Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's almost midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is of Alan Leo (real name William Frederick Allan), a prominent British Theosophist and one of the prime movers of the late 19th century revival of astrology. 

Ask me anything about occultism and I'll do my best to answer it. Any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer, though it may be Tuesday sometime before I get to them all.

I've had several people ask about tipping me for answers here, and though I certainly don't require that I won't turn it down. You can use the button below to access my online tip jar.

With that said, have at it! 

***This Magic Monday is now closed to new questions. See you next week!***

Comments

[marcu]

Dear Mr Greer,

I’m was busy cleaning out and packing up my apartment this weekend. As I was loading a bunch of items to take to the waste and recycling centre I suddenly experienced a sharp pain in my lower back.
Upon reflection later I could probably have tried to sell or give away some of the items but I was out of time and storage space and disposal was the simplest option for me. My question is was this some sort of punishment? And if so, how can I make amends?

If not it might just be an echo of my Christian upbringing combined with coincidence...

[ecosophia]

Might it just have been back strain? Occult philosophy doesn't offer a lot of support to the pop-Christian notion that God has nothing better to do with his time than glare down from heaven at you, waiting for you to make a mistake that he can punish. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG

You recommended a good book for learning astrology some time ago but I can’t find that exchange. What was the book?

[ecosophia]

Was it the original version of Llewellyn George's A-Z Horoscope Maker and Delineator? You can get that for $15 or so from used book sites such as abebooks.com; do the advanced search and tell it to limit results to books older than 1975 and you'll get the right edition.

[(Anonymous)]

Which moon phases and planetary hours are good for protective magic like assembling amulets and witch bottles?

[ecosophia]

In all cases, protective magic is best done during the waning moon. Do it during the third quarter of the cycle if the working is primarily meant to strengthen and sustain you, and during the fourth if it's primarily meant to dispel hostile energies.

As for days and hours, it depends on the specific nature of the working. The one I tend to recommend for beginners -- a bent iron or steel nail in rock salt in a red bag -- corresponds to Mars, so the day and hour of Mars would be appropriate, in the fourth quarter of the lunar cycle. Witch bottles are the same way. If, on the other hand, you're making an amulet of St. John's wort and/or other solar herbs, which protect you by strengthening your own energies, the day and hour of the Sun during the third quarter of the lunar cycle would be a better choice.

[(Anonymous)]

Dion fortune said individuals and nations do best when they live by cosmic law and go with the direction the universe is heading in. How do you determine what that is?

[ecosophia]

Are you at all familiar with the Zen Buddhist concept of the koan, the utterance meant to force the mind out of its usual habits of thought? Occultists of Fortune's time loved to do the same thing, and this is a good example. I suggest meditating on it for a good long time.

[(Anonymous)]

How do you find out your or another person's balance of humours?

[ecosophia]

Old texts of humoral medicine include long lists of physical cues you can use to figure that out. I included some of them in my book The Celtic Golden Dawn, which has a primer of humoral herbal medicine woven into the Ovate Grade material.

Rosary

[(Anonymous)]

I am reading your book on prayer beads, thanks for writing it... I was looking for something like that for a while...
Thanks to you and your wife!

Re: Rosary

[ecosophia]

You're most welcome. That book was actually about 80% my wife's work -- "Clare Vaughn" is one of her pen names -- and would have appeared under that name only, but the publisher, which makes a big show of being loudly feminist, insisted that my name had to go on it, and had to go first.

(Shakes head in disgust)

At any rate, it's a fine book, and I'm glad you're finding it useful!

Discursive vs mindfulness meditation

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings all

On several occasions you have discussed discursive and mindful meditation.

It appears that there are potential pitfalls with mindfulness.

Are there any with discursive meditation? (I practice the discursive mode.)

Karim

Re: Discursive vs mindfulness meditation

[ecosophia]

I've never encountered any reports of negative consequences from discursive meditation, so long as you don't have serious mental health problems and don't combine it with the use of hallucinogenic drugs. I'm sure it must have drawbacks somewhere, but I haven't been able to find any.

Mundane Astrology

[(Anonymous)]

I've followed your advice (to someone else) about learning mundane astrology and worked through Green's and Raphael's books on the subject. I found them extremely valuable for a thorough understanding of the principles, and for a wide variety of practical applications. However, I couldn't find answers to the following three questions. Your help with them would be much appreciated.

1. On mundane charts in general: I understand that the Moon and the ruler of the rising sign usually signify the people, and the Sun plus ruler of the tenth house the elites. But what about charts with Leo rising (making the Sun co-significator of the people) or Cancer on the MC (making the Moon co-significator of the elites)? Would you give both lights to the respective social group then, and leave the other group with only one significator?

