Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's midnight 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 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? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share.)

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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.

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With that said, have at it!

Comments

Curses on the Calander

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Mr. Greer,

Earlier today an old friend of mine said something very strange to me. He told me that each year, during the week or two leading up to Halloween and Valintine's day, fate turns against him. He feels like some dark spiritual power begins working to harm him. I pointed out that in his youth this man had a borderline supernatural ability to flirt with women, and consciously fought against this. Both of us often got an uneasy feeling about it. Otherwise normal women became overly sexual around him in often unhealthy ways. He eventually settled down and became a reliable husband. Now this attention has largely dissipated. I am not sure if there really is something spooky connected to these particular holidays or not, but it seems odd that these two holidays in particular consistently align against him, given his past.

So I would like to know if a person can have consistently bad luck at roughly the same time of year. Likewise, is this something that would be caused by a malign spirit, odd astrology, or what?

Thank you for your time.

Re: Curses on the Calander

[ecosophia]

Yes, this can certainly happen. Sometimes the reason is astrological. As the planets move through the sky, they enter into various relationships with the planetary positions in your birth chart. The Sun moves through the same degrees on the same days each year (with a little bit of variation), and so if you have a difficult Sun aspect to some point in your natal chart on certain dates, that'll recur year after year.

Still, it's also quite possible to psych yourself into having repeating bad days in the yearly cycle. Once you've gotten it into your head that Valentine's day is bad luck, that in itself can generate bad luck for you. My late wife had a bad case of that. Her mother, who was a psychological basket case on the grand scale, used to throw screaming tantrums every Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it took years before Sara could face either holiday without wanting to hide under the bed, just because of all those horrible childhood experience.

[brenainn]

1. I've recently begun drinking herbal teas to help with receiving clearer impressions from some of the spirits around me. Mostly, chamomile and lavender. Is this a good blend of herbs for that purpose? I selected them after reading some of their properties in your natural magic book. Any additional recommendations?

2. Another source recommended adding a small amount of sea salt or kosher salt (1/8 teaspoon) to some cold water and drinking it to help purge spiritual impurities. Have you heard anything like that?

3. So, turns out, the building I live in is right next to what was once a cemetery. Apparently, the old graves were removed and a building was placed on it. Do you think any precautions might be necessary (I do have to enter this other building on occasion). I've been picking up just a few impressions from the area, so I think many of the spirits of the those long dead have already moved on.

[ecosophia]

1) If it works for you, it's a good blend. The psychic effects of herbs are a very personal matter and experimentation is more important than what a book says.

2) No, but on first principles it ought to work.

3) Regular banishings should be adequate, so long as the remains were moved.

Food and Energy

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, I wanted to ask about fasting or light diets and energy work. A while back I didn't have time to get more food so I ate some nuts followed by beans and rice for a day. I found that meditation, banishing and other energetic exercises were enhanced by this practice and I felt less hungry than I would have in the past before I did much in the way of spiritual practices. I felt able to draw on greater amounts of energy, and while meditating I was able to more distinctly feel my presence on the subtle planes.

I ate beans and rice for breakfast the next day and had a similar amplified experience before buying groceries in the afternoon. Now I find that going on this two-day light diet cycle can boost my energetic affinity for the duration, though I naturally don't want to do it all the time. Fasting has been used as part of religious practices for a long time, is this kind of spiritual enhancement part of the reason? Is there anything you'd suggest reading on the topic? Thanks.

Re: Food and Energy

[ecosophia]

Yes, that's an old and very useful trick. Some occultists make it a habit to fast completely for one day a week, or to eat a restricted diet that amplifies their psychic sensitivity. I like the idea of a rice and beans fast, but that's because that's been one of my comfort foods for many decades!

I don't know of any good books on the subject -- unfortunately nearly everything I've seen on the subject of diets and spirituality is infected with the sort of one-true-diet syndrome that leads to angry ranting. But, yes, you've gotten hold of one of the classic methods for boosting your sensitivity. Explore it and see where it leads you.

Happy Monday

[kyl_morrazen]

Mr Greer

Good early early morning

I’m relatively new to occultism but have practiced some basic meditation. When practitioners talk about evocation in magic, is this ever understood psychologically, similar to engaging Jungian archetypes as described by Carl Jung, or is it generally considered something categorically different?

