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.

The illustration? Another Rosicrucian diagram. This one displays the universe as a musical scale with a treble clef representing spirit and a bass clef represending matter. The signs of the zodiac are related to specific notes:  Aries and Libra to middle C, Taurus and Virgo to B, Gemini and Leo to A, and Cancer to G; on the other side, Pisces and Scorpio are D, Aquarius and Sagittarius E, and Capricorn F. 

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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

A Wiccan

[(Anonymous)]

Re: your LBRP for polytheists (https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/9828.html)

I've had some thoughts I wanted to run by you on adapting this to a Wiccan(-ish) context. I realize that Wiccans have so far gotten by using the classical version of the LBRP, but I'd like one more theologically-appropriate.

My ideas:

1. For PATRON, "Aradia" or "Ceridwen" etc. (depending on tradition) would obviously work, but maybe just "the (TRIPLE) GODDESS" followed by "my Lady" instead of "my patron goddess" to avoid the repetition. (Alternatively, "Cernnunos" or "the (HORNED) GOD, my Lord.")

2. Using the Four Powers of the Magus as the four-letter divine names, especially for those who haven't chosen a traditional pantheon. Calling on the Four Powers seems like it would be thematically-appropriate for Wicca, and preferable to a mix-and-match approach.

"KNOW," "WILL," and "DARE" -- the bare infinitive forms of the verbs -- all helpfully have four letters, and "keep silent" can maybe be replaced with "MUTE" or even "HUSH," which can mean the same thing. (There's also "STFU," of course, but, uh...)

Alternatively, keep the "to" and "silent" but only vibrate the four letter words: "to KNOW, to WILL, to DARE, to KEEP silent"?

Do these ideas seem reasonable, or would they mess with the ritual too much and blow up in my face?

Re: A Wiccan

[ecosophia]

My guess is that it would be underpowered because you're not calling on deities in the four quarters, but you could certainly give it a try and see how well it works.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

1. How do I know when a repeated invocation has actually attracted something and “inhabited” a visualization or telesmatic image, as opposed to the image remaining an empty projection of the imagination? How dramatic can one expect the visualizations to become once they actually attract the attention of the right entities?

2. How much of a role does raw intelligence and innate talent play in magic? What differentiates someone like John Dee or Michael Scot from the average person?

3. Would it be possible for an aspirant to self-initiate himself all the way to adepthood by performing only the LBRP, MP, discursive meditation and divination, skipping all the other GD grade work and initiation ceremonies?

4. From an occult perspective, why do certain people gain weight easily and others not, while eating practically the same diet? Is there any way to influence this process through ritual or other means?

[ecosophia]

1) That depends on fine details of the development of your inner senses, which have at least as much to do with what you perceive as does the degree of presence of inner entities.

2) A willingness to do the work is more important than any other factor. I don't know Scot's biography well, but Dee achieved what he did by devoting extravagant amounts of time and energy to magical study and practice.

3) No. That will take you a certain distance, but not to adepthood.

4) A galaxy of different factors influence body weight, and how much food you eat has very little to do with it. I know of no occult way to control body weight -- if there was one, given the number of people who are frankly not sane about their weight, so many people would have taken up magic that the skeptics would have been brushed aside years ago.

Aspects of Gods in SOP, Ogham Check, Gender in Sun Symbolism, Occult Study, Stanislav Grof

[jprussell]

Good Evening!

As always, thanks much for sharing your expertise and wisdom. I've asked five questions below, roughly in order of how much of a priority they are for me, but I'm working on not being quite so presumptuous here, so please feel free to answer as few or as many as it moves you to do so.

Also as always, I welcome thoughts from the commentariat as well.

1. When invoking the elements for the SOP, is it appropriate to use different aspects/manifestations of the same God or Goddess for different elements? My specific case: for the SOP with Norse Deities, you suggest Freyja for Fire/South and Frigga for Earth/North. Working with a more Anglo-Saxon pantheon, and based on some of my own prayer, I have been worshiping a single Goddess that has aspects that cover both what Freyja and Frigga rule in the Norse pantheon. I'm guessing this is an "experiment and find out"/"pray for some guidance" situation, but I was curious if there were other factors to consider.


