Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's 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. Along with Louis-Claude de St. Martin, last week's honoree, the inner circle of pupils of Martinez de Pasqually included this week's figure, Jean-Baptiste Willermoz. A very active Freemason, Willermoz played a central role in cleaning up the mess left by the implosion of the Strict Observance (the most important Templar order in 18th century Europe) and created a new order with its own rituals, the Rectified Rite, which survives to this day. Much of what became the ritual of Martinism came from Willermoz's hands.

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

Military Fiction Recommendations and Three Cauldrons in Grove Ceremony Question

[jprussell]

Good Evening,

To all here, I hope whatever you're up to is going well and the week brings more of what you need, and less of what you don't.

To Share: Justin Patrick Moore encouraged me to post a comment I made about military fiction over on the main Ecosophia blog as a post to my own blog, and so I cleaned it up, expanded it a bit, and here it is: https://jpowellrussell.com/#books_military_fiction

To Ask: Should the three cauldrons portion of the SOP be used when opening a Grove, and if so, should the wording be changed at all? If it matters, I am currently practicing the version of the SOP with the Three Cauldrons given in the Gradd y Ymarferiwr in the DA and using the Grove ceremony as given in the DMH.

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: Military Fiction Recommendations and Three Cauldrons in Grove Ceremony Question

[ecosophia]

Generally speaking, no, the Cauldrons working should be left out of ordinary Grove workings. You can include that when you're doing the Grove working just to practice the Grove opening and closing, but if you have any other intention, leave the Cauldrons (and the rest of the Grail Working) out of the Grove ritual.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG and everyone here.
Very good week to everyone!

1. I have 5 brothers from my father's first marriage. They lived in another city and I didn't have much contact with them. Everyone, men and women, had a good position in the audiovisual industry. At one point in their 40s and 50s they all gradually lost their jobs, fell into ostracism and poverty. Interestingly, I also worked in the audiovisual industry and lost my job a few months ago. I recently discovered an Italian ancestor, a nobleman, who worked with theater and painting (correlated to current audiovisual) who, at a certain age, also lost everything and died in poverty. Anyway, how to break this cycle? I know My Saturn retrograde in the 2nd house doesn't help, but it seems familiar.

2. I raised a little cat, from birth to death, for exactly 20 years. He passed him last year. Since then, I dreamed of him once, as if he had come to thank me. And then I dreamed of several cats (including a lion and a black panther) - all of them in difficult situations - asking me for help. The impression I had was that they really needed help, both materially and spiritually. Was I imagining too much? If not, how to help cats in this case?

3. In a planetary invocation ritual, with more symbolic components, better the ritual. However, could I exchange the Orphic hymns for prayers of my own (or perhaps Psalms)?

[ecosophia]

1) Well, clearly you need to find a job in a different industry! Very often such family patterns are passed on as personality traits from parent to child. You might see if you can find a good astrologer or diviner who can give you some personal advice on this.

2) If it happens again, ask the cat how you can help it. It may involve something as simple as saying a prayer.

3) Of course you can use your own, or the Psalms.

[(Anonymous)]

Dead Venerable JMG,

I'm interested in making a gold Fluid Condenser - I've noticed that the method for producing a a Fluid Condenser in Circles of Power differs somewhat from the one in Natural Magic and in Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics. The "classic" way seems to be heating the gold until it's red hot and then flinging it into a cup of distilled water several times. The method in Circles of Power seems much more straightforward - putting the gold and the cup of water in a glass saucepan and then bringing it to a boil several times.

From experience, does the product of these methods differ in any significant way? The Circles of Power method certainly appeals to me as it seems to be much easier with less chance for contamination with soot.

Kind regards,
Eric R

[(Anonymous)]

Oh dear, that should say Dear and not dead. It seems autocorrect has had other plans!!!

Changing consciousness

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I was talking with my spouse last night and something came up that made her suggest that I ask you. For context, she's pretty much my opposite: very intuitive about people's emotions, loves to talk, not much into non-fiction reading. She's a doctor of psychosomatic medicine and psychoanalyst and did years of therapy as part of her training.

She is, however, quite anxious and has many exaggerated fears, especially concerning the health of our children. Therapy has helped her recognize at least a possible source (parental incompetence in her early childhood) but that recognition hasn't helped her outgrow those fears.

