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!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John!
1. Hoodoo bath data point: Got caught without cayenne or white vinegar. Took three hoodoo baths with siracha salt and apple cider vinegar. Seemed to not work as well as the regular ingredients – more scrubbing, higher concentration, and a shower afterward required. Have you or anyone else observed this effect? (Side effect – a craving for fries doused in the aforementioned condiments.)
2. Is it OK to order your titles from Lorian Press? As in – will you get paid if I do business there?
3. Finished A Voyage to Hyperborea. Hoping for a follow-up revealing the fate of the arm rings… and Pilot Biscuits while we hear the tales of every Hyperborean’s favorite uncatchable thief…
4. How does one discern occult significance in political speeches? For instance, aside from a “this is important” vibe, Trump’s speech at CPAC today was a very straightforward presentation delivered with great energy to a friendly crowd. And I’m looking for… something? And asking my oracle… umm… something?
5. What happens or what does the operator get when fictional characters are mapped onto the Kabbalah and the Zodiac?
Many thanks.
Rhydlyd

[ecosophia]

1) So noted.

2) The titles that Lorian Press publishes, sure.

3) I don't expect to write any more Haliverse stories. Sorry.

4) There usually isn't any.

5) I'd encourage you to meditate on that!

[(Anonymous)]

a) I've had a ton of memories of my last life come up over the past few months: she was heavily involved in the counter culture of the 1960s and appropriate tech scene of the 1970s, and firmly believed that we were going in the right direction. When the shift of the 1980s hit, she was devastated, and seeing the world we were heading for, killed herself.

I now find that I need to mourn the dream of what could have been had we gotten our act together instead of wasting our chance to downshift in a controlled fashion, a dream which became impossible more than a decade before I was born. Do you have advice on how to handle this? I don't know how to mourn a dream from a past life.

b) Do you know what caused so many people to jump into the vacation from reality at the start of the 1980s? It seems odd that things would suddenly become so detached from reality, and try as hard as I might, I can't make sense of it.

c) You've stated that lives are normally lived in a linear fashion, but is it possible that part of the massive growth in population is souls who need to experience Pluto repeatedly for whatever reason getting that chance? For example, you've mentioned before that people who commit suicide tend to be reborn into the same circumstances which they seek to escape by it, which seems to imply if someone committed suicide to escape from the Plutonian they would get reborn right back into it: which also seems to imply that someone who committed suicide to escape the Plutonian during its waning phase would be reborn earlier.

d) Do you know what is going on with the Democrats? They are now insisting that bipartisanship does not mean working with the Republicans, that they are bipartisan despite Republicans not working with them; the house Democrats passed The Equality Act, which will be so disruptive that even people who tend to ignore politics will be forced to take notice (a lawyer I know said that the only way schools can comply is to make all kids change in the same change room); and unlike the Covid thing, where it's clear millions are onboard with them, here it's alienating even a lot of their base.

It looks like they are under some sort of weird spell, and the weirdest part is that until Trump, it seemed like the Democrats were the sane ones.....

e) Given that the whole Covid thing is a horrific overreaction to an illness, which is also a fair description of ADE, is there a risk of the vaccine causing the microcosms of those who take it to mirror the macrocosm? In other words, is there an occult reason to suspect the vaccines will cause ADE?

[ecosophia]

1) I'd encourage you to find and read books from the 1960s and 1970s that exemplify the dream, and then let yourself feel (and journal about) the gap between what could have been and what happened instead.

2) I wrote about that in some detail here, here, and here.

3) I don't see any reason to think that's going on.

4) I'll be talking about that in this week's post. The short form is that they've bailed out of the real world and are now insisting that words mean whatever they want them to mean. What's causing it? That's a complex and subtle question.

5) We'll just have to see.

Etheric Cooking and House Plants

[(Anonymous)]

Concerning improving the etheric nature of foods by preparation and cooking, do you have any advice or recommendations?

