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. A few weeks ago I posted a photo of Sylvester Gould, Rosicrucian initiator of George Winslow Plummer and one of the managing triad of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor (H.B. of L.) when it reformed in the United States. Gould always claimed that he'd received his own Rosicrucian initiation as a young man in the United States, however. He never named his initiator -- that was something you didn't do in those days -- but there was precisely one Rosicrucian teacher in this country at that time. Yes, that would be the astonishing force of nature, Paschal Beverly Randolph, the first internationally famous African-American occultist, about whom I've written at length here.

Randolph was also the source of much of the core material taught by the H.B. of L., so Gould's presence as a leading member of that body makes additional sense. It's also noteworthy that the SRIA, the Rosicrucian order Gould helped start and Plummer carried on, had a mutual recognition agreement with Randolph's student Freeman Dowd, whose Temple of the Rosy Cross later became the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis; that's rare among Rosicrucian orders, but it makes sense if their traditions had a common source. So there's good reason to think that this end of my lineage passes through Randolph's inimitable hands.

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

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.

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

Comments

Predicting WW2

[(Anonymous)]

In The Twilight of Pluto, you explain that a group of British astrologers announced in 1939 that there would be no war that year. (And of course--spoiler alert--they were wrong.) In a footnote you say there were obvious indications of war which these astrologers misread because of their political prejudices. Can you say more about why they got it so badly wrong? What did they misread, and why?

Thanks very much!

Re: Predicting WW2

[ecosophia]

My forthcoming book on mundane astrology covers that in great detail. The short form is that they failed to notice a hard square between Mars and an angular Moon -- a major traditional signal for war -- and they also failed to notice a mutual reception between Mars and Saturn, which gave both planets a great deal of strength. As for why -- well, one of the ugly secrets of English society before the Second World War is that a lot of people were highly sympathetic to Nazi Germany, and several leading astrologers (including Charles E.O. Carter, the head of the group we're discussing) were among them. In his editorial in the issue of an astrology mag that was on the newsstands when war broke out, he insisted that there should be no hostility at all between Britain and Germany because, ahem, they were so racially similar...

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG -

Do divinations 'expire'? In other words is there a window of time that I can successfully follow through on the result? For example, if I get a positive horary reading for relocating to a certain place, is that reading good until I'm able to make the move, regardless of how long it might take?

Thanks,
Dave

[ecosophia]

It really varies. Some divinations seem to be good for the long term, and others are not. I recommend that your question should always include a time element to take this into account: e.g., "Should I relocate to such-and-such a place in the next year?"

The 'Mark of the Wells' and Thanks

[jprussell]

Good Evening,

I hope everyone's year is settling into a good rhythm!

To Share: A little while back, I asked about self-blessing/protective prayers in the style of the "Sign of the Cross". I've now written up my very early thoughts on such a prayer in a Heathen context, the "Mark of the Wells": https://jpowellrussell.com/#mark_of_the_wells

To Ask: Nothing to ask this week, so let me just say again thank you for this wonderful space!

As always, thanks very much to JMG and everyone else here.

To any who will have them, I put forth my blessings and best wishes,
Jeff

Re: The 'Mark of the Wells' and Thanks

[ecosophia]

You're welcome and thank you!

[ataulfo]

Am I correct in understanding that a mode of perfection in a geomatic chart doesn't indicate that one should do something, just that it would work if you tried?

[ecosophia]

That's correct. If the two significators are favorable figures, it means you can do it and the result will be good; if it's unfavorable, it means you can do it but the results will be unwelcome. Whether you do it or not, in either case, is entirely up to you.

Ecosophia Prayer List

[tunesmyth]

To those who are interested, here are all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared across the Ecosophia community. Please feel free to add any or all of them to your prayers.

If I missed anybody on the full list, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom you hold power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below and/or at the prayer list page. If you are an anonymous commenter who has previously attempted to post to the prayer list page, I just discovered last week that I'd had my blog settings set such that anonymous comments weren't able to post. My apologies to anyone who had problems. If you try again now, you should be able to get through.

