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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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! 

***This Magic Monday is now closed and no more comments will be put through. See you next week!***

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.)

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: 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.

[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.

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.

[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.

Re: Ghosts

[rhydlyd]

Talking might not be a good option for me. I'm working on the Octagon Society's Order of Spiritual Alchemy and finding out why I'm very leave-me-alone. (BTW, I'm getting good results with a short daily practice. Exhausting, but worthwhile.) And from the Department of Not Helping's Bureau of Attitude Problems, I've long subscribed to one of the harsher reiki schools (see the leave-me-alone problem) and might be startled into a regrettable quick-draw that wouldn't play well with my self-improvement kick. Maybe some expert help can be found.

Re: Why don't they sing?

[(Anonymous)]

A bit of history
Early Church (1st–4th Century): Christians sang psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. In the early 2nd century, Pliny the Younger reported Christians gathering to sing hymns to Christ.4th Century: St. Ambrose of Milan popularised congregational hymn singing in the Western church to bolster faith.Medieval Period: Singing largely left to professionals or choirs.Reformation (16th Century): Martin Luther and others reintroduced congregational singing as a central, active part of worship in the vernacular, leading to the first Lutheran hymnals in 1524.18th Century: English congregations widely adopted hymn singing

[rhydlyd]

Ah-ha! Thank you!

Prisms and waterfalls

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,
I was given a multifaceted-glass ball that hangs in my bedroom window. When the sun is shining on it, I will give it a twirl and the room is spattered with little globules of rainbow. It seems very cleansing to me. What does the lore say about the magical attributes of rainbows?

I found a beautiful small waterfall about 20 feet high and went there to collect some water for making room spray and cleaning magical articles and such. I got quite wet collecting the water and I felt absolutely marvelous and my fatigue had been very bad that day. The woman who was with me asked how I knew it was magic and I said it was a nymphaeum and all waterfalls are inhabited by nymphs. What do you think?

I read the first post and I think I may have done that by accident. I was meditating some years ago in my inner grove when my mother turned up. She had disappeared more than twenty years before. I was instantly filled with rage and behaved badly. It happened two more times soon after and she looked as she had when I was a child. She looked very surprised but never said anything. By the third time, I was able to speak to her rationally if still with a great deal of anger. I told her that she was a bad mother but that I had also been a bad child and we should just call it a draw. She has never appeared again.

At first, I thought it was just my own mind playing a nasty trick on me but later, came to suspect she had died and was clearing up some old business. I have wondered how to contact the various multitudes of ghosts that visit here. A couple of weeks ago they were so noisy downstairs that I came down to look for intruders. Everything was locked and there was no one else in the house. I was relived it was just ghosts and went back to sleep. I plan to try meditating ad asking them what they want. Thanks for the tip!
Maxine

[(Anonymous)]

What is god-blindness?

[(Anonymous)]

Where would you fit chikung and neigong in with other practices?

[(Anonymous)]

When cultures ritually buried people in long barrows so they could stick around for some years as guardian spirits, what sort of people were chosen or volunteered to do this?

Learning Egyptian hieroglyphs

[(Anonymous)]

Hey JMG

There’s a Substack that’s devoted to teaching its readers about the religious philosophy of the Ancient Egyptians, and how to read hieroglyphs which you or others may be interested in.

https://carlaberenice.substack.com/

J.L.Mc12

[(Anonymous)]

Carlo Ginzberg's Night Battles describes a group of people in Italy who fly into the sky in their dreams to fight evil witches. I haven't read it but learned about it from the fictionalised version in Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana - the best fantasy novel I've ever read. How common is fighting spirit wars in dreams and how does it work?

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG!

What's your take on Astral Parasites? Are they real? As bad an issue as some make them sound? Some traditions of magic seem to really dread them (cleansing a room with salt, using incense to "purify" tarot decks from their influence before and after use) while others just go at whatever they wish to do, oblivious of them — think witchcraft people drawing their own blood to paint over runes and stuff like that.

JMG Concept

[(Anonymous)]

Hello,

My car has an interior light right above the back window. If you bump its switch it stays on all the time which is annoying. So, I notice it is on and I pull over at my next opportunity and see this sign next to the car.

https://www.smugmug.com/gallery/n-B86K7N

The next day I am trying to see what you or your commenters say about William Blake and the search engine shows me your comments over on Reddit /occult. I read your two blogs fairly regularly and I still picked up some new perspectives and basic info from your posts over on Reddit.

