The Latest episode is now available to listen to...and we got a caller. This episode focused on exploring why certain personalities are so prevalent in the occult community, while others are not as well as how that fame can impact the evolution of magic. I'll be doing another episode in two weeks at 3pm PST time as a review of the Esoteric Book Convention, which I'll be going to next weekend.
Continual shifts in my philosophy of magic
My philosophy and overall approach to magic has shifted a lot in this last year in particular, but even in preceding years before this. It has become less about overt rituals and sigilization and other more visible techniques of magic and has moved into a quieter and more subtle practice, even as my studies and experiments have moved more toward a deeper end of the pool. The exploration of the concepts of identity and their relationship to magic has necessitated a very different approach, because its rooted much more in what I would consider the core of a person. It's not about fixing a situation or getting a job, so much as its about making changes at a deeper level of being, which when realized, changes the surface layer very quickly, because the changes have been building up and moving through the various layers of identity and personality to imprint themselves on the embodiment of selves I manifest in this life. I'm continuing to move further and further away from traditional concepts and definitions of magic. While to most, magic may be the art and science of causing change to manifest according to the will, that definition feels inadequate to me, and pretty much always has. But even the definitions of magic that I do have respect for...there's something missing. The last few years, with the continued internal work has continually shown me that. The more I read outside of the occult books, the more I recognize perspectives that could contribute to much to magical experimentation and process that are mostly ignored because they don't fit within the occult paradigm perse.
I don't identify with the mutant occulture movement. I don't identify with the chaos magician, the ceremonial magician, or any of the other labels. I don't identify with the occult culture. My time spent studying and learning the various perspectives and approaches to magic provided me a useful process and way of examining my relationship with the universe, but it wasn't until I actively started looking external to traditional occultism that I began to develop an appreciation for taking a more detailed look at the microcosm, and how I did or didn't impact that microcosm, or how it effected me in turn. The original impulse for getting into magic was to claim some form of empowerment by getting involved in it. That impulse has changed to a more introspective approach. Empowerment can be found in a variety of outlets, but what then is empowerment? What does it really mean to "have" power? And do we really have any of that? And where does it really come from?
If Magic is a process for change where is it most effective to enable that change? And beside the overt change in the world as a result of practicing magic, what is the more subtle change, if any which occurs? I think about these questions more than I used to, especially as I continue to research and explore alternate perspectives and beliefs involving a person as a change agent. I'm questioning my spirituality, my beliefs, and my identity, because in the questioning I'm finding myself visiting places I never thought to go before...but where it'll go, I'm not sure. And that seems to be a good thing...not knowing where it'll go, what will develop as a result. That's been the emptiness working for me...but its also the rest of my workings as well. It's moved out of experimentation for experimentation's sake and into experimentation for as a journey and evolution.
Time Magic: Work with Elephant
I'm prepping to switch from the Element of Emptiness to the Element of Time. My work with the element of Time will likely be quite different from that of the previous workings. I'm working with a lot of entities, and already have been given a diagram of sorts that shows the positioning of each entity. Last night I did my first working, which was to Elephant as the gatekeeper of time. Elephant guards the gates of time, acting as a guardian for those who would work with time, but also as a guardian of time itself. I would consider him a tester of a person's understanding of time. His lesson is to teach those who would work with time about the integral role of space in defining our understanding of time, specifically in terms of distance and how we use spatial measurements to process the motion of time.
I'll be working with him for the rest of this week, as part of the prep work for switching over to Time in October. Below is the painting I created last night with his guidance. The background colors are purposely done somewhat faded, so that the symbol stands out further.
The Magical Experiments Radio Show
Today Bill Whitcomb and I recorded our first podcast radio show for Experimental Magic: Is Magic still Relevant. I've attached a player on the side bar of the blog, but you can also click the link and listen to it as well. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Experimental-Magic/va/2009/08/16/is-magic-relevant-to-modern-times
Giving to Elephant
Last night, I did some searching on google for sites that focused on elephant conservation and once I found one that I felt comfortable supporting, I made a small donation. I don't have a lot of income to spare right now, but I also recognized the value of giving something to elephant and I suspect that this will be something I do at least sometimes in my spiritual work with Elephant, depending of course on just what state my finances are in...but I think elephant can understand that. After I gave the donation Elephant asked me to sleep with my elephant hair bracelet on. No mythical dreams of portent occurred, or anything else, but I did feel pretty good about it and when I meditated elephant came and visited and offered some support and guidance, because I was feeling very scattered. I felt more focused and even now can feel a quiet urging from him.
