Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is of Andrew Jackson Davis, one of the most influential American occultists of the 19th century. He was one of many figures in the American occult scene of the time to be strongly influenced by Mesmerism, and proceeded to develop an extensive body of occult philosophy and practice based partly on Mesmer's teachings and partly on his own visionary experiences. Much of his work was picked up and elaborated by the Spiritualists of a later generation, and remained standard in American occult circles until the heyday of Theosophy. 

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. If you're interested in political and economic astrology, or simply prefer to use a subscription service to support your favorite authors, you can find my Patreon page here and my SubscribeStar page here. 

With that said, have at it!

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

Comments

I'd like to see Manly Wade Wellman or John Hohman

[(Anonymous)]

I'd like to see Manley Wade Wellman, John Hohman, or the Little Albert featured here sometime.

Re: I'd like to see Manly Wade Wellman or John Hohman

[ecosophia]

John Hohman would certainly be an option. I wasn't aware that Wellman was a practicing occultist, though he was a helluva writer -- the Silver John story "The Desrick on Yandro" was the first thing of his I read, and it remains a favorite tale of mine. If you've got sources that document that he was a practitioner, I'd love to see them! As for the Petit Albert -- by that you presumably mean the book, or did you have the author in mind?

sympathetic ancestors

[kallianeira]

Greetings John.

My questions are to do with paying respects to, and requesting help from, one's ancestors.

My impression from reading this and your other page is that departed people retain an interest and influence in/on their descendants' affairs for a certain time and may evolve into the position of gods to those descendants.

Now, to the extent I have understood this correctly, could you outline your understanding of what bearing one's previous relations with such people, and their erstwhile personalities, have on subsequent interactions?

For instance, I knew 3 of my grandparents. From my sense of their attitudes and values, I'd predict that 2 of them would disapprove of me and my present activities and hence not be interested in helping my magical and spiritual development. The third, though, would likely be sympathetic. The one I never knew I infer from the family stories I would not agree with over much.

But I am concerned about raising resentment or jealousy from the others if I pray to only one. (Yes, they were rather thin-skinned types in life.) Further, is there a case for trying out the three I don't expect would wish to help me? And what about approaching the spirits of people who aren't my ancestors but I'd maybe wish had been?

Thank you!

Re: sympathetic ancestors

[ecosophia]

Okay, to begin with, there's a lot of variability in the different traditions of ancestor reverence. The one I more or less grew up with is the Japanese tradition, in which individual ancestors are revered for 33 years after death; any ancestor who's been dead longer than that is assumed to have gone onto a new incarnation, and receives general offerings directed to the ancestors collectively.

If your grandparents have been dead less than 33 years, according to this tradition, you can pray to them individually. If they've been dead longer than that, simply include them in prayers to your ancestors collectively. Do pray to all of them, whether they would be sympathetic to you or not -- but you can choose what you say to each of them on the basis of their personalities in life, i.e., ask for general blessings from the less sympathetic ones and for help on specific projects for the more sympathetic ones.

[(Anonymous)]

A few weeks ago you mentioned that amulets need to be shielded from banishing rituals. Does this also apply to the brass Picatrix talismans, such as those sold by Christopher Warnock? I didn't realise, and have been keeping it in the same room that I am practicing the LBRP. Have I destroyed it?

[ecosophia]

No, because the link between an astrological talisman and the stars is of the same kind as the link between you, personally, and the stars -- it was made, as you were born, under a specific astrological influence, which remains with both for life. You can't get rid of it any more than you can banish your own horoscope! Other kinds of magical consecrations are more vulnerable; for example, Golden Dawn-style talismans should be kept away from banishing rituals.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have 11:49pm EDT for the 2020 Spring Ingress?

[ecosophia]

Yes -- 11:49:25 pm EDT, to be more precise.

Candle flame

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG. You recently stated in response to an inquiry here that the flame of a candle used in ritual - say, in a planetary invocation involving a recitation of the appropriate Orphic hymn - is not merely symbolic, but plays an active role. Could you elaborate a bit on the magical and/or spiritual principle associated with ritual burning of a candle?

