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. I'm going to jump back here a bit because I managed to trace down another significant figure from a lineage I've already discussed. Bishop Richard, Duc de Palatine was an Australian spiritual teacher and Gnostic bishop who played a crucial role in bringing the alternative sacramental movement to the United States, and strongly influenced both of the bishops who consecrated John Gilbert. Born Ronald Powell in 1916, he became a member of the Theosophical Society and then a bishop in the Liberal Catholic Church. After the Second World War he moved to Britain and founded the Pre-Nicene Christian Church, one of the major fountainheads of Gnostic Christian spirituality in the English-speaking world, and later traveled widely in the USA and elsewhere, teaching students, ordaining priests, and consecrating bishops, until his death in 1977. I've recently had the chance to study more of his writings and have discovered that he was much more influential a source for the Gnostic material I received than I'd realized -- so he's this week's honoree.

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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

[ecosophia]

I'm going to suggest that you work with the Grove ritual intensively, accept the weird feelings, and see what they have to teach you. Do all your workings with the Grove ritual for the next year, and ask the gods to help you understand the purpose and meaning of the sword. You'll go much further that way.

Re: Dissertation and translation of a mediaeval Spanish geomancy work

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this! I've downloaded it and will be studying it sometime soon.

Re: secret signs

[ecosophia]

I came up with a new set of signs -- that's what John did when he reworked the system he'd been taught. It's a standard part of that kind of reworking, because it allows the new system to have its own group mind and egregor.

Re: Crystalizing the Aura

[open_space]

If the aura is crystallized, does that mean that the practitioner can step outside the cycle of re-birth without a fully developed mental body, comparing it with traditional occultism? How does the process of stepping outside the cycle of rebirth look like for a western magician?

[ataulfo]

I'd like to share a two things.

1) I was a vegan for about six years, including for most of my first year of occult practices, and during that year I got a job that is the epitome of sensory overload. I was constantly worried what others thought about me. I didn't really like meat and still don't, but finally tried including a serving of fish or other meat every day or every other day. The concern with other people's opinions and perceptions immediately diminished to insignificance. A close friend remarked that I had become a "very solid" physical presence, "but not dense."

2) Early in the pandemic I had sleep problems and was dating a stoner, and so I took up smoking weed before bed every night as it gave me control over when I fell asleep. Of course after a year straight of this it didn't work as well, and I didn't really like it. I made sure never to do rituals or meditation under the influence and made a point of avoiding divination while high as well. Nonetheless, I always had disconcerting problems with the banishing visualizations in the SOP, back when I practiced it, which disappeared in early 2022 when I was able to quit smoking for a few months. The sleep problems came back, however, and I had too much anxiety during the day, so I caved and took it up again. Eventually I standardized it to an exact dosage of edible every night; I still woke up and did my practices, and I still made progress despite it not being an ideal situation. I finally had the courage to not get stoned last night, instead taking a large dose of non-intoxicating CBD oil, which I didn't think would put me to sleep based on past experience. In fact, I was out like a light and woke up today pleasantly surprised and feeling more normal than I have in a long time. Doing practices this morning was a whole different ball game, in a good way. I am left wondering where I would be now if I had avoided weed in the first place. That is to say it seems to be a hindrance to deliberate imagination and abstract thinking even when kept separate from my practices, although it does not seem to prevent improvement even given the hindrance.

Thanks and hope this is helpful to someone with similar issues.

[ecosophia]

That's a common mistake. The globalist agenda isn't interested in getting you above the personal level, it's trying to drive you down below the personal level. To rise above the personal level is to integrate the strengths you learned by being a separate personality with the broader insights that come from recognizing your true nature as an expression of the One Life. To be shoved below the personal level is to become a cog in their machine, too terrorized and abused to have any thoughts or dreams of your own.

A person who's come into contact with his or her higher self might choose to live on bugs and own next to nothing -- John the Baptist, for example, lived on locusts and wild honey when he was spending time in the desert praying and meditating -- but it's that person's free choice to do so. No saggy-faced plutocrat is pressuring him or her into it.

[ecosophia]

The carpentry chart says "Yes, you can do this, but you'll hate it." The jewelry chart says "Yes, you can do this, and you'll like it a great deal, but it will lead you in unexpected directions and possibly in some challenging ones." If those are your only two choices, the jewelry one is far and away the better of them.

Re: Company of the Grail Initiation

[ecosophia]

You can certainly do it astrally; I've done so, with good results. I recommend banishing -- and yes, you can do it in an open CGD temple, or in any other similar space. (I worked it originally in a FHR temple.)

Re: Doing Yoga and Tai Chi at the same time.

[ecosophia]

You'd have to ask someone who has experience with yoga, which I don't.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
Thank you for your blogs, books, and Patreon articles.
I submitted myself to a cosmetic procedure that didn't go well. Consequently, I got a headache for many weeks following the procedure. Last Friday in the hour of Venus, I lit a green candle and asked her to relieve me from my headaches. This morning I woke up with no headache - for the first time in weeks. I would like to thank Venus for her help. My plan is for 7 consecutive Fridays in the hour of Venus to donate to a Venusian charity. Questions:
1. What would be an appropriate charity?
2. Anything else that is appropriate to do?
3. My Venus is exalted in Pieces in the 5th house and conjunct Saturn, also in Pieces in the 6th house, Sun in Taurus. Should I take it into account and do something differently because of that?
Thanks,
Kirsten

Re: Properties of water

[ecosophia]

Yes, I'm familiar with his work -- it's been around for quite a few years! I've always assumed that he'd found a new and interesting way to track the effect on ether on matter; there have been some other experiments using equally sensitive chemical processes that had equally intriguing results.