2. On charts for great conjunctions: They should be set for the moment the conjunction turns exact, and for the capital of the country one is interested in. Beyond that, there are no instructions. I assume this means the result should be read as a stand-alone chart much like an Aries ingress, but on a larger scale (good for two decades instead of 3 to 12 months, and probably indicating more fundamental issues). Is this an approach you would recommend, or should the chart primarily be read in comparison to other charts, such as the country's foundation or subsequent ingresses?

3. On locating the national egregor in a mundane chart: The only possibly relevant information I could find is in Baigent, Campion and Harvey's somewhat psychologized Mundane Astrology (Wellingborough, 1984, chapter 8), which puts the overall "national myth" in the first house, beliefs, taboos and generally accepted morals in the ninth, and occult aspects of philosophy and religion in the twelfth. Also, I vaguely remember some remarks by Dane Rudhyar to the effect that the eight house contains collective psychic energies. Which of these houses, if any, would you say corresponds to the egregor in a strict sense?

Thank you very much!

Re: Mundane Astrology

[ecosophia]

1) When this happens, I see it as an indication of unanimity between at least part of the population and at least part of the government. For example, if Leo is rising, the head of state has very broad popular support and is doing what the people want him to do, while if Cancer is on the midheaven, the government as a whole is unusually responsive to the popular will. It sometimes happens that you get something like that, and also indications of conflict between significators -- say, Leo rising but Moon opposite Sun; that indicates that part of the populace supports the head of state and part is bitterly opposed to him.

2) All of the above. It's a standalone chart, and can be read as such, but you can always bring in the foundation chart and look for aspects to show details of its influence on the country. Subsequent ingresses might well be read in relation to the great conjunction chart, rather than vice versa!

3) To my mind, the national egregor is the equivalent in a mundane chart to personal identity in a natal chart, and therefore corresponds to the first house.

[(Anonymous)]

(Tolkienguy)

Last week, you told another commentor who lived next to a house whose last occupant had died of an overdose that said house would probably never be safe to live in again. Is this true of any house whose last occupant died? I am pretty sure the last person who lived in my current residence was a man who died of old age, and my life has gotten a lot worse since I moved here (I had fairly stable employment before then; in the two years here I've lost four jobs and have had what seems an incredible run of bad luck).

Alternatively, could what I'm going through be some prolonged form of Karmic culmination? I found ADR/WoG, which sparked my interest in occultism, a few months before I moved, and started dabbling in ceremonial magic a few months afterwards.

Also, is it better to do a banishing ritual at the beginning or the end of the day? I have been practicing the LBRP for about a week, generally before bed since thats when I have the most time. I am planning on adding the fourfold breath meditation exercise out of Paths of Wisdom (really interesting book by the way) this week-should I do that right after the LBRP?

To ask another question, last week a commentor posted an article by Frater Acher about the Qliphoth, in which he said (if I understood him correctly) that the Qliphoth contain fragments of the original light of Ain Soph Aur, but that light is cut off from its source and has to consume things around it to survive, thus becoming destructive. Is this a good way to think of the Qliphoth-as something that started out good but became destructive and harmful? (Without going into too many details, this line of thought made me reflect on some recent events in my own life.)

[ecosophia]

1) Most houses that have been around for a while have had at least one person die in them. It's usually not a problem -- it's when the death was by violence, suicide, or certain other causes such as drug overdose that you can count on problems. It's quite possibly karmic culmination.

2) Doesn't matter. Do it when you have time, and yes, by all means add in breathing exercises and meditation after the LBRP -- those are best done in a banished space.

3) That's the traditional interpretation. (There's a discussion of the same points in Paths of Wisdom, curiously enough.)

[(Anonymous)]

Hello and happy Monday,

I read this article about an artist who suffers from heavy metal poisoning due to working with mussel shells to make sculptures. They are quite stunning.

link: dailymail .co.uk/news/article-6450071/Toronto-sculptor-59-gets-heavy-metal-poisoning-spending-15-years-mussel-shells.html


It reminded me of the recent discussion on Ecosophia about how artists should seek to express something outside of themselves.

Relevant quote from the article:

"When you make art, you often feel diminished and small—you’re just a vessel for the creative energy to pass through. My body was carrying a painful message about the poisoning that Earth is experiencing."

Anyway, I just had to share it with JMG and everyone that comments.

Thank you for your time.

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this. I have to admit that heavy metal poisoning seems like a high price to pay for art!

