Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just past midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. With certain exceptions, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note:  Any question or comment received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. (I've been getting an increasing number of people trying to post after these are closed, so will have to draw a harder line than before.) If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 143,916th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. 

The image? I field a lot of questions about my books on magic these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. The book on the left is the current edition of my second published book, Circles of Power, first published in 1997.  It started out as a chapter on Golden Dawn magic in my first book, Paths of Wisdom, but quickly outgrew the space I'd allotted to it and became a book on its own.  The first publisher, despite being a major player in the occult scene, didn't have a single editor on staff who could read the Hebrew alphabet, and so the original edition was riddled with errors; fortunately those got corrected for the second edition, and then further corrections went into this third edition. Like Paths of Wisdom, it's not really for beginners, but if you've worked through some more basic volume such as my Learning Ritual Magic this will take you a great deal further. (If you're interested, you can get a copy here if you live in the US and here if you're anywhere else.)

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 -- as in, NO FURTHER COMMENTS WILL BE PUT THROUGH.  See you next week!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

George MacDonald comes up here now and again, so I bought The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and the Curdie for a big seven dollars. They’re delightful.
Might you be persuaded to say a few words about MacDonald and his works? Maybe a nickel tour for aspiring druids?
Rhydlyd

[ecosophia]

Macdonald is one of the two most influential fantasy authors that nobody reads any more. (The other is William Morris.) He was a Scots clergyman and author whose first congregation cut his salary in half because he didn't spend enough of his time yelling about eternal damnation for their taste. He's the guy who convinced his friend Rev. Charles Dodgson to publish a charming little story he'd written for children; Dodgson decided to use the pen name Lewis Carroll, and yes, the story is Alice in Wonderland. Every significant figure in 19th and early 20th century fantasy read Macdonald and learned from him. Among the authors who have credited him as a major influence on their work are W. H. Auden, J. M. Barrie, Lord Dunsany, Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum, T. H. White, Richard Adams, Lloyd Alexander, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, Flannery O'Connor, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Walter de la Mare, E. Nesbit, Peter S. Beagle, Elizabeth Goudge, Brian Jacques, Neil Gaiman and Madeleine L'Engle.

I don't really have a nickel tour to offer; his fantasies include the two very fine children's novels you've cited, another children's novel titled At the Back of the North Wind, the adult fantasy novels Lilith and Phantastes, and a great many short pieces, which can be found in The Complete Fairy Tales of George Macdonald and other collections. He also wrote a couple of dozen straight novels which as far as I know nobody reads any more -- they're perfectly respectable Victorian novels and, um, rather dull. I know he also published volumes of Christian theology and sermons. Every single word he ever wrote is out of copyright, and you can download 73 books by him from Project Gutenberg -- and you could do much, much worse.

Circles of Power

[(Anonymous)]

1. I am curious on how your (and the commentary) views toward astrology have changed since studying it more in depth?

2. I think you mentioned in a podcast a technique for mesmerizing using an invocation of mercury? Is this something you recommend?


3. Who wrote the original version of the book “circles of power” in Hebrew? I might just be confused from the description. And if you wrote it why did you write it in that language?

Re: Circles of Power

[ecosophia]

1) I've become even more respectful of its capacity as a tool for accurate prediction, but even more aware of its limits. It's crucial, I've found, to remember that astrology predicts tendencies, not certainties.

2) No, that wasn't me. I don't do mesmerism or hypnotism; one of the obligations I've taken as an initiate forbids me from doing so.

3) You're confused from the description. I wrote Circles of Power in English, and as far as I know nobody's translated it into Hebrew yet! It's simply that it contains a lot of words of power and divine names in Hebrew, and the original publisher messed those up.

[(Anonymous)]

I have always had a sense that I never wanted to incarnate again - like I've never had a zest for life, I hate being in a body and I hate feeling so lonely and separate. I've done a fair bit of therapy, journalling etc and I wouldn't say I'm depressed - and I'm definitely not suicidal. Just that there's a longing in me that I can't shake to not be here.

My question is, is this feeling likely to be coming from my personality in this life or from my soul? Am I likely to feel like this in my future lives? I feel like I brought it in with me into this life, but I can't track it's originations beyond it being outside of this life.

