ecosophia | Magic Monday

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Magic Monday

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 these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. The book above on the left is the current edition of my sixth published book, Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings. These days books on investigating reports of monstrous entities are all over the place, but that wasn't the case in 2001, when this first saw print. I happened to be doing a lot of investigation of certain entities in the Puget Sound area in the years just before then; I thought it would be interesting to get some of my experiences and ideas in print; the book was a pleasant project to write, and it sold like hotcakes -- and, er, I may have some very small share of responsibility for those books on sparkly vampires, because unless you happened to spend time in the stacks of old university libraries full of mostly forgotten anthropology publications, this was for some years the one place in print you could find out that there's a very lively werewolf tradition among the native peoples of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington -- you know, near Forks. If you're interested, you can get a copy here if you live in the US, and here if you live elsewhere.

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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!***

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Good Evening,

For any who marked it, I hope your Thanksgiving was joyful, filling, and full of gratitude.

On Sparkly Vampires and PNW Werewolves: So far, my most direct exposure to the whole sparkly vampire franchise was attending a "Master Pancake Theater" session at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. Master Pancake Theater is like "Mystery Science Theater 3000," but performed live by a trio of comedians with microphones in a theater. My wife and I went to a showing of the second Twilight movie with some friends that were visiting from out of town. It was super funny, and is the sole reason I don't have an entirely negative view of the franchise.

To Share: This week, I keep on writing about Maria Kvilhaug's The Seed of Yggdrasill, this time about her chapter on "Death and Resurrection:" https://jpowellrussell.com/#book_the_seed_of_yggdrasill_7_death_and_resurrection

To Ask: Do you believe the writings of Giaocchino de Prati, the "alpine philosopher," described on pgs 27-28 in The Secret of the Five Rites to be the likely source for the teachings about the Solar and Telluric currents in DH/DMH/DA-flavored Druidry? If so, do you know more about the path of adoption/diffusion? And if not, do you know how they both ended up at such a similar place?

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

My blessings to all who welcome them,
Jeff

I never read the books, or watched the movies, but I know one thing:

As for de Prati, that's a heck of a good question that nobody's been able to answer yet. Gordon Cooper found de Prati's essays while searching for material on the solar and telluric currents; I was able to trace it back a little further into central European offshoots of Mesmerism; but from there? I have yet to find anything between de Prati and John Michell, who wrote about the solar and telluric currents in The View Over Atlantis. It's something I search for at intervals.

Ah, okay, that's too bad. I thought that maybe de Prati's essays in The Shepherd got read by some British druids, the ideas got incorporated, and then somehow ended up getting transmitted more-or-less directly to John Gilbert or the AODA (maybe some of those patchy correspondence courses you got that you re-worked into CGD and DA).

Anyhow, I'll keep an eye out and I'll be sure to share if I run into any clues.

Cheers,
Jeff

That may well have happened, but the documentation hasn't surfaced; all we've got is de Prati's essay, in a periodical much read in the avant-garde British scene at the time the Druid Revival was first hitting its stride, and then the same concepts present as secret teachings two centuries later in Druid Revival circles.

J.P.Russell, JMG,
I looked online for information about Giaocchino de Prati, but I couldn't find anything relevant. Could you please tell me more about him?

You can download the first issue of Trilithon, which includes the material Jeffrey and I are discussing, free of charge here:

http://aoda.org/trilithon/TrilithonVol1_Web.pdf

(The material on de Prati begins on p. 76)

Tks, JMG

Jeff, as it happens Master Pancake original member Owen Egerton is an old friend of mine. He appeared on, and wrote some of the best bits of, the official soundtrack to Salvador Dali's famed lost surrealist Marx Brothers musical comedy, Giraffes On Horseback Salad, which I happened to compose the music for. Available on all major streaming platforms!

Edited 2023-11-27 19:30 (UTC)

Good heavens. You composed that? I'm impressed. In fact, I'll bow respectfully in your direction as soon as I finish painting the rhinoceros!

Wow, small world! The Master Pancake Theater show remains one of my wife and my all-time favorite dates - we still reference jokes from it on a regular basis.

I'm excited to check out the comedy and your music for it!
Jeff

Love the vest! (and the music, of course)

I'm the person who had the weird experience with a Nirvana song that I'd listened to literally hundreds of times but struggled to recall it, and now can say nothing about the song. This has been on my mind a lot lately: it is one of the strangest things, to realize that a major part of my life until a few years ago is now essentially impossible for me to remember.

As a result, I've been continuing to mull over the hypothesis that state dependent memory is hiding just how thoroughly Pluto has already faded out, and had two new insights. The first is that if this is the case, then an awful lot of people, from at least 2007 until when the last people who were under its influence finish going through their life reviews, are going to be in for a major shock when they die and have to face what their life was actually like while Pluto was a planet; and also that this sort of thing could play a role in the fear of dying some people have. If at some level they know just how miserable the experience of going over their life again will be, it could explain a lot. This doesn't even need to be Pluto related: just knowing that a review of your life would be horrible, and that that happens when you die, could do it.

The second thought gives me a lot of hope: if it is as difficult to remember Plutonian states as it seems, then the people still clinging to Pluto could easily be moving away from it, but still look as if they are moving ever closer the Plutonian if they are moving slower than we are. This makes the various hypotheses about people being dragged towards the Plutonian, with the various end stages people have speculated about, vastly less likely. All the evidence collected for it is unreliable, and Pluto is the planet of hype, illusions, and failed promises; and so while it could be happening, it's now, to the extent you buy the state-dependent-memory hypothesis, far more parsimonious to assume this is nothing more than a final Plutonian illusion.

Two very interesting hypotheses. We'll just have to see how it turns out!

That's a fair point. If you're moving away from Pluto at 1000 mph but someone else is moving away at only 100 mph, from your perspective it looks like they're getting closer to Pluto. When you pass a car on the highway, for instance, from your perspective it looks like that car is moving backward.

I suspect, also, that the people most likely to cling to the Plutonian are those with a stronger Pluto in their natal chart (e.g. angular, in conjunction with something important, etc.)

And this is especially true if you cannot perceive yourself moving, which seems to be the case.

As for the stronger Pluto making people cling to it more, I've wondered the same thing. In which case, it's the people most strongly Plutonian who are remaining there the longest; so even if they're moving away from it, some of them might still be more Plutonian than the average person was during the Plutonian Era.

This may be completely unrelated to your question, but the rock band Nirvana has a website which may contain a list of all the songs they ever did; https://www.nirvana.com/ I wonder whether, if you looked at all their album covers, one or more of them would look familiar-- If so, you could possibly listen to a few bars of every song on that album and recognize it.
If it turns out that you have listened to them, and still nothing sounds familiar, well that defines the issue further...

