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For some people mere lese magesty is enough to bring them out roaring like lions. Another form of "pain in the ass" that does not require anal rape to be a painful problem is a hemorrhoid. It is too bad that a person with an inflamed ego, did not apply some "preparation H" to herself before she decided to inflame the Dao Bums with her "witty" attempt at getting even: Possibly because this kind of magic constitutes about 90% of all magic practiced in places like Hong Kong?.. We live in an unfair society. "Getting even" sounds, well, not nice. But another way to put it is "getting back to the balanced state." Sounds nicer, eh? Technically it can be the same thing. You are wronged. You can turn the other cheek, will it restore the balance? Or will it make things a bit more "uneven?" Alternatively you can slap the cheek of the offender with the same force he applied to yours. Will it make things a bit more "even?" Many in Asia go with the second scenario. A Chinese friend of mine who traveled to a town in Hong Kong whose name I forget described a whole street of sorcerers (they like clustering specializations, there's streets of mattress makers and streets of computer assemblers and streets of sorcerers). There's hundreds of clients congregating there all day long in search of revenge. Employees wronged by bosses give the sorceress (most are female) the name, she writes it in a talismanic script on a piece of yellow paper, puts the paper on the ground, has the wronged party remove one of his shoes and pummels the name with the shoe, screaming and cursing. That sort of thing. He said he'd never been anywhere where the noise and screaming were on this level, and he's traveled the world. So, aside from the general "not nice" idea of the book's premise, what would your objections be to the procedures proposed? I was and always will be on the side of healing rather than getting even: Preventive medicine was my object in hiding Taomeow's original response. Funny how wit comes into play when we are talking TM, but when we talk jonesboy it is troll, bully, sodomite, rapist and abused. The double standards are quite amazing... People should be thinking about how they are being manipulated, used, and even abused for a misguided attempt at "getting even".

As I thought about my post above it occurred to me that the above statement left out the most important contribution of mesmerisim to neo-magical theory which was the emphasis on "will power and imagination" and should have been written as: "As far as the theory of Neo-magic goes, basically it follows from mesmeric practice as it existed circa 1800. The magician and his control over the 'animal magnetism" through his will power and imagination was taken as the sole cause of magical phenomenon." This point seemed to be too important to leave to a simple edit to the original post as someone who had already read the post might miss it, so I decided to add this edit as a separate post. The emphasis on "will power" is not a characteristic of earlier magic and is an attempt to arrive at a "quasi-scientific" explanation for magical phenomena through modeling it on mesmerism and is quite in line with the "zeitgeist" of the late Eighteenth Century as reflected in the Kantian reduction of ethics from practical wisdom to "good will", so the emphasis in earlier magic is on wisdom and understanding, not on will.

OldChi, This reminded me of something and I have wanted to comment on it for a while, now seems as good a time and place as ever. When I first heard of Don's illness back in January, I found myself waxing a bit nostalgic and went down to one of the local bookstores that he and I used to frequent. I was looking at his books and thinking about them. I am mentioned as one of his anonymous friends here and there in them and decided to look at one of his later books Tarot & Magic. Going to the index as I often do with books I found a reference to strange attractors an aspect of mathematical chaos theory. The references are to Chapter Seven and I was pleased to find an intelligent discussion of much misunderstood topics, such as synchronicity in divination and magic and the possibility of mathematical order underlying chaotic appearances. I have been critical, both of synchronicity and the misuse of Chaos Theory in magic for decades, but I cite this as a testimony to his intelligence, because that needs to be noted as well as his humor. Since I was teaching tarot magic back in the 1980s I have no practical need for his book, though I would certainly recommend it to anyone who is interested, just as I recommend his books in general. I later went back shortly before Don's death and bought a copy, so I could cite his discussion. I may post on it in more detail at some point. Though something he said in it is perhaps relevant to what I said about his 'eternal essence' in my previous post: Don now has the answer to this big 'perhaps', I hope that he is happy with it, wherever he is.

I'm sorry if my original post was unclear. I have emphasized relevant passages below: all of his Daoist Magic books: When I said all of his Daoist Magic books that included Daoist Internal Alchemy at the time of posting. I believe I got it sometime in the preceding summer. In terms of his previous books there is a lot of material that is 'new', by which I mean that he has not written about it in his other books, though I have known about or worked with some of it for a long time.: This passage is in reference to Daoist Internal Alchemy. Several items that he mentions have appeared in the scholarly literature, in this case I am referring to Livia Kohn's Daoist Experience: An Anthology. I have used her material as well as others as the basis of my own work and investigation for quite some time. Jerry Alan Johnson's own use of them includes other material which is not in the scholarly literature. Some other material I learned before Jerry Alan Johnson, having studied with Sifu Michael Alan Brown about forty years ago. These are the exercises described beginning on p. 240. Jerry Alan Johnson's Daoist internal Alchemy is a thick, densely packed book which will overwhelm a person who does not have a satisfactory background. I remain with my original recommendation, which is to start with his medical Qigong books, which contain much useful information including insight into mantra, mudra and other important aspects of Daoist magical training, which is developed in his other Daoist Magic books. I remain with my advice that: Guide to Buying the Daoist Magic series is an excellent guide.

