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

[milkyway1]

I'd pre-order that book, too.

[(Anonymous)]

The souls being rushed back into bodies too quickly may also explain the furry phenomenon, they are probably souls who spent life as an animal and then got rushed into being reborn into a human being.

mental plane & gwynfydd

[xcalibur_djs]

First, I've been pondering the planes, and I think I've figured out the mental plane. I believe it's a place of pure cognition, where thought happens, where you analyze, solve, put things together, and comprehend meanings. In practice, we use words, symbols and numbers to represent meanings and values, but those designs are pointing towards something higher and abstract. And that higher place, where wordless & invisible understanding is, must be the mental plane.
Am I on the right track here? Is my grasp of this a sign that my mental sheath is coming along well?

Secondly, regarding Gwynfydd, the luminous life (had to check the spelling, lol). In one of our previous exchanges, you expressed surprise that I referenced Buddhist higher realms and Narnian heaven, which as I explained are the conceptions of the afterlife which made the strongest impression on me. In the case of the Narnia books (which I don't expect everyone to vibe with, that's fine, also spoiler warning), heaven there is described as being like this life, except much better -- all the things you cared about in incarnation are there, but without being marred by positive or negative evil. This means that there's no need to sunder ties or move on from being human, you get to be human in a bigger and better way.

Which brings us to Gwynfydd. I've mentioned my reservations about going beyond human incarnation, and that's because it seems like I'd have to leave behind the human world. No more music, games, history, internet, and all the other things I'm interested in. Of course, I'd also be leaving behind alot of unpleasantness and absurdity, but still, I'd be striking out into the unknown. Or would I? Would I be able to pursue human things at higher levels of being, or would I be cut off? Or perhaps, would human things seem like childish toys I'd grown out of? Any info is appreciated.

[ecosophia]

The ones who are serious about it, yes. There are also a lot of people who apparently didn't get their fill of make-believe games when they were four.

Re: Question

[ecosophia]

Good. Yes, the noeta are realities of the mental plane, though they also reflect realities of the planes above the mental level. As for the archetypes, they are how we experience those core patterns.

Re: mental plane & gwynfydd

[ecosophia]

1) To the extent that it's possible to think about the mental plane using categories that are meant to work with the astral, etheric, and material planes, yes.

2) It's easy to overemphasize the difference between material incarnation and the next step up -- in Druid language, between the upper edge of Abred and the lower edge of Gwynfydd. There's a difference, but not an infinite gulf. You shed your material body for the last time, and with it, you don't need to die any more -- you've finished the cycle of death, forgetfulness, and rebirth -- but you still have your familiar etheric and astral bodies, and everything that goes with them; you also have your mental sheath, except that it's become a mental body with its own rudimentary organs of sensation and action on the mental plane.

So you still have the whole world of thoughts and emotions, which are astral, and the whole world of vitality and energetic interactions, which are etheric; your sense of meaning and value has become dramatically clearer, opening up a world you can only vaguely grasp now; you're living among others who also share all these things, and you can communicate and interact with them. You're still embodied, it's just that your body isn't made of dense matter and doesn't get old and die.

Is there music in Gwynfydd? Every source I know of says yes. Is there history? That too. Games? Nobody's mentioned those, but human souls being what they are, I'd say it's a safe bet that there's some equivalent. Internet? No, there you're out of luck. You have to make do with less cumbersome and ad-infested ways to communicate with others and access information!

The best metaphor I know of for all this is to think of material incarnation -- the whole process of it, through mineral, plant, and animal lives to the human level -- as the prenatal existence of the soul. Matter is the womb of the soul, and while we are in material incarnation we haven't been born yet. Being born is a shock, no question, and it requires us to adjust nearly all our expectations, but Mom's still there, even though we're in a different relationship to her, and once born we enter onto possibilities we can't even begin to imagine while we're still in the womb.

Re: Getting to Know Elen and Heseus

[scottyc]

I like your advice to deal with the deities directly but I'm also trying to peer though the haze somewhat. I've been (slowly) collecting as much information as I can about the Druid Revival deities, especially the ones listed in the Sphere of Protection.

This links are not to a blog and only serve as a personal notebook. Lot's of copy and paste but I try to organize by each referenced work.

https://scottyc.dreamwidth.org/1602.html

Finally had to make a separate entry for Hu Gadarn:

https://scottyc.dreamwidth.org/1862.html

Re: Question

[(Anonymous)]

Would the "self" be archetype that is the basis for any specific image of god we have (say vishnu), but when it is imbalanced (due to some psycho-emotional imprint, karma etc) and merges with other archetypes, say "the father", we get the punitive patriarchy sensation, images, and ideas of god?

