The Return of Magic Monday
Feb. 2nd, 2020 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
It's getting on for midnight, I'm back from my January hiatus, and so it's time for a new Magic Monday. As I was getting kind of low on poster children for the occult tradition, I've decided on something new: the most important classic books in Western occult literature, in my not entirely humble opinion, one at a time and in no particular order. We'll begin with the book that kickstarted the modern magical revival, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Levi, originally published in 1855. This was the book that reintroduced magic to Western intellectual culture as a philosophically rich and intellectually coherent practice, and it has had a massive influence on occult philosophy and practice all over the Western world ever since its publication. (Yes, there's an older translation by Arthur Edward Waite, titled Transcendental Magic, but it's incomplete and not always accurate. Mark Mikituk and I did this new translation precisely because the Waite version was so bad.)
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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***This Magic Monday is now closed -- and yes, this means you. See you next week!***
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 04:56 am (UTC)A while ago you have written in "The Changeover of the Gods" that many Christians don't get results for their prayer, because God has removed even further from the human realm. At the same time, there are many Christians who still get results for prayer. How does that fit together, since a god presumably cannot be present and be too far removed at the same time?
When a group or a country has finished working through its collective karma, how does that express itself in regard to what happens to the country or the group, resp. on the material plane?
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 05:04 am (UTC)2) There are two factors at work. First of all, people vary in their sensitivity to the divine and their ability to pray, in the same way that a good radio can still pick up a fading signal when a cheap radio hears only static. Second, I'm far from sure that everyone who prays to the Christian god is actually praying to the same being. If, as Jesus said, "By their fruits ye shall know them," the fruits are far too diverse to be coming from the same tree...
3) You're always creating more collective karma, so when one set is worked out, you can get going on the next. With any luck, if you've learned a lesson or two, the new set will be beneficial rather than painful.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 05:26 am (UTC)Welcome back! I’m excited for the return of Magic Monday... even when I don’t have a question of my own, I always learn a ton from reading the conversations.
Last magic Monday (all those ages ago...) someone had mentioned feeling drawn more to pornography after studying the gwersi in the OBOD course, and if I recall correctly he was the second person to say so. I wanted to chime in because, well, I’ve experienced the opposite: as I’ve gone deeper into the OBOD bardic grade, my pornography consumption is way down. I’m not only able to resist the temptation more often, I experience the temptation itself much less and enjoy it far less when I do give in. I think it’s fair to say that as I’ve progressed in the course I’ve begun to lose the taste for it.
I just wanted to chime in with another data point, lest anyone think that increased desire for pornography is a universal experience with the newer OBOD course... Not sure what the magical explanation for either phenomena might be...
Welcome Back!
Date: 2020-02-03 05:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 05:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 05:35 am (UTC)Re: Welcome Back!
Date: 2020-02-03 05:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 05:44 am (UTC)could you say somehing about the confluence of the spirit world and (very vivid) dreams?
I‘ve been daily practicing your christian banishing ritual since you posted it in late November or December, I think.
In the first half of January I had a dream that felt very real about three grey-faced hags that seemed to ignore me at first, but then tried to grab me when I made an attempt to walk past them. They felt malicious and extremely evil.
My instant reaction was to rattle down the banishing, which made them disappear.
I know that you generally don‘t like to interpret dreams, but could it be that these beings where more than some random neurons firing? It felt all very meaningful to me at the time.
Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 05:44 am (UTC)In a way, it's reminiscent of the half-joking Church of the Sub-Genius prophecy about the Plague of False Jesii -- yes, that's the Texas plural of "Jesus" -- except that I'm far from sure that any of them is false, or for that matter true...
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 05:48 am (UTC)With regard to your dream, some people experience the astral plane -- which is part of the spirit world -- in their dreams. Other people dream symbolic dreams, which have hidden meanings (think of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's dream about fat cows and thin cows.) In either case, it's not just neurons firing. You may have had an actual encounter with malign beings on the astral; alternatively, the dream may have been trying to communicate to you that doing the banishing will protect you against three dangers. You might consider praying and then meditating on the dream, and seeing if any meaning presents itself.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 05:56 am (UTC)Maybe strange question...
