Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything ***about occultism*** (ahem) 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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I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and I have a new answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain other gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I now have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online. 

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

With that said, have at it!

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

***Ahem. When I say that Magic Monday is closed, that really does mean that I'm not going to put through further questions, much less answer them. I've just deleted a couple  of lengthy question posted this morning. Please save them for next week!***

Comments

Concerning Gwynfydd and higher planes

[(Anonymous)]

Archdruid Greer,
I hope all is well with you and Sara.
1) Based upon occult writings as you understand them, once we reach Gwynfydd and begin living the luminous life, will consider ourselves as still living upon the Earth? (My understanding of the higher planes seems to suggest a sort of phase difference, not necessarily a location difference.)
2) Do the planets as we understand them in a scientific way exist on other planes as well (which might imply that the gods live here on earth as well – though upon a higher plane- or is creation completely different on the higher planes?
Regards,
Barry

Re: Concerning Gwynfydd and higher planes

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, but on a different plane, so it may not look much like the earth you're used to.

2) Every planet has a full set of bodies on each of the planes, so that (for example) there is an etheric Mars, an astral Mars, and so on. As for the gods, it depends on which gods you have in mind! The Pagan Neoplatonists, who made a very close study of this topic, noted that there were some gods who definitely existed on earth -- Pan is an obvious example; others, such as Mars, had their primary existence on other worlds in this solar system and influenced the Earth by way of attendant spirits or daimons. Still other gods were entirely outside space and time as we know them and thus were effectively everywhere at once. So it's complex.

Silver alternatives in talismans

[andrewskeen]

Good evening JMG,

Is nickel silver a viable alternative to e.g. sterling silver or other silver-containing metals in making certain Moon Mansion talismans? I saw on Chris Warnock's site some 3rd mansion talismans he had once consecrated using etched mirrors.

Best,
Andrew

Re: Silver alternatives in talismans

[ecosophia]

Probably not. Since it's an alloy of copper, nickel, and brass, however, it might well be suitable to talismans for Mercury, who rules over alloys. Chris' etched mirror talismans are made of glass, and have their power from the symbolism and the timing of their manufacture rather than their material. (They're quite effective, for all that.)

What’s my Druid name?

[(Anonymous)]

Since you’re the only person I know who has knowledge of Welsh and a Druid name, do you think translating Rusty Retrofit as Rhydlyd Ôl-ffitio is OK?
Or should I take a different approach to my name?
Speaking of names, I finished the Fourth Branch of The Mabinogion. Names of characters that string together to form phrases, and the vagaries of online translators that give different results depending on capitalization and spacing… hmm…
Any pointers?
R… er… Decanted Blue Pangolin, that is.

Re: What’s my Druid name?

[ecosophia]

You'd probably want to check with a native speaker of Welsh to be sure, but it sounds workable to me. As for the Fourth Branch, I really am going to have to do a commentary on that one of these days, aren't I?

[violetcabra]

Do you know what chart astrologers considered the most relevant for a triple Grand Conjunction? I want to study the 1980/81 Grand Conjunction but am not sure which of the three charts is most relevant for the subsequent 20 years. I could imagine either the first or the last of the charts ruling the time period in question and given the time it takes cast and study them so I ask if you know what the authorities say on the matter, if they say anything on the matter.

[ecosophia]

The first is the most important one -- the birth chart of the era -- but thorough astrologers study all three and treat the others as commentaries on and modifications to the first.

My Blog and fasting

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
I started writing a blog on Druidry and restorative agriculture and it is managed by a young friend who understands such things. I didn't think anyone was reading it so I stopped posting.

She just told me that we were doing quite well and I had started with readers from around the world but I had no way of knowing that. So I have started posting again and if anyone had given up on me, please give it another try. The address is https://druidapprentice.wordpress.com/

On another tack, have you noticed any benefits to doing magic in the fasted state? I have been doing some fasting to back away from type-2 diabetes and find I am much more sensitive to subtle energies after a few days of fasting. I know fasting has been used in a number of magical traditions. What do you think of it?
Maxine

Re: My Blog and fasting

[ecosophia]

1) Glad to hear it. Keep posting!

