Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's nearly 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've been tracing my lineages back as far as I can, and last week took my Martinist lineage back as far as they can be documented. The next step -- and it's the last step in the entire process -- involves a fair bit of speculation, but it's speculation backed up by some evidence. It's been suggested by some historians, Marsha Keith Schuchard foremost among them, that the mysterious Knight of the Red Feather who conferred the Templar lineage on Baron von Hund, last week's honoree, was none other than Charles Stuart, the Bonnie Prince Charlie of Scottish song and story. The claim is that in the years immediately before 1745, when the House of Stuart made its last (and disastrously unsuccessful) attempt to reclaim the British throne, Charles and his inner circle of supporters used various forms of clandestine Freemasonry to raise funds, engage in espionage, and gather arms and supporters for the planned rising. Baron von Hund's initiation was an incident in that process. Martinez de Pasqually, who was honored a couple of weeks back, also claimed to have a charter signed by Charles Stuart as the basis for his occult Masonic order. So it's possible that what lies behind one of the great traditions of Western occultism is a failed political intrigue that got picked up and repurposed by a couple of canny occultists. Stranger things have happened in the history of occultism.

...And with this, the rambling tale of the odd lineages that I've inherited comes to an end. Now I'll have to think of something else to use as illustrations to Magic Mondays!

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With that said, have at it!

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

***Please note -- when Magic Monday is closed, IT'S CLOSED.  I just had to delete a flurry of attempted comments posted up to eleven hours after I shut things down. I do need some time to write and do other online chores, you know, so please don't keep trying to post after 12:00 am Monday night/Tuesday morning -- there'll be a new Magic Monday in a week, you know. ***

Comments

Eye of the Tiger

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Monday, JMG.
A few years ago a stuffed animal came into my possession. It was a gift from my out of state mother to my oldest daughter, who wasn’t much more than 2 years old at the time. It was a green cat with a striped pink tail, flowers embroidered on its side, it was, in a word, odd.

As my daughter grew, more and more toys accumulated in our living room. One day, my wife told her that if she wants new toys, some old toys have to go. A bag was put together and to my surprise, the green cat was included. I normally love taking donations to Salvation Army but this time I was hesitant, I felt a Toy Story type of sadness. I should have trusted my instincts for it wasn’t long after that trip, my daughter started asking for the green cat. My wife and mother in-law would dodge the question. When I had enough of that and stated the truth, it was tears and sadness.

I searched online for the same cat with absolutely no luck. I ran back to Salvation Army, discovered their second floor but no green cat. In my searches online, I came across a very charming tiger, a Dream Pet from 1977. I was hypnotized and beyond certain that this new toy could replace the old. The purchase was an ordeal and in retrospect, possibly my first sign. The wait was only a few days but it felt much longer. When the tiger showed up in a repurposed cereal box, I felt triumphant. When my mother in-law saw it, it was an emphatic NO, do not gift that to our baby.

To the Chinese, the tiger represents too much power, he is also considered a guide to the dead. To have such a thing in your possession, you have to be stronger than the force it represents. According to the rough translation I was given, to exert a stronger will can bring great benefit, to be weaker brings misfortune.

For now, my planned surprise gift is no more. That night, after my disappointment, my neighbors cat startled me with her glowing eyes at our back door. I put the tiger up in my office/laundry room and sure enough, a light popped out, and the kitty litter went flying while I was cleaning the box.

Next day I saw a tiger on my daughters iPad and not long after that she had a tummy ache. At this point I’m about to acquiesce and let the tiger go. But before I do, I consider this episode a challenge.

My question is, what practice makes one’s will stronger than a tiger? Meditation, SoP? Any thoughts are appreciated.

Re: Eye of the Tiger

[ecosophia]

It's not a matter of making your will stronger than a tiger. It's a matter of making your will stronger than the entire cultural complex embodied in the image of the tiger. Ain't gonna happen. This is why competent mages work with, not against, the traditional lore of the society in which they live.

Re: Eye of the Tiger

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you JMG, that makes all the sense in the world but I'm not Chinese. The philosophy I outlined above is relatively new to me.

Working in a western mindset, I'm still not sure what's the best path forward. The tiger has definitely helped get my meditation back on track so I guess I'll start there.

Funny thing is, every time I sit down to start, my cat purrs really keep the focus on feline.

Re: Eye of the Tiger

[ecosophia]

If you have Chinese family members, the symbolism will affect your family even if it doesn't affect you -- and it may affect you, since minds are nowhere near as isolated as currently fashionable notions tend to suggest. That said, the choice is of course yours.

Re: Eye of the Tiger

[(Anonymous)]

In one very real way it already has. My brother died suddenly last year, a tiger year. I had thought about it often, the cosmic force embodied as a tiger that carried him away to the great beyond. It's probably why this is such a struggle. And yes, after 20+ years of commitment, I'm probably more Chinese than I care to admit. I used to call many of their beliefs superstition but I know better now. If all I can do is mediate on it, it's my light in the darkness.

Re: Eye of the Tiger

[(Anonymous)]

Fascinating. True!
E

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

You've mentioned the The Druid Magic Handbook and the Golden Section Fellowship are compatible. Does this mean one could do any of the workings you would do in an open grove from the The Druid Magic Handbook in a lodge of the Golden Section Fellowship instead? I know the DMH says grove rituals from other traditions can be used, but I don't know if that counts the GSF lodge., although there is mention of groves being similar to lodges in the book.

[ecosophia]

Good. Yes, all the DMH rituals and practices can be done in a GSF lodge. You can also use all the material from the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose in either a DNH grove or a GSF lodge, and any of the DMH and GSF material in an open FHR temple. They all belong to the same broader tradition, and so have a lot of interchangeable parts.

A Lodge

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for that, Mr. Greer.

I have been doing the SoP without ever opening or closing the Lodge.
Is the establishment of a Lodge necessary or helpful for Work? Especially later on in one’s path?

Re: A Lodge

[ecosophia]

The lodge work is important to learn and practice, but it's not a daily thing -- the SoP is your core daily ritual practice. I'd encourage you to learn the lodge ritual and practice it once a week or so; you'll need it for the self-initiation ritual toward the end of the book, and for quite a bit of work in the books to come.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks! This opens up a world of possibilities. Follow up question - after meditation and divination, could one add elements from the DMH Grove rituals to the GSF lodge working?

[ecosophia]

I don't recommend this. The lodge ritual, like the grove ritual, is meant to connect you to a specific egregor, and mixing them together will weaken that sharply. Instead, why not simply learn both the grove and the lodge ritual, and practice one or the other depending on what you want to do?

[(Anonymous)]

That sounds like a good idea. I'll take that up eventually. Thanks.

The Line of Work for the WotGS

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Mr. Greer!

I’m getting excited about my results with the WotGS. You mentioned last week, I think, that magic could be a part of this Way.

1. Will your upcoming two GS books incorporate some magic instruction?

2. Will they include work on higher bodies and/or the higher self (I would love this)?

I was reading a book on Tarot by an early theosophist, and he implied that magic was the evocation of spirits, and alchemy was work with the elements.

3. Does so-called High Magic do much summoning of spirits?

Thanks! I’m grateful for your efforts to help us every week!
Take care.

Re: The Line of Work for the WotGS

[ecosophia]

1) Only a very little, in the second instructional book, The Way of the Four Elements. If you want to add magic to your GSF work you can always use the methods from my books The Druid Magic Handbook and The Dolmen Arch, which are wholly compatible with the Golden Section work.

2) Yes, though that's primarily in the third volume, The Way of the Secret Temple. The energy work included in the initiate's version of the Sphere of Protection in the book you've got is preliminary to that.

3) Theosophists were obsessed by the notion that magic was all about evoking spirits. They were quite wrong, and a good close reading of Eliphas Lévi would have taught them that, but they weren't listening. No, the evocation of spirits is not very important in high magic. It's something you can do with the tools of high magic, but there are many other ways to do practical magic with those tools; in terms of the core of high magic, the work of self-transformation, the only spirit you're working with is your own higher self.

Re: The Line of Work for the WotGS

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you!

Can you please recommend a good introductory book on high magic?

I appreciate it!

