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!*** 

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

1) Do you know anything which looks at which sect Uranus and Neptune belong to, or is something I'll need to develop myself?

2) I'm starting LRM, and have found most of it intuitive, but every time I do the breathing relaxation exercise, I feel the need to void my bowels. Is this normal?

3) You've mentioned things are returning to normal in Rhode Island. I live in Canada, and things are emphatically not. My city has just shut down a restaurant for having the audacity to allow people to wait on its patio. Do you have advice on how to stay sane when it's fairly clear that the country you live in has gone insane, and “normal” won't be returning any time soon?

4) Since advertising is a corrupt form of magic, I figure it's not out of place to ask a few questions on the topic. I've started doing research into the 1950s, and part of that is I'm currently reading The Hidden Persuaders, and have found it raises a lot of questions. Some of them are for further research, but I've got a few I'd like to ask here:

a) Something that strikes me is that the Myth of Progress in the modern, highly toxic and bizarre form, took shape in the post-war world, and it seems like a logical extension of one of the core messages of advertising: “Old is bad, New is good!” Do you think there's a connection, or am I over-analyzing it?

b) How does one keep themselves clean from it? Banishing rituals, journaling to identify and remove the hooks already in, and avoiding exposure all seem like good first steps, but are there other things worth doing to keep clean?

c) I'm also noticing that a lot of the ideas which our comfortable classes have seem to be those of the 1950s, but more extreme. This raises the question of is this why the 1950s hold such a potent place in our collective consciousness, and why it's so hard to find anything which talks about it in any sane manner? At some level, people notice that their thinking is the same as the 1950s, and since the past is evil, they can't stand that?

d) I've also noticed our chattering classes thinking can be described as “1950s thinking, minus any nuance”. Do you think advertising has created essentially a feedback loop? Our chattering classes get their thinking from the ads, and the ads are made by the chattering classes. Each generation of ad is thus further and further from the underlying reality, which has changed anyway....

5) I've noticed a few religions have an issue with male masturbation making people ritually impure, but not female masturbation. Since it's come up here before that male masturbation is more effective at releasing etheric stuff, do you think there's a connection? If so, would taking a cold shower after masturbation be a good idea?

[ecosophia]

1) I haven't seen anything exploring this. Have fun!

2) Some people experience this at first. Try doing the exercise 15 minutes before you do other practices, so you can get that out of the way.

3) Use the craziness as an opportunity to train your mind. When you encounter it, spend a moment thinking about why it's crazy. Once you've learned the Tree of Life, identify which sphere it represents in an unbalanced form. Once you know your way around the planets and the elements, identify it that way as well. Treat the craziness as a worthy opponent, one who can challenge you.

4) All of these are superb themes for meditation! Or, for that matter, for ordinary reflection. Nothing that you've suggested seems at all out of line; I'd encourage you to keep exploring all of this, and see where it takes you.

5) Yes and yes.

[(Anonymous)]

1) Well, I'll be back in a few months to report what I've learned! Even if I'm wrong, getting a conversation going will be very helpful.

2) That's what I came up with as well. Nice to know I'm doing it right! ;)

3) Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

3) That's probably good advice in general, right? Considering our societies are always crazy these days....

5) It also occurs to me this could be a good discipline to cut down on porn: "It'll feel good, but then five minutes in ice cold water.... No, it's not worth it"

[ecosophia]

3) Why, yes. Josephin Peladan wrote an entire book on the subject, and one of these days I'm going to do the same thing.

[booklover1973]

Regarding point Nr. 3, maybe there is biophobia involved, among other things. The interesting thing is, that fear of the Coronavirus is more pronounced in the more 'leftist', 'progressive' circles than among the political 'right', with the curious exception of Sweden.

[tunesmyth]

I’m very much looking forward to this book, that sounds very enlightening and useful indeed.

In the meantime it’s really good advice... “Treat the craziness as a worthy opponent, one who can challenge you” is a great way to approach any of these mass-identity consuming ideologies. Both because it keeps you dealing in a respectful way with others, and helps you keep your own balance in the face of inanities and insanities.

On "Old is Bad"

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think your 4a point is a purely post-war era development. You may want to check on the Italian Futurism movement, which dates from the 1920's, and which is spouse many of the traits that you recognize in American 1950's culture.

If anything it may be an entity that had been trying for some cultural vehicle for a couple of decades in the Modern World.

CR Patiño