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 lineage in photos. We're still tracing Juliet Ashley's end of the lineage. Two weeks ago I posted an image of her fourth teacher, Arthur Edward Waite, the Golden Dawn alumnus who passed onto her the rituals that became the foundation for the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose. Waite, in turn, got his knowledge from the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Last week I posted an image of one of these, the redoubtable William Wynn Westcott; this is Westcott's partner and rival in the project, Samuel Liddell Mathers. Another Freemason with a passion for the occult, and like Westcott a genuine scholar and mage, Mathers didn't have the organizational skills to keep the order together once Westcott stepped down from the leadership, and the Golden Dawn promptly blew itself to pieces in the squabbles that followed. Mathers remained in charge of one of the fragments thereafter, and he and his branch of the order will appear again once I get into some of the other ends of my lineage. 

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 these days, 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.

***This Magic Monday is now closed--as in, no further comments will be put through. See you next week!*** 

Comments

[ecosophia]

Based on what I saw, there was nothing unwitting about it. People who a few years previously had been chattering about the Wiccan Rede suddenly started chattering about invoking demons and how stupid it was to think that there could be any negative consequences to practicing evil magic. Politics played a significant role in it -- the first great wave of nasty magic in the Neopagan scene I saw centered around group magical workings to curse individuals who had been labeled Bad People, and yes, this was before Trump -- but I don't think that's all it was.

[boccaderlupo]

As they say in the trade: Oof!

Fra' Lupo

[illyria2001]

Their attitude seems to be "It's ok if OUR SIDE does it"...whether it's evil magic, doxxing, or threatening/actually committing acts of violence.

[(Anonymous)]

Did you find that it got started in the wake of the failed 2021 Apocalypse?

[ecosophia]

If you mean 2012, yes, but I'm not at all sure there's a connection. I knew next to nobody in the Neopagan scene who paid the least attention to that, except to laugh.

Still, it's an interesting synchronicity...

[(Anonymous)]

Huh. If this got started before Trump, then is it possible that whatever was going on with the Trump Presidency was part of the blowback from that?

[ecosophia]

It is indeed.

[(Anonymous)]

If time is more flexible on the inner planes, then is it possible the collapse in ethics was related somehow to The Magic Resistance's work, even though that happened years later?

[ecosophia]

An interesting speculation. Hmm.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you know any way to try to investigate this possibility?

[ecosophia]

Divination might be useful.

[(Anonymous)]

It seems odd to me that 2012 was such an inflection point for so many different things. It's as if something changed when the world failed to end on schedule....

[brendhelm]

The only thing that comes immediately to mind is that in February of 2012, Neptune entered Pisces with Uranus in Aries and moribund Pluto in Capricorn. The last time it did this was in 1848, with Uranus also in Aries and still-undiscovered Pluto in Aries as well. A lot of utopian fantasies and longstanding systems breaking down, and numerous revolutions in that period as well.

Worth noting that Neptune entered Aries "for good" on April 14, 1861... almost exactly when the US Civil War started.

I don't think Neptune in Pisces alone could be causing all that, but it may be a contributory factor.