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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 via slightly less evasive routes. The last two honorees, Constant Chevillon and Robert Ambelain, both received part of their many lineages from this week's honoree, Jean Bricaud. Bricaud was a student of Papus and a leading figure in the French Martinist movement, as well as a major figure in the French Gnostic church of the time. He became head of the Martinist Order on Papus' death in 1916, and played a significant role in many other alternative spiritual scenes of the time. He died in 1934.
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***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***
no subject
(Anonymous) 2023-07-03 08:35 am (UTC)(link)Hello JMG!
I don't know if this belongs to your expertise and knowledge but I am looking for sources that will help the western reader understand and enter the occult world of Hinduism. It would be wonderful if you could recommend a book to me.
And a question from a friend of mine who is not here. What is your opinion on chaos magic (from the Carolla school). Can it be called , "effective" magic?
Best wishes
no subject
2) Your friend reminds me of a once-famous poem:
"Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
Oh, how I wish he'd go away!"
In answer to your friend's question, I'm not a fan. I read Carroll's Liber Null and Psychonaut when it was first published in 1987, and I also read its primary inspiration, the appendix on magic in Shea and Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy, back in the 1970s. Every so often somebody comes up with something like this, a version of magic that's been stripped of everything offensive to modern materialist thinking; it's always very popular for a while, precisely because it doesn't challenge the conventional wisdom of its time, and so -- since such projects are always portrayed as radical, cutting-edge, rebellious, and exciting -- they allow people to pretend to be edgy while conforming to the official beliefs of their time. Some people apparently get good results from chaos magic; I find it resembles lite beer, compared to the good robust brown ale of more traditional approaches.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2023-07-03 07:18 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
The Occult World of Hinduism
For a deep and authentic guide to Hinduism (esoteric and otherwise), I recommend Dr. Edwin Bryant (his website at Rutgers contains lots of free lectures and courses.)
He also just completed a course for Embodied Philosophy (another great resource) on the six schools of Vedic Philosophy.
www.edwinbryant.org
www.embodiedphilosophy.com
Hope this helps!
Jill C
no subject