Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight as I type this, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. This week's classic of Western occultism is The A-Z Horoscope Maker and Delineator by Llewellyn George, the handbook of astrology in American occult circles for the first three-quarters of the 20th century and still one of the best books on the subject. In its original form it's out of print and out of copyright, though Llewellyn Publications has a massively revised and (to my mind) inferior edition, The New A-Z etc.  One of these days I may try to interest a publisher in bringing out a new edition of the original, probably under a different title to keep Llewellyn Publications happy. 

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!***
 

And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG and thank you for another Magic Monday, right on time as usual. I have a couple of questions about your personal magical practice and writing habits:

1. What is your go-to divination method these days (other than astrology)?

2. Do you prefer to jump headfirst into new writing projects or do you do lots of methodical research and preparation beforehand? How do you know when you've done enough research and it's time to start writing?

3. Are you involved in the design of your book covers (specifically, I have in mind the Occult Book, the Conspiracy book, and the Dolmen Arch), or is it more of a publisher responsibility?

4. Back when you were more involved with occult groups and Masonic lodges, what was the preferred means of communication between the members? How did you recruit new members? I assume you weren’t using social media back then either?

5. How many hours in a given day would you estimate that you spend in front of a computer screen? If this is a high number, do you find this problematic at all? Nicholas Carr wrote a book called The Shallows in which he argues that the Internet exerts a negative effect on memory and cognition. Do you agree with this?

[ecosophia]

1) Right now it's my Sacred Geometry Oracle, which will be out in a new edition soon, and which is also central to a new system of occult training I'm developing.

2) However much research I do in advance, I end up having to do more as the writing process turns up new questions and ideas. Thus I usually start writing as soon as I have a good basic idea of how I want to begin the book, and research and write in parallel. (This is as true of novels as it is of nonfiction books, btw.)

3) It's the publisher's job. I'm very pleased that a few publishers of mine actively solicit my input into the cover art.

4) Masonic lodges are one thing and occult lodges are quite another. Most Masonic lodges use the internet all the time. Magical lodges work best in silence, and usually recruit by personal recommendation.

5) There's a difference between sitting in front of a computer screen and using the internet. My writing computer is not connected to the internet; my wife and I have a dedicated internet computer on which we keep no files of value, to avoid certain obvious problems, and outside of Mondays I usually spend 1-2 hours online per day. Yes, it's a dumbing-down medium, but some parts of it are much stupider than others; I use it almost exclusively to answer email, manage my blog and this journal, and find and download old and otherwise unavailable occult texts.

Evolution...

[hungryghost108]

You’ve said a couple things recently, though I can’t remember where, that suggested you believe beings are reincarnated “up the ladder” (my phrase) towards humanity and consciousness. Am I remembering wrong?

If true, this seems a weirdly chauvinistic belief in favor of consciousness by those who happen to have it. My dog doesn’t seem any less advanced/evolved than me, and trees don’t seem any less advanced/evolved than either of us. In fact, there’s a tree in a graveyard near my house I’m convinced is an ascended master! :)

Re: Evolution...

[ecosophia]

You're certainly free to disagree with this bit of classic occult philosophy if you like. It's not accurate, though, to equate humanity and consciousness. All things are conscious to one degree or another, and your dog is fully capable of a rich experiential and emotional life. What differentiates you from your dog is the first feeble stirrings of activity on what occultists call the mental plane, which is the plane of abstract meaning; you and I can sometimes, to a very limited extent, think in abstract terms, while dogs think wholly in concrete terms -- the way we do 90% or more of the time.