Cthulhu

[(Anonymous)]

Just finished Weird of Hali: Innsmouth, enjoyed immensely, so now eagerly awaiting Dec 17! Not sure if you're familiar with this aspect of chan culture history, but long before (in interwebz years) Pepe, there was beloved Chthulhu. He would pop up as a gif or visual motif fairly regularly in the early work of the /b/ board derivative, Anonymous. An appropriate deity I think. Anon was also quite powerful initially, though not magically inclined like /pol afaik. It seemed to draw strength from a powerful group mind based in global Internet culture, and worked well until it split along sjw-lulz only binary lines. Forum essays on Deleuse's deterritorializing Nomad seemed to grab the gist of it's central motivating Idea. That forum is gone but this remains https://temporaryartist.wordpress.com/2010/12/19/manifesto-of-the-anonymous-nomad/

Re: Cthulhu

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed my story, and I hope you'll like the sequels as they slither rugosely into print!

Cthulhu really does seem to have become a serious archetype of our era -- and it's not accidental, I think, that everyone remembers Lovecraft's tentacled horrors and nobody cares about his protagonists. That was one of the things that inspired The Weird of Hali and its associated novels -- that, and the fact that Lovecraft was (among other things) using his fiction to talk about his view of occultism, and some of us sinister (oc)cultists have our own view of the subject...

Business and Magic

[(Anonymous)]

Hello!

In one of my shop, business is a bit slow and we have experienced a significant drop in sales over the years.

At one point I thought that the shop was the target of some magical attack as one of our employees left a bit disgruntled.

Geomantic divination indicated that this was not the case as they were many factors involved affecting the shop.

I am also studying LRM. I was wondering whether I could make a spell within the Hermetic tradition to reverse the situation. I have done everything I could imagine to reverse the situation, like re-painting the shop, improved stock, advertisement, better customer relations and so on, but with modest effect.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Re: Business and Magic

[ecosophia]

Yes, you can certainly do a working for that purpose using Hermetic methods; you'll need to wait until you've finished Learning Ritual Magic and gotten Circles of Power, which is the next step in that process of learning. A talisman of Mercury would be the traditional option, since Mercury governs commerce of all kinds.

Meditation

[packshaud]

Hi JMG

After meditation, I write the results into a notebook. But while writing, it's rare that I do not get new insights; these go into the notebook too, with a "post-meditation" note.

Should I force myself to meditate for a longer period? It's strange that nothing more seems to be coming out of the meditation, so I stop, but when writing new ideas arise.

Re: Meditation

[ecosophia]

That's actually very common. Once you have to compose your thoughts into words on a page, the shift in modes of thinking often starts new trains of thought going. No, you shouldn't force yourself to meditate longer; it's the shift into written language that does it, so just get used to writing those post-meditation notes.

Sometimes those notes turn into entire books, by the way. That's how I ended up becoming a writer on occultism...

Podcast

[(Anonymous)]

Hi again JMG,

I was listening to this podcast and thought you may be interested:
https://tim.blog/2018/11/22/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-stan-grof/

The link has the audio and also the transcript if you would rather read than listen. Stan Grof seems to connect psychedelics with psychology and eastern religions. Being from Europe and growing up under a communist regime causes him to miss the possible value of western occult philosophy, but he is very connected with the work of Jung. Maybe he isn't too public with even considering western occultism either.

Hope you enjoy it.

Be well,
Matt

Re: Podcast

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. That brings back some serious flashbacks from my insufficiently misspent youth!

SOP

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Monday to you!

A couple experiences after the elemental cross and circulation of light. One time after I cross my arms at the end and tilted my head down with my eyes still closed I felt like I was looking down off a mountain. There wasn't anything overly visual, but just a sense that there was more below and in front of me than the floor.

Other times, I complete the ritual, open my eyes, and I am surprised at my height.

I am certain there is more to experience if I keep at it, but am I on the right track?

Thank you,
Matt

Re: SOP

[ecosophia]

Those are common early experiences. Notice them and don't obsess about them.

Universe

[(Anonymous)]

Good day, Sir!

One more set of questions, I'm trying to piece together your thoughts on how the universe works. You have discussed the planes that we can see as humans and reincarnation so that your higher self can form bodies on the ascending planes. What are the pieces to this puzzle? Have you set your extended thoughts down in a place you can point me to?

Thank you for this weekly opportunity,
Matt

Re: Universe

[ecosophia]

I haven't written all this out in a single place, and I suspect I'll need to do so at some point, though detailed treatises of occult philosophy -- which is of course what would be involved -- have been out of fashion for quite a while now.

unconscious change

[(Anonymous)]

(From Myriam)

Your knowledge about all things occult being as vast as it is, you might have encountered something I am experiencing and I would appreciate any thoughts you may have on my question. Is it possible to do the work necessary to experience change in consciousness without being consciously aware of it? Both doing the work itself and the resulting change in consciousness, I mean.