This could be all in my head, all in my imagination, but it does work, for what it needs to be. That's really all I can ask...and if in the process of that I can give something of myself to help another being as well then it makes it even better.
Review of Integral Psychology by Ken Wilbur
This was a very interesting read, which examined the varying theories of psychology and focused on integrating those theories together and then providing an overarching theory that they could fit into, supplied by Wilbur. The author is clearly very well studied in what he discusses and provides some detailed explanations that provide a successful argument for what he's attempting to do. This can be a dense read and jargon heave, especially with some of the words the author has come up with on his own, but don't let that discourage you. I see this work as an essential read for occultists, a way of expanding their understanding and application of psychology to their own practices. The charts at the end of the book are helpful for illustrating what Wilbur is explaining. My only wish is that he could've integrated the charts more into the book, instead of at the back.
4 out of 5 stars
Update on my work with Elephant
It's been a while since I've written about my work with Elephant, mainly because there's been nothing to write about. I've been busy reading and researching more about Elephants and their relationship with humans, per Elephant's request. What I've learned, particularly in reading The Astonishing Elephant by Shana Alexander has been really eye opening in terms of how intelligent Elephants are, the uneasy relationship they have with humans, the abuse and poaching, and the uncertain future for elephants. After reading up on Elephant, Monday night I was allowed to take my next step in working with Elephant. I put on a bracelet of elephant hair, given to me by a friend and then meditated with a statue of elephant, which had a similar bracelet place around its neck. The meditation lasted over an hour and involved a long conversation about what I had learned, how it made me feel about Elephant and what my relationship with elephant could possibly be. What I really remember from it was facing the full force of elephant as a being that could easily kill me as a human, and recognizing in that experience a certain awareness that I think many people never experience, namely the recognition that in the right circumstances I could easily be killed by an animal regardless of my "superior" reasoning, etc. In fact, Elephant pointed out that the image that humanity had cultivated for itself has lead to so many of the problems that humanity faces as a result.
I did a similar meditation today and Elephant asked me to wear the bracelet for part of the day. This time we focused on what we could offer to each other. Elephant pointed out that I could help out by looking into contributing in some form or another to efforts being made to help elephants. In turn Elephant told me that it could help me with some memory and spatial awareness concepts. Wearing the bracelet for a good part of the day was interesting...a distinctly different feeling and energy than my own.
I'm not sure where I'll go with this yet, but I do feel that working with Elephant is providing me some unique experiences for me.
Review of The Astonishing Elephant by Shana Alexander
This was an interesting exploration of the history of the elephant in America, from the circus days to the most recent times. The author also covers the history of the elephant in other cultures and then discusses at length the current fate of the elephant. What surprised me the most was just how violent elephants and humans have been to each other, as well as just how much we don't really know about Elephants. The method of communication that elephants have fror instance is much more sophisticated than many people would attribute to animals.
I found this book to be the most useful in my continued studies of Elephant as a spirit animal to work with. I definitely feel I know more about the issues surround Elephant survival and treatment, than I'd previously known about before I'd read this book.
five out five.
Outliers, patterns of success and identity
I'm reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a very interesting book, as all of his books are, and in this particular case has prompted some thoughts on identity, based off of what he's writing about. Outliers are people who are significantly different, in terms of how they succeeded, from the usual cases of success. However, these are not self-made people (if there is such a thing). Rather Gladwell argues that examining their cultural and family background can provide clues as to how these people achieved success. He makes a very convincing case, from what I've read so far, and most importantly shown what I think is another facet of identity in the process. That facet of identity is the cultural and familial models of behavior and practice that inform how a person handles situations that occur in life. These models or patterns of behavior are displayed to a person from early childhood on and they influence how a person makes choices from careers and finances to love and friendship. These patterns can be changed, but changing them involves challenging not just the immediate familial and cultural beliefs and practices, but also a history of them that has influenced previous generations in their choices and actions.
I was reminded of that today, when I was talking with dad about another family member and made the remark that her problems with finances were a direct result of a pattern of belief that a person had to struggle in order to be happy and that she should just focus on her business and not worry about what could happen. My wife, listening to this conversation, accurately pointed out that I participated in this same pattenr of behavior fairly recently myelf...and she's right. And I've been working on changing this pattern, but I realized that this pattern isn't just part of my identity, but also part of one side of my family's pattern of identity. And that pattern of identity reaches down through the generations to influence the current generation, in this case me. Which isn't to say it can't be changed, because in yet another synchronous conversation with a distant relative I just met today, there was discussion about how a couple of generations ago there was a shift toward getting a college degree by the different members of the family. At some point the gene-erational patterns for the family identity shifted into a different identity for the majority of the family and that pattern is now accepted as something essential to the family identity (if they wouldn't look at it in quite that way).
