Magic Monday Returns

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight and so it's time to launch the first new new Magic Monday in a (busy but successful) month. 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 not be put through.  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? It somehow seemed appropriate...)

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

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!  

Comments

[rhydlyd]

Happy Imbolc! I hope the holiday finds you and yours well.

Given your discussion of His Grace Kek and your examination of the Basement Brigade, I’m gonna step not very far out on a stout oak limb to suspect that you and the assembled wizardren are aware of a British meme goddess named Amelia.

She does seem potent, having been awarded epithets including, “Lionheart,” and “Rose of Albion.” One standout meme reads, “Amelia, Queen of Albion, stand with me now!”

While the quality of her videos and music videos on YouTube makes me suspect someone is funding a little pot-stirring, they are sincere and consistent. Also, one music video, “Amelia’s Dream,” on Music of Our Time at YouTube might hold something beyond the content creator’s intent since it features a standing stone, rooks and seagulls.

Technical stuff aside, I like her despite my Puritan and Patriot roots. Assuming that the gamers might know about her here in the US, I asked one. He said, “I’m a loyal Irishman, and I love her!” Okay. That’s not strange, not a bit…

But – I am left with a suspicion sneaking as quietly as a straight-piped bulldozer that, despite being a cartoon character who hits all the right Jungian symbols, there is something more afoot than an adorable waifu and some bumper-sticker sloganeering. (That the Guardian is reduced to foaming aphasia in their denunciations of her may support the possibility of afoot-ness.)

So0O0o-ah – Who is Amelia and what is she really doing?

[ecosophia]

I've been watching the saga of Amelia from the far side of the Atlantic in a state of utter bemusement. For those who don't know the first act of the saga, the British government had some collection of flacks create a video game for British kids, which was designed to elicit "racist" (that is, patriotic and un-woke) statements from them -- at which point the kids who fell for it would be reported to the police for, erm, reeducation. (I wish I was making this up.) Amelia was a cartoon figure who was supposed to mouth allegedly racist slogans, and they gave her violet hair because they thought that would annoy right-wingers, who make jokes about women with dyed hair.

Ponder the immeasurable stupidity of the flacks who put nationalist and patriotic slogans in the mouth of the kind of cute female figure who would have most teenage boys reaching into their trousers on the spot. Of course these same teenage boys instantly hijacked her and turned her into a mascot, just as they did with Kek back in the day. Of course these same teenage boys, being far more computer-skilled than government flacks, started doing LLM-generated videos of Amelia speaking out in favor of nationalist and patriotic ideas. Here's a still:

Of course everybody in Britain who's sick and tired of the Starmer government and its woke doctrines embraced Amelia as their latest heroine, not least because the Guardian's foam-flecked fury when she's mentioned is so entertaining to watch...

And then, as with Kek, things got weird. We're still in the early stages of the weirdening -- is that a word? It is now -- but it would not surprise me a bit to find that just as a cartoon frog ten years ago became the vessel through which an archaic Native American deity manifested and sent the US spinning down an uncharted path, a purple-haired waifu may just become another such vehicle.

Britain used to have quite a collection of war goddesses, back in Celtic times. I'm curious, not to mention apprehensive, to see just who's taking this opportunity to stream back into manifestation.

[brenainn]

I, for one, think we live in rather exciting times. The old gods are being reborn! It is awesome to witness.

[ecosophia]

Oh, they're definitely exciting. The problem is that once genuine spiritual powers begin to manifest, the boundary between excitement and carnage is not always easy to maintain. "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" -- and, er, there's been rather a lot of madness about of late.

[brenainn]

Yes, quite true. It seems that a lot of carnage is inevitable over the coming years and decades. That's the sense that I get, anyway.

Oddly, though, I just don't fear a lot anymore. One of the side effects of having the dead begin communicating with me has been a complete loss of fear of death. To paraphrase the divine Carl Jung just a bit, I no longer need to believe in an afterlife and the immortality of the spirit. I now know.

I do feel sorrow for those who will be suffering through this, though. One silver lining is that a lot of bad karma might be taken care for many folks in the coming years. Maybe.

