Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's just about midnight as I type this, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. This week's classic book of Western occultism is Self-Unfoldment by Disciplines of Realization by the inimitable Manly Palmer Hall, the most influential American occultist of the 20th century. Hall wrote scores of books and hundreds of pamphlets, some much more famous than this one, but to my mind this is his single best work, a clear, thoughtful, and balanced guide to meditation and spiritual development. It's currently out of print, though I hope some enthusiasm for it can change that; combine it with the Knapp-Hall tarot deck, which Hall helped design, and the notes on practice Hall slipped into the booklet that goes with the deck, and you have a tolerably complete guide to the method of meditation Hall taught to his inner students. 

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 Monday!***
  

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I have two children aged 1 ½ and 3. Since our first child, but especially since the birth of our second, she has been dogged by a number of recurring health issues of non-specific causes. As an example, one of the issues that troubles her near endlessly is that she will almost constantly have canker sores, often four or five at a time, some of which get to be rather seriously ulcerated. My question is, is it possible that she has damaged her etheric body during these births and, if so, what could we do help heal her?

Thanks

[ecosophia]

I assume that "she" is your wife/partner. It's very unlikely that her etheric body has been damaged by birth -- handling pregnancy and childbirth is something that female etheric bodies have been doing since the evolution of sexual bipolarity two billion years ago. I would encourage the two of you to consider going to a licensed alternative health care practitioner and getting professional help with this. (Not an MD -- they're quite literally trained not to be able to deal with things like this, due to the modes of differential diagnosis that are taught in med school these days.)

[(Anonymous)]

I've recently come back from a family trip to Hawaii, and have a few questions which emerge out of that.

1) I experienced what I'll call subtle plane jet lag: much as my physical body was disoriented, so too were my subtle bodies. Hawaii and Eastern Canada are quite different, so it makes sense my subtle body would be thrown off quite a bit, as well as my physical body, but it raises an intriguing possibility: perhaps, much as frequent travellers often seem to end up unable to establish steady circadian rhythms, frequent travel makes it hard to establish a link to the land one lives on. This would help explain the alienation so many people feel towards home. Does this make sense? Can you think of ways to investigate this?

2) I had a fairly powerful experience while in Hawaii. I suspect it was an experience of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of the volcano. There was a sign which said something like we all need to help take care of Mauna Loa and Kilauea. The experience I had was of something outside my me sarcastically saying “Like I need you to take care of me!” and then seeing an image of an eruption covering the entire island.

This experience was somewhat new to me, and so I'm curious about a few things now:

a) Is there a way to check if this was Pele, or someone or something else?

b) Do you know if people outside Hawaii, without Hawaiian heritage have ever had strong experiences of the Hawaiian gods? In particular, do you know if they are limited to Hawaii, or if it's possible to reach out to them from here?

c) If I do this, will it increase my chances of ending up living in Hawaii, either this lifetime or another? Given what I know of the islands, I'm not especially optimistic about their future in the short term. Or is this a case where faith is important, trusting that the gods will lead me where I'm best suited?

3) Finally, I have issues with coffee most of the time. It gives me a nasty headache, but while I was in Hawaii, I drank copious amounts of it, and it seemed to have an effect

4) Finally, I seem to have a strong need for the telluric current. Am I correct to think a volcano is a very potent source of it, and this might explain why I felt amazing while I was there, pretty much from the moment I got there?

[ecosophia]

1) Quite a few people have speculated that this may be the case. As for investigating it, well, how's your clairvoyance?

2a) It's very difficult to determine that until you've put a lot of work into developing your inner senses. For the time being, treat it as possible.

2b) Place-specific deities tend to be, well, place-specific. They choose who they want to talk to, of course, but they don't tend to be interested in people in distant places unless those people are going to be moving nearer sometime.

2c) You'd have to ask the goddess. She knows what she wants, I don't

3) I think you left out the end of this question...

4) The telluric current follows its own logic. There are volcanoes that are full of the telluric current and others that aren't so much, just as you can find places that have no distinguishing features but are ablaze with it. (In ancient times people used to build temples to earth deities in places like that.) You may just resonate very well with Hawai'i; some people do.

Inner Alchemy

[ecosophian]

Dear JMG, thanks again for hosting Magic Mondays.