Finally, if there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological Hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun’s rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.

Effective Goals for Prayer

[tunesmyth]

Hello JMG,

It’s been quite pleasant to watch the Ecosophia Prayer List attract a group of steady regulars, as well as a fair amount of prayer requests, including some directly to the list. Once you find the time to get the Intentional Prayer Network materials dusted off and ready for action, I think there will already be a core of pray-ers in place who will likely be able to get the engine running in short order.

My question is about the subject matter of prayers. The vast majority of our prayer requests are health related, which makes sense given the List’s origin in the Ecosophia Covid threads. The next most common categories are requests for spiritually aided luck in some form, whether that mean a smooth birth, finding a better home, or in one case, improving one’s financial state. There is also the category of spiritual protection.

I presume in all of these cases that success or failure of the prayers will in large part also depend on the initiative of the people making the requests. I.e., people requesting prayers for health but acting in ways harmful to their condition, or people requesting help finding new lodging but unwilling to take positive steps to search for this themselves, will be rather less likely to meet with success, even if a legion of monks is chanting daily for their success.

There is one more potential category which occurs to me, which has been hinted at in a couple of requests but hasn’t really been requested explicitly yet, with one single exception. This would be prayer requests for aid with personal development. In this category I would put prayer requests for help with personal issues that are ultimately the final responsibility of the supplicant: requests for help in breaking addictions, changing bad habits, forming good ones, and taking onboard important new changes of perspective. In your opinion and experience, would requesting prayer towards aid with these kinds of ends be helpful? As long as the one making the request is also making good faith efforts to effect that change themselves, to the best of their ability (even though they clearly haven’t been successful on their own yet)?

Re: Effective Goals for Prayer

[ecosophia]

Yes, exactly. Prayer won't do the work for you, but it'll give you a boost in the right direction. If you're already trying to move in the right direction, as in work for personal development, prayer can help quite a bit; if you're doing your best to move in the other direction and expect prayer to make up for it, you're going to be disappointed.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I’d like to continue my question from last week (https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/217557.html?thread=38656981#cmt38656981) concerning the SoP and the LBRP within the framework of the FHR.

In their opening phases, both the SoP and the LBRP start by drawing a beam of pure Light from infinite space. However, the LBRP draws the Light down to the center above the head (Crown center), while the SoP draws it down to the energy center inside the head.

In my post last week I asked if it would be okay to do the SoP while drawing the Light down to the Crown center (as against the center inside the head), and in your response you advised against varying these rituals.

However, in a Magic Monday session a few months ago (https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/197971.html?thread=34326099#cmt34326099) you explained that both energy centers do not have the same effect, the Crown center connecting to the Higher Self while the center inside the head activates one’s psychism.

Here is my question: I would very much like to practice the Sphere of Protection. But I happen to be more interested in connecting to the Higher Self than in activating my psychism, so working with the Crown center seems to be the more sensible choice. Would you have any advice for me?

Thank you for your answer,
R.

[ecosophia]

Sigh.

One of the things that every teacher of occultism learns early on is that there are certain categories of problem students that show up again and again. One of the most common is the student who insists on always tinkering with the practices -- there's always this detail or that detail that they don't like, for whatever reason, and if you tell them that the practices are the way they are for good reason, they just come back with more arguments for why they ought to do it differently.

The secret behind this habit is that it's a defense mechanism the ego uses to protect itself against the personal growth and change that comes with occult practice. Such students never actually make any progress until they get over themselves, do the practices exactly as given, and learn and grow as a result.

I think you can intuit my advice from the above...

[(Anonymous)]

Did we ever figure out the cell salts situation? I'm running very low on mag phos. Also my wife had a herpes breakout and I told her to try some cell salts and next day it was gone. She's usually pretty skeptical about this stuff but can't argue with results.

