Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's a little past midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is of the redoubtable French composer Erik Satie, described as "the oddest person I have ever known" by Igor Stravinsky (himself no slouch in the eccentricity department). Satie was all over the weird end of the fin de siècle French musical and cultural scene; his connection to occultism was that for several years he was the house composer for the Sar Josephin Peladan. You can listen to his Sonnerie de l'Ordre (Fanfare for the Order) here. 

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 143,916th 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.

With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed to new questions -- and yes, this means you. See you next week!***

Comments

Absent Dreams of Infants

[(Anonymous)]

A question for you parents out there.
Do you, did you, have dreams where your infant is present?

My child is nearing two years of age and only now are my dreams incorporating her. Is this unusual? Is this common? Is there an explanation for it?

Re: Absent Dreams of Infants

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, both my wife and I have had dreams including our now one year-old son. Can't be much more detailed than that, as neither of us have been very attentive to our dreams lately!

[(Anonymous)]

1) A week ago tomorrow I decided to start doing journaling to try to get to the bottom of a bad habit. I read the FAQ and saw it says pen and paper. I’m doing it this way, but does it require it be handwritten, and if so, why? I haven’t written anything by hand in years, and I’m quite rusty, will this be a problem?

2) I’m targeting my internet use. I got that it comes out of three factors: first, I don’t like to be alone with my thoughts; second, I’m clinging to the internet to try to pretend the future I see coming isn’t real (see, no apocalypse, the internet is still here!); third, I use it because I want to use porn, and don’t like that I like it, so I’ll use it, because subconsciously I want porn, but my conscious mind would rebel at it. So I’ll come up with some reason to go online, and then I’ll use porn while I’m online.

I assume that by journaling and targeting the patterns of thinking and action which I don’t like, and getting them to dissolve, I will naturally make myself more comfortable with my thoughts, so I don’t need to explicitly target it for a while. Is this line of reasoning correct?

3) I decided to target my porn use first. I see too many problems with pornography, and am deeply uncomfortable with it, and so it seemed like it would be easier to defuse it instead of trying to pierce the pattern of thought which ties it with my broader internet use. Since I really don’t like that I use it anyway, this is a win win for me. It turns out it comes from not viewing myself as deserving love but still wanting a release for sexual energies, I’ve found that comes, at least in part, from trauma from an abusive relationship I was in a few years ago, although I suspect it runs even deeper than this. Does following things out like this make sense, or is it better to try to stick close to whatever it is I’m initially journaling about?

4) At this point, because I’m looking at a tangled mess that I think could take months or years to unravel, I’m considering an affirmation. However, how do you craft a good one, and how do you know it won’t blow up in your face? I’m also not sure if it even makes sense: it may be better to try to dig deeper and address the underlying issues. How do I know if I should use an affirmation or use journaling to go further?

5) The FAQ says to aim for 15 minutes a day, but even with my slow writing speed I can only manage about 10 minutes a day. Anything more is too painful. Should I aim to increase it soon, or is this enough for now?

6) I’ve always been interested in the occult, and tried to pick up magic a few times. Every time though, I’d make it a little bit and then drop it. I think part of the reason I keep dropping it is I can’t stand to be alone with my thoughts, and that is part of what you need for the occult. Does this line of reasoning make sense, and if so are there ways to increase my chances of success with it? Could I journal with my habit of dropping the occult work down the road, once I’ve dealt with the tangled mess behind my internet use?

7) I’m considering restarting LRM, one of the systems I tried and then dropped. How could I tell if it makes sense to try it again now, or if it makes more sense to hold off and wait for a bit before starting it again? Would divination be a good idea?

[ecosophia]

1) You can use any writing method you like. It's my experience, though, that handwriting is more effective, since most of us learned it in early childhood and so it's easier to let it happen without editing as you write.

2) That's correct. Don't target anything explicitly for a while. Get your subconscious used to being able to talk to you, and listen to what it says even if what it says doesn't have anything obviously to do with the issues you want to solve.

3) Follow it out, by all means, but don't force yourself to stay away from other issues. The oddest things can be involved in such fixations.

4) Don't use affirmations until you have a clear idea of what you want to affirm -- and note that you use affirmations to affirm things, not to reject them. An affirmation won't get rid of your interest in pornography; it can be used to heal a sense of inadequacy that drives that interest, or whatever that happens to be. Self-knowledge comes first!

5) "Aim for 15 minutes" doesn't mean "start out at 15 minutes", any more than "aim for the target" means "stand next to the target." 15 minutes is your long term goal.

