Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just shy of midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is the only surviving image of George Ripley, one of the great alchemists of the medieval English tradition -- believe it or not!  (Ahem.)  A canon -- i.e., a priest who lived a monastic life -- at Bridlington Priory in England, he wrote several highly influential books on alchemy, the most widely read being The Compound of Alchemy. His work was studied closely by such later alchemical notables as John Dee and Isaac Newton. (Yes, that Isaac Newton. Did any of your teachers ever mention to you that Newton put more time into studying alchemy than he did into working out the laws of gravity and motion? No, I didn't think so -- but it's quite true.)    

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. 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.

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With that said, have at it!

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

Comments

[grokrathegreen]

I think you are dead on target Violet. Personally I like the dark, because I like to be hidden, but it is a mild preference and I also like the functionality of light, thus divided I don't heed the light or the dark. Sound is different.

I loath idle background sound. And I feel vividly that it exists to fill thought space. I was at some friend's place for Thanksgiving celebrations and they had the radio or music on all the time. Friends put music on in the car automatically. Mind you I love to, at times, celebrate music, revel in it, and give it my all attention. But if I ain't doing that the background chatter is much more cruddy than the thoughts that float through my head most of the time. I turned off my friend's radio, and told him that I found my own thoughts more interesting and pleasing to listen to than the vapid droning of the radio.

Mind you, I to hide in text or study to avoid emotionally touchy things.

P.S. Violet, I haven't forgotten your letter, but an offer you made in the letter caught me at a strange time, and I have been giving time to wait for my reply to come to me before I send it to you.

[(Anonymous)]

I also bristle at idle background sounds. In particular, I resent being subjected to insipid background music and/or advertising narrations every time I go out in public; it's right up there among my least favorite things about U.S. culture. (It's nothing like as prevalent in other places I've traveled.)

-escher