2) Fasting increases your psychic sensitivity -- that's why so many spiritual traditions use it. Some of the old grimoires recommended it as a routine practice.

[(Anonymous)]

a) I've started looking into the 1920s and 1930s with the idea of downshifting my material life. I've also been struck by how many of the changes in day to day life appear strongly Plutonian, linked to the criminal underworld, tearing us apart from the rhythms and realities of daily life which ruled most of our species' history, and hit with crazed hype before turning septic.

These include mass communication (radio), cinema, antibiotics, car culture, cross continental electric grids, centralized governments, among loads of other phenomena which shape most people's lives to this day. All of these are currently still going strong, but could be wiped out fairly quickly if things go really badly.

In your model of Pluto waning, will these all go away over the next fifteen years? That transformation would be incredibly disruptive, even if it goes well, which doesn't seem likely right now.

b) No question yet, since I think a lot of experimentation is called for here, but I think I might have discovered a way to start building a nine planet astrological day system. According to my encyclopedia, Uranus was discovered March 13, 1781, while Neptune was discovered early in the morning of September 22, which is thus the day before in astrological days. Neptune was thus discovered one astrological day prior to Uranus, which if the nine day system works in the descending Chaldean order like the seven day system, means Uranus could have been discovered in the day or Uranus, and Neptune in the day of Neptune.

[ecosophia]

1) I don't expect all those things to go away, though some of them will. Centralized governments existed long before Pluto, for example. On the other hand, antibiotics are failing now as more organisms become resistant, and large-scale electricity grids -- well, I probably don't have to get into that, do I? What I expect is that some of them will go away, others will become less available, and still others will simply become much less influential.

2) Interesting! That might well be worth following up on.

[(Anonymous)]

1. Are the Paths on the Tree of Life always meant to be traveled from bottom to top? Are they more like single-lane roads or two-way highways?

2. What might be the occult significance of making physical contact with another celestial body, like the Apollo astronauts with the Moon? Would some of the essence of the body transfer to the affected individuals?

3. Are you familiar with the practice of “Dragon Cultivates the Golden Pearl,” described in Damien Echols’ book High Magick? It’s about creating a thoughtform and imbuing it with a certain intention. Wondering if you have any thoughts on it. Is it effective? And what are the possible intentions that might be used with it?

[ecosophia]

1) You travel them from bottom to top because Malkuth is where you are. Once you rise to a different sphere -- in reality, not merely in imaginative vision! -- you can talk about descending.

2) That's an important question to which I don't think anyone yet knows the answer.

3) Damien's book is solid stuff, and yes, that technique works. As for possible intentions, just about anything you can imagine -- though a close eye toward magical ethics would be wise.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

Is there a particular day of the week that is considered especially auspicious or especially unlucky for getting married? What about months of the year? Thanks!

[ecosophia]

Friday would be an auspicious day because Venus rules it. As for months, remember that astrology follows its own calendar; when the sun is in Taurus or Libra would be favorable.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey there JMG,

after reading your blogs and a lot of your books over the past two years, I'm getting very curious about how your daily life looks like.

So how high are your interest to feed your readers with something like "A day in the life of an Arch Druid" or (my personal favorite) a photo-based M(magic)TV Cribs Episode. I would really like to see how your garden looks like and what kind of appropriate technology you use and if you are a collector of weird things. Your library would likely be of interest for a lot of us. And I get a lot from seeing other peoples kitchens and bathrooms.

Greetings from Germany

- Alex

[ecosophia]

Um, no, that's not something that would interest me at all. The Sâr Péladan had a useful piece of advice here: “’Fear the example of another, think for yourself. This precept of Pythagoras contains all of magic, which is nothing other than the power of selfhood.”