Some background: You may recall that when I first began several years ago, I had a period of very intense dream teaching which I was aware of but mostly didn't remember very well other than a few very vivid experiences. The teacher was relentless, and pushed me harder than I could absorb, and although the teaching spilled over in waking life (books came my way, people said things, etc.) the teaching was through the dreams.

I spook really easily, and asked that nothing weird happened in waking life or I would bolt screaming for the exits. The teacher(s) obliged and other than a couple of encounters with other beings, was safe and fine. The SOP kept everything at bay.

Now, I very rarely remember my dreams, though every once in a while wake up in the middle of a dream I'm not aware of, saying some version of “Oh, I understand now, yes, I get it.” and I fleetingly know what it's about, go back to sleep and don't remember anything in the morning other than that I had experienced another teaching moment and some part of me understood but it was beyond me to know what it was about.

I stopped the SOP and everything but divination a few months ago because there is simply too much going on in my life right now (including not having the space to walk in a circle -long story) and I was going to crack. However, I get the impression that the work continues in my sleep life, beyond my awareness, and think I am changing, like a caterpillar in a chrysalis, except that I am not aware of what or how I'm changing. I get glimpses of it in situations, and surprise myself at how well I handle it, and wonder where the grace and wisdom comes from, because it's not from me. It's as though something other than the old Myriam came through at that point, which has me wondering.

It's as though the conscious Myriam part was by-passed in the teachings, and something inside is growing in (I'm not sure what the word is...power? Knowledge? Wisdom? Not quite that, something else. A being? A will?) When I do the SOP if I get a chance, I experience a sudden surge of power that is much stronger than when I do it daily, and it feels like an ecstatic meeting again of something I fiercely love, and there is a rush of something or someone meeting me back. Like a coming home. And I haven't even gotten to the point where I can do the complete SOP. The pace has been glacial and constantly interrupted.

Is it possible that the work continues despite the conscious Myriam part not putting in the daily work but another part pursuing this anyway, at a level beyond the conscious, beyond the astral even? Is there another way of pursuing the work that is not the usual ritual-meditation-divination combo, that you have experienced or heard of? I will begin again as life permits to do the SOP and meditation, and will continue where I left off, but I know it won't be in the same place I was. I'm wondering also if you know of cases where something like this happened and finally did break through to the conscious part, with a sudden and drastic change happening at once in the life of the person who experienced it. I can say that I feel as though the core of me is not the same as it was, or perhaps, my experiencing of the core that is me has changed.

Your thoughts, as always, are much appreciated.

Re: unconscious change

[ecosophia]

Yes, that's very much a possibility. In the Golden Dawn teachings, the self is seen as a series of different sub-selves that don't always interact. You've got the self you experience on an everyday basis, the Lower Self or Ruach; you've got the automatic, subconscious self, the Nephesh; you've got the Higher Self, the Neshamah, which is also called the Lower Genius (the word "genius" meant "guardian spirit" before it took on its modern meaning of someone with a really high IQ); and you've got the Higher and Divine Genius, the reflection of the Divine in you, the Yechidah.

One important part of magical training consists of opening up the connections between the Lower Self and the Higher Self, but there's also a core part of the work that involves opening up the connections between the Higher Self and the Higher and Divine Genius. That can happen spontaneously, if you've done a lot of magical or spiritual work in previous lives, and taking up magical work in this life can kickstart such a spontaneous opening. Your Lower Self, your ordinary conscious self, doesn't have to have anything to do with that once the initial stimulus has been given. Down the road, when you're ready for it, you'll be brought into a situation in which you can resume magical practice, and then you'll still have the hard work of opening up contacts with the Higher Self -- but that work may well have more dramatic effects than usual, since the higher levels of yourself are already busy with their part of the work.

Tarot interpretations

[(Anonymous)]

Aron Blue here. How do you feel about tarot illustrations? Continuing with last week's discussion about the too-maligned swords suit, it seems as if a good way to balance out one's personal interpretations might be to use a deck that only provides illustrations for the major arcana. Maybe not for a beginner ... What do you think?

Re: Tarot interpretations

[ecosophia]

It's very much something that varies from person to person. Some people seem to do better with the stimulus of the fully illustrated Tarot decks, others (including beginners) do better with the ones that just have swords, wands, etc. on the number cards. I've gotten good results with both, but your mileage may vary!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG, thank you for providing this forum for questions.