[ecosophia]

That's tolerably common among souls that have been in human incarnation often enough that they're starting to be conscious between lives. Life in material incarnation really is a hard row to hoe, so it's not surprising that souls in this situation aren't too enthusiastic about returning to matter! It can be a useful incentive, too, to do the necessary spiritual work and also to work off the last of the karma that holds you here, so you can complete your time in matter and go on to more interesting things.

group buy of cell salt materials

[(Anonymous)]

I was wondering if anyone else here was on that list and part of the email chain and could respond. I was and then it seemed to just stop. No more emails or updates. So, I dont know if somehow my email stopped forwarding those messages, muy email fell off thelist of the person coordinating it, or if this happened to everyone and something happened to our coordinator ? If anyone has any information, please let me know

Atmospheric River

Re: group buy of cell salt materials

[open_space]

I sent an update a few weeks ago. I am assuming from your message it never went through. I had a personal issue that took me away a few months from my house in Seattle and came back at the beginning of September.

I have 9 out of 12 raw salts in my possession. The rest are coming from a Chinese supplier of bulk chemicals and should be or should be soon over the Pacific now. (The agreed to send me half a kilo as a "sample" if I paid shipping)

I do apologize for the delay!

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Halloween, Magic Monday mavens! 🎃👻

—Princess Cutekitten

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for always hanging around and not ghosting us here on the forum Princess Cutekitten!

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have any ideas as to what it is that has gotten Western society so twisted around death? I'm thinking of someone I know who is adamant that had his grandfather not smoked, he would still be alive, despite the fact that the man died at well over a hundred, more than 20 years ago. The grandson simply cannot grasp that people eventually die; it must be the fault of something, and get rid of that, and people live forever.

This attitude is surprisingly common, and once I saw it in such stark relief, makes a lot of sense of a lot of things, but it seems utterly insane to me, and I'm wondering if there might be a metaphysical factor of some sort driving it.

[ecosophia]

The entire thrust of Western civilization -- Faustian civilization, as Spengler called it -- is a passion for linear extension into infinity. We're obsessed with straight lines; we're the only culture in history ever to make linear perspective central to our art, until even that became too much of a limit; we dreamed of sailing over oceans until we ran out of new lands to discover, and then started dreaming of space travel. Death -- the ultimate limit for the personality -- is unbearable for such a mindset, and all kinds of absurd belief systems have grown up to let people pretend that they don't have to die. Is it insane? You bet -- and it's one of the reasons I've come to think that Faustian civilization won't survive long.

Impactation and Polarity

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John Micheal,

I'm currently working my way through Dion Fortunes chapters on Impactation and Polarity and I have to say that they are - even assisted by your commentary - much heavier going and much more opaque than most of the book that came before. It may well be that I'm far off the mark and therefore, If I may, I'd like to present a few of the results of my musings and I would be glad if you could comment.

1) After reading a passage of the Jung-Pauli letter exchange* it occurred to me that divination could be seen as an act of impactation. There are two partners - 1) on the material plane the person that performs the physical act of drawing sticks, cards, etc. and 2) on a higher plane the spiritual power that's behind the oracle. One could assign 1+ as the desire to understand the higher aspects of the situation that is subjected to divination, 1- could be the physical act of performing a reading; 2- is the part of the symbolic aspect that pushes toward manifestation in form of a certain reading and 2+ is what drives upwards to the higher causes behind the situation. The "swapping of places" that forms the circuit / the symbol would then be caused by the intention of the diviner, causing the symbolic representation of the situation to descend all the way down into the physical alignment of the sticks, cards, etc. and the material desire to know to ascend towards the understanding of the driving forces behind it.

2) Polarity magic, the bar of impactation and the symbol of the Hexagram - here it may well be that I am very far off from what Fortune intends to say - but anyway. I'll take the example of a priest and congregation: Fortune writes about a duality and the correspondence on a higher plane that form the basis of the Hexagram. In this way, Priest and congregation could form the lower left and right points of the hexagram. The respective symbolic correspondences (could one say the archetypal priest, the archetypal congregation?) would then form the upper left and right points. Energy is transferred from congregation to priest (say from right to left) and is then send "upward" to the divine, i.e. towards the upper tip of the hexagram. Which then descends to the benefit of the congregation and completes the triangle. One could draw a bar of impactation from left to right where the barrier between the lower and the higher plane is located, but I am not at all sure if this is the way it is meant (although in previous chapters Fortune seems to suggest this). That is because if you draw the second triangle (where the archetypal images exchange energy and descend towards manifestation of the (divine?) image of priest and congregation (i.e. a church!?) a lot of barriers come into being, not necessarily between two planes. For example, the connection between congregation and priest would be intersected twice by the descending triangle which makes sense since as you said the energies between the horizontal poles shouldn't earth out in a more mundane fashion.

