Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's a little before 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 meme? I've finished the sequence of my published books; while I decide what I want to do next, I have some memes to share. Besides, this one's such a perfect summary of certain points I've been trying to make in recent posts over on the blog...)

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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

On the subject of high strangeness

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Monday and I hope this week finds you well, and thank you for hosting this space.

Recently during mediation I had the experience of a positive mentor like being tracing a pair of symbols on me, at which point I has the feeling of electricity circling around my head roughly in line with my ears and eyes, along with the feeling of air “blowing out” (like dust or static-difficult to describe) at a point lower down and more centrally in the back of my head.

What would you make of this experience?

Thank you for the input!

Re: On the subject of high strangeness

[ecosophia]

How very odd. In your place I'd pay careful attention to changes in consciousness over the next few weeks. It's just possible that it was the inner plane equivalent of an attunement ceremony; if it is, you'll notice changes, and possibly the awakening of some form of psychism over the weeks and months ahead.

In any case I'd recommend journaling about it, as though it was a dream, and seeing what you can learn from it.

[rhydlyd]

Your discussion of hyperstition on The Dangerous Maybe interesting enough to read ""Travels Along the Fault Line" by Three Billion Nances.
Hyperstition, hypostition and retrostition seem like very unpleasant examples of self-inflicted changes in consciousness in accordance with a lost, miserable, undirected and non-conscious will with the same result as resisting the Changer.
Rather explains a great deal about what's gone wrong in this peculiar time between the shattering of one spectacle and the assembly of a new one.
So - is there anything to be done for these benighted souls, individually or collectively?

On a related note - seems Asian carp aren't the end of the aquatic world. Instead, their population has been drastically checked by the lowly blue catfish, alligator gar and bowfin... who are all doing nicely in the cleaner water of industrial decline, btw. But... now what happens to the anti-carp religious mania? Will it become another article of faith like global warming - even if the carp population drops to negligible or will practicality prevail?

[ecosophia]

Hyperstition can be useful -- the process of telling a story vividly enough that people start to dream it into existence is an important part of magic. Hypostition, in a bleak sense, can also be useful -- I don't think a wicked sorcerer could have done a better job of cursing the soi-disant Magic Resistance than it's done to itself, by pursuing magic in so remarkably self-canceling a manner. Retrostition -- hmm. I haven't yet figured out a use for it.

It still astonishes me that Asian carp got such a bad reputation. They're very tasty. I'd encourage all my readers to get some before the alligator gar gobble them all up. ;-) As for the invasive-species panic, I'm not sure that any of the current wave of phobias will last long -- things are changing very fast now.

[rhydlyd]

In The Sea Priestess, do the paintings described exist?

And, btw, I'm still having trouble with the social mores and pop language Fortune uses.
The experience is rather like being caught in a DJ's mix of HPL and Agatha Christie without knowing how to dance.

[ecosophia]

If you mean the paintings on the walls of the old fort Wilfrid converts to magical use, no, alas.

Somebody needs to do a good annotated edition of Fortune's novels. It's probably not going to be me, though, since I have so many other projects on track!

The meme

[3bmend_135]

Is the quote intended in part to explain why we only feel the effects of some transits & progressions?

Patrick H

Re: The meme

[ecosophia]

I doubt Jung had that in mind when he said it, but it's a valid point. Transits and progressions can affect you without you becoming aware of their effect, after all.

Toads, Animals, Garden, Magic Response

[(Anonymous)]

Mostly sharing a data-point, but also a request for sources of information on this subject, or similar anecdotes from other commentators.

I did a series of visualizations of dissolving and grounding out exploitive thoughts and ill wishing. Things like advertising, governmental pressure, and personal interactions. Now, a few months later, in and around my main location of ritual (which is my garden) are toads. One or more every few square yards. And they have remained there for the last month. I am happy they are there, we get along well together, but there are so many it makes me a bit anxious to use a hoe or rake. Anyway, it is kind of neat.

Thank you so much for this space and communication,
-Consciousness Aggregate

Re: Toads, Animals, Garden, Magic Response

[ecosophia]

That's a very positive indication. Toads traditionally banish evil magic -- they are held to be so Saturnine that every evil spell just gets sucked up into them, and doesn't affect you at all. Back in the day, witches and folk healers supposedly always had toads in their gardens.

