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 picture?  I'm working my way through photos of my lineage, focusing on the teachers whose work has influenced me. Sylvester Gould, last week's honoree, was an active member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, one of the more interesting occult orders of the late 19th century. (After many reorganizations, it's still around as the Church of Light aka Brotherhood of Light.) The H.B. of L., as most people called it back in the day, was founded by two British occultists, T.H. Burgoyne and Peter Davidson. The photo is of Burgoyne. It's also the photo of another gentleman, one Captain Norman Astley, who took over the reorganized H.B. of L. in America from Burgoyne, married another H.B. of L. adept -- the remarkable and talented Genevieve Stebbins -- and helped Benjamin Williams aka Elbert Benjamine aka C.C. Zain re-reorganize the H.B. of L. into the Brotherhood of Light aka Church of Light. Yes, Burgoyne and Astley were the same person. It's a complicated story. But Burgoyne and Peter Davidson, whom we'll be talking about next week, were among Sylvester Gould's teachers -- and behind them stands another and a considerably stranger figure.

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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 either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) 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 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

Re: Asian folklore

[ecosophia]

Hmm! Thanks for this. These sound interesting.

Re: Day by Day

[ecosophia]

Yes, emphatically. You're facing the test that will determine whether or not you become a mage. If you persevere -- if you keep doing those practices exactly as you're doing them now, no matter how dreary or opaque they seem to you -- you'll come out the other side, and then doors will start to open for you.

Everyone I know who's taken up magical practices has faced this same experience, and of course I certainly have. It sucks -- but knowing that it's a test, and knowing that all you have to do to pass it is to keep trudging onward, can help.

[ecosophia]

Regular meditation helps a lot with this. That's the one thing I've found most useful.

Mundane Astrology: How far ahead?

[milkyway1]

Good evening,

And thank you very much for hosting another Magic Monday - this is a real treasure trove. I hope you and your wife had a pleasant start into the week! :-)

How far ahead can one reasonably look with mundane astrology?

My understanding is that one needs a certain background knowledge about the current situation of a country etc to do meaningful predictions - or putting it differently, the further one would look into the future, the less fine-grained the predictions would become.

But could mundane astrology also be used a bit further out in the future to get a very general idea about some „coarse-grained“ stuff which will happen in a country‘s future?

As an example: There are predictions talking about a „war cycle“ in upcoming years, say the second half of this decade. If somebody simply wanted to check the most important mundane astrology „markers“ for war in their country, could this be done five to ten years ahead? Or do you think it would be hard to predict even major trends this far out?

(And yep, I‘m aware that this would be assuming that the capital would stay the same and the country wouldn‘t break up or otherwise rearrange in a major way… ;-) )

Milkyway

PS: I‘ve skimmed through the mundane posts on subscribestar, but haven‘t worked with the material yet. Subscribestar makes printing it a royal pain, so I‘ve decided to wait for your book. Apologies if you‘ve already covered this question somewhere in your posts there and I missed it!

Re: Asian folklore

[robertmathiesen]

I very much liked Frena Bloomfield's books on Chinese occult and magical/spiritual lore: The Occult World of Hong Kong (1980) and The Book of Chinese Beliefs (1983). The first was published in Hong Kong, the second in New York. IIRC, she lived in Hong Kong and China for very many years, and to judge by her books, had learned to read and speak Chinese.

the value of Mystery Schools

[(Anonymous)]

I have been interested in esoteric studies for several years and have allowed my curiosity to guide my intellectual wandering. Lately however, I am feeling that this approach is leading nowhere in particular. I have recently learned about The Modern Mystery School, which would offer me a more structured approach to the information, but also requires incremental financial investments for healing and training milestones/levels of advancement.

If you have any knowledge about this group, would you please provide me with any impressions or opinions that you may have? Thank you for any guidance you may be able to offer, I appreciate it.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you once again for hosting Magic Monday!