I rather agree with Baquakicksass here, though I am perhaps not as keen on Geoffrey James as she seems to be. I prefer the books of Robert Turner, Elizabethan Magic and The Heptarchia Mystica of John Dee. Aside from having the same name as an important 17th Century English writer and authority on magic, he was one of the major figures in the 60s revival of magic in England. He started with the Golden Dawn system, but then returned to the original material and wrote on it in the early 80s. Regrettably mistakes and possibly sources of corrupting influence started in the early 17th Century and influenced various sources up to and including the Golden Dawn. If I have time and there is interest I may document these elements. Rather stuck for time now. I did some posts on Enochian under my Theurgia-Goetia, on Gods and Demons thread, they begin here: Enochian Magic and the Structure of the Lemegaton Again my being able to reply to any questions about that material depends on finding the time to do so.

The works of Professor Jerry Alan Johnson offer plenty of information on the subject: Buying guide to the Medical Qigong and Daoist Magic Books This is however a complex area and one does need a certain level of skill to approach the matter, including the ability to distinguish between poltergeist phenomena derived from actual nature spirits and artificial elementals, and other sources that can contribute to such phenomena. If you don't have the necessary background performing some sort of Daoist ritual can be anything from a waste of time to a prelude to disaster. I don't have time right now to enter into more concrete details, but Daoist methods usual involve the use of the Loshu as a fundamental diagram, and may involve the invocation deities ranging from the local God of the Soil, to the Heavenly Lord Puhua and the Dark Emperor of the North. On these levels you get into Nine Star magic and the Thunder Spirits, and you don't want to mess with this without a whole lot of background. ZYD

To take the 'Devil's Advocate' position for a moment : Such phenomena ( a 'spreading of contact' with ' numerous people reporting same ) have been going on before the internet . Occasionally I have documented such phenomena here when I have written about ' Daimonic Reality ' and its propensity to exponentially spread , at times , ' unusual phenomena' . Of course the internet age offers an ' exponential 2 ' . Just to clarify, my question was why were these people contacting him, not about why they were having their experiences. The internet is the answer to why they contacted him, as to why he or they were having their experiences, that is why I posted this: develops a symbiotic relationship: the usual "victim" of these situations would be lucky if the relationship was actually "symbiotic", the relationship is almost always parasitic. I like to make a financial analogy, the difference between a Mutual Fund and a Ponzi Scheme. A mutual fund is a symbiotic relationship it benefits both parties, on the other had a ponzi scheme is something that benefits one party to the detriment of the other or others. A "spiritual" ponzi scheme is an energy scam, it is set up to get people to put "energy" into the system which is used by spiritual beings for their own purposes, usually bad purposes and which leave the victims of the scheme severely compromised and maybe dead. While flourishing such a spiritual ponzi scheme may be indistinguishable from a well run mutual fund, there are certain things that make it look suspicious, like apparently high returns on investment, but it is hard to prove that it is bad and a fraud, and those caught up in it believe in it and will defend it, until its collapse and until its collapse it is useless to try to talk them out of it. The recent Madoff scheme and its collapse if paradigmatic and is recent enough to be something memorable to almost everyone, and also easy to research. powerful ghost or demon may have the ability to masquerade as a seemingly-benevolent figure and may be able to grant quite a bit of power, knowledge, and special abilities to the recipient of its help: Financial ponzi schemes keep people in by giving returns, and spiritual energy scams will too, this is why claims like this need to be taken with a grain of salt: Such powers could be a genuine return from a good symbiotic relationship, or they might just be part of the con, you really don't know until its too late, and the victim or victims are the last to realize it. The above example was chosen because it was convenient to quote, not because of any intended judgement about Flowing Hands sources. Choosing to study with a teacher as part of an established lineage is like investing in a mutual fund, it is usually a safe investment of time and money. There can be cases where a teacher without lineage is OK, but that is rare, and more of a gamble than good investment. Studying these types of group energy systems is part of learning magic and I could write more, much more, but I don't have the time to do so now, but I hope these ideas are useful. I hope this clarifies the matter. ZYD

