ecosophia: (Default)
John Michael Greer ([personal profile] ecosophia) wrote2024-08-18 11:46 pm

Magic Monday

The Secret of the TempleMidnight 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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Bookshop logoI'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!***

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Not the OP but this insanely fascinating stuff. I too thought that the methods in your Paths of Wisdom book is limited to just the Hermetic tree of life and its angels.

For how many days would the practice of regular prayer to the Saint and projecting into his/her image symbol? The Saints I have in mind are St Expedite (Saint of hard times) and St Jude (same function). I ask because of your warnings regarding repeated spirit vision scrying in the book.


Also, is the Enochian system not following the hierarchical structure of Hermeticism; elements, planets and signs? I thought that Enochian was just another alternative approach to traditional Hermetic magick.


Finally what if no symbols exist for a spirit we're interested in? I assume that the spirits of Druidry in your books have no lore, and hence no symbols. Just as there is no symbol for the 'spirit ruler of my neighbourhood'.

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 04:38 pm (UTC)(link)
a) Last week, there was discussion of altering the Cabalistic Cross to utilize the Telluric Current as well as the Solar Current. I've tried it: the specific change I made was bringing energy up from the Earth, as well as down from the sphere above, when I say Malkuth. Since the version I practice has my hand descend down to my solar plexus, this is where I had the energies meet. I did it three times a day this past week as part of my general daily ritual work, and can report that it seems to work very well. I got a surprisingly strong, but pleasant jolt of energy at my solar plexus, an energy blockage there dissolved, and so far I think this variation works well, at least with the LBRP, R+C, and MP.

b) Last week, I asked about my grandmother bringing my cousin into the R+C. She has mixed it up: one day she showed up with my brother. It turns out this was the same day someone decided to try to pressure him to drinking again, a habit he gave up because among other things alcoholism runs in the family. It seems like my grandmother is now active on the inner planes, and is using my ritual work to help our family. However, aside from her showing up during my rituals, I have not gotten any sense of what my grandmother is up to in the inner planes.

I had zero interest in ancestor worship given that I have a troubled relationship with my family, but apparently my grandmother is now pursuing a relationship of sorts, which seems especially odd because we did not have the best relationship while she was alive. Do you know of any traditional advice or places to look to figure out options which this relationship might open up for me?

[personal profile] booklover1973 2024-08-19 04:46 pm (UTC)(link)
What does a conjunction between Mars and Jupiter mean in mundane astrology as an outer planet conjunctikn as such? There was such a conjunction at the 14th August. Thanks!

Re: Brain Tingles

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 04:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Hi, I'll offer my take in case it helps. In Buddhism, these brain tingles would be called "piti". There's a detailed discussion of piti in The Mind Illuminated. I understand piti to be a form of what occultists call subtle energy.

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 04:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Do you think this obsession over AI might be an actual curse?

As a direct result of the push for AI, the internet's business model is breaking down. The basic business model for most of the net is that the big companies package content together, use it as bait to bring consumers in, and place ads next to it, promising huge returns to venture capitalists, and this being threated on all sides. Ad blockers are increasingly common as ads grow more intrusive because AI can push it right to the limit of what will prompt people to leave at that moment; content producers are increasingly shifting to other areas (such as paid sites, Substack, or offline entirely) as the parts of the internet relying on advertising grows less functional as broken AI systems are used to try to keep it clean enough for advertisers; these same advertisers are questioning why the should find their ads next to content promoting suicide, overt neo-Nazis, or the like, and asking how they know a human even clicked the links at this point given how common bots are; and venture capitalists are looking at this and growing increasingly concerned that their investments won't be repaid, especially given how much the entire thing costs because of the insane resource and energy requirements for a machine learning system.

And almost the entire tech world is acting as if bringing AI, one of the core causes of this problem is the obvious, and only possible, solution...

Scrying & Pathworking

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 05:02 pm (UTC)(link)
1. Were the Golden Dawn the first to invent the technique of scrying in spirit vision or were magicians already familiar with it? I don't see it in the grimoires.

2. Can the technique be used to converse with spirits of the dead like loved ones and figures of the past?

3. Is it best to start from the 4 elements, and move up to the planets and sephirots?

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
> I recommend sitting down with a notebook and a pen, writing "Why I
> hate being married" at the top of the page, and then just start
> writing down whatever comes to mind, without editing or censoring
> anything. In subsequent days, vary the question to include things
> such as "Why I hate my wife" and "Why I want to ruin my life."

This is a good advice for a lot of people. Students who are struggling in school and lack motivation can write "Why I hate doing homework" in their journals, and then later ask themselves "Why I hate going to school" and "Why I want to ruin my life" etc

2026, Human Initiation

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 05:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Dear JMG,

You mentioned in a post last week that you had cast a horoscope for the earth for 2026 and there were some major transformations afoot. Would you be willing to reveal any more details/smidgens/inklings about what you perceive the horoscope to portend? Could you at least say whether you interpreted the changes as positive/beneficial for humanity or negative/harmful?

Also, I am not sure if HOGD has anything to say about levels of initiation, but regardless, what does your own cosmology teach about the initiations? Does one become a Master of Wisdom, overcoming the necessity of earth/physical incarnation, at the 4th initation? Is this what Jesus took on the cross? Can we know/measure our own or others' level of initiation accurately? Thoughts on the accuracy of Benjamin Creme's published "List of Initiates"? Finally, do you see a danger, in adhering to this kind of ranking system (as with any system of levels/rank), of distortion, egotism, glamour, abuse and misuse, etc; and how ought we avoid these potential pitfalls?

Many Thanks as Always!



(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Is there a specific book you recommend for learning to scry on the enochian system?

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Even if they are currently Plutonian, addictions predate Pluto. Even the deliberate cultivation of addiction in others for political benefit predates Pluto (prominent examples include the Opium Wars); so I'm far from sure it is inevitable they will become less addictive once Pluto goes away.

(Anonymous) 2024-08-19 05:12 pm (UTC)(link)
Seeing as it is plausible that the internet as we know might be gone in the next decade or so, are there any plans for making available the Octagon Society preliminary lessons and instructional papers in PDF format or a physical book, so that practitioners of the Octagon Society's spiritual alchemy may refer to the material without the need for internet access?

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