Ok, I think that's enough for now. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read what I have written!
Cheers!

---
* One small part of a long letter Jung wrote to Pauli did the trick (translation and remarks by me): "It is not clear what exactly is meant by 'relativity of mass'. In the randomness of the movement of dices a psychological arrangement [remark: analogous to the experimental setup of a (quantum)physical experiment] is created. Has the modification its cause in the dices becoming heavier or lighter or in their speed being accelerated or slowed down? The limits of probability are transcended by the mass (i.e. the dice) in the same way as the 'knowledge' of the test person gains improbability [remark: most likely improbability in the sense of improbable to know under a materialistic paradigm.] I seek the explanation in the mysterious nature of the archetype, which temporarily abrogates the permanence of the causal principle and through contingency assimilates a physical and a psychological process into each other. One can describe this synchronistic event as a property of the psyche or of mass. In the first case, the psyche would bewitch mass, in the latter it would be mass that bewitches the psyche. It is therefore more probable that both share the same property, that both share a contingency in the background and - not caring for their own causal determination - intermingle with each other. Another possibility is that neither mass nor psyche have such a property but that there is a third factor, to which this property has to be ascribed; a factor which belongs to the realm of the psyche and which can be observed from a psychological point of view - namely the (psychoid) archetype, which through its habitual uncertainty and its 'transgressivity' suddenly (in a so called numinous moment) assimilates two incommensurable causal processes into each other and creates a common field of stresses (?) or makes them both 'radioactive' (?)." [remark: field and radioactivity are physical metaphors to psychological processes which seem to frequently occur in Pauli's dreams and are used in the letters by both Jung and Pauli].

I can't help thinking that it would have been utterly fascinating if Pauli and Jung have had access to the CosDoc...

Re: Impactation and Polarity

[ecosophia]

Excellent! Both of these show that you're using her symbolism to make sense of your experience, and that's the point of the Cos. Doc. Both are also quite plausible.

[(Anonymous)]

Given that this weird shift I want to ask about has to do with collective consciousness, I hope it won't be out of line on a Magic Monday, even though it ties into topics where there is usually far more heat than light in online discussions.

One of my sons brought a black woman home for a family dinner to meet my parents a little over two weeks ago now. They've been together a while, I think she's lovely, and have been encouraging the relationship, despite certain problems with racists (of white and dark complexion) judging them for their relationship. The dinner went well enough, but there was obvious tension, and when she left, my parents launched into a long rant about how he was engaged in "racial fetishism" and needed to end the relationship immediately.

A white man dating a black woman is now, in their minds, extremely racist. When I started looking into it, I found other people who are saying the same thing. There are plenty of "anti-racist activists" who seem to think that white people cannot fall in love with non-White people; it can only be a case of "fetishization".

Paired with a series of news stories I've seen where some leading left-wing activists are now talking about the "White voter problem" and the need to shore up support for Democrats among the white population, even if it means ignoring the needs of minorities, I've just realized that it looks like we're in the middle of a massive shift whereby the anti-racists of the left are turning into full blown White Supremacists. It's not an overnight change, it's been going on for a while, but it's quite the spectacle.

1) Do you have any theories on what exactly might be driving this? I wonder if this is evidence for your statement that "What you contemplate, you imitate": the anti-racists spent so much time thinking about racism that they've become the racists, but it's still a very weird thing to behold, and I also wonder if there might be something more to it.

2) This is a little more complex, but how exactly do people make this shift without even realizing they're doing it? All these anti-racists are being extremely racist, but seem to be utterly oblivious to the fact that they have managed to get most of the way to becoming full blown White Supremacists. How on earth do people fail to notice this sort of thing happening to them?

