Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. (Any question received after then will not get an answer, and will likely just be deleted.) If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.

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With that said, have at it!

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

***Ahem. People have continued to try to post questions, despite the post being closed. I have deleted these. Follow-up comments to existing questions are fine, but other than that, please save it until the next Magic Monday.***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

What would you say are the strengths and weaknesses of the Golden Dawn system and the study of it?

[ecosophia]

The Golden Dawn system is a very demanding system. To get a basic mastery of the tradition requires ten to fifteen years of hard work, minimum, including systematic daily practice. It's very cerebral and doesn't offer much on the emotional and intuitive side of things, and it can lead to a wildly overinflated ego if you're not careful and make certain mistakes. On the plus side, I don't know of a more comprehensive system of Western magic; if it can be done using magic, you'll know how to do it, and if you take it seriously and avoid the well-marked pitfalls it will transform your life utterly for the better.

[(Anonymous)]

Why does Lovecraftian myths/lore/stories call so strongly to you?

Is it related at all to you living in Providence?

Have you read Alan Moore's comics on them? Did you like them?

[ecosophia]

1) I find Lovecraft's imaginary gods and creatures very appealing, and I share his philosophy of indifferentism -- that is, I don't think the universe notices our existence, much less cares about it. Unlike Lovecraft, I don't find this horrifying -- quite the contrary, it seems like plain common sense to me, and it's actually rather comforting to realize that the universe isn't glaring at us, expecting us to do this or that. Obvioudly I don't share his political or racial ideas, or his shallow rationalism -- that's why I made the villains of his stories the heroes of mine!

2) No, it's the other way around. I visited Providence in part to get some local color to the fifth volume of The Weird of Hali and liked the place, and my wife and I decided to move there.

3) Haven't read 'em. It's been many years since I've followed graphic novels.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have any ideas why the Devouring Mother archetype seems to be such a strong presence in middle aged middle and upper class mothers with young adult children right now?

[ecosophia]

The Devouring Mother archetype expresses a failure of motherhood -- the woman who embodies it may have given birth to children physically but is trying to keep them shut up inside her ego structure, refusing to give birth to them in a psychological sense and let them live their own lives. It very commonly manifests among women who feel their lives are empty, and who are trying to fill the void by dominating and devouring their children.

That's a very common condition right now, because most women in the comfortable classes -- and most men too! -- have been taught that they ought to feel fulfilled and happy as busy little consumers. That's a lie from the get-go, because happy people aren't compulsive shoppers! So the media and the marketing industry work overtime to make people miserable while telling them they ought to be happy. The Devouring Mother archetype is one common way that the resulting conflict expresses itself in women, and in those men who are suffering from anima possession.

[(Anonymous)]

Re the reality shifting the kids are doing these days—intensive further research, nearly an hour, revealed that reality shifting is the same thing as discursive meditation rather than the perceptual shift used by artists and writers.

You want a shift in reality, look up the man from Taured sometime. I don’t think that ever was explained.

—Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! What a rabbit hole that is!!!
Thanks, Lady C!

[(Anonymous)]

And from the department of there-they-go-again: The discussions of symbols and heraldry led to a proposed coat of arms for the Green Wizards’ Benevolent and Protective Association. So far, a leaping stag (proper or gold) on a green field with a failed scholar and a ruinman as supporters. The torse and mantling might be green and gold… or green, gold, and blue… The crest might be an oil lamp with a green lens…Might you and the commentariat care to join the fun with our crack team of heralds?
Rhydlyd... er... Cobalt Palpitating Ouroboros, that is.

[ecosophia]

Sounds good to me -- so long as nobody else has those arms, of course.

Further steps

[vitranc]

Greetings JMG,

I have some questions that have been puzzling me; About a year and a half ago I started with a Druid practice of SoP, meditation and divination. I am solo working trough your DH and DMH. I know this is really slow going but I am at the point where I am really diving into the grove rituals and magical applications of it.

