Magic Monday

[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.

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With that said, have at it!

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

Comments

[mollari]

Before I go ahead and change anything, I'd like to make sure the following is okay within the Ovate Grade of the CGD: I find that the banishings I do don't last long enough, and that the LIRP and LBRP are ideal at different times of day: the LIRP is best early in the day, and the LBRP at night. So I'm considering switching to doing the LIRP in the mornings and the LBRP in the evenings; are there concerns with doing this?

[ecosophia]

You can certainly do that if you like; I know of no problems with it.

Embroidered talismans

[andrewskeen]

Good evening Arch-Druid,

I really like embroidery; the more I practice, the more potential applications I see, magical talismans and devotional ikons both. Are you aware of any issues with making embroidered talismans using e.g. linen fabric? Or would you recommend avoiding linen/silk for explicitly enchanted items and sticking to cotton? I'm assuming this wouldn't matter for ikons or other devotional items.

Thank you as always for Magic Monday, it's a real treat.

Best,
Andrew

Re: Embroidered talismans

[ecosophia]

I'm not aware that anyone has experimented with this, so the best thing to do would be to try various things, see what gets the best results, and share that with others. That's how our knowledge of magic grows...

[mollari]

A while back, I asked about dealing with my mother, and you gave me good practical advice. I've realized now why you didn't give me the advice I was seeking, for occult methods of assisting with my goal: too many people skip material plane actions.

I will be moving out in July, and from there will systematically cut all ties with her, and the rest of my family as needed. This will not be easy, and I fully expect to need to deal with resistance from her; my question is thus not meant to replace material action, but to supplement it.

Are there occult methods which can be used with the level of training I have working through the Ovate Grade of the CGD to assist in severing the relationship I have with my mother?

[ecosophia]

Not at the Ovate level. In the Celtic GD system, you don't start doing practical magic until the Druid grade. (This is standard in the GD tradition generally; in the Hermetic GD students didn't start work on practical magic until they reached the Adeptus Minor level.)

Meditation topics

[(Anonymous)]

I've been consistently meditating for a while now... and they seem to be propagating exponentially. I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of meditation topics now. My original method was to make a list, but the list is getting really long. Is that just how it is? Or do you have any recommendations for knowing what to focus on besides some mixture of curriculum and intuition? Is this what it is like as a magician, to be swimming in an ocean of fascinating little secrets you just don't have time to chase them all down?

Re: Meditation topics

[ecosophia]

That's just how it is -- especially for the first few years. You just have to get used to it. In terms of choosing topics for practice, I tend to choose a specific book or study course or set of symbols I want to work with, and focus on that for an extended period -- my current source of meditation topics, for example, is an old book on occultism that'll take me around three years to go through, pretty much paragraph by paragraph and in some places line by line.

[(Anonymous)]

What planet rules bad faith?

[ecosophia]

Depends on the specific mode of bad faith. If it's the temporary expedient of a liar, it's Mercury; if it's a long-term or permanent condition, Saturn.

A Rather Grim Question

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG:

I'll make this quick, so my cats live in the study where I meditate and perform the LBRP. One of my cats died sometime today in my study (I'm still processing this experience). Because she passed away in the study where I do my esoteric work 1) what is going to be the effect of death in my study, and 2) what would happen to her spirit if I continue to do the LBRP and other ritual in that space (assuming her spirit still lingers in there)? I don't know if any trials occur for cats in the afterlife, but I ask you to pray that she reach her intended goal safely, her name was Daisie Lynn. Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,
Cody.

Re: A Rather Grim Question

[ecosophia]

My prayers will be with her. You should practice your rituals somewhere else for three days if you can, so she can get through the Second Death undisturbed; after that, it'll be fine for you to resume practice, and there shouldn't be any lasting issues.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey jmg

Do you by any chance know of symbol-systems that can do exactly what the tree of life does, which would be to act as a map of the spiritual macro and microcosm?

[ecosophia]

There are quite a few of them. Did you have anything more specific in mind?

Eucharist

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, I had an idea flash into my mind recently that the Catholic Eucharistic elements might map to the classical elements. My best guess after pondering this is bread (body) = air + fire, and wine (blood) = water + earth. Reason being that the flour comes from the aerial parts of the wheat and is heated/fired to transform it into bread. The grapes carry the terroir into the finished wine, transformed by yeast and suspended in water. Is there anything to this idea? I would like to explore this more If there is a resource your would recommend

Re: Eucharist

[ecosophia]

Hmm! I don't happen to know what resources there are on the symbolism of the Eucharist, but that makes sense. Can any of my Catholic or Orthodox readers help here?

autogenic training

[(Anonymous)]

Are you familiar with autogenic training? It was developed in the 20ies from a form of self-hypnosis and is still being practized by a lot of people.