[ecosophia]

1) Oh, the left has been contemplating Nazis so obsessively it's not at all surprising that they're becoming Nazis -- denouncing free speech as evil, cheering on war against Russia (and now against Jews as well), insisting that the color of one's skin trumps the content of one's character, and so on. But, yes, there's more. Just as Christian preachers who get obsessive about denouncing homosexuality are often strongly attracted to gay sex, and very often end up with boyfriends, leftists who are obsessive about denouncing Nazis are often strongly attracted to racism and other Nazi attitudes, and very often end up wearing armbands.

2) They haven't gotten to the tipping point yet. They'll get there in due time. Did you know that Mussolini started out as a socialist? It's a known phenomenon; sooner or later there comes a personal crisis, and the armbands and jackboots come out to play.

[open_space]

Good evening JMG,

Do you think that the current popular notion against heterosexual masculinity can be a ripe situation for a revival of fraternal organizations? It seems to me a lot of men, myself included, are very thirsty for something that works and shows them how to overcome the bad habits our society aligned with higher principles with and along other people. As an old fashioned occultist what do you think it would take and what have you seen people fail at in your time involved with them that didn't let them make the best use of it?

[ecosophia]

It's possible, and membership in some fraternal orders -- especially Freemasonry -- is on the increase. I suspect, though, it's going to take something more than that, because many young men these days have no exposure to the basic concepts of loyalty and self-discipline that fraternal orders rely on. Something that gives them that will need to come first. I'm sorry to say at this point it will probably be military service.

[jruss]

Greetings ArchDruid and everyone else!

First off an update on the planetary charity. I have autopay set up for every planet but the Sun and Moon right now. I've noticed some subtle things changing as a result and will keep updates going on this.

Second off to share, an interesting post on "Liao Fan's Four Lessons" which amongst other things gives an explanation on why Astrology works that might be worth a read for many. https://edwardwhite123.blogspot.com/2022/03/preliminary-remarks-on-liao-fans-four.html

Now to ask. I'm sure given the current unpleasantness going on over Israel v Palestine you may have notice some of the left starting to identify with the Nazis of all people. This has me wondering, could the left and the 'Magical Resistance' become targets of their own workings if parts of their group keep going down this road? I seem to recall a lot of the workings targeting Nazis and those who support them.

When the rubble finishes bouncing you could probably write a book about this mess called, "How Could You Nazi That Coming! - A Guide On How Not To Do Magic As Shown By The Magical Resistance Of 2016-20XX."

[ecosophia]

Many thanks for these. Can you point me to examples of leftists identifying explicitly with the Nazis? I just noted in response to another question above that this was going to happen, and it's a little startling to see it show up already! But you're right that if anyone who was in the Magic Resistance makes that leap. they're going to be in a world of hurt.

Learning Ritual Magic

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I have been practicing the LBRP and Middle Pillar exercise to good results as part of a ritual + meditation + divination daily practice, but I've yet to pursue a more defined course of study.

Because the LBRP and MP are taught in deliberate segments in "Learning Ritual Magic," would you recommend I stop my current daily practice of the LBRP + MP for now and re-learn them in the context of the full curriculum? Or should I keep performing them daily and undertake the rest of the course work around them?

Thank you for your guidance, generosity, and time!

Re: Learning Ritual Magic

[ecosophia]

Keep performing them daily. Review your performance and the details of both rituals using the materials in LRM, but keep doing them; they're the foundations of your magical training. You can do the rest of the coursework around them.

Mission Tactics and New Thought, Shinto, Silva Mind Control, Ragnarok, and DA Nwyfre Exercises

[jprussell]

