ecosophia | Magic Monday

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Magic Monday

It's a little 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 seventh published book, The New Encyclopedia of the Occult. I'd gotten irritated about the lack of decent reference works on occultism, and Llewellyn, the publisher I worked with in those days was enthusiastic about the idea of helping to fix that. It was a fun project, and includes a certain number of quiet and rather abstruse jokes; there are other occult encyclopedias available these days but this one still stands up fairly well -- though I'd make a lot of changes if the publisher was interested. (This also turned out to be the last book I did with Llewellyn for a long while, due to some issues involving their treatment of another project of mine.) If you're interested in the encyclopedia, you can get a copy here if you live in the US, and at your favorite book venue 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

John Michael Greer, my name is Samat. I am a ceremonial magician in the making currently learning geomancy through your book.

I casted a chart recently regarding whether I should do a pathworking (also from your book) to this angel and speak with her/him that day.

Now, you write that the 8th house has to do with magick the querent performs but the figure that popped in that house was Fortuna Major, a positive figure which is considered highly unfavourable for all questions regarding magick. Why is that? Also, the court itself came out highly unfavourable (Carcer judge).

If such unfavourable charts repeatedly occur regarding communicating with angels and spirits, how can we proceed with our magick?

This is a challenge that every ceremonial mage has to deal with sooner or later. Not every working you want to do is appropriate when you want to do it; not every working you want to do is appropriate at all. That's why it's so important to listen to the advice given by divination. If you repeatedly get told "No, don't do this," it may be because the working (or the whole category of workings!) would not be good for you at this time; in that case, do something wholly different instead -- and always maintain your basic practices and studies, which are the foundation for your magical development.

Will this happen even for pathworking? I thought that pathworking, similar to meditation and daily practice, did not require a reading because visiting and communicating with entities in their own realm is something that they don't have a problem with?

2ndly, if say I did a working to consecrate a talisman or a tool before I started geomancy and I wanted to confirm the consecration, would we actually let the reading tell us or should we trust our abilities and let the results brought about by the talisman be its proof?

1) That's something each mage has to figure out individually. It's your decision when to cast a divination and when to rely on intuition or simply stubbornness -- and in either case you will learn something.

2) In that case I don't recommend casting a reading at all. The consecration is an act of will, and faith that it worked is part of that same act of will.

Then I don't know my talismans are not working at all. Only 2 of them have ever worked. 2 out of 10 which is why I got into geomancy as a system of divination to figure what I might be doing wrong that might be failing my magick. Ouch.

Ten talismans? Okay, that's another source of trouble. Israel Regardie noted in The Golden Dawn, "Another point that beginners tend to run away with is that talismans can be made wholesale." My standard advice for beginning-to-intermediate students is that you should plan on having only one active talisman at a time. That way you can put all your will and force into each talisman, rather than having it divided ten ways!

It's crucial to keep in mind that magic is not omnipotent. Especially in the early stages of training, there are a lot of things that your magic won't be able to accomplish yet -- or at all. That's why divination is valuable as a guide, and it's also why it's essential to focus on the basic daily practices of the system of magic you're learning, and on other workings for the purpose of magical and spiritual development. Those are the exercises that will build strength and skill in magic so that you can eventually accomplish great things.

Those 10 or so talismans were made over a course of 1.5 years, not during a single occasion and all were for their own separate purposes. I've also grown my knowledge of electional astrology to harness more power into my practical rituals such as from your translation of the Picatrix. My method is the same as yours where I conjure the relevant spiritual entity (angels mostly) to empower the talisman with its power for the purpose of the working.

I now only have two talismans in operation one of which I'm sure is not working, the other I casted a reading for but could not come to an interpretation owing to my introductory skills with geomancy. Of course, I just need to continue learning geomancy and the answers will pour forth.

It's not necessarily going to be that straightforward, Samat.

In my own experience, magic behaves like a living, sentient (though impersonal) being. As such, it may choose to withhold its favors from one person or another, whether temporarily or forever.

It was with this fact in mind that a wise Renaissance magician wrote many centuries ago, "To work magic is nothing other than to marry the cosmos" [Magicam operari non est aliud quam maritare mundum]. A marriage, if it is not simply another name for a rape, requires at a minimum uncoerced consent from each living, sentient party; and almost always it will have been preceded by a substantial period of mutual courtship. Magic doesn't seem (to me at least) to be anything like a technology that one can learn to master, and then expect always to get one's desired results by "pushing the right buttons on the machine."