I mentioned your comment that magic has been used to change consciousness for thousands of years while psychology is only a hundred years old and still in its infancy. From there we wondered how to work on her anxiety with magic.

So my questions:

1) Do you think the OSA work could be helpful here, even after extensive therapy? She's a pretty much done talking about her childhood so starting anew in writing doesn't seem very attractive.

2) I've started working with the DMH but there has been very little time without small kids in the house, so progress has been slow. Given more experience, what would be the best way to approach this? Me simply banishing her anxieties seems like a candidate for serious blowback, given that there probably are (or have been) good reasons for them. Doing a working to help her trust in the gods or in life seems too remote, however.

3) I won't attempt this without a lot more experience, this is more a theoretical question about the process of healing other people's emotional imbalances (on their request and with their consent). Is that inadvisable anyway and the only way would be for my wife to take up magic herself?

Thank you in advance for your opinion!

Re: Changing consciousness

[ecosophia]

1) Probably not. If she's worked through her childhood in therapy, the OSA work may not help much. On the other hand, a more open approach to journaling -- doing written dialogues with her fears -- may accomplish more.

2) You'd need much, much more experience. Ask me again when you've finished working through the book.

3) The issue with the kind of habitual fears that have no relation to current conditions is that they're usually a distraction from something else. She will have to deal with the "something else" before she can resolve the fears -- and she may not want to do that. Ultimately, she's the only person who can solve this. You can't fix it for her.

The path poem

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
A while ago you posted a few lines from a poem about finding the path you're currently walking to have vanished behind you, leaving forward as the only remaining direction. I've been trying to find that poem to no avail, can you post its name again?

Re: The path poem

[ecosophia]

That's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" by Robert Browning. The lines you're thinking of are these:

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round:
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on; nought else remained to do.

The rest of the poem:

https://allpoetry.com/Childe-Roland-To-The-Dark-Tower-Came

[thinking_turtle]

To share, for those who wonder what LBRH, DA or DP mean, a list of Ecosophia abbreviations is available.

Thanks for your work!

To ask, the Christian version of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is covered in Learning Ritual Magic, and the druid revival version in The Celtic Golden Dawn. From which tradition and book is the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram?

[ecosophia]

You'll find it in Circles of Power.

[(Anonymous)]

Total beginner question here.Is angel Raphael ruler of Air the same angel as Raphael ruler of Tiphareth or are they separate entities?

Can anyone recommend a good book on Archangel Raphael?

Is prayer the best way to begin forming a relationship with Raphael? I have an infant so no magic allowed here.

Thanks so much

[ecosophia]

1) People have been debating that for about a millennium. Since human beings aren't capable of understanding the angelic realms -- we're not that smart -- it's an open question.

2) I don't know of any book on any one of the archangels, but I'd be glad if they existed. Anybody else?

3) Yes. If you can, see if you can get an image of him that you like, and use that as a focus for your prayers.

Affirmations

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG
I have some questions about affirmations, I want to make sure I understand the rules correctly

1. is the affirmation , "I can physically see spirits and energy and can distinguish them from material things".
2. and does the affirmation , "I am beautiful and have beautiful and thick hair" make sense?

Re: Affirmations

[ecosophia]

I have some quibbles with both of these.

For the first, you may or may not have the peculiar neurology that enables some people to see spiritual things as though they were physical things. Just as an affirmation won't make you grow back a foot if it's been amputated, there are limits to what you can do with affirmations to change your nervous system. Also, "energy" is potentially problematic; do you want to see electricity? How about radio waves? Or latent heat?

For the second, if your hair doesn't happen to be thick, trying to make it thick by affirmation is unlikely to work.

Affirmations I would suggest instead would be these:

"I can clearly perceive spirits and spiritual forces."

"I am beautiful."

Massage

[(Anonymous)]

Howdy JMG

I recently defended my title as a massage technician and I was curious if I can somehow use magic to increase the healing power of my massages? I've tried with reiki (I even got my first degree of initiation! ) but paradoxically reiki worked less well for me than simply visualizing white light into a patient's body with the intention of giving them relief. (All with the consent of the patients, of course)

Re: Massage

[ecosophia]

Indeed you can. The book you want is The Art of True Healing by Israel Regardie; it focuses on the use of the Middle Pillar exercise as a modality for energy healing, but can be adapted to other forms of magical practice. Regardie spent much of his career making a living as a massage therapist and by all accounts a massage from him was an amazing experience.