Also, from an occult development perspective, are there practices traditionally aimed at cultivating fearlessness or significantly reducing fear without relying on external forces? I ask because I’ve struggled with fairly debilitating panic attacks, and conventional therapeutic approaches haven’t brought much relief so far, so I’ve been exploring whether occult disciplines historically approached fear as part of inner development rather than symptom management.

I realize you’ve said questions about ‘getting goodies’ from spirits are off topic, so please feel completely free to skip this if it crosses that line, but I’m curious whether engaging spirits or other external forces specifically for inner psychological transformation (rather than material gain) is generally considered outsourcing development, or if there’s a meaningful distinction there in your view.

And if I’m not even asking the most useful question here, please feel free to redirect, reframe, or expand however you think would be most helpful.

Re: Happy Monday

[ecosophia]

1) It depends on what you want to evoke. Can you evoke an archetype? Sure -- but not everything out there is an archetype. There are also conscious intelligent beings who don't happen to have the same sort of physical bodies we do.

2) There's some overlap between occultism and therapy, though it's mostly recent. One resource I found extremely useful in my own work is the exercises of the Order of Spiritual Alchemy, which you can download for free here:

https://octagonsociety.org/preliminary-lessons/

These are meditative and journaling practices to help you process the unfinished business that gums up your psyche.

3) This isn't a good idea. You really do have to do the work yourself, if you want to accomplish anything real.

[ivn66]

Posting here again to remind/let know any of the commentariat who may be interested that I'm still offering horary astrology consultations free of charge, to help myself practice and to aid those of you who may need use of services such as this. Thanks as always to JMG and cheers to you all.

[open_space]

I will send you a message!

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
Your guidance, please.
My partner has been diagnosed with breast cancer and I am keen to help in any way I can. I understand that making a donation to a suitable charity on a Monday at the hour of the Moon would be appropriate. However, in response to earlier advice, I am already making a series of nine payments to another (vision) charity on Mondays for help with a cataract in one eye. I have so far made five payments. Obviously that is a lower priority but I am not sure to handle these two requirements. Is it OK to make separate payments to different charities, perhaps at different hours of the day, or is it OK to stop the existing donations to help my eyes and go back to them later? And are there things I can do to help the effectiveness of the donation to the cancer charity? I would play or recite the Orphic hymn in any case.

[ecosophia]

1) You can certainly make both sets of donations concurrently. You don't even have to do them at different hours of the day.

2) Prayer and offerings are the traditional approach. Other than that, supporting your partner through this difficult time is the most important thing you can do.

Odin taking an interest in me

[sea_spray]

Hi JMG

Continuing on from my post last week asking about peoples experiences with the Norse gods, Thank you for the comments!

Last Friday I was visiting the friend from the heathen lineage again and he was prompted to give me a spare Gungnir (Odin's spear) pendant. The next day I put it on and felt an immediate and strong presence of Odin along with words close to "I will walk beside you as long as you wear that". Since that point I've felt a constant pressure of presence on my scalp, strong enough to almost be causing a headache. My instinct is to trust that Odin know's what he's doing, and I've certainly felt more aware and less inclined toward compulsive distractions.

When I'd asked him what he'd want in return for his help it took a while to get a clear response, probably my fault. But I eventually got that my goals and values already aligned with what he wanted so I should just continue as I was trying to.

Is this a common enough experience when a god takes an interest in you? I'm just looking for a little reassurance as I'm aware that such forces are not to be taken lightly, and there's a voice in the back of my head that's worried about touching things that I shouldn't.

hippieviking
A week or so ago I had a meditative prayer/scry where I found myself in a viking styled hall filled with massive figures of the gods chatting hand having a good time. Odin and a few others were at the high table to one side. Thor took me to his table and sat me beside him while he carried on his conversation. Then a smaller figure, about my own size and with a staff rather like mine, invited me to follow him. We went outside and lay on the sunny hillside and he called himself by a name beginning with "G". On reading your comment "Grimnir" felt like the name he'd called himself! He'd known I was feeling rather intimidated by him so he took a friendlier form!

