The Universe Has a Wicked Sense of Humor

[ecosophia]

This afternoon I was reading regular commenter Robert Mathiesen's highly useful essay on Anglo-American occultist Emma Hardinge Britten, in preparation for a future essay over on the other blog.  Britten got some of her occult background from a gentleman she anonymizes under the label "Chevalier Louis de B---," and edited two books based on his ideas and writings. Robert identifies the mysterious Chevalier as Ernst Christian Ludwig von Bunsen (also known as Ernest de Bunsen), who also wrote several books on related subjects under his own name. 

Like a great many 19th century occultists -- Eliphas Lévi was another -- von Bunsen believed that magic, witchcraft, spiritualism, and prophecy were all among the effects of a force not known to science -- a force which surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.  Just about every writer on that subject had his or her own name for this force, and since I've read a lot of 19th century occultism I was used to terms such as animal magnetism, vril, od, orgone, ga-lama, and various other names. The term for the force that von Bunsen put at the head of his list, though, came as something of a surprise to me: 

Maga. 

Fans of the current US president will doubtless be amused and delighted by this, but I doubt they'll be surprised. 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Do you think Trump has tapped the maga to MAGA? ;)

[ecosophia]

Well, Trump learned a lot from Norman Vincent Peale, who came from the pragmatic end of the New Thought movement -- and there are certainly quite a few Kek worshipers who are heavily into MAGA in both senses!

[(Anonymous)]

Wow!! 2020 is going to turn out to be one of those watershed years like 1453, 1776 or 1914 where things get turned upside down and history shifts radically, affecting the course of events for centuries to come and in ways no one expects. Grand mutation indeed.

[ecosophia]

That's a sense I've had for some time now.

[lincoln_lynx]

Hahaha

It's a shame that Trump changed his slogan to Keep America Great this time around.

[ecosophia]

Sure, but I still see more MAGA than KAG when I go lurk on Trumpista websites. The maga is with them. ;-)

[ecosophia]

Belief in coincidence is the most common superstition of the age of science. I'm glad to say I gave it up many, many years ago!

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m a Trump fan, more that I view him as the lesser evil, but it’s still funny!

[(Anonymous)]

"Cthulhu in 2020. Why vote for the lesser of two evils?"

Last decade popular fannish bumper sticker, updated.

[(Anonymous)]

There is an Israeli martial art called Krav Maga (Hebrew for "hand to hand combat"). This is the martial art taught to members of the IDF, Shin Bet and the Mossad. The deadlier and more advanced techniques are only taught to spies, members of special forces units and others with special security clearances. Ex military and intelligence personnel who want to teach Krav Maga to civilians have to get permission, are restricted as to what they can teach and are subject to supervision by the Israeli MOD.

[ecosophia]

So I've read. My Hebrew is very limited; what does the word "maga" mean by itself in Hebrew?

[(Anonymous)]

Even people who hate him grudgingly admire his relentless self-confidence. Usually it's a result either of being delusional, or of having worked well on yourself. His actions show no indication that it is the former. And of course, when you start sensing some of the entities that inhabit the blind spots of modern culture, and start working with them (and they start taking interest in what you do), some surprising things happen.

I recently read Julius Caesar's bio, and was floored by the parallels (Spengler chose the moniker for charismatic populist dictators well).

Otto Von Bismarck's quote "The statesman's task is to hear God's footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past." always intrigued me. That's a remarkably humble and honest statement for an aristocrat who dominated European politics. I wonder if he practised some form of occultism. He was a very devout christian though.

Ramaraj

[ecosophia]

As far as I know, Bismarck wasn't any kind of occultist, just a very smart, experienced, and thoughtful politician. It was surprisingly common in the 19th century for people in politics to be aware that many political choices are made, not by politicians, but by forces they can't control -- circumstances, historical legacies, the opinion of the masses, and so on. Pity that's so rare now.

[(Anonymous)]

I have to say that the presidential campaign seems to be weirdly flat at the moment. I keep expecting it to "kick off" at some point, but so far nothing much has happened - at least as far as the campaign itself is concerned.

No sign of Kek or any oher divine interruptions either. I wonder if the "surprise" of the 2020 campaign is that it will turn out to be unexpectedly dull.

[ecosophia]

Always a possibility!

[(Anonymous)]

That's cute... But I'm honestly at a loss as to see how Trump has Made America Great Again. Maybe I'm missing something (I'm not a US citizen), but all I've seen reported lately is protests, riots, federal vs. state conflicts, escalating coronavirus infections, the list goes on. As far as I can tell, the US was once great, but it's not anymore, and, like the UK with its former status, probably never will be again.

[(Anonymous)]

It depends on what one means by great. The sun is setting on the US empire, without doubt, and nothing can be done to prevent that. A whole lot can be done, however, to adjust to the coming conditions or to squander resources trying to stop the inevitable. Trump, for all his many faults, is doing something of the former. Biden (and the Democrats generally right now) is 100% the latter.

