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 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.

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

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!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

What sort of activities build our mental bodies?

If the mental body is our first 'permanent' body does that mean it stays in the same polarity (male/female) as it was in our last incarnation?

How do you know when there are no more repressed emotions in your physical body? Can you even reach this point as an 'average' person?

[ecosophia]

1) Anything that exercises the capacity for abstract consciousness. For example, mathematics and philosophy will do it, meditation will do it, and so will experiencing arts, literature, and music that don't primarily appeal to the bodily passions.

2) Not really. The permanent bodies don't have to go through death and rebirth to change polarity.

3) Maybe such a paragon exists somewhere, but I've never met one. I'd say don't worry about it; clear away the blocked emotions you can manage, knowing that more will probably surface later.

polarities

[(Anonymous)]

Some while ago there was a mention that something had changed 'upstream' (possibly Sadhguru and others) - if results of this gradually appear 'downstream', might this have something to do with turbulence on the astral?
So not only do we have humans being disconnected from the world in favour of tech and a seemingly endless stream of crazy as the humans make dubious choices, we could also be getting amplified strangeness due to changes in higher realms in addition to our own idiocy?

JMG said: "2) Not really. The permanent bodies don't have to go through death and rebirth to change polarity."

So if more rarefied bodies can use polarities in different ways, and we're getting trickle-down turbulence, might this go someway to explaining the idea of people identifying as things that they are not, but 'feel' that they are?
(i.e. Not simply a human generated craze)

Re: polarities

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, and in fact there are significant changes under way as the Sun makes its transition at the spring equinox from Pisces to Aquarius. So a lot of things that used to work don't work any more, and some of the things that didn't work in the past are beginning to work now. It's a strange time.

2) That's possible, but there are other factors that explain it at least as well. For example, if you don't mind some grubby details, the popularity of "shemale" pornography means that some very large number of men have been masturbating to images of women with penises -- thus charging that image with intensive sexual energy, and making it easier for impressionable men to think of themselves as women with penises.

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

Fascinating. If it is correct that a major change occurred upstream, one wonders how much of a strange time we might be headed for!

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

2) If anything a large number of men masturbate to with porn charges it with sexual energy, this might help explain the rise of "rape culture", and that talk about it: rape, and impromptu and dubiously consensual sex, are highly popular scenes in porn...

Re: polarities

[ecosophia]

Yes, that's also a significant issue.

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, something else has occurred to me to wonder about: all of this is being mediated by mass media; and especially the internet. Does this charge the media with sexual energies? Is the internet essentially one of those creepy bars where middle age men are sitting off in the corner masturbating to the attractive young women who are duped, coerced, or so desperate for attention they end up in one of those places?

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

When has rape *not* been common in porn (so that you'd have a "prior" period to compare to now), particularly that consumed by women?

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure. Frankly, the idea of looking into the history of rape in porn feels me with the creeps, so I'll pass; but porn has exploded in popularity since the 1990s or so with the rise of the internet; this is around when things started getting really ugly with rape culture, cries about rape culture, and the rise of celibacy among women; although I'm well aware all of these predate the rise of the internet, and all have other factors as well, it seems interesting timing to me.

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

2) I realize I just posted, but another question just came to me: there's another genre of porn which is flooding sexual energies in a deeply troubling direction: "simulated child pornography". This is exactly what it sounds like, and is a disturbingly popular genre on quite a few porn sites. While the big ones tend not to host as much of it, it's disturbingly easy to find such content on hentai sites; and they are far from being fringe right now.

Aside from increasing the number of pedophiles, what sort of effects do you think this would have? Might this be linked to the weird desire so many people seem to have to sexualize children?

Re: polarities

[ecosophia]

I wasn't aware of that. Ugh. (Reaches for brain bleach...) I'm not sure what effects it would have but none of them would be wholesome.

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry about introducing you to another way that our society has gone off the rails in an extremely unpleasant fashion, however, it bothers me that it seems to explain a few odd things that don't make any kind of sense otherwise....

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

It's worse in that a good portion of it is pornographic versions of media aimed for children. Charging those with sexual energies seems like a truly bad idea...

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

2) Is this sort of thing why prohibitions and restrictions on masturbation and pornography are so common in cultures that haven't embraced the "anything goes" mantra of modernity?

Re: polarities

[ecosophia]

It's certainly one of the reasons. Part of the challenge of modern times is that our ways of making images are far more realistic than those of past societies -- photography really shifted pornography into high gear, and made its subtle effects much more powerful.

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

2) If pornography can provide energy to images in this fashion, is there any reason it couldn't also transmit such energy to people? What kind of effects would it have on the recipients of this sort of energy?

Re: polarities

[ecosophia]

That happens all the time. It's one of the reasons for the modern cult of celebrity -- all that adoring attention and desire focused on photographs of individuals. It's also one of the reasons why so many celebrities burn out so fast.

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

I've always connected that with some cultures' belief that photographs can steal a bit of your soul.

Celebrities have way too many photos taken of them. It's a wonder any of them stay sane.

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm. Given just how many photos are taken of conventionally attractive women (or even just the "not ugly" women) and then shared online for men to masturbate to, I wonder if this is part of the reason why so many young women are going off the rails these days; I also wonder if this helps explain why so many women I know have zero interest in sex, if they are getting bombarded with sexual energies constantly, it makes sense they'd have no interest in getting any more...

Re: polarities

[(Anonymous)]

a) I am extremely psychically sensitive, and I wonder if this might be linked to why I absolutely hate having my photo taken: presumably this effect occurs well bellow the level of celebrity culture.

b) Could you use this to your advantage? I'm wondering if, with their consent, it would be possible to photos of someone as an anchor of sorts to bring blessing or healing energies to them. Do you know if anyone has looked into this?

[(Anonymous)]

"Anything that exercises the capacity for abstract consciousness. For example, mathematics and philosophy will do it, meditation will do it, and so will experiencing arts, literature, and music that don't primarily appeal to the bodily passions."

This makes me wonder if neurodivergence like autism is something we go through on our way to building our mental bodies. I'm autistic and it led me to completing a mathematics degree in my early 20s - alongside most of cohort who were also on the spectrum somewhere. If I wasn't a social recluse who is little interested in mainstream culture I probably wouldn't have picked up meditation and my other spiritual pursuits either.

So what if it's not a 'disability' but an important stage in our evolution?

[ecosophia]

That's an interesting speculation!

[(Anonymous)]

Is there something not-too-long you could say about music "not appealing primarily to bodily passions"? Thanks.

[ecosophia]

Sure. Think of the difference between classical music and rock. Rock rhythms stir up the passions -- that's the whole point. Classical influences the mind and the subtler emotions. The more cerebral sort of jazz is another good example. Pick any kind of music you like, and think about how you experience it and what kind of activities it resonates with; that'll give you a good idea.