In a separate question: due to a lung ailment I can no longer tolerate the smoke of incense. With respect in particular to the Rose Cross ritual, is there a workable alternative, or will I just have to make do without?

For such invocations as mentioned above, I am thinking of using a blotter with essential oils appropriate to the planet.

Kevin

Re: Candle flame

[ecosophia]

Fire is an etheric as well as a physical phenomenon, in a flame, chemical bonds (which are physical) are broken and their energy transformed into light (which is etheric). A flame thus works well any time you want to direct your intention up the planes so that it has magical effect.

You can do a quite decent job of the R+C ritual tracing the lines with your hand, the same way you'd do a Pentagram ritual; it takes a little more effort to get the same intensity of effect, but that's the ony issue. If you want to crank the intensity up several notches, make and consecrate a wand specifically for the R+C ritual; use solar symbolism and anoint it with attar of roses for best effect.

Birds - updated

[(Anonymous)]

I got into a daily practice of the Sphere of Protection about two months ago after asking you about its impact on wild birds. Since then, I've put a birdbath in my yard and several species are daily visitors including a few that I've never seen before. Birds generally seem to be completely unafraid of me now, and a few will regularly perch on branches overhead while I practice the S of P.

Thank you for your help. Are there any sources of Druid lore about birds that you would recommend to a beginner, and how do I communicate with them?

Re: Birds - updated

[ecosophia]

Excellent! That's a very good sign.

I don't know of a good source of Druid lore about birds -- remember that Druidry has had to be reinvented from the ground up, and a lot of other things have had to be put together over the last three hundred years; we're about to the point where birdlore and animal lore are relevant (thus Philip Carr-Gomm's very capably done The Druid Animal Oracle, a solid step in that direction). I'd encourage you to start by combining personal observation with some serious reading in bird biology and behavior; though he's unfashionable these days, the Austrian scientist Konrad Lorenz is worth reading along these lines. As you do this, see what the birds communicate to you -- they're quite clever enough to make their wishes and concerns known to you.

Ogham Reading Layout

[filthywaffle]

Hi JMG,

You mentioned in a previous MM regarding Ogham readings:

"I find it more useful to make the first card mean me, the second the situations I encounter, and the third the outcome..."

In this three-card spread, are you doing them simply from left to right (1. me 2. situtation 3. result) or are you putting them into the three rays spread: first card for ray of knowledge on left, second card (situation) for ray of power on the right, and then the third card drawn as the ray of peace, in the center?

Re: Ogham Reading Layout

[ecosophia]

I've done it both ways. Experiment and see which one works best for you.

[(Anonymous)]

John
Thank you for your advice last week with regard to the obod course and it’s lack of banishing as part of the standard ritual. I have a copy of your Druid magic handbook and I’m wondering if the sphere of protection would be a useful element instead of the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram?
Many thanks
Averagejoe

[ecosophia]

Yes, that also works very well with the OBOD grove ritual. The SoP, though, goes a little later in the ritual. Trace the circle, consecrate the grove with water and fire, and then do the SoP in place of the salutation to the quarters; in each quarter, draw the symbol and insert the words from the OBOD ritual into the words from the standard SoP -- for example, in the east, trace the invoking symbol and say, "By the hawk of May in the heights of morning and in the great name HU, I invoke the Air, its gods, its spirits, and its powers. May there be peace in the East!" and so on. Finish the SoP, then go to the chair, sit, and proceed with the Inner Grove, Light-Body exercise, and so on. It makes for a very solid practice.

[(Anonymous)]

Occultists range across the political spectrum, but are there any aspects or approaches to politics that most of them agree on? If there was an Occult Party, what would its policies be, beyond meditating and doing divination before making any decisions? :)

[ecosophia]

I can't think of a single policy or political principle on which more than a small minority of occultists would agree on. We really do span the spectrum from extreme left through the middle of the road to extreme right -- or to put the same thing another way, from Genesis P-Orridge through Dion Fortune to Julius Evola.

Chiron

[(Anonymous)]

You've discussed before how Ceres and Pluto faded in and out of influence astrologically. How do you see Chiron? It has become quite popular, with a lot of online charts now show it as the only non-planetary object (assuming they still classify Pluto as a planet).