[ecosophia]

I've been compiling a list of cell salt providers other than Hyland's, but I've had some other unexpected things to deal with. (I received around 18 gigabytes of old scanned occult lessons and instructional papers, from more than a dozen different schools; I've also been given the opportunity to receive initiation into a branch of the occult tradition I never expected to work with. Curiously, though these things happened at the same time, the people involved apparently have no idea of one another's existence.)

While I finish getting the materials together for a post, I've been told by a couple of readers that Jackson's, a Canadian company, has excellent cell salts. You can find them here:

https://jacksonsnaturals.com/

Completed the DMH at last

[guillem66]

Good morning JMG,

After 5 years of steady practice, i have completed all asigned excercises on the DMH. I was delayed because of my youngest child, and also because the Ogham tarried for a while before allowing me to proceed to the awakening of the currents. But it all has turned for the best, as this allowed me to meditate on almost all the material in the DH triads, wich in turn helped me a lot when it was time to meditate on Scryings and Pathworkings.

John, you are a great teacher and your work is generous. You give so so much, if only the reader takes the book seriously. It has been very fortunate for me to be able to study it.

I have lots of ideas, and now i have the time and the knowledge to explore them. May the gods bless you.

Guillem.

Re: Completed the DMH at last

[vitranc]

Congratulations Guillem!

This is a great achievement!

An I wish to imitate it one day!

[(Anonymous)]

To share:
This seems to be a brand new tool by the person who maintains planetaryhours.net, it's an astrological transit viewer in a calendar format:
https://transitviewer.net

I stumbled across it at random this week when planning some planetary charity. I am not the creator of it, nor do I know them.

Some questions:

1. About the OSA. If I start to love myself unconditionally, is there a danger that this could turn to pride? If so, how to avoid this?

2. Are earth energies, as discussed in your books on temple systems, a limitless "resource"? If I put up earth pipes or enchanted standing stones, wouldn't that eventually drain whatever energies are there? I'm reminded that Egypt is now a desert, and Greece has become quite arid, but I don't know if the causality is due to intensive agriculture, climate change, and/or these etheric/energetic batteries being drained.

Thank you!

[ecosophia]

1) Pride comes from loving yourself but not loving anyone else. As long as you make sure to direct the same unconditional love at others you direct toward yourself, you'll be fime.

2) The earth energies aren't limitless, but they'll remain available as long as the sun continues to shine -- etheric energy, including the energy in the earth currents, is another form of solar power, and can be expected to keep flowing until the sun dies a couple of billion years from now. Egypt has been a desert since the rain belts shifted about 6,000 years ago; Greece became a desert after the Mycenean period and then recovered due to the temple technology and the practice of an ancient system of permaculture that relied on olive trees, grapevines, and sacred groves in the right places. (Greece could be green again if the old traditions were put back to use.) The earth currents are by no means foolproof, and you can mess things up badly if you misuse them, but they're sustainable in human terms.

[booklover1973]

Hallo, HMG,

is there anything known about the meanings of supernovae in mundane astrology? It surely isn't an easy subject, since in the last 1000 years, there were only two or three bright supernovae visible from Earth.

[ecosophia]

There was a lot of discussion among astrologers of the two supernovae observed in Europe in 1572 and 1604, but iirc there hasn't been one since then, and so it hasn't been a significant topic. If Betelgeuse blows up any time soon, that may change!

Really ancient civilisations

[(Anonymous)]

Hello!

Last year there was a brief mention of ancient civilisations: polarian, lemurian, atlantian, hyperborean.

(1) Can you tell us, to the best of your knowledge, what were the geographical areas or origins of these civilisations and their respective time frames?

(2) There has been mention on Magic Mondays that the prevalence of spiritual forces on our material plane wax and wane with time. Would you know how magic fared during those civilisations?

(3) If the potency of magic comes and goes, any general ideas of the time frame and or causes thereof?