First an announcement: I’ve made a list of all JMG’s interviews, podcasts and public speeches that I could find online. There are over 50 records from 2005 to 2020. The real question is how does JMG find time to sleep? Anyone interested can find the list here: https://ecosophian.dreamwidth.org/429.html

Now, to the actual questions:

1. About SOP. I’ve long wondered why the elements are located the way they are: water opposing air and fire opposing earth. It I know you say that’s just the way they are, but I wanted to find some logic in here; why doesn’t fire oppose water and air oppose earth?

So I recently stumbled onto this page http://kheper.net/topics/Jung/typology.html, where the 4 functions of the Ego are discussed. I see this diagram:

           Intuition
              |
Feeling ------|------ Thinking
              |
           Sensation

I think to myself: “this reminds me of something”. I know that Air associated with Thinking and water with emotions aka with Feeling. I remembered that some books on Alchemy equated intuition with Fire. So, I flipped the horizontal axis and drew the chart like this:

             South
           Intuition
             Fire
East           |          West
Thinking -----Ego------ Feeling
Air            |          Water
             North                
           Sensation
             Earth

There, now it makes more sense. The four elements we work with are the four functions of the Ego. So, in the center is the Ego which must then equate to the Spirit Within. But what about the Spirit Below and the Spirit Above? I assume they are associated with the Id (chthonic Spirit Below) and the Super-Ego (solar Spirit Above) of the Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche.

Am I on the right track with this sort of thinking? If I am, still the question remains, what about Extraversion and Introversion? They are not worked with in the ritual, maybe they are not ego functions.

2. While looking for the records of your speeches, JMG, I found the one where you talk about alchemical initiations. That made me think about SOP again - that it has deep alchemical meaning, I mean we break down the self, strengthen (invoke) and purify (banish) the parts and then reassemble it into something better and stronger. After countless repetitions it might become divinity manifest i.e. an inner philosopher’s stone! So, the Sphere of Protection is a way of making the philosopher’s stone for inner alchemy. Is my line of thinking correct?

P.S. In that speech you also defined the ritual space as a Mesocosm, an intermediary between the Microcosm and the Macrocosm. It connected some dots for me i.e. how magic works not just on myself but on the world as well.

Re: Inner Alchemy

[ecosophia]

0) Thank you for doing this!

1) This is a good solid meditation exercise of the sort that traditional occult schools used to assign their students. There are no right answers and no wrong ones -- the point is to work out an arrangement that makes sense to you, and in the process, learn more about how to assemble the world into coherent patterns.

2) Same thing here. You've drawn a connection; that connection isn't right and it isn't wrong -- it's a way of stretching your mind to improve your ability to synthesize ideas into a world of meaning. I'd say keep working with it!

3) Glad to hear it.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a question about MSG. I find that if I eat it, then I have a hard time with visualizations, and get fairly spacey. Do you know if it has etheric/astral effects? Do you know how to go about figuring out if it does?

[ecosophia]

The way to figure out if something has etheric or astral effects is to develop etheric or astral vision and see for yourself; W.E. Butler's book How to Read the Aura, Practice Psychometry, Telepathy, and Clairvoyance is a good guide. In the meantime, if eating MSG gives you trouble, may I make a suggestion? Don't eat it...

[(Anonymous)]

1) In the water corner of the room where I do the SoP, a leak has appeared in the ceiling. (There has been a lot of heavy rain lately. I had also missed days with the SoP more than usual.) A roofer has already been called out. Is there anything I should do from a magical point of view apart from keep doing the SoP more diligently?

2) I really feel like I need more invoking of positives in my life to balance out the banishing of negatives. It feels like a sort of hunger. What rituals do you suggest? Something with a set format would help to start with that I can maybe adapt. But also not too strong (on the scale of SoP rather than LBRP)

[ecosophia]

1) No, just keep up with your practices.

2) Well, what are you invoking in the SoP? You can expand that section: "By the hawk of May in the heights of morning and in the great name HU, I invoke the air, its gods, its spirits and its powers! May the powers of the element of air bring me..."

The other thing you might want to include at this point is an affirmation. The instructions are here. Try standing at an east facing window first thing each morning, with the window open at least a little to let in fresh air. Stretch thoroughly, then breathe in and out slowly, repeating your affirmation silently as you breathe. Choose what you want to invoke into your life and devise an affirmation to bring it to you; that's simple, effective, and (in American magic) very traditional.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I have a question regarding the distance one should keep to the dead.

