Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's almost midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Let's start things out with a bit of alchemical text: 

 

"The Philosopher's Stone is produced by means of the greening and growing nature. Hali the philosopher says thereof:  'This Stone rises in growing, greening things.'  Wherefore when the green is reduced to its former nature, whereby things sprout and come forth in ordained time, it must be decocted and putrefied in the way of our secret art." 

 

The image is the second illustration from Splendor Solis, the most gorgeously illustrated of all the old alchemical texts. The text on the ribbon that rises from the alchemical vessel says "Let us go in search of the natures of the four elements."

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

Affirmations

[syfen]

Archdruid,

Is it possible to use if-then statements for an affirmations?

Re: Affirmations

[ecosophia]

They make very weak affirmations. An affirmation should affirm -- it should state the condition you want to achieve as a reality.

Texts on Transits

[(Anonymous)]

A few weeks ago at my enquiry you mentioned that there exists an embarrassing dearth of recent astrological texts on transits. You remarked that you knew of none more recent than the one you happened to be reading at the time, dating from 1942 if I recall correctly.

Would you mind mentioning what that book is titled, and who is the author? I would like to have a shot at finding it. Also if there are any other such books from days of yore I would like to find out about them as well.

To your knowledge, do any of the classic astrological or occult authors, such as Agrippa, Ficino or Wm. Lilly treat the topic at any length? If so, can you say in what books or chapters?

If I were to study astrology seriously, I think this is where I would probably begin. Having first thereby helped myself, I imagine it would put me in a position to be of use to others through the same knowledge.

Re: Texts on Transits

[ecosophia]

It's not transits in general -- there are books on big-picture transits, such as those of the slow outer planets -- but daily transits across the natal chart that haven't gotten anything like the attention they deserve. The book I know of that covers this is The Daily Use of the Ephemeris by Elizabeth Aldrich, it was published by David McKay in 1942. I have no idea how readily available it might be.

My book on the subject is in outline and I already have a publisher lined up for it. I'll post something when it's available for advance ordering.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John
1. OK, so… post-Johnny Appleseed, I feel post-bout. (I’m sure you are familiar with the day after a win in the ring feeling.) Yeaa-I-won-now-what? So – How do I get back to the magical grind? Any tips on recovery and stretching before getting on with metaphysical training? And – have you noticed recovering from a win is harder than recuperating after a loss?
2. Does a cauldron need to be made of any specific material? Should any be avoided
3. Re your suggestion to study Samuel Clemens: Yep. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Hawker’s The Quest of the Sangraal, a Barlow knife, and Alban Arthuan all hit my in basket at the same time. A veritable metaphysical smorgasbord is before me, so suggestions on what to do next are very welcome.
4. Back to an earlier conversation about adding red pepper to the usual salt and nail daily wear red bag: I tried to sew up a new bag to hold salt, crushed red pepper, and a bent nail. It didn’t wanna be sewn. The resulting tied bag (clove hitch and reef for the bag, secure the ends with a figure eight or stopper knot) has a nice solid feel. This is my second bag with pepper in it, and it seems to bounce off foolishness as well as ground it out. Have you tried red pepper, or heard from anyone else? Also, is there a Druidical alternative to Isaiah 55:11 for commissioning bags and whatnot? Or… just invoke the magpie rule and keep it?
5. And a possibly premature question about magical fails: Have you heard any more about the suspected cheaters never win hex placed on the election? That would explain quite a bit… As would some other magical fails and wins…
Many thanks,
Rusty… I mean, Turquoise Transcendent Unicorn

[ecosophia]

1) Just get plenty of rest, and a massage if you can arrange for that.

2) Nope. Anything that suits your fancy. Mine is cast iron.

3) Start with those. ;-) Hawker's poem is one of the underappreciated classics of English poesy:

"Sirs! we are soldiers of the rock and ring:
Our Table Round is earth's most honoured stone;
Thereon two worlds of life and glory blend,
The boss upon the shield of many a land,
The midway link with the light beyond the stars!
This is our fount of fame! Let us arise,
And cleave the earth like rivers; like the streams
That win from Paradise their immortal name:
To the four winds of God, casting the lot.
So shall we share the regions, and unfold
The shrouded mystery of those fields of air."

Every time I recite that passage aloud it raises chills.

4) No, I haven't tried red pepper, but thank you for the data point. Druids are magpies, so if it works for you, use it.

5) No, I hadn't. No wonder both sides lost.

Best Day/Time For A Ritual

[davidtrammel]

I've begun reading on the planetary days and hours, and had a question about the best time to do a ritual for protection during a childbirth. I took that this would be under Mercury?