(4) Does the potency of magic wax and wane at the same rate across planet earth or are there regional variances?

Apologises for the scope of the questions!

Many thanks!

Re: Really ancient civilisations

[ecosophia]

I see you're into nice simple easy questions. ;-)

1) If those actually existed -- the jury's still out, though there's some evidence for the Atlantean and Lemurian cycles of civilization -- the dates and locations are tentative at best. The civilizations of the Polarian and Hyperborean cycles had their homelands in the far north, and those almost certainly existed before the last ice age, when the Arctic Ocean was ice-free. The Lemurian cycle had its most influential civilization in a now-drowned subcontinent that geologists today call Sundaland, south and east of southeast Asia; it went under rising seas around 14,000 BC. The Atlantean cycle, the most recent and best documented, seems to have had its homeland around the North Atlantic coasts when the sea was a couple of hundred feet lower than it is now, and it was drowned around 9600 BC.

2) Magic was apparently much practiced in Atlantean times. Other than that, we have no clue.

3) Nobody knows.

4) Nobody knows.

[(Anonymous)]

I have one of your geomancy books, which has been extremely helpful for me in studying this form of divination.

I wanted to check, if possible, if my interpretations of two shield charts are accurate in your opinion. The questions are related.

Question 1: Should we stay another year in this rental in town?

Answer:

LW: Via
RW: Fortuna Major
Judge: Fortuna Minor

Question 2: Should we buy a place in the country this year, closer to my husband’s work:

LW: Cauda Draconis
RW: Puer
Judge: Fortuna Major

Would you say I’m correct in interpreting question 1 (staying in the rental in town another year) as the more favorable option, even though the judge is technically less favorable than in Q 2, since both witnesses in Q1 are favorable or neutral?

My interpretation of Q2 is that the immediate outcome might seem to be an improvement (Fortuna Major as judge) but longterm, the choice will prove to be rash and troublesome (due to the unfavorable witnesses)?

Thank you!

[open_space]

Out of divinatory curiosity, what figures are on the First Daughter and Second Niece?

You didn't ask me but if I may, if this is for a move you are considering seriously, I also suggest casting other readings for each scenario. Say, what will be the outcome of moving | staying? Will we be happier if we move? What do we need to know about finding a house in the country? "Should's" are workable but you are leaving open the "should, what?" It's been my experience that you need to tell the oracle the direction and it will return the terrain and that way you have more say in the process and more accurate readings.

Also, you can generate charts using a tool that sdi created, I find it handy, in case you are interested: Amissio chart generator

Swords and major arcana

[(Anonymous)]

JMG and commentariat,

I've been doing divination off and on since my teens, so I'm familiar with basic symbolism though not very good at interpretation. For a couple of months now almost all of the cards that turn up are swords or major arcana cards when I use the Rider Waite or similar deck. I do simple one or three card spreads and ask a wide range of questions. Swords represent the element of air and often symbolize mental matters or conflict. Many of the sword cards show images of sorrow and loss, which certainly describes my past, but the questions I ask are about the present or future. Does anyone have ideas about why they keep turning up no matter what I ask about? Maybe it means sorrow and loss continue into the future but there are major arcana showing up too, thankfully not the more frightening ones, at least not yet.

Lilac LLCB

Re: Swords and major arcana

[(Anonymous)]

I would like to add: the card coming up most frequently is King of Swords. Other cards coming up more than once are The Fool, Strength, and Judgement. The questions I ask are about personal matters, relationships, and "what do you want me to know about next month" type questions.

Lilac LLCB

Mundane and electional astrology questions

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

Thanks for hosting this valuable space again!

I've been busy with my astrological studies, and am posting quite a few questions today. If you feel this is too much, please just stop answering at any point, and I'll re-post the rest in the next couple of weeks.


1. Electional astrology:

If you wanted to pick a good date and time for somebody to launch a small one-person IT business, without going overboard and finding the "ideal" date only three years from now:

Are there any other important factors one should definitely look out for besides the essential dignities and major aspects of Mercury, and his day and/or hour?