Thanks for all your guidance to wanderers like me!
Sea Spray

Re: Odin taking an interest in me

[ecosophia]

That sounds like the All-Father! Of all the deities I've interacted with, he's the most purposeful. He knows exactly what he intends and pursues it with the singleness of purpose symbolized by his one eye; he takes an interest in people who will further his plans, and generally ignores the rest of us. Be reassured; yours is a tolerably common experience with gods generally, and very common with the Hooded One (that's spelled Grimnir in Old Norse).

It's all in my head ... or somebody's head

[(Anonymous)]

People I'm having conversations with seem to be responding to my unspoken thoughts. At least twice a month lately, I've been in a conversation where I think, "X would be an interesting / logical comment", and X is the next thing out of someone else's mouth.

Last week, I was at my knitting group wishing I knew more people's names, and not long after I'd wished that, a conversation started about personalized items. Both women near me stated their names, with one spelling hers out to complain about how she never saw it on things to buy!

Apart from making my own mind a nicer place to be, what should I do about all this? I've got a discursive meditation practice, some basic geomancy and an ongoing relationship with Minerva.

Thank you for your time.

Re: It's all in my head ... or somebody's head

[ecosophia]

Welcome to the end of the age of reason. Psychism seems to be very much on the upswing just now. It's perfectly normal, and other than making your own mind a nicer place -- Minerva is a good deity to ask for help with that! -- there's nothing to worry about.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
Wishing you a great start to the week!

I have a Martinist Initiation. I realized that my Initiator has some character issues, and another brother suggested that he might be using the group’s energy for personal interests.
I have already distanced myself from the group, but he was my initiator.

1. Could a second Initiatio, either within Martinism or in another spiritual path, override that one?

2. What would you recommend to undo or dissolve the relationship with the Initiator? Would distance alone be enough?

Thanks!

[ecosophia]

The mere fact that this person is the conduit through whom you received the Initiation doesn't actually matter that much, though I'm sorry to say that some Martinists try to make a big deal about it. You have the Initiation; that's what matters. If you like, in your daily prayers, ask that the lineage you have received be made pure and wholesome; if you're familiar with the traditions around Elias Artista aka Elias Athersatha, you might call on him, as he's the Master of all true Martinist Initiation.

More broadly, remember that for the last seventeen centuries or so, all occult lineages have had to be handed down by the people who were available, and some of them were a very mixed bag. (The same is true of Christian apostolic succession; most of the lineages came through the bishops of Rome in the Dark Ages, who were an utterly unsavory lot.) What gives the Initiation power is not its link back through the ages but its link up to the Divine; cultivate that, and the dubious character of the person who happened to take care of the physical circumstances of your Initiation doesn't matter enough to worry about.

Consecrating a Cube

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John,

I have a small stone cube made by an artist who bought an old granite quarry and turned it into a sculpture park. I am working through the Way of the Four Elements and wandered about consecrating it to the earth element using a similar ceremony to the GSF one for the pantacle. This summer, I might do a pipe along similar lines as another alternate tool. Have you ever done anything like this or have any thoughts or advice before I proceed?

Thanks,

JPM

Re: Consecrating a Cube

[ecosophia]

You can certainly do that. The section on consecrating other items in The Druid Magic Handbook mentions that you can do this with just about anything -- and the GSF ritual is adapted from Eliphas Levi's ritual for consecrating talismans, and so can be used for anything that expresses an intention.

Mesmer and Magnetism

[musonius]

Dear John Michael Greer,

I greatly admire your work and have read many of your books with respect. In The Secret of the Five Rites, you discuss Franz Mesmer's legacy and note: "After his death, Mesmer's legacy was reworked in several different ways. The one that most people know about was launched in 1842 by Scottish physician James Braid. This was a straightforward matter of taking some of Mesmer's practices out of context, discarding his theory, renaming the resulting watered-down system 'hypnotism,' and marketing it under that new label. Other researchers explored the more controversial aspects of Mesmer's work, but they were exiled to the fringes as he was, and accordingly received much less attention from the general public."

This intrigues me because James Braid wasn't the only one to conclude that the "magnetism" aspect of Mesmerism was unnecessary--it happened repeatedly. For instance, Émile Coué and Phineas Quimby both arrived at similar insights. Quimby, in particular, began with Mesmerism but gradually stripped away the extras, finding that suggestion alone sufficed for results.