As someone who - if Chiron is significant - has a bucket chart where Chiron is the handle, this interests me a lot.

If the importance of these objects is connected to trends in history, Chiron seems related to the primacy of psychology.

In any case, I have found your outlook on birth charts very helpful, that they are a set of possibilities, and not fated. It is an antidote from an authoritative person in the field, following an encounter with a practitoner some years ago whom I talked to at a particularly difficult time in my life, and who talked about charts in his own tradition as fated, and that left me with some issues.

Re: Chiron

[ecosophia]

I haven't studied Chiron at all intensively yet. My guess is that he's on a par with the other minor bodies in the solar system -- relevant in certain contexts and in certain charts, like Ceres and Pluto. That's an end of astrology I plan on getting to down the road a bit.

Glad to hear that my comments on birth charts have been helpful! "The stars incline, they do not compel" is a very useful adage.

Ramping up and misc questions

[open_space]

A few more weeks into tarot reading from the LRM path. Wow. So many things have started to click since I’ve started to use it, adequately. I’ve read your posts about fundamentals of magic and surfing the astral light and were extremely helpful into wrapping my head around it. Now I am starting to understand why Levi speaks so highly about it, or anyone that I’ve dismissed before as just a psychological trick as a matter of fact. So, so wrong! The more I study the more I find that a big deal of magic is not something, completely, outside of common experience but about uncovering a magical dimension of rather ordinary things, which is just, fascinating. And it has been starring at me all this time!

1) I am on the very early stages of anything spiritual and I am still finding my way around it and trying to identify what calls me the most so that I can settle on something and deepen on it. Last time I asked about mixing yoga and the practices in LRM and you mentioned Hatha seems ok but Kriya is not good to mix it with. I’ve been following along some practices of Isha foundation and took the introductory course called Inner Engineering where they initiate the participants into “Shambhavi Mahamudra” kriya. So it has the word kriya on it... but by reading their blog (link bellow) and hearing Sadhguru (the founder which developed the practice. Have you heard about him? I am seriously impressed by his efforts) talking about it seems to be a stripped down, at least from the occult perspective (his words), version of a kriya which is provided massively. So my question is, is there a way I could reverse engineer the practice or somehow notice something about it to see if I can actually mix it safely with LRM? The practice itself involves alternate nostril breathing, aum chanting, then rapid fluttering of breath and in the end tightening (locking) the neck, abdomen and pelvic floor muscles in that order and then holding until comfortable and in the end just open monitoring of breath while lightly staring at the area between the eyebrows. Does it ring any bell or know where I could start researching? I would like to keep doing it until I find an equivalent version on a different "tradition" since well the IE course was pretty nice but I feel I can deepen more easily following LRM and suggested readings, since well I can actually read about it and use my thinking brain in ways I was not expecting, per your discursive meditation series I mean. Another Wow. Thank you for writing them by the way!

2) Having said that. What is it that gets mixed up? Is it the way the energy is moved while doing the practices? By reading some other MMs it sounds quite dangerous to do it. Is there a way to section them or contain certain areas of ones practice? Say for example do ritual magic and a martial art in a safe way for example?

Thank you for hosting this and wish you the best!

P.D reading Weird of Hali volume 1. A third Wow.

https://isha.sadhguru.org/us/en/wisdom/article/unique-about-shambavi-mahamudra

Re: Ramping up and misc questions

[(Anonymous)]

OP here. Sorry for terrible writing I was very excited in the early morning :D

[(Anonymous)]

Hey there JMG,

You’ve helped me before and I spoke about you to others and they have some questions. It seems that magic is known by more people than seem obvious!

Friend 1 asks, I have moved to a new area which is not very urbanized. I have become friendly with the locals & they mentioned that there are very-much-alive mythical creatures in the forests around. They seem serious and very sincere to me. As taking long rambles is a hobby of mine, do you have any references (books/posts/advice) for what to do when or if I meet such creatures? I would hate to give offence.

Friend 2 asks. Recently I was gifted a lovely staff of birch which I have sanded and oiled. Your ENM says (my copy! (OP))that birch is used for magicians who work with the faery realm. Where can I find out more about this?

Thank you very much for your MMs. They are a great resource of knowledge, not only from you but also from other commenters. I always take time to read every reply.

