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? I've decided to trace, as far as I can, my own occult lineages in photos. We're still tracing Juliet Ashley's end of the lineage: from her to Manly P. Hall, from Hall to Augusta Foss Heindel, from her to her husband Max Heindel, from Heindel to Rudolf Steiner, and from both Max Heindel and Rudolf Steiner to a teacher they had in common, Alois Mailander. Mailander, whose identity was concealed until fairly recently under the label "Brother M," was a German Rosicrucian mystic who lived from 1843 to 1905. He lived in Kempten, in the south of Germany, and worked in a textile factory to support himself while teaching Rosicrucian mysticism to a circle of students which included quite a few of the significant names in central European occultism. We'll be seeing him again, as one of my other lineages also goes back to Mailander. Mailander's own teacher was a Rosicrucian named Prestel, about whom knowledge in English is very hard to come by, but there seems to be some evidence that Prestel's lineage goes back to the Order of the Gold- and Rosy Cross (Orden des Gold- und Rosenkreuz), the most influential 18th century Rosicrucian order. 

PayPal tip jar link

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 link above to access my online tip jar. (Dreamwidth is having trouble with crosslinks to other sites right now, thus the absence of the usual button.) 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

Voluspa Performance and Request for Well Wishes

[jprussell]

Good Evening!

I hope others had a similar combination of pleasant weather, striking sunset, and a prominent Full Moon rising that we enjoyed here.

To Share: I ran across Kersti Ståbi through Rune Rasmussen's "Nordic Animist Calendar". She did her PhD thesis on what the oral performances of Eddic poems like the Voluspa might have sounded like. To arrive at this, she studied what active oral epic/poetic traditions she could along with the metre of Eddic poems, and then experimented through performances. She collects some links to recordings of her performances here: https://kerstistabi.com/eddavoluspa

To Ask: For JMG and the commentariat: tomorrow (or today, depending on when you read this), on Monday, my wife is scheduled to bring our second daughter into the world via C-Section. For anyone willing, any and all prayers, well wishes, and good energy for the safety and comfort of mother and baby would be most welcome. Obviously, I may be a bit behind on posting thank you's, but I'll be sure to share an update soon!

As always, thanks to JMG for maintaining this space and to the commentariat for providing such stimulating conversation.

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: Voluspa Performance and Request for Well Wishes

[ecosophia]

Positive energy en route!

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks very much for hosting these as always, JMG!

For a little over a year now, I’ve been DMing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for my middle school aged son and his friends. I agreed to do it because, hey, I enjoy being the fun dad as much as the next guy… but what I’ve witnessed take place over the last 14 months or so has been nothing short of remarkable. I think I’m watching four friends guide each other through a psychological and spiritual initiation process that on many occasions has made me imagine C.G. Jung or Joseph Campbell giving me a knowing smile and a wink at my kitchen table. All I’ve had to do is provide them with the symbolic language of story as backdrop…

All this has led me to wonder: has anyone done any writing on the occult or spiritual aspects of TTRPGs? I remember from a while back that you published a TTRPG connected with your Weird of Hali novels, but I can’t recall if you’ve written on this subject.

Best,
Ryan M.

[ecosophia]

You're far from the only person who's mentioned this to me, and the thought has also occurred to me -- tabletop RPGs can be powerful stuff. That said, I've never seen anything written anywhere that deals with this. Have you considered writing up an account of your experience and seeing if you can get it into print in an online parenting magazine, say? It might be helpful to get the conversation started.

And yes, the Weird of Hali roleplaying game is a thing -- a rugose, squamous thing, of course. If anyone's interested, details are here.

Letters

[k_a_nitz]

The more I learn about letter mysticism and various forms of divination the more they seem deeply interconnected. The approach you have suggested in the Levi posts for each tarot card is very similar to the approach I see advocated for runes and connects with the ideas in Kolb’s Buchstabenbuch, where Kolb emphasises the idea of the letter as being more like a Platonic form and should not be confused with the written form. Indeed he describes nature as being constructed from these 'letters' (ie. the word of God). So it increasingly seems to me that the Tarot, Ogham, Runes, letters, numbers, etc. are to some extent (i.e. adjusting for the different numbers) external representations of the same underlying forms and that connecting with them is a fairly common approach towards developing the self in the Western esoteric tradition. Does this make sense?

