A Project in the Works
Oct. 27th, 2019 12:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
I want to do some thinking out loud here... Almost twenty years ago, after about a decade of hard work in sacred geometry, I had one of those experiences -- familiar enough to those who do creative work -- where a whole series of inchoate ideas suddenly crystallize into a single coherent form. Late one night, over a period of a couple of hours, I drafted a set of 33 emblems, each based on one of the core elements or constructions of sacred geometry, and saw that they could be used as a divinatory oracle. The next day I wrote up a proposal and sent it off to the publisher I worked with in those days, and they snapped it up.
Then things went wrong. One of the influential people involved in the project on the publisher's end had a brain fart, and became convinced that The Sacred Geometry Oracle -- which was intended for an audience of Druids, students of ley lines and earth mysteries, and the like -- really ought to have the art done in a fashionably angsty urban-decay style of corroded metal and crumbling concrete. When I tried to explain why this was a bad idea, I got told to shut up, very nearly in so many words. So out it came, and of course it sold very poorly. Not long after it came out I was with a different publisher -- if you've wondered why Weiser brought out a flurry of books by me all of a sudden in the 2000s, that's why.
But the oracle went out of print, I reclaimed the rights, and a new edition that actually follows my original vision is in preparation from Aeon Books. (That's the cover art for the new edition on the left there.) It's scheduled for publication in January 2020.
What made the whole thing jarring at the time is that the Sacred Geometry Oracle was intended to be the keystone of an entire system of occult training. That system doesn't focus on magic as such, and the ritual element is relatively small; it's designed to be compatible with most religious practices; it's primarily meditative and, of course, divinatory, and it also includes astrology; the books that would have expanded on it were to provide the same sort of experience you'd have gotten from an old-fashioned occult correspondence course back in the day, with a year's worth of weekly lessons giving themes for meditation, affirmations, awareness exercises, and so on.
For me, that turned out to be the road not taken; I ended up spending 12 years running a Druid order instead. At this point, though, I'm seriously looking at reviving the project and writing the basic instructional book and some of the one year workbooks. I've mentioned some aspects of this in previous posts here, and the response has been very favorable.
My questions are these:
1. How many of my readers would be interested in a project of this sort?
2. Is there anything in particular you'd like to see covered in such a project?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 05:02 am (UTC)Sure I would like to have this option in the future, a lot, but not in the near term; I am willing to pick up CosDoc, and there goes at least a year.
Even with my slow, uh, progress on the CGD I'm getting better. I'm amazed at how many details I somehow ignored while reading it first. I guess I just was not ready for it; I believe now things will go smoothly.
Edit: You might take solace on the fact that the urban-decay style actually goes well with the post-industrial future.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 06:24 am (UTC)Sacred Geometry Oracle course
Date: 2019-10-27 07:37 am (UTC)Either way, I *think* I'm interested in this course, though it's hard to say for sure without knowing more about it or trying it out. In time I look forward to a fuller description of what you have in mind. That said, it's intriguing, and if you develop it, I will give it a try.
Some ideas occur to me. Whether they fit at all with what you have in mind, I can't say, but I'll share them anyway.
--Given the explicitly spatial elements of Sacred Geometry, I wonder whether the course might include some kind of Sacred Geometry-derived version of something akin to Feng Shui. A practice to (geometrically?) arrange one's environment to keep a healthy and balanced flow of energies moving through. Gods know I am in dire need of some kind of practice like this for myself! :-)
--I wonder if there is any room in the course for memory practice? The Geometry aspect brings to mind the way that the ancient Roman system of Ars Memoriae apparently included systems for breaking the architecture around oneself into components to use as Loci. I would be delighted if, somehow, the course managed to find a common ground that perhaps fused training in the classical Art of Memory with the kind of deeper, "spiritually based" memory training of folks like William Walker Atkinson.
--Sacred Geometry is, ultimately, the study of Nature. I wonder if this course might also in some way be geared towards being explicitly a form of "nature spirituality" via a slightly different lens than you've approached it before?
