Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight as I write this, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. Let's start things out with a quote again: 

 

"The instrument of all human enlightenment is an educated mind illuminated by revelation.  Everybody is familiar with the phenomenon of synchronicity, whereby an idea which occurs to one person is repeated in the minds of others through some process that transcends physical communication.  Past and present are linked by a thread of inspiration that runs through each generation.  Everything that has been known remains alive and may be invoked by one individual to become the common property of his time." 

That's from John Michell's The View Over Atlantis, in case you were wondering.  

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

“Conjunctio”: Geomantic Dialectic

[tunesmyth]

Happy Eclipse Solstice, everyone!

I'll just take this opportunity to hop in much earlier in the comments cycle this week to advertise the new Geomancy conversation site, "Conjunctio":

https://conjunctio.dreamwidth.org

It's been a pleasant place to spend time so far-- not the intense frenetic hubbub of Magic Monday, but a place to relax and enjoy some nice, thought provoking conversations. All are welcome!

Re: “Conjunctio”: Geomantic Dialectic

[ecosophia]

Huzzah! Geomancy has been something of a passion of mine since I first encountered it at the age of 16 in the pages of King and Skinner's Techniques of High Magic, and it's heartening to see it getting some well-deserved attention again.

[(Anonymous)]

What are the basic elements of a ceremony to a god during the first three days of the new moon?

Would I do it once or thrice during those first three days?

Besides, incense and prayer...what would you recommend doing to honor or strethen the connection and empower the intent?

Thanks a bunch

[ecosophia]

That's a little like asking "what are the basic elements of a meal?" It depends on which god, what tradition you're working in, what skills you have, and so on.

[(Anonymous)]

In your recent post on the Cosmic Doctrine, in considering the importance of engaging with planetary spirits with full objective consciousness, you mentioned the pre wwii Germanic occultists of the Germanenorden and the Thule-Gesellschaft as counter examples. Could you elaborate on this more? Were they working with planetary energies while in dissociative states? Do you have any good reading recommendations about what caused these occult groups to go off the rails so badly?

[ecosophia]

You can actually get a good idea of their work by watching Leni Riefenstahl's famous film Triumph of the Will, which chronicles one of the Nuremberg rallies. Those were designed to duplicate the effects of the older rituals of the Armanen-Orden, the Germanenorden, and the Thule-Gesellschaft on a much larger scale. It's all about swamping the mind with over-the-top symbolism and collective emotion whipped up to fever pitch. As for reading material, the best starting place is still Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's The Occult Roots of Nazism.

[(Anonymous)]

There seem to be quite a few ecosophians in British Columbia; would anyone on here be interested in attending a west coast potluck or gathering of some sort?

Happy Magic Monday,

Bewilderness

BC Ecosophian

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Bewilderness,
I live on Denman Island. Happy to meet up. My email is my name in lower case maxine dot rogers at gmail dot com.

[(Anonymous)]

Besides the really advanced astrology timing..

If I was to perform a ritual on Sunday during the hour of the sun...is there a simple next level specificity during that hour that makes it more connective than less?

Like...the beginning of that hour, the end, or the middle? Or perhaps an earlier sun hour compared to a later one?

[ecosophia]

As long as it's the day and hour of the sun, it's the day and hour of the sun. I've done planetary workings at every one of those hours, with equally good results.

Plantary charity

[(Anonymous)]

What would be the appropriate day/planetary correspondence for the following:

1) A food bank. Is that Friday? Or Monday?

2) A community legal clinic that gives legal advice and support to those who can't afford it.

Thanks!

Re: Plantary charity

[ecosophia]

I'd assign the first to Saturday and the second to Thursday. Saturn rules poverty and almsgiving, and Jupiter rules judges, courts, and justice.

Dolmen Arch questions

[(Anonymous)]

1) In the second grade of the Dolmen Arch, when gazing at a coloured circle and then concentrating on the complementary-coloured afterimage, is the goal to learn to maintain the afterimage indefinitely? I notice that as it fades I can bring it back once or twice.

