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ecosophia
(Yes, that's "Magic Monday" in Breton. Those are also Breton Druids in the photo. I'm doing the Brythonic Celtic languages as this month's theme.) 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.
This Magic Monday is now closed to new questions. Thank you, and see you next Monday!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 04:48 am (UTC)Intrusive noises are one of those things mages in training have to learn to live with. I've live in apartments most of my adult life, and having loud music or a loud argument suddenly start while I'm doing a working or a practice -- well, let's just say been there, done that, used the t-shirt to clean up the mess. With practice, you can learn to filter it out...but it takes a while.
Central Ray
Date: 2018-04-23 05:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 05:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 05:42 am (UTC)Re: Central Ray
Date: 2018-04-23 05:46 am (UTC)Work with the divine name of the opposite gender in the ninth sphere takes place in Sphere workings, which will be published in detail in a forthcoming book. In those, you're not moving energies through the subtle channels of your body, you're working with macrocosmic energies, and having the gender polarity to work with is helpful rather than the opposite.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 06:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 07:29 am (UTC)On the subject of political magic it seems to me the best thing mages on the left could do would be a working to let the oppressed and exploited see the world as it really is. That would be a very long lever for change, it's non-coercive and the backlash would be potentially very enlightening as well.
energy gifting and divination
Date: 2018-04-23 08:42 am (UTC)Thank you for taking the time to host this and answer our questions.
I'm wondering if it is possible or advisable for one person to give energy to another. my wife has too much energy while i have too little and we agree it would be nice swap some. How would this be done? Would prayer work? She is christian and there are many stories of minor (e.g. within the known laws of physics) miracles in her church.
Does asking a god what they think about something directly often disagree with the dogma of the church worshipping them?
what are the etheric effects of sleeping to together over a lifetime?
What is the best place to buy your books so that the largest proportion of the price goes to you as royalties?
Is it possible to have a "conversation" through repeated divination? Or would it be more effective to meditate on each answer for a while.
I hope that's not too many questions, please answer what you have time for.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 09:11 am (UTC)What is the largest scale alchemy has ever been done on, and what is the largest scale it could be done on? The idea of an alchemy works the size of the Orgreave coking plant appeals to a twisted part of me. :)
Since I started reading about magic it's affected my dreams. You know that anxiety dream where you're lost on public transport - I've had the same dream where I'm lost on the Tree of Life. I kept pathworking back and forth but couldn't find where I was supposed to be. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 11:07 am (UTC)I can see why number and sacred geometry are interesting (I am getting on much further with Frances Yates just now and trying to spot some of your spoor tracks ahead of me across the pages. Smile.)
My caveat for the following is that my understanding of maths and its amazing history has remained seriously deficient all my life.
You wrote last week to a correspondent on MM: “… In sacred geometry, and the number lore that goes with it, the absence of zero expresses itself in an interesting way. Do you recall the "number line" you got taught in elementary school? It runs like this...
...-3...-2...-1...0...1...2...3...
...and so on to positive and negative infinity in either direction. (What, exactly, is a "negative infinity"?) In sacred geometry, by contrast, we use a number line that centers on 1, not on 0...
...1/4...1/3...1/2...1...2...3...4...” -- ...which goes to zero on one end and infinity on the other [bold added] -and both of these are recognized as wholly imaginary constructs. Neither zero nor infinity are real, and neither one is useful in the proportional mathematics that we use in sacred geometry (and that artists and architects used to use back in the day when art and architecture were a lot less ugly than they are today."
My immediate thought was to question whether ‘your’ series in the proportional mathematics goes to ‘infinitesimal’ rather than ‘zero at one end’. Additionally it has occurred to me after a little bit of reading that ‘zero' might actually be a geometrical property, for example, ‘flat’ within a larger category of ‘slopes’. My further thought is that the concept of infinitesimal is real enough and allows logical proofs about curves and rates (time). And with curves we can see maxima and minima, tangents, slopes, the relations of square and circle; for the latter see Yates again. And eventually Calculus emerges as a tool.
Geometry seems to be about proofs – logical steps in series that one can always come back to. I am interested in recognition, identity, insight and understanding – which are intelligible but not readily explicable. I find it a necessary part of being conscious to make constant reference to my senses, and perhaps thus to what earlier cosmology referred to as macrocosm and microcosm. Question. Change seems the essential of magic, but reference to identity appears equally necessary. I once did some ‘mind experiments’ in imagination, and shrank a thought toward an infinitesimal. It seemed possible for a thought, an identification, to be extinguished, to ‘wink out’ – some kind of minimum.
I have reached the point in Yates when Fludd has a struggle with Kepler. Neither had reached to Calculus but Kepler was scathingly impatient with Fludd. Leibniz and Newton were to come. (Question)If divination, star charts and etc. ‘works’ (your word), we have a way to go yet, or as Yates says of Bruno, there is a determination to find a method for the imagination yet to come.
Hmm … I have a feeling I am going to ‘end up’ with poetry and/or staring at the back of my own head.
best
Phil H
Giordano Bruno’s magical images
Date: 2018-04-23 11:30 am (UTC)Thank you for translating Bruno’s book. It’s a beautiful book as art object, and also fascinating. And definitely useful...but After a careful read of The Shadows of the Ideas, I am still puzzled by the magical images (astrological in nature.) You mention in the introduction that using them for everyday memoria may be dangerous, and Bruno may have intended them differently—perhaps as notae, to meditate on, trace and improve one’s memory magically? The book doesn’t expound on this. Could you suggest some techniques or resources for doing this safely?
