Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

Once again, it's technically Monday now -- past midnight Eastern time -- and here I am on Dreamwidth, so it's time for another Magic Monday.  (The picture is William Wynn Westcott, passionate Freemason, crackerjack Cabalist, and one of the two main founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.)

Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer, though it may be Tuesday sometime before I get to them all.

(Oh, and before we begin, a warm thanks to everybody who participated in Saturday's Ecosophia potluck in Providence, and special thanks to our hosts Peter and Chiara. It was a very good time indeed -- and in fact next year's Ecosophia potluck has already been scheduled for June 22, 2019. Save the date!)

With that said, have at it!  

***This Magic Monday is now closed to new questions. See you next week!***

Comments

Practical magic for Celtic GD Ovates

[rationalist858]

John Michael,

at the end of the Ovate chapter of your Celtic Golden Dawn book, you have written that:

"In either case, your rank and initiation as an Ovate remain with you, and you may freely use the teachings you have already received in whatever way may correspond to the requirements of your Ovate obligation and your own personal decisions and needs."

Greer, John Michael (2013-02-08). The Celtic Golden Dawn: An Original & Complete Curriculum of Druidical Study (Kindle Locations 2455-2457). Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.. Kindle Edition.

Suppose a person was to work through all the Ovate Knowledge Lectures, doing everything as written, but they were not interested in ever proceeding to the Bardic and Druid Grades. Would any options of practical magic be open to them?

I do not mean mixing Celtic GD with another theurgic system. Rather, I was thinking about adding some tradition-agnostic techniques, such as:

- working towards astral projection using the exercises in Denning & Phillips' Practical Guide to Astral Projection,
- sympathetic magic for personality improvement and sending good luck to friends and family (with their permission, of course),
- pathworkings, such as those in The Initiate's Book of Pathworkings: A Bridge of Dreams by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki.

Would it be okay to perform these kinds of workings in an Ovate Temple?

Re: Practical magic for Celtic GD Ovates

[ecosophia]

I don't recommend it. The point of encouraging people to figure out whether they want to stop at the Ovate Grade, or proceed to the next, is that the more complex magical practices aren't appropriate for everyone, and some will want to stop at the Ovate level and proceed with whatever their core interests happen to be. For example, an astrologer, a diviner, an herbalist, or an alchemist might find quite a bit of value in the Ovate material but choose not to go on to the Pathworkings and elemental invocations of the Bardic Grade, or the full-on ceremonial magic of the Druid Grade. The point isn't to encourage people to do a mashup of DOGD and other stuff.

If you want to do Pathworkings, in other words, why not do the ones in the Bardic Grade, the grade that follows Ovate? All the preparations you've made while studying the Ovate Grade would feed directly into that, where Dolores' Pathworkings use a completely different symbolism and you'd more or less have to start over again from scratch. That's true more generally -- the things you've cited aren't actually "tradition-agnostic" at all; the first and third derive from specific traditions (the Ogdoadic tradition of the Aurum Solis and the lineage that runs from the Golden Dawn through Dion Fortune's Society of the Inner Light to Dolores' Servants of the Light, respectively), while the second would depend on which particular system of sympathetic magic you happen to be using. You could instead keep on working with the DOGD system, in which you've already invested serious time and effort. Why does that not seem like a good idea to you?

[amritarosa]

Hello there JMG and all,

This isn't a question, but something to share and kind of a followup. Hope that's ok! If not, delete freely, of course!

A while back, I posted a link to Cult of Orpheus' (now successful) fundraiser for recording "Sacred Works I: The Emerald Tablet". It's original lyrical chamber music, and my partner and I had the pleasure of attending the CD release concert last night. It was extraordinarily beautiful, performed with skill and grace in the chapel of a 100+ year old Prestbyterian Church on the slopes of Mt. Tabor.

I'd encourage anyone who likes sacred music with more than a casual nod to Hermetics to check them out on YouTube or their website. It really is lovely.

Here's a rehearsal excerpt from "Daphne: opera miniature for two singers and ensemble" :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRtlhb7Cg3E

And here are some excerpts from the Emerald Tablet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJgSBoSmNM

Bonnie

[ecosophia]

Good heavens -- thanks for this. Absolutely classic recitative, very deeply rooted -- at least that's my sense -- in the very early opera of Monteverdi and the Florentine Camerata. I'll have to visit their website and see about getting some of their CDs.

