Magic Monday
May. 2nd, 2021 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
It's getting on for 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.I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use the button above to access my online tip jar. If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.
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***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***
Update on Dr Abbott
Date: 2021-05-03 11:45 am (UTC)just a wee note in response to the poster who last week asked about whether Dr. H.W. Abbott ended up marrying the rich widow, if that's OK: It looks like he might have... alongside other two!
'Quite a breeze has been stirred up among the California relatives of Mrs G C Williams, the widow of a wealthy planter of Honolulu, who are fearful that she has a husband who is supposed to have a trio of wives to share her fortune (...) Dr H W Abbott, a spiritualist who formerly plied his vocation at 1644 Market street in this city. He is said to have a wife in Utah and also one in the East.' (The Daily Bulletin, Honolulu, December 18 1891)
The Wichita Daily Eagle also gives the titles of some of his lectures, including 'The Possibilities of the Wind', 'Marriage as it should be', 'The Prismatic cause of divorce', 'Is there a force without Matter?', and 'Are there Souls without bodies?'
There's also a general ad about the doctor in the same paper (January 09 1901):
'Dr H W Abbott, Psycological [sic] Healer. Teacher of the Abbott Philosophy of Life and Vibration of Color. Class in private instructions. The master of his work is his success. The many hundreds cured from 1882 to 1887 in this city and Newton by his method and thousands in this and foreign countries is evidence. He is not a stranger.'
And I think that's as much juice I could squeezed out of the lemons of the internet! I wonder what the vibration of color was about...
Manuel
A Geomantic reading...
Date: 2021-05-03 12:04 pm (UTC)My family has a business in rented premises. However the landlords have been absent for many years due to inheritance and succession imbroglios. Of course at any time, the landlords could have settled their differences and could come back to us and either throw us out or demand much higher rents. It is something we have feared for a very long time. However according to law (I have read the relevant statutory law), we could ask for a prescriptive acquisition of the premises.
As per the custom on this site, I performed a geomantic divination with a shield chart.
I got the following reading: RW: acquisitio - J: Via - LW: Amissio. The way of the points go right up to a niece and is also Amissio.
Via and Acquisitio are very favourable readings. Amissio could mean that in doing so we could lose our fears of being expelled from our current premises.
So in effect it appears that we could be succesful in our lawful prescriptive acquisition.
(1) Do you think that my reading is valid?
(2) Would you advise further readings to explore other aspects of the situation?
(3) If ever we go ahead with the acquisition, timing of the legal proceedings could be important. Any suggestions as how to determine the correct timing?
(4) And finally, if ever we are succesful, I think we ought to make a donation to a charity. Any suggestions? For instance giving money to a charity that provides shelter to the poor for instance?
PS: I have NOT mentioned to the rest of my family that I have done a geomantic divination about that issue. They would definitively question my sanity and neither have I mentioned that I have made preliminary enquiries about the legal aspect.
Many thanks!
Re: Prayers for Kiki
Date: 2021-05-03 12:19 pm (UTC)As in wrote that a thought came to me - while I don’t have cats now, when I did, they were quite fond of occasionally eating grass, and my understanding was that this was to aid their digestion. I don’t know if Kiki is indoor only, but if you could bring in a little pot of grass for her in that case, she might like it. Speak to your vet / divine first, but since the thought sparked to mind immediately as I recorded my intent to pray for you, I wanted to also share this.
Re: Journaling, Ogham, and Path
Date: 2021-05-03 12:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 12:23 pm (UTC)I made my own magical working tools when I was living in a slum town in Central California making about $100 per week if I was lucky. The pentacle was made from a wooden disk that cost about $1 at Michael's, with 4 $1.50 bottles of paint and a good pen (another couple dollars) to write the Hebrew characters. The chalice was a blue goblet I found at the local Good Will; if you can't find a blue goblet, you can buy a cheap wineglass and paint it blue, then paint orange over the blue-- again, paints are about a buck apiece. The dagger was a plain dagger that cost about $15 on Amazon, and was the most expensive item; again, after that you just need yellow and purple paint. The wand, finally, was an oddly-shaped dowel rod that cost a dollar or two at a craft store.
Making magical tools is always challenging, but the challenge isn't a problem for your magical development, it's part of it. Do them one at a time, do what you can, and don't expect them to be perfect. I promise you will not regret it.
Evocation Circle Materials
Date: 2021-05-03 12:26 pm (UTC)In the event the rope is fine, I assume I'd want black rope for the Saturnian energies of protection?
Is Permaculture an Alchemy ?
Date: 2021-05-03 12:43 pm (UTC)I have been meditating upon why appropriate technologies and Permaculture were not widely adopted by those who claim to favour a green lifestyle.
