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. Last week's honoree, Theodor Reuss, got the idea and many of the teachings that went into the Ordo Templi Orientis from this man, Carl Kellner. Kellner was an Austrian chemist and a successful industrialist who made a tolerably large fortune by creating and patenting a new process for manufacturing wood pulp for paper. He was also, as the photo shows, something of a dandy; let it never be said that all occultists are dowdy!

In his off hours, he was an active Freemason and a student of occultism. A member of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, he also studied with European students of our old friend, Paschal Beverly Randolph, and with several Hindu gurus and a Sufi shaykh. He drew up plans for an occult order that would pass on Randolph's sexual gnosis using rituals like those of Freemasonry. Before he could complete the plan, however, he was struck down with a sudden unexplained illness, recovered somewhat after a long hospital stay, and then suddenly died. (There's some reason to think that he'd been experimenting with kundalini yoga -- not the modern, simplified, safe version, but the old robust teachings that can drop you dead in your tracks if you don't have a guru watching you on a daily basis.) 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 a student of Kellner; still, thin as it is, the connection is there.

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With that said, have at it!

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

Comments

[ecosophia]

Okay, good. Yes, and there are important points, which are rooted in a certain popular interpretation of Christianity. It's very common in pop-culture Christian churches for preachers to insist that God loves you, in fact He's practically obsessed with you, and that's why every time you think a sinful thought He has a nervous breakdown. Since these same churches insist on strict monotheism and divine omnipotence, you've got the rather odd spectacle of the God of galaxies staring down at you like Ceiling Cat:



That's an odd way of thinking about things, but it's popular -- though of course it does lead to the response you mentioned: "If God's obsessively in love with me, why doesn't he act like it?" (This is called the argument from evil, and it's been a major weapon of atheists for a very long time.) Older traditions, including some monotheisms, recognize that deities have concerns other than our moment-by-moment whims and wishes, and invoke less exalted spiritual beings -- angels, saints, minor deities, etc. -- who might reasonably be expected to concern themselves more closely with the inhabitants of this little planet.

[(Anonymous)]

HAH! Ceiling Cat, awesome. Good thing I wasn't taking a drink at the time.
Yeah, the Obsessed God. Man, it is easy to get caught up in those belief systems (fundamentalism, atheism, progressivism, etc.). All the easy answers are there, no need to think too much. Extracting one's self is a challenge.
Thanks for maintaining this forum and your blog. Always fascinating. Looking forward to reading upcoming books (have three? two? more than one back ordered).
Will1000

[(Anonymous)]

I think those churches may be confusing God being aware of everything with his being involved with everything. However, I know Protestants who pray to God himself, the Big Guy, for parking spaces and swear they usually get them, so if you’re not intimidated at the thought of pestering God for a small thing, you might as well try it. God is your father, and fathers do give their kids small favors. However, if the kid makes too big a pest of himself, fathers also yell, “Go play somewhere!” so you should probably try not to get carried away with praying for minutiae.

I think context matters too. It’s one thing to ask for a good parking space if you’re on crutches and the lot is icy, quite another to ask because you don’t feel like hiking from Row Infinity, but are in perfect health. In the latter case you should strongly consider making the hike to cure your attack of sloth.

Either way, when you do get the space, don’t forget to say Thank you.

—Princess Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

Duly noted!

[open_space]

Given my comments above and some of my habits of personality I think I have a similar problem when I am being too hard on myself which I could easily see as karma of a past life delving too much on ideas similar to the popular interpretations of Christianity you mention. I have felt that my only self-worth is from what I achieve and that I should only be good, otherwise I must be a horrible person for example. Do you have any recommendations of less exalted spiritual beings that might help with "self-love" and be up for a chat?

[ecosophia]

That depends very much on personal issues. Your guardian angel or guardian genius, though, might be worth considering. (These are two different names for the same thing, btw.)