Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

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!***

Comments

Thank you!

[jprussell]

Glad to hear you've worked your way through most of the work that had you busy, and if it's ever appropriate to share, I look forward to hearing what it was or what might have come of it.

That being said, no question this week, as I don't want to further add to your plate, just a thank you to you, JMG, for providing this space, and to everyone here for reading and commenting. Your books and blog might have changed my life on their own, but the ability to ask questions, learn from others' examples, and discover unexepected connections has deepened my practice and helped me stick with it through tough times.

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

[(Anonymous)]

Glad you’re back with us!

It WAS quite a surprise when the nurse handed me Sonkitten and explained how it all happened, so I can sort of understand Bennett’s shock. 😄

—Princess Cutekitten

Ecosophia Prayer List

[tunesmyth]

JMG, congratulations on the new initiations.

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.

This week I would like to bring special attention to three prayer requests.

The first is Lp9's request on behalf of their hometown, East Palestine Ohio, for the safety and welfare of their people and all living beings in the area. The situation is still developing, and various claims of catastrophe and non-catastrophe are flying about, but the reasonable possibility seems to exist that this is an environmental disaster on par with the worst America has ever seen. At any rate, it is clearly having a devastating impact on the local area, and prayers are certainly warranted.

The second is for Praesepe, for help overcoming her Stage 2 metastastic breast cancer, and for the most beneficial outcome to her upcoming surgery and radiation treatment.

The third is for Jung Lee, for help with their complex health issues, and for bolstering inner strength, as lately they've felt close to their breaking point.

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.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm making myself into the centre of a labour dispute. My goal here is to address a major issue that allows my employer to take advantage of certain employees and deprive us of effective representation. Would I be correct that seeking to rectify an injustice in this fashion would be something which would fall under Jupiter's domain?

[open_space]

Good evening JMG and everyone,

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.

[(Anonymous)]

What difference does day or night make to planetary hours, for example for making red bag amulets and salt jars?

Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

Thank you, as ever, for hosting these Magic Mondays. This week I have three questions for you regarding the FHR.

1. I am currently working on the opening/closing of the Temple and I was wondering if there were any specific visualizations involved in the purification of the Temple by the four Elements.

I am asking because I had some spontaneous mental imagery while clearing and cleansing the Temple according to the ancient ways.

After walking with the fan around the Temple, in my imagination a faint yellow(ish) glow lingered around the fan when I took it back to the altar. When I took the fan from the altar again to clear and cleanse the Temple a second time during the Closing, I sensed the yellow glow was still there. So after walking around the Temple with the fan it seemed to make sense to raise the fan again to the east to send the energy back to its abode, and I saw the glow vanish. (This applied to all four elements, btw, not only to Air.)

To put it differently, I felt that in the Opening the energies of the elements were invoked into each symbol prior to walking around the temple, while in the Closing the same energies were banished from the symbols subsequent to walking around the temple.

My question: is such a mental imagery appropriate? I’m still at the beginning of my practice of the opening/closing ceremony, so I’d like to know if this makes sense before giving it a chance to stick around, i.e. to become a "stable" part of my experience with the ceremony. (And if you think this is but nitpicking, by all means let me know and I’ll make sure I don’t bother you again with petty details.)

2. Speaking of Opening and Closing, I don’t recall seeing a Temple form of that ceremony, i.e. with all Temple officers, in the four FHR volumes. In other words, I now know the ritual procedure to open and close a Temple of the FHR on my own, but I’m not sure how exactly this should be done if I were together with other officers.

This said, I realize I’m not anywhere near needing such a ceremony, as I am a Candidate working on my own, but I thought I should ask, for the sake of completeness.

3. In your discussion of numerology last year you noted that many readers of the commentariat with birth number 8 found that the description did not fit them, which led you to conclude that the description might need some updating. Did you have a chance to gather sufficient information to revise your description of birth number 8?

Thank you for your time, and sorry if I'm asking too much after the intense weekend you just had!

R.

[mr_nobody1967]

Here's something I've always wondered, and I haven't asked this question until now because it's probably a difficult one to answer. Okay, let's say you have experienced biological death, and for some reason, you find yourself "stuck" in your etheric body as a "ghost" haunting the place you died or someplace nearby. What would be a constructive set of actions/ attitudes to adopt if you wanted to move on as quickly as possible from this state? I think it's a worthwhile question, because I have a theory that the longer you are stuck in a place in your etheric body as a "ghost", the more difficult it becomes to extricate yourself and move on to the Middle Astral Plane at the very least.