As any Greek pagan could have told you, btw, it's not the tree who's the ascended master, it's the guardian spirit of the tree -- the dryad, in Greek terms. You and your dog also have guardian spirits, but for complex reasons it's somewhat easier for human beings to experience the guardian spirits of plants and of "inanimate" things like rivers and mountains. The tree, like you, me, your dog, and the planet earth herself, are all in the process of evolution, although at different stages -- and there are beings as far beyond you and me, in terms of intelligence and complexity, as we are beyond pond scum. That's what occult philosophy teaches, at any rate.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

1. You've mentioned in the past that natal astrology isn’t your specialty, but I would like to get your feedback on the following chart placements if you don't mind: Natal Sun conjunct Saturn & Mercury in Aquarius in the 8th house, Sun and Saturn trine Jupiter in Libra in the 4th house. Does this seem promising for an aspiring occultist? My intuition says yes, but I’d like to get a second opinion in case I'm grossly misreading things.

2. What are the kinds of things that the Higher Self generally wants, based on the experience of people who have made contact with it? Knowledge? Power? Wisdom? Does the Higher Self try to direct the personality towards some external goal, one that the personality may even disagree with, or is it more like the Jungian process of individuation, where the Higher Self wants to bring the full potential of the personality into manifestation, whatever that potential might be?

3. Are all the different occult systems, Eastern, Western and otherwise, manifestations of the same system of knowledge with a different coat of paint, or do they refer to fundamentally different realities?

[ecosophia]

1) Any given set of placements has to be understood in the context of the rest of the chart, and no, I'm not up to spending an hour or so delineating your chart to make sense of it! As for whether or not your stars favor occultism, remember the old Rosicrucian motto: the wise govern their stars, fools are governed by them. If it's your will to pursue occultism, do it.

2) Your higher self is your real self; it's who you actually are. Your personality is a temporary mask worn by the higher self as it descends into the world of experience. Thus the full potential of your personality is your higher self, and it's not the same for any two beings in all the cosmos. Jung knew what he was talking about.

3) Roughly halfway between those two extremes. All occult systems exist within the same universe and make use of some subset of the available options, so there are definite parallels between systems, but the differences aren't just skin deep, and the endpoints are not all the same by any means.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

[(Anonymous)]

Dear Mr Greer,

An interesting thing happened yesterday. I have a small Cthulhu statue that sits on the mantle of a disused fireplace. The chimney sometimes leaks when it rains and water drips through the ceiling. After a heavy downpour yesterday I found that the water was dripping exactly on the top of the Cthulhu statue. It missed everything around it and even the picture on the wall was dry. Only the Cthulhu statue was wet and sitting in its own little puddle. Would there be any significance to this? How do you think I should interpret this and what should I do next, if anything?

Re: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

[ecosophia]

A traditional polytheist would take that as a signal that Great Cthulhu is interested in interacting with you. If you want to take up the offer, there are various ways to do it -- the simplest and safest would be the twice-daily meditative ritual I put into my novel The Weird of Hali: Kingsport.

(Normally I don't recommend trying to work with fictional deities, but people have been invoking the deities of the Cthulhu mythos and getting results since Kenneth Grant's time. For that matter, while I was working on my Mythos novels, it was very clear to me that I was interacting with something that was far from fictional. Your mileage may vary...)

[(Anonymous)]

1) The archetype of the successful male in contemporary Western culture generally involves material wealth shown off through conspicuous consumption, high social status, handsome looks (extra points for a sculpted, muscular physique), and a string of lovers tumbling into his bed. Are such portrayals an image created by marketers and entertainment moguls to erode men’s self-esteem and promote products, or is it something that corresponds to a genuine reality? And do you have any advice for those of us who don’t conform to it, particularly in the sense that it's become almost an expectation in the dating market?

2) In Japan, there is a sociological phenomenon called hikikomori, where upwards of a million people have withdrawn completely from society, never leaving their homes (and often, their bedrooms) for years on end. 75-90% of hikikomori are estimated to be men, but women may be underrepresented in the statistics for various reasons. They’re supported by their parents or relatives into their 40's and 50’s, although a minority make an independent living through remote work. The withdrawal of the hikikomori is usually caused by factors such as academic pressure, exam failure, bullying, workplace stress, or job loss. Do you have any thoughts on this condition, and what might be going on in the psyches of the hikikomori?