....

I'm working my way through my first mundane chart with the help of your subscribestar and Green's book, and I have a few questions about mundane astrology, if I may:

2. a planet being peregrine is a debility - does this mean it simply has less influence, or it is more "unfortunate"/bad/malefic than it would otherwise be?

And if the answer is "it depends", then could you give me some hints on what it depends? :-)


3. about intercepted signs, just to clarify: You wrote "When that happens, the sign and any planets in the sign are said to be intercepted"

Does "the sign is intercepted" simply imply that the ruler of the sign is intercepted? Or if not, what else does it mean?


4. How much influence do the essential dignities of the Sun have in the ingress charts? The Sun in his exaltation in Aries is sort of a given in each Aries ingress chart - so is this even a meaningful information, or just more or less background noise?


5. I noticed that Green is packing "birth-rate, children, schools" into the fifth house, whereas you include schools into the third house, and ignore the birth rate. Is this because you haven't found mundane charts to be a good indicator of the birth rate at all, or because it hasn't been important enough to track yet? And if the latter, into which house would you put it?

(Given the current circumstances, I feel that predictions for the birth rate of a nation might prove to be interesting and insightful...)


6. The very same question for "public mortality, deaths and the kind of people who die" - in the 8th house in Green's list, absent in yours. Where would you put that? Or did you leave it out deliberately because you found predictions around this topic not to be meaningful?


Thanks, again, for whatever questions you get around to answering. For what it's worth, I'm grateful I've reached a stage in mundande astrology where I can even ask somewhat meaningful questions... (lucky you!! ;-) )

I wish you and your wife a wonderful, productive week!

Milkyway

Re: Mundane and electional astrology questions

[(Anonymous)]

Forget about question 4, please - I just re-read one of your ingress charts and noted the sentence "Since ingress charts are defined by the Sun’s position in the zodiac, that isn’t considered here" - lemme retract that, then, and let's pretend I never asked, ok? ;-)

Milkyway

[(Anonymous)]

Hello John, top of the morning,
In your discussion on the Regeneration podcast you mentioned an essay that dealt with the politics of the mind/body problem. Is there someplace I can find that essay? Cheers, Bill

[ecosophia]

It's in my collection of essays The City of Hermes.

Swords and major arcana

[(Anonymous)]

I'd like to add to my question above.

The card coming up most frequently is King of Swords. Showing up in multiple readings: The Fool, Strength, and Judgement. I've been doing recent readings online so they all turn over "upright". I read interpretations for upright and reversed. The questions I ask are always about personal matters or relationships.

meditating on love

[earthworm_uk]

Hi JMG

Further to my ramblings on the Essene blog
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/217157.html?thread=38618949#cmt38618949
I've spent the last week pondering 'unconditional love' and a couple of things came up.
Something I often do when thinking about a subject is to randomly open a book of Sufi aphorisms and stories - here is what I opened the page to after meditating on unconditional love and my thoughts about the matter:-

A man went to Wahab Imri and said:
'Teach me humility.'
Wahab replied:
'I cannot do that, because humility is a teacher of itself. It is learnt by means of its practice. If you cannot practice it, you cannot learn it. If you cannot learn it, you do not really want to learn it inwardly at all.'

That gave me a bit of a lightbulb moment - replace the word 'humility' with 'unconditional love'

The phrase 'unconditional love' I have seen misused repeatedly and that had tainted my view - but my view was completely wrong because I had not been thinking of unconditional love but the people seemingly misusing the term... completely different things - first, the words are not the thing, second, a concept is independent of the people using it, and thirdly, thank heavens for the local robins (see below).

Another error on my part was to try and put love into a pigeonhole - granted I know that there are different kinds of love, but I was making things too complicated. So, I stepped back and thought why should it be a problem to feel love of the divine just because I do not have the words to describe it intellectually?
Since I do not know 'what' the divine islet alone the words to describe such a thing, then it is not a problem to not be able to describe love (of the divine).

