Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

 Midnight is just a few minutes away 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 1.3 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-eighty published book, and -- like some of the other things I've written -- it landed me in a certain amount of hot water. I noticed, not long after I started doing the kind of intermediate astrology that involves tracking transits of planets across natal chart positions, that most of the resulting predictions worked very well, but that those involving Pluto didn't. I then noticed that political and economic predictions involving Pluto -- not mine, in this case -- also flopped spectacularly. That launched me into a research project that convinced me that Pluto is in fact not a planet, but that it functioned like one in birth charts and mundane charts during the short period while astronomers mistook it for one. That led me to write The Twilight of Pluto, which talks about the complex way that planetary discoveries and downgradings relate to astrological prediction. 

The reason this got me into hot water is that Pluto has a huge astrological fan club. It's weird; no other planet has that kind of frankly addictive emotional hold on people. No other planet sees people make one false prediction after based on its movements, and just keep on doing it, without ever noticing that they're making fools of themselves. I didn't get into that in this book, but Pluto fans took offense anyway because I dissed their favorite planet. The book's sales have been slow, though a remarkable number of people seem to know about it. I still think it makes a valid case, I don't use Pluto in my political astrology...and, ahem, my predictions are more accurate than those who do. If you're interested, you can get copies here in the US and at your favorite book outlet 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 all next week!***

Comments

[ecosophia]

Holy gods, I hope the Europeans are not that stupid. Russia at this point has the strongest military in the world, having had two years of hard fighting to clear away the usual peacetime stupidities, and one of the world's largest and most robust munitions industries (and that's not even counting their good friends in North Korea). Most European militaries haven't fought a real war in three quarters of a century and their industrial base is crumbling for lack of cheap energy and raw materials. The Russians have already said that they will not accept a ceasefire that puts European troops in Ukraine; if the EU sends them in anyway, there are going to be a lot of body bags headed back home to Europe.

[(Anonymous)]

I remember reading something about a shamanic-leaning (native American?) culture in which menstruating women were kept away from the men's practices with the explanation given that the amount of force coming from them tended to wash out everything else and make it ineffective.

Re: The Body’s Four Elements

[ecosophia]

Interesting. Keep in mind that to Christians, death is not necessarily a bad thing, if it leads to salvation; that "generally-speaking good divine influence" is certainly compatible with sudden death.

Re: Novels and the Mental Sheath

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you JMG. One of my favourite novels as a young teen was Shogun by James Clavell and I grew up reading fantasy literature (The Wheel of Time series was a fave). Although I find it hard to get into fantasy now for some unknown reason. A few years ago I really enjoyed, and was disturbed by, Kate Atkinson's Life After Life and the sequel A God in Ruins. I also recently tried to get into Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising but unfortunately found it terribly boring. I'm willing to try anything at least once and have a dream of curating a mid-sized library of novels that I read over and over (something I've never done much before) in order to grow my mental sheath. I haven't read much classic literature and did used to like sci-fi, however I struggle with anything that seems too contrived. I've also had a lifelong fascination with the esoteric and am drawn to things exotic and from the far east.

Re: Upper Planes and Flames

[ecosophia]

I suspect that those fires are arranged. Really badly haunted houses very often become venues for malign entities, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if more positive entities decide after a while that it's time to let some fire elementals clean things out.

Re: Novels and the Mental Sheath

[ecosophia]

Okay, first of all, I'd recommend Clavell's other novels -- he wrote other first-rate novels, much of it about the Far East. You might also enjoy Trevanian's Shibumi and Eric Ambler's spy thrillers -- Ambler was the guy who invented the modern realistic spy novel, and his settings are lively and exotic. Also, if you haven't read Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, you're missing a treat.

As for fantasy, that's not surprising. Most current fantasy is derivative and dull. Do you find H.P. Lovecraft entertaining at all? I'd also recommend Fletcher Pratt's The Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star -- they're mid-20th century fantasies, vastly more realistic and interesting than anything being produced these days.

Re: Ceres and Romanticism

[ecosophia]

I see it a little differently. The Jovian moons would be as important to Europan astrology as the planets are to us, and for the same reasons. If there's tidal locking, Jupiter itself will have a strange role, because he'll always be in the same place relative to the surface of Europa -- he'll have a potent effect on the houses. The Sun and the other three gas giant planets will be major players, but the inner planets will be minor factors -- little lumps of rock that zigzag back and forth, rarely getting more than a short distance from the Sun.

Re: Need insight on a recent experience

[(Anonymous)]

Does alcohol have the same occult risks as psychedelics?

Re: Ceres and Romanticism

[ecosophia]

Quite possibly, yes. I've noticed that Ceres has a significant effect in natal charts when she's conjunct some other planet or an important cusp, and Pluto and Charon may turn out the same way.

Re: Need insight on a recent experience

[ecosophia]

Not in moderation. If you drink enough to black out or get DTs, yes, very much so, but a beer now and then won't be any kind of problem.

[ecosophia]

That's quite common in tribal cultures. Menstruating women, especially young women having their first periods, are seen as full of wild energy that can be hugely disruptive to delicate ritual processes. Very often, women in such societies spend their periods in huts off some distance from the village, where they can rest, deal with the cramps et al., get a break from chores, and get taken care of by old women who teach the girls how to handle their monthly cycle. I've known women in America who've wished they could do the same thing!

[ecosophia]

I think it's a good sign. They're asking, rather than trotting off like lambs to the slaughter.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for asking. If you read the Magic Monday FAQ you'll find that this is all laid out there.

Re: The Body’s Four Elements

[(Anonymous)]

Sanford did come away from all of it with the impression that it was better to go to some length to prevent the two currents from coming into contact in the first place, but of course the process by which she came to that conclusion was fallible.