An online planetary hours gave me the times for the day hour and night hours.

The other question is, if this were being performed to petition Hekate, who is a liminal moon goddess, would it make more sense to do the ritual on a Monday, in the evening?

BTW, I recently purchased Donald Michael Kaig's "Modern Magic" (3rd edition), and was surprised to see a foreword by a certain druid. There is supposed to be a 4th edition soon, but with the pandemic, its been delayed.

Re: Best Day/Time For A Ritual

[ecosophia]

1) Childbirth is always under the rulership of the Moon. Monday during a waxing Moon, at night, would be optimal. Yes, you can invoke Hekate then.

2) It was a favor for Lllewellyn. My guess is they'll probably drop my foreword in the new edition -- they've been distancing themselves from me pretty actively of late. I have other publishers, so it's not a problem.

[(Anonymous)]

How do I approach a sacred tree tradition such as Ogham, when the trees of my ancestral Northern Europe are mostly unavailable? The trees of Terra Australis have their own distinct energies.

[ecosophia]

Ogham is not primarily a tree tradition -- it's an alphabet to which trees, among many other things, can be applied. Learn it in its traditional form as best you can, and then adapt it to your own ecosystem; this essay of mine shows how that can be done, using the example of an ecosystem nearly as different from Ireland's as yours is.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
I am at the very (VERY) beginning of learning about rituals and practicing the attention exercise you've described in your books. You've mentioned that it goes with opening and closing hand gestures. Is it an opening hand gesture at the beginning and a closing hand gesture at the end? Or both hand gestures, opening and closing, are done twice - at the beginning and at the end?

[ecosophia]

You do the opening gesture at the beginning and the closing gesture at the end.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

There is a Twitter thread about Elphias Levi, magic, and Christianity. It's basically about how while Levi is influential even to this day, something in one of his last books gets overlooked.

To quote the person from Twitter: "hes the guy who drew that famous baphomet image, said in one of his last books that magic was over now that christianity beat it out"

He then proceeds to share a page from a book in which Levi writes that "The ancient rites have lost effectiveness since Christianity appeared in the world."

The person on Twitter can't recall what book the Levi quote is from.

I don't know much about Levi. What is the context of the quote? Clearly Levi didn't actually believe that "magic was over" because he kept doing magic?

Thank you.

[ecosophia]

Lévi was a Christian mage. The "ancient rites" he mentioned were the rituals of the old Pagan religions, not magic as such. Of course he didn't think that magic was over -- he simply argued, as most Christian mages have done for the last two thousand years, that magic needs to call on the Christian god rather than Pagan gods.

[open_space]

Good evening, JMG! May you have a enjoyable set of questions to answer tonight.

Crime and homelessness in Seattle has increased dramatically since the virus craze started. I am under suspicion that a lot of people that supported the CHAZ got themselves homeless as a consequence of their actions, both intentional or unintentional. Certainly when I went visit it felt like a gigantic tent city.

1) Someone stole a car right in front my apartment and it has left a trace of crime, according to following events. I don’t want to do an LBRP (or several?) in the street but can I do it astrally and picture myself at the street?

2) Would an invisibility talisman be appropriate for protecting a motorcycle from being stolen or would it better be a different kind? I was thinking that it wouldn’t actually make it invisible since there is no body of transformation involved but maybe enough for it to not catch too many eyes? While not on the road, of course.

[ecosophia]

May I offer an unsolicited piece of advice? Get out while you can. The west coast is becoming the Rust Belt of the 21st century, and it's going to have a long but not very slow decline into spiraling crime, poverty, and decay before it bottoms out.

1) Yes, you can do that, and it might work.

2) I don't recommend this, since invisibility tends to be "sticky" and will interfere with people being able to see you on the road. if you want the motorcycle to be safe from theft, concentrate on that intention, not on invisibility as a means to get there. Ends rather than means...

Orphic hymns and planetary works

[(Anonymous)]

Hey hey JMG,

Is there any risk in reading the orphic hymn to a debilitated planet? I remember reading here, but can't find reference now, that some people can't work with some planetary energies.

Does that mean that some influences simply can't be improved or is there a risk that a negative influence could be strengthened and made more negative.

For example, I have a planet that is in his fall and retrograde. Is there a risk that reading his orphic hymn is inviting trouble into my life?

Thanks,
Tim

Re: Orphic hymns and planetary works

[ecosophia]

By "reading an Orphic hymn" do you mean reading it aloud as an invocation? if so, yes, there's a risk. You'll activate that planet in the form in which it manifests in your chart -- say, in its fall and retrograde -- which woould in fact bring trouble into your life. Only invoke the planets that are in neutral or positive dignity in your chart. Use planetary charity to balance out the others.

