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 thirtieth card in The Sacred Geometry Oracle. Card 31, the Sphere, when upright tells you that the possibilities before you are much bigger than you realize; when reversed, it tells you that you're completely missing what's going on. 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.

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 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: Umbrella superstition

[(Anonymous)]

well, funny coincidence, or is it?
Today I (half british halfecuadorian) told my egyptian partner to stop opening the uumbrella inside the house as it is bad luck (in both my Uk and Southamerican cultural background). He mentioned it is also bad luck in egypt ( I dont know he thought dancing with the umbrella in the room was a good idea haha)

Re: Was that Apollo?

[ecosophia]

1) Gods aren't required to keep wearing the same things they wore two thousand years ago!

2) Not that I know of. You may want to find a box or bag for the cards. Please don't just print out the cards -- their copyright is currently held by the publisher, who sank a lot of money and effort into getting them back into print, and deserves to make a living too.

3) Hmm! Fascinating. I'm glad to hear this.

[(Anonymous)]

OP - Orderly this conservative populism is not. Our host's post on Tamanous was a lifebuoy for my understanding. I observe NASCAR fans, historical reenactors and the rest of the Left's most-hated list reading top shelf political theory and actually doing the consciousness raising that the hippies talked about... but as individuals applying equally individual ethics.

[ecosophia]

I'm delighted to hear this. I don't know a great deal about Sumerian myths but I'm glad to hear they're woriing for you. You're most welcome, btw.

[(Anonymous)]

I am very much reminded of the fact that the Aquarius is associated with both Saturn and Uranus. Is it possible that movements like Revolutionary Conservatism in Weimar era Germany and modern American populist conservatism as exemplified by people like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are early examples of one of the major socio-political currents to come as the Age of Aquarius unfolds?

Re: Microwave antennas and astral body.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a very strange mental block indeed. Do you have any ideas on where it might come from?

[ecosophia]

Talk about truth in advertising!


I missed that detail in my earlier post about the "wedgie flag," but as I wrote then:

"As Carl Jung pointed out a long time ago, however, it's the symbols we create in perfect ignorance of their meaning that most precisely reflect what's going on in the deep places of our minds."

Re: Microwave antennas and astral body.

[(Anonymous)]

Can you please recommend any books, exercises or diets to restore the etheric body?

Re: Microwave antennas and astral body.

[(Anonymous)]

I gather from you response that the etheric and astral are different bodies any reference on this?

Is this the order?
- physical
- etheric
- astral

Can you please recommend some reading?

[lukedodson]

I recognise the name of the Misanthropic Luciferian Order - the main guitarist/vocalist of the Swedish death-metal band Dissection was heavily involved, if I recall correctly. When I was quite immersed in that style of music as a teen, I remember reading interviews with him and thinking he was clearly batsh*t crazy - all this stuff about the dark gods dissolving the entire Cosmos. Very Plutonian. He had previously served a prison sentence for the random slaying of an Algerian man, and killed himself in 2006.

As I recently spoke to researcher William Ramsey for a podcast about this topic, something also struck me as being very reminiscent of the Order of Nine Angles, a genuinely bizarre and astonishingly influential Satanist group with links to neo-Nazism, Islamism, and various murders and terrorist attacks from the 90s up to the recent past. Sure enough, according to an article on the Spiritual Life website, "the MLO incorporated elements from the Order of Nine Angles, the Illuminates of Thanateros and Qliphothic Kabbalah." (https://slife.org/theistic-satanism/)

With all that in mind, it's interesting to hear that progressives are also getting into the MLO. Satanism seems to be an area where the extreme-right and the woke-left overlap...

[causticus]

Happy Monday to you Archdruid. A few quick questions,

1. When invoking a pagan deity, in either prayer or ritual magic, how important is it to visualize their popular visual depiction? Does visualizing animals and/or plants associated with them help as well?

2. Are the core CGD practices compatible with the FHR system?

3. Where does the concept of the Solar Logos originate from? I’ve found it in Theosophical literature, but I can’t seem to find it in earlier traditions. In your estimation is the Solar Logos concept something akin to a Solar Deity? An Archangel? A planetary spirit/intelligence? An aggregate of all of our solar system’s spiritual entities? Or something else?

As always, thank you for everything!

Re: Microwave antennas and astral body.

[(Anonymous)]

I have had the same thing happen to me but in reverse. I moved out of the city into a rural area and started lucid dreaming. I suspect the protection practices I have done in the city were blocking negative energy. Once removed from that environment the protection restructured and allowed the dreams to flow

[ecosophia]

I've only known a couple of worshippers of Athena or Minerva, and am far from sure I can generalize from that.

[ecosophia]

It could be any number of things. It could be your own higher self; it could be a spirit with whom you have a good relationship; it could be that your body is simply following the tracks in space laid down by all the other people who've practiced the SoP over the years. You might consider using divination to figure out what's going on and what to do about it, if anything.

Re: Eagle's Mead and Prayer Resources

[jprussell]

Eirik Westcoat's Viking Poetry for Heathen Rites includes a good how-to discussion at the beginning of the book on the different meters and what they were used for.