3) Why do you think the divorce rates are so high in Western countries? Depending on how it’s measured and what country is being considered, estimates range from anywhere between 30-60%. Presumably, most people don’t get married with the expectation that they’ll get divorced someday, and yet it seems to happen with unfailing regularity, on average, 7 years after the vows are exchanged. Is this sort of breakdown an inevitable feature of human relationships? Clearly, making divorce impossible led to miseries of its own, but do we have to accept such a high rate of failure for the minority(?) of successful relationships out there, considering the fallout that often accompanies divorces?

[ecosophia]

1) It's not a genuine reality -- far from it. As Ioan Couliano pointed out many years ago in Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, modern advertising is a corrupt and malevolent form of magic. The image you've described is pushed on you by the media to keep you feeling weak and inferior, just as a comparable image (I'm sure you can describe that just as clearly) is pushed on women with the same goal in mind. The result is that 90% of guys chase blindly after the 10% or so of women who more or less correspond to the image, and 90% of women chase just as blindly after the 10% or so of men who likewise more or less correspond to their image.

As for what to do about it, depends on whether you're willing to extract yourself from both sides of the equation. I was fortunate enough to catch on to this in my teen years, and learn to appreciate a wider range of feminine charms; as a result, I was only rarely and briefly without a girlfriend from the time I turned sixteen until I got married six years later. (Yes, we're still married; our 36th anniversary is coming up in July.)

2) I've read about it but I don't claim to understand it. I have Aspergers syndrome, and asking an Aspie about what's going on in someone else's psyche is not necessarily going to get you far. ;-)

3) No, that sort of breakdown isn't inevitable at all. (As my case demonstrates.) Our culture raises barriers in the way of successful long-term relationships, but they can be overcome so long as both people involved are willing to work at it. The key is being able to step outside a purely self-centered perspective and see what your actions and words look like from the other person's perspective, If both partners cultivate that, there's a very good chance the marriage will last. Of course here again, that's something the marketers and the media do their best to prevent, since miserable people buy more products!

CGD and astrology

[deansmith]

JMG,

When you were writing and developing the CGD magical system, did you set out to keep astrological symbolism out or did it just end up that way initially. If it was on purpose, what was your reason for doing so?
It certainly to my mind keeps it more earth centric and focused I suppose.
This popped into my head recently reading about iron age Druids being (according to Caesar) proficient in astrology, and also thinking on your growing astrological body of work. Just kind of sparked my curiosity as to your architecture of the system.

Thanks!

-Puce Anthropoid Raccoon

Re: CGD and astrology

[ecosophia]

It was partly my idea, because there's a different system of magical timing that goes with the CGD system -- a solar/lunar system, of the sort that was clearly used by the people who built Stonehenge -- and partly a clear sense of what the inner powers behind the CGD system wanted. All my books of magical instruction are the product of a certain degree of cooperation with the Unseen.

-- Lilac Amphibious Tulip

Holy Water

[(Anonymous)]

Good Evening,

Thank you again for hosting this. I was gathering up my materials to make my weekly holy water tonight and had a thought (yes it was quite painful). Normally I make holy water exactly as per instructions given in Circles of Power using distilled water as a base. However I live near the ocean and was wondering if using water from the ocean or any other local source would have an effect positive or negative. Have you experimented with this at all or do I have another homework assignment?

Speaking of homework assignments on a MM awhile back I asked if the Tibetan Rites and the Essential exercises from Spirit and the Sword play well together. I am happy to report that after about 3 months of work I have not noticed any major problems. Two thing did crop up. One a feeling of lethargy if they were skipped or delayed too late in the day. It appears to be best to workout in the morning with this. Also the Tibetan Rites recommends working up to 21 repetitions. I found that to be too much in combination. 11 repetitions seems to be the sweet spot if you are following them with your essential exercises.