Anyway, this morning the resident robin spotted me and waited in one of the usual spots for me to go and give mealworms (this has been going on for over 8 years) - my ponderings on love were in mind and the robin is an expression of the divine and somehow we and this bird have formed a relationship and I suddenly discovered that if I considered the robin, his mate, and the local blackbird who comes to feed with them, I suddenly had an answer to my question. :)

There are not words and that is delightfully irrelevant!

So that prompted me to post, and, to cement the point home (the universe tapping my thick skull), looking for the Wahab Imri text above, I picked up the wrong book and the page I opened to gave me:

"Love is a Way to Truth, to Knowledge, to Action. But only those who know of real love can approach these things by means of love. The others have misunderstood certain other feelings for those of real love."

:)

PS If you have a reference/link for that medieval Zen stuff, I'd like to read more if there is something in English.

Thanks

[earthworm]

Re: meditating on love

[ecosophia]

Hmm! Very glad to hear it. No, I'm sorry to say I don't have a source for the medieval Zen material; I read that at a college library in Bellingham, WA in 1980 and 1981, and don't have the notes any more.

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings JMG,

Since beginning magical practice 3 years ago, I've experienced an alteration in my default state of consciousness that I'd like to describe here. I feel a continuous sensation, roughly localized behind the eyes, of mild pressure or burning, comparable to the feeling of being wired from caffeine. Similar to caffeine, there is a kind of alertness or poise, but I also feel somewhat spaced out, as if my consciousness were partially detached from the physical body. However, this sensation, which persists throughout the day, is not accompanied by any kind of pain or discomfort, and there are no intrusive thoughts, hallucinations, or any other troubling symptoms other than what I've described above. Also, I have no known medical problems, so as far as I know, the only variable that might have caused it is the routine magical practice and study (Needless to say, I'm not looking for any medical advice here).

I'm not sure if there's already a specific term for the above. In any case, I'd be curious to hear your opinion. Is it normal? And does it ever go away?

[ecosophia]

You've got some degree of activation of the third eye center, aka Ajna chakra. You might try more meat in your diet, and regular massage, to get you a little more grounded, but it's not a pathological state; over time, it can give you certain very helpful psychic abilities.

[(Anonymous)]

I could use some help.

I completed the Dolmen Arch under your instruction, and am now having some trouble that may or may not be related to the changes brought about by the work. It has been about two years, probably, since doing any regular spiritual work.

I have a great tension in me. Two parts of me are pulling in opposite directions, and I as a whole am suffering for it. I am not a whole person. I am not one person. If memory serves, you once described traveling the path past a certain point as getting on a train that one cannot get off of. Part of me is on the train, the other is not. I am stuck in the yawning void between.

I "know" that doing the work will help, but don't care. Or I want to care but don't. Or want to do the work but am afraid, and want to never have started the work.

The simple analysis is that my individuality and personality are in opposition, and my life is impotent as a result. Or that my fate and destiny are opposed. Though, I'm at a point where I can make any theory true, and where all truth is equally valueless.

I'm familiar with depression, and while this bears a resemblance, there's something more to it. I'm stuck in the nothing between contradictions.

Any advice would be very appreciated.

[(Anonymous)]

OP here.

I'd like to clarify that this isn't constant in intensity. How well I feel varies normally. I even recently worked hard to get a new job that I'm very excited about.

But the sense described above is often there in the background. And when it "flares up" it can be overwhelming for weeks.

Gnosticism and Nonduality

[ozarkian_nemophilist]

I've heard you mention the variety of thought among Gnosticism, so I am curious about that term so frequently being used as a synonym for dualism. To your knowledge, have there been Gnostics -- whether ancient or modern -- who break that mold by embracing a perspective of nonduality?