Re: The Line of Work for the WotGS

[ecosophia]

Depends on what kind of high magic you have in mind, and how practical you want it to be. As a good theoretical overview, Eliphas Levi's Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic is hard to beat. If you want something practical, and are working in the Golden Section tradition, The Druid Magic Handbook is a good place to start, and you might also benefit from studying the FHR papers, which are available for free download:

https://octagonsociety.org/archives/fhr/

(Publish at your Discretion) blog promotion included.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I’m looking for answers about a subject I am definitely ignorant of.

I’m mostly Gurdjieffian and Tibetan Buddhist in orientation and have devised a personal approach to higher self development which you can find here:

to-be-able.blogspot.com

I am excited to incorporate the WotGS in my path. I love that the SoP works with the elements, but I am looking forward to work on the higher self, too.

My own approach (in the blog) basically identifies the higher self with the higher bodies: astral, mental, and divine in Gurdjieff’s system. Work on perfecting the higher bodies is the same as work on one’s self. In my next blog installment I plan on addressing the aspect of mind, as viewed by the Tibetans.

Interested in your thoughts on the blog, and its relevance to the GS system…

All the Best

Re: (Publish at your Discretion) blog promotion included.

[ecosophia]

Interesting. I'll put your blog on the stack of things to read when I have the time.

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Monday JMG,
I'm learning the Essene way of forming an SoP and have a technical question. Forming a sphere consists of 7 steps. I am clear on steps 1,2,3,6 and 7. I understand step 4 - breathe out 7 times seeing the light slowly expanding until it surrounds you. Step 5 says, "Each time you breathe in, feel the unconditional love of the universe filling you." Is #5 talking about the same 7 breaths as #4? Breathe in feeling love, breathe out to expand the light, do one set of 7. Is that correct?
Kirsten

[ecosophia]

Yes, that's correct. Glad to hear that you're working on this!

Essene SOP

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP.

I have found the Essene SoP very useful when it isn't practical to do the ritual version -as in when in a public place, or on holiday with friends & family who don't practice such things. Also good when out in public and energies get rough.

Translucent Shabby Squid

[jeremys]

Hi there!

Do you know where Waite got his card meanings for the Minor Arcana from for his deck? Before his deck, almost all decks over the past few hundred years didn't have detailed images for the Minor Arcana. The Sola Busca deck did, and Waite may have been influenced by those Minor Arcana, but it isn't like the card meanings would have been so easy to decipher. In his creation of his deck and in his Pictorial Key to Tarot, do you know how he came up with those card meanings for the Minor Arcana?

I find reading Waite a bit difficult to totally get exactly what he is trying to say sometimes, perhaps I am just not smart enough, maybe there is some British humor I am not fully getting like when he rags on other occultists in that book. HAHA What is that? But from what I gather from his Pictorial Key to the Tarot book, unlike others during his time, he didn't see the Tarot deck as coming from any ancient occult school such as from Egypt, nor did he think it had any true relation to the Qaballah. This surprised me as I would have thought him of all people, were fully into this idea of Tarot being a version of the Qaballah, some ancient wisdom from Atlantis or Gypsies or something. but if he just saw it as the true origin being just a card game, I suppose the Qaballistic framework of the cards, which many occultists of this type of occult system tend to follow, ironically the Rider-Waite deck would not have been designed like this, right? That's funny.

Thank you for your time!

[ecosophia]

1) Waite was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and much of his knowledge of the tarot came from the order's knowledge lectures on the subject. He knew the literature on card divination fairly well, though, and there were a lot of books he could have referenced when he sat down to write his book.

2) Waite was up to his eyeballs in the bitter quarrels that tore the British occult scene apart at the beginning of the 20th century; he was a Christian mystic and was dead set against the practice of magic; and his ragging on other occultists was motivated by both of those. If you have trouble understanding Waite, don't fret about it -- he was one of the worst writers of his time, and never could say anything in a single short word where a sesquipedalian sequence of periphrastically obfuscatory syntactical assemblages would do. ;-)

3) The tarot deck was invented in Italy around 1415 by Marziano da Tortona, secretary to the Duke of Milan. That's been known by European art historians for more than a century, and it's frankly embarrassing that so many occultists in the English-speaking world never got the memo. That doesn't mean it was originally just an ordinary game. It came out of Renaissance Italian intellectual culture, which was saturated with occultism, and was devised as a game that the children of the aristocracy could play, and in the process absorb the effects of magical images. Waite was fluent enough in European languages that he knew about the real origin of the tarot, which is why he didn't buy into the usual stuff about Egypt or Atlantis or what have you.

4) Not at all. The Rider-Waite deck is Cabalistic from top to bottom; it was created for Waite's own magical order, the Rectified Order of the Golden Dawn. Remember that Renaissance Italy was where the Cabala was first adopted by magicians outside the Jewish community. Later on, after Waite's first order blew up, he launched another order, the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross, and had another artist, John Trinick, make a different set of images for the tarot trumps. You can find some images of the Trinick deck here:

https://mythcrafts.com/2019/05/21/a-e-waites-second-tarot-the-waite-trinick-deck/

[jeremys]

Thanks for the responses! Please allow me to follow up:

1) Is there any literature Waite could have drawn upon for his Minor Arcana card meanings you could point me to?

2) That's a good one! I feel when I read Waite I am following a deep plot, excited for the great reveal and then after the plot unfolds, I am not sure what the reveal was. It's funny how he will give a compliment but then be like, "yeah but this guy had no clue what he was talking about". He was "was dead set against the practice of magic"? WOW!

3) Do we know for certain that there weren't Tarot decks before that deck in 1415, or maybe in some other part of the world that is lost to time? I thought the oldest deck we have access to was the Sola Busca one?

4) In the Pictorial Key to the Tarot, Waite pretty much debunks it had ancient origins, "it has no history prior to the fourteenth century, when the first rumours, were heard concerning cards." He says his deck is a "rectified" deck. He sure likes that word, "rectified", huh? So is it accurate to say that he did not believe any Qabalah link with Tarot, so he made his deck to be a Cabalistic deck? That would make more sense. I am guessing here he is basically saying Levi and Court de Gebelin didn't really know their stuff well enough to make any kind of Cabalistic claim with the Tarot, "The Tarot and the de Gebelin hypothesis he took into his heart of hearts, and all occult France and all esoteric Britain, Martinists, half-instructed Kabalists, schools of soi disant theosophy--there, here and everywhere--have accepted his judgment about it with the same confidence as his interpretations of those great classics of Kabalism which he had skimmed rather than read."

Cool pencil drawn images on those crds in the link you gave me.

Thank you a lot for your time and great responses here!

[ecosophia]

1) Book T, the collected GD tarot instructions, is in Israel Regardie's The Golden Dawn among other sources.

2) Reading Waite is like getting one scene out of one of those really complicated novels where there are dozens of conflicts among the characters, and you don't have any way of knowing what they are!

3) There's zero evidence for any earlier tarot, and documents from the period indicate that Marziano da Tortona invented it. Sometimes it really is that simple. The Sola Busca deck was created around 1490 -- there are quite a few tarot decks older than it is.

4) What Waite is saying is that the tarot didn't start out Cabalistic. (I think he was wrong, because the Cabala was well known in early 15th century Italy.) It became Cabalistic when people like Lévi, Oswald Wirth, and Waite himself reworked the deck so that the symbolism fit the Cabala. Waite was bitterly jealous of Lévi, by the way, thus the smack he laid down in that quote -- Lévi had access to Frankist Cabalistic teachings from Poland by way of his teacher Hoene Wronski, which Waite didn't have access to, and that's what's behind Waite's insistence that Lévi didn't know Cabala.

[jeremys]

Hey Thanks a lot!

1) If Waite's Minor Arcana meanings were influenced by Golden Dawn and Golden Dawn's Minor Arcana Meanings were influenced by Book T who I believe was written by McKenzie, I am still curious whomever wrote the Book T, where he got his Minor Arcana card meanings from.

2) Classic! You said Waite was against magic, so Divination with the Tarot Waite would not consider Magic I take it.

3) Great info, thanks! I take it you do not subscribe to the theory put forth by Wilfred Houdouin that the Tarot of Marseille was designed under the geometry of the Metatron Cube. I guess humans see what they want to see.
http://tarot-de-marseille-millennium.com/english/#:~:text=The%20Tarot%20of%20Marseille%20is,world%2C%20translating%20a%20universal%20cosmology

4) So interesting! Waite had all this wisdom but still had such strong negative emotions. Maybe there is some old British humor in the beat downs he has in that book that comes with the Tarot decks. It is amusing.

