for way too long, dreaming and fantasizing about how my life would be if I do X, Y or Z but spend no time working towards it because I have made myself believe that if I work on something, anything, it must be what I will do forever. It was when I started to get some results on my practices that I saw it, right in front of me, the effect on my mind of having been raised in a society of instant gratification, immediate results and what seems to be purposeful distraction. I have been trained to think that way by the system! If people are distracted, and can’t think and act for more than a few units of time ahead it is really easy to manipulate them and make them go in the directions of the establishment, which are on the interests of somebody else. All this is very simple but my mind just didn’t seem to be trained that way, quite the contrary! With this in my belt I feel that I am much more capable of tackling what will come ahead of me as well as defining what that will be. I am very grateful for that.

Having said that here are my questions.

1) This one is about egregores and their effect on a person’s psyche. On the early days of covid I basically ignored it until one day I went to the office and no one was there, I read an email saying that the work from home policy had been applied and the tone of it was quite dramatic. In that moment, a sudden rush of fear and panic crept in fast. I rushed home, not touching anything still scared and couldn’t quite sleep. It was not until a few days later that I shook myself and said, what happened? It felt as if I was not myself for those couple of days. Do you think I connected to the covid egregore? If so, and it can have such a strong effect on someone, how can one escape from the grip of an egregore and walk away consciously and even better how to not connect with one?

2) One evening, I did my LBRP and when I said “for about me, flame the pentagrams” something fell to the floor in the kitchen above my apartment, which is just above mine. I proceeded to cook dinner and it was a disaster, all sorts of mishaps and accidents happened. I thought to myself if it could’ve been possible that the banishing cleared something in the kitchen that had an effect like that. Do you think it would be possible?

[ecosophia]

Excellent! Those are among the lessons of magical training.

1) Yes. The media and the pundits have been trying very hard to panic people over the virus, so it's not surprising that it affected you. Keep going with your practices -- they'll gradually strengthen your subtle bodies so you won't be as easily affected by such things.

2) Possibly, but you may also just have been jittering over a sudden loud noise!

Discursive meditation question

[(Anonymous)]

I have been working my way through the instructional posts you have kindly posted here on learning discursive meditation.

Yesterday was my first meditation session where I was focusing on relaxing starting from the crown of my head and working down. It was also the first time I've tried meditating in the posture you recommend in the discursive meditation posts. (I've always sat in seiza before.)

During the meditation, as soon as I started working on relaxing I had the sensation of what I can best describe as shadow, the feeling of dark that had mass but not weight (which I know is a contradiction but still seems like the best way to describe it) start at the top of my head and desend at a slow and constant rate downwards over my body. I did indeed feel relaxed in all the places the sensation had reached. And it was surprisingly easy to settle into the sensation.

The feeling of dark that went with it gave me pause, and I was unsure if the sensation was something that originated from me or was something external. I worried that it might be too easy to settle into the sensation and I might need to be more careful if this was coming from some outside source. I was uncertain enough that I didn't let it go lower than about the level of my navel.

I may just be overthinking the whole thing, but it seemed wise to check in with someone with more knowledge and experience.

1) Any thoughts or advice on what might have been happening?

2) Do you have any advice for knowing when things are coming from yourself or external sources?

Many thanks for these magic Monday posts and the work that you do!

Eruc Eldritch Platypus

Re: Discursive meditation question

[ecosophia]

1) Hard to tell. Do you find bright lights uncomfortable? Many people who do, tend to think of relaxation as darkness.

2) That takes a lot of time and practice! The more you develop your inner perceptions by meditation, the easier it will be for you to tell the "flavor" of your own thoughts from those of other people -- and, er, nonpeople.

-- Crimson Exogenous Weasel

On Meridians and Ghosts

[(Anonymous)]

This week I have two things to comment, on the etheric body.

1) A paper was published this month about the source for most meridians in traditional Chinese medicine being structures in the physical body. Mind you, I have no problem with this; for example, just because the way fairy rings grow is now understood, it doesn't mean the fae do not like to be inside them. The paper is also interesting on the account that the old description, something called Mawangdui texts, were buried in 168 BCE, some decades before Galen. Anyway, here is the link:
Hiding in Plain Sight‐ancient Chinese anatomy (PDF available for download):
https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ar.24503

2) The comments some time ago, from a reader, on diabetes having an etheric base made me think of the ghosts without legs. This mirrors the process of gangrene in diabetes, with the toes dying first, and then the gangrene going "up". And if this is true, then exercises to strengthen the etheric body could... be helpful in some situations, let's live this at that.

Thanks for the Magic Mondays!

