Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just past 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'm still tracing my lineage in photographs. At some point after the death of Bishop Shaw, a question arose about the legitimacy of the apostolic succession of the Universal Gnostic Church. John Gilbert arranged to settle the matter in the traditional way by receiving sub conditione consecration from Archbishop Herman Adrian Spruit of the Church of Antioch; that's Archbishop Spruit in the photo. Sub conditione?  That's the technical term for a second consecration given to a bishop in case the original one didn't have valid lineage, and Spruit was the man to give it. 

He was born in 1911 and started out his religious career as a Methodist minister, but he became convinced that a more sacramental and less dogmatic approach to Christianity was needed, and so he joined the Independent Sacramental Movement and was consecrated as an independent bishop. At that time there were sixteen different lineages of apostolic succession outside the control of the established churches, and squabbles between independent bishops about the validity of the different lines were common. Spruit ended that in an exceptionally graceful way. He arranged to be consecrated sub conditione in all of the lineages, and then conferred the same consecration on any bishop or qualified candidate for the episcopacy who requested it. These days practically every bishop in the Independent Sacramental Movement has all sixteen lines -- yes, including me -- and the squabbles are over. Bishop Spruit's Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch remains an active independent church, and so do many of the other independent churches who received his blessing. 

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 See you next week!***

Comments

celebrating the winter solstice

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

I am wondering if you (and anyone else who is so inspired) might offer some simple suggestions for celebrating the winter solstice in a family context.

Thank you.

Re: celebrating the winter solstice

[(Anonymous)]

Celebrating a family Solstice...I recently posted an article on my website with suggestions for Heathen Yuletide, but many of the suggestions will work just fine for other forms of Pagan observance and celebration. Most of the suggestions are very family-oriented, including the Sunwait, playing games, telling stories, and suggestions for arranging gift-giving in a different way than the usual Christmas-day scramble, focusing as much on the 'giving' as on the 'getting' for children (and everyone!).

I don't know what the policy here is, for adding links to our comments. If my link doesn't come through, you can find this article by searching for my website "HeathenSoulLore.net" and then looking for "Ideas for Celebrating Heathen Yule" in the list on the right sidebar.

https://heathensoullore.net/ideas-for-celebrating-heathen-yule/

I hope you and your family and everyone here enjoys a beautiful Yuletide season!

Winifred Hodge Rose

Re: celebrating the winter solstice

[jprussell]

Thank you for sharing this, there's a lot of great ideas here, and I especially appreciate your suggestions on being flexible with the needs and customs of kin, friends, and the broader culture.

One further custom that can fit the extended Yuletide that my household has been practicing some years now: on New Years Eve, we build a fire and we hand out cards to anyone joining us. On the cards, we write down anything we want to let go of as the year closes, and maybe things that we want to bring forward into the new year, and then we put the card in the fire. Everyone is free to share what they wrote, or not.

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: celebrating the winter solstice

[ecosophia]

First, anything your family habitually does for Christmas can be done four days early for the winter solstice.

Second, a hearty meal is always a good way to celebrate anything.

Third, anything that relates to winter is a good thing to put into your solstice celebration.

Re: celebrating the winter solstice

[hearthculture]

A thought - in many indigenous cultures, story is guarded and meted out slowly over the year. The winter solstice story is about darkness having increased to it's greatest extent and light returning. Sooo many of the stories in our modern media focus on this theme - light triumphing over darkness. Many of us are inundated in story and numb to media. Whether books, movies, ballads, or stories told around a fire, you can pick some stories that you only tell at certain times of year and this will imbue them with more power and help your family to recognize each part of the year. The cool thing is it can be any story really as long as it captures the meaning of this time of year for your family.