I have taken a look; and a lot of it looks vaguely familiar, and in fact I remember selling a few of the albums a little while back; but I have a visceral revulsion to grunge these days. It's not just unpleasant, but profoundly disturbing to me, so I haven't looked to see if I recognize any of the songs. I suspect I would recognize a lot of them though...

Good evening JMG.

I’m in my second reading of your Secrets of the Temple book. I now want to apply the ideas in the form of fieldstones outlining the shape of a temple and cairns to improve the productivity of my gardens and to help with protection and banishment for our homestead.

I’m thinking of placing the temple at the south end of our property in a part we reserve for the wild things and the Little People. I want to arrange fieldstone to outline the shape, with the entrance at the east. I’ll mark it at sunrise on the winter solstice, and again at sunrise on the summer solstice. I’m still working out details, lots of details.

Since our land has cross fencing between where the temple will be and the garden, my husband and I are thinking of piling up more fieldstone as it floats up every year in front of the fence, on the side away from our goats, to refocus the energy from the temple. This is a small piece of land, a little over three acres, so the cairn in front of the cross fencing will be about 75 yards from the temple.

Do you have any feedback or suggestions for this project?

Are there any other people in the commentariat who also have suggestions or feedback or who would like to work out this idea with me?

Annette

That strikes me as an intriguing experiment. The temple technology in its mature form depends on an enclosed space (with walls, floor, and roof) to serve as a resonating chamber, but it'll be interesting to see what kind of results you get with the simpler approach.

My advice is to get a good dowser to first assess the energy currents on your land. If you have an excess of telluric or earth energy then it may not be the best site for a temple. Sites with crossing ground water streams or on fault lines aren't great. You may sense the land already, lots of people can.

From what I've researched, the shape of the standing stones matter. Platonic shapes are important, so square section columns or obelisks if you can get them, which would easily make up for the lack of a resonating chamber. Doorways also matter, in the Stonehenge style.

Again, this is speculative based on my research. It's entirely possible to have a great symbolic structure that works on the astral and looks cool, rather than functioning on all the planes, particularly, the etheric plane that I'm quite convinced the temple tech largely works on (but it spills over to the physical).

There are a number of places in rural Rhode Island where the land is filled with stone cairns, often with a piece of quartz at their peak. There are also a fair number of stone serpents and underground stone chambers, some of which are too small to serve as convenient storage cellars or shelters. Some of these chambers are oriented to such celestial markers as solstice and equinox points.

The local Indigenous are the Narragansett tribe, and they currently claim to have no living memory of their building such stone constructions in the past. Yet in the early history of the state, Narragansetts were credited with particular expertise as builders of dry-stone walls for farms.

Yet the family (surname Foster) that farmed some of this land where there are very many of these stone constructions (in the late 1700s and early 1800s) may possibly have had a line of Indigenous ancestry (surname Tefft -- the Tefft genealogy is not all that clear, for reasons that made excellent sense in the earlier 1900s but seem bigoted now). [In the 1600s one of the Teffts took a Narragansett or Wampanoag wife and fought with the Narragansetts against his fellow Europeans during the Great Swamp Massacre -- a battle in King Philip's War --, for which he was hanged and quartered afterwards. He and his borther were fluent in the Narragansett language, a rare skill among the European colonists.]

See Mary & James Gage, The Land of a Thousand Cairns, available at https://www.powwowriverbooks.com/product/1128/Land-of-a-Thousand-Cairns-Revival-of-Old-Style-Ceremonies-2nd-Edition

The connection between serpents and rain is widespread among Indigenous tribes in North America, from New England in the Northeast to New Mexico in the Southwest. So very likely many or all of these stone constructions were connected with Indigenous agriculture.

In short, you may well be onto something with the cairns you are building.

Rhode Islander here. While house hunting, I visited a home in Richmond abutting the Caroline State Management Area (forest) that had a very obvious, very old stone circle in the backyard. It was at the bottom of a slope, and consisted of about 6-8 glacial boulders deeply sunk in the earth in a rough circle. Unfortunately the angle, and the depth to which some of the rocks were sunk, made it difficult to photograph, or I’d share it.

Of course it could have been random/natural, or created at some point for aesthetic or practical reasons rather than spiritual by removing other boulders around it, but I strongly doubt it. The house had been built in the 1980s, as were the other houses on that stretch of road. The terrain wasn’t really farming friendly (very sloped/uneven).

I had a strong feeling that the circle was ritualistic and intentional, and a strong feeling that the energies and powers of that piece of land were extremely potent. I was intrigued, but my mother (a psychic person who has been a practicing medium at times and who is naturally gifted in these areas) found it extremely off putting when she visited. She sensed violence, heaviness, and maybe hostility in the circle.

We didn’t buy that house, and I don’t regret it, but I remain intrigued by the stones and the land there.

The one field of cairns my wife and I personally visited in Rhode Island was also a terrain not really farming friendly. This was at the Parker Woodland Wildlife Refuge.

See https://www.providencejournal.com/story/lifestyle/travel/2021/06/18/origin-of-stone-cairns-is-mystery-at-coventry-ri-parker-woodland-wildlife-refuge/7673325002/

The stone circle of boulders you saw in Richmond strikes me as something not at all commonly found in New England.

I’ve been recommended to pray to Saturn. I understand that burning frankincense and singing the Orphic Hymn should work as well as with any other Greco-Roman deity, but knowing that Saturn is one of the more difficult deities to interact with, I’d like to ask those with experience interacting with him for any advice.

- Todd

a) If you say you'll do something, do it exactly as agreed. He is very big on keeping promises. He understands we are not perfect, but he tends to set higher standards than other gods do, at least in my experience.

b) Saturn is often turned into something of a boogeyman. He's cold, dark, and serious, but he's also very dedicated, stable, focused. Try to cultivate some of his virtues, such as self control, patience, hard work, dedication, and organization. He'll tend to help a great deal if you do that, and you'll learn to see the positive side of him by doing this.

I have had very good experiences with Saturn -- I don't find him difficult at all. Be patient, regular, respectful, calm, and slow, and sing the hymn slowly -- if you know anything about Gregorian chant, sing it that way and he'll appreciate that.

I have found in personal research that aspects between Saturn and Venus and often, Neptune, have shown up in charts of many famous architects and designers. Saturn is very good with structure, and I imagine that is both physical structure and structure in your life.

On one particular Venus/Saturn square I had a compulsion to learn how to restore old homes.