For the very basics, suitable to Old English/Anglo-Saxon poetry (there was much more variety recorded in Old Norse poetry than in Old English):
1) Each line is divided into two "half lines" with a caesura between them. Some authors render this as two separate lines, others with a large space at the caesura, and some with no visual indication at all. In speech in modern English, it usually works best as just barely a pause. These pairs of half-lines are the basic unit that the rules apply to.
2) Each half line must have two fully stressed syllables, but can include more unstressed syllables (minimum four syllables total)
3) The first stressed syllable of the second half line must alliterate with the first, second, or both stressed syllables of the first half-line in the pair
4) The second stressed syllable of the second half-line of the pair must not alliterate with the first stressed syllable in the second half-line, but may optionally alliterate with one of the stressed syllables in the first half-line
5) All vowels alliterate with each other
6) Consonant clusters that are spoken as one sound (like "sk", "sp", "th" and so forth) alliterate with themselves, not with the first letter (for example "skill" and "sketch" would alliterate, but "skill" would not alliterate with "sound")

Here's what looks like a pretty decent discussion with plenty of footnotes if you want to explore further: https://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/Tutorials/old-english-metre-a-brief-guide

If you're looking for some good examples, besides Westcoat's works (which also include some other Old Norse-inspired meters that have more complex rules, but with a core of "stress and alliteration"), Tolkien has some good stuff: his translation of Beowulf is mostly rendered in prose, but the book contains some poems composed in the style. His Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun is also entirely written in the very similar Norse meter called fornidhslag.

Lastly, not on the subject of meter, but if you are interested in constraining yourself to Germanic-derived words in Modern English, Plain English by Bryan Evans is a wonderful resource, as is the Anglish Moot wiki (https://anglish.fandom.com/wiki/Main_leaf). Certainly not a requirement, but I find it a fun creative constraint, and I enjoy the sound of Old Englishy words.

On the other hand, if you're looking to compose in Old English rather than modern English, Wordcraft by Stephen Pollington is rather helpful. It's mostly a brief dictionary, but it also includes thematic groupings of words, for example words that have to do with "starting" something or words that have to do with "thinking", so it also functions a bit like a thesaurus. Also, not on poetry specifically, but Pollington is my favorite writer on Anglo-Saxon history and religion, and I unreservedly recommend as many of his books as you can get a hold of.

Cheers,
Jeff

[violetcabra]

If I may be so bold to share some related humor:

A little while back I couldn't resist making a variant of the pride flag:



in an essay about "rebesexuals"

[ecosophia]

The entire subject of aspect patterns -- of which grand trines are one -- was first developed in the early twentieth century by Marc Edmund Jones and a few other astrologers of the same period; as far as I know it appears nowhere in earlier astrological literature, so there wasn't a standard view of that pattern earlier; it wasn't recognized as a thing. Mundane astrology was badly neglected by the 20th century astrological revival, too, so I don't know of any discussion of grand trines, grand crosses, etc. in the mundane literature. In my experience, based on the few times I've seen it in mundane charts, it's a beneficial pattern, but it can allow serious problems to be ignored for a while. How generally can that be applied? We'll have to see.

Re: Calculating Sidereal Time

[ecosophia]

Most old textbooks of astrology include lessons on how to do that as a matter of course; I use Ivy Goldstein-Jacobson's methods as given in Foundations of the Magical Chart, but I'm not sure how easy that is to obtain these days.

Re: Eagle's Mead and Prayer Resources

[jprussell]

Huh, thanks for these perspectives Sister Crow and anonymous. As someone who went through a fairly strong atheistic period before becoming a polytheist, I mind find those bits more relatable, but I'm also more interested in "okay, I believe you that prayer/devotion is a useful practice, so what do I do?", so it might not go at the top of my list.

Re: Eagle's Mead and Prayer Resources

[jprussell]

Thanks very much for this, it does look like a worthy model of devotional practice to study.

Re: Microwave antennas and astral body.

[(Anonymous)]

Given that the Sun emits also radiation it would be interesting its role on the etheric body, the physical body is getting well from certain amounts.

Re: Eagle's Mead and Prayer Resources

[jprussell]

This looks extremely helpful, thank you! I'm still exploring Platonism, but what I've looked into so far has been a helpful supplement to my practice.

Re: Eagle's Mead and Prayer Resources

[jprussell]

Thanks very much for these! I had put The Secret of the Rosary on my list after someone mentioned it in a previous MM, but the section from the Catechism of the Council of Trent is exactly the sort of thing that I wouldn't even have known to go look for, but from skimming looks like it will be very helpful.

Thanks again,
Jeff

Re: Eagle's Mead and Prayer Resources

[jprussell]

Thank you for this! I just knew Krasskova would have something like this, but I couldn't find it with some quick web searching. Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner has some sections on using prayer beads, but it's mostly examples rather than a discussion of how to work out your own, what elements are important to include, and so forth.

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: Eagle's Mead and Prayer Resources

[jprussell]

Well, I don't know how SEO-friendly it will be, but I was planning on at least putting together the resources shared here into a post for Sane Polytheism.