Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

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!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I've been reading a lot about the shadow aspects of human psychology, the parts of us that we repress so that modern society can function. There's discussion of integration of the shadow (Jung), along with societal rituals to allow the safe expression of the dark aspects of our humanity. There are probably other methods that cultures through time have developed that I don't know of.

For the occultist who's working on transmuting the self, is that an integration of the shadow thing? I've been working with the Celtic Golden Dawn tradition and notice there's been no mention of the darker side of human psychology, or what to do with it (unless I'm missing something)! I wonder if my work with the CGD has been helping with that unbeknownst to me, because I don't sense much of my shadow, or feel at risk of acting inadvertently because of it.

Thanks very much.
Tim PW

Re: Japense Golden Dawn Scene

[ecosophia]

I'm delighted to hear that you're learning Japanese! Yes, there's a big GD scene there; it seems odd to me, as Japan has extremely rich indigenous traditions of magic, but maybe now that they've taken up GD magic they'll send some Onmyodo over to this side of the water. I don't have a lot of knowledge of the scene, though. Anyone else?

Re: Norther Roman Empire

[mediawakeboard]

Thank you very much

I suppose, one of these days I will have to plunge into Spengler

Re: Madeline Montalban's Order of The Morning Star and associated material

[robertmathiesen]

Julia Philips wrote a biography of her, Madeline Montalban: The Magus of St. Giles, published in two hundred copies by Neptune Press (that is, Atlantis Bookshop) in 2012 (reprinted in 2015). She was born in 1910 and died in 1982.

To the best of my memory, her writings have only been available directly from her Order of the Morning Star. See https://www.sheridandouglas.co.uk/oms/ There is a little more about her available writings at the back of Julia Phillip's biography.

For her, Lucifer (the name means light-bringer) was not Satan, but an angel also named Lumiel, and her magic seems to have been angel magic in the Hermetic tradition.

She's a major figure in the history of 20th-century British esotericism.

[ecosophia]

I know this will probably upset some of my monotheist readers, but here goes.

Polytheism is inherently better suited to dealing with the shadow-side of things than monotheism, because polytheist traditions aren't stuck seeing the divine as only good, only wise, only pure, and so don't insist that the soul has to be equally one-sided in order to develop spiritually. Put another way, polytheism embraces the wholeness of human experience, rather than insisting that we all have to amputate certain emotions or desires or inner needs in order to be "perfect" enough to go to heaven. In polytheist cultures, the shadow is just another archetype -- it's not freighted with the terror and craving that makes it so difficult to deal with in Western society.

As a practitioner of the CGD's version of Druidry, you're working in a polytheist system, in which every aspect of human life can find a healthy place even if it naturally conflicts with some other aspect. You know that summer gives way to winter and winter to summer, that life and death are drinking buddies, and that purity and passion are twin sisters who are rarely out of each other's company. That doesn't give shadow repression much room to function!

Re: Madeline Montalban's Order of The Morning Star and associated material

[ecosophia]

Interesting. Thank you for this!

[ecosophia]

Good. You're paying attention.

[ecosophia]

My guess is we've got a speculative bubble and bust to get through first. Now that LLMs are running into hard limits, i.e., they don't work as advertised, I expect to see shares in the relevant stocks flogged relentlessly to get them out of the hands of their current owners and into those of as many chumps as possible, before the bottom falls out and the companies in question move inexorably toward their ultimate role as object lessons in speculative absurdity. Hang on!

[(Anonymous)]

That makes an incredible amount of sense, and jives with what I've been reading. The monotheistic religions and cultures really do have a big hangup around what they consider to be "the dark side" of humanity. Conversely, older polytheistic cultures seemed to have made their peace with all aspects of human nature.

Thanks very much, JMG!

Why must they stare so loudly

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I was wondering if you could shine some light on the subtle/energetic dynamics that occur when a person is being observed by another. I'm trying to come to a better understanding of why some people, like myself, become discombobulated the moment another person is directly watching them.

For me, I can say that it feels as though there's a force being sent out through the eyes of the other that presses on me in a manner similar to the weight of gravity. This force also grows exponentially more unbearable as the number of people who are observing increases.
Of course, I assume I'm also adding to this 'pressured' feeling, albeit unconsciously, so there's much journaling and self-reflection happening on my end already, but it doesn't seem to be entirely "in my own mind".

Additionally - Could this same dynamic help to explain, at least in part, why direct eye contact with another person can feel so overwhelming (at times)?

Thank you

British Druid Land Surveyors?

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, JMG. I just had a chuckle yesterday when I chanced upon images of the benchmarks that pepper the villages, towns and cities of England, Wales, and the Scottish lowlands courtesy of the 19th century Ordinance Survey. Greater London alone has over 18,000 such benchmarks etched into the sides of stone and brick buildings. The thing that I find most endearing about these benchmarks is the fact that the design consists of the Druid three rays of light (/|\) beneath a straight line (_). Coincidence? Or were British land surveyors secretly Druids spreading their oddball philosophy across the country right under the noses of Church and State? Is it really the lowly land surveyors, rather than the awesome freemasons, who have been unleashing unspeakably diabolical horrors (Bond villain-like) upon the world? Oh, where is Sherlock Holmes when one needs him? Do you happen to have his cell number handy?

I do hope that as serious a topic as magic can bear with a bit of levity from time to time!

Amber Waggish Mongoose

Re: Why must they stare so loudly

[ecosophia]

Most people who find the gaze of others uncomfortable are on the autism spectrum -- I have that response, for example. Direct eye contact is always challenging for me, though I've learned to tolerate it. I wonder if that's involved in your experience as well.