Part of my regular practice is this routine:
1) Christian banishing (cross in four directions...) of the working space
2) Praying the rosary
3) Then I pray another rosary for the benefit of my dead relatives while imagining them being with me in the room. Afterwards I speak to them, pretty much in the mental mode of prayer: telling them about my worries, expressing hope that they are doing fine and asking them to look out for me and my family.

As part of the third step I began recently to imagine giving my deceased grandmother a long embrace. Doing this is something I neglected doing while she was alive and I feel pretty bad about it. I felt a strong sense of her presence while doing that.

You have warned against invoking the dead in the past and I'm not sure if what I'm doing might be unsafe or even dangerous. As much as I like my departed I'm not to keen on joining them too soon...

Thank you!

[ecosophia]

No, what you're doing is fine -- people in most cultures do this as a matter of course. (It gets labeled "ancestor worship" by those who don't understand the difference between worship and other modes of interacting with the disembodied.) The things to avoid are, first, necromancy -- summoning the spirits of the dead into any more than a purely imaginal presence -- and second, spiritualism -- allowing the spirits of the dead to possess you. Both of those lead in very unpleasant directions. (And doing the Christian banishing ritual, btw, should keep you safe from any movement in that direction.)

[booklover1973]

Is it a problem for plants or seeds to be in a room when incense is burnt in this room?

[(Anonymous)]

I've found that houseplants aren't keen on incense burning nearby and now keep it away from them.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

1. I'm reading some writings related to Jung at the moment, and I was wondering: I know now what the shadow self is, but not how to integrate it into the Self. Does the SOP do this already, and if not, do you have suggestions for how to do so?

2. In the same vein, is dream interpretation actually useful?

3. I'm working my way through the DMH, but all these books you've been suggesting in the Magic Monday posts like the Manly P Hall book look really interesting. I'm not going to stop doing the DMH based on your advice to finish a magical system before starting a new one, but does that mean I can't read these books generally (without actually doing the practices in them)?

Thank you once again!

[ecosophia]

1) You -- meaning here your conscious personality -- doesn't integrate the shadow into the Self; the shadow and the Self engage in a process between themselves, which the personality at most watches from outside. One of Jung's important points is that the personality really doesn't have that much influence over what happens in the unconscious, and in most cases its best bet is to stand back and watch. The SoP is useful in that it provides a form through which the archetype of the Self can easily manifest, but much of what follows is not your job.

2) Depends. Some people get very good results from it, others don't.

3) Good heavens, of course you can read other books. If you want to be a well-educated occultist, you should certainly do that.

A Stroke

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

My 82 year old mother had a stroke last Wednesday that left her with badly impaired speech and a damaged left arm. My two sisters determined that she did not want to see a doctor, which would be in character for her, so as of now she hasn’t, and they check on her in her apartment in the morning and evening.

I live 500 miles away, and did not learn of it until late Friday. Am pretty sure I would’ve taken her to the hospital, and she could’ve expressed her preferences there, but this just wasn’t and isn’t my call. Maybe that’s just as well.

I am confident my Gods are with her, and I send her Reiki every night since learning of this. And, I appreciate that this just may be her time and this is how it’s to come down.

If you’ve advice on dealing constructively with this situation, magically or otherwise, it would be most welcome.

Thanks so much for the Heathen practices you’ve provided on your blog. I do all three of them, and am certain this and the Gods are the difference between losing it, or behaving as a calm and useful human being.

OtterGirl

Re: A Stroke

[ecosophia]

That's always a tough thing to have to deal with. I don't know that I have any specific advice to offer, other than encouraging you to take care of yourself and do what you need to do to keep the stress from harming you.

On perfection, and a request.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG: Thanks again for running these Monday Q and A sessions, this time I have question and if you will indulge it, a request.

The question is about my understanding of modes of perfection in house charts based on what you've written and said here, but I have some missing pieces of the overall picture.

To the question "Should I do X?"

1. Perfection by occupation, conjunction, mutation, translation with favourable figure - yes, do it.

2. Perfection by trine or sextile aspect with favourable figure - yes, do it

3. Impedimentation - no.

4. Unfavourable aspect with favourable figure - no.

5. Perfection by occupation, conjunction, mutation, translation with unfavourable figure - you could do this but you will regret it (therefore no).

