Magic Monday
Dec. 25th, 2022 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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 picture? I'm working my way through photos of my lineage, focusing on the teachers whose work has influenced me. George Winslow Plummer, last week's honoree, was the effective founder of the Societas Rosicruciana in America, but he received his Rosicrucian initiation from Sylvester Gould, who would have headed the SRIA had he lived long enough. Born in 1840, Gould was an enthusiastic Freemason and a student of various occult traditions. When the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor refounded itself in the USA as the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, he became its secretary and treasurer, one of the three officers of the Exterior Circle who helped Thomas Burgoyne aka Norman Astley and the talented Genevieve Stebbins (later Mrs. Astley) keep the order going. We'll talk about them in upcoming weeks -- and also about another fascinating figure who was the source of Gould's Rosicrucian lineage.
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***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***
Complete Old English Poems and World Tree Reading Request
Date: 2022-12-26 05:05 am (UTC)To those who celebrate it, a very Merry Christmas and/or Boxing Day. For everyone, I hope you're keeping warm and putting a satisfying cap on the year.
To Share: I got as a Christmas gift The Complete Old English Poems, translated by Craig Williamson with an introduction by Tom Shippey. It's exactly what the title says: the entire corpus of Old English poems translated into modern English (including, of course, Beowulf). From the bit of reading I've done so far, it looks like the translations are rendered at least mostly in the alliterative style of Old English poetry. Most of the poems are Christian, given who was literate in the Anglo-Saxon period, but there's also a lot of material for those interested in Anglo-Saxon flavored Heathenry. It also is an attractive weighty tome that will take up a satisfying amount of shelf space.
To Ask: For JMG and/or the commentariat: any recommendations for sources that discuss the idea of a "World Tree" a la the Yggdrasil of Norse myth? I have lots of material on the Germanic side of things, but I wonder if there's any interesting comparative reading to do, and I'd be thankful for any avenues to explore.
As always, thanks very much to JMG and everyone here for your time, care, and wisdom.
To any who will have them, I put forth my blessings and best wishes,
Jeff
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 05:13 am (UTC)I have cold showers, banishing rituals, and prayer, along side using more natural cleaning supplies (which are often based on vinegar) instead of the synthetic and unhealthy stuff, but would welcome any other advice you have.
A practical question
Date: 2022-12-26 05:23 am (UTC)But how can I use magic to help it? The advice I found so far falls into two categories:
1. Summon spirits and/or demons to bring you wealth, no strings attached, pinky promise.
2. New thought and creative visualization. Just imagine yourself rich, already possessing all you want.
How would you advice to go about it, JMG? It is a question that many would like to know an answer to, I'm sure.
P.S. Belatedly I wish you a Happy Winter Solstice, Alban Arthuan. I hope you enjoyed it.
Re: Complete Old English Poems and World Tree Reading Request
Date: 2022-12-26 05:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 05:43 am (UTC)And we can always come here. I find JMG’s sites relaxing, inspiring, and educational. Not bad for free.
—Princess Cutekitten
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 05:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 05:49 am (UTC)No questions today but thought of sharing these two graffities I spotted on Mexico's street. Cthulhu with Quetzalcoatl's feathers I found funny.
Wishing everyone happy holidays and solstice celebrations!
Re: A practical question
Date: 2022-12-26 05:57 am (UTC)Financial planning, all by itself, won't do you much good, either. It's a good idea, but it's hopelessly insufficient. You need more money, not just less waste of the money you have.
No, an effective magical method to become wealthy focuses on finding opportunities to earn money. That's the difference between people who start out poor and get rich, and people who start out poor and stay there: the people who get rich are always looking for opportunities to earn more money. You can use affirmations to get your mind primed to spot opportunities -- "I see opportunities to earn money all around me" repeated fifty or a hundred times daily, like a mantra, will get your subconscious going. Then make a conscious effort to follow through, and when you spot an opportunity that you can reasonably pursue, do it. (That's the place where most people fall flat -- they learn to spot opportunities and then just daydream them away.)