Thanks a million!

[ecosophia]

1) You'll want to look into 19th century English playing card divination books; quite a bit of the GD material came from there. iapsop.com has a good selection.

2) Magic is just one of the many branches of occultism. Divination is another.

3) Er, no, because the "Metatron cube" was invented by an American pop-occult writer in the late 20th century, and the Marseilles tarot dates from just a little while before then. ;-)

[jeremys]

Thanks for all that!
Yeah metatron cube being the foundation for Tarot of Marsielles is so over the top but this one author/card creator is convinced! Maybe he's just really high.

I am interested in finding out how Waite took the Minor Arcana of the French and Italian Tarot decks and turned them into full stories for his deck that the other decks did not display. Papus' numerology approach seems simple enough to fit the Tarot of Marseilles Minor Arcana graphics, but not sure how Waite came up with his detailed stories. I'm gonna dig around and see what I can find!

Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

The artist on Waite's original deck was Pamela Colman Smith. While her initials can be seen down in one corner of each card, she never seems to get credited very much for her illustrations, which I think are what really made the deck popular. The images of the later deck cards in the link provided are interesting but I don't find them anywhere near as evocative as Pamela's drawings. It's a mystery to me why she doesn't get more credit for these simple, elegant works of arts.

JLfromNH/Crimson Obtuse Ouroboros

[(Anonymous)]

Answer (2): Is Waite’s Christian mysticism the reason his Tarot shows 3 archangels, the Devil, and the Eucharist? We might inquire if his unusual Christianity motivated the Hanged Man as well.

—Princess Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

No, those are part of the older tarot tradition. Those images may have been part of why Waite adopted the tarot, admittedly.

[(Anonymous)]

How far back do those images go?

—Princess Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

To the origins of the standard tarot deck in the 15th century.

Orphic Hymn to Apollo for SATB Chorus

[kimberlysteele]

I recently released my rendition of Thomas Taylor's Orphic Hymn to Apollo for chorus. I have released it as a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license (the most free of the Creative Commons licenses) in hopes people will share the hymn, perform it, and adapt it.

The score on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TWMhkzS_5w

Download sheet music at the Musescore notation site:

https://musescore.com/user/59410345/scores/11955949

Re: Orphic Hymn to Apollo for SATB Chorus

[ecosophia]

Delighted to hear this. Thank you!

Re: Orphic Hymn to Apollo for SATB Chorus

[(Anonymous)]

Kimberley,

Thanks for your musical-magical efforts!

Have you thought of arranging Oliver Anthony's hit songs for piano? That would be good IMO. They have some magic current in them I believe.

Translucent Shabby Squid

Weight/scope of daily geomancy readings

[aaaaashjackson]

Hello fellow geomancers. I'm nearing six months into my geomancy, with daily-ish readings being my most common practice/puzzling. I'm having trouble reliably making sense of things in daily readings, and also knowing how much weight or scope to assign to what I do see in a daily reading.

I'm also experiencing having my interpretation of a daily reading that seems like a slam dunk turning out to be flat wrong. (Ex: on day 3 of my son not being brought to me for parenting time, I figured Aquisito in 1,5; Puer in 4,9; Puella in 9,12; and Albus in 7 with Fortuna Major as the judge seemed like a sure sign of his being returned to me. That instead happened the next day.) How did I read that so wrongly?

Also, what does it look like in a daily chart when something really big is happening? I'm seeing where Carcer in 8 is accompanied by my feeling painfully, achingly alone, but nothing bigger than that. I'm also seeing a chart dominated by one or two positive figures, where nothing really appears to happen that day.

Having learned musical instruments and languages, I know progress comes in fits, starts, and plateaus. Is this a sign I need to begin the discursive meditation described in the text? Did I just answer my own question? Probably.

My most profuse thanks to you, JMG, for your prodigious writings and research, and providing us this forum for exchange.

Re: Weight/scope of daily geomancy readings

[ecosophia]

1) It's always tricky interpreting a chart on a subject where you have strong feelings.

2) The most common mistake made by students of any divination system is taking a reading to mean something much bigger than it actually is. How often do really big things actually happen to you?

3) Yes, I think you just answered your own question. ;-) Some people also find, however, that geomantic readings are inaccurate on certain subjects for them; my wife, for example, is a very talented geomancer, but her readings on any subject having to do with money and income reliably turn out inaccurate.

Re: Weight/scope of daily geomancy readings

[aaaaashjackson]

Sage advice, thank you.

I'll get back to focusing and opening myself and taking notes.

/|\

Re: Weight/scope of daily geomancy readings

[(Anonymous)]

What if she tries another system, does she have the same problem?

—Princess Cutekitten

Re: Weight/scope of daily geomancy readings

[ecosophia]

No, different systems are more accurate for those questions for her.

Puppy vision

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
My stepdaughter is having her first baby this October and is coming home to live with us as the dead-beat Dad wants nothing to do with the baby he has engendered.

Because of a number of tragedies in my childhood involving a niece given up for adoption at the age of 6 months by my teenaged big sister and that sister's suicide in our house a couple of year later, I have never been keen on babies. I was only 10 when she died.

I was surgically sterilized as a young woman because I was so afraid of getting pregnant and I have never wanted a baby.

A couple of months ago, my husband and I were in the local town, sitting in a little park eating a picnic. I said, "Next year, we can bring our kid here to play on the swings."

A moment later, a very young small puppy came racing up the hill toward us. The puppy was all whiskers and enthusiasm. I saw the puppy very clearly and it was acting like a normal puppy. It shot under our picnic table and I looked under the table because I wanted to pet the puppy. It was not there. It had vanished.

I have seen visions but usually in dreams or on waking but this puppy happened in broad daylight. Since then, I have started to think the baby might be like a puppy, that it might be fun and nice.

Do you have any thoughts on the matter?

Maxine

Re: Puppy vision

[ecosophia]

It sounds to me as though the universe is trying to tell you something. It also sounds as though you're listening. ;-)

Re: Puppy vision

[(Anonymous)]

So sorry for your loss.

Things certainly have changed! In the early ‘70’s I too wanted to be sterilized—no doctor would even consider it. Worked out well, as I had Sonkitten in 1979, but of course nowadays doctors are sterilizing teenagers right and left.

—Princess Cutekitten

Re: Puppy vision

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Cute Kitten,
Or should I say, Hi Princess? Thank you for your kind words. Those really terrible things happened nearly 50 years ago and I have done a lot of meditation and cleansing until I can see clearly and no longer suffer the sorrow and rage I once felt.

My sister returned to our Grandmother the night she died and then to my older sister. She was wearing a white wedding gown in both visitations. I pray for her soul. If she had lived, she would only be 69 now so she may well still be waiting in the dull waiting room of souls. If you would like to remember her in a prayer, her name is Kameen Johnson and she was a pretty girl with auburn hair and green eyes.
Much love to you.
Maxine

Re: Puppy vision

[tunesmyth]

Maxine, if you think it would be appropriate, I would like to add her to the Ecosophia prayer list for a length of one month. "May Kameen Johnson's soul be blessed and comforted." Would this be okay with you?

Re: Puppy vision

[tunesmyth]

Oh, and I should add, as it sounds like the day is coming soon, at any point do feel free to request prayers for your stepdaughter and her baby, if she is okay with such prayers.

Re: Puppy vision

[(Anonymous)]

I certainly will.

—Princess Cutekitten

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, a couple questions . . .

1. Do we know the causal force behind the relationship between Zodiac sign and personality? For instance, someone close to me is a Capricorn and fits the bill 110%. Do the stars "cause" this? Or is it something else? E.g. souls wanting to experience the Capricorn personality somehow all get assigned to certain birthdates beforehand?

2. Do marriages have any sort of continuation post-death? Does the bond between two people persist in any way?

Thanks so much.

[ecosophia]

1) Nope. There are various theories but nobody's sure what actually makes astrology work -- and you probably don't want to waste your time trying to get a grant for the necessary research!

