Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just past 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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With that said, have at it!

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

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

1) I've been doing the Middle Pillar following the instructions contained in Circles of Power, and have had two weird experiences with it that I haven't seen discussed before (alongside feeling something flow down my back and a weird feeling where the centres are, especially the Daath one, and finding my ritual space feels warmer and brighter): the first is that a few days ago, when I did the ritual, I found I could not get my Tiphareth Centre to stay at my heart. It kept flying around, and this really threw off the circulation of energy. The second weird effect was from today: I felt weirdly dizzy and a little spacey during the Middle Pillar and right after, an effect which settled after I ate breakfast. When I went back to the room I use for rituals, I found the effects (warmer and brighter ritual space) were much stronger, which I suspect means I did the ritual at a higher level of intensity somehow, although I'm not sure what I did differently. Are these normal?

2) From reading your instructions, I think I might have overdone things by adding the LBRP, Middle Pillar, and Rose Cross in too quickly together. I went from no ritual work to doing the LBRP twice daily, once as part of the Middle Pillar and once before the Rose Cross in the space of a couple of months. I've been doing it for two weeks now, and so far I feel pretty good: my ritual space feels way warmer and brighter; I feel more alive, happier, and healthier than I have in years; I have more energy and am accomplishing a lot more than I used to, and in general I feel much better. However, I'm wondering what the signs of overdoing it would be, so I know what to watch out for.

3) The effects of ritual space feeling warmer and brighter is something I'm curious about, since it feels like it's physical. Does this mean what we think of as our physical senses also pick up the subtle planes?

[ecosophia]

1) This is quite normal. Your subtle bodies are getting a workout, but so far you seem to be dealing with it well.

2) Yes, that's a little much to take on all at once! I recommend starting with the LBRP, adding in the MP as soon as you're comfortable with that, and then doing that for a couple of months before adding in the R+C. The things to watch for are steadily increasing tiredness that sleep won't cure, on the one hand, and a wired, brittle, "hyper" quality on the other. (If you get the latter, eat a meal with a lot of meat.)

3) It's not physical, but it's the next thing to physical. The etheric plane is so close to the material plane that the brain centers that process sense perceptions tend to blend them together.

The Abyss of self pleasure

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

Magical Experience: 5 months of daily LBRP + middle pillar in GD tradition per Paths of Wisdom/Circles of Power. 20 min daily meditation.

Other practice: Daily cold showers for etheric cleanliness

Background: I am a pornography addicted male. I have read with interest your previous advice to others with this addiction- thank you.

I have analysed my various bodies based on your posts and think I am male on the physical plane but then female on all the planes above that!

I have what is known as POIS (post orgasm illness syndrome) where one feels almost like one has the flu for days post orgasm.

My magical practice has helped me cut down on porn and masturbation but I recently had an, ahem, “nocturnal emission “ which triggers all the same POIS systems.

My hypothesis is that over the years of porn I have allowed a quite intelligent parasite to latch onto me. It seems to be trying to “double down” whenever I am making progress (such as the above nocturnal incident , also sometimes i get the urge very strongly after ritual particularly on saturdays)

I am concerned that it seems to have such easy access to my dreams/ unconscious and that this is stopping me from forming a relationship with a lady (12 years single through my 20’s despite being quite ‘eligible’ on paper - or so my female friends tell me). I am also concerned it will impede my magical development.

Questions

1 -Would you agree with my diagnosis?
2 - Would you be able to suggest any additional procedures to nuke this thing? I have added once weekly LBRH and Rose-cross which do seem to help though I am yet to be dazzled with light when i proclaim “let the divine light descend! “.I was thinking I might need to work up to opening a temple and asking a God for help? (I am a lukewarm anglican by background but feel I am still searching for a clear spiritual guide/tradition. I like the additional depth and Angelic universe involved with kabala. I have recently started to pray/make the occasional offering to the Planetary Intelligences). I am prepared to do up to 2 hours of magical work daily (hoodoo bath is difficult for me but I am doing cold showers with a vinegar scrub)


Thanks very much for all your work and for fielding this rather embarrassing request! I don’t suppose Merlin or John Dee had these issues...

