Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

Midnight is  here, 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 about getting goodies from spirits are also 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've discussed this in a post on my blog.

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 was my fortieth published book, and the product of an investigation that's still ongoing. I happened to notice back in the early 1990s, as a result of voracious reading in odd books, that a surprising number of temple traditions around the world are connected to legends about increased agricultural fertility. I know, that's supposed to be mere superstition -- but it's funny how often "mere superstition" turns into evidence that the ancients knew more than it's fashionable for modern intellectuals to admit. That launched a quest that resulted in this book. I've come to theorize that woven into the design and use of certain specific kinds of temples is a lost folk technology that boosts agricultural productivity. I've collected physical evidence (including controlled double-blind studies) that there are energies known to science that could have been concentrated and put to use with resonating chambers of stone, designed according to specific geometries, filled with volatile organic compounds, and activated with sound waves. What's more, it's a technology that could be rediscovered and put to work to help plants thrive now.

This book was my first progress report on that investigation.  It's about to go out of print -- Llewellyn, the original publisher, still has a few copies left on sale, which you can get here -- but there'll be another edition in due time, and probably a further book not too long after that, as I'm continuing to find relevant data. Yes, there are also other people busy with this; the prospect of a working model, so that the details of the technology can be tested in real world conditions, may not be far off.

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

Comments

[jdecandia]

I have been sporadically documenting my journey here on Magic Monday and elsewhere.

I have been working my way through the Kabbalah based guidebook Paths of Wisdom written by our host and how made it to the Yesod sphere meditative practice. During my meditation, I have felt an immense pressure below my heart and in the middle of my forehead.Has anyone had this experience when meditating?

[ecosophia]

Yes, mostly among people who -- in this or a previous life -- did certain kinds of work with the solar plexus and third eye centers. Relax and try to let the energies flow out into the rest of your body; you'll be fine.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello John Micheal Greer,

In the Druidry Handbook there are directives in Spiral Five that suggests one should learn to summon, direct and banish the energies of the three Druid elements. These three elements don't come up much in the Druid Magic Handbook.

Is such a practice described anywhere else, and if not is this something you would be willing to talk about a bit here?

Thank you,
JML

[ecosophia]

I don't recall that being described anywhere, but it's not difficult to do. Each element has its symbol -- the circle for nwyfre, the triangle for gwyar, and the square for calas. Trace each of them clockwise to invoke and counterclockwise to banish. I recommend meditating thorougly on all three elements before you begin working with this, so you know what to watch for.

[(Anonymous)]

That is really nice - I was searching too far not remembering those symbols. I was thinking about relating each element to one of the rays of light and a letter of the OIW name, like a "trigrammaton".

Calas, Green, Ovate: O - Plennydd
Nwyfre, White, Druide: I - Alawn
Gwyar, Blue, Bard: W - Gwron

I feel there is some potential there, but I am still missing things.

[ecosophia]

An excellent theme for meditation!

[(Anonymous)]

My older daughter is about to turn seven. I mentioned it was a sacred number, and started by reminding her of the seven traditional planets. I was surprised when she immediately replied “yes, and the seven archangels.” She’s probably previously been told, in passing, that there are seven traditional archangels, and she may have read about them on her own too (we have many Orthodox and Catholic children’s books). But it still seemed like another hint of her past, which seems from other hints to have been deeply Catholic and esoteric.

For example, we have a picture book on the life of Mary, and at age 5, after our first read of it, she started flipping the pages and asking if we had skipped anything because she felt something was “missing.” She checked several times, looking for missing pages. I was at that time unfamiliar with the structure of the rosary (my background and our current church is Orthodox) but realized a short time later that the book was structured like the rosary, with episodes of Mary’s life in rosary-order, but as it was under 40 pages it did not include all the mysteries in the rosary; some were indeed “missing,” as my daughter put it.

I’m mostly surprised these things continue to bubble up now as she turns 7, and I was wondering at what age do these hints tend to stop being so present?

Thanks!

[ecosophia]

It's quite possible that they'll keep on coming up all through her life, and that she intends to spend this incarnation in Christian devotional practice; there may be a nunnery in her future, for example.

Happy Birthday to Temporary Reality!

[(Anonymous)]

It's Temporary Reality's birthday on August 20th and she's plenty magic!
(hey, Papa!)
x

erika

Re: Happy Birthday to Temporary Reality!

[ecosophia]

Happy birthday, Temporary!

