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

[(Anonymous)]

I'm working through the completion exercises for the first grade of the Dolmen Arch. I have a couple questions:

1) am I correct that these take the place of the daily discursive meditation temporarily, or should I be doing both?

2) how do I know when I have completed them? Is there a range of how many repetitions this generally takes? I'm on completion exercise 1, which I feel pretty good about, but looking ahead to exercise 2 I forsee a difficulty: I still can barely visualise at all. Can I complete the exercise by non-visually imagining that I am doing it, or is it only complete if I successfully visualise looking at my body from the outside?

Many thanks for Magic Mondays!
-Bewilderness

[ecosophia]

1) You should be doing both.

2) When I was teaching this as a correspondence course I encouraged students to give a week or so to each of them. As for "non-visually imagining," this is quite adequate for all forms of magical work. Don't assume that you have to create a seemingly objective image in front of you!

[(Anonymous)]

Not the OP.

I started the SoP recently and the visualizing has been a problem. Part of it is that I suck at visualization but there's also some confusion about how the beam of light from above which goes down into the Earth should be visualized.

I've been imagining the beam as more of a background light, above my head, as I face directly forward, and facing forward I would not be seeing the light come down unless I were to be looking up, or maybe I should be imagining myself sort of disembodied in space watching the light come from some source beyond, down to where I'm at?

There is a similar issue with when the light goes down into the Earth and comes back up.

Oh yeah and should I be "feeling" the beam of light, like warmth as it moves through me?

[ecosophia]

Experiment and see what works best for you. There isn't one right way for everybody -- quite the contrary, the personal element is hugely important.

Non visual imagining

[(Anonymous)]

Hi there,

Hope it's ok if I follow up on your second point there. This is something I have wondered myself. My visual confidence comes and goes during the SOP. It is gradually improving for sure, but there are still some days where I just don't seem to have the right mental energy for concrete "objective" images.

On those occasions I often settle for a sort of knowing/feeling what is in front of me, with conviction.

At other times it has a more "subjective" feel i.e. the image is there but seems more "inside" me as if imagined with the eyes closed, though they are in fact open.

I take it these imaginal vagaries are not a problem then even, for example, with the symbols and the sphere?

N.B. In the elemental scenes I am able to include smell and hearing etc with little trouble which certainly helps, but I am thinking just of the visual sense here.

Many thanks,
Morfran

Re: Non visual imagining

[ecosophia]

Such variations are common, and no problem at all.