Do you have thoughts on which houseplants change the energies of a home in what way? I seem to really enjoy the company of spider-plants, and succulents seem unpleasant to me. Though I will always keep an aloe vera.

Re: Etheric Cooking and House Plants

[ecosophia]

1) How much do you know about the nature and handling of etheric energies? That'll determine a good deal of my response.

2) That's very much a personal matter. If you find spider plants pleasant, then by all means grow them.

[(Anonymous)]

A thought: If the astral plane is where dreams take place, then that suggests that the practice of telling children bedtime stories and singing them lullabies helps them sleep better by getting them more in-tune with the astral plane, thus easing their transition into it.

[ecosophia]

Excellent! Yes, very much so. Along the same lines, I recommend that students of the occult read at least a little from some occult text before going to bed.

[(Anonymous)]

Original Poster
Only enough to be able to maintain a mood and intent for a few minutes before having to refocus, and only the lightest ability to perceive or otherwise interact with the non-physical. Thankyou for your thoughts and time.

[ecosophia]

I'm guessing this is in response to the question about food. Given those limits, your best bet is to make sure the kitchen and your cooking tools are clean; use vinegar and baking soda in place of more toxic cleansers, because the former clear away etheric grubbiness as well as the physical kind. Get food from farmers markets and the like when you can, as it'll be energetically much cleaner. Also, if you're comfortable doing so, a prayer said over food either while cooking or just before eating will help bring positive spiritual energies into the food -- the old habit of saying grace before meals has much to recommend it.

[pagantech]

Getting JMG.
1) Would you know of any books or websites detailing ley lines and meridian points of London?

2) Are there any issues with walking or cycling along a ley line?

Many Thanks.

[ecosophia]

1) If I recall correctly, Parliament Hill in northwest London is widely considered to be an important ley center. The Society of Ley Hunters ought to be able to point you to the details.

2) Quite the contrary, it's well worth doing. The scene in my novel The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth where the main character follows a "moon path" (i.e., ley) across the Massachusetts landscape is based on some of my own experiences. Pick up a copy of Alfred Watkins' book The Ley Hunter's Manual and plan on a fine time.

Book

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, I did a quick search for Ley Hunter's Manual on alibris, abebooks, amazon, and a general web search, and only found it on amazon for about $500 used hardcover or $770 new softcover. I did find a free pdf from a 1927 text at

https://www.onenationonepower.com/forum/resource-list/the-ley-hunter-s-manual

by that author. So I hope that would be it, no?

Re: Book

[ecosophia]

Good heavens. No, what you found was simply a back issue of The Ley Hunter magazine, mislabeled. I wonder why on earth Watkins' book is out of print and so insanely overpriced! It should be out of copyright by this point. In that case Paul Devereux' Ley Hunter's Companion is your next best bet.

Bible as Occult text

[(Anonymous)]

Sir,
What do you think of Manly P Hall’s “How to understand your bible?” Also do you or the commentariat have a recommended version? I know that they are often arranged with a particular non-occult theology in mind. Since I know little Greek and zero Hebrew I’d like an edition that doesn’t put up barriers to interpretation since I can’t diy.

— Indigo Refulgent Toad

Re: Bible as Occult text

[ecosophia]

1) Hall had his own take on the Bible; it's worth reading, though he'd be the first person to tell you not to accept it on faith.

2) Every translation presupposes an interpretation -- you literally can't translate something out of an ancient language without interpreting it, because Hebrew and Greek both have a very small vocabulary by the standards of modern languages, so you have to decide which of a dozen different words you're going to use to translate any given word in those languages. I tend to use the King James version despite its inaccuracies, because the language is beautiful and the biases are very obvious, thus easy to dodge.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been doing some ritual work in the Classic Golden Dawn stream, and have found myself feeling more depressed than usual. This raised some red flags, but since I was also feeling more energized, and that things were brighter in general, especially when I did the rituals, decided to keep going and try to figure out what was happening. It is really hard to explain: I feel happier and more energized, and when I decide to do things it's easier to do them, but I don't feel like doing as much, and I feel bored a lot more. It's a very strange combination.

