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 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

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I spent some time this weekend reading about enantiodromia, and also reflecting on compassion, and the OSA aims of experiencing joy, happiness, and peace rather than fear, sadness, and anger. A few questions arose.

1. Enantiodromia implies a switching between opposites. If I am compassionate, then I am choosing to not be cruel. If I try to be compassionate all the time, on the basis of being unconditionally loving, then am I repressing the infinite hatred that leads to cruelty? Wouldn't that which is repressed swing back into my actions due to enantiodromia?

2. I was in a great mood over the weekend, and caught myself thinking that I am feeling joyful in that moment. Therefore, due to the law of enantiodromia, I will eventually, in hours or days, feel the opposite (fear or sorrow). Therefore, in moments of joy, does it make more sense to temper that feeling in favor of calmness to avoid the enantiodromia? But then, that would imply that I am repressing joy.

3. Is this sense of being caught in the thrall of joy or sorrow one of the things Levi means by not getting caught in the currents? As in, these are the biases we are meant to watch out for?

4. We try to feel to joy, peace, and happiness rather than anger, fear, and unhappiness. Yet compassion implies feeling these things on the behalf of others. That is made more apparent if I realize that everyone and everything else is a reflection of the Divine, as am I, so this being's pain is my own pain. Yet I am trying to maintain a sense of peacefulness, which would be contrary to feeling of compassion. How does one reconcile this?

5. Is it theoretically possible (I can't think of a practical example) of finding balance between two poles and then finding that this point of balance is actually a point of imbalance on another continuum?

6. My last question is practical: I work with the DMH, and the Wheel of the Year. I am also meditating on the Tree of Life. I don't believe there are any issues with studying the Tree of Life, it is only when using the Tree in practical magic that there are conflicts due to the differences in systems, is that right?

Happy New Year's to you and the commentariat here!

And thank you!

[ecosophia]

1-5) It's entirely possible to get yourself tied up in all kinds of ornate knots by this sort of reflection. That is to say, you're overthinking it on the grand scale. Relax, and simply focus on having less misery and more happiness in your life.

6) There should be no problem with that at all.