Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's almost midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. (The picture is Genevieve Stebbins, high-ranking initiate in the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, who was also one of America's first famous female exercise teachers.)

Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer, though it may be Tuesday sometime before I get to them all.

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 the button below to access my online tip jar.

With that said, have at it!

***This post is now closed to new questions. See you next week!***

Comments

[omerori.wordpress.com]

What do you make of Reich's orgone accumulators? I find the concept strange, but the severity with which the FDA cracked down on it makes me think maybe there's something to it?

(It's been probably asked before... but I don't know how to search for it)

Ressentiment

[(Anonymous)]

Last week, you observed that shrieking meltdowns are in vogue as the titular good people are denied the future to which they would like to become accustomed. Lately, I’ve observed and heard of upscale soccer mom types behaving in peculiar and vicious ways to direct their ire at the working class by asserting imaginary social status through sneering, virtue signaling, and littering – occasionally, with their children’s excrement. (Construction workers seem to draw special rage…) Has the yoga mat crowd been sipping something stronger from those overpriced BPA-free water bottles, or are they expressing ressentiment as described by Max Scheler, complete with the inverted pyramid of values?

[ecosophia]

Reich stands in a long and distinguished line of scientists who had the misfortune to notice something that scientific ideology insists is not, cannot, and must not be real -- the life force. What Reich called orgone, von Reichenbach called od, Mesmer called animal magnetism, T. Galen Hieronymus called eloptic energy -- well, I could go on for a very long time. There's some evidence that the life force can be concentrated by certain arrangements of physical matter, and Reich seems to have worked out one of those. One of these days somebody is going to take the time to correlate all the various researchers and experimenters who've done work on the life force, and come up with a comprehensive system of etheric engineering; I once considered taking on the project, but other concerns were of more importance. I hope someone gets to it while I'm still alive.

Re: Ressentiment

[ecosophia]

Scheler's analysis seems useful to me, but there's also a big helping of raw status panic. Those construction workers got the president they wanted and the soccer moms didn't -- how dare the deplorables vote in favor of their own interests and values, rather than those of their betters! Since the heyday of the managerial aristocracy is waning fast, I'm not at all surprised to hear that the more disposable members of that aristocracy are losing it in a big way...

[dreamstrike13]

Hi JMG, All,

Hope your all well.

Got a couple questions on training:

1) Been working though 'The Druid Handbook (TDH), The Druid Majic handbook(TDMH) and thought 'Learning Ritual Magic' would be useful as I'm practicing alone. Fascinating book, and really love the workbook layout, but different point of view. When, if at all, would you include it if your primary focus is Druidry? Can it be augmented to change the focus?


2) If I'm doing martial arts/fitness training in the AM, would you do Elemental Cross/Sphere of protection before, after, doesn't matter? Can you repeatedly do the hand gestures over and over as if it were a kata, or is best done a single time?

3) Love meditation. Divination with cards is an odd one for me. Loved cards since I was a kid: basketball cards, animal sticker books, Majic the Gathering card game, and then played poker for a living until a couple years ago. With poker it was something that felicitated a life free from the need for a 9 -5 and provided intellectual stimulation in the form of running analytical GTO software, human psychology, risk assessment etc. However for some, a sickness that had the potential to control them.

Divination seems like it could be either one, but as a novice I feel like the later, and a bit like the guys screaming 'one time!!!' when there an underdog in a hand. It also feels like a loss of control and something that could be controlling. What am I missing?

Many thanks for any guidance you can provide!

Re: Ressentiment

[dreamstrike13]

The panic is everywhere mate, why I don't like going out and about too much. The equivalent of Dorothy clicking her heels saying: "there's no place like home, there's no place like home....please let there be no place like home" It's so fu$%ing sad, you can see the terror in their eyes. Heartbreaking :(

Everyone's got to be keeping up appearances until they crash. The extremely well to do area in my neck of the woods is all Jags, boats, Mc Mansions etc, but also has the worst rate of personal dept in the country. Everyone's maxed out (financially, spiritually, physically, psychologically) This mindset is a cancer, it prevents us all from putting in work in the areas that need it.

Re: Ressentiment

[ecosophia]

One of the reasons that I prefer living in down-at-heels neighborhoods where most people are either working class or students is that I don't have to deal with that sort of thing very often. You're right, it's really sad; people have built their entire identities on their status, their possessions, the things that supposedly make them better than other people, and now it's all coming to bits around them. The one good thing about it all is that once it finally comes apart, constructive change may actually be possible for a little while.

[ecosophia]

1) It's a completely different system, and not wholly compatible with the system taught in The Druidry Handbook and The Druid Magic Handbook. It's very tempting to add on book after book, system after system -- I remember! -- but it's a better idea to focus on one system at a time, master it, then go on to something else. The Druidry Handbook and The Druid Magic Handbook are both teaching material from the same system, so you can combine them; more advanced practices in the same system will be out next year when my book The Dolmen Arch is published; but I'd encourage you to stick to those until you've got a good handle on the system, and only then assess other forms of magic.

