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. Last week's honoree, past Chosen Chief of OBOD Philip Carr-Gomm, received most of his training in Druidry from Ross Nichols, who is this week's honoree. Nichols was a poet, a watercolorist, and an educator, as well as a good friend of Gerald Gardner, the inventor of modern Wicca. He became a member of the Universal Bond, one of the most active Druid organizations in Britain, in 1954. Ten years later, during a dispute over the leadership of the UB, he founded an order of his own, first called the Bardic Order of Druids and thereafter renamed the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids, which he headed until his death in 1975.  He was the author of three books of poetry -- Sassenach Stray, Seasons At War, and Prose Chants and Proems -- as well as The Cosmic Shape, a programmatic essay on nature spirituality with a set of poems attached, and The Book of Druidry, which was published after his death.

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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

Earth

[(Anonymous)]

You mentioned spiritual visions that see heaven not on earth, but not as out there, beyond, rather earth as the focus of heaven. Would I be right in thinking of the man in this weeks picture as a source, or are there also other strands in the thread? Regards and happy 1st of May. Celadon as translucent crispy orc

Re: Earth

[ecosophia]

No, that's something that comes out of Rudolf Steiner's work, involving projective geometry -- you might want to have a look at the work of Olive Whicher and George Adams along these lines. Happy Calan Mai!

How to train the memory

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Mr. Greer,

You have written before that an aspiring mage should cultivate their faculties of imagination, will and memory (I think there may be a fourth faculty that I can't recall).

In light of this, can you recommend any courses, books, training materials, teachers or techniques to work on memory in particular? It is a weak point for me.

Thank you in advance,

Charlie

Re: How to train the memory

[ecosophia]

William Walker Atkinson's book Memory Culture is long out of copyright and available on archive.org and other online archives; that might be a good place to start.

it's just before midnight EST, hopefully this works...

[(Anonymous)]

I have no experience with magick, but I've been reading this blog with interest for awhile. Materialism is essentially the belief that only those things you can directly measure or observe are real; if you can't measure/observe it, it must not exist. That's a very narrow-minded and minimalist way of understanding the world, so I'm open to possibilities outside the scope of modern science, such as magick.
I'm thinking of experimenting with this, and I've read up a bit, especially regarding rituals of Greek religion, which involved burning sacrifices, pouring libations, ceremonies, etc. So, let's say I wanted to assist a certain faction in the world, and drew their symbol on paper, burned it under the full moon, and poured a libation, while wishing them well -- does this sound like an acceptable working, or am I off-track? As I said, I'm a rank beginner, and these powers may be potent; I don't want to fool around or take excessive risks if I can help it. TIA

Re: it's just before midnight EST, hopefully this works...

[ecosophia]

That's not going to accomplish much. Magic is like classical music; if you want to do it, you need to buckle down and put in a lot of training and practice. The secret is that it's not the physical action that does the magic, it's the focused consciousness that works through the physical action -- and you need to develop a range of unfamiliar skills in order to be able to direct your consciousness with power and have effect.

Re: it's just before midnight EST, hopefully this works...

[(Anonymous)]

I see, thanks! That gets to the heart of the matter. I'll have to research and practice further, but that at least is something I'm capable of, being an autodidact of sorts.