Magic Monday
Apr. 7th, 2019 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
It's midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is of Oom the Omnipotent aka Pierre Bernard: sex guru, successful businessman, genuine scholar of Sanskrit teachings, shameless con artist, and also the man who introduced yoga to the American public. It's a sign of how little most Americans know of their own country's occult history that he's forgotten and E.A. "Aleister" Crowley, who was very much a third-rate figure by comparison, is famous. 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. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 542,396th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.0 of The Magic Monday FAQ here.
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.
***This Magic Monday is now closed to new questions. See you next week!***
Abrahamic religions and astrology
Date: 2019-04-08 04:08 am (UTC)Last week someone asked you about the different effects Muslims, Jews, and Christians experience as a result of hosting their public gatherings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. You said that each were Venutian, Saturnine, and Solar, in both positive and negative senses, respectively.
Could you give a brief description of how you see these positives and negatives seem to manifest within each tradition/it’s correspondence to the planetary days?
Fascinating to think about, but being almost wholly ignorant of astrology, I could only guess based on googling the different planetary correspondences and hope what I was reading wasn’t just internet fluff that lacked any real understanding (which I would have an impossible time discerning).
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 04:41 am (UTC)I have some beginners questions for you:
1) Using ogham cards for divination how is it even possible to get a reversed few? Am I supposed to draw the card, then flip it so it spins? Or should I make two full sets reversed/non-reversed?
2) When will The Dolmen Arch be published?
3) Whould practicing a daily geomancy reading (as per chapter seven in The Art and Practice of Geomancy), daily meditation, and a daily Middle Pillar Ritual/Sphere of Protection constitute a balanced routine for a beginner? (working up slowly to the full form of course).
4) What is your take on Mastering Witchcraft by Paul Huson?
5) Googling around, listening to podcasts and so on, I find that a lot of people seem to hold a very nonchalant attitude towards summoning and making pacts with goetic spirits. Is this really not such a big deal or should one stay far away from it (my gut reaction)?
Thank you for your books and this chance to interact with you here, big fan of your work!
Re: Abrahamic religions and astrology
Date: 2019-04-08 04:41 am (UTC)The sun as an astrological influence is expansive, generous, charitable; it's also arrogant and pushy. A strongly solar character is the kind of person you can't ignore; when he arrives on the scene, he becomes the center of attention at once, though this can be either because of the strength of his personality or the rudeness of his manners. He does everything on the grand scale; his virtues are as gargantuan as his vices, and the one thing he can't stand is when people don't take him with the seriousness that he thinks he deserves. That's Christianity in a nutshell.
Saturn as an astrological influence is fussy, precise, and traditional, with one eye always turned to the past. It never yields on the things that matter. A strongly Saturnine character is the kind of person who's always there, filling a familiar role, often all but invisible to those who aren't paying attention. In the Saturnine mind there's always close attention to the realities of existence, but also a pervasive habit of being self-centered that's at the other extreme from the solar mode, because it isn't interested in what others think. That's Judaism in a nutshell.
(Please note that these aren't characterizations of individual Christians or Jews, or even of those mythical critters, the average Christian or the average Jew. It's the religion itself as a collective personality that I'm talking about here -- and, of course, from an outsider's perspective.)
Demon possession
Date: 2019-04-08 04:45 am (UTC)I suffered a severe trauma on multiple levels of my being at age 14 when I was given what was supposedly an acne drug, Roaccutane (branded as Accutane over in the States). Since then I have been, well... almost completely impotent and without libido, having been a perfectly sexually healthy young teenager beforehand. 11 years have now passed, with no improvement.
I've also had some terrible struggles with my mental health; I was admitted to a psych ward by my parents a few years back where I spent a number of days, but thankfully made it out without being subjected to further medical experimentation. I've always had a deep-seated fear of drugs of all kinds which I now think stemmed from an unconscious recognition of the damage Roaccutane did to my young body, mind and soul, although I only made the connection to my impotence and mental disturbances in late December of last year, so only a few months back.
To be clear, I should say that these are both now officially acknowledged (by the FDA) side effects of the drug. What happened in terms of my personal journey, I think, is that I reached a point of emotional readiness where I could finally begin to contemplate the terrible possibility that a drug had caused this damage to me, and a quick Google search revealed strong corroborating evidence in the form of the aforesaid official mea culpa and plenty of personal testimonies which match my own experience.