I've just realized my problem: most of my hobbies are electronic, and my interest in electronic devices has dropped markedly since I started ritual work; while there isn't enough in my life bringing happiness otherwise just yet. Is this sort of thing normal when someone (especially young and from one of the upper social classes; my life has been heavily mediated by electronics my entire life, and I've often gotten new devices long before the average person) starts ritual work? I assume the way out is to cultivate new hobbies, and generally shift away from electronics, but do you have any other advice?

[ecosophia]

I wonder if it's the same thing other commenters have mentioned -- suddenly discovering that something in your life sucks. If you occupied yourself with electronic toys out of habit, and are realizing now how dull they actually are, that might explain it. In that case, yes, finding other things to do might help, and you might also find it useful to do some journaling to help you figure out what you yourself like to do -- as distinct from what your culture and family taught you to think you like to do.

Psychedelics and the occult

[moops25]

Hi JMG,

What are your thoughts on the current use or even misuse of entheogens ? Seems as though anyone these days can take a guided trip to the Amazon and mess around with Ayahuasca.

I see more and more books appearing attempting to connect the use of psychoactive substances with any ancient spiritual tradition. Is traditional occult work, such as the kind you champion here, in danger of being pushed aside by the DMT crowd or are the end goals the same, and it's just the paths to get there that are different ?

I understand psychoactive substances did play a part in some traditions, it just seems that these days they're really being pushed as the missing key that may hold some answers.

Regards,
Steve

Re: Psychedelics and the occult

[ecosophia]

My thoughts amount to "Oh, goodie, here we go again." That's one of those perennial bad ideas, like masturbation as performance art, that get recycled every thirty years or so. The 1960s and 1990s both saw a bumper crop of literature along those lines.

Traditional occultism will survive just fine, fortunately. What will happen is that a bunch of people will go binge on the latest fashionable drugs under the mistaken notion that they're doing something spiritual, a fair number of them will fry their nervous systems or otherwise demonstrate why that notion is a bad idea, and said notion will be shelved until the 2040s. It's been happening since the 19th century -- there were people back then who insisted that chloroform, ether, and opium were the keys to expanded consciousness, blah blah blah.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,
1)I live in an appartment block. There's a familly living upstairs from me with two young children (2-5 years old) Sometimes they go play in the room directly upstairs from where I practice (I can hear the age old running). Is it still safe for them if I practice magic there ? I am in the early work of my course so it's mostly meditation, divination, and basic visionary and banishing work, at least for a year I think until it becomes more intense.

2)I think I heard you mention that there is a magical reason to meditate on a chair with the soles of the feet in contact with the ground. My course instructs that I can choose whatever posture I want but I'd be curious to know more about that.

3)I heard an experienced magician say that an involved practice of magic tends to accellerate a person's fate, making them confront it faster or pushing the magician to mature more quickly than if they hadn't taken up the practice. Is that something you observed or that you corroborate ?

Thanks !
yours truly - Orange Eldritch Wolverine

[ecosophia]

1) You should be fine for now. By the time you're doing serious work they should be in school.

2) Having the feet flat on the floor keeps you in contact with earth energies, which in Western occultism is useful (as distinct from Buddhism, for example, where you want the feet turned soles up to cut off that connection).

3) The term for this I learned is "karmic culmination." When you take up any kind of serious spiritual or magical practice, if you have a mess of unresolved karma -- as of course most of us do -- you get to deal with at least some of it right away. That's unpleasant, but the upside is that you clear it away and have less trouble later on.

[lunarapprentice]

This question is long. It arises from two parallel issues, and it’s difficult for me to formulate it. Please be patient.

I have been a private devotee of the Greek pantheon for 3 years. Maybe more, I’m not sure anymore.

