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 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

Re: The LBRP and online trolls

[ecosophia]

Yeah, I've seen that sort of thing tolerably often, usually -- as in this case -- from people who are insecure about their own path and so try to bolster their egos by denouncing what other people are doing.

My experience with the LBRP -- and I did it daily for more than 20 years, before going to the Sphere of Protection -- is exactly the opposite of what that person claims. To my mind, any spirit who gets chased off by a banishing ritual isn't a spirit you want in your life, and the regular practice of the LBRP in particular produces a strong, clean aura that debased spirits can't stand being around. If you want to consort with grubby spirits, sure, it's a problem, but that never interested me.

More generally, it seems to me that all the arguments used against banishing rituals could be used with equal force against washing your hands after using the toilet. Doubtless washing your hands keeps your body from getting used to having fecal bacteria in your mouth, but is that latter really something you want?

As for the LBRP, it's a way of cleansing the astral aspect of yourself, using divine names and the forces they invoke to give yourself the equivalent of a pressure washing. The goal is to scrub your sphere of sensation (that is, your aura) clean of the gunk that adheres to it over the course of life in a society that has no notion whatsoever of metaphysical hygiene. The LBRP does this in a very intense and forceful way; the SoP does it in a gentler way -- soap and warm water, let's say, instead of an ice cold stream from a pressure washer! Both get the job done, however, and the SoP has certain other advantages. As for the alchemical and transformative work, that's what the Middle Pillar exercise and other workings with energy centers inside the body are for.

Re: The LBRP and online trolls

[(Anonymous)]

Mr. Greer,

I have experimented with the SoP, but not continued it as of yet.
I live in an apartment surrounded on all sides but one by other people. As a Buddhist, I have recently been visualizing my main meditation deity in each of the apartments that surround me. I’ve found that it does seem to facilitate my meditation.

Is this somewhat akin to the way the banishing rituals of the two above systems work?

Thanks in advance.

Re: The LBRP and online trolls

[ecosophia]

Yes, that's similar. If you were to repeat the mantra (either the full mantra or the seed syllable) of the meditation deity while visualizing the image in each direction, it would be very close.