Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just before 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 1.1 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 fifth published book, The Encyclopedia of Natural Magic. I got tired of the torrent of wildly inaccurate books on herb and stone magic, and decided to write one based entirely on medieval and Renaissance sources -- granted, it helped that I'd gotten fairly good at reading Latin by the time I got to work on it.  I wrote this before I studied hoodoo with Cat Yronwode, or it would have had much more traditional American conjure in it.  It's still a solid book, and one I use myself whenever I need to look up the magical properties of an herb or what have you -- and it's the oldest of my books that's still with its original publisher, for whatever that's worth.  If you're interested, you can get a copy here if you live in the US, and at your favorite bookstore if you live elsewhere.

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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)]

A while back, there was a discussion of the possibility of Pluto functioning as an oversized comet and dragging people away. I've just been introduced to two of David Bowie's songs, recorded shortly before his death, that seem to possess symbolism that suggests that at some level he knew he was about to leave us forever. This could be a fear of death, but some of the lines in both songs are weird in that regard, and some of the symbolism (such as an astronaut [Major Tom, and by extension, David Bowie]) falling towards an eclipse) doesn't make sense in that light, but makes perfect sense if Pluto is an overgrown comet.

This then lead me to think about the way that a lot of other weird elements of current culture make a lot more sense if there's a widespread sense, at some level, that when people die they might not be coming back; and that depending on your point of view, this could be heaven or hell. It would explain the push for suicides getting going in Canada; the pathological fear of illness seen during the Covid panic; among other things.

However, a more down to Earth possibility has occurred to me as well: Pluto is the planet of addiction, and most people alive during its reign knew at least one person who died because they would rather feed their addiction over living. There's a good case to be made that the Plutonian is actively addictive; it certainly explains a lot of things which are otherwise hard to explain. What this suggests to me is that even if the higher self is safe, plenty of personalities might very well be dragged into complete self destruction (another Plutonian thing) as Pluto fades away; which, symbolically, and especially to those who reject the notion of a higher self entirely, would look the same as getting dragged away by Pluto to an unknown fate.

Does this analysis seem plausible to you?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Anonymous,

I haven't listened to the last Bowie album "Blackstar" much... but I do know he was fully aware of his impending departure, and wanted his death to be as much of an artistic statement as his life. So all the lyrics, videos and such from his final album are meant to be a final message, done with the full awareness that he was going to be dying soon.

But its interesting to me you bring it up now, as you're the second person I've heard talk about the album recently, when before, I hadn't thought of it in quite some time.

I guess the Mars influence on his music came at a much earlier time... ; )

Listening to Blackstar song again now... It's brilliant, great synths, saxophone...

"I'm going to take you home, your passport and shoes" -now that is ominous in the Plutonian sense you mention.

When my wife and I saw Bob Dylan on the most recent leg of his forever tour (I wanted to see him at least once before I couldn't) he played his great recent song "Crossing the Rubicon". His sense of mortality was all over that concert.

So I'm personally not sure if it is a Plutonian influence such as the influence of an artist at the top of their game reckoning with their shedding of the mortal coil.

Justin Patrick Moore

[(Anonymous)]

Pay attention to the video as well: there's plenty of symbolism which doesn't make sense in terms of dying, but makes a lot of sense in terms of Pluto taking his soul. Maybe it's nothing, I sure hope it's nothing; but there's too much there for me to just dismiss it.

Uranian/Neptunian

[(Anonymous)]

Hello again,

As I muse on Bowie I think of how, to me, his character and characters are essentially Uranian, on the one hand with his androgynous persona and science fiction infused storylines, and Neptunian, with all the fantastical and surrealistic elements within his body of work.

JPM

[ecosophia]

Yes, but plausibility is a risky thing when it comes to Pluto. Everything Plutonian seems inevitable and utterly convincing when it first shows up, then trickles away into failure -- think of nuclear power, space travel, Marxism, or any other Plutonian phenomenon you care to name. The addictive quality of Pluto is as much overcommitment to the narrative as anything else! So it's worth considering this, but also worth considering the possibility that the planet of overblown hype is going to have one last fling at your expense before it fades away.

[(Anonymous)]

I hope it's just the planet having one last go at overblown hype. If it's not, then things could get very, very weird in the years ahead. All we can do is wait and see what happens, I guess; but either way, getting out of the way while the remnants of the Plutonian sort themselves out and go to whatever their ultimate destiny is seems like a good idea.

[(Anonymous)]

I suppose though, as always when dealing with Pluto, it might not matter what is actually going to happen. If enough people get the sense they're about to be dragged off to only the gods know where, it could still make things get pretty weird for a while...