Re: On Meridians and Ghosts

[ecosophia]

1) Interesting. The logic in the paper appears to be, "There are anatomical structures that can be strung together to more or less follow the pathway of the meridians, therefore the meridians must be the same as those anatomical structures." That's kind of a frail reed to lean on, not least because the known effects of the anatomical structures don't explain the effects of acupuncture, moxibustion, or acupressure on the meridians. I'm reminded rather strongly of the UFO debunkers who insist that this or that UFO had to be the planet Venus, because Venus was in the sky at that time; the covert reasoning, of course, being that nothing else could have been in the sky at the same time...

2) That's very true!

Prima Materia, Hysterectomies, Etheric Energy of Food, Etheric SOP

[joshuarout]

Dear J.M. Greer,

1) Could the Astral plane, and astral 'substance,' correspond to the Prima Materia of alchemy? Or would it be something else in alchemical terms?

2) What could be the energetic consequences for, or damage to, the etheric body of a hysterectomy? What could be some practices to help the etheric body in case one has had such an operation? (Of course, I'm not seeking medical advice, just the occult aspects.)

3) Are you aware of any methods or practices to absorb etheric energy from food, without physically consuming it?

4a) It's still early days, but as a follow-up to my question last week about experimenting with an Etheric SOP - I wonder if the following could indicate that I'm getting some good results, and if they correspond with the sort of things to expect from sound occult training:
When working with etheric energies, I've noticed a reduction in visualization, which I now use more for astral work; instead I induce a more direct, palpable or tactile feeling or sensation, which I can perceive as broadly 'electric'/Yang or 'magnetic'/Yin in quality, or more particularly in Elemental terms as heavy, light, cold, or warm. So now when doing an affirmation, or charging food or drinks, etc, I believe I can distinguish more clearly between the astral aspect and the etheric aspect of such practices.
I have also begun perceiving flows or channels of this energy from the soles of the feet through the legs, and palms of hands through the arms. I was startled to suddenly notice such movements in the feet and legs during meditation.
I've also noticed a greatly diminished desire for alcohol - the habitual evening cocktail has become something to skip more often than not, and the thought of a second or third drink makes me a bit queasy.
4b) I forgot to mention last week, for the benefit of fellow students, that as a beginning student I have sometimes forgotten to do divinations before rushing into an experiment; but I have learned the importance of doing so, and in this case, divinations indicate that I should continue the practice, and can anticipate mildly positive benefits in the short-term, and very positive benefits in the long term (Fortuna Major).

Thank you for hosting these and for your responses,
Josh Rout

Re: Prima Materia, Hysterectomies, Etheric Energy of Food, Etheric SOP

[ecosophia]

1) It depends on which kind of alchemy you're discussing, of course. Every alchemy has its own prima materia.

2) The planes are discrete and not continuous; as long as the patient has plenty of opportunity to recover, physically and etherically, there should be no significant effect.

3) I don't recommend this at all. If you absorb the etheric substance, your body will expect the material substance, and if that doesn't follow, you risk serious trouble with blood sugar and other biochemical balances.

4a) Interesting. Thanks for this.

4b) A worthwhile point!

Locating a missing person with Geomancy

[emmanuelg]

Hi JMG and Commentariat,

Here in Canada, we dispense Methadone to maintain folks with opioid addictions so they don't need to buy street drugs. These people come to see me regularly, sometimes once a day, and I get to know them. Some of them make money thru prostitution.
One such regular customer, a young lady, disappeared suddenly a couple of months ago. The local addicts know each other since it is a gossipy small community, but they don't know what happened to her. Lately, I have the same perception of her that I have of other folks I know who have recently died; I suspect that she has died, possibly by the hand of a customer.

It occurred to me to do a Geomantic reading to get some information about where she might be, or where her remains might be found.

Here's the chart I got:

https://shedivesin.github.io/emoji/western/house/40/9e.svg

Mothers are Albus, Populus, Carcer, and Caput draconis.

I'd appreciate it if you could let me know if I'm on the right track here.
I will plan to cross-post this one to the conjunctio dreamwidth site as well;

I think that the quesited, in this case would be in house 8 (missing or dead persons), although it could be in house 7.

From the location table in APG page 146, Fortuna Major indicates that she is in a "Rugged, forested area, Government or Military Facility, or other inaccessible place."

There is a whole lot of Rugged Forested Area where I live now.
There's also the possibility that she is in prison somewhere, but that's less likely as the other addicts would probably know all about it.

Cardines are 1-Albus 10-Cauda draconis 7-Carcer 4-Caput draconis.
So possibly, 'Wisdom to see that the end is a grave results in the beginning of the search.' ??

