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. 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 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

Fiction and magic

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG and others, hope you all are doing well!

1) Last week, you responded to another question about the Lord of the Rings, claiming JRR Tolkien, “boobytrapped the symbolism so it would be magically inert” for ritual/magical purposes.
How would someone (in this case, Tolkien) accomplish something like that? My practical knowledge of magic is sparse, at least for now, but I assume the symbols would have to contradict certain rules? For example, your recent Levi post talked about equilibrium; is Tolkien’s symbolism “unbalanced” somehow?

2) I suspect people have made similar attempts with other fictional stories, particularly those in the fantasy genre. Are you aware of any such workings succeeding? If so, would you be willing to describe the results?

Re: Fiction and magic

[ecosophia]

1) It's not a matter of contradicting certain rules, it's a matter of leaving out things that would provide links to magical power. No, I'm not going to list those; if you want to learn them, study and practice magic and you'll figure them out.

2) Oh dear gods, yes. That I know of, people have tried doing magic using symbolism from Katherine Kurtz's Deryni novels, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover novels, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar and Diana Tregard series, the Star Wars movies, the Dragonlance novels, and a gaggle of comic books. I haven't heard yet of somebody trying to do Harry Potter magic but it's doubtless only a matter of time. The results vary; if the fiction you're riffing off has a lot of popular enthusiasm, you can get some energy from that; but it never lasts long, and the results are never as significant as what you'll get from nonfictional magic.

Re: Fiction and magic

[(Anonymous)]

(not OP)

A lot of fiction, especially fantasy, has a strong wish fulfillment element in it. I wonder whether the potential wish fulfillment and escapist aspects are what wrecks a lot of attempts with fictional symbolism. If the pull of the astral on the mage is stronger than the mage's pull towards manifestation, then its no wonder that no power got down to Earth.

Granted that, and most authors aren't mages, but I digress.

Re: Fiction and magic

[ecosophia]

That's very likely an important factor.

Re: Fiction and magic

[robertmathiesen]

Back in the day Katherine Kurz actually launched a sort of magical order (The Order of St. Michael) based on her Deryni novels and her Adept ones, and I know that she published a serious book on magic, titled Deryni Magic.

I think I heard of undergraduate students at my university trying to do Hogwarts-style magic, but that would have been some 20-odd years ago.

Bradley herself did a great deal of magic back in her Berkeley years, and even before those years she had read extensively in magic and occultism.

Re: Fiction and magic

[ecosophia]

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.

Re: Fiction and magic

[brendhelm]

Right. I would imagine that the heyday of Hogwarts-style magic was between 2000 and 2007, during the long waits for the next book in the series to come out, when everyone had a Sorting Hat quiz on their Livejournal or Xanga feeds. Maybe add a few years for the movies, but the last one of those came out in 2011 and at that point you could find out what was going to happen simply by reading the already-finished books.

The main cultural shift emblematic of Harry Potter, I think, is the idea of wanting to "avoid spoilers" at all costs.

Re: Fiction and magic

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the response!

1) Oh, I wasn’t expecting a thorough list. That certain “things” were excluded is a more than satisfactory answer.

2) Interesting that the energy never lasts long. I suppose most fictional works have a short shelf life with regards to widespread popularity (some shorter than other, of course). Could that be a contributing factor?

Re: Fiction and magic

[ecosophia]

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.