Monday, Magic Monday

[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 to new questions. See you next week! 

Comments

[violetcabra]

Thank you for hosting these!

Is there, to your knowledge, a limit to the amount of time per day that one can safely meditate? I'm interested in doing more discursive meditation sessions per day than I am currently, but wish to be careful not to fry my nervous system!

Demonic possession of internet users and drivers

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for Magic Mondays, they enrich my life. Sorry to get all Wayne’s World here, but I think you are one of the most brilliant minds of our time and it’s an honor to read this blog, let alone comment or receive responses. Also, I enjoy reading the comments.

I have been thinking all week about what Anonymous brought up about the internet and demonic possession, namely that the internet lends itself to individuals becoming possibly occupied by entities that compel them to act rashly and to make threats. Basically, the internet has a weird effect on people and gives them a life-ruining tool; seems like a demon’s dream, right? For instance, possessed by lust, a young girl shares an intimate and invites disaster by other possessed young people who maliciously spread it to a revenge porn site. In another corner, an otherwise mild-mannered car salesman becomes addicted to trolling political forums with threats of violence he would never carry out.

I have also observed that people act similarly when driving. (I hate driving and cars in general, even though I don’t feel I have a choice but to drive. I am trying to find work-arounds so I won’t have to drive anymore, though they are years in the making.) Anyway, road rage and internet rage have a great deal in common — people aren’t themselves. This got me thinking about anonymity. What is it about the “protection” of anonymity that causes people to go bonkers? Maybe that both driving and the internet enable people to objectify one another in a way that can’t be done face to face? Jesus take the wheel… well, more like someone else. At any rate, I suspect I’ll be meditating on this subject for years to come in hopes of a tidbit of understanding the forces behind the scenes.

-Kimberly

Welsh gods

[fluiddruid]

Esteemed Archdruid,
I have a novice question.
In the Druid Magic Handbook you say that during the Sphere of Protection ritual a druid can invoke Welsh deities: Hu the Mighty, Hesus, Ceridwen and Niwalen.
I am doubtful as to how I should pronounce the names of the gods. Welsh language is...different from ordinary English, for example letter "u" is often pronounced as "ee".
So is it Hoo the Mighty or Hee the Mighty? Is it Hesus as in Spanish pronunciation of Jesus or is it Hesees?
I wouldn't want to mispronounce a deity's name, that would be impolite.
Also could you recommend a good book on Welsh gods? I wish I could know more about them.
Thank you.

Sphere of Protection

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG - a question about the SoP, specifically Circulating the Light of the Cross.

I am using the instructions on the AODA website (by John Gilbert). I am having trouble with parts two and three of the Circulating instructions. Can you confirm the instructions as published are correct?

Does the line that goes straight through your body (back to front) rotate at all? Or does the left-to-right light spin in two directions?

Empaths

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Mr. Greer,
I am wondering if empaths can feel a selection of random people's emotions or if they mainly pick up other empaths?

I have an empathic friend that I pick up very clearly and I recently shared a mental image with another empath, quite by accident. I have another friend who is a powerful empath and I rarely get anything from her. I have no ability to decide when such things happen. They seem to happen on a logic of their own.
Yours under the red cedars,
Max Rogers
PS I promise to ask my house ghost some searching questions when he next makes contact.

[ecosophia]

It's very common for enthusiastic students to want to do lots of meditation, but yeah, you can overdo it. Twice a day for no more than thirty minutes each time is a pretty general maximum, and once per day is for most people a better idea.

Re: Demonic possession of internet users and drivers

[ecosophia]

Kimberly, I'm by no means sure it requires a demon to make people behave very, very badly. Anonymity encourages nasty behavior because it makes people think they can do anything they want, and not suffer any consequences -- and once the fear of consequences goes away, Katie bar the door!

Re: Welsh gods

[ecosophia]

Let me start by adding to the confusion. How the Welsh "u" is pronounced depends on whether you're talking about northern Wales or southern Wales. In south Wales, the "u" is usually pronounced "ee". In north Wales, it's pronounced more like the German ü; try pursing your lips as though you're about to say "oooooh," and then without changing the shape of your mouth at all, try saying "eeeee" instead. In either case, though, it's not "oooh," so "Hee the Mighty" and "Hesees" are close enough to pass.

There's some material on the old Druid Revival gods in Ross Nichols' The Book of Druidry, and some in Lewis Spence's The Mysteries of Britain -- both classic works of Druid Revival teaching.

Re: Sphere of Protection

[ecosophia]

No, there's a mistake. Some of the instructions have been garbled. I'm not sure when or how that happened; it was correct once upon a time!

All three of the lines rotate. First, the vertical line rotates to form a circle going from above to front to below to behind and then around again to above; then the side to side horizontal line rotates from right to up to left to down and back around to right; then the front to back horizontal line rotates from front to left to behind to right and then around again to front.