2) It really depends on circumstances. If the people involved still have karma to work out with each other, they may be born in a situation in which they will be in contact, though very often it's not a matter of marriage -- husband and wife in one life may be daughter and father in the next, and teacher and student in the life after that. If the two people have finished up the karma between them by the time the marriage ends, then most likely they won't see each other again; you can often tell that this is going to happen because they're pretty much indifferent to each other, or connected by a mild sort of affection or dislike, by the time things wind up.

[(Anonymous)]

So I guess this would imply there is no such thing as a soul mate?

[ecosophia]

To the best of my knowledge, the whole business about "soul mates" is a pickup line in singles bars or an excuse for cheating on a spouse or two.

[francis_tucker]

Anam Cara... ditto?

[ecosophia]

Depends on what you mean by that. I've seen the concept used well by people who took it seriously and weren't simply chasing tail, but yeah, it's also been misused in that way.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks. Regarding (2), suppose a married couple is together for decades and each dies of old age. Their love and passion for each other grew throughout their relationship and was at its height at the end. What then?

Also, are there (healthy) things that can be done in this life to make it more likely to find the spouse again in the next life, particularly as a potential spouse again?

[ecosophia]

1) It really depends on their karma. Again, there are no hard and fast rules.

2) Don't go there. Seriously, don't go there. The gods know what you need, you don't, and if it's better for the two of you to let go of each other, or spend a life or two apart and work off some unrelated karma before reuniting, trying to mess that up can produce a galaxy of miserable outcomes.

[(Anonymous)]

On (2), understood. To be honest, this whole discussion leaves me feeling very disappointed and disenchanted. I know that "it all goes back in the box" at death, but I had hopes that relationships (especially such important and powerful ones) would be more lasting than you described.

[ecosophia]

Some are, some aren't, and human beings are very, very poor at telling which is which. This is one of the many situations in which it's best to leave things to the gods.

[(Anonymous)]

I know we don't explicitly carry a lot of knowledge from one incarnation to the next.

Is there some way that I can make sure my next incarnation is aware of this information at the earliest possible moment, so it can proceed accordingly?

[ecosophia]

You can't. Why are you so fixated on trying to control the process instead of leaving it in the hands of the gods where it belongs?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not trying to control the process. :-)

But, for me, the concept of marriage loses a great deal of appeal under this paradigm compared to my prior paradigm.

[(Anonymous)]

As a (Heathen) granddaughter of devout Mormons, I've often wondered about the wisdom of "sealing" people to each other in this life in a temple ceremony, so they may continue their family ties after death. I'm all about respecting/honoring my ancestors, but it does seem to me that a higher power or powers would know best how to sort out our relationships after death. For example, my mother was sealed to her parents as a teenager, and long before her current age of 86 had zero interest in that plan coming to fruition. Perhaps her lack of interest, even hostility, to the idea will keep her out of weird entanglements?

I don't know my fate, let alone that of my kinfolk. I'm happy to leave that with the Norns. Relieved, in fact.

May ask if you have an opinion on the practice of sealing? And if so, what that might be?

Thanks as always,
OtterGirl

[ecosophia]

It strikes me as unwise, but probably ineffective. Joseph Smith was a capable occultist, but I'm not at all sure his current heirs are anything like as good.

[(Anonymous)]

2) Not the OP, but I called it off with someone because she knew I believed in reincarnation and got upset I wanted to keep "Til death do us part" in our wedding vows, and not try to bind us together after death. What kind of mess did I avoid with that decision?

[ecosophia]

Impossible to say without knowledge of both people's karma, which I don't have. I would have done the same thing, though.

[(Anonymous)]

"Also, are there (healthy) things that can be done in this life to make it more likely to find the spouse again in the next life, particularly as a potential spouse again?"

Well, the easiest way to ensure you'll meet again in another life is to be born as siblings; this could easily lead to some very creepy places...

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG and commenters,
I hope you are well and healthy.
Thank you so much for this Magic Monday. I always learn a lot.

Some random questions:

1. What would be the best way to ritually greet, honor, and please our ancestors? Candles in front of portraits? Is there anything else we can do?

2. About Italian spirituality: are you familiar with the work of Giuliano M. Kremmerz (1861-1930) and his Fratellanza Terapeutica Magica di Miriam? What is your opinion about him and his esoteric work?

3. And also of Italian origin: the benedicaria?

4. Just one comment: there should be some magical or alchemical study about coffee and how it helps us to read and study! :)

Thanks in advance!

[boccaderlupo]

Not JMG, but...

2. Not hugely familiar with Kremmerz's work, but The Magic Door by Pantano has a good overview of Italian hermetic traditions, and he's included in that lineup.

3. My ancestral folk practice might arguably be aggregated under the umbrella of benedicaria, but my understanding is that this is just a loose term for a variety of different folk traditions.

Axé,
Fra' Lupo

[hearthculture]

I've benefited from the information and practices in Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing by Daniel Foor.

His training is of the Yoruba tradition but the work is more broadly applicable and has influences beyond that tradition.

Wishing you well in your journey.

[ecosophia]

In a certain wry sense, you've achieved something notable here. I don't do ancestor work, I haven't gotten to Kremmerz yet (though I know his work has a good reputation), I haven't the least idea what benedicaria is, and coffee gives me migraines so I've never looked into it. Sorry!

[(Anonymous)]

Which Miriam does the Brotherhood reference? The sister of Moses?

[boccaderlupo]

Via Pantano:

The Fraternity of Myriam (or Miriam) is a sodality that practices a lunar-form of spirituality which includes the formation of a collective chain of initiants to exercise rituals designed to cultivate subtle energies for the purpose of distant healing. The Myriam practiced a sophisticated liturgy of rituals that engaged the use of sigils, ablutions, astrological observations, and fasting. The Lunar-based spirituality was intended to cultivate and exercise a maternal form of love (Myriam, Mary, and Isis are Lunar archetypes) or inner fire for the purpose of purifying and sublimating the four constituent bodies (elements or planes of being) of the Self: Saturnian (physical), Lunar (astral), Mercurial (psyche), Solar (spiritual), and held in balance by Hermes (consciousness).

Se legge Italiano, there are copies of Il Mondo Segreto available from various online bookstores, but I don't believe it has been translated into English.

[jprussell]

On 1) I light a candle to my ancestors (almost) daily, offer beer once a week, and offer worship to those who will have it and thanks to all. I don't currently have photos, as the first photo I got for the purpose was from my folks' wedding, and so had all of my grandparents in it, but obviously included my dad who is still alive, and apparently it's a bad idea to include pictures of the living. I also toast to and thank my ancestors whenever I give a drink offering to the Gods. Mostly I've just felt all this out, but I'm somewhat influenced by Galina Krasskova's Modern Guide to Heathenry and a book she co-authored with Raven Kaldera, Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner. If you are interested in Italian practices specifically, you might also check out folks who follow Roman/Hellenist Polytheism, and specifically veneration of the Lares and Penates.

On 4), wild speculation here, but I do know that when coffee was first being spread through the Islamic world, there were theological debates about its suitability, since it clearly changed how you felt, but in a way very different from alcohol. Obviously they went for it in a big way. Since much of western alchemy has roots in the Middle East, maybe that's a direction to look for discussions of coffee? From a more American (and negative) viewpoint, of course, the Mormons came to the opposite conclusion, and I assume there's some discussion of what they believe the spiritual downsides there to be.

Good luck on all fronts!
Jeff

[(Anonymous)]

Fra' Lupo
Thanks for indication. I did not know the book and not the author. Axé (or Asé) is Yoruba. A common greeting in Brazilian lands.

homeculture,
Thanks you very much!
I'm going to look for the book later.
I am quite familiar with Yoruba culture.

Anonymous, I suppose that would be another way to treat Mary.

Prussell,
Thanks for the considerations. This made me think that we don't have studies on the alchemical properties of beers in the same way. I go in search of coffee traditions.

JMG,
Thank you for the space and for the debate that is stirring!

[hearthculture]

Thanks Jeff for the book references, I've been looking for heathen works that have more ancestor practices.

Conjecture moment - I know that cacao was originally used in sacred settings. I also know that tobacco was a sacred plant. (An interesting tangent is that tobacco is used as a medium to send messages to higher planes which is interesting in that western culture uses it to complain and lament on work breaks which I believe is a potent, and not necessarily beneficial magical practice.) I would imagine that coffee, being similar in flavor and effects to cacao, and having been appropriated into a use similar to both cacao and tobacco, would be potentially -if not historically- a sacred plant.

