Magic Monday

[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. As I mentioned last week, once I found a publisher willing to bring out my fiction, a lot of it found its way into print in a hurry, so we're going to be in tentacle territory for a while now.  This was my fifty-second published book, and it's another tentacle novel, but it's not a part of the core Weird of Hali sequence. The Shoggoth Concerto came slithering up out of my subconscious while I was hoping to get the rest of the Weird published but things weren't looking especially promising; I thought that an independent novel set in the same fictional cosmos might be able to get a hearing at one of the big publishers...and then I started writing, and it turned into the oddest of my many odd books.

You know all those stories about someone who has brash new innovative ideas and gets bullied by the defenders of tradition?  This is a story about someone who wants to do something traditional and gets bullied by the avant-garde, which is of course much more common these days. It's also about love, memory, magic, and shoggoths, and to my taste, it's still the best of my novels. I did submit it to a big publisher; I actually got a personal response, which is rare, saying that it was too quiet and too weird -- those were the editor's exact words -- but that if I wanted to write something more publishable I could send it directly to her. I rolled my eyes and found someplace else to publish, as bending the knee to the shallow fashionable clichés of big-brand fantasy and SF is the last thing I wanted (or want) to do. If shoggoths or classical music appeal to you, you can buy a copy of The Shoggoth Concerto here if you're in the US and here if you're elsewhere.

Buy Me A Coffee

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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.

With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no more comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Comments

Divination or wishful thinking - follow-up

[neptunesdolphins]

Well, I did write in my divination two weeks before the election that Donald Trump would win by a landslide. My comment was that I was running counter to the polling people. Perhaps Trump-Buddha knows most than what He is saying.

All the signs of augury were there from the elephant Kamala that was put down to Peanut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon being killed. The reaction to both was interesting.

My problem was listening too much to social media and all that rot. I need to have more faith in my inklings than I do. I need to shut out the noise better.

As for Peanut and Fred: In October, I was working on two embroideries of fall seasons - one of two squirrels and one of two raccoons. I woke up after hearing about Peanut and Fred, and realized another inkling was in front of me. Problem was I couldn't see it.

I wonder how to sharpen my skills at noticing signs. Any suggestions?

Re: Divination or wishful thinking - follow-up

[ecosophia]

Seems to me you noticed plenty of them this time; the issue was simply one of having confidence in yourself, and that's simply a matter of learning from your experiences.

Re: Divination or wishful thinking - follow-up

[(Anonymous)]

One of the more curious things about the Peanut the Squirrel and Fred the Raccoon fiasco is that the State of New York Department of Environmental Conservation, Governor Kathy Hochul and other state and county officials are apparently refusing to release the results of the rabies test, for reasons that have yet to be explained. Rabies test results usually come back in 24-72 hours, so they should be available by now.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lead-investigator-behind-p-nut-the-squirrel-s-death-id-d-as-ny-state-probes-critter-s-demise/ar-AA1tMSuW

Something tells me the test results came back negative and they are stonewalling in a desperate attempt to avoid even more egg on their faces, not realizing that by doing so the DEC, Hochul and other government officials who have been involved in this mess are shredding what little credibility they still have left.

Re: Divination or wishful thinking - follow-up

[ecosophia]

If they simply apologized and paid damages it would blow over, but their collective ego won't let them do that. So it's going to become an ongoing scandal and may eventually help drive Hochul from power.