Apology

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
This doesn’t need to be posted; it’s your call: First, I think I owe you an explanation and/or apology from last week, when I enquired about 4-letter deity names from the Greek Pantheon. You seemed irritated, if not offended, that I was wasting your time by not reading you closely enough and not doing my own homework. I felt stung by your response, and I hope I might undo any offense.

First, I should have been conscious that you, of all people, use language with precision; please understand that my life as a father/husband/doctor has habituated me to parsing the imprecise use of language by others, and I frequently find myself seeking to confirm what I think I heard/read. I did that with you. I’m sorry.

Second, when you suggested Hades, Tyche, Eros, Aeon, …, I realized immediately that by “Pantheon”, I had been implicitly assuming the term referred only to the Olympian gods, but (I slap my forehead) “pantheon” does mean all gods, no? So I went off and happily discovered Iaso, goddess of recovery, daughter of Aesclepius. There seems precious little extent material about her, but I feel drawn. Aeon seems pretty severe, but I would hope that such powers would be turned to good effect upon the negative influences that the LRP is intended, after all, to banish. So my deities for the 4 directions in the LRP are Iaso, Eros, Tyche and Aeon. Again, my apologies for any offense I have given. My Aspergers, which I appear to have, is probably more severe than yours.

Re: Apology

[ecosophia]

I seem to have come across more crabbily than I intended, so please accept my apology in return. Yes, "pantheon" does mean "all the gods," and the Hermetic GD's version of the Lesser Ritual of the Pentagram uses a really odd assortment of divine names, including one -- AGLA -- that isn't actually a name at all, but an acronym! So you can range just as far afield as you wish.

Your set of four names ought to do fine. I'd never heard of Iaso, either, but there she is, and one of the benefits of polytheism is that you really can adapt rites such as this one to fit your personal needs.

Chance

[(Anonymous)]

Do you believe in randomness? Do you think that the physical world has a random or chaotic element, that it just seems indeterminate to us? What role does chance or randomness play if any in occult/magical philosophy? How does this reconcile with the different planes of existence? I recall you mentioning Ilya Prigogine some time ago and I was wondering what your thoughts were on his work.

Re: Chance

[ecosophia]

We know from physics that the basis of material reality, the quantum level, is in fact random -- it doesn't just seem indeterminate to us, it actually is indeterminate and governed by random factors. The world as we know it is generated by the interplay of random events and patterns of natural order, which is why strict determinism (the notion that everything is preordained and every event in the universe could have been predicted in advance by a sufficiently powerful mind) is demonstrably nonsense. The different planes of existence all have their own comparable interplay of order and chaos -- these two are not opposed, as in cheap fantasy fiction, but complementary, the yang and yin of the unfolding cosmos. I think very highly of Prigogine's work, and if I ever get around to writing one of those big books of occult philosophy, it's going to draw on Prigogine, Stephen Wolfram, Charles Darwin, et al. as much as on occult writings.

Ogham tiles

[kimberlysteele]

I am studying Druid Magic with the Druid Magic Handbook and the Druidry Handbook. I remember someone asking about making Ogham staves in a past Magic Monday. I recently made my first Ogham divination tiles. The wood (I don't know what kind of wood, sorry) is from an Etsy store called Lightning Laser Cuts. I used a wood burning tool to make the tree letters.

Here is a photo:

http://777vegan.com/ogham.jpg

Re: Ogham tiles

[ecosophia]

Very nice!

Yronwode

[(Anonymous)]

Would you recommend the work of catherine yronwode? You've linked to Lucky Mojo a number of times and I wanted to know your thoughts on her books. Have you tried a number of the natural magic spells there? Have you spent a lot of time with southern conjure and American folk magic?

Re: Yronwode

[ecosophia]

Yep. I'm a student of hers -- one of the things I did in the course of getting a more general knowledge of magic, after working for twenty-odd years of fairly strict Golden Dawn magic, was to enroll in her correspondence course in hoodoo, work through it, and graduate. It was well worth doing; I found conjure to be a solid and effective method of natural magic, and Cat's instructional materials are in my experience reliable and work well.

Why Monday?

[(Anonymous)]

You've mentioned that you write on Wednesdays because it is a good day for creativity because of the influence of Mercury? Why do you hold this forum on Mondays besides the alliteration?

Re: Why Monday?

[ecosophia]

Because it's usually a slow day on my blog, and I don't have a lot of other Monday commitments. Sorry. ;-)

After-life experiences

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
Last week, you mentioned, "the second death," when a person loses their etheric body. I am very interested in this just now as I recently lost a close friend to depression.

