ecosophia | Magic Monday

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Magic Monday

Midnight is almost here 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 seventy-second published book and the beginning of a new fiction series. I'd spent years being frustrated by the way that fantasy fiction ignored real magic and fixated on Harry Potter absurdities instead. Once I finished my tentacle novels, that had the inevitable result and gave rise to the first of a series of novels in which all the magic is the stuff real human beings in the real world can encounter. Ariel Moravec, the protagonist of the series, is an eighteen-year-old girl who goes to spend the summer with her grandfather, an occult initiate who spends his time investigating paranormal happenings. Before long she's caught up in one of his investigations, centering on legends of a colonial-era witch and a cascade of very real and vicious spells in the present day...

There are two more novels in the series already in print, a third in press, and a fourth currently being written. It's turning into a very entertaining series to write and, I hope, to read. If you're interested, you can get copies of The Witch of Criswell here if you live in the US and here if you live 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 next week!***

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I've been stuck on the first meditation in the Celtic Golden Dawn, because I cannot manage to get a seed to sprout. I've tried several different seeds (including but not limited to a pea and a bean), and tried both cloth and paper towels, which I've kept wet throughout the day, so far to no effect. Do you have any advice?

Hi JMG,

I hope you've had a good weekend! :-) An offer to everybody today, and then Carnelian Moon-related questions [spoiler alert!!].

1. I perform a formal blessing each week and am grateful to everybody who signs up, as this allows me to practice: https://thehiddenthings.com/categories/weekly-blessings

+++ SPOILER ALERT CARNELIAN MOON +++

2. JMG, might an artefact like the plaque still have enough "occult vibes" clinging to it, to make it possible to distinguish between genuine and replica by occult means? In cases where this would be worth a try, what methods would be suitable for this task? (psychometry came to mind, but I suppose there'd be others, too)

3. What are the inherent dangers of investigating an occult artefact by psychometry (or similar means)?

4. And how could they be mitigated?

Thanks, as always, for hosting MM and answering all the questions! :-)

Milkyway

Yes, but it may be a while before I can get to it. Mondays are busy for me.

There's a Dreamwidth forum set up for making such arrangements:

https://glastonburyarrangements.dreamwidth.org/

See you there!

Yes, I read about that. It was found by psychics working for the CIA, so it's anyone's guess what's actually there.

Since I know you often keep track of odd trends going on, I wonder if you've heard of the whole "reality shifting" thing? I only heard about it recently, but it's a trend mostly involving GenZ that started on Tiktok during the covid lockdowns and now has several subreddits dedicated to it, one of which has over 100,000 members. The idea is that there are an infinite amount of parallel realities and it's possible to shift your consciousness into one that's more desirable. It's kind of like "The Secret" but instead of manifesting whatever you want here, you script another reality and then shift to it, the idea being that you don't actually create it, as all realities already exist, you just shift your awareness into it. Some claim to be able to do just that.

Most of the reddit posts are either people who are trying but have been unsuccessful, but some claim success. Some are describing small "Mandela Effect" type changes that could very well just be lapses in memory. Some sound like they're probably just vivid lucid dreams. However there are a few who claim to have spent long periods of time in alternate realities, and that it felt just as real as normal life, passing reality checks that rule out lucid dreaming.

I look at this with plenty of skepticism, and the whole ideology behind it seems like wishful thinking to the extreme, but I do think that at least in some of the cases there is something real going on there. I'm agnostic about the possibility of actual parallel universes, but even if there are parallel universes out there, I doubt that all of what we think of as fictional universes are actually real somewhere as the reality shifters like to claim. I just think of all the ways that fictional stories often contradict themselves and are internally inconsistent. I wonder if some of those who claim to reality shift have found a way to make the astral plane feel that much more real than most people are able to? Any thoughts?

How long did you leave them?

Hi All,

I'll keep it brief this week with one question and one comment:

Question: In geomancy, if you were asking a question about whether someone would be seen again in a voluntary organization or if they have left for good, would this be an 11th house query? This is one case that's kind of ambiguous because the 3rd house also can concern associations and social circles as well.