Hi,
I have a small farm and pray to Saturn at least daily. He is the God who brought the science of farming to Italy and my experience of him is that he protects our farm. We celebrate the Saturnalia and that is a joyous event. So, perhaps, I only see his benevolent side?
Maxine

Maxine! I have the feeling JMG might start to get irritated with me, but... I'm trying to reach you to let you know something about how prayers for your sister went. Leave a reply here or message me privately if you see this, please.

A heads up for the MOE practitioners:

I'm going to offer an Apprentice attunement (i.e. the first one in the series) on

+++ Saturday, December 9th, at 6pm German time (i.e. EST + 6). +++

If you want to attend, make sure to study the attunement requirements well in advance – you will need to practice certain things daily for at least a week before the attunement! (If you have studied the material, you‘ll know where to find the requirements – and if you aren‘t sure anymore what they are, now might be a good time to go over the Apprentice material again in preparation… ;-) )

If you‘d like to attend, but can‘t make it this time: I plan on offering more attunements next year, and so does Kyle (and hopefully, there will be even more Master Teachers soon!).

If you were waiting for a Healer or Master Healer attunement rather than the Apprentice: I plan on offering these early next year, too. I will be posting the anouncements on future Magic Mondays, thus you might want to keep an eye on the MM comments.

Also, remember that you can always be „re-attuned“, which is likely to have some additional effects – so if you already received the Apprentice attunement, don‘t be shy about attending again on December 9th! :-)

And finally, if you have any questions: I have set up a post on my website for this attunement, and you're welcome to ask your questions over there, so that JMG has less comments to manage today, and we're not bound by the Magic Monday deadline:

https://thehiddenthings.com/moe-apprentice-attunement-2023-12-09

Looking forward to the attunement,

Regine (Milkyway)

PS: I'd appreciate knowing for sure that somebody is going to take me up on this offer - if none of you can make it on that day, I'll spend my time on other things and offer another date for an attunement early next year instead (no hard feelings!). I.e. if you're sure you'll be there, and nobody else has raised their hand yet, leave me a quick "yep" comment, either here or on my site. Thanks!

Yes please and thank you! But if you need to reschedule, no worries. It's a busy time of year for many people. I received the Apprentice attunement from JMG, so have another five left on my punchcard. :-)

OtterGirl

Good morning (or still good evening?) JMG,

Thanks for hosting Magic Monday again! :-)

Last week, you wrote about the SOP: "I learned it directly from John Gilbert, who invented it based on a simpler ritual that was devised by Juliet Ashley." - and I totally forgot to ask:

Would you consider posting Juliet Ashley's ritual at some point, for the historically curious? Or, if it has been posted anywhere, point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Milkyway

I'll consider it at some point.

Dear JMG and Ecosophians,

A disembodied being said a very interesting comment to me recently and I would love your thoughts on it and suggestions for further meditation. He/she/it said "Time is an illusion". I believe the same being also said "Meatworld is an illusion". As some may know, "Meatworld" is my semi-affectionate term for physical plane existence.

What I took it to mean, at least superficially, is that the physical plane is not at all what we humans perceive it to be. Our senses are faulty and they can easily fool us. Also, this idea of Meatworld as a simulation or a Matrix -- that film always struck me as the allegory of Plato's cave done up in sci-fi -- indicates that it could be a testing ground of sorts.

If Meatworld is indeed entirely fake in its way (I don't dare say this in any other blog on the internet because all sorts of butthurt people would come at me for trivializing their suffering) then it certainly puts a provocative spin on trying to be a better person, not trying to cheat the game, working diligently
towards whatever tiny glimpse of truth is afforded in a bleak and patently false landscape. But that's all I've got at this point.

Well, your disembodied communicator has a lot of mystics in agreement!

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

Maybe your being is a Douglas Adams fan?

—Princess Cutekitten

The world of meat is just as much and just as little real as it is a dream. The only difference is that there is a certain continuity in the meat world. If you fall asleep in a bed, you will wake up in the same bed, even if this bed is not one hundred percent the same as it was before you fell asleep (the wood has aged, etc.). In a dream, on the other hand, there is no such consistency. Nonetheless, this bed is nothing more than an illusion, because it is transient and has no fixed, eternal, definable subtance to its environment. It is therefore only dreamlike.

Incidentally, the world of meat is not bad or evil per se, it only appears so to us because of our ignorance. There is a saying in Buddhism that a confused person sees paradise as hell, but a Buddha sees hell as paradise.

FWIW, there are a lot of times when I involuntarily "tune out" of what you term 'meatworld' and can still see everything just as it is, but perception of it is like... it is just a very well-painted tissue-paper model. I have often wondered which version is the more "real" but think that is probably a false dichotomy. The solid version and the tissue paper version are just different aspects of real. Maybe.

Our church doctrine is that time is... not an illusion exactly, but perception-dependent. We perceive time the way we do, because we are stuck in sequential time. God is eternal because God exists outside sequential time. That's what eternity *is*.

Welcome to non-duality. All is consciousness. There is no "in here" and "out there." It's not so much that the world is fake, nor that time is an illusion, it's that space and time are our limited way of understanding the reality of infinity and eternity, which we simply can't grasp at our level. This doesn't mean that we aren't "real" or that the world is a matrix-like illusion. The great Indian sage Nagarjuna put it best when he said "nothing is ultimately real, but everything is conventionally real." That is to say that we live in a world which is a collective construction, and is real within its own terms, but not ultimately real..

There's a wealth of mystic literature to wrap your neurones around, including Meister Eckhart in the western tradition. Mouni Sadhu (who was a student of Ramana Maharshi) wrote quite a bit about this, and Rupert Spira is a good modern interpreter in plain language.

It doesn't stop you being a better person: indeed experience suggests that it might actually help, because you realise that many of the things that make people behave badly (everything from material possessions to anger) have no ultimate existence.

Aurelien.

Thanks! I figured as much. Meatworld seems so real... le sigh. Once I asked a passing entity "What's it like to be a god?" and it answered "It's like teaching an amoeba to play the piano". Ha ha... I think? 🤔🤔🤔

Is there anything helpful to be done in phases of depression for an SOP practitioner? The causes are well known, I think, journaling and counseling have been helpful for that. But sometimes it’s like a part of me - or is it an outside entity? - keeps hammering onto existing negative thoughts, and using every occasion to create new ones.

If I may, here is what works for me:

The best thing that I do to combat depression and anxiety from a magical and spiritual stand point not a medical nor psychological one, is to notice that both are an excess of energy not lack of (look at brain scans). Have you ever seen a dim light bulb with depression or anxiety?

