ecosophia | Magic Monday

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 and George Cecil Jones, who were introduced over the last two weeks, this week's honoree was a teacher of Aleister Crowley. Theodor Reuss was a German occultist and Freemason who, like our past honoree Sylvester Gould, was a member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, the successor order of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor (HB of L). He founded and headed the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), a magical lodge originally envisioned by Austrian occultist Carl Kellner, which passed on the occult traditions of the HB of L and certain specific teachings that originated in another of our earlier honorees, African-American occultist Paschal Beverly Randolph. Reuss passed on the teachings of the OTO to Crowley and eventually made him the head of the OTO in the English-speaking world, setting off a cascade of events that would make a first-rate melodrama or a really good tell-all book. Since I'm not a member of the OTO, my only connection with any of that story is that one of my teachers was taught by a student of a student of Reuss...

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~~With that said, have at it!~~

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hi JMG,
I have a question about wedding / engagement rings. My apologies if this not in your area of knowledge. I have a ring from my parents wedding, which was rather tumultuous and chaotic, including infidelity. I am interested in a couple options to use the ring as an engagement ring for my partner that would probably become part of her wedding band. I am on good terms with both of my parents if that matters in this process. I am looking at 4 possibilities for the ring.

1) Cleaning with vinegar and then alcohol and using it as is.
2) Having it modified by a goldsmith with some other either lab-made or antique gems (maybe aquamarine, her birthstone) and maybe some additional gold as needed and then giving it to her.
3) Have the goldsmith remove the diamonds, and melt down the gold to remake a new ring with a new design and perhaps use those same diamonds and/or any other good gems I can find.

4) Have the ring melted down and donate the money to charity (ie start completely fresh). Buy or have a ring made that has lab-made gems or an antique one that feels right.

My questions are -

1) Is there anything in these processes (the cleaning, the modifying, the melting down) that might cleanse any of the what I'm going to call 'negative energy' this ring may have absorbed from my parents' marriage?

2) Is this ring a bad idea in general? Does it not matter since I am a result of my parents marriage?

3) Anything special I should do with any gems I come across if they are to be used in a ring?

My partner has expressed an interest in not having freshly mined gems, etc because of the working conditions surrounding them. I imagine whatever gems I add should be found on one of my/ our hikes ie probably non-precious at best or should come from a good situation. I have no occult training so can't perform workings, and am not a member of any church or religious organization that could bless the ring.

If there is a body of knowledge or books you know of that you'd rather refer me to that would also be much appreciated. The information out there I've found so far looks heavily clouded with marketing.

I would very strongly encourage you not to use that ring at all. An antique ring or newly made one with better energy, preferably one that doesn't include diamonds -- those correspond to Mars and tend to produce quarrels -- would be fine. Aquamarine would be a very good stone to use -- it's a variety of beryl, like emerald, and has similar peaceful and harmonious energies.

Thanks so much for the advice. If I sell the ring can I use that money to help with the costs of the ring or wedding ceremony? Or should I not use it on the wedding but can use it on mundane things like Princess Cutekitten suggests? Or is it best to give the ring back or donate it?

My parent gave it to me hoping it would help with the wedding-related costs, but if even using the money from it brings the karma / energy from their marriage into my new household and I can't change that, I'd prefer not to.

Luckily I found out there are a couple sources of aquamarine and other beryls in my state and have now found out that people still go rock-hunting in the old mines and near them and there is a place that cuts and polishes these stones, so I can get some aquamarine that hasn't been mined with child or slave labor or lots of nasty environmental consequences.

Thanks again!

You can certainly sell the ring if you like, though I'd recommend washing it three times in cold water with a little salt in it, and then leaving it out in the sun for a while, so the purchaser is spared any lingering energies. (You're more vulnerable to those because of the blood connection with your parents.) Delighted to hear about the source for aquamarine -- something like that would guarantee good clean energies.

JMG, could you elaborate a bit more on why this would be a bad idea. I am in a similar situation and was planning to ask a jeweller to melt the gold and make new rings out of them. I was thinking of this as alchemy, i.e. turning my memories of a bad wedding from my parent into a happy one.

Is it the memories associated with it? Or is it something intrinsic to the gold now? How would that be different if the gold were sold and someone else wore the rings?

It depends entirely on how willing you are to deal with the energies of the earlier marriage. Magically speaking, those are part of the gold now, and you'll experience them. You can overcome them, but you'll need to make an effort to do that.

It's a problem for you because there's a blood link. Another person wouldn't have that -- and if you sold the gold, it would be melted down with a lot of other gold, and any ring made from it would have only a very small amount of that influence in it.

Don’t use vinegar! It could wreck the finish.

Another possibility is to skip the ring altogether and put the money towards house improvements, the possible appearance of a baby, charity, or whatever. My father had a ring but didn’t wear it for decades, as he worked with machinery. He was going to resume wearing it when he retired but by then they couldn’t find it. He didn’t recall pawning it when they were young and poor, so they figured it went walkabout during one of their moves. The lack of a ring did not keep the marriage from lasting 67 years, 364 days. (He died the day before the 68th anniversary.). So don’t be embarrassed to do without. Love and loyalty reside in the soul, not on a finger.

Also, congratulations, and I wish the two of you a happy 68 years!

Princess Cutekitten

Ok thanks for your thoughts! And saving the ring from vinegar. I've decided to go with aquamarine from a local source and see if I can get a jeweler to make a ring with that so it will hopefully be something with a lot more of my effort involved getting it made and maybe a bit less money which is what I would prefer to make it more special. At a minimum more of the money will be staying local or regional than buying something from the chain stores. If I could make the rings myself I would.

Magic Monday

Wedding / Engagement Ring Re-use

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