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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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!***

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hmmm... understanding other people's feelings is the bread and butter of my profession, but I didn't see this under any special label...

What exactly is an empath in your definition? I'm only familiar with the popular narcissist versus empath memes, which I don't like that much.

Empathy is what I, as an autist, don't have -- the spontaneous ability to sense what other people are feeling. (As an autist, I have to get there by conscious reflection.) Empaths are people who have a stronger than usual capacity to do this.

I don't mean to derail the music thread but I have a specific question about empaths and autism.

After seeing lots of discussion about autism here over the years I realized that it could be me. I've always been a few degrees off and had a long string of social failures and as a woman, it presents differently so I was never diagnosed. And yet....

I've also always been a little empathic. I frequently know what people will say before they say it or know what they will do in a situation and it turns out to be right. But now I'm thinking if I'm not really empathic but my autistic focus for so long has been fitting in socially that I'm just really good at social pattern recognition.

Is it possible I'm not empathic but just seriously good at seeing social patterns in people? Or is it possible in women that autism and empathic tendencies could mix?

Many women in our society are raised to believe that it's their job to monitor social patterns, and so autistic women who have any gift at pattern recognition tend to be good at that. (My late wife had that skill, which was one of the many things I valued about her.)

Yes, I’ve always been able to sense people’s emotions, and still I am surprised by the quality of these waves of emotion as described

Interesting. I wish I knew enough about that to offer some advice.

OP here (like last comment) - I am also female. I sometimes believe I have slight autistic traits in terms of social awkwardness. I do lack empathy when I see people who go through things I’ve never been through. But I’ve always been able to discern raw emotional states in the people in front of me, in a way. My boyfriend describes his form of empathy in a very different way - to him, it is like physical pain in different parts of his body. He says he can sense my emotions even when I’m far away. I don’t think I have that kind of empathy.

Still, the music thing keeps surprising me. Also, it doesn’t happen in the same way when I make music with other people, and it’s not at all as strong when I participate in a concert, compared to the therapy situation.

Fascinating. I wish I knew what to make of it.

Magic Monday

Re: Music and etheric perception

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Re: Music and etheric perception