Assuming I am right, could you live with this necessity, and humbly court the magic that you hope will consent to marry you?

Thank you Robert, I like this.

I also think that is also why magic keeps refusing to work on a dead, cold and rude setting such as a controlled lab, where it is cut off from everything else and expected to work every single time the same way.

You're very welcome, open_space!

I think you're quite right: that's why you can't ever get magic to work consistently under cold, boring laboratory conditions. It's not willing to be your obedient laboratory subject -- what would it get of any value to itself from such a relationship?

Perhaps the dogmatic scientists endless confusions are a trick by nature to give it something equivalent of what it gets from them.

Magic and nature really do seem to open up and unfold in endless mysteries if you yield to her, instead of the other way around.

What is more reasonable if one ought to marry the cosmos, which is vastly bigger than us? To make it work according to our ideas or set them aside and listen?

And now I am in that space again. Thank you.

A couple songs:

Rising

Nada Aradhana: an offering of sound

Edited 2023-12-05 02:14 (UTC)

Even within reductionist science, there is something like a give-and-take. "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." Even when the paradigm of impersonal mathematical regularity is not set aside, by the rules of science everything else is fair game. And if you try to set that paradigm aside, sometimes you just get the paradigm of anthropomorphic psychology instead, which can prove to be constricted in its own way. The constraints of mathematics can be a tool for creating a cognitive space purified of some of one's own tendencies to presuppose things, or to confabulate things, in ways that can themselves get in the way of listening.

Agree.

I studied mathematics and physics for 3 years in university and it was a hell of a lot of fun. It taught me how to think in sequence and find holes in my argumentation. Once it did it's job though, and found out the science and scientists I admired did something else, I found something better. Occultism, after all, has what I was looking for in science.

While that's an interesting point, by itself it leaves open the possibility that someone might find a circumstance where the relevant facet of the cosmos was willing to go along with the experiment anyway. If it's just a question of what's "of value", it's hard to predictively constrain in advance what kind of "value" might turn out to be offerable or sought, enough to say it would never happen.

And the inconsistencies seem themselves to be empirically too consistent for that. If such circumstances that would cause the magic to work consistently were there to be found, one would think someone would have found one of them by now. The line of hypotheses I see as most promising is instead the hypotheses where the relevant facet of the cosmos is at least also always keeping an eye to the potential future consequences that might result if the findings were too positive or consistent (and therefore too easy to distinguish from e.g. file-drawer effects) for too long.

(Also, not that this matters very much, but my impression is that strictly speaking the "labs" have typically been more like furnished offices, temporarily claimed conference rooms, reading rooms in libraries, etc.)

If I may toss in my two cents...
If you are doing Picatrix stuff, you might check out what Christopher Warnock has to say about the talisman being a line of communication with the spirit. I.e. it's a relationship, not a machine that just does what it's designed to do.

My other comment is from my own experience of talismans "working." For me, the "effect" often shows up as opportunities for self- improvement. A particular book might come to my attention, or in some other way the path forward might become clear - but then I have to put in the work to make it happen. The barriers might fall, but I still have to walk the path.

I have a question on interpreting a pair of geomancy readings I did.

The first is on the question of whether I'll be able to leave to move to another country within the next few weeks. I used a shield chart, and got Amissio for the left witness, and Carcer for the right; giving me Fortuna Major as the judge. I at first read this as "Yes, but it's a very bad idea"; but I'm leaving Canada to escape from certain troubles I see coming, so perhaps this is a no. Either way, however, this reading is a very clear "Bad idea".

Do you agree with my assessment that this is saying "No, and a very bad idea anyway"?

Edito. I was initially planning on asking about two readings, but the second one is one which I decided against sharing at this time.

It's a bad idea now. Fortuna Major very often means "Yes, but with delay at the beginning." In your position I'd do more divinations to see if relocating at a later time would be a better plan.

I was in deep concentration about two weeks ago. It wasn't discursive meditation or any other kind of intentional meditation. But I was suddenly hit by a, well, I'm not sure what to call it. An insight? A vision? Or something else entirely? Not sure, but I suddenly got not only a sense of spiritual presences around me, I could also (and continue to) see these presences as dim outlines of forms (humanoid and otherwise). Some of these presences seem to be aware of me, and some seem unaware of me. I've also been struck by a strong, almost overwhelming sense of unity with all things, yet also the distinctness of my own being.