[1wanderer]

Dear JMG and community,
Someone I am extremely close to was gravely ill with cancer last year, and, although she recovered, she suffered neurological damage from the chemotherapy, which is, apparently, not unusual. There is no known remedy. I should be very grateful for whatever kind thoughts and prayers people can spare for her.

A question, though. I want to help her myself as much as I can. Affirmations of the type "X is completely healthy" or even "X is cured of neurological problems" seem a bit excessive, given that there is no cure or treatment which such affirmations could support. Is something more modest in order? And as regards planetary charity, would a general medical charity be OK (I made offerings to a cancer-research organisation last year) or should I look for something more specific (post-cancer care, for example)? Or doesn't it really matter? Would it be effective to make a specific request to Mercury for her to be healed of this problem in making the donation, or is that a bit too dogmatic?

Most grateful for your advice and thank you for all your work.

Wedding rings

[(Anonymous)]

Last week there was some discussion about wedding vows, and someone mentioned that you had previously discussed returning wedding rings. The subject is quite fascinating to me, as my soon to be ex-wife broke her wedding vows, scoffed at me for taking them seriously, and we are heading down a very rocky and contentious path towards divorce. I've been wondering what to do with my ring, so this was a timely thing to read.

I couldn't find the mentioned discussion about returning wedding rings, so could you advise me on what your recommendations are, or point me towards the previous discussion or other information? She will be unlikely to accept the return of the ring in person, so any suggestions for how to handle this without face to face contact would be appreciated.

The dissolution of my marriage has been accompanied by the widest range of synchronicities, strange events, and omens of any time in my life. I had my one and only prophetic dream, warning me a year in advance of what direction my wife was taking. Hidden information has been revealed to me in wildly improbable ways multiple times. One day after a bad argument, when I was pushing our son on the swing, my wedding ring inexplicably cracked clean through with an audible ping! sound.

I've been trying to digest and understand the last few years, and what to make of all those events. It's been wild. I would also be very interested in a larger discussion about how you view wedding vows, marriages and divorce functioning from an energetic/occult perspective, if you were to ever want a subject to write more about. In your no doubt copious spare time. :-P

Thanks for entertaining these questions, and for all that you do.

Potency of Latin mass

[(Anonymous)]

You’ve mentioned before how the Latin Mass of the Roman Catholic Church had a magical potency to it that was lost when it was changed to English. Can you please briefly recap the reasons for this, or link to the original post? I wanted to share with a Catholic friend, but I’ve searched for your explanation and can’t find it.

CGD elemental pentagram mistake

[(Anonymous)]

Hullo JMG!

I hope you are well.

TL:DR, I have proceeded through to the work of air in the bardic grade of the CGD. I just realized that due to a grievous lack of attention to detail I have been drawing the air and water pentagrams incorrectly, reversed. water as air, and air as water. (treating the top right point of the pentagram as the point of air, and the top left as the point of water) How should I proceed to fix this?

more detail:

in my weekly air grove ceremony, I was shown a visual story. in its entirety, a great storm strikes, destroying the land. while it rages two cannons uselessly fire at the sky. the storm passes, the land is renewed. sheep graze among the ruins. a man comes from the south, and fights a man coming from the north. The man from the south wins, and with his sword out lines a great three sided pyramid, he then departs to the north. a grizzled mason begins and finishes the great pyramid. but before too long it is pierced and damaged by a great missile from the north.

My interpretation: after difficulty and previously giving up on and letting go of my previous much less systematic spiritual practice and beginning the Celtic Golden Dawn, I made it through the ovate grade, (the victory of the man from the south over the man from the north, and the layout of the three sided pyramid) and set off on the bardic grade. I began to build and fill in this structure, but before it was truly completed I made this mistake. (treating the top right point of the pentagram as the point of air, and the top left as the point of water, when it is the opposite) Now I suppose I must begin again from the work of water, and do it correctly this time, but I also wanted to ask your advice.

