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 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

Egregores

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, The term "egregores" has come up repeatedly. I know you recommend a book last week, but is it possible to give a short definition / overview here? I feel a bit lost... even after asking my search engine! Many thanks.

Re: Egregores

[ecosophia]

An egregor is an artificial personality created by any group of people caught up in a common set of emotional experiences. Think of the way that every place you've worked and every group you've belonged to has its own "personality," in a certain sense; that's its egregor.

Re: Egregores

[not_gandalf]

Super interesting topic. Egregores also come about often when a group does ritual work together, or even when a group does joint meditation work. Every member of the group contributes to the egregore, and the egregore can and does "donate" energies to the individual members. One upshot of this is that a group that really bores in to doing great ritual together can sustain some time where the leadership of the group is quite inept at ritual, or unconcerned with it. Everything will continue to "just work out" for awhile. But it's like drawing money out of a savings account without putting any in; sooner or later it runs out. A major drawback to egregores is that they can cause behavior patterns to "mysteriously" reappear that can be quite destructive. JMG has frequently cited the reoccurring problem of grandiose egotism that always seems to resurface in GD groups that causes them to implode, although, to be fair, a certain amount of that also comes from the type of occult work they are doing.

Jean Dubuis was always dubious about egregores,feeling that the liabilities usually outweighed the benefits, and feeling that a better approach was for students to become strong on their own two feet (or whatever) without the extra energy coming from the group mind which always comes with a consequence, good or bad. That said, lots of people climb up the ladder with the help of the egregores of the groups that instruct them. They then have to be able to graduate, which means ending the dependence on the egregore. Also, being able to do this with minimal incident requires a clear idea of whom you really are and good discernment. But those are alwys requirements on the esoteric path no matter how you approach it.

Hope this was useful and not just a tiresome ramble...

Re: Egregores

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, very useful - thanks to both of you!