ecosophia | 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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~~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

I know you're not a dream person, so for anybody who wants to chime in:

How much credence do you give to dreams about the recently-dead? Are there any criteria for determining if it was just suggestion burbling up from recent events in your sleep like most dreams, or something meaningful from/about the deceased?

Had one recently: no content in the dream that wouldn't have been readily supplied by musings on the deceased, but... before the dream, I was quite sad about the death, and it was making me all weepy and choked up. And after, I have been completely unable to feel sad about it. Not rational: nothing changed.

The deceased in question had a lifelong severe disability and had never been able to talk, only able to communicate in sort of broad vocalizations indicating happy, sad, pleased, uncomfortable, that sort of thing. Easy for an outsider to write off as "nobody home" but a cheerful, vibrant, and intelligent personality was obvious to anybody who'd spent time around them. You could tell a sneaky deadpan joke, and they'd always be the first in the room to laugh: one saved up jokes for this person. Who doesn't like someone who laughs at your jokes? Anyway, about a week after they passed, I dreamt I had a clear, fluent, totally natural conversation with this person, and they told me a really funny joke (that I so wish I could remember!). And irrationally am not sad anymore. It was the change of feeling that struck me more than the dream itself: plenty of dumb sappy platitudes were said at the funeral along the lines of "X is an angel now and can *fly*!" (barf) that were not at all comforting. One is inclined to see this as a little contact with something real, because it so dramatically relieved sadness.

(shrug)

I know there probably aren't any solid answers to that one. But thought I'd throw it out there and see if relevant insight bounces back ;)

I don't know of any solid answers to that kind of question, but tradition has it that this is one of the most common ways the souls of the recently dead manifest themselves to the living. Make of that what you will.

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

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.

That's not an experience I have had in my dreams of the departed. If those were my dreams however, I would spend at least little time praying for the departed (we don't need their permission anymore) or doing something along those lines. It might still be a telephone call from beyond, but one that asking for help, more than showing the comfortable new digs and activities they are getting up to. -JPM

I do, of course, still pray and light candles for that one.

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.

Magic Monday

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