How would you recommend I proceed to fix the hole I've made in my Bardic Grade work?

thank you for your time and wisdom,

-WindMan

Practical Instruction in Toward Ecosophy

[deketemoisont]

I compiled the posts on this blog containing practical instructions, as far back as I could: https://deketemoisont.dreamwidth.org/331.html - there may be some others towards the blog's beginning that weren't properly indexed, but I do happen to believe that's all.

Good Karma

[winterknight]

Dear JMG,

Please forgive me for asking what may appear to be a very basic question, but... what is good karma, exactly, and how may one generate it?

Thank you!

Declination of Pluto

[(Anonymous)]

No question, but I was reading some astronomical history of Pluto, and by a great "coincidence", it was discovered shortly before crossing the ecliptic (crossed in 1931). It crossed back over the ecliptic in 2018, 12 years or one Jupiter cycle after its demotion to minor planet. It was not long after 2018 that things really started to go haywire down on Earth.

-John N.

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a clear distinction between myths, legends, fairy tales, and folk tales? Or are the definitions squishy?

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings!

I am following up on this train of thought from last week: https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/221470.html?thread=39319838#cmt39319838

I started discussing this with my daughter yesterday and one of her questions was, When can she start to do the sphere of protection ritual? She is partially through puberty because she has started her period, and her body is developing, but I understand the limit on timing of ceremonial magic. How far through puberty does she need to be before she starts?

My son was also in on the conversation. How old or mature does he need to be before starting to look at W.E. Butler’s book on reading the aura?

Thank you for the help from you and the commentariat!

[(Anonymous)]

I am not sure if this counts sufficiently as a spiritual question to be answered here. It does feel like a spiritual dimension to me although it is hard to put the feeling into words. Maybe you will write something about this on your other blog. This may partly be a middle-age person's dislike of new technology, but since the release of the AIs for art and for text last year, I have felt more dispirited than before about the dystopian changes in the world. There are more and more faults with useful parts of modern technology that have existed for a long time, like electricity supply, but at the same time there is more digitalization and data. Some people are able to stay out of it, but not everyone has the suitable health, skills and money to live in a rural house and have a small gardening business or something like that, and they can't help to be part of many of these systems. Like many of your readers I like the idea of the appropriate technology, lower tech world you have described before but that seems to be farther away than ever at the moment, and maybe only young people will be around to see it. Do other readers struggle with this?

Prayer for Healing

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG:

No question today, but I do have a prayer request to make. A few days ago the Master of my Masonic lodge suffered extensive injuries from a hiking accident and is currently in the Intensive Care Unit. I’ve yet to speak with him, so I don’t have his permission to perform any form of healing work. However, if folks here are willing to pray for his healing and recovery that would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Sincerely,
Sanctuary of the Rose and Chalice.

[(Anonymous)]

I apologize for asking something I know you’ve answered before, but I can’t find it.

What is the simple ritual for encouraging someone to lose interest in you?

I know it involves dropping an item in a river flowing away from your home, and going home via another route. Does the item have to be from them, or would their name written down on a piece of paper suffice? What if we both live in the same neighborhood?

The person in question is a Current Thing devotee of the most fanatical type, who just found out I’m not with the program, and I’m worried about retaliation. We are connected through our young children.

[(Anonymous)]

Which is the ideal planetary day for submitting your taxes?

[temporaryreality]

Hi JMG, I have a potential line of inquiry to share with you, and two questions today.

First, the less interesting personal question: do I recall correctly that you recommended various "crystal-gazing" texts to help remedy a weak scrying ability? I've downloaded a few with that in mind, but wanted to confirm that that's a good direction to go

(I tend to have an overactive conscious mind that would like to throttle all my scrying attempts or, when something does manage to get through, it either analyzes it to death then and there or shoots off onto other topics with "lalala, we're not going to pretend a bunny is some sort of guide, here, think instead about whether or not you should raise meat rabbits in the backyard," etc. etc.). Yes, daily meditation is practiced in conjunction.

So, I seem to be once again in need of remedial work and wonder if those late 19th and early 20th century texts are a good place to start.
*****

Next, I was able to listen to your recent visit to the Plant Cunning Podcast and was quite intrigued by all you've been turning up in your research (also excited that it'll intersect with the GSF work).