CosDoc and Divination

[(Anonymous)]

"The Cosmic aspect of the concept having thus been set up, manifestation in the world of form takes place within the circumscribed sphere. Without this circumscription, there is no manifestation."

I wonder if this might be the reason why my daily three-rune spreads often feel so vague compared to, say, 5-rune spreads cast for a specific question? I've come to see the runes in the daily readings representing the energies which dominate the day. But if the day doesn't have much opportunities for those energies to manifest, it simply does not happen in a prominent way?

Greetings,
Nachtgurke

Re: CosDoc and Divination

[ecosophia]

Possibly so. Have you considered casting a reading about that?

Re: CosDoc and Divination

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the suggestion! I just asked the runes - the awe inspiring reply was along the lines "if not disciplined by will and emotions, (inner) energy will not flow into the world of man." I'm still a little bit clumsy when it comes to translating a reading into ordinary language.

I suppose this principle does also work with natal astrology? If "the wise govern the stars", they either create no form or a specifically designed form for the energies that should or should not manifest in their lives?

Greetings,
Nachtgurke

Re: CosDoc and Divination

[ecosophia]

That makes a great deal of sense, yes.

Practical Sacred Geometry

[(Anonymous)]

Hello!

2 weeks ago, there was a query about the practical aspects of sacred geometry (SG).
Our gracious hosts said: "With the exception of architecture, the practical aspects of sacred geometry haven't seen much development yet, because the basics still needed to be recovered"

Beyond architecture and possibly temple technology, what do you think could have been the practical aspects of SG?
I accept that your answers would be, to a large extent, speculative but could well be very interesting.
Regards

Re: Practical Sacred Geometry

[ecosophia]

I know that you can use it extensively in magic, for designing talismans and sigils; a lot of surviving talismanic lore is clearly influenced by sacred geometry. It also makes first-rate mental training and provides excellent material for meditation. Beyond that? I have no idea, but it's worth experimentation.

Re: Practical Sacred Geometry

[(Anonymous)]

Are you aware of any literature which touches on the use of sacred geometry in magic?

Milkyway

Re: Practical Sacred Geometry

[ecosophia]

Not beyond what I've already mentioned; you might find it interesting to read the discussion of talismans in Israel Regardie's The Golden Dawn.

Re: Practical Sacred Geometry

[booklover1973]

There are harmonious proportions in book design (book and layout), which probably ultimately are derived from sacred geometry, like the rules the typograph Jan Tschichold laid out in his essays about book design.

Ecosophia Prayer List Week of August 28

[tunesmyth]

At this link is a complete list of 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.

* * *

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

Neptunesdolphin's husband has just had his big toe partially amputated due to a staph infection, and his diabetes has worsened in connection. He and she and son all are struggling to cope with the difficult situation, made no easier by the fact that all three have different varieties of mental impairment. May Neptunesdolphin's husband heal quickly and vigorously, and successfully manage his diabetes; and may her family all get through the situation successfully and with grace.

Lunar Apprentice, who has started a private medical practice, that he find the strength and the capability to successfully fulfill his self-appointed duties both to his patients and to his family, that the insurers contracting with his patients be favourably disposed towards the service he faithfully provides and pay as they are obliged, and that the flow of new patients increase sufficiently to support his medical practice.

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 Week of August 28

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this as always,

[thinking_turtle]

To share, for those who wonder what GSF, DMH or FHR mean, a list of Ecosophia abbreviations is available. Now including an entry for ENM, the Encyclopedia of Natural Magic from 2005.

GSF SOP

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning JMG and everybody else,

Hope you had a pleasant weekend!

Last week, I asked a question about when to invoke deity in the SOP, and you told me to go meditate on it. ;-)

I've come to think that a large part of my confusion might simply be language-related, with me not being a native speaker and all that. I was hoping you could help me to clear that up:

1. Could you explain the difference between invoking something "by" an element or a deity, vs. invoking something "in the name" of a deity?

2. Also, is there a difference between invoking e.g. "in the great name Hu" or "in the name of Hu", or is this just an issue of grammar?

3. I vaguely remember you giving an example of how to call on the 7 planets during the SOP, with one of them being called on for Spirit Within (the Moon, iirc).

However, all the examples in GSF don't call on a specific deity/aspect of deity for Spirit Within.

I can certainly meditate on the difference ;-) , but just in case: Are there any issues (e.g. safety concerns) with calling on deity for Spirit Within?

4. Finally, just a note for the second edition: OPW Lesson 9 has 8 steps instead of 7 - and I sincerely hope I didn't just miss the boat completely and spoil your hidden Easter egg for everybody else... :D

Thank you very much for your help, and for this amazing space!

Milkyway

Re: GSF SOP

[ecosophia]

1) No, it's just grammar.

2) That's also grammar.

3) I don't recommend it, since you're calling on your own energies and your own spirit at that step.

4) Hm! I wonder how on earth that slipped through.

Re: GSF SOP

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for clearing that up!

3) Gotcha. So if somebody was working with the seven planets e.g. in daily planetary worship, and wanted to include them in the SOP, how could they go about it?

Call on two of the planets at some point in the process? Or call on one planet in the opening, the other six later? Or how else?

4) And here I was worried I had publically ruined one of your special learning effects for students... :D

Milkyway

Re: GSF SOP

[ecosophia]

3) You wouldn't. You'd keep on invoking the planets in daily worship, and keep on doing your SoP as given. It's not always a good idea to try to make everything consistent -- the world isn't consistent, after all.

Re: GSF SOP

[(Anonymous)]

"the world isn't consistent, after all"

Funnily enough, I said almost the exact same thing to somebody else yesterday. I'm fairly sure there's a lesson in there... :D

Thanks a lot for your replies - they cleared up quite a few things!

Milkyway

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG!

Thanks as always for such a wonderful resource. A few questions to you or the commenteriat if I may:

1. I am approaching the one year anniversary of moving into a new home which was a big step on our journey towards our "dream life". I'd like to perform some kind of house blessing as a way to give thanks for our journey and arrival here and to celebrate all the good years to come in our new home. I'd welcome any suggestions for simple ceremony or offerings or other such things. I am completely new to ritual magic so I understand that there are limitations to what I can do safely. We normally just have a bonfire on special occasions but I want to make this one a bit more special.

2. I was visiting my childhood home at the weekend and experienced a very strange dream. I was in a room and appeared to be surrounded by members of my family though I couldn't tell directly. The room had no specific character other than it's colour being an earthy clay. I had seen glimpses of a spirit within this room, after which a female mage had asked me for it's height and proceeded to press a finger to her head corresponding to its height. This aligned with her third eye chakra. She removed her finger under which I saw for a split second a perfect black circle infilled with red ochre. The witch hastened to avert my gaze but the image flashed in my mind and I began to "faint" in my dream having accidentally glanced at this symbol. Just as I was falling over, a large figure loomed into my vision as if to catch me from my fall. They were dressed in Renaissance style clothing with bright red and yellow colours much like the characters found in the Tarot de Marseille. My physical body was hyperventilating and likely experiencing sleep paralysis. My wife awakened me after hearing the commotion and I've been left wondering since.

My question is related to the specific symbols I saw in my dream and if I should consider performing any kind of banishment on a regular basis. I tried to follow the thread through the Tarot de Marseille (trying to identify the character) which lead me to Runes but I was unable to find that specific symbol (black circle with red infill). I'd welcome any recommendations on where I could begin my investigations. Or should I chalk this down to being *just* a strange dream and move on.

Thank you!"

[ecosophia]

1) If you're completely new to magic, don't try to do anything specifically magical -- it's essential to know what you're doing before you try to do it. (Imagine never having ridden a bicycle before, and deciding that you're going to celebrate something or other by bicycling ten miles someplace!) Just come up with some symbolic action that's meaningful to you, and leave it at that.

2) Dream interpretation isn't one of my skills, but in your place I'd just consider that a strange dream and go on.

Healing unintentionally

[(Anonymous)]

A few years ago a goddess cleared my psychic centres over the course of some years. It's still ongoing, partly because I get lazy and blockages accumulate again. I also had kundalini for a while.