While we construct these symbolic realities filtered by archetypes and imbued with narrative meaning, real divinity (external individuated consciousness) can occupy those symbols in some way and influences us thus? (But also directly from the higher planes as kundalini does?).

[(Anonymous)]

What’s the difference between invocation and evocation, and why is the latter not good?

—Princess Cutekitten

A Strange, Yet Welcome Change

[(Anonymous)]

Good evening, Mr. Greer, and all!

Apologies in advance for the long post, I felt that the background was necessary.

I had a very strange experience about a month ago that I've been wanting to ask you about, but I felt it best to wait, for reasons I'll get into.
First, a bit of background. I've been of a generally unhappy disposition for most of my life, since I was around 12 (I'm 26.) There are probably lots of reasons for this, some of which I'm trying to work through emotionally, and mentally, but there's one area in particular that pertains to what happened to me recently. I have always struggled with *doing* things. I'm always making plans in my mind to start projects, or change some aspect of my life, then never following through. I also get discouraged very, very easily. This seems to have happened since I was very young. My mum once told me that the first time I tried to walk, I fell down, and I didn't try again for nearly a year after that. (I don't know enough about astrology to tell, but I'm sure there's something in my birthday chart that would indicate this.) Anyways, these two things definitely make my life harder, which brings me to the interesting experience I had recently.

I was sitting behind my work, and I suddenly had... A revelation? A communication? I'm really not sure how to describe it. Out of nowhere, I "saw" (not really in my mind's eye, but almost outside it) four shapes that looked sort of like puzzle pieces, but not quite, fit together. They had a green glow around them, but everything else was black, so I could only see this sort of smoky green outline. As this happened, I suddenly had this knowledge, or understanding that "If you keep doing what makes you miserable, misery is guaranteed. Even if happiness is uncertain, you may as well try for it. Otherwise you are guaranteed to be miserable." I didn't hear these exact words, or hear anything for that matter. I just suddenly knew this. And I mean I knew it internally in a way that comes from more than just a normal understanding. I've heard advice like "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten," and the like before. But this was an understanding of that concept on a deeper level. As though suddenly I knew it to be true.

So, I went back to work. I finished up what I had to do that night (I work in a restaurant, not that it's really relevant,) and went home. The next day, I woke up, and got the inspiration to write a book. Now, I've had plenty of inspiration to do things before, I've been told I'm a very creative person, and all that. But normally, I'd get the inspiration, maybe work on it for a bit, then just start fantasizing about how awesome it will be when I'm done, and never look at it again. This time was different. I sat down, and began to work on the book. And I worked, and worked, and worked. I haven't stopped. I've spent hours every day working on this for about a month now. It's also affected other parts of my life. I'm not putting things off anymore like I used to. I'm suddenly getting things done. I'm moving out of a place with a lot of bad memories, I'm looking for a job I like. And all this through a pretty nasty sickness I dealt with for two weeks or so. I suddenly don't like doing a lot of the things that have been keeping me in bad situations.

My question is, what on earth happened? Was this my guardian genius, a deity, my mental sheath? I've never had such a period of productivity before unless it was forced by something like a school deadline (and usually put off until the absolute last minute.) I waited a while to post about it to see if it would wear off, but it hasn't. This is really crazy to me. I should also point out that this doesn't seem to be some sort of manic episode, as I've experienced my normal emotional ups, and downs during this time. I still get sad about things, I still get angry, etc, these emotions just don't seem to hinder me as much as they used to. What might I be dealing with?

Thanks as always for hosting this space.

Duncan

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you

Re: Question

[ecosophia]

No, the Self is only constellated very late in the process of individuation, because it consists of the unity of all the archetypes. All the partial archetypes have to be awakened first, and that's a long process. All natural images of the Divine are drawn from the partial archetypes. Please note also that the Father-as-Divine isn't necessarily punitive patriarchy -- that latter is a distortion and a defilement of the archetype of the Father, which in itself is generous, protective, powerful, loving. It's also not the only game in town. There are also plenty of people who experience the Divine as mother, as beloved, as darling infant, and so on. (In Bali they address their gods as "grandchild" and feel toward them the way human grandparents feel toward an adorable child.)

