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Magic Monday

It's getting on for midnight, so we can proceed with a new Magic Monday. 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. (Please note: Any question received after then will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. I've been getting an increasing number of people trying to post after these are closed, so will have to draw a harder line than before.) 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.

The image? That's the third card in The Sacred Geometry Oracle. Card 3, The Line, when upright tells you that it's appropriate to continue in the direction you're going; when reversed, it warns you that you are crossing a line into unfamiliar territory and some things will have to be left behind. The oak leaves on the sides of the image tell you that this card belongs to the first third of the oracle, which corresponds to Calas, the principle of solidity and materiality.

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I've also had quite a few people over the years ask me where they should buy my books, and here's the answer. Bookshop.org is an alternative online bookstore that supports local bookstores and authors, which a certain other gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I now have a shop there, which you can check out here. Please consider patronizing it if you'd like to purchase any of my books online.

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~~With that said, have at it!~~

***This Magic Monday is now closed. See you next week!***

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I've signed up with a local club to take a freezing dive into water early next year. I plan to use this for etheric cleansing. Do you, or the commentariat, have any recommendations on how I might maximize the benefit of this? I seem to recall someone mentioning that Eastern Orthodox priests have prayers or blessing they will say over the faithful who take a winter dip in a lake or river. Any rituals or other preparations I might use?

I know (or, rather, can quickly look up) the Shinto incantation and hand seal (mudra) for this, but I doubt that's suited to your needs. Anyone else?

1. Do you know of any Discordian methods of divination?

2. Earlier, you had mentioned that a demon would say something like “2+2= Petunia.” How is this different from what a Discordian would say?

Update – I performed the Turkey Curse as written. Seemed to work, and I felt buzzed and giggly.
Next try, I drew the Three Rays and asked the Holy Ones to direct the power of the rite towards the best possible resolution of the (ahem) Current Situation. While the blast wasn’t deafening, it seemed like a decent attempt. At the same time, I didn’t get the contact buzz from the raspberry jam. Instead, it felt like I was wearing the fire suit from a college-era temp job in a foundry – I felt well-padded, and reality seemed a bit muffled. No ill effects noted… aside from no creative giddiness afterward.
Umm… Was this a bad idea?
Rhydlyd

1) There are several Discordian tarot decks -- here's one -- but the general principle of divination is inherently Discordian; after all, you're consulting randomness, aren't you? So use any oracle you like.

2) If a Discordian says that to you and you reply, "Hey, man, I don't get it," they'll laugh and say something else. If a demon says that to you and you respond the same way, the demon will be baffled -- 2 + 2 = petunia makes perfect sense to their logic, after all!

Nope. Now you get to choose which if them you want to do.

A few weeks back you suggested I practice the hexagram rituals as set forth in Circles of Power, invoking (or evoking?) the energy of Mercury to help me cope with a challenging situation involving troublesome landlords. I've had a few shots at tracing the hexagrams, and find them very time-consuming and laborious; having to trace hexagrams for every planet at all four cardinal points leaves my shoulder aching, and also with some sense of frustration at how s-l-o-w-l-y the matter is proceeding. Is there any way of performing the hexagram rituals that's a bit less labor intensive? Perhaps something involving the pseudohexagram? I'm familiar with that since I often invoke the Sun.

I work in the HOGD tradition, with Hellenic deities. The books I have ready for reference are Circles of Power and the Hellenic Golden Dawn; I use the elemental attributions of the pentagrams you devised for the latter book, as those are a helluva lot easier to remember than the traditional GD ones.

Greetings JMG,

Let me start this MM by thanking you for your training! This past few days of family festivities organisation and begrudging cooperation have been, ahm, hectic and stressful. Oh the rage. The Druid egg was a very nice boon. But most remarkably, the passive working of the spirit within. It took all my ill wills and I’ll effects out of me and gave me the reservoir with which I was almost invulnerable to negativity. TSW.

I would ask some things on my mind these days.
- the DMH mentioned “the holy mistletoe” Why is the mistletoe holy? And where could one read more about it? Not botany, but myth.
- I have been scrying the elements. And unlike my first pass, where I just looked trough a gate. Now I am going in, moving around. And most importantly I drew the corresponding symbol and well. Each time something came. But it was always an incomplete experience. I could not see the guide of the first element. But I heard him speak at two moments. And the second guide at first grabbed me and dragged me to a better venue. And there I really concentrated and saw a part of it. I think they regard me as childlike/childish. How does one build up his perceptive ability while scrying, or for other grove work?