Are there ways to tell the difference between a random coincidence and something more significant? Also, you say over on Reddit that you post comments on other occult oriented sites, besides your own and Reddit. Can you tell us where?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,
apologies if this has been asked before. It is a Yeats' Vision question. I've seen you mention that our civilization is currently in its Hunchback phase. I have no means to argue this point so I'll take your word for it. I was wondering, how long do you reckon we have been in this phase ? Approx, of course.

Please note I'm not asking some impossible question that you'd need to be a superhuman 3453-year-old to answer (like "how long did phase 3 last for Western Civ", or even "what's the average duration of a civilizational phase ?"). However you might have a sense of how long we (collective) have been "exhibiting the symptoms" of being in phase 26.

~Thibault

Occult Book Availability in PNW During the early 1990s

[filthywaffle]

Here's a weirdly specific question that you might be able to answer given your interests and location during the time.

During my late teens in about 1992 I lived in Portland OR and was curious about magic. I forget what was on the shelf of bookstores in those days in terms of occult instruction, but the only thing that I recall which interested me was "The Ritual Magic Workbook" by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki.

I took it home, and noticed she required the reading of "Magic, Its Ritual, Power and Purpose" by W.E. Butler. I checked Powell's, libraries, and other smaller bookstores (not every bookstore of course). I spent quite a few weeks to a couple months looking when I had the spare time, but had no success locating it.

Then, after reading Ashcroft-Nowicki's discussion of the Path of the Hearth Fire...

"If you are in your teens or early twenties read this book through, then, unless you are already on the Path of the Hearth Fire, put it aside until you have made some progress along this most precious of paths..."

I set the book aside and went on with my life. A life that I've been very happy with, and which has allowed me time and resources to return to the subject matter in middle age.

My question is: How easy or difficult would it have been for someone to find "Magic, Its Ritual, Power and Purpose" by W.E. Butler in a bookstore in Portland or Seattle in 1992? I'm wondering if I just wasn't tenacious enough, or if I wasn't meant to find it, or if it was actually very difficult to find at the time?

Bending Nails

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,

I'm trying to make a "jar of salt" charm, and would like some advice on how to bend the nails. I had a go at doing this the other day and couldn't manage it. I wedged the nail within the pliers and then pushed the free end of the nail against a surface to try to make it bend, but it wouldn't budge - is this an appropriate technique, or would it be better to use a different method?

I'd like to ask if there are any specific types and sizes of nails or pliers that would make this task easier. Also, about how much force is needed to bend the metal?

[(Anonymous)]

The crowd in today's image look like people in a movie theater. The bright colored dissenter on his way out must have somewhere else to go, or else is just escaping, but it's a great depiction of Plato's Cave for our own time.

The Grey Badger

[jbucks]

Dear JMG,

1) In your book on the Five Rites, there's an exercise from Julia Seton (page 71) to awaken the solar plexus. I'm currently working through Revisioning the Tree of Life; do you see any issues if I were to do that exercise regularly on top of the RTOL work? I tried it a few times and it seemed to be helpful but I'm mindful of your recommendation not to mix practices. I'm one of the "tense and nervy" types this exercise is aimed at! :)

2) This might be related to being "nervy", but even after a consistent daily meditation practice I still struggle with intrusive or wandering thoughts. I'm not diagnosed, but it's probable I have some form of ADHD. In discursive meditation I do what you recommend and retrace my thoughts to where they began wandering from the theme. This by the way has brought my attention to a point where I can sense my consciously-held set of thoughts (such as the theme) but also a bunch semi-audible 'voices', one of which is usually the root of the thread of soon-to-be distracting thoughts. But with visualization specifically, I'd like to be able to concentrate more fully to make the images more intense and not get distracted. Any tips?

Many thanks in advance!

Re: Why don't they sing?

[(Anonymous)]

In a religion (Protestantism) that has deliberately stripped almost all powerful ritual and energy work out the service, singing is one of the only ways to energize and energetically align the worshippers. It’s pretty much the only way to “tap in.” They don’t have the Eucharist like Catholics/Orthodox, for example.

Re: Why don't they sing?

[(Anonymous)]

One thought that occurs to me, more on the cynical side, is that it is a way to keep the congregation locked into the church egregore.

On the other side of that cynical spectrum, the similar thought occurred to me that it was a way for the congregation to feel like they are the bride of Christ together, as sometimes the collective church is thought of as being.

-JPM

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,
A lifetime of insomnia has left me ready to try most things, and I recently came across a simple Daoist exercise described as Wo Gu, involving touching the top of the thumb to the base of the fourth finger and closing the other fingers over it, with a small amount of pressure. The posture is advertised as being good for the kidneys and for sleep, and I have tried it cautiously with positive results. But I'm very conscious of the warning you give about mixing styles and I wonder if it's wise to continue. Grateful for your advice.