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

[ecosophia]

I've heard of some here and there but never explored that end of energy work. Anyone else?

[(Anonymous)]

In my experience, for both resistance against cold and resistance against heat, it can help a lot to simply build some muscle in the body. Sorry, this isn't anything glamorous or esoteric. It just involves stressing the muscles every other day or so (they need a day to heal and to build in between). Squats, pushups, situps, carrying a heavy dog upstairs, shoveling snow, that sort of thing.

In addition, in cold weather, I take a hotwater bottle into the bed. One gets placed directly over the liver.

This is my personal experience offered in response to our host's invitation to offer an answer. (I am not doctor, and so on & so forth.)

Also, a final thought: I find that "oversleeping" is, for me at least, a wriggly term since I have times when my body needs more sleep (11 hours or more) and times when it needs less sleep (6-7 hours). Of course the problem comes when the amoubt of sleep I require doesn't align with what I've got in my schedule / what other people expect from me.

The most I ever slept in my life was one winter in Iceland. The darkness was what did it to me. So there's that.

[(Anonymous)]

I find that whenever I am actively engaged in magical practice, moving energies through my various energy centers, I naturally heat up in the process, often needing to shed multiple layers of clothing. That's true whether I am inviting desired outside energies into me, blocking unwanted outside energies from coming in, or clearing out unwanted energies from within.

It doesn't seem to be the addition or subtraction of outside energies that makes the difference, so much as the opening and activating of my own energy centers. Of course, many of the energy centers act as portals between the planes, so opening them naturally allows energies to spill back and forth. That warming effect is the same from prayer, ritual, incantation, vision work, scrying, and healing.

Once I begin moving energies through my energy channels on any of the planes, my physical body begins heating up. The only exception is that sometimes while combating a potent magical attack (whether coming from inside or outside) I will get significantly chilled. I assume that that chilling comes from the attacker trying to block my ability to channel energies. Once the attacker relents, I go right back to overheating again and have to throw off all of the extra clothes I put on.

— Christophe