Good Evening,

To Share: 1. I wasn't able to post much last week, but while reading comments after the post was closed, I noted Mocha Amphibious Moose's comment about reading military doctrine, and especially the concept of "Commander's Intent" and expressing it in short, clear, present-tense statements. JMG responded that it sounds like there was some New Thought influence there, which is fascinating. For what it's worth, I wanted to add that much of the military's doctrine/advice/stated approach to things is actually /very/ good, especially in the area of "how to be a good leader." The trouble is that there are a lot of cultural, political, and institutional forces pushing in, shall we say, less good ways, with the end result that the actual military doesn't function as much like it says it should as anyone would hope (including the fact that most missions do not have particularly short or clear commander's intent statements, and "delegation" often has far less autonomy than it really should). As for where this came from, the standard history given is that "Mission Tactics" (commander has a clear intent, then delegates as much as he can to lower-level leaders) were developed by the Germans at the tail-end of WW1, and played a big part in the late war tactical successes that led to the "stabbed in the back" narrative taken advantage of by certain political leaders down the road. Anyway, the Allies all saw the on-the-ground effectiveness of this approach and began training their armies in the same way, and these days it's standard doctrine in most militaries. To bring things back to the "magic" part of Monday, I'd simply note that this means that this approach was "the hot new thing" in the 20s and 30s, and that motivated, get-things-done guys tend to be drawn to the military, so the timing and subset of the population involved make the idea that the codification and spread of the approach incorporated some New Thought DNA wouldn't surprise me at all.

2. Another carryover from last week - an anonymous commenter asked for resources on Shinto. Anonymous (or anyone else), if you're reading, after a similar question a while back, I put together this roundup that might be helpful: https://sanepolytheism.dreamwidth.org/3448.html

3. Man, I was really missing out last week! Another anonymous commenter asked about the Silva Mind Control Method - something like 5-10 years ago, I followed the exercises given in the main book for, oh, several months, I think? This was before I took magic seriously as anything other than "interacting with my subconscious." So, I gave it a decent go, but didn't work through it with the discipline I'm trying to bring to such systems now. From what I remember, I think that the system's emphasis on a single state (I can't remember the term they use) as the only way to then be able to do psychic acts is maybe overly reductive. That being said, the exercises did seem to be an effective way to induce that state, and it was conducive to pretty vivid, dream-like visualization, at least if you could manage to not fall asleep during it! As you progress, the system also has a very strong emphasis on that visualization, and it stresses putting that visualization "outside" of your head/eyelids, on an imagined screen a few feet away from your body. I found this very difficult, as I have a hard enough time getting clear visualization when I do it the way that comes more naturally ("in" my head), but maybe persisting with it has certain benefits. My only other comment, with hindsight, is that one of the things that appealed to me about the approach back then, no insistence on non-physical spiritual realities, and no overtly religious elements, I might these days see as a drawback. If I were going to pursue it again, it would be in the context of also doing some kind of banishing ritual and regular prayer.

4. I've kept on with my thoughts on Maria Kvilhaug's The Seed of Yggrdrasill, this time covering Ragnarok and what comes after: https://jpowellrussell.com/#book_the_seed_of_yggdrasill_6_ragnarok_and_the_new_age

To Ask: Do you know of any compatibility issues or preferred sequencing for the Great Psychic Breath + Seven Nwyfre exercises given in Grade 4 of the Dolmen Arch and the Five Rites? Or is this firmly in "experiment and see how it goes" territory? So far I have found it fine to do the morning exercise given in Way of the Golden Section, the Solar Plexus exercise from WotGS/DA, and the Five Rites all in a row, but it seems beneficial to wait a bit before doing an SOP after that.

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

My blessings and best wishes to all who will have them,
Jeff

Re: Mission Tactics and New Thought, Shinto, Silva Mind Control, Ragnarok, and DA Nwyfre Exercises

[hearthculture]

Interesting info on military tactics. It's interesting to think of this as an externalized reflection of internal realities. By that I mean, when a commander holds intent only, they almost act as a mental plane concept that then flows to lower planes that control manifestation. I wonder if that model continues by having the next level of command (astral) control the emotions/imaginings of the group, by creating and issuing plans, and the next level control flows of energy and information (etheric), and finally, the lowest level just physically enacts the plan. Hmmmm... :)

Ecosophia Prayer List

[tunesmyth]

At this link is the full list of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared across the Ecosophia community. A printable version of the entire prayer list current as of 10/29 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.

(Also, if you think you might be interested in having anyone pray in support of your own self-improvement, please have a look at the Ecosophia Prayer List Autumn Special.)* * *
This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests.

May Quin and his younger daughter's trip to Tokyo on 11/2 to consult Japan's most experienced AHC doctor yield much useful knowledge in how to manage her condition, to her best benefit, including methods for preventing the usual accompanying mental impairment. (Full disclosure, this prayer is from me.)