If I were feeling a little more Lovecraftian than I am, I'd suggest that the toad god Tsathoggua, the lord of sorcery, is pleased with you. ;-)

[pointwithinacircle]

Last week I recall reading something to the effect that “sexual promiscuity shreds the aura because the aura attempts to attach to each partner”. When I read this it was like I saw a flash of lightening in my mind and I realized that by desperately seeking connection I was actually creating a feeling of disconnection. To be clear, sexual promiscuity has not been an issue for me in a very long time. But I found this definition of promiscuity in Merriam Webster that seemed particularly appropriate:

miscellaneous mingling or selection of persons or things : INDISCRIMINATENESS

My main area of study is Tarot and it seems that the false belief, Key 15, blasted by the lightening bolt of Key 16, brings me to Key 17, The Star, attributed to meditation. The idea of using meditation to become better at discrimination new to me and I am wondering how best to proceed.

As always for thanks providing this space.

[ecosophia]

By doing more meditation! You've already gotten a crucial insight. Develop it, brood over it, reflect on it, so that your own inner knowledge surfaces and tells you what you need to do.

That's the great secret of meditation, you know. At a deep level, we all already know everything we need to know, and everything we need to do. All we have to do is clear away the surface clutter and let that knowledge surface. Simple, right? Sure, but "simple" is not the same thing as "easy." It's the hardest and most rewarding thing you can do, to put in a session of meditation day after day. A book on Zen meditation I read many years ago described it as polishing a jade mirror you can neither see nor feel. Only with daily effort will you finally catch the gleam from its surface.

A Question on Dee, and one on Paganism

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

1) On a recent podcast, you spoke about producing a translation of a horoscope done by John Dee for Philip Sydney. Listening to you speak about it made me incredibly excited, and has put me on an astrology kick. Two questions: a) You didn't mention much about the form that the translation will be put out in -- will it be a standalone book? Combined with some other things? b) The idea of being able to read horoscopes produced by these master astrologers sounds like a rich learning resource -- could you (or any commenters) point out any resources similar to this? (I recall you mentioning another astrologer of the era, but I don't recall the name -- though I unfortunately do not read Latin).

2) I've noticed many people turn to religion for instrumental reasons. Religion becomes a convenient way to cultivate a political/cultural identity or construct a value-system that agrees with your political objectives.

I've grown to find this approach shallow and spiritually unsatisfying, but I still feel drawn to religious devotion, and what I know of your approach to paganism has given me some ideas as to what that might look like. However, there is still a tension in me that I find difficult to explain and equally difficult to resolve. The monotheistic religions make grandiose claims of their faiths: that there is one god, and that access to this god, to ultimate reality, can be achieved through their tradition. By following this god, you give your life a clear telos of some cosmic significance. When I look at my own pull towards paganism, I struggle with why I would devote myself to a deity of comparably questionable significance. What is it that paganism offers in its relationship to the divine that warrants this level of devotion?

(For a more grounded example, I have been reading the Poetic Edda recently. In it, we learn that the Aesir meet a stalemate with the Vanir, which leads to their alliance. Also, Odin -- such a wonderfully complex figure -- is clearly fallible. Despite being titled the Allfather, and it being said that it was he who gave breath to man, he is ultimately unable to conquer his own fate -- and his attempts to acquire men to bolster his army seems often amoral at best.)


Please excuse the excessive length of the second question -- my thoughts on this matter are conflicted and I'm struggling to condense it. And as this is my first post here, I just wanted to thank you for offering this forum. I've looked forward to reading the comments every week, and reading through the archives have provided a lot of interesting food for thought (and a painfully long book list...)

Murdoch

Re: A Question on Dee, and one on Paganism

[ecosophia]

1) The horoscope translation was a work-for-hire project for a professor at an Ivy League university -- the first time I've been paid up front for a scholarly translation. The downside to that is that I have no control over where or when she publishes it. Once it's available, I'll make an announcement.

2) The mainstream monotheist religions claim to offer more, but they also ask more. They claim to offer eternal bliss, escape from equally eternal damnation, a life made important on a cosmic scale, and the rest of it. What they ask, in turn, is absolute submission and adoration -- in theory, to a deity; in practice, too often, to a tradition and an all too human hierarchy -- but even in the best case, it's an utterly unequal relationship in which you are nothing, the deity is everything, and you alternate between squirming in the dust as you consider your failure to do everything the deity requires of you and beaming like the sun because the deity cares for even so insignificant a worm as you.