Heliotrope Exiguous Toad...or Other Dave

Re: Holy Water

[ecosophia]

1) You have another homework assignment!

2) Many thanks for this. I'm not at all surprised -- the Five Rites seem to play well with most Western esoteric practices -- but it's good to have that data point on the basis of experience.

-- Cobalt Translucent Muffin

[ganeshling]

Hi JMG,

I vaguely remember in one of the early Magic Mondays you mentioned some New Thought books that focus on developing mental abilities and that learning those would not clash with studying ceremonial magic. I also vaguely remember that there was a name to this... Something like 'mentalism' only it wasn't this word, it was something else... And I can't find that message because of how vague my memory of all of this is. Does any of it ring a bell or am I dreaming something up? :)

The reason I suddenly remembered about it, is that I am looking for a way to deepen one little technique I'm using with a reasonable success for the last decade or so. It is similar to affirmations only it targets a very specific result in the immediate or near future. I could repeat intensively a phrase 3 or 4 times to trigger a memory, an event, or a state. For example, I could mentally repeat "Next time I open the front door I remember to call my mother" while visualising me opening the front door of my house and remembering about my mother. Another example, is to use these auto-suggestions as free coffee with no side effects (other than still needing to catch up on sleep later): I could say "I am wide awake and focused for the next hour" (or until something particular happens) and be reasonable awake even though I was nearly falling asleep just before. One more use is to wake up at a certain time and this sometimes works with an astonishing precision, particularly when visualisation and affirmation is done in a state of deep relaxation just before falling asleep.

I picked up the basic technique back when I was dabbling in NLP. Since then I found that all talk of NLP people on how they've came up with these techniques from scratch is basically bragging. As a Russian saying goes -"Anything new is a well forgotten old". I am pretty sure NLP just rebranded something older and I'm looking for some sources on similar techniques (or, the best case scenario, a system of training) that predates NLP. Would you possibly have any pointers?

[ecosophia]

Hmm; "mentalism" is the word I'd have suggested. There was a huge amount of material on mind training in the late 19th and early 20th century; Theron Q. Dumont (another of W.W. Atkinson's pseudonyms) and Edmonde Shaftesbury (real name Webster Edgerly) are two of the more popular authors in the field, but there were hundreds.

Formulating questions for divination and geomancy

[(Anonymous)]

In your experience, are you liable to get true answers that respond to your divinations, but aren't really what you wanted to ask, similarly to how poorly phrased intents work in magic?

This is just a hypothetical example but, if I cast a geomantic chart for the question "Will I get in a relationship with X?" And I get a positive Court -- what I want to know is whether I will be in a romantic relationship, but we end up as good friends. So the oracle answered my question, but I wasn't clear enough. Have you encountered situations like this?

For geomancy at least, the various traditional indicators like Rubeus or Populus as the First Mother usually guard against this, I would think?

Thanks!

Re: Formulating questions for divination and geomancy

[ecosophia]

Yes, this happens, and I'm very careful to phrase my questions for divinations to try to prevent this. Rubeus will tell you if you're lying to yourself, and Populus will tell you that you haven't really thought about what you're asking; careful phrasing of questions will still spare you a lot of confusion.

[(Anonymous)]

Good evening, JMG!

I've recently started working through LRM, and am on lesson 3 right now. (The book is wonderful, by the way. Thank you for writing it!)

I have a few questions about the LBRP.

1) What do I do with the circle and archangels when I begin the Qabalistic Cross? Do they grow in size with me, or disappear, or what?

2) I find that after the ritual, there's a strong sense that the circle/pentagrams/archangels are still there in the place I did the ritual. Should I be trying more to dismiss the images, or is this expected/desirable?

3) I feel a bit odd invoking the archangels without any other relationship to them. Is it appropriate to pray to them? Are there traditional ways to approach them? Or am I thinking about this in the wrong way somehow?

