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, since I've been indulging in Ross Nichols' poetry of late, is The Cosmic Shape, published in 1946, which contains his brilliant essay "An Examination of Creative Myth," which discusses the need for nature-myth and ritual as a counterbalance to the artificialities of modern life, and his related Arthurisn poem-cycle "The Cosmic Legend," as well as other poems of his and his fellow poet James Kirkup. He clearly discussed these ideas with his good friend Gerald Gardner; those ideas ended up playing a central role in the creation of Wicca as well as the transformations of 20th-century Druidry. Here's a bit from "The Cosmic Legend": 

I have made my ceremonies; the crisis
comes. None may reproduce, no water flow,
until the sword is from its sheath pulled.
Only I, the medicine-man Gawain, instructing 
at midnight Galahad, the pure one of 
spring -- only I can save you, faithless 
with the fallen leaf. I prove to you,
O my dead people, once again that
I alone am your strength.

In the first ray beating touching on the centre altar-stone
to the eye prepared at vigil-end, the vessel of the sun,
cup and heart, to Galahad. 

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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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

Mysticism

[(Anonymous)]

Why is early death or cancer a risk with mysticism? Is it what Dion Fortune talks about in the Circuit of Force about them (Christian ones I presume she was thinking of) cutting themselves off from the telluric current?

Dot.

Hoodoo Bath Cloth "Reused?" - CGD comment

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG!

Happy Birthday!

In the comments on a previous Magic Monday, a commented mentioned reusing a towel or cloth from a hoodoo bath, and having a run of bad luck because of it.

The question was

"If you spill used hoodoo bath water in your house, how should you clean it up?

The first time I tried a hoodoo bath a towel got reused by accident. That caused a week of bad luck including the closest near-miss accident on a ladder I've ever had. So I've been wary of the stuff since."

You responded you should use an old rag or towel to clean up a spill, then throw it out.

I couldn't understand what the second part of this comment, (And if you are here to clarify anonymous please do!) was in reference to, to re using a wash cloth that was used in a hoodoo bath, or someone else re-using a wash cloth from a hoodoo bath? To re-using a towel used to clean up a hoodoo bath spill?

As someone doing weekly hoodoo baths is this something I should be concerned about? What do I do with previously used hoodoo bath cloths if this is the case? What should my washcloth and towel etiquette be here?



I also just wanted to remark upon how difficult I've found it to sprout a seed for starting CGD practice. 2 beans and 1 pea down here, with another just finishing soaking. I've been gardening and had no issue with sprouting seeds in soil, but this seems a whole 'nother game. It may have been too cold, the air too dry, or the watering too infrequent for the first one. The second one I brought camping with me then forgot to keep moistened for a day (it quickly dried out, or perhaps it got too cold in the tent.), and now here I am on my third. Certainly teaches you a lot about starting a practice!

Thanks as always,

-WindMan

[(Anonymous)]

Today I went into meditation feeling full of aches and pains, in refreshed after 8 hours sleep, and as frayed around the edges as an old, old shirt I'd worn for an entire week, and took that feeling into the meditation. The first thing I got was "This, too, shall pass," a much-needed reminder.

Then, that well-worn and frayed around the edges was the common lot and noting unusual except for one living in a bubble of privilege. Which, as the meditation led me to, can be temporal as well as financial or any other; it was the 50's advertising that introduced the concept of, as I put in my journal, "Brand! Name! Clean!"

And since this is the common lot, the common response is doing well with what you have, of course, like everybody else.

Believe it or not, I felt a lot better after that. Still do. And with more energy, which points out the connection between low energy and low-level depression very nicely.

The Grey Badger

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

Do you know of a good source text which elaborates on Crata Repoa and makes a workable system out of it?

[(Anonymous)]

You may find this entertaining:
https://leozagami.com/2020/06/06/archbishop-vigano-sends-unprecedented-letter-to-president-trump-denouncing-the-children-of-darkness/

The Future of Christainity

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Arch Druid,

I have been thinking a lot lately about your recent Johnny Apple Seed article and the next great religion(s) to take fold in North America as the industrial world passes away. It seems to me that liberal Protestantism is dead in the water, Catholicism is holding its ground but likely to increasingly compete with Eastern Orthodoxy, and Evangelicalism is also holding ground but likely to fall prey to the Apocalypse meme once the rapture idea becomes unattainable. So do you think the spirituality of the Radical Reformation is likely to become dominant in the coming centuries? Or do these movements generally become to eccentric to last very long? Will Christianity evolve into something very different, perhaps even pluralistic and/or pagan? Or will it die out? Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.

