Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just past 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 quote? 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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With that said, have at it! 

Comments

Ghosts

[rhydlyd]

How do Druids deal with ghosts? I work the night shift at a big box store, and I've gotten a few reports of co-workers having their names called, apron strings tugged and whatnot. Also, I thought somebody might be sneaking up on me, so I turned my SOP up to eleven... which got me a whispered, "Sorry!" and a sense of hasty retreat. No reports of harm, so I'm inclined to consider options other than a lethal weapon I learned in a system that isn't Druidry. (That the store is suffering from poor management seems worth mentioning.)

Re: Ghosts

[ecosophia]

As with most details of Druid practice, it depends on the Druid! In a situation like that, I'd try to make contact with the ghost or ghosts, and find out why they were making their presence known. There's usually some reason for it, and knowing what the reason is will make it possible to restore ordinary good relations between the living and the dead. I've done enough practice at this point that in a situation like that, I can simply go into meditation, attend to the Unseen, and call to the entities in question, and under most circumstances they'll simply show up and talk to me. I'm not sure that that's an option yet for you, though the fact that you heard a whisper suggests it might be.

Why don't they sing?

[sirustalcelion]

Good morning JMG, 

I was interested in a comment made recently that Christianity is unique in its application of collective group singing, which surprised me. I've attended many different kinds of Christian service traditions over the years and I've always felt that collective group singing is a core part of the experience. Churches that leave all the music to the worship team, even a quite good worship team, just don't feel the same at all. Since you have seen a wider set of traditions, have you seen any difference of effect between traditions that have group singing vs non-group singing, or no music at all? Is there a magical component to group singing?

I saw that you don't listen to music during your practices, that makes sense to me.

Re: Why don't they sing?

[ecosophia]

That's one of the things that baffles me about the prevalence of congregational singing in American Christianity. Most other religions, even in America, don't do anything of the kind and still get good results -- I've attended Shinto and Buddhist services, for example, where there's generally no music at all, and Taoist services, where there's instrumental music played by clergy in the equivalent of minor orders, and in each case there's no sense of anything lacking. I've read that in Christian services in many other parts of the world, music is performed by musicians with or without a trained choir, and the congregation simply listens.

Yet I've heard other people talk about the importance of congregational singing in Christian services here. I'm not at all sure what to make of it.

[rhydlyd]

1 - Re: Amelia memes - I wrote out Amelia with Ogham fews as you suggested. The cyclical nature of the political economy came up along with the also cyclical plough. I suspect simply waiting for the fullness of time is my best option. Also, I got one of my phonk-loving coworkers to watch "A Million Amelias" on YouTube. She caught the political connection without knowing what it might be related to and liked the song enough to add it to her playlist.

2 - Re: The Goat-Foot God - What am I looking at in the relationship of the three main characters besides a riff off of Bret Harte? It isn't exactly the Will and the Mask or entirely a struggle for integrating a personality or a go-round of anima and animus... leaving me feeling like I'm missing the obvious - like looking for my sunglasses while they're perched on my forehead.

[ecosophia]

2) Dion Fortune's two early occult novels focus on a triadic relationship: a man and a woman, both of whom are in need of initiation, and an older man who guides them through the process. Remember that she designed these novels as instructional and initiatory experiences -- the equivalent of going through an initiation -- and so the three figures are the three principal officers in a Golden Dawn-style initiation ritual. That, rather than a literary or psychological interpretation, seems essential to me.