ecosophia | Magic Monday

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Magic Monday

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. I'm currently tracing my Martinist lineage. That's rendered complex by the Martinist tradition that one does not name one's initiator, so we'll have to go back through less evasive routes. Both of the last two honorees, and most of the other Martinist lineages in existence, were also taught and influenced by this man, Robert Ambelain, a prolific writer and occult scholar whose work extended from astrology and Freemasonry to Druidry and Martinism. Ambelain was born in 1907; he became an astrologer in the 1920s, proceeded to become a major figure in the Martinist scene and a bishop in one of the French Gnostic churches, played a central role in reviving several defunct occult orders, published 42 books, and earned the Croix de Guerre for his service to France during the Second World War. He died in 1997.

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I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here.

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!***

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Update on Alison Kulp (Al) who was one the prayer list because of a life-threatening infection. Having had no news on her for a long tie, I finally emailed her cat-sitter and got this reply "She is at home, under cats, and nearly back to normal."

I want to thank the prayer list for helping her over the worst of it.

Patricia M a.k.a. The Grey Badger.

Many thanks for this advice!

Interesting. Having lived in NYC, I understood what you meant immediately. Yes—rat energy.

I now live in the Providence area and would love to hear your thoughts on the spirit of this place. My sense is definitely not rats—but something metaphysical and out of step with the mainstream (yet also pragmatic, and not in-your-face like Portland/SF). I can’t seem to get more precise than that.

I've begun reading "A Druid in Psychologist's Clothing" a little bit at a time because it's quite dense. I'm thinking that its denseness makes it fertile ground for meditation topics along with my GSF work, as if I needed more meditation topics. What I find off-putting about it is the jargon and writing style; at times I think I'm back reading Lacan, or the like. The physical book, while pricey, is very fine.

I'm Orthodox, naturally I am convinced that is a valid iteration of Christianity. Is it the *only* valid iteration? I don't know. And also, I could be deluded. It happens.

That said, even in Orthodoxy, it's not like we're all *good* Christians. It's a process we're engaged in, not a destination we've arrived at. Real Christianity is whatever the saints are doing. The rest of us aren't there yet.

The relevant question is: which Christianity is Girard talking about? Medieval Catholicism? Modern US Protestantism? Eastern Christianity? Christianity as it affected law and culture in late medieval to early modern Europe? Christianity under the Turkish yoke? Zwingli in Geneva? Luther? The church itself, or just its influence on governments and culture? It's quite irritating to be included in blanket generalizations about "Christianity" by people who are really only talking about... Western Europe since the 8th century? Maybe?

I don't want to motte-and-bailey the thing, but... it is helpful to be more specific than just "Christian"... particularly as most people, when they make such generalizations, are talking about Catholicism in Europe or Protestantism in the US (the rebellions teenage child of Catholicism in Europe), since those are the two largest cultural influences in the western world, that can be termed Christian. But they're not the same thing. I'll not be the first to point out that churches in America, Catholic and Protestant alike, tend to resemble each other more than they resemble any of their Euro forbears. So is that "Christianity" or is that more properly termed "Americanism"? I notice people who make blanket claims about Christianity almost never mention the Pentarchy-- Rome and Jerusalem if you're lucky, but never Alexandria, Antioch, or Constantinople. "Oh they got conquered by the Muslims so they're not culturally relevant" is a valid argument I guess, but once you edit out every part of Christendom that isn't culturally relevant by current Euro-centric political dominance standards, what are you actually talking about? It's a subset-- yes, the most politically dominant subset as of the current year (but not as of 450AD) and in the English-dominated world, but still... be more specific? Orthodox are a bit tired of being blamed for the inquisition. Murder of Hypatia? Totally fair. Inquisition? No. That wasn't us. Crusades? They fracking sacked Constantinople. Nuff said.