1. when I started with my SoP practice I crudely translated it into my native tongue. All but the names of the saints and angels. Up until this point, when I needed the DH version for the groove ceremony I just read it out as you gave it. Would it be alright to translate it? If yes, are there any parts that one could translate, and some other that should be kept as is?

2. in your last post you alluded to a lost tradition dealing with fusing of the two currents. Is this not what one is supposed to achieve with and for oneself with the grail working?

Best regards,
V

Re: Further steps

[ecosophia]

1) You can translate anything except the names of deities.

2) Yes, and that's the one part of the old tradition I think I've successfully reconstructed. There was once much, much more, involving fusions of the currents for other purposes.

[(Anonymous)]

While I understand your desire to keep a lock on the gun rack in avoiding discussions of malefic uses of magic and non-mainstream technology, given the twisted ethics of contemporary politics, might it be necessary to study the possibilities and embrace the countermeasures? Inventing a gas mask is difficult without knowledge of poison gas. (Having been mustard gassed in a lab accident, I’m a very big advocate of gas masks.) Much as I don’t like a popular fictional wizard, a course in defense against the dark arts strikes me as a good idea…

[ecosophia]

I've been presenting the basic principles and some of the essential techniques of that end of operative occultism in my books and online venues for close to two decades now. Why do you think I stress banishing rituals so heavily? (Of course there's much more than that...)

A Demon in the Temple

[alexandermarcus]

Brother Greer,

I have a problem for which I'd very much like the advice of a Freemason with occult expertise. The short version is that one of my brothers is being preyed upon by a malicious spirit.

The problem brother (PB) leads a psychedelic church of his own founding. PB has pre-existing mental illness, including paranoid and grandiose delusions.

My understanding is that PB had initial contact with this entity while under the influence of psychedelics, and that this entity threatened him to do its bidding, which included founding the aforementioned church.

PB has been duly elected and installed as Junior Warden. (The problems only recently came to a head)

PB needs help that Masonry cannot provide, and is causing a great deal of disharmony in our lodge. The sitting Master, several Past Masters, and members of the grand lodge (along with governing members of the appendant bodies to which PB belongs), are aware of the issue and are taking steps to at least temporarily remove PB from the lodge.

My biggest worry has two faces: I have reason to believe that whatever part of PB is still free chose Masonry as a way to seek refuge from the entity, in which case removing him from Masonry could put him in serious danger. On the other hand, the entity may want PB to be a mason for it's own ends (this would be congruent with other orders the entity gave PB), in which case removing PB could cause the entity to retaliate through him. Regardless, I believe that removing PB from the lodge is necessary.

I'm wondering what advice you may have as far as damage-control goes, to minimize the disruption from having PB in the lodge, and from any fallout from removing him. I have no intention of dealing directly with the malicious entity. Thus far I have been praying to the Grand Architect for assistance.

I and one other brother, "Mike" (a close friend of mine), seem to draw the lion's share of PB's wrath. Both Mike and I are magically inclined (I'm a Dolmen Arch student and Brother Mike has experience with the Lesser Pentagram Ritual, Middle Pillar, and Chaos Magic.) I'm Senior Warden and Mike is Senior Deacon. We both have wondered whether PB focuses on us because we are esoterically-minded, and because we take the entity seriously. We plan on opening lodge with as much spiritual "oomph" as we can muster, but any advice you have would be most welcome.

Sincerely and Fraternally,

Brother Alexander Marcus

Re: A Demon in the Temple

[ecosophia]

Bro. Marcus, Masonry has guardians on the Inner Planes. I would encourage you to make the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress in some private place, and call for the inner guardians of the Craft to intervene. Explain the situation to them as clearly as you can, and then leave it in their hands and that of the G.A.O.T.U. I've done that in the past, with very good results.

