Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's almost 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 and the teachers who influenced them in turn.  Like Allan Bennett, who we discussed last week, this week's honoree was a teacher of Aleister Crowley. George Cecil Jones was the man who introduced Crowley to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and later on helped Crowley found the Argenteum Astrum (Order of the Silver Star, or A∴A∴), the first of the two magical orders the Not-so-great Beast headed during his lifetime. (The other, the Ordo Templi Orientis or OTO, will be discussed next week.) Jones was a working chemist and metallurgist as well as a serious student of the occult. He practiced the magical virtue of silence more effectively than most of his contemporaries, however, and very little seems to be known about him.

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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

Counteracting Black Magic at Societal Level

[(Anonymous)]

I have a rather unusual question for you, JMG. Please bear with me.

Say that an ancient symbol of prosperity was misappropriated and altered by a society that used it for evil purposes and black magic in the not-too-distant past. And say that the society that used this altered symbol behaved so monstrously that the symbol is still associated with malevolence. And say that one of the cultures that traditionally used the sacred symbol decided to reclaim its auspicious power (for the benefit of the world) by returning it to its original form and publicly using it in ceremonies by moving counter-clockwise around the seats of governments that are still under the sway of above mentioned black magic. And further, let’s say that the society that performed this complex ceremony has no ethnic association with the society that misappropriated the sacred symbol; rather, that it was a victim of the same cruel ideology from which its most ‘monstrous’ manifestation sprung. From a magical perspective, what might be the consequences of the ceremony?

I know that the details are vague and the situation hypothetical. But there are reasons why this is so.

Ron M

Re: Counteracting Black Magic at Societal Level

[ecosophia]

Er, if you mean that to be vague and hypothetical, it didn't work; I know which symbol you have in mind, and why.

So long as the symbol is used in its traditional form and put to work in traditional rituals, the misappropriation will not interfere -- quite the contrary, if it's done skillfully and with a strongly held intention, reinforced by meditation and by offerings to the relevant deities, the power that was misappropriated might well flow back into the original form of the symbol, leaving the misappropriated form drained of at least some of its power.

Be aware, however, that the governments in question will use every trick they know to equate the true symbol with the misappropriated one, and to equate you with the monstrous manifestation. If you're going to do something like this, the pushback will be pretty spectacular -- not least because the project in question is potentially so powerful.

Re: Counteracting Black Magic at Societal Level

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the reply, JMG. Much appreciated.

Indeed, I imagine that in this hypothetical scenario, the pushback could be monumental. Not my idea. But the insights you provide may have future value.

Ron M

Re: Counteracting Black Magic at Societal Level

[(Anonymous)]

People really go flaming bananas over that thing.