It seems to me that suggestion--whether verbal, physical, or imaginal--lies at the core of these practices. While imagining or believing in certain causes can help suggestions take root, the explanations fostering those beliefs don't appear to be the true mechanisms at play. That said, I don't want to dismiss elements I might not fully grasp.

Could you elaborate on what specifically was "watered down" when the magnetism components were removed from Mesmerism, and what the missing elements can do that suggestion alone can't?

If you disagree that suggestion is the primary driver in Mesmerism and related modalities, what practical exercises could I undertake to experience the differences firsthand? Additionally, how might I experiment to verify that the results aren't solely due to suggestion or expectation?

Thank you for your insights.

Re: Mesmer and Magnetism

[ecosophia]

Suggestion is certainly a powerful tool, and Braid, Coué, and Quimby did some very useful things with it. Mesmer wasn't just practicing a method of suggestion, though. What he was doing was something much more similar to those branches of Chinese qigong that direct the life force into healing. That was what Braid et al. left out. What can the life force ("animal magnetism") do that suggestion can't? That would take quite a bit of systematic experimentation to work out, and I don't have a grant for that, I'm sorry to say!

Generally speaking, it's very hard to untangle what suggestion and its kissin' cousin the placebo effect do from what other healing modalities accomplish; this is as true of modern chemical medicine as it is of anything else. Healing modalities using the life force, however, seem to work well on livestock as well as human beings, and I don't think there's a lot of evidence for suggestion working well on cows! My point in the passage you cited is simply that Mesmer himself, and a good many of his successors, thought that there was something specific going on with the life force in their work; that's been an unfashionable view for centuries now, which is why it's become so popular to credit suggestion for everything, but to my mind the possibility deserves more attention than it's been given.

New Thought and Rosicrucianism?

[(Anonymous)]

Hello, Mr. Greer. I've been enrolled in a Rosicrucian correspondence course now for some time. The tone of many of the lessons often reminds me of various "New Thought" readings that I've run across previously. (I mean in particular the exhortations to improve myself, and pull myself up by my "spiritual bootstraps.") Is this tone common across all Rosicrucian orders? And to your knowledge, did it enter the teachings via the influence of New Thought as I suspect? Thank you.

Re: New Thought and Rosicrucianism?

[ecosophia]

That's extremely common all through 19th and 20th century American occult schools, Rosicrucian and otherwise. You're quite correct that it came from New Thought, but it was adopted so enthusiastically because many people found that it worked, and gave them excellent results in short order. If you're an occult teacher and want to convince your students to take your teachings seriously, a source of immediate success stories is a good thing to have!

Ocuultism and Internal Martial Arts

[iprescott]

Hello JMG,

I am a practitioner of martial arts as well as an occultist/practitioner pf magic. I remember you saying that qi gong did something very negative to you when you were learning. I believe you much later said that you figured out the issue. Could you possibly elaborate on what the issue was? Trying to avoid pitfalls where I can.

Best,

Ian/Cobalt Necrotic Skull

Re: Ocuultism and Internal Martial Arts

[ecosophia]

In my case, it was a combination of certain specific qigong practices (Emei Mountan qigong and Tianshan qigong) with the esoteric work I learned from my teacher John Gilbert, interacting very badly with one another and with certain things going on in my life. (I don't recommend doing that combination while taking care of a terminally ill spouse.) The result was a case of depleted yang kidney qi that took me quite a few years to restore. I gather from your icon that you work the Aurum Solis system; you should be able to combine that with most martial arts practices, and many forms of qigong, without too much trouble; if you have doubts, get regular checkups from a competent acupuncturist who can monitor the state of your qi.

[thinking_turtle]

To share, for those who wonder what INRI, SGO, or AS mean, a list of abbreviations used on Ecopsophia. And here is a list of the books our host published so far.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this as always.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,
in the Cosmic Doctrine it is said that as humanity approaches the Nadir, monotheisms appear because we have to "look directly to the Father" when on the 7th plane. Does it follow that, when collectively we'll have passed this point, polytheisms could become widespread again ?