- Long aside with no question:
Actually I am also wondering whether anyone has directly connected parts of these traditions with the concept in literary theory of intertextuality (Julia Kristeva is the most prominent theorist in this area, developing the ideas of Bakhtin). I suspect not, though there may be an indirect link through Jung to Kristeva. Per Kristeva: "any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations and is the absorption and transformation of another text". This is generally interpreted as words and phrases drawing meaning from previous uses in other texts. A word can denote something, but it also brings connotations (which may vary from reader to reader). To my mind modern literary theory has also taken a mystical turn disguised in a way not dissimilar to that of old alchemical texts, and I expect many works of modern literary theory may end up being looked on in a similar way (if they're not already).

Re: Letters

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, it makes perfect sense. The Idea (in Plato's sense) of an alphabetic mysticism setting out basic elements of existence takes form in various instantiations in practice, just as the Idea of a table takes form in various instantiations, which can be made of different materials, have different numbers of legs, and so on. Have you by any chance read Paolo Rossi's Logic and the Art of Memory? He discusses the Renaissance version of this, which attempted to create an alphabet of fundamental concepts from which all human thought could be constructed.

2) I've never seen anyone make that connection, but then I don't follow current literary theory at all and a dozen writers could have been all over it for all I'd know.

[(Anonymous)]

Two weeks ago I posted a speculation I've had, that there may be some evidence to suggest the laws of the material plane shift when new planets come into focus, and that this may mean that a lot of modern technology may stop working in the near future as Pluto fades out. I've realized that there is in fact a good way to test this hypothesis: if this happened, then there should be evidence of this happening in the Romantic Era. What this means then is that there may be Cererian technologies which only worked during the Romantic Era, while Ceres was a planet. Given Ceres is a lot less focused on technology than Pluto is, they may be subtle, and quiet, but I have begun the process of looking for evidence of this.

One other possible avenue for investigation has occurred to me, however, and this is that if the laws of physics are reverting to normal, the rate at which Plutonian technologies fail will likely begin to increase, and there is some evidence of this happening, in a variety of forms: the failures of modern medicine; the odd issues with LEDs reported in some cities; the anecdotal reports I've heard from people of various synthetic drugs (ex: LSD) not causing the same effects they used to; or the odd way that so many aircraft have malfunctioned or vanished over the past few years, which is odd given they are, in theory, a mature technology.

Teasing out which of these are signs of the underlying laws of physics changing, and which are merely because of a lack of maintenance and the obsession with the new over old and proven tech is rather difficult, but then again a fog of deception, fraud, and confounding factors hiding important truths is a common Plutonian pattern...

[(Anonymous)]

How immensely interesting. Please keep us updated!

Killing other creatures

[(Anonymous)]

I have been doing the SOP for about 3 months now, that's the only magical work I've done.

Every time I state "May my will be in harmony with the ways of nature" I cringe because I'm planning on getting pest control in to deal with the ants that seem to be devouring my house from the inside and using my lemon tree as an aphid farm to the point where the tree is no longer thriving.

I feel so bad about having to do this but I see no alternative.

Can I do anything to apologise to or explain to the ants that I have to do this to protect my house and my shelter?

Puce Tumescent Nymph

Re: Killing other creatures

[ecosophia]

First of all, the way of nature includes killing. Death is an inescapable part of life, and every living thing lives on the remains of other living things -- even plants send their roots through the soil looking for nutrients that were once the bodies of plants and animals. You're not doing anything with the ants that an aardvark doesn't do to them when it tears an ant nest open with its strong claws and feeds itself and its cubs on the tasty contents.

Second, you can certainly explain matters to the ants. Sometime when you see a bunch of them, sit down and talk to them. Explain to them why what they're doing isn't something you can allow, explain to them that you're going to have pest control in to kill them, tell them that any of them that want to survive should take some queen and drone eggs and go someplace far away, and ask them to take that message back to their queen and the other ants. Some of them may take your advice. Such things happen surprisingly often!

