Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's a little shy of midnight, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. The picture is of Louis-Claude de St.-Martin, one of the most influential figures in the late 18th century revival of occultism in the West. Originally a student of Martinez de Pasqually and a member of his magical lodge, the Elus-Coens, St.-Martin later turned to the Christian occultism of Jakob Boehme and became the central figure in the evolution of what became the Martinist tradition, which is still very active today in most Western countries. 

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.

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 -- and yes, this means you. See you next week!***

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Is that very early photography?

[ecosophia]

I don't think so -- to my eye it looks like a good black and white reproduction of a first-rate painting. But I'd be willing to be surprised!

[(Anonymous)]

1) I've started doing meditation, starting with the posture exercises, and found two odd things happening: first, my mind wants to focus on breathing. Second was a very weird one, happened once, but freaked me out: part of me wanted to move, but I decided not to, and then the part that wanted to move started freaking out about the fact I wasn't moving, and began worrying my muscles didn't work anymore. I held off for the remaining minute until my session ended, but still don't know what to make of these. Are they normal?

2) I'm also learning the SoP. I used to get some pain in my solar plexus and a headache after the SoP, but that had subsided. I'm doing some traveling, and the first time I did it here, found both pains again. What could cause this?

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, that sort of thing is normal. You can expect to get various odd reactions once you start paying attention to patterns of tension and relaxation.

2) Different energetic conditions in different places. The headache and solar plexus pain that goes away after the first few (or few dozen) practices is the equivalent of aches in underused muscles; if you go from a place where the astral substance is fairly rarefied to a place where it's denser, you can get the same effect over again.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey JMG, I hope you had a wonderful solstice!

I just got ahold of The City of Hermes and am enjoying it thoroughly (I’m especially excited to begin practicing the art of memory).

I wanted to ask about the grips and different triggers you mention in the chapter on lodges. Since many of us are practicing in a solitary fashion, there may never be an occasion where grips or passwords, etc. are used in the way they would be in a lodge context, yet the need to enter different states of consciousness would be as important for the solitary practitioner as for those doing group work.

In solitary work, what functions as these triggers? I’m working within the AODA, so examples from AODA ritual would be most recognizable if you have specific examples. Obviously the SoP and grove rituals establish their own pattern of consciousness. But, with something like a grip, you’ve got a symbolic gesture intended to trigger a subconscious response to the associated pattern, which is different from ritual, as such (or, at least, far less extensive in how it is enacted).

As a follow up, what method underlies the development of specific grips? Why that handshake and not another? I expect there are symbolic associations embedded in them, but I could also see it being as simple as picking one for each grade and simply sticking with it. Over time would function as a trigger regardless of what gesture it may be.

Just trying to slowly piece things together. Thank you for all your effort on these questions each week!

David

[ecosophia]

Delighted to hear it. I'm still waiting for my author's copies. ;-)

The grips and other somatic triggers in lodge work are useful because you've got the impact of a lodge initiation to tap into. If you're doing solitary practice, you don't have that -- while there are solitary initiation rituals, of course, the real initiation comes from regular practice of the Sphere of Protection and the Grove ceremony. That's what builds up the patterns in your awareness and subtle body. When you need to get into the relevant state, you simply do the relevant ritual.

As for the grips, that varies from tradition to tradition. Some know enough about the subtle body to choose grips that bring energy channels in the fingers together in specific ways; others choose grips for symbolic reasons, or just pick something. The grip will work as a somatic trigger in any case, by simple repetition, as you've suggested.

[(Anonymous)]

I've taken up cold showers. Here are a few things I've discovered:

1) Cold showers suck. It's been more than a week, and I still struggle with it. They likely serve to build excellent willpower, among other benefits.

2) They interfere with breathing, at least at the time. I find it very hard to breathe when I'm in the shower. This makes sense, as breathing is linked to the etheric plane.

3) They kill cravings. Not just porn, but coffee, fast food, internet, all can be killed with these.

4) They eliminate any need for coffee. Seriously, it's wild: I used to need a cup of coffee (or three) to wake up, but now, nope!

5) I wake up easier, and I also find I sleep better. Not sure what that's about, but I won't complain!

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this! They do indeed suck. I've always preferred the cold water washcloth bath instead, which sucks a little less -- but then I'm not using that to break a habit. In your place the shower is the better option.

proto-revival?