None of this has faded, and seems to be actually becoming more potent as the days pass. It is actually quite hard to put this experience into words. But I'm now experiencing a sense of peace and contentment that I didn't even know was possible for me. I feel very little anxiety now, and so far, I'm not even afraid of the things that I used to fear. Is there an occult explanation for this?

It's called a mystical experience. Concentration, meditation, and various other forms of practice make it more likely. Now that you've experienced it, you know a little more of the truth about yourself and the cosmos, and you can proceed on that basis.

When I was growing up, one of the kids in an extended family that was friends with ours in the Charismatic movement had what he took to be a vision of heaven. I asked one of his relatives about it, and what I remember the relative saying was that the main thing he had experienced was a strong feeling of everything he saw being perfectly the same and at the same time perfectly different.

Still the only available reference to zornvoyance 😄 Though I am probably misspelling it.

BTW. I went to the Theosophical Library. The Bihar books don't seem to have much on the minor chakras. But, I did find out all their publications are available for free with an account: https://www.satyamyogaprasad.net/

It's a little glitchy and you might have to click the login button a couple times before it recognizes the new account, it gave me a password invalid error the first couple of tries.

Edited 2023-12-04 05:54 (UTC)

Thanks -- I'll check it out. Zorvoyance, by the way -- I'm not sure at the moment which of P.B. Randolph's books discusses it.

You are welcome. (If the screen goes black loading the pdfs, give it a moment and then zoom in or out using the magnifying glass buttons on the right so it rerenders the pages). Some titles that might be useful are Prana and Pranayama and Prana Vidya both discussing prana, nadis and chakras and Satyam Speaks: Pawanmuktasana (It's on the Satyananda Centenary Series tab). This last one talks about the joints, prana, and how to release blockages to achieve health with the exercises mentioned.

Thanks for the reference to Zorvoyance. Does it happen to be one of these: Clairvoyance, How to Produce It or Seership! The Magnetic Mirror?

1) It crashed my browser; I'll try it another time with a different browser.

2) I'd have to read them again to find out.

Sorry about that!

At this link are all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts. A printable version of the entire prayer list current as of 11/20 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.

***HEAR YE HEAR YE***

At the end of this year I will pruning all prayer requests which were made before July 1st, 2023 from the list entirely, with the exception of any that my own intuition tells me ought to be kept on the list. I make no claims to the infallibility of my intuition, so if your entry is older than that, and you would definitely like it to remain on the prayer list, please send a note updating your request.

(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 the mass which upon which Yuccaglauca's mother Monica is having a biopsy performed turn out to be entirely benign and safe; may she experience healing and improvement in her situation and overall health.

May the lawsuit for partition of the family land in which Jennifer, her husband Josiah, and her father Robert are involved be resolved justly and for the greatest good of all involved, including the land and its spirits.

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.

Thank you for this as always.

Hi tunesmyth, thanks for doing this! I sent you a PM to be added to the list. Let me know if it didn't show up for some reason.
Thanks,
Frank

Hi Frank, I got it! I'll add it within a few hours. If you don't see this message in time for the Monday cutoff, let's mail privately, but for now: may I suggest rewording your prayer simply that your lymphoma be cured and you be returned to full health? While it is natural to assume that your chemotherapy is the best route to your preferred outcome, in prayer as in magic it's generally best to prayer for the results you want rather than the means of getting there. There are sometimes (often, I've found) routes to the desired result that work just as well, and it's best to let the forces we call on work according to their own natures, whatever those may be.

Thanks tunesmyth, that's a great idea. Much appreciated!

Hi Tunesmyth,

Thank you for continuing to offer this.

Both my mother and stepfather have been diagnosed with stage 1 melanoma. As they begin treatment, any prayers towards medical success and their health would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Tamanous

A heads up for the MOE practitioners:

I'm going to offer an MOE __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, too!).

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, so 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 – 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,

Milkyway

Hi JMG, Sara, readers.

JMG, you mentioned Hitler being an occultist. I haven’t read whichever bio that was in. My question is, was he any good at it?

I have read Hitler’s Master Of The Dark Arts, a Himmler bio by Bill Yenne, which I can recommend to anyone with an interest in WW II, occultism, or both. Very well written. I have a sort of proprietary interest in WW II as my parents and uncle lived through it and my dad participated in the end of it (the draft board’s idea, not his).