Intrusive thoughts (negative, silly or positive) are, to my mind, ideas you've flicked into motion by emotional stimuli or otherwise (or have let other people do so; specially fast paced internet activities like content scrolling, where your rational mind is bypassed by a light trance caused the repetitive motion and you open up your mind to all sorts of waste) and haven't grabbed again to a conclusion and keeps bouncing. A nice trick can be borrowed from spells. Grab one intrusive thought, start meditating on it, learn from it: where is it coming from and what is it trying to tell me and then "add" another link to it if it's a useful thought or put a conclusion to it if it has run its curse. For void thoughts you can explode them into ash-less smithereens or kick them into infinite space and then focus on something else.

An exercise I find helpful can be found below (it can be done standing to play with your balance and tensions, like noticing your chest, back, head and face muscles, hips, knees etc).

https://open-space.dreamwidth.org/8223.html

This is not medical advice or psychological advice. Just something to share.

I have found Bach Flower Remedies to be particularly useful for emotional ailments and issues.

White Chestnut is very good for "unwanted thoughts". White Chestnut: Stops repeated unwanted thoughts and worries.

Here is a guide for Bach Flower Remedies to use for depression:
https://www.bachflower.com/symptoms-of-depression/

"Mustard: Depression and sadness that comes and goes for no reason.
Elm: When you feel overwhelmed, with too much to do, and not enough time, you feel depressed.
Pine: Feeling guilt for things that are not your fault.
Gentian: Feeling discouraged by small setbacks.
Cherry Plum: When you fear that you might lose control of your emotions or actions.
Larch: When you lack self-esteem.
Olive: Feeling exhausted and lacking energy.
Hornbeam: For the “Monday morning” feeling, the day ahead seems too hard and you might procrastinate.
White Chestnut: For repeated unwanted thoughts.
Aspen: When you have a feeling something bad is going to happen, but you can not put a name to it."

In addition to using different Bach remedies as needed, some regularly when symptoms are acute, keeping up with SOP, meditation, and other practices, and finding something good to think about has been helpful to me.

Another useful tool for me, is to remind myself I'll eventually get bored with thinking of the unwanted thought, and just keep going with it. I'll also use humor and laugh at myself, telling myself I can always think something even worse. These things seem to break the spell, and eventually something does help me refocus.

Amaranth Unkempt Vulture

Laughing at the idea is a great way of reducing it's power!

I've always been intrigued by Bach Flowers but have been put off by the trademark stuff. I might give it a try though.

This may or may not work for you, but I find that it's useful to choose an affirmation and repeat it relentlessly to stop the endless rehashing of negative thoughts. Here's a post on how to use those:

https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/64539.html

If I may, if the dissonance between the affirmation and the perceived reality is too great (I know that’s kind of the point, but sometimes it still gets in the way or feels too fake)—I have found that choosing an emotionally resonant symbol or picture (say, Duir the oak few from the Ogham, or the Star from the tarot, or even a favorite photo of myself/my family) and visualizing that, accompanied by positive emotion if I can muster it, works well. The Ogham fews work well for me because I can “draw” them in my imagination over and over to combat intrusive negative thoughts.

Hmm! My visual imagination isn't very strong -- I've developed it through practice, but it still takes work -- which is why I tend to default to verbal affirmations. If you have a naturally good visual imagination, though, I can see your approach working very well indeed.

Thank you all for your help! Blessings!

Dear JMG,
Dear commentators,
I hope you are well and healthy!
Thank you for this space.

I lost the financial support I had from the university to do my PHD. It was the money I had to support myself and pay for my mother's medication. Any suggestions or some kind of magic to renew my contract or even get some work? I thought about candles and offerings for Jupiter. Anything else I could do?

Any suggestions or some kind of magic to renew my contract or even get some work?

In my experience divination (like Tarot or Geomancy) gives honest answers. What works seems to vary for each person. For me Eden Gray's "Mastering the Tarot" works well.

Well, what kinds of magic do you know how to do?

Christian, planetary, folk… I like candles and prayers. I thought about the Psalms too, but I don't know if there is a specific one for jobs for “yesterday”.

I believe there was a lack of “good will” for them to not renew my financial support… :(

Many universities right now are nearing bankruptcy due to steep declines in student numbers and rising costs, so the ill will may not be all there is to it. In your place I'd definitely use the psalms -- yesterday isn't an option, you need something to get through the current mess, so break out the psalms, burn a green candle on Friday, recite an appropriate psalm and invoke Haniel, the archangel of Venus, for help.

If I may piggyback off this question, what archangels/angels are associated with each of the classical planets? I tried Googling it a few days ago, but I think there might be several versions out there. In addition to my Mayan studies, I've also begun studying some Rosicrucian materials (Max Heindel) but I'm not sure if there's a specifically Rosicrucian version or not.

There are many versions out there. About the only thing that everyone agrees on is that Gabriel is the archangel of the Moon. The set I use is this:

Moon: Gabriel
Mercury: Raphael
Venus: Haniel
Sun: Michael
Mars: Camael
Jupiter: Sachiel
Saturn: Cassiel

Thank you. I'm guessing the archangels of each planet aren't terribly concerned with the names used?

Does the advice you gave to the OP apply in general? Light a candle of the color that is appropriate to the planet, on a day associated with the planet, read a psalm appropriate to the request, and then invoke the archangel of the planet for help?

1) That's been my experience.

2) You can certainly do that. Archangels being archangels, they have a very broad tolerance for ritual forms.

Dear JMG, Dear commentators,

Are there any typically Brazilian occult traditions? I think they should be associated with some Afro-Indian-American-European spirituality, correct? Any authors to read?

There are some Voodoo like traditions in Brazil, such as Quimbanda and Umbanda. I also recall Spiritualism being practiced there also.

J.L.Mc12

If you can find it, David St. Clair’s (long our of print) Drum And Candle gives a lot of voodoo spells. I have only tried the broom one. It works.

—Princess Cutekitten

My understanding is that Brazil has a very rich history of occult teachings and organizations; various Rosicrucian, Spiritist, and Martinist traditions came over from Europe, there's a great deal of African-diaspora religion as well, and doubtless some new traditions developed locally. But you'd have to find someone who's familiar with the Brazilian occult scene to fill you in on the details.

tks, JMG

There's a Brazilian offshoot of Theosophy called "Eubiose". You could try the founder's books, Henrique José de Souza.

Their old journal archive from the 1920s onward is available online on https://comunidadeteurgicaportuguesa.wordpress.com/revista-dharana/

The current issues are online on their website: https://www.eubiose.org.br/dharana-online/

Hmm! Another reason for me to keep working on Portuguese.