Your writings about Alchemy and Alchemies may be a useful part of the puzzle.
I came to discover Permaculture at the same time as appropriate technology, around the late 1970’s. There was a TV show about Bill Mollison and he described the system in an Australian context. In simple terms it is the use of mutually supportive biological systems in an organized manner. The patterns and flows of wind, water and energy are all tracked and incorporated. Examples include trees for shelter, crops and no-dig systems to protect soil structure.
At the same time I was reading Taoist literature and exploring Anarchist politics. Both sets of ideas talk of mutual aid and working with the flow of nature. I think these primed my mind as it were.
As I re-read "Permaculture One", I became aware that he had been influenced by Taoism and Eastern systems. Is this why Permaculture has not been adopted more widely in the West ?
However, there are many books and internet pages that use the Permacultre ideas, but in a more watered down way, losing the underlying philosophical content. Not to mention the parasitical social justice content that derails the focus in many books and on most Permaculture forums.
Then there is the excessive emphasis placed on "doing the course", which is simply teaching the text of the Mollison books.
So this reminded me of your Alchemy and “Alchemies” discussion. I think that maybe the Alchemy of Permaculture depends on the Taoist pattern / flow metaphor being suitably embedded. Certain philosophical ideas need to be constructed as a foundation for certain Alchemies to work. Thus the changing of consciousness, the magic, requires certain ingredients for the ritual to work.
Sorry if I rambled somewhat, but I hope this may be of interest.
Thank you again for this forum. There seems to be nowhere else I can share ideas of this sort.
Best regards Northern Ben
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 12:56 pm (UTC)2. More of a report than a question. Last week the day after the full moon I scried the few Saille, and it was quite intense, and even a little rattling. I've been reading about a particular archetype which I'm struggling with, and a strong image of that archetype appeared in the scrying session. This archetype also is related to a planet which is a strong and favourable position in my birth chart. This was the first scrying session in which several synchronicities happened later that day which were related to the scrying session.
For example, at the end of the session, I had a visualization of three waves of energy moving in graceful, wave-like patterns. A few hours later, on a walk, I saw three hawks circling gracefully in the wind, which in itself was unusual, but that they seemed to move in a similar way to the patterns I saw was wonderful, and shocking! Then later in the same walk, I stumbled across a pussy willow with bright buds which were opening, and I had never noticed this tree before (Saille is related to willow trees, of course).
I did the Judson exercise after that scrying session shortly after closing the grove, so perhaps that compounded it. Also, I noticed during my walk that my solar plexus was itchy, I kept scratching it before suddenly remembering that I think I remember reading here on Magic Monday that sometimes itchy energy center locations can be a sign that they are opening. Anyway, very happy to report all this, scrying is wonderful!
Radionics, Prayer Batteries & the Aetharius Society
Date: 2021-05-03 12:59 pm (UTC)Nigel Ayers talks about Radionics, Prayer Batteries and the Aetharius Society in this short video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLoHK5kwk9g
Nigel lives in Cornwall, and he talks about a pilgrimage the Aetharius Society members make on the Bodmin Moor each year to a hill where George King encountered an extraterrestrial being. I hadn't heard of King before. Sound's like a weird strange group.
The prayer battery sounds like some interesting etheric tech.
I hope everyone who celebrates it had a happy May Day, Beltane.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 01:03 pm (UTC)Re: Current Mood: cheerful?
Date: 2021-05-03 01:17 pm (UTC)楽 is a Japanese Kanji, read as "Tanoshii" an adjective meaning "Joyful, fun, pleasant, enjoyable..
https://jisho.org/search/tanoshii
The Kanji "Tanoshii" is a variant of the Chinese Hanzi that is read as "Liao" (among other readings),
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?wdqr=%E6%A8%82%7C%E4%B9%90%5Ble4%5D&wdrst=0
Thank you for a most excellent blog.
(Kanji have been a major feature of lockdown studies)
Regards Ketoujin
よろしくお願いします
Perched on the Wheel of Time
Date: 2021-05-03 01:28 pm (UTC)In it you write, "In every generation, in effect, a certain number of geniuses will be born, but their upbringing, the problems that confront them, and the resources they will have available to solve those problems, are not theirs to choose. All these things are produced by the labors of other creative minds of the past and present, and are profoundly influenced by the cycles of history... I’m a figure of an easily recognizable type, which shows up reliably as each civilization’s Age of Reason wanes and it begins moving toward what Spengler called the Second Religiosity, the resurgence of religion that inevitably happens in the wake of rationalism’s failure to deliver on its promises. At such times you get intellectuals who can communicate fluently on both sides of the chasm between rationalism and religion, and who put together syntheses of various kinds that reframe the legacies of the Age of Reason so that they can be taken up by emergent religious movements and preserved for the future."
