Magic Monday
May. 29th, 2022 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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. With certain exceptions, 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. Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. The image? That's the twenty-fourth card in The Sacred Geometry Oracle. Card 24, Progression of Roots, when upright tells you that the situation is unfolding into new territory and the old rules don't necessarily apply; when reversed, it amplifies this by warning you that you have no clue what's about to happen. The sun in the upper left corner of the image tells you that this card belongs to the final third of the oracle, which corresponds to Nwyfre, the principle of spirit and meaning. We've completed our passage through the first two of the basic root functions of sacred geometry -- √3, the principle of the vesica piscis and the equilateral triangle, and √2, the principle of the square and its diagonal -- and now we're working with the √5, the seed from which the Golden Section unfolds and resolves all back into unity.
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***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-30 11:42 pm (UTC)It seems spiritually dangerous to recklessly communicate with random entities, if not completely evil to attempt to accelerate the end of humanity's annihilation (and perhaps concerning that it's birthed a whole adjacent 'movement' of cryptocurrency, political philosophy, and digital art).
Are these types of people simply the modern manifestation of the left hand path Faustian magician, albeit updated with modern garb of cybernetics and techno-capitalism?
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 02:16 am (UTC)Influences: Inner and Outer
Date: 2022-05-31 12:12 am (UTC)My first question is about magic and the realms they work with and from. Would you say that by definition “High Magic” works with the Astral realm mainly, and influences that and the realms below it? Could Druid Magic function in that way?
And is the goal of High Magic the transformation of oneself, similar to the goal of Alchemy? Or is that the eventual goal of all magic in general?
Thanks,
E.S.
Re: Influences: Inner and Outer
Date: 2022-05-31 02:18 am (UTC)2)...the goal, which is indeed the transformation of oneself. The opposite of high magic isn't "low magic," by the way, any more than the opposite of fine arts is "coarse arts" -- it's fine arts and performing arts, and its high magic and practical magic.
Re: Influences: Inner and Outer
Date: 2022-05-31 04:08 am (UTC)Re: Influences: Inner and Outer
Date: 2022-05-31 09:02 am (UTC)Choosing natural magic purpose
Date: 2022-05-31 12:13 am (UTC)Re: Choosing natural magic purpose
Date: 2022-05-31 02:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 01:05 am (UTC)1. Is it common for magical practice (specifically, the GD system) to appear to cause severe anxiety and panic attacks?
2. If causation is not possible, could magical practice exacerbate a pre-existing anxiety issue?
3. In either case, should one continue with the practice? Is there any risk of a psychotic break or a chronic mental illness?
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 02:34 am (UTC)2) Yes.
3) Yes, you should keep doing the practices, and I also suggest that you consider doing some daily journaling for a while. Write at the top of the page, "what scares me about Golden Dawn magic" and then let yourself write whatever comes into your mind, without editing or censoring anything. Do that daily for a couple of weeks and see if you can get to the personal issues that are helping to drive this.
Effort and Perfectionism
Date: 2022-05-31 01:05 am (UTC)2) I have an SOP/meditation/divination practice and invoke the planetary deity of the day and some others. I don't know where to go from here as I am not sure whether I find the comprehensive systems of ceremonial magic available to me appealing. Yet I've enjoyed seeing my life get really stirred up and then begin settling into a shape a lot more to my liking since starting practice last December. Need I worry about a plateau if I don't work my way through a system?
Re: Effort and Perfectionism
Date: 2022-05-31 02:36 am (UTC)2) You'll experience many plateaus as you pursue the work; that's normal. Each one will feel hopelessly monotonous and pointless right before you break through to a new level.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 01:13 am (UTC)1. In the past you mentioned a exercise that would move unwanted sexual energies to other parts of the body (or something along those lines). Would you happen to remember what this exercise was?
2. I recently read Plato's work Euthyphro. How would you define piety?
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 02:38 am (UTC)2) Look it up in a dictionary. Socrates' verbal boobytraps always annoyed me.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 02:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 01:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 03:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 01:25 am (UTC)Thank you for allowing us to ask questions.
If someone in your family is being "stalked" by an entity, how would you protect your family from being potential "victims"? Is there a ritual that you can do to protect the family unit without involving adult children but still including them? I am currently work in the Celtic Golden Dawn system.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 03:08 am (UTC)Forgive me if I asked this before: Political Magic
Date: 2022-05-31 02:18 am (UTC)Both local and if I wanted to help friends in other nations.
Re: Forgive me if I asked this before: Political Magic
Date: 2022-05-31 03:10 am (UTC)Planes
Date: 2022-05-31 02:23 am (UTC)Re: Planes
Date: 2022-05-31 03:14 am (UTC)7th (lowest): solid matter
6th: liquid matter
5th: gaseous matter
4th: electromagnetism
3rd: gravity
2nd: weak nuclear force
1st (highest): strong nuclear force
In every set of sub-planes, the lower three have the nature of substance, the middle one has the nature of energy, and the upper three have the nature of space. It all works rather nicely. Then in the etheric plane the lower three sub-planes are the chemical ethers, the middle one is the life ether, and the three higher are the light ethers.
Re: Planes
Date: 2022-05-31 03:41 am (UTC)You are one of my “go to” authors for many things; another favorite of mine is the Hindu thinker, David Frawley.
He says (and I am not sure I would agree) that the astral body is “electrical” in nature, and the soul is “magnetic” in its nature.
Does this somehow sound feasible to you?
Thanks,
E.S.
Re: Planes
Date: 2022-05-31 03:58 am (UTC)Tarot Reading on U.S. War against Russia in Ukaine
Date: 2022-05-31 02:26 am (UTC)I phrased it like this when I typed it out on Wordpad.
