Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's coming up on midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is of Carl von Reichenbach, a brilliant chemist -- he's the guy who figured out how to extract paraffin out of crude petroleum -- who ended up on the wrong side of the scientific establishment by running a long series of controlled, double-blinded experiments to research the life force and the capacity of human beings to perceive it. As usual, the response of the scientific establishment wasn't to try to replicate his work and see if he was right, but to pour on the ridicule and insist that he was wrong because he was wrong because he was wrong, so there. (There's been a long, long sequence of researchers into the same thing who got the same treatment; I may feature a number of them 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 I'm going to have somewhat limited email access tomorrow and it may be Tuesday or even Wednesday 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 -- and yes,this means you. See you next week!***

Comments

Dream Taxonomy and Topography

[violetcabra]

I've written a short essay on some thoughts I've been developing on the landscape dreams here: https://violetcabra.dreamwidth.org/1896.html

JMG and others, especially the oneironauts among us, I'm curious what you all think of this schema, what is conceptually helpful and what isn't?

Re: Dream Taxonomy and Topography

[ecosophia]

My dreams don't really extend over most of the territory you've mapped. On the left-right axis (thoughts to emotions), mine never go over to the thought side and only touch on emotion now and again, and when they do it's not a flow of emotion but simply a single emotional state that colors the dream. They do always have a sequence -- I've never had a timeless dream. The nearest equivalent of your "up and down" dimension is marked by light intensity -- I used to have nightmares of being in pitch darkness and fighting a shadowy being that was unaffected by anything I did. (Those stopped when I realized that other things on that plane could harm him, and I started using nasty little martial arts tricks to slam him repeatedly cranium first into hard objects or the like. I've worried now and then that if I ever get into a really serious fight I'll do the same thing out of reflex and end up with a corpse on my hands.) As for transparency-opacity and meaning-meaninglessness, my dreams are pretty consistently a jumble of incoherent images, reminiscent of nothing so much as the Lord Chancellor's nightmare song from Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe. Even when I wake up with one of those spoken dream-messages in my mind, it's not much help: for example, knowing with absolute certainty that Faraz is actually Pharez, and is real. (That's an actual example.)

That said, I gather from dream literature I've read that my dreams are pretty atypical, so others may find your taxonomy more useful.

Occultism and a few other things...

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John
1. So… I took a bit of inspiration from WoH and bought a Gypsy Witch playing card deck. The cards are very friendly, but instructions for them do not abound. At this point, I’m reading them right side up because nothing I’ve encountered suggests changed meanings for upside down or sideways. (Or connected the playing cards with the pictures and numbers.) Are there any methods, titles, or websites you recommend?

2. I noticed the Adamic language (or was it something else?) in Red Hook. Similarly, the Adamic script has a significant role in Lovecraft Country – changing letters to move rituals forward and so forth. Is the language worth the time of aspiring occultists, or is it a failed theory that didn’t survive the scrutiny of modern linguistics? (Or something in between?)

3. While I realize you aren’t reading much weird to avoid influencing your own writing right now, might you say a few words about the problem of pastiche – well, the bad kind – and how to avoid writing it? Panshin & Panshin are particularly harsh critics of me-too writers in The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence, hence my wish for creating genuine weird through the WoH RPG. (“Ooze” by Anthony Rud comes to mind – his other successes notwithstanding.)

4. Would you be so kind as to give a bit more discussion of how you developed the Church of Starry Wisdom in your WoH series and RPG? You’d mentioned the utopian streak and its influence, and I’d love to hear more. Also, the secret calendar intrigues me… new thought or… ?

5. And from the department of wait-just-a-doggone-minute-here: I stumbled across an RPG titled Ribbon Drive that lets you and your pals role play a road trip without going farther than the kitchen for more soda pop. Is it just me, or is there something very troubling lurking behind a fun evening in and a Kunstlerian chuckle? (I might try it anyway.)

6. One last thing – I’ve listened to the composers you’ve mentioned in previous Magic Mondays. Despite knowing just enough about music theory to realize there is lots of meat on the bones, I don’t know what the music is supposed to do for or to me. Advice?

