Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for 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.

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.

With that said, have at it!

Comments

The Wizard Knight and Question on "The Smith and the Devil"

[jprussell]

Good Evening,

May the upcoming astrological reset of Aries bring welcome new opportunities, and ends to what you would have less of!

To Share: Gene Wolfe has been an occasional topic of conversation around here. If you haven't checked out The Wizard Knight, I can strongly recommend it. The ending felt a bit rushed, and I get the impression that Wolfe needs "room to breathe" to be at his full powers. Maybe would have been better as a trilogy of like-sized books, rather than a duology, but still well worth the read. A masterful blend of a hermetic worldview, Arthurian legend, and Germanic myth.

To Ask: A friend was taking a look at the traditional folktale "The Smith and the Devil." In most attested versions, it's pretty Christian: the supernatural being with which the smith makes a deal is literally the devil, often the intercession of Saint Peter is needed to bring things to a happy ending, and so forth. That said, it's apparently a very old story, dating back maybe to Proto-Indo-European times, suggesting a non/pre-Christian version of the story. My friend is trying to unravel what that pre-Christian version might have looked like, and I'd appreciate any pointers from our host or the commentariat on likely myths/mythical figures to check out for comparison (Hephaistos and Weland/Volund are clear smith figures, but I'm not familiar with Indic or Celtic versions, for example).

My blessings to all who welcome them,
Jeff

Re: The Wizard Knight and Question on "The Smith and the Devil"

[ecosophia]

Hmm! I'm not familiar with older versions of the folktale. I assume your friend has already read Mircea Eliade's book The Forge and the Crucible, with its discussions of the magical dimensions of smithcraft; that's the only resource that comes to mind just now.

Re: The Wizard Knight and Question on "The Smith and the Devil"

[jprussell]

Not sure if he has, but I'll be sure to mention it, thank you!

(Also one of the few Eliade books that wasn't already on my list for myself, so I'll amend that error as well.)

[rhydlyd]

1 - There seems to be a New Thought adept at work in the memeworks busily banging out Amelia videos for YouTube. (Nevermind the volume and quality suggesting deep pockets somewhere.) Since working-class UK feels downtrodden, something like Skip Downing’s encouragement to be a creator rather than a victim looks to be in play. The memes I’ve been noticing on YouTube seem aimed at reawakening the dormant sense of people and place so that the citizens’ can be reminded that they do have the means to change their government to suit their needs.

Specifically, examining any collection of Amelia memes suggests Paul Ekman’s discrete emotional theory is being used to lead voters along the path of attention, anger, fear, outrage, questions, answers and solutions to the positions of Restore Britain as laid out in their mission and philosophy video on their YouTube channel.

So – do you and the commentariat a rather brainy New Thought campaign to win voters to an upstart party? Or – am I over-connecting disparate dots?

Also, have you or your commentariat developed any idea who might be the divinity inspiring Amelia and her memes?


2 - My interest in Amelia bumps into my curiosity about my American nature and some discussion here about how inextricably British the practice of Druidry is. A friend of mine from the UK recently became US citizen, so he’s able to point out how English both Ohio is and I am. (Well, we do speak with a broken-in West Country accent, so…) Anyway - I almost knocked him over by standing up to shake hands. Despite being not much bigger than he is, I take up much more personal space, and his reaction to colliding with mine looked like he’d walked into a glass door… Which leaves me to wonder if my misadventures in Druidry have a solidifying effect on my personal space. Umm… does it? And – is this effect related to the way elderly men violate my personal space or just want my attention at a noticeably higher rate than my fellow hardware store clerks? I’m thinking so, but coincidence is not causality…


3 - And – Since HPL comes up here now and again… While looking for Amelia memes, an AI music video, “Down at the Crossroads - Memphis Blues - Uncle Sam's Blues Featuring ‪clickthecat‬,” (you’ll want the five minute version with the spoken intro) happened by… leaving me to wonder about Nyarlathotep’s interest in the blues how widely influential Lovecraft is, and why his source material is enjoying a resurgence.

[ecosophia]

1) No surprises there. One of the fascinating things about the populist movement, at least to me, is that it seems very open to occultism, and once Amelia seized the British popular imagination, working with her as a magical image must have been far too tempting to resist.

2) How very odd. I'll be interested to hear suggestions from those who, not being as autistic as I am, might have a clue.