[(Anonymous)]

Greetings JMG,

Last week I'd brought up Jung mentioning that Paracelsus was accused of being a druid, and asked whether there might have been some kind proto-revival taking place. You asked me for a cite, so here it is!

"And yet we know from the testimony of Conrad Gessner, of Zurich, that the very doctors whom Paracelsus attacked shunned magic on religious grounds and accused him and his pupils of sorcery. Writing to Crato von Crafftheim about Paracelsus' pupil Adam von Bodenstein, Gessner says: 'I know that most people of this kind are Arians and deny the divinity of Christ...Oporin in Basel, once a pupil of Theophrastus and his private assistant [familiaris], reported strange tales concerning the latter's intercourse with demons. They are given to senseless astrology, geomancy, necromancy, and other forbidden arts. I myself suspect that they are the last of the Druids, those of the ancient Celts who were instructed for several years in underground places by demons. It is also certain that such things are done to this very day at Salamanca in Spain. From this school also arose the wandering scholars, as they are commonly called. The most famous of these was Faust, who died not so long ago.'" (Jung 119)

Jung, CG (1942). Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon. In "Volume 13 of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Alchemical Studies" (pp. 109-32). New York, NY: Bollingen.

So what do you think? Is it all just late medieval Christian mudslinging (not only is he hanging out with demons, he's an Arian AND a Druid?!?!?!) ? Or is it possible some kind of proto-revival was actually happening in Salamanca?

Thanks as always for hosting this! Hope you had a blessed Alban Arthan!

Ryan M.

Re: proto-revival?

[ecosophia]

Many thanks for this! Salamanca was the most important university town in Spain and a major focus of Arabic studies in the Middle Ages, and that usually included astrology and geomancy. It's quite possible that there was a thriving subculture of occultists there in the 16th century, when Gessner was writing. As far as I know nobody was reviving Druidry there, but magic -- well, that's another matter.

Though it's fair to say that the idea of Druids as practitioners of magic was common in 16th century Europe. The anonymous Arbatel of Magic has this to say about one category of magic:

"The fifth is Romane or Sibylline Magick, which acteth and operates with Tutelar Spirits and Lords, to whom the whole Orb of the earth is distributed. This is valde insignis Magia ("very remarkable magic"). To this also is the doctrine of the Druids referred."

Science

[deansmith]

JMG,

1. I dont have any academic training, and I get the feeling when older occult texts use the term "science" or especially "sciences" that they mean something different than the current usage. Is this the case?

2. Also when the term "reason" is used in Levi's Dogma and Ritual I'm not sure what he is talking about concretely. Can you help here? Does he mean the capacity to "use reason" as a thinking tool?

Thanks!
Dean Smith

Re: Science

[ecosophia]

1) That's quite correct. The word "science" only took on its modern meaning late in the 19th century. Before then it meant any body of systematic knowledge. Theology, for example, was considered to be a science.

2) Here again, this word had meanings that have trickled away over the years. Reason -- ratio in Latin -- is the ability to think in a logical, directed fashion. Back in the day the idea was that everyone had mens, mind -- that's the capacity to experience thinking. You had to learn ratio, reason -- that's the ability to think in a logical and deliberate manner. If you combined this with spiritual exercises you might be granted, as a gift of divine grace, intellectus, intelligence, which is what we'd now call intuition -- the ability to perceive truths in a sudden leap of knowledge. Of course all three words get used very vaguely these days.

[(Anonymous)]

A question and a observation. The two are unrelated.

Do you think the Ars Notoria could be adapted to a pagan and / or polytheist framework? (And would it be a good idea to even attempt to do so?)

I watched a debate earlier on porn and whether it should be banned; it was a tedious debate, which went nowhere, though one of the participant's observations on his opponent's lack of self-awareness did make me think of your comment on Luciferanic evil and got me wondering if, or what connection there is between the Leftists legions of Progress and the Black Pilled New Right Groypers (specifically the ones who have abandoned the notion of self-responsibility, individuality). Same attractor who planned it all along or two attractors working together (or in opposition)? Or mere coincidence that the reaction always seems to lead to another evil?

[ecosophia]

1) Yes and yes, but you'd have to understand the structure of the art thoroughly before making the attempt, and some degree of experimentation would be needed.

