Earth School and Communication

I tend to have a different perspective on things. I have no idea why, but I do know that perhaps the only person who has easily come to similar types of conclusions that I do is actually the spiritual guide Robert Ohotto – whom I adore and can’t say enough good things about. The number of times he’s said something that I responded to with a “thank GOD someone else sees that” or “oh, yeah, I forgot, thanks for the reminder” is actually too numerous to count. That said, there’s plenty of times he’s come out with something that has me reeling because I hadn’t thought of it that way, or at all.

Every now and again, he’ll say something that I feel slightly differently than. This post is going to be the explanation of one such thing. Oh yes, and everything I mention will be wildly generalized with regards to timeline.

The scenario: Listening to Ohotto’s “Saturn in Sagittarius” series. Brilliant, by the way. Go get it if you’re serious about any sort of spiritual or personal growth. Task 3, I think, is getting rid of the distractions. Specifically, he’s targeting social media as a source of distraction which we use to deflect attention away from what we should be working on.

Social media as a distraction. Hell, yes, it is. But guess what? It’s a seriously stepped up training ground, is what it is. Being a student of human history, I see things that most don’t. I look at timelines that are hundreds and sometimes even thousands of years long. As a society, “western culture” has been marching slowly toward the very real fact that “all is one”. Not like a Borg “all is one, resistance is futile” but more of a cohesive unit made up many different parts … like a body.

The internet as a whole is the latest incarnation of speeding up communication to more closely mimic the speed of thought. This process began with the introduction of the printing press. Suddenly now books could be produced at speeds before unheard of. Flash forward a few centuries and newspapers slowly began to develop. Another century, now add a more reliable mail system. Each of these steps is about evolving the ability to communicate over more distance with greater speed and reliability. Well now we need public schools, because how can you join in this without knowing how to read/write?? Then comes the telegraph, the telephone, radio, TV … The internet. Blogging, which gave birth to social media.

Now anyone can write whatever they want and put it out there. Immediately. No filters. No oversight. Just … BAM. There it is. Each of the steps listed above has made the world just a hair smaller, until the internet means I can communicate real time with someone on the other side of the world. That’s staggering.

Ohotto has a phrase that I love – Earth School. Perfect. I’m so swiping that.

By and large, I’m not really a fan of channeled works (yes, this relates. bear with me) with the notable exception of Seth. That one blew me away. Literally. While reading that set of books I had THE most profound, amazing, awe inspiring, humbling dreams ever. From having multi-dimensional beings composed of light and dark giving me one-on-one lessons to having a download about the story behind Genesis. Holy crap! I still adore Seth, but he’s definitely not for the faint of heart or even the average spiritualist. 99% of the people I hear trying to pull from Seth sound like that song by Crash Test Dummies. Where the people are sitting down to a picnic with God, GOD, and ask if they need to get their hair cut in heaven. *doh!* Not saying I get every thing he talks about, but still. So anyway, one of the statements that Seth made which really resonated as Truth to me is that part of the lesson of Earth School is to learn how to manage the power of our thoughts.

Imagine if everything single thing you thought, no matter how silly, dangerous, innocuous or fun, happened immediately … if there was no barrier with thought and reality. In short, Earth School is like a set of training wheels when it comes to learning how to manage this ability. The density is a requirement, slowing down the chain of manifestation to that which is actually intentionally acted on and worked toward – thank you Saturn!

So back to social media. We’ve had about 6 centuries of speeding up communication to the point of now instantaneous, globe encompassing capacity to speak to each other, thoughts are now being traded at a phenomenally rapid rate. But right now, it’s largely just communication. While our ability to travel has also increased rapidly since horses became common (they weren’t common to the average farmer class until about 3 centuries ago, give or take), we still have the lag required to get on a plane and travel somewhere. Granted, some people have access to buttons which can “send a message” of an explosive sort immediately, but not the average person. I can’t hear something someone said, teleport to them to punch them in the face or give them a hug. Nope, there’s still some lag there. Thank god! *shudders at the thought of teleportation right now*

So we have all this in the mish-mash of what I see. I also see that humans are actually telepathic by nature, and that Earth School is doing a mighty fine job of putting a nicely dense layer of insulation between me and the rest of the world. But if I’m here to learn how to manage my own thoughts and the power related thereto, then I also need to learn to deal with you and your thoughts. Human history has hundreds of thousands of years of that particular aspect to pull from, so it’s time to step it up.

And this is where social media comes into play. I now have the training opportunity to learn how to manage what flows in to my psychic field. Again, Earth School style – where the denser element of this reality means that I’m fortunately NOT simultaneous bombarded by every one’s reality in addition pictures of their dinner. So I get to manage not only what I post, to whom and how often, I also have to learn to filter that which is flowing through my various feeds. It’s literally telepathy with training wheels! Brilliant!!!

Do I think social media is a distraction? Oh heck yes. I spend far too many hours playing around on FaceBook, if for no other reason then to feel a little less alone in this crowded, noisy world. Of course, I also reach for FaceBook and literally think “entertain me”, so yes, it’s a distraction. But like all forms of play, it’s a distraction that serves the greater purpose. And that greater purpose is something that  has been unfolding for centuries, eons even, in a slow, Earth School march that we all agreed to partake in.

