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

Re: study recomendations

[(Anonymous)]

Mr. Greer,

1) I suspected that you (quite justifiably) might answer that way. If I may be so impertinent as to offer an unsolicited opinion, "Towards An Occult Canon" (or something like it) might make an eminently readable essay at Ecosophia.net. Obviously, by your own definition of canon, it's not something that just one expert can dictate, but I thought that tossing the question out into the aether where those more erudite than I can see it might yield some interesting results. Canon or not, if you have one or two recommendations geared toward making better rounded occultists, I would still gratefully accept them, whilst I hope that the community at large might see something further from you on this in coming months.

2) Most excellent; thank you! The Chemical Wedding was already on my reading list for other reasons, so it'll be interesting to see how the web of connections begins to form.

3) For any other passersby that may wish to lend a hand, the only two treatises I have yet been exposed to on the topic of Scrying ad Crystal Gazing are Frater Achad's Crystal Vision Through Crystal Gazing (1923) and Lon Milo DuQuette's Enochian Vision Magick (2008). However, I share Mr. Greer's general distrust of Crowley and, since I am far, far, more inexperienced than Mr. Greer, I extend said distrust generally to sources derived from Crowley, as well, despite the fact that there appear to be some quite credible systems of magic derived from that lineage. Thank you for anyone that may proffer suggestions.

Thank you again, Mr. Greer, for your time and the benefit of your experience.

Re: study recomendations

[ecosophia]

1) One differentiation worth making here is between occultism and magic -- I've come to see these as two distinct paths, though related. (The short form is that occultism has the keynote of wisdom and the core practice of meditation, while magic has the keynote of power and the core practice of ritual.) One of the things I've spent the last twenty years realizing is that while I'm competent at magic, occultism is the real focus of my work. There would thus need to be two different canons. For example, Manly P. Hall's Self-Unfoldment through Disciplines of Realization is an essential volume for the occultist but not very useful for the mage, while The Key of Solomon is a classic essential to the mage but is useless for the occultist.

3) Good heavens, is that all you have? Try some of these; I don't know that they're the best options, but they're certainly not Crowleyified:

http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1870__fryar___history_and_mystery_of_the_magic_crystal.pdf
http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1904__grumbine___clairvoyance.pdf
http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1905__thomas___crystal_gazing.pdf
http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1908__atkinson___practical_psychomancy_and_crystal_gazing.pdf
http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1910__melville___crystal_gazing_and_clairvoyance.pdf

Re: study recomendations

[(Anonymous)]

Mr. Greer,

1) I understand and agree with your distinction. Since I am, at present, interested in both, I did not originally make such a distinction for the sake of brevity. I also agree that a truly thorough treatment would require two such canon lists. However, I might (again, impertinently) opine that even one mixed (dare we say interdisciplinary?) canon would stand as a one thousand percent improvement over the current state of things.

Shall I take your examples as another example of "genial winks and nods" in occult writing? :)

3) As I said: far, far more inexperienced. I assume these are just what returned on search, and that there's no especial familiarity on your part, even by reputation? Either way, I will consume them dutifully; thank you again for your time.

4) I remember reading here on Dreamwidth that you had sent a translation of Dee off to be published; might we see that this year, or shall we have to wait for next?

Profuse thanks.

Re: study recomendations

[ecosophia]

3) What I know about them is that they were fairly standard texts from the turn of the last century. My usual approach in working with older traditions is to get a bunch of texts, read them all, and draw my own conclusions.

4) I haven't been told the publication date yet. I'll post something when I hear.

Re: study recomendations

[robertmathiesen]

In addition to the five books our host linked to, I recommend Theodore Besterman's Crystal Gazing (1924), downloadable at
https://archive.org/details/besterman-1924-crystal-gazing

Ada Goodrich-Freer, writing as "Miss X," published several good essays on scrying, some of which were reprinted in her Essays in Psychical Research (1899). See especially chapters III and V there. One can download that book of hers at
http://iapsop.com/ssoc/1899__goodrich-freer___essays_in_psychical_research.pdf

She also contributed (anonymously) a paper, "Recent Experiments in Crystal Vision," to volume V (1889) of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, as well as several shorter pieces to the four volumes of the short-lived periodical, Borderland.

You can find volume V of the Proceedings at
https://archive.org/details/proceedingsofsoc05soci/page/n4/mode/1up

and all the volumes of Borderland at
http://iapsop.com/archive/materials/borderland/

Re: study recomendations

[jprussell]

On 3), Not exactly crystals, and I haven't done the work to get any results, but I can say that W.E. Butler gives helpfully specific instructions on making a "black mirror" that are tolerably easy to follow, along with exercises to do with it, in How to Read the Aura and Practice Psychometry, Telepathy, and Clairvoyance. (I made one in my initial burst of enthusiasm for all things occult before realizing I had plenty of other stuff to focus on before diving into that).

If interested, the short version is get a round shoe polish tin, a lamp lens of the same diameter (these turn up more readily than I expected with a web search), and some black enamel paint (the kind sold for model airplanes works well), along with a small amount of some kind of packing to steady the lens (like cotton balls). Paint the convex side of the lens with the paint, optionally paint the outside of the tin to cover up brand markings and the like, put some of the packing into the tin, then settle the lens in, concave side up (forming a "bowl" inside the tin), and you're done! Decoration on the outside of the tin is also optional, if you want to spruce it up a bit/give your subconscious some further prompting. One small tip is to do multiple thin coats of the paint rather than trying to get it opaque in one go (that will tend to end up streaky/globby). The idea is that you get a shiny surface that has many of the same qualities as a crystal ball, but for much cheaper and easier to find.

Cheers,
Jeff