Re: Working with the Qlipoth

[ecosophia]

It's a very challenging but very good book. The idea that humanity can redeem the Qlippoth goes way back in Cabalistic literature; the basic method involves standing goetic methods on their head -- instead of getting demons to cater to our lower desires, we use our connection with the divine to bring them back into balance, especially when they're getting out of hand. This is very difficult work and not for everybody, but I was glad to see Rees' book see print.

[zarbarzun]

Hi JMG

I hope I'm not off topic with this.

I have some questions about sex magic, I read about this and I am new in this topic.
I read aleister crowley but but I don't trust him.

What do you think about of Paschal Beverly Randolph and his book "magia sexualis"?

Are these practices in general dangerous?

I read "ecstasy through tantra" by jonn mumford but he did not convince me in some things, and in others it did hahaha


any recommended books?

Thanks :D

Re: secret signs

[temporaryreality]

Fascinating, thanks!

(Signed in this time)

[ecosophia]

I know basically nothing about it -- my herb lore is almost entirely from European medieval and Renaissance sources, and holy basil wasn't known there at that time. Anyone else?

Re: Writing . . .

[ecosophia]

It would depend very much on the image. If the person believed that the image would have the effect he wanted, he would put that intention into the image and get results, but if the image was magical or religious and had been used before with a different intention, some of that intention would end up getting mixed with his. If it was just something like, oh, a statue of a character from a movie, on the other hand, it would simply serve as a focus for his intention.

Re: Baphomet

[(Anonymous)]

I've had some small experiences with him after a talisman with his image was hung around my neck during a meditation about Solomon's Temple with the instructions to meditate on the meaning (I was flipping out when I looked down and very clearly saw what it was). I would say he is very strong medicine only to be taken 'by prescription ' as it were. He is a very saturnine being that can help a would-be occultist get out of their head and into the rest of their body. He is also the divine androgene uniting male and female, spiritual and material. Of course, many have used that image for less 'idealistic' purposes so I think that mudies the water a bit...

Re: Just a little spark

[(Anonymous)]

I'll offer that Piers Anthony presented a five suit deck - the Spirit Tarot - in his Gods of Tarot Series of 1979. A portion of the work is presented as pathworking meditaions of various cards, at least one of which was considered controversial of its time, and an appendix addressed musings of working with the additional tarot suit

Mercury and Neptune Conjunction

[scottyc]

I was in Denmark recently (highly recommend to go) and noticed a couple of instances in which statues of Mercury and Neptune were placed side by side:

Copenhagen Borsen or stock exchange:
https://www.encirclephotos.com/image/neptune-statue-at-borsen-in-copenhagen-denmark/
Mercury statue is on the other side.

Kronborg Castle
https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/525654587729814904/

Same pairing again at an open air museum of art
https://samlingen.koes.dk/en/works-inpublic-sphere/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=c.c.+peters

Question for Ecosophians is if Mercury and Neptune together has anything to do with the occult sciences, relationship to the royal family at the time or more prosaic as in Mercury was the god of commerce and Neptune the god of the sea and related to Denmark's colonies and mercantile endeavors?

Re: 5 rites

[(Anonymous)]

May I piggyback on this? Some time ago you posted a link to the writings of an old-timey circus strongman,and I've looked through the tags and didn't see a familiar name. Any idea who that might have been? I believe he used isometrics rather than weights, if that helps. Thanks as always.

[francis_tucker]

What is the difference between "gnostic" as used to describe the independent sacramental churches you read about in occult contexts (such as the one John Gilbert brought you into) and first century Gnosticism? I'm guessing that not everyone who self-describes as gnostic or belongs to a tradition with "gnostic" in its name believes that a nasty rogue deity created the physical universe and that being trapped in a fleshly body is an inherently terrible thing; if I'm correct, what does "gnostic' mean when it doesn't mean that?

While I'm asking, what do the two have to do with each other? What do they have in common? Did these traditions at least have the original gnostics in mind when they chose the name, even if the actual beliefs differ?

Re: Writing . . .

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you!

BoysMom

Re: Duc De Palatine?

[ecosophia]

There's a whole complicated subculture of people who have noble titles from countries that no longer exist, or were granted titles by monarchies that have been abolished. That scene has considerable overlaps with various occult and alternative spiritual scenes, and it's not uncommon for occultists and independent bishops to receive titles from the members of the aristocratic fringe. I suspect Duc de Palatine was one of the many titles invented and conferred during Napoleon's day, though it might have been during one of the other French invasions of Germany -- there were a lot of those back in the day.

[ecosophia]

Some mystics, even some very good mystics, are snobbish about certain things. Mouni Sadhu had a lot of excellent advice, but he didn't understand what fiction could do.

[ecosophia]

Yes, you can do two systems at once, so long as you practice them at different times. I'll consider something for the FAQ.