More Mondays, More Magic

[ecosophia]

Once again, it's technically Monday now -- past midnight Eastern time -- and here I am on Dreamwidth, so it's time for another 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, though it may be Tuesday sometime before I get to them all.

With that said, have at it!

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

Comments

Animals

[(Anonymous)]

Are there any resources that revolve around the ability of talking to animals such as horses, dogs & birds?

Re: Animals

[ecosophia]

Not in the occult traditions known to me, no.

Saturn Return, and some follow-up

[(Anonymous)]

Many thanks JMG and Christine S for your comments last week on my horoscope. While pondering your suggestions, I’m still trying to work out my best course of action, and would be interested in your further remarks, if any. Here are some features which I previously omitted for the sake of brevity and focus.

Christine recommended that I look to the sign in which is located the cusp of the Second House, and the planet that rules it, as a guide to remunerative occupation. That sign is Aquarius. Chiron is in both sign and house. Also, the cusp of the Second is only just within Aquarius, about a quarter degree past Pisces.

I gather Saturn will be involved here, with perhaps a hint of influence from Jupiter and Venus. I find it hard to imagine how these might combine harmoniously.

Pluto, as I mentioned before, is in the Ninth, in Virgo, and is conjunct the Part of Fortune to within 4 degrees. He is supported by trine to Saturn and to the Sun, both of which are strongly placed by sign, and both in angular houses.

One site suggests that this Pluto placement offers me a strong possibility of going abroad, a thing I desire. Does that appear to you to be the case?

My second Saturn return is right now. It’s proving to be every bit as much fun and light-hearted frivolity as the astrologers all promised it would be. Just now I’m experiencing much the same optimism and buoyancy of spirits as you might expect to find in, say, Marvin the paranoid android.

Kevin

Re: Saturn Return, and some follow-up

[ecosophia]

If your natal Saturn is angular and well placed by sign, he's your friend, not your enemy, and your Saturn return is a good time to buckle down to hard work on yourself and your life, knowing that you can get thirty years of momentum out of the experience. If you look at the sign and the house Saturn is in, you can use that as a guide to a suitable job.

I don't use Chiron or any of the other asteroids, so can't help you with that, and I wouldn't take Pluto in the ninth as a sign of foreign travel.

Psychics for Hire

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

A friend and her adult daughter recently paid $50 each to sit in a psychic circle hosted by a local man who advertises in the monthly New Age paper. He’s well regarded, accordingl to my friend, who was quite impressed with him, as was her daughter, who he pegged as an “old soul.”

I don’t for a minute doubt that there are many realms of existence and people who can tap into them at will. But, the opportunity for fakery in this sort of psychic setup doesn’t inspire confidence, at least from me.

A long ago friend and counselor, who clearly had gifts in clairvoyance, used them discreetly and only as an adjunct to her practice. She was certain that those who use such gifts openly, and support themselves solely in this way, will get reap bad stuff once this life is done.

I’d appreciate knowing your views. Thank you so much for Magic Monday!

OtterGirl

Re: Psychics for Hire

[ecosophia]

There are some good professional psychics out there, but the odds of finding one aren't good, as they're hugely outnumbered by the scam artists -- and good psychics and scam artists alike are hugely outnumbered by enthusiastic and clueless individuals who don't know any better. Still, your friend has to make her own choices, you know.

Burning the midnight oil

[marcu]

Dear Mr. Greer,

Two questions from me this week.
Firstly, can you recommend any good books for beginners on interpreting/understanding astrology? I would like to get a better feel for all the terminology I read about as well as the added advantage of then being able to then ask better questions.

Second question. Is there some way of determining if a Tarot deck is suitable for divination practice if it is not on the approved list in Learning Ritual Magic? I understand that it is better to find a deck with artwork that resonates with the individual but I'm unsure how to determine its suitability. Like the "The Wild Unknown Tarot Deck" that is currently the best seller on Amazon.com. Would that deck be suitable for divination?

Thanks as always for providing this forum.

Re: Burning the midnight oil

[ecosophia]

I'm going to toss the question of beginning astrology books to the readership. I haven't looked at beginner's books on the subject in many years, and have no idea what's out there.