[ecosophia]

Oh, I get that. The last few whispers of any fear of death I had left -- and there wasn't much -- went away the morning after Sara's death, when I felt her wake up on the other side of things. We were close enough that we could quite often sense when the other was asleep or awake, and this was much the same -- just at a distance hard to measure in miles.

As for the carnage, granted, but it's still likely to be hideous to watch.

[brenainn]

I've begun experiencing (over the last year) increasinglly clear impressions or communications from a particular spirit, a loved one in the afterlife. In the late Fall, I was visiting their grave and started getting impressions, very slight, from other spirits in the area. I'm not really sure what to make of all this, and the last year as a whole has been one heck of a spiritual ride for me. Any suggestions as to what might be happening, and how to handle it?

[ecosophia]

This kind of thing is quite traditional. I recall the Irish folk wizard Yeats knew, the "knowledgeable man" in the town of Spiddal, who got his knowledge from the ghost of his dead sister, who contacted him regularly; dealing with other spirits was an important part of his work. It's by no means impossible that, as the Age of Reason finishes collapsing, this kind of thing will become quite common again -- in which case, you're simply a little ahead of the curve.

You might read Mircea Eliade's book on shamanism; that's a very similar tradition, and wild spiritual rides are usually part of it.

[brenainn]

I'll check it out. I haven't read much Eliade before, and probably should.

Another interesting part of this has been the reversal of my previously lousy ability to do divination. Over the last year, my divination readings have gotten a lot better. I had spent a few years at it, with little progress. It feels more like someone is guiding my interpretations, helping me to avoid the usual confirmation bias and nervousness that had previously clouded my readings.

This all started little more than a year ago, when I suddenly got the strong impression that there was a particular ritual that I needed to do involving the spirit of the loved one, and that set things off. A wild ride, indeed.

[ecosophia]

Even more traditional! You'll be hanging out your shingle as the local knowledgeable man, or however that's spelled where you live, any day now. ;-)

There's an unnerving personal subtext in all this for me. Last year I received a very old and rather odd Rosicrucian initiation, the Rose+Croix d'Orient degree, which is passed on in the penumbra of some Martinist orders. After I received the initiation I was given a stack of ritual material that went with it -- which turned out to be what I think is the most complete and best-preserved system of medieval Western white magic in existence.

You know the old man in the little cottage at the end of the lane, the one who knows prayers and religious-themed rites to take ill-wishing off your cattle and quiet the restless dead? That's the sort of thing I mean. I've been practicing the material regularly since shortly after I got the initiation, partly because it amuses me to know that I do in fact have the ability to take ill-wishing off cattle if that's ever needed, partly because it's good solid healing and blessing work and the world needs more of that...and partly because I've had an uneasy feeling for some time now that we're moving into an era in which there will be a definite place for old men at the end of the lane who can take ill-wishing off cattle.

So that's been on my mind of late -- and now you and Maxine both report going through variations of the standard process by which folk magicians of a somewhat different category begin their career...and this as Saturn and Neptune close in on a conjunction that will mark a new age of the world. I'm beginning to wonder just what kind of age we're entering!

Ghosts

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,
I have studied and practiced Druidry quite intensively for about a decade now. I find it has really made my life a lot better in many ways. I am wondering if the high number of ghost sightings and poltergeist activity in my house is due to the magic I perform? I pray, do divination and meditation almost every day. I occasionally do spell work but always for blessing, protection, cleansing or comforting.

I don't mind the ghosts. They seem to take some comfort from being here. I feel as if I have left a light on that attracts spirits to my house. What do you think?
Maxine

Re: Ghosts

[ecosophia]

It's a source of some interest to me that you and Brenainn are both reporting similar experiences -- his focused more on his relationship with a specific spirit, yours focused more on the practice of a specific tradition, but in both cases you're becoming what was once a very familiar sort of person, one who mediated between the living and the dead. If you don't mind the ghosts, and they benefit from your presence, by all means proceed. Things may get stranger, though, as you do...