Are there similiar problems as with mindfullnes meditation or could it be a useful practice?

Re: autogenic training

[(Anonymous)]

Not JMG but)

I have a reasonable familiarity autogenics, though my practice has been focused more towards hypnosis. First thing to know about autogenics as taught by Schultz, is the assumption that somebody involved in the process (ideally a therapist, acceptably the patient) has read a very large manual about how the practice works, and is familiar with a large number of contingencies and modifications if something goes wrong. Schultz's student Luthe, removed much of this material and heavily simplified it when he began publishing in English. A Psychiatrist of my acquaintance has mixed feelings about the German system and regards the English/British one as unusable and dangerously broken.

Personally, I've had excellent results with self-hypnosis, so I thought it would be fun to experiment with autogenics, and I was wrong. Subjectively, it feels nothing like hypnosis. The sensations of warmth and heaviness are present in some forms of hypnosis but are not the dominant focus, and the mind engages with the process in a completely different manner. In most forms of self-hypnosis, some kind of discussion with the un/sub-conscious mind is a dominant part of the process, which is completely absent in autogenic training.

Autogenics left me feeling like I was partially asleep and underwater even after the session ended. More horrifically, it temporarily destroyed my ability to manipulate etheric/vital energies with breathing, which left me feeling like I had no control over my body outside of the same autogenic techniques. Finally, I had heart and breathing problems start to form if I missed a session; like I was in need of another "hit" to keep functioning. Normally hypnosis of course benefits from regular practice, but I've never had anything even remotely come close to such an unpleasant experience.

This might be an abnormally bad reaction, and I do have other esoteric work in my past, but I wouldn't recommend it. And the fact a physician who is normally quite open to this sort of thing regards it as dangerously broken makes me feel stupid for even making the attempt. I suspect this practice is the victim of the same cultural trends that created mindfullness meditation, and is thus a perfect analogue to it, even if not identical. Your mileage may vary though.

[realmscryer]

Good Evening JMG,

A question regarding The Dolmen Arch. I am practicing the exercise in Gradd Y Damcaniwr of learning to see phantom complementary colors. The expected complementary colors appeared readily from the initial attempts, though they look like a ring or aura around the painted dot. When I shift my gaze to white paper they then appear as the solid phantom dot of complementary color as expected.

Is the aura-like ring meeting the intention of the exercise? If not I shall endeavor to hover the color! I ask as it appears the paint is overpowering the phantom color so maybe I am only seeing an outer ring as a result?

I also wanted to verify imagining the phantom nature is the expectation for the Ocean of Color and Color Breathing exercises. Getting the same level of intensity as the physical paint may take a while. I have perceived vivid colors in my imagination before but usually in daydream or deeper trance like states.

On a different note, do you find interest in learning or participating in occult practices and interest in professional magical services (divination, spellcasting, talismans, ...) to be somewhat independent phenomena? If interest is waning on the learning side does it mean necessarily demand for professional services is in decline?

My guess is demand in each might be somewhat inverse or maybe not connected. People might value the services but don't have time, energy, or interest to figure out how to do it themselves.

Thanks,

Monochrome Vitriolic Skunk

[ecosophia]

1) Don't worry about getting the imagined colors to any particular level of intensity; that comes with time and practice. If you're getting the "auric ring" you've gotten the point of the exercise.

2) They're correlated, but the supply of professional occult services increases and declines along with popular interest. Thus those people who stuck with occultism after the 1929 implosion of the Theosophical Society, and offered professional services, had much less competition than they had faced during the boom times, and even though the market for such services contracted there was still enough of a market that they did fine.

-- Persimmon Gibbering Mermaid

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I've been pondering the recent movements for recognition of transgender, nonbinary and other special gender or sexual identities. In particular, there has been a huge wave of people undertaking surgery and hormone treatment to better match what they see as their true self.

The sexes of a person's physical, etheric and astral bodies tend to vary. Could it be that some of the people feeling gender angst are experiencing an attunement with their subtle forms? It makes sense to me that this big wave of medicalization is happening because in a society that strenuously denies all realities but the material, people who feel an opposite-sex embodiment can't integrate the experience spiritually, but instead conclude that they must alter their physical bodies to match what they feel.