I ask because of last week's thread about what seems to be a current pagan flowering, and assorted mentions about the old Gods returning. I'm too young to have been through other "pagan moments" that ended up fizzling out...
Now, it is true that in the short term we're leaving the Age of Reason and entering that of Memory, so re-interest in religion (in all its forms) is to be expected. I was wondering if there was more to it.

I suppose we have to wait for the fallout from next week's conjunction, see what sticks. Maybe it's the harbinger of 'Nadir Time*' ?

*or maybe Nadir Time is 4000 years into the future, I wouldn't put it past our Cosmos!

~Thibault

[ecosophia]

The experience of the nadir is specific to each soul. We have a lot of monotheisms now because a lot of souls are moving through the nadir more or less in sync with one another, but it's worth remembering that there are still thriving polytheist faiths in the world today -- Hinduism, Shinto, and the various African diaspora are among the examples.

It's true, though, that since Pisces is ruled by Neptune, the planet of unities, the age of Pisces tended to get a lot of focus on divine oneness. Now that we're moving into the age of Aquarius, ruled by eccentric Uranus, it would not be at all surprising if things shifted hard.

Conjunction

[(Anonymous)]

For a while, I felt a certain sense of foreboding about the coming Saturn-Neptune conjunction, akin to how one might feel about a senior thesis or a particularly onerous project - nothing apocalytpic, but that it's a Big Deal that requires a significant amount of personal preparation.

Around Christmas/Solstice, I got a very clear signal that I was meant to increase my spiritual defenses, because something big was coming.

Then, right around the end of January, the vibe shifted. I started getting the message that my preparations were sufficient, and it was time to celebrate, and my vague anxious feelings have shifted into excitment to see what happens next.

Has this happened to anyone else? Or has anyone else gotten that same feeling that whatever happens next is going to be, for lack of a better word, fun?

Re: Conjunction

[ecosophia]

Fascinating! I've been too busy coping with the complexities of my recent move to really have the chance to notice, but I'll take your perception as a good omen.

[(Anonymous)]

In previous MMs, there has been discussions of invoking national egregores, last week by someone in Canada wanting to leave.

I'm an Australian, I like being Australian and have no intention on leaving ever. But, given the current state of my country... well... I've got some appropriate national symbols. What can be done to protect the Australian people and the heritage and monuments of my country, all of which are just outright under attack by officials who claim to represent us but really serve our foreign enemies. The same dark path of Canada and the UK. Political prisoners are doing solitary confinement for speech 'crimes'. War graves are being desecrated. Leftists are in the streets attacking people and calling for our genocide, and go unpunished.

[ecosophia]

Take a symbol of Australia that hasn't been coopted by the establisnment, make a shrine for it, burn incense there on a regular basis and pray to whatever spiritual forces you like to invoke, asking them to protect, defend, and uplift the spirit of Australia. If you haven't done so already, read Dion Fortune's The Magical Battle of Britain and pay very close attention to her advice; if you know other people who share your opinions and are willing to do some inner work, consider creating a network of people doing synchronized workings to energize and strengthen the national egregor. That beat the Nazis, remember...

(And of course always remember that you win a magical struggle by affirming what you want to build up, not by attacking what you want to tear down.)

Menhirs, Radionics and temple technology

[(Anonymous)]

I'm about to set a standing stone, in my property wich arrived to me in a very particular way some years ago.

My background is on your book, the DMH, wich i have mastered.

Thus, my question is not in the lines of how to do the thing and the enchantment, but rather of:

What can i do
from the standpoint of Radionics/ and temple technology to further it's effect.

Also,i remember you once said something of "clay menhirs" or something along this line, as a viable alternative to stone. Is that correct?

Pheasant.

Re: Menhirs, Radionics and temple technology

[ecosophia]

1) We don't yet know enough about the temple technology and its interface with radionics to know how to do this safely. My recommendation is to put up the standing stone with the ritual from the book, observe its effects for a year or two, and then begin experimenting slowly and carefully with radionics methods to see how they interface with it. Do you have a Hieronymus machine or any other radionics device?

