Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

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!***

Comments

Question about Lesson 32 in OPW

[slclaire]

I meditated on #1 of Lesson 32 of OPW yesterday. In it you describe the occult understanding of what happens after a soul with a mental sheath has seen as much of the mental plane as it can absorb based on its previous incarnations. But you didn't say what happens for a soul that has attained a mental body during the just-completed human incarnation, except that it doesn't descend all the way back to the material plane and the doors of the mental plane remain open to it (it remains awake on the mental plane).

What I'm not sure about is how a soul in our swarm in that situation, one who remains awake on the mental plane and does not reincarnate on the material plane, obtains a new astral and etheric body. If I understand correctly, because all of the souls in our swarm retain three bodies once they pass out of human incarnation, each soul who has a mental body also has an etheric and an astral body.

1. Does the soul, upon leaving the physical body (dying) for the final time still experience the second and third deaths and then arrive on the mental plane as a mental body only?

2. If so, does the soul then need to receive a new astral body that reflects the lessons absorbed from the previous incarnation? I suppose the process would be similar to the usual pattern of reincarnation, since it does not occur within the mother's body.

3. Still working within the hypothesis of question 1, since there is no physical human being involved to give rise to the etheric body, how does the soul who has a mental body obtain an etheric body?

4. If my hypothesis of question 1 is incorrect, what does happen to a soul who has attained a mental body after it experiences the final first death?

Re: Question about Lesson 32 in OPW

[ecosophia]

There seem to be various ways it can happen, depending partly on the condition of the etheric body, partly on the specific spiritual disciplines involved, and partly on how death happens. In some cases, yes, it's like an ordinary death, going up to the mental plane and then resuming an astral and etheric body; once the mental body is fully active it's possible for the soul to condense a new etheric body the same way it forms the astral body, by drawing on the substance of the plane directly. In other cases, the Second Death never happens because the soul has taken full conscious control of the etheric body and can fill it directly with life from the higher planes; in extreme cases, more common in Asia than elsewhere, the dead physical body literally disintegrates into light (this is the "rainbow body" discussed in Tibetan writings, for example.)

Re: Question about Lesson 32 in OPW

[slclaire]

Thank you for your answer! I remember reading about the rainbow body when I was practicing Zen and learning a bit about practices in other kinds of Buddhism. During that time an exhibit of Tibetan cremation relics came to St. Louis and I was able to attend. The relics, found in the ashes after cremation, looked something like the semiprecious gem moonstone to my eyes. I thought they were quite beautiful and wondered why and how they formed. We were told that relics like these were found only after teachers of very high realization were cremated.