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, and at this point we've reached a genuine man of mystery, Jacques de Livron Joachim de la Tour de la Casa Martinez de Pasqually. Nobody knows when Martinez de Pasqually was born or where he came from; what's known about him is that he showed up in southern France in 1754, taught an extraordinarily rich system of Gnostic esoteric philosophy and practice to a circle of pupils that included Louis-Claude de St.-Martin and Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, and then sailed away to the Caribbean in 1772 and reportedly died there two years later. The image I've posted is one of the very few portraits of the man.

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

Re: Daily Heathen Prayers and Question on Persephone Myth Comparative Work

[deborah_bender]

I don't have specific comparative sources for you, but the comparisons I have read in the past have been to other myths about goddesses descending to the underworld and returning.

The best known of these is the Sumerian myth of the Descent of Inanna. Samuel Noah Kramer was (I believe) the first scholar to translate it into English. I just did a search and found translations and summaries of it online. I recommend reading at least part of a translation in order to get an experience of Sumerian poetic style.

There is a Wiccan myth of this kind, first published in Witchcraft Today by Gerald B. Gardner in 1954. Here is a good link to the text with some explanatory notes https://www.ceisiwrserith.com/wicca/legendofthedescent.htm

Gardner wrote that he did not know the source or how old it is. One of my teachers has a theory that it, or its earlier source, is a Neoplatonic allegory about the soul's journey.

Re: Daily Heathen Prayers and Question on Persephone Myth Comparative Work

[robertmathiesen]

Careful study of Gardner's oldest surviving handwritten book of texts of "The Wica" (as he called the Witches he encountered) shows that parts--including the three degree rituals--of it were carefully copied by him from a somewhat earlier manuscript in another person's (Dafo's) calligraphic handwriting. This manuscript has the title "Ye Bok of ye Art Magical," and Gardenr seems to have begun his work on it sometime in the middle 1940s. "Inanna's Descent" was available in modern translations (in fragments) from Assyrian and Sumerian from 1914 onward, so Gardner's text could easily have been inspired by the ancient text.

Re: Daily Heathen Prayers and Question on Persephone Myth Comparative Work

[illyria2001]

I was just about to say the Descent of Inanna...although she goes of her own accord and by her own agency, rather than being abducted.

Re: Daily Heathen Prayers and Question on Persephone Myth Comparative Work

[jprussell]

Thanks for this - I hadn't thought about Inanna, since as Illyria2001 pointed out it lacks the abduction part, and also since I was focusing on Indo-European myths. That being said, casting a wider net might turn up some interesting stuff.

And I really wouldn't have thought of a Gardnerian Wiccan myth, so thanks for that as well!