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)]

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

[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.

[jprussell]

(Apologies if this is a duplicate, I paused to check to make sure I had the title of the book right, and then had a brain fart on whether I had already hit "post" or not, but a refresh doesn't show a screened comment awaiting moderation.)

On 2), speaking of candle magic, I'm reading The Carnelian Moon now, and Aunt Clarice's lessons on "dressing" candles has me wondering: do you have any specific sources you'd recommend on that aspect of candle magic? I can't remember if it's covered in The Master Book of Candle Burning, which I picked up and read through on your recommendation in my initial flush of enthusiasm for all things magical, but haven't worked with, but I have an application or two that I'm getting the inkling candle magic might be right for bubbling up.

Thank you much,
Jeff

[ecosophia]

I learned it from studying with Cat Yronwode of Lucky Mojo Curio Co. -- I'd check her books on the subject. Aunt Clarice is an urban hoodoo doctor of the classic type, and her magic is largely drawn from my studies with Cat.

[jprussell]

Thank you! Looks like The Art of Hoodoo Candle Magic by Catherine Yronwode and Mikhail Strabo is the most relevant in her store, so I've ordered that.