Good day, JMG,

Last week I asked you a question about mysticism, and it wasn’t until after MM was closed that I saw that Robert Mathiesen had responded to my question as well. I would like to thank him for his very thoughtful reply.

Robert, I appreciate your taking the time to write to me. I’ve never heard the terms kataphatic or apophatic, or even thought about these different approaches to mysticism or magic. You’ve given me much to research and meditate on. I’d like to understand the nature of mysticism and magic, their differences and overlaps, so that I can better forge a path for myself that will no doubt include both.

I have a great interest in the Christian mystics (I just ordered two books with the complete writings of Teresa of Avila) and will add the other resources you suggested to my must-read list.

I really enjoy reading the Christian mystics, even though I’m not Christian. I’m attracted in some ways to Christianity, particularly Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox with their rich histories, established traditions, rituals, prayers, etc.. And I’ve noticed that Eastern Orthodox has gained some popularity in the last few years, if the more public conversions of people such as Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw are anything to go by. Sometimes I think it would be easier to follow a mystical path if I were Christian, but as far as I know, they wouldn’t welcome a polytheist.

No matter. I will continue to read and be inspired by the writings of mystics of all faiths. I think we’re all pointed in the same direction anyway. I just have to get over the feeling that I’m playacting Christianity when I borrow concepts and practices from their rich tradition. I’ve realized that the mystical (as well as monastic) life that I long for will need to be somewhat (re)envisioned as I go along. Fortunately, others with similar longings are paving the way with new writings (such as the wonderful little book “Polytheistic Monasticism” in which our esteemed host has an article) and pagan monastic communities popping up here and there. I am grateful for these new paths being forged.

Thank you again for your reply. I always enjoy reading your posts here and on the Ecosophia blog, and I am inspired by the knowledge and wisdom you so generously share. You and JMG are truly gifts in my life.

Happy Solstice to you both!

You are very welcome, Anonymous.

I took the terms kataphatic and apophatic from the English translation of Vladimir Lossky's The Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church, especially chapter 2; they go back at least to the 500s CE. Since you are well-disposed toward Orthodoxy, you might have a quick look there. (I am not Orthodox myself, but I spent my 'teens and early twenties in Berkeley, where many of my best school-friends were Russian Orthodox. Later on, my graduate studies were in Slavic linguistics, with particular emphasis on Church Slavonic, which is the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church. So I am fairly knowledgeable -- for an outsider ...)

In Roman Catholic mysticism the two kinds are sometimes called via positiva ( = katapatic) and via negativa ( = apophatic). Very generally speaking, Catholicism seems to me to favor kataphatic theology and mysticism, while Orthodoxy strongly favors the apophatic approach.

And thank you for your compliment.

Hi Robert,

I'm glad you saw my reply. I sent it early this morning before work, and in my grogginess I forgot to add my signature--"Magenta Befuddled Dragon" as I called myself in my first post, aka Kelly in the ordinary, non-Pangalactic world.

The terms "via positiva" and "via negativa" seem familiar to me, perhaps from Evelyn Underhill's book on mysticism which I read a few years ago. I'm currently reading her shorter book, "Practical Mysticism," which I don't expect will get into such details. I'll have to revisit her longer book.

I've just requested a copy of Lossky's book (the state where i live has a great interlibrary loan system). I see he has a few others that look good, too. I appreciate the recommendation. I'm looking forward to exploring these resources and ideas you have suggested. Many thanks again!

Kelly

You're very welcome, Kelly (aka Magenta Befuddled Dragon). 😀 Don't hesitate to ask if you have further questions for me as you go deeper into these things.

Robert, in your opinion, do the katapatic and apophatic correspond in some way to the solar and telluric currents, or to Spirit Above and Spirit Below?

No, not even approximately. They are two ways toward a goal, not two entities or currents in a cosmology.

Thanks for hosting this space!

To share, a list of abbreviations found in Magic Monday, now including an entry for Monsters :-)

Thank you so much my friend. How about The Secret of the Five Rites book abbreviation?

Hey JMG

I have enjoyed your translation of "How to become a mage" by J. Peladan, and inevitably I must ask if you are planning more translations of his work in the future? Also, how many years of study do you think it would take to be able to reliably translate his work into english, supposing others want to attempt translating him instead?

Er, I didn't translate it; I just wrote the introduction. I've considered translating his first novel, Le Vice Supreme, but I'm not at all sure I'll get to it. As for getting to the point of being able to translate his work, why, that depends on how hard you work and what your background in languages is; you need a solid reading knowledge of French, which is a whale of a lot easier than learning to speak the language, and then it's just a matter of checking your work with someone who's familiar with the language. I did my first serious translation from French (Thibault's Academie de l'Espee after only about a year of hard work, but then I came to French already knowing Latin.

Hi to everyone, this is just a lighthearted question, what element would you assign each Beatle?
I'm thinking that George Martin would be the 5th, Spirit? (Like Toto 😉).
I heard it mentioned recently that Paul McCartney, through Tarot readings he got, was associated with the Fool, so that may influence your thoughts.
Anyway, I'd love to hear what people think!
Helen in Oz

That's an easy one. I'd assign John to fire, George to air (always the cerebral one), Paul to water (the element of sentimentality) and Ringo, back there laying down the beat, to earth.

Interesting I would swap George and Paul.
George for his interest in Indian spirituality and a seemingly more introverted personality and Paul because he seemed to think about being a Beatle 24/7, sometimes to the annoyance of bandmates!
But without that attitude, they wouldn't have achieved what they did.
Having said that, both work I think!

So, when any of the elements begins to think they're the sole driving influence, to the exclusion of the others, the whole thing breaks up, no Yoko required?

I've recently had a family member - who was always trouble but who I put up with 'because they are family' - decide to cut me out of their life. I would say that they carry a lot of emotional resentment towards me and always seem to have done so (they tried to kill me as a baby for example, they were a toddler at the time). I hold much less towards them, but there are some things there from a lifetime of disconnect between us.

Is there anything I can do to cut ties cleanly on my end so that I no longer harbour any emotions towards this person? Anything to cut any karmic ties?

Ideally natural magic and not something that would prevent them from re-entering my life if they choose to - they are family' and I have very few of that. More just something to clean up any mess from my end.

I'd use journaling for this. Simply take some time each day to write out your feelings, deal with them, and thus get to the point of being able to let go of any remaining resentment and treat the whole thing as over and done with. There are family members I have nothing to do with, for very good and sufficient reasons, and this is how I dealt with that.

I second JMG's answer. Also, if you want to do something ritualistically or psychically, go with something that is a cleansing, rather than a banishing, just to insure that you aren't carrying around residue from the relationship that is "sticky" or irritating.