Since then (or actually it might have started to a small extent before, when I started practicing magic) I realized I was clearing my daughter as well when we settle on the couch for our routine of TV before bed. I yawn a lot and my eyes water after a while, then it eases off. Took me ages to realize it wasn't tiredness. It happens with her now even when we're in the car after I've picked her up from somewhere she's been without me. Whatever's happening is definitely good for her because she loves our evening cuddles and if we're ever back late from somewhere she doesn't like going to bed without it, although she can and will. I feel the same afterwards as before so I know I'm not taking energy from her.

A few years ago I'm pretty sure I took on a chunk of one of my staff's anxiety, it landed on top of my head during a conversation about her wanting time off, and almost knocked me out, and soon afterwards she was able to cancel her IVF appointment as she got pregnant naturally. But that might also have been because I gave her the time off work she wanted before the IVF, so she was able to destress.

Recently I went out for coffee with a colleague who I like, though I think she has a bit of a temper and is a bit harsh. The yawning and tearing started and went on for most of our break. It was a much more one-sided conversation than normal - she did almost all of the talking. I also felt she felt a little bit uncomfortable, and she made the first moves to head back to work. Nothing major though, it was an entertaining chat as usual. I suppose she was feeling a fraction of the discomfort I had when this all started but she couldn't identify it? Or maybe she thought I was bored because of the yawning! I must say that I'm not sleeping well next time so people know it's not that.

Recently I also deliberately tried clearing this coffee shop I go to that has stressed me out for years. I used to avoid it, but decided not to let it defeat me. I imagine doing the bit with the shower of white light from the end of the Middle Pillar (the DOGD version, I forget the name sorry) and I also did some yawning on purpose to get it started. Last time I did it a very cheerful conversation started up among the people ahead of me in the queue and the staff, and the girl behind me in the queue randomly offered me her free chocolate!

I know you're not supposed to heal people without their consent. When it comes to people (as opposed to public places), I don't do this consciously and I don't know why some people get it from me and others not. I don't know how I would stop it if I tried. I don't see it as me doing it or making the decisions at all really, it's something higher. When it all started I offered to do work for the goddess in exchange for the help I was getting, because you said she would have work for me to do, so this must be what I've been given. So I presume I don't need to worry about the ethics of it, or making people uncomfortable? Or should I try to learn to control it? I definitely can't ask work colleagues or my staff for permission! I'd never tell anyone in real life about this, so there's no one I'd ever ask for permission to do it really.

This is all a bit weird for me too because I'm not a 'healer' kind of person, I don't much like people generally. I'd never have chosen this as a gift except that it must be good for my daughter. Maybe that's why I was given this job? I have to clean the toilets without moaning before they'll give me anything I'd prefer? And I suppose all those blockages in people are part of the reason why they behave as badly as they do.

Please don't tell me to ask the goddess, I do ask, because I like to know all the things, but I have a feeling I'm the nosey apprentice who gets information on a need to know basis, and it seems I don't need to know anything!

Dot.

Re: Healing unintentionally

[ecosophia]

Apparently the goddess has chosen you to do some work for her. I'm sorry to say I have no idea why she might have done that. Clearly, though, she's the one making the decisions, so no, don't try to control it; let her guide you and see where it takes you.

Re: Healing unintentionally

[(Anonymous)]

Your gift may eventually turn out to be some freak corollary to cleaning toilets without complaining in order to be given a better assignment later, but I think it is much more likely that you've been gifted this ability because it lines up perfectly with where you are in your soul's development. Your goddess had all of humanity to choose from; she probably did not make any divine mistake in choosing you. Healing is quite an amazing gift, and you may in due course find yourself unexpectedly thrilled by the possibilities it can open up in your life. Have you tried using it on yourself yet, say by practicing some purposeful yawning when you're all alone? The clearer you yourself are of blockages, the easier it will be for you to then clear others' blockages without their anxiety knocking you out or causing you any unwelcome discomfort.

Those myriad blockages in all of us are not only a part of the reason why we behave as badly as we do; they're the better part of that reason. We come into each incarnation as refreshed and cleared of blockages as we'll ever be (excluding those sad beings whose higher self got so overwhelmed that it fled from incarnation, leaving a demon-sized void where their higher self had once been.) The subsequent process of living our lives includes a steady increase in the number of parasites feeding on our energies, until the boon of death once again frees us from all those energetic encumbrances. We're not that different from a healthy little acorn growing up into a mighty oak, which serves as host to an entire ecosystem of fungi, bacteria, other plants, bugs, and animals, both symbiotic and parasitic, until enough of the tree's defenses have once again gotten compromised for it to die, starting the process over anew.

Your goddess must have recognized that our world could really benefit from a considerable amount of healing just now. Although the most egregious of the bad behavior always comes from the folks whose higher self got replaced by a demon, there is little you can do to heal the remaining part of their suffering souls for as long as they are held hostage by that demon. Higher selves who chose to jump into the void simply failed at incarnation. Their souls then have to go through a very dark sequence of incarnations in order to learn all the lessons necessary for them to finally oust their demon, rekindle a higher self, and resist the lure of the void the next time round. Unless your goddess should initiate their healing herself, do not ever try to heal one those basket cases, as they will ruthlessly attack you if you extend any blessing in their cursed direction. If you get a decidedly creepy vibe from anyone, don't go there.

There are plenty of suffering people, complete with higher selves, for you to heal without any of the demon's perpetual blowback... and it can be quite perpetual! The demon-replaced are miserably, vindictively tenacious and malicious. Since clinical psychotherapy tends to frown upon any mention of demons, it came up with more palatable euphemisms like sociopath and psychopath, which tend to work pretty well too! Our world will not end up getting healed by saving rudderless souls like Anthony Fauci or Bill Gates, but rather through healing whatever cruel blockages those demons have inflicted on all of the average folks you interact with every day.

Your goddess has given you the ability to heal energy blockages in people, places, and who knows what else. Unless and until she gives you more directions, you get to choose where to focus your considerable gift. Will you heal yourself, your loved ones, your favorite places, your acquaintances, your garden, your guardian angel, your community, or entities as yet unimagined? What little corner of the divinity that surrounds us all were you sent here to heal?

— Christophe

Re: Healing unintentionally

[(Anonymous)]

(Not OP)

For the record, for my part, I object to any confident attribution of demonic higher self stand-ins to Bill Gates, or even to Anthony Fauci. Gates is kind of selfish but also strongly oriented to realistic physical patterns of cause and effect, and I know of nothing he's done that's not explained by taking a technocratic materialist position seriously. I regard that as inculpable, so long as there has been no paradigm of parapsychological research that clearly breaks the pattern of failing replication after a decade or three like all the others. Fauci has perhaps by degrees unconsciously covenanted with some kind of crazy elite-overproduction respectability-spiral egregor that has been gradually divorcing itself from physical cause and effect as a convenient form of costly virtue-signal to distinguish the priest caste from the scientist/engineer caste, but there are plenty of scenarios that result in doing that that don't involve having a demonic higher self stand-in.

Re: Healing unintentionally

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not discussing the plenty of scenarios that you are able to entertain. I'm discussing the demonic efflorescence our world is thankfully now beginning to recover from. You have eloquently expressed the confidence you place in materialism, scientific replication, and others being limited to whatever talents you have been willing to let yourself experience. Given those beliefs underpinning your worldview, your objection to anyone else's confidence that is not both dependent on and derived from those narratives is unsurprising.

— Christophe

Natal chart privacy

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Mr. Greer,

You mentioned to someone last week that you don't share details of your natal chart with strangers. What are the issues at play with natal chart privacy? Should people be more private about their birth date and/or birth place (as with those in hand, someone could recreate the chart)?

Re: Natal chart privacy

[ecosophia]

For most people it's no issue at all. For a relatively controversial figure in the occult scene, who disagrees publicly with people who like to cast evil spells at people they hate, it's a necessity, because there are nasty spells you can do with certain details of somebody's birth chart.

Re: Natal chart privacy

[(Anonymous)]

How vague do you need to be to avoid those risks?