It's also noteworthy that the epicenters of this phenomenon are large Western cities where people are rootless and atomized to the extreme. It makes me wonder if the spiritually barren landscape, like a sensory deprivation tank, is producing spontaneous spiritual experiences that people can't make sense of. What do you think?

[ecosophia]

I think there are a lot of factors going on here. First, the human population of the planet is so high that very few of us get to spend any significant amount of time out of incarnation, and so a lot of people are being born with strong subconscious memories of their last incarnation still mostly intact. That probably plays a large role in gender dysphoria. I suspect you're also right that spontaneous spiritual experiences misunderstood by the experiencers are also involved.

But there's another huge factor that needs to be taken into account: the medical industry is heavily marketing the transgender phenomenon, for crassly financial reasons. Everyone who gets convinced by doctors and counselors that they're transgender is a permanent customer for pharmaceuticals, surgeries, and the cascading medical and psychiatric services that follow on from those. Since more and more people are backing away from corporate medicine these days, finding new ways to lock people into their services is an essential part of the medical industry's strategy.

Mouni Sadhu’s Concentration

[(Anonymous)]

I’m the same poster from last week who asked about the exercises in this book.

So over the week I’ve consciously tried to silence my mind while concentrating on the second hand.

I feel that I can’t silence it completely for longer than 20 seconds or so while staring at the second hand.

What I experience is kind of like passing thoughts murmuring, just like sounds outside of birds, passing vehicles, but my concentration on the second hand itself is constant.

The exercise with the mental sound illustrates this too: I turn up the volume on my “OM”, there are whispers in my mind that come up, but I’m only paying attention to the OM just as if I’m having a conversation in a room with many people, there are sounds all around but I’m only paying attention to the conversation at hand.

Is my current degree of concentration sufficient to continue on, given that I’ve exceeded 5 minutes on each exercise?

I don’t doubt that concentration to the degree that all other thoughts are blocked out is possible, but I’m not sure that this is the required degree of concentration if for example one adds the head-moving component to the exercise too. At a minimum, one would have the intention to move one’s head, which is also a thought.

Re: Mouni Sadhu’s Concentration

[ecosophia]

Yes, at this point you can proceed. Good work, btw.

[miles_l]

JMG and commentors, for the Cell Salts, what is the best way to find the period when the moon is in your sign?

I am not familiar with astrology. Would like to double check myself that I am doing this correctly. Have my birth date and hour, so know what combination of cell salts to take. Want to make sure I am taking them on the correct day. Any websites or other information is appreciated.

Thanks for the help and advice.

[ecosophia]

Any almanac -- the Old Farmer's Almanac, for example -- will tell you where the Moon is; so will any astrological calendar, and you can also get the information from websites like this one.

[(Anonymous)]

1. I always feel awkward about posting without a salutation, so – Hi, John!
2. OK – I took a few weeks off Druidry to take a Reiki workshop. Not for me, tyvm. Since I missed Belteinne under the don’t-mix-magic rule, should I double back and observe the rite, or just head to the next holiday?
3. And I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to study Druidry because the Reiki instructor sent a red, a blue, and a green stone with my class certificate… which I discovered in the box in that order. Goal to send AODA application set for Saturday. And I’m very surprised by what’s fallen out of my head while writing the essay.
4. Are you familiar enough with either The Crane Bag by Robert Graves, or Pagan Rituals: The Crane Bag by Joanna van Hoven to recommend one or both? Or are there other titles on the subject you like?
5. The weather finally cut me a break. Rototilling started with a favorable Moon sign.
6. Why do I keep getting into conversations where the mostly imaginary Green Wizards’ Benevolent and Protective Association is discussed as if it were real? It’s gettin’ weird.
Many thanks.
Rhydlyd

[ecosophia]

2) Just head for the next holiday. Belteinne's over.

4) I haven't read either one. Graves' The White Goddess is a fine gallimaufry of personal visionary experience and crackpot scholarship, on the other hand, and is not to be missed.

6) You should start sprouting tentacles shortly. ;-)

Thoughts on working off other's karma

[ganeshling]

Hi JMG,

One thread of questions that threaded its way through the Magic Mondays for a while was around working off the karma of others. I don't remember the exact wording - it was slightly different every time - but it sounded to me as taking more karmic load onto oneself than what's due so that to ease the burden for everyone.

On one level it sounds good and a part of me admires people who do that. Another part of me thinks that this might be the vice opposite but equivalent to gaining money and wealth that one hasn't earned. If our physical life on Earth can be seen as a learning experience, wouldn't working off someone else's karma do that person or group of people a disservice?