If by “great” one means, “sole global hyper-power,” then no, he’s done nothing of the kind. If, however, by “great” one means “making America a place where the working classes are once again afforded respect and can support their families,” then he’s made some modest steps that no one else had been willing to commit to. The recent executive order on federal hiring standards, making education a non-exclusive standard by allowing skills and experience to be considered on equal terms, is one small example of pushing back against the professionalized upper-middle classes.

I’m no fan of Trump’s methods or his personality, but he’s the only one doing what needs to be done, so I’ll be voting for him this fall.

—David BTL

[(Anonymous)]

Well they do call him God Emperor Trump. I also noticed there is a fb group called Witches for Trump. Maga magic.

When will your book on Trump be out by the way?

[(Anonymous)]

"Witches for Trump".

Which is ironic considering all the Wiccan and Neopagan groups that were publicly doing anti-Trump rituals, as per the earlier discussions about Michael M Hughes and the soi-disant Magical Resistance. There were at least two Witches for Trump groups on Faceplant when I checked. One calls itself "The Real Witches for Trump" and describes itself as a "Safe haven for Conservative witches and those who support President Trump".

There is also a group calling itself The Witches Against Trump (TWAT)", and no, I'm not making up the acronym. It's in the official title of their group. Self-parody, truth in advertising, or a combination of both?

Its interesting to note that all three groups have roughly the same number of members, but judging from average posts per day, the pro-Trump Witches groups seem to be much more active.

[kylec]

I completely forgot to share my own symchronicity but this happened a couple of weeks ago after reading the Magic Monday electoral college threads. I had to make an online payment with a little-used card, one whose number I didn't know. I typed it in, then turned it over to get the three-digit security number.

Care to guess what it was?

538

MAGA magic

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a fan of the president, though of course I don't believe he's perfect and I'm not a fan of everything he does / says. However with what he has done with the arresting of confirmed child traffickers (he'd already done six times more human trafficking arrests in his first year and a half in office than Obama did in his entire eight years). Even just that alone, I don't see how any reasonable person can still call him the antichrist or whatever drivel we're all supposed to blindly repeat about him. Throughout his term I've come to suspect that there are actually some pointedly good intentions coming from him and his people, in spite of the headlines and the methods of going about it. This is a hard pill to swallow for most because being wealthy and orange, he's exceedingly easy to hate.

Re: MAGA magic

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have any references for the arrests of child traffickers? Are you referring to Epstein, et. al. or other less well publicized cases? I know that there have been allegations from Trump supporters that some of the children separated from adults at the Mexican border were being trafficked, but I haven't followed up on any of it.

Rita

MAGA

[(Anonymous)]

Sweet, sweet, sweet!

[(Anonymous)]

I fancy Trump's opponents are helping him magically by fixating so manically on him. I often walk by a mansion on which are displayed huge posters of him depicted as a swine and a monster. Plainly he's more important that whatever suit the DNC happens to select this time around.

[ecosophia]

Oh, very much so. Find a Biden voter and ask said person to make a case for voting for Biden without mentioning Trump. It's usually quite entertaining. On a magical level, yes -- all that obsessive focus on the Orange Julius simply strengthens his egregor in the popular imagination.

[syfen]

I'm not a fan of Trump even though I support some of his policies. My personal opinion is that this election is going to massive fraud, suppression, and violence combined with low voter turn out. Trump will probably take the White House, but I have my doubts about the Republicans taking the legislative. Either way, we'll enter the next four years with a divided nation and a shattered economy. Trump won't be the grand or terrible leader everyone expects him to be, but some things will get done that need to get done.

As for the magic...magic's only useful if you can group the energies. Trump has shown some ability to ground the energies that are flowing through the world right now, but the number of opportunities he's missed is staggering.

Regards,

Syfen

[(Anonymous)]

Unreal! Wow

"The Meaning of Trump"

[(Anonymous)]

Neptune's Dolphins.

"Meaning of Trump" from Zero Books (John Hunt Publishing) by Brian Francis Culkin has an interesting take on Trump.

From the blurb:

The election of Donald Trump was a shattering moment to the political sensibilities of America; immediately sending the country into a frenzy of commentary, critique, and a never-ending media coverage that has bordered on the absurd. But the question still remains: what does it all mean?

The Meaning of Trump is an ideological critique that sees the election of Donald Trump as a completely natural progression to the general trajectory of digitized technologies, neoliberalism, and a new breed of financialized capitalism; destructive global forces that know no party affiliation or national boundary. Although Donald Trump is undoubtedly the symptom that has exploded to the surface after nearly four decades of failed policies and broken promises by both Republicans and Democrats alike, his election can also be seen as an existential fork in the road for both the United States and even humanity itself.

What path is taken still remains to be seen.
-----
I read the book, which is a slim volume, and made notes.

The author posits that Trump is a gift from the Gods. It is up to humans to figure out what that gift is. But that his happening was beyond a simple election but was ordained by the Gods. This matches my thinking of Trump as something beyond human concepts.

I did note in my thinking of Trump that he exposes the dark side of people. I didn't realize that until I was watching the coverage of John Lewis's death. What I remember is that in the last three years, how shrill and dark Lewis became, along with Pelosi and others.
---
Of course the author then goes off the rails to predict some sort of leftist utopia.