2. I'm working on learning Ogham divination as part of working through /The Druid Magic Handbook/. As a check on learning, I thought I might ask if I'm way off base on my take on today's draw (note that I drew in the order Knowledge, Power, Peace, but I've presented them in left-to-right order below):
   1. Knowledge: Onn (Reversed)
   2. Peace: Coll (Reversed)
   3. Power: Huath
   
   My take: Over-confidence in how I approach/think about things has led me to an intellectual/creative block. If I use this as an opportunity to reassess, think, and try new approaches, some good may come of it.
   
   Obviously I know there's a lot that's context-dependent, so I'm asking less for "please tell me what this means!" and more "are there any concepts or principles I should be applying to my interpretation that I'm missing".


3. The Cosmic Doctrine, Eliphas Levi, GD sources, and about every other Indo-European mythology tend to describe the sun with masculine symbolism, but the Germanic myths describe the sun as feminine (the Goddess Sunna). Is this likely to be a problem in magical work? Practical example: I'm currently doing the Celtic Cross opening to the SOP and invoking Odin and Baldur for the head and solar plexus centers while visualizing solar energy, but when I do morning, noon, and evening Sun Salutations, I address them to Sunna.


4. Besides daily discursive meditation, do you have any study tips for learning things occult? Any details you're willing to share on whether/how you take notes, use flashcards, mnemonic techniques, and so on would be much appreciated.


5. I've already been plenty greedy tonight, so I'm happy to push this one off to another day: any thoughts on Stanislav Grof and/or his "holotropic breathing" technique?

Many thanks,
Jeff

Re: Aspects of Gods in SOP, Ogham Check, Gender in Sun Symbolism, Occult Study, Stanislav Grof

[ecosophia]

1) It's important to have a different deity for each station. The Anglo-Saxons had more than enough goddesses for you to assign different ones to north and south; remember that magic is not religion and the fact that you invoke more than one goddess in magic doesn't have to affect your prayer life.

2) That seems reasonable to me.

3) You might see if you can find a male earth deity, to balance things a bit.

4) I just read obsessively, and take notes as needed.

5) I've never looked into it.

Prayer thanks

[lunarapprentice]

Two weeks ago, I announced a prayer request on behalf of my 17 yo daughter Jenny who dislocated her shoulder in summer camp. This has been a recurring problem and seems to be getting worse.

This comment is 1): to thank everyone who did pray for her, and 2): to inform you of the outcome to date.

Surprisingly, she had the best outcome one could hope for, short of a miraculous cure. The shoulder MRI revealed no major changes or abnormalities. Even her old surgical shoulder repair was intact; a surprise finding, as we had been told the repair was destroyed 2 months after her original surgery in 2016. Clinically, her shoulder remains extremely lax and unstable, and her orthopedist re-iterates my fear that she may need a total surgical reconstruction of not only her left, but BOTH shoulders; but this can potentially be averted if Jenny gets serious about her daily shoulder exercises, which she is prone to slack off on, because they are “boring”. She needs muscle tone to substitute for connective tissue tightness. We are getting her set up again with her physical therapist.

Again, my thanks and blessings to you all. And thank you JMG for posting my appeal.

—Lunar Apprentice

Re: Prayer thanks

[ecosophia]

I'm very glad to hear this.

Magical instrument

[vitranc]

Hi JMG,

First of all I would like to express my gratitude for these spaces of yours and add to it, that lately I am even struggling to find anything serious to ask you. Most of the problems that I face are dealt with either meditate/study/practice it further, or someone already asked the question, or you wrote a peace on it. Thank you for your work, it is profound.

b.) there was a discussion about music instruments a while back and it was mentioned that wood instruments are particularly good with etheric energies. What instruments would be particularly good and easy for a beginner.?

Best regards,
V

Re: Magical instrument

[ecosophia]

You're most welcome. As for a musical instrument, you might consider folk instruments from the region or country in which you live. That was why I picked up the mountain dulcimer, which is a quintessential American folk instrument:


Folk instruments tend to be easy to learn and play, and their resonance with local culture makes them magically effective.

[(Anonymous)]

I’m still burning incense for Beli before bed. Monday, I asked if He’d like to be my patron for the your LRP for polytheists, drew a stave, and got Nuin. Notary work, God of Record, maybe? But… instead of starting to work on that, I was led back to your pages on the SOP… and found some things that needed my attention…among others, drawing the triangle for Water starting at the bottom. No idea why I was starting at the upper right. Also, the sleep-on-it method caused me to conclude The Dolmen Arch is up next… start date TBA.
Had some other lessons this week, including tempering my temper.
Any advice?
Rhydlyd

[ecosophia]

Do you need any advice?