She did mention that the effects were for some reason generally not catastrophic when it was a larger group that just had one person who was later discovered to have been Spiritualism-involved in it, although in all such cases the group prayer had no distinguishable effect, even when it had gone off at the time in just the same ways that other group prayers that did prove efficacious later would have.

Re: Female Occultists

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. It's funny that they refer to the role of women in occultism as "secret history" -- it's anything but secret these days. You can hardly pick up a book on the history of occultism without hearing all about it.

If you want a secret history of occultism, look into the huge role played by African-American occultists, male and female alike, in American alternative spirituality. Current Wiccacentric scholarship goes out of its way, for example, to avoid mentioning that the Wiccan "Great Rite" was plagiarized at third hand from the work of African-American occultist P.B. Randolph.

Re: Cycles

[(Anonymous)]

My first thought was the quincunx aspect. Which is described as the feeling like you are laying in your bed and there is a mosquito nearby. (you could get up and solve the problem but ughh)
The part of fortune takes 32 days to return.

A friend

Re: The Body’s Four Elements

[(Anonymous)]

I don’t necessarily mean “positive”, in the sense of “The Power of Positive Thinking”. But, yes, in the terms you were referring to — in the sense of working with a deity.
However, my approach starting out with that effort is working with a deity’s qualities. So, the qualities I try to cultivate tend towards compassion, loving-kindness, etc — in relation to Buddhism.
But in actuality, the inner result produces a tint of general positivity…

Which also reminds me: Mr. Greer, would you say that in experiencing the solar current, that it creates an emotionally insulating and uplifting effect on oneself? A boost to the etheric body? Or perhaps an experience of mental clarity and energy, maybe? I haven’t had much experience with either the telluric or solar currents.

Thanks again!

Re: Cultivation of Virtues in Western Occultism

[ritaer]

One of the first things that occurred to me was women's fashions. The highest that hemlines in Western nations had ever gone before WWI was a few inches above the ankles. But in the 1920s skirts ascended to mid-calf and then to just below the knee with some even slightly above the knee. On the other hand, emphasis was moved away from the breasts, which some fashions actually flattened, and the waist was likewise ignored. And, while the nature of fashion is to move the viewer's attention from one area of the body to another, hems have never descended to the floor since then--except for formal wear.

Interestingly, there were no comparable changes in men's fashion until the abandonment of hats in the 1960s.

Rita

Re: Q

[(Anonymous)]

Is there anything else you can say about what types of knowledge and awareness is available to us as long as we are incarnate (even at high levels of "enlightenment") versus post-incarnation life?

(Also it seems highly enlightened people can confuse the level of knowledge they have access to, Steiner in your older examples).

Q

[(Anonymous)]

What do you think about computational theories of reality? computationally seems like more of physical plane thing right? In that higher planes don’t work like that at all? It seems like modern day simulation theories have some similarities to emanation theory of neoplatonism but take the computer metaphor too literally because that is the spirit of the age?

Re: Female Occultists

[(Anonymous)]

Are you counting as "1: Randolph; 2: (I think) Crowley; 3: Gardner", or is there an extra person?

Re: Female Occultists

[ecosophia]

Randolph to Carl Kellner and Theodor Reuss, the two founders of the OTO; Kellner and Reuss to Crowley; Crowley to Gardner. Just a hop, skip, and jump!

[(Anonymous)]

I hesitate to say anything since I have little direct experience, but the fact that this came up during a "clearing" is consistent with the hypothesis that you had some sort of harmful past-life contact. (Or this-life, without knowing it! - if, as I'm given to understand how that would work, you've spent much time in a cycle of being distracted from more important things by a continuous procession of compulsive lust objects.) The "invitation" could be simply to take stock of the existing residues of the relationship, so as to, for instance, try setting it aside. (...for example, until you're in a better position, most likely in some life unlike this one, to be able to more directly perceive exactly whether and how you should expect it to go wrong, without needing to have a lesson of harsh experience, and without trying to puzzle out too many clever guesses about what it might mean -- whether about the world, or about the intention that would supposedly then be 'inherent' in one or another act of will you might undertake -- that some myths and grimoires had that particular slightly-contradictory set of contents and not any of various other possible sets of contents.)

Re: Q

[ecosophia]

It's hard to say anything at all about such things, since our language isn't suited to it at all. As I understand it, though, we can only access the lower regions of the mental plane while incarnate, and then imperfectly, while beings who have shed their material bodies once and for all and have mental bodies can get to work mastering the whole of the mental plane -- though this isn't a fast process. Think of the number of incarnations it takes to work up from earthworm consciousness to human consciousness; a comparable amount of time and effort will be needed on the next level.

...and there are three full planes above that. Absolute knowledge is a very, very long way off!

Tarot Question

[(Anonymous)]

I'm trying to learn Tarot according to the book Doors of Tarot.

Context: I feel like I have so many choices about what to do with regards to my career, but not sure how to decide between them. What do I need to know about how to decide?

Card: reversed lovers (Tarot de Marseilles)

So I interpret reversed cards as meaning "to have trouble with" X based on the book. Clearly I have trouble judging between choices. But not sure where to go from there? I guess purely looking at the symbols of the card, not the Easy Tarot system, I get the impression I feel like I'm the guy stuck between the two lovers, but in reality I am really Cupid, the one aiming the shot. That suggests that maybe I should pursue what I "love" or at least interested in, without regard for the practical worldly ideas about the choices?

I took another card for clarification. Reversed Moon. Trouble with the time between darkness and light. Trouble with uncertainty. Okay it also describes my situation but what do I do with it? From what I can see, the symbolism is actually very similar to the Lovers. I should be like the Moon, not the animals below. But what does that mean in practice?

Thanks