Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

Midnight is almost here, 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 that point will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted.  If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.2 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.  This was my fifty-sixth published book, and we're back in tentacle territory -- the second half of the story of Brecken Kendall, modern Baroque composer and friend of shoggoths. To the best of my knowledge, it's also the only work of eldritch fantasy in English that also includes serious opera criticism. (I didn't plan on that, but once Brecken started writing an opera using that infamous play The King in Yellow for a libretto, it was hard to avoid...) At any rate, it's another romp through a Lovecraftian world turned topsy-turvy, in which love, death, classical music, and tentacled horrors from before the dawn of time play a giddy counterpoint to The Weird of Hali. If you're interested, Sphinx Books has a nice new edition out, which you can get here in the United States or here if you live somewhere else in the world. (This world, at least. If you dwell in lost Carcosa, you'll have to talk to the eldritch horrors there and find out where they buy books.)

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

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

Ecosophia Prayer List

[tunesmyth]

At this link is the full list of all of the requests for prayer that have recently appeared at ecosophia.net and ecosophia.dreamwidth.org, as well as in the comments of the prayer list posts. Please feel free to add any or all of the requests to your own prayers.

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 David/Trubrujah's 5 year old nephew Jayce, who is starting chemotherapy for leukemia on Monday 12/9, be healed quickly and fully, and may he, and mother Amanda, and their family find be aided with physical, mental, and emotional strength while they deal with this new life altering situation.

May baby Gigi, continue to gain weight and strength, and continue to heal from a possible medication overdose which her mother Elena received during pregnancy, and may Elena be blessed and healed from the continuing random tremors which ensued; may Gigi's big brother Francis continue to be in excellent health and be blessed.

May Jennifer, whose pregnancy has entered its third trimester, have a safe and healthy pregnancy, may the delivery go smoothly, and may her baby be born healthy and blessed.

May Quin's father Bob in Austin, whose aortic stent procedure went smoothly, heal quickly from the procedure, and may his health improve over the long term as a result.

May Charlie the cat, who has been extremely sick and vomiting but whose owners can't afford an expensive vet visit, be blessed, protected, and healed.

May Scotlyn's friend Fiona, who has been in hospital since early October with what is a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, be blessed and healed, and encouraged in ways that help her to maintain a positive mental and spiritual outlook.

May Annette have a successful resolution for her kidney stones, and a safe and easy surgery to remove the big one blocking her left kidney.

May Peter Evans in California, who has been diagnosed with colon cancer, be completely healed with ease, and make a rapid and total recovery.

May Jennifer and Josiah, their daughter Joanna, and their unborn daughter be protected from all harmful and malicious influences, and may any connection to malign entities or hostile thought forms or projections be broken and their influence banished.

May Ram, who is facing major challenges both legal and emotional with a divorce and child custody dispute, be blessed with the clarity of thought, positive energy, and the inner strength to continue to improve the situation.

May FJay peacefully birth a healthy baby at home with her loved ones. May her postpartum period be restful and full of love and support. May her older child feel surrounded by her love as he adapts to life as a big brother and may her marriage be strengthened during this time.

May all living things who have suffered as a consequence of Hurricanes Helene and Milton be blessed, comforted, and healed.

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 Corey Benton, whose throat tumor has grown around an artery and won't be treated surgically, be healed of throat cancer.

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.

Re: Ecosophia Prayer List

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this as always.

CGD Clarification

[(Anonymous)]

In the CGD Druid grade Ceremony of Transformation, there is reference to doing the "Complete Calling" of each element. I wanted to clarify whether that included the Invoking Elemental Ritual of the Pentagram associated with each element such that one "Complete Calling" of one element is:

Rite of Rays -> Invoking Elemental Ritual of the Pentagram -> Rite of Rays -> Calling of Element

Thus a Ceremony of Transformation would involve an invoking and banishing set of 10 Rites of Rays and 4 Elemental pentagram rituals?

Re: CGD Clarification

[ecosophia]

To the best of my recollection, that's correct.