I am curious about your thoughts on where the Western occult / magical community is headed. I have been thinking about this after reading some of your work and learning that magical lodges were once all the rage, but gave way to Wicca and covens, for instance. It's difficult for me to see the current iteration of neo-paganism having any kind of lasting roots, for a wide variety of reasons.

Re: Curses

[ecosophia]

You never gain anything by stooping to negative magic. Partly it's a matter of unity of will, the most important factor in magic. If someone's threatening your livelihood, what's your will? To preserve your livelihood. Cursing the perp is a distraction. Put all your intention into succeeding in your business or career. Let the magic work out the means -- and if it really is the perp who's the problem, they'll suddenly have to move to the other side of the continent, or get a new job with no contact with you, or what have you. (Yes, this has happened in cases involving me, quite reliably.)

But there's also what I like to call the Raspberry Jam Principle. Magical energy is like raspberry jam; you can't spread it on anything else without getting it on your own fingers. If you're going to curse someone, you have to make contact with the nasty energies involved, and those energies are sticky; they'll affect you as well as your target. The more often you engage in nasty magic, the more of the same energies you'll get on you, and the more miserable your life will become. You can really, thoroughly trash your life that way. I've watched it happen, rather more than once.

Instead, concentrate on positive energies. Take the example mentioned above, where someone's trying to wreck your livelihood. If you focus your magical efforts on success and achievement and prosperity, what kind of energies stick to you? Why, energies of success, achievement, and prosperity. This is also why a lot of old-fashioned occultists go out of their way to do magical blessings and healings; they know that some of that blessing and healing energy will do the raspberry jam trick and stick to them. That approach works, and works well. Give it a try!

Heathen SOP and some more CosDoc

[(Anonymous)]

I am currently compiling a heathen version of the SOP translated into German. I have a few small questions regarding the symbolism and the translation of certain words:

1) Some symbols like "hawk of may" have a strong association to the Arthurian legend. I am thinking of something that fits better to heathen mythology but it might take some time. I think I'll take them as they are for a start and change them once I found something else. Do you see any problem with this?

2) Translation of "power/powers": There are two different possibilities to translate. One is "Macht", the other is "Kraft" (which could also be translated back as "forces"). Do you make any difference between the two? In German - as I think also in English? - both can be used in a personalized way, e.g. "die Kräfte der Natur" can be conscious beings, just like "die Mächte der Natur". Are the "forces of air" principally the same as the "powers of air"?

3) Translation of "spirit below/above": A direct translation would sound rather silly, I think. A possible translation could be "Geist der Erde" (spirit of the earth) and "Geist der/des Himmels" (spirit of the heavens). Is that what you mean with below/above?

4) Translation of "telluric current": A direct translation would be "Strom der Erde" which I somehow don't find very fitting. You mean streams of energy, I guess, so I'd rather invoke "Energiestrom der Erde". I don't see a big difference besides the sound... Does anything speak against this?

5) CosDoc: The statements about the omnipotence of a Great Entity in relation to the universe it creates seem somehow contradictory at a first glance, since it is explained afterwards that the Great Entity does depend on the reaction of the atoms gathered around it, when it projects its concept of itself. From that I conclude that the Great Entity and the Universe are not the same thing and that the Universe exists in some way outside the Great Entity. So omnipotence would not mean that it can do as it likes within the universe, but that the universe can't change the Entity so it is "free of conditioning influence". And when I say "outside" that doesn't mean outside the universes "ring-pass-not", but that the Great Entity IS the universes ring-pass-not, ring-chaos and ring-cosmos. It provides the location, but we are the ones to dance there, so to say?

Thank's a lot, and best wishes to you for the new year!

Greetings,
Nachtgurke

[(Anonymous)]

I really, seriously, truly do not to be right here....

Re: New Year's Symbel

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Jeff, thanks for posting this! While I don't plan to blog each week so didn't "join" in on the third, I did participate in the first two heartily (though I am not a heathen the principles and relationships you highlight poetically are ones I can relate to in my own way) and lifted a fine glass of honey-fortified local cider, which I thought a most appropriate beverage for such a purpose.

