Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

Midnight is breathing down our necks 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 is my sixth-third published book, and you'll have a little trouble finding it right now, because its former publisher let it go out of print last year. The upsides are, first, that this gave me the chance to revise, expand, and improve it considerably; second, that I was able to give it the title I originally assigned it, Merlin's Wheel -- did you know that authors have no control over the titles and cover art of their books? -- and third, that I had it placed with a second publisher less than 24 hours after the old one let go of it.

The book -- well, it's a sequel of sorts to my earlier book The Celtic Golden Dawn, providing a set of eight seasonal ceremonies inspired by ancient mystery rites, celebrating the legendary life of Merlin around the cycle of the year as a system of spiritual self-initiation. The new version has been expanded so that it can also be practiced within the ritual system of the Golden Section Fellowship and its related traditions, including the Dolmen Arch system and the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose. It'll be out later this year, and I'll make an announcement here and on my blog once it's available for preorder.

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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.

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

Re: Mental Plane

[ecosophia]

That works quite well.

[ecosophia]

You can certainly direct the energy to blessing and healing work -- Dion Fortune recommends that, in fact, in her book The Problem of Purity, and it's a form of polarity work to direct it to some other being who needs it.

[ecosophia]

If I recall correctly, it was The Key to your Own Nativity by Alan Leo.

[kylec]

Would you always send it out from the solar plexus or are their purposes for which the heart, throat, 3rd eye etc are more suited?

[ecosophia]

No, you can polarize with both Olwen and Elen, since they marry in the course of their mythic narratives. By "virgin goddesses" I mean goddesses like Minerva, who are permanently virginal. Sul falls into that category; the Romans recognized that when they equated her with Minerva. Ceridwen does not -- in the myths, she's married and has children, and she's also the original of the Loathly Lady in the Arthurian legends, who turns into a beautiful woman and marries Gawain.

The best way to gauge the potential for polarity work with a deity is to get familiar with his or her myths and legends. If they marry, or have less formal relations, they're appropriate for polarity work, and the more central marriage or mating is in their legends, the more appropriate they are. (Thus Olwen and Elen are both well suited to the work, since in both legends the marriage is the central plot engine.)

Re: Dolmen Arch index and geomancy query

[ecosophia]

1) Thank you for this. I wonder -- would you be willing to have it put it up on a website somewhere? That might be the best way to make it available to the people who are interested. If so, drop me a comment marked NOT FOR POSTING with your email and I'll be in touch.

2) Good heavens, yes. I've tolerably often used what I call the 41¢ oracle -- a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and a penny, which determine the first, second, third, and fourth line of the figure.

Re: MOE Healing

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Kylec. I’d like to request healing hands for myself. I have a very painful hip injury and would really like to be healed of it.

Thanks for doing this!

Kevin

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,


Is the Ambelain book available in English? I've only been able to find a single article of his about Druidry and Bards in English.

Many thanks.

[ecosophia]

What a fine idea! The important thing is to keep your intention in mind while you make the knife. With each blow of the hammer and each other action in the process, focus on the idea that the knife will banish hostile spirits and bring the divine white brilliance to banish the darkness of ignorance and evil.

Re: Synchronicty

[ecosophia]

This sort of thing happens to me quite often. That's one of the reasons I take Jung so seriously, as he and his physicist friend Wolfgang Pauli invented the concept of synchronicity.

[ecosophia]

I recommend experimenting with it. I very often let it flow from the solar plexus to the right hand for use in healing work, but your mileage may vary.

[ecosophia]

Nope. Next to nothing by Ambelain has been translated.

[ecosophia]

I have no influence over the cover art -- that's something the publisher gets to choose! It's usually a different artist each time.

Protection against bad luck/magical attack

[bendithfawr]

Hi JMG,

thank you for your reply to my question about affirmations earlier, that was very helpful. I have another question today that is rather pressing: we're usually blessed with pretty good luck but in the last two weeks my family has been plagued by a string of serious accidents. My son had a bad snowboarding accident and had to be helicoptered out, my daughter cut herself in shop class so deep that the teacher had to call an ambulance for the first time in his decades-long career and our toddler fell very hard on the edge of our bed and looks it.

Blessedly - so far at least - none of the injuries seem to be life-changing, serious but able to heal gently.

This is very uncommon for us. It might just be coincidence but my wife is on the board of our Waldorf school and currently involved in a longer dispute with another mother that my wife described on first meeting her as a witch (not knowing anything about occultism and not in a positive way).

My divination ("Is our string of accidents due to magical influence of someone outside the family?", result below) gave no mode of perfection for the 1st and 12th house so maybe it's just the current astral climate in Germany earthing out (there's a freakishly dysfunctional election coming up, even for our standards). Friends are telling me that they also noticed an uncommonly high number of accidents in their environment.

I have done the SOP/meditation/divination for a few years and a few grove workings when we had no kids in the sensitive age. Now with our toddler I'm out of practice. I guess that only allows natural magic. Do you think it would be effective to have every member of the family wear a red bag amulet or do you have another idea? (It's amazing to me that I've been reading pretty much every Magic Monday for a few years now but as soon as I'm personally concerned, I'm blanking. The search function didn't help much. Sorry in advance if the answer is obvious.)

Re: Synchronicty

[(Anonymous)]

Ah well that's good to know! ( must put Jung on that ever expanding 'to read' list too!). I also have experienced much synchronicity and its pleasing for me to be able to divorce the concept from the saccharine writings of coelho!

