western magic

[Taoist81]

I have done the six healing sounds exercise, that exercise gives me the feeling of cleaning the body energies, i was amazed how much mucus i had to clear out from my throat after my first session. The LRBP seams to me to focus on clearing the mind. Or the microcomos as it is told.

 

A interesting thing was that in the days that followed my new practice, my dream life, or dream recall went into overdrive. The vividness of the dreams increased massively and it was like i was doing a spring cleaning in my dreamworld from all types of weird critters and animals. From what i understand this is what is supposed to happen, you turn on the light and scare away astral parasites etc.

 

 

//john

 

The LBRP grows as you grow. If you look at what you are doing with it, it is drawing Kether into Malkuth. You are not "just clearing out the astral". The LBRP both banishes and invokes. Two quotes from Crowley are interesting in this regard:

 

"It is the duty of every person to see that his Aura is in good condition. There are two main methods for doing this. The first is by a performance two or three times daily of the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. Its main point is to establish in the Astral four Pentagrams, one in each quarter, and two Hexagrams, one above, the other below, thus enclosing the Magician, as it were, in a consecrated box. It also places in his Aura the Divine Names invoked. "

 

and

 

"Those who regard this ritual as a mere device to invoke or banish spirits, are unworthy to possess it. Properly understood, it is the Medicine of Metals and the Stone of the Wise."

[Spiritual_Aspirant]

thinking about checking out http://doloresashcroft-nowicki.com/ this persons stuff.

particularly the your unseen power course

 

what do you guys think about it

 

 

I have her book on Magical Use of Though-Forms and it's great. Very useful.

[ToL]

thinking about checking out http://doloresashcroft-nowicki.com/ this persons stuff.

particularly the your unseen power course

 

what do you guys think about it

 

Sounds interesting, have you tried it?

What do you think about it?

[phore]

Sounds interesting, have you tried it?

What do you think about it?

 

 

Shortly after i posted this the new kunlun book came out so it seemed unnecessary at that point.

 

I bet it could be good though. just the feeling that i get.

 

[ToL]

Shortly after i posted this the new kunlun book came out so it seemed unnecessary at that point.

 

I bet it could be good though. just the feeling that i get.

 

 

[Yoda]

fun thread!

 

I read in JM Greer's Druid Magic, he takes the LBRP and takes all the fancy verbiage and stars out of it and makes it a dedication to the sky, the earth, fire and water and focuses on spheres of energy whirling around one/one's land/the world/etc... it's a lovely adaptation, but now he's essentially a taoist.

 

[Sloppy Zhang]

I am by now means an expert of Western Magick, or an expert in the knowledge of Western Magick but... well... from what I have read, the goal is the same.

 

Cultivation. Higher understanding.

 

The means are quite different. I've done some study of meditation and the like, as well as tarot, both of which are on going. Someone else put it this way, but the terms are quite good, and those are: low data high intuition, high data low intuition.

 

Stuff like meditation, in which, perhaps as a byproduct, you are able to "do stuff", that is low data high intuition. You don't need "things", you don't necessarily need outside material stuff as focus, it's just you, sitting there, with your intuition with the purpose of cultivating a higher self. As many of us here no doubt know, it's a simple concept, but requires much dedicated practice.

 

The other stuff, such as tarot, astrology, and a lot of western magick, involves high data low intuition. If you're doing tarot, you have an entire deck of cards from which to draw knowledge. With astrolog, you've got lots of calculations. Rituals, sigils, signs, potions, etc, all of these "things" are material objects, but they are there to serve as FOCUS. A symbol is supposed to serve as a focal point for thought and contemplation. You look at a symbol, maybe something of divine geometry, when you are in a state of meditation/contemplation, that is supposed to "get the gears moving". I may say it's "low intuition", but the whole idea is that the "high data", the "things", are there to help increase your intuition.

 

Also, I think that I should mention that lots of magick texts were influenced by ideas that originated in "the east". Reading some bibliographies and bios of authors for lots of occult texts, many influential ones were written at the time of some of the crusades, which, as you can imagine, provided the chance for a major influx of knowledge from the east. Definitely something to think about, especially with the influences and similarities.

 

Now, here's the "problem" as I see it: with lots of "stuff", it's easy to get sidetracked. Heck, it's the same with the "low data" practices. Some people complain about falling asleep during meditation! Some people fidget and are completely unable to sit still. If these people have so much difficulty with just SITTING there, imagine how hard it would be if you're juggling a deck full of cards, calculating the orbit of the stars, getting the right ingredients for a potion, all while trying to make sure you're drawing your sigil with perfect proportions!

 

Sufficed to say, from what I've read, it'd be very easy to get caught up in "things". But perhaps because of that, it was VERY easy for a charlatan to pretend to be a wizard. I mean how does someone imitate a yogi? Strip down, sit under a tree, grow a beard... omm....? But how do you imitate a wizard? Learn basic chemistry, get some materials, draw some pictures, interpret cards, and make some flashes (yes I've drawn on major stereotypes for both...)

 

Then again, perhaps as (most of us, I'm not sure) can be westerners, we've lived with the stereotype of the wizards. I've got some friends from China/Japan who view that "meditation chi magic" as just as bogus as someone from the west would view someone who claims to be a "magician".

 

Then there's always the burn at the stake part, which was brought up

 

So I'd say that each path has "pitfalls" that a "less willful" person can fall into. It's just that perhaps one is easier to do that than the other, or perhaps one is easier to pretend you are something that you're not, or perhaps we've just become desensitized to one group.

 

Now, the reason I've taken up more to meditation and the like is because... well... I'm kind of a college student, and don't have the money to put into some of the things that certain western magick requires

 

If I had the means, I would definitely be willing to try, and I would definitely put as much effort into it as I have with my "eastern" practices... it's just that I work with what I've got.

Edited September 23, 2008 by Sloppy Zhang

[Yoda]

I've been curious to see how the other half lives, so I've been hanging out at theenigmaleague.net for the last few weeks and have found a couple other taobums there as well.

 

It's fun to see the similarities and differences between these groups and if anyone is interested in this sort of thing, it's a good forum.

 

But one thing holds true east and west: wizards like to scrap!

 

Yoda

[rodgerj]

Edited August 30, 2009 by rodgerj

[Sloppy Zhang]

You are 100% correct. That is the goal of true magick. As with everything however, people use it for their own material gain and it becomes something else.

 

Right, gotta watch out for the bad apples out there!

 

And you can find bad apples in any group anywhere, I'm not just talking about western magick or eastern meditation here

 

Some of them come wrapped in funny robes, some want you to draw funny pictures, they tell you to chant certain words at certain times a day and... it'll make you super rich... if it doesn't work for you then you should pay for their advanced program

Edited September 24, 2008 by Sloppy Zhang