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.  Given the events scheduled tomorrow, I've pulled this one forward out of order; it's my 65th published book, the one that got me banned from science fiction conventions (despite 18 SF and fantasy novels currently in print) and dropped like a hot rock by most of the Neopagans I know. No, it's not a work of science fiction, nor does it have much to say about Neopaganism. It's a discussion of why the policies embraced by a bipartisan consensus of the elite classes in the US made the rise of Donald Trump or somebody like him inevitable. Yes, it also talks about magic -- the magical manipulations that were used for fifty years to silence any attempt to talk publicly about what the policies just mentioned did to the working classes in the United States, the magic wielded by a motley band of (mostly) young men living in their mothers' basements who marched off to the Meme Wars beneath the banner of a cartoon frog, and the magic attempted by the so-called Magic Resistance, whose attempts to cast death curses and other equally pleasant spells at the people they hate did a lot to bring about the events of last November and the days immediately before us.

That is to say, it's just a little controversial. ;-)  On the off chance you're interested anyway, you can order a copy here if you live in the US and at your favorite online shop or full service bookstore if you live 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 further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Comments

Zen

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG-
How would a Zen Sphere of Protection look like?
-Thanks!

Re: Zen

[ecosophia]

The proper answer would probably be to hit you over the head with a stick!

Less properly, that wouldn't be easy. Zen belongs to the jiriki or "self power" rather than the tariki or "other power" side of Buddhism; that is, the practitioner is expected to reach enlightenment under his own steam rather than calling in help from already enlightened beings. The SoP pretty much requires invoking something or someone in each of the six directions and asking them for assistance. You could go through the sutras traditionally studied by Zen monks -- the Diamond Sutra, the Lankavatara sutra, and so on -- and choose some bodhisattvas from those, but the result wouldn't really be Zen.

What I'd suggest instead is to take your meditation position, do whatever preliminaries you do, and then turn your attention to sunyata, the concept of emptiness, which plays so large a role in Buddhism. Feel yourself to be empty of any inherent existence, and then extend the sense of emptiness outward, dissolving all apparent phenomena into void, so that all that remains of the universe is pure void, and no hostile energies or entities exist because nothing exists. Then meditate on the identity of the void with the Buddha nature. Do this before your zazen practice daily; it'll have some of the same benefits.

Re: Zen

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. If ceremonial magic is on the "other power" side, is there a "self power" side to Western occultism?

Re: Zen

[ecosophia]

Yes. That's the great difference, in fact, between ceremonial magic and occultism proper -- the mage gets power from outside himself (from the divine if he's a practitioner of the magic of light, from nature if he's a practitioner of natural magic, from demons if he's into the sleazy end of magic, and so on) while the occultist develops the powers in himself by concentration, meditation, and exercises that awaken the subtle dimensions of the human microcosm.

Re: Zen

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, but the teachings you've inherited from John Gilbert, for example, although their primary focus is on occultism, include bits magic and mysticism as well. I guess the non-religious side of the New Thought would be an example of the pure "self-power" approach?

Re: Zen

[ecosophia]

Of course. Most Western esoteric traditions are eclectic in nature, and borrow elements from both the jiriki and tariki side of things -- that's quite common in Buddhism as well, with Zen's pure self-power and Pure Land Buddhism's strict other-power approach being outliers. It's simply a matter of where the primary focus is.

Re: Zen

[(Anonymous)]

Do jiriki and tariki correspond to Hinayana and Mahayana?

Re: Zen

[ecosophia]

Not really. Hinayana tends to be almost entirely jiriki, but Mahayana includes both -- both the Pure Land and Zen sects are Mahayana, for example.

Re: Zen

[(Anonymous)]

Does a student of the Druid Magic Handbook address both sources? Or just power from nature?

Re: Zen

[ecosophia]

That's a magical system, thus primarily other-power, but it does involve some development of inner power.

Re: Zen

[(Anonymous)]

The Heart Sutra might also be a worthwhile reference with respect to sunyata and a relevant Sphere of Protection. The lists of various opposites that "are not" , eg--

Therefore in Emptiness, no form, No sensations, no conceptions, no inclinations, no perception; No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; No color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; No realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind-consciousness; No ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no old age and death and also no extinction of them ...etc

...No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path; No cognition, also no attainment. With nothing to attain, The bodhisattva depends on the Perfection of Wisdom And the mind is no hindrance. Without any hindrance, no fears exist; Far apart from every perverted view the bodhisattva dwells in Nirvana.

LeGrand

Re: Zen

[ecosophia]

Hmm! Yes, that would work very well.