As at home as I feel with these deities, my spiritual practice is solitary, and with the lockdown, and loss of Freemason lodge meetings (among other losses), the social isolation has been getting to me. My divorce process is slow, but at least I’m on amicable terms with my former-wife-to-be, and I’m seeing my daughters readily and regularly, with our ups and downs, though at least the ‘ups’ outweigh the ‘downs’, and I am thankful for that. My isolation is making me feel desperate. My first issue is my private religion: My solitary devotion to the Greek deities feels unsatisfactory because of the solitude, and I believe they are understanding. Your posting some months back on henotheism was a real shot in the arm to look at other options; my nominal Jewishness (by conversion) does not work because the Jewish community I belong to is high-end PMC, and there is no real sympathy towards ‘deplorables’; they are into wokesterism. Even though I’m PMC myself, I’ve never felt like I belonged. My father, who was an electrical engineer, never emotionally left his depression era hardship. My mother, for all her expensive tastes and pretensions, never really stopped being the poor daughter of an uneducated cowboy/logger and his uneducated Puerto Rican camp-cook wife. And they brought me up with an iron-fist ‘deplorables’ shame-based upbringing.

So with the failure of my Jewish marriage, my alien Jewish community, and the Jewish G-d’s throne looking all too empty, I’m looking again at Christianity. Off the git-go, Catholicism is off limits because of the dysfunctional system of clergy/unaccountability/abuse. Protestantism is out because it feels like ideology-lite (or heavy) in thin religious drag. So I’m looking at Orthodox Christianity, and regularly attending services, including some vespers, at two Orthodox Churches. Again, the Covid restrictions severely limit social activity/events. But I’m reading some Orthodox literature, and am struck at how extreme it is. For example, a proper Christian has no Will!. Our Wills are so corrupted by sin as to be irredeemable, that all we can do is surrender them, and let God take over! On the question of marriage and courtship, the literature discusses being a “Eunuch for Christ”, citing Jesus himself in Matthew 19, and/or St Paul’s writings somewhere. "Eunuch"! I found this nauseating. I read some traditional Catholic literature, and came across this same garbage, and when I discussed this with a friend of mine who was reared Protestant (now Jewish), she replied that her upbringing emphasized the same thing, and that was why she left! I can’t join a religion that really demands this of me. So I thought I’d track down some classic, unassailable Christian literature with an agreed-upon interpretation, to really get a handle on these issues. My reading list was to include Pilgrim’s Progress, Paradise Lost, On the Imitation of Christ, and Dante. My favorite used bookstore was out of stock on these, and as the proprietor had searched so diligently for me, I felt bad not buying something. So I turned around to glance at the shelves behind me, my eye immediately caught a title by Dion Fortune: The Goat Foot God. So I bought it, and you can imagine the proprietor had quite the guffaw. Well, I just finished it, and it certainly did nothing to diminish my impression of the Jewish/Christian god as being analogous to an abusive husband who keeps his wife locked in the house and isolated from all society. I’m pretty perturbed by The Goat Foot God, basically because the main character, Hush Paston, resembles me too closely for comfort. I’m perturbed enough that I feel a need to act on this novel somehow, but I’m not sure what to do. I certainly don’t resemble Hugh in his wealth!

The second issue I have been coping with is Asperger’s Syndrome, and recently, I’ve had several painful insights where I was able to see myself as others see me, and I’ve extending this insight retrospectively in quite a few anguished recollections. These insights occurred during my reading of The Goat Foot God. I have, until now, been so fixated on my ‘intelligence’ (as conventionally understood) as the foundation for my sense of self worth, that I did not adequately perceive or appreciate my social and interpersonal incompetence, which is really rather profound. Now that I ‘see’ it, I’m feeling dejected to use no stronger word. My interpersonal shortcomings arising from my Aspergers have been so detrimental to my interpersonal relations, that it’s a wonder I’m alive, let alone not on the street. It is a major factor behind my failed marriage, and poor relationship with my daughters. I cope with AS the way you would cope with a cat trying to escape out the door: Whenever you open the open the door (read “mouth”), you watch the cat and make sure it doesn’t escape. I can do that pretty reliably when I’m, say, with a patient, but if I’m distracted, pressured, emotional or dealing with an emotional topic, my vigilance fails me and the 'cat'(inappropriate remark) escapes. And now that I can see it at least somewhat from the perspective of others, I’m frankly depressed by it.