6. Unfavourable aspect with unfavourable figure - ???

This suggests that the logical opposite question "Should I refrain from doing X" is:

7. Perfection by occupation, conjunction, mutation, translation with favourable figure - yes, don't do it.

8. Perfection by trine or sextile aspect with favourable figure - yes, don't do it

9. Impedimentation - ???.

10. Unfavourable aspect with favourable figure - no, you should act.

11. Perfection by occupation, conjunction, mutation, translation with unfavourable figure - you could fail to act this but you will regret it (therefore you should do it).

12. Unfavourable aspect with unfavourable figure - ???

Do I have these right? How would you regard seeing 6, 9, or 12 in a house chart?

---

The request revolves around your commentary on the lunar eclipse of 10th Jan 2020. As I write this on Sunday the 23rd Feb, the COVID-19 virus appears to have tipped over into a pandemic. I'm basing this opinion on the recent uptick in cases outside of China that have no clear connection with China. There's a clear upward trend in South Korea, Japan, and Italy. Certainly with the Italian situation and the freedom of movement allowed within the EU, it's a reasonable conclusion to suppose that the virus is essentially out into the wild. My judgement that we've reached early pandemic stage is a minority opinion, but I do share it with some medically qualified people (I'm not btw.)

News out of China is scarce and unreliable, but there are hints that things are very bad indeed. Far worse than is officially admitted. There are many plausible paths forward from the current point up to and including significant political change in China, and a full stop to globalisation. Given the recent importance of China to everyone else I'd be very interested in your interpretation of the the eclipse as seen from Beijing. More of a backcast than a forecast, but we are still firmly in the early part of the period mentioned in your original commentary.

I understand that forming an interpretation for any one particular country is a huge effort, but I hope you'll consider it - I can't be your only regular reader who is following the story with avid interest.

Re: On perfection, and a request.

[(Anonymous)]

....and in a typical fit of absent mindedness I forgot to put my name on the end.

Andy

Spiritual Cleaning and Protection by Violet Cabra

[(Anonymous)]

Hi John
I just finished Spiritual Cleaning and Protection by Violet Cabra. It is short, helpful, and cheerful. First in a series? Thank you for the recommendation.
Rusty

Re: Spiritual Cleaning and Protection by Violet Cabra

[ecosophia]

You'll have to ask Violet!

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Mr. Greer,

Is there any occult version of a card game (like poker) which uses minor arcana, instead of ordinary playing cards?

[(Anonymous)]

If I may chime in: card games were tarot's original purpose, and there are games using tarot all over Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot_card_games

The 'minor arcana' are also known as the 'Latin suits' and are the normal playing card deck of Italy and Spain, so in that sense the answer to your question is 'literally every Spanish and Italian card game.'

Planetary hours

[(Anonymous)]

I have been paying attention to the planetary hours, and in have been careful to send some recent critical emails at appropriate hours--and they were unexpectedly successful. Thank you for the recommendation of them!

I have a question: when reading Lilly about the planets and their rulerships (via Christopher Warnock's "Renaissance Astrology" site), are the Sun and Moon included as "planets" when he is listing friends and enemies. So for example, the article on Mars notes "His friends are onely Venus; Enemies all the other Planets." Does this include the Sun and Moon as enemies? I ask because within the other planets, the friendships and enemies are reciprocal (Venus and Mars are friends, looking at both Venus and Mars: Saturn and Mars are enemies, looking at both Saturn and Mars) but this is not true for the Sun and Mars, and no friends or enemies are listed for the Moon.

SamChevre

Re: Planetary hours

[ecosophia]

The Moon has no friends and no enemies, since it receives the influences of all the planets equally. As for the Sun, I've always assumed there's a typo in there, but which way it runs is not clear to me. I've never found planetary friendships and enmities to be that important in practical work, though, so it doesn't matter greatly.

Book piracy

[(Anonymous)]

Here is something a friend is pondering for some time, and I thought it would be proper to ask here, in benefit of other people that might have done the same thing.

Regarding your copyright protections spells, is there an extra layer of protection for those that provided your books to "sharing" sites in the past, but now want to use them?

If so, is there a way out? It kind of looks that already having the physical copy of the book, that was scanned to be uploaded is cheating, and it would not pay the price.