Aether

[(Anonymous)]

Eloptic energy, plasma, orgone, the life force, Odic force - are they the same? If not, how do they differ? If so, why are there so many different kinds of devices of wildly differing designs to study and utilize the same energy? What common thread binds a cloud buster to a radionic amplifying pattern printed on a sheet of paper to a magnetically polarized iron model of the earth? It seems to me that to design and make something useful, one needs an understanding of the governing principles involved. How can one ascertain what they are?

I very much enjoy the idea of making practical use of forms of energy that aren't supposed to exist. It's hard for the man to meter them when science furiously insists they aren't there.

Umber Amphibious Pangolin

Re: Aether

[ecosophia]

They're all the same thing -- or at least they all behave in the same way and can do the same things, and experimentation by people who have learned how to work with more than one very strongly suggests that they're all the same.

Why do the devices differ? Well, how many different things do you have in your home that all use electricity? A flashlight, a wall clock, and a battery operated hamster in a martial arts outfit who swings a nunchaku and sings "Kung Fu Fighting" (to name some examples in my home) don't have a lot in common, but they're all powered by electricity, and indeed use the same batteries.

As for the governing principles, we don't know them yet. That's just it. What we have are a handful of devices, techniques, practices, and methods that all seem to work with the same energy. Most of them were discovered by accident while people were trying to do something different. Most radionics technologies were worked out by people who thought they were using electricity, and then figured out that something really odd was going on. The East Asian techniques using qi, similarly, were worked out by people who were trying to figure out how to fight or heal wounds, and discovered that something really odd was going on. We're all venturing into unexplored wilderness, and every so often our trails cross...

[booklover1973]

When considering the kind of magic contained in spellbooks like "The Long Lost Friend" or similar kinds of folk magic, the fact that the study of ceremonial magic is a much more time-consuming and laborious affair leads me to the question, what the disadvantages of said kind of folk magic are, since there is presumably no free lunch, so to speak, when practicing magic?

Does it make sense to conceptualize the discarnate after-death state as a sort of holiday from material incarnation or is this picture problematic?

[ecosophia]

1) Folk magic operates on a much lower level of power, if you will. It can accomplish things, but on a modest practical level. Ceremonial magic can accomplish much more, which is why you have to work at it so hard.

2) It's not a holiday at all. The soul between lives has to process its experiences so they can be absorbed into the immortal part of the self, and that takes work.

The stars incline, but do not compel

[tunesmyth]

JMG,

Many times you have used the expression that "The stars incline, but do not compel". And you have written of how stellar inclinations come from the level of the astral plane, and affect everything downstream; but that it is possible to change such inclinations by accessing the mental plane, as it is upstream from the astral plane. (I hope I have summarized correctly.)

I’m hoping you can help me to be sure that I understand what this means, exactly.

(1) As for the exact method of how to change one's fate via the mental plane, is this primarily a matter of building higher capacities for thought and will? So as to be able to think outside of the normal patterns of inclination, and from that to make different choices than the preset patterns, and the will power to actually follow through on them.

(2) Even if one learns to rise beyond the astral tides in one’s own conduct, it seems to me that the astral tides would still continuously create conditions which throws the challenges of their own birth chart at them until the day they die. In other words, even if you build an olympic level body for swimming against the astral tides, the chart you were born with still determine the tides you will forever swim in. Overcoming the inclinations of your natural inborn rhythms will always take directed effort. Do I have the right idea about this?

(3) Would prayer to deities, who exist on or above the mental plane, also potentially be an effective method for overcoming stellar inclination? And if so, is it probably generally more effective to pray for aid in changing oneself, rather than praying for changes to chart-related challenges that come from outside one's self?

Re: The stars incline, but do not compel

[ecosophia]

1) Human beings have very limited access to the mental plane. We don't have mental bodies yet, just mental sheaths, which are structures of mental plane substance evolving toward the status of mental bodies. Any practice that focuses attention on the mental plane and builds the mental sheath -- meditation is of course the most important of these -- helps improve that situation, and gives you a little more capacity to rise above the inclinations of the stars.

2) That's correct. The most you can do is establish habits of consciousness that reliably counteract the inclinations of your natal horoscope.