Thoughts on Devotional Polytheism, and Question on Incorporating the Shadow

[jprussell]

Good Evening,

As we are coming to the end of the year, I hope that you are wrapping up what you need to and looking forward to what the new year might bring you.

To Share: This week, I've written up a pretty short rundown of Galina Krasskova's Devotional Polytheism: https://jpowellrussell.com/#book_thoughts_on_devotional_polytheism

To Ask: Do you believe that "incorporating your Shadow" (in a Jungian sense) is a useful thing to try to do in occult work generally, as opposed to only within a more narrowly Jungian approach to things? And if so, would you have any tips on how best to go about it besides "active imagination and journaling," and anything to look out for/avoid?

Thank you again, JMG and everyone here!

My blessings to all who welcome them,
Jeff

Re: Thoughts on Devotional Polytheism, and Question on Incorporating the Shadow

[ecosophia]

As I see it, you can't actually "incorporate the Shadow" because the Shadow is an archetype, thus transpersonal -- to try to incorporate it would produce one form of ego inflation, the dreary sort where somebody claims to be the evilest evil that ever eviled. What you can do instead is stop projecting the archetype of the Shadow onto other people and things, and in the process, acknowledge those elements of the Shadow that the archetype borrows from your personality -- that is, the things about yourself you don't want to admit. That's best done through meditation, journaling, and if you have the opportunity, long honest talks with someone who knows you well and will point out to you the things you aren't letting yourself notice about yourself.

Upside Down Tarot

[(Anonymous)]

Hello, Liam here - when drawing a card for the day in Tarot, would you recommend paying any attention to whether one pulls the card right or wrong way up, and why? Cheers!

Re: Upside Down Tarot

[ecosophia]

Yes. I learned to read tarot with reversals as an important factor. The book I used early on is Mastering Tarot by Eden Gray, and it gives meanings for each card, upright and reversed; it might be a useful place to start.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been considering joining AODA, in order to become a monk through the GCC. I've been through bad group experiences in pagan circles that messed me over for a while, that makes me hesitate, but I also think I would benefit from some training and maybe a little mentoring. If I can ask, JMG and anyone else currently involved, how is the organization holding up today? Is it still going strong, keeping the political rot at bay, at least relatively drama free and an overall positive experience that you would recommend to others?

[ecosophia]

I haven't been active in the organization for a while now, but as far as I know it's still doing quite well. One thing to keep in mind is that it's not a Neopagan organization -- it dates from a much older era of esoteric traditions. (Yeah, yeah, we all know that Neopagan traditions date from the dawn of time, but in the US "the dawn of time" was around 1978.) The older organizations very often do without the drama and the bad behavior that make so many Neopagan groups so tiresome.

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning and thank you as always for hosting this space.

I’ve been thinking about how many people perhaps don’t grasp that there are downsides to mindfulness training—especially the McMindfulness vipassana that is increasingly popular—one thinker on esotericism I admire argued that it’s essentially gaslighting naive westerners into depersonalizing themselves.

Conversely it does seem to me that there are meaningful advantages as well, especially in terms of being able to step back from the contents of one’s own mind and not just be ruled by it.

Are there good ways to achieve at least some of the advantages of mindfulness training without essentially dissolving the self?

[ecosophia]

The benefits you get from mindfulness meditation are the same you can get from any other kind of meditation. The problems with mindfulness meditation are unique to that system. Thus, yes, there are good ways to get the benefits without the problems: practice any other kind of meditation you like. One I particularly recommend to people in Western industrial cultures is discursive meditation, which I've discussed here and also in many of my books.

