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

Dante's "Inferno"

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Do you know if Dante Alighieri was either an occultist or was aware of some occult teachings/knowledge?

In the universe of "Inferno," the damned are able to see far into the future, but are unaware of the present, and that after Judgment Day, when there is no longer any future, the intellects of the damned will be rendered void:

“Ah, so may your soul sometime have rest,”
I begged him, “solve the riddle that pursues me
Through this dark place and leaves my mind perplexed:
You seem to see in advance all time’s intent,
If I have heard and understood correctly;
But you seem to lack all knowledge of the present.”
“We see asquint, like those whose twisted sight
Can make out only the far-off,” he said,
“for the King of All still grants us that much light.
When things draw near, or happen, we perceive
Nothing of them. Except what others bring us
We have no news of those who are alive.
So may you understand that all we know
Will be dead forever from that day and hour
When the Portal of Future is swung to.”
(Canto 10, John Ciardi translation)

I am curious if this is a singular invention by Dante, or if some occult traditions are in general agreement with the above description.

Thanks,
Eugene

Re: Dante's "Inferno"

[ecosophia]

As far as I know, that was common knowledge in Dante's time, when theology was taken far more seriously than it is today. Quite a bit of what now counts as occult philosophy was known to most if not all educated people back then -- a measure of just how far we've slid in our obsessive fixation on controlling matter.