It didn't take me long after taking the drug to realise I was impotent, of course, but having suffered such a strange and horrific trauma at such a young age I was unable to make head or tails of it. In my naive young mind, this was a drug that was supposed to help me - and it did clear my acne - so how could it have caused me such harm? This was reinforced by doctors I spoke to over the years, who one and all denied outright that there could be any connection between the drug and my sexual issues when I raised the question tentatively. I supposed they instinctively felt they had to defend the profession on which they stake their livelihoods. I, for my part, was only too willing to take these so-called authorities at their word and accept their diagnosis that my problems were entirely psychological, even though this made no sense of my experience, which as I said, is one of near-total impotence, and led to an extreme mind-body disconnect.
Anyway, so I've been beginning to process all this in the last few months. But here's where I need your help. For many years I've had this recurring experience where when the weekend comes around I suddenly feel all the life sucked out of me. In some cases and especially lately this has been accompanied by a devastating sort of ego-death experience, where some cherished notion of who I am is shattered and I'm left feeling completely adrift, lost, and even, in the most extreme instances, as if I have no free will. This usually begins on Friday and peaks on Saturday night, then gradually heals over Sunday as a new ego sort of spontaneously stitches itself together for the week ahead. Needless to say, this is exhausting.
As I've been going through all this emotional processing lately, the thought has come to me that this experience may be a way of reliving the trauma of having been symbolically killed at a young age by this drug. You know, since on the cusp of adulthood I suddenly ran into this thing that stopped me dead in my tracks, likewise on the cusp of the weekend, when many young adults like myself go out to pubs, bars and clubs looking to meet sexual partners. Yet the experience is so severe and even with this insight remains utterly terrifying, particularly this sensation of having no free will.
Here's where magic and occultism come into the picture. About three years back, I had a mental breakdown, largely, I think, as a result of all the aforementioned stuff, the trauma from this drug. During the process of rebuilding, I came across your work and was fascinated. It seemed like a much more balanced approach to spirituality than the New Age schlock I was used to. So I began practising magic daily as per your coauthored Learning Ritual Magic. Only after completing the 9 month course did I discover that it's generally advised that anybody with mental health disturbances, particularly those on the end of the spectrum that tend to get labelled psychotic, avoid magic. I didn't like to think of myself as psychotic and still don't, to me it's such a poorly defined concept that in practice rarely amounts to more than a means of social control, enforcing an arbitrary standard of normal; no doubt many if not all people asking questions on here would be labelled psychotic if they expressed similar thoughts in a consultation room with a psychiatrist. And I certainly never dreamed of taking any of the poisons called anti-psychotic drugs, having done my due diligence on them. Still, I had to admit to myself I wasn't doing too well - I'd been on welfare for a couple of years, living with my parents, not really functioning. So I decided to stop the practice, with the proviso that I could come back to it if and when I was doing any better.
Fast forward to just two weeks ago. I've been back in full-time work for the last 6 months, off welfare, moved out into my own place again. So I decide, why not give this magic stuff a go again? I have to say, it never fully let go of its hold on me even when I wasn't practising. But, full disclosure, I was also motivated by an element of fear. I had come across a discussion on one of these Magic Mondays, which I occasionally browsed, about this idea that once you've metaphorically cracked out of the egg and recognised that you live in a magical universe, there's no way back and the only constructive way forward is to continue working with the tools of magic. To be honest, this put me into a bit of a spin. On the one hand, as somebody with a fair amount of mental disturbance, which even though I was functioning better I couldn't kid myself had entirely resolved, the consensus among occultists was clear: I should leave magic well alone. On the other hand, having already delved fairly deep into practice I was apparently obliged to continue?! I couldn't resolve this dilemma, and so I decided I would resume practice again and just see how it went.
Practice had been going quite well these last two weeks, and my ability to function seemed not in the least bit impeded, enhanced if anything. Then, this weekend came around, and that familiar feeling came over me again. I felt myself cracking, and my capacity for free will seemed to slip away. This came to a very disturbing head this Saturday when, after going to a bar to see some live music in an unsuccessful attempt to just have some fun, I found myself feeling so overwhelmed that I had to retreat back to my room at home. I sat on the bed head in hands, and here's where things started to turn really nightmarish. I started making this heavy breathing sound, almost like a choked sort of barking. It was just coming out of me, I felt I had no conscious control over it. Then I collapsed onto the bed and began reeling around. My arms flexed and waved themselves around, the hands contorted into claw shapes. I was now making grunting noises, very animalistic. This continued for several minutes and then, in a daze, I blew out the candle and went straight to sleep.