[ecosophia]

Faery magic isn't something that I've studied extensively. The writer I recommend along these lines is R.J. Stewart; his book The Living World of Faery is an excellent introduction to how to interact constructively with the faery realms. I'd encourage you to point both your friends to that book, and Stewart's writings more generally.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a regular-ish poster gone anonymous for this one. For over a year, on and off at times, I followed your advice about praying 'that I might come into contact with a deity willing to work with me' and nothing at all happened for ages. I didn't really believe in gods but practicing magic has been weird enough that I was open minded about them.

A bunch of weird sychronicities involving butterflies led me to Psyche a couple of months ago so I started praying to her specifically with incense and wine libations. I think she helped me with some things but I wasn't sure if I was imagining it or not.

Anyway, last Friday after the usual prayers I asked if she could let me know if she was there and listening to me. I stood and waited, not for long. Then my vision started to go funny, it was sort of pixellated. Then my stomach started to hurt and feel a bit nauseous. There was a huge pressure coming down into and through my head. It was the same as I've felt doing the LBRP and Central Ray except stronger. In rituals it's always a bit blocked at about stomach level but not this time. My vision went starry and the force was so strong I couldn't keep standing so I lay down on the floor before it knocked me over. I was back to mostly normal after lying down a few minutes but the crown of my head stayed sore a while.

So that was crazy! There's no possible physical reason for it. I'm not a fainter, wasn't hungry, sick or tired, no funny herbs or drugs. What I was wondering is do you think that means she's angry with me for some reason, or did she just decide to go for an answer that even sceptical me couldn't argue with? I didn't get any sense of emotions good or bad with it, except my own slight freaked out-ness.

Also, why would gods pay any attention to humans? Why would they have any use for one of us? I do ask if there's anything she wants me to do in return for help with my laundry list of problems but I've never noticed an answer.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe gods see humans the same way humans see cats - adorable sociopaths they just can't say no to.

https://www.catster.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Notebook-computer-with-cat-paw-using-mouse-button-shutterstock_188818472.jpg

I actually got an oxytocin high just looking for a photo to illustrate the point. :)

Sphere of protection

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a simple variation of the Sphere of Protection that you normally refer to that doesn't include the cross? For the ones of us that are not comfortable with Christian references. If not, is there an alternative SoP that you could point to?

Thanks

Re: Sphere of protection

[ecosophia]

Most versions of the SoP don't use the cross. You might be interested in this version, or the somewhat different one in my book The Druid Magic Handbook.

Intense Training

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

I am a young occultist who only recently started to practice ritual magic. However, I would like to go above and beyond what an average magician does in his training, I want to reach the summit of magical attainment and push the boundaries of what’s considered possible, to conquer the world and remake it in my image. There has to be some intense but reasonable training course which doesn’t end with me being in a madhouse or in an early grave.

You once said you’d prefer to see an excessively ambitious pupil over a sycophant, so there you go.

With the SoP as my basic ritual what would my training regimen for the next 10 years look like?

Yours truly,
Lord Moldywort ;-)

Re: Intense Training

[ecosophia]

I'm glad to hear it. The old Rosicrucian motto Festina lente -- literally, "hurry slowly" -- is worth keeping in mind; trying to rush your practices won't get you where you want to go. You need to start by building a really solid foundation.

That means daily practice of the SoP, meditation, and divination, with an emphasis on meditation -- 30 minutes a day of actual meditation should be your minimum for the first two years, working up to an hour a day thereafter. Once you've got the basic method of the SoP down cold, the expansions given in my book The Druid Magic Handbook are your next step, and the steps after that are in a forthcoming book of mine, The Dolmen Arch. Meanwhile get a solid background in natural magic -- the magical properties of herbs, stones, etc. -- and do a lot of practical work with these, and master at least two systems of divination inside and out, so your readings are precise and stone cold accurate. Once you've done that -- not before -- get some good books on spagyrics (herbal alchemy) and get to work on that; spagyric work is a great way to accelerate your inner development, once you've got the basics of magic down.