So I have these two parallel issues, i) finding a ritual-based religious/spiritual home that isn’t crazy/bizarre, and whether/how to respond to The Goat Foot God in particular; and ii) coping with Asperger’s, I will be seeking out a new counselor now that I have more grasp of it, but I doubt that will be enough.

(I noticed in The Goat Foot God how Hughs friend Jelkes had applied The Method of St. Ignatius of Loyola to Iamblicus’s Mysteries. I can’t help but think Dion Fortune herself esteemed such a study, though it seems like too arduous an undertaking for me now. I assume that "Pan" is identical to Dionysus.)

I do keep daily LRP and MP exercises, and daily devotions to the Hellenistic gods, and now, to Mary and Jesus.

So, does my account call to mind an occult approach to these issues?

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Lunar Apprentice,

As I'm sure you know, Judaism is very supportive of the concept of individual will. However, I'm guessing that you're part of a Reform or Conservative Jewish community. The wokesterism of the clergy in those denominations is getting entirely out of hand, and can be very off-putting.

If you're not sure you're entirely done with Judaism (and admittedly, it ain't for everyone) I'd highly recommend you find an Orthodox rabbi or kehillah with a mystical orientation. Just davening the Amidah and Mourner's Kaddish with a minyan weekly can be an effective banishing ritual for a lot of people.

And, as many folks have pointed out, The God of Israel seems much less jealous these days than the Old Testament makes Him out to be...I doubt He'd have a problem with your additional practices.

May you have luck and good guidance finding your path.

-Ms. Krieger

Demonic Comedy

[(Anonymous)]

Hey jmg

Not a question, but some humour I’m pretty sure everyone here can chuckle at least a little about.

http://1900hotdog.com/2021/02/upsetting-day-the-13-crappiest-demons-🌭/

J.L.Mc12

Re: Demonic Comedy

[ecosophia]

Funny. Thanks for this.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
Apologies for what might seem a nursery-slope question.
I’ve been doing the SoP for the better part of two years now. After feeling myself contacted by Thoth, I finally settled on the Egyptian pantheon. But reading further, I have become fascinated by the whole Hellenic/Ptolemaic civilisation, and, inevitably, alighted on the Cabala and the Hermetic traditions. I have been reading your book The Paths of Wisdom. By contrast, I am not really interested in pursuing other aspects of the Druid teachings beyond the SoP.
I would like to move in the direction of the Cabala, and the LBRP and other exercises, but I am mindful of your advice not to mix the two traditions. If I let the SoP drop, can I keep the Egyptian influence? (I have a daily prayer to Thoth anyway). I have heard that there is an « Egyptian » version of the LBRP: could this be substituted for the standard one, or would that be unwise? Would a simple prayer to Thoth suffice?
Thank you.

[ecosophia]

The Sphere of Protection didn't start out as a Druid ritual. It was created by the late John Gilbert, on the basis of an earlier ritual created by Juliet Ashley, and it was used by the whole set of esoteric orders Ashley once headed -- the Universal Gnostic Church, the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, the Order of Modern Essenes, the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Ancient Order of Druids in America. So you can very easily pursue Cabalistic magic while practicing the SoP.

On the other hand, the classic Golden Dawn worked extensively with Egyptian gods, and it would be easy to convert the LBRP to work with the Egyptian pantheon -- here's your template. So you can go either way.

Occult fear and crazy people talking to trees

[vitranc]

Hi JMG,

1.) This last weak I got to take my nephews for a trip, and it at the beginning and end of the trip included a ride in a cable cart up and down a substantial cliff. I am afraid of highs and naturally I struggled with it, but managed wit some techniques as staring at a point on the floor or rationalizing the feeling away by repeating to myself that hundreds of people ride the cart daily and nothing has happened. What is the occult perception of fear? How would an occultist perceive his own fears or phobias and how do occultist manage it?

