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

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings JMG,

In the GD system, given that the work is structured into successive grades of initiation, is it be possible for someone practicing consistently for an extended period of time to 'outpace' a certain grade, even though they may never have been formally initiated into it (either through self-initiation or more traditional forms)? For example, can someone doing a standard course of practice such as the LBRP + MP + divination + discursive meditation eventually perform at a rate above Neophyte, even though they may never have been initiated into it?

[ecosophia]

Good heavens, yes.

The thing to keep in mind is that the grade structure of any order is to some extent arbitrary -- it's one way of trying to see to it that each student in that order gets a good general education in occult philosophy and practice. If a student takes up the basic practices and performs them relentlessly, especially if their practices include discursive meditation and they also put some time into reading and study of occult books, they're going to end up learning a great deal about occultism and achieving spiritual development, whether or not they do it according to some specific system of grades.

[(Anonymous)]

If I performs the basic practices relentlessly (including discursive meditation) and put significant time into reading and study of occult books, what am I missing out on if I never self-initiate through the various grades (or go through a temple initiation)?

[ecosophia]

The advantages of initiation rituals, self- or otherwise, are that they give you a boost in your development and enable you to make use of certain energies linked to the symbols of the degree. It's as if you were making a long journey on foot, and every so often you got to a place where a bus covers part of the route; you can catch the bus, rest your feet for a while, and get off a few miles further along, or you can just keep walking. You'll get to your destination either way, but taking the initiatory bus when you can gets you there a little sooner and makes the trip a little easier.