One reason I was thankful that Walker posted as he did, was that it saved me the trouble and gives me an easy source of quotes with which I agree, such as these: develops a symbiotic relationship: the usual "victim" of these situations would be lucky if the relationship was actually "symbiotic", the relationship is almost always parasitic. I like to make a financial analogy, the difference between a Mutual Fund and a Ponzi Scheme. A mutual fund is a symbiotic relationship it benefits both parties, on the other had a ponzi scheme is something that benefits one party to the detriment of the other or others. A "spiritual" ponzi scheme is an energy scam, it is set up to get people to put "energy" into the system which is used by spiritual beings for their own purposes, usually bad purposes and which leave the victims of the scheme severely compromised and maybe dead. While flourishing such a spiritual ponzi scheme may be indistinguishable from a well run mutual fund, there are certain things that make it look suspicious, like apparently high returns on investment, but it is hard to prove that it is bad and a fraud, and those caught up in it believe in it and will defend it, until its collapse and until its collapse it is useless to try to talk them out of it. The recent Madoff scheme and its collapse if paradigmatic and is recent enough to be something memorable to almost everyone, and also easy to research. powerful ghost or demon may have the ability to masquerade as a seemingly-benevolent figure and may be able to grant quite a bit of power, knowledge, and special abilities to the recipient of its help: Financial ponzi schemes keep people in by giving returns, and spiritual energy scams will too, this is why claims like this need to be taken with a grain of salt: Such powers could be a genuine return from a good symbiotic relationship, or they might just be part of the con, you really don't know until its too late, and the victim or victims are the last to realize it. The above example was chosen because it was convenient to quote, not because of any intended judgement about Flowing Hands sources. Choosing to study with a teacher as part of an established lineage is like investing in a mutual fund, it is usually a safe investment of time and money. There can be cases where a teacher without lineage is OK, but that is rare, and more of a gamble than good investment. Studying these types of group energy systems is part of learning magic and I could write more, much more, but I don't have the time to do so now, but I hope these ideas are useful. ZYD

Occasional use of cannabis is not harmful, but not necessarily beneficial either. The problems arise with cannabis when people use it as unwitting "self-medication" of either hyper-activity or depression, for bi-polar people it works for them either way, but which only masks symptoms that should be dealt with directly, and anyone who finds themselves using it too much, should take this as a diagnostic indication, and look into conditions that need to be dealt to restore balance, such as heart or liver fire in the case of hyper-activity and liver fire with some types of depression and imbalances involving Lung/Liver or Kidney/Lung, with other types of depression. These need to be dealt with on their own, and TCM has some good tools in this regard. Purely for information purposes, cannabis has long history of use in Chinese spiritual practice, and even has its own Goddess, Magu, who as a high ranking member of the Court of Xiwangmu, is very respectable. This group, the Way of Infinite Harmony, claims to be a surviving Temple of her traditional cult. Used in these religious ways, its possible effects may be very different, but only someone with real experience of them could comment on this. Professor Jerry Alan Johnson's book, Daoist Mineral, Plant and Animal Magic, has a long section, pages 262-277, on "visionary" plants, with page 268 devoted to cannabis, to which he gives mixed reviews. As a person with lot of experience in both Chinese and Western magic, I cannot recommend idle experimentation with cannabis and magic, you need to lay a real foundation first and by the time you have done that, you will not need it, but then if you wish to, you can safely explore it. As a passing note, NLP practitioners have a practice called Drug of Choice for reproducing the effects of any "visionary catalyst" which you might have taken in the past.