3) It can be, but it depends on the deity. While deities exist on higher planes, many of them habitually act through planes lower down; the deities who give their names to the planets (and their equivalents in other systems), for example, work on the astral and so may not be a good choice. The Neoplatonists talked about the difference between encosmic and hypercosmic deities -- the encosmic ones are the ones on whose acts the planetary influences are founded, and you can petition them to work with the planetary influences but not to overcome those influences, while the hypercosmic deities are the ones who exist beyond the cosmos as we experience it and can assist in transcendence. (Some of the Gnostics called those the archons and the aeons respectively).

[(Anonymous)]

On the occasional subject of one Frank L. Baum and his penchant for putting his Theosophy into some of his works: were the flying monkeys a specific reference to something, or just flying monkeys? (They popped into my brain today and I'm pretty sure they're worth a meditation theme at any rate, but now I'm wondering if they're also a nod to something in Theosophical circles that I'm not familiar with...)

- pretentious_username

[ecosophia]

The flying monkeys are the stray thoughts of the untrained mind, which can carry you off to all kinds of unwelcome places. Put on the Golden Cap of meditation and you can command them to help you instead!

Divination advice

[abrahamjpalma]

Hello again, Mr Greer

Now that you have explained in more grounded terms what magic is about, I don't see it as foolishness anymore, and am becoming in fact interested. Since you prescribe a daily ritual, study and divination, I thought the last part must be the hardest for me, for several reasons. First, I don't believe in the woo woo part of this art. Even if it worked, I really don't want to know the future, I guess if all this stuff was true, then I would have zero agency in my life and I just can't accept this. But I could accept a more grounded version of what divination entails: sharpening human senses and intuitions. Some things require study to understand, some others require a bit of intuition to discover.

My mother is a Tarot practitioner, I never wanted a reading. In fact, I despised her hobby for a long time. Now I accept that she might be helping some lost souls to feel more confident about life, maybe she is giving good advice to her clients, but knowing my mother, I doubt it. Perhaps other readers are sage or psychological enough to give a good advice from what they read in cards. My father is even worse, but he is not into divination or magical practices, he is rather a mystical that pursues any religion belief out there, actually pursuing the monastic life of excess. He's the one that dreams with becoming a pure energy form, free from flesh. Oh, and he hates druids, I don't know why. My wife and I, on the other hand, are quite the rationalistics. We tolerate other people's beliefs but we are non believers. So that's the background.

From what I gather about divination, it is a tool to awaken our intuitions, to let our minds speak freely and to interpret what it is saying. I don't want to scare my wife, so I'm looking for something that I could work in secrecy, maybe when she's out or sleeping. Minimum to none parafernalia.
I also have a grudge against random methods. You know roleplay games, right? When it comes to throwing dices, I always lose in the things that matter, even when my chances are high. If it is card games, it is the same. The more luck is required, the more consistently I lose. I have dices from my previous gamer life and my wife would not suspect about them, but I don't feel like using them.

This weekend I went through a list of divination methods, and the one that called up my attention was scrying. When I was meditating (eastern style) images were common, and I had to dispell them as we were told to do. So I think that's a way I could let my mind express itself. It's silent, can be practiced at night and I have the confidence that I can obtain results. It also fits well with my beliefs. So I did try.

The first attempt went badly. I was interrupted several times and when I finally had some peaceful time, my heart strangely started beating like crazy. I wasn't nervous, I wasn't seeing anything yet, but I had to stop. Maybe I didn't feel nervous, but apparently something inside me was.
Yesterday, my second attemp went better. I didn't see anything clearly, just a few flashes, the same you see when you close your eyes hard. But I suspected the shape of an eye, or a vagina, then something like a sofa, the window of a house seen from outside and a comet. My wife and I usually have sex on sundays, but when I met my wife in the sitting room, she was sat on the sofa, reading a book in our ebook reader and I knew she was not in the mood. She confirmed what I thought.