Tarot Meditation

[casmith]

JMG:

I discovered something interesting when I was doing the meditation on the minor arcana as part of chapter three in 'Learning Ritual Magic." That is, the part where you are supposed to visualize things having to do with the seasons and feel their energy.

Everything that is usually associated with spring, I associate with fall. A chill in the air and changing leaves gives me a feeling of new beginnings, ambition, sexual energy, and possibility. Spring on the other hand feels like a time to wrap things up before the summer. (Summer heat makes me feel lethargic.)

Meditating about winter on the other hand, feels weird because I can visualize winter things like cold, pink skies in a snowstorm, the cold earth, sleeping trees, and so on. But if I add lights and Christmas songs if feel an inner warmth and deep contentment (throw in some homebrew with mulling spices and it's heaven). But, take away the lights and Christmas music and it feels a lot more bleak.

I think this might be related to the way the school year works, starting in fall and ending in summer. I write not to ask a question but to relate my experience.

Re: Tarot Meditation

[ecosophia]

Hmm! That's quite interesting.

Tiny occult publishing project

[(Anonymous)]

I am teaching myself basic bookbinding. For a learning project, I would like to print up a short work on an occult or esoteric subject and bind it as a pamphlet, with possible sale in mind should there prove to be an audience for it. Something no longer than Trithemius’ “On Drawing Spirits Into Crystals,” or a bit shorter, would be about the right length for the scale I have in mind.

Any work I print for possible sale must be in the public domain, and any translation thereof must also be so. Are there any short works of that nature that you know of that might be appropriate for such a project? I’ve checked on the Sacred Texts site and all the works there seem to be substantial tomes.

I’m also thinking of selected Orphic or Homeric hymns, such as the translations of Thomas Taylor. Or perhaps it would not be too great a mutilation of a longer work to excerpt some passages from it, such as Plato’s description of Atlantis from the Timaeus and the Critias..? What do you think - does this sound like a reasonable project for a very modest scale of publication?

Re: Tiny occult publishing project

[ecosophia]

All the books in this archive are in the public domain, and some of them are quite short. Taylor's translations of the seven planetary Orphic ghymns might also be useful for people who practice planetary magic.

New Song for the Excalibur invocation at the end of the Grove ceremony

[kimberlysteele]

Hi, no question tonight (more like I have too many questions to choose only one🤔)

This is a tune I wrote to go with the Excalibur invocation that happens in the Grove Ceremony of the Druid Magic Handbook. Hope this helps!

https://queeniemusic.bandcamp.com/track/excalibur-sword-of-swords

Re: New Song for the Excalibur invocation at the end of the Grove ceremony

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this!

Magical Ideas for Keeping Intruders/Evildoers Off Property?

[kimberlysteele]

Dear JMG and Ecosophians,

If you haven't heard, Joe Biden and his administration are sending crews of "volunteers" to push the experimental MRNA vaccines door-to-door.

What kind of natural magic would you suggest to keep trespassers off of one's property? I am planning on putting up a hex sign or other geometric pattern near the door in an attempt to trap the malevolent forces who I believe are controlling these people's brains, but is there anything along the lines of hoodoo that comes to mind? I don't want to sweeten the relationship between myself and these people, but scaring them isn't desirable or constructive as it is their obsessive fear that drives them to harass people like me in the first place.

Re: Magical Ideas for Keeping Intruders/Evildoers Off Property?

[brenainn]

I'm just going to put up a sign that tells them not to knock. If they do, I'll answer, tell them to attempt to self-procreate, and close the door.

LVX etc

[(Anonymous)]

(Just a quick mention before I start: thank you to commentariat member Readoldthings if you’re reading this. You helped me out with some natal chart stuff a few weeks ago and I’ve found it very useful!)

JMG,

Just two practical questions and some rambling from me this week.

Questions:

1. I added in the version of the Analysis of the Keyword LVX that’s in Damien Echols’ Angels book to my daily practice to see what it’s like. He never speaks about it in relation to the Middle Pillar, but I tried slotting it in after my post-LBRP Qabalistic Cross. I’ve been doing it for about ten days now. All in all it seems to go well and I wouldn’t mind keeping it in the rotation. Do you see any problems here? Would you do anything differently? For sake of clarity the full structure would be: QC/LBRP/QC/LVX/MP/QC.

