Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

 As noted on the blog last Wednesday, instead of an "ask me anything" post this week on ecosophia.net, I'll be hosting a "Magic Monday" today. What does that mean? It means "ask me anything about occultism, and I'll post an answer here." Since this Monday is a busy day for a lot of people, being sacred to two popular religions -- Christianity on the one hand, and Consumerism on the other -- if comments trickle in on Tuesday et al., I'm not going to be a stickler for the point. 

That said, have at it! 

***PLEASE NOTE: as of midnight, 26 December 2017, this Magic Monday has packed its tents and gone away. If you have questions you haven't posted yet, please save them for the next Magic Monday on January 1!.***

Comments

Re: Communicating with gods.

[(Anonymous)]

I just finished reading T. L. Luhrmann's _When God Talks Back_ which is about the Vineyard and related new style evangelical churches. The main thing she studied was the way in which they taught prayer as a technique and a skill that required work and practice. I was amazed to learn that these evangelical Protestants have started using the Spiritual Exercises devised by Ignatius Loyola (founder of the Jesuit Order). These exercises involve concentrating on imagining oneself into Scripture scenes, seeing, touching, hearing, smelling. Luhrmann then devised an experimental study of the effects of different prayer training: passive listening to pink noise, active imagining scenes and a control group that just listened to a taped lecture on Scripture. Really interesting work.

Luhrmann's first work as an anthropologist was among magicians and Witches in England, leading to the book _Persuasions of the Witch's Path_. Warning, the book is quite dense with anthropological terminology that may be fairly opaque to the
outsider.

Rita

Re: Communicating with gods.

[ecosophia]

Interesting! Yes, I read her first book, skimmed the jargon, and found the accounts of magical groups in England fascinating.