2) Regarding the words of the DA version of the SOP: what if I do not particularly want to achieve Gwynfydd in this life and am fond of physical manifestation? Can I leave those words out? Would it be better to use the DMH version, since that intention is part of the egregore of the DA version?

3) I came across another version of "Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed" which translated Pryderi to "END of trouble" instead of "trouble;" why does the DA say this translates as "trouble," which is a rather opposite meaning? Before I came across the alternate version I was already troubled by how the translation of Pryderi as 'trouble' fit into the dialogue (if Rhiannon's trouble is ended, why is it fitting to name her son trouble?). Yet perhaps there is a deliberate reason for this seeming mismatch?

Many thanks!
-Bewilderness

Re: Dolmen Arch questions

[ecosophia]

1) Not necessarily. It's simply one way to start developing certain kinds of clairvoyance.

2) You can use the words from the DMH if you prefer.

3) The Welsh word pryderi literally means "trouble," "care," "worry." The mismatch is quite deliberate, and is meant to be unpacked in meditation -- like the fact that Pwyll's name means "intelligence" and yet he acts like an idiot!

[(Anonymous)]

I hope you don't mind me mentioning this, but I found in the Canadian Cancer ingress and the solar eclipse which just passed, evidence for Queen Elizabeth II dying. I've also found evidence for that in the lunation which just passed, and so I'm reasonably confident I can time it to this lunar month.

1) Given you also saw evidence for this in the UK chart, I figured you might be interested in seeing it shows up in Canada's chart as well. This also seems to suggest that there will be evidence in every commonwealth realm's charts, which may be a project I'll take on later.

2) This also got me thinking about the coronation, and I'm not curious about something: from an occult perspective, how much power does a coronation ceremony have? Is it something which matters astrologically? Do you know any sources on the topic?

*link to the blog: https://canadianmundanecharts.wordpress.com/

[ecosophia]

I don't mind at all.

1) That's fascinating. My read of the ingress chart, for what it's worth, is that Elizabeth herself isn't going to die in the next three months but someone in the royal family is, and she herself won't live out the period of 5 years plus in which the eclipse has its effect. Still, I'm quite prepared to be wrong!

2) A coronation ceremony should be planned for an astrologically propitious time. John Dee did that for Queen Elizabeth I, and you'll notice that it worked! Unfortunately that's unlikely to happen now. The coronation chart ought to tell you quite a bit about the reign of the next king, though, for good or ill.

[(Anonymous)]

Not a question, but there's something which suddenly makes sense in my natal chart: I was born less than an hour after the first full moon after the summer solstice. This always struck me as odd, as my identity and emotions were always at odds in a subtle but important way, but my sun and moon were almost perfectly conjunct. The most recent Cosmic Doctrine post has something which helped make sense of it: I was born shortly after the summer solstice, so with the sun in "full, waning", with my moon in "new, waxing".

Of course, without taking seasons or lunar phase into account, it doesn't make sense, but with them, of course there would be a subtle tension between the sun and moon if they are at opposite phases!

[ecosophia]

Er, do you mean the first new moon after the summer solstice? At the full moon the sun and moon are in opposition.

[(Anonymous)]

Is Couliano's "Eros and Magic in the Renaissance" worth reading?

What's a good English-language introduction to Renaissance magic?

[ecosophia]

1) Yes, but read it critically. Couliano thought of magic as a way of manipulating and controlling others; he never grasped the higher, participatory and transformative dimensions of magic. That's why he ended up with a bullet in his brain -- the blowback from manipulative magic can be very harsh.

2) I don't know of a good general introduction to the subject. Anyone else?

[(Anonymous)]

I practice the heathen lrp and middle pillar, I don't do anything beyond that because I have young children. I'm curious if there is a way to specifically invoke healing energy (for myself) without going beyond the lrp and/or middle pillar?

Thanks

[ecosophia]

See if you can find a copy of Israel Regardie's short book The Art of True Healing. It teaches several ways of using the Middle Pillar exercise for healing purposes.

[(Anonymous)]

Which poet, in your current mood, would you suggest magically inclined teens to read to expand their ability to visualize?