Okay, I get it. Every cycle of history has a particular type of problem that attracts a particular type of mental activity from the geniuses of its generation. Given this information, who do you think is stepping up to the plate for our generation? Obviously you are personally trying to build a bridge between the old science and the new religion, but are there any other thinkers who you think are doing similar work? I have had a long standing interest in the intersection between philosophy of science and philosophical theology, so I would be interested in your take on who's worth reading. So far I have put a lot of time into William Lane Craig, William Dembski, and Jay Richards, as well as your own work.
Middle Pillar First Expansion
Date: 2021-05-03 01:37 pm (UTC)Working through the MP first expansion exercise and I can't seem to have the light radiate out beyond my body as I work my way down. Sometimes it just starts to get past the edge and other times it comically stops in the odd outline of my body. At least it is comical to me. Is this a matter of just keeping at it or is there a something I am missing?
Re: Prayers for Kiki
Date: 2021-05-03 01:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 01:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 02:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 02:19 pm (UTC)In a reply to another of the community in this week's open post, you commented that Steiner, too, fell into the trap of confounding the planes. In my (very) limited exposure to his work, he seems to delineate the realms of body, soul, and spirit reasonably well. Did you have a particular portion of his work in mind when making that comment? (I thought it might have been his Cosmic memory, which I have not gotten to as yet.) Would you see his work as a whole as suffering from this error, or only a portion of it?
--David BTL aka Smaragdine Pretentious Flobberworm
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 02:24 pm (UTC)I want to practice golden dawn magic but I feel I'm too clumsy to make tools properly. They would be of God awful quality I'm afraid. Buying tools is also not an option. Because they are very expensive.
So how would you advice to deal with this difficulty?
Also there is question of how necessary these tools are for GD practices. In some books instruction say, use your rainbow wand OR if in an emergency use your index finger.
There's also the story of Damien Echols who studied GD magic in prison. He didnt have tools there, certainly they wouldn't allow him to have daggers.
So how important are the tools?
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 02:25 pm (UTC)I'd like to share my experiences with magic after 1.5 years of practice and also offer a note of thanks to you and to the readership here. Ever since I’ve been practicing the GD system from your books Learning Ritual Magic, Circles of Power and Paths of Wisdom, I noticed a sustained psychological change: I feel that my focus is much stronger, my self-knowledge has grown by leaps and bounds, my mind has been purified and cleaned up, and (if you excuse the religious language), I also feel a closeness to the divine. I've become repelled by the virtual entertainment industry and by all forms of advertising, and as a result I got rid of my TV and stopped consuming most forms of online content.
I’m also pleased to report that I’ve completely transformed my life for the better in the past 1.5 years. I found a new group of friends that are extremely supportive of my life goals, found an incredible girlfriend, moved into a new place, and changed jobs for something more suited to my personality and interests. I’d like to attribute all of this to coincidence, but it seems strangely suspicious that it overlaps so well with my taking up of magic.
When I was first getting into magic, I was expecting big transformative moments, but instead the change has been very gradual and subtle, with the rituals gaining power and unfolding their meaning over months of practice. Is this a typical experience, and can I expect it to continue?
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 02:28 pm (UTC)That is interesting how people can't let go of their early religious training, but constantly go back to it. I have discovered that with various Goddess worshipers who are trying rewrite Bible stories instead of creating their own mythology.
I am curious if hanging on to early religious training has to do with living in western industrial cultures.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 02:43 pm (UTC)After six weeks or so in Malkuth, I seem to make a connection to the magical image. At one time she seemed surprised but pleased to see me. I often get a very warm, compassionate feeling overwhelm me. Is this just my mind playing tricks? I hope not, because it's a wonderful feeling. Also, I will sometimes be standing there, with the image, feeling rocks, grass and earth under my feet.
Thanks, as always!
Jon
tangerine tangential cactus
Order of Essenes
Date: 2021-05-03 03:00 pm (UTC)Do you know if it's okay to work on Mouni Sadhu's Concentration while also working through the Order of Essenes?
Thanks!
Karmic consequences of financial astrology
Date: 2021-05-03 03:09 pm (UTC)Of course nothing is absolutely certain, and many years ago I witnessed an old friend lose his shirt on an investment made on astrological advice, there’s clearly an element of risk which is inescapable, it’s never certain.
On the other hand, I am working with a basic assumption that there is information available about the every day world in a mundane chart. If a bet is made and won on insight derived from looking at such a chart is that taking an unfair advantage of others in the market? Or is it simply taking advantage of insight that is available to all and therefore fair?
Pervasive Pernicious Manatee
(no subject)
Date: 2021-05-03 03:22 pm (UTC)