Talismans

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning Mr. Greer

I'm looking for a way to make talismans, but I have a problem with using Yahweh's names (it's not a matter of hostility, I'm just not comfortable with it) do you know of any book that describes making talismans without using Jewish lore?

Re: Talismans

[ecosophia]

There's a lot of information on that subject in books on ancient Greek and Roman magic; I don't recall seeing any book for practitioners, but you should be able to figure out what to do. The most interesting difference is that most Greek and Roman talismans were little statues rather than disks with words and figures on them -- you can see in the latter the impact of the Jewish and Muslim distrust of graven images. Thus to make a talisman of Mars, for example, you'd make a little wax or lead statue of the god Mars, armed and armored, during an appropriate astrological election. Or for vitality and virility...

[(Anonymous)]

My greetings JMG

I will need a short story time here :D

In the past I was involved in demonolatry (let's call it the mistakes of my young years). I ended my practice (already several years ago), thanked those spirits and said goodbye to all the "gifts" I received from them. I cleansed myself properly and quietly practiced natural magic, some alchemy. Some time ago I became interested in Druidism and started my practice using your books (which are fantastic, by the way). In my demonolatry days I took initiations on the witch path. Despite my lack of active practice, the initiation changed something in me, something very fundamental (my astral shell to this day looks quite...devilish?).

And here are my two questions:
1. is it normal that I still feel something like attraction to the chthonic dimensions? (Not to demons or the dead, but simply to the underworld).
2. in spite of my lack of practice of ,,witch'' stuff, is it normal that I continue to feel the influence of this initiation on me?

With best regards
~L

[ecosophia]

Magic is for keeps. Yes, it's normal that you'll continue to feel a certain draw to those things; once you practice the rituals, and especially once you receive initiations, you have those contacts for the rest of this incarnation, and traces of them will remain into future incarnations. That doesn't mean you have to submit to that attraction and renew those contacts; it just means that you're going to have to put up with that connection.

This is one reason that it's wise to be careful about what kinds of magic you practice!

Ecosophia Prayer List

[tunesmyth]

Here are all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared across the Ecosophia community. (A printable version of the entire prayer list may be downloaded here.)

Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.

If I missed anybody, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom a relevant person holds power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below before midnight Monday Eastern time, or in the comments of the post at the first link given above.

* * *
This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests.

Nebulous Realms has reason to think they may be in particular physical or spiritual danger for the next couple of weeks (posted 8/7); they request prayers for their personal safety.

Steve T's brother Matt is currently in the hospital after a sudden violent seizure, and his daughter is having extreme panic attacks; they were both in a terrible car accident last fall. Steve asks for prayers for Matt's recovery of health; for the emotional and psychological well-being of the rest of the family, including his wife Megan, his daughter Diana, and his young son Jake; and for the lifting of any spiritual harm afflicting the family.

Freddy, Ganeshling's neighbor's 10 year old son, hasn't spoken since a traumatic hospital stay a few years ago; for Freddy to start speaking again and to help him develop into a functional adult.

Tamanous's friend's brother David got in a terrible motorcycle accident and has been diagnosed as a quadriplegic given the resultant spinal damage; for healing and the positive outcomes of upcoming surgeries and rehabilitation, specifically towards him being able to walk and live a normal life once more.

Lp9's hometown, East Palestine, Ohio, for the safety and welfare of their people, animals and all living beings in and around East Palestine, and to improve the natural environment there to the benefit of all. The reasonable possibility exists that this is an environmental disaster on par with the worst America has ever seen. (Lp9 gives updates here and also here.)

* * *

Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are now to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.

If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun's rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.

Re: Ecosophia Prayer List

[ecosophia]

Thank you as always for this.

The cosmic eclipse

[(Anonymous)]

What's your current take on how long this cosmic eclipse will last, assuming that is indeed what is happening. For what it's worth it's the best theory I've seen that explains the madness of the last few years, certainly since the grand conjunction. For me, it feels as if it is slowly clearing, but the turbulence can suddenly stir up and leave things pretty back at the madness for a while.