Last week, I had a dream about her and she was very depressed in my dream and was still trying to die. It may have been just a dream but i somehow feel she came to see me because I have been praying for her a lot.

I have started to pray that she become willing to be comforted and guided because I suspect she is resisting even well-intentioned guidance in the afterlife.

What books would you recommend to learn about the stages of the passage from life to death and back?

Max Rogers

Re: After-life experiences

[ecosophia]

Good heavens. That's got to be difficult for your friend, and for you. Please accept my sympathy.

My go-to book on that subject is Dion Fortune's Through the Gates of Death.

[pretentious_username]

FYI: If you're not already aware, the Sphere of Protection instructions on the AODA website seem to have been taken down - or at least moved where I'm having trouble finding them. (I 'unno if this is a "look into it" situation or not - especially since it's entirely possible you already knew about this - but I figured a heads-up was in order since IIRC you've linked to them here on Magic Mondays at least once.)

[ecosophia]

No, they've just been moved. Click on the tab marked "Publications" and then on the subhead "Articles about Druidry." They've gone to a new website design, which I appreciated -- the old one still had me on the artwork, which I never liked in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey JMG
By any chance do you have an opinion on Bhagwan osho Rajneesh? I was a fan of his works when I was younger but no I see how misguided he was.

[ecosophia]

I studied him fairly closely at one point, but not as a spiritual teacher. I wanted to get some sense of how people who become spiritual teachers run off the rails. He's always struck me as a classic example of someone who could have achieved impressive things if he'd been willing to accept the discipline of an established system of training; instead, he convinced himself that he already knew everything he needed to know, his personal imbalances became hardwired into his teachings, and he, his school, and a lot of his followers crashed and burned as a result.

Divination systems

[lunarapprentice]

JMG (BTW, I wrote Apology above under anonymous, and thank you for your kind reply),

I’ve been looking for a system of divination that I feel comfortable with. I had been using geomancy. As helpful, and sanity-promoting as I found it, I experienced an unaccountable emotional resistance to it after several months, and dropped it. One conscious objection that I had was that the casting of the 4 geomantic figures can generate 64,000+ combinations, but the system reduces this to only 128 possible querant/quiseted/judge configurations, which bothered me. I even misplaced my geomancy book. So I'm looking for another system of divination. I’ve been looking at your Coelbren system, but I’m also taking a second look at your sacred geometry system, “Techniques for Geometric Transformation” which I bought 8 years ago, but only now find myself drawn to. It feels somehow compatible with my interest in Hermes and the Greek gods generally (shades of Pythagorus, Euclid, and Plato’s academy which required geometry…) and potentially offers a spiritual dimension my mathematical proclivities. I hope that this perceived congruence/connection with my patron and related deities will motivate better adherence to the practice. (Your book also mentions in passing the ad triangulum and ad quadratim systems of sacred geometry for practical design, which makes me curious, and which I might ask you about in due course…)

There is also Tarot, I Ching, astrology….I imagine you’d advise me to choose just one system, learn it well and practice it. The Sacred Geometry Oracle is where I think I’m headed now… Is there anything you might add or change since you wrote “Techniques for Geometric Transformation”? Down the line, is there any reason to learn and use more than one system of divination? Do different systems have different strengths? When might one choose one system versus another?

Re: Divination systems

[ecosophia]

I definitely recommend learning one system of divination at a time, but there's ample reason to learn one, and then learn another, and then learn a third, etc. Different oracles are better at answering different questions, and you may also find that your needs and talents change over time. I've done tarot, geomancy, Ogham, the Sacred Geometry Oracle, the Coelbren, and horary astrology, for example, and learned something from all of them.

[(Anonymous)]

I was reading about the Christian hierarchy of prayer, discursive meditation and contemplation. As you do your own version of the first two, do you also do anything resembling contemplation?

[ecosophia]

A lot depends on what you mean by contemplation -- that's a word that has many meanings. Perhaps you can explain a little more.

[(Anonymous)]

Very recently you wrote about a series of planetary workings that took a year to complete. Where was that? I wanted to read it again but now I can't find it. Did it include meditating on the planets as well as doing rituals? With the series of books you are planning to extend the CGD system, will any of that include adding planetary material?

You also spent three years meditating on the Tree of Life. Were you taking a risk doing that? I'm thinking of the old kabbalah story where four guys make the ascent to the highest heavens - one drops dead, one goes mad, another becomes a heretic, and only Rabbi Akiva gets the experience he was looking for.

What other parts of your magical development have taken big blocks of time like that?