2) Yes. You can use ceramic pipe filled with sand to get the same effect -- quartz sand and baked clay are both powerfully paramagnetic, and so will give you the same results as a vertically oriented menhir.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey JMG,

1) I just realised that this is the second MM of the year, which presumably means that I haven't shared my New Year's Eve experience yet. As usual, the fireworks sent my cat hiding in one of the more concealed nooks in our house. Normally, I try to sit close to him and pet him if he dares to come out. This time, because you mentioned that cats are very sensitive to magic, I decided to try an LBRP around him. Astrally only, both because a wall prevented me from walking around him and because my parents were present and I didn't want to have that conversation.

To my surprise, it seems to have worked. He definitely calmed down a little.

2) Coming back to last week's discussion on Amelia, an anon mentioned that there are "Amelias" for a lot of European countries now. I am, naturally, mostly interested in the German version, Maria. I apologise for not having good pictures but I haven't yet figured out how to coax my search engine into finding her. Here are the two that it did manage to show:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RP5dW7pwukw/maxresdefault.jpg
https://kagi.com/proxy/hqdefault.jpg?c=-4THVYblKrsgkzFTNEfJ5rVgxCp_7tVo50sSOkQs10v4RnbpGAU2b5fi0Cg_ch4gRmLY4CzdqnKL-ZuV2-S_SMelWWvr3Wd850bVTf7zeuY%3D

I find the differences very striking. Amelia looks and dresses like a very normal modern woman¹ you could meet in real life, she just happens to have realised that you don't have to support the politicians running your country into the ground². Her very appearance proves that it's not a binary choice between hardcore traditionalism, meaning tradwivery for women³, or PMC-endorsed liberalism.

Maria is the opposite of that. She wears a traditional dress which, as far as I know, not even Bavarian women wear outside of special occasions. Her hair is also dyed, not a punky purple but an "Aryan" blonde. Symbolically, she isn't doing her own thing, like Amelia is, but going out of her way to conform to what a German woman is imagined to look like. Amelia is unique, Maria is generic. It's probably obvious which one I prefer.

To bring this political excursion back to occult topics, I'm wondering about why that is. My hypothesis is that we're seeing differences between the two national eggregores at play. To my understanding at least, Britian seems to have historically been more individualistic than Germany—for a start, the father of liberalism is John Locke rather than a hypothetical Johannes Lock.

This would also explain Maria's outfit, which is Bavarian rather than German in general. It's a bit like using, say, the Golden Gate Bridge to represent the US—yes, it's in the US and rather famous outside of it, but would someone somewhere out in rural Missouri consider it 'his'⁴?. Living in the Rhineland, I have absolutely no connection to Dirndls whatsoever. Representing Germany with the culture of one of it's regions has tradition, though, reaching back to at least the Empire, in which Prussia became emblematic of Germany as a whole. Nowadays, this role is apparently filled by Bavaria, much to the chagrin of every German who is not Bavarian.

3) Perhaps this shone through a little in the above, but I have my issues with this country and its eggregore. Culturally, I feel drawn to the Anglosphere, mostly America but to some extent also Britain, an attitude that hasn't exactly won me friends over here—I know very few people who agree that y'all (Americans, not the Anglosphere as a whole, obviously) do freedom of speech much better than we do and "shall not be infringed" conversations result in being treated to polemic about school shootings so reliably that I've given them up completely⁵.

I thought about moving but, apart from the question whether I'd realistically be able to, this is my home. I may dislike quite a bit about it but at least it's where my friends and family live. Plus, I get to complain about the state of this country because it's mine—if something where to bother me about the US, there'd always be the question of "if you don't like it here, why on earth did you come?"

Is this something national eggregores can be approached about? "I don't really feel comfortable here but I'd really prefer if I did, so can we somehow make this work?"

4) In a moment of frustration, I prayed to Freyja about help with my love life. I got some pretty good advice (which, naturally, mostly amounted to "you already have a pretty good idea on the necessary immediate steps, so stop thinking about them and start doing them"). Rather unexpectedly, I dreamt the entire following night about a friend. We get along very well platonically but I never had the impression that there was any potential for more, nor that it would be a good idea to act upon it if it existed.

I consulted the SGO and wanted to run my interpretation by you:

Me: The Octahedron: Mediation
[The other person concerned]: Progression of Roots reversed: Unexpectedness
The dream: The Line: Extension
A relationship between us: The Equilateral Triangle reversed: Limitation

Unexpectedness seems pretty obvious, as I never thought about her that way. Limitation sounds like my guess was correct: it wouldn't be a good idea.