- to anyone willing to contribute; How do you “feel” anger? How do you feel if there is an anger from outside influencing you? How do you differentiate between your own and outside anger.

Best regards,
V

Um, you don't trace all the hexagrams in each quarter. If you want to invoke Mercury, you trace the hexagram of Mercury in each quarter, full stop, end of sentence.

1) Most books on Druidry discuss it -- if I recall correctly, Lewis Spence's books on the subject have quite a bit on the subject. Mistletoe is holy when it grows on oaks, because it concentrates the essential energy of the oak.

2) Lots of practice!

3) I find it easy to notice when anger or other emotions are being splashed my way from someone else -- it clearly feels like something outside me. That wasn't always the case, though, and I'm pretty sure the clear sense of interior vs. exterior is a product of regular meditation.

Ah! Thank you. Now all is clear. That makes it a LOT easier. And thank you also for mentioning that invocation, specifically, is what I want.

The other secret, which I hope is clear from the book, is that you trace the hexagram clockwise from the Mercury point to invoke. Clockwise invokes, counterclockwise banishes.

I have a dream of being a writer, and have decided to follow it. I'm well aware that I'll need a lot of practice, hard work, and some decent luck to get there, but for now have decided that a first step is to start writing a blog.

Aside from posting on Wednesdays (the day of Mercury), do you have any simple occult practices you could recommend for setting up and drawing an audience to a blog? (I have just started learning cabalistic magic, and will not be doing anything more complicated than the LRP for several months yet)

Hey JMG,

First, I wanted to respond to last week. I mentioned that I had applied the teachings from SGO to martial arts with excellent results and you asked if I had looked into renaissance fencing and its associations. Unfortunately, I have not. I only found out about The Academy of the Sword a year or two ago and I haven't been training lately. It is on the list, and I think it is an interesting topic long term.

Second, I wanted to compliment your excellent Dolmen Arch book. I received a copy for Christmas and am completely blown away by it. I've really been struggling to find a spiritual path that I feel suitably comfortable with to make a commitment, and this book has helped tremendously. This mystery school, at last, feels right. I'm curious if you would consider DA the more occult side of Druidry as opposed to the more magical DMH? Also, would you care to make any comments about the efficacy / limits of this system's magical power compared to classical Golden Dawn work?

Third, If I remember correctly, either you or one of your associates (from the AODA, perhaps?) had a book about the hermetic side of the physical culture movement. Am I misremembering? If not, do you know where I could find it?

As always, thank you so much for your time and efforts. Both in attending these forums and in bringing these arts before the public.

1. So a mistletoe from let say an apple or walnut will not be holy? Will it be harmful? And relatedly, why do people around Christmas time hang mistletoe outside their doors?

2. the eternal wisdom of the Archdruid. :-) well in the mean time I found a couple of spirits that helped me. I just felt like I was disappointing to them and would like to well not be.

3. Ah another helping of the old Archdruid wisdom. :-) do you buy it in bulk for the MM servings :-D well the one family member who knows I do “something while sitting” just gave me a gift. A 2022 daily journal. I intend to fill it up like the 2021 one.

V

Congratulations on your impending plunge. It's one of my favorite disciplines and having a group improves it dramatically. For getting best results, there are a few things that can be done:

A) Controlled breathing of some type is an excellent preparation. Wim Hof method was created explicitly for this. I've used the fundamental exercise from Systema and JMG's rhythmic / fourfold breathing both to good effect.

B) Regular breathing when you are in the water is extremely helpful. If you are underwater and there is a sensation similar to when you close your throat during a breath hold then your will want to try to get it into circulation again.

C) Accept the fact that you are going to lose heat from your body. Don't fight it and don't tense up. Just accept what's going on. The secret is that relaxation combined with awareness can drastically improve your ability to thermoregulate. The exercise thus becomes both more effective and more comfortable this way; while the willingness to sacrifice means that it is negative energies that tend to come out most easily. Finally, if you are etherically sensitive, don't try to hang on to any of the negative energies being leeched away; instead make a conscious effort to let them go.

D) Rub yourself dry and use friction to warm up. Also, abstain from using any form of hot water. Ideally, electric space heaters would be out as well. Taxing your bodies ability to regulate its own heat appears to be the main trigger for the health benefits. Both the ancient Chinese and Romans considered it a bad (or at least useless) idea to follow a cold wash with a hot one.