I know that people's desire to return to the past won't be helping astral conditions of course, but I often wonder that nothing will really clear it up until a bunch of gods show up, and even then, given the potential disparity between them, it just stays turbulent.

Is this normal for these transitions, or is this something else again?

Re: The cosmic eclipse

[ecosophia]

I think it's started to clear, but how long it'll take before our system has unimpeded access to the influences of the Central Sun is hard to guess. Of course as the eclipsing system moves past, it'll draw those people influenced by it even further from balance, since the eclipsing system will be off at an angle! So there's more turbulence to come, even as the influence of the Central Sun begins to reestablish itself.

Tarot Deck

[(Anonymous)]

Last week, I can't remember on which blog someone linked to 'Bel Wen's website, and as I hadn't looked at it for some time I decided to have a bit of a gander.

I think the following Tarot may be of interest to some readers, it's beautifully illustrated by Lisa Hunt, who has created a number of decks.

One note, it is landscape oriented, which I really like.
Here's a little of Benebell's review:
The Pastoral Tarot celebrates the idyllic life of small towns of New England and the Mid-Atlantic, through the countryside of the Mid-West, and the coastal regions. Each landscape piece is a scene out of Americana, a call back to 20th-century North American life.

It made me think of the Johnny Appleseed posts.
Here's the link, I'd love to hear what others think of it, I've ordered it!

https://benebellwen.com/2022/12/26/pastoral-tarot-by-lynn-araujo-and-lisa-hunt/

One other thing about this week's portrait, does anyone else see the joie de vivre in his eyes?
He looks so happy!
Maybe because he knows he's a bit of a looker! 😜
Kudos to the artist!

Helen in Oz

Re: Tarot Deck

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this! It does look very interesting.

As for Willermoz, yeah, he's always struck me as someone who would have been a complete delight to know.

The collective unconscious

[artsmith]

Hi JMG and everyone else.
Thank you Mr Greer for all your work and for giving up your time to field questions. I credit you with helping me to find a socially useful job to do which has raised my spirits greatly.
Do occulists have a word for people who seem to front run changes in society on an emotional level? There are individuals and small groups who seem to be processing the fads and manias of western society slightly ahead of the herd. I am not really talking about those who are grappling intellectually with the loss of cheap, dense, easily extracted energy sources more a sort of emotional patterning around loss, material insecurity and faint glimmerings of the freedom to do behave differently and choose different priorities.
Is this a phenomena you recognise and does it perform a specific function for us collectively?
Lilac Squarmaus Oyster

Re: The collective unconscious

[ecosophia]

I think the technical term is "weirdos." ;-)

Seriously, I don't know of a specific term for such people, but it's a known phenomenon. In every society there's a majority who cling to the status quo and a minority who stray off in various directions. When the status quo becomes hopelessly dysfunctional, the minority on the fringe becomes crucially important, as they're the ones who have the chance to find their way to some more productive path.

[(Anonymous)]

In your opinion, what was the influence of Edgar Cayce in the history of esoterism in
America? In what way is his influence felt today, and do you have any particular opinion of
his work? Thank you very much.

[ecosophia]

He was one of a dozen or so very influential trance workers in the history of American alternative spirituality. Like most of the others, he became very popular in the latter part of his own lifespan and for some decades after his death, mostly by way of popular books; a great many mid-20th century American occultists and alternative thinkers were strongly influenced by him. That influence has faded out somewhat at this point as more recent generations of trance workers have seized the limelight; last I heard, though, the organization he founded is still thriving, and it seems to have an unusually sane attitude toward his teachings, recognizing that some of them need to be taken symbolically rather than literally. A great many of his ideas are still very much in circulation, often at second hand and not always attributed to him!

For my part, I read quite a bit of his material when I was a teenager and found it rather more interesting than the competition. He's also in my initiatory upline -- one of his many students was Dr. Juliet Ashley, who was the main teacher of my teacher John Gilbert. I would have to revisit his writings to have any more detailed opinion of him -- it's been a long time -- but I don't recall spotting anything in his work that waved a red flag, and much of value.

[(Anonymous)]

I am reading a book on palmistry, some stuff in there is pretty scary and blunt are there nouances, I mean if you read the palm of someone with a really bad hand but that has a pretty good life, will not be tantamount to black magic.