Re: The Abyss of self pleasure

[ecosophia]

1) It's certainly possible.

2) Journaling is important in any situation like this one. Just trying to treat it with brute-force magical methods is rarely enough by itself; you need to understand where it has its hooks into your emotional life, what hangups and evasions and possible childhood traumas might be involved. As you do that, you'll find that the entity loses its ability to influence you.

3) In previous eras, the problem was usually an addiction to sex rather than to masturbation, but it amounted to much the same thing.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John
1. Thanks for the heads up about New Maps magazine. Violet Bertelsen’s short “When the Circus Came to Town” is a trove of lore in a Twain-like setting. Of interest to Green Wizards.
2. The Mabinogion is one of the more bang-head-here texts I’ve encountered, even with the help of Sioned Davies translation. I just finished “The Dream of Emperor Maxen” using a new approach – relaxing and enjoying the story. Between the hallucinatory qualities and the quirk of linguistic hardwiring that lets me recognize the plots, I keep ending up dazed and amused. Interesting that some of the settings are now parks and monuments. And will take a while before any of it makes sense, won’t it?
3. Might you say a few words about orichalcum both in the real world and in the Haliverse – what is it, where does it come from, what does it do? I thought it was Plato’s idealized brass or bronze… a big deal in his time… but… my look deeper light is blinking.
4. Is learning Druidry always so circuitous? Read a bit here, back up, find some context and depth in another tome, start up, get sidetracked learning Reiki and reading Jung, realize my meditation needs work, start that over, read the staves – work less hard, more smart. Pant, pant, pant. So – any advice on how to quit tail chasing and follow the labyrinth?
Many thanks.
Rhydlyd Ôl-ffitio

[ecosophia]

2) Just enjoy it. Symbolic narratives are meant to be experienced, not to be understood.

3) Plato mentions it as a metal found only on Atlantis. Lots of novelists have borrowed it as a bit of Atlantean local color, and so did I. Is there anything deeper there? Nobody knows...

4) The tail chasing is the labyrinth.

[(Anonymous)]

What is the picture?

[ecosophia]

A temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. What you're seeing is the altar, the two pillars, the throne of the Hierophant, and the Banner of the East.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a friend how I've known for several years who does the SoP with rather nontraditional deities, with a pantheon he more or less invented with however much help from the spiritual realms he may have received. Increasingly, I've seen this person's imbalances ratchet up, becoming more over the top, while his self-awareness around what he is doing has, in seemingly direct proportion, plummeted. At this point he reminds me of a partner who I once dated briefly who practiced magic in a totally unsystematic way and became increasingly unhinged, demanding her partners treat her like royalty as part of her 'kink'.

With said partner I urged her to take up a systematic study and practice of magic. Then she got nasty towards me and I broke it off. While this person has kept it pretty even-keeled with me, nonetheless I feel that I'm watching with increasing horror as this person's character becomes increasingly distorted and degraded.

I've been close to three people that I knew "before and after" who I've seen work spiritual practices to amp up their own imbalances and it is frankly scary. Weirdly, one of these people went by the book and it's a book other people I know have worked with it in what seem like totally balanced and healthy ways. All of these people seemed to have a need for others to treat them as the 'smartest guy in the room,' and have others recognize their power & authority, and have had a certain ruthlessness about it.

Do you have a sense of why there is this apparent recurring pattern of a certain type of personality getting seriously imbalanced with spiritual practices? Is this a problem of only being able to will one thing at a time, and folks using magic to inflate their ego? Any general thoughts on this disturbing issue of folks working spirituality towards personal imbalance? Many thanks, as always, for hosting Magic Monday!

