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Magic Monday
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 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.
***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no more comments will be put through. See you next week!***
Re: Colors, John Gilbert & meditation groups
(Anonymous) 2025-01-14 04:13 am (UTC)(link)In the first case, you would be serving the group and the group agenda (whatever it might be); in the second, the group would have decided in some way to entrust itself to your agenda. Being clear about what they want you to do, and what you want to do, would be a useful first step.
By an odd turn of events, I once found myself, for a few years, in more or less the former role in a small vipassana group, initially because the other, more senior members had retired, and I was the only one who could reserve the room. (Not a qualification that is likely to make one order a larger size in hats!) The format was very simple, involving reading from a book by a Burmese teacher, and then doing quiet sitting for about half the time, with a bit of check-in at the end. Other than slightly shifting the reading component toward something like group discursive meditation, the only influence I had was setting an example by showing up every time, and marking the sections of the session (reading, sitting, finishing.) Even here, though, the "work" consisted of maintaining a clear, unambiguous presence and sequence, so that the sessions were or felt more or less inevitable. When new people came in, I would orient them a little. When one or no people appeared for a session, I would go through the stages on my own. (This made a point for the occasional late arriver.)
The cautions have to do with having a clear sense of what you intend to do, and what it will consist of. And not allowing it to get derailed by other agendas. Also, it's important to have a regular schedule, and stick to it (eg, once a week, once a fortnight, or month, at a set time).
Another kind of "meditation group" involves careful, slow reading of a text, and then doing explicitly discursive meditation with elements of the just-read text, with perhaps a little debriefing afterward, and perhaps a light snack.
In general, this kind of activity shouldn't be a surrogate or substitute for a simple social get-together.
It's good to frame it work, rather than hanging out. Because it's always possible that some deeper energies could get stirred up, it's good to have a very firm container for the work, and an approach to recognizing and grounding-out stray energies (and drama).
To borrow from Flaubert, "Be regular and orderly in your group work, like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your inner work." Not completely true, but useful to remember as a rule of thumb.
Encourage this attitude, so that there is a double focus: in the meditation, and on reflection on the meditation. This double or parallel awareness is worth cultivating, and in a certain sense it is often the aim of meditation work.
(I suppose I should close like the Critical Drinker!)
All the best,
LeGrand Cinq-Mars
Re: Colors, John Gilbert & meditation groups