Dolmen Arch, Second Religiosity, Changes in Consciousness

[rhydlyd]

I had to slow down and focus for a month on the Two Dragons rite in The Dolmen Arch. After a full month of daily practice, I concluded I was ready to charge my palm centers… and (of course) I found myself beneath a week-long winter storm. Kinda hard to get to my favorite rock when it is under a deep drift. Doesn’t matter. My free time has been going to snow removal. Bleah. So – daily practice until the weather breaks because I really want to do the charging rite outside. Anyway – the text says to avoid polluted or stagnant water – check. But… the creek in my back yard is typical of Northeast Ohio in having some unpleasant history. Now, it flows freely to move spring water and street runoff while supporting some wildlife. Do you think it is acceptable for the purpose of charging my palm centers?

I can report another member of the intelligentsia embracing the second religiosity. My sister, transplant to the Left Coast from the Rust Belt, embracer of il-liberal vacuity, PhD psychology and former angry atheist, just shocked everyone including herself by following family tradition to join a prominent fraternal body AND take the office of chaplain. I suppose this is some kind of cosmic balance for me taking up Druidry – I go for the future, so she goes for the past’s future. (Sigh.) Or do I overstate?

And – this might fall under the magic of changes in consciousness: I observe here in a Red corner of Ohio a general political lightening of mood, including grumbling about looney lefty social policies morphing into satirizing them. Also, MAGA regalia on members of formerly Democratic-safe demographics is appearing occasionally and loaded with punch-up rather than punch-down attitude. Have you or the commentariat noticed either trend? Is anything to be made of them?

Many thanks!
Rhydlyd

Re: Dolmen Arch, Second Religiosity, Changes in Consciousness

[ecosophia]

1) If the stream supports wildlife and plant life, it's probably okay. Go ahead and give it a try; if you end up feeling queasy after doing the charging, find someplace else.

2) Fraternal orders are probably another wave of the future -- I've watched several Masonic jurisdictions begin to get their act together and attract young men, for example. Your sister may be moving with the times, just in a slightly different direction.

3) I've seen some of the same thing here. I don't think it's accidental that the murder of that health-insurance CEO the other day got a bipartisan response from the masses amounting to "Okay, that's a good start." Things are in motion.

Clowns

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

I am thinking about becoming a clown, it is something that attracts me greatly somehow.
Do you have an opinion about the spiritual and or religious aspects of clowning. I read at places that some consider the circus atmosphere as spirituality bad somehow? Also, do you have recommendations on books on this subject?
Greetings

Re: Clowns

[ecosophia]

I know essentially nothing about the subject, but I know of no reason to think there's anything spiritually negative about circuses and clowning. I also know that anything can be approached as a spiritual path. Do you know the story of the Jongleur de Notre-Dame? Might be worth a read.

Emily

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Jmg or anyone i need your wisdom on dealing with house elfs. Things are bit getting out of hand and so far we are with 4 nail clippers , 3 pairs of glasses of which half are not known where they are because of it. Is there anyway to placate them as house owner.

Re: Emily

[ecosophia]

Hmm! I've never had that kind of trouble with mine. Anyone else?

[booklover1973]

I have a question about the success and failure of religions: What is it what made the Neopagan movement fail, while other religious movements, old ones and new ones, were successful establishing themselves as small or large presences for a more or less long timespan? After all, it didn't begin in its current grubby condition. Might it have been a lack of a flake filter? The problem seems not to have had anything to do with belonging to a counter-culture, after all, Christians were in the Roman Empire part of a counter-culture, like modern Neopagans - but modern Neopagans by and large don't belong to the desposed classes of Western culture. Might it have been this factor? Can there be drawn any useful conclusions out of this subject, and if so, which conclusions?

Thanks again, by the way, for all your work!

[ecosophia]

That's a very good question to which I don't have a definite answer. I know that I became sure Neopaganism would implode when I saw Neopagan merchants selling bumper stickers saying "Back Off, I'm A Goddess" -- that made it clear that what a great many Neopagans were worshipping was themselves, and autolatry (the worship of one's own ego) is never a workable basis for a religious movement. But what inherent flaws or accidental problems sent the movement on its current trajectory down the ol' crapperoo is a subtler question.

Epic projection?

