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 (or lack of same)? At this point I've traced Juliet Ashley's lineage back as far as photos and documentation extend. John Gilbert's other main teacher, Rev. Matthew William Shaw aka Rhodonn Starrus, is a tougher proposition. Born in Pennsylvania, he became a Universalist minister, serving in a church in the Allentown, PA area.  In 1952 he and two other ministers of the Universalist Church, Revs. Omar Zasluchy and Owen Symanski, left the church to protest the upcoming merger between their denomination and the Unitarian Church. (They believed that the Unitarians planned on taking over the congregations,  churches, and bank accounts, and then discarding every element of Universalist teaching and tradition; as it turned out, they were right.) In 1952, the three of them were duly consecrated as bishops by Bishop Robert Monroe of the Liberal Catholic Church, and founded the Universal Gnostic Church (UGC). Rev. Shaw had already founded the Modern Order of Essenes as a healing order associated with his church, and took it with him into the UGC. In 1972 he relocated to the Boulder, CO area where he became a friend and associate of Dr. Juliet Ashley, and received initiation into the orders she headed -- the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Ancient Order of Druids in America -- while she became active in the Modern Order of Essenes and the Universal Gnostic Church.  John Gilbert described him as a gifted teacher but a strict taskmaster, who demanded the best from his students and usually got it. 

I have yet to find a photo of the man, or accurate information on his birth and death dates -- I gather from what John told me that he died sometime in the 1980s. I have also been unable to find much of anything about Bishop Robert Monroe of the LCC -- there were plenty of schisms in the LCC's history, and he apparently ended up on the wrong side of one of them, so he's just a name in a few old lists at this point. I hope to be able to get more information on him, on Matthew Shaw, and on the early history of the UGC as things proceed. 

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:  PayPal for now, but that'll be replaced by a couple of other options shortly. 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 -- as in, no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

I am the person doing planetary charity to Venus and Saturn, to improve my love life and break a porn addiction. First, I'd like to say thank you for introducing me to planetary charity, as it seems to be working wonders for me. I have some updates on the ongoing process, and to say TSW is an understatement. Both series of charity are still ongoing, but I can already feel the two of them reshaping my life in profound ways, and I'm deeply grateful to them for the blessings they've given me so far.

I also have two other updates on the process: first, I asked two weeks ago whether something was a sign from Saturn he wanted a donation made to a specific food bank, and you said it likely was. I went ahead, made the donation, using nine sets of three items off the list of most needed items, and the blessings he has been sending into my life went into overdrive as soon as I put the bag of food outside my door. I think it's safe to say that he did in fact want that donation made, and was quite pleased with it.

Second, this Friday, I missed the normal hour I've been doing planetary charity, which was less than ideal, but there was another one available at 3:30 in the morning. I set an alarm, got up in the middle of the night, made the donation to Venus, and went right back to bed. I think it's clear she was very, very happy with it, since she's been pouring her blessings into my life in an unmistakable way over the past few days.

Both of these, of course, are making it quite easy to see what you meant about the planets as beings: I got Saturn's attention, and he asked me to do something specific for him in exchange for his help, and is now busy helping me with the problem I'm asking for his help with; and Venus is showing that she appreciates the extra effort I made, getting out of bed in the middle of the night to do the donation as promised.

Both of these, of course, suggest that a more systematic effort to talk to the planets might be in order, to let them know what I'm asking for in more detail, and to find out what they'd like from me in exchange for their assistance, which, I suppose, means I've just realized adding prayers to my planetary charity is likely to be a good idea.

[ecosophia]

Excellent! Yes, prayer is always a good idea. You can start with the Orphic hymns to Saturn and Venus, if those interest you, and add your own words afterward; I know quite a few people who do that.