I also have a question about an ambiguous reading I received but I will leave it to next week for lack of time.

Comment: Having got to the point of learning the SOP, it seems to me that despite being less intense than the the LBRP+MP, it still feels like a very powerful ritual to me. Especially when you visualize the heavenly and telluric currents joining to erase the negative energy in your area, it gives a definite sensation of "altered consciousness" for a little bit. Maybe that will subside as I do it for a longer period of time.

Best,

Deneb

The eclipses have effect. The presence of Neptune has an effect, as it does in any chart. What I'm saying is that the fact that Neptune is passing into Aries doesn't allow predictions to be made from that fact alone.

2) Occult means are always a little uncertain. Imagine for a moment a replica of an ancient plaque that was made in 1942, and charged by the maker -- using the methods of talismanic magic -- with imagery and energy relating to ancient times. Anyone who wasn't a first-rate psychic would be likely to think it was ancient.

3) Depends on the object. Some things are charged with very negative energies, and you don't want to attune to those.

4) Use material means first...

The next day starting at sunset appears to have been how the ancient Germanic folks understood things, which we have in a few holdovers like "Christmas Eve." I've given some thought to trying to embrace this, as I worship the Germanic Gods and do a daily devotion for the God of each day (the Sun for Sunday, the Moon for Monday, and so forth), but when I've explicitly done anything by planetary hours, I've used the standard 24 hour approach.

Sorry not to have more to offer, but it might be worth exploring.

Cheers,
Jeff

My mother passed away suddenly, unexpectedly in 2008. Though she had health issues, it was still quite the surprise. She visited me a few times afterwards in dreams. Still every once awhile. Even in the past five years I had a few vivid dreams of her that had a just-so quality where she communicated something important to me. I had no doubt it was a communication from her. How that works with where she may be now, I'm not totally sure, except to say the astral plane isn't bound by the same rules of time.

Yet in the immediate aftermath it was those dreams that, while not taking away my grief, made it more bearable. Others have followed from other relatives and people I know who passed since then. I can't say all my fears of death are gone, but these dreams, alongside meditation and occult practice, they have changed how I feel about it for the better.

Justin Patrick Moore

I've tried to stay well away from that whole giddy scene. The whole Mandela Effect business has always struck me as a testimony to the failings of human memory -- it was Steve Biko, not Nelson Mandela, who died back then, for example, but few people outside of South Africa remember Biko, so memory blurs and shifts accordingly; I also recall the BerenstAIn Bears, but I noticed even in childhood how many people mentally edited the name to fit more familiar patterns. Add in the conviction that it's possible to jump to some parallel universe that's more to your liking, and you've got the makings of an absolutely top-of-the-scale collective psychosis.

There's a scene in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses in which a prophet leads his followers to the sea, having convinced them that the waters will part and let them pass through safely. Singing his praises, they walk after him straight into the water. After a while, the first drowned corpses start bobbing to the surface. I could all too easily see something similar happening in this case; "In an alternate reality, the sea isn't there! We can shift into that reality!" They'll shift realities, all right, out of the material plane and into the after-death state...

Went there when I was a kid: lotta controversy about whether it's "real" ancient site, or mostly constructed by whoever owned the property last. Maybe some of both. Fun field trip either way.

If you ever roadtrip up that direction, think about checking out Breakheart Reservation in Saugus, MA. I've never read anything 'mystical' about it, but boy does that place have vibes.

1) I'd treat that as an 11th house question. I tend to see 3rd house as more a matter of family and neighborhood.

2) I've noticed the same thing. It's quieter than the LBRP, but very potent.

OP here:

Whether I take it as a literal capital-S Sign-from-beyond or not, it's a mixed bag :/ Previous dreams about a different deceased relative left me in rather acute distress about their status in the afterlife. I do not actually *want* those to be a reflection of reality. But I think it's entirely possible they were.

JMG,

It is fashionable to compare the US to Romans. But, recently, after a bit of reading and listening on Byzantium, I noticed lots of similarities between Russia-USSR and Eastern Romans.

