Magic Monday
Sep. 22nd, 2024 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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 noted below, 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 forty-fifth published book and the last of my books to come out of my former blog, The Archdruid Report. The last theme I developed in any detail there was the recognition that blind faith in progress had cut most people off from the single most useful source of working options available to us -- that is, the past. My novel Retrotopia had sketched out that theme in fictional form, my nonfiction work After Progress had delved into the bogus religion that had arisen around the myth of progress, but I wanted to say a few things about the practical side of using the past as a resource for the future. A flurry of posts, and then this book, were the results.
It sold very poorly, and there were reasons for that. The peak oil movement had collapsed completely by the time it saw print in 2017, and all the publicity and money had long since been redirected into a moronically oversimplified narrative about climate change that insisted that we were all going to fry like pork chops on a grill sometime very soon unless billions of dollars were flushed down the ratholes of photovoltaic solar energy and giant wind turbines, both of which had already been tested and found inadequate. All the other issues surrounding pollution and resource depletion, and every other aspect of the predicament of industrial society, got stuffed down the memory hole in a hurry in those years. The project of reviving older, less extravagant, and more resilient technologies from the past? Nobody was interested. A new edition will be out this October, and you can order a copy here; we'll see if the unraveling of the status quo under way right now gives it a chance to be heard.
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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.
***This Magic Monday is now closed and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***
Johnny Applespeed Birthday Party (Cambridge, MA, USA)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:00 am (UTC)Come one, come all to our celebration of Johnny Appleseed's Birthday this Saturday night. Details follow:
Location: Start at our local the Swedenborgian Church. Head toward the Holy Land. Go straight down the road and through the first set of lights. At the second set of lights, turn left and then take your first left. You'll know the house by a large red symbol out in front. Come to the backyard - if it's wet, knock on the backdoor.
(I hope you'll forgive the scavenger hunt, I hope to throw off any AIs, but encourage Human Intelligences to join us.)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:01 am (UTC)I am considering a Hod/Mercury working to improve my expressiveness and concision. I often find it difficult to express my thoughts as clearly as I can formulate them in my head (an astrologer I once consulted observed that this is extremely typical for people who have Jupiter in Virgo, as I do.)
My concern is that I tend to be overly oriented towards rationality and intellect already to the point of it sometimes blocking emotional and intuitive faculties. Is there risk that a working of the kind I’m considering would make that aspect worse? If so, what might help alleviate that?
Happy Equinox!
Date: 2024-09-23 04:11 am (UTC)No question or anything to share this week, just wishing any who mark it a happy Alban Elued/Autumnal Equinox, and offering my blessings to any here who will have them. I learn so much not only from JMG's generous answers to my own questions, but from the questions and ensuing discussions from others, so I thought it would be good to pause and recognize that explicitly as we begin the year's turn toward collection, reflection, and consolidation.
Thanks once again to JMG and all here,
Jeff
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:18 am (UTC)Re: Johnny Applespeed Birthday Party (Cambridge, MA, USA)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:20 am (UTC)—Princess Cutekitten
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:21 am (UTC)If you don't know your birth chart, Mercury and Saturn will help, but it really is best to key your workings to your own chart.
Re: Johnny Applespeed Birthday Party (Cambridge, MA, USA)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:23 am (UTC)—Princess Cutekitten
Rootwork and Ceremonial Magic
Date: 2024-09-23 04:25 am (UTC)Should such a spell get traction, I presume the ceremonial magician would want to consider Levi's Ritual of the Four, specifically the bit with the sword cutting a silver cord between the magician and the undesired influence?
And more generally, my reading shows the Conjure practitioner focused on the very nitty gritty of "a problem exists right now - need money, under attack, partner's moving out - and we're Conjuring a solution right here right now." Meanwhile the CGD involves meditation, divination, meditation, daily practice, meditation - basically, building one's self up to have the presence of mind to stay out of the way of life's problems while getting rid of karma to keep destiny from pulling you into problems not of your choosing and building up the magical defenses to take a hit if one becomes unavoidable. I was wondering if you knew of any source of a more contemplative and self-building approach to Conjure/Rootwork/Hoodoo or is it more a matter of different systems are made by different people in different circumstances for fundamentally different purposes?
Or I suppose given the consecration of an amulet in the CGD Druid grade looks a lot like a ceremonial take on a mojo bag, would a contemplative and self-building approach to those traditions look substantially different from the CGD? I suppose I'll have to meditate on that...
Re: Rootwork and Ceremonial Magic
Date: 2024-09-23 04:39 am (UTC)2) What I've been told is that a more contemplative and spiritual approach to conjure is practiced in some African-American magical lodges, but they don't publish their workings. Unless you happen to be black and have a personal recommendation to one of these lodges, you're probably out of luck, as of course am I.
3) I was wondering if anyone would notice that similarity. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 04:55 am (UTC)You share your birthday with my mom, but you're so much younger! She acchieved four score this year.
BoysMom
Ecosophia Prayer List
Date: 2024-09-23 04:58 am (UTC)If I missed anybody, or if you would like to add a prayer request for yourself or anyone who has given you consent (or for whom a relevant person holds power of consent) to the list, please feel free to leave a comment below and/or in the comments at the current prayer list post.