2) It really depends on your personal schedule. Me, I do my magical training first thing in the AM, and physical exercises in the evening, but that's just what works for me. Try different schedules and see what works for you. As for trying the rituals in a kata style, give it a try and see what results you get!

3) Divination is a challenge -- learning to use it without becoming dependent on it is one of the basic tasks of the training. To borrow a phrase from another spiritual system, it can be a worthy opponent. Whether that's a challenge that's right for you right now is another matter, and one I can't answer for you.

Pluto

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

I've noticed that there's a recent Make Pluto Great Again buzz among planetary scientists who think that the downgrading was ultimately unjustifiable. But if Pluto remains downgraded as I suspect it will, how do you imagine this would affect the Pluto placement in natal charts? I have Pluto in my 7th house, for example - would this lessen or even negate all together the Scorpio impact on matters concerning my 7th house? Would it do the same re: a transiting Pluto in, say, national charts?

I've long thought of Pluto as being a higher octave of Mars, that is, it has a more cthonic, occult, "underworld" impact than do the basic physical life-force energies of Mars itself. Obviously such higher octave energies are not about to disappear because Pluto's status in the solar system has been diminished, but I wonder if if the discovery of Pluto in 1930 helped to unleashed certain cthonic energies manifested by the rise of Fascistic movements around the world, the strengthening of organized crime, the beginnings of research that would eventually lead to the atomic bomb, etc. If this is true, would you say this is a matter of "toothpaste out of the tube", that whether Pluto is diminished or not, these enhanced Scorpio energies are with us to stay?

Thank you -

Will M

divination with cards

[deborah_bender]

If you do not already have a regular divination practice, and the idea of using cards for divination worries you, there are lots of divinatory methods that don't use cards. Some of them are much older than card reading, since sets of things made out of paper only become affordable about five hundred years ago.

As you probably know already, geomancy does not require cards, and there are divinatory systems that use sticks, cowrie shells, stones, tea leaves, pendulums, and the positions of stars and planets. People make up new ones from time to time. With the exception of astrology, most systems of divination combine some random element, a limited set of symbols, and the use of mental associations or intuition to develop an answer.

[dreamstrike13]

Many thanks for taking the time!

Magic therapy for etheric body

[(Anonymous)]

You recently mentioned that posture affects the etheric body. Suppose you have a pretty severe posture issue that you suspect has been adversely affecting the etheric body. Besides addressing the posture problem on the physical plane, is there any magic that will help to support the etheric body and counter the negative effects on it?

Kevin

[aldabra]

Thank you for the Brexit astrology. I never got as far as the bottom of the comments to say so there.

Presumably what it shows is that we're going to have a systemic shock followed by an economic revival, whatever happens. There's a lot of talk here about having a second referendum to confirm (or otherwise) the "Chequers" plan, which is the only plan that currently exists and which the EU says is unworkable. There is beginning to be some talk of a Boris Johnson coup in the Tory party; he has already called Chequers "a suicide vest", worse than the current arrangements, and giving us "diddly squat", and I have seen suggestions that he could try to revoke Article 50 in order to "do it again properly"; a more popular prediction is that he would abandon all current negotiating positions and leave with no deals in place.

The astrological chart shows the position we'll be in, nationally, and is agnostic as to the route we take to get there?

Totally, utterly catastrophic horoscope of Doom

[(Anonymous)]

Well, not really. But I have a couple of concerns & questions.

(1) In my chart several planets have positive aspects, but also are afflicted, two very severely (viz., by sign). Does such a severe affliction cancel out their positive influence to a great extent, perhaps altogether, or does the upside still stand? How does one make such a determination?

(2) There are indications that I am liable to sudden accidental death. Other than watching out for banana peels and bad traffic situations, is there anything I can do about this? Also, there is some mention of danger by water. Would it be prudent to put my dreams of sailing on a back shelf somewhere, or is that overreacting? I suppose I could just as easily drown in the bathtub.

Kevin

[booklover1973]

I have a question about the love magic that you mentioned last week: Does the paper in the jar need to be folded?

Middle Pillar Exercise (MPE)

[(Anonymous)]

Hello!

I have been practising the MPE for some time now. I have noticed that I get a tingling and tickling effet at the top of my head and in the middle of my forehead whilst carrying out the exercise. If fades away after fairly quickly.

I don't mind that as it is quite pleasant actually. My question relates to whether it means anything at all and does it indicate that I am more or less doing things as they should be?

Thanks!

Natural Magic

[(Anonymous)]

Hi!

I am interested in buying your book on natural magic. However I live in the southern hemisphere where the flora, climate and plant floklore can be different than in the northern hemisphere.

(1) Is that a significant problem?

(2) Have you had any feedback from people who have used your book from the southern hemisphere?

(3) If so, can you share some of them?

Thanks and regards

[(Anonymous)]

Can such “Etheric tech” be used in combination with golden dawn ritual work?

Insulation instead of isolation?