May the brain surgery that Erika's partner James underwent for his cancer on October 16th have gone successfully; and may he be blessed, healed and protected, and successfully treated for all of his cancer.

May Kyle's friend Amanda, who though in her early thirties is undergoing various difficult treatments for brain cancer, make a full recovery; and may her body and spirit heal with grace.

May Jeff Huggin's friends Dale and Tracy be blessed and healed; may Dale's blood and spinal fluid infection clear up sufficiently to receive a heart valve replacement; may his medical procedures go smoothly and with success; and may Dale and Tracy successfully surmount these difficulties.

In the case of Princess Cutekitten and the large bank who is suing her, may justice be done, with harm to none.

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.
 

* * *
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 for this as always.

[thinking_turtle]

To share, a list of abbreviations used on Magic Monday.

I'm still doing the first lesson of Essenes, the Blessing Walk. It's still amazing. People you silently wish well smile at me or greet me back. Almost if they can sense my thoughts!

[ecosophia]

It is indeed amazing -- and yes, they can sense your thoughts. Most people are much more psychic than they realize; all those years of bullying in childhood can make people ignore their psychic perceptions but those perceptions still exist, and influence them.

Counting affirmations

[(Anonymous)]

I got used to do my daily 100 affirmations according to your very helpful post. I count them in groups of 10 with the help of my 10 fingers, while visualising a differently coloured letter for each group of 10. Like, 1 in yellow, 2 in orange and so on through the whole rainbow, so to speak.

It just occurred to me to use the colours of the 10 sephiroth instead - 1 in white for the first group of 10 like Kether, 2 in black like Chockmah, and so on through to 10 in earth colours for Malkuth.

Could this be of additional help for bringing the affirmation down into reality, or is it just a fluffy idea?

Re: Counting affirmations

[ecosophia]

If you do it deliberately, with the intention that this will help the affirmation manifest, then it will strengthen the process and help the affirmation manifest. I'd encourage you to give it a try.

questions: re planes of manifestation

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,
I am a long-time reader starting in the early days of the ADR. First time poster. I deeply appreciate your systemic view of what’s going on and your intention to place everything that’s happening in a bigger context.

I found this community recently while reading Ecosophia and I am grateful to find it as I navigate my own spiritual unfolding. I practiced Gardnerian Wicca briefly about 20 years ago and never quite owned it. Nature based spiritually feels like a deep fit for me. I have begun practicing the SOP and I am really enjoying it while really taking it slow. To be honest, it’s the first spiritual practice I have ever stuck with on my own.

I have two questions for you:
1) I appreciated what you shared last week about the different planes of manifestation. I am curious about the difference between the astral plane and the mental plane as it relates to cognition. I think about meanings as something cognitive. Could you clarify?
2) Along these lines as someone who helps people heal from developmental trauma using a model that emphasizes restoring the relationship to the life force, I started thinking about verbal sadistic abuse from the perspective of planes of manifestation. The definition of sadistic abuse I am using is the intent to disrupt someone else’s well-being and happiness on purpose. It seems to me this is an injury to someone else on the etheric and astral planes as it disrupts someone’s relationship to their own life force along with generating negative emotions. I wonder if you have any thoughts on this.

Thank you for your generosity of time and wisdom.

Re: questions: re planes of manifestation

[hearthculture]

I've thought on your second question quite a bit. Thinking of life force flowing down through the planes from spirit down to physical manifestation, I posit that many forms of verbal mental and emotional abuse involve the abuser seeking to climb to a higher level violently and vicariously. By this I mean that the abuser wants to be in control but rather than working on their own thoughts, emotions, and ideals in order to gain greater power over their own physical situation, they imagine an ideal (that they cannot meet) and seek to become the thoughts and emotions of the other person(s). So then the abuser vicariously feels empowered, and in some way, this insertion into another persons process of manifestation allows them to vampirically benefit from the victim's life force. (If you know anything about network security, this resembles a man-in-the-middle attack.) In extreme cases, the victim begins to shift their own connection to higher planes to the abuser giving the abuser a god-complex and divorcing the abused from their spiritual center.

Obviously this is all from my experience (and that of others close to me) and from my meditations on those experiences; one person's perspective and your mileage may vary.

I appreciate that you are involved in helping others recover and heal. May you be blessed in your work.