Re: Protection against bad luck/magical attack

[bendithfawr]

PS: I checked your "Encyclopedia of Natural Magic" for "Protection" and the list is really quite long. Maybe hanging up St. John's Wort would be helpful?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

Thanks again.

Would French be a good language to learn for looking deeper into Druidry? It seems that a huge amount of material out there is in French. French Druidry groups are quite secretive, aren't they? I think you mentioned that somewhere on here before, but I could be wrong.

Thanks.

Re: Synchronicty

[(Anonymous)]

And what synchtonicity that Jung invented synchronicity! Ha!

Re: Affirmation for worst-case thinking

[(Anonymous)]

Sounds a lot like my mother. If this is any help, she is very lucky in her adult life. The negative thinking seems to reflect early and ancestral experiences, but to have no influence over the current events in her life.

Re: saturn returns

[ecosophia]

1) I've been through two of them now. In my experience, it really doesn't matter what you do or don't do, you're going to get put through the ringer. It's probably best to avoid anything new or risky, but that's not going to keep you from having to deal with your unfinished business. The one thing that helped me both times was daily meditation, which made it easier for me to deal with each challenge as it emerged.

2) In my experience, once the return perfects for the last time, if you've dealt with your stuff, its effects fade out very quickly -- say, within a month or two.

3) Yes, or at any other time.

4) The orb for a great conjunction is hard to gauge. I'd give it 5°, which means it's going to start applying in April of this year. Yes, if it aspects any planet in your natal chart, expect it to influence whatever house that planet rules. Remember that what we're discussing is the beginning of a new age of the world, and nothing will ever be the same again.

Re: Amber, stones

[ecosophia]

As with most things Druidical, it depends on the Druid! Amber corresponds to the Sun, fire, and the zodiacal sign Leo, and it serves as a magical amplifier; if you cut or sand it, save the dust and add that to amulets, and they'll be more powerful.

Re: MOE Healing

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Kyle, my work situation is unusually stressful right now. Please include me in your practice for Thursday and Friday. Many thanks! Anna

[robertmathiesen]

All smithcrafts -- blacksmith, whitesmith, locksmith -- have been regarded as (usually beneficial) magical crafts for thousands of years. St Clement, the third Roman Pope after Peter, was a blacksmith by tradition, and in England St Dunstan the blacksmith was legendarily able to overcome and banish Satan by seizing him by his nose with heated blacksmith's tongs.

Tongs are foremost among all the blacksmith's tools. A smith can make all other needed tools once he has a pair of tongs, but blacksmith tradition says that the first smith's tongs were given to the first smith by an angel. Without those tongs, the first smith would have been able to make nothing.

Of course, it takes smithcraft to make a metal knife or sword. There is quite a lot of lore about magical knives and swords, of course, and several good books on this lore and legends. Peter Jennings published Blacksmith Gods in 2013. Frederick W. Robins' book, The Smith: The Traditions and Lore of an Ancient Craft (1953) was hard to find, last I looked, but quite readable. There are also a number of articles on the subject in various folklore journals.

[(Anonymous)]

Looking for help interpreting a geomancy reading.
The question was "Will [supplement] help with my [chronic condition]?" -- I thought the reading positive and ordered the supplement.
LW: Puer
RW: Cauda Draconis
Judge: Fortuna Major

Puer is good for change, I take Cauda Draconis as an affirmative that I'm ready to be over my condition, and fortuna major as a big happy as the judge. Some people with similar conditions have seen this supplement treatment as life changing, and after this chart I've hope I may be one of them!

I worried that I'm reading this too optimistically, though. (Reading bigger things into a divination than actually happen-- good or bad-- seems to be a common theme for me.)

So I take a look over at the house chart, where (in order) we have:
Puella, Puer, Carcer, Tristatia, Cauda Drac, Rubeus, Laetitia, Via, Conjunctio, Laetitia, Amissio, and Caput Draconis.

In a medical question, treatment is a 10th house matter, I believe, and there we see... laetitia! That sounds favourable. But the first house is Puella, which is weak there, and I'm not sure how to interpret the rest of the shield chart.

I both feel like there's more information in this chart that I am missing AND that I'm probably trying to read too much into it. (ie, Seeing laetitia repeated in the seventh house makes me think this will either be good for my marriage and/or make my doctor happy... but thinking "tristatia is in the fourth house, the house of endings, so if I think this is the end of things I'll be sadly disappointed." feels like a reach. .)) Can you provide any additional insight into this chart and how to read it, John?

Many thanks.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John,

1) I started doing the SOP 7-8 weeks ago taking about 2 weeks per element. I was doing some pore breathing/chi ball/yoga posture type exercises later in the day and had total big time energy overload. What happens to the subtle body when starting the SOP? I started doing it because I’m extremely sensitive to “energy” and have done just about every wrong thing a person could do regarding energetic hygiene. When things get dialed up I get a lot of fear and negativity (Moon conjunct Ketu in birth chart). What kind of practices have you seen work for people who are better “receivers” over the years? I stopped the other stuff and just do SOP and things have come back down but those couple of days....

2) My hyper-drive brain is always chattering away, so when doing visualizations its always running commentary, describing the imagery etc... Are there other ways besides meditation to quiet this down? The thing I love about visualizing is that its non-verbal and gets me away from the habit over-thinking to some degree. The pore breathing exercises kind of freaked me out, it made me realize how powerful the imagination actually is, I did not take it seriously enough at all.

3) Do you think the SOP could help a negative biased thinker due to karmic reasons? I’ve heard people call magic the art of horoscope repair (Regardie maybe?) Do you know ways that could mitigate habitual negative thinking after recognizing the problem?

Thank you so much for these Mondays