[(Anonymous)]

I just finished “How Culhwch won Olwen.” Oh, boy. The lists of names alone would take a lifetime to know about. Understand? Maybe more time. Kinda feels like the first time I encountered Amos in the Old Testament – bang head here to find out if those lumps are rocks or walnuts.
Rhydlyd
PS - The squared circle kinda looks like Blake, and it doesn't look like the usual from Blue Lodge.

[ecosophia]

Some of those names are jokes. I think it's the last name in the long list that works out to "Enough, son of Too Much." That particular story is a comic masterpiece!

Shame

[lunarapprentice]

Hi Anonymous
This is my reply to your question about what I meant by “shame based parenting”.

Very simply, I mean it to refer to a pattern of parenting behaviors, in which a parent promotes negative self opinions in the mind of the child. In contrast with guilt, in which you feel bad for what you did or did not do, with shame, you feel bad because of who you are. Some parents say or do things to a child that make him feel bad about himself. If this is a pattern on the part of a parent, especially if it is a dominant pattern, that is what I mean by “shame based parenting”. It is not necessarily conscious behavior; I think it rarely is. This pattern can be well established during the tot years, and things that happen to us when we are preverbal are extremely hard for us to access with our memories, or our conscious, verbal minds. Perhaps I am lucky in a sense to have had a dream at age 3 which laid this out, but it still has taken decades to figure it out.

It was not until I was 60 that I was able to explicitly recognize and name, ‘shame’ as a defining feature of my upbringing and life generally. This insight occurred when I came across the book ‘Letting Go of Shame’ by Ronald and Patricia Potter-Ephron (a good read BTW).

IMHO, such parenting is relatively common among “Deplorables” parents, which certainly would have included my family.

Curiously, shame is not spoken of much in our culture. Certainly nothing the way guilt is. I think it is an elephant in a great many people’s rooms.

There is an unofficial diagnosis, Complex PTSD, which refers to the effects of chronic, low-grade traumatic upbringing on a child, and this does not resolve with maturity. I think shame-based upbringing one of the causes of C-PTSD. By “unofficial”, I mean that it is not a DSM-5 diagnosis, which is bad in some ways, good in others. “Bad” in that there is no funding for research on this entity, but probably just as well for the present, at least in the US. Many psychologists have heard of it, but there are no established therapies, certainly nothing evidence-based. Everybody, his brother, and his dog, can hang out a shingle and claim to offer treatment. So there is Somatic Experience Therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique, Tapping, Eye Movement Therapy, Hypnotism… I’ll be looking at some of these; though I still think what I wrote last last week, about re-living the memory of my Aunt’s love to elbow out the self-image left over from my early childhood, is a promising approach. My daily habit of recollection, has perhaps yielded some early fruit, though it’s still too early to say. Also, I had another nightmare, about 35 years ago (I was 27), and which my awful self-concept presented itself as a kind of monster that was able to conceal itself deep within the structure of my house. That image remains with me, pertinent and powerful, and I’m also thinking banishing it along the lines of what JMG has suggested in other contexts.

I hope you find this helpful.

—Lunar Apprentice

Re: Shame

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks! I think I understand better now. I read the online preview of the book on shame and I'm still deciding whether to read the whole book.

I had already concluded I more or less have CPTSD from a bad school fit. And that certainly included a lot of shame from teachers. (An article I've found useful: http://pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm)

I don't know about my parents. They more just...my mom always said the only thing the ever disagreed about was me, and my whole childhood involved them constantly arguing over what to do about the bad reports coming from the school (where I started in the nursery class at age 3, so earlier in my life than school starts affecting most people).

Which is not to say my parents don't have their own issues; part of the reason they "never disagreed" in my opinion is my dad is super manipulative and my mom has always tended to give in to him rather than muster up the energy to fight. Except when it was super important, ie me. <3

I would say my childhood experience is summed up by the bulleted list here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/202011/how-schizoid-disorders-interfere-intimate-relationships

Which is partly due to my parents' pre-existing issues--my father was "overly intrusive" as part of the "tending toward narcissism" that I mentioned--but a lot of it also really came from the fact that they left me in the horrible school situation, where I "felt trapped in a hostile situation where [I] had no rights and no control," "forced to [try and fail to] comply with [unmeetable-by-me] demands," etc.