None of this is true of classic polytheism. The gods of polytheism are not omnipotent, not omniscient, not omni-anything. They are far greater, wiser, better, etc. than human beings, but it's not the absolute difference in kind that most monotheists claim for their gods -- it's simply a difference of degree. Thus polytheists treat their gods as you would treat a much wiser and more powerful friend: with respect, with reverence, with love, but not with the total self-abnegation the theologians of monotheism insist their deity deserves. You exist; the gods exist; it is possible for you to establish friendly relationships with them. That's the basis for polytheist faith.

Is that sufficient? That's a personal value judgment that you alone can make. Myself, I think the monotheist theologians are wrong; I think that they've been engaging in what Alfred North Whitehead used to call "metaphysical flattery," inflating their god to absurd dimensions; I think their god is a real god, but not necessarily a close fit to the portrait of him that they've painted. I also have serious doubts about the moral goodness of any deity that would behave the way that Christian theologians in particular insist their god behaves. To me, it's more honest and more genuine to speak to the Divine in its many forms as a friend, to listen much more often than I speak, and to recognize my own failings (which are many) without wallowing in the sort of theatrical self-loathing so common in the mainstream religions.

Oh, and I don't believe that any act of mine can give my life cosmic significance. I'm far from sure the gods themselves are of cosmic significance. It's one of the interesting features of the old pagan faiths that the gods don't create the cosmos -- the cosmos gives birth to the gods -- and like us, they must contend with a universe they didn't make. I'm going to quote here from one of my tentacle novels, because that's where my most sustained theological reflections so far have seen print:

“Good,” said Nyarlathotep. “Tell me this, then: is man the measure of all things?”

Owen stared at him, and then started laughing. “Here’s a child’s six inch ruler,” he said. “Go measure a galaxy with it.”

A slow smile spread across the Old One’s lean dark face. “Good,” he repeated. “Go on.”

“I’m not sure whether or not all things have a measure,” Owen said after a moment. “If they do, it’s certainly not me.” He gestured at Nyarlathotep. “I don’t know — are you the measure of all things, Old One?”

“I? No.” Nyarlathotep’s smile broadened. “Not I, not Shub-Ne’hurrath, not Cthulhu, not Yog-Sothoth, not even blind Azathoth, the ancestor of us all. We’re part of the pattern, not the measure of it.”

[(Anonymous)]

I'm just starting with the practices of the GSF after previously having studied the SGO. When I do the three card daily divination described in the basic practices, is it better to recite the mantra given in the SGO book ("Let the circle of spirit and the square of matter...") beforehand or should I omit it?

[ecosophia]

That's entirely up to you! Try it either way and see which one you prefer.

Divination and Lottery

[(Anonymous)]

Hi!
I am pretty sure you already answered such a type of question, but I can't find it on this website, so here goes:

From a point of view of Karma, is it acceptable to use divinatory methods to win at the lottery? If so why or why not?
Many Thanks and Regards

Re: Divination and Lottery

[ecosophia]

If it's your karma to win the lottery, it doesn't matter what means you use. If it's not your karma, you won't win no matter how much effort you put into it.

One caution, though: people have been trying to do this since lotteries were invented. Here's the cover of Kansas City Kitty Dream Book, which sold countless copies to African-American people in the early 20th century who wanted to win at the numbers game:

The short form: it doesn't work. Furthermore, it's been my repeated experience that people who become fixated on the idea of winning the lottery have their lives grind to a halt. Nothing changes, nothing improves, nothing they do succeeds -- once they get stuck on the idea of making blind chance fix their lives for them, blind chance is all they get, until they let go of the fantasy and do something less useless with their time.

[(Anonymous)]

Good Monday!

During my occult training I've been experiencing what I believe people call third eye pressure. I've felt throughout the day but especially when i do the opening to the SOP, when I perform 4-fold-breath and when I visualize during the Solar Plexus exercise.

Even though I find it distracting, I like that there is a tangeble result from my practice!
The feeling that has been present for ~3 weeks has started to disappear slowly but surely over the past 3 days. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing.

What is it?
Should I try to bring it back?
Can I bring it back?

[ecosophia]

Okay, good. That's usually a transitory symptom, and it goes away as the rest of your energy body adapts to the increased flow of life force. If it remains in place for a long time, that can be a sign of trouble. No, don't try to bring it back -- keep up your practices and watch for the awakening of psychism and other inner capacities.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

I live near the capital of a state, one very familiar to you, that is deeply captured by what some have taken to calling "gay-race-communists." It's a derogatory term (intentionally so), perhaps offensive to some, but fairly accurate characterization of the current state of left-wing political activists who suffer from an affliction the scholar Gad Saad has coined "suicidal empathy." As just one example, I recently heard the news that lawmakers intend to pass (or already passed) a law that will allow non-citizens to serve in law enforcement, emergency services, prosecutors, and so forth.