OK, let me go back to what I wrote in the post to which you are referring, an admittedly terse and not well written passage, and then I will expand on the account, but please be forewarned that that I have posted more in the past few days then in months and am starting to run into the type of time conflicts which I have often mentioned. To begin, the piece itself was almost thirty pages long and all that can follow is the barest outline, also while I have copies of it, I am not going to search for them and review them, I will rely on my memory which is of course pretty reliable. First some context, the piece was in reply to an article giving an account of what is usually the third book in the Lemegeton, the Pauline Art. The Pauline Art is a work in two parts dealing with astrological magic. The first part gave a method of calling up the planetary spirits ruling the days of the week and the planetary spirits ruling the hours, the second part was an account of 360 spirits for the 360 degrees of the Zodiac and how if you knew the time of your birth you could call up your guardian spirit, kind of an astrological Holy Guardian Angel. This was all well and good, but the woman author of the piece proceeded to espouse opinions about Medieval and Renaissance magic that just were not correct, characterizing the Middle ages as a period in which superstitious, greedy and lascivious practitioners sought to call up goetic spirits for carnal and material ends and the Renaissance as a period of light, where clear minded Renaissance Magoi sought wisdom from from the Planetary spirits and eschewed all things worldly. Nothing of course could be further from the truth and I proceeded to demonstrate that through suitable arguments and citations. I may have to cut this up into multiple sections, but to begin one thing I cited was the Sworn Book of Honorius a work of the High Middle Ages and whose first operation is the Vision of God. Sounds carnal and greedy doesn't it? One of the things that I point out, and I believe that this was one of the first times that this appeared in print was the similarity to John Dee's Sigillum Dei Aemuth. Even more importantly I point out the passages in the beginning of, If I recall correctly, the Second Book of Mysteries (See Meric Casaubon's True and Faithful Relation of etc., London 1659, and several times reprinted, twice in the 70s alone) where Dee's spiritual informants give the the instructions for this seal and tell him that its geometrical form is to be found in a book in his library, this book may well have been the Sworn Book. This may be one of the earliest times that this connection appeared in print, because the editor of the Heptangle Press printing which I had made no mention of the resemblance and surely would have had he been aware of it. I go on to contrast the Faust legend in the Renaissance and the many Faust books that appeared, forgeries created to meet a demand, basically the Necronomicons of their day. The chief operation of these books was to raise Spanish treasure ships or elevate buried treasure, which meant to locate buried treasure and then conjure the local spirits to bring it to the surface. The point that pious motives existed in the Middles Ages and worldly ones in the Renaissance, I proceeded to an interesting more detailed argument about the Lemegeton and its structure and how it could be be compared to Dee's Enochian Magic, and used as an aid to practicing Agrippan style magic using the principles of Agrippa's Three Books. That however, will have to wait until my next post

Had gall stones: This is the key phrase, gallstones can be excruciatingly painful, I can't blame someone for getting impatient. The Chinese do have medicines that will dissolve gallstones, "Chinese herbal formulas can successfully reduce or dissolve gallstones and prevent gallbladder surgery" (Jake Paul Fratkin, p. 682, Chinese Herbal Patent Medicines; the Clinical Desk Reference, Shya Publications, 2001), but they run into problems with FDA and other regulations. As a piece of operating room humor, if not gallows humor, I have wryly noted that, "by the time people seek out alternative medicine, there is no alternative." the gall bladder removed: So much for him ever practicing Thunder Magic. It will be interesting to see any personality changes: You shouldn't expect any. The Gallbladder is considered to be the Liver's release valve, with this gone there is no natural way for the Liver Damp heat which is the root of his problem to escape. Sadly in the long run his symptoms will just shift to another organ, possibilities include high blood pressure, which he may have had already, turning into a stroke. There are other possibilities too...let's not go there. Don't show him any of this, he may get very very angry. Ah, the joys of folk magic! When you mentioned in your first post, your student buying graveyard dust, I thought this might be the case, though Chinese sorcerer's use spirits of the dead, so I wasn't sure. Circa 1980 I spent a lot of time studying and practicing "folk magic" within the context of Agrippa's Three Books on Occult Philosophy, because book one is on Natural Magic, where it forms an important part of practice. I have much more respect for the magical abilities of a good folk magician, if they come from a real tradition, rather than modern revivals, than I do for the vast majority of modern "magicians". Lacking any understanding of Western thought before 1600 they ignore some of the most valuable, fun and powerful aspects of the magical tradition. Oh well, their loss not mine!

The examples that you cite seem to all point to an origin in Fundamentalist Christian writings, so it is no wonder that they point out examples that support a “Christian” conclusion. Many people here have addressed them in one way or another, so I am going to point out an alternative view for you, that if you think it through may help you get a different perspective on who and what Jesus might have been which would be totally incompatible with fundamentalist ideas about “Jesus”, and if Jesus is not who the fundamentalists say he is, then no notions derived from fundamentalism can be true. Back in the late Seventies I read a book called: Jesus the Magician by Morton Smith which was part of my own research into the problem of “the historical Jesus”, and thought that it was a fascinating view of Jesus, and just as well argued as the books that said that Jesus was a nice young Rabbi whose teachings were distorted by Paul, and the ones that argued that he was a zealot revelutionary, and, well the list goes on, oh, it did include one that argued that he was an allegory for the hallucinogenic Amanita Muscaria mushroom, which by the way ruined that scholar's career, and he was not a minor figure in Biblical scholarship either. Each one of these different portraits of such an important figure took what little we do know and wove totally different and mutually exclusive pictures of Jesus, each one argued very well by scholars, that I reached the conclusion that it would be impossible to tell who or what the historical Jesus really was, though I was pretty sure that he was not a mushroom. I tended to view him, if he actually existed at all, as possibly a religious activist with a background in some form of religious esotericism which could have been magic, like Morton Smith said, or maybe he was an Essene, these are not mutually exclusive by the way, that is how things remained from the mid Eighties until recently when I was looking for internet resources that related to Morton Smith's book, I found this fascinating site: Jesus as a Magician Which is a very well researched and tightly argued doctoral thesis which updates Smith's work and rectifies such criticisms as this: and is one of the most interesting and compelling discussions I have read. After reading it, as far as I was concerned the idea that Jesus was an actual person and that he really did practice magic, became, to me at least, the most likely interpretation of the Gospels, and if so then, as I said earlier, all fundamentalist doctrines can safely be ignored.

