ecosophia | Magic Monday

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-fourth published book and sixteenth novel, and it's a sequel to my first novel, The Fires of Shalsha. Like that earlier novel, Journey Star is set on the second planet of Epsilon Eridani, which in the story was colonized two centuries back by a generation ship from Earth; like the earlier novel, it starts with a standard sort of conflict between seeming good and evil, but doesn't stay there. Having villains who are bad just because the heroes need someone to scorn and annihilate makes for dreary fiction; maybe, just maybe, even the most monstrous actions can be justified or even necessary in the eyes of those who do them...

And that's all I'm going to say about this strangest (so far) of my novels. All things considered, I think it worked fairly well. If you're interested, you can get copies here if you're in the United States and here if you're elsewhere.

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~~With that said, have at it!~~

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

First of all, welcome to the real world. It's a lot more interesting than the fantasy world that materialists think they inhabit, isn't it?

Now, for your questions:

1) All these are labels applied by different people to aspects of the same complex reality. From the point of view of traditional occult philosophy, the model I find useful, the world of matter is the densest of seven planes of existence. Orgone, odic force, eloptic energy, animal magnetism, vril, qi, prana, voor, and so on are all the second densest, which occultists call the etheric plane. The astral light belongs to the next less dense, the astral plane, which is the plane of dreams and imagination, and the most common medium through which telepathy operates.

2) Of course it's possible to do this, and there's an ancient and very thoroughly developed body of knowledge about doing so. One common name for that body of knowledge is "magic." I've written some books on what the means are and how to learn them.

3) New Thought is a good starting place. Have you read The Kybalion, by any chance? That's a useful bridge between New Thought and the older occult traditions from which New Thought took all its basic ideas.

The Kybalion - I believe that’s the book by the three great sages William, Walker and Atkinson, yes? You’ve often mentioned it before. I will look it up.

Thanks for a very thorough and helpful answer. I feel much encouraged.

The very one -- though I'd heard that it was written by three initiates, all of whom by a remarkable coincidence happened to be named William Walker Atkinson. ;-)

(Though scurrilous rumors suggest that Theron Q. Dumont and Swami Ramacharaka might also have had something to do with it...)

Hee! As for the Kybalion and its sources, see now Teike van Beiden's post at:
pansophers.com/kybalion-hermetic-brotherhood-of-luxor-origins
Very interesting claims, but he doesn't reproduce the documentation that he says he has seen for them.

Edited 2025-02-10 17:57 (UTC)

Hmm! Thanks for this. I'll have to see what I can find out. I note that the book he cites as a source for Atkinson, The Harmonics of Evolution, is readily available at Archive.org:

https://dn720209.ca.archive.org/0/items/harmonicsofevolu00hunt/harmonicsofevolu00hunt.pdf

In fact, I find that the school that issued that book has a very extensive collection of materials on Archive.org --

https://archive.org/details/greatschoolofnaturalscience?tab=collection

Interesting stuff. I foresee downloads in my future. ;-)

Edited 2025-02-10 18:17 (UTC)

Thanks so much! I copmpletely missed the Great School of Natural Science collection. Since posting last, I also discovered a savage exposé of John E. Richardson , alias "TK," with much about Florence Huntley, on archive.org: Sylvester A. West, TK and the Great Work in America (1918). Fascinating stuff in the little of it that I have skimmed so far. Apparently Richardson also used the same pseudonym, Zanoni, as Thomas Burgoyne = Norman Astley, one of the foudners of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor/Light.

It was a popular pseudonym -- Samuel "Macgregor" Mathers also used it!

"the three great sages William, Walker and Atkinson"

This gave me a good chuckle. Thank you!

Okay, so I’ll ask a more pointed question since this may have some relevance to my current business. I’ve just submitted some art work to an international illustration contest. Naturally I wish to maximize whatever benefits it might bring - favorable notice, illustration jobs, sales, cash prizes, whatever. What practice or practices might I put into action right now to enhance the likelihood of such desirable outcomes?

My magical background is in Hellenic Golden Dawn, practiced at a fairly modest level: the LBRP, the Middle Pillar exercise, planetary invocations and, at rare intervals, my Hellenic take on the Rose Cross ritual. Also, to some extent I’ve been practicing what Neville Goddard described as prayers, which he insisted were not, definitely not mere affirmations.

Goddard is correct. An affirmation is directed to yourself; a prayer is directed to one or more gods.

Invoke Hermes; he rules all contests and competitions, as his Orphic Hymn mentions. You have the knowledge to do that. Prayer, ceremonial invocation, and planetary charity would all be heloful.

Magic Monday

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