2.) An interesting bit of info. It is spring and with it comes the time to prune orchard trees. Both my niece and myself find ourselves talking to the trees that we individually pruned.
"Oh, that branch crosses another one, it has to go...
This branch is good, but you have to many buds on it you are going to over-strain yourself...
This branch is too long, you are going to hurt yourself..."
We both agreed that we are crazy, but in a good way. :-)

Best regards,
V

Re: Occult fear and crazy people talking to trees

[ecosophia]

1) Fear is an ordinary emotion -- a state of the astral body. It can be a valuable emotion, too, as a warning of danger, but it becomes problematic when a traumatic event in childhood or a previous life causes excessive fears. To deal with it, use journaling and meditation to "unpack" it, and figure out what emotions and experiences are tangled up in it, and invoke the Sun as the power who casts out fear.

2) It's not crazy at all. Trees don't understand your words but they do understand your emotional state, and they feel that you're communicating with them and are interested in their well-being, so it helps them relax and not stress out about being pruned.

[stcathalexandria]

Happy Magic Monday!

A quick question to clarify the motivation assignment in Chapter 10 - write down all the various reasons I have for studying magic, then categorize them. I am not to come up with one "good" answer. Or maybe one will show up? It's interesting this assignment came up because the last couple weeks I've been so conflicted some days about why I am studying magic. Some days I think "why spend the time" and others "wow the sense of peace after the practices in the morning are so cool." There's a lot bouncing around in my head right now.

[ecosophia]

Exactly. Don't try to find a "good" reason, just try to understand your motives a little better.

Company capitular

[adwelly]

I recently did a Geomantic divination where the quesited was in the second house and produced a rather curious result; the first house was Laetitia and the second was Puer. Both were highly significant signs given the question but the chart did not otherwise perfect. There was however company capitular between the two signs. This is not something I've noticed much of, but my understanding is that you then subsitute one of the the significators for the other and see what happens. So I either have occupation by Latitia or occupation by Puer, both very positive signs indeed.

Is that how you would interpret this?

If so, it does seem to be a peculiarity of the second house that any significators in company with the first instantly produce two kinds of occupation. This seems, well, a bit odd really.

Many thanks for Magic Monday as always.

Ecru Transcendent Tulip (how appropriate!)

Re: Company capitular

[ecosophia]

In 2nd house questions, when there's company of houses, I imagine the two figures swapping places, rather than one appearing in both houses. That way you don't get the instant occupation. That being the case, I'd interpret the chart as having no mode of perfection.

[(Anonymous)]

I am planning a modified SOP working to try to heal my lower back. I'm also going to see my doctor about it, too, of course. It is still uncertain, after meditation on the intention, whether the issue is due to physical causes, or to an energy blockage, or both, or even something else. I thought therefore that an intention meant to catch the various possibilities may do the trick, and that the best way to do that may be to target my subtle bodies on each of the planes as well as my physical body.

So assuming that:
- Air: Upper astral, lower mental planes,
- Fire: Upper mental plane,
- Water: Lower astral, 'upper' etheric,
- Earth: Lower etheric, physical plane,

I would use this as an invocation: 'With the help of the powers of -element-, my back heals'. And then I would banish with: 'I banish any tension and blockages on -name of plane- which cause my lower back pain'. What do you think?

I haven't yet cast an Ogham reading on it.

[ecosophia]

That sounds good, but you should certainly do divination first.

Ogham reading

[filthywaffle]

Hi JMG,

Straif always confuses me when it comes up alongside positive readings, especially when it is upright. I was wondering if you give me a sanity check on my interpretation of the below reading?

Question: What do I need to know about starting a [long-term public writing project] this year?

Situation
>-/////- Ruis

Project itself
>---xx-- Uilleand

Result
>--////- Straif

Interpretation: Ruis says the time is right, and it's a good opportunity to transition to the next stage of learning and writing with this subject area. Uilleand says that I will gain insight over the course of the project, and it might have a a greater effect down the line. Straif says that it's going to be a lot of difficult work.