I was expecting some symbolism, but these images were quite explicit, actually. Dark, blurry, just a hint for shapes, but the shapes themselves were not very symbolic. So sex with my wife (vagina?) who was sitting on the sofa will be rejected (house seen from outside?) and go bad (the comet omen?). If I wanted a proof that it works, I couldn't ask for a better one. I think that somehow my mind already knew what was going to happen from hints I had during the evening, and that was intuition showing.

I still have some doubts, but they are more about the current practice. I have used my smartphone in black as background, seeing the reflect of a dim light in the ceiling. I understand that using a device which is used for other purposes might be loaded with influences. In other words, I might feel tempted to read my WhatsApp messages, and that leads to think about my WhatsApp contacts, driving my thoughts in directions I don't want to follow. However, I'm becoming pretty good at ignoring my smartphone when I don't want to be in contact, so it might not be such a major influence. I could try other focusing tool, but that one is very convinient.
Another doubt is about where to sit the sight. It's hard to keep the sight in the glaced surface. It's easier to focus on the reflected wall or ceiling but since it has no features, the easiest thing to do is to unfocus the sight, looking at the infinite. When unfocused, everything is blurry, the eyes feel better, and images still come. But then, what's the point on using a glaced surface if I could just look at a blank wall instead with the same results? And when I fix the focus on the surface, in three minutes I stop seeing the device, it becomes a black area once the rods and cones are saturated.
I will keep trying to rest the sight in different foci to see what goes better.

Is there any advice you could offer here?
Thanks in advance.

Re: Divination advice

[sothismedias]

If I may chime in... you wrote, "It's silent, can be practiced at night and I have the confidence that I can obtain results."

If you want to test whether or not humans can know the future, another method that works with what you wrote is, dream work. Just keep a record of your dreams for awhile and sooner or later you'll notice you have at times precognitive dreams. I think everyone has precognitive dreams from time to time, but we just don't always know it, because most people don't remember their dreams unless they make it a habit and give it practice.

Dreams are natural to everyone and paying attention to them is a surefire way to develop: creativity, intuition, imagination, and so much more.

Here is a little post on precognitive dreams from Robert Moss, one of the better teachers of dreaming arts out there IMO:

http://mossdreams.blogspot.com/2017/09/we-dream-future-all-time.html

Just some thoughts!

Tangerine Orthogonal Wombat

Etheric charging

[autpaxautbellum]

Dear Mr. Greer,

I’ve been working with the etheric charging practices in Paths of Wisdom (wonderful book by the way!). And have had a couple questions on this:

(1) I am curious about the cutoff time for solar (10am) and lunar (10pm) charging. I’m speculating that the solar time is to avoid ‘over charging’ as the sun rises and gets stronger, but the Lunar time is a mystery, as the moon could be different places at 10pm on a given day. What is the rationale?

(2) it seems to me that these practices work best without cloud interference, at least the effects seem much stronger to me. In your experience, Is there enough value to do these on cloudy day to bother?

Thank you!

Re: Etheric charging

[ecosophia]

1) That's the traditional cutoff time. I'm not sure what the logic is behind it. Remember that Paths was the first book I ever wrote, and I tended to repeat the lore I received as I received it. These days, I'd say instead that you should do the solar charging between dawn and solar noon, and the lunar charging between moonrise and the moon reaching the zenith.

2) They're more effective when clouds are absent but you get some benefit even through heavy clouds. I lived in Seattle when I learned these practices, so clear days were rare...

Joining OBOD

[frank_from_germany]