Are we just talking about people who claim the Bible as their sacred text? That'd be the broadest possible definition. While there are certain very, very broad things that maybe can be said about "judeo-christian culture"-- I'm not sure any of them apply to the whole swath of Bible-readers out there, and more often than not, sweeping claims about judeo-christian culture veer into subtly or overtly racist territory, using "Christianity" as a basis for making claims about the superiority of Europeans over everybody else (imagine Copts in north Africa looking across the Mediterranean going "uhhh... what?"), as though the religion had come from Helsinki or Dublin, and was the gift of Europe to the rest of the world.

It's a bit like... say you're part of a huge family, all of whom have the same surname, "McCracker", right out to sixth cousins who live on another continent and whom you've never met. But because you have the same last name, you're guilty-by-association of absolutely everything your same-surname relatives have ever done, and perhaps also get unwarranted credit for stuff they've done. Possibly, you'd prefer that people specify what branch of the family, when saying things about what the "McCrackers" have done.

I went to a "Nature Lab" today and found a lonely axolotl in a tank. Rendered below:

ᓬ(•ᴗ•)ᕒ <- this is Gulliver

He was hiding, I assume from fluorescent lights and random people walking by. I blessed him using the Essene Blessing Walk and something cool happened. He popped his head out of his hiding place like saying: "huh? What was that?". I asked him if he wanted me to perform healing hands on him and came fully out of his hiding place as in response... and he loved it!

That was a nice experience, though I think some humans raised an eyebrow at me :-) I shall perform them astrally in such places...

I didn't know animals were that sensitive to healing energy.

Hello Mr. Greer,

I asked a while back if I could do both Rosicrucianism and Golden Dawn together, and you said (if I recall correctly) that I can so long as I keep them separate.

I am now in a position where the two of them together are taking too much time. Could I "pause" my Golden Dawn work to focus on Rosicrucianism? I made it up to the 7th chapter of Learning Ritual Magic, and a bit past halfway Paths of Wisdom. I'd like to continue the exercises, though,
as described up to Chapter 7 on LRM so that I can more or less pick up where I left off when I have more time in the future.

Thank you in advance!

Thanks you, John!

Ah, so the egregore is the product of a group mind that can subsequently take on a life of its own. So it is possible that it can ensnare anyone who subsequently finds an affinity for the ideas and values of the original group. Social Marxism starts from a place of caring, but doesn't scale beyond the family unit. But then we are seeing the egregore then takes like minded people and infuses them with enthusiasm to promote the values and ideas by means fair and foul.
It would certainly explain how Marxism has persisted despite abject failure at every turn and how it morphed from economics into every other facet of higher education, wouldn't it?

But I suppose that there are a percentage of us who are naturally immune from the influence of egregores for whatever reason. It's probably why I have spent my life looking at good ideas that work well yet are not adopted by the structures in power who seem to prefer some almost-functional ideas that have been adopted by their group.

I don't know, maybe we're missing out on something thrilling, like being part of a crowd at a sports event or cultural event, but I think on the whole I'm glad I don't get subsumed into groups.

Now, I wonder if egregores that turned sour could explain the intransigence of the political classes that happens at the end of an empire? You've noted before how at the very end, the political classes dig in and fight each other with more viciousness than facing the common problems, which get ignored as the empire goes through its final phase of collapse. Egregores that are fighting each other, instead of making common cause to preserve the entity they are fighting over?

Bruce
AKA Renaissance Man

I don't know if there's a word for it, but this is my middle child to a T. Not the caul part, but just being able to put wishes out there into the universe, and have the universe grant them-- often in the most unlikely-seeming ways.

I haven't read the book (just a review, and some other commentary here and there: https://theworthyhouse.com/2021/03/30/i-see-satan-fall-like-lightning-rene-girard/), so take all this with a grain of salt, but Girard was a Catholic and likely had some Catholic assumptions, but my understanding of his argument is that many religions have tried to grapple with the cycle of envy leading to violence, as reflected in their myths, but that the Christian myth was the only one that really got it. As such, he might have been making an argument closer to "anyone for whom the Bible is the core religious text," since that's where you find the Christian myth.

My apologies if my question was overly broad! Hanging out around here has certainly shown me that there's a lot of variety in "Christianity."