What are examples of some things that are ritualistically or psychically cleansing, rather than banishing?

Sorry, I missed this one. John might have some better ideas, but, well, elsewhere he recommended a ritual bath. Cold water with salt and some other ingredients I don't recall (vinegar? A small amount of sulfur?). If it were me it would be a cold bath with some sea salt. Say an exorcism and a blessing over the water and the salt ("Creature of water, be purified of all that is dark. Be filled with light so that I may be cleansed and made whole" Along those lines). Immerse fully and visualize, will and intend that anything negative is washed off. Then take a bucket of this water, letting the rest go down the drain. JMG suggests dumping the bucket on the lower portion of a tree. For me, I'd just dump it out on the ground, with the intention that anything negative in the water be given as food to lower entities that are striving for evolution.
A little treatise on dowsing I read by a German ceremonial magician suggests the removal of negative magnetism in the following way. Stand erect, feet separated. Run your hands down your body from your scalp to your feet letting your finger tips brush your skin lightly. Then stand and shake your fingertips as if you had something on them you were trying to shake off. Repeat with the front of your body. Then, as best you can, behind you for your back. Then wash your hands in cold running water.
Either way, after you are done, clear your mind of all attachment to the person. No loving thoughts. No thoughts of animosity. Just... let them go. and then try to stay neutral toward them.
Forgive my presumption in answering this way a question of this nature on this forum. I hope it was helpful.

Happy Monday

First question of the day
Given thr successful right wing elections along with the working nativist riot all within the past week, which planet influenced it and what's the astrological forecast looking for similar events in the future?

This past week on twitter you mentioned wokes turning to Islam in the not too distant future given its relgions in nature I'll count it as a magic question.

In terms of the location of wokes turning to Islam will this including the usa as its Islamic population is much smaller than let say the uk or Germany.

With the likes of Tate will the right start to revert to Islam in numbers?

If the pope would start to make Christianity stand for what it should again would Catholicllism rise again to appeal to the right?

Do you think both the radical left and right will turn to Islam at the same time and will both find unity?

When will this happen? People predict as relgion return in the 2040s will this before or after that decade?

1) Okay, first of all, astrology doesn't work like that. It's not one planet influencing people, it's the entire pattern of the heavens interacting with events on earth. You'd have to look at currently active ingress and eclipse charts for each country involved to get a sense of what's going on.

2) Your other questions are about religious politics, not about occultism, so I'm going to pass on them here.

I may be able to help you here, I am from Argentina and there was a very good occultist that lived in Brazil.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_El%C3%ADas_Adoum

He’s lineage was from some mystical Christian tradition from Siria among other things.
He wrote many books in portugués and Spanish.
His name was Dr Gorge Adoum (Mago Jefa) any books of his is well worth reading, unfortunately many of them are out of print.
His writings reminds me so much of JMG books.
It doesn’t have anything African about it, if that what you are looking for look into Macumba.

I hope that helps.

Edited 2023-11-27 12:29 (UTC)

Hi Charles,

Thanks you, very much!

And in Argentina? Any typical spirituality/esotericism from your country? I ask out of curiosity!

That's great JMG, about Forks, and the books that have a setting there... :) I'm glad your book has been well forked through...

I've been to Washington state twice, and the second time we spent the night in Forks while driving around the Olympic Peninsula and visiting the National Park. Going down to the beach for the sunset over the Pacific was amazing. I'm sad to say I didn't spot any werewolves on that trip, though there might have been some teeny boppers in town.

Justin Patrick Moore

I spent a lot of time out on the Olympic peninsula in my teen years -- my Boy Scout troop liked to camp there, and so did my dad -- and a few visits later on. Forks struck me as a very depressing place to be a vampire. ;-)

I'm glad I don't know of any pop culture debris set in the Yosemite area. I have happy memories of family and Scouts camping trips to the Sierras. I'm glad they aren't touched in my mind by pollution of anything as dismal as the stories from Meyers.

Christopher from California, who hasn't seen a herd of Mocha Amphibious Moose in the wilderness, but whose Mom did once scold a bear to leave the campsite.

For those who haven't heard about this, the Twilight series started with a vivid dream that the author had, and she kept writing because she kept thinking about imagining what happened next, and because the characters stuck in her head.

https://stepheniemeyer.com/the-story-of-twilight-getting-published/

"I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately. For what is essentially a transcript of my dream, please see Chapter 13 (“Confessions”) of the book.

[...]

All this time, Bella and Edward were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn’t shut up. I’d stay up as late as I could stand trying to get all the stuff in my mind typed out, and then crawl, exhausted, into bed (my baby still wasn’t sleeping through the night, yet) only to have another conversation start in my head. I hated to lose anything by forgetting, so I’d get up and head back down to the computer. Eventually, I got a pen and notebook for beside my bed to jot notes down so I could get some freakin’ sleep. It was always an exciting challenge in the morning to try to decipher the stuff I’d scrawled across the page in the dark.

During the day, I couldn’t stay away from the computer, either. When I was stuck at swim lessons, out in 115 degrees of Phoenix sunshine, I would plot and scheme and come home with so much new stuff that I couldn’t type fast enough. It was your typical Arizona summer, hot, sunny, hot, and hot, but when I think back to those three months, I remember rain and cool green things, like I really spent the summer in the Olympic Rainforest."

https://motleyvision.org/2005/10/26/interview-twilight-author-stephenie-meyer/

"I woke up that morning with a dream fresh in my head. The dream was vivid, strong, colorful[there is some kind of character encoding conversion glitch in the text here, probably originally an ellipsis] It was a conversation between a boy and a girl which took place in a beautiful, sunny meadow in the middle of a dark forest. The boy and the girl were in love with each other, and they were discussing the problems involved with that love, seeing that she was human and he was a vampire. The boy was more beautiful than the meadow, and his skin sparkled like diamonds in the sun. He was so gentle and polite, and yet the potential for violence was very strong, inherent to the scene. I delayed getting out of bed for a while, just thinking through the dream and imagining what might happen next. Finally, I had to get up, but the dream stayed in my head all through my morning obligations."

Fascinating. Some of my favorite writers have all used dreams as inspiration. Though I don't know if Lovecraft is a favorite of mine per se, I do like his work quite a bit, and so many of those stories were similar to this: transcribed dreams. I've tried to use the tactic as often as I can in my own writing.

Anyway, it's handy to keep a notebook and pen on the nightstand. & sometimes I'd say its better to lose a little sleep to be a dreamscribe than to go back to sleep and forget something you may have wished you would have written down.