Both rely heavily on a strong man being in charge of a sluggish but extremely powerful bureaucracy
Both have a kind of "walking meat-grinder" approach to war
Orthodoxy has a very important role in propaganda and ethos
both are autocratic, but you can be "elected" to the top if the right people support you (as opposed to monarchy and democracy)
red and gold flag of USSR ))

I must confess it is a very vague feeling of kinship.

The question I would like to ask you is

Are there books on the group souls you would recommend?
You mentioned prophecies about a new civilisation on Volga in this century. By theosophists, if I recall correctly. Where can one read more about that, without plunging 100% into Madam Blavatsky?

Also, from here in Ukraine it does feel like some ancient barbarian stuff is being invoked. Runes, chants, rumored sacrifices, etc.

Thanks, Andriy B

Is this effectively what also happens during sleep and conscious trance - the brain's material-plane filter is "turned off" (or at least "turned down")?

Just a thought on #3 - I can't find it now, but there's an interview somewhere (maybe 15 years ago) in which John McLaughlin talks about what he wished New Age music could have turned into. It was a little like what you're describing, I think: a skillful melding of diverse musical worlds. I tend to see his work as a type of musical alchemy. "Universalist initiates" for sure, in some of those groups!

The late Zakir Hussein once said that when the first Shakti record came out, nobody had a clue how to categorize it. Even with no electronics, something like "Fourth World" probably would have been a better fit than just "Fusion" ... possibly the only category less descriptive than "World" or "New Age."

Sorry if this is getting off topic. I have to check out that Peter Gabriel record!

Noodles

Not JMG, but -

My personal take on it is that the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Aries is a bigger deal simply than Neptune's ingress into Aries (they seem, to me, to mark geopolitical "beats" or some other such cycles). The main effects of Neptune entering Aries, I think, are that:

- Solar seasonal ingresses and eclipse charts during this period will no longer have Neptune in the sign of its rulership. This especially affects the Aries ingress over the next couple of years, since the Sun-Neptune conjunction will still be in orb but now in Aries rather than cross-sign Pisces/Aries. This will have the most immediate effect on those areas whose Aries ingress was in cardinal signs (which happens to include Moscow, Tel Aviv, and Tehran), since the Cancer ingress with Neptune fully in Aries will be "active".

- Neptune in Aries means Mars is now exalted through mutual reception in Pisces. Since Aries comes right after Pisces, this has the effect of effectively doubling all "Mars in Aries" periods and makes it twice as likely that a "Mars in Aries" signal will appear in any ingress, eclipse, foundation, or natal chart.

It has a few interesting nuggets, lots of geometry, some congruence with your own Druidry Handbook concerning the circles of the world, some mentions of runes that I have found helpful because my candidate project is to integrate runes with the DMH material. Lots of Celtic mythology, some naturopathy.

What prompted me to dig for this book was a memory of a passage about the "Bardic A". The author claims that the "Bardic A" (the music note) is 432hz and he derives lots of numerology and gematria on that basis. It seems to me like retro-fitting and probably not very "Bardic"; it's not like he mentions a tuning fork or bell unfortunately as I was hoping. The author also wrote a book about the Grail, but that never landed in my hands.

Thank you

Yes, exactly. The brain has to rest, leaving the consciousness free to stray into the astral -- that's what we call "dreaming." If you pay close attention as you wake up and your dreams fade out, you can watch the filter coming into play.

I'll keep that in mind!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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Magic Monday

Bri

blessing offer; Carnelian Moon questions

no subject

Re: Ecosophian conference - London to Glastonbury train/transport

no subject

no subject

Re: Bri

Short comment

Re: Neptune in Aries

Re: blessing offer; Carnelian Moon questions

Re: Night planetary hours

Re: Dreams about the recently dead

no subject

Re: America's Stonehenge

Re: Short comment

Re: Dreams about the recently dead

Norther Roman Empire

Re: Question about causation

Re: Silent Records, Geometry and the Horse,

Re: Neptune in Aries

Re: Night planetary hours

Re: Magic and Literature, Magic and Opera,

Re: Magic and Literature, Magic and Opera,

Re: Question about causation

Re: America's Stonehenge