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. Papus and Chaboseau, the honorees of the last two weeks, each got their Martinist lineage by a tangle of mostly forgotten figures, so we can jump straight back to one of the founders of the tradition, Louis-Claude de St. Martin. St. Martin was born in 1743 in an aristocratic family and became a student of the elusive master Martinez de Pasqually, learning the distinctive system of theurgic magic Pasqually taught. Later in life, after Pasqually's death, he focused more of his attention on Christian mysticism, studied Jacob Boehme's writings, and penned a series of influential mystical tracts under the pseudonym "The Unknown Philosopher."

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

Mansions of the Moon

[andrewskeen]

(Apologies in advance for a long effortpost.) I've been thinking about the Mansions of the Moon as listed in Picatrix, specifically the 27th/Al Fargh al-Thani.

The reason this Mansion has the powers it does is due to the effects of the zodiac, because everything in the created cosmos may be located in one of the twelve zodiacal signs, specifically mediated through the further distinction of decan and term; my sense with the Mansions is that exaltation and triplicity play less of a role, but I can't yet justify this from first principles.

The Plinian description of the 27th is to destroy springs and wells; its ymage is an angel holding a perforated dish to his mouth. This Mansion overlaps the decans of Saturn and Jupiter, and the bounds of Venus and Jupiter. The decanic admixture of Saturn, who has no further essential dignity concurrent with his decan, and Jupiter, who rules both a bound overlapping his decan and the entire sign, is part of the reason this Mansion has such a sharp mixture of benefic uses and malefica; this is also the reason the Sufi mystic Al-Buni says of it, "When the Moon is in this Mansion there descends a spirit of mixed good and evil, in which you will abstain from making any preparation." This is the reason the earlier listing in bk I ch 4 gives its magical uses as:
> increase merchandise and acquire profit (benefic Jove)
> unite allies (Jupiter and likely Venus as well)
> increase harvests (Venus and possibly Jupiter mediating Saturn's influence)
> heal illness (Jupiter)
> destroy the riches of whomever you wish (Saturn "mediating" Jove)
> impede the building of buildings (Saturn)
> put travelers on the sea in peril (malefic Jove?, possibly malefic Venus)
> prolong the incarceration of captives (Saturn)
> to do evil to whomever you wish (Saturn triumphing over all)

It would be foolish to use the Plinian ymage for any of these. The Plinian ymage of an angel blowing his breath (or pneuma) onto a dish (perforated, it spills anything in it and cannot hold water, another reinforcement of the ymage's destructive purpose) is for annihilating the wells and springs of an enemy. The description gives us everything we need: as Picatrix itself states in bk II ch 3, "..from generalities, you will be able to understand and judge particulars." We already know to make the purpose of the ymage as coherent as possible; because of how the cosmos is configured, there is nothing purely coherent in the physical world of matter and energy. Everything is "a coadunation of the elements ordered for the reception of Form." We will never encounter pure Fire or even a pure Form, only shadows of the ideas. While the Moon is in this Mansion, gaining a great deal of influence over Piscean matters, as further mediated through the other rules of the Mansion's degrees, we increase the coherence of our ymage in order to magnify its effect. We draw an angelic spirit belonging to this Mansion; he's breathing on/effecting the target, water; the vessel he holds is damaged and afflicted. And in the operation itself, we call out to the Angel or Lord ruling the Mansion, ask him to destroy the specific spring, then give the ymage to our apprentice and tell him to toss it in the guy's well in the middle of the night.

I believe the powers and effects of the Mansions change based on the state of the five rulers of the degree through which the Moon is passing as the ymage is made. These effects gain further coherence based on which planets the Moon is aspecting, their own essential dignity and angularity, and the houses they rule in the chart of the election. This Mansion is used to heal illness, possibly to aid health and vitality generally. On August 3rd at my location, the Moon rises in the 27th, sextiling her disposer Jupiter with very strong mutual reception, and applying to oppose Mars, also with mutual reception. With Pisces rising, the operator is associated with Jupiter; with Leo on the cusp of the 6th, the Sun represents illness. The ymage for this election might depict a winged, angelic figure breathing on an injured body part, or, even better, speaking into a doctor's ear while the doctor examines the patient (who is drawn to look like the person we want to help). Does this look like an ok election for a healing ymage? And have I made any blunders in this longwinded description of astrological magic?

Best,
Andrew

Re: Mansions of the Moon

[ecosophia]

You could certainly try that. Magic is an experimental science, however, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating; give it a try and keep careful records of the results you get, and then you'll know whether your theoretical approach to the question is correct. Btw, why "ymage"? There's a perfectly good English word for that already.

Re: Mansions of the Moon

[andrewskeen]

Cliff Low writes it that way and I assumed he had a good reason. I'm definitely going to give the operation a try.

Re: Mansions of the Moon

[ecosophia]

By all means. Cliff's got a lot of experience with this stuff.