Many thanks for the opportunity to talk with you and your friends in this venue.
Rusty

Re: Occultism and a few other things...

[(Anonymous)]

An occultist with linguistic training here:

2) Both. As linguistics it's horrible, as something for Christian/Jewish occultists, it's apparently worth looking into.

[(Anonymous)]

Last week I mentioned the idea Eris may have functioned as a planet, and I spent the past week looking further into it, and it seems to have a great deal going for it.

If, as seems increasingly likely Eris was an astrological planet, it should be possible to determine which sign it rules. I initially limited myself to the four where it could take over without doing something really weird.

This left four: Taurus, Gemini, Virgo, and Libra. There are three ways I looked into it, all three of which point the same way. The first was looking at where I express Eridian influences; the second was looking at symbolism; and the third was looking at changes to the sign. Martian Scorpio is very different from Plutonic Scorpio, and a similar principle seems likely to apply here.

I've mostly worked with old astrological texts, and so I looked online, and it seems like a few places discuss anger and violence as being Tauran traits, and Taurus as described online seems to be a little different from Taurus in the older texts; my chart express Eridian influences in the houses with Taurus on the cusp; and symbolically Taurus fits Eris better than the other signs.

Are there other ways to check, aside from casting dozens of charts and seeing if this consistently fits? I know that's going to be a next step, but I'd like to avoid doing a large number of charts and then realizing I missed something really basic.

(I also figure given the interest last week, that throwing this out there will probably get a few other people checking too, and maybe people will see things I missed. Thank you all, you gave me a lot of ideas last week!)

[ecosophia]

As far as I know, the only way to do it is to study lots of charts. There may be another way, but I'm still only an amateur astrologer, you know.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have a sense of why so many religious folks of diverse faiths seem to be obsessed with telling other people what to do?

[ecosophia]

Because that's hardwired into the structure of prophetic religions -- the kind of religion that was founded by someone specific, rather than growing up naturally out of the experience of a people. At the origin of every prophetic religion is somebody who was convinced that he (or, very rarely, she) knew the bona fide absolute truth, and everyone else was wrong like the wrongest of very wrong things. With that kind of role model at the center of a religion, believers in that religion are going to default to the same role and spend their time insisting that they've got the truth and everyone ought to listen to them. It strikes me as a waste of time, but then that's one of the reasons I don't follow a prophetic religion.

[(Anonymous)]

If chart rectification works, could it be used on a larger scale, if someone didn't know their birthday, but only knew, let's say, it was in a particular month, or is this pushing it too far?

[ecosophia]

I've never known anyone who could do it for an interval longer than a couple of days at most, and that only works if you're really good. Rectification works best when it's a matter of figuring out where in an interval of several hours you were born.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

I'd be grateful if you could give me a hint on how I could proceed in my current situation.

I would describe my world view as "Christian animism". I believe in the presence of God, his angels, the saints and the souls of the departed - and of course their demonic couterparts.
Intellectually I also presume the intelligence of heavenly bodies, the presence of other gods, nature spirits, and those beings that one could call "faery".

I would very much like to build up good relations and connections to local spirits and my departed ancestors.

As I live in an European country in a region where my family has been in for centuries (family tree goes back reliably to the 15th century), I would like to do this in a way that is also integrated with my culture and the history of the area.

I read your books on Druidry and feel a certain pull towards it, but I'm not at all interested in changing my religion or starting a lifelong training in magic. I just want to be able to connect to the roots of my culture and interact in a respectful way with those unseen elements that have been with us for millenia but are nowadays neglected in our materialist society.

I already immersed myself in the local history, folklore, and legends with the intention of building up a shared inventory of symbols, so that there might develop some contact in dreams/synchronicities, which I plan to track in a notebook. So far without much success. I also spend time in places that I feel might be meaningful or likely to be someones(?) dwelling place (historic sites, undisturbed nature, hilltops, riverbanks) and try to tune into the mood of the place.

