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Magic Monday
I'm pleased to say that the work that occupied much of the last week is done, at least for the moment; I'm dealing with the impact of six initiation rituals -- it was a busy weekend! -- but things are well enough in hand that I can return to the usual round of things. With that in mind...It's right on midnight now, 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. Last week's honoree was Aleister Crowley, Israel Regardie's second significant teacher. Crowley got much of his instruction from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and thus from figures we've already discussed in these Magic Mondays -- William Wynn Westcott, Samuel Mathers, and Moina Mathers. This week's honoree, however, was another potent influence on the Not-so-great Beast. Born in 1872, Allan Bennett left Christianity as a boy when he found out how children were produced -- yes, this happened tolerably often in Victorian times. He became an agnostic and a skilled electrical engineer, but his spiritual yearnings led him first to the Theosophical Society, then to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn; it was in this latter period that he became a teacher of Crowley. Finding Hermetic magic unsatisfying, however, Bennett studied Buddhism under teachers in Sri Lanka and became a monk there, taking the name Ananda Metteya. He was a major figure in the transmission of Buddhism to the Western world and helped launch the first Buddhist missionary activity in Britain. His health was never good, and he died in 1922 after a protracted illness.
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***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***
no subject
Six initiation rituals on a single weekend? It does sounds pretty busy!
1) I had a few things happen to me these past few weeks. It seems my first Saturn Return is throwing some whammy's at me that have left me in a state of "ok, ok I got it!" (I didn't the first time) and... he does seem to measure things precisely! My question is, about how long do they last? and how can I calculate mine if it's easy enough to explain on a comment? I have the basic concepts down from your astro lesson posts but not in natal. Several online calculators differ from each other and all differ from a friend that calculated it for me on the fly. If not, do you have a good rec that covers it?
2 & 3) I've become rather fond of color breathing. It makes me feel as if I am expanding and actually breathing with my whole body! Which is kind of weird but it feels "fresh". One thing that happened this past two weeks is that I felt like a "knot" on my head and I pulled in a little harder there and something popped, like when a muscular knot is being massaged but it was energetic in nature, so to speak, and something moved inside that channel and started flowing when it didn't in the past. I did get a pressure sensation that hurt mildly on "the next stop" of the channel. I guess blocked channels can hurt when getting back online? If there are parts of the body you want to focus on, say my stomach or my head, how do you do it if at all? Do you only breathe into that part of the body or do you fill everything but that part you make it more bright?
4) This removed blockage seems to have triggered an anxiety reaction from a well repressed emotion from three years ago, at least they correlate in timing by a few days. It started getting intense so I decided to banish and then meditate an extra time that day. It worked but then I thought of the color breathing and was wondering what would you consider best for this. They way I manifested this anxiety was in a sense "paralyzing" so I wonder if breathing in Air or Earth would be better (either for stability or fluidity). My guess is Earth, since Air might make things more "mental" in a way and anxiety is an excess of uncontrolled mind.
5) For future experimentation, I wonder if you would consider "tissue breathing" a good idea since there are four. If so, what do you think of these correspondences? Epithelial tissue - Earth; connective tissue - Water; muscle tissue - Earth and nervous tissue - Fire.
no subject
2) Yes, and it's usually best not to push things that hard.
3) This is one where different people have different experiences. Experiment and see which works best for you.
4) See #3. Exactly which element will benefit you most in that situation varies depending on the details of the trauma.
5) I don't know of anyone ever trying that. Have fun!