Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

Midnight is just a few minutes away, and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and 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.  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.  And further:  I'm going to draw a line, a hard one, under questions involving the evocation of spirits. Down the road a bit I'll be doing a post on the blog about why that's far less important than it's been made to look, and how the way of occult initiation takes a radically different path; in the meantime, I'm tired of fielding repetitive questions from people (or, quite possibly, one person using many sock puppets) that rotate gyroscopically around that one habit.

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 twenty-ninth published book, and remains far and away the most successful of my books from the peak oil era. Its genesis, like most of my other peak oil books, began on the blog I ran in those days, The Archdruid Report, with a series of posts on the appropriate technology movement -- one of the most promising of the movements of the 1970s ecological scene, which attempted to craft advanced technologies that could work within the limits of sustainability. Though it was erased from collective memory by mass media and corporate interests, it produced quite a few useful technologies, and this book was my attempt to bring those back to the attention of those who might use them. Given the steady sales of this book, I still have hope. If you're interested, you can get a copy here.

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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, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Comments

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

1) That's the big puzzle, of course. We don't have good information on that. What we have are some odd out-of-place technologies -- maps that couldn't have been made without technology our civilization didn't have until the 19th century, artifacts of aluminum (which can't be made without electricity), plausible accounts of aircraft, and the like -- which make sense as relict technologies from the last of the glacial civilizations, traditionally called "Atlantis." None of them are eons ahead of, say, Rome; they're more advanced, surely, but I know of no evidence for unknown energy sources or technologies beyond our current understanding. Nor is there evidence for widespread fossil fuel use -- if that had happened, there wouldn't be any left for us.

My hypothesis is that Atlantean technology peaked somewhere around where ours reached around 1900, and was much less widely distributed -- occult traditions have it that the high technology they had was monopolized by temple priesthoods, and the vast majority of people had no access to it. That would make sense of the sparse nature of the relict technologies, and also of the lack of large-scale earth traces (our giant dams, for example, have no equivalent in the late ice age -- but we couldn't have built them without diesel fuel). It probably included things we don't know about and missed some things we got, but that's the nature of the beast.

2), No, though if those hominids were more widespread in ancient times it might make sense of some branches of folklore. If legends are anything to go by, the people of Lemuria were early Homo sapiens, and very dark-skinned -- their descendants are to be found in Australia, some of the tribal peoples of India, and Africa.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[xcalibur_djs]

While there are fakes, some OOPArts (out-of-place artifacts) seem to be genuine. There's also too many strange references, eg Vimanas, which seem to represent advanced technology that was confuddling for ancient authors. Then there's the antikythera mechanism, an analog computer from Ancient Greece which could calculate astronomical events and so forth -- it's proven genuine, and it's likely a relict of Atlantean technology. The Ancient Greeks were brilliant, but for them to invent such a thing out of whole cloth is a bit of a stretch, you have to admit.

Keep in mind that there's alot we don't know even about the Bronze Age. Our knowledge of the Minoans, for example, is limited to ruins, artifacts, written references, myths, and fragments. We can't read Linear A (although Linear B encodes archaic Greek), just bits & pieces, a few words and concepts here & there. Point is, the Minoans were a major civilization lasting a couple millennia within our own cycle, and our understanding of it is dim -- which only goes to show how much more obscured the pre-Bronze age civilizations are, shrouded by the mists of time.

Also, if Atlantean technology reached 1900, does that make them steampunk? lol

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

Atlantean steampunk sounds like a new music genre!

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[(Anonymous)]

There is a way to make aluminum without electricity, it just requires VERY high temperatures, is rather low yield by comparison, and will inevitably produce aluminum contaminated with a few percent sodium and/or potassium. I am yet to see an analysis of reputed ancient aluminum artifacts that is inconsistent with this possibility.

I have also seen persuasive arguments that the ancient Chinese aluminum artifacts are likely the result of some brilliant Chinese alchemists who figured out the high-temperature process downstream of the unique properties of the technologies of Chinese ceramics.

Re: Occult & astrological history, part II

[ecosophia]

Since the use of electricity is much simpler than any other method, and we have several surviving metal-acid batteries from the ancient Near East -- the handwaving that's been used to try to dismiss the "Baghdad battery" and its equivalents is way past straining at gnats and swallowing camels -- it seems to me that the more logical suggestion is that electricity, generated by chemical means, is the "secret fire" alchemists discussed in such veiled terms in their writings, and that any claim that the aluminum artifacts in Chinese tombs had some more technically difficult source really needs some evidence.