[ecosophia]

I routinely do sequences of magical practice that keep me busy for a couple of years at a time. Right now I'm doing the Tree of Life over again, using Druidical symbolism in place of the Hermetic GD (which I used the first time through), so that I can use the practices and meditations in a future sequel to The Celtic Golden Dawn. I don't plan on using planetary material in any of the CGD sequels, because Druidry works with the archaic solar-lunar astrology rather than planetary astrology. The Tree of Life, on the other hand, is very much grist for my mill.

Any time you read a book of mine that has practical magic in it, you're looking at the results of several years of systematic practice, because I don't publish any practical workings that I haven't done repeatedly, to make sure I know how they work and what to watch out for.

I have no idea what those four Cabalists were up to, but I've never heard of anyone dropping dead or going mad from the practice of Cabalistic meditation and Pathworking. As for heresy, well, we're all basically heretics anyway; as I recall, the Greek root of that word means "having an opinion." As for the planetary workings you've mentioned, I honestly don't recall writing that, but I've done extensive sequences of planetary workings using the methods of Renaissance astrological magic.

[(Anonymous)]

Is there any way to affect the time and speed at which karmic effects manifest? For example could you create a 'karma comb' to bring the tangles and tensions to the surface and release them in one go, so you know it's all out of the way? Or could you delay it so it works out more gently and gradually?

[ecosophia]

You can always speed things up. Regular spiritual practice of any kind tends to do that, and so does the simple act of asking the universe to let you deal with your karma up front. (I don't recommend this, but it's an option.) I know of no way to slow things down again...

Geomancy

[casmen900]

Good day Mr. Greer,

I've been using pencil and paper for my geomancy castings but I feel what seems to be a mechanical pattern building, which has led to rather similar results.
I read somewhere that you favor ‘druid sticks’. True?

Also, what is your opinion on cyber casting, I mean, after all a machine is supposed to "catch" our vibrations...
How does Anima mundi cope with this, should I say, "interference"?

Thank you.

Re: Geomancy

[ecosophia]

I don't use paper and pencil unless I have no other options, precisely because it's hard to keep things random. Other than that, though, I've used "druid wands," dice, geomancy cards, plain playing cards (red = 1, black = 2), and the first four digits or letters (a = 1, b = 2, c = 1, etc.) off the license plates of the first four cars to drive past me, just for starters. I've also used computer programs, and though I don't like them, they work. So you basically have your choice...

Geomancy

[casmen900]

Another question on Geomancy

In checking (First and Seventh house figures) for the outcome of a lawsuit I got the following:

Seventh house passes nowhere.

First house passes to eighth and ninth which in turn make favorable aspects to fortunate Fortuna Major and Puella and also unfavorable aspects to unfortunate Carcer and Tristitia.

Do we go to Table 6-3 (page 130) of your book The Art and Practice of Geomancy and sum all the aspects to get a plus or minus forecast?

What about the "unfavorable"aspects to "fortunate" figures or "favorable" aspects to "unfavorable" figures... Do we compute them?

Re: Geomancy

[ecosophia]

Nope. You start by looking at the figures in the first and seventh houses, and consider what they themselves have to say; then you see which of them, if any, establishes one of the modes of perfection with the tenth house, which represents success in any reading about a conflict. Since the significator of the querent in the first house passes to the ninth, in conjunction with the figure in the tenth, while the significator of the opponent in the seventh doesn't pass at all, the querent wins.

You haven't mentioned which figures are in the first, seventh, and tenth, so I can't tell you whether the querent will benefit from the victory, or why the other party will lose, or any of the other things you can extract from the figures occupying those houses.

Aspects are minor factors. Aspects made by passing figures are even more minor. One of the common mistakes in geomantic divination is to pay attention to the minor factors and ignore the major ones -- which are, again, what figures are the significators of the querent, quesited, and any other primary factors (such as the opponent in the seventh), and whether they form modes of perfection among themselves. That's what matters; the minor factors simply provide little bits of commentary on the main message provided by the significators and their relationships. For example, in this case, the querent will win the lawsuit and get some of the opponent's money (the querent's significator passing to the eighth) due to making a more favorable impression with the court (the significator passing to the ninth).

Angels, radionics and memory.

[sea_spray]

Hi JMG
You've said that gods shouldn't be called upon in the SOP with a baby in the house. Does this still apply to angels? How far away would is be safe to perform that kind of SOP? What would be the effect on the child if this kind of magic was performed near them? Would the angelic corospendences be: Raphael-east-air, Michael-north-fire(southern hemisphere), Gabriel-west-water, Uriel-south-earth,
Sandalphon-sprit-below, Metatron-sprit-above.