Hi JMG,
not sure if this is really a question for Magic Monday, but I´ll try anyway. Let me know if you think it´s more appropriate for an open post. I´m thinking of joining the German branch of OBOD. I´ve already ordered and received their ´´test kit´´ containing the first two gwers of the course to become a bard plus two accompanying brochures, one about the order in general, the other about sacred groves. I am genuinely interested in going further, but there´s one thing that worries me: it´s the poetry. Poetry seems to be rather important within that course, and I do know it was (is) of major importance to celtic culture in general and the old bards and druids especially. Thing is, it just leaves me indifferent. Poetry hasn´t done anything for me my hole life, and its not for lack of trying. I have been to poetry readings, I have read poems in German and in English, and my reaction always was headscratching, boredom and indifference. It´s not that I hate it, it just leaves me cold. Is there a condition like poetry-blindness/deafness? If there is, I must have got it. It´s very different with music: music touches me deep inside, stirs up emotions, makes me want to dance or just quietly listen, depending on the kind of tune or genre; in other words I react to music in a similar way as other people react to poems (apart from the dancing, maybe).
So my question to you is: do you think it makes sense for me to go ahead with the Bard course, or do you think my lack of understanding poetry would be too big an obstacle to overcome?
I know I can talk to members of OBOD about this once I take the course (they provide a tutor if one wants one), but I´d like some outside advice before I commit to it: the sum of money they ask for seems really fair, but, although affordable, is still substantial to me, and while I have a return option within the first 30 days of the course, I´d rather spare them and me the bother of cancelling and repayment.
Greetings
Frank from Germany

Re: Joining OBOD

[(Anonymous)]

Frank - Poetry never did anything for me either, until I first heard it sung. Leslie Fish's tapes/CDs of Kipling's Poetry. Then in made perfect sense. Do you relate to song lyrics at all?

The Grey Badger

Organizing Long Term Magical Studies (When You are ADD)

[sothismedias]

HI JMG and greetings to the commentariat.

Your post on radionics touched something in me and tugged on a thread of interest I realize has been brewing inside of me for quite awhile. In my late teens and early twenties I started reading Wilhelm Reich and got into that material for quite awhile. Then a little later an older gentleman I knew very briefly before he passed turned me on to the work of Philip Callahan. Through the interest in Callahan's work I started getting interested in "Natural Radio" -the natural emissions of the Earth in the VLF range of the spectrum. At the time I was doing community radio at WAIF, so radio in itself was an interest -and from there wanted to know more about shortwave & ham radio, eventually getting involved in these latter two activities, many years later.

About a year or so ago I was looking into Earth Pipe's out of curiosity, and found a site (that I can't seem to find again!) that was a Radionics / Orgone / alt-science research group or organization of some kind. I realized as someone who most likely is on the ADD/ADHD spectrum that though it was calling to me at that time, I had other projects I wanted to see to completion and other goals I wanted to achieve.

Again your post on Radionics really did tug that thread and fire up my imagination, recalling these areas of interest and your own research as documented in The Secret of the Temple.

In any case, the point here is that I do want to study Radionics in more depth. Some kind of correspondence course or program of self-study I could follow would be what I need to pursue this. I have some ideas of readings / re-readings I could follow up on.

My question though, is how have you decided amidst all the aspects of occultism you have studied and all the courses you have done, what to pursue next? I remember you said that there was a toss up for a time of whether you would pursue alchemy or astrology as a serious area of work. You did an alchemy course and realized that your talents might be better put to use elsewhere -and your astrology has bloomed.

I can think of a few things to guide me on what I will study and work on in more detail next: inner guidance / journaling, meditation, divination. Do you have any other advice for those of us who are interested in and get curious about so many subjects, about how to choose one to concentrate on, and how to plan work in those different areas of the Art out over time?

Many thanks for hosting this and for all your work.

(P.S.: One other note is that the image of the spiral is something I have found useful. It seems I will spiral back around to different subjects and learn things on them from a new angle and with the benefit of accrued time & experience. Something else to meditate on.)

USPA

[sothismedias]

Follow up & Q: I finally managed to track down the site I'd been trying to remember:

https://www.psychotronics.org/

Do you know anything about this group, United States Psychotronics Association?

Tarot - Next Life Spread

[(Anonymous)]

I am at a time in my life where I am financially comfortable and have time on my hands. I worked and schemed hard to get here and have been asking myself and the Gods what this time of my life is for. Part of what I'm getting back is that I'm to prepare for the next incarnation, which apparently will be tough.