—Princess Cutekitten

Your Kittenship, Hitler's occult involvements have been a subject of endless controversy down through the years. I haven't yet seen a really competent discussion of it in a bio of the man -- most biographers don't know enough about occultism to recognize it if it rode past them stark naked on a unicycle -- and most of the books on the occult dimensions of Nazism are sensationalistic in the extreme. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's The Occult Roots of Nazism, one of the few exceptions, talks about literally everything except Hitler's own occult activities! If you read accounts written by the people who knew him early on, though, it's very clear what he was studying.

As for whether he was any good, like most self-taught occultists he was a very mixed bag, extremely skilled at some things and very weak in other directions. When time permits I'll take a look at the Yenne book -- thanks for the heads up.

None of Hitler’s biographers understand what he saw in Eva Braun, who was uninterested in politics—maybe she too was an occultist and they worked well together?

—Princess Cutekitten

That's an interesting possibility. I've known some aging gay men, however, who ended up quite unexpectedly falling in love with a much younger woman; I've often thought that this was pretty much what was going on with Adolf and Eva.

I have no idea what's in it, but today at the library the title caught my eye so I'll share it. The title was Hitler and His God: The Background to the Nazi Phenomenon by Georges Van Vrekhem. Since it was at Quest Bookshop, I assume it is at least partially into the occult side of things.

Btw, I wanted to share something with you about Healing Hands, Our Lady of CK.

You can drop a comment here: https://open-space.dreamwidth.org/17205.html

In my wasted youth, the book I read about this in was Trevor Ravencroft's "The Spear of Destiny". This book had some definite Anthroposphical leanings to it, and Ravenscroft did a sequel called "The Chalice of Destiny" which I seem to recall had some actual exercises in it, like the review of the day in reverse order, which was the first place I ever saw that written up. Not sure if he was historically reliable, but, for 17 year old me, he sure was interesting...

There are a few things I know about Hitler's occultism: He was into Ariosophy, a white supremacist version of Theosophy, and he read voraciously the writings of Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels and the periodical "Ostara". These things are described in the book "Hitler's Vienna."

Dear JMG,
Dear commentators,

I hope you are well!
Thanks for Magic Monday!

1. There are specific Psalms for the Divine Names/Sephirot. Should I keep the same Psalms for the Archangels of the same Sephirot, or would they be other Psalms?

2. What would be the best day/time to work with Metraton and Sandalphon?

3. Is there the possibility of replacing the names of the Kabbalistic cross (atah, malkuth, etc.) with divine names!?

Thank you very much in advance!

1) The same ones should be used.

2) Any day or time. They're not limited by the cycles of time.

3) I don't recommend it. Why not just use it as is, and benefit from the egregor established by all those thousands of other occultists who've used it before you?

Tks, JMG!

Where can I get information on 1)?

Hello mister Greer,i have a question. When you give someone a knife, it is customary to give a coin in return lest it cuts the friendship. What about other sharp metal objects? I am fixing up a handaxe for a birthday present. Is it ok to spend the coin or should i keep it?

1) I've only ever heard of that tradition with knives.

2) Doesn't matter. Once you receive or give it, you're good.

JMG and commentators,

I lost the opportunity for a competition - which I would probably pass. To which angel/planetary sphere should you pray/ask for a new opportunity?

That depends entirely on what kind of competition it was.

a competition for a teacher at a university…

In that case you want to invoke Jupiter.

Hello!

Earth energies, if I have understood well, are forms of etheric energies flowing within the earth. Temple technologies are stone structures that concentrate certain forms of electromagnetic and etheric energies to achieve sertain effects effects on land fertility and human awareness.

(1) Could there be there any links between leylines and earth energies?

(2) On the other hand lunar currents are combinations of solar and earth energies, (assuming I have gotten it more or less right!). Are there any links between temple technologies and lunar currents?

(3) Ceremonial magic, such as LRM, are about using astral energies, what occult techniques attempt to use etheric energies?

(4) What effects can be had by manipulating etheric energies?

PS: Apologies for the scope of my questions.

Thanks and regards.

1) Yes, and those links have been discussed at length in an entire literature dating back to the 1960s. I recommend starting with John Michell's The View Over Atlantis and going from there.

2) One hypothesis that I'm exploring is that the formation of the lunar current is the whole point of the temple technology.

