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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I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain other gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I now have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online. 

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!

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

Comments

Re: Texts of Classical religion

[boccaderlupo]

RE: Ovid, I am of the opinion that the mere act of relaying the stories of the gods is looked askance at, though one can serve as a vessel for the gods without knowing it.

Much of the fear and concern of Ovid seems due to some perception that there is some "pure" tradition that he is muddying (disregarding the variegated and sometimes incongruous landscape of the original Hellenic "texts," as it were). His chief contribution, besides the retelling, is in my view the concept of metamorphoses: that although the gods themselves are immutable, the symbols and vehicles in which they manifest themselves change. In light of the fact that, with rare exceptions perhaps, there are no unbroken Romano-Hellenic traditions, this idea of change is important, especially as it permitted the syncretism of the Renaissance, which permitted the "survival" of the gods during periods of vehement monotheism. Indeed, the "reconstitution" of older traditions is, in this light, merely part of the dynamic.

One is as apt to find the gods expressing themselves in the divine poets as in the compendiums of mythographers as on the back of a cereal box as in the contemplation of an oak stirring in the breeze. The path is wherever you start.

Axé,
Fra' Lupo

Re: Texts of Classical religion

[isabelcooper]

My impression (only reading him in translation) is that he made a lot of the myths more Just-So Stories than the originals did, so any sense of the gods' character comes second to This Is Why We Have Birds, or similar.

Re: Western Ceremonial Magic End Goal

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the detailed answer!!

-John

Re: 6 Questions

[isabelcooper]

I don't recall predictions--though maybe I hadn't been keeping close enough track!--but the mental state, definitely, especially after breakups when I was younger. There was a lot of "...thank you, iTunes, I GET IT," at times.

Sometimes I'll also be thinking of songs and then have them come up, or play nearby, or whatnot.

[isabelcooper]

One trick I've found for when getting upset doesn't help but it's hard to stop (oh hello anxiety disorder) is to set aside a designated Get Upset Time. I pick fifteen minutes and tell myself "okay, you're going to be sad about this breakup/scared about your parents' aging/whatever as hard as you can until the timer goes off, and then you'll stop." After the first time or two, I usually don't need the whole 15.

Re: Texts of Classical religion

[boccaderlupo]

No scholar of any kind, but would heartily recommend the Orphic and Homeric hymns, if you don’t already have them.

And Sallustius (friend of Julian) is a good overview of the Neoplatonic approach to the gods: https://hermetic.com/texts/on_the_gods-1

Axé,
Far’ Lupo

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you everyone for your useful advice.

[(Anonymous)]

Wait, what? He could do for-real URI Geller moves? My recollection of discussions about telekinesis here is that they were never convincingly demonstrated. Only thing I've seen directly is the MIT pendulum experiment that was still ongoing online until a few years ago...

[robertmathiesen]

Pretty much anyone can learn to do what Geller did with bending spoons, IF--BIG IF--you can provide your own prepared spoons for the trick--or you are good enough at sleight-of-hand to substitute your spoons for the ones provided--or you are good enough at misdirection of attention that you can gimmick the provided spoons on the spot (it only takes a few minutes, tops). I assume our host knows all that, and knows how that trick is done; and that he's saying he saw the General bend spoons which he didn't have a chance to gimmick.