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've decided that questions involving the evocation of spirits are permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I'll have a post on this on the blog in due time.

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 thirtieth published book and, in sales terms, one of my least successful works yet. I was invited by a small psychology press, Karnac Books, to write a book about the psychological implications of peak oil. It was an interesting project and one that I accepted with enthusiasm; it got a nice clean editing job and a good cover, and saw print. The result was one of my better books, a tolerably crisp analysis of the cascading mental health consequences of the mismatch between the modern mythology of progress and the reality of decline. Those few psychologists who noticed its existence at all, however, responded with horror or flat dismissal. Its sales have been so modest that, while it remains in print (with a firm that bought out most of Karnac's titles), the distributor that supplies stock to my Bookshop store doesn't carry it. You can get it from your favorite online bookstore.

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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. See you next week!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Good day, JMG and all! I hope everyone is doing well.

1) I was reading the chapter "Training of the Will" in Regardie's _Tree of Life_ book, and I was quite surprised at his suggestion that you should punish yourself for every violation of your will-training vows by cutting your arm with a razor, and that you might end up with scars on both forearms before the "rebellious ego" finally gets the message and obeys the Will.

While this action seems rather extreme to me, my reaction is no doubt a reflection of the sensibilities of our time. But I was intrigued by the idea in general of inflicting some kind of punishment for breaking an oath you've made while trying to train the will. For myself at least, it might be helpful to impose a penalty of some kind, though probably something very annoying or inconvenient rather than physically harmful. What are your thoughts?

2) I'm putting together a reading list of books to study while working through the GSF and waiting for your Cabala book to come out. You suggested _The Tree of Spirit_ (which I ordered and should be arriving soon) and Fortune's _Mystical Qalbalah" (which I've read through once as a library book, but don't own). I was also looking through the books on my shelf that I haven't studied in depth yet and found Regardie's _Tree of Life_ and your edited/translated copy of Levi's _Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic_.

I'm going to start on Gilbert's book first, but I was wondering what you thought about the other books just mentioned. You said that studying Fortune's book would be helpful, and while I don't currently own it, I can certainly get it. And I wondered what you thought about Regardie's and Levi's books. Would they be helpful, too, as a preparation for your Cabala book and the GSF curriculum in general? And if so, in what order would you recommend reading them?

Thank you,

KT

P.S. Happy belated birthday!

[ecosophia]

1) Regardie borrowed that from Aleister Crowley, who was rather noticeably into sadomasochism. I haven't found punishment useful in my own will training; instead, simply choose tasks that will exercise your will and do them. You might decide, for example, to learn ten things about a city you've never visited and know nothing about; you might decide to put a note somewhere in your house that says "touch your nose," and touch your nose every time you pass it -- then change the rule, once that habit is established, and stop touching your nose when you pass it. You might decide to get to some place in town on foot at exactly 5:36 this afternoon, for no reason other than that you choose to, and then do it. I found that sort of thing much more useful as it establishes habits of action rather than inhibition.

2) You can read any or all of them in any order. It's just a matter of familiarizing yourself with certain concepts.

[(Anonymous)]

Ok, now it makes sense with the connection to Crowley. Your will-training suggestions sound much more reasonable. I'll give something of that sort a try.

And I think I'll work on Levi's book since I can also read through the monthly book discussions for some help.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions,

KT

[(Anonymous)]

Your mileage my vary, but I find punishment counterproductive to will training. If I notice I'm not following my will, I should immediately go and do the thing I was willing myself to do. Finding the razor and inflicting the punishment is still not doing the thing, and makes me dwell on not doing the thing rather than on the thing I should be doing. It can also more subtly corrupt the will training process because it introduces a second end - fear of punishment. I would rather do something because I will it, not because I fear a punishment.

Or in the words of Monty Python's God "Don't be sorry, be quiet!"

[(Anonymous)]

Those are great points. I think you're right that it's best not to introduce fear into process. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. What you said is very helpful.

I'll just be quiet now and go about doing what I will...

KT

[not_gandalf]

When I was given to trying this sort of thing I thought the razor blade thing was bat s**t crazy. Instead, I just wore a rubber band around my wrist and snapped it when I slipped. Nowadays though, I think that approach (punishment) is entirely wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, the more I think about what's been said here, the more I believe the punishment approach is wrong.

KT

[ecosophia]

I don't really like harping on Crowley's failures, but those were numerous and spectacular enough that as a rule, if he did something, you'll get better results by doing something else.