3) You don't find a lot of etheric magic in the English-speaking world, but it's quite common in Europe. Franz Bardon's book Initiation Into Hermetics is a solid intro to European etheric magic.

4) That's like asking "what effects can be had by manipulating electricity?" (Look around you at everything electric in sight.) Etheric energies, the fundamental forces of life, can accomplish an astounding range of things.

Hello Archdruid

This is a more philosophical question. I'm wondering how strongly a person should be drawn to nature in order for them to decide that the druid's path is the right one for them.

Little backgroung, I have read your books on druidic magic, I practiced this magic for about a year. I graduated with a degree in herbalism and plant therapies (universities of live science in eastern europe are pretty fun). I have a dog and a cat and I feel that I have a fairly constant contact with nature, nature relaxes me and I enjoy spending time in the woods. But I'm not drawn to join any environmental organizations, nor do I feel any great need to spend time in nature, I'm a pretty strong homebody. I also don't have the drive to grow plants or raise animals, and I'm not particularly keen on starting my own garden (I've worked a lot in gardens in my life, so I don't have a problem with it, but it's just not my passion).

On the one hand, nature is present in my life and I assume that even cities can be full of nature, on the other hand I do not know if this is enough for one to follow the path of druidism.

So my question: what qualities should a druid have and is a constant desire to be deep in nature one of those qualities?

Don't worry about that. I mean that seriously! Set all that aside, consider the Druid path you're considering following, and ask yourself whether that path appeals to you, and whether you're sufficiently drawn to it to put in the daily practice it requires. That's what matters, and it's all that matters.

You know the signs at carnivals that say "You must be this tall to ride the carousel"? There is no sign on the entrance to Druidry that says "You must obsess about nature this much to start on the Druid path."

Greetings JMG

In your article , 'primal of mystical combat', you described emotion as one source of magical infulence, what are the other sources?

Almost anything can be a source of magical power. Among the most common sources are the sun, the earth, fire, the life force, the specialized expression of life force that flows through sexuality, the planets, the stars -- well, I could go on for a week.

Hi again,
I am the OP about etheric energies. I just remembered your 2021 posts on etheric energies.
Please add any further comments you may have about my questions.
Thanks

I've already responded above.

Hi JMG,

I am preparing for my first serious SoP working as part of the DMH curriculum. I performed an Ogham reading as to whether December was the right time for it, and I came up with: Phagos (past) - Tinne (present) - Oir (future)

My reading of this is that I have learned some valuable lessons that will help prepare me, that I may have to deal with some struggles and conflict during the process, but the outcome will be revelatory. Does this sound right to you? And, more importantly, do you think the Ogham is giving me the go-ahead for this working?

Thanks in advance!

I'd take that as a positive reading, and yes, that's pretty much how I'd read it. Oir for the future is also generally a sign of quick success.

Thank you, JMG!

A question for those that are knowledgeable about Greek and Roman religion: was their view of the afterlife as dismal as is commonly portrayed?

I always come across references of Hades being a dismal place in which the spirits are miserable. If this was the common belief then it must have been a miserable for Greeks and Romans when considering death and would explain the popularity of religious sects that promised something better in the afterlife.

By no means am I an expert on Greek and Roman religion but I'm skeptical that only misery or, at best, ennui, was to be expected after death (history written by the winners and all that).

I'm thinking there must have been some sort of hope for a good afterlife in those cultures but have not come across anything positive.

If I may, "Greek Religion" wasn't ever a single, monolithic thing! The Homeric view you cite was certainly influential, but Hesiod and Pindar speak of the Fortunate Isles as a counterpoint for heroes and the virtuous; and further the Mystery schools, the Pythagorean cult, and Platonic philosophy all taught about reincarnation. (Indeed, in later times, all these views tended to mix together.) Plato also tells us that the belief in mere oblivion after death was widespread in his time.

You might find Hesiod's Works and Days and Plato's Myth of Er (from the last book of the Republic) to be good starting points in these alternatives.

Sdi,

Thanks much to you and also to the esteemed JMG for your replies. This is a relief as I guess I have only been exposed to the Homeric view and seem that most accounts I ran across emphasized the dismal fate in Hades.

Sdi's made about half of the points I would have made. The other thing I'd point out is that the whole point of the ancient Greek mysteries was that they offered a better afterlife -- and an enormous number of Greeks and Romans became initiates of one mystery or another. In Athens, for example, the Eleusinian mysteries were a big annual event for the whole city, and a very substantial share of the city's residents (including women and slaves, who were explicitly permitted to take part) were initiated into it.