What radionics machine design did you use, I've seen so many variants. And do you have a particular manual you would recommend.

One last question if I haven't already used up my quota. Can the art of memory be used with a smaller form of memory container like a suitcase of memory items. I just find imagining something I can hold easier than building a garden or building. I admit I haven't read the art of memory so I might be making a basic mistake.

Thank you for all your time and efforts spent answering peoples questions here.

Re: Angels, radionics and memory.

[ecosophia]

I'm not sure how many times I need to repeat this, but it's not the SoP that you have to worry about practicing around children. It's full-on ceremonial magic of the sort that brings down divine energies or conjures spirits into manifestation. The SoP is fine. Really, truly, I mean this. Okay?

I used a Hieronymus machine, two dials, transistor-based electronics, which I built myself. It worked quite well.

Before doing anything with the Art of Memory, please do check out a copy of Frances Yates' book The Art of Memory and read at least the first two chapters. It sounds to me as though you've got some very garbled ideas about how the art works, and the best way to fix that is to get some familiarity with the ideas. Then you can see what works best for you.

A good chuckle

[(Anonymous)]

Not a magic question, sorry JMG, but I couldn't think of a better way to pass it on than a blog comment. This goes to a point you made many, many times in the ADR and elsewhere:

https://xkcd.com/2011

It couldn't be put more plainly-- either we "travel the stars", or we "end in fire". NO OTHER CHOICES ALLOWED! Good grief. Maybe we could take a shot at living decently right where we are?

Re: A good chuckle

[ecosophia]

That doesn't make me chuckle; it makes me shake my head. I wonder what the author would say if someone pointed out to him that he's just rehashing the logic of fundamentalist Christianity -- either we go to space (i.e., Heaven) or all ends in the flames of Hell. Talk about the return of the repressed...

[(Anonymous)]

You've mentioned before that plastics, and fossil fuels more generally, have deadening effects. I have a couple more questions on this:

Aside from avoiding fossil fuels/plastics, what advice do you have to avoid the effect? My current living arrangements make it hard to avoid plastic (roommates who are obsessed with all things plastic), but I still want to avoid the deadening effects.

Do you think pouring all the pollution into the air has substantial impacts on the etheric and astral levels as well as on the physical?

[ecosophia]

Perform a daily banishing ritual, and spend time out in the open air among trees and other green and growing things as often as you can. That generally seems to do the trick.

No question, air pollution affects the etheric as well as the physical. Astral pollution is a little different -- we produce that with our minds rather than our smokestacks.

A question for you

[ferngladefarm.com.au]

Hi John Michael,

You know, I was completely unaware that there were even heathens down under. You are onto everything!

Thanks again for providing this forum for asking questions regarding the occult.

I am wondering if you have any idea as to what I would personally gain out of studying the occult? I realise that it is a big ask, but we've conducted dialogue for almost a decade and I've got a fair idea about who you are, and you have a fair idea about who I am. It is just that I have a lot of demands upon my time and I am inherently conservative (in the old school meaning of that word) to a fault and don't take on board tasks lightly. Plus, I'm frankly unsure about the future. Things and events are proceeding perhaps a bit faster than I'm comfortable with.

Congratulations on finishing the manuscript. I am always impressed with your ability to write.

Cheers

Chris

Re: A question for you

[ecosophia]

I don't recommend even considering studying occultism unless you've got a fair amount of spare time, and you find yourself powerfully drawn to the occult. It's like taking up a martial art, say, or learning how to play a musical instrument: you're looking at years of steady work before you can do anything significant with it. What you yourself would gain out of it is a hard question to anyone else to answer, because the point of occult training is self-development: taking your own innate capacities, clearing away the barriers to their expression, and taking them as far as they'll go. This is why the highest grade of initiation in the Golden Dawn system is called Ipsissimus, which means "most completely yourself." Is that something that calls you powerfully enough that you're willing to make time every day for the necessary practices? Only you can decide.

[violetcabra]

First, I want to echo your warm thanks for the potluck; it was an utter delight to meet so many wonderful people, have so many fascinating conversations, eat such good food and just hang out. Likewise, I want to give a hearty thanks to Peter and Chiara, our gracious hosts!

