Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just a few minutes to midnight, so we can launch 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 eighteenth published book, and it happened via a chain of accidents that still has me fielding baffled questions. Here's what happened. 

My first book on geomancy, the fourth book I published, was released by a certain rather clueless publisher. I warned the marketing people there that they needed to make sure that their sales staff didn't get confused and think that it was a book on Wiccan feng-shui. Sure enough, their sales staff got confused and marketed it to all the little witch bookstores that thrived in those days as a book on Wiccan feng-shui. Once they got their copies and found out that it was a book on a somewhat fussy Renaissance method of divination, of course, they shipped their copies back to the publisher with irate letters; as a result, Earth Divination, Earth Magic became the first book of mine to go out of print.

Fast forward to 2008. Hot on the heels of the success of The Druidry Handbook and The Druid Magic Handbook, I tried to place Earth Divination, Earth Magic with Weiser. They weren't interested in a reprint but said they'd be happy with a new book on the same subject. So I wrote them a new book that covered exactly the same ground as Earth Divination, Earth Magic, and they snapped it up. Much later, Aeon Books picked up Earth Divination, Earth Magic and brought out a new edition. And that, my children, is why I have two books on geomancy from two different publishers covering exactly the same material, in head to head competition with each other. Most prolific authors end up with some such bizarrerie in their backlist sooner or later...

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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

How to start in Druidry from India??

[arnavjindal]

Hello JMG
Sir first of all thank you for writing it has truly changed my worldview. Mainly I started to follow your work on collapse and things related to it and just things you say and write reading it just feels right not something more or less.

On the Personal Front, I lost my Grandmother about 2 weeks ago and her death was so unexpected that I am shocked not that it was out of the blue like she was hospitalized for 2 months and it was extended because of surgery which was supposed to be safe had after it was done extreme complications because of other co-morbidities due to her age. But she was completely on the path of recovery and where for about 2 weeks we were able to take her home in fact on the day of her death 1 hour before her passing her blood vitals were taken and they were all fine and her blood pressure was normal but in half-hour, she suffered a massive cardiac arrest. Well, the aftermath of it was very painful and my energies were spent on consoling others but the only thing that I can remember in all these days is that for the past 10-15 years whenever I used to ask her what she wanted to do and every she would say that she would pray to God that all her pain gets alleviated and she leaves us all to go to him and I mocking it but now it is all haunting me do you think is it a lesson that she is giving me as her spirit I don't know.

Sorry for the long post but the point is before I was a bit hesitant to delve deep into druidry/magic/occult because my surface-level reading of it made me feel out of my depth as a human being but after her death, I am even more determined to delve deeper into it So sir can you recommend where to start and something specific to India/Hindu traditions as I am from Mumbai.
Thank You

Re: How to start in Druidry from India??

[ecosophia]

I'm very sorry to hear about your grandmother's sudden passing! I also recently suffered the loss of someone dear to me, but it was a relatively slow process, with plenty of time for everyone to prepare for the transition; I wince at the thought of what you're going through.

As yet, as far as I know, Druidry hasn't really begun to establish itself in the Indian subcontinent and I don't know of anyone who's written anything about Druidry specific to Hindu traditions. You might consider starting with my recent book The Druid Way, which is an introduction for beginners, and see whether you can adapt it to your personal spirtiual needs.