Loki

[(Anonymous)]

Were there many Loki devotees before the Marvel movies? Were they different kinds of people?

[thuley]

Hey JMG,

Inspired by your above comment about black candles: are there any benefic uses for the color black in magic?

I understand the satanic panic may have spooked many occultists in previous generations against any association with "black magic," but most of the edgelords that have picked up since then don't seem to know what they're doing, and other available systems take great strides to avoid it.

In principle, it seems like black could be used for the destruction of barriers or delusions, or to create a fresh start (a la new moon magic), but I know that the meaning of the color comes from the tracks in space we have laid down and not what I want the color to mean, so I'm asking you.

[(Anonymous)]

A few comments about spiritually enhanced mundane activities like "alchemical cooking" and "planting by the moon" here and there made me thinking of an analogy: In everyday life you can only discern vague hints of them, so they had been overlooked for centuries. To observe their true properties in full manifestation, you need to go to either extremely low or extremely high energies. When observed under such conditions, their ways seem to defy ordinary logic. Still, they are the essential building blocks of our material existence. I'm talking about quantum objects, obviously. The entire universe, be it "solid" matter or radiation seems to be made up by them. But usually, their "true" nature remains hidden to us, cloaked by the thermodynamic limit. Only vague hints like the line spectra of luminescent gases or the Fraunhofer lines in the spectra of stars point us towards a hidden world. But when you know how to produce ultracold quantum gases or how to collide particles at very high energy, you get a glimpse of the strange world of non-locality, entanglement and many more effects that are usually hidden.

When I work in the garden, there are so many gross mistakes I can make that it will presumably take a while and a lot of patience and practice until I can possibly observe the influences the moon has on my work distinguished from other factors. For example, after almost ten years working with and in an ever-growing garden, this year *maybe* I observed something that could possibly be ascribed to astrological influences for the very fist time. The same applies to cooking, I assume. Years ago, I prepared part of a meal which caused a sensitive person to raise their eyebrows in surprise and clearly something had happened, although I can't tell exactly what and how. So I know, this dimension exists, but to use it deliberately is different from "just" cooking. I could possibly go on with this list, for as the whole material existence seems to be made up by quantum objects, it seems to be just as much permeated by a magical dimension which - although being omnipresent - is usually concealed if you do not develop some tools that make it observable. So what the magneto-optical-trap is to the physicist are meditation, ritual and prayer to the occultist. Just as it's much easier to construct a magneto-optical-trap that looks nice but does not work than to build a working one, I assume it is much easier to engage in not-working spiritual practices than to do something that truly touches the hidden magical dimension of life.

Is there a question? Possibly not, well of course I just wonder if the analogy seems reasonable to somebody who has so far build more working MOTs than I have and how far this might go. A common mistake by scientists open to a spiritual dimension of their work is to turn the analogy into an identity and take it too seriously. Still, sometimes I wonder if the level of quantum objects is, as physicists like Henry Stapp have suggested, the place where the spiritual realm touches the material. Ah, and then I wonder if there is any reasonable literature on the alchemical dimension of cooking...

Greetings,
Nachtgurke

Magia Sexualis

[hedgerow]

I'm working through the completion exercises in the first grade of the Dolmen Arch as my partner is researching Paschal Beverly Randolph for her academic work. Would it be unwise if we began to practice his system whilst I am in the Dolmen Arch course?

Thank you for making Monday my favourite day of the week!

[(Anonymous)]

I had not read the post on the eclipse and was practicing calling earth a few days ago, and in the middle of the ceremony a group of sketchy looking young men started coming up the driveway peering around for stuff to steal. I begged the pardon of the spirits in the temple and stepped out to grab my shotgun and phone. I looked back out a window in another room to see them hesitating and turning away. Love those banishing rituals!

When I reentered the temple I could feel the magical charge, and see the geometric patterns I had drawn, but not with my eyes if you know what I mean. I apologized for leaving and picked up where I left off, but after I finished the next couple days were kind of weird so I took a break from ritual stuff. Now I am back on it and making friends with he Undines, whereas before they were very chaotic and difficult to get along with.

I am curious about the "pot boiling over" protocol for running out of the room in the middle of a ritual. Thanks!

Birthday greetings

[(Anonymous)]

Happy (slightly belated) birthday!