In my own meditations on the Greek traditions I've been focusing on the myths behind the mystery traditions: The story of Persephone and Hades and the story of Orpheus(+related stories of Dionysus.) There are similarities between the two myths, and you don't need to squint too hard to see there's more going on than spending the afterlife in (at best) a nice cave with Hades.

Your comment on the dismal nature of the Greek afterlife actually added to a few thoughts I've been having about the history of Western religions in general, so thanks for that insight!

I've found it interesting to think about how diverse pantheons in the Western world (in some cases you could even lump in Hinduism as a holdover from this Eurasian religious tradition) evolved into monotheistic religions. But, at least as Christianity evolved in Europe, it became less experiential and more based in dogma (the intellectual battles of early Christianity come to mind... more experiential ideas about Jesus became battles about what the "substance" of Christ was.)

The Homeric traditions of the underworld might be an echo of a similar process. A more literal interpretation of what happens when you die: you go underground, and hang out with Hades!

Hi,

Extremely odd question, but I happen to be a fantasy writer who is trying his hand at a story that hews relatively closely to reflecting actual occult practices.

I have a scene with two characters. Character A is a normal person, who has decided they need to contact the Archangel Michael (for Reasons). Character B is an extremely skilled but rather mad occultist practitioner. Essentially, I want A to get B to make an angelic contact, so that A can deliver his message. Ideally, I want a situation where A is deceiving B as to what his real motivations are.

Would B be using the Ars Paulina or Enochian magic here, or something else altogether? Bearing in mind that B is the sort of character who likes to gratuitously show off their power.

Not an odd question at all -- were you aware that I'm in writing a series of occult-detective novels in which all the magic is real? It's great fun, and I'm delighted to see that someone else is interested in using real magic in fantasy, in place of the schlock that usually ends up there.

The Pauline Art would be a very good choice, since that specifically works with angels from the Hebrew tradition, such as Michael. Enochian has its own completely different set of angels, and Michael isn't included in them.

Hi JMG!

I was wondering. Is it posibble to do magic without of spirits and Gods? Just using your own influence, focused will and imagination

Sure, and in fact most magic works that way. It's just that you're limited to your own power, and there will be plenty of things you won't be able to accomplish by magic.

JMG,

Many thanks for this wonderful resource!

I have a question or two related to performing some modest rituals during planetary hours.

1. This Sunday I said a prayer and lit a beeswax candle in honour of the Sun during 3 of the 4 planetary "hours" of the day. I didn't set an alarm to get up at 4am to do the same for the 4th "hour" very early on Monday morning, is this a mistake or is it generally fair and reasonable to do what you can and receive a blessing equal to you effort?

2. Where might I find more resources on improving my offering during these hours. My offering was the rather humble lighting of a candle and a prayer (as mentioned). Is that sufficient or does it depend on what is asked of them? I don't want to be at risk of imbalance and wish to provide the due respect. It felt fair to me, but being fair skinned I perhaps fear the consequences of a backlash perhaps more than others!

3. Lastly, I experienced heartburn just as I was climbing in to bed. Is this an indication that the Sun heard my prayers and is letting me know by literally burning up the zone of my desires? I realise the simplest explanation is probably true but found it interesting enough timing to remark upon it.

Thanks as always!

Pink Radiant Anteater

1) I normally offer a prayer on one of the planetary hours, not all four! You hsould be fine.

2) If you want to go further, you need to decide what kind of magic you want to learn, and then go learn it. There are plenty of books on candle magic, and some of the classics are long out of copyright; here's an example --

http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1942__gamache___master_book_of_canle_burning.pdf

3) Answering questions like this is one of the things that divination is good for.

JMG, have you used the lunar nodes when casting your horary chart? I’m finding some astrologers that say the results are extremely negative if there is any aspect to the nodes. On the other hand, there are some who don’t use them at all.

Thanks.

I've never found the nodes especially useful in horary work, though of course your mileage may vary.

Greetings Archdruid,

1) First a practical question: I asked about alternative places to practice at last week because I can't practice at home. My intention was to find a place where I could do the elementary rituals outlined in your FAQ (qabalistic cross, lesser pentagram) as suitable for people with small children.

This is the practice that I had in mind, and since I can't do it at home, I was wondering about suitable alternatives. The ones that came to mind was 1) finding a secluded public spot somewhere in nature (I live near a hill) and 2) renting a studio somewhere. What do you think of these alternatives/what would you recommend?