With regard to tarot, if you're doing the work out of Learning Ritual Magic, you need to use one of the recommended decks for that work, period, end of sentence. If you're not doing the work out of Learning Ritual Magic, you can use any deck that appeals to you. I've seen people do effective divinations with decks that I find completely useless, so "suitable" means "suitable for the individual," and if the artwork and symbolism appeals to you, that's good enough.

Silence

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,
What are your thoughts on the role of silence in ones life?

Trevor

Re: Silence

[ecosophia]

Other than the fact that there's rarely enough of it?

I'm not at all sure what you're asking here. Can you try to explain a little more clearly what you're looking for?

Past life memory or channeling?

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Mr. Greer,
Is there any way to tell if memories of another life are one's own past life or just information shared by a ghost?

I recently had an experience of hearing the song, "Go, Lassie Go," and wanted to learn to sing it. I brought up the lyrics and started to sing and began to sob. It is not a sad song but I have a limited empathic ability and the deep sorrow I felt was not my own. I also had a flash of understanding that this song reminded him of a beloved woman he had lost to the separation of death.

Also, a couple of sensitive friends have seen him at my house and he appears to be wearing a cape or, possibly, a cape-shouldered great coat. I fail to see how these could be examples of a past life memory of my own when he turns up here but another friend said he was me in another life and a ghost around my house at the same time as time does not exist.

He seems like a nice person and I am not afraid but puzzled. He seems very sad so I am trying to offer him friendship and love and I pray for him to stop taking himself so seriously.

I pray at an ancestor altar daily so this may have attracted him.
Max Rogers

Re: Past life memory or channeling?

[ecosophia]

That's a tough one. It could be either one. You might try asking the ghost if the memory is his.

Weather magic

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for magic Monday.

On your encyclopaedia of natural magic you mention weather magic. Can you recommend any resources on it?

Re: Weather magic

[ecosophia]

There are scraps of material on weather magic in a lot of books on traditional folklore -- farm families have an obvious interest in the weather! -- but I don't know of a resource that focuses on it.

House signs

[helen_in_oz]

Greetings from Down Under,

May I ask, which form of house division you use, and have you always used that one?
Also, have you had any experience with the sidereal Zodiac, or have any opinion about it?

Thank you for the opportunity to ask.

PS I am the proud owner of number 148 of "you know what" 😉
PSS plus many others!

And finally, my best wishes to Sara from a fellow crochet and cross stitcher.

Re: House signs

[ecosophia]

I use Placidus these days; I've dabbled in a few others but find that using Placidus cusps reliably gives me better natal delineations and horary readings. I don't find the sidereal Zodiac useful at all -- to my mind, the entire sidereal system is based on a basic misunderstanding of the nature of astrology, though I know plenty of people would disagree.

Thank you, btw, and Sara sends her best in return!

Learning Ritual Magic

[grandswamperman]

Good morning JMG,

I have recently decided to seriously move past the dabbling stage and start working through Learning Ritual Magic. I am using the Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot as my deck, which has two different versions of the Temperance card. Do I need to use only one of these when I am going through the deck each day and for any later work with Temperance, and if so, is one version preferable to the other?

Re: Learning Ritual Magic

[ecosophia]

Yes, you should only use one of them for ordinary workings. The simpler one with the figure pouring water from vessel to vessel is the one to use; the other has a specific application to initiatory work, and is not meant for other uses.

Free will and reincarnation

[ferngladefarm.blogspot.com.au]

Hi John Michael,

We had a discussion on the previous Magic Monday about ‘free will’ and I agree with your interpretation, and my poor description was due to me being physically very tired. Anyway, I had a further thought bouncing on from that point and it is this: In order for reincarnation to work as it is generally understood, the small wiggle room for free will, that we discussed, is all a person can have access too. The two concepts are invariably linked. And it makes a nice sort of sense too in that context and works well.

