ecosophia | Magic Monday

It's a few minutes before midnight, so we can launch into 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 mine only to a limited degree. Most of it was the work of my wife Sara under the pen name she used then, Clare Vaughn. We sent it to the publisher with the authorship as "Clare Vaughn, with John Michael Greer." The publisher used to make a big deal about being feminist, liberated, etc. -- but somehow that didn't extend to giving a female author the credit she deserved, at least in this case. So my name got put first, where it didn't belong. (We also had to deal with a sustained attempt by an editor to sandbag the book; turned out the editor had a friend who was writing a similar book, and wanted ours to fail.) There are reasons I haven't placed anything with that publisher for years. Nonetheless, Pagan Prayer Beads came out very well. Yes, it's about exactly what the title suggests: how to design, make, and use prayer bead strands and rosaries for the deity or pantheon of your choice. The publisher's kept it in print, too, which is more than I can say for some publishers; if you're interested, you can get a copy here if you live in the United States and at your favorite book retailer if you're 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. See you next week!***

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hi JMG,
I have been reading and rereading Robert Mathiesen’s newly published Microcosmographia Magica this week. I am stunned. Turns out my Higher Self has not been sitting this incarnation out letting me wander about unattended.

To my surprise, Robert described a number of elements of my path in his book. Even helping me see a bit of structure or a semblance of a map of my wanderings.

Most surprising is how a rather subtle realization from 15 to 20 years ago turns out to be an important key. It was one of those things which while interesting at the time was something I didn’t know what to do with so left it on the back burner.

Now with meditation, SOP, and divination practices well established I might be seeing what to do with that realization as I take my next step.

BTW: The realization from years ago was that if I drop away everything about me except my core whatever. That core whatever is my being a unique perception in the Cosmos. I don’t know if this is ultimately true but I find it to be useful.

Next on my list of things to do is finding mystical and philosophical works for meditation and other abstract thinking and perception developing works and activities. Of which, The Glass Bead Game, abstract mathematics, and Zen Koans might be good examples. Maybe the Ars Notoria will be useful too somehow?

Plenty of exploring to be done. Lots of searching forum archives.

I want to offer a big thank you to both you and Robert for the resources you’ve each provided. Nice to be putting this little puzzle together after all this time.

Thanks,
Eric

Eric, you're very welcome. It's good to hear that my small book has been so helpful to at least one person.

As for the slowness of one's own wanderings, that's how it was for me, too. I moved quite slowly through many areas of study on my own path; it wasn't until I was in my 50s that I was able barely to start putting all the many pieces together into a coherent understanding of what small tasks I had been born to do during my life, which few people I had been destined to meet, and what modest things I was able to do to help them along their own paths. I seem to be just a tiny pawns on a vast cosmic chessboard in a sort of "quasi-game" that had been going on since the creation of the universe and would continue until the end of time. Nothing grand at all, and that suffices me.

Also, from everything our host has said here about his own life, I suspect it has gone something like this for him, too.

The title totally mystified me, so I ignored the book. Eric's review and your response got me interested.

In my 50s, I'm now starting to put all the many pieces together into a coherent understanding.

I just downloaded the PDF from https://archive.org/details/microcosmographia-magica-bibliogr_202401 and started reading. From the first chapter, this is beautifully written, thoughtful, elegant, informative, inspiring. I thank you for sharing it and I look forward to reading the whole thing.

Christopher from California

Hello Christopher,

Thanks for the link to Robert's book, searching for it with it's name with the traditional search engines got me nowhere.

Sapienter Si Sincere

Hi Robert, I just wanted to chime and say I really appreciate your wisdom and your posts here. I've downloaded your book and I'm looking forward to reading it.

Same, cheers!
MILLICENTLY LURKING

Same here!

Ron M

Hello Robert,

Thank you for generously making this book available to us all.

Merci,

Sapienter Si Sincere

Thank you, Robert! Your book is printing as I type this. I very much look forward to reading it.

OtterGirl

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