3) To the best of my knowledge, the idea that Nyarlathotep is a blues fan was my own invention -- once I'd decided to redefine the Great Old Ones as the old gods of nature and started retconning them into folklore and myth, equating the Crawling Chaos with the crossroads devil of blues legend was an easy choice, and his musical tastes followed from there. Lovecraft, though, has been hugely influential in American popular culture since the 1970s. His source material? Most of what he wrote came to him in dreams...

How do I figure out which occult model to use?

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Mr. Greer,

I am trying to understand something in my life from an occult perspective and I am not sure which model within occultism to use.

The issue is I always run into trouble with father figures. More specifically, they never seem to listen to anything I have to say and almost always underestimate my abilities. My own biological father did this to a comical degree. For example, he seemed utterly baffled that I wanted to pursue graduate education when I spent my whole childhood obsessed with this idea. I have since then experienced the same thing with numerous older men in positions of authority over me. I myself am a very academically inclined individual and these people often see me as ignorant while peers and for that matter everyone see the opposite in me.

If I use karma to understand this I might say I abused authority over another in a past life and now need to pay this karmic debt by realizing the error.

Yeats vision might say that I am at a place on the lunar wheel that calls for me to lay aside my own personality and start moving towards more collective concerns.

Jung might say I am projecting my shadow and really there is something bad yet unrecognized in these men that I subconsciously see in myself.

So what do you do when you are trying to discern between competing occult paradigms? Do you use mediation? Prayer? Divination? Or what?

Re: How do I figure out which occult model to use?

[ecosophia]

Paradigms are overrated, and consciously held and constructed paradigms are even more so. It's far more important simply to accept that your experience is what it is, acknowledge that you don't yet know what it means, and get on with life.

Yeats Phase 1 & Mental Sheath Reset?

[3bmend_135]

Since it is not a question about the second quarter, I am posting this question here.

During Phase 1 of total objectivity, does the soul's mental sheath get stripped down to its most primitive form, which then has the opportunity to develop as the soul moves through the phases?

Patrick H

Edit: Alternatively, the mental sheath just goes mostly dormant during the early primary phases.

Re: Yeats Phase 1 & Mental Sheath Reset?

[ecosophia]

That's a very good question which Yeats does not address at all. To the extent that he hints at an answer at all, it would be that the growth of the mental sheath is a slow process and takes multiple trips 'round the Great Wheel to take place. Thus a soul at Phase 1 the first few times around wouldn't have more than a very tentative mental sheath anyway, and a soul very late in the process of human existence would have a very different experience of Phase 1. But that's a tentative suggestion, and much development of the system would be needed to settle the matter.

Geomancy repeated figures vs judge and witnesses

[(Anonymous)]

Recently I cast a shield chart for an omen regarding an upcoming trip that I would appreciate an extra set of eyes on:

What do I most need to know about my upcoming trip?

1st Mother: Merch
2nd Mother: Bendith Fawr
3rd Mother: Colled
4th Mother: Merch

1st Daughter: Merch
2nd Daughter: Pobl
3rd Daughter: Ffordd
4th Daughter: Mab

1st Niece: Llawenydd
2nd Niece: Tristwch
3rd Niece: Merch
4th Niece: Gwyn

RW: Carchar
LW: Carchar
Judge: Pobl

I see a pair of Carchar, a negative figure making Pobl, a neutral figure. 2 negative + 1 neutral = negative reading.

However, Carchar repeated is considered a good omen with regard to safety in travel, and in questions concerning travel it is a good omen if traveling by land. I have a flight involved, but the majority of travel is land-based. The upper chart doesn't seem very ominous - 3 of 4 nieces are favorable and the top row is 50% composed of Merch and Bendith Fawr, which are good signs, accompanied by Ffordd, a good sign for land trips, and pobl, which at least doesn't hurt.

Given world events, would it be too far-fetched to square the circle by supposing this omen is one of safety in travels by virtue of the trip being cancelled, or is there a different interpretation I'm missing?

Re: Geomancy repeated figures vs judge and witnesses

[ecosophia]

If I got this chart in response to that question I'd assume that the trip would be cancelled or changed significantly (Carchar) due to collective events outside my control (Pobl). The repeated figures are in my experience less important than the testimony of the judge and witnesses.

SoP with Planetary Forces

[(Anonymous)]

Apologies if this has been asked and answered before, but is there a way of modifying the SoP to call on planetary names as one would gods?

Thank you!

Re: SoP with Planetary Forces

[ecosophia]

Sure. The standard symbolism is this:

East: Sun
West: Mercury
South: Mars
North: Venus
Below: Saturn
Above: Jupiter

The Moon corresponds to Spirit Within, but of course you don't invoke that seventh factor by name. since you yourself are always the central element in the SoP.