6) Your real problem is that you can't handle your own thoughts. Deal with that before you tackle magic.

7) See the answer to #6. Until you can be comfortable with the inside of your own head, you have no business learning magic.

[(Anonymous)]

Does prayer for good or ill have the same sort of consequences as magic for good or ill have? Is there a raspberry jam principle with prayer, or is it fundamentally different from magic in that regard?

[ecosophia]

The principle's a little different: never pray for anything that the deity you pray to doesn't like to give. Don't pray to Artemis the virgin goddess for help getting laid, don't pray to Zeus for help breaking your promises, and so on. If you do that, you'll just irritate the deity, and irritated deities have a broad and lavishly stocked buffet of ways to play merry hell with your life. Also, once you ask a deity for a favor, you owe them, and the debt will come due -- so choose your deity carefully, with an eye toward what they tend to ask for. (I.e., don't invoke Cybele if you want to keep your testicles...)

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I’m sitting in a dilemma and hope that you can clear things up for me and maybe find a third option.

I really like your Druidry and Druid Magic Handbooks and would very much like to do the practical work(ings) in these Books.

However, I am at least trying to be a faithful Roman Catholic which causes me some conflict of interest...

As far as I can judge there neither are problems with the practices described in the Druidry Handbook nor with the Sphere of Protection, theologically speaking. But... divination, that‘s another story.

I know that Druid Magic is a balanced system, so I will not be able to do the grail working and enchantments without divination. But can the Sphere of Protection and opening of a grove be done?

My plan is to do the things from the Druidry handbook, including meditation on the Ogham, and also to finish learning the Sphere of Protection from the Druid Magic Handbook and then maybe switch to Gareth Knights book.

Would that be a feasible workaround to become a catholic Druid? Could I still do Scrying in the spirit vision and pathworking in a grove? Or will I spin aimlessly around without the corrective of divination?

And finally, as a question on the history of magic: Why does the church come down so strong on divination? I can totally imagine that the Hebrews were into it, given their cultural environment. Leviticus loves banning things that encourage fraternization with the neighbors.
As far as I understand it, the current ban of divination has (counter)reformation written all over it. I have a hunch that the medieval church was more lenient on the subject...

Thank you for Magic Monday!

P.s. Would you be comfortable with me including the wish for your and your wife’s health and well-being in a prayer?

[ecosophia]

If you're thinking about practicing magic you're already outside the pale of what the Catholic church permits. That doesn't mean you can't practice magic -- it means that you have to face up to the fact that you aren't following the official magisterium of the church, and that is that. That being the case, quibbling about divination when you've already decided to practice magic is, well, a bit Jesuitical!

If you're going to practice a system of magic, furthermore you need to practice the complete system of magic, and in the case of the DMH, that means divination. If you don't feel you can engage in divination, pick a different book -- Gareth Knight's book is probably your best bet. But trying to stay on both sides of a door just guarantees that when the door slams shut you're going to get hurt. As the Book of Ecclesiastes says, "Whatever your hand findeth to do, do it with thy might" -- not in a halfhearted and half-a**ed fashion.

Egregor

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John
So… last week you mentioned the possibility of mistaking an egregor for divine connection. The church I grew up with seems to me to have that problem – it always felt hollow and phony. For some reason, I get the same lack of connection from anything with Judeo-Christian symbols. How do I tell if I’m stuck on a faulty egregor? What should I do about it?

Re: Egregor

[ecosophia]

If it feels hollow and phony, whether it's just an egregor or whether it's a deity with whom you just don't connect, it's not for you. Meditation and a course of reading in other forms of religion and spirituality, looking for something that feels right to you, would be one way to go about finding something better.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, sorry for the long post, but I’d like to respond to Chef’s response to my post last week. Given that Chef chose to respond as though the person I was speaking to, I’ll return the favour. It may be that Chef is the person I was asking about, but even if not, I hope this odd discussion can help both of us heal.

Chef,

I assume you’re right it was karma that brought us together, but if it wasn’t there before it most certainly is now. I don’t know which one of us rejected love. It may very well have been me, and for that, I’m truly, deeply sorry. I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you, and I hope that some day we can find forgiveness, that some day we can resolve this, but I think you're right it won't be this lifetime.

I hope our time together helped you: I know your life is not at all what you would choose for yourself, I know it has not been pleasant, and that there are plenty of issues with it besides me. For a while there I thought I was helping, but then everything came out and, well, things didn’t go as planned.

