Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just past 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. Last week's honoree, Dr. Gérard Encausse, who wrote about magic under the pen name Papus, didn't act alone in reviving the Martinist tradition and founding the Martinist Order; he had the capable assistance of this man, Augustin Chaboseau. Papus and Chaboseau were medical students together, and were startled to discover that each of them had received the Martinist initiation by way of two different lineages. They each initiated the other, and thereafter worked together to preserve and transmit the Martinist tradition. Chaboseau's wife Louise was famous in her own right as a leading French feminist, and one of the first female pharmacists in France.

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.

***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***

Comments

The Five Rites

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG

Would you be willing to give some details about what's going to be in your upcoming book on the Five Rites?

When I saw it mentioned in your last Ecosophia blog, I pre-ordered it immediately, which is something I rarely do! But I've been practicing the Five Rites for years, and often wondered what their origins were, having never been convinced by the story of their Tibetan provenance.

And yet... I am also a long-standing practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, and, if you squint your eyes, there is no denying the similarity of some of the Five Rites with cognate practices in the magical movements of "trul'khor" (Tibetan energy yoga). The Sixth Rite, in particular, is strikingly similar to a posture I learned in the context of Dzogchen training, where the aim is to short-circuit the thinking mind by holding an isometric pose (while retaining the breath) past the point of physical exhaustion.

My working hypothesis is that the human energy body, as with our physiological body, is almost identical, cross-culturally, and that collections of practices for cultivating this energy body are constantly being discovered, lost, and re-discovered, and were and are known to every human culture in history (including our own).

I also think that the cross-fertilisation of ideas and practices along the Silk Roads of Eurasia were more formative than we generally reckon, and that the influences did not always travel in one direction. Not everything is a ancient mystical secret from the mysterious East; there were influential teachings and practices that flowed from west to east as well.

Have I hit near the mark, or am I completely off-target?

I'll totally understand, by the way, if the answer is, "Have a bit of patience and read the book when it's published!" That's more than fair. And cultivating patience as a virtue is never not a work-on for me.

Anyway, very intrigued by what you have to say on this matter, either now or upon publication.

Be well,
Seán

Re: The Five Rites

[ecosophia]

The Five Rites certainly weren't Tibetan; they were invented in the occult community here in the United States in the 1930s, and published in two somewhat different forms in 1939. That said, there's good reason to think that the people who devised them were influenced by what was known about hatha yoga, in particular by the Suryanamaskar (sun salutation) exercise, as well as a range of Western movement disciplines.

The sixth rite is among the pieces of evidence for this; it's a straightforward borrowing of the uddiyana bandha exercise from hatha yoga, which (unlike most yogic practices) was well described in English language literature at the time.

That said, your basic thesis is correct: we're all working with very similar bodies, and with a series of traditions dating back very far into antiquity about what you can do with the body. The Five Rites were crafted by people who paid close attention to the effects of exercises, and who drew inspiration and ideas from many other people who could be described in the same terms. It's not at all surprising that similar practices should emerge all over the world under those circumstances.