The scholarship you show in your posts is seriously impressive: Thank you, it was serious scholarship which I undertook in order to answer questions about the theory and practice of magic, so I am glad that it is impressive, because I want people to take it seriously. By the early 1970s I was already somewhat dissatisfied with what I would later term neo-magic, I also realized that occultists were unreliable thinkers and researchers, whether analyzing their own work and procedures, or historical work. I had always been more of an occult scientist than merely an occultist, always juxtaposing theoretical understanding and practical understanding, but I had to become my own intellectual historian also. the materialistic scientific worldview does not constitute progress: While scientific methodology is very useful for exploring "natural" phenomena, the materialism that was adopted with it almost acts like an opportunistic parasite that poisons the whole system and clogs it with basically unscientific dogmas derived from unproven materialistic propositions, that are an affront to real reason and a constant hamper to progress. Phrases like "rational scientific materialism" are not true and should at every point be countered, there is nothing essentially rational about materialism, nor is it the result of the application of scientific method. I could give a qualified yes to each of your questions: Do you consider that recognizing the value of the older worldviews will lead to technological capabilities that we have forgotten about because they have no place in the modern scheme? Yes, I think it could, could being the operative word, because as long as there is a dogmatic insistence that, such and such cant happen, or cant happen that way then forgotten technologies will remain forgotten. An example is Alchemy. Alchemy is part of a well formed worldview, the existence of a "physical" "philosopher's stone" is a strong implication of that worldview, but whether it is actually possible or not, has not been unequivocally demonstrated and it may in point of fact be impossible, but will never be investigated if it is thought impossible on apriori grounds. Or is the value of Kuhn's words more about liberating us from the modern constraints?: Yes, to realize that there are many ways that one can look at things is important, for example I favor a revival of "formal" causes for future "science". If one looks at consciousness as a formal cause that organizes information, that solves a lot of problems about knowledge and freewill. Of course one needs to be careful about what one accepts as an irreducible "form", but the case for the irreducible nature of consciousness is very strong and is only denied because materialism requires that consciousness be reducible to a material explanation, but such explanations have never been satisfactory and there is no good reason to believe that they ever will. (are) . . . there are ancient worldviews that are 'higher' or more comprehensive and you would wish to see a return to them - a paradigm shift back in that direction?: Back circa 1980 I decided that Platonism was the best overall worldview for a variety of reasons. It is basically not dogmatic, Plato describes the cosmology of his Timaeus as a "likely story", thus in a sense anticipating Kuhn's discovery of "paradigms" by 2500 or so years. If Plato were alive today he would be assimilating modern science and turning it into something that supports "spirituality" rather then something that denigrates it. Platonism is also rational and intellectually rigorous, providing in Plato's Parmenides the outline of a "metaphysics of the One" which was explicated by his successors, in particular Plotinus, that provides a powerful framework for "mysticism" in a form that has been aptly described as "the Architecture of the Intelligible World". Since that time I have found Platonism a satisfactory framework for rethinking science, practicing magic, and investigating "mysticism". In all of these endeavors, it has been very fruitful. By the way Platonism was, as I have pointed out elsewhere here on TTBs, definitely a hard sell, I was not at all inclined to it when I first started to investigate it, which I basically did for historical reasons. That is the short and quick version of my thoughts, I hope that it is helpful.

