ecosophia | The Revenge of Magic Monday!

Through meditation, or simply by paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and actions, you can learn to differentiate the two planetary energies and balance yourself between them. For example, I've got a Saturn-Mars square in my chart; by maintaining a conscious balance between the cold patient resistance of Saturn and the hot passionate dynamism of Mars, I can make use of either one at will. "The wise rule their stars, fools are ruled by theirs" -- it's an old adage and a good one.

I was going to comment above under "plastics", but this seems to be the perfect place for it. A while back JMG suggested benefits to treating just about any kind of "non-living" object whatsoever as conscious. At that time, our toilet was developing a problem where it runs after being flushed until you turn the cold water in the sink on/off, or if that doesn't work after several tries and associated cursing, take off the lid and bang on the float. (It got this way once before and had to be fixed by a plumber.) So I started thanking the thing whenever it behaved semi-well. And it did, over a little time, start behaving a heck of a lot better. The past week or so it's been getting flaky again, but not uber-flaky (the cold water trick works) so I continue to praise it for good behavior. Hubby (who certainly believes in incorporeal consciousnesses, but apparently not porcelain ones) heard me talking to the toilet and laughed at me. But said that he had done nothing previously to fix the thing. So this is what reading JMG has led me to, chatting with toilets.

It's not nonsense. More often, parsley is associated in magical tradition with death and the spirits of the dead, and it can bring some very problematic energies into your life unless you plant it with protective herbs.

The Watcher is a universal phenomenon; if you get involved in any spiritual path worth the name, you're going to run into it, probably much more than once. Magical theory has it that the Watcher is actually a downward projection of your own higher self, meant to keep you from starting on the path of awakening until you're actually ready to do so -- and you prove that you're ready by facing the Watcher, in whatever form it appears to you, instead of running like a rabbit.

JMG
About 2 years ago I adopted as best I could a ritual observance from your book, which I had to hand, Gnostic Celtic Church. This ritual seemed to generate protection for 'our grove', that is our family & dog, and our large plot with trees and other inhabitants. From the beginning I extended the Grove mostly to family scattered elsewhere in Britain.

I became aware from comments on your blogs that this ritual was different from the full Sphere of Protection available elsewhere, but persevered anyway with the /E/W/S/N visualization and with drawing down the vertical influence from the 'Sun', meeting the tellurium (?) moon influence from the Earth. Despite my personalized version - I still need my own approximate visualization - there seems, if very gradually, to be some help available. More recently 'the sun' seems to have helped specifically in a difficult repetitive dream - for which thanks. In a roundabout way the family connections have been worth attending to, including appreciation of some deceased members in particular an appreciation of my parents.

My question is really about the value of this rather limited exercise versus the perhaps more detailed other version(s), and the usefulness of my extending 'our grove' beyond the immediate location. I can easily visualize people creatures and locations, past and present.

best
Phil H

Try pouring a small amount of Florida Water -- a cologne much used in traditional southern conjure -- down the drain every Friday, while asking the plumbing to behave better, or to let you know if there's something it's trying to tell you. Then pay attention to dreams and unexplained hunches -- the most likely forms in which the answer will come.

Your husband will get used to it, especially when you begin to apply the same logic to other things in your life. There's a useful mystic acronym a lot of occultists used to use: TSW. It stands for "This S#!* Works" -- and it does.

Yes, but of course there's more to it than that. Anger is very often a secondary emotion -- that is to say, it's something you learn to use so you don't have to feel another, more uncomfortable emotion. (For example, it's very common for children who grow up with a lot of fear in their lives to learn how to be angry instead, because that's less of a burden.) You might consider a course of reading in transactional analysis -- the books I'd specifically recommend are Games People Play, Scripts People Live, and Born to Win -- to help you sort out the unresolved emotional business in your life that's emerging in the form of anger and frustration.

Can they be a magical hindrance, then?

I'm at the point in my Tarot practices where I'm considering designing or making my own deck. (I have basically no art skills, and while I'm aware that's not a total block, it does make it harder to get started.)

Do you have any suggestions about that? Good approaches; horrible approaches; definitely do this; skip it and stick with a deck you like if it's not clicking into place?

Are perceptions from etheric projection more accurate than those from astral projection?

I thought at first it might be one of Pauline Campanelli's beautiful books, but what you describe isn't in any of them. Nor does it seem to be in Harold A. Hansen's _The Witch's Garden_. Could it have been Dorothy Jacob's _A Witch's Guide to Gardening_ (1965)? I don't have that one, so I can't check it against your description. She also wrote _Curss and Curses_ (1967), which I don't have either. -- Robert Mathiesen

Depends on what you use them for. I wouldn't try making a talisman or a magical working tool out of plastic, certainly.