[ecosophia]

Magic can really mess you over if you approach it as a way to feed your ego. That's especially likely if you come up with your own pantheon (which will reflect your own imbalances back at you) or invent your own system (ditto), but it can happen even if you don't do this. This is why, until the mid-20th century, it was a firm rule not to let technical discussions of magic get into the hands of the public -- you're going to have some people crash and burn. There are ways to prevent it, but you have to go into the work realizing that magic is not about self-glorification -- and if you've got someone with the kind of ego brittleness you've described, that's not going to be an option.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you know if microwaves have any effect on the etheric quality of food? I find that food cooked in a microwave has a similar non satisfying quality to it as processed foods, and so I'm wondering if there's a connection.

[ecosophia]

I've noticed the same thing. I've never owned a microwave so I haven't had the chance to test it directly, but it seems likely to me that yes, there are serious etheric effects. There are also unique radiolytic products (URPs) -- chemicals created in the food when microwave radiation breaks chemical bonds and causes novel chemical reactions. None of them have been tested for safety...

Thank you

[brenainn]

I don't really have a question at the moment but I wanted to say thank you for your work. Since taking up the different practices you've recommended, from cold showers for etheric hygiene to the hoodoo bath and how to approach new Deities, I've noticed a huge improvement in my mental, physical, and spiritual health. I'm only 35 but was starting to feel like I was 50, before implementing these simple but very effective practices. It's a shame these things aren't part of "mainstream" culture and practice. I think society would benefit from the occult being taken seriously by the majority of the population. Anyway, thanks, again!

Re: Thank you

[ecosophia]

I'm delighted to hear that you're having good results. As for finding their way into the mainstream, that might happen; the existing mainstream isn't doing so well just now, and a lot of people are figuring that out.

[realmscryer]

Good Evening JMG,

1)
Have you come across, or yourself have, any observations of the impact of rape on the etheric plane of the victim?

2) In my meditation practice I am going through the Coelbren alphabet one letter a day. In addition to the vocalization of the letters being related to the letter meaning I am noticing a possible meaning involving the line segments used to construct the letters. Considering their size, shape, and position relative to each other leads to a meaning congruent with the accompanying description in your Coelbren book.

Who knows if this theory will hold up but it is fun to contemplate!

--Eric

[ecosophia]

1) I've observed long term damage on the etheric and astral levels that takes quite a while to heal. The etheric body tends to leak energy and the astral ends up with some very tangled energy patterns. Both of those can be remedied using occult methods, but at least using the methods I know, it's not fast.

2) Good! There's certainly something of the sort encoded in the letters, but teasing out the details is a challenge. By all means see what you can work out.

[(Anonymous)]

We just received a new order from our local government, making masks mandatory whenever you leave your house. This is making me think through the effects of wearing them for long periods of time, but there's one issue in particular: if breathing is heavily linked to the etheric plane, do you get etheric problems from restricting breathing for extended periods of time?

[ecosophia]

Yes. When you can, you'll want to throw open a window and breathe deeply for a while to recharge your etheric body.

Mediumship

[kimberlysteele]

Hi JMG,

I'm watching a Netflix documentary series called Surviving Death that is about life after death. (For those who watch documentaries, I recommend the show, it's intriguing.) I'm in a part of the series where they are talking about physical mediumship. Apparently, there are groups of people who still do seances in much the same style as 19th century Spiritualists. They are able to transverse the planes and get physical results such as apparitions popping into the room and ectoplasms. Usually the point of the seances is to contact dead loved ones.

From what little I know of approximately four years of intensively studying the occult, physical mediumship strikes me as a very bad idea. Though the mediums featured on the show seem to know what they are doing, the distinct impression I get is that they are playing with fire. They are doing the seances in a church setting but there does not seem to be any form of banishing rituals before or afterward. Does this sort of thing raise any alarm bells in your sage opinion or am I just being a paranoid doofus?