Gnostic Lesson Albs

[milkyway1]

Good morning! :-)

I hope everybody had a good weekend. JMG, thank you very much for hosting another Magic Monday and answering our questions!

I‘ve got two practical questions about the exciting topic of „Gnostic Lesson Albs“: ;-)

1. Should the GL albs only be used for GL-related ceremonies (e.g. blessing or naming ceremonies, and maybe things related to the UGC)? Or would it be ok to also use them for other rituals and ceremonies, say a GSF lodge with another purpose?

2. If one wanted to get a new alb, will it be sufficient to just bless it in a small ceremony and then use it? Or would you recommend going through all the commitment ceremonies again with the new alb?

Thanks,

Milkyway

Re: Gnostic Lesson Albs

[ecosophia]

1) You can use it for any magical or spiritual work. John Gilbert wore the same alb when he was officiating as a bishop in the UGC as when he was conferring degrees in the Magickal Order of the Golden Dawn.

2) A simple blessing is fine. The commitment ceremony is for you, not for the alb!

Lust for result

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John Michael,

Thank you as always for this space and for your responses
to all of the questions you receive from your readership.

I have noticed that any magic that I do tends to manifest when my strong desire for it to take effect has disappeared. From my former Buddhist background this makes sense - attachment is suffering the Buddha says, and there is a definite sense of discomfort that comes from realising that one does not have the thing that one has done magic for.

My question is what is the best way to remove ones "lust for result" (as one author called it) after generating and experiencing the strong desire for the result that is the impetus for the magic in the first place?

Is this an experience (manifestation after letting go) you recognise in your own practice? That is, it us a universal law of magic?

Thanks,

P

Re: Lust for result

[ecosophia]

That's one of the most widely recognized laws in magic. The more emotionally attached you are to a given outcome, the less effective your magic will be. That's partly because the lust of result leads you to focus as much on the fact that you don't have what you want as on getting the thing you want, and partly because the higher a plane you can work from, the more effective your magic will be -- and attraction and repulsion are both astral phenomena, thus on a fairly low level. (Repulsion is lower than attraction, which is why magic motivated by love is more powerful than magic motivated by hate; magic motivated by clear conscious intention, without emotional involvement, is of course more powerful still.)

It takes a lot of work to get past the craving for results. Daily meditation is a potent tool for this, and so is simple experience -- the more magic you practice, especially if you put a lot of work into rituals for spiritual development, the easier it becomes to set attraction and repulsion aside and attune to the pure intention itself.

Accidentally calling up the old gods

[(Anonymous)]

Just curious what the commentariat make of the memetic potential in the glowing red face of the Robert E. Lee statue that was secretly melted down against court order.

It's the face of an old god looking down in disappointment trying to, yet again, decide between water and fire.

Re: Accidentally calling up the old gods

[ecosophia]

We'll hope Gil Scott-Heron was wrong: "No more water, the fire next time."

[corrnata]

Here hoping it open cause time zones so a 3 questions on astrology.

1. What would you recommend for an absolute beginner?
Either yours or another author ideally yours so I can give you my money.

2. Is they any good books in the ages?
By that I mean whay things such as the age of aquarius and age of pices ect. Going over what they mean, what they represent? What they are about and examples from history. If they isn't any good books on this well you may just found a future book to write.

3. What do you think of astrology apps such as co-star?
Are they BS or is there value to the?

[ecosophia]

You're fine -- this landed at 8:14 am Eastern time, so almost 16 hours ahead of the deadline.

1) I haven't written an astrological book for beginners. Derek and Julia Parker's Parker's Astrology is the one I recommend.

2) I don't know of a good book on that subject, and as it happens, I've been considering that as an option. Mind you, I have a long list of books I intend to write!

3) I don't have a cell phone so have never used any kind of app at all -- thus I have no idea. Anyone else?

Speed sortilege for the bad times

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not confident this is a fully formed question but here goes...

Should we find ourselves as civilians in a combat situation, a certain amount of unpredictability would be handy and a means of quick a/b decision making when gripped with panic possibly indispensable.

Is there a war minded oracle that excels at yes/no, left/right, stay/go questions that could easily be drawn from a pocket?

Re: Speed sortilege for the bad times

[hearthculture]

Good question, I'm interested to hear answers to this one.