Basic Astrology for the Magician – PotI style

I tuned into the day’s Golden Dawn video broadcast (7/23/16) on Basic Astrology for the Magician. Overall, a very simplistic review but she did only have an hour and a WHOLE lot to cover so it HAD to be simplistic. No choice really. Given that, I thought it was pretty good, but it’s not the approach I would have taken.

It’s easy to poke at the work others do without making any contributions, so rather than go that route I thought I’d ask myself “if I were going to create a class on this topic, how would I do it?” Granted, I’ve studied astrology for several decades, even taught some classes on it, but I’ve not gone the route of getting certified or anything. I’m not even a full initiated member of the GD order at this point. So take everything with a grain of salt here. I’m not pretending to be an expert, but I’m not a novice either.

Well, first off, astrology itself is a massive subject. Trying to use one hour to give people a working foundation is just unrealistic. I’d pass on that temptation. Instead, I’d ask the question “how is astrology used by the magician? What do you need to know so when you start studying it, you’re paying attention to the right things?” Astrology as a whole has been used as a predictor since its inception. The goal was to bring predictability out of chaos – and recognizing that the stars were the seasonal guideposts which let folks know “hey, 3/4 of the way to winter, better have your stores in order!” was kinda vital. Like “Me and my family will live through winter” level of VITAL. Because the early perception was one of harmonics, on which the entire magic system was based, the focus being on trying to bring the energies of a complimentary thing into the equation, it wasn’t a particularly difficult stretch to look to the stars and say “oh Sun, you burn hot and bring life with you, so I want to invoke your energy as I try to bring heat and life into this goal”.

Here’s an example of what I mean about the harmonic or sympathetic magical view. I’ve lost the use of a hand to some farming accident. I want to restore function to that hand. Well, I know that lizards can grow back their tails, so clearly a lizard has some regrowth energy locked within it. To help bring that energy into my own system, I’m going to wear a tailless lizard in a small jar around my neck. As its tail regenerates, my hand will be exposed to these energies and sympathetically align, thus aiding in the healing of my hand. Give Agrippa a read and you’ll see this mindset played out over and over again, then turn to ancient Greek writings and you’ll likewise see it there too. Now I look at how astrology is used in magic and there it is as well. It’s a basic, foundational aspect of magic and it’s been there for millennia.

So the emphasis for the magician is that astrology is a harmonic tool that aids in bringing out the energies that the magician is trying to harness for their use, turning chaos into predictability. If I’m trying to craft a love spell, perhaps the energies of Venus will aid me, or perhaps Libra would do a better job given the goal of my spell. If I really want to punch it up, I should wait until Venus is in Libra in the house of relationships. If I as the magician don’t really understand the energetic difference between the planet and the sign, or the house or the dignity or the element, then my capacity to work those energies is reduced. And for every single limiting belief about the aspect I’m working with, for every single “either or” in my paradigm, then the power that is available to me is cut off.

What launched my entire Earth series rant was listening to a magi diss earth. Today was no different. This professional astrologer had nothing nice to say about Earth as a symbolic element. Huh. If that’s my mindset, then when I’m trying to bring the grounded, practical, strategic capacity of earth to bear on my business goal spells, I’m de facto dragging in all of the subconscious dominant associations of “plodding, dour, lazy, slow” along with it. *beats head on desk* Every element has a plus and a minus. Caveat: See the whole picture, not just pieces.

In essence, a good, solid and practical foundation in the symbology and archetypes that exist within the tropical astrological model is what a practicing magician should be looking to put into their tool belt if they want to add that potential harmonic resonance to their arsenal.

I’d also spend a bit of time talking about the differences between the energies of planet, sign, house, dignity and element. The more complete the understanding is, the more the magician can bring the power of all of these pieces to bear on their work. The timing of a spell should take this into consideration. Indeed, in the old grimoires some spells took weeks/months/years to build up to because the astrological timing called for it. If the perfect time was at 3am or 2pm, then that’s when the magician did the final spell. Some spells call for components to be prepared under this sign, that planet, this moon phase, while the final working of the spell was completely different. I don’t imagine there was a very codified or rigid system per se — every spell is different, every intention is different, and the energy that the magi brings to the table is also likewise GOING to affect the spell. As a water sign, my earth spells will never be as effective as an earth sign’s. If I know that, I can prepare and work to align the energies optimally for myself and my goal.

Oh yes, that was something I don’t really recall in the talk — phases of the moon and how that can be included. She mentioned the moon, but only as a ruling planet for a sign. Phases were not really talked about, but all of the planets have a waxing/waning/full/new phase to them to some degree or other. Just as the planets have a retrograde motion which needs to be factored in as well.

So there. If I were to put together a basic astrology for the magician this would be the tack that I would take. Leave all the specifics for a more in-depth study which can be obtained in all manner of locations and ways, but if the budding magician doesn’t really know what they need to understand and why, then I’m just throwing a bunch of info at their heads which may or may not stick. Astrology is such a massive subject, it’s easy to overwhelm and discourage a student. I encourage starting with basics – that is working with the elements first, then adding in the aspects, then adding in the signs, then adding in the ruling planets, and so forth. Build the foundation super strong so that when new layers are added the resulting intellectual understanding is enriched, not weakened.

All that said, the talk was pretty good. A very rudimentary by necessity covering of a broad topic, and considering the time constraints she had to work with I think she did a good job overall for the approach she took. *thumbs up* I love the video tutorials! I need to watch more of these. Agree or not, they are excellent fuel for rumination!