That's the practical work, and if you do it with sufficient intensity it'll take you ten years of hard work. You also need to put serious time into study. That means mythology and folklore, the raw material from which magic springs; the history of magic, so you know what your roots are and can make sense of older texts and traditions; the literature of magic itself, from the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri straight on through the latest postmodern avant-garde stuff; and at least some grounding in philosophy as well. To achieve what you want to achieve, you're going to have to have a really solid intellectual understanding of magic as well as a really solid practical grasp of it; it's going to take you roughly the amount of work you'd expect to put in to earn a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. at a really good university.

By the time you finish that, you'll know enough to be able to chart your course for the next ten years -- because the work doesn't finish there, of course. The Path stands open before you. Do you have what it takes to do it? Only you can answer that.

Protective SOP and retroactive divination

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Archdruid,

1) Do you know of an SOP design for protection against magical attacks that can be used (along with amulets and hoodoo baths)?

2) When asking what I should know about the day to come, it happens a lot that the reading corresponds more with the previous day. This happens in series and no matter which time of day I practice. Is it just a matter of bias?

Thank you as always for sharing your wisdom!

Re: Protective SOP and retroactive divination

[ecosophia]

1) The SoP normally protects against magical attacks. If you need to add additional force for that purpose, make sure that the banishing phase of each of the first four elements includes an explicit reference to hostile magic. For example: "...and with the help of the powers of (element), I banish from within me and around me and from all my doings all harmful influences and hostile magic and every imbalance of the nature of (element). I banish all these far from me."

2) The oracle is probably trying to tell you that you need to pay much more attention to what happened on those previous days!

Combining practices

[(Anonymous)]

I’ve been practicing constantly for my AODA curriculum for about 4 years now and have stopped my Tai Chi and buddhist dabblings, following your recommendation of not mixing practices. It’s true that unity of will does a lot to get more out of one thing! Nevertheless, I miss the Tibetan buddhist path I had started, for several reasons - dealing with death and emotional turmoil, and a strong community in my region. It seems to be a religion with a lot of magic in it, as I understand it. I stopped doing it at the same times with SOP etc. because obviously the practice involves vibrations (mantras) and astral work (colored lights and „divine“ aspects like gurus and yidams) of a different kind and sometimes the combination was confusing.

Now that my Druid work has advanced, do you think that I could carefully try again at combining both? Maybe in separate spaces, at separate times of day, or in stretches of one month each or the like?

Re: Combining practices

[ecosophia]

It really is up to you, but I don't recommend it.

Discursive meditation and personal issues

[(Anonymous)]

Can discursive meditation be used for personal issues like relationships and jobs and if yes, how should the themes be phrased?

Thank you for your time and wisdom!

Re: Discursive meditation and personal issues

[ecosophia]

Yes, and that's something that you'll have to work out by experience -- different people find that different ways of framing themes work better for them.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

1. At the risk of seeming like splitting hairs...would the ovate or bardic temple of the Celtic Golden Dawn be safe for someone with a child under three? If not, would doing it while they're out of the house make any difference?

2. A while back you mentioned the karmic cause of Asperger's/autism but I don't recall where or what exactly. Would you mind explaining it again? I'm pretty keen not to deal with it again in any future lives.

3. What effect would growing magical herbs in a steel garden bed have on their magical properties? Steel beds seemed the most durable and least wasteful choice for someone stuck in an apartment, but have I shot myself in the foot?

Thanks again for magic Mondays!

[ecosophia]

1) Please reread the Magic Monday FAQ, which specifies which practices are suitable.

2) I don't recall explaining that. Several other people suggested that it may be caused by too short a time between lives, which seems plausible to me -- there are other issues that seem to have the same cause, and those correlate closely with autism spectrum disorders -- but that's not necessarily something you can control by your actions in this life.

3) I have no idea. If you make the experiment, let the rest of us know!

[mmelvink]

Hi JMG,

Another quick question about the mechanics of planetary charity, if I may: In contrast to wearing the planetary colors in succession over the course of a week (a standard practice at the Mughal court, incidentally, as an expression of imperial universalism), I assume that charity for the various planets should not be combined, especially with opposing pairs like Saturn and Jupiter, lest their effects be neutralized? That is, it's better to first complete a course of charity for any one planet before beginning the next, correct?