Their constant fighting involved my mother seeing my POV and believing the school was a bad fit and wanting to stand up for me and fight the school (but not having the time), and my father seeming to side with the school and demand I do things I could not. They would sometimes get distracted from scolding me about my school report by their argument over what to do about me, which frightened me; sometimes they accused me of having caused that distraction on purpose (I had not, like I said it frightened me).

My father has sometimes come out with "Shame on you! Shame, shame!" when he has disapproved of things. But IDK I remember being surprised and a bit bemused when he's tried this. Like when he's done it I've often felt unable to give him the reaction he's looking for or like, "OK you can throw this tantrum but it's not actually doing anyone any good." So I guess it probably wasn't a regular thing...?

Like I said, he tends toward narcissism. I've found this site helpful: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html

That is: Due to his own abusive childhood, he has extreme "difficulty absorbing negative input" as the author puts it.

And, as described here: http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/average-member-of-estranged-parent-forums.html

>Abusive parents gave birth to abused daughters, who bonded deeply with their mothers and stayed by their mother's side in adulthood despite ongoing abuse. The daughters found themselves drawn to abusive men and recreated the abusive home of their childhood. However, they vowed to be better parents than their own parents were. Although they thought they succeeded, their own sons and daughters now accuse them of abuse. As Rosa, a commenter on the Love, Joy, Feminism blog said,

>>I do wonder if that's not the key for an awful lot of parents who are surprised and appalled that their children have grievances with them. If they were beaten down by terrible parenting and never saw themselves having the choice to leave, and they did better by their own kids - less violence, more love and support - they may end up with kids who are able to enforce boundaries and demand respect as adults better than they could themselves.

>>That could feel terribly unfair - I didn't beat you with a belt, we only spanked! And we required you to do well in school, instead of demanding you drop out and make money for the family. And in return you tell me I was still violent and controlling?

he definitely has done better than his own parents did. He has ended up more like his mother was reputed to have been (unstable, manipulative, "everything is always about them and no one else"--but takes real actions to help family members and, unlike his father, is almost never violent). (I did know his mother but she was declining by the time I was an adult.) Maybe this whole "Shame on you!" thing may have been something he tried to resist but eventually reached for at times.

I again come back to, if I hadn't had the very bad school fit which resulted in constant bad reports from the school and shook my parents' confidence in what to do with me and made them feel my behavior needed changing, they might've made even more of an improvement from their own parents...

Well, I don't know if any of these links will help you or anyone else here, but I hope they will. I plan to read that "Scripts People Live" book you mentioned last week. Thanks again!

(I think I'll now go by) Citrine Tangential Wolverine

[lunarapprentice]

I wish to thank Miranda and Mr. New Writer for their replies last week also.

With regard to Miranda’s link to Thich Nhat Hahn, I’m processing that. I used to have a Buddhist practice, and I recall reading TNH conceding that Buddhist teaching had little to offer for deep emotional difficulties; and this, with other issues, basically marked the end of my Buddhist sojourn. My hat’s off to TNH, his article appears to break new ground in Buddhist thought. I will look at it closely.

Mr. New-Writer: Yeah, it appears everybody with a severely dysfunctional, unloving upbringing has to find his or her own way out. You seem to have worked up something, and I’ll read it more deeply at my leisure; this kind of stuff does not lend itself to a quick review. And I’ve worked-up my own approach; it’s so slow. I’m 62, and still have no idea when, or if, I’ll work it out in this life. I feel like I’ve been sentenced to a life of open air solitary confinement, with invisible walls.