2) Next some theory: I saw Techniques of High Magic on your twitter feed and decided to skim through a pdf - what stood out to me was that in its instructions and dessription of magical implements, the book assigns Fire to the Knife and Air to the Wand, as opposed to the Tarot assignment (Wands-Fire, Swords-Air). The book also mentions that knives and swords are not to be conflated, but I was nevertheless wondering about the significance of the distinct assignment to the cutting and pointing implements.

3) And third, I also inqiured a bit about numbers last week - I asked whether it would be valid to attribute "death" to 0 and "growth" to 9, with the rest of the nnumber line representing life. I did another meditation on the topic and was... :

- 0 as the intermediary between negative and positive numbers can be seen as an analogue of the present or "NOW", from which all other moments are distinct (less or more, 1 or 2 or 3...). Similarly, x+0 equals x, which reminds me of a desire to "stay where you are" in terms of human experience (I never want this to change). Analogously, as x+9 returns x after reduced to a single digit, 9 can be seen as the desire to repeat the experience (I want to do this again, and again and again...). In this sense they can be seen as expressions of sameness and repetition.
- The fact that 0 and 9 subsume their co-factors in multiplication (x*0 is 0, x*9 is 9 after redcing to single digit), on the other hand seemed to me to denote change. 0 can be seen as a "cutting off"/canceling/ending, reducing a unit of experience to 0. Analogous also to avoidance motivation, prohibition, severing connections...
- 9, on the other hand, given its place on the opposite end of the number line seems to fit a "positive" version of the same general form of change. In particular, synthesis or generalization - so 9 also seems to me as the number of abstraction, higher understanding, integrating knowledge or elevating a unit of experience or concept to a more general form (ice cream -> desert). But abstraction can also be reduction to the lowest common denominator, as the desire for "pleasurable things in general" is in psychology understood as "approach motivation". This would be "making connections", rather than severing them (although I can't find a suitable antonym to prohibition that I would be willing to use).

Last, this juxtaposition between 9 and 0 is inspired by the Deleuzian connective and disjuncitve syntheses and probably also CCRU's numogram (I think I arrived at the parallel between 0 and 9 independently, but I had been familiarized with basic Numogram theory beforehand). I am wary of CCRU-esque practice because of its "cthonic"/"demonic" language (and I don't want to pursue it for this reason), but I've found exploring the commonalities between 0 and 9 very interesting. Is this line of inquiry safe for someone who wishes to steer clear of cthonic/demonic influence, or is it better for me to change course?

Apologies for the slew of questions and thanks in advance for any you find the time to answer,

Best wishes,

tnm

Edited 2023-12-04 14:31 (UTC)

1) A studio would be a much better approach. You'd be astonished how often people just happen to blunder through a "secluded" outdoor place when ritual is being worked.

2) People have been bickering over that since long before I began to study magic. That was one of the reasons why Juliet Ashley replaced the dagger with the book in her Golden Dawn offshoot, and why the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose (which is descended from her work) uses that same set of tools! In practice, it doesn't seem to matter one way or the other, so long as you make a choice and stick to it in the specific system you're working with.

3) My usual advice is to recommend that students learn and master some established system before getting all experimental, so you have a baseline to which you can compare the results of your innovations.

Good morning and thank you as always.

This is a question with a potentially very complex answer, so I won't mind if you give me a condensed rundown. I really enjoy your Golden Dawn works but I haven't spent much time going over Regardie's primary sources, and I'm curious what changes and omissions you may have taken in your approach and why. Do you intend for your Golden Dawn works to be a complete approach, or should one move on to Regardie and/or the Ciceros after studying Circles of Power?

My books are deliberately somewhat simplified. In particular, they leave out the Enochian work entirely, as that's not suited to everyone and never suited to beginners, and there are lots of other odds and ends of the Golden Dawn system they don't address. Of course there's also the little matter of the GD initiation rituals! My advice has always been to work through my books and then go straight into The Golden Dawn, meditating on all the teachings and rituals and exploring all the practices. Regardie's Ceremonial Magic is also well worth studying and practicing, especially if you're working by yourself. The Ciceros' books are of course first-rate, but there's a lot of overlap between those and my books -- Chic and Tabby set out, as I did, to create courses of study that could get beginners to the point of being able to tackle Regardie's Big Gray Doorstop. Their approach is rather more traditional than mine, which is of course better for some students and less so for others.