[ecosophia]

I wouldn't recommend poetry for that; I'd recommend visualization exercises. I'd recommend poetry to get a sense of vivid and evocative language; William Butler Yeats comes instantly to mind in that context, and (for those who don't suffer from chronocentrism*) Vachel Lindsay.

*Chronocentrism? That's the attitude that insists that people from earlier historical periods should be judged and condemned according to our present day attitudes. It's exactly the same thing as ethnocentrism, just applied to time instead of space.

[(Anonymous)]

What are some powerful rituals for connecting to Hermes?

[ecosophia]

What kind of ritual background do you have? The most powerful ritual in the world won't do you a bit of good if you haven't put in the necessary training to do it with effect.

[(Anonymous)]

I've worked a lot of with mantras...I've been practicing the SOP for 7 months.

So I am sort of new. I've been reading the Orphic hymn to Hermes the past week or so during many of the hours of Hermes throughout.

[ecosophia]

Okay. As a beginner you want to start simple. Set up an altar to Hermes if you don't have one already; get a statue if you can. Burn incense to him and recite the Orphic hymn every Wednesday in one of the hours of Mercury. In your daily meditations, use the words Io Hermes as your mantra. That lays the foundation. In the meantime, choose a system of magical training -- any system that appeals to you -- and get to work on it. Each such system has rituals that can be adapted to invoke a god, and those rituals are graded, from simple to more complex. Work your way up step by step, while maintaining the basic practices. You'll make the contact sooner than you think.

[(Anonymous)]

I want to sing everyday.

I want to sing songs that deeply touch the soul that don't require..a great voice.

Any recommendations?

[ecosophia]

Talk to a music coach, not an occultist.

Solar eclipse

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG

During a solar eclipse the solar current grows weaker. Would the hours of a solar eclipse be an opportune time for less savoury beings to project themselves or manifest themselves on earth in your experience?

Also, is it workable to use the wand enchantment for a sickle.

Thanks!

Re: Solar eclipse

[ecosophia]

1) Eclipses of both kinds are traditionally highly malefic, and yes, malign beings can manifest themselves during eclipses. Back in the day, people practiced rituals to keep such beings from hanging around afterwards, but that's mostly been forgotten these days.

2) Which wand enchantment? I've given instructions for half a dozen of those in different books...

Love and Magic in the Descent

[boulderchum]

Salutations and Happy Solstice to you JMG!

1) I recently attended a wedding of my friend (it went very well) during which I brought home a slice of wedding cake and caught the brides garter during the garter throwing tradition. I recall something from a dramatization of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot I watched as a kid about leaving a slice of wedding cake under your pillow to dream of your future spouse - which strikes me as similar to those traditions of Catholic magic involving purloined pieces of Eucharist wafers - although I'm unsure as to its authenticity.
Given the materials I have (wedding cake, garter) is there a more robust or widely practiced bit of folk magic for attracting or learning about a future spouse? Preferably non-Hoodoo, as I'm still working around some inexplicable mental hangups around Hoodoo practice.

2) I'm starting to get mental strain, headaches and temporary waves of fatigue after LIRP/LBRP and meditation. I see this as a good sign of development, but I'm wondering if I should space out my practice to give my astral "muscles" a chance to rest and heal or to just push through daily and treat the headaches with ibuprofen.

3) I have a wildly speculative hypothesis I'd like to run by you. It came to me a long while back, then was forgotten, then remembered again while pacing in a circle and daydreaming on occult topics:
The exact patterns of timing of constellations and the heavenly luminaries influence and shape the Solar current as it descends. Druids both past and present LOVE trees and tree planting. Could the planting of trees in exact patterns of spacing be a method of "terrestrial constellation construction"? A sort of opposite technology to your proposed temple technology, where Telluric energy is harvested, shaped and spread by the Tree Constellations into forms of manifestation ruled by the Solar current?

Re: Love and Magic in the Descent

[ecosophia]

1) I don't. Hoodoo is my folk magic of choice, and these days it's most of what I know and practice. The one piece of advice I can offer is that the most successful love spells always focus on removing unlovable qualities so you can become more lovable.