Re: Natal chart privacy

[ecosophia]

Vague enough that I'm not going to answer this question. ;-)

Re: Natal chart privacy

[francis_tucker]

After you've been practicing magic for as long as you have, are you able to tell when nasty magic is being directed at you (assuming said sorcerers aren't publicly putting out the call to mass curse JMG on such-and-such a day and time)? What's that like? You're sitting drinking tea any typing away at your next book when all of the sudden... "Someone is trying to curse me!" Is it like a Spidey-sense that tingles?

Re: Natal chart privacy

[ecosophia]

It's difficult to explain. I've done daily meditation for many years, of course, and so I know the flavor and texture of my own thoughts. When a magical attack is in process, there's a sense of pressure in directions that aren't typical of my thoughts. I can then do various things, many of them equally hard to explain -- daily meditation has lots of benefits and some of them are fairly strange. But yes, I can usually get a clear idea of what's being done, what intention is behind it, and (often) what geographical direction it's coming from.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear John,

For the cauldrons when opening the grove, would it be OK to use old spice jars instead? It would be convenient for standing a stick of incense into and I think the gods would appreciate the spirit of reusing old products!

[ecosophia]

You can use any container that works for you.

C19 re-hysteria, mercury retrograd

[(Anonymous)]

John,

To what extent do you think the current covid 19 hysteria is being revisited, because we are in a mercury retrograde? I know the retrograde isn't the bad boogie monster pop astrologers often see it as. But it is a time of revisiting things, and things that were thought finished, popping back up, old friends (or enemies) calling, and the like (at least in my experience). Perhaps I'm just hopeful in thinking that the current hullaballoo is just a temporary glitch, and that it will get swept away when other pressing concerns take over the narrative in a few weeks (not that I know what those might be).

Just curious about your perspective with re-gards to this.

Translucent Shabby Squid

Re: C19 re-hysteria, mercury retrograd

[ecosophia]

That's an interesting speculation. If that's what's doing it, the latest outburst of Covid hysteria should dry up and blow away shortly after September 14, when the retrograde ends. If that happens, we'll have another very useful data point.

Re: C19 re-hysteria, mercury retrograd

[brendhelm]

Not JMG - My suspicion is that it's part Mercury retrograde, part Pluto's regress into Capricorn trying to reactivate the old themes.

Bach Flower Remedies

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

Thanks as always for holding this space open for all of us. I am sure most people who read Magic Mondays would agree that thus is a magical space.

My questions relate to Bach Flower Remedies. I have been taking Bach Flower Remedies for a variety of complaints and they certainly see to have sort of uncanny influence to create changes through some very odd means.

Have you taken any and experienced effects? Would you say that they work through some magical means rather than normal mundane means? How would you go about explaining how Dr Edward Bach established the uses of these particular remedies, and what skills would one need to develop to learn about the uses of plant remedies not explored by Dr Bach?

Thanks as always for your answers and insights.

P

Re: Bach Flower Remedies

[(Anonymous)]

I find excellent results with the Bach flower remedies, and they seem to work in a way similar to homeopathic medicine. They seem to work through the physical and etheric bodies, and then go back up the chain from there to heal the underlying causes on the astral, mental, and spiritual planes.

Obsidian Fuzzy Puppy

Re: Bach Flower Remedies

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

I'm not JMG.

I used the Bach flower remedies for 3 years. I found the results subtle but helpful.
After that time, I looked for others, Californians, Brazilians, etc and I also noticed differences in myself and around me.

Re: Bach Flower Remedies

[ecosophia]

Like homeopathy and cell salts, the Bach flower remedies work on the etheric plane. Yes, I've used them -- they were recommended in one of the occult study courses I took -- and they certainly work. I don't happen to know how Bach devised them, but my guess would be clairvoyance; you might see if you can find a biography of him to doublecheck that. If I recall correctly, quite a few other flower remedies have been introduced since Bach's time, and you may be able to find out the method by researching in that field.

Druid Magic Handbook vs Dolmen Arch

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JGM my magic initiator. I discovered magic in my 50's and the first book I found, was the Druid Magic Hand book. Now 8 years later I have bought a copy and am enjoying everything about it. The cover, the paper, the font and diagrams are all about perfect.
My path these days is Odinisum with some magic. I dislike Kabbala and Christian symbols. Golden Dawn Magic is not for me nor Celtic Golden Dawn or Heathen GD
I am drawn to your 2 volume Dolmen Arch book and have read the blurb.
Can you please explain how it differs from the Druid Magic Handbook what is in each volume and where if anywhere it overlaps with your other druid books.
I am asking this rather than just buying as they are rather pricey.
Thanks
Cealin

Re: Druid Magic Handbook vs Dolmen Arch

[ecosophia]

If you can work with the Druid Magic Handbook you should find the Dolmen Arch material very congenial. It contains much more philosophy and symbolism -- each lesson contains a set of philosophical triads as raw material for meditation, as well as study of one of the traditional stories from the Mabinogion -- but the core work is the Sphere of Protection and its developments, alongside daily meditation. It also includes a system of energy healing and some methods of practical magic different from those in the DMH, but those are in the second volume.

Re: Druid Magic Handbook vs Dolmen Arch

[jprussell]

Cealin,

Not JMG, obviously, but as a heathen who is working through the DMH and the DA, I thought I might be able to share some insight "from the inside." Also, synchronistically enough, I was /just/ looking for a thread you posted a while back about a Wodenized three cauldrons working. Unluckily, Ingessunu's three Of Gods and Runes books you referenced there are currently out of print, as that was a thread I was interested in following up, given the use of the three cauldrons in DMH and DA.

Anyhow, the short version is that I have been doing a daily SOP, weekly grove, and 8-times-a-year seasonal ritual following the methods in DMH (and later modifying slightly for DA) for about 2 and a half years now, all while calling on heathen Gods, and it seems to be going swimmingly. I've had a number of meaningful spiritual insights, deepened some of my relationships with the Gods, and have benefited from the discipline of following a system "by the book," rather than my own bespoke (i.e. "cobbled together") program. Doing daily divination with the Ogham, as well as meditating on and scrying the Fews (not /quite/ to pathworking them yet) has been worthwhile and enriching on its own, and I've found occasional parallels/insights with the Runes, some of which have been surprising. The meditation work has also been deep and rewarding, and has taken me in some different directions than a purely heathen focus would likely have done, without invalidating what I'm getting from heathen sources. Working through the Mabinogion while being alive to parallels/influences to/on/from Germanish myth has been especially exciting.

All that being said, the main downside that I have felt is having to set aside, or at least put way less emphasis on, certain heathen-specific work that I am excited to do at some point - things like going deeper on the Runes, meditating through the Poetic Edda, and working out a seasonal ritual calendar more in keeping with heathen traditions. It also means that reading/study that I'm not directly using as meditation fodder gets less time, less attention, and likely fewer and shallower connections to the magical work I'm doing. I'm trying to treat all this as excellent practice in patience, but it can be a bit tough.

Lastly, in case you didn't know, Azoth has put out paperback versions of the two /Dolmen Arch/ volumes which are not cheap, but are waaaay more affordable than the limited edition hardcovers ($37-$40 before tax and shipping from bookshop.org).

Anyhow, if this proves to be a path you walk, I'd love to hear how it goes for you.

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: Druid Magic Handbook vs Dolmen Arch

[(Anonymous)]

Hello I have now been a member of the Odinic Rite for just over 5 years. We have a book of Blots which is superb with monthly rituals. These are very powerful superbly written rituals. As I said I came across JMG's DMH early in my path and love the Solar, Telluric flows merging into a combined force. Something I have now done for some time is a 3 couldron exercise similar to the DMH Rising Dragon Ritual. I visualize the solar white pillar (Wooden) descending through me into the earth,then the Mother Goddesses flow up my legs as Magma coils and merge in a golden plasma sun. This plasma/fluid fills up the lower caldron which spins on it's axeis This is Thor (life force) and is dark blue then flows up to the Hart caldron Tiw Red and meaning principled power then rising to the White caldron of Widen the Spirit. When all caldrons are spinning fast my whole being is flooded with the Golden fluid and this then enables me to preform healing. This is quite involved and I am thinking of simplification maybe building a grail as in DMH.
Cealin

Re: Druid Magic Handbook vs Dolmen Arch

[jprussell]

I've combined my responses into one comment to save our host some comment approval work.