I honestly felt like I was possessed by a demon. Obviously, this terrifies me and I don't have a clue what to do about it. Should I stop all magic immediately? Should I seek help from some kind of healer? Or is it something I will just have to adjust to, somehow?
I'm wondering whether this demon has been living inside me for all these years and I'm only now recognising it as such. As I say, this periodic experience of losing my free will has been there for a long time, possibly stretching back to when I took the acne drug. I'm wondering whether the demon is in fact some kind of manifestation of the spirit of that drug? Is this kind of thing even possible? The demon seems kind of sickly, emaciated and foul-smelling.
At the very least, it doesn't seem to have any intent to harm other people. Its main concern seems to be causing me to suffer and repeatedly experience failure.
Any advice would be so welcome. I guess it's good if I'm recognising something that has probably been the case for a good long while. You know, the idea that I'm better off knowing than not. One positive that immediately comes to mind is I no longer have to chastise myself with, "why do I feel that I don't have free will? What's wrong with me?" - instead I can say, "there really is something constraining my free will." But still... this is very upsetting and confusing. I did a few Tarot readings this morning looking for guidance and they seemed to suggest that if I gave up on magic the demon would go quiet and I could live some sort of life on the straight and narrow. Yet I can't help the feeling this would be sort of like lobotomising myself, shutting off my awareness to realms I know are real. Conversely, when I asked the Tarot what would happen if I continued with magic the answer seemed to be that no matter how much dedication I put into my practice, the demon would still have my number, indeed even if I developed great magical skill I would paradoxically remain locked in a state of helplessness. The final card in the reading, however, suggested some kind of resolution might be possible, not directly through the practices of ritual magic, but through karmic retribution. I don't know what that would look like exactly, but that's the message I took.
Or am I just a basketcase? It would be more comforting to believe that in a way... But I don't want to go back on welfare and be dependent on the state (and my parents) all my life, if I can avoid it. Neither of them are particularly dependable, anyway, so who knows how long that would even be an option.
Ugh, I feel like I've landed myself in a terrible spot. As I say, a little guidance would be very welcome, from anyone. I don't really know where else to turn than here... I'm acutely aware that the wrong word said to the wrong person and I could be wheeled straight back to the loony bin. And I might have a harder time talking my way out the second time.
There is a group of Spiritualists based near where I've just moved to, who, whether coincidentally or otherwise, I discovered on Friday, the day before this (quasi-)demonic encounter - could they be worth talking to, or is there a risk they could make things far worse? I have no idea how competent they are or even exactly what they do. I spoke to one of them on the phone to try to find out a bit about them and she talked a lot about 'healing' (not in direct relation to me, I should add - I didn't disclose much about myself) as well as 'clairvoyance', and seemed a friendly, likeable sort. But yesterday I came across a passage in Regardie's Tree of Life where he argues that all Spiritualism is dangerous and debased, working haphazardly with beings in the Lower Astral. Any thoughts, anyone?
I realise I may be asking a lot already, but in addition to general guidance, I'd also be interested in anyone's thoughts about how demons relate to mental illness more broadly. All this has me wondering, is mental illness often demonic? I'm vaguely aware that in certain cultures which have little concept of mental illness have well-defined concept of demon-possession that covers much of the same ground, although I can't refer to a source on that so maybe I'm skewing it somewhat.
As a side note, I followed the discussion a few weeks back about Pluto with great interest. I was born in 92, while Pluto was in Scorpio, and my experience with Roaccutane seems like a classic Plutonian encounter, at least as I understand it. A drug which is routinely prescribed to young, healthy kids for nothing more than teenage acne, that causes literally unspeakable damage, which medical authorities unanimously denied until only a couple of years ago. There are so many layers of deceit and denial here which I'm only just coming to grips with, right down to suppressed clinical data and deliberate obfuscation of the origin and true nature of the drug (it's a chemotherapeutic, originally introduced for skin cancer, yet deemed too dangerous even for that! Before, of course, being rebranded as a 'vitamin A derivative' and marketed to healthy children for pimples.)
I'm including a sketch of the demon I made the morning after the incident, to try to better understand its nature.
Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 04:48 am (UTC)2) I don't know yet. Last I heard the publisher had just gotten an artist to do the images out of the Mabinogion. I'm still hoping it'll be this year.
3) Yes. Your basic set of daily practices includes a banishing ritual, a meditation, and a divination; once you have those three, you're on your way.
4) It was an extremely popular book back in the day. Witchcraft has never interested me, so I haven't looked into it; maybe someone else can offer their take on it.