Date: 2020-02-03 06:00 am (UTC)I’m a longtime reader of your blogs (Report and Ecosophia) as well as some fiction and nonfiction books. I’ve always been agnostic with respect to occult matters, just as with religion. I figure maybe it exists and maybe it doesn’t, but either way I’m not much interested.
However, after reading about the fapping question you talked about a few weeks ago, something occurred to me, and it seems so reasonable, so obvious, so *true* that I feel like I can’t have been the first person to think of/see this. Is there a word for this idea, a body of writing about it?
I feel like there is an ethereal entity (for lack of a better word) on some non-here plane, that is separate from me but intimately tied to or associated with me and only me. It possesses no cognition or will or memory—just pure life force, which it lends to me. Meanwhile, my actions also affect it on some level. I envision something like a candle flame, and my actions make it dimmer or brighter, or change its color. These changes then affect me in turn.
This could be a soul, although it feels more like a companion with a symbiotic relationship than a soul, which should be part of (all of?) me. Perhaps this is a mechanism for reincarnation: my body and personality die, but this entity goes on, maybe imprinted with memories and maybe not. That makes it a soul, though, and that doesn’t feel like what I’m talking about.
The thing I get stuck on is its relationship to me. It’s reflective of me but not me per se. It nourishes me and somehow enables my existence, and my actions affect it back. We are distinct from but not independent of each other.
What is this thing, and is there more writing about it I could delve into? I have no idea where to even begin looking. Thanks.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 06:04 am (UTC)Re: Maybe strange question...
Date: 2020-02-03 06:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 06:11 am (UTC)Also, when using the version of the SOP you posted here, is it unwise to do the rotations of the sphere given in the DMH?
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 06:12 am (UTC)An interesting reflection from over the break: at least for me, there was a distinct similarity in sensation between browsing porn and browsing TVTropes and to a lesser extent other Wikis (and possibly social media in general). I'd describe it as roughly "must see the next shiny thing"; at first I thought there might be a distinction with porn going "have you checked me lately?", but on second thought I'm not sure there's actually a difference between that and the drive to check your email/social media sites/article sites for the day!
You've commented before on suspecting demonic influence in the Internet more broadly; one or both of getting trapped in TVTropes/checking social media being obsession-related would fit with that.
Re: Welcome Back!
Date: 2020-02-03 06:12 am (UTC)Repeat as necessary.
WE missed YOU! Welcome back!
One I’ve been saving up, and another
Date: 2020-02-03 06:13 am (UTC)Are there any esoteric practices I should be looking into to get things to flourish, any books you could recommend?
On an entirely different topic, the star Betelgeuse (right shoulder of Orion) may be about to go supernova, it’s dimmed visibly in the last few weeks - a known precursor. Is there any mundane astrological significance to events of this nature?
Andy
Re: Maybe strange question...
Date: 2020-02-03 06:14 am (UTC)(I may have more questions down the road, but I’ll do some reading now that I know where to begin.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 06:42 am (UTC)Novice questions
Date: 2020-02-03 06:45 am (UTC)Please forgive me if this post is quite long... However, I think that your answers will be short so I hope it's not too much of a liberty! This has been building up for weeks.