Today's Druidry and Theosophy

[(Anonymous)]

Good Morning, JMG. How much of today's druidry as practiced by your branch and by other branches includes as part of its (re)construction concepts that found their way into druidry's body of knowledge and practice via Theosophy as purveyed by Madame Blavatsky and her associates? I recall you writing that so much of original druidry was lost through successive waves of Roman and Christian persecution back in the bad old days that when the time came to rebuild, the rebuilders had to take from from a lot of sources. I've tried some independent research online regarding this and haven't been very successful. But I imagine concepts like karma may have become part of druidry as practiced nowadays via HP Blavatsky's writings.

Any light you can shed on this will be much appreciated by me,
Casey. I thank you.

Re: Today's Druidry and Theosophy

[ecosophia]

Theosophy is a latecomer compared to the Druid Revival. The first documented Druid organizations in modern times were going by the mid-1700s -- tradition has it that the oldest of them was founded in 1717 -- and there was a Druid presence in Britain, Ireland, and the newly founded United States before 1800. Iolo Morganwg, whose abundant writings include the entire Druid teaching on reincarnation, died in 1826; Blavatsky was born in 1831. I use terms like "karma" because most people nowadays understand them, and because the equivalent concept in older Druid writings doesn't have a convenient one-word label.

If you want to know where the Druid Revival got many of its ideas, I recommend a good hard look at Greek Neoplatonism, Pythagoreanism, and Hermeticism. Those were all in circulation well before the Revival and many significant figures in the Revival's early days were well aware of them.

Q:

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I have to elect a rough day/time to submit my work visa application for the US, which will allow me to move there.

Any basics you can suggest here?

1) Waxing moon ideally?
2) applying sextile or trine to my L10? Or L4? (Since it's would be a permanent international move but more for work reasons).
3) Any aspects to avoid?
4) should I do it after saturn goes direct this month?

Re: Q:

[ecosophia]

I'd focus on the rulers of the 1st, 4th and 10th houses rather than on anything else. If you can get those three planets well dignified, free of negative aspects (or any aspects at all with the infortunes), and preferably with the Moon (irrespective of phase) applying to one of them by trine or sextile, that would be a fine election. If you can get one or more of them in aspect to each other, that would be even better. Saturn? Don't worry about him unless he rules one of your natal houses.

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning JMG,

is there a traditional incense for Brighid? If not, can frankincense be used as a universal substitute, or is it only appropriate for Greek and Roman (and Egyptian) deities?

Thank you

[ecosophia]

The Romans used frankincense for every deity, including the Celtic ones. We don't know if the ancient Celts burned incense at all, much less what incense they used; frankincense is a good choice, or you might see what other incense seems suited and give it a try. My experience with Celtic deities is that they're not fussy, and appreciate the thought that goes into an offering even more than the offering.

[(Anonymous)]

Can you make High John out of morning glory root, and, if so, what do you need to do to the morning glory root ?

//Princess Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

High John is jalap root (Ipomoea jalapa), which is related to morning glory root but not the same plant. You could try cutting a morning glory root into chunks and drying it in a food dehydrator, and seeing if it brings you good luck, but it would be an experiment, not a sure thing.

Alois Mailander

[(Anonymous)]

Dear John Michael Greer,

I am very surprised and fascinated to read that:

"Mailander, whose identity was concealed until fairly recently under the label "Brother M," was a German Rosicrucian mystic who lived from 1843 to 1905."

I just did a search and came upon Samuel Robinson's ALOIS MAILANDER: A ROSICRUCIAN REMEMBERED published in 2021. I would assume this is where that identity was revealed. (Am I right?) I am not sure I could read it quickly enough, for this appears to be a game-changer in the history of 19th century metaphysical religion. While I'm waiting for my copy to arrive, I am very curious to know, what do you think of it?

C.M. Mayo

Re: Alois Mailander

[ecosophia]

That's the one! Robinson apparently lives in Kempten, where Mailander lived and worked for most of his life, and was able to make contact there with people who knew the details. He writes articles for the Rosicrucian website pansophers.com, which is where I heard about Mailander. As far as I can tell Robinson knows his stuff.