Next to the things mentioned above, I pray regularly and try to write down and analyze my dreams.

Is there some basic practice that I could start, that would help me in my efforts? Or should I better leave it alone, as to not get myself noticed by the wrong critter and end up eaten?

Thank you.

[ecosophia]

If you're comfortable with your own religion, by all means keep with it! What I'd advise is that you look for traditions in your own region about what practices you can perform and what ways of interaction with spirits used to be common there. Intensive practice of Christian devotion can also help a great deal, especially if your version of Christianity is comfortable with saints and angels.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought it was about time for one of the periodic thank-you’s for our hardworking, non-bill-sending host.

We need a cornfield, like they used to have on Hee Haw, so we can all jump out of the corn, wave straw hats at our host, and yell “SALUTE!”

[ecosophia]

I admit the thought of comparing this journal to Hee Haw never occurred to me, but I'll try to remember to welcome everyone with a cheery "How-DEE!"

Many thanks.

Gods in myths

[(Anonymous)]

Might you (and readers who have experience with this) have a suggestion about how to read and understand/use myths as a first step toward having a relationship with gods when the myths emphasize very petty behaviors and less than appealing humanlike characteristics? I'm finding it hard to figure out where and who to approach - the Greek gods always appealed to me when I was young in spite of the sense of bemusement i felt then too that prevented me from taking the stories or beings seriously. But I figured I should start with the stories that drew me first.

Turns out I'm not so inspired to approach jealous, lustful, quick to anger, murderous, conniving, arrogant, self involved "personages" so I figure either I've not passed the flake filter, I've not made some sort of necessary conceptual leap, I'm looking at the wrong pantheon, or I need to find better sources for myths. Or something else altogether?

Any suggestions much appreciated!

Re: Gods in myths

[ecosophia]

People have been fretting about that since the Greeks hit their Age of Reason. There are various ways to make sense of it, the most traditional being to recognize the myths as symbolic in nature, not literally true. Still, if the myths really turn you off, you might want to consider a different pantheon.

Planetary hours and days

[sea_spray]

Hi JMG

When gathering a plant in the appropriate planetary hour as in you ENM is there any benefit to doing it on the planets day as well?

Thanks for writing it BTW, I'm enjoying it a lot.

Re: Planetary hours and days

[ecosophia]

Yes, very much so.

Discordianism. SoP and elements

[(Anonymous)]

A tangent from the discussion of Eris last week and this week. What do serious occultists think about Discordianism?
I'm acquainted with a couple of people who've dabbled with it, and probably because of that I had the idea of Eris as being more mischievous than angry, contrary to the descriptions in the comments here.

The SoP is giving me a stronger feeling about some of the elements than I used to have. I hadn't realised quite how much I liked Water and Earth - they are my favorites if you can have favorite elements and now I look forward to these sections of the ritual. It is interesting as my birth chart is dominated by Air and Fire and I had sometimes seen Water and Earth as kind of alien and opposed, although I've always preferred Fall and Winter. So thank you!

Re: Discordianism. SoP and elements

[ecosophia]

Well, I'm a properly ordained Chaplin of the Legion of Dynamic Discord -- my noseprint has been mailed to the California state office of furniture and bedding! -- and I know people who take it a good deal more seriously than I ever will. I found it mostly harmless, and highly entertaining -- and yes, the Eris who comes in response to Discordian workings does seem to be a good deal gentler, or to show her gentler side.

The SoP is good at that -- and that's one of the points of doing it. Glad to hear you're getting good results.

Nature of will

[sea_spray]

Hi JMG
Another question if I may.
Regarding the nature of will, you've said that will is a renewable resource but also talked about will power being locked up in conflicting spells. This would seem to imply that you can use up your available will power by doing too much magic as your will continues yo flow into all the spells you've cast. Are there certain situations which permanently lock up will and others that do so for a short time or until the goal is achieved? Do I have the wrong end of the wand?

Thank you for your patience.

