How a virus can change your world…

Dear friends and listeners of the Thoth Hermes Podcast,

it has been some time… normally at this time on Sunday, you are used to receiving notifications about a new podcast episode, and for the last two and a half months, this has not been the case. Yes, you know, “spiritual maintenance. Thank you all for your patience.

The podcast will re-start soon, promised! But maybe in order to give it some sense much needed in those days, I would like to do a special episode to start with. So, PLEASE READ ON even if this message is a bit longer than usual and send me your ideas!

“These days of modern plague grow weary on the Soul. I often feel like I am moving through molasses in my attempts to get things done…”

It was this sentence, written by the “Skeptical Occultist” Eldred Wormwoodlately (see www.skepticaloccultist.com) that finally triggered this message to you. His words resonated with me, and they also reflect many of the things I hear and read lately from fellow occultists, now that the pandemic has been part of our daily life for well over half a year.

While the Thoth Hermes Podcast is at the moment still shut for what I call “Spiritual Maintenance”, I must admit that the feeling Wormwood describes has become an important part of the reason why this maintenance is still needed and going on. Often I have asked myself: why is this affecting me spiritually so heavily that I need all my energy and ritual work to be concentrated on this matter? Am I exaggerating? As opposed to many others I am very lucky and have not been really affected by the pandemic directly as of yet, neither healthwise nor economically. So where is the problem for me then?

As occultists most of us are not real “social persons” either. I remember those jokes when the first lockdowns occurred a few months ago, where fellow-occultists would say they had not even realized anything had changed…

But in fact, I think those jokes have now turned silent. The ongoing social distancing, the impossibility of even to plan to go to gatherings or conferences, and probably most of all the overall insecurity of “what will be when and what is next” has affected practitioners of many different currents all over the world. But there must be something else deeper inside that affects us.

You are all part of that community. So, I thought the Thoth Hermes podcast should maybe offer a platform to express our thoughts, concerns, views on the matter. There might also be positive aspects, of course, some of you might have experienced developments in your practice that you would not have made without COVID.

I am therefore calling you all to contribution!

Let me know how the ongoing pandemic has affected your work and life as an occultist. (Or if you prefer another expression, as an esotericist, hermeticist, practitioner, etc., whatever you call yourself.) I would like to hear your impressions and experiences.

Send me your contributions either in writing or as a sound file to info@thothermes.com.

I am planning to collect them and interrupt (or maybe even end) my maintenance break with a very special episode where I will present your views, but also plan to speak in person to several of you, in short interviews, or also in roundtables and discussions around the topic.

This call will also go out to all the people I have interviewed so far on the podcast, so you will certainly also get reactions from some of them or even appear with them on the same show!

So, do let me have your thoughts, all our listeners are waiting for them!

But – most importantly of all – stay safe and healthy!

LVX
Rudolf