This is a question which has seriously bothered me for a little while now, and I'm hoping you can help me with making sense of it. I strongly value religious freedom; I don't think anyone has a place telling others who they can worship, nor how. However, given that spiritual forces have powerful effects on our world, there are certain powers best avoided. Further, the effects of malevolent religious and magical practices do not seem likely to remain solely with the practioners of them, but will instead spread outwards from them, affecting innocents.

Do you have any advice for how to reconcile my strong value judgement that religious freedom is a good thing with the knowledge that there are countless spiritual practices out there that harm others? I don't want to support things like witch hunts, but I'm realizing that under certain circumstances (such as having huge numbers of people participate in the kinds of malevolent and destructive workings of the Magic Resistance) the actions justified under the banner of "religious freedom" are actively, and overtly, destructive; and that under such circumstances taking action which restirct religious freedom to avoid horrific outcomes may be justified, or even morally required by my other value judgements.

The entire question is causing massive cognitive dissonance for me, but I see no out without completely reevaluating my entire moral code, which I suppose may be what I need to do...

I did not know about that! Thanks for the reading topic!

It really depends on the specific details of the working. In many rituals the work is interwoven -- at some points you do physical and astral work at the same time, at other points you do just physical work, or just astral work, or just spiritual work, and then it's back to some combination or other. Very often rituals begin and end on the material plane.

The stronger an egregor becomes, the harder it is for those who are in its grip to think clearly. Thus over time a society tends to accumulate old, powerful, dysfunctional egregors, and I think you're quite right to suggest that this plays a huge role in the fall of mature civilizations.

My own genealogical research and an ancestry DNA test all confirm that I am entirely of European heritage, and mostly Germanic peoples at that. But also Celtic ancestry as well. I'm very much drawn to ancestor worship, which is probably one (though not the sole) reason why I am considering Asatru. Though if something like reincarnation is correct, the question of ancestry might be more muddled.

That's very likely an important factor.

Back when Usenet was in flower -- I know, I'm showing my age! -- I had several conversations with the Order of St. Michael. She claimed that the OSM was a serious esoteric Christian order, and it attracted Deryni fans (and Kurtz herself) because they tended to be in love with the medieval Christianity she portrayed. I have no idea whether her attitude was widespread, admittedly.

Bradley's fiction was always interesting in its use of magic, because she liked to blend standard fantasy tropes with the Neopagan magic she practiced. That was one of the things that inspired my mix of authentic occultism and Lovecraft tropes in my tentacle novels.

The interesting question is whether he was approaching it from a traditionalist Catholic perspective (which likely would have taken a dim view of other Christianities) or a Vatican II perspective, which would be a lot more ecumenical. At any rate, I think JMG's answer was quite correct.

Fair enough. Thank you for the detailed response.

2) That's part of it, certainly. Also, even when a work of fiction retains its popularity, it becomes familiar to its fan base and loses much of the emotional and cognitive impact it had when it was fresh.

Offlist anon: now that you've responded to it, no, I can't. You can only edit a comment until someone replies.

Providence has a very strange and elusive energy! I've lived here (okay, technically speaking on the other side of the Seekonk River from Providence) for six years and I'm still not sure I could put a finger on it.

I'm not the original poster.

2) Are these Western worlds the same as Abred, Gwynfydd and Ceugant?

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Page 5 of 9

Magic Monday

Re: Ecosophia Prayer List

no subject

Re: Do Cities have Nymphs?

A Druid in Psychologist's Clothing

Re: Effects of Shipping Costs and Girardian Memetic Contagion

no subject

Rosicrucianism and Golden Dawn

Re: random questions

Re: On the Subject of Egregores

no subject

Re: Effects of Shipping Costs and Girardian Memetic Contagion

no subject

Re: Effects of Shipping Costs and Girardian Memetic Contagion

no subject

Re: random questions

Re: On the Subject of Egregores

Re: Asatru Folk Assembly

Re: Fiction and magic

Re: Fiction and magic

Re: Effects of Shipping Costs and Girardian Memetic Contagion

Re: Effects of Shipping Costs and Girardian Memetic Contagion

Re: Fiction and magic

no subject

Re: Do Cities have Nymphs?

Re: Etheric Body