--Sacred Geometry is, well, geometry. Mathematical; hopefully coming down to earth in the end, but starting from a formal abstraction. As such, my basic worry when considering the prospect of committing myself to a long course of occult study centered around Sacred Geometry is that it won't be, well, emotionally warm and friendly, I guess? Being as what you contemplate, you imitate, I hope that the exercises in the course will not only be dry and sober (e.g. drawing shapes with a string and compass and meditating on figures), but occasionally be activities that evoke my passions or involve getting a little bit down and dirty somehow. That said, I'm not sure exactly what I mean by that. Physical exercise? Certain assignments asking for me to experiment with changing a social behavior? Well anyway, while I recognize it may just be a personal thing, I just thought I'd share that my immediate *emotional* reaction to the idea of a Sacred Geometry course is a fear that it will be too mental and analytical. If as I suspect, the course does in fact involve practices that "balance the elements" so to speak, and aren't just cerebral, that you might find a way to clue students in on this fairly early on.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 08:15 am (UTC)MCB
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 09:31 am (UTC)I apologize for not answering your question but I have a couple of thoughts. Firstly that there is immense valve in receiving material in manageable chunks which prevents the temptation you get with a book, particularly in the context of “instruct the mind rather than inform it”. And I would suggest giving consideration to an online content. This seems to be the way things are heading and something philip Carr gonna is experimenting with.
Regards
Averagejoe
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 12:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 01:09 pm (UTC)-Brigyn
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 01:47 pm (UTC)The Sacred Geometry Oracle
Date: 2019-10-27 02:26 pm (UTC)I am interested in this project.
Not sure what you are covering, to answer the second question.
Thank you
sacred oracle vs art and practice of geomancy
Date: 2019-10-27 02:27 pm (UTC)We've just bought a copy of The Art and Practice of Geomancy - but the idea of a system of divination based on shapes of sacred geometry resonates.
Some questions if I may:
1. Are there any particular things you would note as differences in methods for someone looking at learning a system of divination?
2. Is the text of the old book the same as the upcoming one for 2020?
I have ordered a second hand copy [ISBN 9780738700519] as planning on considering both before picking a method to work with, but if there are differences in the new Aeon Books version it might be a case of seeing that before choosing a method to learn and practice!
Any advice / thoughts appreciated...
By the way, in searching for the old book, I came across a dodgy looking pdf downloadable version which looks like it had been scanned and available on a so-called .edu site.
earthworm
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 04:03 pm (UTC)As always, thank-you for all of your work.
Phalaenopsis
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 04:35 pm (UTC)Depending on the nature of this course, I might pass the info along to the spouse who is atheist and a scientist, but has tried meditation before and enjoyed it.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 05:54 pm (UTC)I'm a long time reader, first time commentator.
I think this sounds really good. I am definitely interested. It does sound like many of the commenters above are busy with one magic system or another . That's kind of what I'd hope many of your readers are doing, but I note you get plenty of comments from people who don't have a magical practice. And plenty of the magic Monday questions you get are about occult theory or perspectives rather than being purely about occult practices. I for one get a lot of value these questions and answers. Maybe folks like me should step up and study this, rather than lurking on blogs. Oops - just talked myself into more work, again!
I know this project may involve you in a lot of work, but I'd hope your readers might value a chance to start systematically learning about what so many are asking about on a piecemeal basis.
Thanks for all that you do.
George
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 06:03 pm (UTC)I have a couple of questions. Like some of the other posters I am wondering if this can be done concurrently with other systems. I'm working my way through two of your books, Learning Ritual Magic and The Art and Practice of Geomancy, at the moment and haven't decided what I'm going to do after.
I liked tunesmyth's idea of including the arts of memory. I would be in for that.
To really answer your question though I would like to know what the proposed series would do for and to a person. I read the "Introduction to the
Sacred Geometry Oracle" on a book seller's page and I can see what it is getting at, but what I would really like to know is who I will be after I go through with it. I can see from my present work that I am actively changing myself and what I want to know most about future work is what it will change me into.
Thanks,
Tim
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 07:02 pm (UTC)Re: Sacred Geometry Oracle course
Date: 2019-10-27 07:12 pm (UTC)1) The challenge with a feng-shui system is that such a thing would have to be worked out and thoroughly tested in advance, and that's a project needing, oh, a thousand years or so of steady work by many practitioners. I don't think we're there yet. ;-)
2) That's a very interesting concept! I'll consider it.
3) Yes, and that's very much something I have in mind. I've been reading various books recently on the spiritual dimensions of nature and of natural science -- Rudolf Steiner's commentaries on Goethe are very helpful here -- and this project also ties in, at a different level, with the material I discussed in The Secret of the Temple.
4) One of the places where our current attitude toward mathematics fails most seriously, to my mind, is the loss of the concrete, sensuous, passionate aspects of number. That's one of the things that the old sciences of the quadrivium -- sacred number, sacred geometry, music, and astrology -- all included, and it will be included in the work I have in mind.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 07:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 07:19 pm (UTC)Compatible with Orphic Hymns?
Date: 2019-10-27 07:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 08:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-27 08:55 pm (UTC)