And speaking of which, what form of Jupiter charity would you recommend? While folks in law and banking don't need my cash, needless to say, as a historian who works in higher ed I can testify that money is extremely tight in the humanities, so I'd much prefer to support that. But would supporting a scholarship program do the trick, or does the money need to go to a teacher rather than a student?

A somewhat related question: A colleague of mine is working on a 12th-century Arabic astral-magical procedure for personally incarnating each of the planets in succession, over a period of years, the end goal of which is the ability to transcend the terrestrial realm at will. But the process itself involves certain, ah, rather intense, even illegal, undertakings. Thus the operation for Venus culminates in a bisexual orgy for three days and nights, and that for Mars in the murder and decapitation of a man, the consumption of his flesh and the parading of his severed head in public (i.e., precisely as Mars is often depicted in horoscopes). And yet those who developed and presumably personally tested this procedure include some of the greatest religious and legal scholars of the era, who surely wouldn't have made an exception for cannibalism. Do you think it's possible or rather likely that such operations were meant to take place in the astral realm, not the physical? The same principle applies to the more grisly operations in the Picatrix and elsewhere: do you really need eye of newt and wing of bat, or actually have sexual intercourse with a cow, or may these be simply visualized to be effective? After all, achieving transcendence is nice, but so is staying out of jail...

Run for your life!

[(Anonymous)]

You don't want to be within several light years of this guy. And do no turn your back on him.

BTW, for a fictional treatment of such practices, read Rosemary Edghill's novel The Bowl of Night. In which the most chilling line is when someone the viewpoint character trusts and likes had said "I didn't kill you" and she suddenly realizes there had been a slight emphasis on 'you.'

Brrrr..... you need even ask?

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

A few times on the Ecosophia blog you have mentioned the dire astral conditions in the contemporary US, which have led to a build up of "astral static".

Would I be correct in thinking that this astral static is primarily experienced by the population as external emotions, which are invariably of a negative character? e.g. obsessive hatred, extreme selfishness, polarized political views etc.?

Also, am I correct to think that external emotions only manifest in the lower self, and, as such, encourage a person to identify more intensely with their lower self?

[ecosophia]

1) That's an important part of it, but bad conditions on the lower astral are also very often experienced in the form of illness, exhaustion, and other physical problems.

2) That's basically correct. The negative influences are centered on the lower astral plane, and since the personality is astral, those influences tend to draw it into deeper interaction with the lower astral and pull it away from the upper astral, mental, and spiritual planes. Again, you also have an etheric effect, since things on the lower astral tend to propagate downward into the etheric, and eventually to the physical plane (in the form of disasters and epidemics).

Your Definition of Magic

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Mister Greer,

i've been reading your essyas now for quite a while and finished "The Long Descent" last week. In both you mentioned a notion of magic as "The Art, Science an Craft to cause change of consciousness at will". A very Humble Definition.

But ,and i say this with no ill-will, it always looks like you are pulling a baite and motte.
How can magic be purely psychological, while also allowing for pacts and talismans and conjourations?
I can only bind and banish myself in my very own room.

Have you written in other places of this question?

Thanks,

T. Schmidt

Re: Your Definition of Magic

[(Anonymous)]

I'm verry Sorry. I meant the "Motte and Bailey". It's described here: https://philpapers.org/archive/SHATVO-2.pdf

In short, it described the rhethoric technique, to spend a lot of time with the colorfull applications of an idea, while regressing to a definition of the underlying assumptiouns that really does not allow for such applications.

[(Anonymous)]

What's the highest level of magical ability that can be attained in human form, before you move on to the next level? What sort of things are people capable of in their last human life?

[ecosophia]

You know the stuff that prophets and messiahs are supposed to be able to do? That sort of thing.

Natural Magic

[(Anonymous)]

1) In learning more about my new Stonehenge beads I came across an English author named Judy Hall who has written extensively about crystals and stones. Are you familiar with her? And if so do you find her to be a reputable source for further exploration of the magical properties of stones?