This week I would like to bring special attention to the following prayer requests.
May Erika be blessed with good luck and radiant health.
May Mariette (Miow)'s recent surgery have been a success. May she make a full recovery and regain full use of her body. May she heal in body, soul and mind.
May The Dilettante Polymath's eye heal and vision return quickly and permanantly, and may both his retinas stay attached.
May Tyler and Monika's newborn baby Isabelle, whose bowels were not moving properly at birth, and who as of 9/16 has not experienced a bowel movement, be blessed with a well functioning digestive tract and be free of colic going forward.
May Giulia (Julia) in the Eastern suburbs of Cleveland Ohio be healed of recurring seizures and paralysis of her left side and other neurological problems associated with a cyst on the right side of her brain and with surgery to treat it.
May Tyler and Monika's newborn baby Isabelle, whose bowels were not moving properly at birth, be blessed with a well functioning digestive tract and be free of colic going forward.
May Falling Tree Woman's son's girlfriend's mother Bridget in Devon UK, who has recently started to sit up and converse after more than six weeks of bedridden tracheotomy following a life-threatening fall from a horse, be blessed and healed and returned to full health.
May Corey Benton, whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won't be treated surgically, be healed of throat cancer.
May Heather's brother in law, Patrick, who is dying of cancer and has dementia, go gentle into that good light. And may his wife Maggie, who is ill herself, find the strength and peace she needs for her situation. (Update on Patrick's condition here)
May Neptune's Dolphins' husband David, who lost one toe to a staph infection last year and now faces further toe amputations due to diabetic ulcers in his left foot, be blessed and healed, and may the infection leave his body for good.
May Rebecca, who has just been laid off from her job and is the sole provider for her family, quickly discover a viable means to continue to support her family; may she and her family be blessed and sustained in their journey forward.
May Kyle's friend Amanda, who though in her early thirties is undergoing various difficult treatments for brain cancer, make a full recovery; and may her body and spirit heal with grace.
Lp9's hometown, East Palestine, Ohio, for the safety and welfare of their people, animals and all living beings in and around East Palestine, and to improve the natural environment there to the benefit of all.
Guidelines for how long prayer requests stay on the list, how to word requests, how to be added to the weekly email list, how to improve the chances of your prayer being answered, and several other common questions and issues, are to be found at the Ecosophia Prayer List FAQ.
If there are any among you who might wish to join me in a bit of astrological timing, I pray each week for the health of all those with health problems on the list on the astrological hour of the Sun on Sundays, bearing in mind the Sun's rulerships of heart, brain, and vital energies. If this appeals to you, I invite you to join me.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 05:42 am (UTC)a few questions
Date: 2024-09-23 07:22 am (UTC)1. Does the amulet you described in your MM FAQ only neutralize the negativity or does it also reflect the negativity back? Please feel free to comment on the mechanism of how it works if you want.
2. Does the protective bath in your MM FAQ hurt the tree that you use in the process (or the tree spirits)?
Please feel free to comment on the mechanism of how it works if you want.
3. Some spiritual teachers talk extremely badly about Tarot use... You yourself said there is a big difference between using Tarot for scrying and for fortune-telling. Could you elaborate on the difference and also on any ethical and non-ethical sides of Tarot use with some examples please?
4. In GD system, both LBRH and Rose Cross Ritual utilize the forces of Tifaret... Is it useless to do them both one after another back-to-back (as one is directing the power towards macrocosmos and another inside, towards the subtle bodies so the does the second one done cancel the effects of the first one?)?
Thanks
JPC
Chams
Date: 2024-09-23 08:12 am (UTC)Not so much a question but a interesting resource for French readers interested in Southeast asian spirituality.
A long time ago, in my search for information on Vietnamese history and culture, I came across this French book written around 1901 by Antoine Cabaton on the Internet Archive that concerns the culture and religion of the Cham.
The Cham are an ethnic group that in the past had a fairly advanced civilisation that did a lot of trade by sea and river, who were conquered by the ancestors of the Vietnamese centuries ago and live as a somewhat impoverished minority in Southeast Asia today. I have just begun reading it on account of only recently developing my French reading skill to a sufficient level, and so far it seems to have a fair amount of info on Cham deities, rituals and prayers which may interest some of you here.
https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_DIsoAAAAYAAJ/page/n7/mode/thumb
J.L.Mc12
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 08:35 am (UTC)2) Manly Hall and Dion Fortune both discuss how an initiate is serene in character, and they both give a few clues about how to become serene as a response to life's events, but neither really goes into detail about the changes in character necessary. If you agree with them, would you mind outlining in a bit more detail about how someone goes about this? I've worked through the OSA which has helped somewhat but it appears I have much further to go.
Thanks in advance!
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 08:41 am (UTC)To share, for those who wonder what SRIA, FOS or IIRC mean, a list of abbreviations used on Ecosophia.
Around me I see people increase their energy usage. There are new electric bicycles, airconditioning, and "smart homes" with over 50 connected "smart devices". A new highway is constructed nearby and I see as many planes as ever. Perhaps the energy prices have to rise a bit more before people become interested in The Retro Future!