None of these images are true, but all of them are appropriate, since we think and feel with archetypes as inevitably as we walk with feet and eat with mouths. This is the way the Divine has created us; as social primates, we approach the Divine in a social way, using the archetypes that are the building blocks for our social experiences. We don't construct these experiences, if you mean by that any kind of conscious construction -- if anything, we are constructed by them, in that our social interactions mediated by archetypes are what shape our personalities and our experiences of ourselves and the world. Only at a very high level of development do we begin to outgrow them, and then it's because we have richer forms through which to begin to apprehend the Divine.

[ecosophia]

To invoke is to call in or call down; you do that with deities. (Any time you ask God to bless you, for example, you're invoking.) To evoke is to call up; you do that with spirits who are not divine. There are times and places where it's necessary, but these days a vast number of people think it's a good idea to evoke evil (or morally dubious) spirits to get goodies from them, and that's counterproductive for reasons I think you'll have no trouble figuring out!

Re: Getting to Know Elen and Heseus

[ecosophia]

Nicely done! This is very useful stuff.

Carl Jung Devotion?

[brenainn]

I've been reading a lot of Jung, and working through the individuation process (or my best attempt at it, at least). One thing that I've begun experiencing is a strong impulse to include an image of Jung on my altar, and offer some prayers and incense to him. I'm not too worried about at least giving it a try, but I am wondering if you've heard of anyone else doing that? And if so, what kind of experiences or results they've reported?

Re: A Strange, Yet Welcome Change

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this story! Since I wasn't there at the time, I can't be sure what happened, but I can offer a guess. I'm going to speculate -- and you don't have to respond to this, of course -- that something specific happened to you around the age of 12 that catalyzed the period of misery you describe. When something like that happens, and results in a long period of suffering, that's usually a matter of karma that has to be worked off. I know, it sucks.

The one good thing about karma is that you really can work it off. Once that happens, it goes away, and whatever burdens it placed on you dissolve. Some people, when they finish with a karmic burden, just naturally shrug it off and go on to do something else, but others need prompting. The prompting can come from the Higher Self, from the guardian genius, or from entities with whom the soul has had some kind of positive connection in previous lives. Since there were apparently four of them, my guess is that in your case it was the last of these. They showed up when you were ready to outgrow the habits you'd adopted during the period of difficult karma, and did one of the things that spirits of the higher planes can do -- they communicated something to you on the mental plane, the plane of meanings and values.

So now you know three things. The first is the message they gave you. The second is that you've succeeded in clearing a burden from your past. The third is that you have helpers on the inner planes who are cheering you on. I'd consider all of those things very good news.

Re: Carl Jung Devotion?

[ecosophia]

I haven't, but it makes perfect sense. Treat him as the equivalent of a saint, and I'd be very greatly surprised if you didn't get a favorable response.

Re: Energetic body questions

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you so much for your suggestions and kind consideration. It’s likely I push myself too hard and have too many responsibilities. But I faithfully do my banishing ritual, meditation and divination every day and am a yoga teacher. I’ve recently seized the day and made a huge change, involving even more work! The geomancy genius does agree that once the dust settles on this uproar the road will clear out all for the better. I will examine the whole picture with your thoughts in mind.

Namaste, SundaraYogaShala

Re: Question

[jprussell]

I just wanted to say this thread has been very helpful in sorting out how to fit the archetypes into the occult philosophy I'm plodding through (or vice versa?), so thanks very much. If "Jung and Occultism" ever wins for fifth Friday, or if the spirit ever moves you for some other reason, I'd very much welcome seeing this fleshed out in a full post (or book, even).

Cheers,
Jeff

Re: Getting to Know Elen and Heseus

[(Anonymous)]

I would also like to add my thanks for linking to your notebooks!

[randomactsofkarmasc]

If you email office @ octagonsociety.org and ask for the preliminary lessons as a document, they'll send them to you as a PDF.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you, that makes sense. And thanks also for the note about Osiris' name. That made me curious, and an internet search revealed that Isis' name was pronounced something like 'ee-set'. Interesting!

[(Anonymous)]

It was an enjoyable book, thank you again! I will also need to review it; the footnotes were extensive. Trying to feel the prayer in the heart is something I've been trying ever so slowly to learn.

[ecosophia]

Interesting indeed. There are fairly good books on the ancinet Egyptian language for ordinary readers these days, and the names of the gods and goddesses are usually in them. Did you know that the deity the Greeks and Romans called "Thoth" was called Djehuti by the Egyptians?

Re: Question

[ecosophia]

I expect it to win sometime soon -- it's been coming in fairly close the last few times.