Re: Mediumship

[ecosophia]

Traditional occultists tended to be very leery of trance mediumship, partly because it's done without magical protections, and partly because the habit of handing over your body to dead people is bad for astral, etheric, and psychic health. Some of the old occult schools took it to the point of forbidding mediums from becoming members.

Keep in mind also that fraud is pandemic in what Dashiell Hammett called "the spook racket." M. Lamar Keene's fine book The Psychic Mafia is well worth reading in this context.

[(Anonymous)]

Given that magnetism and electricity seem to be linked to the etheric plane in a lot of the old occult literature, and the fact that a lot of people report issues with electromagnetic radiation that appear related to the etheric plane, is it possible that the sheer amount of electricity in use in cities is disrupting the etheric plane?

[ecosophia]

It's very, very, very possible...

[(Anonymous)]

With the psychic protection method of imagining a shield of light around yourself, can that be overdone? Can you end up keeping things out that you'd be better letting through?

[ecosophia]

Yes, very much so. The standard advice is to always dissolve the shield when you're done with it.

[(Anonymous)]

People get a fresh physical, etheric, and astral body each life. Is that also true of the mental sheath, or do you carry more of that over with you? Can it switch gender between lives as easily as the other levels can?

[ecosophia]

The mental sheath is the first draft of the first of your immortal bodies, and it remains with you from life to life. It normally keeps its gender from one life to the next.

[(Anonymous)]

The title picture remided me of Masonic temples where the floor tiles are done in an optical illusion that makes it look like a sunken area in the floor:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-hsrjPIMAAcruY.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/uQ6HPtpB-xoQEc1t4VQ7K-kVOFv4K16kFZxFFTiyM3zcaP6mu8rzQovkKVqneZZxNQy7ubBXTPvfMsxuw13s2HDMstnNJtBWRLcVaBGhLt-tOQ

As long as it's not a secret, what's that about?

[ecosophia]

Good heavens, how fun! I assume the brethren were just having a grand time, as I don't know of anything in the traditions of the Craft that relates to it.

Article

[(Anonymous)]

Morning John
There was an article about the occult the other day in the Guardian. I don’t if you read it: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/07/the-space-between-life-and-death?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
I’m wondering, is this a one off or is it a reflection of people becoming tired of “faith in progress”
Regards Averagejoe

Re: Article

[ecosophia]

The Grauniad talked about that? Okay, that's rattled my world. The myth of progress must indeed be cracking. If things like this start appearing in other mainstream-Left venues, Katie bar the door...

Marketing

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Thanks as always for doing Magic Mondays.

Which resources would you (or the commentariat) suggest for a study of modern marketing as an offshoot of traditional magic/occultism?

Diolch yn fawr,

Bogatyr

Re: Marketing

[ecosophia]

I don't know that anyone's done a thorough study of it. Of course you'd want to start with Ioan Couliano's Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, but after that? The hunt begins.

Casting out demons

[(Anonymous)]

This past Monday I unwittingly performed my first exorcism. Both I and my possessed friend were a bit surprised when I named the demon, called it forth, embodied it, and then reflected it back at itself. In my friend, the demon went from its usual raging, tantrum-throwing self to trying to hide behind an agreeable mask of obsequious civility, once I started channeling it.

There was no way I was going to let it stay in residence behind that mask, so I taunted it — using its own voice and power — for cowering in fear when it saw that it had no control over me. After all those years of working my friend like a puppet, the demon saw itself getting manipulated like a puppet by someone else. It was absolutely terrified, and I could feel its fear as I made it bark orders and cruelly describe all its weakness back at itself.

I don't know if I somehow ended up frightening the demon away, or if I just revealed to my friend how powerless it actually was, providing him with the confidence he needed to chase it out himself. It was a ridiculously powerful process with huge amounts of energy moving through both of us over the next few days. It was also amazingly successful with all his raging and tantruming resolved. Amazingly, neither of us has noticed any imbalance or misgivings about the completely unexpected experience.