2) It's two strange attractors working in opposition, but with a similar effect. Both the Ahrimanic and Luciferic spirits work by encouraging people not to be aware of themselves, and so when you get people influenced by them arguing with each other there's a constant suction toward the extremes and away from self-awareness.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a few past life memories, and my last life was not the best. Among other things, she cheated on her boyfriends repeatedly, used copious amounts of drugs to avoid reality, and then killed herself. How can I go about clearing away the karma she accumulated?

[ecosophia]

You've already taken the most important step by realizing that what she did was a bad idea. At intervals in this life you'll be given the opportunity to make similar mistakes, and every time you refuse to do so, you release part of that karma.

Basically there are three ways to deal with karma. You can clear it away through suffering, through willed effort, and through spiritual awakening. If you ignore it or try to run from it, you get to do it the first way, which hurts. If you face it squarely and try to choose wisely instead, you get to do it the second way, which is laborious but less painful. The third way happens when it happens -- you don't choose when or how to become enlightened. So reflect on her mistakes, choose otherwise in this life, and you'll deal with it constructively.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Mr. Greer,

I have some questions about the Christian banishing that you put in a reply during last week's MM (Sign of the cross in four directions).

1) First of all, thank you so much for posting this!

2) Is it necessary to balance this banishing with invoking? Can you just do this every day and be fine?

3) What do you think of replacing the phrase while doing the sign of the cross with "Exorcízo te, immundíssime spíritus, omnis incúrsio adversárii, omne phantásma, omnis légio, in nómine Dómini nostri Jesu Christi."? This is a phrase taken from the 1962 Rituale Romanum and should have some build-in voltage.

Thank you, I was so happy to see this!


Another unrelated question: What is your guess what will start on January 12th, with Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn?

[ecosophia]

1) You're most welcome.

2) Yes, but not necessarily a ritual of the same kind. What I'd advise, since I gather you're Catholic, is to pray the Rosary every day. That's a potent invocation, and will balance the masculine Christ current of the ritual with the feminine Mary current.

3) Nice. Yes, that would do very well. You might want to say the Lord's Prayer in Latin also, so as to have that at the same voltage.

4) Good question. The traditional mundane lore doesn't cover conjunctions with Pluto, of course, and my take is that Pluto is a waning force anyway -- but it's not spent. It would not surprise me, given that an afflicted Uranus is rising at the moment of that conjunction (as seen from Washington DC), if something very secret, disreputable, and disruptive were to be made messily public around that time.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG,

Sorry, one more thing. And my apologies if this isn’t the right forum for this... I’ve been pretty heartbroken at the news about the devastation in the Amazon rainforest. I’d like to invite anyone who wants to join me in a novena these last nine days of the year to pray that next year would see some respite from suffering and/or healing for the Amazon and the many lives and spirits that dwell therein. As a Christian Druid I’ll be directing my prayers to St. Francis, but would love for anyone joining me to pray to Whomever they’ve got a good relationship with. Then after the novena’s done, on the 1st I’ll be making a donation to a charity that helps with environmental issues in the Amazon (or at least an environmental charity more generally).

Apologies again if this is the wrong forum for this, but I know you’ve spoken highly of the efficacies of novenas during past magic Mondays and I figured I’d throw it out there in case any of your readers wants to join me in mine.

Ryan M.

[ecosophia]

No problem. By all means!

[(Anonymous)]

Picking up basic magical practices has lead me to notice a few things I don't like about my life. One of them is I'm out of shape. I intend to fix that by taking up martial arts, getting more sleep, and adjusting my diet towards healthier foods.

This addresses the physical level, but not the inner planes. What needs do the inner planes have? I'd imagine cleanliness, which means cold showers and the SoP. Here's what I have so far:

Physical: exercise, sleep, adequate food and water, hygiene.
Etheric: exercise (martial arts), sleep, food (so getting natural foods, avoiding processed ones), hygiene, time outside each day.
Astral: exercise (ritual), hygiene (SoP).
Mental: conditioning through meditation.

Will these work to get my inner planes in shape? Are there other things to add? I don't plan to address it all at once, but over time I want to condition all of my bodies, physical and subtle.

[ecosophia]

That's a really good outline of occult training. The one thing I'd add is a daily divination, which will help you develop your astral and mental senses. It can use any oracle you like -- Tarot, geomancy, you name it.

