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

 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. 

 

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

[(Anonymous)]

1) Are there anything that makes bad fodder for discursive meditation? For instance, would it be unwise to meditate on evil exclusively? Is there any harm that comes from meditating unsystematically on themes that are incoherent? Is there anyway that someone could really badly mess up with discursive meditation and how can one avoid doing that?

2) Is there an occult reason why people in the United States of every class and cultural niche seem so brittle? I've noticed that it is nearly impossible to have a reasoned disagreement with nearly everyone I know, and that this cuts across every imaginable divide. It also seems very creepy to me: if we can't have reasoned disagreements how can we have peace and liberty? Is there some sort of magical explanation for why people seemingly cannot countenance disagreement, even polite disagreement?

[(Anonymous)]

You might recall that I asked you about the possibility knowingly taking a hard landing into this life as a pathfinder for a project.
When I asked my Ogham staves where I can find the notes I left myself about what I’m supposed to be doing in this life, they said: (1-3-2 layout) Mor reversed, Ruis reversed, Straif.
If you have a moment, may I have your interpretation of that draw in order to check my work?
Many thanks.
Rhydlyd

[(Anonymous)]

Could we pretty please have a nickel tour of the Fludd illustration?
R

[(Anonymous)]

Could I make a prayer request?

The person who owns my apartment scheduled the boiler to be replaced today and tomorrow. I was not consulted on the timing. I feel like a Monday when the moon is in Scorpio and waxing its way to an eclipse is probably not ideal for installing a new boiler. Wouldn’t be my first choice, anyway!

I’ve been sick all weekend and am not up to doing any magical work today - ideally I’d prefer to do a targeted SOP at the very least, but even just doing it mentally in a general sense earlier today tired me out.

If anyone is open to praying that the boiler is installed safely, without fault to the unit, efficiently, and causes me no trouble, I’d appreciate it.

My question: am I right in my judgment this is a poor election for installing a device that uses water?

[ecosophia]

1) Not that I know of. I'm sure it must be possible to misuse discursive meditation and end up in trouble, but I've never seen anyone actually manage that.

2) That's a good question that has no simple answer. I think that a world-class case of cognitive dissonance plays a large role in it. Most people are aware that their lives suck, but they've been told over and over again in ten thousand different ways by advertising that their lives are wonderful, or will be just as soon as they buy the latest corporate crap, and the conflict between their wordless sense of how awful their lives are and the babble of endlessly replaying ads in their conscious minds has them ready to snap.

[ecosophia]

"You left them behind when you entered this life. Deal."

[ecosophia]

It maps last week's diagram onto the human body. The genitals are the center of the material current, the crown of the head is the center of the spiritual current, and the heart mediates between them.

[ecosophia]

That isn't necessarily a bad time for a boiler installation -- the eclipse doesn't have any influence until it actually starts. That said, positive energy en route.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you - for both the positive energy and the election knowledge.

[causticus]

Good evening Archdruid,

1. Several questions concerning Ogham divination:
(a) Do you know of any adaptation of the Ogham to the native flora of the Northeast or Great Lakes regions? Something similar to what you did in adapting it to the Pacific Northwest flora.
(b) I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with divination questions for Ogham, as opposed to Geomancy which is so cut and dry with those yes/no questions. Do you know of good question themes that would be appropriate for an Ogham beginner?

2. Not a question per-se, but I just want to say I'm so stoked for the upcoming book club posts! I just got my copy (your translation), and after reading the intro section I have to say I immediately took to E. Levi's writing style! Even though I can't read it in its original French, I adore his style of prose. He seemed to have a real gift for convey dense imagery using very clever, run-on sentence prose. This is going to be a wild ride indeed!

-Turquoise Greasy Pangolin

[ecosophia]

1a) Not that I know of; I was hoping to inspire more such projects.

1b) I have good results with questions like "what do I need to understand about X?" and "what is really going on with Y?"

2) Glad to hear it. Lévi has a lot to say, and he's very good at saying it.