[ecosophia]

Good heavens, yes, there are nuances; many books on palmistry also put things much more bluntly than they should. If somebody has a good life, and the book says they have a bad palm, the book is probably wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

Last week, there was a question from someone else about making an experience the 'object of awareness rather than the subject of awareness':
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/241747.html?thread=42340435#cmt42340435

I meditated on this this morning, which has led to some questions. The idea makes sense in that if I am anxious about something, I can 'widen out' so that seeing whatever I am anxious about in a wider perspective helps reduce the anxiety.

However, especially when I was younger, I would frequently find that my "good" experiences would undergo something that might be similar. I would be having a great experience of some sort, completely caught in the moment, and then my mind would jump in and say, "hey, it's you that is experiencing this, and at some point this great experience you're having is going to be over and only a memory". I don't know if that is the same thing as 'making an experience the object, not subject, of awareness'.

So is the technique described in the original question meant to be used for negative emotions? It seems like my consciousness has it the other way around. Negative emotions often totally fill my awareness, and positive emotions get distanced.

This has me wondering whether a) that full in-the-moment awareness where the "me" sense is forgotten is a state that some spiritual practices are meant to recapture, or b) whether the goal is rather to see that both "good" and "bad" experiences are poles of the same thing, and spiritual practice is meant to teach one to distance oneself from them. Indeed, I now suddenly wonder if this is what is meant by detachment?

Many thanks!

[ecosophia]

The technique described in the original question was borrowed from my novel The Weird of Hali: Innsmouth, in which one character teaches it to another to deal with hostile magic. Yes, it's meant to be used for negative experiences; yes, you're in the habit of doing things the other way around, and breaking that habit would be useful; yes, this is what detachment is about. As for the traditions that focus on the full in-the-moment awareness, keep in mind that spiritual traditions vary not only in their methods but in their goals; that's one goal, detachment is another, and there are others still.

[davidastrom]

As always, thank you for this space.

1. How essential is the rainbow wand for for example the Invocation of the Higher Self from CoP? To be more precise: it a ”boost” or a requirement?
2. Sometimes I see colored ”clouds” or cloudlike ”lights” during rituals. Not always but quite often. It is like my eyes loses focus and these ”light” or ”clouds” appear. Any idea what it is/means?
3. How often do you recommend doing the Greater Middle Pillar? (I have done the normal one +2 years)

[ecosophia]

1) It's a requirement. You should work through the chapter on making working tools, and make the working tools, before you go on to the later chapters.

2) It might well be an early stage of astral clairvoyance.

3) Once a week works well for many people. The other six days, do the ordinary version.

Defunct Traditions and Jungian Psychology

[sanctuaryofroseandchalice]

Dear JMG:

Thank you for this service you provide. I have two questions this week.

1) I recently came across a copy of The Craft Cup: Ritual Mysteries of the Goddess & the Grail, by Shadwynn (1994). As I think you know it is the primary theological and liturgical manual of the Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis, an eclectic Wiccan tradition combining classic paganism, esoteric Christianity, and Gnosticism using the Arthurian and Grail mythos. Before I was concerned it was going to be another example pop Neopagan slop. However, I'm so far highly impressed with its density (nearly 500 pages) and depth of content. I've been on the market looking for a Craft or Green Ray practice that would complement my studies and practice of esoteric Christianity and Hermetic Qabalah, and this book seems to fit the bill. As far as I'm able to tell this organization seems to be defunct, given your extensive knowledge of fringe occult orders do you know if this is the case? If the order is no more and I still wanted to practice the rites in this book as a solitary would that be acceptable? It has a "self-ordination" rite, but the issue of validity (as in "valid, but illicit") concerns me. Also, is it kosher to wake up a dormant egregore?

2) This may or may not fall under the scope of Magic Monday, but since you consider Jungian psychology to be a form of occultism in disguise I thought it was safe to ask. (And if it is off topic feel free to leave a blank space for the answer). Lately I've been contemplating the thought of perhaps going back to school in order to become a Jungian psychotherapist. It's one of the few professions I can think of that takes spirituality seriously, and if I became a non-stipendiary priest in the Independent Sacramental Movement the two vocations would dovetail with each other neatly. The present sad state of affairs in the university system is a concern, but I hate working for the corporation I'm employed in and desperate looking for a way out. What advice on this matter would you recommend?