I've lived in the same house since I was seven -- a family home built by my family on my father's family's land. Since those golden days, though, a lot has happened -- in my teens, my father was found to be cheating on my mother, there were many stormy years and then a rather ugly divorce. My older brother left and married and never really returned; my dad remarried and went to another state, and passed away from dementia several years ago. Both of my grandparents passed away and the land around us was all sold. My mom had two very short (under a year) marriages, but since then (2001) no one but she and I have lived in this house. We have struggled at times, emotionally, financially, and just with keeping the house up, but in the past ten years or so have done everything we could to make a happy, peaceful, comfortable home.

I give the background because the thing is, despite renovations and constant upkeep/improvements, the house has a way of... being uneasy. Leaky plumbing, major appliance failures, the kinds of things that make me have nightmares about disasters and get panic attacks every time some new issue is discovered. We love this house and property, but we went through some very dark days here and I can't help but wonder if the place itself is still unhappy somehow.

I've been reading here for about a month now, trying to pick up helpful things, and have started reading the Celtic Golden Dawn, though I haven't yet started practicing (waiting for the new moon.) Is there anything in particular I could incorporate into my practice to "make friends" with the house and property? Will the banishing LRP help get rid of some of the old negative "energy"? I know houses will always need upkeep, but it's the feeling around it that troubles me.

Thank you for your time and patience with my understanding - I am new at this!
Diane

[ecosophia]

Regular banishing rituals are a good idea in such a situation, as they clear away old unwanted energies. Still, I'm going to suggest something far more old-fashioned, which is that you try to find out what the house-spirit wants. At some point when you can arrange to be alone, go into the kitchen -- that's traditionally the heart of a house -- sit down, and talk to the house. Let it know what your concerns are and ask it if there's anything you can do to make it less unhappy. Then listen inwardly -- note the feeling you get in response, and any sudden ideas that come to mind. If you get a lot of information in a rush, get some paper and a pen and write it all down. Repeat as needed.

[(Anonymous)]

Does sandalwood incense have any specific magic effects?

[ecosophia]

Of course. Sandalwood is warm and moist in the third degree, thus invokes the element of air; its planetary correspondence is Venus; it has protective and purifying powers, and also stimulates the visionary senses, so it's particularly well suited to any form of clairvoyant working.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you think you'll ever read any of your work in a future incarnation?

[ecosophia]

I have no idea. As far as I know, I haven't read anything this time around that I wrote in a previous incarnation.

Retroactive Divination

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

Do you get any clear answers by asking an Oracle: “What do I need to know about the day just passed?” If I miss a morning divination, is this a viable option or does it defeat the purpose of the excercise. I’m working with Ogham. Thank you!

Re: Retroactive Divination

[ecosophia]

That's a perfectly valid use of divination. Give it a try!

[(Anonymous)]

Hello, JMG.

Is divination a sort of communication with a spirit or do the answers come from some unconscious part of the querent's psyche? If it involves an external spirit, is it a different one depending on which divination system is used?

Thanks,

Paulo B

[ecosophia]

Different people have different theories. I'm not sure if there's any way to find out for certain; what's certain is that one way or another, divination works.

Karma, Reincarnation, Disability

[dudeknowsbest]

Hi JMG,

As always, much thanks for the Magic Monday.

A bit of a loaded question here, but what is your perspective of karma and reincarnation?

In addition to the general karma and reincarnation topics, I'm specifically interested in how a disability manifests in the karmic/reincarnation process, and what does said disability indicate for the karmic/reincarnation process for those close to the disabled - parents, siblings, etc.

Thanks,
Adam

Re: Karma, Reincarnation, Disability

[ecosophia]

It would take a good-sized chapter of a book to set out the traditional Druid vision of reincarnation and the various forces shaping it, of which the consequences of actions in previous lives -- what Eastern traditions call karma, and Western occultism calls fate -- are part.

The thing to keep in mind when dealing with individual cases, such as a person with a congenital disability, is that karma is subtle and very specific. There's no one-size-fits-all answer to questions like "why was person X born with this disability?" or "why do the other members of X's family have to cope with this disability?" It's always specific to the souls in question, and has to do partly with their actions in previous lives, and partly with the striving of each individual soul toward its own destiny.

[(Anonymous)]

what are, broadly, the benefits of systematic study of the Cabala versus systematic study of astrological magic? How do these two magical tools differ?

[ecosophia]

Both Cabala and astrology are symbolic systems that provide a language of symbolic patterns to make sense of yourself and the universe -- the macrocosm and the microcosm. Cabala is more useful if you want to get deep into ceremonial magic; astrology is more useful if you want to get deep into the various branches of astrological prediction. You can also do both, and integrate the two of them -- that's been standard practice for serious operative mages for the last five or six centuries.