5) I'd encourage you to stay far away from goetic evocation, or anything that involves messing around with demons. You can get the same benefits by working with angels, planetary intelligences and spirits, and elemental intelligences and spirits, without any of the serious downsides and dangers that come from hanging out with demonic entities.
Re: Demon possession
Date: 2019-04-08 05:01 am (UTC)Second, what you've described doesn't sound at all like demonic possession in the proper sense of the word, but it's quite possible that what you've experienced is the spirit or egregor of the drug.
Third, if alternative health care modalities are legal in the jurisdiction in which you live, you might consider looking into them. These days, MDs are basically shills for the pharmaceutical industry, and it's very unlikely that they'll be willing to take your condition seriously, much less do anything to help. Alternative health care practitioners are another matter. If traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is legal to practice where you live, in particular, a competent practitioner might be able to do quite a bit to help you.
Fourth, spiritualism is a very, very mixed bag. Some Spiritualist groups are capable and honest; others are neither. Of course the same thing is true of other religious traditions!
You're in a very tough spot -- one of many, many people who've suffered harm from an out-of-control medical industry that forgot a very long time ago that "First do no harm" is the first line of the Hippocratic oath. There will doubtless be some kind of karmic issue involved, but you don't have to worry about that; stop all magical practices, get rid of the books, find some other activity to occupy your thoughts and spare time, see what you can do about getting effective alternative health care, and you can go on to have a better life.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 05:19 am (UTC)Is the significance of the gates related to the air/ mind, fire/passions, water/emotions, earth/senses pattern in the grove peace proclamation? Would I, as a beginner, mostly expect to learn things about myself?
Thank you for Magic Mondays!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 05:29 am (UTC)Re: Demon possession
Date: 2019-04-08 05:39 am (UTC)Also, thank you for your advice relating to the medical issue specifically. There is TCM practised where I live, it's not something I've ever explored but I'm absolutely willing to give it a go. Yes, I know I am one among many. If there's one positive to take away from the trauma it's in waking up to the utter recklessness of the medical industry
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 05:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 06:00 am (UTC)(I ask because I have been experimenting with going to church, but I am studying the DMH and I do not intend to become Christian. I go because I am interested in religions, have had almost no experience of group spirituality or any sort of traditional tradition, and want to better understand the cultural heritage of the West that many people around me are keen to dismiss in complete ignorance)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 06:44 am (UTC)Firstly, if someone is a nasty, selfish person as a young person and changes into a more likeable, altruistic person as he ages, does that mean that this will lead him or her into a total different direction in his or her next incarnation, compard what would have happened if said person had remained nasty and selfish?
Secondly, if someone is in his last human incarnation, and then dies, is the changeover to the state of Gwynfydd from his or her vantage point a radical, fundamental change, or is it different? Is there any occult lore about what this transition is like?
Thirdly, how specific is the transmission of character from one incarnation to the next? For example, if someone doesn't like cheap and shoddy goods and has a taste for good quality, useful items, does this specific trait carry over? Or, for another example, an inability to bear and handle superficiality in relating to other people?
Fourthly, if one has already set a schedule for a long series of meditations about a subject, like the Oghams, for example, how best to accommodate meditating about the other things worth meditating over that come up from time to time?
Thanks!
Re: Demon possession
Date: 2019-04-08 07:44 am (UTC)Best of luck
Re: Abrahamic religions and astrology
Date: 2019-04-08 08:16 am (UTC)How would you classify Druidry in this sense?
On the Tree of Life I always assigned it to Malkuth, as it seeks divinity in the mundane (i.e. nature).
Yours in Druidry,
Brigyn
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 08:42 am (UTC)1. In the Elemental Cross part of the SOP, I've been invoking the animal powers (as per your example in the DMH: Hawk, Bear, Stag, Salmon). Will it cause any problems to switch to the Druid gods (Hu, etc)?
2. I am about to introduce the First Gate, and if I continue with the animal powers, can I vibrate their names? Your example in the DMH starts with 'by the hawk of May...' - can I vibrate hawk in that sentence?
Many thanks once again!
Planetary workings
Date: 2019-04-08 09:20 am (UTC)Many thanks for MM. I have a few questions planetary workings, for the newbie, so to speak, and wanted to get your advice/opinion.
The context: Every Friday for the past month I've done the 'money spell' as per your suggestion from last year, with a green candle on top a honey jar (to sweeten or make recruiters nicer to me). I've noticed more call backs and positive interactions, although I have not progressed from a couple of phone interviews so far.