—Lunar Apprentice

Lunar Apprentice - dysfunctional upbringing

[(Anonymous)]

One really good short story to read for that is in Dion Fortune's The Secrets of Dr. Taverner. The story is called "A Daughter of Pan," and it had a tight grip on me for a long, long time, even though I'm the polar opposite of Diana in the story. She loved nature and the outdoors and running; my milieu is the sort of city neighborhoods San Francisco used to have, and bookstores, coffee shops, etc. She's inarticulate to the point of being nonverbal; I'm hyperverbal. and yet....

From the minute she first appears, a total mess, and the very mundane narrator, Rhodes, promptly spots her as "Not mentally deficient, but more like a caged lark unable to fly." Her behavior on first being in a safe place and off the leash is so like the way I used to behave after 23 years married to the Critic on the Hearth... when she burns the civilized clothing her mother made her wear, and then picks out something loose and comfortable, I'm shouting "You GO, girl!" Having done a much milder version by ditching the heels and makeup and hair treatments etc for an easier and more natural look back in, when was it,the early 1980s? Whenever business flats first appeared on the market, and those bias-cut plaid A-line skirts. And when, totally untaught, she shows a savant talent for drawing, my pencil note read "Aspie girls, GO!" Especially when she used her portraits to get back at people who gave her a hard time, by drawing them exactly as they were for all to see. So it really hurt when Dr. Taverner kept referring to her as nonhuman, subhuman, an animal....but later I could see it because she was totally incapable of abstract thinking or of pretending to be civilized. One of Fortune's later characters could be civilized at need, it just bored him silly. I can do it, too,but there's always something a little off-ley about it when I try.
The real trick is to do as she did, and the later character, and the good doctor himself, and come to the point where "I don't give a rat's rear end for your opinion" --- not as defiance, but with a laugh and a shrug --- is pure liberation. I can even do it on occasion. And I'm 82.

Hope this helps!!!!!

The Grey Badger

Some questions:

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings JMG,

Had some questions for you.

1) Steiner says in a few essays that people incarnate as man or woman alternately in every life, unless a soul really wants to incarnate in the same gender, which is possible upto 7 straight lifetimes. Do you have any sense if this is realistic?

2) He also goes to say that animals have group souls and therefore when they die, the group soul perceives their death as person might perceive a lost of an organ, not as a death of the whole. How would this work/fit in with the theory that animals graduate to humans after a certain number of reincarnations? Not sure how a group would transmute to a single soul.

3)

Re: Some questions:

[ecosophia]

1) I can only go by my own past life memories, but those alternate male and female pretty regularly.

2) This is one of the places where I think Steiner, and the traditions from which he drew, were dealing in half-truths. Animals have group souls, true -- but they also have individual souls. The group soul of an animal is a collective entity shared by all members of the species, and is experienced by the individual animal as the voice of instinct. The individual soul interacts and is conditioned by the group soul, and as each individual soul evolves, it moves from one group soul to another.

If I recall correctly, Steiner also insisted that animals have no memory, which is provably false.

Bloodlands' healing

[(Anonymous)]

Last week I got that is maladaptive for the Bloodlands inhabitants to curse and hex the Empire and that the best strategy is to use healing magic and Christian Folk Magic is an alternative to be considered. I got some related questions, and somewhat not, this week.

1) Healing is not effective unless harm is stopped, how to protect as Eastern European from Empire's harm?
2) Is there a Tarot deck/book that is mostly around Christian Folk Magic?
3) I noticed that Chinese Zodiac has even more influence on me than the Western one and saw this for decades, could it be because Eastern Europe is in between cultural interference of Orient/Occident?

Re: Bloodlands' healing

[ecosophia]

1) Not just healing magic, positive magic generally. Build up what you want rather than trying to tear down what you don't want.

2) I don't know of one. Anyone else?

3) Good question. Since I've never lived there, I don't know.

Karma question

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, are there any clues to get a feel for how much karma someone has left to clear?

Re: Karma question

[ecosophia]

The best measure I know of is to pay attention to how many difficult situations repeat themselves over and over again in your life. Each of these is a flag telling you you've got unfinished business.

