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

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings JMG,

I wish a happy MM to you and anyone else reading this.

I have two questions.

1) Do you have any recommendations for someone interested in approaching theurgic work from a pagan/polytheistic angle? I'm aware that you've already provided a polytheistic template for the MP ritual, though I understand that this would energetically conflict with a long-term SoP practice.

2) Could you please expand on the notion of elementals not having a Divine Spark (or a soul in general)? Having approached this as a theme for meditation, and admittedly, as someone coming from a cabalistic background, I really struggle to grasp the idea of an entity, or anything really, existing without being 'rooted' in the more spiritual levels of reality. That is to say, how can an entity exist in one of the more tangible realms without also existing in the Supernal Realms, especially when the reverse seems more plausible?

Now I understand that these are all metaphors to train the mind and not to inform it and that I should be flexible when it comes to 'code-switching' between occult paradigms. That said, having learned about elementals as autonomous soul-less entities within the context of a 7 Plane paradigm (as presented in the OPW) makes me wonder to what extent is each plane truly self-contained and self-sufficient. I also wonder if 'existence', in the 7 Plane model, is an intrinsic quality that each plane possesses on its own terms as opposed to being a quality derived from a spiritual plane or other Kether-equivalent. My preliminary meditations seem to indicate that this is the case, though to me this opens a new can of worms that will need further meditation (and perhaps another question will be forthcoming next week). You've said before that the planes are discrete and not continuous, but the seeming isolation between the planes that seemingly allows for the existence of entities such as elementals makes me feel oddly distressed. Care to throw me a bone?

Apologies if the second question appears nonsensical or if the phrasing is incomprehensible. If it is, then please disregard it.

Thanks again for hosting MM and offering your time as you do.

[ecosophia]

1) Start with the Pagans who invented theurgy -- Iamblichus and Proclus. Gregory Shaw's books Theurgy and the Soul and Hellenic Tantra are good introductions.

2) Sure. Elementals have no individual connection to the divine plane. They share in a collective connection. They are capable of achieving an individual connection and becoming entities capable of evolution, but they don't start out that way -- they start out as simply self-perpetuating structures created by the Lords of Flame, which have gradually evolved varying degrees of consciousness. It's part of our work as human beings to help them become individualized; we do that partly by giving them a template they can copy, but there are also esoteric traditions (notably the Rosicrucian and Druid traditions) that work with the elemental creation directly to help them on their way.

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for the recommendation and the food for thought.