2) Regular massage will do you much more good than ibuprofen.

3) There's some reason to believe that this has in fact been done.

[booklover1973]

Hello again, J. M. Greer!

A few days ago, I cast a geomantic divination (house chart), about the question of how many months the Covid 19 pandemic will still endure. The results were:

1. Puella
2. Albus
3. Cauda Draconis
4. Cauda Draconis
5. Puer
6. Puer
7. Caput Draconis
8. Laetitia
9. Via
10. Populus
11. Populus
12. Via

The left witness, the right witness and the judge were all Populus. According to the rules in "The Art and Practice of Geomancy" that means that the pandemic will endure 120 or 79 months, since that is what Puer in the sixth house, which is among other things, the house of health, means.
This seems a bit implausible, so that either this method for divining timespans doesn't work, or something has gone wrong.
Any thoughts?

My second question: Which was the book which deals with the many failed religions?

[ecosophia]

1) See what happens, and judge accordingly. That's how you calibrate a divination system.

2) I'm not sure which book you're referring to.

Borage

[kimberlysteele]

Dear JMG and Commenters:

I'm going to be picking some of the borage I grew this Thursday during Jupiter hour. It's blooming profusely and I expect it to keep doing so for at least another week. If you've read JMG's Natural Magic, you'll know the reasons for desiring borage. If anyone is interested, please PM me on Dreamwidth.

Kimberly

[(Anonymous)]

Hi there JMG:
I've started studying geomancy and haven't got bad readings. In fact, most of them have been spot on! However, the most recent has me a bit stumped. We'd like to buy our own place, as a mortgage would actually be cheaper than the rental we're currently paying. I did a quick shield chart (I know to do several) and it came up:
RW: Albus
LW: Laetitia
Judge: Amissio
We are approaching this in a very detached manner, concentrating on practical issues, so Albus makes sense. But Laetitia with Amissio? I'm stumped.
Hope you can help.
Lex aka Turquoise Hyperactive Stoat (Amen to that!)
PS I'll be joining Conjunctio, tunesmyth, just give me a mo'

[ecosophia]

That's very straightforward. Amissio as judge with two good figures as witness means that you'll be able to let go of something or get rid of something, and with Laetitia as left witness, the sigh of relief will be audible on the Moon.

Where does the Way of Points end up?

[(Anonymous)]

As part of my meditations I've realised that I have to start to deal with my studiously ignored student loans. In my country they are administered by the tax office. Does that mean they are ruled by Saturn, and so making payments in the day and hour of Saturn might help make it less painful to deal with?

[ecosophia]

All debts are ruled by Saturn, so that's the day and hour to use.

Affirmation

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,

You do know a little about Buddhist practice, so I suppose you would be familiar with the practice of "dedicating merit" at the end of each practice.

I've been trying to combine affirmations together with dedicating my merit at the end of my daily practice.

I've been meandering around a bit and am trying to figure out the best phrasing for it.

May I grow in all positive qualities and overcome my negative qualities and habits.

May I find success in my endeavours, both secular and with the Dharma.

May I grow ever worthier of attracting a beautiful, intelligent partner interested in spirituality.

Right now I say all 3 at the end of each session, after the more "altruistic" aspirations of dedicating the merit for all sentient beings etc.

Should I just stick to one? How do you think the phrasing could be improved?

Thanks!

Re: Affirmation

[ecosophia]

First, you should certainly choose one and concentrate on that. All magic, and affirmations are a form of magic, gains power from unity of focus.

Second, aren't you defeating the purpose of the practice? You're basically saying, "I release all the merit instead of keeping it for my selfish desires, and here's a list of the things I want." Take your pick...

Natural magic for balancing moon

[open_space]

1) In my natal chart I have a lot of moon activity. Cancer with Moon and Mercury R in Cancer as well. I do find myself being overt emotionally swept in situations which I would like to have more control of. For example I cry easily and react emotionally to many situations I would prefer to keep my cool. Would I balance this with a lunar piece like perls or silver to adjust the moon’s influence into a healthier state or should I use something on the opposite side like the sun to balance the lunar influence?