Anywho, there's a very large, lovely, neglected, and sad oak tree planted on the capitol grounds and I wonder, as someone who practices basic GSF and has started to feel something of an affinity for Druidry, if you might have any suggestions along the lines of ritual, prayer, or magic that I can perform around this oak tree to improve the circumstances of my home state. I've thought about cleaning up around the tree and perhaps doing SoP if there's no one around. Perhaps there's an offering that would be appropriate? It's kind of a quiet corner of the grounds. Maybe it's a silly question, but any help in this regard would be appreciated. Oh, and I have a young toddler in the home so I have to be cautious doing ceremonial magic around them.

Thanks,
David M.

Offerings for oaks

[(Anonymous)]

Hi David,
I am a gardener and I give compost as an offering to hawthorn trees after I take leaves, flowers or haws from them. I think this is what a tree really wants.
Maxine

Place And Space

[saturns_pet]

JMG:

I'm presently studying God Is Red by Vine Deloria Jr. in the painful university of an iatrogenic illness. Praise Saturn.

Your mentioning of God Is Red in one or more of your posts is the reason why I learned the book exists. Thank you.

As you probably remember, in God Is Red, Deloria Jr. explored differences in individuals and communities rooted in their differing spatial and temporal awarenesses. (Is that about right? lol.)

Do you think poetry and fiction communicating impressions of North American places could be spells to evoke increases of spatial awareness in descendants of Europeans who have lived on the North American continent for centuries yet have not really become North Americans in their heads, hearts, and guts?

Saturns_Pet

Re: Place And Space

[ecosophia]

First of all, please accept my sympathy. That's got to be difficult.

As for your question, yes, and workings along those lines make up a good share of American literature from early times onward.

[thinking_turtle]

To share, for those who wonder what QC, QED, or DESC 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.

[davidp]

Hey JMG,

1) I buried a question in my comment on Bigfoot on the open post that I think you may have missed. Faeries, you say in Monsters, can read human thoughts and emotions because they leave traces in the etheric. Now, I personally would prefer my thoughts to stay private. The scenario that especially worries is that, in the unlikely case I'd ever meet one, I would think something along the likes of "remember, they can read your thoughts, so don't think about X," X being some memory I don't want to share.

Is there anything to be done about this? I suppose meditation teaches you some amount of control over your thoughts.

2) Is this why, according to some traditions, Faeries can't lie except by omission? I imagine that they can read each other's thoughts too, which would make a direct lie quite difficult. They can, of course, lie to humans (glamour arguably qualifies) but they wouldn't be used to lying in speech.

—David P.

[ecosophia]

1) In the presence of telepathic beings, your thoughts will be visible to them, full stop, end of sentence. Get used to it. They won't be unduly shocked by anything in your mind -- they've already seen it all, you know.

2) That's an interesting speculation, and it seems quite plausible to me.

Trees talking to me

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for your time, and for providing a space on the Internet where I can ask this question without sounding like a complete nutter.

I've been doing the blessing walk regularly, and I was in my kitchen just blessing things in my head, when I looked out the window and blessed the tree in my front yard. 'May you be blessed, tree'. Inside my head, I heard a very quiet reply, 'May you be blessed, love.' The only people in my family that called me 'love' were my grandparents, so I did a divination to ask if this tree was like a grandparent, since it's old enough. Answer: yes.

I'm going to talk to the tree a bit and make offerings but ... I thought trees weren't that verbal? I thought a response from a tree would be more about feelings and energy. Is this likely to be actually coming from the tree?

Thank you for your time.

Re: Trees talking to me

[ecosophia]

Most other beings don't use words to communicate to us, but our minds translate their thoughts and feelings into words since that's what we're used to dealing with. Also, trees are the most spiritually advanced of the plant kingdom, and some of them seem to be very advanced indeed; I suspect that in the next great cycle of time, animals are going to be much more intelligent than we're used to, if the upsurge of intelligence in the upper end of the plant kingdom is anything to go by.

Of course there's also the possibility that it wasn't the tree, but rather the guardian spirit or dryad of that tree, in which case the same rule would apply. In either case, you've got a friend.

Planets

[saturns_pet]

JMG:

I'm not aware of a rule against one asking many questions per week, so here goes. :)

In your book on geomancy you posited that the soul, spirit, and body of a geomantic practitioner interacts with the soul, spirit, and body of Earth. Does a practitioner of planetary magic described in Agrippa's first book interact with the souls and the spirits of the seven planets of the ancients through their allied material manifestations on Earth?

