Magic Monday
Apr. 20th, 2025 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ecosophia
Midnight is almost upon us and so it's time to launch a new Magic Monday. Ask me anything about occultism, and with certain exceptions noted below, any question received by midnight Monday Eastern time will get an answer. Please note: Any question or comment received after that point will not get an answer, and in fact will just be deleted. If you're in a hurry, or suspect you may be the 341,928th person to ask a question, please check out the very rough version 1.3 of The Magic Monday FAQ here. Also: I will not be putting through or answering any more questions about practicing magic around children. I've answered those in simple declarative sentences in the FAQ. If you read the FAQ and don't think your question has been answered, read it again. If that doesn't help, consider remedial reading classes; yes, it really is as simple and straightforward as the FAQ says. And further: I've decided that questions about getting goodies from spirits are also permanently off topic here. The point of occultism is to develop your own capacities, not to try to bully or wheedle other beings into doing things for you. I've discussed this in a post on my blog.
The image? I field a lot of questions about my books these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. This is my seventy-fourth published book, the sequel to The Way of the Golden Section, an adaptation of some aspects of John Gilbert's version of the Golden Dawn system to the Golden Section Fellowship. What that means in practice is that this book, The Way of the Four Elements provides a sequence of rituals, meditations, exercises, and practices keyed to the four elements of ancient magic and philosophy, which unfolds over the course of a year and builds on the material given in the earlier book. Rituals for the solstices and equinoxes, and the making and consecration of the four elemental working tools of the tradition -- the book of air, the wand of fire, the cup of water, and the pentacle of earth -- are among the things included. Interested? You can get a copy here in the US or here if you live elsewhere. (I recommend getting the hardback edition; if you do the work in this volume, you'll put heavy wear on your copy, and the hardback will stand up to that.)
Buy Me A Coffee
Ko-Fi
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 either of the links above to access my online tip jar; Buymeacoffee is good for small tips, Ko-Fi is better for larger ones. (I used to use PayPal but they developed an allergy to free speech, so I've developed an allergy to them.) 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.
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 gargantuan corporation doesn't, and I 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.And don't forget to look up your Pangalactic New Age Soul Signature at CosmicOom.com.
***This Magic Monday is now closed, and no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 04:27 am (UTC)The modern education system is dedicated to preventing this from happening. It's all about regurgitating approved, pre-chewed thoughts, and don't you dare have an original idea -- that'll get you marked down on the multiple choice test, you know. The first thing I have to do when advising someone who wants to write is convince them to ignore all the lies they were taught in their English classes -- and yes, that harsh language is appropriate. Schools these days go out of their way to keep people from learning how to write well -- not least because they can't stand the thought that students might think for themselves and reflect on the things they're being taught.
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 05:08 am (UTC)Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 04:14 pm (UTC)Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 05:37 pm (UTC)Deborah Bender
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 09:24 pm (UTC)Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-22 02:00 am (UTC)Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 06:53 am (UTC)You won't have seen it, with your dislike of television, but the early seasons of the Simpsons had an independent thought alarm that would go off at Springfield Elementary, if any students showed independent thought, in a parody of the modern American education system. Three independent thought alarms in one day was a notifiable event, later determined in another parody to be caused by too much coloured chalk in the classrooms.
Where does parody sit on the planes. I imagine it's fairly high up the astral too?
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 04:15 pm (UTC)2) Yes. Genuine parody has to involve reflections from the mental plane, in fact, because it has to do with meaning.
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 10:22 am (UTC)When I write words, suddenly what I mean changes in a weird way, and what I originally meant can vanish such that I may not remember what I originally meant, and the assembly of words as written take a life and meaning of their own. Sometimes I will re-read what I wrote some time later and, because the doughy substance that motivated the writing is gone, I’ll believe that I what I wrote was actually what I originally meant.
Would I be right in thinking that the doughy substance has to do with the mental plane, while the cookie cutter words are astral symbols?
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 04:16 pm (UTC)Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 03:42 pm (UTC)The best way I can describe my contemporary English literature classes in college were as a straightforward attempt at demoralization. The textbook authors chose the most boring, most depressing, most pretentious pieces they could to fill up the book. A very stark contrast to the classes covering older works of literature, where I assume their hands were tied mostly by the fact that such self-indulgent moroseness is simply harder to find before the crisis of meaning in the early 20th century.
And the best counterargument to the advice of English departments I can think of is that these are people who think Lydia Davis' "Mown Lawn" is worth putting in a textbook as anything but an example of what not to do.
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 04:18 pm (UTC)Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 04:33 pm (UTC)Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 09:12 pm (UTC)https://existentialcomics.com/comic/281
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-22 02:02 am (UTC)Mown Lawn
Date: 2025-04-22 01:13 am (UTC)Rita
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-21 09:40 pm (UTC)https://scifiwright.com/2022/04/if-you-were-a-dinosaur-my-love-by-rachel-swirsky/
Lector caveat.
To Anonymous above: Chinese scholars had a word (I forget at the moment) for chiseling out exactly the right wording to express one's thoughts. I too understand the limitations of pouring one's thoughts into the structure of a human language.
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-22 03:07 am (UTC)"Life as a dino is one big stomp, as you'll find out in If I Were A Dinosaur! Happy, bold and easy to hold, this board book is full of jurassic spark! With feely panels and cute illustrations, it's a storybook with spines aplenty!"
The opening of this, "Life as a dino is one big stomp", is an absolutely magnificent phrase, far beyond most modern literary pretensions, Shakespearian even. Just sublime.
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-22 01:14 am (UTC)If there is a literary equivalent to the modern art scene, this must be as close to it as I will ever find.
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-22 01:38 am (UTC)To paraphrase Jay Leno, if Forrest Gump read it, he would have lost another 20 IQ points. This thing is so bad that I don't think it can even be parodied.
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-22 02:08 am (UTC)https://ansible.uk/misc/eyeargon.html
People read it aloud competitively -- the goal is to get through a whole page without giggling hysterically. It wouldn't surprise me if "A Mown Lawn" got the same treatment down the road.
Re: Aetherodynamics of the Written Word
Date: 2025-04-22 01:09 am (UTC)On a lighter note, I learned from a different exam that a great number of Arizona students think that there is absolutely nothing to do in their state.
Rita