[(Anonymous)]

Where is the dividing line between personal problems that can be fixed with magic and those that require journaling?

[ecosophia]

There is no line. There's a very wide gray area, and I recommend doing both with pretty much any problem you have.

[emilyknapstad]

I have a psychic vampire at work any ideas how to drive her off . I am terrible at my spiritual practice ate there any sigils / other works i can put in place of my work i work with kids so there is lot of nook and crannies that i can hide it. Or anyone in here has any ideas . She is on retiring age so can easily retire but how i can push her to do that it seems she affects every person who is nearby her kids adults etc

[ecosophia]

You can take your spiritual practices more seriously, of course. If you're really concerned about this person at work, why isn't that motivating you to do your practices more systematically?

[(Anonymous)]

1. After journalling, I know that I am deeply under the sway of an archetype, and why I am under its sway. Is it advisable to use a magical working to help integrate/balance that archetype? I am working with the DMH, and could imagine doing a modified SOP to do so.

2. I have done several sets of scrying the elements in the DMH, and now the Ogham fews, and I have noticed in the periods when I am scrying and meditating on the results, I start to have vivid dreams and more easily remember them. Is this normal?

[ecosophia]

1) That's one of the classic approaches, so yes, by all means.

2) Perfectly normal.

Energy work for depression

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I was wondering whether you had any recommendations for energy work, Eastern or Western, for moving out negative / stagnant energy, in this case centered around the jaw, throat, and shoulders, accompanied by mental fog, a "noisy but blank" feeling, stemming from childhood issues of not being able to "talk back" and separate from an overbearing mother and religious environment?

My current routine is LBRP twice a day, Liber Resh, scotch showers, Qi Gong: 15 mins standing meditation, tapping, 8 brocades, 6 healing sounds, bone marrow cleansing, breathing in qi from the sun, trees, dipper, and moon (3 days up to full). I'm planning to switch to LIRP/LBRP & add in the LRH.

I've also been seeing an acupuncturist to drain energy downward, and trying to focus on relaxing in daily life & breathing & acting from intention more rather than continually "trying to think" while journaling, which I realize makes things worse.

In fact, things have gotten a lot better. I had a major health scare around the New Moon in Pisces and set intentions to be purified and healed, and spent the month taking hoodoo baths like they were going out of style, being hypnotized by fellow hypnotherapy students / self-hypnosis, and generally trying everything I could think of. Actually not only did the health scare clear up completely, but my energy and outlook are much improved, and in the last few days I seem to have gotten some impressionistic glimpses of "what I'm supposed to be doing with life".

But it's still there...

All buzzed up by the Aries New Moon! Happy Monday!

Re: Energy work for depression

[ecosophia]

It sounds to me as though you're already doing what you need to do. It takes a while to clear things like this away!

[(Anonymous)]

Do the effects of the Judson etheric banishing ritual differ from those of a hoodoo bath?

[ecosophia]

Somebody's going to have to do the relevant experiments and compare the two. Then we'll know.

[(Anonymous)]

How many archetypes did Jung think there were?

[ecosophia]

Lots. He never gave a number.

Science of the sacraments

[(Anonymous)]

Apart from C W Leadbeater´s book on the sacraments, is there any other work dealing with the occult or magical significance of the Christian liturgy and sacraments?

Also, do we know where the Christian liturgy originally came from? Could there be a connection to Neo-Platonism and its theurgy, for instance?

And yes, Robert Mathiesen might answer this, too! ;-)

Tidlösa, Sweden

Re: Science of the sacraments

[ecosophia]

1) I'm sure there are, but Leadbeater's is the only one I know of.