Am I correct in asserting that the seven planets of the ancients are both concrete astrological and magical entities each with their own soul, spirit, and body AND the astronomical basis of different symbolic descriptions of the incorporeal parts of a human being such as the one communicated by Macrobius?

Saturns_Pet

Re: Planets

[ecosophia]

No, there's no rule against that, but I tend to reply more briefly to second (and later) questions in that case. For example:

1) Yes.

2) Yes.

Internet divination

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning My Greer,

On last week's Magic Monday I read with some alarm the discussion around the dangers of using the internet as a source of divination. I'd like to ask you or the anonymous commenter who raised the warning if this applies to the following:

For a few years I've been using this site for guidance on various questions: https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/

The site and its owner Hilary Barrett look to be sincere. I've made one or two donations to help support it. And the Cloudflare security checker is a new thing, I assume it's been under cyber-attack recently and it's now protecting itself from threats, at least on the material plane.

I've always had good results, though I've only ever asked one question of the unverifiable/high-stakes type, and decided not to act, despite the answer giving me the green light. Other questions, usually frivolous ones or when I keep asking the same question over and over have given me the Hexagram 4 "Not Knowing" which I've taken as a rebuke and a request to stop, and treat the I Ching with more respect. It seems quite wise and conscious.

But still, could malign forces be lurking here? Sounds like I'd be better off buying her book and using the traditional methods?

With thanks,
Sidaway

Re: Internet divination

[(Anonymous)]

Agh sorry for the typo - I meant to say "Mr" not "My"! Please feel free to edit if you're able to. -OP

A couple questions

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, a couple things I was thinking about:

1. In the SGO the pentagram is the symbol of power and you mention its sometimes ominous reputation. Something occurred to me: could this be due to a correspondence between the pentagram and the fifth sphere of the Tree of Life? The fifth sphere represents power and the pentagram has five points. Its tarot correspondence is the four 5 cards in the pack, representing different types of misfortune as the object consequences of misdirected or misunderstood power. Does this make sense to you? The Tree's manifestation of power has a grim immediate aspect so the pentagram's impression on people could be similar.

2. A couple weeks ago Tucker Carlson interviewed Sean Stone, an occultist and son of the filmmaker Oliver Stone. Stone joined Freemasonry with the goal of reaching the third degree. He says that while he was working toward this, he received repeated phone calls of a demonic nature. These would sometimes come from forged numbers like "666-6666," featuring callers with strange voices offering to buy his soul or have him join their group for power. He said he refused all such offers and once he reached the third degree, the strange communications ended. Have you ever heard of anything like this? Is there any significance to it happening as he was on his way to his intended level of initiation and not after? I wonder if he's putting on an act with this stuff but then I remember talk of infernal doings in Ivy League secret societies. For those who'd like to watch or listen to the video, the main discussion of the phone calls starts around 41:18 in the video, you can find it on Tucker's X account from May 18th.

Re: A couple questions

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, that's an important part of it. The fifth sphere of the Tree, Power in the system I learned from John Gilbert, is traditionally said to be "open to good and evil alike" -- and of course that's true of power of every kind. It's risky. That said, another reason why the pentagram has ended up being treated as a spooky symbol is that it's so closely associated with magic, and the clergy of a great many religious bodies don't want anybody getting in touch with spiritual forces without using them as the middleman!

2) I've never heard of this happening to anybody else, and it certainly didn't happen to me. I have to wonder what kind of occultist he is and what kind of forces he was working with.

Demon or Daimon?

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Magic Monday, big appreciation for hosting this space every week!

My question is only half a question, as I believe I know the answer already, but am curious to hear your (and others') reflection on this.

In the past few years I've had an on-and-off magical practice, but also had the occasional experience with psychedelic substances. I've been going back and forth on their usefulness (part of my Saturn return in Pisces leading to escapism I suppose).

I believe I've experienced something you've earned for before - that daily magical ritual lights you up on the astral, and may attract unwanted attention. After 6 months of daily (golden dawn) practice I lapsed and stopped practicing. A few months later I had an intense psychedelic experience, which felt as an encounter with some external entity. This meaningfully occurred during the recent Mars Saturn conjunction.

I felt as though this entity attached itself to me, as in subsequent weeks I had severe obsessive thoughts, which were urging me to undertake a particular course of action (related to occultism).