Thanks!

Re: Ogham reading

[ecosophia]

That's how I'd read it. Straif upright very often just means "you've got a lot of work ahead of you."

Inauguration chart data points

[(Anonymous)]

Given the Texas snowstorm on February 17 that has disrupted mail service and made a mess of the resource extraction activities, both indicated from the inauguration chart by the Moon ruling the third and fourth houses. Since the series of malefic squares and conjunctions start with the perfection of the Sun-Moon, this is a likely first hit for this inaugural chart. Using the 28 days from the inaguration to February 17 as a measuring stick, with the 1 degree 49’ distance until the perfection of the Moon-Sun square. Using this 28 day figure as a measuring stick, we arrive at the following times and dates by order of perfection of these squares and conjunctions.

Sun-Moon square: 28 days post-inaguration. February 17.
Sun-Saturn conjunction: 47 days post-inauguration. March 8.
Sun-Mars square: 89 days post-inauguration. April 19.
Sun-Uranus square: 90 days post-inauguration. April 20.
Sun-Jupiter conjunction: 100 days post-inauguration. April 30.

Re: Inauguration chart data points

[ecosophia]

Hmm. Well, we'll see.

Astrology

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John

I am curious, do the periodic meteor showers, Geminids, Taurids, etc. have a place in astrological calculations? You may have partly answered the question when you discussed comets, given that the debris fields that make up the periodic meteor showers originated in the break-up of comets. Thanks.

Re: Astrology

[ecosophia]

I don't think I've ever seen an astrological interpretation of the meteor showers, which is odd -- you'd think that they'd be included.

6 questions

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

A few questions for you:

1) Does karma apply to actions you do which aren't actually real? For example, would killing innocent bystanders in a video game count against you? I have quite a death toll from my teenage years...

2) Relatedly, would people who made money on bitcoin, or do bitcoin mining, receive negative karma from knowingly wasting enormous amounts of electricity for literally no other reason than greed? Whilst technically no one is harmed directly, the earth overall is.

3) Does a person's favourite colour tell you anything about them? My favourites have always been deep blue and black, but I only came to realise in the last year or so how 'Saturnine' I am, and how associated those two colours are. Turns out I have a lot of Saturn in my natal chart as well.

4) Do people remain linked in some way on the other planes after divorce? I remember you hinted a while back that the marriage bond may be stronger than most people realise...

5) Is there such a thing as a "soul wound"? I read an article the other month from a Catholic priest on how many more exocisms they have had to do in recent years, and he suspected it may be due to the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse, and how it creates a "soul wound" which makes people more vulnerable to demonic possession later on. Is there any truth to this, or is it as simple as the fact that PTSD gives a wealth of ammunition for demons to attack people with?

6) Is there any way to destroy a cursed or otherwise blighted location? Is physical destruction of the structure enough, or does it go deeper? I'm thinking here of places like concentration camps - is it best to just let them sit there, or raze them to the ground?

Re: 6 questions

[ecosophia]

1) No, any more than a child ends up with bad karma from pointing a plastic gun at another child and shouting "Bang! You're dead!"

2) It's not true that no one is harmed directly. It's just that most of the death and suffering hasn't happened yet. The karma from Bitcoin mining is the same as the karma from any other activity that hurts and kills people so that someone else can get rich.

3) Haven't you just answered your own question?

4) Yes, though the extent of the linkage varies.

5) I suspect it's just PTSD.

6) There are ways, but it's hard work. Physical destruction is only a beginning.