It's easy to become as wealthy as you want to be. All you have to do is focus your entire will on that one goal, and take concrete actions every single day to bring it about. If anything gets in the way of that goal, set it aside for now. If you make a buck, think, "How can I use this dollar to make more money?" -- and then do it. Do this day in and day out, and you'll be wealthy far sooner than you can imagine.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 05:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 06:00 am (UTC)Since affirmations seem to be turning into a theme for this week's Magic Monday, I'm going to invite everyone who feels inspired to do this to come up with an affirmation focusing on having an unexpectedly successful and happy year in 2023. Don't share it -- it's stronger if kept secret. Simply come up with one and start repeating it from now until the new year dawns...and see what happens.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 06:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 06:16 am (UTC)The one and only. Quetzal means precious, and Cthulhu definitely seems to be feeling it! Which would make him "precious knowledge of the earth". Otherwise known as Cthuthulkan.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 07:00 am (UTC)—Princess Cutekitten
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 07:01 am (UTC)—Princess Cutekitten
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 07:07 am (UTC)Re: A practical question
Date: 2022-12-26 07:26 am (UTC)May I ask for your advice and help with this. I have recently spotted an opportunity to get my family out of a financial bind, but as you say I literally daydream hours away on imagining what it would look like and not doing the research, training and building required to put it into action.
Alchemy, Dolmen Arch, Bardon
Date: 2022-12-26 07:46 am (UTC)Thanks as always for this space to ask questions.
1. Are there any concerns with doing The Dolmen Arch and Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics at the same time? Ordered the IIH but won't be getting it for a while. I am about to finish the DA in a few months and plan to immediately repeat the course. My thought was to do the DA in the morning and the IIH later in the day.
2. Plant and herbal alchemy have recently caught my interest as far as spiritual growth and development purposes. Would you expect an alchemist to be of value post-modern medicine? Would the role be similar to one practicing herbal medicine?
Not a question:
Discursive meditation is very satisfying! Even chasing down the rabbit trails of distractions has been valuable for me.
Thanks again!
Eric
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 09:40 am (UTC)What should I do? The work environment is nasty, but the relatively high pay for my country allows me to import your books...
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 09:53 am (UTC)- seemingly attached to a particular person, and active at their home and other places they stay
- also aggressively targeting their close loved ones with poltergeist behaviour, menacing vibes and touching
- absolutely unfazed that the person has had a daily Celtic Golden Dawn practice for years
- not deterred by natural magic e.g. amulets, vinegar in a bowl, blessing the home with frankincense and prayer through every room
It seemed to be particularly fired up about a recent romance but the activity continued after that ended.
Time to call in the pros?
(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 10:20 am (UTC)1) You wrote earlier to another commenter about the example of focusing the will on earning money, and finding opportunities to do so. If my overarching goal was, instead of earning money, to individuate, then how would I apply a unified will in my daily life to do so?
2) I wonder if individuation is a lifelong goal, and would be better broken up into a sequence of smaller goals? Although individuation seems to imply that at some point everyone's way of doing so will be unique to them.
3) There is a latin term I've seen here before, something like ipsiminus or something, that means something like 'most completely oneself'. I also forget where it comes from, if it is the result of a certain magical or spiritual tradition. Is that the same thing as individuation?
4) Leading from that, is the goal of the mage and the person who wants to individuate the same thing? I always thought that magic is a tool, which can be applied toward this goal, but it isn't limited to that. I ask, because what Levi seems to describe in Doctrine and Ritual is becoming independent of harmful currents in the astral light, which seems to imply some sort of individuation.
Many thanks!
Frater achad
Date: 2022-12-26 10:23 am (UTC)Have you ever read the rather innovative essay on sacred geometry and the tree of life called “The anatomy of the body of god” by Frater Achad? If so what are your thoughts?
The winter storm
Date: 2022-12-26 11:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 12:11 pm (UTC)If it is true that during the phase between death and birth you integrate past experiences and evolve, and that when you meditate you enter a state where you deal with things that are subjective and feelings arising from internal conditions, could one say then that meditation is an approach to mimic the phase between death and birth to hasten evolution?
Another question linked to meditative, evolutionary states: I know from first-hand experience that you can enter such states "accidentally" and I have a few experiences where I managed to enter such a state more or less voluntarily. But I also know from first-hand experience that there are humans who are capable of putting others in such states if they are willing. In my case, I experienced this in the presence of a healer, who during the sessions managed to do this for a group of clients all at once. There was an openly ritualistic component to this, of course, but I am pretty sure that if I was silly enough to try the same with a group of people, not much would happen. The healer had a strong background in magic, so much I understood by now. And I have to add that I am not trying to ask "how do I do this?" but more "how do I get there?" or "what's behind it?". I understand there comes a great responsibility with such capabilities, so they are probably not developed and even less applied lightly.
Greetings,
Nachtgurke
Re: A practical question
Date: 2022-12-26 12:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-12-26 12:39 pm (UTC)