Here's where it gets complex. When you have the first line spinning, you have a wheel of light centered on your solar plexus, right? As the second line starts to spin, the wheel turns with it. (Think of the front wheel of a bicycle when you turn the handlebars; the wheel is spinning, and then the spinning wheel turns to one side as well.) So the first wheel turns into a sphere as the second line becomes a wheel. Then, in exactly the same way, as you start the third line moving into a wheel, the second becomes a sphere. Then you turn the third wheel into a sphere. Go through this a step at a time, until you can do it readily; it really does add to the effectiveness of the ritual.

Re: Empaths

[ecosophia]

By all accounts, all the psychic gifts -- and empathy is one of those -- have a very strong personal element. What works for one person doesn't work for another, and may not work for the same person twice in the same way! Thus your best bet is to pay close attention to your own experiences, and see what you can learn from them about the specific characteristics of your own gift.

[violetcabra]

Thank you; that is a very helpful guideline.

Need a spell for hope, not hopium

[(Anonymous)]

These past couple of weeks, since learning what is predicted by my horoscope, I’ve been terribly depressed. For long experience confirms it. For over forty years I’ve poured my time and energy into something that apparently was always destined to fail. It seems to me now that art is a black hole down which I’ve poured my life.

It’s very late to be switching horses, and there is no guarantee that I’ll make it. I have some notion what I might try. But due to circumstance, I have little time in which to act; and from here, my prospects look terrible.

I’ve no idea if any magic can help with this. I need a cure for the kind of depression that is near to despair. Some decent luck also would make a refreshing change.

Kevin

Re: Sphere of Protection

[(Anonymous)]

Is this different than the directions mentioned in your Druid Magic Handbook? Are you describing these rotations from the point of view of the person doing the ritual or from someone looking at the front of the practitioner (as in the diagrams in DMH)? Regardless of the point of view, I thought the second rotation was spinning the equator, so to speak, like a hula hoop around the waist rather than up overhead? The Circulation of Light has always been tricky for me because I'm not so good at spatial manipulation, so I wonder if I may have misunderstood one set of directions or the other (or maybe both?). I know you've said in other places that you deliberately vary the instructions for some rituals so that people don't get the idea that there's One True Way to accomplish the goal of the ritual, but I also get the sense that sometimes these details are quite important, for reasons that are not necessarily apparent to the beginner. Can you clarify the case here? I'm wondering if I've been doing it "wrong" all this time and that's part of the reason it has stayed difficult.

[quietmagpie]

Hi JMG,

So I have a situation which I have been thinking about for a number of years without coming to a resolution and I was wondering if you could help. When I was ten or eleven, I made a rather ill-advised bargain in which I agreed to forfeit my soul to the devil if I ever had sex. There was nothing in the bargain for me, I was just frustrated with the behavior of the people around me. I didn't know until much later that I was asexual. It is of note that when I made the deal I didn't believe in God (I wasn't raised religious), but I did believe in the devil.

At age 20, I had been a Christian for four years, and had recently married. Despite my aversion and misgivings I decided to have sex with my husband. After that it was like a switch had been flipped: I was unable to believe in anything, despite having numerous experiences with various spiritual entities. I tried to push through what I thought was a normal reaction to change. I went through the motions, but my heart wasn't in it anymore. I thought it was just depression, then acedia, but as the years went by it became clear that it was something bigger, something else. I began to think about that deal I had made many years prior, and worried, but the Christians I tried to talk to about it didn't believe this sort of Faustian bargain was possible. I explored paganism and witchcraft because I thought a more sex-positive framework would help (it didn't). I eventually found out I was asexual and dealt with the depression/guilt around having lost my virginity, but that didn't help untangle the spiritual knot.

It feels like my ability to believe is bound up or blocked; when I try to contemplate spiritual entities, even ones I have actually seen, I reach a point of recognition, and then hit a wall; I am suddenly completely disinterested even though a part of me really wants to explore further. It's been 10 years, and the situation has not improved. I am at a loss. Do you have any suggestions?

--quietmagpie

Backing away from successful spells

[(Anonymous)]

Hello John.

Last week on the main blog, you wrote this:

"As far as getting cold feet and trying to back away from the results of a successful spell because you’ve changed your mind, what that does is lock up a bunch of your will and your magical energy in a self-canceling loop, and any aspect of your life too close to the subject of the spell will be drawn into the same loop and get stuck. Say you do a love spell, and it works, and then you decide that you’re tired of the person the spell brought into your life — sorry, you did the spell, you own the results. Even if you manage to get that person to leave you alone, a string of people with similar personal qualities (very much including the ones that irritate you most) will keep on falling in love with you, and you’ll keep on getting drawn into relationships with them; what’s more, your attempts to get a relationship going with anybody else will most likely go nowhere. Around and around you go!"

I was wondering:

1. If something like this happens, is there no way to break the cycle? No ritual you can do, no technique that will help, no spirit or God you can petition?
2. Would using talismanic magic be a way to avoid something like this from happening in the first place? For example, you create a talisman to attract a certain kind of person into your life. But then you get tired of them, so you deconsecrate and destroy the talisman.

Thank you!

Re: Sphere of Protection

[(Anonymous)]

Im using the sphere as provided in the handbook.

