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 sixty-first published book and my third anthology of short pieces, including all my best essays from my post-Hermetic period (the Hermetic essays were released earlier in my 2019 book The City of Hermes). It's probably the best one-volume introduction to the whole range of my ideas and interests, for anyone who wants to risk plunging down that N-dimensional rabbit hole.  It also includes my most widely cited essay, "How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse." On the off chance you're interested, copies can be purchased here if you're in the United States 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

Follow-up on Saint-Germain

[(Anonymous)]

In my search for sources that inspired a modicum of confidence, I found a couple of webpages on David Pratt’s website dedicated to Theosophy (https://www.davidpratt.info/st-germain1.htm).

He cites a 1988 book by Jean Overton Fuller, The Comte de Saint Germain: Last scion of the House of Rákóczy. Fuller also wrote well-researched historical works on espionage in addition to biographies of Blavatsky, Krishnamurti, and one Victor Neuberg who was for eight years closely associated with Aleister Crowley. I found her book riveting. She treats the Count’s musical and chemical work in depth and sifts through the welter of sources, dismissing most of them for what seem to be solid reasons while noting how some of the legends probably originated.

She offers a persuasive explanation of his enigmatic forays into diplomacy and proposes an ingenious hypothesis connecting his enigmatic birth with his involvement, technically as a Russian General, in the Orlov brothers’ campaign against the Ottoman Empire in 1769-70.

As you said, he does not appear to have played any role in the occult societies of his time. Moreover, he did not claim to possess supranormal powers or miraculous longevity, and was neither a Freemason nor a Christian. He may have had an inclination to mysticism inspired by the Law of Nature and Nature’s God. On balance, I think the evidence Fuller marshals suggests that his beliefs and motivations were honorable and fundamentally secular, but — perhaps because she was influenced by Theosophy, which exalted him as one of the great Masters — she plays up the mysticism. To this end she accepts as authentic an unfinished sonnet published about a decade after the Count’s death.

CURIEUX scrutateur de la nature entière,
J’ai connu du grand tout le principe et la fin.
J’ai vu l’or en puissance au fond de sa minière,
J’ai saisi sa matière et surpris son levain.

J’expliquai par quel art l’âme aux flancs d’une mère,
Fait sa maison, l’emporte, et comment un pépin

Mis contre un grain de blé, sous l’humide poussière,

L’un plante et l’autre cep, sont le pain et le vin. 

Rien n’était, Dieu voulut, rien devint quelque chose,

J’en doutais, je cherchai sur quoi l’univers pose,

Rien gardait l’équilibre et servait de soutien.

Enfin, avec le poids de l’éloge et du blâme,
Je pesai l’éternel, il appela mon âme,

Je mourus, j’adorai, je ne savais plus rien. 

Pratt links to a good translation (https://poetryintranslation.wordpress.com/category/mysticism/rose-croix/):


but it does not include alternate endings in the (apparently unfinished) original.

Je pésais dieu lui-même, il appela mon ȃme,
Le cadavre tomba, j’adorai, tout en bien.

or

Je pésais l’éternel, il appela mon ȃme,
Le cadavre tomba, je ne savais plus rien.

and as a final line

Je redeviens dieu même et je m’en doutais bien.

These lines prompt Fuller’s most outré speculations at the end of her book; it must be admitted that they would account for the way the Count recalled parts of the elder Racoczy’s life as if he had lived them himself.

Pratt also cites a work issued in 2004 by a cultural society in the town of Saint-Germain’s death, Wer war ‘Graf Saint-Germain’? Eine historisch-kritische Bestandsaufnahme. I found the three essays contained in it terribly disappointing: the tone throughout is one of sarcastic debunking, treating Saint-Germain as a mere con artist.

These readings have left me with a sense of wonderment at the powers of projection which (starting during his life and gathering momentum later) have made of this man either a crook or a quasi-divine wizard, instead of the gifted, lonely, and ambitious idealist that he probably was.

Gray Hat

Re: Follow-up on Saint-Germain

[ecosophia]

Hmm! I'll have to read Fuller's book at some point.