I know why you walked away, why you shut me out, when it all began. I had lied, our entire relationship was based on a lie, and I know that must have been painful. But when you wanted to talk again, I was in too much pain. I was hurt, and angry, and lashing out. I had almost accepted you were gone, and to see you again, wanting to talk, was too much. I wish I did things differently, that I had tried to work things out then, but by the time I was ready again you were gone.

I’m not the same person I was. He would’ve ran from the thought of trying to fix things, of trying to resolve our issues. Even so, I don’t blame you for thinking I’m toxic and untrustworthy. I don’t have anything to say to that other than to say, you’re right, I was. I was horrible to you, and I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I hope we can at least understand each other. I know we will never trust each other again in this life, but in a way, I look forward to seeing you again in the next life. Maybe we can make things work out, but I don’t want to get hurt, or to hurt you, like this again.

Weird of Hali RPG

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John
Is there any convenient way of connecting your Weird of Hali play testers? While working by myself has some good points, I’d love some feedback. And – is anybody else having NPCs pop up and describe the parts they want? (Look, I realize my subconscious and creative aspects are working together, but it is disconcerting even though I enjoy the company.)
Rusty

Re: Weird of Hali RPG

[ecosophia]

Let me see what I can do.

[(Anonymous)]

Last week, I posted about possibly being karmically tied to someone. You suggested divination and journaling. I've started journaling on the person I think I'm karmically tied to, and I'm getting some good insights, but what kind of questions should I ask the cards?

[ecosophia]

Journal about what kind of questions you should ask. That depends entirely on the details of your situation.

Astral Cat?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Brief background info: Been practicing the Heathen LBRP and Middle Pillar since you kindly posted them, and am taking a run at the ALU Ritual weekly. Also have an altar to the Aesir and Vanir, and put a pinch of dried catnip in a small dish daily for Freya’s cats.

So,

Husband and I were finishing up breakfast a couple days ago, and at about the same time as I saw an odd black blob out the corner of my eye, he exclaimed “There’s a cat!” We were both looking in the same general area.

We don’t have a physical cat. Perhaps we have acquired an astral one?

If yes, what’s up with that?

Care and feeding tips?

Thanks for this wonderful forum!

OtterGirl

Re: Astral Cat?

[ecosophia]

Now there's a blast from the past! At one point when my wife and I were doing a lot of Golden Dawn magic, we had astral cats. One time when we had guests over for dinner -- they didn't do magic at all -- all four of us saw a cat run into the kitchen, look up at us, meow silently, and then vanish. Our guests never accepted another invitation to dinner!

I'd encourage you, since you're making offerings to Freya's cats, to pray to Freya and ask her to let you know if there's anything you should do about the cats. Then do it, of course.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

(Apologies in advance as I know this question has been asked before but I couldn't exactly remember the answer or find the thread in past posts.)

I believe you generally advise against "actively" dealing with problems of character or psychological issues but emphasise journalling, meditation and general self awareness. It's now been a couple of months since I finished the work in LRM. That work and also the Essenes readings you put up have been very useful in helping me to uncover my weaknesses and hangups. And the simple awareness of these issues has been very useful. However, I'm now at the point of wanting to take some some more definitive steps to address some of these things. I believe you recommend Affirmations as one method to do that. What were the other methods?

Thanks again,
Simon

[ecosophia]

Okay, the thing to remember is that you use affirmations to affirm things, not to deny or reject things. You need to figure out what exactly you want to affirm in yourself, and then you can craft a single, simple sentence that expresses that. The sentence should be in the present tense, it should state what you want to affirm as though you already had it, and it should not include any negatives such as "no" or "not" -- the subconscious doesn't hear those. For example, while I was working many years ago with feelings of inadequacy and lack of confidence, the affirmation I used was "I am the master." Simple, straightforward, and very effective!

The other thing to do as you begin working with affirmations is keep an eye out for negative self-talk -- basically, affirmations in reverse. Lots of people constantly tell themselves "I'm so stupid," "I always mess things up like this," or what have you -- and those are also affirmations, very effective ones. Stop yourself from saying them; repeat your affirmation instead, even -- especially -- if the affirmation doesn't feel as though it's true. Repeat it and it will become true.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I have been meditating my way through the ogham for a few months (which has been marvellous--I wish I got methodical about it from the beginning). I have been colour breathing the colours listed in the DMH for each few. However, 'variegated' and 'piebald' have me a bit perplexed.

For 'variegated' I experimented with different patterns and colour schemes and the trend was something squiggly/ripply and vaguely psychedelic.

For piebald I began with imagining 2D horse colours in patches, a bit furry--then it evolved into more of a conglomerate rock pattern which had the benefit of three dimensions and less furriness.