Im two weeks into it, i certainly made progres, not just on the ritual but on my imagination focus as well.

The circulation is a challenge, i tried using an Earth sphere prior to ritual, as the axis are already there, but the third rotation is still very vague.

This method of Aoda seems a little more friendly for begginers.

Any hints?

Guillem.

[(Anonymous)]

I once attempted a Vipassana silent meditation retreat, which entailed around 10 hours a day of meditation for ten days. I had to stop at day 3, with a fairly spectacular freakout. Predictable outcome to a bad idea, or personal weakness?

Re: Discursive Vs. Mind Emptying

[smj]

Hello JMG

Continuing from my question last week:

Indeed a lot of mainstream mind-emptying meditation serves mainly to "keep employees calm, smiling, harmless, and obedient"! Just about anything can be hijacked and misused.

If the eastern traditions that do a lot of mind-emptying also do a lot of mind-exercising to balance things out, then does your tradition do some mind-emptying to balance out the discursive meditation?

SMJ

Suggestions for Practice

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Thanks for running these Magic Monday sessions. I’ve been learning a lot by lurking and reading, and I’d like to de-lurk and see if I could get your help with something that’s really troubling me.

For the last two years, I was in a very tough professional situation where a lot of unrealistic expectations were placed on me, along with a heaping of guilt and shame for not living up to them. I am vulnerable to this sort of thing to begin with. I find it very hard to accept that I make mistakes, try hard to take the “right” action, and feel very ashamed when things don’t come out perfectly. It’s something I’m working on.

I’m now in a different professional situation, thank goodness, but I’ve still got all this shame hovering around, looking for anything to latch on to. It’s really unpleasant, and I’d like to do some kind of working to return myself to (or arrive at…) a more balanced view of making mistakes, making restitution, and taking action in the world. I don’t want to overshoot and wind up at “asshole” but this is an unhelpful level of shame that I’m carrying! It’s continuing to affect my life pretty profoundly.

I’m studying the OBOD Ovate grade (… slowly), and I’ve been doing the SOP regularly since January. Before that I was on and off with it. Since the end of Feb I have been doing it every day, and plan to continue it daily. I’ve also been doing some journaling around the situation.

Do you have suggestions for practices or rituals I might do to arrive at a more balanced and healthy perspective? Thanks again for your help with this, and for running the Magic Monday feature!

Rook

[(Anonymous)]

Last MM I asked about raising earth energy and it getting stuck in and around the base chakra with the issues that can arise or put a dampener on things ;) You asked me in return what practice I was doing. In fact it's very simple, possibly too simple; I just stand with my feet firmly on the ground, a bit more than shoulder width apart and imagining/sensing the energy rising up through my feet and legs to the perineum. I try to sense/imagine it going further, but then the problems arise as I already mentioned.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Magic for personal transformation

[(Anonymous)]

Hello John.

I am looking for a magical technique or set of magical techniques that can help me transform my bad habits and negative personality traits. As you once wrote on the main blog, Bardon’s self-transformation techniques from IIH are effective but slow. On the other hand, ritual magic can be faster, but a person first needs to spend 6-12 months with basic training before they can do anything practical.

Is there anything that is faster than the exercises in IIH, but less demanding than ritual magic?

Re: Demonic possession of internet users and drivers

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not so sure that's the only factor: people are nasty online even when it's tied to them....

[(Anonymous)]

I'm curious if you or someone else has any light to shed on something I've noticed: I can't meditate if a TV is on anywhere in my house. This is true if it's mute, in another room, and I can't see the light from it.

The one benefit is I can reliably freak out my roommates by showing up within a minute or so of them turning on the TV to complain, since I've set aside time for meditation, and they agreed no TV.

Any idea why?

Spirits

[ferngladefarm.blogspot.com.au]

Hi John Michael,

How are you going? I'm feeling tired and am about to head off to bed, but then here it is Magic Monday and all, and a person must not let an opportunity slip past them! :D

Sorry for the silliness, I'm genuinely tired and the weather has abruptly turned here over the past few days and it may take me a while to get used to cooler weather... I'm using less firewood now to produce more heat, but it has taken many years to learn that business.

I've long been curious as to whether you feel that spirits or entities (or whatever) are tied to geographical locations? I realise it sounds a bit odd, but I feel that we don't get many of the same entities down here. Some yes, but not all because your descriptions sound different to my experience. Anyway, I have long been curious as to your thoughts on this matter.

Now I'm off to bed. It is absolutely exhausting to write about money and property whilst maintaining a level of diplomacy. I may have achieved that. Maybe...

Sometimes I talk to people about persistence, hard work, and tenacity, and they just don't want to hear about it at all. Those are still an option on many fronts, it is just all very unappealing to most people - don't you reckon? Although it is also a fascinating subject, as I look deeply into peoples motivations and it tells so much about other people.

Oh well, enough rambling and off to bed for my poor tired brain.

Cheers

Chris

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a safe, reliable method for determining the whereabouts of lost objects?