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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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.

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

Comments

Vermilion Funicular Lorax

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG, thank you so much for hosting this.

I need to make some changes in my life and I have identified that deep feelings of powerlessness and helplessness are an obstacle that is getting in my way in several different challenges I am facing. Please can you advise on what I might do from a basic occultism or natural magic perspective? Directions for specific meditation topics, prayers, journalling, herbs or other natural substances, affirmations, or whatever you recommend would all be welcome. Or whether you think this is not something to address in this way, if that's what you think.

I have realised I have a lot to sort out in my life and I know need to get to the root of some of these problems. I haven't yet seen what I need to do to address this deep difficulty and I got an intuition from my prayer time that it might be good to ask for help from you here on Magic Monday. I know I can receive divine help if I can open myself up to it, and I know I also have to put in effort myself to make real change and let that divine help in and allow it to change me. I'm struggling to understand what might best help me with what to focus on in the way of addressing and changing this sense of powerlessness and helplessness.

Positive energy would also be gratefully received. Also if others here who are kindly intended would like to send energy or add your prayers to my own that would be welcome too, I know I welcome the opportunity to pray for blessings for others posting here when people ask for that (and I love Tunesmyth's weekly prayer list).

Where I'm with magic/mysticism/occultism: I have been practicing SoP daily for almost exactly one year, and was using a banishing ritual of the cross daily for about six months before that. I finished part 1A and part 1B of the Society of the Inner Light correspondence courses last year so I have done a bit of basic discursive meditation, but I've not felt able to pursue their courses further. I have recently begun using a few herbal teas for incorporating blessing into my house cleaning as recommended by Violet on her dreamwidth blog. I have a devotional relationship with the deity I call Saviour, the Holy One. I have been attending a traditional Church of England worship service for two months in the parish where I live here in middle England.

Vermilion Funicular Lorax

Re: Vermilion Funicular Lorax

[ecosophia]

The specific work I recommend for people in your situation -- and of course it's a fairly common one -- is the journaling exercises of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, which you can find free for the downloading at the OSA website here. It's my experience that the kind of feelings you're wrestling with have their roots in unresolved childhood experiences, and unpacking and resolving those is essential if you're to get past them and move on. The OSA work isn't religion-specific, and it requires only a very modest amount of time every day, but it's very effective if persevered in.

Re: Vermilion Funicular Lorax

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you so much JMG, advice received. I had briefly looked at those materials already but not been sure enough to commit. Will do.

Also massive thanks if people here have been sending blessings, may you be also be blessed.

Vermilion Funicular Lorax

Re: Vermilion Funicular Lorax

[(Anonymous)]

Introduction and Lesson One printed out, I have a notebook which I've assigned to it, and will pick up my pen to begin work on it tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to it as I have used writing to help myself quite a bit from time to time but I've not done any extended journalling work before.

Vermilion Funicular Lorax

Re: Vermilion Funicular Lorax

[ecosophia]

Glad to hear it. It's not easy work -- not at all -- but it did me a lot of good and I know many others it's helped.

Re: Vermilion Funicular Lorax

[tunesmyth]

Hello Vermilion Funicular Lorax,

I wasn't sure whether to take this as a sideways request to have a place on the prayer list. As you are aware of the Ecosophia Prayer List but haven't directly lodged a request there, I'll leave it be for now. But as you settle on a plan of action, do feel free to request a prayer from the prayer list that you feel will help you make the change you desire.