Many thanks for providing this forum and your work.

[tamanous2020]

Thanks for the open q and a JMG!

1. If one believes in a singular divine ground of being, but believes that say Jehovah and Allah are just lower gods, can Christian or Islamic prayers be appropriated and used for mystic prayer to the divine source instead? Or would there be negative repercussions to this?

2. Have you noticed any changes in the strength of your SoP "tracks in space" following teaching of the ritual to thousands via books or this blog?

3. Given druidry's rather Aquarian take for members beliefs and opinions, will druidry end up creating egregores as major piscean religions have?

[(Anonymous)]

Why do monotheistic religions have so many fanatic followers who are willing to wage "holy wars" against their rivals and "heretics"? Does a monotheistic religion inherently tend to crate an unbalanced egregor?

[(Anonymous)]

I have a very difficult time during the SOP to channel the white light down my center from abov into the ground.

Any advice on how I can get better at it besides daily practice? I've been working at it for 7 months now.

[(Anonymous)]

You say it is good to focus on only one system at a time...

How long should one do the SOP, discursive meditation and a fork of divination before one explores other systems along with them?

House Division in Astrology, Intent of Nonmagical Things

[joshuarout]

Dear J.M. Greer,

1) Do you have any opinions on the variety of systems of house division in astrology? Could the various divisions be somewhat like the various versions of Tarot decks - different oracular 'personalities' or areas of focus and accuracy?
Right now in horary I'm experimenting with whole signs to give the general or topical area, and Regiomontanus for more specific detail. I've just begun to study this subject and would appreciate any thoughts you have.

2) Besides specifically magical actions, should one consider and arrange the 'nonmagical' things of life to accord with the energy one is trying to attract, and if so, how much? For example, besides an overtly magical action of burning a purple candle in the day and hour of Jupiter or reciting his Orphic hymn, perhaps do other things - wear more purple, eat more liver, have more Jupiterian things in the environment, volunteer at eagle sanctuaries, associate more with overweight clergymen and lawyers, etc.? If one should arrange one's ambient energies to match the desired current, how far should one go?

Thank you for your time & for hosting these.

Regards,
Josh Rout

[(Anonymous)]

A very happy birthday to you, JMG!

Certain people seem to gain energy from being hated. Probably the easiest examples to find right now are online figures on the political right-of-center, though some notable examples also exist on the gadfly left; they take the most deranged hatred and abuse on Twitter day after day, and it only seems to encourage them. Is there a trick to this, or is it just a personality thing? Frankly it seems dangerous to me for someone to have all of that hatred directed toward him or her day after day.

-escher

Geomancy on job offer + other questions

[(Anonymous)]

1. I tried to create my own company but ended up falling apart for various reasons. Right now, I have a job offer from a certain large social media company, OTOH, I also interviewed for a small entrepreneurial company which I find really interesting and I think they like me. I feel some doubt about where to go, considering the uncertainty over the next few years. I cast a chart to ask
"Will [large social media company] bring me a stable job?"

Court
RW: Conjunctio
LW: Carcer
Judge: Via

My interpretation is that I will find stability in this job, but it might feel stifling. Conjunctio represents what I had been doing up to now (various entrepreneurship activities, contacting people etc) while Carcer the job.

Do you think this interpretation makes sense?

I guess now, I should really ask myself whether I should just go for security and stability for the next few years or go for something more risky. Journalling and reflection would probably address this question more directly than divination?

2. I have a well dignified Saturn in Aquarius close to the midheaven in a day chart in the 10th. I definitely feel a draw to older systems of magic such astrological magic and geomancy. However, I feel like my retrograde and combust Mercury in Sagittarius manifests itself in terms of having a lot of interests while not being as meticulous in any particular one in terms of ironing out the details.

What advice would you have on how to account for this?

Actually, reading through the answer you gave to the person asking about the imaginal realm this week gave me a thought-starter, i.e. focussing more on how to get things like visualisation to work rather than wondering about the reason why it works. I guess I need to meditate on this more, but intuitively it sounds like something that Kronos would do instead of Hermes.

3. This probably falls under just an observation rather than a question.

I live in Singapore, a long way from the US. I feel mystified that some people both here and outside the US feel the need to "speak up" about the protests, especially those who haven't even lived there before.

I follow what's going on myself, but as someone with no "skin in the game" (per Nassim Taleb), I don't feel qualified to make a "public statement" about the protests, especially when other injustices exist much more closely. I chalked it up to just the dominance of social media news influencing these people + virtue signalling + maybe boredom from sitting at home but wonder if there's something deeper going on.