Magic places

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Archdruid,
I read there are places, like Lyon, France, where energies are more intense and tend to atract occultists. Are there cities like them in our continent? Some people would say Machu Picchu, but I was there and it's more like a honeypot for tourists, just like Disneyland or Checkpoint Charlie.
-Edu

[causticus]

1a) Well then it sounds like I might have to take this on as a project once I develop a better symbolic understanding of the fews =)

Re: Magic places

[ecosophia]

There will certainly be, but you'll have to talk to the native peoples to find out where they are, and they may not want to tell you.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought I might take a crack at this, since every time I disagree with JMG some interesting insights come tumbling out:

1) Yes, there are some dangerous topics, but they require almost willful stupidity in order to cause problems in addition to being highly exotic. We're talking the sort of stuff that can't be transmitted over the internet or printed into a mass-market paperback. There are a number of techniques for wringing insights out of an idea or forging a connection to something. Discursive meditation is special because it balances the two nicely and utilizes the natural structure of the thinking process in order to do it. Other techniques favor one or the other results, have higher entry requirements, or else don't have built in safeguards. As an example, while I haven't done extended (or only) meditations on evil, I have done more than a few; the results are pretty consistently that I start to understand the situation and its underlying mechanics, with a few insights in how to free myself from it coming along too. Incoherent and unsystematic themes are actually a great exemplar of the underlying safeguards in discursive meditation. Unsystematic themes are steadily slotted into a larger system (your mind), while incoherence is similarly encapsulated at the level of the logical structures used to deal with them. The only scenario I can come up with in which discursive meditation goes off the rails involves not simply thinking, but actually trying to transpose your consciousness into a different part of the mind/body from normal, and then working from there; which one could easily argue is no longer discursive meditation.

2) Yes. Karmic backlash from a society run by debauched sorcerers. I'm not sure if that is a joke or not.

Cocoa Magic

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
I made an offering of chocolate to my statuette of Venus after a successful sexual interlude, under Her guidance. The chocolate sat on the plinth of her statue for two days and I asked if I might eat it. I got a good feeling and ate the chocolate. It now tasted of rose.

I wondered if it had picked up the taste of rose incense from the plinth. I had not burned any incense to Venus while the chocolate was an offering. I tasted the plinth which is made of some horrible, polymer clay and it tasted terrible and my tongue went numb. The rose flavour did not come from it but from my Gracious Lady. I see this as a very nice gift from Venus. I have never had a flavour before although I have sometimes smelled frankincense when none was burning.

I am soldiering on through the scrying of the Ogham fews in the DMH. I must be in physically better shape because it is getting much easier. I find I am getting most of my insights into the fews from understanding the natural history of the plants. Whoever put the Ogham fews together knew a lot about botany.
Maxine

Astrological Hindsight

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I understand that interpreting astrology can be quite difficult to get spot-on. I was wondering if the election of Biden, for example, which was not predicted astrologically as a sure thing, appears more clearly in astrological hindsight? Does viewing what happened and comparing it to the charts help in honing the astrologer's interpretive skill for future predictions? I'm curious if there is anything that stands out that one can say, ah, that's what we missed which points to a Biden win or a Trump loss.

Re: Cocoa Magic

[ecosophia]

That's very traditional! Glad to hear you had good results.

[jpc_w]

Fellow Ecosophian(?) kimberlysteele has already done what you're asking for.
She has a web site describing her style of Ogham reading.
On Mondays she performs Ogham readings and answers questions on her Dreamwidth page.

-Plum Exiguous Turtle

Re: Astrological Hindsight

[ecosophia]

I don't think it was a sure thing. I noticed, and commented, as we got closer to the election that it wasn't at all sure how things were going to turn out. Yes, going back over the charts is a good idea, but it doesn't always result in perfect clarity.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, good. I thought the break might be in my teen years. Deal is easier than working my way back through wrong turns this life.
Hard cheese is often the tastiest, no?
;-)
Thank you!
R

[(Anonymous)]

May the rest of us join in?

Thanks for the shout out!

[kimberlysteele]

My Northern Illinois Prairie Ogham post is here: https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/28658.html

My Ogham site is here: http://druidogham.wordpress.com

It is also true that I do free Ogham readings every week on Mondays:

http://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org

Re: Magic places

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, I dunno about Checkpoint Charlie being entirely a tourist draw… I walked back and forth under the original sign when it hung in the rafters of the Patton Museum in Fort Knox trying to figure out why all my hair was standing up and lying back down. Then I noticed the sign. Somehow, I knew I was on the wrong side without actually knowing. Maybe somebody in Germany could try walking back and forth at the original location?
R

[(Anonymous)]

Hey JMG,

yesterday I had the chance to listen to your interview on the higherside chats. Your description of magic as a way to improve yourself and your situation in life really caught my attention.
Would you say that Gareth Knight's experience of the inner worlds gives one the tools to improve oneself and reach one's goals, or is it too bunny slopey?