Isn't there some raspberry jam to be stuck to the fingers this way?

Re: Thoughts on working off other's karma

[ecosophia]

You can't really take on anyone else's karma; deities can do that, humans can't. (Old-fashioned ccult authors like to say that when Jesus said "your sins are forgiven you," what he was doing was literally taking the person's karma on himself.) What you can do is take on a larger than usual share of the collective karma that our species has piled up, thus clearing the air for everyone. As far as I know, there's no problem with that -- well, except that the person who does this can expect to have dumpsters of misery unloaded on them.

Intoxicants + Hypnosis?

[lukedodson]

Dear JMG,

A few weeks back, I asked a question on here about psychedelics and their effects on the subtle bodies. I was wondering how this would apply to other intoxicants, such as alchohol, or cannabis? What would be your advice in partaking of such things in a safe and healthy manner?

Also, you mentioned that hypnosis does not go too well with Golden Dawn magic. Would I be advised to stop using guided hypnosis audios when I undertake the CGD?

Thanks!

Luke

Re: Intoxicants + Hypnosis?

[ecosophia]

1) Use 'em in moderation and never do practices while you're still feeling the effects.

2) I'd recommend dropping them, yes.

Natural magic & Astrology

[(Anonymous)]

Dear gracious host, may I ask a few practical questions about learning natural magic and the planets:

1) I recently thought that Dr. Bach’s 38 Flower Remedies were excellent tool for learning to judge your own magical will and intention (besides their primary effects on the psyche) - because they work so quickly. Like when I take Cherry plum to calm my anger and the next day I can’t seem to get out of bed, which never happens on other days. Does this sound like a good plan to practice this kind of judgement?

2) I’m starting to learn natural magic with your beautiful encyclopedia. You list amethyst as helpful to find lasting love and to avoid intoxication. Am I right in thinking that an amulet containing amethyst could help in finding and leading a „sober“ relationship (as I have experience with co-addiction; have done journaling and other work on that).

3) Should such an amulet contain colors and plants of Venus (love) or Jupiter (like amethyst)?

4)Am I right that „finding one’s tribe“ would be a matter of the Moon, rather than another planet? (As a German speaker I wondered why the word „like“ expresses resemblance/kinship, but also sympathy in English - both can be correspondences of the Moon, if I understand right)

Thank you, your advice is much appreciated!

Re: Natural magic & Astrology

[ecosophia]

1) That's an interesting approach! Yes, if that works for you, by all means.

2) Yes, very much so.

3) If the primary goal of the amulet is to bring love, it should primarily have Venus correspondences, but you can mix in a little Jupiter -- those two planets relate well together.

4) Yes, but be careful with "finding your tribe," as it might lead you to people who share the same problems you have!

[(Anonymous)]

If I am already halfway through a course of magical study and practice, is it advisable to be also taking on the book club about the Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic?

I'm at the stage in the DMH where I'm scrying the Ogham fews in preparation for pathworking, and I get the sense that studying Levi is going to be illuminating, in the sense that the different symbolism will cast light on what I'm learning in the DMH. Especially since Lévi is referenced there.

I don't plan on giving up the DMH, just adding the book club study alongside it.

[ecosophia]

You should be fine doing the two together. We're not going to be getting deeply into Lévi's practical methods.

[(Anonymous)]

More SoP:

1. In the closing of the SoP it's clear the down and up beams of light meet in the sphere in the solar plexus. It's not clear how they meet in the opening. I've been avoiding focusing on that part of the visualisation. The one time I imagined them meeting at the sphere in the head, it felt like it short-circuited and the energy dispersed.

2. Thinking about the difference between Earth and Spirit Below, it seems like Earth is the biosphere and shallow lithosphere, and once it gets molten it's Spirit Below.

3. I'd been imagining the Fire landscape as a midday summer in a lush park and it wasn't particularly effective. Then I moved it to moorland, which is a notoriously flammable environment. The effect was much stronger and I could even hear the crackling of fire around me.

4. Do you ever enhance the imagery to make it stronger? For example imagining yourself in a whirlwhind or under a waterfall?

5. One sign of a good connection with each element I noticed is feeling what's under my feet. Grass or soil for Air, sand for Fire, smooth pebbles for Water, and snow for Earth.

[ecosophia]

1) Depends on which version of the opening you're using -- there are several. The solar plexus generally is a good place to bring the energies together.