****
Q: Situation of U.S. war support to Ukraine for the rest of 2022 (up to Dec. 31, 2022)?
With a 3 spread layout.
1. Where U.S. is now
2. Where U.S. is to go
3. The means
I shuffled a LOT. Then cut the deck then turned one of the 3 cuts upside down while re-stacking.
Card No. 1 - The World R
Card No. 2 - The Emperor
Card No. 3 - Death
This is odd. It is very rare for any of my divinations to give more than 2 Major Arcana in a spread. Most of the time I don't even get one major arcana. It's rare that I get two. This however is a first for me - three major arcana cards in a row. I think I remember reading somewhere (maybe it was at Biddy Tarot's website) that a divination with a preponderance of major arcana is indicating significant change, much more so than with court cards or pips.
JMG...how would you read this spread (or anyone else who wants to take a crack at it)? Given how I worded the question I'm unsure if this is a favorable, unfavorable or neutral spread for the U.S. in its proxy war with Russia? Of course I asked about "war support" - not the outcome of the war itself. But I do wonder about that third card, Death. Which is why I'm turning this over to JMG and the MM Commentariat.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 02:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 03:16 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 03:22 am (UTC)—Princess Cutekitten
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 03:45 am (UTC)Various
Date: 2022-05-31 03:29 am (UTC)First something that struck me while walking through a leafy section of our local college; your theory about Neptune being assigned to Kether seems strengthened by the structure of astrology in general. Namely, the 12th house is normally assigned to Pisces on its cusp, and thus is ruled by Neptune. What is more Kether than the 12th house of mystery and the Unseen Realms! Not to mention, the 12th house is the final one before the Ascendant restarts the Zodiac, and that finality is similar to Kether's in the Cabala. If you already wrote this in the book, apologies, because then I missed it.
First question, have you considered what Neptune should be properly called, if the Greek mythological framework is upheld? I thought your suggestion of Prometheus for Uranus in a podcast appearance (and maybe in the Twliight of pluto, though I don't remember) was entirely appropriate. Have you had any idea about what Neptune should be called since then? I think a goddess of the sea would be extremely appropriate, but I can't think of any with the grandeur necessary for such a mystic and exalted influence. Unfortunately, all the Olympian goddesses are also very distinct from it.
Second, I was reading Sex and Civilization by Amaury de Riencourt. One of his hypotheses was that civilizations destroy themselves or stagnate by over-suppressing one of masculine and feminine energies, far, far more often the feminine. Therefore, feminism-esque movements for women to be equal in the public square (which apparently happened in Greece, Rome, and the Abbasid Caliphate) are both a cause and a symptom of decline, as it is basically a tacit acknowledgement that yang/masculinity is so overvalued that women seek to take on its roles rather than demanding respect for yin based ones. As a Uranian-dominant and a modern, this struck me as both a little terrifying, and quite apt given the evidence of women's unhappiness in modern society. Something I also thought about was the increase in social complexity ala Tainter; societies add complexity in response to crisis, creating economic but more importantly SOCIAL complexity, which women thrive at navigating. However, once women begin to have a definite advantage in this way, it may also be a marker that society has reached or will soon reach the point of diminishing returns for adding new systems or elaborating on previous ones. Social complexity is also a killer of traditional mores, which would explain both why women take on a more traditionally masculine way of being, and why they seem to excel at it once they do, much to the chagrin of men.
Okay, this is long, but the point is, I realized that more of the planets were masculine than feminine after the discovery of the five new ones in the age of civilization's beginning, whereas before that, it was just Sun and Moon, one masculine one feminine. The Sun, Mercury-sort of, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are Masculine, while the Moon, Venus, and Neptune are feminine. Could this be the reason why civilizations tend to become over-masculine as they evolve? (note, these questions in this paragraph are all rhetorical) Could this imbalance of astrological influences multiply over time, causing the Saturnine, Jovial, Solar, and Martial influences to express themselves with further and further strength as civilizations create grand superstructures? Could the very creation and dramatic collapse of those superstructures, the flaming out of civilizational supernovas, be a reflection of a cosmic imbalance that prioritizes the influence of the masculine in a vaccuum, but inevitably leads to overreach because of its dominating presence? Is a sort of grand, long-lasting version of "combustion", the state of the sun burning away another planet's influence, the necessary cosmic balance of energies to produce civilization? I wonder if this some sort of terrible lesson for us to learn as a species, that imbalance does not pay in the long term, or if is a temporary period of flux where the masculine exhausts itself, and the feminine is released as a rejuvenating force and that dominates another long era of human existence. Perhaps the winding-down period of the human species will either have as its beginning the discovery of two new feminine planets, or one or two masculine planets will be destroyed by a terrible cosmic disaster that also wrecks the earth's ability to support civilization in an even more permanent way than climate change.
Okay, this is too long, haha. Feel free to ignore it, your time is valuable after all. That said, if you do end up reading it, do you have any thoughts about the purpose or effects of this grand cosmic imbalance that coincidentally seemed to present itself right when civilization came about? Do you think this will ever change, or is humanity stuck with a rather lopsided series of energies to work with for the rest of our existence?
-Derpherder
Re: Various
Date: 2022-05-31 03:54 am (UTC)2 etc.) That's a fascinating speculation. My guess is that as our species matures, some of the planets will be assigned different genders. I could see the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Prometheus/Uranus as the male planets, the Moon, Venus, Demeter/Saturn and Rhea/Neptune as the female planets, and Mercury as the ambivalent and ambisexual mediator among them: that would be a stable arrangement, energetically speaking.
Re: Various
Date: 2022-05-31 04:00 am (UTC)-Derpherder
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 03:46 am (UTC)What kind of effects do you think lab grown milk would have on infants?
(no subject)
Date: 2022-05-31 03:56 am (UTC)