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 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

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning,

Wanted to share this article about shamanism and divination in South Korea, if anyone's interested. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-koreas-young-shamans-revive-ancient-tradition-with-social-media-2024-06-08/

Question: I had a roller coaster week, and the Ogham were correct all week - a bird's-eye view the first day, and more details as the week went on. It's not the first time, of course, but to have the whole week clearly laid out for me was eerie. I've read that a common sentiment among Stoics in the Hellenistic world was something like "if astrology and divination work at all, then the universe must be at least partially deterministic."
Any advice (or book recommendations) for dealing with a creeping realization that the modern view of free will is probably not up to par?

Thanks
Noodles

[booklover1973]

Divination and fortunetelling have made a comeback, too, in North Korea, where economic conditions are quite harsh, and, is practiced and sought out even by higher-ranking people despite crackdowns by the government which considers fortune-telling to be an anti-socialist, superstitious activity.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this! Interesting stuff.

As for the whole free will vs. determinism business, I have yet to encounter anything that doesn't go all the way from one extreme to another, which is frankly silly. From an occult perspective, we all have the capacity to gain some degree of free will, but most of us never develop that capacity; in the early stages, it's not much more than a little wiggle room, but it can increase with practice. That's why occultists do things to strengthen and train their wills, so they have some freedom in using the will.