JPM

I've also not read or watched anything of Twilight. Without seeking, I do come across "worst of pop culture" takedowns of it. I wonder how different Stephanie Myers's life would have been, as well as countless people whose entertainment glamorized abuse, had she turned to discursive meditation to understand her dream, rather than publish an expanded version. "Why have I dreamt of a bland, boring girl whose only characteristic is willing acceptance of an abusive, toxic relationship with a much older and literally deadly man who can barely refrain from murdering her? What would be wise for me to understand about this dream?"

Mocha Amphibious Moose

Ain't that the truth?

Sometimes the cure for a distracting and persistent daydream is to face it squarely, ask it (directly, like I would ask a person) what it is saying about my life, desires, unfulfilled needs, and how I could address those things in real life. The answers are often quite embarrassing, amazingly useful, and allow a glimpse at root causes. At which point the sparkly veneers evaporate, and the gross little segmented critters underneath go scurrying away. They dislike having bright light shone on them.

Since I started doing that, it is much harder to read basic dumb wish-fulfillment fiction (which I used to like!), and I have rather more productive time. YMMV.

I've been wanting to do a consecration on my Regulus talisman, but Saturn has been sitting in opposition to Regulus for quite some time.

Would you say it's wise to wait until Saturn leaves the opposition?

Thanks, JMG.

Not merely wise but essential. Never make an astrological talisman with a malefic in a hostile aspect to what you're trying to invoke!

Thanks! I just need to be patient.

Saturn likes to teach that lesson!

Many years ago while reading occult literature I stumbled upon the concept of nature spirits. It was explained that they were intelligent beings who resided on the astral plane but did not incarnate on the physical plane but were sometimes visible there. You know anything about their origin and what their destiny is? Have you ever come across any?

Yes and yes. They belong to a different evolutionary track than we do, one that begins with elementals and goes up from there. We're spiritual beings that descended into incarnation in order to become individualized; they started out as centers of force on the material plane and are ascending step by step into the higher planes in order to become spiritualized. As for encountering them, you won't find many serious Druids who haven't!

Huh, so they are the salt of the Earth and we the niter? I was lied! Joking.

Have you read Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki's book My first book on Magic It is meant for children (of adepts) and has great and safe ways of making contact.

Good morning and thank you as always.

I own an old coin from the late 19th century; based on its year, it should be about 90% gold and 10% copper. I don’t want to sell it because it’s an inheritance piece but I have no particular use for it so i was thinking of finding a magical purpose. Is there a way to use it for a sun talisman, for example, that wouldn’t involve melting it down or altering it in any way?

I also own a very high quality diamond, though my chart is mildly afflicted in Mars so I’m a little more uncertain as to how to use that safely.

Not JMG, but I had some thoughts: For the coin, in terms of trad astro-magic, you may be able to draw a small sun sigil on the back or something like that, and consecrate it at the right time, but it doesn't need to be melted down. However, there are less intensive ways of imbuing it with solar energy without actually calling in a celestial spirit. You could, for instance, consecrate it every Sunday at dawn (best while the Sun is in good dignity, and he's not bad in Sag for fire triplicity ruler) 6 Sundays in a row with solar incense, and wear it in a yellow pouch over your heart, maybe with some Solar herbs.
In Jyotish, diamonds are a Venusian stone and are very powerful - you don't want to use a diamond if you have Venus as the lord of a bad house or in a bad house (I've heard of things like people going into organ failure after putting on a diamond because their Venus was in the 8th) so I would consult a Vedic astrologer before wearing a high quality diamond (especially in a setting where it touches your skin) If you have a good Venus that needs some help though, a diamond can be fantastic.
In Western Astro Magic, diamond is also the stone for Algol, which is one of Warnock's more popular talismans for protection.

You can use it in a modest way for a talisman, but it's always going to be fairly weak because it's had so many other influences brought to bear on it over the years. I'd advise keeping it as a keepsake.

As for a diamond, I'd be very careful with that, especially if you've got an afflicted Mars.

Hi JMG,

Last week, someone asked your advice on what type of metal is best for a pistol, based on astrology. (Thanks for asking that, last week's commenter! That never would've occurred to me.)

I'm planning to buy my first pistol as well, and while I don't know much at all about astrology, I do know that my Mars is afflicted.

Would it be reasonable to assume that I'm better off purchasing a gun made with aluminum, rather than steel?

Thanks as always,
Otter Girl

You might want to glance at your birth chart and make sure that your natal Uranus isn't in Taurus or Leo. If it isn't, yes, an aluminum body might be a good choice for you.

Greetings JMG and folks, some questions today:

1) How long did your kundalini rising process go on until it settled into the background and you were able to work normally? Mine has been rising since January (though the initial breakthrough was late 2018 before it went away), and its been incredibly tough, even with massages, breathing etc. On a tough day it feels like my nerves are connected to a wall socket.

On a bad day I can't get out of bed. The worst of it seems to have passed but I am still having a hard time getting normal things done. (I had health issues before and my nerves were damaged so perhaps its working on that, just speculating).

I will say it has cleared a bunch of emotional behavioral issues and fixed some stomach issues as it went up.

2) I was reading about the ending of battlestar galatica and ran a divination if humanity had a foreign genetic/spiritual origin, and it suggested yes. Now I suspect this divination may be wrong but curious on what ways this could be true.

3) Last week you said wotan was an archetype. I want to ask about how archetypes are deeper than merely emotional projections or habits of mind, or egregores.

1) I didn't have the fast, painful, can't-get-out-of-bed kind of awakening. I had the slow, fitful, now-it's-crawling-up-my-spine, now-it-isn't kind of awakening which unfolded over most of six years.

2) I always liked the bit in the movie Allegro non Troppo where some space travelers chucked a soft drink bottle onto the barren surface of the planet, and life arose from mouth bacteria on it.

3) Archetypes are not creations of the conscious mind. They're hardwired into the deepest levels of consciousness. We don't create them; in a very real sense, they create us -- they are the fundamental patterns of consciousness from which we construct the world we experience.

Would the influence of the zodiac signs be an archetype?

The expression of an archetype, in a certain sense.

I have a question about 1 I've always wondered. Once the kundalini is awakened at the end of the process, do you continuously have an energy with the rough dimensions of a serpent present in you 24/7 or does it come and go? I suppose the implication is yes, but I'm obtuse sometimes, so I'd like to ask. Luke Z

In my experience it's somewhere between these two. You don't have the full-blown energy flow all the time, but your energy level remains much higher than it was.

Wait, that weird feeling of energy flowing up my spine I sometimes get after ritual is a kundalini awakening? Aren't those dangerous?

When it's just a little intermittent flow after ritual, it's not dangerous at all -- quite the contrary, that sort of release is productive and relatively safe. It's when it all lets loose at once that you can fry your nervous system.

