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 more than 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 photo is of course the inimitable Manly P. Hall, the doyen of 20th century American occultists, and the person who did more than anybody else to help the US occult scene recover from the self-inflicted implosion of the Theosophical Society after the Krishnamurti affair in 1929. It's occurred to me recently that not everyone may be aware of the vast amount of classic occult literature that's free for the downloading online right now. (How long will it remain available? Good question.) Hall's Monthly Letters were the first of several training programs he created for his students; like Hall's writings generally, they focused on philosophy, though they also include the first draft of his book on spiritual training, Self-Unfoldment through Disciplines of Realization; and the whole set, all 60 lessons, can be downloaded free of charge here. If you're interested in a glimpse, or more than a glimpse, of the more philosophical end of occult training, you could do a lot worse. 

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

Re: An uncertain hallo from below

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn't touch McCarthy with a ten foot pole, upped to thirty three when it concerns health.

She's openly and repeatedly stated that banishing is bad; which I believe JMG has explicitly stated to be a red flag. She's also bragged about getting nosebleeds and headaches in the aftermath of some of her more serious workings. All in all, not the sort of person to take advice from.

Re: An uncertain hallo from below

[australiandreamer]

Thoughts on this and the previous comment from our moderator?

Re: An uncertain hallo from below

[ecosophia]

I've never taken the time to assess McCarthy's writings and teachings, but if it's true that she says banishing is a bad idea, that's a red flag for me. Everyone I've ever met who said that needed to be banished!

Re: An uncertain hallo from below

[tunesmyth]

JMG, this issue seems to have come up a few times here. I read Josephine McCarthy's Quareia materials with great interest when she first published them, and I think that people who say she says not to banish are (willfully?) misreading her, probably mostly by skimming sections without reading the whole system.

It is certainly true that Josephine McCarthy is no fan of the traditional Golden Dawn banishing rituals, which if I recall rightly she compares to getting four aggressive bouncers to walk around you constantly glaring at anyone suspicious who comes too close, and sometimes booting spirits out of their own homes. After all, you may know some pretty bad people in the material world, but you don't go around trying to throw them out of their home whenever you come round. In a way, this is just a more extreme viewpoint on similar things you've said yourself regarding traditional GD banishing rituals and nature spirits.

However various magical protection rituals do, in fact, have a place in her system, including most prominently a directional ritual that is clearly her own system's version of a core protective and balancing ritual-- which builds in power over time, as the student ascends through the system.

Where it seems to me that McCarthy's philosophy probably differs from yours is that she believes there is a kind of natural spiritual immune system which doesn't get sufficiently strengthened for later heavy magical work if you learn powerful protection too early on in your magical training. This seems similar, in a way, to what I can glean of your reasoning when you advise not to overly protect children, except via natural magic; she seems to think it also applies to adults, if they wish to travel far on the path of the magician. So she advises "protection ritual when needed", not "protection ritual daily", which is not the same thing as "don't do protection rituals".

However right or wrong she may be in that contention that a daily protection ritual is unnecessary, she certainly takes major efforts to make up for it with an extremely strong emphasis on teaching and encouraging various forms of spiritual cleansing, balance, and yes, protection. In the course of her very first module, she teaches many forms of protection linked with prayer, including incense, bells, candles, chants, magically aided house cleaning, a simple protective talisman, and a spiritual cleansing bath ritual that she instructs the student to repeat once a week for several weeks on end before settling down to a "do when necessary" pace. Also in another early module is a lesson wherein the student does a deep cleanse and tidy every inch of their residence, and then uses divination skills to aid in rearranging their house in the most energetically beneficial way possible, along with some simple Feng Shui; and the understanding is that one cannot continue in the system until they actually do this.

Now, you may still not approve of her approach, of course. Certainly one obvious danger is that "perform when necessary" can quickly devolve into "never". And there are other parts of what she teaches that I am rather certain that you would disagree with. But it is worth knowing that there is something a bit more substantial behind the straw man that some seem to want to watch you attack.

Re: An uncertain hallo from below

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. As I said, I haven't taken the time to assess her work, which was why I put things in that "if-then" mode.

Re: An uncertain hallo from below

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, while Magic Monday has finished, I would appreciate it if you could put this through, as these conversations remain available for people to review at later dates.

Tunesmyth, thank you for articulating this so clearly and with a great level of detail. It's what I wish I'd had the ability to write at very late o'clock local time.

I would add one more thing about banishing - when I was an absolute beginner, I found daily banishing helpful in my personal circumstances. But as I have grown, I decided to adapt from McCarthy's work and see how I feel / how things went when stretching out a few days between banishing rituals. And it was absolutely a great learning experience. It helped me to learn to feel and understand my environment with a much greater level of specificity, and I am a better practitioner now as a result.

All that being the case - I do wholeheartedly agree with what JMG has said on other occasions: if one is following a training program as a beginner, it is very sensible to follow that training program exactly. McCarthy, from what I have analyzed (I also read the Quareia materials with great interest) has built in safety measures for students in the beginning stages of the work.

Not every magical training approach requires a formal ritual magic banishing to be safe and effective. There are many ways to climb the mountain, lets say.

However, for those training programs that include a LBRP or SOP style banishing, it is advisable that students, once started on the path, follow it until they gain enough strength to decide what other options they might want to explore. GD-style magic approaches can - sometimes if not generally - 'light' people up on the subtle planes in such a way that the banishing becomes crucial for quite some time. 'Time' being measured in possibly years, or the entirety of a lifetime and beyond.

Again, Tunesmyth, thank you for taking the time to eloquently communicate, and JMG, thank you for your patience on a non-Magic Monday Tuesday.

Mauve Abominable Troglodyte

Re: An uncertain hallo from below

[tunesmyth]

No problem Troglodyte! I just thought it's crummy to malign Josephine McCarthy for something she doesn't actually preach. :-)

Re: An uncertain hallo from below

[(Anonymous)]

1. I agree with your critique regarding her stance on banishing in a general sense, but a close reading shows her position is more nuanced than “never banish” (she was a practicing exorcist for quite some time). Sometimes “big things” can feel scary, and banishing is not always the correct first step.

Also, I think it’s important to not assume that everything someone has to say is problematic or wrong or completely not worth reading because one position is inadvisable if taken to the extreme. One might explore more deeply and then come to the conclusion that it’s not a path they’d choose to follow, but part of learning is is learning how to figure out what is and is not helpful advice. I, personally, have found her books to be worth reading and thinking about, even though I’ve not yet ‘met’ an author I agree with on every point.

2. I have no particular stance on whether McCarthy is correct about the impact of Fortune’s war work on her health. I do however know from experience that any magical act can impact health, and therefore the risks with this kind of worth are worth thinking about - from an ‘informed consent’ perspective if nothing else.

Mauve Abominable Troglodyte