Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's a little after 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 picture?  I'm working my way through photos of my lineage, focusing on the teachers whose work has influenced me. Before Gladys Plummer, last week's honoree, became head of the Societas Rosicruciana in America, her husband George Winslow Plummer was the head of the order. For all practical purposes, he was also the founder; his teacher Sylvester Gould, whom we'll discuss next week, started the ball rolling, but Gould died suddenly in 1909 and Plummer picked up the pieces and went from there. Plummer was an enthusiastic Freemason and had received Rosicrucian initiation from Gould, but not a complete system of teaching or initiation; he created those by close but not uncritical study of the Rosicrucian and occult literature of his time, and tried to find common ground between occult teaching and science. He was also a devout if eccentric Christian, and ended up being consecrated as a bishop in an independent church with connections to the Orthodox churches. Though I don't share his religion, he's one of the role models from whom I've tried to learn.

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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 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

[gullindagan]

Two questions, firstly, in last week's MM (which I didn't have time to read until the next day) you responded to the first question by Andrew Skeen thusly: "If you've got the skills to do an astrological talisman, make and consecrate one when the sun and moon are both in good aspect to your friend's natal Jupiter, or to the ruler of his 10th house, and the ruler of his 5th house (the house of children) is well dignified. You can also look for a good aspect with any benefic planet to appropriate planets in his chart. If this is above your skill set, invoke Jupiter using prayer and planetary charity. Jupiter is the planet of benevolent justice and will help everything work out for the best."

Where did you get this strategy? Is it basically your innovation using regular electional rules or is there a traditional source for this type of astrological magic?

2: This is less a magic question and more a writing question, but I'm working on the Heathen Golden Dawn and trying to decide how much source text to add. IE whether to put in out-of-copyright translations of Voluspa, etc, whether to put in sections on the runes and rune poems, or just tell the student to buy copies of both of the Eddas, a couple good books on runes, etc. What is your opinion? (also to everybody else, would you rather a slimmed down, just to the point book or a monstrous tome, or something in between?)

Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

Just my mileage, but if I were going to buy such a book, I would rather the relevant material was incorporated into it. That way I wouldn't have to hunt all over the market trying to find copies of the reference material. I had quite a hunt before I could find a used copy of The Cosmic Doctrine, for example.

In addition, taking the long view, if your book survives 500 years from now and copies of the Eddas and runelore don't, then if these are in your book, you have preserved them. There are several items from say, ancient Greece, that survive today only because some Roman quoted them in his work and the Roman's work is what survived.

Thanks, Cicada Grove

[booklover1973]

An example for the advice of Anonymous would be the Dolmen Arch course, where the parts of the Mabinogion, which are relevant to the meditation exercises of that course, are included.

[gullindagan]

Thank you, very good points!

[lincoln_lynx]

I for one get annoyed when a writer could conceivably put something in but makes me get the information elsewhere. A certain Hoodoo outlet does a horrendous job of this where their books end up being glorified pamphlets with recommended reading lists.

[gullindagan]

Fair!

[jprussell]

I'm with Cicada Grove above - I think that including at least the essential material is a good idea, especially if you intend the book to be a full course of study the way, say, the Dolmen Arch books are. That being said, I think it's totally legitimate to be like "here's some basic Rune meanings to get you started, but there's a ton of material out there, starting with this list of sources." Another option might be to give very barebones stuff in the main HGD book, and then write a separate book that goes more in-depth on things like passages from Voluspa for meditation or meanings of the Runes or the like (I'm thinking here of how JMG has separated Learning Ritual Magic from a more in-depth discussion of the Cabala in Paths of Wisdom, or how the Druidry Handbook has more on the Ogham Fews and on Druid lore than the Druid Magic Handbook does.

Cheers,
Jeff

[gullindagan]

Right, if I do it Dolmen Arch style, it'll be a big boo. And I would think any body serious about this would already have the Eddas, or could get them free online, but it is also nice to have everything in one book.

[ecosophia]

1) It's my innovation, based on workings I've done that had good results.

2) By all means put the texts into your book! Nice fat tomes are a joy to every occultist, you know. ;-)

Seriously, I'd encourage you to include the important sections of the Eddas, the rune poems, etc., and also tell readers to go pick up their own copies as well.

[gullindagan]

Ok, thank you!

[ari_ormstunga]

I'd prefer a monstrous tome, if I can get it in hardcover.