Did you have weakness in the body during that time that Mark Stavish describes in his secret fire article?

No, I had a lot of muscle aches instead. It really does seem to vary from person to person.

The original 1978 Battlestar Galactica was heavily influenced by the Mormon faith of the show's creator, Glen A. Larson. The original title of the proposal was "Adam's Ark." A quick web search will bring up many discussions of the subject.

The revised series' showrunner said he's not familiar with Mormon theology, but decided to leave intact the spiritual elements as shown in the original series.

Also, the original pilot movie not only was a movie full of pilots, it had a theatrical release in Sensurround. Which I found thrilling as a young lad who saw it with my Dad and brother. The planet's explosion was a really big boooom!

Mocha Amphibious Moose

Thank you again JMG for The Secrets of the Five Rites. So much tantalizing historical info plus the practical aspects of a totally workable system of energy exercises.

Many a burgeoning yoga practitioner (me!) cut their teeth on the Ramacharaka yoga books back in the day when info was scarce. Because of your book, I dusted off my lovely “Yogi Publication Society” editions and re-read a bit. It’s rather charming how very accurate his ideas were.
I’m assuming there was not really access at that time to the actual Indic texts (like The Hatha Yoga Pradipika ) yet, he nailed the deeper dimensions of hatha practices and the cleansing actions (kriyas).

As for the chapter on the vortices from your book, I found the two knees vortices rather odd and interesting. I remembered a great Iyengar hatha yoga teacher mentioning that close observation of a persons legs gives tremendous insight into their personality patterns. Energetically, I would imagine distance of knees from pelvic floor gives good indication of center of gravity for one. I think there are other indicators with leg shapes, knees to feet, etc.

Just wondering if you had any more thoughts about those knee vortices?

I’m about half way through the book and savoring it (until your new ArielMoravec fiction book comes out)… any date yet?

Jill C

This discussion is the bees knees ;)

You're welcome! Atkinson ("Ramacharaka") was an impressive guy in his own strange way; he had very, very little to go on, but I've been told by quite a few yoga practitioners that he got a great deal right and very little wrong.

As for the knee vortices, have you gotten to the chapter on the chakras yet? There are a set of minor chakras extending down the legs:

https://www.indianetzone.com/19/patala_chakra.htm

The knee vortices are the sutala chakras, which are part of that set. Of all the talas (lower chakras) they have the least negative influence, and once purified they help awaken the muladhara chakra at the base of the spine in an indirect, gentle, and safe way.

As for Ariel's next adventure, The Book of Haatan, iirc it'll be out in the spring. The third volume, The Carnelian Moon, has been sent to the publisher, and the fourth, The House of the Crows, is about a third done -- I figured out while running errands today how to handle a particular plot twist in it...

Congrats and thanks again!

JMG, In a comment last week you said you expect the woke to turn towards Islam at some point. Saw this on Zerohedge today: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trans-tiktoker-gushes-over-quran-allah-beyond-gender - Croatoan

I saw it as well. It was inevitable.

Poor Muslims, they are going to get a lot of unwanted attention from the they/them. I hope that leaves more space for serious Christianity. Here is to hoping, I still have a file with notes for the Thaumaturgical Order of St. Cyprian

Edited 2023-11-27 22:58 (UTC)

How long til there's a TikTok fad explaining that His pronouns are Compassionate/Merciful?

Oh my Allah, that's hilarious. Perhaps about the time when they find out He also likes punishment. ;-)

Edited (typo, sorry, too fast.) 2023-11-28 00:34 (UTC)

My read on this is, "(1) for most people, the impulse towards wokeness derives from a signaling instinct oriented in such a way that it gives the person an unconscious experience of reward when the person behaves in a way that will make the person look to their peers as though they are as unrelated to conservative un'educated' working-class and lower-middle-class Christians as possible; (2) the instinct in question quickly picks up on how conservative Christians credibly think of Muslims as enemies; (3) the signaling instinct therefore decides to start rewarding the person for behaving in a way that will make the person look to their peers as though they are allied with Islam". I don't feel like there's necessarily much to be surprised about, even if enantiodromia is also a thing.

The surprising thing is how long it was still possible for there to be a version of wokeness that was about distancing oneself from things according to principles, like "harms to thus-and-such peoples vulnerable under kyriarchy are bad; therefore, distance yourself from Christians and Muslims because of how they are apparently in favor of such harms", rather than about distancing oneself from things according to unconscious reasoning about strategic social class positioning, like "conservative Christians are working-class and lower-middle-class and are uneducated; therefore, act as if you 'believed' that harms to thus-and-such peoples vulnerable under kyriarchy were 'bad' when it's Christians supporting those harms, but be sure to still actually support Islam anyway, even when it's also supporting those harms, because of how Islam is obviously conservative Christians' bugbear." Maybe this kind of transition is just naturally what you get, when a movement recruits too many followers, and the center of gravity of what kind of mentality its followers are sustainably able to base their judgement in shifts from the upper astral to the middle astral.

I guess my interpretation might mean that a good campaign to counter a dangerously uncritical "woke Islam" tendency could be to publish statistics about the kinds of Islam that are believed by less-educated, conservative, working-class, and lower-middle-class Muslims in Islamic countries, versus upper-middle-class ones. I mean, depending on if the numbers actually told the story you needed.

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Magic Monday

Sparkly Vampire Humor, Germanish Afterlife, and the Solar and Telluric Currents

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Re: Sparkly Vampire Humor, Germanish Afterlife, and the Solar and Telluric Currents

Re: Sparkly Vampire Humor, Germanish Afterlife, and the Solar and Telluric Currents

Re: Sparkly Vampire Humor, Germanish Afterlife, and the Solar and Telluric Currents

Re: Sparkly Vampire Humor, Germanish Afterlife, and the Solar and Telluric Currents

Re: Sparkly Vampire Humor, Germanish Afterlife, and the Solar and Telluric Currents

Re: Sparkly Vampire Humor, Germanish Afterlife, and the Solar and Telluric Currents

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How to apply temple technology at my homestead

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Saturn

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MOE Apprentice Attunement - Dec 9th

Re: MOE Apprentice Attunement - Dec 9th

Juliet Ashley's predecessor ritual to the SOP

Re: Juliet Ashley's predecessor ritual to the SOP

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Depression

Re: Depression

Re: Depression

Re: Depression

Re: Depression

Re: Depression

Re: Depression

Re: Depression

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TSOFR

Peladan translation

Re: Peladan translation

Beatles and the Elements

Re: Beatles and the Elements

Re: Beatles and the Elements

Re: Beatles and the Elements

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