[earthworm_uk]

JMG - Exploring the premise that this place is an example of the ebbing and flowing of polarities and folks get to make choices in relation to those, I've wondered if the demonisation of things of benefit (ivermectin/DMSO) becomes more than an action based on greed/selfishness and ends up part of an egregore spiralling in opposition to 'Life'

For example - Dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO):
"If something that effective had been discovered, and both the medical community and the public got behind it, why hasn’t anyone heard of it? Briefly, for a variety of political reasons (which I detailed here#), the FDA realised the agency would greatly benefit from DMSO being outlawed. In turn, the FDA was willing to go to war against America (e.g., the agency fought Congressional subpoenas and hearings for more than a decade) to keep away from us. To justify this, the FDA continually argued that DMSO was incredibly dangerous, when in reality, the data showed it was one of the safest substances in existence."

https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/the-remarkable-history-and-safety

Riffing off Monty Python's 'The Meaning of life' - The Galaxy Song:

When you're feeling down Mrs Brown
And things seem hard or tough
Try Dimethyl sulfic--oxide
And find that it is really clever stuff

Just remember that the drying, which is quietly edifying
Will save you from ending in the rough
And a Wilful application of a Hearty adaptation
Will be saving you from quite a lot of stuff

Concentration is the key
And between just you and me
Lifetimes keep on adding up and up

But as birds of a feather
We can sometimes fly together
But often that just isn't quite enough

While a dose of application
And a dance of supplication
Can help prevent us from sinking in the muck

It's a quiet little smile
And a splash of cosmic luck
That enables us to find an answer to:
What the actual pluck?

I've wondered now and again - With all the energy systems, chakra wranglers, light-workers, body workers, therapists, priests, devotees etc etc etc, and the state of the world; that the apparent mess is actually a feature not a bug. Humans are trying to fix the world when they should be trying to fix themselves in a case of Epic projection?

Re: Epic projection?

[ecosophia]

That last sentence of yours is to my mind the key. If you try to fix the world without first fixing yourself, all you'll do is amplify your own problems onto a larger scale and inflict them on everyone else. If you get to work fixing yourself, by contrast, that will radiate from you and improve the world.

[(Anonymous)]

Well this is timely.
I recently reread Nyogthe Variations and iin places it brought tears to my eyes.
I must be not as cynical an old man as I thought.
However ....
when I tried to look up the fates of some of the characters in the Weird of Hali Companion I found it had vanished from both my Kindle and my desktop.
In it's place were a grand total of 6 (SIX) of Weird of Hali - Red Hook !!
Strange, uncanny, eldritch, even squamous; who knows what ......
Lurksalong

[ecosophia]

Squamous indeed. This is one of the reasons why I always get print copies of the books I like; they're much less likely to sprout tentacles and mutate into something else!

Potency reduction trough banishing ritual

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG

At the last MM a commenter asked, if a banishing ritual has any influence on herbs in the same room.
You answered that yes, herbs loose their potency.
I keep my tinctures in a wooden cabinet, partially covered with cotton cloth, in the same room where I do the Judson exercise. My pendulum confirmed the loss of potency. But it seems, that the potency isn't total. Might it be, that the five rites in the same room compensate a part of the loss?
Thank you, Stini

Re: Potency reduction trough banishing ritual

[ecosophia]

You'd have to experiment with that. If you can get some silk or linen, by the way, and wrap the tinctures in that, they'll be shielded from the effects of the banishing.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

I have a question that might be related to this thread and also the BOVID Open Thread. In your monthly discussion on Levi's book in the discussion on the 16th Chapter, you present to cases of a magical attack and the you have this paragraph:


https://www.ecosophia.net/the-ritual-of-high-magic-chapter-16/

Magical attacks along these lines are anything but rare in today’s world. They were just as common in Lévi’s time, and especially so in the French countryside, where medieval traditions of folk magic still survive to this day.


About the magical attacks of today, I am just thinking of another kind of magical attack that it somehow taking energy from an egregore. Take for example the lockdowns, mask or mandates where that were for those for the lockdown were keen on seeing the other side suffer, isn't that a sort of magical attack but somehow it makes it collective.