Thank you!

[ecosophia]

1) Don't pay attention to them any further. Focus all your intention on the Cabalistic Cross.

2) Don't worry about it. The space where you do the ritual will be psychically clean for a good long while afterwards.

3) You can certainly pray to them; many people do. If you do so, spend time listening as well as talking to them.

Group work and Mysteries of Merlin

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG!

Just got my hard copy of Mysteries of Merlin. I think my favorite bit so far has been the section on the roots of Christianity as a mystery cult and the possibility for it to reorganize from being doctrine-driven to being transformative group experience driven. Really turned my world upside down there. Also, as someone working with the CGD, the descriptions of the individual gods and goddesses along with pointers to how some of them appear in the Mabinogion are probably worth the price of admission alone.

Now on to the question: chapter 8 got me wondering if there are any books that you would recommend that give concrete examples of solid group rituals and/or accommodating more people in solitary rituals? I'm looking to take apart a variety of examples to see how they tick and how they compare to the solitary work I've been doing. My background is CGD plus I've read through Inside a Magical Lounge, but I'm looking to expand my horizons so I'd be interested in any other system or pantheon.

Re: Group work and Mysteries of Merlin

[ecosophia]

I'm going to assume that you meant Inside a Magical Lodge, though a magical lounge might be interesting too!

As for books, the classic source is The Golden Dawn by Israel Regardie, which gives the Hermetic GD grade rituals. The Druid Grove Handbook by me also gives the rituals of the Ancient Order of Druids in America, which might be worth a look.

[(Anonymous)]

🎼Oh, she’s MYYYYY tentacle baby, For the rest of the night...🎼

🎼Long Tall Sally she’s real sweet, she got all the tentacles 🦑 that Uncle George needs...🎼

🎼It’s cost me my soul, but there’s one thing I never let go
It’s my man
He’s not much for looks, reads none but unmentionable books
But I love him
Two or three fell priestesses has he
That he likes as well as me
But I love him
I don’t know why I do
He is untrue
Ate all my toes too
What can I do?
Oh, my man I love him so
He’ll never know
I’m imprisoned in his dark lair
I don’t care
When he smothers me in coils
Yuggoth is right, all night
What’s the difference if I say
I’ll go away
When I know I’ll come back a faceless horror someday
For whatever critter my man is, I’m his, forevermore!”🎼

[ecosophia]

Funny. In the last of my tentacle novels, The Seal of Yueh Lao, we find out that Wilbur Whateley had a girlfriend...

[ecosophian]

Hello JMG,

on several occasions you've mentioned that there is a reason why we are living on the material plane. What is this reason? Besides it being a fine theme for meditations.

- Scarlet Tangential Weasel

[ecosophia]

To waken into objective consciousness and begin the process of evolution, we need a world that resists us. Matter functions as a thrust-block, something that gives us that resistance to push off of.

Bardon

[boulderchum]

Salutations JMG!

1) How does Bardon's system differ from Golden Dawn style systems, especially with regards to how energy is utilized in the body and the future progression of the practitioner after basic magic proficiency is attained?

2) What flaws and strengths do you see in Bardon's system? For that matter, what's your opinion on the minutiae of Bardon's system?

3) What's a general ballpark of when the Heathen Golden Dawn will be released? A handful of months? A handful of years? Also, why is it called the Heathen Golden Dawn and not the Asatru Golden Dawn? As I understand it, Heathen is a much broader term that's similar to "Northern Pagan" and Asatru refers specifically to the Norse Aesir, right?

Re: Bardon

[ecosophia]

1) It's a completely different system. Like most central European systems, it does a lot of work on the etheric plane, where the Golden Dawn works primarily with the astral. Both systems have the same long-term goal, the attainment of union between the higher and lower selves, but they get there by radically different means.

2) I've never practiced Bardon's system -- I got to the Golden Dawn first, and stuck with it -- so you'd have to ask somebody experienced in his work.