Re: Happy Birthday to Temporary Reality!

[jprussell]

Happy birthday temporaryreality!

Comment and a question

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, thank you for all your efforts here.

This Stuff Works: For relationship reasons, I wanted to increase my libido. I started praying to Venus on Fridays and making offerings of olive oil. This has worked very well.

I have had some success with affirmations recently. Does this mean that I am more susceptible to other people's propaganda?

Re: Comment and a question

[ecosophia]

1) Delighted to hear it.

2) No, it means that you used to be more susceptible to other people's propaganda. As you work with affirmations you're taking over those aspects of your mind and putting them to your own uses.

[pleiadesdreaming]

Hello all. For a few years now there's been a vein of memes that joke about the difference of wild places (usually forests) in Europe vs North America, with forests in Europe portrayed as friendlier and less dangerous than the ones in North America. Usually the entities singled out are gnomes and other less aggressive creatures frequently mentioned in European folklore as opposed to the bloodier wendigo, skinwalker, and other predatory entities (usually from native American folklore). As someone who hasn't spent much time in European climes, I was wondering if there was some truth to that. For America's part,my personal experience in forests in the upper Great lakes region have not so much as air of danger, but of an indifferent aloofness, if that makes sense. I do get the impression that the entities here are very watchful though, and because I am careful to treat the environment and it's denizens with respect I've never felt a lurking danger. However, I would say the desert (particularly the sonoran) absolutely is more hostile towards humans, concerning both the entities that live there and the effect it has on people who live or travel through there- the only times I've been genuinely unnerved and in actual danger has been in that desert, and I know several people who've had harrowing experiences there as well. I know it's just a silly meme comparing the folklore of different cultures, but there does seem to be some truth to the assertion. What does the better travelled commetariat think?

*I do not mean to imply that no dangerous/hostile entities exist in European forests, I'm just asking if the general level of danger or aggression is lower there.*

[ecosophia]

I've never been in a European forest, so I'll also be interested to hear what others have to say. I know that the wilderness areas I know best -- the temperate rain forests and mountains of western Washington -- are infinitely indifferent to human life. They're not hostile; they're not even bored by us. Stray ten feet off the trail and unless you know what you're doing you can be hopelessly lost, and nobody will ever find your bones.

[weilong]

Neither have I ever been in a forest in Europe, but I used to spend a lot of time in the mountains in western Washington and northern New Mexico. Now I spend a lot of time in the forest in central Japan. I have to say that the forests of Japan have a distinctly different feel from those in North America.

The vibe I get from the forest in Japan might be described as adversarial. It's not that the forest is out to get us, exactly. But to the extent that humans have carved out enclaves, the forest wants that land back, and takes it at every opportunity.

Western Washington Forests

[(Anonymous)]

FWIW, way back in the 1970s, one of my cousins went for a solo hike on the Olympic Peninsula. He was an Eagle Scout, so knew a thing or two about life in the wild. Still, he got lost, but managed to eventually get found. One of the rangers he encountered after this ordeal told him that many people walk into the forest on the Olympic Peninsula every year, and are never seen again.

OtterGirl

Re: Western Washington Forests

[ecosophia]

It's less common now that cell phones are so ubiquitous, but even so, it still happens. All you have to do is get confused about which way the trail is, and pretty soon it's 40°F and raining, night is closing in, and if you don't have adequate gear your chances of avoiding a quick death from hypothermia are small enough not to be worth worrying about. When I was in the Boy Scouts we all learned this, and we also learned never to get out of sight of at least one other Scout.

[xcalibur_djs]

I guess you'd have to compile many anecdotes to get a sketch of the energies of various regions of wilderness. Certainly, I've noticed that some places are indifferent to human life, as if they are foreign to us (or we to them, more like). I've mentioned before that when I was camping in the Catskills pre-Covid, I picked up on a sort of wild, "badass" energy from the trees there, but that's just my impression.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
I believe I saw in a previous post you mention in passing that metal rimmed glasses could affect vision. Did I understand that correctly? And if so, could you elaborate a bit? I am just curious as my vision is entirely different for the last 3 years without medical explanation, perhaps metaphysical explanation relating to what I need to focus on in my life, but I did change my glasses from plastic to metal. And perhaps that is adding to the puzzle.
Thank you!
Tamar

[ecosophia]

Um, no, that wasn't me. I use metal framed cheaters tolerably often for reading and have never noticed any difference between those and the geekier plastic framed variety.