Dolmen Arch

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I've tried a couple of your systems (worked through the druidry handbook, and most of the druid magic handbook, and the first level of CGD minus the initiation), and and seemed to finally have found a home in the Dolmen Arch, so I'm committing to it. I'm finding the course amazing, and I'm now meditating through the first branch of the Mabinogion. So, first things first, I want to thank you for putting it together.

Which brings me to my first question, concerning meditation.

When I started doing discursive meditation, I've noticed how dreamlike my thoughts are. Then, how devoid of meaning most concepts and words I'm used to using are. Those two discoveries gave me pause. But now, meditating on the mabinogion, what I'm finding is that most of the meaning that surfaces when I'm meditating is pretty much just a projection of whatever topics I'm delving in at the moment, or finding a way to fit older pieces of knowledge there.

It's like being in a house of mirrors, just seeing my own thoughts. I meditate for around 15 min, with 5 min of 4-fold breathing beforehand. I wonder if you have any clues regarding breaking out of the mirror house. Is it possible? Should I just keep doing what I'm doing?

Also, regarding temple work. The system in DMH didn't do much for me, but in the CGD the experience as really good. It felt truly like a place where I had a closer connection to the gods. Looking at the DA index, I don't see any mentions for temple work. Will it make an appearance later? Is the CGD temple work of the first level compatible with the DA material?

Regarding the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, which I'm also working through(just got to 3/8 a week ago, and there have been a good number of insights), I just want to make sure, I should be doing the breath of acceptance in all the levels, right?

Also, to share with the community:

There are a couple of system to work with trauma that I've found out really complemented the OSA work. For me, some of the memories that OSA stirred just needed some extra attention. One is the Inner Family Systems approach, that sees the psyche as being made out of a Self and of various parts that are born in traumatic experiences. They have a specific way to deal with those parts and help them find balance. There's a book called No Bad Parts that teaches their way to do it. The other is called Somatic Experience, and has to do with releasing trauma from the body, and has a bigger focus on physical sensations. Some of you might find them useful.

Once again, thank you JMG for this space and your work,

Kind wishes,

Fox

Re: Dolmen Arch

[ecosophia]

1) That's normal for discursive meditation, and it's actually useful, as it helps you learn how to relate the contents of your thoughts to the theme. Keep practicing and see where it leads you.

2) No, there's no temple work with the Dolmen Arch system -- it comes from a period when solo temple work wasn't a thing yet. (That became part of occult practice in the second half of the 20th century, largely as a result of Israel Regardie's work.) You can certainly modify the temple ritual in the CGD if you like, and use that.

3) Yes. You'll be learning some other breathing methods later on, but the Breath of Acceptance is foundational.

4) Thanks for this! You might want to let the folks at octagonsociety.org know about it -- my guess is that they'll be very interested.

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning JMG -

1) A couple of questions on interpretation - and please fellow readers chime in - for the past two weeks every time I check the clock, I get triple digits of the same number and I've seen three snakes dead on the road while walking. Neither of these sights were ever regular occurrences for me in the past. I've also been pulling major arcana for one or two of the three cards in the daily draw. I can feel many things shifting around me but can't quite put my finger on what it is. How do you go about interpretation? I feel like the window is open here for me to become aware before I get clunked on the head.

2) Re-reading your "magic isn't what you want it to be" tagged articles on the magical resistance's efforts, I do wonder how much of this talk of nuclear war is related to their efforts. I feel like, once again, we are being swept along and no one is capable of a rational discussion. The glorification expressed on social media for mass misery and destruction is even more appalling than what they said about the unvaccinated last year. I ask this in all seriousness, what the frack? Is it demons again, the blowback from their workings, or something else going on here?

I just finish the The Path of Desire in the OSA Probationer rank, and doing the work while reading Dion's Qabalah book has been transformational. The three card draw is so much more meaningful and I'm spending more time thinking of the cards in relation to the tree, rather than as individual items to interpret.

Thank you,
Persimmon Hyperactive Opossum

[ecosophia]

1) There's a lot of synchronicity flowing just now. It may not be possible to interpret it all just now. You might try journaling and writing down whatever surfaces, no matter how odd or irrelevant it happens to be.