Esoteric side of the maximum power principle
Date: 2024-09-23 09:19 am (UTC)It got me cycling back to Charlie Hall's latest publication on the history of maximum power, which, as it turns out, came from Nietsche, who talked about the "will to power". Of course he was talking about Schopenhauer here.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2022.0290
My question is, if there's an esoteric principle behind how our planet, and maybe our solar system is geared to taking energy, which presumably is life force on the material and etheric planes, and using it up. Using it in an irreversible process means entropy, and we don't really know what entropy is.
Could it be that the maximum power principle is just energy 'rounding the buoy', and returning up the planes?
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 10:03 am (UTC)There are internal factors (like witnessing the rather dramatic death of my father-in-law after a short but very steep demise in health not too long ago) which might contribute to internal turmoil but sometimes I wonder if there could be more to it. I have to say that I am my current limit of divinatory skills with the method I am using and I guess that this episode might contribute greatly to increase these skills, but for the moment - maybe there's something else to watch for?
2) With regard to the above mentioned death of my father-in-law:
a) I noticed that most of the most acute stress-symptoms triggered by the event faded out very exactly within one moon return. I am not particularly adept at astrology but it makes some intuitive sense to me as I could imagine the moon "unloading" or distributing the energies during it's journey through the sky. Does this make any sense? If yes, another "milestone" would probably be the solar return of the event?
b) Is there anything beyond the "usual" recommendations like sleep, massage, etc. I can do to ground myself? My personal grief seems to be the less challenging part, but the memories of the event and the strong emotions of the others involved are much more tough to deal with.
Many thanks for your time and effort, as always!
Greetings,
Nachtgurke
A cuestion about vibrating words during the SOP
Date: 2024-09-23 10:06 am (UTC)Been a reader here for some time and I've recently started the journey with The Way of The Golden Section Fellowship ^-^.
As my basic morning and night rituals have become established the time to start the meditation and SOP approach. Now I have a specific question about the practice of SOP and the Call of Spirit within with the vibration of the word of power:
I live in a small shared family home so my timeframes for being totally undisturbed/alone at home vary quite a lot. I worry that vibrating the word of power might raise questions from my family so I'd like to know how to best approach this to keep the practices private so to speak. Does vibration/chanting always have to be performed physically or can this practice be built up also by reciting internally? Would it be better to switch the timing of the SOP according to when I'm most likely to be undisturbed (even if that implies not doing it at around the same time everyday) so I can vibrate/chant the word physically?
Many thanks in advance! and apologies if this question has been answered before. I've done a search through dreamwdith but couldn't find a clarification for this.
Rubeus Double-Whammy!
Date: 2024-09-23 10:42 am (UTC)I cast the Democrat chart first. Thoroughly shuffled my deck of regular cards. First four cards formed Rubeus – and stopped dead in my tracks. Hmmm. I thought I was being honest in asking the question. Whatever. So, I put the cards aside for awhile, thinking that maybe the timing is not good – I do this from time to time when I get Rubeus as the first Mother. The following day, I did the cards once again. First four cards: Rubeus! This has never happened to me before – and I have cast thousands of charts. It was like getting a slap on the wrist with a commandment: Thou Shalt Not Ask This Question!
Ok, ok, sorry - let me try the Republican chart. First four cards formed Conjunctio. Whew! So, I cast the full chart. And what I got was rather interesting: Right Witness - Laetitia; Left Witness - Tristitia; Judge – Carcer. First house figure (Rep): Conjunctio. Seventh house figure (Dem) - Via. Combined figure: Carcer (same as Judge). Neither Conjunctio nor Via appear elsewhere in the chart, nor is there any “company” with the next house (2nd and 8th). Tenth house figure (the goal: president): Rubeus! Rubeus also appears in the fifth house, forming a trine with the Reps and weaker sextile with the Dems. Not exactly a fabulous chart. Needless to say, I continue to expect anything and everything under the Sun regarding this whole presidential thing at least until March-April of next year. What a shale-fest! May the gods have mercy on the American people.
Just thought you might get a wry chuckle out of this incident. Any further insights are welcome!
Ron M
A Couple of Random Planetary Questions
Date: 2024-09-23 11:12 am (UTC)2. Agrippa writes about using the powers of Jupiter and Venus to counter workings of Saturn and Mars, and vice versa. Presumably, the luminaries can also be used to counter one another. But which of the classical planets would you invoke to counter Mercury?
(no subject)
Date: 2024-09-23 11:35 am (UTC)Do I need to wait until Mars is out of Cancer, or does that matter for this? (If not, I can begin this Tuesday.)
mixed motives and phase of moon
Date: 2024-09-23 11:38 am (UTC)Say you were considering joining a legal action with two aims: One to change a workplace culture of bullying (more or less by suing for damages); the other the claim for compensation.
I could see one as being more fitted to beginning on the waning moon, the other on the waxing.
And say you also only practised natural magic and basic protection rituals, not ceremonial magic.
Would you amend your conscious intention according to when you committed to such action? Any other comments?
- iridescent scintillating elver