Looking at the axes of the chart [and VERY unsure if they can be used like this],
1 -- 7 Albus-Carcer. Seeing that she is buried
2 -- 8 Populus - Fortuna Major Uncertain if significant. Lg sum of money involved?
3 -- 9 Carcer - Albus Uncertain significance; Local person buried, wisdom in a long journey/long search -- She won't be easy to find, but can be found.
4 --10 Caput draconis - Cauda draconis Endings of reputation and community standing; beginnings of hidden and secret things in the earth.
5 -- 11 Albus - Fortuna Major - Her customer(s) may know something; F maj passing from 8 to 11 may indicate a customer took her to the rugged place.
6 -- 12 Tristitia - Amissio - sorrow of courtesans, loss in sphere of government ??

Thanks for any insights anyone can give.
Her mother and two sisters also live locally, and it would be good to be able to help them find out what happened to her.

Re: Locating a missing person with Geomancy

[ecosophia]

Ouch. Yes, that seems clear enough. I don't normally use the axes, but the cardines are useful in this kind of reading. The one ray of hope is that the remains can be found, since the significators perfect by conjunction.

Looking for a balanced view of Galina Krasskova

[(Anonymous)]

This is a question mostly to commenters who read other pagan sites online.

I am a liberal but one who feels the Wokesters go too far. There are rants about Krasskova, calling her a nazi and so on. She sometimes rants back at them on her blog, from which I read a few posts recently. But the woke accusers don't cite particular writings of hers. I would like to understand what they base the accusations on, so I can decide for myself whether I think she sounds alt-right, or if this is another case of calling almost anyone who disagrees a nazi.

If there are any articles giving both sides, I would be interested in reading those too.

Re: Looking for a balanced view of Galina Krasskova

[neptunesdolphins]

About Krasskova, I know her and have commented on her blogs.

It is multifaceted.

About 2016, she was writing anti- Moslem things in reference to Desh and their destruction of Polytheists shrines. Ryan Smith of Heathens United Against Racism and Rhyd Widermuth officially declared her a fascist for this. Both men have problematic histories as well.

Two, she discussed how Christianity made war on Polytheists. She refers to it as genocide. She encourages Polytheists to put the Gods first.

Three, she is conservative in her outlook, and decried woke society.

Four, there is a woman on Tumblr who for some reason hated her. She dislikes how Krasskova emphasized piety above all else. I with several others were referred to as the Piety Posse. We have adopted the opossum as our mascot. This person has a wide following.

As far as I can see, she rejects Progressive ideas. She is anti Marxist. And she is very vocal about her faith.

I believe it is a matter of Neo-Paganism drifting more into woke politics and finding her grating.

If you look up piety posse, you may be able to get the anti writings. Meanwhile, look at her blog on WordPress to get an idea of her.

Questions

[(Anonymous)]

1) In your last post about The Cosmic Doctrine, you talked about problems there had been when practitioners imagined all the light coming from inside themselves. Is this why, in the SOP, a lot of the light comes from above and below?

2) You have mentioned the importance of connecting the feet to the ground. Is there any issue doing rituals on upper floors of a building and not the ground floor?

3) Discussions of the Age of Aquarius have sometimes been about increased individual or small-group differences, and some about increased connectedness and communal attitudes. Sometimes they sound like opposites. Would you or anyone else be able to give a summary of which it means for different things?

4) This is something which might be important for me right now. How much would you say that thinking in detail about how you would feel, and what you would do, if something you have done a working for, and which is important, doesn't work out?
I have noticed in the past that thinking that way (generally about things I hadn't done magical workings for, because I'd never done them for anything longer range before) often makes me give up on the desired goal and things go along roughly with what I started to imagine vividly about how to cope.
I really need to hold on to this thing working out unless as a last resort. But I don't think fast on my feet about complex things and I deal with them by having planned ahead, and other people might need me to have planned. I don't want to be unprepared if I do need to do this - but I also don't want to encourage a "thinking makes it so" situation.

Thank you again for your help in answering our questions and hosting this space.

Re: Questions

[ecosophia]

1) It's not a matter of imagining the light coming from inside oneself, but of being surrounded and filled with infinite light. That's why we work with specific, defined sources of light in the magical work.

2) I live in a second floor apartment and the building has a basement. I have no trouble working with the telluric current, and neither should you.

3) Many people who talk about the Age of Aquarius know nothing about the astrological symbolism. All that stuff about increased connectedness and communal attitudes -- those are Piscean traits, not Aquarian ones. The Aquarian influence is eccentric, individualistic, divergent, idealistic, intellectual; its planetary ruler is Uranus, the planet of individual uniqueness, of events that will never be repeated and ideas that no one else understands. In the age of Aquarius we can expect 2160 years of oddballs, weirdos, strange little groups off on their own tangents, and bizarre events that make little sense to anyone before or after; the great leaders of the age will be colorful individuals who give other people plenty of room to do things their own way.

4) Concentrating on negative outcomes, brooding about them over and over again, and coming up with ornate plans for dealing with them, is a good way to make them happen. By all means come up with a plan B if some project fails, and then file it away and spend your time imagining what you'll do if it succeeds and how you'll make the best of the results of victory.