Cheers

Chris

Re: Free will and reincarnation

[ecosophia]

Yep! It's precisely because we exist in a context of forces already in motion that our freedom is limited to "wiggle room." On the other hand, we can work to expand the wiggle room, and reach a point from which significant change in accordance with will becomes possible.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm curious how important space is in ritual magic. On one hand most books recommend finding a quiet space that's not used for anything else, which makes sense, though isn't an option in my case. On the other hand there seems to be a considerable lore about wandering magicians, which would imply a set space is maybe not so necessary. I'm at a very early stage, just following the exercises in the first few chapters of your Learning Ritual Magic, but so far I've been doing everything outside, which seems to be working. Just curious if you have any thoughts on the role of a regular space to practice.

[ecosophia]

I've never had a space set apart for magical practice; I don't make enough money to afford that many rooms! For years I did my practices in the bedroom, which had the benefit of making nightmares a very rare experience for my wife as well as myself; in the last several places we've lived, I've had a study, and that functions as a magical space as well as a place for writing and for the books we don't necessarily want casual visitors to see. No doubt having a set space would be nice, but the absence of one hasn't slowed me down noticeably. I've done effective practices in hotel rooms, for that matter.

[(Anonymous)]

AS my meditation practice continues with the nwyfre/qigong exercises I described previously, I've had some experiences with being able to "see" (sort of) my hands moving in spite of the fact that my eyes are closed during this particular portion of the ritual. What I "see" is a vague kind of photographic negative, with a luminous sometimes greenish sometimes purplish outline of my hands (which are quite warm at this point) against the dark background. I'm guessing that I'm seeing a portion of my etheric body? Occasionally, I have experiences of quick, bright flashes of light simultaneously in both corners of my side vision while this is all happening. Could you shed some light on what is occurring here?

Thanks!

David, by the lake

[ecosophia]

Yep. It's one of the standard forms of clairvoyance, and yes, you seem to be perceiving the etheric plane. You might try sometime seeing if you can perceive other people's auras the same way.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG, this may not be a question strictly about magic, but do you have resources to recommend about dealing with unresolved issues in one's inner life? By that I mean, without getting specific, I have over the past couple of years been regularly affected (every few weeks) by waves of thoughts and emotions about issues which I thought I had made decisions about and come to terms with. I guess the fact that these impulses have been appearing means that I haven't. :) It could be early midlife (I just finished reading Steppenwolf on your recommendation). I had a particularly bad bout of this last night while trying to sleep. Is this something that could be explored with psychology, and/or is it something that starting to learn magic may eventually be useful for? I just don't understand where these episodes come from and the fact they keep coming up means I have to find some way of understanding them.

PS - Ever since you mentioned the Raspberry Jam Law in one of your recent blog posts, toast with raspberry jam in the mornings has become a quite messy affair! :)

[ecosophia]

Journaling was something I used with good effect when I was dealing with similar issues. Get a blank notebook or something of that kind, sit down sometime when you can spare half an hour or so free from interruption, and let yourself start writing about the issues. Don't censor anything: whatever comes up, write it down. For me, at least, getting it all down on paper helped me get some distance from the emotional fog that tends to surround old issues, and in the process I was able to come to terms with a lot of things.

You might also look into psychology as a way of unpacking things. I'm partial to transactional analysis, and also to Albert Ellis' Rational-Emotive Therapy, as methods you can pick up pretty easily from books and self-study, which is a lot cheaper than going to a shrink.

Geomancy / garden blessings

[(Anonymous)]

If it is not too greedy to ask two questions, here they are:

#1: Sometimes I go through periods where I cast geomantic charts daily; currently I am in the midst of one such period. But this time there is a difference. I generate figures using ordinary playing cards (black = 2 points; red = 1 point) – quite often these days, when I am flipping the cards over to be face up I know the sequence of “reds & blacks”: this despite the fact that I keep my eyes closed while shuffling the cards and cutting the deck. I do not try to guess the sequence; it just comes to me. The question is whether this phenomenon is fairly common at a certain stage of divination practice.