I did a search for Tarot Spreads that might throw some light on this, and got nothing. So I devised one of my own. Its a five card spread as follows:
1. What will I do
2. What challenges will I face
3.What lessons will I learn?
4. How can I prepare
5. Message from the Goddess

My questions:
1. Is it wise to to a spread like this?
2. Is there anything else that should be asked?

Many thanks



M

Re: Tarot - Next Life Spread

[ecosophia]

1) Did you consider casting a simple divination asking whether this was a good idea?

2) Only you can answer that question.

[(Anonymous)]

After a long while and for strange reasons that I will spare you, I’ve decided to go back to where I started, Paths of Wisdom. I remember that you weren’t happy about something you wrote in PoW. I think it was a philosophical point, but I’m not sure. My copy is the 2007, Thoth Publications one. Is there anything I should be aware of in this version, or am I good to go?

A second question I have is that I recently introduced the MPE into my routine, which is the one described in the book. The intro text to the ritual says that there are many versions but that this is the best one to use - I guess because it works best with the rest of the book. This version of the MPE feels good to me,, but then I happened to read an entry on the other blog from summer 2019 and there you said that the best MPE to use was the one in LRM. Should I switch to that one?

Thanks for any help!

[ecosophia]

1) I made a couple of elementary philosophical mistakes in Paths, and left them in as a reminder to readers that I'm far from omniscient! You should be fine. If you study philosophy at all, you'll catch the mistakes.

2) Use either one; they both work.

Rootwork/hoodoo/Southern conjure sources

[zarvoc]

Good morning JMG,

I was trying to remember a website that you had recommended, which featured practical spells (containing, among other things, little scraps of torn paper and bottles and such as ingredients) in the rootwork tradition. I checked past blog posts but I couldn't seem to track it down. Could you jog my memory? :)

Re: Rootwork/hoodoo/Southern conjure sources

[ecosophia]

That would be Lucky Mojo, the site run by my teacher in conjure, the inimitable Cat Yronwode.

Climbing the bunny slope

[(Anonymous)]

In the DMH, you end the instructions for invoking and banishing by the first gate with the suggestion to pay attention to any symbols of air that show up in other parts of one's life. Where could I learn about these symbols beyond what is included in the introduction to that section? Are they specific to druidry or universal?

The same section includes a list of colour symbolisms in Table 4-1 for active workings. Do the symbolisms stay the same for each colour across all elements? So red would be used to awaken vitality with the air, water, fire and earth?

Lastly, the instructions for the elemental cross as a daily practice facing east has one invoke the fire to one's right hand and the water to one's left hand. This puts water in the south. Does this have any bearing on water being in the west when invoking and banishing by the second gate?

Re: Climbing the bunny slope

[ecosophia]

1) The symbols that matter in this specific context are the things that represent air to you. Meditate on air and think about what might be a symbol of air; that's far more useful than trying to use someone else's list.

2) Yes.

3) Nope. Magic is full of odd little symbolic disjuncts like that.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

1. Last week I asked some questions about the Shadow, I've been thinking about your replies and a few further questions arose. We have a neighbour who lives very close to our rental house, and we've had numerous problems with her since we moved in because she hasn't respected boundaries (the neighbour has both drug and mental health issues). She has threatened my wife on a couple of occasions, and we've had to involve the police. Because we've done so, things have calmed down and for about a year there's been an uneasy peace.

Yet despite this peace, we still feel uneasy every time we're in our backyard and we hear her moving around or talking, such that her presence can change our mood immediately. So either we're reacting naturally based on past experience, or, we're projecting something on her when she's around. I've been trying to avoid going down a thought train whenever I hear the neighbour and have the next 5-10 minutes of my thoughts be consumed by her, with limited success. So I can't tell if a) this is the Shadow, and somewhere there is psychological baggage on my end, b) whether dealing with it means not letting thoughts of her overtake me or that I understand that my reactions to the situation are natural and normal?