1) Odinic Rite Blots: Is the Odinic Rite Blot book available to folks that are not members? Or is that the same as the Odinic Mythology books you recommend below? For working out when to hold rituals, I've found To Hold the Holytides by Thorbeorht Ealdorblotere quite good, which shoots for a reconstruction of the apparently Lunar-Solar calendar of the heathen Anglo-Saxons. That being said, as I am not currently a member of any religious organization, I'm open to learning from just about any rituals out there.

2) Your Cauldron Working: That sounds fascinating. I'm currently working with the DA version of the Three Cauldron ritual, which is extremely similar to what's given in the DMH, at least the first step of both is nearly identical (not sure if there's more variation when elaborated into the two dragons, the tree, or the grail). I'm planning to stick with the DA/DMH "by the book" work until I finish both books, at least, but afterward I may want to explore some, and your ritual sounds potentially promising. I suspect that autocorrect hit a few spots in your description, so I wanted to clarify a few points if you're willing to share:
a. For the "solar white pillar," did you mean "Woden" (Anglo-Saxon name for the God known as Odhinn to the Norse), or did you truly mean that the pillar is in some way "wooden," maybe associated with the world tree?
b. Is the golden plasma sun that forms located at your solar plexus, or at the same place as the lower cauldron it fills?
c. If I understand right, you have a lower cauldron in the belly, just under the belly button, that is dark blue and associated with Thor, the thunder God. Then at the level of the heart, a red cauldron associated with Tiw, the one-handed Wolf-Fetterer. Lastly, in the head, presumably where the third eye is, a white cauldron associated with Woden. Is this right? When it says the Hart Cauldron, you didn't mean an association with a deer, did you (Can you tell I've been reading a lot about the World Tree lately?)?
d. Assuming the above clarifications are correct, I imagine you would visualize the Rune Ansuz for the Woden/Spirit White Cauldron in the head, Tiwaz for the Tiw/Principled Power Red Cauldron, and what, Thurisaz for the Thor/Life Force Dark Blue Cauldron?
e. What do you mean that the cauldrons "spin on their axes?" Do they rotate like tops, keeping the open top facing up, do they roll forward/to the side, having the open top make a complete revolution, or some combination?

3) Odinic Mythology and Viktor Rydberg: Thanks for this recommendation! I've got electronic copies of Rydberg and have read some discussion of his takes on things over at germanicmythology.com, but I haven't dug in deeply yet. Sounds like a fascinating and often overlooked scholar in field, these days at least.

Sorry for peppering you with questions, and if there's anything there that you feel it's better to keep silent on ("to know, to will, to dare, ..."), then I very much understand. Thanks for sharing what you have so far!

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: Druid Magic Handbook vs Dolmen Arch

[(Anonymous)]

Jeff you would be interested in 2 books by the Circle of Ostara which was part of the Odinic Rite. Odinic Mythology part 1 and 2.
Very much influenced by Viktor Rydberg. His 3 vol Teutonic Mythology is easily downloaded and Kindle has A properly formated book of all 3 vols for a couple of dollars
Cealin

Re: Druid Magic Handbook vs Dolmen Arch

[(Anonymous)]

JMG is what I have described here "Good magical practice"?
Cealin

Re: Druid Magic Handbook vs Dolmen Arch

[ecosophia]

I can't determine that from what you've described. If you follow the instructions in the books you're studying precisely, and learn from them, it's close enough.

[mmelvink]

Hi JMG,

Happy to report that our new, fully funded History MA in Magic and Occult Science here at USC -- which wasn't even a pipe dream a year ago -- is already going gangbusters, with an inaugural cohort of eight students as of this week! Our sister MA at the University of Exeter will be launching with a similar cohort next year; the grand plan is to combine them into a joint transatlantic degree in Magic from 2025 onward. Scholar-practitioners are encouraged to apply, and really anyone who'd like a paid two-year ride to explore whatever occult goodness they will in a rigorous academic setting. TSW :)

That we've managed to tap into the seismic zeitgeist shift currently underway, against all academic odds, is confirmed by the fact that our program has now attracted the attention of millionaire and billionaire donors, some of whom may be interested in endowing Chairs in Magic and Occult Science at USC and Exeter respectively. This would help ensure the program's long-term survival and insulate us somewhat against the ever-more manic defunding and destruction of the humanities. They've asked for a formal short manifesto, which we've begun work on for circulation post-Mercury retrograde.

In the meantime, what ritual protocols would you recommend we use to take full advantage of this gobsmackingly astonishing opportunity? And what astrological timing is best for donor communications? Simply Mercury day and hour, or would Jupiter be more appropriate here, since we're asking for something on the order of ten to fifteen million clams? And would a group intention be appropriate as well? If so, we most gratefully welcome any and all good vibes from the esteemed Magic Monday readership :)

Thanks as always for MM! The times they are achangin'....

Matt

PS -- For those interested, our joint announcement on SHWEP is here: https://shwep.net/2023/06/28/emily-selove-and-matt-melvin-koushki-on-two-new-postgraduate-programmes-in-magic/

[open_space]

This is fantastic!

Are there previous field requirements in order to apply? I read the announcement but didn't see it mentioned.

I consider myself an amateur scholar and practitioner but my degree is on engineering and math.

[ecosophia]

This is wonderful to hear! For something like that I'd recommend electing a chart with Sun, Mercury, and Jupiter all dignified essentially or accidentally; having one or more of them in or ruling the 9th would be wise, and of course the Moon should be waxing and Mars and Saturn should be as far out of the picture as possible. Your ritual protocols -- well, depends on what approach to ritual you want to use; me, I'd design and perform a Golden Dawn Z-2 formula ritual, but your mileage may vary.

In terms of donor communications, Jupiter, Jupiter, Jupiter all the way -- you want peace and prosperity and happy donors. A group intention might help, but you might also encourage any of your initial class who happen to be practitioners to do whatever they know how to do to make the project prosper... ;-)

Seed of Yggdrasill Review Part 2 and Planetary Elemental Influence on Humoral Temperament

[jprussell]

Good Morning,

I hope everyone here finds some good use for this week's blue moon.

To Share: I have continued my series of posts on Maria Kvilhaug's The Seed of Yggdrasill, talking through her take on the creation of the cosmos: https://jpowellrussell.com/#book_the_seed_of_yggdrasill_2_creation_cosmos_and_the_ruling_powers

To Ask: This may be getting too close to "ask a natal astrologer" territory, but do you happen to know if the elements of the planets in your natal chart tend to correspond with your humoral temperament (e.g. if you have more planets in fire signs than anything else, are you likely to be choleric, and so forth)?

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

My blessings and best wishes to all who welcome them,
Jeff

Re: Seed of Yggdrasill Review Part 2 and Planetary Elemental Influence on Humoral Temperament

[ecosophia]

That's a fascinating question that would have to be settled by experimentation. I don't know of any discussion of it in the literature.

[(Anonymous)]

Greeting JMG
Continuing my question about different types of spirits. We already know who are angels and demons and devas. Who are faeries and Old Gods of Pagan traditions in your cosmology and occult philosophy?

[ecosophia]

The faery folk are a class of beings incarnate in etheric bodies who also inhabit this planet. They've been here longer than we are, and are apparently finishing up their time here -- certainly their numbers seem to have declined steadily over the course of recorded history. Robert Kirk's book The Secret Commonwealth, published in 1815, is a good intro to them.

The gods worshiped by Pagan religions include a very, very big grab-bag of entities of many different kinds. It's worth noting that many words used by the old Pagan faiths themselves -- for example, the Latin word numen and the Japanese word kami -- can quite literally apply to any supernatural being that humans revere, from fairly minor spirits to great cosmic powers. The Solar Logos and the Logoi of the twelve rays are among the gods worshiped by the old Pagan faiths, but angels, devas, intelligences, and human souls who have completed their work in incarnation also traditionally received reverence.

[(Anonymous)]

I know what a physical body is, but I have a hard time conceptualizing what an etheric body is. Is it more like a wavelength of light? What does it “look” like? Thank you. - Croatoan

[ecosophia]

The etheric plane is the closest of all the inner planes to the material plane, and the most like matter. Etheric substance is not quite as solid as material substance, and it interpenetrates matter freely, but if you were to practice etheric projection -- one form of out-of-body experience -- your etheric body would feel just as solid as your material body does.