Because I've been getting a bit stressed about not getting any job offers, I decided to get a mini career reading with CW. (Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention and order this in the midst of the Mercury retrograde) Anyway, results were:
Good for talismans: Mercury, Saturn & Mars
Planetary charity:Sun, Jupiter
1. I missed one Friday spell when I was away, is that a problem? Do I have to redo everything again?
2. Is it a good idea to try and be nice to the 'good' for me planets, and what would be the best way (and easiest!) to go about this? incense, correct colour candle,etc... In case it's relevant, Mercury is the ruler of the profession I'm looking to get into (tech)
or is it better just to do planetary charity for the planets that are 'upset'?
3. I tried to find the incense correspondence in your book ENM, to no avail. I thought there would be a main fragrance for each planet (e.g., sun -> frankincense, etc). I also tried the internet, with mixed and conflicting results. If there's a simple planetary incense correspondence, could let us know please?
Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 10:13 am (UTC)Now I would expect the details of one's incarnation to be largely uncorrelated with the previous incarnation, otherwise it would be common knowledge. If not, any obvious things I could compare between the current and hypothesized previous incarnation?
Re: Abrahamic religions and astrology
Date: 2019-04-08 10:13 am (UTC)With respect to the above, what would be the collective personality of Hinduism, Boudhism, Shintoism or Druididsm?
Regards
Karim
Re: Abrahamic religions and astrology
Date: 2019-04-08 10:23 am (UTC)JMG said: "Islam is a Venerean religion and has the virtues and vices of its planet."
Can you tell us what are the virtues and vices of planet venus? I'd be interested to see in what ways it might apply to Islam.
Many Thanks
Karim
Re: Abrahamic religions and astrology
Date: 2019-04-08 10:44 am (UTC)As a strong solar Leo I am taking your description of the solar character -both the desirable and undesirable aspects - very much to heart!
Tripp
(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 11:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-04-08 11:54 am (UTC)2. Yesterday I made an amulet to help me with success in finishing the last major phases of a difficult and often winding career training path I've been on since 2011. It involves a lot of bureaucracy and paperwork (which I tend to find very discouraging), so I figured Jupiter would be a good planetary correspondance, and since I had the opportunity to do it on Sunday, I figured a Jupiter/Sun combination would be good, and made it on Sunday in the first hour of Jupiter after sunset. Only hitch is that it took me longer to make than I thought, with the result that the final phase of sewing the bag shut...etc spilled over into the hour of Mars. Is this an issue? A little bit of warrior energy on my part is likely not a bad thing as it's an area I'm usually weak in, but I don't want to bring combative energies into the amulet or invite conflict in my career training process. Is this something I should be concerned about or am I being paranoid? I did the bulk of the work during the hour of Jupiter and everything in the amulet is thoroughly Jovian and Solar.
3. Any suggestions for using natural magic to bring blessings to my neighbours and neighbourhood? I was thinking of burning small amounts of appropriate herbs in my backyard firepit while offering prayers. What do you think? Thanks!
Natural Magic
Date: 2019-04-08 11:54 am (UTC)The response appears at this point to be neutral.
The fact remains, you mow grass in a barren sign in the Eld and you'll kill your grass. I watched my "scientific" pasture manager neighbor do it early last October. I wanted to say something when I saw her mowing in Leo in the Eld, but didn't think that would go over too well! And sure enough, her pasture died and stayed dead for 6 months...that was the final empirical proof I needed to verify that TSW.
On the flip side, mowing grass in Pisces (or any other fruitful sign) in any other quarter of the moon cycle will produce happy results.
Combine the two though? My findings at least show a neutral effect. Was that what you were expecting, JMG?
Cheers, and happy Magic Monday to all!
Tripp
Don't get a talisman of a planet in your chart if it's badly afflicted?
Date: 2019-04-08 12:05 pm (UTC)At least to my intuition, it seems that if a planet is badly afflicted, then one should try to "boost" its powers? I briefly asked an Indian magician/astrologer about this before and from what he said, at least in the Indian tradition, that's true. I'm curious why the Western practice seems to diverge from it.
I'm not enjoying the current Mercury in Pisces period. I think it was a bad period to start trying to network on LinkedIn and apply for jobs. My natal Sun is at 11 Sagittarius while Mercury is under the beams at 21 Sagittarius both in the 8th House. Not sure what I can do about it.
Karmic Blowback
Date: 2019-04-08 12:10 pm (UTC)A couple of times you have mentioned that when starting a new new magical training, there is karmic blowback. Is there anything you can do to mitigate the blowback, especially when it is affecting the people around you as well?