2) Are there magical traits that could benefit me in Magic of having sun and moon in Cancer?

2) I found lemon balm just laying around in the sidewalk. Lot's of it. How can Lemon balm be prepared for its magical usage? I know that it is used for tea but what other uses does it have?

Thank you for your time, as always

Re: Natural magic for balancing moon

[ecosophia]

1) If you've already got too much Moon you don't want to add more lunar influence! What to use in order to balance it depends on what planets are well dignified in your natal chart.

2) Here again, it depends entirely on what else is going on in your natal chart. What planets rule the 8th and 9th houses, and how are those planets dignified?

3) Any good book on natural magic will give you plenty of uses for this and other herbs.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been reading Jean Dubuis' alchemy manuals. Some works may need constant attention for 18-20 hours, but then be left in a fridge or incubator for weeks or months. How do you plan the workflow (the Great Workflow)? :) How many projects will an alchemist have on the go at one time?

[ecosophia]

Do one at a time until you've gotten enough experience to be able to fit more than one into the flow of work. Me, I always did one and only one at a time.

Past Lives

[(Anonymous)]

Dear JMG,
A couple of weeks ago you very kindly responded to my question about obsessive privacy and secrecy in daily life, suggesting that I consider possible past life experiences as a spy or a resistance worker. Given that other people reported the same issue, I am taking the liberty of recounting how I got on with that consideration, even though it’s not strictly to do with magic.
It’s generally accepted that fears and traumas of all kinds leave traces in the body and the nervous system. A number of therapies exist to deal with such problems, many energy-based. One which I have used is usually called the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or more popularly « tapping. » There are many variations but all make use of points on the body corresponding to organ meridians in Chinese medicine. You generally begin by finding a setup phrase which describes what you understand as your condition (eg « I’m angry about the way my parents treated me that time ») and see what physical sensations it produces and where. Then, tapping in sequence through the points, you start with a permissive formula : « Even though I’m angry …. » etc, finishing with a positive statement like « I deeply and completely accept myself. » (Quite why this works is unclear, but it does). You then go round the points several times, and usually the emotions and the physical discomfort are reduced, or even eliminated.
More recently, Steve Wells, an Australian EFT practitioner has developed other verbal formulas to use while tapping, and even when tapping is not practically possible. For example: « I release all my emotional attachments to » (fear, trauma etc.). This reflects the fact that we often can’t let go of such things voluntarily or automatically.
Now then, it struck me that if these techniques are effective against trauma in our current embodied existence, they should ideally be equally useful against inherited past-life traumas, not least as a diagnostic tool.
The first step was to simply relax, close my eyes, and repeat something like « I release all my emotional attachments to memories of having been a spy in a past life. » (The effect of repeated statements of this kind equates quite quickly to being in a meditative state). I got an immediate strong, physical reaction. Without boring you with the detail, I was able to the narrow this down to a period (WW2), and to a year (1943), by working systematically through the dates, and checking several times that I got the same reaction from the same inputs. Likewise for places: Paris (quite strong) Berlin (stronger) Brussels (very strong and very negative: it’s a city I’ve always disliked). Out of interest, I tried Buchenwald, a concentration camp where many non-German resistance workers were sent. That got a strong reaction, but apparently I didn’t die there - that was in Paris in 1948.
Obviously all this is highly subjective, but the reactions are consistent (becoming less pronounced over time, as you’d expect, because of the healing effect of repetition) and the story that emerges is coherent, and consistent with known historical facts and personal experiences (I avoided learning German when I should have, for example, though I speak fluent French). I’ve been treating these « recovered » traumas with EFT and the results seem promising. In the last few days I’ve been trying to find when and where I was born in that incarnation, and I think I have pinned it down to a place and a year. It’s time-consuming, but it does seem to work.
Apologies for the length of this, but I thought it might be of some general interest.

Re: Past Lives

[ecosophia]

Fascinating! None of this surprises me; given the number of people who got caught up in the secret side of the Second World War, there must be tens of thousands of souls going through that sort of thing. I'm glad you worked out a way to begin to release the burdens of it.