As I understand it, the Orthodox use it as part of an annual rite of purification / cleansing. It isn't really treated like a normal discipline but rather a part of a specific rite. The breathing is probably the best preparation, but I imagine prayer could easily be added to it.

Good luck, have fun, become pure!

Since you're just beginning the work, it's going to be a while before you have the chops to apply magical methods to your blogging. You also don't need to worry about that. As long as you keep three simple things in mind, you'll have no trouble finding your audience.

1) Don't write the same thing that everyone else is writing. You'd be amazed how many people do this and then can't figure out why nobody reads their blogs. Find your own voice and write about the subjects that interest you.

2) Don't try to market yourself. People are tired of hucksters. Just put your posts out there, week after week, and have a tip jar if anyone wants to donate.

3) Keep at it. It'll probably take you a year or more of weekly posts to get an audience -- that's how long it took me. You can use the time to work on your writing skills and develop your own voice.

1) Mistletoe from other sources is still beneficial but it's not as sacred. As for the Christmas thing, I have no idea. Anyone else?

2-3) I get it shipped to me in 55 gallon drums. ;-)

Right! I was referencing the Greater Ritual of the Hexagram on pages 149-151 of Circles of Power, 1997 edition, since the Lesser Ritual seems to deal with the elements. I see that according to the diagrams on pages 97-99, the point corresponding to Mercury is the lower left vertex of the upward pointing triangle in the Hexagram, so I’ll go with that as the point of origin for drawing the Hexagram of Mercury, going clockwise for invocation.

I’m wondering how I should structure my ritual. Would it be enough to invoke Mercury at all the cardinal points, vibrating HERMES at each quadrant, then step back to center, perhaps recite a brief prayer, and conclude with the Tau Cross (my answer to the Cabalistic Cross, based on a ritual of that name by John Opsopaus)? Or should I work up something more elaborate? I may be doing this daily for some time, and certainly on Wednesdays.

1) Fair enough. It's a very interesting field of study.

2) Yes, the Dolmen Arch is classic American occultism with a Druid flavor. Compared to classic GD work, it's less focused on power and more focused on wisdom; you can accomplish things with the Dolmen Arch system, but it's much more about self-transformation and the development of wisdom.

3) Gordon Cooper, who was my successor as Grand Archdruid, planned such a book at one point but I don't believe he's gotten far with it. There's an enormous amount of research to be done there -- you might, if you're interested, look into Genevieve Stebbins, Joseph Greenstein aka the Mighty Atom, and "Peter Kelder," the pseudonymous author of The Eye of Revelation and creator of the Five Rites.

That's correct. I'd recommend starting with something simple, getting fluent with it, and then adding elaborations one at a time.

Hello!

Following my queries last week about references for old texts on Sacred Geometry.
If you can I would appreciate 2 or 3 such references.
Many thanks & regards

Is it possible that a cult narrative never completly cracks, there will still be believers.

Then what cracks a cult, mass exodus of adepts, disconection from reality and thus economical sustainability, the mental stalling, etc, but mostly their leaders going postal and becoming self-destructive by antagonising the greater groups external to the cult at some point the preasure from the external becomes higher and the degradation of the internal structure will make the cult collapde but a kernel might remain.

Is this a plausible dynamic of cults? Is it possible for the Branch-Covidian to take longer than predicted to wake up...

I don't remember what specifically you were asking for, but you might try De Divina Proportione by Luca Pacioli and Mathematics Useful for Understanding Plato by Theon of Smyrna, and see if that meets your needs.

I strongly recommend reading the sociology classic When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger et al. It's readily available, and it covers exactly this point in fine detail. The very short form is that the disintegration of a narrative is a complex process, and the first response of true believers to its failure is to double down and insist even more loudly that it's true, even when it's obviously not. It takes repeated failures and public embarrassment to break even the most delusional narrative, and even then, yes, you can still find some people who cling to it until they die.

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Magic Monday

Polar plunge

Re: Polar plunge

More Questions about Discordianism

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Re: More Questions about Discordianism

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Hexagrams and Mercury

Hulk not rage. Hulk go talk to friendly spirit.

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Re: Hexagrams and Mercury

Re: Hexagrams and Mercury

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Re: Hulk not rage. Hulk go talk to friendly spirit.

Re: Polar plunge

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Re: Hulk not rage. Hulk go talk to friendly spirit.

Re: Hexagrams and Mercury

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References on Sacred Geometry

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Re: References on Sacred Geometry

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