Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

I'm going to be shocking and launch this week's Magic Monday a few minutes early, since I'm here on Dreamwidth,. (The picture is Thomas Taylor, the great Regency-era Platonist and worshiper of the Greek Gods, godfather of the modern Neopagan revival)

Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer, though it may be Tuesday sometime before I get to them all.

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 the button below to access my online tip jar. 

With that said, have at it! 

***This post is now closed to new questions. See you next week!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Thanks for hosting these Magic Mondays, which I am finding very interesting.

I have a few questions:

1) I've been (slowly, not particularly consistently, but I keep making myself come back to it) working through the Druid Magic Handbook. I'm still on the Sphere of Protection, so I don't know if it's relevant yet or not, but my new boyfriend has depression. Is it safe to continue to work through the system while he's around? I've never had depression myself.

2) Regarding deities, while I did try a bit to have a relationship with the Christian church which I wasn't really feeling all that much, the only deities which I've ever read about and thought, "Yes, I should follow those ones!" have been the set of ancient Brythonic deities that are mainly attested by archaeological inscriptions from Roman Britain. I live in England, not too far south of a town which was one of the locations where some of said inscriptions are found, and I'm strongly attracted to the idea of building a relationship with deities that are actually local to me. However, given the incredible sparseness of information about these deities (it's pretty much their name, and if we're lucky, two sentences describing aspects they are thought to be relevant to, some mythology that was written after Christian-isation, plus this one reconstructionist blog/forum that I found that only added a bit), how do I learn more things about them and how they might like to be worshipped? Also, I've currently been doing the version of the SoP without deity names - how do I figure out which deities have the right elemental correspondence to use for that? (I've got a good solid choice for water, I think, but I've been struggling with the other three elements.)

3) I was thinking about buying your Encyclopedia of Natural Magic, but I haven't decided yet. Does whatever section in it that is about plants include plenty of plants that I can find in the UK?

4) I tried the thing with the sharp iron on the internet router and TVs, to mixed results. Straight after I did it I immediately closed a bunch of fanfiction tabs I'd had open, and have had no desire to read any more fanfiction so far (and I usually read a lot), but that could be just because I often naturally cycle round to a more productive week around this time of month. I think we have had less watching of random quiz shows on TV, but my brother was still watching sport an awful lot. It could be that the iron was not really sharp enough, as I used some sewing pins that I found and while they are a bit sharp, they're probably not as sharp as a knife.

Thank you again!

L.

[ecosophia]

1) That's no problem at all. It would be a problem only if you yourself had significant psychological issues requiring medication.

2) Ask the deities! I mean that quite literally. If they were worshiped in Roman Britain, they're used to having incense burnt to them -- frankincense was standard back in the day -- so get some incense charcoal and some frankincense, and offer some to the deities, one at a time. Don't kneel to them -- the old deities won't put up with that; do as the ancients did and stand in their presence. Ask them for their help and blessing, and ask them specifically to guide you to an understanding of how they wish to be worshiped and how they relate to the elements. Then pay close attention both to whatever verbal or nonverbal response comes into your mind, and to any unexpected events, synchronicities, and so on occur in the days to come.

3) Most of what's in the Encyclopedia of Natural Magic is Old World plants and trees, because that's what I could find material on. You should have no trouble using most of it in Britain.

4) Interesting. Thank you for the data points!