Thank you in advance for any advice you have to offer. Have a wonderful day. May the blessings and protection of the Divine be upon you and your loved ones.

Sincerely,
Sanctuary of the Rose and Chalice.

Re: Defunct Traditions and Jungian Psychology

[ecosophia]

1) To the best of my knowledge, yes, the OAG is long since defunct -- which is unfortunate, as it had a good system. Since it's defunct, you have every right to pick it up and reawaken the egregor -- in fact, you may find that it's eager to work with you. As for the self-ordination rite, the usual approach in situations like this is to do the self-ordination and then find someone in the independent sacramental movement who can give you an ordination with valid lineage -- there are plenty of these.

2) The difficulty here is that it's very, very difficult to make a living as an old-fashioned psychoanalyst these days. Most insurance companies won't pay for that kind of therapy any more -- they've been sucked into the pharmaceutical model, and it doesn't help that too many psychoanalysts got into the maintenance model of treatment, which means that you keep the patient sick as long as possible to get maximum income. Learning Jungian psychology is a very worthwhile activity but if your goal is finding a new way to make a living this may not be your best bet.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Thanks again for hosting these Q&As. I've begun basic magical practice and have had some good results with divination so far. I'm also working on perfecting a financial day trading method using technical analysis. What types of divination do you think would be particularly good for improving my odds? I'm thinking of something that gives more yes/no type answers than the open-ended interpretations of systems like the tarot.

My aim isn't to use divination as my sole basis for trading, but rather to augment an existing method. Could geomancy (and your associated book) be of help here? I would be asking questions such as "will the movement that just started continue in the direction it's been going or will it reverse itself?" so something that's quick and reflects the short term is best.

[ecosophia]

The classic method is astrology; as J.P. Morgan said, "millionaires don't use astrology, but billionaires do." There are entire schools of trading based on astrology, and there's a secondary market in that once you know stock market astrology, lots of people want to learn it and will pay for the privilege. That said, geomancy would be entirely workable for the same purpose; I don't know of any modern practitioners of market trading that use it, but it was certainly used for financial and economic divination back in the day.

Numbers in dreams

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I wanted to ask what books you would recommend for numerology.

With adopting practices from your works and others and general steady work on myself in all areas, I gradually found over the last year that I now have more vivid dreams I could actually remember. In the past they vanished quickly like a puff of smoke.

This past week I had a dream where I needed to secure a meeting room and learned there was an unlisted one, so I spoke to the receptionist and was kind and she offered it to me, but I needed the room number and password.

To get the password it flashed on her screen very quickly so it took many tries, and a photo didnt work. During these delays we talked about my life, how things were going, I remember talking of my home and new city along with touching on finances. Eventually the number stuck and I wrote it down, with the receptionist repeating it to me a few times 22:3553. The separation was distinct in the string of 6 numbers.

Those numbers really stuck with me when I woke up and after googling them I found very many advertisement laden sites that were very repetitive and figured it would be good to read a bit about this myself as it seemed an almost too good to be true type occurrence!

Would you or any reader have any thoughts on the above numbers from their own research and work?

And also any recommendations, my library has quite a few I can reserve so hopefully this would help filter a bit.

Thank you!

Re: Numbers in dreams

[ecosophia]

The gold standard in numerology is Matthew Oliver Goodwin's two-volume set Numerology: The Complete Guide, but that may not be the best place to start! The thing I'd point out, though, is that most numerology focuses on the numerical value of names and birth dates, not on numbers experienced in dreams. You might consider William Wynn Westcott's Numbers: Their Occult Power and Mystic Virtues, which is long out of copyright and may be downloaded here:

http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1911__westcott___numbers.pdf

When does ensoulment begin?

[(Anonymous)]

When does ensoulment begin? I have read or been told that a soul reincarnates into a new being at conception, or quickening, or at first breath out of the womb. Does culture or situation account for the different beliefs?

I know you have said that with the population growing rapidly, souls now reincarnate sooner than they would have with a lesser population. Is/was there a typical length of time for humans? How about animals, especially dogs or cats, in other words, household pets?

Thank you for your reply.

Re: When does ensoulment begin?

