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-righth published book, and the last contribution (so far) to the Cthulhu mythos to come from my keyboard. I hadn't planned on writing The Seal of Yueh Lao at all, but there were too many loose ends left hanging when I'd wrapped up The Weird of Hali, and this story took shape as I considered them. It's the shortest of my tentacle novels, a quiet little coming-of-age story with Asenath Merrill, the oldest daughter of the central character of The Weird of Hali, as its protagonist, and a tangled web of events borrowed from H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers for its mainspring. All in all, it worked surprisingly well. If you're interested, you can get a copy here if you're in the US and here elsewhere.

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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 more comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning JMG and to all others reading.

1) While reading your book, Way of the Golden Section, I noticed that you attributed the seven classical planets to the seven gates used in the SoP (eg Venus/North and Saturn/Below). As someone who practices daily planetary devotions, this made me curious about the possibility of invoking the planets in each direction of the ritual.

My intention was to ask each god/goddess during their respective day for their consent to be invoked in ritual and then to experiment, but then I recalled the pantheon examples you provided for use during the SoP in the same book (specifically the Hellenic and Roman examples). You suggested Mars in the East (Roman example) and Aphrodite in the West (Hellenic example). I believe these attributions are symbolically appropriate on their own level though they seem to run counter to the ones you provided when explaining the seven gates, so while my intent was to experiment I now wonder whether my initial plan of invoking the planets was too simple-minded or potentially unbalanced. Any warnings/advice to impart before I set off to experiment?

2) Several years ago, I believe it was mentioned here that FIAT was a Word of Power. I also recall (perhaps incorrectly) that each letter stood for one of the elements. If so, I can only assume that I, A, & T stand for Ignis, Aqua, and Terra respectively. However, I can't think of a Latin word for air/wind that starts with the letter F. Or perhaps the ordering is something different. Any help?

As always, thank you for hosting Magic Monday.

[ecosophia]

1) If you want to work with the planetary deities in this way, why, arrange your SoP so that you invoke the relevant deity in the relevant quarter. Remember the deity assignments given there are suggestions, not dogmas handed down from On High!

2) There is indeed such a word: flatus, which means "wind," though it's come to have a ruder and more restricted meaning in more recent usage.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to answer my questions.

Concerning flatus; yeah, I can imagine. ;)

[jprussell]

On 1), milkyway1 has been working to come up with a satisfying attribution of the planetary deities to the directions of the SOP, but hasn't quite landed on one that she's satisfied with, when including such deities also in the opening and closing ritual, but you might reach out to confer.

(Though she's taking some time off from the solstice to the new year, so you likely won't hear from her today!)

Cheers,
Jeff

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the recommendation, Jeff!

Greatly appreciated :)