First and easiest, peach wood is sacred in Ritual Daoism because of the Peaches of Immortality, which are an important part of Daoist belief. As for the rest of the things that you mention, certainly a Daoshi is going to be able to use these safely and effectively, and even prepare efficacious versions of these for others, but most of what is offered for sale is going to be useless to most people, however it is possible to learn enough through available books to be able to make some of it practical. I reviewed just such a book here: It is practically an encyclopedia of traditional Chinese symbolism as well as practical instructions in traditional Chinese Talismanic Magic. I hope this is helpful. ZYD

In Qigong there is a relationship between qi and blood like there is in TCM as described here: Qi and blood in Qigong Anyone who is seriously interested in Qigong should study TCM enough to understand the underlying traditional Chinese physiology, and how it relates to Qigong practice. It is also very useful to study Chinese herbology and traditional cooking theory. The importance of these is taken for granted by the Chinese, but getting Westerners to take it seriously is more difficult. A good introduction to these ideas is Between Heaven and Earth by Harriet Beinfild and Efrem Korngold, a book which I have been recommending since it came out in the early Nineties. The other aspects that you mention have more to do with religion and magic and are not part of Qigong proper. There is a lot of "superstiion" in religious and magical attitudes about blood, but there is also a core of practical knowledge, but that is another matter and too long and complex to examine now.

I think I will break all this exposition up with a little look at areas of applicability. Earlier I said that: I will take one powerful application of these ideas and apply them to modeling Daoism, since many people here have an interest both in Daoism and Western Esoteric traditions, but first I want to point out that while these Aristotelian principles are used as explanatory principles in Agrippa, in Agrippa they have been thoroughly assimilated to a fundamentally Platonist worldview, a task first undertaken by those thinkers usually categorized as Middle Platonists, whose ideas were admirably synthesized and expounded by Plotinus and his successors. What I am going to examine here is Aristotle's doctrine of the "unmoved mover" and I will apply them to the Daoist notion of De or "virtue" and Wuwei, or nonaction, but first the unmoved mover: What better description of the all acomplishing non-action Dao or the Daoist Sage then as, "that which moves without being moved"? and contemplating: Contemplation is the only "activity" of the unmoved mover, it does not "act", but its very "activity" of contemplation and its own self-nature are the Formal and Final causes of all change in the world. The Wikipedia article continues: that there must be an immortal, unchanging being, ultimately responsible for all wholeness and orderliness in the sensible world: These ideas are used in Plotinus as the basis of his notion of Mind or Nous, the emanation of the Divine One and became the basis of a coherent metaphysics of the One. explanation by four causes . . . (and, ZYD) hylomorphism: We have already examined these concepts "the Catagories" mentioned are part of Aristotle's logic and so aside from not being germane are too complex for the present discussion, but we will examine "potentiality and actuality" shortly. immortal, unchangine being . . . an audacious and intriguing argument, that the bare existence of change requires the postulation of a first cause, an unmoved mover whose necessary existence underpins the ceaseless activity of the world of motion: This should not necessarily be taken as a describing an Abrahamic "Creator", though it was used by Jewish and Christian apologists for just that purpose, but that a "conscious" and "intelligent" being was intended is certain as its other name of Nous/Mind, implies, but its only activity is "contemplation", and it is its perpetual "activity" of perfect contemplation which is the Formal and Final cause of all change and motion in the world. How pagan thinkers used these ideas is to complex for this discussion, but John Deck's Nature, Contemplation and the One is the best discussion of how Plotinus used these ideas. Aristotle was to use this idea to explain all the motion and change in our world: required an individual unmoved mover for each sphere: So while Aristotle's discussion of a first unmoved mover was used by montheists, his system would have allowed for multiple other "Gods" who would have be subordinate to the One, but still a polytheism. Despite their apparent function in the celestial model, the unmoved movers were a final cause, not an efficient cause for the movement of the spheres; they were solely a constant inspiration: This should clarify that the unmoved movers were not there pushing the planets and stars around, but rather were sources which while being totally themselves influenced the stars, planets and our world in "ceaseless motion" There is more to all of this, but I don't want to get bogged down in details now, I only wish to point these ideas out and make a preliminary examination of their applicability to Daoism. Now to look at some aspects of Daoism that are relevant to the above. The references below are to John Lagerway's Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (Macmillan, 1987) and a work of mine in progress, "The 金光神咒: Golden Light Invocation or Thunder Magic Incantation?" The text in question is from the Shujing, the Classic of History, and is the beginning of the first of the Great Declarations of Zhou: 惟天地萬物父母，惟人萬物之靈。, which could be rendered as “Only Heaven and Earth is the Mother and Father of all living beings. Only Man of all living beings possesses magic power”. I have chosen 'magic' to bring out another meaning of ling, that which is to a certain extent brought out in other uses such as Ling Bao, and combines all of the meanings above. Legge in his translation renders it as 'only man is most endowed' (with what he declines to indicate!). (My work, ZYD) . . . Here 'man' is given a unique position in the cosmos, with a potential that can be realized or not . . . The worldly 'he-man' is but the palest imitation of the Daoist 'real man' who has fully realized the potential that came to birth with Heaven and Earth. The power of the strongest of the hunky hominids of professional sports is miniscule in comparison to the fully 'realized man', the 'real man' who can: (My Work, ZYD) Lagerway's descriptions are beautiful and profound so I will not comment more on them now, but leave those who have been following this discussion to contemplate how much light the above shines on the Way and its Virtue.