2) While personally feeling out and researching these bluestones, I provisionally assigned their astrology to Mercury in Taurus, with an airy temperament. The time/space travel, communication with past lives, healing properties, all felt Mercurial to me. And the grounding/rooting effects, the gravity of the stone, felt very Taurusy. Was pleased to see that Judy Hall had also assigned them to Taurus, but she attributed their planetary rulership to the Moon instead. The bluish color of the beads makes some sense under the Moon, and I'm sure she has other reasons, but my foot wants to stay down on the Mercury correspondence!

So I asked my Animal Oracle for a companion to go with the stones to help me understand them. I drew the Hare, who easily slips between this world and the Otherworld, and the illustration on the card shows lots of grassy earth with a prominent dolmen in the background and a waning crescent moon in the pre-dawn sky. (I'm always filled with wonder by little TSW moments like that! It's the only card in the deck with a dolmen on it!) So should I capitulate to the experts here, or hold my ground on this?? 😁 I certainly admit to being the junior voice...


3) Just a few interesting observations about wearing the bluestone beads:

a) don't smoke pot while wearing them; the attributes of those two inputs are completely incompatible.

b) they are great for meditation (electric in fact!) and divination, but contra-indicated for ritual work. They made it much harder for me to see the archangels for one. I really had to work to get the sort of mental image quality I was getting after only a month or two of practice, and Raphael and Auriel were both completely blocked at first.

c) seems like it might be better to wear them more at home and maybe while sleeping than when out in public with lots of people. Similar to the issue with weed, the introspection they foster seems to trump my typically extroverted character.

4) Wearing them to bed the first time last night, I had a very vague dream of myself in a period just before the time of Christ. To my knowledge I've never dreamt "in" a time period anything like that far back. Could this be a past life memory trying to surface? If so, what, if anything, do you recommend for encouraging it to surface more clearly?

5) If they are lunar in correspondence, is it likely that their effect on a human changes noticeably from one zodiac sign to the next? I've had them for a week and a half now, and there have been days when their effect was utterly positive and undeniable, and other days when I felt like I was just trying to make them special. Of course that's a common theme in general in the transition from materialism to a magical worldview...

Thanks so much,
Tripp

Re: Natural Magic

[ecosophia]

1) No, I'm not familiar with her. Does her work seem to be generally good?

2) I'd trust the hare, who is a lunar animal. (There is, as you may or may not know, a hare or rabbit in the Moon in some cultures.)

3) Interesting; thanks for this. That again suggests a lunar influence, as Mercury is normally extroverted.

4) Just let it surface at its own pace. Don't force it, or you run a high risk of getting confabulated content (i.e., stuff your subconscious makes up).

5) Have you compared these changes to the movement of the Moon through the signs of the zodiac?

Banishing nasty people

[(Anonymous)]

Last week I asked about rooting my stepmother out of my life for good, 28 years after leaving the nest. I did the pepper bottle working - in fact returned from doing it right about the time your response came in on Tuesday to my question about doing it.

The most fitting thing I had to use as an artifact of hers was the gift page in the front of my KJV Bible where she calligraphied the inscription to me on my 13th birthday from "Mama" and Daddy. (She made me add my real mom's first name after "Mama" when talking about her...). So I ripped it out, rolled it up, put it in a glass bottle with 2 habaneros, and donated that Bible to charity. I also found a pottery sugar bowl and creamer set that she gave me and donated those as well. Journaling and contemplation after the fact turned up some "interesting" ties to my past for those 3 articles!

So I timed the ritual to the day of Mars and hour of Saturn, wore black for exorcism/banishing, and walked down to the river (trout stream), asked the two gods involved in the election to extract her and banish her totally from my life for the rest of this life and any that follow, then walked back home by a different route.

Always trying to learn here, does that all sound worthwhile? Any of that I should have skipped? Anything I could have added to strengthen the working? I admit I was hoping for a puff of smoke and lightning fast results, and of course that hasn't happened (and I know it doesn't work like that). But the physical problems I've associated with her clutching are very slowly starting to ebb, from this working I assume, plus daily affirmation, and the linking of an animal familiar with the healing process.

Thanks again.
Tripp

Re: Banishing nasty people

[ecosophia]

That sounds like a good solid working. It may take a little while to work all the way, but I'd expect that the whole problem will resolve in the not too distant future.