3) At this point I have no idea. Sven and I were about to pile back into serious work on it, when the coronavirus outbreak came up; he's an officer in the Norwegian Army and he's been busy with emergency duties ever since. As for "Heathen," we include the Vanir in the system as well as the Aesir, so the broader term seemed more sensible.

[booklover1973]

I have a question about "old souls": You have described that old souls are human souls who took quite a few lifetimes to dig out themselves from serious mistakes in a past life. But souls who are ready to enter Gwynfydd should have quite a few lifetimes behind them, becuase it takes time to master the human level. Aren't they, too, "old souls"? Is there a difference between the two kinds of "old souls"?

To dissolve a tainted egregor, traditionally, occult lodges would dissolve themselves, lie fallow for one to seven years and begin with new symbols and robes. That means that the closing down of so many social activities due to the current pandemic must have an influence on the egregor of the respective organizations. Is this right and is it known what kind of things will happen to the egregor of clubs and social activities?

About cursing: Someday, maybe in the Archdruid Report, you wrote that cursing involves stating the way that someone trips himself or herself up, and in Magic Monday, you wrote that it involves setting up a pattern of self-defeating behavior against someone with the help of magic. Are the two things the same, or were you talking about different things?

[ecosophia]

1) In theory, somebody could go through the necessary series of human lives without messing up and having a lot of bad karma to deal with. Maybe it's even happened a few times! In the vast majority of cases, though, by the time you're ready for Gwynfydd you've been through the wringer a few times, or more than a few.

2) The suspension of activities isn't enough by itself; you have to start up again with new symbolism and gear. Otherwise the old egregor reasserts itself promptly.

3) I was speaking of different things, in very different contexts.

Divination using tarot - who's answering?

[shadow_rider]

Hi JMG

I've been wondering about divination using tarot. My question concerns what entity it is that's answering. I wondered whether it was my own higher self, the planetary spirit, the planetary archangel or a spirit guide. I'm thinking at the moment that it's either my own higher self or spirit guide. Can you offer any suggestions?

Re: Divination using tarot - who's answering?

[ecosophia]

It's supposed to be a combination of your guardian spirit and the intelligences of the Tarot, who are spiritual beings that work with and through the cards. So both of your guesses are correct.

Telesmatic images and the LBRP.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey jmg

I read the section in your book “circles of power” on telematic imagery and I want to know if it is possible to use the rules for creating these images to make more detailed visualisations of the archangels in the LBRP in order to increase the ritual’s power?

J.L.Mc12

Re: Telesmatic images and the LBRP.

[ecosophia]

Good. Not too many people notice that trail of bread crumbs.

Banishing.

[(Anonymous)]

What is the purpose of banishing?

How does it work? How does one know that what was gotten rid of was bad instead of unpleasantly helpful?

Re: Banishing.

[ecosophia]

A proper banishing ritual, such as the LBRP or the Sphere of Protection, is designed to balance the elemental forces in your aura and your surroundings under the direction and guidance of Spirit. Any entity or energy that can abide the presence of Spirit and a condition of elemental balance will be perfectly able to come and go in a banished space; the entities and energies that can't tolerate Spirit and can't maintain themselves in a balanced condition are driven off. Thus anything you actually need to have around you -- for example, unpleasant experiences that you need to balance your karma -- will stick around before, during, and after a banishing ritual; it's the stuff you don't need -- noxious spirits, nasty magic, other people's thoughts and feelings, etc. -- that gets swept away.

[(Anonymous)]

What are the ethics of behaviour in dreams? There are some matirialist ideas of lucid dreaming that say it's all a model created by your own mind, so you don't need to hold back. I've also heard acconts of people who felt guilt after going to town on a revenge fantasy. If characters in dreams can be independent entities, that seriously changes the situation.