I offer my blessings and best wishes to you as well, with gratitude for your open and forthcoming participation here and elsewhere on the various JMG-net presences.

- Dijon Tangential Gnome (today)

Re: Mundane Astrology: How far ahead?

[ecosophia]

That's a very interesting question, but it's not one I've seen discussed in the traditional literature. The only long term cycles that seem to get much discussion there are the great conjunctions of outer planets. That doesn't mean that "war cycles" and the like aren't potentially valid; it's just that I've been focusing on reviving the traditional approach to mundane charts, and the literature I've seen rarely looks more than a year or two ahead.

[(Anonymous)]

Shouldn't cats also have individual souls? If there's any non-verbal animal that's individual, it's a cat.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

Re: D&D as the Road to Perdition

[(Anonymous)]

As a D&D playing teenager in the 1980s, I would ask people ranting about it what they thought of non-fantasy games like Top Secret, The Morrow Project, and Traveller. Responses were often negative – the games didn’t include “real” religion or did include powers of the mind and fictional religions. Since the relevant strain of Protestantism didn’t survive the Clinton administration as a political force, I think that they were very much afraid of their own imaginations in an ears-covered-la-la-la-can’t-hear-you way because they knew their movement was about over.
Rather fits some of the stranger middle-class behavior that's popular right now, too.
Rhydlyd

Re: the value of Mystery Schools

[ecosophia]

My interactions with it were brief, and quite a while ago. I wasn't impressed at all, and the money end of things was part of the reason why. Most esoteric schools require some kind of financial support, for obvious reasons -- somebody has to pay for the secretarial help, lessons, etc. -- but if you're looking at more than a couple of hundred dollars a year at most, it's pretty likely that the point of the exercise is to make money, not to teach occult wisdom.

[(Anonymous)]

Something else profoundly troubling just hit me: I refused the vaccine on the basis of the fact my intuition was screaming it would be fatal. A lot of the weirdness of 2021 makes much more sense if a lot of people took the vaccines because</I their intuition was saying the same thing; everything ranging from the frantic nonsensical defences, to the rush to get it, to the adamant insistence everyone needed to take it without exception....

[ecosophia]

My take is that the Neopagan movement has passed its peak and is contracting rapidly. Over the last ten years, quite a number of Pagan conferences have folded, most of the little "witch shops" that used to be found in most cities have gone out of existence, and publishers are beginning to rein back on books on the subject. Where now? Good question, but I've noticed that quite a few people seem to be becoming interested in old-fashioned magical lodges and correspondence courses again. Still, we'll see.

[ecosophia]

Um, in what way did I or the commenter imply that they didn't?

[(Anonymous)]

Someone else posted on Kimberly Steele's journal wondering what to make of something else surprisingly similar: https://kimberlysteele.dreamwidth.org/80368.html?replyto=2803440

Re: Ecosophia Prayer List

[ecosophia]

Nope. My take has always been that the prayer that matters most is the one that comes from your own heart, in your own words.

[ecosophia]

It's related, but you can take more time and go more deeply into the problematic bits, and thus do more to clear them up. You also may have the time and opportunity to work on tangles from previous lives and get those cleaned up as well.

[ataulfo]

Why is enochian magic so controversial?

Re: Skinwalker ranch

[(Anonymous)]

As a side note, i wanted to ask the same question. So a most interesting coincidence.

-Spork -

Re: Heathen SOP and some more CosDoc

[ecosophia]

1) No problem at all. The Arthurian legends, for what it's worth, were very popular in medieval Germany -- cough, cough, Wolfram von Eschenbach, cough, cough -- so the symbolism is definitely naturalized there.

2) I would use "Kraft" rather than "Macht," as to my ear "Kraft" has the connotation of effective forces, not just power that could be expended in vain.

3) Geist der Erde and Geist der Himmels would work very well.

4) That would be fine. I assume it would also be Energiestrom der Himmels?

5) That's certainly my take on it.

[ecosophia]

Because some people have had very bad results with it. I don't recommend it at all for beginners; it's a potent system, but you need to know what you're doing before you take it up.