2) A lot of people in the self-proclaimed avant-garde desperately want a nuclear war or some other world-ending catastrophe just now. It's the only alternative to having to face the total failure of their preferred ideologies and policies. I'm not too worried; just as the "winter of severe illness and death" that Biden prattled about didn't happen, the current fetish for wallowing in dreams of mushroom clouds is about as likely to come to pass as all those fantasies about 2012.

3) Delighted to hear this!

[(Anonymous)]

Good stuff on points 1 & 2...k_a_nitz.

My favorite writer on all things semiotic and intertextual is Umberto Eco. If you haven't read it already, you'd probably really enjoy his nonfiction book "The Search for the Perfect Language". Unlike other writers in what I'll just call the "pomo sphere", Eco isn't afraid of the esoteric. And while he might not have been a practitioner, he was not at all averse to recognizing how influential in the history of ideas esoteric thought has been.

Here is the table of contents for the book:


1. From Adam to Confusio Linguarum. .
Genesis 2, 10, 11.
Before and After Europe.
Side-effects.
A Semiotic Model for Natural Language.

2. The Kabbalistic Pansemioticism. .
The Reading of the Torah.
Cosmic Permutability and the Kabbala of Names.
The Mother Tongue.

3. The Perfect Language of Dante.
Latin and the Vernacular.
Language and Lingusitic Behavior.
The First Gift to Adam.
Dante and Universal Grammar.
The Illustrious Vernacular.
Dante and Abulafia.

4. The Ars Magna of Raymond Lull. .
The Elements of the Ars Combinatoria. .
The Alphabet and the Four Figures.
The Arbor Scientarium.
The Concordia Universalis of Nicholas of Cusa.

5. The Monogenetic Hypothesis and the Mother Tongues. .
The Return to Hebrew.
Postel's Universalistic Utopia.
The Etymological Furor.
Conventionalism, Epicureanism and Polygenesis.
The Pre-Hebraic Language.
The Nationalistic Hypotheses.
Philosophers against Monogeneticism.
A Dream that refused to Die.
New Prospects for the Monogenetic Hypothesis.

6. Kabbalism and Lullism in Modern Culture.
Magic Names and Kabbalistic Hebrew.
Kabbalism and Lullism in the Steganographies.
Lullian Kabbalism.
Bruno: Ars Combinatoria and Infinite Worlds.
Infinite Songs and Locutions.

7. The Perfect Language of Images.
Horapollo's Hieroglyphica.
The Egyptian Alphabet.
Kircher's Egyptology.
Kircher's Chinese.
The Kircherian Ideology.
Later Critics.
The Egyptian vs. the Chinese Way.
Images for Aliens.

8. Magic Language.
Hypotheses.
Dee's Magic Language.
Perfection and Secrecy.

9. Polygraphies.
Kircher's Polygraphy.
Beck and Becher.
First Attempts at a Content Organizations.

10. A Priori Philosophical Languages. .
Bacon.
Comenius.
Descarted and Mersenne.
The English Debate on Character and Traits.
Primitives and Organization Content.

11. George Dalgarno.

12. John Wilkins. .
The Tables and the Grammar.
The Real Characters.
The Dictionary: Synonyms, Periphrases, Metaphors.
An Open Classification?.
The Limits of Classification.
The Hypertext of Wilkins.

13. Francis Lodwick. .

14. From Liebniz to the Encyclopédie.

Characteristica and Calculus.
The Problem of the Primitives.
The Encyclopedia and the Aphabet of Thought.
Blind Thought.
The I Ching and the Binary Calculus.
Side-effects.
The 'Library' of Liebnitz and the Encyclopédie.

15. Philosophic Language from the Enlightenment to Today. .

Eighteenth-century Projects.
The Last Flowering of Philosophic Languages.
Space Languages.
Artificial Intelligence.
Some Ghosts of the Perfect Language.

16. The Internatonal Auxiliary Languages.
The Mixed Systems.
The Babel of A Posteriori Languages.
Esperanto.
An Optimized Grammar.
Theoretical Objections and Counter-objections.
The 'Political' Possibilitites of an IAL.
Limits and Effability of an IAL.

Conclusion.
Translation.
The Gift to Adam.

Maybe that will tickle your bailiwick?