Pathworking questions

[flanerieoconnor]

Hi, JMG- I’m just starting to do some pathworkings in my work with Paths of Wisdom. I noticed in a question from a recent Magic Monday that the proper Pathworking sequence given in Paths of Wisdom was to start with a pathworking for the sphere of Malkuth and proceed to the 32nd path and so on in the sequence given in the book. I hadn’t before considered doing pathworkings on the spheres themselves, rather than simply the Paths, and I had a couple of questions about this. The instruction for working with the Paths are to visualize the magical image of the path, open the door, walk through, and see what happens. How would you recommend beginning when working with a sphere? Would you visualize the sphere, with magical image, and then walk around it? Try to speak with the figure in the magical image? I tried this approach yesterday evening with the sphere of Malkuth and it seemed to make some sense, but am uncertain if I’m on the right track.

2. In the inner plane workings in the last few lessons of LRM, the lodge is visualized in the middle of a sphere of golden light projected from your heart center. Would it be a workable idea to visualize something analogous when beginning a pathworking in a certain sphere (e.g. imagining a sphere of citrine, olive, black and russet light projecting from under your feet when working with Malkuth)? Tried this last night as well, and it seemed potentially effective, but I’m leery of messing around with energies too much in an off-script way.

3. Is there a recommended number of pathworkings to perform with each path before moving on, analogous to the 3-5 sessions of meditation recommended for each aspect (name, text, image, etc) of the Paths and spheres? Or is this a purely personal matter?

Thanks much!
(p.s. after your comments last week re: scribd, I’m finishing up the Druidry Handbook with a copy from the library, and expect to purchase at some point in the future)

Re: Pathworking questions

[ecosophia]

1) That was unclear, wasn't it? No, you don't do a separate pathworking for the spheres. That's not a pathworking, anyway -- it's called a sphere working, and it's a different thing. You can follow the instructions in Paths of Wisdom exactly, doing one Path at a time.

2) See above. When formulating the sphere you start from, simply imagine it around you.

3) Depends on how much information you get. I did around 5 pathworkings per path, with a solid week of meditation on the material from each one.

4) Thank you!

LRM

[(Anonymous)]

Hey there JMG,

1. I started with LRM last week. Can I use my Hall/Knapp deck for it or do I have to get a new one?

2. I also started reading "How to Read the Aura" from W.E. Butler. Is it okay to start practicing clairvoyance training while doing the LRM?

- Alex

Re: LRM

[ecosophia]

1) The Hall/Knapp deck, attractive though it is, is set up with the wrong set of Hebrew letter correspondences and doesn't have a fully figured set of small carts, so you need a different deck.

2) You can certainly do this.

Magic and state

[(Anonymous)]

1) Did you came across any references in your studies that CIA did and studied magic?
2) Christianity, looks to me, has a lot of magic practice in some of the rituals besides the folk Christian magic practices across Europe, Gospel of John is full of Magic and Hermetic references, could it be that this is one other reason besides the armies that it won over the other sects? Do you know of any books or references that go deeper into the subject?

Re: Magic and state

[ecosophia]

1) Plenty of references to CIA and other government agencies looking into parapsychology -- I knew one of the US army generals who was involved in the project shown in the movie "Men Who Stare At Goats" -- but I've never seen anything that suggested an interest in magic as such. Parapsychology looks scientific, and thus is marginally acceptable; magic looks like, well, magic.

2) The book you want to read is Valerie Flint's The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe. She argues, with abundant evidence, that the reason Christianity spread so efficiently in the Dark Ages was that its monks were better at magic than most of the competition.

Odd experience

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John, I have been working my way through the Ovate grade in the CGD. Yesterday I had what felt like an atmosphere of very intense energy fill my home accompanied by a strange awareness of my physical body. I went outside and the difference was palpable. At the time this was very frightening but in retrospect I don’t know what to make of it. I performed two forms of divination concerning this and they both gave overwhelmingly positive answers. Does this sound like the kind of thing one can expect doing this work?

Re: Odd experience

[ecosophia]

Yes, that's fairly common, and it's a good sign. You're starting to develop your nonphysical senses, and becoming aware of the magical energies that surround you at every moment. Keep working at it and you'll learn how to shape and direct them!

Past civilisation models and divination

[(Anonymous)]

Looking at past civilization and making models and try to apply those models to our civilization and trying to predict what will happen, isn't this actually a form of divination?

Re: Past civilisation models and divination

[ecosophia]

You could conceptualize it that way, sure.