#2: Try not to laugh (or get me committed to a psychiatric institution) but my backyard is being visited by the “Easter Bunny”. This apparently real rabbit first appeared in my backyard at dawn on Easter morning last year and then did not make an appearance again until last fall. The rabbit then decided to adopt my backyard all winter and has blessed it with an abundance of droppings – especially in the portion of my backyard which I have dedicated to wild beings. All this is in the context of me spending more time and conscious effort thanking the beings (physical and non-physical) who dwell in my backyard, and especially in the compost piles that flank the “wild area” of my garden. I take the position that my Easter Bunny incident is not “just a coincidence”. I guess that my question is whether it is common for those who pour positive intentions into their gardens to receive such blessings. Of course, if the bunny decides to adopt my backyard all year around and gorge itself on my organic vegetable gardens, I may not think it to be so much of a blessing!

Thanks again for sharing your encyclopaedic knowledge and extensive experience every Monday!

Ron M

Re: Geomancy / garden blessings

[ecosophia]

What kind of psychism tends to surface in the early stages of practice varies significantly from person to person. The kind you're experiencing is one of the fairly common varieties. Do you "see" the red and black cards, or do you just "know" how they'll turn out? Those are two different modes.

As for your bunny. sometimes a rabbit is just a rabbit -- but not always. If the bunny vanishes when you plant your garden and doesn't return until fall, or if it stays around but limits its depredations to tolerable levels, then you may be dealing with an omen. Otherwise? Probably just a bunny.

[(Anonymous)]

Apropos of last week's addendum, and reading of the comments on the referenced Galabes post, I had a question then that never quite got answered-too late in the month.

That is, simply, if the effective way to work with magic is focus on the end desired, how does one avoid means that are intolerable? If, say, one's desired result is a peaceful and harmonious home life, how does one use magic to further this goal without risking the dementia-stricken elder and obsteperous teenager's well being or even life? (I'm reminded of Bill Pulliam's guardian stories.)

BoysMom

[ecosophia]

Good. You've realized one of the major downsides to magic. This is why broad vague magical goals ("a peaceful and harmonious home life") are best pursued with simple magical means such as natural magic; if, say, you use sachets and floor washes with herbs that traditionally bring peace and harmony, you're not likely to have any problem with unexpected consequences. Intensive magical workings are best aimed at very narrow, precisely chosen goals, so that you don't risk unintended consequences.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello John,
I was wondering if you could discuss the word Oghams. I'm not sure I grasp the concept of poetic metaphors. Thanks.

[ecosophia]

Think of the Robert Burns line, "My love is like a red, red rose." That's a poetic metaphor, and if Burns had the old bardic training and was into Ogham, he'd likely have used "a red, red rose" as a poetic metaphor for one of the Ogham fews. (I'll leave it as an exercise for you to decide which one.) Of course his love wasn't exactly like a red, red rose; I doubt she had roots, petals, or thorns, and if she had a green body and a bright red head she badly needed medical help! If you've ever seen a really intense red rose in the midst of green foliage, and noticed the way it visually "pops out" of the background, you might compare that to the way that the face of someone you love "pops out" of the background. That's the experience Burns was talking about, and the metaphor communicates that.

Appropriate Magical Lodge rituals

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Inside a Magical Lodge was the first book I read by you. Reading the book inspired me to find women willing to form a group with me. Finally, after almost 6 years, four of us have been meeting monthly for about 9 months. In our meeting last night, we agreed that as a group, we are focusing our work on distilling plants into hydrosols and explore their effects on the material, etheric, astral, and mental levels. We would like to establish a ritual at the beginning of our meeting that creates an appropriate sacred space. Is the lesser pentagram ritual appropriate in this case? Are there other rituals you would recommend? While I have worked with the sphere of protection in the past, I have not worked with the lesser pentagram ritual.

Thank you,
Ann

Re: Appropriate Magical Lodge rituals

[ecosophia]

A lot depends on what deities you and the other members of your group want to invoke. The Pentagram rituals are very specific, and if you don't share a common set of deities, they can be awkward. I'd say, rather, that the Sphere of Protection is your best bet. It's very flexible, and does a good job of establishing sacred space.

[(Anonymous)]

How do you make an object unnoticeable?

Unnoticeable Object

[(Anonymous)]

Put it in a roomful of people staring at smartphones. 😄

(Is anyone else tired of having to dodge smartphone addicts to avoid being knocked down?)