Are these at all what you had in mind? Does it matter how I interpret the colours? Are the vague terms some kind of deliberate challenge?

Many thanks for the many ways your work has enriched my life and that of others,
Bewilderness

[ecosophia]

Nobody really knows; what we've got are terms from a medieval Irish manuscript. Experiment, and find something that seems to work well for you.

Clarifying Celtic LBRP and Central Ray

[(Anonymous)]

I've been doing the Celtic LBRP for almost a month now, and am preparing to add in the exercise of the central ray. I have a few questions about both (apologize in advance if the pronounciation questions are a bit tedious!), so I can be sure I'm doing it right. FWIW I've had radical breakthroughs in procrastination/avoidance problems in the past month, to an extent beyond anything I've accomplished in the past decade in that area. Wow!!!

OK, here goes:

1) The instructions for the rite of the rays says "formualate a star of brilliant white light above the top of your head." And then it says "...bow your head slightly, and visialize a ray of light shining from the star IN your head..." So should I visualize it above my head, or in my head? Or does it matter/am I overthinking that? I know the intro to the book says that some things are left deliberately ambiguous. Like I said, I'm getting good results, but want to maximize them as much as possible!

2)Is the "teyr" in "Y teyr pelydryn goleuni" pronounced "tire" or does it rhyme with "stair"?

3) Does the name CED in the Central Ray exercise rhyme with "red" or does it rhyme with "way"?

4) Does the first syllable of Hesus rhyme with "wet"?

5) Does the first syllable of Olwen rhyme with "hole" or with "all"?

OK, and one final question:

6) If I'm moving straight from the LBRP to the Central Ray, would I perform the rite of the rays a total of 3 times? (i.e. before and after the LBRP, and then again at the end of the Central Ray exercise?) Or would I skip the one at the end of the LBRP and only do it twice to open and close the whole practice? I know there was some discussion about the rite of the rays here a week or two ago, but can't remember exactly when.

Thanks as always for your generous time. Your work is having a significant positive impact in my life, and by extension for my family...etc.

Re: Clarifying Celtic LBRP and Central Ray

[ecosophia]

1) It's above. "In" was an edit-o.

2) Not quite either, but closer to "stair."

3) Not quite either, but closer to "shade."

4) No, it's pronounced like "hay."

5) About halfway between the two.

6) You do it three times.

[(Anonymous)]

I have been becoming more aware, lately, of differences between how I interface with the world and what other people expect. When I was a child my parents decided they would not take me to get labelled by a psychologist (for which I am extremely grateful), but always knew something wacky was going on. I suspect at this point that if I were to be labelled, it would be with something Asperger-esque.

One pattern I have noticed is this: I don't easily/quickly develop a lot of empathy/care/affection for people around me (and indeed have tended not to notice much about people around me), but I have strong emotional ties to what I would call broad cultural patterns. It is like I am more affected by (and attentive to) how cultural currents express themselves through people than by the indivduals themselves.

If I may ask, is this something that you experience too? If so, that might help explain why you seem to write things in exactly the perfect way for me to understand them :)

Many thanks as always,
Bewilderness

[ecosophia]

Well, not really. I have strong emotional ties to a very small number of people, though with anyone else, yeah, it's a slow process. Cultural patterns make only very slight emotional impressions on me; I watch them, find them interesting, see some as helpful and others as harmful, but it's a little like watching the politics of a termite colony. My strongest emotional ties are with natural phenomena.

[causticus]

Hello again JMG,

1. I have a fraternal twin brother (we're both male and late 30s in age); he has practically zero interest in anything occult, metaphysical or spiritual in general, and he totally rolls his eyes whenever I bring any of it up; he's a materialist and thinks my mentioning of topics that conjure up the idea that there are things out there beyond material phenomena, is nothing more than crackpot crazytalk. What's sad is as I learn and practice more and more wrt occultism and spirituality, the more I feel our interests diverging, and his only real interests/hobbies beyond his work are video games and the sci/fantasy corner of pop culture (at least we have some commonality there).

Do you happen to know if twin incarnations are determined by preexisting karmic ties or is it just two random souls with a likelihood of no past interaction happening to find the same right womb at the right time? I know it probably varies a whole lot, but I'm wondering if there's an patterns to twins in occult lore. And in a more general sense, I don't know if I should be subtly trying to "hook" him into opening his mind to metaphysical topics or should I just leave him be? Since we were small children, I was always the quirky, intellectually curious, daydreamy and scattered one, whereas he was the orderly, disciplined, straight-and-narrow kid; I was born a whole two hours after him (just enough time to snag a different ascendant sign). We hang out about three times a week (we both help take care of our elderly mother) and his stubborn, narrow interests are starting to grate on me as my mind keeps delving further and further into "weirder" areas and in tandem his interests are becoming more boring and mundane to me. The funny part in all of this is that he would probably be a more focused and competent magician than me if he actually poured an once of interest in this stuff. Anyway, sorry for getting all rambly here!