Justin Patrick Moore

(P.S.: Eco passed away in 2016, so for those who have taken it upon themselves to not read living authors, he is fair game at this point!)

Intertextuality

[(Anonymous)]

Whoops. Meant for this to be in the thread on that topic. Sorry 'bout that! -JPM

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, I read this article with some alarm: https://thecountersignal.com/australia-bill-opens-the-door-to-forced-vaccinations/

The reason I'm posting it here is pursuant to the theory that the fox campaign is a magical operation in which the people getting the shots are used as fuel. As the discussions go, such an operation would depend on voluntary participation - each subject must make the choice to receive the shot. They may have been tricked or threatened, but they had to voluntarily accept it.

In that light, what are the implications of forced foxing? Potentially something that could ruin the whole setup? What will happen if the people running this massive ritual, conducted under one set of rules from the beginning, suddenly change up and disregard one of the key conditions?

Thanks again for hosting these Q&As.

[ecosophia]

Once you start forcing people to take it, the magical dimension is lost, and it becomes a straightforward exercise in tyranny. The Australian people will have to decide what if anything they're going to do about that.

FHR

[iprescott]

Hi JMG,

Fall is setting in here in PA. I hope all is well with you and Sarah during the beautiful time of the full moon.

I am almost ready to perform the initiation into the Seeker Grade for the FHR.

1. Does the initiation ceremony need to be memorized, or is it ok, to read it out loud once the 5 entities have been created?

2. When it comes to doing the opening ceremony, is it appropriate to perform rituals of practical magic and then close, or should I keep practical magic separate from the FHR Work? (Don't monkey with the buzz saw and all that ;) )

I truly appreciate this space and all of the advice and resources that you have given to everyone in the Commentariat! You have given us so much.

Best Regards,

Cobalt Necrotic Skull

Re: FHR

[ecosophia]

1) You can certainly read it aloud. The ritual is set up that way.

2) I've done quite a bit of practical magic in an FHR temple opened with the ritual, and quite a bit more using the grove ritual in The Druid Magic Handbook, which is closely related. You should be fine doing the same.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for these MM's, JMG.

1. I had a phase recently where I questioned if performing a daily SoP was appropriate for myself. I did two geomantic divinations of the matter and got one divination from an Ogham user. The first divination, answering the question, “will dropping the SoP help me on my path in this life,” was clearly negative: Amissio as the Judge, Tristitia as the Left Witness, Puer as the Right Witness. The Ogham reading was a non-reversed (i.e. positive) Huath in response to whether I should drop the daily practice. Lastly, I did a geomantic reading from a different perspective: “will a daily SoP hinder me in this life?” I got Conjunctio as the Right Witness, Puella as the Left Witness, and Puer as the Judge. My own interpretation from all these readings is that I clearly shouldn’t drop the practice, but it’s probably not critical for my personal path in mysticism. I’m currently practicing the SoP every other day.

2. Is there any discussion of dinosaurs within occult literature? Past discussions on Magic Mondays have concerned past great civilizations (Atlantis, Hyperborea), and how souls reincarnate in many different lives and beings. I’m curious how dinosaurs and pre-human history are incorporated into these theories, if they are considered. I did find a passage Blavatsky wrote on dinosaurs that suggested their coexistence with past civilizations.

[ecosophia]

1) That sounds like advice to keep doing it!

2) I've seen very, very little reference to dinosaurs in occult literature, which is odd. First, because they were around quite recently -- 65 million years is not much more than an eyeblink in terms of planetary history; secondly, because it's been hypothesized more than once that there may have been dinosaurs of human levels of sentience (the so-called anthroposaur hypothesis). The focus of occult writings about the past has generally been on the period during which human beings have been around -- a few million years at most. A wider perspective might be interesting.

A weird thought and a couple questions

[open_space]

1) I had a disturbing and very weird thought come up to me while I was thinking about the internet and a big part of it being a cesspit that resembles a fake astral, possibly infested by demons. In it, iDiots died.