Second, JMG, you mentioned the qualitative differences between working with Druid and Norse deities. This interested me, and got me pondering. Do you have other distinct impressions of pantheons you've worked with? How are the Judeo-Christian energies of the Hermetic Golden Dawn different experientially than others? Have you worked with Lovecraft's deities in this capacity, if so what was that like? When you invoked the names of the Beatles did you get a response distinct from the others as well? I'm serious, btw, this is utterly fascinating to me.

Working with the Hellenic pantheon I've felt the space fill with the warm, aromatic 'scents' of forests at noon on a dry day, with strong notes of Pine, Oak, Sage and Frankenincense. The banishing ritual with the Greek pantheon is thus, in my experience, much like watering aromatic and protective plants circumscribing the space.

[ecosophia]

The Hermetic GD to me has always felt strong and luminous but a bit brittle, without the sort of placid immovability of Druidical energies or the explosive power of Heathen energies. I haven't worked with the Lovecraftian pantheon, though -- more or less on a dare from Isabel Cooper -- I'm currently fitting them onto the Tree of Life. The Beatles ritual -- which, by the way, involved tracing the peace symbol in the four quarters -- won't actually banish much, but it does bring through a warm, brightly colored, mildly psychedelic energy.

Glad to hear you're having good results with the Greek working! Since Western occultism has its roots in Neoplatonism, I'm not surprised that the Greek deities would respond well.

Alcohol and tobacco

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

In Learning Ritual Magic you advise against practicing within an hour of consuming food, or sex, because the energies are busy elsewhere. Does this rule apply to other magical systems of yours, or it should be seen only in the context of the generally penitential approach of the Judeo-Christian tradition on which LRM is based?

I wonder if you have any special recommendations to make regarding the (moderate) consumption of alcohol and tobacco. In particular, is it bad to occasionally smoke the pipe or the cigar (not inhaling, of course) before CGD practice? I find it quite relaxing, and enjoyable, but I wanted to ask if there were counterindications.

Many thanks.

-Gigoachef

Re: Alcohol and tobacco

[ecosophia]

The suggestion that you should wait an hour after eating or lovemaking before practicing magic has nothing to do with penitence! It's a matter of letting your energy body settle back to normal before doing something strenuous with it, and I'd consider it a good general rule.

I've never heard of anyone who had trouble with tobacco and magic, so that's probably not an issue. (I don't use tobacco myself -- when I was growing up, my dad was a two-pack-a-day Benson & Hedges smoker, and the nausea I used to get sitting in the back seat on long car rides with the smoke piling up in fetid clouds around me has put me permanently off that particular plant -- but a lot of the older generation of operative mages smoked, some of them like chimneys, and it didn't seem to affect them at all when it came to magic.) As far as alcohol is concerned, don't meditate when you're under the influence -- it's supposed to be bad for your nervous system, and I don't encourage taking risks where that's concerned -- and if you're hung over, wait until your head and stomach have calmed down before you do your practices. Other than that, well, pay attention to your results and make such adjustments as will yield better practices.

[(Anonymous)]

Re: the glamour experiment

Instead of the needle taped to the router, I have made the amulet of protection from Encyclopedia of Natural Magic, and set that on my router. So far no difference. Thoughts on that?

[(Anonymous)]

To clarify, no difference between the needle and the amulet.

[(Anonymous)]

John--

In _The Mystical Qabalah_, Fortune comments that Crowley opined that Daath formed the apex of a tetrahedron in another plane, of which Kether, Binah, and Chokmah formed the base, but she gave no reference (or none that I've come across thus far). Would you happen to know where Crowley mentioned this idea and in what context he discussed it? (The concept parallels an interpretation of the Tree that I'm still working out.)

Also, having learned my lesson from last week regarding the proper phrasing of questions ;) what is the rationale for the shift of language at the Fourth Cantref with respect to the banishing portion of the ritual?

Many thanks!

David, by the lake

Fortune and Crowley

[deborah_bender]

I'm reading Alan Richardson's _Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune_. They carried on a correspondence for several years. If you can't find this statement in any of Crowley's published works, it's possible that he said it to her in a letter.

[fluiddruid]

Hi, JMG!

Since you have a Freemason on the picture for this Monday I want to ask you a specific question.

I've recently come across a speculation that the Statue of Liberty is a monument constructed by French Freemasons in dedication to Egyptian goddess Isis. Though a more likely version seems to be that the statue actually is a representation of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty.

Could you comment on this?

[ecosophia]

I wonder if any of the people doing this have taken the time even to go and read the Wikipedia page on the Statue of Liberty, much less to pick up one of the many detailed books on the subject. Um, no, it's not Isis, nor is it a Roman goddess. Look it up!