Golden dawn ritual

[(Anonymous)]

Hey jmg

I did some meditation upon the greater middle pillar ritual, and something I noticed is that a lot of the ritual involves summoning/generating energy, then expelling it in the ritual space where it is stored, then reabsorbing it later.
E.G. when you do the “invoking swirl” in the tiphareth centre, then expell it w the sign of the enterer, then reabsorb the energy into the tiphareth centre along with the kether and malkuth energies.

Is this the solve et Coagula process the alchemists talk of?

Re: Golden dawn ritual

[ecosophia]

Good. Yes, that's one form of it. There's a lot of subtle-energy alchemy in Golden Dawn ritual.

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings Sir and Druid.
I have several questions regarding the etheric and other subtle energies:
1) How long does blood retain its charge of etheric energy when kept in a vessel like a blood bag or a vial?
2) There was a minor uproar several months ago from a minor internet celebrity bottling and selling her bath water to great demand. Your article on the metaphysics of sex illuminated how such an item would be appealing, as it would be charged with said celebrity’s etheric charge. But realistically, how long would said etheric charge be retained within that bottled water.
3) Some years ago, during the Comet Pizza brouhaha on the ‘chans, there was some discussion on that odd substance that flows between the pineal and pituitary glands. In the context of the conspiracy theories, this substance was given the moniker of “Adrenochrone” after the description (including its fatal method of extraction) in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and it was clear that it was a substance that could only be obtained from living beings before the second death (mentions that the substance decayed rapidly after extraction and was inert after three days). It’s properties when consumed were akin to those of Dune’s spice melange, in particular the fatal physical addiction. The detail that linked the substance to the pituitary gland was the claim that the substance was most readily extracted from prepubescent children. While this set of descriptors sounds like a bad rehash of the satanic panic, Dune, and the blood libel, I hope this helps you in your research on the pineal-pituitary substance.
4) What is the energy that Radionic talismanic devices use? Is it astral, etheric? Is it the same as William Reich’s Orgone? Can an Orgone pyramid be connected to a radionic device for better energy gathering/transmitting?

[ecosophia]

1) I don't know that anyone's ever checked. Normally, fluids from the body lose their etheric component once they reach room temperature or below, but you'd need to talk to a good clairvoyant and do some experimentation to see if that's true of blood in that specific situation.

2) It depends on how it's stored and handled. Since bath water contains skin oils and also little particles of skin and hair, it can hold onto etheric charges fairly well so long as it's not exposed to sunlight or anything else that can dissipate the charge.

3) Yes, I'd heard that.

4) Orgone is one of the thousand and one names for etheric energy. Radionic devices vary; the one that I'm most familiar with, the Hieronymus machine -- I have one, which I built and used fairly extensively -- seems to work primarily on the astral. As for experimenting with the connection between radionics and orgone technology, that's an excellent question that can only be solved by putting on your lab coat and going to work. The world needs more mad scientists anyway...

[(Anonymous)]

With a woodland burial do the trees feed on more than the physical body? Or will the larvae have already consumed everything else?

[ecosophia]

The trees just get the material body. The etheric body separates from the physical body at the time of death, and once the astral body and soul separates from it, the dead etheric body drifts around in the dense ethers until larvae lunch on it.

[(Anonymous)]

In order to clear karma on the higher planes, do you need to do something to make it happen? Or is it like past life memories and it happens when you're ready?

[ecosophia]

That depends very much on the specific, personal details of your karma. No, I'm not qualified to tell you about your own case!

[(Anonymous)]

Did alchemists ever treat madness? In the documentary Art and Mind, drawings and paintings show doctors using ovens to distill delusions out of the minds of the insane, and cutting the 'stone of madness' out of heads. Both of those sound alchemy-related.

[ecosophia]

Starting with Paracelsus, some alchemists went into health care and used alchemical methods to make herbal and mineral medicines; the modern tradition of spagyric medicine derives from that. Like most holistic medical methods, spagyrics treats the mind as well as the body. The kind of thing you're describing has nothing to do with spagyrics, though, and as far as I know it doesn't connect to alchemy.

Clairvoyant investigation of LIRP/MP/LBRP

[(Anonymous)]

Hello John. My girlfriend is naturally clairvoyant and I want to try performing LIRP, MP, LBRP in front of her to find out how she perceives it. Is there anything I should know before embarking on this experiment? Thanks!

Re: Clairvoyant investigation of LIRP/MP/LBRP

[ecosophia]

I used to do that with my then-girlfriend, now my wife, with no ill effects for anyone. By all means give it a try.

[(Anonymous)]

Could part of the reason the world is the way it is be that Neptune and Uranus don't have days of their own?