Upon meditation:

Attention is the root of identity in a way. For example, I've learned to tune my attention to the body strongly and it makes a huge difference than for example if I focus on the layers of my mind. If I focus on a rock, very subtly I feel a little bit like the rock. If I spend too much time on certain places of the internet like Faceplant, I feel dirty and drugged. (I also note that Meta, has being doing horribly since they decided to focus on the quackverse)

Not so long ago I mentioned that I felt the world empty as if people were uploaded to the web. As if they have completely forgotten how to down to the physical. I wonder if it is possible that peoples attention online has them be living there astrally? Isn't it like really bad when what you are strongly identified with disappears? If it would work similar to what happens in shapeshifting, though much less strongly, a part of their astral bodies would go poof.

Maybe that's one reason vaccines were feared to have chips. To my understanding in the physical, that's not the case but what about an astral signature that makes it prone to people to slip into a trance on the internet. It's a strange thought but I thought I would mention it since anybody would benefit from a little less internet trance. At least it would make an interesting plot of a WoH fan-fic I wouldn't dare to write just yet. Or maybe I should if it has a good ending.

2) Do the LRP's make energy spin one direction or the other? Or perhaps I just want to twirl? I've been getting an urge to dance and tap my feet after my morning practices and my feet want to do a specific tapping rhythm that has the effect of my spinning, if it were one of those foot patterns for dancing. This started happening after I changed my (wrong) visualization during the RoR and a blockage in my knees and feet started to clear up.

3) Did you see the correlation in the markets with the Mercury Rx? The very day it ended, it went up out of confusion and now it is plunging down again steadily. Perhaps it's reliance in technology makes it more prone to Mercury's effects.

Re: A weird thought and a couple questions

[ecosophia]

1) Interesting. I'd say keep meditating on it.

2) Clearly it does with you!

3) Yes, I saw that. It'll be interesting to see what happens next; given the collapse in European bond markets today, I suspect there's a lot of downside action ahead.

[(Anonymous)]

John--

What is known about the nature of the Abyss that separates Chokmah-Binah from Chesed-Geburah? Has there been any discussion in the occult literature/lore re the reversal of the orientation of the triangles above versus below (the unifying Kether preceding the duality of Chokmah & Binah, versus the unities of Tiphereth and Yesod flowing from their respective dualities of Chesed-Geburah and Netzach-Hod) and the nature of the Abyss? (Looking at the Tree, one is struck by the idea of reversal by reflection.)

Citrine Grotesque Porpoise

[ecosophia]

You'll find plenty about the Abyss and the reflection of the Supernal Triad in the triads further down in standard Cablaistic sources, such as Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah and my Paths of Wisdom. I suspect there's much, much more in the Jewish literature, but I don't read Hebrew.

Two questions

[(Anonymous)]

So, I have two questions, essentially on practical magic:

One: My girlfriend has a stalker ex who won't leave her alone. She's exhausted most of the material-plane avenues of getting rid of them, and I recall you having experience with this specific problem, though I can't remember the details. Even if you don't care to share those, what would you recommend, magically speaking, to bring a safe and healing ending to that situation? I have heard you mention Hotfoot Oil, is that an option?

Two: I practice the LBRP, MP, and ALU daily, and found they have an incredible effect, applied over time, to the energy of a particular space.

I have also mastered the Lesser Banishing Hexagram, and the Greater Hexagram in terms of summoning and banishing both.

Does the Supreme Pentagram function as an even-more-powerful banishing ritual? Or is it not intended to be used for that purpose? If I wanted a banishment with more power, should I just use the Lesser Hexagram instead?

Thank you as always for your time. You and jprussel and gullindagan have all been incredible help on this entire journey.

Re: Two questions

[ecosophia]

1) She might look into hotfoot spells and cut-and-clear spells. This archive might be a useful place to look.

2) You can certainly use the Supreme Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram for banishing, and it's a very effective means of doing so. Always follow it by invoking something to fill the space -- the ALU ritual is a good choice here.

On Intention

[jeanluc_12]

Dear JMG,

Blessings to you and my fellow commentators! It's been a while. I have successfully moved to another country and have been adjusting to living here since.

