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.

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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.

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

Comments

Wealth of Nature Review and "Listening to the Wisdom of Your Body" Question

[jprussell]

Good Evening,

I hope everyone here is having a great summer as we draw toward the close of July.

To Share: This week, I've put together my thoughts on our host's excellent The Wealth of Nature: Economics as If Survival Mattered, and as always, I welcome any and all thoughts (though it would likely be better to share them on my dreamwidth, as this would be pretty off-topic for MM): https://jpowellrussell.com/#book_the_wealth_of_nature

To Ask: In a recent scrying, I was given the advice "learn to listen to the wisdom of your body." I've meditated on this, and I'm pretty sure I get the gist, which is that my body has things to tell me separate from my rational/verbal mind, but as a someone who has spent far too much of his life focused on that rational/verbal mind, I don't actually know how to do this. Do you, JMG, or anyone else in the commentariat, have any recommendations for practices, techniques, or the like that might help?

As always, thanks very much to JMG and everyone else here for all that you do.

To any who will have them, I put forth my blessings and best wishes,
Jeff

Re: Wealth of Nature Review and "Listening to the Wisdom of Your Body" Question

[ecosophia]

Get plenty of massage. One of the most useful things I've found to get the mind out of the way is anything that helps release excess tension, since that's a barrier to body awareness, and massage helps quite a bit with that.

Re: Wealth of Nature Review and "Listening to the Wisdom of Your Body" Question

[thinking_turtle]

To "listen to the wisdom of your body" I use the Solar Plexus exercise. A recent Magic Monday linked to a book on the subject: The psychology of the solar plexus and subconscious mind by Julia Seton.

The exercise is a great help for weight loss. Whenever I'm tempted to eat, I do the exercise. It turns out it's not my body that wants bad food, it's my mind! The mind wants a quick sugar high. When I examine the nature of the urge to snack, it's always rational, like "It's on offer", "I'm near the shop", or "I'll eat less tomorrow".

Listening to your body is a deep challenge, I'm learning slowly, even with the exercise.

[jprussell]

Thank you! I've downloaded the book, but not looked into it yet. I've been doing the Solar Plexus exercise daily since I got The Way of the Golden Section, but I haven't tried anything "applied" like you described, maybe I ought to give that a try.

Re: Wealth of Nature Review and "Listening to the Wisdom of Your Body" Question

[open_space]

You know how you told me the story of how kinesiology worked for you on what to eat? I use that same idea to divine using my body, for example when I shouldn't eat something my stomach goes a little sour and I feel it telling me that.

Or I just sometimes ask and listen for an answer like, where do you want me to massage you? Like when I see a Tarot card and wait to see where my attention goes to.

[jprussell]

Ah, thanks for these. I hadn't thought to try to apply the same "method" (if you can call it that) to other feelings, but that might be worth exploring.

[open_space]

I feel that anything that is alive or that can hold a charge can be used as a vessel for divination and the body is both!

Re: Wealth of Nature Review and "Listening to the Wisdom of Your Body" Question

[hearthculture]

Greetings Jeff,
I'm catching up on your writings from the last month and enjoying reading the story of your journey. Thank you for sharing.

For your scrying, I'm pondering the difference between "listening to the wisdom of your body" versus "learning to listen..."
For many modern males, part of the right of passage is in some way showing mastery over the body, particularly in the military or sports where not eating of pushing past your limits is celebrated. Perhaps this is pointing to something more complex than just listening to your body more, maybe this is pointing to a whole other branch of your occult work - "learning to listen to the body" - which may involve more than just eating when you are hungry and honoring resting rather than celebrating pushing through, though these things are likely part of the wisdom of your body. I can imagine a years worth of observations and meditations just in listening to my body through daily cycles, moon cycles, and the solar cycle of seasonal changes.

I may also be extrapolating and assuming too much; and I am realizing that your advice is pertinent to me, and this train of thought is one I should explore further.

Hope you are finding ways to stay cool and hydrated.
May you and yours be blessed.

[jprussell]

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you're enjoying them!

Thank you also for your thoughts on "learning to listen" - it certainly sounds reasonable and worth exploring. I think you're right that at least part of it might be learning a different relationship with my body than was appropriate at a different time in my life.

Lastly, likewise on the hydration and blessings!

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: Wealth of Nature Review and "Listening to the Wisdom of Your Body" Question

[illyria2001]

For many modern males, part of the right of passage is in some way showing mastery over the body, particularly in the military or sports

For women it's mastering our bodies by starving ourselves or over-exercising. Both show a profound disrespect and sometimes even hatred of the physical world and our bodies that are part of it.

Re: Wealth of Nature Review and "Listening to the Wisdom of Your Body" Question

[(Anonymous)]

Yoga has helped me immensely with this. In my personal practice my experience has been a blurring between mind and body.

There are obviously tons of resources out there, but I've used the 30 day courses by "yoga with Adrienne."

IMO a daily practice is most helpful from a spiritual perspective, no matter how small that daily practice is. It functions nicely as a ritual.

[jprussell]

Thanks very much for this! I've had some good results with Yoga, and I have been working on re-establishing a daily workout routine - at the moment, I'm trying out the "Daily Dozen" again, but maybe yoga will end up being the right approach.

Incidentally, in the "small world" category, Adrienne is actually friends with my wife's brother.

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: Wealth of Nature Review and "Listening to the Wisdom of Your Body" Question

[yekaterinaat]

Hi Jeff,

Hope this can help as this is something I work on a lot. For me, I see it as my body /informing/ the direction of my mind. So they’re very much together. My body guides me in what mental things I need to improve for my spiritual development.
If something is not well with my thinking—my body will reflect that in a very metaphoric ailment. Then, I know that I need to work on that mental concept, and that my body has guided me that now is the right time for it.
It has happened before that my mind went off on its own with some concepts I thought would be helpful for my spiritual development, but then I developed some pain in my knee (which for me personally I understood reflected my ability to be accepting of guidance and ‘bend the knee’ rather than insist on my way). So then I knew that this mental-spiritual concept could not have been good for me, and I meditated on it until I reached a good understanding and the pain went away.
So I want to suggest that if you are a person who has a powerful mind and are interested in developing it further, consider your body like your most perfect individualised spiritual teacher.
How to listen to it? Very easy… are you well? Or do you have some sort of even minor pain or ailment? In which case there’s something to work on, just meditate on the symbolism. To me that’s the best spiritual guidance for my mental development. :)

[jprussell]

Thank you very much for this suggestion, I don't know that I would have thought of that! I'll give it a shot.

Cheers,
Jeff