Upper Astral Patterns

[youngelephant]

I apologize if I ask about this too much, but there have been developments in my experiences of it, and divination pointed to a positive outcome in asking. So on the topic of negative patterns dissolving in upper astral talked about previously - (a) has this happened a few more times in the last couple of weeks? I should have journaled the exact days and didn't. There was one 2/27 though, and the others weren't more than 7-10 days before that at most, maybe sooner. I ask because I've been experiencing tension dissolution of the same qualities as the out of body tension release I first mentioned, except that they're in and around my head. This makes them quite more noticeable. They're rather pleasant and I enjoy them, but they don't have the same all day after glow that the first, more subtle, far off, out of body one did. (b) If this isn't a collective thing, is it just negative patterns in my own astral body clearing?

Re: Upper Astral Patterns

[ecosophia]

1) That's good to hear. You clearly have a lot of clearing to do!

2) Well, let's find out. Has anyone else experienced sudden releases of tension and emotional patterns in recent weeks?

Question about the applied SoP

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
I have a question on applying the SoP for practical magic. Somebody is sending me rather nasty text messages, anonymously. I haven't been able to figure out who is behind it, so I'm considering a magical working to help me find out. My magical background is the DMH, currently scrying the elements in the Grove. I've done a couple of applied workings, including the SoP, but only towards transforming myself. I've formulated an intention, meditated on it, and asked the Ogham. The response was reverse Eadha, Ruis and Ngetal, for the situation, the working and the result, which I read as basically positive. However, I am not sure how to visualize the outcome. As I understand it, part of the reason for the visualizations is to form a channel for nwyfre to flow. In the DMH example it's fairly straightforward, with a physical item. Here, I could visualize a note borne on the wind, or myself receiving a text message, but I'm concerned this would limit the working to those forms. Or maybe I'm overthinking it, and it would be fine to visualize something appropriate to each element, although I'm not sure about the Spirit elements. As I understand it, I should focus on the end goal, not the way there, but the goal (knowing who the sender is) seems a bit abstract.

Looking ahead in the DMH, I think an Ogham working with Uilleand, say, would be suitable, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Do you have any suggestions how I could do this from my current point of progress, or other comments?

Re: Question about the applied SoP

[ecosophia]

1) One way to visualize the end goal is to imagine a figure condensing out of the air until you can see its facial features clearly.

2) Yes, you're overthinking it. Simply visualize something symbolically appropriate to each element. As for what to do for Spirit, why, meditate on that!

Stonehenge

[(Anonymous)]

The photo for this post reminded me of a question/comment I had - a friend's relatives live fairly near to Stonehenge. Since the 1980s, there have been proposals to *do something* about the nearby A303 road, which is always horribly congested (it goes from a major 4-lane road to a 2-lane road next to Stonehenge for a few miles, so all the traffic backs up). All of these proposals have failed, at various stages of progress. This isn't terribly unusual for the UK, but I do wonder if there isn't something more magical about it. There is a fairly prominent druid nearby who names himself Arthur Pendragon (you may even have met him!) who is vehemently against all road development near the site and I do wonder if he and his other druidic friends have done some kind of working around it to permanently frustrate further road building.

The latest plan to technically be approved is a tunnel under the site, then to build an elevated roadway across the adjacent valley using the excavated soil. Based on how many archaeological sites can be found even when digging up a garden, and the requirement for construction to halt if an archaeological site is uncovered, I have a fairly low confidence in how well this plan will fare...

Stonehenge is, interestingly, also sited on a type of rock known as phosphatic chalk. This type of chalk is actually mildly radioactive - enough to show up on a Geiger counter, but not enough to give you radiation sickness or be otherwise particularly obvious. (Unless, of course, you crush it into a fine dust, when, for example, digging a mile-long tunnel...) Other locations in Europe where phosphatic chalk is present are also sites of ancient religious significance, so I do wonder what the relationship between radiation and the other planes is... It would also explain why the ancient builders bothered to lug however many tonnes of rock all the way from Wales!

Re: Stonehenge

[ecosophia]

I've never met Arthur Pendragon but of course I'm familiar with his work. I suspect you're right and no such road will be built. As for the phosphatic chalk, one of the lost secrets of the old megalithic mysteries is precisely how different kinds of subsoil and stone affect human spiritual experience. It's a question worth much meditation and research.