Re: Book piracy

[ecosophia]

Try it and see.

Frustrated

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I've perceived/intuited that some people in my realm are engaged in highly, highly inappropriate behavior. Two divinations have confirmed this. While I'm taking measures to protect myself (which has greatly disrupted my life), I'm frustrated that I'm unable to "sound the alarm" and warn/protect others. Without hard evidence, which is virtually impossible for me to acquire, there's not much I can do beyond protecting myself.

1. I consider myself an open-minded Christian who is comfortable with candle magic and planetary devotions. I was thinking of appealing to a planetary intelligence and/or angel for help, but I don't know which one to appeal to. Do you have any advice?

2. Regarding having a strong intuition: I have a Cancer moon in my 8th house, which I believe can be an indicator of such. Are there other birth chart placements that are also strong indicators?

Thank you.

Re: Frustrated

[ecosophia]

1) If you're a Christian, follow the advice of your sacred book: "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay." That is to say, pray to your god and let him sort it out. That's what the Bible tells you to do.

2) Yes, but none of them can be read in isolation from the rest of the chart. Moon in Cancer in the 8th can also be an omen of death by drowning, or it can indicate an inheritance from your mother's side of the family. You can't just read one position by itself!

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

I posted a comment last week asking a bunch of technical questions about the exercises in LRM. If you would indulge me with another round of such questions, collected over a couple of weeks of practice, I would greatly appreciate it (I promise I’m not trying to set a record for the most questions asked in a single post!):

Qabalistic Cross

1. You mention in LRM (p.38) that the Qabalistic Cross is a “five finger exercise”. When pointing at the forehead, solar plexus, right and left shoulders, what hand gesture should be used? I’ve been using the same gesture as the tracing gesture in the LBRP, with the index and middle fingers extended, and the other fingers curled in and the thumb on top of them. Is this OK?

2. Does the hand need to make contact with the different areas of the body?

3. When folding my arms across my chest, I’m performing a gesture similar to this picture (except with the right hand over the left): http://www.british-sign.co.uk/british-sign-language/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/bear-620x930.png. Is this OK?

4. After the ritual is finished, would it be acceptable to linger in the ritual energy for a minute or two, imagining the four spheres and the cross linking them together, immersed in the visualizations? Or would you recommend concluding the ritual and moving on to the next thing?

Vibration

5. I’m having some trouble distinguishing between vibration and chanting or singing. Is there anything different that should be felt when words are properly vibrated as opposed to sung? Are the vocal mechanics different in any way?

Attention exercise

6. In the attention exercise performed before meditation, which involves focusing on the feeling of the body, is this essentially a form of Vipassana meditation? (The Vipassana technique is about focusing on each part of the body in turn, moving the attention from head to toe, noticing any sensations that crop up.)

LBRP

7. In step 2, after finishing the Qabalistic Cross and stepping forward to the east, how many steps should I take from the center to the circumference? I find it easiest to take a single step of about 1 meter.

8. How should I move between cardinal points on the floor? Side-step to maintain an outward orientation, or turn around and walk normally along the circumference? I find it easiest to take a couple of steps side-ways.

9. Does it matter if the LBRP is performed with the eyes open or closed?

10. How important are the ambient light conditions in the room where the LBRP is performed?

11. When it comes to the words of the ritual, I’ve been vibrating the divine names and the names of the archangels syllable by syllable (for example, I would vibrate Eh-heh-yeh and Ra-pha-el) and , and saying all other words (“Before me”, “behind me”, “at my right hand”, “at my left hand”, “for about me flame the pentagrams”, “and within me shines the six-rayed star”) in a normal voice. Is this what is expected? (Re-reading the instructions more carefully, I realized that there is no mention of vibrating the names of the archangels – how bad is that that I have been doing so?)

12. Can there be a brief pause after saying the names of the archangels, allowing the visualizations to take shape and coalesce, and similarly, after the lines with the “flaming pentagrams” and the “six-rayed star”?

13. You mention that during the last portion of the ritual, the arms should be extended side-ways. I find that if I extend them out fully (making a T-shape with my body), my arms will quickly get tired, which is distracting. Would it be acceptable if I used a posture with the arms bent at the elbows, and the palms facing up?