That aside, I've never seen a discussion of this in occult philosophy, which is strange. The effect is known -- one popular occult school back in the day used to have students use the effect to prove to themselves that mind-power is real -- but the mechanism hasn't gotten the discussion it deserves in any source known to me. Anyone else?

Assexuals

[bruno1986]

JMG, what's your take on assexual people? You mentioned a few times that amputating a part of yourself in order to be "pure" is a root cause of many maladies. So, what to make of people who simply don't have any interest in a core part of the human experience?

Re: British Druid Land Surveyors?

[ecosophia]

That same emblem, called the "broad arrow," used to appear on the clothing of British convicts. Make of that what you will...

Re: The spiritual nature of money

[the_arcane_archivist]

New Age teachers prefer their followers to set up $1000/month autopayment arrangements

I don't know what they get out of it but that sounds like a rather expensive arrangement...

Unless they live there and that's rent and food.

Re: Asexuals

[ecosophia]

The centrality of sexuality to human experience varies. The same is true of every other aspect of human experience -- for example, some people are intellectuals and some aren't, and that's just the way things are. Since we all have many lives to explore the nature of human existence, it seems quite reasonable that some of us would set sex aside for a life or two in order to concentrate on other things. My contact with asexuals suggests to me that they're not amputating anything; forcing themselves to have sex would be unnatural to them as doing without it is to most of us.

(The word "asexual" has only one "s," by the way; adding an extra one gives it embarrassing connotations in English...)

Re: Asexuals

[bruno1986]

Thank as always, specially for the correction; not being a native speaker, I'm prone to committing errors every now and then. It took me a moment, but I get what you're saying, btw.

Re: Question about causation

[the_arcane_archivist]

Psychedelic drugs (I do prefer the older term!)

Isn't psychotomimetic drugs the older term. Psychotomimetic - that produce a state similar to psychosis.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14094299/ (1964)

Re: Night planetary hours

[not_gandalf]

Hmm. If I recall correctly, in the Philosophers of Nature the planetary day begins with sundown of the day before. Also, in the LPN, you would have 24 hours, but the hours would be determined by looking at the actual length of time between Sunrise and Sunset, divided by twelve, for the length of the hours of the day, and from sunset to sunrise, to determine the hours of the night. Still 24 hours, but the lengths of the day and the lengths of the hours would vary.

[(Anonymous)]

"...in which every aspect of human life can find a healthy place even if it naturally conflicts with some other aspect."

Not the OP. Could I trouble you to explain a bit more about this in practical terms? How do you actually handle the conflicts?

[(Anonymous)]

Is it acceptable to replace the LBRP with the SoP in the curriculum of "Learning Ritual Magic", given how focused that book is on Golden Dawn magic?

Secondly, besides its being "quieter" in astral terms, for what main reasons have you come to advocate for the Sphere of Protection?

Beannachtaí agus Bua

[(Anonymous)]

Re: "They'll shift realities, all right, out of the material plane and into the after-death state..."

This brings to my mind a rather lacerating comment that is probably better suited for the covid forum— and has probably already been said there many time by others.

Seriously, though, "reality" does seem a bit shifty to me sometimes.

[ecosophia]

First, you accept that the conflict is a necessary part of being human. It's not something that would go away if only you were good enough, and the existence of the conflict does not mean that you're going to get a divine boot in the face forever. That alone makes it much easier to deal with such things.

Second, you recognize that a virtue is not the opposite of one vice but the midpoint between two. Courage isn't the same thing as cowardice but it's also not the same thing as foolhardiness, self-respect is as far from egotism as it is from groveling self-abasement, and so on. You get no points for fleeing to extremes.

Third, you recognize that life consists of different spheres, and that none of those spheres ought to tyrannize over all the others. Religion is a sphere; politics is a sphere; the sciences are a sphere; the arts are a sphere; sexuality is a sphere, and so on. If a religious leader tries to tell politicians what laws they ought to enact or scientists what they're allowed to discover, he or she has no more of a voice in those spheres than any other layperson, just as the scientist or the politician is when trying to tell religious people what they're allowed to believe. Put another way, the universe is too complex for any one model to define it.

Fourth, you recognize that no two people have the same needs or the same relationship to the different spheres. You may be passionately into religion, or politics, or opera, or sex; the next person over may be unmoved by the thing that defines your life. That's just the way people are, and you deal with it, remembering that there are many ways to be human, just as there are many gods. You and you alone get to decide how deeply you participate in each sphere, and how you balance the time put into one against the time that goes to others.

Those are the basics. Start with that and it's not hard to figure out some kind of healthy balance among the many aspects of human existence.

Re: Dreams about the recently dead

[revert2mean]

FWIW I'd say that was a real visit and they're reassuring you they're fine, much better than they were here. I realise that will make the other dreams more upsetting.

[ecosophia]

1) Nope. If you're going to follow a recipe to bake a cake, follow the recipe -- don't decide that you can replace a cup of sugar with a cup of salt! If you want to do a Golden Dawn-style system that uses the SoP, I recommend the Fellowship of the Hermetic Rose material.

2) The LBRP is essential if you're going to do GD-style ceremonial magic, but that's not something I practice these days; I've found that I get equally good results from simpler methods of magical practice, and prefer those for a variety of personal reasons. The LBRP disrupts many other kinds of magic -- you need to wrap consecrated objects in silk or linen before doing an LBRP in the vicinity, for example, or it'll strip away some of the consecration -- while the SoP does not. Since the room where I practice magic includes consecrated agalmata (magically charged images) of the gods I worship and a long altar that usually has candle spells, etc. working on it, it's more practical for me to use a working that won't disrupt those.