So, my question is what cleansings or protections are advisable after an exorcism? For my dispossessed friend, to ensure that the demon can't return and that he can heal and strengthen unmolested. For me, to make sure that having allowed the demon to possess me hasn't left an opening for that or another demon to return.

Also, now that I've successfully exorcised a demon, do you have any idea how other demons will relate to me? Will they know what I've done? Will they cower in fear? Will they seek me out? Will they want to test their mettle against me? Lord, I do hope not! I don't really want this to become any kind of regular occurrence in my life.

— Christophe

Re: Casting out demons

[ecosophia]

1) Daily banishings and daily hoodoo baths for a week ought to take care of any lingering astral crap.

2) Good question. What happened the couple of times I've messed with demonic entities is that they hightailed it out of the vicinity and I didn't have any further contact with them or their equivalents for a good long time. Of course I was using different methods -- my standard practice is to break out the Golden Dawn toolkit, open in full ritual form, perform the Bornless One ritual at high intensity, and then command the critters. Since your technique was different, your mileage may vary.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I am struggling with interfering thoughts during the SOP which seem to have settled into the ritual for the long term. For example, I'll have a flash of an image or word unrelated to the SOP that will come up during the calling of one of the elements. But now every day at the same point during the ritual, this image or word will appear, almost as part of the ritual. I keep forcing it away, imagining it flying away from me, and trying to concentrate harder on the imagery of the SOP. Why do these images stick, and do you have any further tips for getting rid of them?

Thanks!

[ecosophia]

Your subjective mind is pushing back against the discipline. Ignore it and just keep on doing the rite.

[(Anonymous)]

What sort of effects and abilities come with the highest levels of etheric development?

[ecosophia]

That's not a question that can be answered simply, for two reasons. First, nobody these days knows what the highest levels are. Remember we're dealing with the fragments of lost traditions! Second, it depends on what kind of etheric development we're discussing. Developing your etheric body is like developing your material body. The development that will make you a good acrobat will not make you a good weightlifter or a good long-distance runner. In the same way, the etheric development that will make you good at etheric projection may not make you good at healing or at martial arts -- both of which have a huge etheric component.

[(Anonymous)]

For the last 1 1/2 years I’ve been making daily tarot readings per your instructions here: https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/13910.html

Most of the cards are starting to make sense, but not the court cards. At first I tried to tie them to specific people I interacted with, as recommended by some of the books I read. Sometimes this worked, but often not. Since the COVID lockdown, I rarely see anyone besides my wife, so I can’t apply this strategy. And I’m not seeing any patterns when court cards are drawn.

I’ve been considering asking for your advice for months, and tonight I drew Prince of Wands, Queen of Disks, Knight of Disks for my day tomorrow. I took it as a sign. ;) Could you please explain how you would interpret yourself as the PoW, the situation as the QoD, and the outcome as the KoD? Or point me in the right direction if that’s the wrong question? Thank you!

[ecosophia]

The court cards needn't be interpreted as people. Each of them has an elemental meaning -- the Prince of Wands is Air of Fire, the Queen of Disks Water of Earth, and the Knight of Disks Fire of Earth -- and also a zodiacal meaning. You might interpret that reading as saying that you were going to get some useful information (PW), and if you attend to it and put it into practice (QD) you will be able to move forward on a practical matter (KD).

[(Anonymous)]

In lore and mythology what happens when gods withdraw their favour from a society? Are there commonalities in what happens and how fast it happens?