[(Anonymous)]

A question that comes to my mind more and more often, as our society drifts deeper and deeper into insanity is, how to insulate from it? I use this term in contrast to isolation, since that is not my goal, at least not the first thing that seems feasible and healthy for me. The best way to describe what I mean is possibly by example... Years ago, I met a person, a healer, who seemed to have reached that goal. While she was actively engaging with her environment and had lots of folks coming and going, was earning money, buying things and so on - still there seemed to be an invisible, semi-permeable barrier between her and society of which she had a certain degree control and could decide what comes through and what not. Surely there will have been limits to this, anyhow there was a clear difference to "ordinary" people. How to reach that? How to build up that barrier? (I can't ask her, because she was already old back then and is unfortunately dead now.)

Maybe I ask to much here and at the same time too little, since in a way it seems to be a kind of wrapper question for pretty much anything you write about... but I'll leave that decision to you and will be grateful for any thoughts on that idea :)

Nachtgurke

Self-sweetening

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings JMG!

A quick novice question if I may. I cast a love/sweetening spell on myself following the instructions from last week. They didn't mention anything about folding this piece of paper, so I didn't. Was this correct? Magically speaking, was this something that could've benefitted from a more auspicious timing than it being a random Saturday night?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John,

Is orgone ki?

Perennial game-show star Orson Bean wrote a book called “Me and the Orgone.” I read it because I wanted to know what an orgone was. At 9, it sailed right over my head. Thus the above question.

Roswell Aliens!

[wonderingmagic]

Greetings on this fine night to all who read this!

My question isn't exactly a question and isn't exactly about magic, except insofar as the theory that government propaganda is a modern outgrowth of magic. It relates to UFO's, and it seems to bolster your earlier research work, Mr. Greer. I haven't read your actual book on the subject but I recall you describing your results.

My brother recommended this book to me: "Area 51" by Annie Jacobsen
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/8512408/Roswell-was-Soviet-plot-to-create-US-panic.html

My brother says it offers convincing proof that the Roswell incident of 1947 was actually a propaganda plot by Joe Stalin. SPOILER for the book: the Russians had captured the latest Nazi "Flying Wing" jet aircraft at the end of WWII, and Stalin had heard of the panic caused in the US by the 1938 broadcast of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds". So Stalin concocted a plot where the Flying Wing would be brought to the US by another plane using remote control, and somewhere in public, a bunch of aliens would step out of it. Those aliens, according to this book, were victims who had been surgically altered by the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, at Stalin's behest, to resemble the almond-eyed "grays" that are now so famous. But the remote control system failed and the Flying Wing crashed in New Mexico instead of Dallas, or Times Square.

Intriguing to think that two of history's greatest monsters, Stalin and Mengele, might have shaped pretty much the entire American science-fiction industry today -- by planting a dramatic suggestion about an invasion from space by LGM's. No wonder there are so many parallels between the real-life Cold War, versus much of the science fiction of the 50s and 60s. And hints of it are still found in modern sci-fi stories.

I'd just like to know your reaction to this book, or if any of your prior work threw hints in this direction. If you happen to think you can work this concept into a full-length essay instead of an offhand comment on Magic Monday, then I'd love to see it over on your other essay site.

Thanks!

Self restraint

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

After years training as an energy healer (qigong asked) I developed a certain level of skill with moving energy. Mainly through innocuous things, such as making next door neighbours stop shouting, babies stop crying, dogs stop barking.

After having come across your writings and other western esoteric texts discussing the need for restraint in the use of magical abilities. I am now convinced I have been doing myself a disservice by using my skill without others’ permission or even knowledge.

My question is, this ability being second nature to me, Could you advise how I develop self restraint to not do something that may be causing myself and others harm, even if not intentionally?

Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

Looking up orgone, I found that Orson Bean is still with us, he’s 90.

Also, if Wikipedia has its dates right, I read his book at 11, not 9. Sorry, Either way, I didn’t get it.

Wikipedia also says that several researchers, including Bean, duplicated Reich’s results.

Basic Ogham Divination

[hwistle]

Dear JMG, two questions if I might:
1) I have just started daily divination with ogham (Murrays' cards)using the three ray spread as in the DMH. My question is how Do we interpret the past-present-future layout in connection to the events of the day? I'm tending to assume that the left card indicates events or situations from the past affecting the present day(middle card) and the right card perhaps hinting at future developments of the said present, but I'm a bit lost... I seem to remember that someone was using that spread as morning/midday/evening and wondered whether that would be a better way to use the spread from a complete beginner's point of view.
2) In the non-theistic Elemental Cross Why is Fire associated with the right hand and water with the left? I'm probably being too analytical but, if we are facing East, I imagine fire matches the South on the right but Shouldn't Earth be on the Left? Or is it not about the quarters but just the elements where sky above matches air and land below earth, leaving water and fire to fill the horizontal axis? Also, Why the front and back rays don't have any associated words/gestures? (Could they be developed without affecting the efficiency of the ritual?)

Thank you ever so much for your help!

Manuel