2. I'm still trying to find a LRP that works for me. I was doing the standard GD one for a couple months but I kept feeling weirder and weirder invoking the god-names of an entity I don't particularly care much for. I know it's just tech and all, but I feel like the ritual isn't going to be very powerful for me if I lack enthusiasm in the names I'm vibrating.

Anyway, I just started playing around with a Greek arrangement according to the parameters you set out in your post from awhile back on how to construct a Polytheist LRP. Finding enough Greek gods with just 4 letter names was a bit of a task (and I made sure these were 4 Greek letter names), but this is what I have so far and I'm wondering if this is an advisable combination to use:

Patron: Hermes (because I over-intellectualize everything, haha)
God1 - Zeus (East)
God2 - Nike (West)
Goddess 1 - Iris (South)
Goddess 2 - Gaea (North)

Please let me know if I'm messing this up royally. Thanks!!

[ecosophia]

1) I think it's just a matter of finding a convenient womb. Don't try to force anyone, ever, to open up to spirituality until and unless they choose to do that -- a person's spirituality is the most intimate thing they have, far more so than mere sexuality, and should be left strictly to them to choose what to do with it.

2) On the whole, it's good -- but isn't Nike a goddess?

[booklover1973]

Hello, JMG,

My question is: Are there counterindications for developing clairvoyance? Do you think it is an useful ability?

[ecosophia]

If you have any history of mental disturbance, especially in the direction of schizophrenia, avoid clairvoyance at all costs. Other than that, it should be fine. As for "useful," well, what do you propose to use it for? Usefulness is always contextual.

Deity ID

[(Anonymous)]

Three years ago I cracked open the DRM, tried the SOP, panicked, and put it away out of sight. Two days ago I tried again, after three years of fairly solid questioning and work on self. Now I am ready, and read the DRM straight through, and recognised it as something I need to pursue. I really appreciate your explanations of the theory behind the magical workings. I never saw the point of working with magic before, but now I can see it will be a great agent of change in my life. Thank you for this resource:)
Questions:
1. I have had a relationship with a deity since I was a small child. In between giving up my childhood Christian religion and becoming ready to tackle the idea of Something Else over the last few months it went underground. I almost convinced myself I was a humanistic atheist, and everything could be put down to evolution and biochemistry, but I always knew that Someone was there, and I prayed sneaky prayers, protection for my children, courage, strength for myself. I had jolts of joy and awe in nature and a sense of wild hilarity out there in the Universe somewhere. Recently I have come to see that although I thought I was worshipping the Judeo-Christian God as a young person, this Being I have covertly communed with all these years is not one of the Christian Trinity. It is closer to the depiction of Pan, from Wind in the Willows which I read over and over as a child. And yet, that doesn't seem quite right either. I've seen you advise people to read the myths of the world to find deities that resonate. My question is - do I need to find a name for the deity I already have a connection with? It seems kind of rude to assign this Being a name. It will be the subject of my first set of meditations this week, but if you have any guidance I would be grateful.

2. In the SOP is the third rotation for the circulation of light clockwise and diagonal? Even with my daughter holding the ball and me reading directions we had trouble visualising it. The SOP closing visualisation you have been posting here over the last few weeks is much simpler. Is there an advantage to using the spinning version in the DMH? I am happy to persevere with that if I know I am doing it right, and if it is more effective. Otherwise I will switch to the simple version 2.0 that you have posted.
Thanks again for both this platform and Ecosophia which brings together such a thoughtful commentariat willing to share their journeys, and for your guidance here.

Blueday Jo

Re: Deity ID

[ecosophia]

1) Talk to the deity. Ask him what he wants you to do, and if he wants you to address him by a name, a title, a euphemism, or what have you. (A lot of deities like euphemisms. Hades went by Pluto, "the rich one," and nearly all the British and Gaulish Celtic divine "names" we have are euphemisms -- Cernunnos is "the one with the horns," Epona is "the one with the horse," and so on.)

2) No, it's not diagonal. Each rotation is at right angles to the one before. The version with the multiple rotations is more effective, but a lot of people don't seem to be able to do it; if you can't work it out, use the simpler version.