2) If I understand correctly, it started off with a free mix of Jewish and Hellenistic Greek ritual forms, and then proceeded to develop in its own direction by the usual Darwinian process of discarding what didn't work and expanding what did.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello from London, JMG - frequent reader, rare commenter here. I was belatedly reading last week's MM (Mondays are often very busy for me, alas) and noticed one of your correspondents asking about the D&P books, Ogdoadic tradition and so on. I thought I'd ping a link to the writing I've been doing from this tradition, which can be found here: http://eightfold.org.uk/ -- I hope you don't mind my putting that here, and that it's welcome. Thank you for maintaining a rare and always interesting digital presence. -J

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for this! I had a glance at your site, and your writing seems very high-quality. What made you choose the Ogdoadic tradition? I may pop over there and ask the question on one of your posts as well, if JMG prefers that, rather than having an ongoing side discussion here.

[(Anonymous)]

When I was young I recall a horrendous dream which has haunted me ever since and in which I would appreciate some advice as I suspect it may have been related to a spontaneous kundalini eruption. I recall being in a space that vaguely resembled a bubbling foam out of which all the possibilities of the universe would eventuate. I pushed a button, and a great stalk started to grow out of the top of my head, and I felt this grow out trillions of light years above me. Eventually I could literally feel what felt like the weight of the universe pressing down the giant stalk. This dream happened in the space between sleep and awakening, I guess I could say I had sleep paralysis whilst it was happening.

The fear from this was overwhelming, and it took me years to recover. Even now, some 20 years on, I still cannot think of it, although oddly, if I reverse the process, such as within pentagram rituals or the SoP it's not so scary at all.

What do you think this was? I have a theory it was a kundalini eruption, or some form of reminder of past life magical practice gone wrong.

Either way, the echoes of the experience will haunt me for the rest of my life.

[ecosophia]

It may well have been something from a past life. May I recommend something? Until you think through it and remember it in detail, it's going to be a problem for you. Perform an SoP, enter into meditation, and let yourself remember it fully, in detail. Then journal about it, as often as you need to, until you've worked out all the emotional issues.

Higher power or conspiracy

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I recently ran across this report (https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/pubs_archive/pubs-pdfs/2017/spars-pandemic-scenario.pdf) of a scenario exercise done in 2017 by Johns Hopkins university. It's eerily similar to what happened with the recent virus scare - named SPARS-CoV in the report - down to the (faked) news headlines and twitter posts.

Now, one might naively assume that this is proof of a major conspiracy but I tend to be wary of that claim. Seeing the discussion around the "Babylon 5" series on the other blog, I'm wondering if all the preparation done as in this report or "Event 201" might not be a god or other superhuman being acting through unsuspecting humans. I'd think that especially believers in Scientism would be easily manipulated by a higher power. Or could it be an astral pattern earthing out early before the main manifestation?

Is that plausible? Is there a way to distinguish "Acts of God" from conspiracy and from mass psychology at that scale?

Thank you for taking the time for us here!

Re: Higher power or conspiracy

[ecosophia]

That's one of those very difficult questions. To what extent was it deliberate conspiracy, to what extent was it influence by nonphysical beings, to what extent was it unintentional magic -- the focused concentration of people in the scenario laying down energetic tracks that events then followed -- and to what extent was it just a matter of a plausible scenario being, well, plausible? It's very hard to tell.

[booklover1973]

Is your coming book about the Inner Grail a stand-alone work, or is it the sequel to "The Secret of the Temple"?

Can you say anything about the strengths and weaknesses of the magical system of "The Druid Magic Handbook", since the same questions were here asked about the Golden Dawn system?

[ecosophia]

1) The Ceremony of the Grail isn't on the Inner Grail. It's a study of where the Grail legends came from, how they relate to a specific Gnostic spiritual tradition, and how that tradition was passed down, fell into abeyance, and then was revived for a short time in the early 20th century. It draws on the same material as The Secret of the Temple and in some sense is a sequel to that book.

2) The DMH system is much less complex than the Golden Dawn system; I wanted to provide a balanced, workable system of ceremonial magic for people who practice the AODA style of Druidry, the kind of thing you can learn in a year or two of focused work and then use as needed for the rest of your life. It doesn't go anywhere near as far into the deep places of magic as the GD system does, but it also doesn't have the pitfalls.