[charliedusk]

Hello JMG, and my deepest thanks to you for every outlet by which you offer your time, knowledge, and experience to help guide us. You make possible a tremendous resource.

I have been working through the ovate grade of the CGD for two years, and there's a few questions that have been nagging at me for some time. I thought I might be able to suss them out on my own over time, but I have not.

1. During the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram, when vibrating the names of the Gods, I often feel the vibration in both of my hands instead of just my right hand, which is tracing the Pentagram. Is this sort of thing common during the development of control over vibrations?

2. During the Rite of Rays I feel the vibration in the part of my body that I'm imagining the particular Ray traveling through, and I feel it most strongly in my core when vibrating Awen. This seems right to me, but I thought I'd run it by you while I'm on the topic of vibrations.

3. Most days I perform the LRoP, alternating daily between LSRP and LBRP, without setting up the alter. I only use an alter when I'm opening the ovate temple (once a week). Are we meant to set up the ovate alter every time we perform the LRoP or is my practice sufficient?

4. In most KL's we are instructed to perform the ovate temple opening and closing until we have it sufficient committed to memory. Are we to then resume alternating days between the LSRP and LBRP?

5. I often see that you recommend always banishing before meditation. However, when opening an ovate temple summoning always preceeds meditation, and banishing follows it. I feel like the answer to this is that both forms constitute 'banishing' in regards to cleansing a space. Is this correct?

6. Finally, in regards to discursive meditation, I find that insights are rare or tend toward the mundane. I'm not generally very well versed in philosophy or that way of thinking. Would this tendency have an adverse impact on the results of discursive meditation, and for that matter, with studying ritual magic in general?

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, it's quite common.

2) This is fine.

3) You only use the altar when you open the temple.

4) Yes.

5) The temple opening isn't primarily for meditation -- as you'll learn in the grades that follow, you can do a lot of different things in an open temple! The rule to banish before meditation is specifically for those people who are not doing a specific course of study which teaches something else. You're doing a specific course of study, so follow that rather than advice I give to those who aren't.

6) Don't worry about it. The insights you get from discursive meditation are far from the most important results of the practice.

[(Anonymous)]

1. A few days back during my daily SOP, I said the name of a different goddess for the opening without being aware. I took it to be a one off thing and continued with the usual deities. Do you have any additional insight on what this could mean?

2. This is an odd one but a family member is complaining about being bothered by an old debt (10 years ago) they had. The problem though is they don't know their contact to return it. Is there something that can be done to resolve this outside of repaying directly?

- Nomad

[ecosophia]

1) I'd encourage you to meditate on the two names to figure out what it means to you.

2) Maybe they need to put more effort into finding the person. In the age of the internet, that's much easier than it used to be!

Pigs

[davidtrammel]

What's the quote, "Never get into a wrestling contest with a pig. You'll get muddy and the pig will like it."

Many things, from arguing about politics with stranger to getting into a magic fight with amateurs is best won by not getting involved.

Re: Pigs

[ecosophia]

That's the logic I use in deleting trolls rather than debating them...

Two Questions

[davidtrammel]

I don't normally have a chance to comment until its too late in the week but I do have a question for you John, and a general question for the commentariat here.

1) I began discussing magical practices on a FB group, asking about a couple of things and in doing so described the rather broad range of different religions and systems that I pull from for my own private practices. One person made the off hand comment to the affect "There's a lot of appropriation in your practices."

I was wondering if you would restate your views on people not of a particular culture, practicing that culture's religion or worshiping their gods? Outside of a narrow group of exclusive religions, which would almost require an invitation and mentorship of someone in that religion, it would seem to me that all pagan, heathen and such occult practices would require some sort of appropriation.

2) I've always loved making things with my hands, and have made several ritual items for friends in the Craft over the years. Now that I've retired and have some time on my hands, I'm going to get back into that.

One person has asked for a knife made with a bronze blade and no iron in the construction. I wondered if you have run across occult practices that required a non-iron based tool?

I remember your discussion of ethereal larvae required an iron spike.

I get the impression they are working with Fae, and understand iron is a no-no with that type of work. I've also seen a few reference of not using an iron knife for cutting certain plants being used in herbal medicines and ritual additions, but nothing specific.

Also to the people here, do you have any examples of athame shapes that you've found interesting or liked the look of, other than the Arkansas toothpick/standard dagger shape too many commercial ones are done off of?

BTW, I found a copy of your book "The Coelbren Alphabet" and will probably try to make a set of runes to experiment with.

Re: Two Questions

[(Anonymous)]

To David Trammel - the priest of my former circle works Faerie and won't use an iron blade at all. I think you're right: the faeries don't like it. And he dies see them, or the little nature spirits that often go by that name. And has a lush and lovely garden in a tiny, paved patio with a 6-foot fence around it.