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. (Please note:  Any question received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. I've been getting an increasing number of people trying to post after these are closed, so will have to draw a harder line than before.) 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 image?  That's the first card in The Sacred Geometry Oracle, which is hot off the press and on its way to stores and warehouses as I write these words. Card 1, The Unmarked Card, when upright indicates that the situation is wide open and you can make of it what you will; when reversed, it means that you don't have any way of knowing what's actually going on and you may want to back off and wait for more information before proceeding. The oak leaves on the sides of the image tell you that this card belongs to the first third of the oracle, which corresponds to Calas, the principle of solidity and materiality. 

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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

[brenainn]

I've been meditating on Santa Muerte since last week's MM. The anonymous poster raised a question that I've been reflecting on, and that is Santa Muerte's willingness to grant any request. This is certainly the case, at least from what I've gathered from other followers of her. The reason given is usually something like "death embraces everyone" and so she's a being that accepts and works with the full spectrum of humanity (and the assorted needs thereof). That makes sense to me, but I'd welcome any insights into this aspect of her. I also welcome any insight from the commentariat.

[ecosophia]

I'll have to turn this over to the commentariat -- the Pretty Girl is not a being I've studied at all.

[brenainn]

Since we're over halfway through MM, I suppose I'll post a few additional thoughts of my own. While the anonymous poster's comment last week originally was slightly disconcerting for me, the more that I've thought it through, the more trivial it actually seems. Santa Muerte works with most anyone, for reasons and goals that run the spectrum of good and bad. That seemed a little off-putting at first, but then I consider Scriptures like Matthew 5:45, where Jesus tells his followers that God sends the sun and the rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. Or the simple fact that when warring Christian nations fought in centuries past, they all prayed to the same God for success. Or what they thought was the same God, at any rate. Death is a more ambivalent and yet all encompassing force, so it seems natural that a Goddess of death could be approached for many different kinds of requests. It doesn't seem all that strange that Santa Muerte will protect a cartel leader and a simple Mexican shopkeeper at the same time.

Does that sound nonsensical to you, JMG?

[ecosophia]

That doesn't seem strange to me at all. I also note that Jesus broke bread with sinners, and the self-righteous of his time got all huffy about that, too.

[open_space]

Isn't also Hermes the god of thieves?

I also note that in India the are whole sects to gods that under human morals would be considered The Devil.

[ecosophia]

The gods are not subject to human morality!

[open_space]

Exactly! That single point took me a while to process when you pointed it out to me a while ago but it makes sense. Why should we consider that humans are the only concern of the gods? And even if so, why would that mean that malefic aspects of humanity are not necessary for balance?


For what is worth, La Santa Muerte statues are sold in super markets here in Mexico. Not only street gangs worship her as mentioned. It's notable that it's only our version of PMCs that are afraid of her. Wonder why...

[open_space]

She even embraces Jesus the flesh, there are statues of her holding him down from the cross. In Mexico we put altars to Santa Muerte but it needs to be balanced with the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Holy Trinity.

[brenainn]

That's good to know, because I've lately experienced an intense desire to build an altar to the Virgin of Guadalupe and develop a devotion to her. But balance...that seems to be the key that I was forgetting. Thank you!

[open_space]

La Virgencita is truly fantastic and the painting of her that was allegedly imprinted in Juan Diego's clothes with a bunch of roses when she appeared to him at Tepeyac Hill is very powerfully charged. She is the one that removed the fear of God The Father from my conception.

You might be interested to know that yesterday December 12th was her day.

Regarding Santa Muerte, keep this in mind. There is a wide spread belief that she asks big and cruel things in return for her miracles fueled by the idea of deals with demons, this is not true. The thing is that many people approach her, receive something from her and when things get better they turn her back on her and then things go bad. It's like this I've heard, people go on a boat trip with the wind in their favor because of her, then take the wind away by forgetting about her and wonder why it went wrong and blame it on her and say that was her payback. So if you ask her something and offer something in return be sure you want and can fulfill your part, she doesn't hesitate to take gifts back in scenarios like that and become silent afterwards. She is not evil, she just won't have any of it but sincere devotion and honesty, but again, balance, devotion doesn't mean intense repentance and flattery, just respect.

Remember that virtues are the midpoint between two vices, not each others' opposite.

[brenainn]

This is very helpful, thank you. It also matches what I've learned from my own limited experience with her. She's very generous but requires regular devotion in return.

[(Anonymous)]

This is entirely my own unverified gnosis, and my only source of authority is that I have been praying to Santisima for years, so take it with a complete grain of salt.

I feel that she truly, genuinely, and deeply loves (in the most holy sense) what it means to be human, and has a profoundly vested interest in the human experience. This encompasses everything from dancing and laughter to black rage to wailing grief. She is also strongly associated with oppressed populations (in particular LGB, women, and the very poor), and sometimes the only recourse of those without material power is what we might call black magic.

If we also take a look at non-Christian, pre-Christian, or non-Western belief systems, most have beings that humans gladly worship that are outside the binary of "good and evil". Some examples are Baron Cimitiere of Vodoun, Odin who delights in human sacrifice, savage and animalistic Ares of the battlefield, Kali Ma and her still existing animal sacrifice and blood drinking, or Pomba Jira of Afro-Brazilian traditions, etc, etc, etc.

Santa Muerte is downright tame compared to some other beings we've managed to make friends with!

[open_space]

Exactly!! You said it so much better, thank you. I also think she came to us as a way to do away with the overly, mmm, I don't know how to call it, fluffy aspects perhaps, of Catholicism by also showing that there is nothing to fear out of less pleasant aspects of life. That aspect of goody-goody from debased Christianity makes people repress many, many things and repression causes neurosis and even cancer if taken to the extreme of hating oneself.

[brenainn]

Thank you, I really appreciate hearing from a longtime devotee. My own thinking is that Death is intimately involved in the world of the living. It is present all around us and possibly omnipresent, since everything eventually decays and falls apart. This gives Death, and its various personifications/manifestations, a unique perspective on human life and all the aspects of what it means to be a human being. Death can appreciate life, especially human life, in ways that the living often overlook and forget about. I think that make Santa Muerte a very understanding and loving being, so your UPG sounds very accurate to me.

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly, one of the better things to do there might be to ask Mary Theotokos(/Guanyin/Kannon - still not entirely sure whether the Virgin of Guadalupe is yet another aspect or backed by a different divine archetype, but honestly even in the latter case it might be worth asking her, too) for her opinion on the subject.

- pretentious_username