A while ago I posted this: And BaquaKicksAss, who use to post with us frequently, posted the instructions below on baths: I could write my own instructions on baths, but couldn't improve much on these, the only thing I would suggest is not using Van Van Oil, but the herbs I suggest they are readily available and inexpensive, adding a little lemon oil or peel, but definitely not juice, to the mixture is a good idea especially in the case of depressed moods, or darkness, my nick name for lemon oil is "liquid sunshine". Starjumper's advice is also workable "rage magic" and has a long history, going back to shamanic war magic, and could work: Though unless you have experience working in this type of thing I wouldn't recommend any intoxicants, as they can open you up and make self control a little more difficult. if you read Fangshi's post: You will see that anger played a large part in dispersing the oppressing energy. My suggestions are a little more gentle, and probably better for people without much experience. If you have no particular Deity that you care to invoke, my personal recommendation would be The Heavenly Lord Taiyi, about whom I posted in my Personal Practice here: The Heavenly Lord Taiyi Where you can find a good picture of him that you can download and print if you want, and some comments about him.

I started being dissatisfied with what I was later to term neo-magic in the early 1970s and in particular in the period from '72 to '74, did a complete rethinking of the theory of magic based on Volume One of Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and experiences with laboratory alchemy and readings in alchemical literature. Based on some things that Dion Fortune had said in some of her books, even around 1970 I was interested in Chinese martial arts for qi cultivation with a look to learning about cultivating "etheric" energies and "ectoplasm". Jerry Alan Johnson mentions ectoplasm at several points in his books on Daoist magic. Nice to see that the neo-magicians are finally catching up with me.

I posted about this book here and here, and as noted in the second link, received it as Christmas present (It does help to have strange friends). I have been far busier in the new year than I thought and so I have not had a chance to do a detailed analysis, but it seems to be a good introduction to the topic for a medium to advanced beginner in magic. As for Professor Johnon's Book, Daoist Magical Talismans, it is certainly loaded with valuable information, but none of the Daoist Magic series is intended for beginners. If I have time I will try to work up a more detailed review. By the way, the friend who gave this to me also ordered Benebel Wen's Tarot book and really likes it. ZYD

My, my, . . .what did magicians do before they had Aleister Crowley to tell them all about yoga, and where would Crowley be if he hadn't climbed mountains with Oscar Eckenstein? Crowley himself practiced magic before he met Eckenstein, by his own account successfully, but he just didn't have the power of concentration that Eckenstein chided him about it. Indeed his evocation of the goetic spirit that he thought 'spirited' Allen Bennett off to the sunny climb of then Ceylon to 'cure' his asthma, was before he started such practices. What did he do back then? You don't suppose he practiced Golden Dawn style magic do you? On a serious note, listen carefully to anything BaquaKicksAss says about magic, I would say it is worth its weight in gold, but unfortunately that wouldn't be saying much, so just treasure her insights, even if they don't weigh very much. Right now I don't have much time to say more, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to make Crowley the subject of my own amusement and to praise the insight of an accomplished practitioner. I hope to have more time in a few weeks, and can weigh in more at that time, though I will for now say that I did an awful lot of practice of the Middle Pillar exercise based on Israel Regardie's The Art of True Healing in my late teens in the late Sixties. It was very useful, but after that I went very far afield. More later, I hope. Edit: Changed it to if in "even if they don't weigh much".

I had been thinking about posting about Don Kraig's Modern Magick, but really haven't had time for a proper post, but just as a quick note, I can vouch for Golden Dawn techniques in general and for Don's book as a good introduction to them. I didn't use the book to learn, since by the time it came out I had been practicing magic for about 20 years, but I did know Don when he was writing it, and we remained in touch. Don was a very intelligent fellow, and had 15+ years of experience in magic and maybe ten years teaching in local classes, by the time he wrote it. I have some criticism of it, but not as much as I have of Bardon's work. If I have time I will post more. ZYD

Enochian magic has nothing to do with Crowley. It came about centuries before he was even conceived: Exactly the same could be said about Qabalah, but I know that are particularly sensitive about Enochian magic, as am I also, but I was rushed, as usual, and didn't observe the nicities like: The Abyss, Crowley inspired Pseudo-Qabalistic Interpretaion The Abyss, Crowley inspired Pseudo-Enochian Magic Interpretation There, happy now? We can leave it to Nungali to come post a vociferous defense of Crowley when he comes on.