[ecosophia]

Possibly, but it took millennia for the seven-day week to catch on, you know. Doubtless if Uranus and Neptune need days of their own, societies of the future will gradually evolve a nine-day week.

[(Anonymous)]

How do psychedelics work and what do they do on the different planes?

[ecosophia]

An excellent question that I can't answer. I've never looked into the subject; most traditional occultists will have nothing to do with any drug more powerful than coffee or tea, and that's most of who I've studied.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG
I did a geomantic house chart to identify the planet of my genius. The chart looks like this;
1. Amissio
2 Populus
3 Fortuna Minor
4 Rubeus
5 Amissio
6 Fortuna Major
7 Laetitia
8 Populus
9 Amissio
10 Laetitia
11 Carcer
12 Laetitia

Result being Cancer in 11th house so Saturn is the planet of my Genius.
For the analysis of 'Am I living in harmony with my Genius"? This did not look particularly promising, but I think it perfects by translation with Laetitia in 10 and 12. Does that seem reasonable?
Thanks very much.

[ecosophia]

It's quite promising. If you do a house chart and there's a mode of perfection connecting the houses of the querent and quesited, the answer is yes. With Laetitia making the translation, pay more attention to what makes you happy -- not what you think ought to make you happy, but what actually does so -- and you'll see the influence of your Genius at work.

Parthworking

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I’ve started the pathworkings between inner groves as laid out in COGD and I have 2 questions.

1. How much of the content is generated internally and how much externally? For instance I was on the path from the water grove to the earth grove walking with my guide through a deep wood when quite unexpectedly a deer chased by a dog ran across the path. I thought ‘wow is that the wild hunt or something’ and immediately Arawn King of Annwn rose up in front of me but it was kind of what I had expected and wanted.
2. Can you accept gifts offered by guides at the end of the journey? Also can you give them gifts. The guide who gave me a gift I gave a lock of my hair to. He seemed very pleased and it shone like gold as he carried it away.
Anyway thank you very much for writing the book.
Best
Antony

Re: Parthworking

[ecosophia]

1) Exactly what counts as "internal" and "external" is a much more complex question than it seems as first. Don't worry about that; simply meditate on what you experience and see what it has to teach you. Your own subconscious can also be a wise instructor!

2) Yes, and in fact it's quite common for this to happen.

National myths: Britain

[(Anonymous)]

Under your post about Johnny Appleseed, there has been some discussion about national archetypes for Britain and for Germany.

A few weeks ago you said that magical groups which took Arthurian legend as their foundation myth generally ended in failure. Is this specific to magical groups, or are there other problems with Arthuriana as a myth to live by?

Is the association with failure because Arthur is said to have died in battle, rather than peacefully as a victorious king.

National empires rise and fall, it is the way of them, and so if he is a British national myth he doesn't seem to have been bad for the country. Many other countries have not had such periods of success. (Though maybe that also means further to fall.)

Then on the subject of Robin Hood. If there is success in the Robin Hood myth, that would, I assume, be in the versions where he is a dispossessed nobleman who regains his old lands. But that was a later addition to a medieval myth, and there are also numerous 'debunking' versions in modern fantasy fiction in which he isn't a dispossessed nobleman either. Depending on which version you choose, Robin Hood seems like a myth with the greatest affinity for protestors and those who are content to stay in the counterculture, or for the downwardly mobile who want to make their way up again. Or is that too limited a view of the myth?

A whole blog post on some of these popular myths might be interesting.

Re: National myths: Britain

[ecosophia]

The association with failure in the Arthurian legend isn't just a matter of the fact that he died in battle. Everything he tried to accomplish ended up tumbling to the ground -- and of course that's true historically as well as in legend; Roman Britain, of which he was the last effective defender, imploded messily starting half a century or so after his death, which is why people speak English in most of Britain today. Read any good account of Arthur's reign and the long bitter descent from the glory of its beginning to the utter collapse of its end is a central element. That's part of what makes it so enduring and powerful a theme for writers, poets, and artists -- but it makes it exceedingly tricky to work with in any magical context. I know of any number of groups that set out to do magical work on an Arthurian basis, and all of them followed the same trajectory to failure; yes, there was usually at least one person acting out the role of Mordred, too.

Robin Hood, by contrast, is the founding myth of a counterculture. It's very effective in that role; Robin's triumph wasn't that he regained his lands (as in the later romantic versions), but that he and his fellow outlaws created a splendid, successful alternative society in defiance of everything the authorities could throw at them. If English mages set out to put energy into the idea of "Robin Hood's England," an invisible country of individual freedom in defiance of the establishment, that could be an extremely successful move. (Of course the other nations on the same island each have their own archetypes and energies, and would be wiser to pursue those.)