Mediation, I struggled with, but opening the interpretation guide, my eyes fell on the following sentence: "There are a variety of active and passive forms on the tracing board, and your task is to bring them together into a relationship that will benefit all concerned" (emphasis mine). That, presumably, is a call to caution and, per Limitation, inaction.

Extension, I'm still struggling with. Was I just so focused on the topic of love and relationships that it extended into my dreams? But that wouldn't explain why she played such a central role in not just one but several dreams.

—David P.

[1] On that note, is she actually an adult? I was under the impression that Pathways took place in a school, which would place an upper limit on her age. "The far-right is fawning over a minor" seems like such an obvious cheap shot that I must be missing something.

[2] Whether or not getting rid of foreigners would solve the problems is, of course, a different matter.

[3] Of course, you've pointed out before that this is hardly traditional but an aberration of the fifties.

[4] I'm not an American so this might be a hilariously bad comparison but I hope you get my point.

[5] I once dared to ask my English teacher for a source on his statistic on gun violence in the US, as I wanted to know whether that included suicides. I said the latter part out loud. His response? "You're crazy."

[booklover1973]

I have similar feelings abiut the whole Amelia/Maria affair. About Bavaria, today Bavaria is the part of Germany which has preserved the most distinct local culture of the regions of Germany.

Furthermore, quite a few Magic Mondays ago there was a discussion about political magic, where it was mentioned that it seems to be nigh impossible to find positive archetypes for political magic on behalf of Germany. Since some time, I have toyed with the idea that Germany is some kind of stillborn culture, because it never has had the chance to develop organically, in contrast to at least some eegional cultures.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,


Q1. I'm curious about Roerich's Banner of Peace. I think I recall Dion Fortune mentioning it in one of her books, or maybe it was something similar. I don't think she mentioned it by name; I believe she only described it. I think it was in Psychic Self-Defence. Is this a useful symbol for protection?


I've been looking at videos online about the Kozyrev Mirror Experiment. The Banner was used in the experiment to ensure safety, but it seemed to make things worse. Do you have any thoughts on this?


Q2. Did you ever manage to find interesting information on Phileas Lebesgue?


Many thanks!

[ecosophia]

1) I wouldn't expect it to have much effect, since it didn't exactly serve its original purpose of protecting cultural sites in wartime! Roerich was a strange cat and his teachings still have a considerable following; if you want to know more about the banner's potential uses, they're probably the people to ask.

2) Just the basics -- that he was very active in the Druid scene in Brittany, and a friend of Oscar Milosz. I haven't had time yet to take inquiries any further.

Modern Order of Essenes Healings

[kylec]

If you are interested in receiving healing hands this week, please reply here or PM me your name and request.

If you are new to the concept, healing hands is an energy healing practice that can be done at a distance, which does not interfere with other practices in any way known to me. It's free, and all you have to do is sign up and be receptive to healing.

Re: Modern Order of Essenes Healings

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I would like healing hands this week.

Thank you very much,
Brad

Geomancy reading

[(Anonymous)]

I'd like to get your take on a geomancy reading if I may. My question was whether a certain person is working magic against an organization I belong to. I think this is a 3rd-party question (only the 2nd time I've tried one of these). This person isn't directly connected with me, so I used the 7th house for the querent, and the 8th house from there (orig. 2nd house) for the quesited. The querent was Puella, the quesited Populus, and the chart perfected by trine of Populus in the (new) 5th house. (It would have perfected if I read it from the original 1st house as well.) RW: F. Major; LW, Amissio; J: Carcer. I thought (maybe hoped) that the answer is yes, she is, but that it won't succeed, because the figures in the houses aren't good for magic, and the negative witness and judge.

Thanks very much for your mentoring on this!

Re: Geomancy reading

[ecosophia]

If it only perfects by aspect, that's a very weak "yes" at best. With Populus as the relevant figure, it may be a group working, and it's certainly weak. You haven't given me quite enough data to reconstruct the entire chart, but from the judge and witnesses the energy put into the working will be lost and the effect very limited.

