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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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

Re: Appropriate Response to Sexual Energy?

[ecosophia]

That's your Christian background speaking. The deities of polytheistic faiths have their distinct preferences, and it won't do you a lot of good to invoke them against those preferences. That's true of the Christian god, too -- you wouldn't invoke him to bless an orgy, would you?

Re: Appropriate Response to Sexual Energy?

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry I don't mean to be facetious or challenging, I'm just a bit confused and a little upset since I've recently begun polytheist worship to a deity much like Venus.

I thought the gods were Good and much wiser than us, and that even if it wasn't necessarily comfortable at first, prolonged contact with them would nudge us in the direction of becoming better versions of ourselves and working their wills in the world.

But in the account above, if Anon were foolish enough to pray to Venus, he would have his marriage and probably life blown up, which makes the gods seem like blind, stupid and uncontrolled titanic forces. I'd expect such behaviour from a planetary spirit with no planetary intelligence to guide it, not the founts of all good things.
Perhaps polytheism isn't for me then, although I feel deep down that the gods must be Good and wise somehow.

Re: Appropriate Response to Sexual Energy?

[ecosophia]

It depends on what you mean by "good." Some gods are connected to certain specific moral virtues -- for example, Mars exemplifies and expects courage, Jupiter does the same for justice, Juno for fidelity, and so on. Other gods are not moral in nature -- Pan is a very powerful god but I don't recommend invoking him for moral advice! You're right to say that "prolonged contact with them [the gods] would nudge us in the direction of becoming better versions of ourselves" -- but this isn't true of any one god or goddess. It's true of all of them together.

The gods are primal forces. They're not blind or stupid, but they're too strong for human beings to cope with in an unmediated fashion -- thus the story of Jupiter and Semele, for example. The point of religious practice is as much to mediate and step down the overwhelming power of the gods as it is to come into contact with them in the first place.

Re: Appropriate Response to Sexual Energy?

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you, that makes me feel better. And thank you for your wisdom and patience. May you be blessed.