[(Anonymous)]

In a post last week you mentioned that it isn't advisable to do the SoP twice a day.
Elsewhere there was a comment from somebody who was, and he wasn't recommended not to. Does it depend on a person's situation?

I've sometimes been doing it twice a day and I had found it very beneficial in terms of how I was feeling: calming and centering, as I have a lot of stressful things hanging around at the moment.

What would you recommend instead of doing the SoP twice?

I can't do the ritual bath as a couple different medical issues exclude a) baths and b) pepper. I could wash with the salt and vinegar though. I already use salt in a home made scrub, but washing my skin with vinegar every day may be too drying. I get adverse reactions to a whole bunch of things, so to save on back and forth, it's easiest if it doesn't include herb type things or burning stuff.

I am guessing one possibility may be some sort of meditation.

I did some Buddhist meditation (mindfulness of breathing and metta bhavana) some time before the current mindfulness craze. I feel in retrospect these were taking too much out of me. They required a lot of giving out. I had some pretty intense reactions to them, and it was not long after I thought I'd processed those that a major pre-existing medical issue got worse. (There were also some likely physical and stress factors and a Saturn Return involved.)

Concentrating on breathing isn't always the most calming thing for a person who knows what it's like when breathing is hampered by illness, so I prefer to meditate by looking at something. I don't do this very often. However, I do a lot of sitting and thinking to work things out, and maybe this is some kind of informal discursive meditation?

I am noticing with magic and related practices that protection/cocooning feels most beneficial, especially in the immediate aftermath, and it's not good for me if I do anything that involves forcing what I would call effortful pushing. (I used to do a lot of that when I was younger.)These effortful things only feel appropriate and less draining if I get a particular sense of strength at the time (a sort of humming/buzzing), and that does not necessarily occur at the right time for a planned ritual. What should a person do with that sense? Find something to do with it that suits the timing? Let it alone?

Thank you very much again for all the work you do in answering queries.

[ecosophia]

Okay, the basic set of magical exercises are (1) a daily ritual such as the SoP, (2) a daily meditation, and (3) a daily divination. If you want to do more than the SoP, by all means add in a meditation. If focus on breathing makes you tense up, don't focus on breathing; sit in a balanced and stable position, relax those tensions you can let go of without slumping, and then go on to a discursive meditation. Yes, you can look at something -- having some sort of symbol or image that represents your spiritual ideal is a good focus for meditation practice.

With regard to ritual, can you do the SoP when that sense of "buzzing" isn't there? Or do you need to have it there to do any kind of ritual at all?

Erik Satie

[(Anonymous)]

Trois Gymnopedies are some of my favourite pieces of music. I am glad to hear Satie was a seriously odd person, and it makes me want to learn more about him.

Re: Erik Satie

[ecosophia]

Glad to hear it. There's got to be a good biography of the man...

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG!

1. My father died in January. You suggested to pray to my choose deity to help him (his soul) in the afterlife.
Now six month have passed, and my question is should I try to communicate with my father via prayer or just talk to him, or should I continue to pray for help. I miss him very much, and I don't know if it's a good idea to "disturb" him.

2. My sister had a dream with my father who told her that he will be with us in every important situations in our lives.
I read that some souls acts like guardian angels and helps does who were close to them when they lived. What is your thoughts on this?

Thanks for hosting these magic mondays!

[ecosophia]

If he's appeared to a family member in a dream and said that he's available to help, he's done what he needs to do and will apparently be out of incarnation for a while. You can talk to him directly now.

A friend

[sea_spray]

Hi JMG

A friend of mine and I are curious about her spiritual abilities.
She has a spirit guiding her who lives within her but can project out a short distance for a short time although it is very draining to do so. According to the spirit guide they've spent many lives together, often incarnated side by side. She finds that she can draw energy from any source in the environment around her.

we're both curious about if you know of anyone else with this kind of ability? Have you read about a guardian spirit living within someone before?

Thanks

Re: A friend

[ecosophia]

Yes, I've encountered that before. Do you end up feeling tired and drained after spending time around your friend?

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I've been saving a few questions for magic monday, I hope this is not too many!

1a. In the DMH when you introduced the solar and telluric currents, you explained that the symbol for the solar current is a circle, and the telluric current is a triangle. Yet in the SOP, air and earth use circles as their basis, fire and water triangles, spirit below and spirit above use circles. Therefore I'm wondering why spirit below wouldn't use a triangle as its symbol?