A person from Los Angeles told me that you can walk right past a celebrity and not notice, they’re very good at rendering themselves inconspicuous. I also remember reading an anecdote by a man walkng on a crowded street with Norma Jean Baker. “Watch this,” says Norma Jean, and before his eyes she transforms herself into Marilyn Monroe. There is candid footage of her still extant, so if you could learn her trick and then reverse it, you’d be on the right track.

—Fuzzy

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks as always for doing this, JMG. Yesterday morning, a beautiful adult osprey perched on a tree directly outside of my front door (my son spotted him first)... Ospreys are not at all an unusual site for Florida, but I've never seen one actually in our neighborhood before (we're in a fairly urban setting). He rested for several minutes, gave us quite the song and unfurled his wings for us long enough for my kids to grab their binoculars and me to grab my camera and get some fantastic pics. We all took a lot of joy from his visit. Later, while I was looking at the pics, I got the distinct impression that, well, there was something more to the osprey's visit... that he was an omen? Or a messenger? Not being well-versed in augury, I thought I'd ask if you had any thoughts on a good interpretation, or if you might point me to some resources to consult? Thanks again!

[ecosophia]

I'm not at all familiar with the resources on augury; it's not something that the modern occult tradition uses much. Perhaps someone else reading this has something to suggest.

Counteracting parsley?

[(Anonymous)]

A few Mondays ago you mentioned parsley attracts spirits of the dead. For someone looking to grow parsley strictly for culinary use should any action be taken? Plant next to X to balance the influences? Leave a small food offering under the plant periodically? Is it worth worrying about for non-mages?

Re: Counteracting parsley?

[(Anonymous)]

I can't say for sure about spirits of the dead (I'm not very sensitive to them) but one thing parsley definitely attracts down here in Florida is swallowtail butterflies. Not only does parsley (and also dill and rue) attract the butterflies, but they'll lay their eggs on them, and the funky colored caterpillars will eat off the leaves and softer stems. Plant extra if you see a bunch of butterflies. Also, if starting by seed, parsley seeds take forever to sprout (like up to 6 weeks). Companion planting says parsley will add vigor to tomatoes or asparagus, and is considered helpful to repelling flies from carrots and beetles from roses.

*I am researching (mundane) companion planting for herbs right now.

dfr

Question about television

[collapsingnow]

I've noticed for a while now that people who do not watch television are, by and large, more successful than people who don't. This seems to be true even comparing people who watch it for an hour or so a week versus those who don't at all.

Do you know of anything that might explain this, beyond the time people waste on it?

Re: Question about television

[ecosophia]

The time-wasting effect is pretty considerable, when you realize that most Americans waste around four hours a day watching television, but I think you're right that there's more to it than that. There was research a while back suggesting that when people watch TV, the flicker of the screen entrains their brain waves into an alpha rhythm, which is the rhythm of shallow trance; people whose brain waves are in an alpha state absorb information uncritically and unthinkingly. If that's true, television makes you stupid by filling your brain with nonsense and keeping you from thinking clearly about it.

Discursive meditation for deep learning

[(Anonymous)]

Hello John. Could discursive meditation be used to improve depth of learning for non-occult materials? If not, can you recommend any good technique for this purpose? Thank you!

Re: Discursive meditation for deep learning

[ecosophia]

I'd say give it a try. The other thing to try is close reading: the way of reading in which you read one sentence at a time, and think about it before you go to the next sentence. That's one of the great forgotten skills of learning nowadays.

[(Anonymous)]

The focus on sensation has been interesting. I notice that my imagination in magical workings is far more tactile than visual, which surprises me, as that is strongly contrary to my self-description. For instance vibration, moving it into my fingers, or into the pentagons, and other imagined forms, is much more vivid that any visual type impression. Meditating I find that there are extrodinary ticklish rushes of sensation, particullarly in my forarms when my 'pores' breath air; and considerable rushes of sensation around my pelvis.

Focus is improving and becoming more pleasant in meditation, and I am getting ready for moving to meditation 6 shortly; but a question. As written it seems that on each occassion one only does a single '7in 7out cycle' before the meditation; each meditation rotating to a subsuquent element as listed. It strikes me a strange not to continue with the 7 fold repetitions. Am I understanding these directions correctly?