Sincerely,
MsKrieger
Children
Date: 2018-04-23 12:11 pm (UTC)Grove Stones
Date: 2018-04-23 12:41 pm (UTC)I have a set of Grove Stones that I would like to enchant on the Druid Holy Days. Can I use my already enchanted set of stones, re-enchanting each of them on the appropriate Holy days, or should I take a new set of stones?
Also, can I start this process with the southeastern stone this coming Belteinne (then following south, southwestern, etc) or would I do well to wait until Samhuinn to begin (and if so, why)?
Thank you for your time, and for hosting magic mondays!
- Brigyn
Alternatives to magic
Date: 2018-04-23 01:17 pm (UTC)I know you don't recommend the practice magic to people who take psychiatric medication. On the other hand, I know you are not a fan of people trying to get rid of their desires. With these two viewpoints of yours in mind, what's a person who takes psychiatric meds, yet desires to practice magic, to do?
I tried asking myself what it is that draws me to magic, and why I keep coming back to it after all these years. I came up with three things which draw me to magic:
- concentration: being able to concentrate on something with intensity and focus gives me a positive feeling of power,
- purification: I would like to unblock my internal energy channels to improve the vitality of my physical body,
- protection: I want to develop a strong aura to be protected from other people's emotions, as well as potential magical attacks.
What would you recommend that I do? Should I start doing everything I can in order to get myself off antidepressants and be able to safely practice magic, or are there other occult practices which can give me these three benefits and would be safer for me to practice?
I know it's a rather large and serious question, so thank you in advance for any response and also for providing this wonderful opportunity.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 02:19 pm (UTC)A few questions
Date: 2018-04-23 02:42 pm (UTC)How can one tell between a magical order and a personality cult?
If i have bad habits or defects of character that i would like to change, would the practice of theurgy help me change them or would would those defects impede me from practicing it?
What do you think most people who get into Magic have in mind about what they can get from it?
Does freemasonry involve magical practice?
I tried googling local magical lodges but i had no results. Do you have any tips on finding one?
Are left hand path magicians edgelords or are there actual practical reasons for choosing the left hand path other than wanting attention or a reason to be mean?
And finally, do you know any texts on astrological theurgy?
Thank you very much!
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 03:18 pm (UTC)The magical traditions that are purely practical in nature, and don't pursue spiritual goals, don't have to deal with anything of the kind. Those that have a theurgic focus, seeking the transformation of the self, very often reference some such process, but it's usually a lot less emotionally wrenching than the state de la Cruz (or, for that matter, Evelyn Underhill) describe. In the Golden Dawn tradition and other magical traditions related to it, it's described as the encounter with the Abyss,which is the ontological gap between the upper three and lower seven spheres of the Tree of Life, and is more cognitive than emotional -- a process by which the individual mage has to open himself or herself to the experience and perspectives of the Higher Genius, the part of the self that exists beyond space, time, and change.
Your political magic idea would be interesting. Me, I'd rather see a working to encourage everyone to see the world as it really is -- it seems to me that if the privileged middle and upper middle classes lost the ability to ignore the impact of their lifestyles and politics on the working classes and the poor, we'd see a lot less nonsense of certain kinds, and maybe even some constructive change.
Re: energy gifting and divination
Date: 2018-04-23 03:23 pm (UTC)2) Depends on the god and the church. I suspect, though, that the more loudly the church proclaims that it has the unalloyed truth, the more likely the god it worships is to have a different opinion.
3) Do you mean literally sleeping together, or do you mean that phrase as a euphemism for having sex? Both have effects, but they're different.
4) Go directly to the publisher's website and buy it from there. Thank you for asking!
5) Depends on the method of divination, but almost always it's best to meditate on one reading, to get the most out of it, before casting another.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 04:26 pm (UTC)In part, I ask because I've been affected by other people masturbating thinking of me (and it was verified). I also don't want to imagine past lovers.
Your thoughts on this are highly appreciated!
Ritual space
Date: 2018-04-23 04:36 pm (UTC)I second the above question re exercise and ritual practice, where I would be allowing around 45-60 mins between. I'm guessing exercise resembles eating or sex here.
Thank you for the advice about not mixing Tai chi and GD ritual. Much improved results. Are there compatible or even complimentary martial arts systems you would recommend?
Thanks as always for the excellent help you provide.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 04:42 pm (UTC)2) Alchemy is a very small-scale process, because it depends on the interaction between the materia and the consciousness of the alchemist. To get any kind of result, the maximum amounts are measured in ounces. Sorry!
3) I used to have pathworking dreams too, but fortunately not that one.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-04-23 04:50 pm (UTC)And poetry isn't a bad place to end up...
approaching misanthropy
Date: 2018-04-23 04:50 pm (UTC)My coping/defense mechanism is social avoidance and isolation, which I realize is not healthy. Being an empath, being naturally quiet and reserved and probably too self-aware probably doesn't help.
I'm not a malicious person; I try to be kind; I'm not intentionally putting bad energy into the universe. I've tried therapy and didn't find it helpful. I've prayed a lot...and here I am. Any advice? Thank you!
(PS: my mother has faced similar things, and far, far worse--a therapist once started crying after hearing her life story. Maybe someone has hexed us...?)
Re: Giordano Bruno’s magical images
Date: 2018-04-23 04:53 pm (UTC)