1b. So if each of the first four elements use either triangles or circles, I started to suspect there were connections between them and the solar and telluric currents. But elsewhere in the DMH, you wrote that fire corresponds to the upper atmosphere, then air the lower atmosphere, then water, then earth at the bottom. I reasoned that fire and air then come from the solar current, and earth and water from the telluric, but this does not match the symbols for these elements in the SOP. Am I wrong with my thinking about these sorts of connections?

2. Are both Manly Hall's Self-Unfoldment Through Disciplines of Realization and W.E. Butler's book How to Read the Aura and Practice Psychometry, Telepathy, & Clairvoyance, often referenced here, books that can be read alongside the DMH, or should I wait until I have finished the DMH book and got through all the practices in it?

3. On page 101 of the DMH, you wrote (middle of 2nd last paragraph): 'when you invoke, you simply attune your enaid to focus on a particular set of relationships, then set that corresponds to one of the elements.' It looks to me there's something missing in the 'then set that corresponds' part. If so, how should that sentence read?

4. This is a version of a question I asked previously, but I have new information, prompted by some alarm when reading the Psychology Today article about the harmful effects of mindfulness meditation you posted this week on Ecosophia. I recently attended a music workshop in which the teacher (who is a Buddhist) uses mindfulness techniques as a basis for teaching improvisation. He is critical of the kind of corporate appropriation of mindfulness (he said so), but I don't know enough about it to know if he then taught these techniques in such a way to avoid the dangers described in the article. In practice, the techniques taught in the workshop actually resemble the receptive meditation that you described in the Druidry Handbook, but rather than listening/looking closely at nature, the mind is focused (non-judgementally) on listening to other musicians, and to the overall composition of the music being improvised in order to decide what to play. Bearing in mind your warning about mixing magical systems and the downsides of mindfulness meditation, does what I've described above seem dangerous to you? I should note that now that the workshop is over, I only do discursive meditation.

5. I'm wondering if you, or any other readers, have some general advice about a long-simmering situation conflict between my wife and my parents. My mother in many subtle ways tried to exert controlling behavior on my wife and I just after we moved to live closer to them a couple of years ago. My wife, being of a particularly independent spirit, no longer wants to speak to my mother in particular, and my parents have tried to remedy things rather imperfectly, but I suspect their apologies are token. From a few hints, I suspect that, rather than examine their own behavior, they secretly believe that my wife is 'controlling' me, that my wife's own family history (lots of turmoil with her own parents) is influencing the situation. My wife and I have worked through several psychology books on the subject of in-law disputes, which I also tried to introduce to my mother, I have done some journalling on the matter, but it is exceedingly, extremely difficult to disentangle everyone's motivations, including my own, in order to come to some kind of solution for this. Have you, or anyone else, encountered such a situation, and have any thoughts?

As always, I am very grateful for your time! Thank you!

[ecosophia]

1a) Because that's how the ritual is done. The currents have many symbols each, and the triangle is relevant to a particular set of workings.

1b) Not at all. In fact, I'd encourage you to meditate on those.

2) Wait until you've finished the DMH training. One textbook at a time!

3) I have no idea. I wrote that book more than a decade ago!

4) Taking in the occasional workshop shouldn't be a problem. It's prolonged use of watered-down mindfulness meditation that seems to land people in trouble.

5) I may not be the right person to ask. My wife and I had a lot of trouble with my biological mother and some of her siblings trying to manipulate us, and we responded by moving to the other side of the continent. It worked, but I'm not sure that's the kind of advice you're looking for!

The path of the lonely ones and karmic ties

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

How would you expect the drift of a spiritual person away from people not consciously following a spiritual path to play out within an immediate family, roughly? The family members would be accruing or paying karmic debts to one another, but the spiritual person would be becoming more distant. Specifically, what about the relationship between a husband and wife? It would seem like cruel punishment for two people to go through the turmoil of working each other and themselves out over years or even decades, reaching a harmonious state, only to drift apart because one has taken up spirituality.

I know you can't know how anyone's particular fate and destiny will lead them to interact with others. Would a person's spirituality cause them to drift away from people they otherwise love and are committed to? Do I need to adjust my perspective to take into account multiple lifetimes and spiritual evolution, and prepare myself for this dynamic to affect my close relationships, and to let go?

Thank you for Magic Monday!

Re: The path of the lonely ones and karmic ties

[ecosophia]

It really depends on the people in question. If there's a bond of affection between spouses, and especially if they sleep in the same bed and thus have a lot of interchange between their energy bodies, things can work out very gracefully -- the interchange of energies can keep any estrangement from happening. It's crucial, though, for the spouse who's on the path to make it a constant habit not to let magical or spiritual practice become a burden for the other, even if this means advancing more slowly or leaving some kinds of work undone.