14. After the ritual is finished, would it be acceptable to linger in the ritual energy for a minute or two, imagining oneself at the center of the circle surrounded by the flaming pentagrams and the archangels, immersed in the visualizations? Or would you recommend concluding the ritual and moving on to the next thing?

[ecosophia]

You should experiment with each of these things and decide what works best for you. Too much dependence on guidance from an outside authority is not a good habit to cultivate in magic, nor is it helpful to be too fixated on "getting it right."

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

What is the quickest way to prove to myself that This Shit Works? I want something akin to unmistakable contact with another entity that can’t be explained away as the product of my own imagination, auto-suggestion, wishful thinking or coincidence. Surely, with the overabundance of gurus out there all offering their own brands of metaphysical snake oil, a degree of skepticism in evaluating their claims is called for. Would you agree that expecting someone to practice blindly for years on end with no guarantee of any result is a hard sell?

I’d like to share a relevant quote from Terence McKenna here:

“Just investigate these things, and the key question is “What can you show me?” If they’ve got it, they can show it. There’s no mumbo-jumbo around the real thing, but if they say “Oh well, you know, the tape recordings miraculously erased themselves last night” or “We’ll show you, but you have to sweep up around the ashram for a dozen years to prove you’re worthy” or “You are not worthy”: that’s the one where you head for the door. The real thing is the real thing, for crying out loud. It can be displayed. It doesn’t require this weird fuzzy relationship of worth and insight and so forth and so on, and that’s how I got to psychedelics. Psychedelics work. If you think that I’m bullshitting you, go take 5 grams of mushrooms in silent darkness and then we’ll talk. That’s the sine qua non. It’ll work, on demand. I’m not saying “and wait 40 years” or “purify yourself” or “get your auras stitched up”, or anything of the rest of it, it’ll work. It’ll blow your mind to shreds. It’s real. This other stuff is just… all these gurus, they need to find honest work, they need to join the rest of us in contemplating the mystery of reality. They don’t know what they’re talking about. If they knew what they were talking about, they wouldn’t need to shuffle the deck when you’re out of the room, and that’s what’s going on.”

[ecosophia]

That's a common approach and it always ends up in failure. No matter what you encounter, your mind will be able to find some way to rationalize it away, and so you end up running in endless circles, seeking the conclusive proof that you'll never find. This is one of the barriers that protect the Mysteries. You have a choice: make the leap in the dark and find out what's on the other side, or don't, and remain forever outside the veil.

As for Terence McKenna, sure; he also predicted that we would see the total transformation of the cosmos on December 21, 2012. How did that work out?

[(Anonymous)]

Good morning JMG and commentariat,

1) You mentioned in a previous MM that religion is not the same as magic, and that religious and magical practices can be distinct. Do you have any recommendations for how to begin a sane religious practice, in terms of establishing a relationship with a deity, prayer, offerings, etc.? A little bit of background: My orientation is broadly Judeo-Christian, but I’m also sympathetic to the Greco-Roman pantheon. I’m not committed to any particular organized religion, and I don’t mind if an approach is monotheistic or polytheistic. I would prefer something with a good mix of theory and practice that can be done every day, with an in-built progression, similar to your introductory books like LRM and CGD. Also, would you recommend finishing LRM before doing this?

2) Do you offer any natal chart casting and interpretation services (paid, of course)? If so, what would be the best way to contact you about that? I know you have a Patreon, but it seems to be for political events only.

3) I’m curious about your work habits. What does your daily schedule look like? As in, wake up at 8:00 AM, occult practice, breakfast, 5 hours of work… How many projects do you work on simultaneously? How do you manage time and different responsibilities?

[ecosophia]

1) Spend a lot of time thinking about this and do divination to help you make your choice. Establishing a religious practice is like getting married -- it's not something to do lightly, and yours is not the only opinion that matters. If you find that Jewish or Christian religion speaks to you, check out your local churches or synagogues; if you find yourself more drawn to polytheism, there are organizations for that as well. Take your time and let the process lead you -- and in the meantime, finish your magical training.

2) No, I don't -- I simply don't have the time.