[(Anonymous)]

Idries Shah once claimed that Rosicrucians were influenced by Qadiriyah Order of Sufism. Does this claim have any grain of truth?

[ecosophia]

Idries Shah liked to claim that everything and its mother-in-law was influenced by Sufism. If the legend of the Fama Fraternitatis, the original Rosicrucian manifesto, is correct, the founder of the Rosicrucians traveled to Dhamar in Yemen (misspelled as "Damcar" in some sources) and may have studied with Sufis or proto-Sufis there. Other than that, I don't know of any evidence supporting Shah's claim.

Last weeks Geomancy question and porn comment

[(Anonymous)]

Good Evening sir,

No real question this week just a thank you for the response to my late question last week. That was pretty much my reading of the matter but I wanted to get a second opinion on something this serious. I ran a few other charts last week to try and see if there was anything else to be done. No joy there. On one of them I asked if there was any karmic reason I should keep him around. Shield chart with rubeus for both witnesses and populous for the judge. I think we can safely call that not good.

Either way the torpedo tubes are flooded and we are just waiting on the correct timing to launch. No one said this stuff was easy.

I did want to briefly comment on the ongoing porn conversation. There was a time in my 20s and early 30# (prior to getting married) where I consumed porn at least daily. My use went down noticeably after I was married but did not go away completely. I am on the road a lot for work and use would pick up again whenever I was away. Yes, it absolutely felt like something was taking control and demanding I consume.

However after taking up spiritual work about five years ago (first OBOD then LRM) my porn use started noticeably declining. Especially at home. The family computer is kept in my office where I do my ritual work. The LBP seems to do a very good job of keeping that away. It isn’t quite as effective on the road but I have been banishing in my office for years and in hotel x for just one night. Normally the LBP seems to last for several hours after performing.

Thank you again.
Other Dave

Ps there really are a ridiculous amount of Daves hanging around here.

Re: Last weeks Geomancy question and porn comment

[ecosophia]

I don't know if David was just a popular name, or if there's some Davidocentric vibe at work. My dad, curiously enough, is named John David Greer...

Visualisation and Discursive Meditation

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG

Several questions since this will be the last MM for a few weeks!

1. This is a data point - I’ve only been doing discursive meditation for a few weeks (and not every day), but it’s interesting how that particular seated posture has become comfortable now when it was so uncomfortable and awkward at the beginning. Now if I am slumping or sitting in a seat where it is difficult to sit like that, I actually find it difficult to meditate.

2. I have an intensive aikido martial arts practice. I’m a relative newbie but I train a lot. One of the tools I’m using is daily visualization of the movements and techniques. I literally close my eyes and imagine myself doing each technique in real time and I try to make it as realistic as possible and add visual and auditory details and if possible smells/sounds. I don’t speed it up in my mind - I try to go in real time (so it’s quite time consuming - typically 20-25 min but I could easily do an hour or more - it’s pretty tiring mentally). Most importantly, I try to remember the visualization tips from the noted martial artist Peter Ralston that I should actually imagine *doing* the techniques from the first person perspective - NOT of *watching myself do it* as a third person perspective - he says it’s much more beneficial and “real” to do it from first person perspective.

My question is: do you have any more tips for visualization? Or anywhere you’ve written about visualization in more detail I can look at? I know there have been questions before where you’ve written brief answers about how to visualize better in rituals?

3. Related to 1 and 2 above: can I do my aikido visualizations *as* my discursive meditation and get the same benefits as “normal” discursive meditation? It would save me a lot of time to do one thing instead of two! I’ve been experimenting with this for a few days and I get some of the same benefits of being “immersed” and also find it easier to concentrate and focus without distraction on the visualizations (not because my visualizations are that great but because I know the techniques and I’m very interested in the subject matter).

(I am the same person who asked for advice about discursive meditation a few months ago and asked if I could do the meditation about mundane subjects that I wanted to focus on - for example whether I could meditate on how to resolve a particularly tricky situation at work etc. You told me that I could do that, but meditating on magical or symbolic subjects had the additional benefit of teaching me how to think symbolically and trained the mind to think “magically” so to speak).

How do martial arts visualizations compare?