Marriage has important karmic consequences, and the promises you made when you got married are as important as initiation oaths. Be willing to follow on those promises even when this means you have to find compromises; the result is that in another life you'll be in a better position to pursue the work, having fulfilled your oaths.

Cold water purifications

[(Anonymous)]

This is a follow-up to the question about cold water purifications last week (5:27 pm UTC). Thanks to the pesky time zones, I was asleep by the time I got your answer.

My regular practice is just non-discursive meditation. My concentration and discernment are decent by now, but I haven't used those skills for much other than developing them further. It seems that a reasonable first step would be introducing myself to local sea gods Ahto and Vellamo, as well as waterfolk. From what I've read, they're usually friendly to people, but also quite capricious, easily annoyed and intolerant of disrespect. It might be taken as an insult if a Finnish guy in their domain didn't address them first. After that it could be a different story, though whether there's any real need to go beyond the local entities, I don't know.

I suppose a token of gratitude for the opportunity to purify myself is also required. The traditional way to open a fishing season under favorable auspices was to hurl a silver coin into the water, but I've read claims that modern coins work fine too. It makes sense, as apparently it's valuable, decorative objects they like, rather than silver as such. I'm thinking of the local 1 euro coin, which has a picture of swans flying over water. Another popular offering was a libation of beer. I assume local craft beer would be preferred over mass-produced.

If this isn't enough information to answer the original question about a short prayer/ritual to strengthen the benefits of ice swimming, I can get back to you later this year and describe how the introductions went.

Re: Cold water purifications

[ecosophia]

An offering would be very polite and would traditionally guarantee a good response; craft beer is good, and a coin offering would also be good. (If you can get an actual silver coin, perhaps at a coin collector's shop, that would be better still, because of the symbolism of silver.) Beyond that, well, are you up to composing a few lines of verse in Finnish in the style of the Kalevala, offering praise and thanks to Ahto and Vellamo? Offerings of poetry you've composed yourself are considered very auspicious in just about every tradition I know of. (If you really want to go for it, well, do you know how to play the kantele? If not, are you willing to learn?)

Journaling and Tarot

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I've been giving your journaling suggestion a try for the last week. I decided to start with what feels like the most obvious of my current "issues" which is that after I've ended up working low paid part time jobs, and in a lifestyle best described as desperate, I feel completely stuck and demotivated on going forward. This week long so far dialogue was interesting, a lot of back and forth with the resistant side of me, which is mostly full of a kind of Rimbaudian antinomianism that is anyway more dynamic and exciting than my "real me" side. And I do feel the tide has risen a bit somehow on this issue.

On the other hand, I'm still in basically the same state. Would you recommend continuing this dialogue until these two sides of me coming to some kind of agreement? Is there another next step? I also wonder because there are lots of other "issues" I have I could dialogue with, as well as sides of me that are trying to make some kind of positive proposal, but it seems like if one dialogues with everything at once it might be ineffective.

I'm also wondering whether you think it is ok and serves any purpose to start doing daily tarot draws earlier than introduced in LRM (while continuing the tarot exercises in that)? I've switched from RWS to the Thoth deck for the course, had been doing Tarot reading for about half a year, I would say that I was at the stage where I'm confident on the card meanings but less so on whether I was really doing anything useful.

Best,
Capricornus

Re: Journaling and Tarot

[ecosophia]

1) Journaling's a slow process no matter what. It took you years to get these problems in place, and getting them unstuck isn't going to happen all at once! As for dialoguing with other issues, some people find it useful to move from issue to issue, others find it best to focus on one at a time -- you'll want to consider this and see what works for you. (The process may also push you one way or the other, as when a voice you hadn't expected shows up and insists on being part of the conversation.)

2) If you're doing a course of study, stick to the course of study precisely without varying it. That'll help you train and strengthen your will, among other things.

GF Druid Bread

[(Anonymous)]

Happy Monday, JMG!

I was wondering if you had any suggestions for making gluten free druid bread?

Also, when shuffling cards for a divination, if a card or a few cards "jump" from the deck, should those cards be considered "meant" to be used or just put them back and keep shuffling?

As always, thank you for hosting these regular sessions!

Re: GF Druid Bread

[ecosophia]

1) I wish. Once Sara's celiac disease flared up and we had to get rid of wheat, all my bread recipes became useless, and I've never been able to make a loaf of gluten free bread that I didn't want to tip straight into the trash can.

2) I always put them back on the bottom of the deck.