3) I'm a night owl by nature and so I'm rarely up much before noon. I do one set of magical practices before breakfast, run any errands after then, and do most of my writing in the evening and late into the night, with another round of practices once my stomach has cleared after dinner. I normally have at least one novel and at least one nonfiction project going at the same time -- it's very useful for me, when I get bogged down in one project, to work on another for a while so I can return to the original project with fresh eyes. (Right now I have two novels and three nonfiction books in the works, but that's toward the upper end of what I like to do.) As for managing time and responsibilities, I have few of the latter these days and work to keep things that way; like a lot of people with Aspergers syndrome, I don't do a lot of social activities and I don't find most entertainments at all entertaining, so most days, once breakfast and maybe an errand or two are done with, I can look forward to a good many hours of study, practice, and writing, which is what I like to do with my time anyway. As Hunter S. Thompson used to say about drugs, casual sex, and wild living, I wouldn't recommend these habits to anyone else, but they've always worked for me.

Transitioning to Celtic GD

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

Hello!

In the next few weeks I'm going to be transitioning from my current practice

(a kind of golden dawn hermeticism mixed with Raja Yoga meditation taught by Jason Louv)

To the Celtic Golden dawn, after some contemplation and consulting the I ching this seems to be the correct path to take for me.

I've been doing Asana and journalling since August, and began getting into the tarot, Qabala, and rituals as taught by Jason Louv and DMK in Modern Magic. Doing the LBRP with the archangels and such daily for months (then for a period I was worried I was bsnishing too much) and doing the middle pillar daily until my daily practice got out of balance with my time in the morning and I had to cut down.

1. So I'm curious to know: do you recommend anything specific or in general for transitioning from doing the rituals with the archangels and judeo Christian deities to the Welsh deities I expect to be working with in the CGD?

And 2. Currently I have a small practice learning Iyengar Hatha yoga, mostly to improve my posture and for my body, strength and flexibility, etc.

Would that have any issues working with the CGD? (I do recognize depending on time commitment I may have to limit or stop it.) If so, is there any bodily excecise you recommend in it's stead?

Thanks in advance!

-Y

Re: Transitioning to Celtic GD

[ecosophia]

1) No, just make the transition.

2) Hatha yoga should be fine, but be careful with pranayama -- that doesn't always mix well with Western magic. (A little alternate-nostril breathing won't hurt you at all, but the more advanced practices can apparently be problematic.

Differences in Pentagram Tracing

[(Anonymous)]

I started reading "Monsters," and discovered to my surprise that the banishing pentagram given there is different from the one in Celtic Golden Dawn, which I've been practicing for some time now. I was interested to learn that "each of the ten ways of tracing a pentagram has a different magical effect," so I gather that's what's going on, but am curious to know more. I'm assuming I should keep doing it as described in CGD ("from the topmost point down and to the left, and then around counterclockwise to the same point") but am curious about the difference. Especially interesting that the banishing pentagram instructions in "Monsters" are going in the same direction as the summoning pentagram in CGD, albeit starting at a different point. Thanks for any enlightening elaboration you can provide!

Also you mention in "Monsters" that washing in cold water helps keep "larvae" and other low-grade entities for parasitizing you. What exactly are etheric larvae?

Re: Differences in Pentagram Tracing

[ecosophia]

1) The version of the pentagram given in Monsters is from the Hermetic GD, and reflects that tradition's roots in Christian spirituality -- you're always banishing the element of Earth, which in Christian teaching is considered morally suspect at best and actively evil most of the time. Druids don't think that way. The Druidical GD starts from the point of spirit, going clockwise to open the portals to bring spirit closer to matter and counterclockwise to reverse the process and let spirit and matter settle back into their ordinary relationship; if you're working with the CGD material, that's the way you should do it.

2) The word "larva" meant a kind of spirit long before scientists borrowed it as a name for an immature insect. An etheric larva is a very simple, rather primitive being that has an etheric body but not a physical body; in the ecosystem of the etheric plane, it fills a necessary niche, as it goes around feeding on cast-off etheric bodies and other lumps of concentrated etheric substance that aren't attached to living things any more. (Thus it does on its plane what jackals and vultures do on the material plane.) Etheric larvae are dumber than bricks, though, and if your etheric body is damaged -- something that happens fairly often in the ordinary conditions of modern life -- one can blunder into a ragged part of your etheric body and start chewing on it, draining some of your life force. Cold water absorbs excess etheric substance, and so larvae don't like being around it -- that's why the seashore and places with cold mountain rivers feel so enlivening. Washing daily with cold water is a good way to keep your etheric body free of them.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

When the deities of an old religion get incorporated into a new religion as saints or angels, do these deities themselves change? Or does it cause the creation of new thoughtforms independent of these old deities?