Re: Nature of will

[ecosophia]

Will is like any other renewable resource -- if you extract it at a rate faster than it's produced, you run out. (Think of forests or fish as examples -- cut too many trees or catch too many fish and you outrun the replenishment rate of the resource.) So yes, you can end up with so much of your will committed that you don't have any available for other uses. People do this all the time -- think of any genuine fanatic you've ever known, so caught up in one particular act of will that everything else goes by the boards.

Tarot cards and raspberry jam

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG
I was thinking of getting a tarot deck as part of a memory palace, as Lynne Kelly did with standard and tarot decks in her books on memory training. My first thought was to buy a second hand deck because 1)reuse where possible rather than buy new and 2)cheap.
However I just heard your interview on the Monster Professor and you talked about the raspberry jam principle of magic. Are there any risks of getting smeared with someone else's jam, and if so how do you prevent it?

Thanks

Re: Tarot cards and raspberry jam

[ecosophia]

What I've christened the "raspberry jam effect" is a way of talking about karma, not some kind of astral cooties! You can certainly use a used tarot deck for most purposes.

[(Anonymous)]

My Catholic wife insists to get our child baptised, and I feel somewhat uncomfortable with this as a polytheist myself. Would it be harmful to my child to allow it? What effects does it really have?

[ecosophia]

It closes down certain possibilities for contact with the elemental realms, and places the child under the protection of the Christian god. I suspect that your wife will arrange to have it done surreptitiously if you don't agree to have it done -- Catholics believe, iirc, that their god will torture all unbaptized people eternally in Hell -- so you may as well spare yourself some marital discord and agree to it; being baptized didn't slow Dion Fortune down any, and being unbaptized (as I am) has been at most a minor advantage to me.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

1. What's the difference between the astral plane, and the etheric plane? I'm not sure what the etheric plane actually is. Does such a distinction exist in Druidry? I'm trying to figure out what's what, it seems to me that nwyfre is a different word for the astral plane, if you can use the Enaid via rituals like the SOP to work with it.

2. I asked a few weeks ago about how, triggered by accident by another commenter, the thought 'demon' starting popping up whenever I invoked earth. You told me not to worry and banish the thought while banishing unbalanced aspects of Earth, but since then, for some reason, the thought pops up right at the beginning of my daily SOP automatically so now I banish the thought with each element. I don't feel like I'm being harmed by it, but I wouldn't know how to tell for sure. What should I watch out for, and is there any way to banish it once and for all?

3. An observation: after almost 6 months of the basic DMH practices, I am noticing positive effects from them in that I do feel a bit more balanced, and also more aware of my own imbalances. Pursuing magic does seem to me to be the first activity I have done which I am doing purely out of my own genuine interest, and not somehow because of influence from society, family or friends, and it also seems that it is something I've always been tending towards, if I look back at the history of my old thought patterns and daydreams. Maybe I'm wrong with this assumption about my motivations but that's for meditation to untangle.

It has however pushed aside my musical practice/hobby. I work full-time, and the time I used to spend practicing music has gone to magic. While I do genuinely like playing/writing music for its own merits, doing the DMH has made me realize an uncomfortable psychological attachment to the idea of 'being' a musician, and all of the perceived societal expectations/perks of identification with that role. With the DMH, I'm simply more interested in the activities themselves. I hope I'm not being self-indulgent by sharing these thoughts, it's a long winded way of saying thanks for the DMH!

Thanks very much, as always!

[ecosophia]

1) The etheric plane is between the astral and the material planes. It's the plane of life force -- ki, prana, nwyfre in the Welsh Druid traditions, voor in my recent novels. The astral plane is the plane of dream-stuff and the imaginations.

2) Just keep pushing back.

3)You're welcome, and no, it's not self-indulgent. It's not uncommon for magic to push other hobbies and pursuits aside for a while, btw, but you'll find later on that your creative life becomes far more vivid and productive as a result of magical practice, since magic brings you into closer contact with the wellsprings of imagination and creative force.