[ecosophia]

It depends on the deity. The god of Israel used to do that quite often, to judge from the Old Testament, and the results usually showed up within a generation or so, resulting in political and military disaster, followed by mass death. The gods of Rome were more patient; when Rome turned away from her gods, they shrugged and let history take its course -- yes, that amounted to political and military disaster, followed by mass death, but it took most of a century.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
Grateful if you would sort out some confusion on my part after your comments last week about the pantheistic form of the LBRP.
I went to the link you provided (from January 2018) and started using the Egyptian pantheon with promising results. I was confused by the Pentagram discussion, however.
In your instructions on the site you say to start the banishing pentagram from the top, and you mention in your answers that there are/have been other options. In the latest version of Paths of Wisdom you suggest banishing from the bottom left corner. I'm happy to follow your guidance, and I don't know whether it makes any difference. But would the banishing ritual from the top then follow the order Spirit, Fire; Air, Water, Earth, Spirit?
Three other brief questions if I may, following on:
- Are there any circumstances at this level where you might do the summoning ritual as with the SoP?
- Is it then possible to do a pantheistic (in this case Egyptian) version of the Middle Pillar? What words would be appropriate?
- You suggest a decent interval between the LBRP and starting the MP. For someone who has done the SoP consistently for well over a year, could that interval be reduced?
Many thanks as always for your wisdom.

[ecosophia]

1) The banishing ritual on the website is not interchangeable with the one in Paths of Wisdom. The latter is the traditional Judeo-Christian version. Choose one or the other and follow the instructions as given, and you'll be fine.

2) I don't recommend it. The MP is a suitable invocation to combine with the LBRP.

3) Here's a set of instructions you can fit out with suitable names.

4) Nope. The SoP is a very different ritual, and if you switch to the LBRP you'll basically be starting over again from scratch.

[(Anonymous)]

Some mystics settle down in a hermitage or monastery and stay there, while others do the wandering mystic thing. Apart from the obvious, how different are these paths?

[ecosophia]

You'll have to ask a mystic about that!

Canberra Ingress chart

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, I hope you'll indulge me pasting in a section from your last ingress chart for Canberra.
I hope this falls under "magic" or at least Divination!
The government is currently going through 2 scandals, both involving rape allegations.
The first one to surface involved a staffer of a Senator being brought back to Parliament house by someone involved with the Liberal party and raped in the Senator's office.
That senator is currently on a month's stress leave after poorly handling her response.
The second was an allegation of historical rape 30 years ago by the current Attorney General.
He had previously had other accusations of creepy behaviour in the past few months (probably years!).
He is now on 2 weeks Mental Health Leave!
The PM continues to be his usual Scotty from marketing as he is disparagingly called.
For an outline, you can google, 1 Brittney Higgens 2 Christian Porter, 3 Scott Morrison asks wife for advice. you'll soon be up to speed!
Here are your words,
That Venus placement predicts at least one juicy scandal affecting someone well known in Australian public life, probably involving sex, alcohol, or drugs.
The 5th house also represents the upper house of the national legislature—in Australia’s case, the Senate. With Mars as its ruler, the Senate will be an active body in this period, and Morrison’s coalition—which does not have a majority in the Senate—may well be sharply limited in its ability to get bills passed by the upper house; this is shown by Venus, the ruler of the 10th house of the executive and the 11th house of the lower house, afflicted in the 5th. The scandal mentioned above may also involve one or more members of the Senate, though this is uncertain from the indications in the chart
Regards, Helen in Oz

Re: Canberra Ingress chart

[ecosophia]

Okay, that was pretty good! I hope some of my Australian readers are hard at work learning mundane astrology so they can pick up where I had to leave off.

[stcathalexandria]

On Chapter 10 of LRM and the one thing I haven't done consistently is the reading of outside texts, making notecards, and reading a notecard prior to bed. I journaled about it and feel that I'm really scared by reading these cards before bed. I'm afraid of what it will reveal. Is this normal to be scared or fearful of part of the practices in LRM? I feel like I should pause here in LRM and catch up in the reading but I can't seem to force myself to do these cards for the past 3 months. What's another way I can think about doing the reading and the cards?

[ecosophia]

Have you considered doing some journaling to figure out why you are afraid of that? That would seem like a useful first step to me.