What sort of dynamics that implies and how this egregoral magical attack end up in the end. I guess the forgive part works on the individual but how to deal with the whole structure of the egregore...


Thank you,

Archivist!

[ecosophia]

Advertising, publicity, and propaganda are all forms of evil magic. The lynch-mob mentality whipped up by the medical industry and its government enablers, to try to bully everyone into taking the Covid shots, affected a lot of people and got them to do things that, in their right mind, I don't think they'd have considered doing.

To my mind, forgiveness is overrated; it's perfectly reasonable to be civil to the people who were yelling a few years ago that the unvaccinated ought to be thrown into concentration camps, but it's also wise to remember that they did this and to gauge how far you should trust them on that basis. As for the people who were responsible for the propaganda campaign, karma will take care of them, but I cherish a (probably foolish) hope that at least some of them will be tried for their crimes and, if found guilty, suffer the appropriate penalties.

Blessing offer

[milkyway1]

I would, once again, like to invite everybody to sign up for a blessing this Wednesday:

https://thehiddenthings.com/weekly-blessings-49

Your sign-ups help me to practice, and I'm very grateful to everybody who does so, and also to JMG for letting me post this offer here. Thanks!

I hope you, JMG, and also everybody else had a great weekend,

Milkyway

PS: Karfreitagzauber shortly before Christmas? You've got your seasons mixed up... :D

Re: Blessing offer

[ecosophia]

On Saturday I scored an LP of Toscanini conducting the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde and the Prelude and Karfreitagzauber from Parsifal. The disc was in pristine condition, and cost $2.99 at a local thrift store. The seasons can grumble at me all they want. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

2 questions, if I may:

1. What, from a magical perspective, is the purpose of a rhyme? There's plenty of hammy spells out there with clumsy rhymes, but it does seem to be a long-established thing, even appearing in Shakespeare's witches (Double double, toil and trouble, etc). And the majority of songs include rhyme, as well as Skaldic verses. Other than the fact they sound nice, is there something about the repeating vibration, or the effort required to make words rhyme which adds some magic?

2. This isn't about practising magic around her, but my 2 year old daughter seems to be either able to influence my thoughts, or to pick up on them. Many times, I've had the words to one of her books or songs going through my head all day at work, then when I get home, that is the exact book/song she asks me for, including books we've not read in months. It's uncanny. Is this a well-known phenomenon with young children?

Thanks.

[ecosophia]

1) That's an intriguing question. One thing about rhyme is that it's good for the memory; verse with rhyme and meter sticks in the mind much longer than unrhymed and unrhythmic text -- I tend to think of poetry as humanity's oldest information storage and retrieval device. Whether rhymes have any more specific magical power is another matter, and would require experiment, but my subjective impression is that rhymed and rhythmic spells have more force to them.

2) This is extremely common. If you're the child's mother, in particular, your nervous system and hers won't be entirely separate until she's seven or so.

Herbs and Banishing

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,
I have a follow-up question to your response to someone else last week about the potency of herbs in a room where a banishing is done. Does this also apply to the SOP as a practice? I ask because I work with medicinal herbs a lot and I use the SOP every day to protect myself and my house. If anything, I have noticed an increase in potency of the herbs I work with since I started practicing the SOP over a year ago. The SOP specifically banishes hostile magic and the herbs I work with certainly are not that. Can you please clarify? Thanks.

Re: Herbs and Banishing

[ecosophia]

No, that's one of the great advantages of the SoP. Pentagram rituals banish everything; the SoP only banishes what you specifically request the elements to help you banish. It's thus safe around herbs, stones, delicate magical devices, and so on.

Dion Fortune's The goat-foot god

[scottyc]

Thank you to JMG for recommending Dion Fortune's The goat-foot god last week.