It may seem like "a coincidence", however it is neither accident nor synchronicity, but rather an example of how the forum works. You like one of my posts and the Forum lets me know. That you would like a post that is about obscure subjects to begin with, rather long and semi-technical and hidden in the bowls of "General Discussion" is worthy of note on my part, so I looked up your introductory post and saw that we had common interests. I even have an interest in Buddhist practices and read a translation of Naropa's Six Yogas in Garma C. C. Chang's version when I was thirteen or so, and many more since then. Actually Daoists would love your "Taoist medication", the whole point of Daoist self cultivation is to achieve optimal health and to cure the two diseases of senescence and mortality, and even in Western Alchemy the "philosopher's stone" was called "the medicine of metals" because it turned corruptible base metals such as lead, iron, and copper into incorruptible gold. As for the notion that "so much of this really hardcore Western esoteric tradion is hidden, lost", a lot of it is "hidden" in plain sight as I make clear in such posts as: Agrippa and Aristotle: the Aristotelian background of the Occult Philosophy Agrippa's Doctrine of Occult Virtues, a core concept examined and explained The so called "occult virtues" are only "hidden" from lazy occultists who wail and lament over the loss of things that they have never really gone looking for. It doesn't even occur to them that the whole philosophical framework which gives context and thus meaning to everything that Agrippa says is not some hidden "esoteric" doctrine that was lost for ever, but good old Plato and Aristotle and their Hellenistic successors. Any Renaissance schoolboy would have recognized where Agrippa was coming from, and the reason why is because Agrippa intended his work NOT to be an "esoteric revelation", but a powerful defense of magic, its theory and practice, as a careful reading of his prefatory letter addressed to the Abbot Trithemius makes clear, and thus it had to be in terms that any well educated person could understand and appreciate. I don't have time to write more now, and really don't want to get too far off topic. I hope you have found what I have written interesting. ZYD

This can be subitled Hermetism, Qabalah, Rosicrucianism, Ceremonial Magic, Occultism and more: These are some of the possible subtitles. An example would be: - Western Esoteric Traditions {formerly Hermetic and Occult}: Western Mysticism and Magic, such as Hermetism, Qabalah, Rosicrucianism, Ceremonial Magic, Occultism and more - Other Traditions: Covers western philosophy, logic and reason, etc: I would simply drop this. The reason being, that as I have said Western Esoteric Traditions have reason at their core, whether people realize that or not and almost every Western Philosophy, except the late Roman Epicurianism of Lucretius, which became the basis of modern materialism, can at least be brought in, insofar as it can be, if it contributed to these esoteric traditions, or or provides context for understanding them, it can be brought in, otherwise it would be excluded and what other traditions are we then concerned with? I also don't think it would get much posted in it, or much attention in general. It would amount to wasted cyber-space and possible increase clutter.

Thanks for your interest 'manitou'. The keywords here are 'potentially idolatrous' and the ultimate reference is to St. Augustine and part of his discussion of the Hermetic Asclepius, small sections of which discuss the ancient practices of the animation, literally ensoulment, of statues of the pagan gods with 'angels' or 'daimons' (not to be confused with demons) as part of ancient pagan theurgy. This is what an earlier part of the article is referring to here: You are concerned about this section here: Exactly who these 'Church authorities' is not clear from the quote but it is probably the inquisition, which was run by monks, not necessarily the most learned class of people in the Church. This is the class of 'ignorant' people who would condemn magic to whom Agrippa refers in his letter to the reader. The fact that Ficino did in point of fact receive support from the Papal Court indicates the different perspective of the higher levels of the Church from the lower levels. One need only compare Savanarola to Ficino to get some idea of the difference. It is from this ignorant class of monks that the reformer Luther was to come. For the learned, whose broader perspective lead them to see the ancient pagan religions in a different light, there was no ignorant terror of pagan statues, only a manifestation of divine being that had been appropriate for a certain people at a certain time and which could be remembered and honored in a certain way, the correct way being called doulia, which was a type of reverence used for the saints in regular Christian practice and was acceptable as long as one reserved for 'God', in the sense which they understood, another type of worship called latria, and kept the distinction clearly both in mind and practice. Here from The Catholic Encyclopedia online: Note that doulia even includes inanimate objects, such as images and relics. Ficino had been relatively conservative in the practices which he recommend, the bold genius of Agrippa was to see the larger implications and to extend them to the whole field of magic. This was the whole basis of his defense of magic. No doubt some poor monk will read this and quip, 'Even the Devil can quote The Catholic Encyclopedia.' Also, thanks to BaquaKicksAss for starting this thread. Edit: Added ending "'" to the monk's quip above.