[ecosophia]

It depends on how lucid you are in your dreaming. Ethics deals with your own choices. In the kind of dream where you're not lucid at all, where you make no deliberate choices and things just happen, you're no more ethically culpable than if you do something while delirious from fever, say. Lucid dreams are another matter; the more conscious you are, the more your actions have karmic consequences, and the mere fact that they take place on the astral plane (where dreams happen) rather than the material plane doesn't change that.

[(Anonymous)]

A few years ago I tried one of those Chinese astrology calculators. It told me my health was going to suck that year, and it wasn't kidding. :) From a cursorary look at how it works, it seems to be based on a more expanded planetary hours system. Have you looked into Chinese astrology much? Is it fundamentally different, and does it still end up in the same place? If you went for readings from a Western and a Chinese astrologer, would they end up telling you basically the same things?

[ecosophia]

Chinese astrology is one of our species' four great mathematical astrological traditions; it's very thoroughly developed and very accurate. It probably originated from archaic traditions that also gave rise to Jyotish (Hindu astrology) and Western astrology, but it's a very different system. I don't know what results you'd get if you consulted a Western and a Chinese astrologer and compared the results -- it might be a very interesting experiment.

[(Anonymous)]

LAst week someone had been a Druid but then converted to Christianity. They then did the druid version of a ritual and proceeded to have a very bad day. Would that have been divine retribution, or more like spending time training for the shot put, then suddenly doing a marathon?

[ecosophia]

Most Christian churches require you, at baptism, confirmation, or both, to formally renounce all other deities (lumped together as "the Devil"). Since that's done in a ritual context with full intent, it's the equivalent of an initiation oath, and those reliably bring blowback if you break them.

[(Anonymous)]

Is anyone else starting to feel like when you're asking questions on Magic Monday, you might not just be asking for yourself? When I'm trying to think of questions I'm finding myself going more into a trance-like state and ideas coming to me. It's not unique as I do sometimes use altered states of consciousness for deep thinking. However given the context, is it possible other entities want me to ask things on their behalf?

[ecosophia]

Interesting. Anyone else had that experience?

Astrology

[(Anonymous)]

Dear John, what a coincidence! Guess what book was I perusing last night...

I find this an extremely comprehensive text, but not the easiest to navigate, particularly from a novice point of view; I much prefer the writing style of certain Archdruid Emeritus, but he's never published an Astrology Primer...yet...;-)

Seriously, would you consider, if not a book, at least a first steps mini-course on delineating your own natal chart? (maybe linked to your existing patreon account on Mundane Astrology?)

And two more astro-questions if I might:
1. Do you agree with George in the house placement of mother and father?
2. Some astrologers seem to disagree also respect to whether it's the Sun sign or the Ascendant which marks the personality. In your opinion, Does the Sun sign tell you who you really are and the Ascendant the image you show to the world or the other way round?

Many thanks again John.

Manuel

Re: Astrology

[ecosophia]

1) I'm still of two minds about that. My father corresponds very closely to my 10th -- his sun sign is on my MC -- and my mother to my 4th, but I know people for whom the opposite seems to be true.

2) I tend to read it the other way around. The Sun is what you present to the world, the Ascendant is who you are.

As for an astrology primer, there are so many of those in print right now that most publishers would sooner tear their hair out and eat it than deal with another manuscript for another astrology primer. (It's right up there with one more Wicca 101 book.) I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to teach natal chart delineation, anyway, until I study it much more closely -- I do mostly mundane and electional astrology, you know.

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

1. I've been doing the DMH, and I will start with the Dolmen Arch at some point, too. When I start the Dolmen Arch, do I continue to use the same SOP/Three Cauldrons/etc as I learned in the DMH? I noticed in the Dolmen Arch that the vocal component is a specific SOP working (to attain Gwynfydd in this lifetime) but the gestures are different between the two books.

2. Can you do Ogham readings outside of the daily SOP, ie - later in the day? I thought it's best to do it in a banished space.

