ecosophia | Magic Monday

Midnight is upon us 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-fifth published book, the sequel to The Witch of Criswell and thus the second Ariel Moravec occult mystery.  Once again, it's eighteen-year-old Ariel and her adept grandfather on the case, investigating the theft of a rare magical book and a trail of clues that might lead to a pirate treasure hidden somewhere in the odd old East Coast port town of Adocentyn. Ariel and Dr. Bernard Moravec aren't the only ones on the trail, though, and the others will stop at nothing to get there first...

In case you can't tell, yes, I'm having enormous fun with these. You can get a copy here if you're in the United States and here elsewhere.

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~~With that said, have at it!~~

***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no more comments will be put through. See you next week!***

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is more of a data point than anything else, though if y'all have ideas . . .

I have a devout Catholic friend who has been enough of a public figure to attract some hostile attention in politics and arts. My friend has been incrediably ill for some years now (definitely not CoVax: very much finds that using products developed or tested with fetal stem cells is being complicit in murder). Today my friend found out another close friend and professional associate had been badly burned in a housefire a few days ago. A couple others from the group have also had events . . . "once is bad luck, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action."

Now, a couple months ago my friend and my friend's spouse were woken on a clear, stary night by their housecats throwing a hissy-fit (five housecats, large hissy) at their sliding glass door, while their surveillence camera insisted there was something there. Then the cats ran and hid. There was nothing visible to the human eye, but the surveillence camera footage shows what appears to be a driving blizzard. Again, clear starlit night to the eye. The storm vanished at the pre-dawn twilight.

I urged them to get their house blessed by their priest at that time, and they said their priests did not believe in doing that sort of thing as it encourages superstition.

Today my friend connected the dots and asked if I thought someone might have cursed this group of associates. I said that I was certain that some of their adversaries had tried. Scratch half a dozen politically active arts folks and you'll find at least one who will attempt such folly, after all.

St. Patrick's Lorica, prayed by a larger group of friends on the hour, helps quite a lot, and we spread the hours among us. When we started it was to help the child of these friends deal with a hostile professor, and the child became effectively invisible to the professor at that point. The intent was that the child know that the child had support. The result was surprising and completely unexpected. I can highly recommend this discipline and prayer. We chose this prayer because our types of Christians are very different, and some find prayers addressing saints or angels to be idolatrous. St. Patrick's Lorica met the essential religious requirements for all participants while not violating anyone's principles.

However, what is up with Catholic priests refusing to do house blessings? Is this not a contender for most absurd thing of the year? They wouldn't even do blessed chalk! A priest who is not prepared to do house blessings or give his parishoners the tools for it, seems to me (not a Catholic) to be failing in his trust.

BoysMom

A lot of the Catholic clergy, especially in the US, has fallen into what old-fashioned theologians call the heresy of modernism, and yes, it's causing them to fail in their trust and neglect the duties they owe to their congregations. I'm delighted to hear that St. Patrick's Lorica helped! Is this the version you use?

http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/p03.html

I'll keep it in mind to recommend to Christians who need spiritual protection.

This one: https://www.ourcatholicprayers.com/st-patricks-breastplate.html

We really shouldn't've been surprised at the invisibility: that's what the prayer was first known for, but . . well, moderns, right?

BoysMom

Thank you -- I've bookmarked that version so I can recommend it to Christian readers. It's a good solid incantation.

JMG got it right: The hierarchy at this point is thoroughly Modernist, and many are effectively atheists. They don't believe that sacramentals like house blessings actually do anything, so why bother? The laity go along with it out of force of habit; because, for many American families, the Catholic church is their last link to their culture of origin (Irish, Polish, etc); and because the only alternative is a "Traditionalist" movement whose tradition is actually Jansenism.

Jansenism? Good gods! I didn't happen to know that. What on earth happened to the central traditions of Catholic theology?

They'd deny it but the shoe fits. At minimum, "culturally Calvinist" is a term Europeans use for for American Catholics and it's completely accurate.

A lot of the traditionalist Catholics in America are converts from some form of Protestantism and they bring a lot of the Protestant assumptions and baggage to American Catholicism, which is why it ends up looking like Jansenism and Calvinism in Catholic garb.

Part of the "Jansenist" current, I've heard, came to the US with Irish priests -- because posting to Ireland was a way to get rigorist clergy out of the hair of the continental communities. And the Jansenists were up for the challenge of Ireland when other continental clergy preferred not to. But I haven't looked into the
actual history: just relaying rumors that may serve as useful pointers.
LeGrand

I have been hearing weird things about Catholicism in the U.S, like the host is given in the hand and not the mouth(!), mass is a social gathering with close to zero power (I attended one and I don't want to repeat the experience ever again, it was incredibly disrespectful to see people in it as if it was not a church but a school gym) and used as a formality for choir practice or some other thing and now priests not doing house blessings! What's next, an app where you get experience points every time you give money and are able to use it as points in the church store? I am not picking on the U.S, and I am sure it's not everywhere, but wow.

My late wife, who grew up Catholic, used to say that the Catholic church in this country is basically in freefall. We're all just waiting for the "splat!"

I hope it splats! That's better than having people believe that is what religion is, and it might make room for other things. I am saying this as a Catholic myself, a weird one, but still Catholic. If it stinks, it's better to get rid of it, otherwise it spreads...

I didn't talk with her much, but her sense of humor was great. I still laugh at "enradishment".

Oh, yeah. That's one of the many things I miss.

Magic Monday

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