4. I have only tried it once or twice and that briefly, but when I’ve tried to meditate on “magical” subjects, I literally have no idea what I’m doing or how to do it. To the point where I don’t know how to progress at all. For example, the first couple of lines of the Bible - I just read it and think..”Okay? So what do I think about next?” I just don’t know how to do it right?

Re: Visualisation and Discursive Meditation

[ecosophia]

1) That's very common.

2) That actually covers all the points I would make.

3) The answer's the same as for your earlier question. It's going to give you half the benefits of discursive meditation on symbols. If you're okay with that, by all means.

4) If you've only tried it once or twice briefly, you haven't given it a real try. (Imagine someone who'd tried shiho-nage "once or twice and that briefly"!) Again, the way you do it is hold the symbol or passage of text in your mind for a while, not thinking about it, but just regarding it. Then see what questions come up. Let's say you're doing discursive meditation with the first verse of the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." What beginning? What is the Word? How can it be both with God, and God? Why does John begin a bio of Jesus this way? How does this relate to other things you know about God? And so on. Choose one of those questions -- just one per session -- and think about it, probing it in different directions and from different points of view, until you either reach some conclusion or find yourself stymied. Don't give up easily.

The first few dozen times you do this will be like the first few dozen times you did shiho-nage: it will feel clumsy, forced, awkward. Then you'll start getting into the flow of it, and the secrets of the technique will start revealing themselves to you.

Meditation

[(Anonymous)]

Meditation is the part of regular magical practice that I've been coming to later than the rest. The notion of sitting and thinking about something while trying to relax is one I tend to resist. To be honest, I find it B-O-R-I-N-G. However I've done it a number of times and suppose I will probably get into the swing.

I was doing it a few weeks ago and focusing on some pretty simple stuff - the auric egg, that sort of thing, trying not to get into anything too much in the nature of energy work. But suddenly I found I was having fun. It might have been from thinking about a certain patron deity and planet. This happened the following night too. Was I doing something wrong? Is this supposed to happen?

Re: Meditation

[ecosophia]

No, you're not doing anything wrong. Meditation alternates between being the most boring activity you will ever do and the most fascinating activity you will ever do. The boring phases are testing your determination; the fascinating phases are the payoff. Keep at it!

[booklover1973]

Is it normal that a maagical ritual seems to have less impact, as one gets used to it with time?

[ecosophia]

Yes, because you're used to the impact. It actually becomes stronger with practice, but since you're familiar with it, you don't tend to notice that.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

Is there any method to retain the most important memories of our present lives in our next incarnation?

[ecosophia]

No, and that would be a bad idea if you could do it. The whole point of the forgetfulness that comes with each new incarnation is that it gives you a chance to pop yourself out of ruts of habit you've gotten yourself into. Once you complete your work on the human level and your mental sheath becomes a proper mental body, you'll remember all your lives, so don't worry about it now.

[(Anonymous)]

When I see some occultists who complain about science, it startles me. Most of the pioneers of the Scientific Revolution (like Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Bacon) were involved in occultism, and at their time they saw it as a way to understand the "mind of the God", as shown in the book "The Forbidden Universe" by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince. Why do some of the modern occultists despise science? Isn't there any way to bridge the gap between science and occultism?

[ecosophia]

The difficulty is that so many scientists despise occultism, and spread the most absurd misconceptions about it. Have you ever read the notorious book Objections to Astrology edited by Paul Kurtz, the late founder of CSICOP? There are schools of astrology that make it required reading for students, because there's no better proof that scientists who condemn astrology literally don't know the first thing about it, and aren't willing to learn. The same thing is just as common when alternative health care (a common interest of occultists) comes up; a very large number of scientists insist at the top of their lungs that any healing modality that doesn't boost the profits of the pharmaceutical industry is sheer quackery, and will deploy the most embarrassing logical fallacies to shout down alternative health care.

Now of course none of that justifies the common occultist rejection of science in any logical sense, but occultists are after all human beings, and are no more likely than anyone else to turn a sympathetic ear to the scientists when so many scientists are yelling insults at them. If more scientists were willing to get down off their collective high horse and be a little more openminded about the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the five thousand year history of Western occultism has turned up a few things they don't know about yet, I suspect they'd find that occultists were ready to meet them much more than halfway.