Mind expansion

[(Anonymous)]

You know how they say that humans only use 10% of their brains? It strikes me as an interesting "coincidence" that there are 10 spheres on the Tree of Life, and that our culture, at least, is largely stuck in the Malkuthian 10% at the "bottom."

Systematic magical training does indeed feel like an attempt to open up more of the brain's capacity. Am I onto something here, or are these 2 things completely unrelated?
Tripp

Re: Mind expansion

[ecosophia]

My understanding -- and I'll gladly accept correction from any neuroscientists who might be reading this -- is that some time ago they figured out that it's not that we only use 10% of our brains -- it's that neuroscientists can only figure out what 10% of the brain is doing. I think your metaphor works either way, though!

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

My wife and I have come to magic at different times of our lives, and for different reasons (as far as I can tell). She has several years of practice behind her and is into Druid magic. I am less experienced than she is and I follow the classic GD path. We don't hide our respective practice to each other, but don't talk too much about it either -- for now, this is more like a personal quest.

I was wondering about the precautions that should be taken when two persons, living in good intelligence, practice magic under the same roof, but do not follow the same path and do not really try to coordinate their practice. Our home is not very big, and we ended up doing our stuff in the same room (although not at the same time).

Up to now, we both assumed that we should be ok, as long as we leave a clean space behind. Now, I wonder whether additional precautions should be taken. It is not only about uncoordinated magical actions interfering with each other. It is also about potential turbulences in the chi, when two persons, whose lives are interwoven, are pushing in similar directions, although not exactly the same direction (which is unavoidable and perfectly fine).

Thank you so much for all of this !

[ecosophia]

I've known quite a few couples who have done the same thing -- my wife and I among them! -- and I've never heard of it being a problem. You should be fine.

Rosicrucians

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I wrote you a couple weeks back about Rosicrucianism. When I wrote I had actually looked up orders in my area, amazingly one is a block from where I live and they have open meetings, but they are AMORC and I got a sense looking around that some people had issues with them. I couldn't really tell what to make of that, but then you reiterated concerns about that group in a discussion with another commenter that followed in that thread. I wondered if you might speak to those concerns?

My inclination is to check out one of the open meetings at this place right near me and just see what I feel about it. I thought I should see what you thought though, as your insight here would be valuable.

Some extra info: There is a second AMORC group in the city, but it is at the Masonic Lodge (also not too far from where I live) and I think only open to Masons. There is also a non-AMORC group in Toronto (the one you mentioned being a member of that was open to the public) but I would not be able to attend any sort of regular meetings there right now.

Thanks,
Johnny

Re: Rosicrucians

[ecosophia]

AMORC is a mixed bag but a lot depends on the local group. I'd encourage you to consider visiting them and seeing what you think.

[(Anonymous)]

I had a couple of unusual experiences lately which were of a type, and I was wondering if you had any idea what they might have been. The first time, I was walking in the city. I turned a corner and walked into a street market. Almost immediately, I had the thought, 'This is Mercury'. The correspondence is pretty obvious to western occultists, but I had the thought before I'd had time to process where I was. Another time, I had an appointment with an elderly Chinese doctor. When I walked into his office, I thought straight away that the room felt 'Chinese'. I looked around and couldn't identify any obvious Chinese objects that might have given me that impression, besides the doctor himself.

These experiences were of a different timbre than simply feeling the vibes of a place in that there was instant cognition labelling what I felt I'd walked into the middle of. Would they have anything to do with becoming more attuned to the intellectual plane?

[ecosophia]

That sounds like mental-plane experience, so yes, it might well be that.