I highly recommend it as it is not only an enjoyable read but I'm finding a lot of interesting information in it. Available at archive.org

Re: Dion Fortune's The goat-foot god

[ecosophia]

Delighted to hear it. Yes, all of Dion Fortune's books are now out of copyright and may be reprinted and circulated freely.

lesser ritual of the hexagram

[(Anonymous)]

Hello.

I am wondering what the general effect of the lesser banishing ritual of the hexagram is.

Also, I am wondering why we don't often hear about the less invoking ritual of the hexagram.

Thank you,

Celadon Exuberant Ocelot

Re: lesser ritual of the hexagram

[ecosophia]

The Golden Dawn tradition is a vast attic full of interesting things, more than half of which have been more or less neglected since the original order blew itself to smithereens in political squabbles in 1903. The lesser hexagram rituals are among those neglected items. They invoke and banish the planetary energies collectively, just as the lesser pentagram rituals invoke and banish the elemental energies collectively.

In the old teachings of Renaissance magic, there are basically three levels of magical energy we all work with -- elemental, astrological, and spiritual. (Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy assigns one book to each of these.) The influences of the spiritual realm can't be invoked or banished by ritual means -- the angels, who are its inhabitants, are far more powerful than we are. The influences of the astrological and elemental realms, however, are subject to us. Thus we use the LBRP to clear away elemental energies before invoking the force of one particular element, and to clear things away afterwards as well.

The LBRH does the same thing on the astrological level. If you want to invoke a planetary force, say, you start by clearing away the elemental static with the LBRP, and then you clear away the influence of the other planets with the LBRH; then you invoke the planet you want. As for the LIRH, neither of the lesser invoking rituals are that useful in practice, since it's very rare that you'd have any use for undifferentiated elemental or planetary force -- you want a specific force.

Modern Order of Essenes Healings

[kylec]

I'm offering healing hands again this week to anyone needing a physical or mental boost. Just leave your name and request as a reply or send me a PM. Thanks to those who signed up last week, those sessions were fulfilled and you are welcome to sign up again.

Re: Modern Order of Essenes Healings

[(Anonymous)]

I need all the help I can get, I have an uneasy feeling I’m having a Covid relapse. Thank you!

—Princess Cutekitten

Divided Will

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

Last week's MM had a question about learning to meditate which you answered with a reference to divided will. Here is the quote from your reply:

"More generally, it's been my constant experience that people who approach spirituality that way -- with an attitude of "show me something to prove to me that it's real" -- have a divided will on the subject. They want results but they also fear them, and the closer they get to anything the stronger the fear becomes. I've seen people of this kind experience something strange and then immediately go to work rationalizing it out of existence, or even panicking and insisting that they never experienced anything at all.

The inner ambivalence has to be resolved before spiritual experience becomes possible. The spiritual world is all around us all the time. It's not that it's not there -- it's that most of us are hiding from it."

My question is - how do you resolve that "inner ambivalence"? Meditation? Journaling? Introspection? Therapy?

I don't have it in relation to spirituality but it cast a light for me on various other goals that have stalled - likely because of the phenomenon you have described.

To give one example (out of many): I am learning kickboxing. My coach tells me my theoretical understanding is very good but I need to let go of my logical/theoretical mind and just throw myself into kicking without reservation - almost like a child, without fear, going "all in". Why do I not do what he says? Well, I try to - but I have a considerable amount of subconscious fear that sort of acts as an internal brake and makes me hesitate or go slower than I am capable of because I have had previous injuries to my foot (not from kickboxing) and am really concerned about a bad injury.

The coach says hesitating/slowing down is actually MORE dangerous and MORE likely to lead to injuries because the technique was designed to be done at speed and doing it like I do, breaks the mechanics of the technique and it's not just weaker in power, it also messes with my balance and how my weight is supposed to shift and the impact is not correct and basically I'm MORE likely to get hurt.

And yet - I know this logically but I really struggle to take the brakes off and go "all in" - it sounds exactly like the "divided will" you mentioned.