At several times it felt like very clear and direct communication - my throat center would light up, and my energy body would generally be shaken up. The voice, which seemed to come from some remote place, was commanding - urging and compelling me to do a certain thing, calling me a coward. Telling me that it was my 'life purpose' to do this thing.

During these moments it felt very convincing, as if it was my higher self. But with more distance between these moments, it increasingly felt like a demonic or lower calling. Moreover, my obsessiveness felt unnatural and unpleasant. I've picked up a regular banishing practice again, and am slowly getting rid of this influence. And certainly I'm not touching psychedelics any more.

Yet, this experience brought a question to my mind - how do we distinguish between lower and higher callings, between demon and daimon? Is it only our own intuition which can help us, or are there other telling signs?

The manner in which my throat center was lit up, was very notable - is the throat center associated with such communications?

Re: Demon or Daimon?

[(Anonymous)]

In my experience,the Daimon/Guardian Angel, has just addressed me very quietly and simply as an inner voice no different to any other thought one may have.And this is the case even when it is a warning.

It does not repeat, hector or badger. And there are no physical symptoms or changes of any kind. There is nothing at all spooky or about it.

It would in fact be quite easy if pre-occupied or emotional to miss it, it would be drowned out.

I hope this is useful in distinguishing benign from evil influences.

Planetary correspondence of the moose

[borealbear]

As always, thank you for hosting this space.

In the Heathen GD book, there's a nice table showing the planetary correspondences of many animals, in
connection with the ceremony of transformation. While that's still quite a bit above my pay grade, I got curious and wanted to check: would moose (Alces alces) correspond to Jupiter or the sun? I could see an argument for either, and the book lists oxen under the former and the moose's relative the stag under the latter. It has some practical significance since I could see the moose as a possible candidate when and if I get to the ceremony.


(And since there's been talk of the peculiarities of English here before, a digression: I'm unreasonably annoyed the plural of "moose" isn't "meece". :))

Re: Planetary correspondence of the moose

[(Anonymous)]

RE: Meese. I recall reading the book "Frindle" in elementary school which made the point that if people disregard the dictionary and start using their own words for things, then if the new words catch on they will eventually wind up in the dictionary. A stealth magical primer if I ever saw one.

Modern Order of Essenes Healings

[kylec]

As always, those who requested healing hands last week have been served, and the list is open again for anyone wishing to participate again, or fo the first time. Just reply here or PM me your name and request, and let me know if you have questions. Thanks!

Re: Modern Order of Essenes Healings

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I would like healing hands this week.

Thank you very much, as always,
Brad

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG, this might be a dumb question, but are there any systems of Western occultism that don't have connections, direct or otherwise, to Hermeticism, Gnosticism and/or Neoplatonism?

[ecosophia]

Nope. The Middle Platonism that flowed into those three traditions was the lens through which Egyptian and Mesopotamian magic reached the Western world. There are traditions in the West that pretend to have no trace of these, but none that are actually apart from it.

Mind you, that doesn't mean that you have to embrace whatever habits Hermeticism, Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism have that you don't like; choosing to move in a different direction, having seen the results, is also a valid response to the influences of the past. It's just wise to be honest, at least with yourself, about your roots.

[(Anonymous)]

Often I see a recommendation to pray to or make offerings to the Roman deities - Jupiter for abundance, Venus for love, Sol for success etc.

Would this work for the Druids gods using the CGD tree of life? Replacing Jupiter with Belinus, Venus for Elen? Sol for Hesus?

[ecosophia]

Good heavens, yes. You can use any pantheon that has a planetary correspondence.

Sphere of Protection

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

Working through the Druidry Handbook along with the beginning stages of the MOE, and these both include instructions of forming a Sphere of Protection prior to meditation, but they are very different instructions. I have seen you say that SoP is designed to be very adjustable, but I was wondering if you could speak to the differences here, whether I should use the MOE method only for MOE work, if there is one of the two I should use exclusively, or if they are simply interchangeable. Thank you for your time as always!

Re: Sphere of Protection

[ecosophia]

In general, it's best to choose one and stick with it, at least for the time being. Either set of work can be done with either version.

The Magic Republic

[(Anonymous)]

I'm reading through your posts on the other blog on the history of magic in America and really enjoying them. Did you ever publish a book about this? If not, can you recommend any other books on the topic?

Brenda

Re: The Magic Republic

[ecosophia]

Catherine Albanese's A Republic of Mind and Spirit and Mitch Horowotz's Occult America cover some of the ground. I haven't yet had the chance to get back to that project and write more on the subject, though I'd like to.