[ecosophia]

Good question. I'm far from sure that as human beings, we have any way of finding out the answer.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

Is the concept of "the Great Architect of the Universe" in Freemasonry similar to Demiurge in Platonism?

(I hope this is not a sensitive question for Freemasons :))

[ecosophia]

It's a common misconception that Freemasonry has a theology of its own. Individual Freemasons do, of course, and some have written long books insisting that this or that Masonic concept must be interpreted this way or that, but the Craft itself is a structure of symbols which are interpreted only in a moral sense within the rituals and teachings; what other spin each brother puts on them is up to him.

The phrase "the Great Architect of the Universe" is a good example. It's a bit of symbolism that is used by each Mason to represent the deity he worships. (You have to worship a deity to become a Mason, so the issue with atheism doesn't arise.) To a Christian or Jewish Mason, the Great Architect of the Universe is God; to a Muslim Mason, he's Allah; to a Hindu Mason, he's Brahma; to a Druid Mason, he's Hu the Mighty, and so on. It basically functions as an X in algebra, into which any appropriate number can be inserted.

Onward

[(Anonymous)]

I'm finishing LRM in the next two weeks and self initiating on 3.9. The chapter 18 temple meditation is incredibly powerful and moving, and unlike much of what preceded it is developing easily and naturally. Its taken two years of steady work to finish and the effort has been very much worth it. Many thanks for your fine work developing it.
My plan is to continue thru Paths of Wisdom and along with that step I intend to add the Olympic pantheon to my practice. My questions are if this change in pantheon conflicts with the structure of Paths of Wisdom, if replacing LBRP with SoP is advisable or mandatory, and is there a system best suited to the Olympic Gods?
The Gods are good with the change and I'll be consulting Tarot divination soon.
Finally, kudos and much props for the accuracy of your 1.10.20 astrology post. I read it to the wife as evidence of TSW.
Many thanks
Gawain

Re: Onward

[ecosophia]

You're welcome and thank you. You can certainly use a version of the LBRP with the Olympian deities; you can find instructions here for a polytheist LBRP adaptable to any set of deities. (For example, the names ZEUS, HERA, ARES, and GAIA can be vibrated in place of Hebrew divine names in the four quarters.) You'll find the Middle Pillar exercise template here, and the ceremony for opening and closing a temple here.

Coronavirus and astrology

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

do you think there might be a connection between the CORVID-19 outbreak and the Saturn–Pluto conjunction that occured this January 12th? It seems like a global re-shuffling of cards might be under way right now.

Re: Coronavirus and astrology

[(Anonymous)]

Not JMG, but my take on it:

Per JMG, the discovery of a new planet has a spin-up period of one Saturn cycle where its influence is coming into play, prior to its actual discovery. The demotion likewise has a spin-down period of one Saturn cycle *after* the demotion where its influence is waning toward whatever background noise minor planets have.

In each of these Saturn cycles, there is a Saturn opposition (which in a human life seems to be associated with rebellion, testing limits, etc.). During the spin-up period, the Saturn opposition occurred shortly after WWI broke out, and the first Saturn opposition *after* Pluto's discovery occurred late in WWII, probably as nukes were being contemplated. We happen to be approaching the Saturn opposition in this spin-down period, which seems to suggest to me that something Plutonian should be happening or about to happen.

As for Saturn-Pluto, there have been four conjunctions since Pluto's spin-up period:
- Oct. 1914 in Cancer
- July 1947 in Leo
- Nov. 1982 in Libra
- Jan. 2020 in Capricorn

Given the dates in question and what happened around that time (WWI and the breakup of the old world order in 1914, the start-up of the Cold War around 1947, the effective inauguration of what we think of as "the modern world" in 1982) what this effectively suggests to me is that "The geopolitical realities to which you have grown accustomed over the past 37 years are in the process of changing; pay attention."

- Barrigan

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

Some 20th century occult writers use the terms "will" and "spirit" interchangeably. Are they really the same thing? Or is the "will" an outer aspect of spirit which acts on lower planes?

[ecosophia]

I find that habit baffling. The will is a capacity of the lower self -- it's the part of you that you use to make decisions and direct action. The spirit is another term for the higher self. It's like claiming that "thumb" is another word for "head."