TDS again

[(Anonymous)]

Last week, regarding TDS, you suggested that "...it's a severe case of moral cognitive dissonance" because "Trump's rise to power made it impossible for that state of hypocritical self-deception to continue [and] forced the self-proclaimed Good People to face the implications of the policies they supported and benefited from [and] rather than face up to the fact that they'd smiled, nodded, and profited from the impoverishment and immiseration of tens of millions of American families, they wigged out." (https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/63882.html?thread=5380234#cmt5380234)

While I certainly agree that the working class has been systematically screwed, and that the salary class has more or less made it through OK so far, speaking as a non-US salary class person, I have another angle on it: Trump has been (from my point of view, at least) a detestable person for years, starting well before his stint as President. Since then, all he's done is demonstrate an ability to please crowds, while focusing mainly on feathering his own nest. That he lacks the veneer of respectability that other politicians manage to spackle on, is, I think, the kicker. Clinton would have been equally frightful (albeit in different ways), but at least she was projecting the pretense that the political class is/was doing something generally beneficial. The fact that Trump got in demonstrates that the whole damn thing is, and has been, a lie for a very long time. Facing up to that fact can be terrifying.

Re: TDS again

[(Anonymous)]

A good point! Trump’s being the lesser evil doesn’t mean he’s not AN evil.

Uranus in Taurus

[(Anonymous)]

Some economists like Steve Keen are predicting financial trouble in 2020. This seems to tie in nicely with Uranus in Taurus. What do you think?

Re: Uranus in Taurus

[ecosophia]

That kind of oversimplified astrology has predicted eleven of the last three economic downturns. Do you recall a few years ago when the astrologically minded financial press was predicting a massive crash because a couple of planets were square Pluto? Nothing happened, and as usual everyone just breezed on by the failure.

What Uranus in Taurus means depends completely on where it is in a relevant chart. If you have Uranus in Taurus in your natal chart, for example, the only time that's going to affect your financial well-being is if it's in the second house or if Aquarius is on the second house cusp. In exactly the same way, you need to check national foundation charts and mundane ingress charts for the nations that interest you in order to see if Uranus in Taurus will affect the financial sphere or one of the other eleven departments of life.

Natural Magic

[(Anonymous)]

We spent a good deal of time yesterday at some dear friends' house for my wife's birthday. The wife of the couple (both Pisceans) is one of the sweetest people we know, but it emerged over the course of the 5 hour conversation that her life is a real mess. She wakes up every morning feeling like an absolute failure (her words) and basically has to martial herself and soldier on to get through each day. She feels like her mother always judges her harshly, despite the fact that she married a doctor and is fairly well off, and that she always shows up at just the wrong time, and enlists her younger sister to gang up on her.

Towards the end of our visit she was showing us her collection of magical goods - books, herbs, candles, divination card decks, etc - that she stores in a trunk in her bedroom to keep unwelcome eyes out.

First thing our eyes were drawn to in their upstairs bedrooms was a handful of really egregious feng shui problems - mirrors across from the bed, plants in bedrooms, foo dogs on the dresser, etc - so we did some curing there immediately. (She was quite open to making the changes there on the spot.)

Earlier than that though, we had noticed quite a bit of opal jewelry on her, and I mentioned, when her husband was out of the room (out of fear that it was a gift from him - it was), that the opals might be responsible for a fair portion of the issues she was having. Again, the opal ring came right off and went on her dresser.

Long story longer, we are attempting to put together a package of recommendations for her in an attempt to get things back on track. Here's what we've got so far:

1) the opals need to stay off her body the vast majority of the time, and in a magically-insulating bag made of silk or linen, correct?

2) to reverse the bad luck of the misty opals (especially for a March Pisces) I think she should wear a fiery stone with grounding earthy qualities, say, carnelian (Sun in Virgo) or gifted diamonds (Mars in Taurus). Does that make sense?

3) she likes herbal baths, and in fact I think that's one of the primary expressions of her magic. In my research last night I came up with a bath of dittany of Crete, High John the Conqueror, and lovage. Again, mostly solar and earthy astrology, with a focus on driving out venemous hostility, getting the better of her oppressors, and improving her romantic life (because let's face it, improved bedroom relations are good for many ills:) Any additions, subtractions, or corrections?

4) their boys (9 and 5) sleep directly through the Jack and Jill bathroom from them, in the feng shui "coffin" position, feet pointed at the open bathroom door, which is terribly inauspicious. So we advised closing the bathroom door for the first night, reorienting the beds ASAP, and we're working up pa kua numbers for all 4 of them and offering recommendations for rearranging all the beds. I recall very clearly how that helped me immediately, before even sleeping in the new position! Which was one of my 1st TSW moments.