Personally, I've found that muscle testing is useful for on the go decision making (and requires no tools.) Multiple versions of it are taught in the Modern Order of Essenes, and I've noted that each person seems to differ significantly in which type works for them, so it helped me to practice each for a bit before settling on the version that works best for me.

Geomancy is also good at clear answers (and doesn't require anything but a writing utensil,) but requires quite a bit of study, practice, and memorization to get to the point where it can be done quickly, without reference.

Another interesting option is to look into omens and various forms of reading the events happening around you, books on natural magic correspondences (like JMG's encyclopedia of natural magic,) and on animal and plant correspondences are helpful. After paying attention to these for a while, sometimes the situation is also the oracle.

Chakras as resonators?

[(Anonymous)]

Esteemed JMG and all!

R.J. Stewart made a fascinating comment in his book "The Sphere of Art" about the nature of chakras, and I'm asking here if anyone knows anything more about this.

(Some context: Stewart, like our illustrious JMG, cautions people not to equate the body areas used in their specific esoteric exercises with chakras. Stewart's comments here are part of his argument against mixing Westernized and de-contextualized ideas of chakra-working into Western esoteric work.)

Stewart says that a chakra "was originally (and, in Eastern traditions, still is) regarded as a tympanum or responsive organ upon which spirit beings could resonate and so interact with humanity. The awakening of these subtle organs of communication and communication was the task of deities and spirits, not of human solipsism. ... Chakras are...organs of reception and communication." (p. 52)

Considering what I wrote a couple weeks ago about the perception that an important avenue of interaction and communication on the spiritual plane occurs through resonance, I find this a very intriguing statement, and would like to learn more about it!

Best wishes to all,
Winifred Hodge Rose

Re: Chakras as resonators?

[ecosophia]

Stewart is always well worth studying and reading. Here he's following one broad current of Asian esoteric teaching; I'm not sure what his specific sources are, but if you contact him I'm sure he'd be glad to tell you.

That's only one of several traditions of Asian origin regarding the chakras, however. In influential traditions of laya yoga and kriya yoga, by contrast, the chakras are awakened by the individual practitioner and the main effects sought from them are not communicative in nature. Stewart is of course right that clumsy borrowings of half-understood and decontextualized chakra work into Western esoteric practices are a bad idea; it's for this reason that the most effective Western systems of work with energy centers, such as the Middle Pillar exercise or the system of seven vortices I discuss in my recent book The Secret of the Five Rites, don't copy the chakra system verbatim but use their own sets of energy centers for their own specific purposes.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
Dear commentators,

I hope you are all well and healthy!

Could you please recommend me good books that address tarot as an initiatory path? One of the books I consulted was by Robert Wang, I believe that the works of JMG, our host, also address the topic. Any other recommendations?

[(Anonymous)]

See what JMG has to say responding to my question here today about "The Inner Guide Meditation." The book may be similar to what you're looking for. If he has concerns about it, I'll ask what might be better.

[(Anonymous)]

A popular occultist has recommended a course on demonology. I won't be doing it but I notice they put this on their page.

"I will go through 72, 30-minute Meditation Rituals that do NOT include angelic protection. This section is for those who feel safe dealing with demons without angelic or divine protection."

I will go through 72, 30-minute Meditation Rituals that include angelic protection. This section is for those who do not feel safe dealing with demons without angelic or divine protection."

It seems weird that angels/gods would offer protection from the consequences for this kind of work?

I also believe that things have become increasingly hellish for many people because of the popularity of demonology amongst occultists lately and possibly the activities of CERN too.

[ecosophia]

No, angels and gods won't protect you from the consequences of your own stupidity. You can invoke angels and gods to good effect if your intention is to chase demons away, but the classic trap of the demonolater is the conviction that you can command the demons by divine and angelic names, to do things that divine and angelic beings aren't interested in helping you to do. Mind you, the demons are happy to play along; they're good at cowering and cringing, while they ease you down step by step to their own level...

Perfect Timing

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have any tips for choosing the best time to sign a book contract? What about best times to negotiate any points in the contract you'd like change?

Tangerine Orthogonal Beaver

Re: Perfect Timing

[ecosophia]

Day and hour of Mercury in both cases! Mercury is the lord of writing and he's also the god of business.