From an occult perspective, after all, science deals solely with the material plane, the densest of the planes of being. As a set of tools for figuring out how the material plane works, science is very impressive, and it's accomplished a lot -- but those tools don't work anything like as well when applied to the other six planes of being. (This is why the replicability crisis is so insoluble in fields such as psychology, which have to deal with the inner planes at secondhand; using the scientific method on the mind is like trying to use a hacksaw to pound nails.) Occultism properly speaking deals with the next three planes -- the etheric, astral, and mental planes -- and religion deals with the three innermost planes -- the spiritual, causal, and divine planes. If more people were clear on the difference, there wouldn't be anything like the current hostility among these three branches of human knowledge!

UFO

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG
Would this be another example of deliberate disinfo?

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2019/12/tic-tac-ufo-video-q-and-a-with-navy-pilot-chad-underwood.html?__twitter_impression=true

Re: UFO

[ecosophia]

Oh dear gods, yes. Anything -- anything -- about UFOs that comes from a military source should be put in the same category as those inflatable rubber tanks that were used to distract the Germans before D-Day...

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

In some Batman comics and movies, there is a magical pool (Lazarus Pit) which is owned by R'as al Ghul, the head of the League of Assasins. The description of this pool and its healing properties reminds me of some versions of the Grail myth and Celtic mythical cauldrons of rejuvenation/healing/fertility that precede the Grail. Do you know of any influence of Grail myth on Batman comics?

[ecosophia]

I don't happen to know the answer to that, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. The most astonishing things ended up in the comics back in the day!

[(Anonymous)]

According to this resource, Ross Nichols was a member of Martinist & Synarchic Order: https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Ordre_Martiniste_et_Synarchique

It is surprising to see a prominent Druid being a member of a Synarchist order. Do the goals of Synarchy not conflict with that of Druidry?

[ecosophia]

That depends very much on which version of synarchy you're talking about. In French alternative culture, manic diversity is the rule! Based on what I know about Nichols, he was interested in the Martinist Christian mysticism rather than the synarchic politics; his own political thought tends to the classic English middle-of-the-roadism you also find in, say, Dion Fortune.

[(Anonymous)]

Is the "guardian of the threshold" same thing as "shadow" in Jungian psychology?

[ecosophia]

No. The Guardian of the Threshold is the distorted reflection of the higher self as seen in the mirror of the unawakened mind.

[(Anonymous)]

Here’s a heads up for fans of H. P. Lovecraft, the BBC now has a dedicated dramatized podcast (audio only) .

Two tales so far:

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Whisperer in Darkness

They’ve been brought up to date and are largely set in Old England instead of New England. If you can handle that then check it out here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06spb8w/episodes/downloads

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I am intending to do an SoP based ritual to give me clarity of mind, and I did an Ogham reading to check if this was a good idea. The result was:

1st Card (Me): Nuin
2nd Card (Action): Muin
3rd Card (Result): Huath

All of these cards were in the normal (non-reversed) orientation. I interpret this as suggesting that it is important that I do this, it will have a revelatory effect, but that there might be delays or difficulties before the desired effect manifests. Would you concur with this interpretation?

Secondly, I have been interpreting my natal chart on an ongoing basis, and I have, to put it mildly, an unbelievably challenging chart. I have the North Node, Chiron and Saturn all in the 12th House, and these are all negatively aspected, with for example Saturn being inconjunct Mars. I have generally figured out the effects of most of these, but one I have yet to understand is that my Saturn is semisextile Chiron. My understanding is that the semisextile has a similar effect to the inconjunct, so do you have any insight what effect this might have? Perhaps an inability to distinguish between my limitations and my deep psychological wounds?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, this is how I would read it.

2) I find semisextile to be a very mild aspect that indicates a mental or cognitive resonance between the planets; it's not at all the frustrating, clumsy energy of the inconjunct. I'd read this as a tendency for your limits to be linked cognitively to your wounds, and your capacity to heal.

[(Anonymous)]

What kind of deeds build your Hamingja, over multiple lifetimes? It never seems to be specified, beyond the deeds being honorable ones.

Hamingja

[(Anonymous)]

Most of JMG's readers are unlikely to be familiar with hamingja; it's a Heathen concept usually translated as "luck" or "success." It's one of the many parts of the soul, and one that, like the fylgja, can be transmitted to future generations. My teacher said the best way to strengthen one's haminja was to honor one's oaths, and the best way to ruin it was to fail to keep promises, even the seemingly-trivial ones.