2. I’m somewhat tall, and my ceiling is somewhat low. So, funnily, I’ve actually been getting down on my knees to do the Analysis in order get the full range of motion with my arms. Am I putting a kink in the hose energy-wise or anything else here? (other than looking a bit foolish that is).

Rambling:

I dragged my feet on getting into it for a long time, but I’ve quickly developed a taste for discursive meditation. I finished up my cycle of meditations on the major arcana on Friday and I am quite pleased about it. Had a hard time adjusting to it at first but a handful of particularly revelatory sessions kept me going. I’ve started up on another longer more complex series now, but you know, “keep silence”, etc.

Unrelated, but in my neighbourhood there happens to be a very good metaphysical store. If you check the website they have about 26 of your different books in stock right now (i counted). Anyways, I went there last Friday to pick up a copy of Circles of Power. As a *very* favourable series of events would have it, I didn’t only get the book, I also ended up with a job there just yesterday. So FYI, I’m going to be pushing your books on absolutely everyone that walks in. ;-)

As always, thank you for everything.
Reid

Re: LVX etc

[ecosophia]

1) I've used the classic Golden Dawn LVX invocation in that position tolerably often, with good results, so you should be fine.

2) Quite the contrary. Kneeling on both knees is a traditional posture for invoking divine energies in Western spiritual traditions, so you'll have the advantage of the tracks in space laid down by that.

3) Delighted to hear this.

4) Where is this? If I'm ever going to be in the area, I could arrange to do a booksigning there.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm suffering from forbidden love for a person I can't tell about it (this person already has a partner). This person has poor eyesight, and I've been wishing for improvement on the condition.

I can't ask for permission on this without giving my hand... My karma for this aside (I have plenty to burn in hell), is this wishing harmful to the person?

[ecosophia]

You can wish all you want. The rule is that you shouldn't do magic for someone without their consent.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

Are you familiar with Frank Channing Haddock "Power of Will"? Is it worth it to complete his will training?

Thank you for hosting MM and for all your voluntary work.

Mieczysław

[ecosophia]

Good heavens, now there's a blast from the past! I picked up a copy of that very book from a used book store many years ago. It's not the only thing that shaped my understanding of will training, but yes, it's solid stuff and worth doing.

(I just checked, and there's a PDF of it available for free download here.)

Some questions on divination as a daily practice

[kalidasa]

Hello JMG,

some questions

(1) Can astrology be used as a "training" oracle like the Tarot, with its daily 3 card spread, and checking against the days events?

The conceptual difficulty I encounter is that in a span of 12-18 hours, only the Moon moves significantly enough from day to day.

In other words, if you take the span of, say 3 days, most planets don't move all that much, and usually don't transit over natal chart points. Horary doesn't seem to quite fit for *daily* divination, but I suppose one *could* cast a horary chart every day with the “What do I most need to understand about the events of this day?” question. If you do this at roughly the same time everyday, you'd get roughly similar charts, modulo the Moon. Is this a good idea (to develop intuition via daily divination practice, using astrology instead of Tarot ?

2) In the daily 3 card spread, you seem to recommend a "first card is me, second is the situation, third is the resolution" structure. I understand the latter two but have some difficulty wrapping my head around the "myself" card. What would it mean for say the Two Of Cups vs (say) the Heirphant to come up in the "me" position? Does it say something of what I do that day? what I feel? a role I play that day? My confusion is that I think it is the same "me" that goes through successive days. What do different cards indicate then? A concrete example would really help.


3) Due to my Tai Chi practice, which provides me immense benefits, given that I have put a few years into it, I'm presently not taking the Golden Dawn path (as in LRM etc) to avoid energy clashes.

That said, I've been reading a few of your books (RLM, CGD, DH etc) , and a meta pattern I detect is that the challenge for the beginner would be in taking up and sustaining a relentless practice of *some* occult practise over time.

Bardon's IIH shows the same structure, and puts this 'relentless practice' aspect right up front, specifically asking the practitioner to build habits of not acting out of/being driven by subconscious impulses and complexes, and I suspect this is why most beginners get stuck on his first two steps for years! That's a hard "first step" though potentially rewarding if you can manage it.