2) That's certainly a workable symbolism.

3) Nice! I use imagery from the American Southwest -- red rock buttes, creosote bush, the sort of desert pines that go up like torches the moment a spark hits them, and the sun's heat crashing down with physical force -- but then I've been there. If moorland is what works for you, exccellent.

4) All the time. I don't do whirlwinds, but when I invoke air I feel the wind in my hair, and salt spray from the ocean flings itself against me when I invoke water.

5) Good. Yes, that sort of detail works very well.

[booklover1973]

Hello JMG,

do you know of a good version of the Book of Lambsprinck? I didn't find much in the way of books or on the Internet.

[ecosophia]

I've always used the one in the Hermetic Museum, either the English or the Latin edition.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

Thanks as always for hosting this forum. As a Christian, I'm thinking of digging into Gareth Knight's material. At the moment though, I'm also in the Ovate grade of the OBOD course. I know you warn often against mixing systems... would this be a problematic mix, do you think?

Thanks again,
Ryan M.

[ecosophia]

I'd encourage you to finish the OBOD material before you take up Knight. One system of practice at a time!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure what to make of this, except that I won't buy this book:
https://imgur.com/a/ZLRvGdu
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094ZQ1GW5
It's sad to see Vallée falling down like this. Keep your Passport to Magonia copy close to hand.

[ecosophia]

Yeah, that's really sad. On the other hand, he may have been paid by the Air Force to shovel smoke.

Accidental hexings

[(Anonymous)]

Can one accidentally cast a hex by will and ill feeling alone, sans ritual? I'm pretty sure TSW and I wish it didn't.

My wife seems to have a bad habit of this. She'll wish ill on someone or some group in and tolerably enough those ill-wishes come true. She's never happy about it afterwards, because I suppose the rasberry-jam principle applies.

If you want an example, the best one is what she (accidentally) did to me: back when we were dating I went away to school, and she declared privately with venom 'I hope he gets sick' so I'd have to drop out and return home. Well, I dropped out, returned home, and went to the local cow college with her, just like she asked for. My health never recovered and she has to deal with a sickly husband, which she didn't want. That's not the worst curse, either. If her willpower can do good, it's not as clear when that has happened. (Probably because it's easier to sharpen the will with anger, at least in the short term.)

Aside from the obvious "tell her not to curse people," do you have any advice? She doesn't believe in magic, so that doesn't work. I worry for the karmic blowback she might build up. She's not generally a negative person; she just gets upset sometimes and lashes out in a way that she doesn't think will hurt.

Re: Accidental hexings

[ecosophia]

Yes, this is a real thing. Your wife is what used to be called a witch: a person who vents negative energy at other people in a way that hurts them. Can you point out to her that very often, when she ill-wishes someone, nasty things happen and she feels bad about it?

There are ways to stop this, but almost all of them direct the negative energy back at the person who sends it, and the consequences of that can be pretty grim.

[d_mekel]

Just wanted to share this. As I started High Magics first paragraphs and started contemplating, them I wondered: "Is it only I alone who have created this experience, or is it objective reality? Does the Master have the same feelings as I or would mine amuse him? Are my thoughts new, unique, my own, or have the Master and many before him experienced and thought exactly the same?"...This is actually a quote from the glass bead game, but the funny synchronicity to this is these were my thoughts the day before I read that passage. I do feel like since I started reading Levi, things have been opening up.

Now an unrelated question. Looking to start practicing the hexagram rituals this week. Is it ideal to do the lesser and greater hexagram together or does it matter if they are mixed with lesser or great pentagram(lbrp then girh and vice versa)?

[ecosophia]

1) Good!

2) Start by practicing the Lesser version -- invoking and banishing. Then work up to a ritual sequence, in which you banish with the Lesser to clear the space, use the Greater to invoke and then banish a planet, and then clear the space again with the Lesser. (The invoking form of the Lesser is almost never used in practice, just in training.)

Barry Long

[(Anonymous)]

Hi there JMG and community!

A while ago I stumbled upon the teachings of Barry Long through a book about child raising (I work in a kindergarten in Germany).

He seems to talk about the same stuff I read in between the lines on your blogs and those of the community.

It just resonates a lot more with me, because most magic teachings are to "dressed up" for me ( like druids in robes and hats, sorry :) )

But I trust this community and you with their experiences and would like to know if anyone knows about Barry Long and if he is "safe" to inquire further.

Thanks to all

- Alex

Re: Barry Long

[ecosophia]

I'm not familiar with him or his work at all.