My second question relates to something you mentioned. What is your opinion of the receptivity the Masons might have to rediscovering the Lost Word? Are contemporary masons (being less occult-influenced) of a mind that this state of having the Lost Word is simply the way things are (as in, there'll be no further "revelations")? Or do they have a mechanism in place to assess proposed Found Words?
*****

Third, the line of inquiry you might be interested in related to temple tech: I wondered if you'd come across some very interesting research coming out of the University of Washington related to water (more details below). When you talked about the effects of temple technology as being related to geomagnetic resonance and the "broadcasting" of ("unidentified") energy, my antennae started pinging that this work may be very much connected to that of Gerald Pollock, who suggests that his lab has evidence of a fourth phase of water (so, there's liquid, solid, vapor, and "structured" or, in his terms, "exclusion-zone" or "EZ" water).

Basically, he's found that when energy is applied to water (and this includes sunlight - and maybe temple-tech-produced energy?), it shifts molecularly, transferring the change to other adjacent water molecules. On https://www.pollacklab.org/research, he writes,

Photons from ordinary sunlight, then, may have an unexpectedly powerful effect that goes beyond mere heating. It may be that solar energy builds order and separates charge between the near-surface exclusion zone and the bulk water beyond — the separation effectively creating a battery. This light-induced charge separation resembles the first step of photosynthesis. Indeed, this light-induced action would seem relevant not only for photosynthetic processes, but also for all realms of nature involving water and interfaces.

I found him via a podcast (https://podtail.com/en/podcast/the-energy-blueprint-podcast/ez-water-what-is-it-why-do-i-need-it-and-how-do-i-/) in which the connection between health and structured water is discussed. And since the temple technology is said to increase vigor and fertility in the beings around it, I put the two together.

So, long story short, Pollock seems to embrace free and open inquiry and is open to slightly "out there" ideas - he recognizes, for example, the validity of Emoto's work (when you expose water to certain influences, its frozen structure changes) and says his lab is " a free thinking atmosphere, welcoming fresh ideas."

Perhaps an exchange of ideas would be helpful - some of what he's finding in his research could be the link to understanding what's going on when a temple is constructed in a certain location, in a certain way, and hosts certain activities...

Conflicts of Will

[syfen]

Archdruid,

Can conflicts of Will have physiological effects?

Regards,

Syfen

Kalevala

[hwistle]

Hi John, hope you had a productive, if very brief, break! If it’s ok with you, I would like to share something with you and the wider readership:
I’ve come across a relatively new (2021) English translation of the Finnish epic The Kalevala. I’ve seen two previous English translations and one Spanish translation and have to say that I’m really impressed with this one, particularly in the way the translator (Kaarina Brooks) has managed to adapt the Kalevala poetic metre to English. For this reason alone, I’d recommend it in line of previous discussions here about poetry and form, but also, to some extent, the Kalevala runes (as the “poems” are called) are closer to incantations and provide a great inspiration to those wanting to explore the world of Finnish magic and paganism. The book is not in the usual places but can be bought directly from the translator via her own publishing house, here (https://wisteriapublications.ca/non-fiction-works/)

As a wee sample, here’s the very beginning:

Now I have a great desire,
In my mind I this am thinking:
I will go forth, songs reciting,
All my tales of wonder chanting,
Spooling out my people’s legends,
Chanting runes of my forefathers.
In my mouth the words are melting,
Ancient speeches overflowing,
On my tongue the words appearing,
On my teeth they then are crumbling.

Many thanks,
Manuel

Qs

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings JMG,

Had some questions.

1) Bit speculative but does the occult suggest that the same soul can be born to the same family line a generation or a few generations later (if the karma fits)? Trying to connect this to the idea of difficult family karma that gets passed on genetically/spiritually.

2) I remember you mentioned that you reckon that reiki energy is a type of life ether, where orgone was a chemical ether. You'd mentioned something called light ethers; what are those and what energy would that be?

3) I am moving to NYC for work, setting up my businesses. Will be a lot of work over the few years, and I need to find a home that can support me and my work well in that time (be very close to office, be a nice place to live, smooth operations etc). Could you advice me on any spiritual help I can seek for this purpose?

4) Do you recommend a separate shrine/altar for planetary spirits compared to regular deities I pray to? For the planetary spirits, I currently do each prayer on a case by case basis but thinking of setting up an altar (and given that some of the planetary spirits are less forgiving than others).