I don't suppose verbena hastata is an acceptable substatute for officinalis?

Ray Wharton

Verbena

[(Anonymous)]

If I may, Ray (and JMG)...

The herbalist Matthew Wood (whose knowledge and expertise I esteem very highly) says in his Earthwise Herbal Repertory that the two Verbenas (V. hastata and V. offcinalis) can be used interchangeably.

That said, what are you trying to accomplish with them? It's unclear, to me at least, whether this was supposed to be connected to your other questions or not.

I've personally worked closely with Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata), but not with Verbana off. at all. Based on my direct experiences and study, and some conversations with others, Verbena hastata has a very powerful effect of bringing me "into my body," as it were, as opposed to being preoccupied in more abstract realms of the mind; the herb is standardly discussed along these lines.

That said, this effect can be intense and overpowering, especially for those on the autism spectrum who already have a heightened tactile sensitivity.** Verbena, even at very small doses, can make easily take those sensitivities from "heightened but quite familiar and tolerable" to "hyperaware of every part of my skin" to "painful" or even "unbearable." (I'm curious, JMG, if you or anyone else you know with Aspergers has reported anything like this. Likewise Violet or any other herbalists who may be reading.)

I mention this here partly because of your discussions of tactile magical perception above, though it may be a totally unrelated point.

--barefootwisdom


**This would probably also apply to those with hypersensitivity in another sensory modality, though I don't have any firsthand experience to draw from here.

Love and Loss

[(Anonymous)]

In my copy of the Celtic Golden Dawn, the Bardic grade material on Geomancy says that, for questions regarding love, Colled indicates false love, Elw true love. Should this be reversed, given that the Ovate material has Colled as favorable in questions of love, and that, as Amissio, Colled is traditionally related to Venus?

Re: Love and Loss

[(Anonymous)]

Reflecting on Amissio, the relevant notion here might be "losing one's heart (to the other)." With that in mind, I can see how it might have associations of falling head over heels into something shallow that ultimately won't last. So that might be "false love" as opposed to a deep, abiding, less glamorous but utimately more fulfilling "true love" (with notions of fulfillment and "hanging on to it" in the long term perhaps associating with Acquisitio).

At any rate, as one geomancer to another, thank you for something interesting to take to meditation in the next few days!

--barefootwisdom

[(Anonymous)]

I got an email about Equinox Cracks in Earth's magnetic field from spaceweather.com and started wondering what effect this might have on magical workings on these days. I was especially intrigued by the last line of the partial article below:

"EQUINOX CRACKS IN EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD: The vernal equinox is less than 10 days away. That means one thing: Cracks are opening in Earth's magnetic field. Researchers have long known that during weeks around equinoxes fissures form in Earth's magnetosphere. Solar wind can pour through the gaps to fuel bright displays of Arctic lights. One such episode occurred on March 9th.

This is called the the "Russell-McPherron effect," named after the researchers who first explained it. The cracks are opened by the solar wind itself. South-pointing magnetic fields inside the solar wind oppose Earth's north-pointing magnetic field. The two, N vs. S, partially cancel one another, weakening our planet's magnetic defenses. This cancellation can happen at any time of year, but it happens with greatest effect around the equinoxes. Indeed, a 75-year study shows that March is the most geomagnetically active month of the year, followed closely by September-October--a direct result of "equinox cracks."

NASA and European spacecraft have been detecting these cracks for years. Small ones are about the size of California, and many are wider than the entire planet. While the cracks are open, magnetic fields on Earth are connected to those on the sun. Theoretically, it would be possible to pick a magnetic field line on terra firma and follow it all the way back to the solar surface."
http://www.spaceweather.com

I'd love to know your thoughts on this. Thanks

[ecosophia]

The equinoxes are important periods for certain kinds of magical workings. In the Golden Dawn tradition, the time right around the equinoxes opens a window in which the magical energies of the sun and the earth come into closer contact than at any other time of year. Hmm -- I wonder what that sounds like?