(It is also possible that this is a self-image issue - if at some subconscious level I think of myself as a "fat middle-aged dad who isn't good at kickboxing", then it is possible that I am subconsciously holding myself back from making significant improvements in my kickboxing because that would break my identity of self-image of myself).

I guess it could be both issues, or neither (and they may be linked) - but the question remains how to get through to the next level?

Re: Divided Will

[ecosophia]

Nearly all of us have divided wills on a whole series of issues, and getting past that is one of the great challenges of human existence. Meditation, journaling, the Octagon Society exercises, counseling, massage, dozens of different kinds of therapy -- they can all play a role in resolving it. The crucial thing, though, is to realize that this is not something that is being done to you. It's something you're doing, and you can stop doing it.

Q

[somethingsomethings]

Greetings dear JMG,

As my k stuff is finally in its last phase, I've been thinking about the internal changes I've experienced and trying to making sense of them.

One thing I am trying to understand is the relation between the spheres of the kaballah and the archetypes, and our minds and bodies.

1) is the self archetype that gets constellated in the final part of individuation the same thing as tiferet initiation, or are they different things that are linked by correspondence? Or are they different levels of structure (say tiferet is the mental plane sphere, the self archetype is the astral structure that acts as the trigger for our instinct patterns in our bodies)?

2) How do these spheres and archetypes as objective external realities interact with our mind bodies as subjective internal realities, in the sense that there's is an external noetic object that is tiferet or the self that participates in our mind and bodies with its specific imprint inside the borders of our mind/body?

Particularly trying to understand how our perception/quality of representations improves about objects of knowledge and awareness (I've noticed greater clarity of perception over the last year).

3) a balanced spiritual awakening is a type of clarification/activation of the self archetype internal to the mind/body where the images of all other archetypes in the mind are cleared/expressed without heavy karmic filters or physiological desires/passions, and allows the connection to the external tiferet sphere (along with all other spheres) to shine through? whereas as bad/unbalanced awakening has imabalances in the archetype-tree of life interaction, with physiological correlates (desires/passions/karmic imprints)?

Very grateful for your help on this stuff over the last year!

Re: Q

[ecosophia]

1) The problem here is that "Tiphareth initiation" can refer to half a dozen things on various levels. One of them is precisely equivalent to the constellation of the Self, but the others are not. We don't have a clear taxonomy of these states and processes to work with!

2) They're not objective external realities. They're objective internal realities. The imprint in consciousness is our perception of an internal reality.

3) Very, very roughly, yes.

SOP

[boccaccio]

Hello JMG, if I remember correctly, you mentioned that performing the SOP is on the astral plane like fireworks and that it likewise will attract some attention.

I wonder what will happen when one stops performing the SOP. Would there be a chance that there will be more harassment by negative beings than otherwise due to the attracted attention? In other words, are there risks involved in starting a daily SOP and after a while stopping with the practice?

Thanks for the opportunity to ask questions!

Re: SOP

[ecosophia]

No, that's the LBRP. The SoP is much quieter and less attention-grabbing. The downside in stopping the SoP practice is simply that certain kinds of spiritual development grind to a halt, and you become more vulnerable to influence by harmful influences and entities.

Levi

[peter_van_erp]

On my scrolling throught the interwebs, I came across a list of David Bowie's list of 100 favorite books.
https://www.davidbowie.com/blog/2013/10/1/bowies-top-100-books-the-complete-list
Lo and behold, Eliphas Levi is on the list! Unfortunately, in the Waite translation....

Re: Levi

[ecosophia]

Since the translation Mark Mikituk and I did wasn't published until 2017, more than a year after Bowie died, he didn't really have much choice! Though admittedly if anyone could read a book before it was written, I'd suspect Bowie of that... ;-)

[deansmith]

JMG and Golden Dawnie MM crew,

If anyone hadn’t seen this yet…

https://kerubimpress.com/pre-order-the-complete-knowledge-lectures-side-papers-of-the-golden-dawn/

Best,
Dean

[ecosophia]

I have indeed seen it -- a very impressive piece of work.