At your recent recommendation as well as the advice of my druid animal oracle last week, I will be buying your Earth Divination, Earth Magic book soon and learning geomancy, but for the moment feng shui is the design toolkit we have, so that's what we've used here. Any additional thoughts?

Apologies for the length, and thanks so much for your time, good sir. Our monthly appreciation will be on its way directly...😁
Tripp

Re: Natural Magic

[ecosophia]

All of that sounds very sensible. I wonder if a well-chosen affirmation might help her, too; I'll be doing a post here fairly soon on how to craft affirmations, so that might be worth sending her way.

Regular banishing effects on talismans

[(Anonymous)]

Would doing the LBRP and BRH while wearing a charged talisman (elemental or planetary) diminish the power of the talisman?

Would regular performance of the rituals demagnetise other magical objects (from different traditions) that are in the home?

Thanks!

Re: Regular banishing effects on talismans

[ecosophia]

1) Yes. Wrap the talisman in silk or linen while you're doing banishing rituals nearby.

2) It really depends on the nature of the objects and the manner in which they've been consecrated. As a general rule, though, don't banish in the same room as anything you want to keep consecrated, unless you've got it covered in silk or linen, or inside a box made of metal.

[(Anonymous)]

Out of curiosity I looked for Druid organizations here in Nova Scotia in a search engine and in turns out the only one in the whole province is a 10 minute walk from my house (if the address isn’t out of date). What a coincidence that is. I found the listing on something called the ADF and the organization here has something to do with the GSO. Do you know either of these organizations?

I may get in touch after I’m done the DMH, I want be sure I won’t flake out before I contact them.

[ecosophia]

If you've got a group locally connected with the Golden Section Order, that's a real stroke of luck -- the GSO went out of existence quite a few years ago when its founder Colin Murray passed away, which is really unfortunate. It was among the most interesting of the Druid orders of its time, and the GSO material I have is first-rate.

ADF -- well, that's another matter. I know some people who've found ita good home, but most of the people I know who've dealt with them headed for the exit in a year or so due to really toxic internal politics and a not very well concealed desire on the part of much of the leadership to become the One True Holy Apostolic Church of Paganism. That's certainly what drove me out.

Qabalistic Cross

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG!

I'm working through LRM and had a question about the Qabalistic Cross. At the beginning, the instructions say to visualizing oneself expanding upwards until the globe is a little sphere at your feet. Is it necessary when finishing to imagine oneself shrinking down?

Re: Qabalistic Cross

[ecosophia]

Nope -- just release the image. The goal is to remember at a deep level that you're more than you think you are.

Magical Reasons on Parenthood and Children

[(Anonymous)]

Someone asked last week: Are there any magical reasons that can influence whether or not someone wants to have children?

And you replied: Sure. What kind of thing are you thinking of, though? "Magical reasons" cover a whale of a lot of territory.

Hopefully the OP will jump back in this week, because I'm very interested in this topic and just want to shout from the rooftops "Tell me everything!"

1. One question I can think of amid this tornado is in regards to karmic ties. You've said before that people often forego raising children their last several human lifetimes in order to reduce karmic ties (correct me if I didn't remember that right). Does this vary between pregnancy-children verses adopted children?

2. The most obvious reason I can think of in terms of magical reasons telling a person to *not* have children would be time. Skipping parenthood frees up a lot of time, even if one still has to work for a living. That time could be put toward turning inward.

Hopefully others will chime in as well; I'm very fascinated by this. Thank you so much.

Re: Magical Reasons on Parenthood and Children

[ecosophia]

Those are certainly issues to keep in mind, as they would be any time you're considering something as vitally important as parenthood. When you have a child you're committing yourself to put the child's interests ahead of your own for the next 18 years, and if for whatever reason this isn't something you can do, parenthood isn't a good idea. There are also karmic issues -- and those affect any close relationship, including adoptive parenthood.