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. 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-ninth card in The Sacred Geometry Oracle. Card 29, The Dodecahedron, when upright tells you that spiritual forces are involved in the situation; when reversed, it warns you that you will have to embrace personal change in order to deal with what's happening.. 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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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 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

[(Anonymous)]

I was reading through a thread from last Monday the Germanic gods reawakening, gathering in power and all of that possibly ending at some point in an ugly manner, with a likely high body count. This may be a stupid question, but how concerned should the average person be about potentially tangling themselves up in this by taking up worship of those gods, or starting the Heathen Golden Dawn? For myself (American, non German as far as I know), I took religious Heathenry off the table in large part because of how wedded to the culture wars it always seemed to be; I have a very strong feeling I'm supposed to spend my life here staying out of the culture as much as humanly possibly. I have been doing the HGD basic practices as the best of the three available options though.

[ecosophia]

If the Germanic gods are awakening here in North America, we have to deal with them -- trying to hide from archetypal forces as they come surging up does not work well. Balanced methods of working like those in the Heathen GD may help keep those forces in some kind of harmony, or at least stave off the worst possibilities. If you feel called to work with them, by all means do so, but be sure to invoke the Vanir as well as the Aesir.

[(Anonymous)]

Fair enough, I did not know if there was some additional karma or whatever an active participant should take into consideration. I don't actually feel called to work with them (I don't think), my spiritual life has been undergoing a change so it isn't settled yet, but the pantheons I have been looking at don't have an already put together GD form for me to use, so I picked one (I've discovered the SoP isn't on the table). The option to back out if needed is probably there. But if HGD is well balanced there, then maybe I'll have nothing to worry about.

The German Gods are not the only ones

[neptunesdolphins]

I have found that the small group of Mesopotamian Polytheists in the U.S. has been growing by leaps and bounds. Inanna seems to be everywhere along with Enki. Is there an awakening of more Gods? If so, why - more people are not Monotheists? more people are Polytheists? any ideas?

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones

[causticus]

Fascinating. I feel drawn to both Germanic and Mesopotamian pantheons, on and off. Do you have any resources on Mesopotamian polytheism as how it's practiced today? I can't seem to find much of anything from the usual internet searches.

Secondly, it seems that Enlil has made an appearance as well. I recently read Damien Echols book on angelic magic and toward the end of the book he shares with readers his experience of a sudden theophany that came upon him like a ton of falling bricks one day after decades of intense work and invocations of every Hebraic angel entity under the sun. During a ritual, his perception completely gave way to nothing but the word "Enlil" being etched across his vision. He says he didn't even know who or what Enlil was at the time. After that experience and a rudimentary amount of research he says he began an intense devotional relationship with Enlil.

I do wonder if this means that Enlil might in fact be one of the actual Gods behind the "YHWH" moniker (I think there's at least four). And that the angels are Enlil's creations? Not much of a leap at all, considering that the Levantine God "El" might be the same as Enlil. And most of the angels have the suffix "-el" in their names. I have no way of knowing if there is any truth to this, but it's fascinating to contemplate nonetheless. And finally it lends more credence to the idea that Judaism might in fact be a product of a broader reform movement within the late Iron Age Mesopotamian religion, with the henotheistic cults of Assur, Marduk, and Su'en being antecedents to the Judean version.

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones

[jprussell]

Not exactly a resource intended for modern practice, but The Treasures of Darkness by Thorkild Jacobsen is a history of Mesopotamian religion and includes some good translations of a lot of the religious poetry.

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones

[(Anonymous)]

FWIW, the Japanese work that was my third data point concerning the rise of Odin's prominence *also* draws heavily off Mesopotamian mythology, often conflated with Judeo-Christian (the Tower of Babel shows up under a Babylonian name, for instance). And a different Japanese property that's another franchise that loves to grab mythology from anywhere and everywhere features multiple figures from Mesopotamian myth extremely prominently (Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and Ishtar all come to mind). So that's a data point or two.

(Side note on that which I was too late to get to last week for JMG: I don't think we're looking at the Norse gods contesting their home turf, but something else: I've got had a hunch for a while that there's a conflation of Ragnarok, Armageddon, and possibly a third last battle myth that's harder to see because it's still nascent going on right now, and what I'm seeing now would be consistent with that.)

- pretentious_username

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones

[(Anonymous)]

Yes... I, too, have had the distinct feeling since mid-2020 that there is a Cosmic Pivot going on. And currently, some kind of battle.

- Cicada Grove

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones

[(Anonymous)]

You might enjoy this resource as much as I do:
https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/
https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/catalogue/catalogue1.htm#inana

As for whether Yahweh is Enlil, Enki, or another, the debate is fascinating:
https://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread952658/pg1
https://www.city-data.com/forum/judaism/535287-origins-hebrew-god.html
http://robertmascharan.blogspot.com/2012/02/yhwh-decoding-his-origins-shocking.html

-Myriam

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones: Sumerian sources

[neptunesdolphins]

The main source to go to is The Temple of Sumer at Facebook. They have a list of books, people, groups, and on-line chats. And are very serious about their Gods.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/TempleofSumer

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones

[deborah_bender]

I know someone who has been operating a temple of Inanna and Dumuzi for decades (not a building, but regular group rituals). I'm happy to hear that the Sumerian deities are getting more attention. I took a college class in Sumerian mythology, and one thing I got out of it was that the Sumerians had a sense of humor. The story about how Inanna got Enki drunk while they were gambling, cleaned him out of most of his authorities as a god, and then had to beat it back to her home city before he sobered up, is hilarious.

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones

[ecosophia]

Hmm! That's fascinating. Of all the old pantheons that might be reviving, that's not one I would have expected -- but of course the gods do what they choose, not what we choose.

Re: The German Gods are not the only ones

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I for one follow the Sumerian pantheon and have for some time.

It seems to me each pantheon has an overall "flavour" (I mean no disrespect) which greatly influenced the original culture that worshipped those gods. The Sumerian pantheon were creators of civilizations. Given that so many "firsts" in history occurred in ancient Sumer, I think the Sumerians (which were created by the gods to help them with their work,) were listening closely to their gods. I can most certainly see the hands of those gods in the work I do with books.

If certain gods of war are stirring, bringing destruction and chaos to our land, perhaps also stirring are the gods of civilization, laying down the seeds that will restore order and civilization. After the wrath of the war gods and the storms they bring has passed, then peace, order and prosperity will be renewed. I certainly hope so.

Myriam

[illyria2001]

I've always sort of figured the Vanir were the gods of the original inhabitants of the lands the Teutonic peoples invaded/settled in, during the migration age. And the Aesir were the deities worshipped by the elites and their warriors, with the Vanir the gods of the conquered people/producers/peasants.

[(Anonymous)]

Synchronicity comes through again with another fascinating and timely-for-me thread.

1) Over 40 million Americans have at least some German ancestry, concentrated in the northern Plains area (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans).
So I wouldn't be surprised if the Germanic gods took an interest in this part of the world.

2) I was told to embark on a program of Bible study this January, which continues apace. This thread's comments about connections between YHWH and Mesopotamian gods are intriguing and definitely add to the mix to think about. (BTW, Blue Sun, thanks for the tip about Michael Heiser in a previous MM.)

3) Perhaps Team Odin will act as the grass fire to burn off all the weeds, then Team Mesopotamia will lead the regrowth of the clean, new green grass.

4) JMG, thank you again for this awesome forum!

- Cicada Grove