For different reasons, all the 3 groups of ritual magic practices you provide study and instruction materials for appeal to me. I've been wavering for several weeks about which way I will go. The Hermetic Golden Dawn tradition is calling most to me. However, it's also the tradition that is least 'neutral' to me, so to speak. I was raised in Roman Catholicism, in Scotland and Ireland, but it's something that I rejected in my late teens and I am neither a Catholic nor a Christian now. I have not been a fan of Catholicism for some time. Whenever I've had to endure a mass (such as for a funeral), I've bristled at some of the stuff being communicated (we're all sinners etc.). That being said, my antipathy towards the RC church is probably not as acrimonious as it once was - I realise that there are, even now, many good people practicing spirituality and communion with the divine within that church, and plenty of it is actually right and good, despite terrible historical and on-going actions of this particular church. The other thing too is that although there is crossover in symbolism and deity-like figures (forgive my vagueness but I'm only really getting started on this path), I have the sense to know that I'm approaching (or will be approaching) these from a new and entirely different viewpoint. And perhaps this sounds egotistical, but I feel like I've managed to appreciate the good of the religion/spiritual tradition i was raised with (the appreciation of beauty, the power of prayer and ritual and tradition, the humility, the awe of the mystery of the divine), whilst being able to reject the 'bad' stuff. I don't practice anymore but I recognise that it wasn't all bad and some was actually quite powerful and beautiful. Given all this, do you think that I would be safe enough to work with the Golden Dawn tradition, replete as it is with Judeo-Christian symbolism? Would you recommend I do something to perhaps clean out or nullify any latent misgivings I have or may have about the general concept of Judeo-Christian worship?
My second concern is that, from a combination of my own observances and understandings of others' religious experiences, plus reading what you and others have written, I suspect that I will find out that I'm a 'polytheist'. But despite that, there is a pull towards the Golden Dawn tradition more that the Druidic traditions. As such, is it foolish to go down that path? This question and response you once gave on a Magic Monday ( https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/72089.html?thread=6371993#cmt6371993 ) says that the Qabbalistic Tree of Life is compatible with polytheism. However, is practicing magic in a Golden Dawn tradition, as outlined in "Paths of Wisdom", also compatible with polytheism? I mean a sort of belief in polytheism, rather than polytheistic practices.
I have a copy of your "Paths of Wisdom" book and "Circles of Power" is slowly making its way to me in the post. I bought these before I saw that your "Learning Ritual Magic" book existed. I'm happy with what I'm reading in "Paths to Wisdom" and it seems to me that the basics of what a novice mage needs are clearly laid out within. I feel like I can go ahead with this - would you agree?
For future reference, is it better to buy books from you on Amazon? I generally avoid Amazon as much as possible but I noticed that you are the listed seller on Amazon, so I'm thinking that perhaps you get a larger cut of the proceeds if I buy from you on Amazon, as opposed to other online sellers (e.g. I bought "Paths..." on Indigo).
Finally, a question re. proper or wise motivation for taking up magic. There are several strong pulls for me - one is the focus on self-awareness and the discipline and practices needed to achieve such. Second is that it speaks to me more than other esoteric or 'self-knowledge' and growth practices I've lingered around (mainly Buddhism, Yoga and some 'New Agey' practices). But thirdly, there is enormous curiosity. I know you've warned before that 'proving to oneself that magic exists' is not a good reason to take up ritual magic. I've no doubt (for several reasons) that magic does 'exist'. But is curiosity ok? I would like to emphasize that it's curiosity combined with a sincere desire to gain greater understanding of self, of reality and to evolve as a being - it's not a curiosity of "oh let's do this for 'sugar' and giggles", so to speak. And also there has been a spiritual pull towards connecting with the divine and looking beyond the mundane my whole life, but I've never found a satisfactory way of working with that tendency. I've a strong feeling that magic can be the vehicle. But I'd be lying if I said that curiosity and wonder aren't also motivating factors in taking up magic as a means to those ends, rather than, say, an Eastern spiritual tradition. "Paths to Wisdom" is simply more exciting to me than the copy of "The Three Pillars of Zen" that I bought 8 months ago. So is it ok that 'curiosity' is an important part of the matrix of motivations that draw me towards magic?
- Cathal.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 06:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 06:56 am (UTC)You can certainly use the rotations of the sphere in any version of the SoP. I simply gave a less demanding version for those who have trouble with that phase of the original ritual.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-03 06:57 am (UTC)Re: One I’ve been saving up, and another
Date: 2020-02-03 07:02 am (UTC)2) A chart for the beginning of the visible nova has roughly the same importance in mundane astrology as a comet chart -- if it happens, I'll certainly cast and interpret it. Novas are traditionally malefic indications, so the chart will predict what sort of unwelcome event will happen as an echo of the event.