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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With that said, have at it!

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

Comments

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.

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

[(Anonymous)]

(Not OP)

4) Would those be paper notes? Are you still using the art of memory nowadays?

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

[ecosophia]

These days, yes, I use spiral notebooks. The art of memory is great when you have constant use for it, but it requires regular practice, and I have enough else to practice these days that I've set that aside for the time being.

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

[jprussell]

Thanks very much!

Should you (or others) be interested, Stanislav Grof is a psychological researcher who was one of the earliest to use LSD in a research/clinical setting. He became convinced that psychedelics offered a way to explore and map human consciousness, but later came to believe that other methods could be used to access the "non-ordinary states of consciousness" that helped find some of those nooks and crannies.

"Holotropic Breathing" is a method where you breathe in and out "as deeply as you can as fast as you can" while laying down with your eyes closed, ideally with a trained sitter next to you talking you through it and making sure you don't hurt yourself. In sessions around an hour long, it's supposed to have similar effects to psychedelics, and with a trained sitter/guide, some folks have had profound therapeutic responses to it.

It's a method/area of research that was more interesting to me when I had a primarily materialist point of view, but strikes me as potentially risky and/or unnecessary from an occult point of view.

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

[inavalon]

As part of my ongoing psychospiritual journey, I participated in a Holotropic Breathwork workshop led by Dr. Grof about 20 years ago. It was interesting, but personally I didn't experience significant insights or transformation of consciousness.

Another participant went into what appeared to be a full-blown spiritual emergency (to use a Grofian term) and the trained sitters present at the workshop had their hands full trying to navigate her out of it. I remember hearing her anguished screams. She was escorted to a private room and they spent the better part of the afternoon working with her. So I can validate your concern about the potential risks.

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

[jprussell]

Thanks very much for sharing! I guess I'll stay away unless/until I feel like I both have more of a need for what it has to offer and I have a better understanding of the potential esoteric effects.

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

[illyria2001]

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

Ing or Frey would probably work.

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

[jprussell]

Thanks very much, that's where my head went as well. I'll have to pray and experiment to see what works.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Please forgive the intrusion. Regarding the SOP elements, which Norse deities correspond to the elements? Thanks so very much!

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

[jprussell]

JMG gives a recommendation for the elements

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JMG gives a recommendation for the elements <a href="https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/59968.html?thread=4929344#cmt4929344>here</a> and for the non-Celtic Cross opening <a href="https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/57125.html?thread=5030181#cmt5030181">here</a>.

Reprinted here for convenience:

For the opener: "I'd invoke Odin, Frigga, and Baldr in the opening."

For the elements:
"I would use the following Norse deities in the SoP:

Air/East: Thor the thunder and storm god
Water/West: Njord the god of fertility and the sea
Fire/South: Freyja the queen of the Valkyries and warrior goddess
Earth/North: Frigga the queen of the Aesir and spinner of fates
Spirit Above: Odin, seated on Hlidskjalf at the summit of the worlds
Spirit Below: Fjorgyn the earth goddess, wife of Odin and mother of Thor

You could swap out Heimdall for Njord if you prefer, or have Tyr in place of Thor, but these are the ones I would use -- mind you, I'd pour each of them a horn of ale first, and ask their permission to invoke them in the ritual!

The thing to keep in mind is that the elemental symbolism doesn't have to be exact. The seven stations of the SoP -- the Seven Cantrefs, as they're called in a certain tradition of Druid lore -- are more than just the elements, and there's some room for flexibility when assigning them to deities."