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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With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now CLOSED. See you next week!***

Comments

[open_space]

Hello there JPM,

I really like this! After all, if our Gruppenführers keep us in survival mode, that activates the sympathetic system which destines resources to fight or flight, instead of higher order thinking like reflection and thought-out decision making. That is rather convenient if you want to herd people instead of having individuals that think and act by themselves.

We are dying and living at every moment --every inhalation and exhalation even!-- so removing the hooks that make us think we have to be running like rats all the time to pursue artificial goals to arrive at somewhere we can consider 'safe' is perhaps one of the greatest forms of rebellion. 'What do you mean you are not selling your soul to buy an overly-sized house and a new car (phone) every year like every other person?' For what, to draw symbols in the air and intone words of power? Yes :-).

I like the navigation analogy too, always on the move carrying the essentials and ready to take the next step if necessary.

Happy meditations!

--Puce Meditative Squid

Navigating / Return to the Trunk

[(Anonymous)]

Open_Space,

I'm glad you found that useful. I thought some more of the article as I went about my day and recalled he also mentioned something that he found useful from C.S. Lewis that he had read in his twenties...

"There was this image of life as a tree and each decision we made was a branch. And then every decision we made, once we were on that branch, were smaller branches and smaller branches until you got down to the twigs. The author explained that if you are on the wrong branch, if you made a bad decision, you have to go back to the trunk – because once you’re on that branch, every decision will be wrong. That was such a great thing for me. I was just navigating, I made a mistake, so I have to go back to the trunk. Because back at the trunk, life – simple life – is always right."

So yeah, navigating, and returning to the trunk as needed, before going on a different branch.

I like the images you posted to anon as well up above and I also like what you said here too:

"removing the hooks that make us think we have to be running like rats all the time to pursue artificial goals to arrive at somewhere we can consider 'safe' is perhaps one of the greatest forms of rebellion."

It can be weird when you don't chase the same rats as everyone else who is running around. But it can also be peaceful.

This is also useful to me as a reminder that when the prevailing winds aren't blowing towards the direction I've set for myself, their is probably a trick or too that sailors know for staying on course.

Umber Fuzzy Raccoon / JPM

Re: Navigating / Return to the Trunk

[open_space]

The quote works very well for the discussion below too.

It can certainly be peaceful, especially when you realize 'in' is the only way 'out' and perhaps sometimes that means docking at port for a while with provisions and a few bottles of rum as reserve.

--Periwinkle Slithy Piglet