Consequently, I'm thinking of skipping the ritual/energy work for now, focusing on just the divination and meditation practices and focusing on getting 'relentless practice' of these two nailed before re looking at energetics/ritual. And possibly add some language learning _ Sanskrit or Latin - or daily prayer/devotional practice, as a third practice, instead of ritual, to form a trivium - again with focus on getting the ability to practice relentlessly, no matter whether I feel like doing it on a particular day or not, whether I have results or not .

My question: Divination + meditation should go well with tai chi, and not cause energy clashes. Correct? I'm fairly sure meditation wouldn't (clash), just checking with you about the Tarot/astrology.


Thanks in advance, as always.

Re: Some questions on divination as a daily practice

[ecosophia]

1) Yes. The secret to doing astrology as a daily practice is to track transits across your natal chart. On any average day the Moon will make anything from two to a dozen aspects to different natal planets, and there's a good chance that the Sun, Mercury, and Venus are also making aspects to your natal chart that will change in a day or so; the slower planets also make aspects, which take their time changing, but there again, you can track them. Thus every day you get a changing pattern of forces to interpret.

2) The "me" card can indicate your mood, your state of consciousness, your state of health -- anything that affects you from within.

3) That should be fine. It's the ritual work, and especially the internal energy workings, that cause clashes.

Temple architecture and Volcanic soil structure

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if this question was more appropriate for MM or for the Volcanology post (synchronicity!).

In your thumbnail sketches for your book "The Secret of the Temple", you emphasized the role of layering and arranging paramagnetic and non-paramagnetic materials in order to create the structures of land fertility architecture. One of the things that I noticed while living in a land with a history of recent volcanic activity is that the soil has many layers of ash, clay, and sand. Could the weathering of volcanic ash by primary succession render that superficial layer of ash non-paramagnetic, thus over time and subsequent eruptions, layers of paramagnetic recent ashfall, and weathered and non-paramagnetic layers of old ash build up.

I wonder if the famed fertility of volcanic regions isn't so much due to the inherent fertility of volcanic soil, but rather the layering of para and non-paramagnetic soil layers, thus creating a naturally occurring fertility structure.

1) Am I on the right track with this line of thinking?
2) Could the origins of the basic idea of temple architecture involve observation of such volcanic soil structures?

Re: Temple architecture and Volcanic soil structure

[ecosophia]

That's a fascinating possibility that had not occurred to me. It's certainly worth exploring!

Huysmans and Other Enquiries

[goatgodschild]

Hello, Mr. Greer!

This week was generally rather quiet, although I enjoyed hearing your podcast talk. Thank you for holding these, and as usual, I have questions aplenty.

1) I would like to learn more about the occult and cultural significance in the text of Las-Bas. While I have read the book in translation, it felt like there was a lot of important details that were flying over my head. Where is a good place to start learning this information?

2) How does one go about growing a non-literal spine for oneself?

3) What are good offerings to make when you are not allowed to offer food or flowers due to the immovable location of an indoor shrine?

Re: Huysmans and Other Enquiries

[ecosophia]

1) Start with Tobias Churton's book Occult Paris. If you want to go beyond that, well, how well do you read French?

2) "Lack of spine" usually amounts to a divided will. Use journaling to understand the internal conflicts that keep your will divided.

3) Can you burn incense? That's a classic.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
I recognise this may be one of those "try it and see" questions, but I wanted to ask about the order of performing exercises. I have been reading Damien Echol's book, and would like to move to his system - I tried his LBRP exercise and found it very powerful. In his book, he asks you to learn, in order, the Fourfold Breath, the Cabalistic Cross, the MP Exercise and the LBRP, with the implication that the last two are to be performed in that order. I've seen elsewhere (including in some of your writing) the idea that the banishing ritual should be performed first. He also uses what seem to me to be non-standard colours for the five energy centres.
The question, I suppose, is "does any of this matter?" If not, I'd be quite happy with the answer "no"!
Thank you.

[ecosophia]

If you're going to work with his system, follow the instructions in the book exactly as given, to the letter. That's a good general rule for any form of magical training. If you're going to trust the teacher enough to do the course, trust the teacher right down to the smallest details.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG

Can you tell me how to make holy water? In terms of it's uses, you would use it for blessing yourself or things? Spray it into rooms? How long can you keep it for before the magic wanes?

Thanks.

[(Anonymous)]

You might find this article from a Catholic mage helpful:

https://thavmapub.com/2020/12/01/anything-and-everything-about-holy-water/

[(Anonymous)]

How does the Sphere of Protection scale up? I'd assumed the larger area you tried to cover, the more dilute it would become. Last night I experimented with extending it over the entire house and gardens. Suprisingly it felt more effective and was easier to visualise than just filling my bedroom.

