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 was my fifteenth published book, and it's the one book of mine that I've allowed to go out of print permanently. The publisher who brought out Monsters was interested in other books in the broad paranormal-weird stuff end of things, and the Atlantis legend was an obvious topic; unfortunately the result was rushed, and not really well thought out. Someday I want to do a proper book on the Atlantis legend, and more generally on the tradition that there were entire cycles of advanced civilization in the distant past -- but this is not that book, and I'm somewhat embarrassed by it. 

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I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed -- as in, no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Are there any protection/cleansing rituals that you'd recommend for someone working in healing?

Are you familiar with power of 8 intention groups by Lynne McTaggart - Basically a group of approximately 8 people hold a specific and directed intention together (usually related to healing) for approx 10m in meditation. Some remarkable effects have been documented (including healing of cancers etc). I have no doubt it works, but Lynne tries to explain it through a materialists paradigm which makes no sense when it's clearly more metaphysical. Do you have any thoughts on what might be at play here? (It seems similar to prayer to me, but it's not directed towards any diety)

[ecosophia]

1) The banishing or protective ritual of your choice, done daily. The Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram and the Sphere of Protection both work very well.

2) I wasn't familiar with that version, but my teacher John Gilbert used to run something similar called the Intentional Prayer Network. His system was that everyone who joined the network could submit a prayer request, and five people they didn't know would pray for them; each person who joined was also given the prayer requests of five other people, and the rule was that you should spend at least one minute a day praying for each of those people. It also had some remarkable results.

As for how it works, that's quite simple. An intention held with clear focus in the mind will tend to shape the universe in accordance with itself, provided that the energy of the intention isn't drained away by personal emotions. That's the basis of one kind of magic.

[open_space]

That's actually a great idea, to rotate the list and give everyone only five of them.

Could you provide an example regarding the emotion draining away the energy of the intention? Say, for example, someone who wants to have better chances of finding a new apartment that suits him, and does a simple prayer and working for it. What should the person not do to not have the energy drain away?

[ecosophia]

Don't brood over it, don't spend time thinking about it, and if at all possible, get into an emotional state where you can accept any outcome with calmness.

[open_space]

The last one I was not aware of and seems tricky but makes sense.

Is the emotional buildup prior to doing the operation useful? Say, preparing, thinking about what you want and would do in a new place, looking at the area, etc. Then performing the operation and after that only doing the actions necessary (looking for the place in this case) without the emotional brooding.

[ecosophia]

If you can think about it without getting emotionally wrought up about it, sure.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a long way to go to apply this teaching myself as much as I'd like to, but one suggestion I've seen is to focus only on a present tense, concise vision of a moment you could experience after you're already in your preferred outcome.

For example if you want a job, keep in mind a scenario that right now, not off in the future, from inside your view of life as with any conversation, you see and hear your friend happily congratulate you on working in your new job. You don't include looking for listings, sending in resumes and applications, having interviews, etc.

For a better apartment, you think from inside a scene that already proves you have it, such as breakfast in your great new kitchen, or whatever moment best proves you already have it. Listings, applications, appointments, deposits, etc would not be in the scene because in that moment of happiness they're already all behind you.

[open_space]

That's exactly what I want to know. The method you mention of imagining myself doing this or that in the present tense is what I was basing myself on, like an affirmation, but that seems different because that method gets applied repeatedly over several days or months or years until you get it. But in this case, when the operation is done only once and let go, it seems to be that doing that would deflate your intention, because you are thinking and emotionally engaging with it. Perhaps it's a matter of doing that before, letting it go, and not thinking about it afterwards. Say, like planning and building a drone and letting it fly, without calling it every time you want to check it's fine, before it goes where you wanted it to go? It would make sense, but it confuses me a little bit because at least in everyday life, I've gotten quite the few things and scenarios when I think about them a lot and want them, really, really badly so I would have thought that would help, not hinder, the process, so it's likely I am confusing two different ways of doing things one constructive, where you work with your own consciousness and mental limitations and ideas and other that works with the outside consciousness and energies. I am speculating though!

[(Anonymous)]

When I've seen it described by New Thought writers and their modern day followers, they don't say to only affirm it once. They advise "pray without ceasing." Keep on running that scene in its mind and most important its feeling of natural completion, over and over. It should be a short simple scene with one emotion, because the subconscious uses pictures. It doesn't respond to lots of words. This is all to change your own subconscious belief and faith. It's not about trying to use any outside consciousness or energy at all.

[open_space]

Thanks for the details

[(Anonymous)]

I love the prayer chain letter idea! It makes sense that strangers would not be wrapped up in any emotional hooks that the people involved might have.

Mocha Amphibious Moose

[ecosophia]

Exactly. I don't have the time to run a project like this, but if there's interest and other people are willing to pick up the secretarial work, Sara ran the Intentional Prayer Network for John for many years and I can ask her for all the details of how it runs.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd be willing to take up the secretarial work, if needed. This is a project which could really use a revival!

[ecosophia]

I'll consider posting something here on Dreamwidth in a little while, and seeing if there's enough interest.

[(Anonymous)]

Not the OP - I guess it also works the other way, as you, Eliphas Levi and others are teaching if I understand correctly? In that negative beliefs influence outcomes (not intentionally, but powerfully)?

[ecosophia]

Yes. John Gilbert's formula was that awareness, intention, and belief are the triad of forces that bring your world into being, for good or ill. If you have a lack of awareness, harmful intentions, or negative beliefs, those play just as strong a role as if you have expanded awareness, beneficial intentions, and positive beliefs.

Q

[(Anonymous)]

Have you or someone else written about a model for how these 3 forces interaction? I want to draw some parallels to phenomenological intention and other models of perception and action.

Re: Q

[ecosophia]

No, though a future book of mine will discuss them. Now that I've gotten John's work out in something like its original form, I have a bunch of books to write that take his ideas as a springboard and go from there.

Re: Q

[(Anonymous)]

That's exciting. Hope you add a deep philosophical angle to the writings.

Re: Q

[ecosophia]

There'll be philosophy but there'll also be quite a bit of practical application.

[randomactsofkarmasc]

Ooo, I think this just made something click for me. Do awareness, intention, and belief align with conscious, subconscious, and unconscious?

[ecosophia]

A fine theme for meditation!

health ministries

[(Anonymous)]

I was part of a health ministry for a while for health insurance, I think it was CHM, and one of the things is that people put in prayer requests and I would be sent a slip of paper with a few on it, so something like what you are saying, a number of people all get certain prayer requests.