[ecosophia]

1) My understanding, based partly on traditional lore and partly on my own experiences, is that it happens at quickening. Conception makes a first tentative connection between soul and body, but that link is often broken -- keep in mind that close to half of all conceptions result in very early miscarriage. The first breath outside the womb is the point at which the child has a fully independent energy body, and thus it's the crucial moment for the horoscope.

2) In earlier times the assumption was that you'd spend three times as long between incarnations as you spent in your most recent incarnation. I don't know of any discussion of the reincarnation timing of dogs and cats, but it's likely to be similar.

[(Anonymous)]

John--

I apparently have a significant anger issue. Not that I act out, but rather suppress--acting out isn't polite, after all.

However, my spouse is a "sensitive" and something of an empath. For some time now, she has been on the energetic receiving end of my inner life. I get embroiled, regardless of how I mask it, and she embodies physical symptoms. (Some of these symptoms have resulted in urgent care visits but the doctors find nothing wrong. This has occurred on multiple occasions, so I cannot doubt the connection between us.)

But my spiritual path is frustrating. I have been asked to give up a number of things--my idealistic views of "how things ought to be," alcohol, sex, associations and relationships with "bad energy" attachments, intellectualization, any sort of map--and I have complied. Not always willingly and certainly not always joyfully, but I have complied because it has been made clear (through multiple modes of divine communication such as synchronicities, dreams, encounters, and the like) that these things are necessary. But I am cast forth on this path with no text, not tools, no community, no tradition; just my goddess and the handful of prayers I've created. It is a solitary path and I suspect that is for a reason--namely, that I learn to experience existence without the tools I've been accustomed to using. I can understand this and still not be happy about it. (I pointed out to my spouse that Job was deemed righteous and he complained vociferously. Needless to say, she did not look kindly upon that example.)

There is a part of me that feels violated in that I am not allowed to have my feelings on the matter, regardless of how private I keep them. She, on the other hand, feels violated by my energy as she is the one physically manifesting the symptoms. The only solution appears to be to not feel what I in fact feel.

How can I deal with this anger and frustration? My relationship with my spouse is being significantly impacted but I also cannot lie to myself about my feelings around the frustrations I have with my path and pretend that I don't feel what I feel. "Using different words" has been suggested, but that falls under pretending in my book. Do you have any suggestions?

--Sepia Befuddled Dragon

[ecosophia]

This is one thing that journaling is great for. Have written conversations with your anger. Give it its voice, on paper, and let it express itself. Anger is a secondary emotion -- nearly always, what's really going on under the surface is unresolved shame, grief, or fear, usually rooted in miserable childhood experiences, and if you give the anger the opportunity to speak, you can release the anger and find the original experiences. Releasing those emotions leads to a more general healing.

Do you have trouble with depression, by the way? Very often depression is a tertiary emotion -- people get depressed because they suppress their anger, and thus their vitality and joy. Getting through the depression to the anger, and then getting through the anger to the underlying emotion, is a path to healing.

Finally, if you need some guidance and structure for this, the Order of Spiritual Alchemy exercises are very good for this. You can find the introductory steps here:

https://octagonsociety.org/preliminary-lessons/

Desires reflected in the astral light

[(Anonymous)]

I am married to an asexual man. I didn't know this when I married him, kept thinking it would get better. This wasn't a big problem the first few years, but now I'm going through the female hormonal ("last chance to get pregnant") changes in my thirties and it's driving me nuts.

Am I correct that I need to be on my mental game, because if I let my thoughts stray to sexual desires behind the scenes, it'll reflect such scenes in the astral light and they'll echo back to me, making it worse? Do I need to try to not think of sex at all to keep this from happening?

I am already trying to exercise as much as possible in hopes of my sexual desires being funneled elsewhere. I also take care of myself in the bedroom but in recent months it hasn't been enough. Is there anything else I can do? Thank you.

Re: Desires reflected in the astral light

[ecosophia]

Yes, you need to stay on top of your mental processes. You can think about sex, but the more you do so, the more strongly you'll build up charges in the astral light, and those will not only attract more such feelings and images to you -- they can work down into the material plane and put you into situations where you can express those thoughts and fantasies in the material world.

One exercise you may find useful to redirect your energies is in this book:

https://archive.org/details/rosicrucianmanua00plum

You'll find the exercise on pages 44-45. This works best if you have an active spiritual life of some kind.