Also discovered imagining the electromagnetic field part of Spirit Below and the cosmic radiation aspect of Spirit Above makes both more potent.

[ecosophia]

You'll have to experiment and find out for yourself, as it seems to vary from person to person.

[(Anonymous)]

Last week you said divination warned you off certain writing projects - what were they?

[ecosophia]

Ahem. "To know, to dare, to will, and..."

[(Anonymous)]

In a course of ceremonial magic, which parts do most to accelerate spiritual development?

[ecosophia]

That's like asking "in an auto engine, which parts do the most to make it run?" All the parts are necessary to the final effect. That's why you should do any course you take up exactly as written, down to the fine details -- until you've finished the work, you don't know enough to know what each part does, and you might be in the position of someone looking under the hood of the car and saying, "I don't see any need for the radiator, I'll just throw it out."

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

1. The new girlfriend of an old friend of mine seems to be in thrall to the Devouring Mother archetype. Particularly towards my wife, she will tell her things like 'you work too hard, you shouldn't work so hard' (she's met my wife three times...). And she treats my friend a bit like a child, to my great surprise. Besides cutting off contact, are there ways to communicate or handle such people? How do you defend oneself against the Devouring Mother archetype when it manifests in others?

2. As we proceed through Lévi and the Tarot, I am starting to understand that that Tarot and the Sephiroth represent archetypes. It makes sense to me that a Sephiroth such as Kether can be represented by an archetype like the Magician. I'm still trying to grasp the meanings of these things, but it seems clearer to me that an archetype represents some aspect of the personality, they are states of being that shapes one's attitude and behavior when they are active.

Comparing this to the Wheel of Life, the Stations of the Year seem to play a similar function as the Sephiroth, but they seem less like archetypes and more like phases of a process (which is made clear in the DMH). But this seems less like a pattern of behavior driven by an archetype and more that one's behavior is affected by the season embodied by the Station. Do the Stations represent some archetypal meaning that I'm missing? Is there a more useful way to compare and think about the two systems?

3. About the fulfilment of the predictions from divinations: should you treat your daily divinations like a weather report, such that, in bad weather, you set your sails for the day accordingly? I'm mindful of what someone posted here a couple of weeks ago where Galadriel told Frodo about the visions in her pool: 'Some of these events will come to pass if you try to avoid having them come to pass'.

Thank you!

[ecosophia]

1) No matter how badly you want to, you can't make rude and nasty people behave better. All you can do is maintain your boundaries, keep your own behavior ethical, and distance yourself as the situation requires.

2) The sephiroth are also stages of a process, and so are the tarot trumps. More meditation may be helpful.

3) You can certainly give that a try and see how it works for you.

[(Anonymous)]

Meditating about the elements I was thinking to what extent each can exist in static form, or has to be a process. To visualise it I imagined each element in a jar. Air, Water, and Earth are part of massive-scale processes. But you can also have jars of air, water, and rocks, just sat there not doing a lot. The plant aspects of Earth are more of a process but could also at least appear to sit in a jar not doing much.

But there's no way to have a jar of static Fire. It has to be constantly doing something, or it's just fuel or ash. For Spirit Below you could take magma out of the earth, but away from heat, pressure, and radiation, it would soon set solid. Similar with any space stuff you took for Spirit Above. Unless you took matter from a neutron star. Then you'd have a very heavy jar whose gravity may be having an active influence on the surrounding area. :)

[ecosophia]

That is to say, you've identified activity as one of the basic principles of fire. Good.

[(Anonymous)]

As well as plant, mineral, and animal, what are some other examples of how the alchemical method has been applied?

[ecosophia]

Well, just to list a few, there's psychological alchemy, a la Jung; spiritual alchemy, in which the goal is the spiritual perfection of the individual soul; medical alchemy; agricultural alchemy; and sociopolitical alchemy.

[(Anonymous)]

When mineral alchemy is described as more dangerous than plant alchemy, how much of that is physical vs spiritual? If someone is already a chemist or pharmacist and used to handling dangerous things in the lab, how risky is it for them?

[ecosophia]

The dangers are almost entirely physical. Some of the minerals used in mineral alchemy, notably antimony, are very toxic. If you've got good lab technique you should be fine.