Perceptions of what? Your astral senses will accurately perceive the astral plane, your etheric senses will do the same on the etheric plane; neither one will perceive the physical plane clearly -- you need to use physical senses for that.

The ritual as given in The Gnostic Celtic Church is the standard Sphere of Protection as taught in AODA and elsewhere, so you should be fine. (You might consider picking up a copy of The Druid Magic Handbook for more pointers on how to use it.) Yes, you can certainly use it to direct blessings and protections across distance; when I was the head of AODA we several times used the Sphere of Protection to direct healing energies at a member of the order who needed it, and had some remarkable cures as a result.

I don't really have any suggestions, as I've never tried that myself -- I've used a range of different decks, and when I get bored with one I usually just go try another.

I asked partly because I like to learn things with the possibility of passing them on one day in mind, and that skill would be hard to get from books. Are the hermetic teaching methods transferable to the druidical GD?

(I already have the chance to join a worthwhile GD group, according to an expert opinion, not my own assessment)

So what is the best magical companion plant for parsley? Mine is growing and reseeding itself and it's the only thing that survived the recent cold snap.

1. What is happening when I do the proper rituals, prayers, and I feel nothing sometimes, whereas most times I feel Their presence. Is the God still listening, or taking a break, or have you experienced this? I’ve done meditation on this, and I feel they’re still listening, but it’s something to note.
2. Dealing with doubt. There’s apparently a phenomenon where if you stand on the edge of a cliff, you get intrusive thoughts like „I could definitely just jump off; what’s stopping me.” Sometimes, I get these sudden thoughts that magic isn’t real, or I get impious thoughts about the existence of the Gods. But then I shake my head realize the absurdity of those thoughts and go on my way. But their intrusiveness is unnerving. Doesn’t happen often, though. What’s going on here? Is it a holdover from my atheist past?

I know it’s a lot to ask, but I have to say I keep going back to my most favorite book of yours: A world full of Gods. Really happy I got it signed by you last year; just wish it was a bit longer ;)

Thanks for doing these magic mondays!

Hi JMG,
My second Saturn Return started a couple weeks ago, and in that time an ancestral grandfather has made himself known to me, and I am grateful for that. My sense of myself seems also to expand several feet out from time to time, so it feels like I’m sort of watching myself from a distance. What may be up with that? And, as has been happening ever since I was initiated into Reiki II over a year ago, I feel the presence of several types of animals at various times of the day, generally around my SOP/meditation time in the morning, and distance Reiki time at night. I’m very fond of these animals, but haven’t a clue what they may be, other than my imagination. Anyway, I enjoy the sense of their presence, and thank them for coming. I’ve followed you long enough, though, to know there may be more to the story. As always, your insights are much appreciated.

(OtterGirl)

Could you describe extending that technique to a car? I talk to it like that already, and I do think I get better performance, but what would be the car equivalent of the Florida Water part? Splashing Florida Water on the tires?

Thank you for this. It's a bit overwhelming; Saturn is aspected with every planet, including the ascendent, in my natal chart! That being said I feel strangely fond towards Saturn, that is I try to embrace my limitations as I understand that all the ways I'm limited are conversely sources of great strength. Doing some cursory research shows much truth in the ways that I'm specifically limited by Saturn. I can acknowledge the painful issues in my life, and knowing those, work to transmute them. The prima materia is associated with Saturn, of course. What other substance do I have to transmute into gold, besides these things I have thrown out into the street and cast on to the dung-hill!

Well, walking with my sister today I found a beautiful squirrel that I dressed to make soup with later and an unopened bottle of beer which is a nice microbrew lager. I lift it now in a toast to gritting my teeth and confronting my issues!

Thank you for this. I also have Mars square Saturn, and I also wondered what you meant about squares being a source of strength.

I wondered if a Saturn talisman would be useful for me, despite the affliction, given his position (in my natal chart) in Libra. I think you answered that as well!

Can pentagram rituals similarly be used at a distance?

Thank you for Magic Mondays!

In their original languages, were the names of gods and spirits also the word for what they represent/are made up of? If 'Zeus' was the word for sky, that would be a simplistic example of what I mean.

I know, this is way too general and cultures and languages and pantheons vary. But I imagine whatever you say will be interesting.

The Revenge of Magic Monday!

Re: Squaring off

My husband thinks I'm nuts now

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Re: Watcher at the Threshold

gnostic celtic church protection ritual

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Re: My husband thinks I'm nuts now

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Re: Travelling on the Astral plane

Re: Can you or a reader identify a book?

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Re: Travelling on the Astral plane

Re: gnostic celtic church protection ritual

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Prayer stuff mostly

Saturn Return/Perceptions

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Re: emptiness

Re: Squaring off

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