3. If images on TV affect the subconscious, ie, the subconscious believes the images to be real, does this effect also apply to cartoons? What about video games? To paintings? Or does it apply to just films of real scenes and people?

4. I was thinking about intentionality, and that you can choose how you see something in the outside world, and that for example you could see either certain activities one does as 'boring', or be able to see value in them, and this is a choice. To take the example of one's job, one could be bored doing it, and waste one's life doing it by choosing to see it in this way. By this logic, one's job, no matter what it is, could always be a source of meaning, even if you are, to take an example from the other blog, a bureaucrat in the university administration system, or perhaps an executive in the advertising industry. Yet neither of these jobs are activities which I would like to spend my time doing. I wouldn't want to become a great advertising copywriter with all its potentially harmful effects on society, because I buckled down, saw some sort of meaning in the job, and did it very well. Plus, this argument could be used an excuse to remain in a situation which you truly don't want to be in, or to avoid making a change you need to make.

The only holes I can poke in the argument are that, first, if we co-create our reality in cooperation with the rest of the cosmos, then meaning in a particular activity will differ depending on the lessons a particular individual needs to learn, and two, the cosmos being much smarter than we are, we can't really make the judgement of whether an activity or career is harmful to society or not, because there are much larger complexities at work.

Am I missing some subtlety here?

5. In the Dolmen Arch, there are little triangular images after each chapter and throughout the text (Celtic knots?), and they are different in each chapter. Is there significance to this, or are these purely decorative?

Thank you!

[ecosophia]

1) You can either continue doing the DMH version or try the Dolmen Arch version instead.

2) You can divine in a space that hasn't been banished. Most people do.

3) The more realistic, the stronger the effect, but it certainly works with paintings, for example. That's the point of religious art!

4) It's not all one or all the other. Your intentionality matters, but so do the facts of the case. If you swallow rat poison, thinking that it's medicine, your intentionality will not keep it from poisoning you!

5) If I were feeling unusually sly, I'd suggest that you meditate on that. (They're purely decorative.)

DMH stuff

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
thank you for all your previous answers. I’ve got some more questions:

1. In DMH you mention that the solar current evolved more recently than the telluric current. Does that mean that nwyfre evolves too? And if the telluric current was here first, didn’t it pose a state of imbalance until it was balanced by the solar current? Does the solar current affect animals, given that it has to do with the mind?

2. You say in DMH that the lunar current does not exist naturally in the individual or the world. Yet its symbols are the egg and the child which are natural. Without the explanation that it has to be created, I would have thought it occured naturally in the act of conception, for example. Could you explain, please?

3. Last MM you mentioned the two functions of imagination: the ability to perceive and the ability to act. I see a connection with two other statements of yours:
- What makes good poetry also makes good magic.
- Ritual is poetry in the realm of acts. (I hope I remember the latter correctly.)
I see poetry more as the perceptive function of imagination and magic more as the active function of imagination. Could it be so?

Thank you,

Hana
aka Maroon Somnolent Filbert - my English wasn’t good enough for that, I had to look up the words to know whether I should worry ;-)

Re: DMH stuff

[ecosophia]

1) Nwyfre evolves, and so does everything else, but it's not the solar current as such that evolved more recently -- it's the ability we have as human beings to tap into it. (The solar current has been here as long as the Sun has.) Animals and plants also relate to the solar current, just not as intensely, and their balance between the currents is appropriate for them, just as ours is appropriate for us.

2) You've just asked me to explain the secret of the Grail -- and no, I don't mean that metaphorically, or as a joke. This is something you need to seek for yourself; systematic meditation on the symbols is a good place to start.

3) Poetry and magic are twins; there's a reason why in English we've got the word enchantment! Poetry is perceptive in some sense, but it can also be profoundly active and creative.

Glad to help with your English vocabulary! ;-)

-- Citrine Oracular Raccoon