Had a weird day recently. Various factors-- a recent eardrum rupture which makes me half deaf, plus raging tinnitus makes me feel like I'm walking around with my head in a bucket. Hard to connect with the world in the usual ways. Was also feeling weak/anemic due to "female complaints", and had a mild headache. In the morning, I took a couple of hours to pray, at church, since I couldn't really hear the services. One of the few things I can do effectively in such a lousy state ;) Prayed for a lot of people, one of them I have a close but neglected connection to-- I helped raise him as a child, but now we talk maybe once in a year or two. Within an hour of praying for him, he called me on the phone and made arrangements to visit us for Christmas (haven't seen him in several years). Later, crawling under my vehicle, I dropped a lot of dirt in my face to no good purpose-- didn't have the tools or the leverage to remove the filter I needed to change. Went inside to consult the internet and my sibling on the subject. After four videos on how to replace the part *on the wrong model of engine* I yelled "gah!" and banged a fist on the desk. Not *that* hard! The computer stopped. Froze up terminally. I picked up the phone next to me, to call sibling... and it had forgotten all my contacts. Blank page. Both devices were fine after a hard reset (yay turn-it-off, turn-it-back-on). Neither thing is totally unprecedented-- I have a sordid history with wristwatches, and the *last* time this person called me over a year ago, was after I had prayed for him very intently (I was worried about him). Just doesn't usually crop up around the same day, or happen with bouts of temper, and I can't help but feel it was connected to... feeling disconnected.

Does "feeling absent" from the material plane make you more solid on any other plane/s?

Possibly, yes, but it can also work the other way around -- it's quite possible that some degree of awakening on the inner planes, while you're processing it, can make you feel a little absent on the material plane. Also, "female complaints" -- which I assume means your period -- can activate a lot of energy and splash it around in a not very well controlled way; have you noticed whether weird things happen to you more often at that time of the month?

Mostly get grumpy and tired around period. Never noticed it was any way connected to weird events, though it does make me feel quite out of sorts, and approaching menopause isn't helping. Perhaps I should be more careful who/what I interact with at that time, if it is an uncontrolled-energy sort of thing.

Since it was fairly clear that physical circumstances were making me feel *very* out of tune with the physical plane... I wondered if it wasn't something like... the way putting a blindfold on for a while makes you more aware of sounds and air currents, something of that sort. Though perhaps viewing physical events as *causal* might also be getting it backward. I had already decided, more or less, that dealing with the ear thing for weeks is, like many things, just another way the universe is trying to get through to me, and the sooner I settle in and try to learn whatever the thing is I'm supposed to learn, the sooner it'll get better ;) Two way street? Or does causality only go from the other planes down to the material?

That's an intriguing hypothesis. Yes, magical causality is a two-way street -- that's why rituals performed on the material plane can have effects further up.

Well then. A fine theme for meditation :)

1) Do you roughly look like yourself (or atleast have vaguely similar features) across lifetimes?

I found a photo of a guy from a 100 years ago in Italy and it unnerved me.

2) in my case, I find western astrology to be much more accurate about my natal influences than Vedic. Is there a good theory for why this is? Are different systems models for different societies etc?

3) why would we carry forward memories if we abandon everything else with the lower bodies? This means memories are going up to the higher bodies such as mental body to be preserved?

3)

1) Not usually, but it sometimes happens that souls are reborn in the same family, and then it can happen.

2) The science of comparative astrology hasn't been invented yet. As far as I know, nobody knows why different people have different results with the various schools of astrology.

3) That's correct. The experiences you have while incarnate work their way up the planes and are stored at the higher levels, which is why awakening on the mental level so often leads to the recovery of past life memories.

1) One thing to keep in mind is that sometimes people just look a like. It's usually a family thing (old photos of my grandfather in his 20s look incredibly similar to my brother, for example), but not always. There's an elderly woman who lives nearby who once showed me photos from when she was younger; I look exactly like her husband did when he was about 30, which was some 40 years ago now.

He's still alive; so it's likely we don't share a soul. The thing is, given just how many people are out there, some of us are bound to look similar to each other.

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MOE Apprentice Attunement - Dec 9th

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Roman and Greek views of the afterlife

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Adherance to All Planetary Hours

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beginner practice outside of home and some theoretical questions

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Absence/Presence?