2. So obviously given the above, the best thing to do would be to move. I am working with the DMH, and haven't so far done any of the modified SOP workings to affect the wider world. I'm up to the point where I am about to scry the fews, so I have already enchanted the wand, stones and cauldron, but I've tended to stay away from those workings that affect the outside world, but I've done a few of them to transform myself.

But now I've been meditating on a working to buy a new house. It's important to me, with such a working, that I don't cause someone else to lose their house, and that the price is fair for both sides. I probably don't want to come up with a shopping list of features in my intention as I imagine that's asking for trouble, but rather what the house will allow us to do.

The intention I have come up with after meditation is: "We fairly purchase the house that best allows us to follow our paths." What do you think?

My wife, by the way, is aware that I'm considering doing this working.

Thanks again!

[ecosophia]

1) Might be a projection of the shadow, might be your own increased psychic sensitivity, might be both. It's hard to say.

2) I'd tend to add something like "in a way that has positive results for all concerned." Other than that, it's good.

intercepted houses

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

I am trying to get my head around intercepted houses in the placidus house system.
Example 1: House A has Sign 1 on cusp and House B has sign 3 on cusp - full interception - I'm ok with that.
Example 2: House A has Sign 1(early degrees) on cusp and House B has Sign 2 on cusp - however the degree is in the last degrees call it 26Sign2xx. Repeat for House C with again last degrees on cusp.

So basically - almost but just not quite fully intercepted. Is the sign on the cusp of these House B and C the lord of the house? Thus messing with the following sign and its planets? or by sheer volume is the second sign more the lord of the house?

I know what I want but I recognise from long reading here that what I may want may just not be what is so... lolz This has been vexing me as I have a situation like say House B is last degrees of Scorpio but mostly Sagittarius with Sag being cusp of House C etc. The annoying bit is Jupiter is in Sag and even on a favourable decan with some nice aspects - trines/sextiles in House B- so you can see why I would want Sag to muscle out the Scorpio cusp. I am prepared however that basically things are just stuffed using Placidus and that lovely placement of Jupiter in Sag in House B is hamstrung and a mess.

Looking for some guidance on which sign actually gets dibs - the actual cusp sign or the sign that basically fills the house. And if there is a partial interception thing that my google-fu has failed to find so far.

Thanks very much for your time. :)

Re: intercepted houses

[ecosophia]

The sign on the cusp is the lord of the house, full stop, end of sentence. It doesn't matter whether there's just a sliver of the sign in the house -- the sign on the cusp is the lord of the house, and the planet that rules the sign is the ruler of the house. Thus there are no "partial interceptions" -- if a cusp falls in any part of a sign, that sign is not intercepted.

Bloom County Tree of Life

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

The idea hit me to try to map the characters of Bloom County to the Tree of Life, and here is what I came up with:

Kether - Bill the Cat
The background of many plot lines, unintelligible, has been all things and all people.

Chokmah - Portnoy
Binah - Hodge-Podge
These two are a pair, and Hodge-Podge being the more conservative, stubborn one, had to be Binah.

Chesed - Senator Bedfellow
Part of the government, jovial, portly.

Geburah - Steve Dallas
As an attorney, has undoubtedly filed lawsuits to tear down others, self-destructive habits

Tiphareth - Opus
The heart of Bloom County, of course. At the end, sacrifices himself and follows Ronald Anne beyond the rent veil to the Outland.

Netzach - Binkley
Emotional, anxious.

Hod - Oliver Wendell Jones
Milo would have been good here, especially as a pair with Binkley, but the resident computer hacker and mad scientist has to go here.

Yesod - Cutter John
Speeding downhill in his wheelchair with animal friends living out Star Trek fantasies.

Malkuth - ???
I got stuck here, but considered Rosebud and Lola Granola.

Thoughts, other ideas?

-John N.

Re: Bloom County Tree of Life

[ecosophia]

Funny! For Malkuth, Sara suggests Quiche Lorraine, Steve Dallas' girlfriend.

[d_mekel]

Should lesser banishing/invoking rituals of the pentagram always start and end with a qabalistic cross?g

[ecosophia]

Yes.