My question for this edition of Magic Monday is about intention/purpose. In your book "Circles of Power", you wrote that "...it should be able to be stated in a single sentence..." (pg. 111). I understand this. What I would like to know is how specific one's formulation of purpose should be. For example, someone wants to do a ritual for love. Would it be wisest if the person limited the formulation simply to "the most suitable partner" or "the most ideal partner"? Or, would it be helpful to state qualities that the person would appreciate (e.g., intellectual compatibility, spiritual, etc.)?



Best regards,
Jean Luc

Re: On Intention

[ecosophia]

It depends on how specific your intention is! I'm sorry that I can't be more precise than that. Some workings have fairly general intentions, some have highly specific ones, and you need to craft your words to suit. For a love spell, though, it's especially careful to aim it at what you want, not what you think will get you what you want. Try "a love partner with whom I will establish a happy and enduring relationship" or something like that, and leave the details up to the cosmos. It's fascinating to me how many people think they know what they want in a lover or a spouse, and are completely wrong!

[d_mekel]

My family and I live in the house my 60+ old neighbor grew up in. His dad built the house and his mother loved the house. She is on her deathbed right now and part of her will is to have her ashes spread on the property. We get along great with our neighbor and I have no problem with this, but being that the attachment his mom has to the house(she has referred to it as "my house"), do you have any suggestions to prevent her from latching on to it after death?

[ecosophia]

There's not much you can do about that, given the constraints you're under. Scatter the ashes as far from the house as you can, and preferably do so just before a rainstorm; then pray for her soul to be helped through the afterlife so it doesn't get stuck.

[(Anonymous)]

Karmic culmination and the karma clear ritual bring on karma, is there any way to push it back or otherwise affect it? For example could you do a working to make everything bad on your slate happen on the last day of your life? That seems like the ideal - you'd have a happy and easy life, then go out with a spectacular bang.

[ecosophia]

I've seen people attempt workings like that. What usually happens is that the end of their lives happens much, much sooner than it otherwise would have -- about the time the next big dose of karma was going to come due anyway.

[ataulfo]

I got the divinatory go-ahead to move to doing some Golden Dawn work, after beginning the SoP around this time last year. Yet there seems to be an issue with people developing the unwavering belief that they’re hot s***, reality notwithstanding, when they take up this system. I do think I fall into the group that needs proportionally more solar current, but is there a telluric exercise I can do on the side to avoid this?

[ecosophia]

The Golden Dawn system isn't set up to work with telluric energies. What I'd recommend instead is regular invocation of the seven planets -- for example, using the Orphic hymns to the planets to invoke each of them on its own day of the week. That will help keep the solar influence in balance.

Queen Elizabeth II and the Occult

[miow]

Do you JMG or any commenters think the late Queen could have been a mage? We know she was initiated as a Bard after all...and then today I came across this quote ascribed to her: "We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home.” (Queen Elizabeth II)

Sigh. Still surprised at myself, grieving a woman whom I never even saw in life. Although I did see her coffin and gosh that funeral also went beyond the realm of the mundane, in so many ways. It felt like the whole country was involved in a working that day. (Please, no snark kind commenters.)

Re: Queen Elizabeth II and the Occult

[ecosophia]

I've seen no evidence whatsoever that the late Queen was a mage. She did, however, fill a specific magical role in society -- that's what monarchy is, when it's disencumbered from issues of political power. (Monarchy, leadership by one person, is distinct from monocracy, the concentration of power in the hands of one person.) A monarch's job is to serve as the magical representation of humanity within a given nation, and the late Queen did a fine job of that.

As for the quote, er, you do know that most religions also teach that, don't you?

Sylphs

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for hosting these Magic Mondays.

I would like to ask: what are sylphs like in terms of personalities and what might a magical worker ask of them, in terms of favors or information, and what might they ask for in return? How does one befriend a sylph?

Re: Sylphs

[ecosophia]

1) That's like asking what humans are in terms of personalities. Every sylph I've ever encountered had a different personality.

2) Any information or assistance relating to the element of air is within their power. What they get in return is the chance to interact with a being of more than one element, and this is crucial to their evolution: as they interact with us, they pick up the capacity to interact with the other three elements, and evolve a soul.

3) Systematic magical work with all four elements is involved here -- it's not wise to unbalance yourself by working with just one. You need to learn to scry the realms of the elements and interact with the beings in them.