ecosophia | Magic Monday

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!***

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Dear JMG,

I listened to a podcast you did on monsters. I added your book to my list, it sounds interesting. My question is about something you said in this interview about how etheric beings can sometimes manipulate dust. I was wondering if the etheric plane can do the same for fire, maybe through the electromagnetic field?

I am asking because one of my meditation practices is staring at a candle flame, and when I really get into it, I find the flame can move it ways that feel like a mirror. So it got me thinking, according to your understanding, and if it is indeed possible for the upper planes like the etheric to influence fire, could it be my own etheric body interacts with the flame due to my concentration and contemplation of the flame?

If true, this could prove an interesting tool for my practice of spiritual alchemy, as I could maybe get clues to what my unconscious and subconscious minds are up to.

Yes, very much so. Fire is the closest form of matter to the etheric, so it's more manipulable by etheric means than most other material phenomena.

Thank you for this, now a lot of experiences I had during meditations make more sense.

I also understand now why sitting by the fire with people has the effect of bringing them together.

Cheers.

Hmmmm. Your comment just reminded me that researchers into ghostly phenomena have noted that badly haunted houses end up burning down. Just a little data point.

Ron M

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.

Makes perfect sense. Thanks, JMG!

Ron M

This is informative. Maybe that's why the djinni are associated with fire..?

Is this also why weather magic is difficult but possible, since air is only one notch down from fire, and why it's next to astronomically impossible for magic to do anything directly with earth (i.e moving rocks)?

Hmm. As I understand it, weather magic can be effective because the atmosphere is always already in motion and very small shifts can cascade outward rapidly in a constantly moving, unstable system. Rocks are a different matter -- they don't usually move much, and so very small shifts don't budge them at all!

Magic Monday

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