Re: Gnosticism and Nonduality

[ecosophia]

It's always intrigued me that so many people seem to think that dualism and nonduality are the only two options -- and never notice that this is a very dualistic way of thinking...

Not all Gnostic traditions are dualist. None that I know of are nondualist.

[(Anonymous)]

I just finished "Ceremony of the Grail." In the section about barrows you say that the Tuatha De Danann were, like the Greek heroes, originally spirits of the dead. Does that mean that An Dagda, Danu, Nuada and the others are not gods? Or did they perhaps become gods at some point? Hopefully I'm not opening a large can of worms regarding what a god IS, though I suspect I may be...

[ecosophia]

Plenty of gods used to be human beings, or spent at least part of their career as human beings. (Jesus is an obvious example.) It all depends on what you mean by that exceedingly slippery word "god."

[(Anonymous)]

Greer,
You have explained many time of the dangers of mixing spiritual/magical traditions. My question is what happens when one does that?

I have been practicing SOP for about a year as well as the Essenes work. Then last week I had a well learned Thai body worker give me a massage. This wasn’t the commercial Thai massage where they stand on you but where they focus on opening channels. I didn’t know much going in but this type of work is done in temples in Thailand.

I now have flu like symptoms.

Thanks in advanced for your work here and across the web!
Loved the last podcast.
Any news soon about a new audiobook?
A friend

[ecosophia]

It depends entirely on what the traditions are and how they work with the subtle energy. Plenty of people end up with flu-like symptoms after a good massage, since that'll loosen up a lot of physical and energetic crud and the body needs to dispose of that. So it may just be that.

As for a new audiobook, you'll have to ask my publishers -- I usually hear about those, if at all, after they see print.

Dolmen arch ways of thought

[autpaxautbellum]

I’m currently studying the Ways of Thought in the Dolmen Arch pg. 112. In the text, it is mentioned that these correspond ‘precisely’ to the seven cantrefs. However in meditating to understand these relationships (considering other qualities like the powers and laws associated to the different cantrefs), some of these relationships remain opaque to me. Are the ways of thought listed in a particular order that indicates the relationships explicitly? Or are they listed arbitrarily and the student is expected to derive these themselves? In general, might you have any suggestions on how I can better understand these matters? The book sort of makes it sound like the relationships are obvious, but I’m struggling a bit with this. Thanks!

Re: Dolmen arch ways of thought

[ecosophia]

The relationships are not obvious, and each student is supposed to tease them out for himself or herself. Not everyone gets it the first time through, which is why I recommend several passes through the lessons.

Golden Section and "A few words about magic"

[(Anonymous)]

I've just recently picked up and started reading your Golden Section, and in the first chapter you draw the distinction between magic and occultism. I wonder if perhaps in other books I've read in the past the distinction might have been termed "inner" or "high" magic == occultism, and "outer" or "low" magic == magic. The difference being that occultism, to use your term, deals only with making changes to yourself, while magic concentrates on the external. Or are both of those magic, and occultism is only concentrating on understanding, not change?

I've been following you for a while, and I'm very intrigued by the system presented here, as I've been fascinated by magic, but somewhat turned off by the rigid nature of most magic, and on the same token by the lack of rigidity of chaos magic and similar "systems". This seems to fill a niche.

Thanks,
Peter

PS: You may want to update the Magic Monday FAQ to include these more recent books, and any additions that may be one the way.

Re: Golden Section and "A few words about magic"

[ecosophia]

1) It's a little more complex than that. Magic is a specific set of disciplines meant to have certain effects on the practitioner and/or the world. Occultism is a much broader field of study which can include magic, but doesn't have to. Occultism, as the book suggests, is the science of the Unseen, while magic is a particular set of skills that allow you to do certain things with the Unseen. Thus there are occultists who practice magic and occultists who don't. The Golden Section training doesn't include magic, though it doesn't forbid it either: it provides a good solid training in general occultism.

2) That's a good point.