Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting toward 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 or comment 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. At this point I've finally gone as far back into my Rosicrucian lineage as I can without repeating earlier images -- the other great source of Dion Fortune's lineage, of course, is the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and its founders and major figures have already been honored here. So it's time to leap back to square one and start talking about the other end of my Druid lineage -- the one that goes through the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids (OBOD). That was the first Druid order I joined, and the source of much of my early Druid training -- and it exists at all because of Philip Carr-Gomm, this week's honoree.

Philip was a young man on the fringes of the London occult scene when he began studying with Ross Nichols, whom we'll discuss in an upcoming post. (That's Philip with the colossal hair in the photo on the right, being initiated into OBOD on top of Glastonbury Tor.) Years later, after Nichols' death, he made the same mistake I did, asked the surviving older members about reviving the order, and ended up being talked into becoming its Chosen Chief.  He proceeded to launch an international correspondence course, write a series of first-rate books on Druidry, and in the process turned OBOD into the world's largest Druid order. He retired from the office of Chosen Chief in 2020, and has been writing books on other topics since then.  Did I imitate him when I became Grand Archdruid of AODA? Whenever I thought I could get away with it, you bet, and it inevitably worked.

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

Comments

Graveyard influence

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG and thank you for this opportunity to ask questions.

Is there any danger from consuming elderflower cordial made from Elderflowers collected in a graveyard? The Elder tree was growing out of the middle of a broken 1800s tomb.
In your Encyclopedia of Natural Magic I read that Elder is a source of magical protection and that Elder branches were placed near graves to keep the corpse from being inhabited by an evil spirit. But is there a danger of being inhabited by an evil spirit if you drink the cordial, which has gone through a process involving boiling water, lemons and vitamin C?
I ask because since May/June last year my 25yo daughter has been suffering from self hatred, not wanting to be seen by people and has said that she just wants "the old me back" and I don't know what started this off. I'm grasping at straws here.
I have done planetary charity to Mercury (with her permission) but she wouldn't wear a red amulet or consider doing the hoodoo bath. My divination on the question came up The Hierophant, The Devil and The Empress (from a full deck not just the Trumps)

Daisy e

Re: Graveyard influence

[(Anonymous)]

I’m not JMG but I’m somewhat well-versed in planetary charity. May I ask why you chose Mercury for this situation? Mercury assists with communication and travel, but not really what your daughter is going through. In fact, Mercury is mercurial in some ways and I wouldn’t personally approach him at all for someone dealing with mental health issues.

Have you considered the Sun/Apollo (for health) or Jupiter (general abundance, justice)?

Perhaps the Moon is another option.

I wish you luck.

Re: Graveyard influence

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for your good wishes and suggestions. I chose Mercury for healing mental conditions. I will try the Sun/Apollo.
Daisy e

Re: Graveyard influence

[ecosophia]

1) No, in fact elder from a graveyard would be as protective as any other kind. It protects by banishing hostile influences, not by absorbing them.

2) Your daughter says she wants the "old me" back, but won't take steps to bring that about? Hmm. I think this is something she needs to deal with, and there may be limits to what you can do until and unless she decides to take action.

Re: Graveyard influence

[(Anonymous)]

1. Thank you, I am relieved, and feel a bit silly for asking now.

2. You are right, thank you for the reality check!
Daisy e

Re: Graveyard influence

[(Anonymous)]

That reads to me as less "evil" and more "unreflectively egoistic (with ego identity demands that are helplessly experienced as overwhelming and unstoppable), plus out of place (with malefic consequences)".

Maybe it would be good if she visited the tomb, and tried to think through what kinds of sacrifices traded away, in order for a place to be made for things in the world, would be worth it versus too destructive? I don't know, I tend to err in the direction of soft options.

I'm a little confused about who chose the tree and what significance they invested in the choice. It seems like that may be an important part of why things would have happened this way, if that was why.

I think obsessing spirits find it easier to puppeteer identity fractures in the person, taking shadow identities the person has dissociated off. Fixing the problem might involve working out what is going on there. (Wanting "the old me back" could be interpreted multiple ways, but it does remind me of the discussion in the book "Iron John" about the work that needs to be done to develop a coherent identity in adulthood, as this identity no longer comes easily the way a child's does.)