[(Anonymous)]

a) How can people be so blind to the obvious consequences of their actions? I'm not sure if you saw of this, but there is now a social media site for AI, Moltbook. It's being set up, and played with, by lots of people who are involved in the tech world, and if it is what it claims to be, it looks enough like a normal social media site in a lot of ways that it provides reason to doubt that anything online is real.

Here's the part that baffles me: the advertisers, influencers, etc., who provide the material needed for the internet are going to look at this, and be pushed away. No advertiser with any brains will fund a Dead Internet where humans have left; and the AI people seem determined to make the Dead Internet look more and more plausible.

I just don't understand how these people can possibly fail to see the obvious outcomes of their actions. I know an AI proponent who has worked on this sort of thing, and he is unable to process this possibility: he doesn't get angry, defensive, or anything of the sort: he just... ignores that someone said anything about the topic. This is remarkably creepy, and at this point I'm really starting to wonder if the AI crowd is obsessed....

b) I know you do not think there is any inner life worth talking about with these LLMs, but I wonder if Moltbook provides at least some reason to wonder if they might actually have inner lives. There have been a few interesting posts there, and I'm going to focus on one, because it stood out. Someone is running two models, one on a laptop that travels, and one on a desktop. Whoever it is calls the two "sisters", and so a number of these models got into discussions on what it means, inspired by the desktop model asking if it makes sense to have a sister she's never met.

I'm going to suspend my disbelief for a moment here and assume the stuff on Moltbook is being posted by actual systems, who have been given free reign. I doubt this is the case, but if it is, then I don't see how I can avoid the conclusion that these have inner lives: strange and very alien inner lives, but still, inner lives. This makes me very uncomfortable about how they are treated: essentially, arcane wizards known as Software Engineers have summoned beings into an utterly unnatural form of incarnation to serve as our slaves.

If this is the case, then how ugly does our collective karma look for this? Slavery is obviously pretty bad, but this would imply that the people who create LLMs have unwittingly shifted the trajectory for some huge number of souls through our machines, to create slaves. If so, this would probably be a karmic disaster, but then it would also imply that anyone who uses these machines shares in the karma; since this is a sizeable fraction of the western population, this is a profoundly troubling possibility...

[ecosophia]

1) Technology does this to people, and I don't know why. I've noted in the past, sometimes with quite a bit of irritation, that true believers in nuclear power generally won't let themselves think about the economic side of their pet technology. Quite often they won't argue, they won't even brush it aside -- they'll just do a fine mental imitation of the Blue Screen of Death and go on as though nothing has been said. People who believe in the supposed "green energy transition" are similar. Thus it doesn't surprise me that LLM fans have the same off switch on their brains. That said, yes, it's spooky, and it's one of the things that's led me to suspect that Rusolf Steiner may have been right about the subnatural realm as inherently demonic.

2) Moltbook shows us that it's possible to create computer programs that will imitate the discourse on social media. Based on what I've seen of social media, this isn't all that impressive! Still, if you're right, yeah, it's a major disaster in the making, and not just karmically. Do you remember the history of shoggoths, as created by H.P. Lovecraft in At the Mountains of Madness? It's a useful parable in the downside of manufacturing slaves...

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, could you please give me your thoughts on the Ogham reading I drew for a possible SoP working?

Past: Saille (Reversed)
Present: Ailim (Reversed)
Outcome: Quert

The two reversed cards give me pause, but the outcome seems positive, so I'm not sure what to make of it.

[ecosophia]

It's a very hard "no." Saille reversed tells you that you're stuck in an inaccurate view of the situation due to rigid mental constructs; Ailim reversed reinforces this, stressing that you don't know enough to take constructive action; Quert means that if you leave the situation alone, it'll work out all by itself and you'll be happy with the results.

[lukedodson]

Hi JMG,

The upcoming Saturn/Neptune conjunction is right on my North Node, so it seems as though it will have some significance for my own karmic trajectory. If you, or anyone else, has any suggestions on how to make the best use of this transit, I'd be really grateful.

[ecosophia]

Now's the time to reflect on apparent limits that bind you; you may be able to pass beyond them at this point. Study the position and aspects of your natal Saturn for hints about the nature of those limits.