I can't say that I penetrated to the full depth of the issue, but I had one realisation today.

One of my friends who seems very worked up about the protests, I asked her "Why?" She told me social justice interested her for a long time,studied law in university because of it and she had also worked for local social justice initiatives. I said "Fair enough."

She then proceeded to tell me about her other friend, a Singaporean who moved to Oakland to work as an activist, paint murals and support BLM. I didn't ask further, but it honestly boggled my mind why she would go all the way to the US to protest injustice when Asia already has its own share of it.

Anyway, I realised today that one could call these behaviours fundamentally religious. The civil religion of social justice, with its own pilgrimages to the centres of activism, rites (kneeling, holding out arms in protest), sermons. I've never subscribed to Christianity but I guess the forms of this religion most resemble that of Mainline Protestantism, which itself spawned much of the social justice movement anyway?

[(Anonymous)]

After coming to embrace a polytheistic worldview over the past few years or so, I've reached a point where I'm interested in buidling devotional relationships with some of the gods. In light of that, I had a couple of questions that I was hoping JMG (or the commentariat) would be willing to give me some guidance on:

1. Would it be better to select a specific deity and reach out to them, or to simply state your intent to begin a relationship and wait for a deity to reach out to you?

2. Besides divination, are there any other good methods for receiving messages or information from deities? I hear a lot about journeying, but what I've seen of it seems very mixed up in New Agey self-help type stuff.

3. Are there any dangers that should be avoided when approaching a god or gods?

[(Anonymous)]

1) Last week you wrote that a combust Saturn in a natal chart indicates the person will need to learn patience and perseverance. What does a combust Venus indicate?

2) I've just recently started the cell salt protocol. The thing I've noticed so far is that my dreams seem to be weightier, and more coherent, more obviously full of symbolism rather than mind chatter. I don't know if anyone else has noticed anything similar.

-Cliff

Grand Mutation

[(Anonymous)]

It seems possible that the nature of Saturn could "mutate" around the time of the Grand Mutation when Saturn becomes preeminent again. Reflecting and just beginning to meditate on this it occurs to me that The Wise Old Man may return to the state of agricultural God of The Golden Age, lord of not just time, but right time(ing), the Greek "kronia". Not restriction as much as responsibility and duty, executed without question or resistance as is written of humanity of that age. I wonder then if the Grand Mutation could confer a dignity of sorts, bringing forth the attributes of Saturn during His reign.
For a 60 year old man smack in the midst of a second Saturn return this subject presents many interesting opportunities for meditation, inquiry and development. As I'm not a student of astrology just yet, I wonder if there are any howlers to this line of thought?
Thank you as always for this format, and really all of your work.
Gawain

[(Anonymous)]

You mentioned "no justice, no peace" is a good way to make sure people get neither. Would you mind explaining why?

[(Anonymous)]

Hey jmg

Would I be correct in thinking that if Saturn rules agriculture, he must also rule gardening? I want to do a planetary charity to him in order to improve my rather abysmal gardening skills.

Catatonia and Banishing

[(Anonymous)]

Hello JMG,

I know this is right on the line of being too late, and of course I'll understand if you don't reply, but I thought I'd give it a shot nonetheless.

I have two, rather unrelated questions.

The first is in regard to a neighbor and friend who recently went into a state of catatonia, apparently in response to the death of a man who was like a father to hear. We are doing what we can in supporting her husband and doing what we can to help her get the best care she can, but I wanted to ask what might be done on a magical level? I am more or less a complete novice in these realms, and I know that means anything I do will not have the power of an experienced mage, but I am motivated to do what I can, and know of nowhere else to ask.

On an even more basic level, what does magic have to say about what is even happening in a state like catatonia?

Unrelated, I have been getting into a regular tarot practice (almost every day for a month or so using the Wildwood Tarot), and have recently begun feeling the need for a banishing ritual of some sort. I have a sneaky feeling that this will also lead to a need for a discursive meditation practice. My question is twofold.

First, should I wait to begin a banishing ritual until I have gotten more solidly grounded in tarot, or is it advisable to train in both simultaneously?

Second, since I am not following any particular course of study, is there any caution I should take in which banishing ritual I choose to use? I assume some mesh better or worse with various divinatory practices, and I thought you might have some advice.

Thanks again for offering this space every week!