In Outliers, it's suggested that the identity of success is best realized through patterns of behavior that encourage that identity in the overall family. I would posit that this also applies to other patterns of behavior exhibited in a family and that the sense of identity a person cultivates is partially informed by the family identities that s/he is a part of. When a person wants to change his/her identity, change a pattern of identity/behavior s/he probably does need to account for the weight of the family identity and how it will either provide momentum or resistance to the change. For example, my desire to change my financial patterns and identity is an ongoing process of not only changing that part of my identity in myself, but also starting to change that identity within my family's identity of it (or at least one side of my family). Indeed, I would suspect that for my change in identity to be fully successful, it could be useful to interact with the spirits of my family and show them the benefit of that change, so that they could retroactively start the change in previous generations, providing more momentum behind the changes of identity I'm currently engaged in. Hmmm...now there's an idea for an experiment. I need to give it a try and see what happens.
A review of the Art of Magic series
I haven't written much on here lately, other than my most recent emptiness working posting. Life has been fairly busy, in a good way, with my business. A lot of my my efforts, magical and otherwise are going toward creating and sustaining my business, and the rest is going to the emptiness working, with a few parcels going to projects as and when I can get to them. Today I thought I'd provide a commentary on a series of videos I found on youtube about the art of magic. First a couple of links:
Lupa's article for the wild hunt blog, focuses on community building and hyper individuation.
A Facing North review of Pop Culture Magick.
And now on to the show:
There's a series of videos on youtube that I came across because someone in my twitter list happened to mention a video that focused on defining magic. I was curious and decided to check it out. Needless to say what I found was a series of videos that wasn't all that good because of how narrow the focus was and how sensationalistic the examples were.
The narrator of the video only used Crowley's definition for magic and applied only a psychological approach to magic, claiming at various times that magic wasn't supernatural. Whenever she talked about sex magic, she talked about how Crowley did sex magic as well as Anton Lavey, i.e. Satanists, but didn't focus on any other perspectives or approaches to sex magic. Her examples of magic usually focused on people trying to get laid or or trying to harm someone, essentially advocating an unethical approach to magic, without any real consideration on possible consequences or demonstration of whether magic can be used for anything beyond self-gratification. She also claimed that what the bleep do we know and the secret are examples of magic.
In the end I was decidedly unimpressed by this series of videos. Relying on on only one definition of magic and the psychological model of magic as well as a variety of poor examples, all it really portrayed was a lot of negative stereotypes about magic, and a rather simplistic understanding of how it worked. The lack of awareness about consequences, as well as narrowly exploring magic shows an unsophisticated awareness of the principles that inform magic, and also rather casually discarded alternative perspectives, cultural systems, and processes for how magic works.
First part of a new time magic experiment
It's nothing too glamorous though. I looked through the Goetia and found each Goetic Daimon that has some relationship to time magic. I've already been working with Purson for a while, but I thought it might be useful to expand my horizons and work with other goetia that focus on time work as well. My first step was simply to read up on them, and then transcribe their seals onto pieces of paper. After that was done, I put them in my memory box. Later on this week, with the help of Purson, I'll start making contact and see what develops from there.
The act of transcription is the first connection, the first interaction. It's not very overt or dramatic, but it is focused and it serves as a knock on the door as it were.
Changes in identity
So as some of you may know, my next solo work is focusing on the concept of identity and how it fits into magic. It's rather fitting then that the last year and 3/4ths has been focused on changing my own identity in a variety of different contexts from my relationships with lovers and friends, to my relationship with my self, and how I've chosen to engage in meaningful activities that allow me to fully live, as opposed to just getting by. To me, success in magic is driven far more by a targeted proactive approach toward manifesting the kind of person you want to be, and much less toward obtaining specific results for specific situations. At one time, for most of my magical career it was the latter paradigm that I was focused on. It was a reactive approach I took, and I sometimes didn't understand why I needed to do it so much.
I think that as a person consciously changes his/her identity and figures out what s/he wants, the less there is a need for reactive acts of magic. Magic becomes a process, as opposed to an act. It becomes a way of life as opposed to a tool used to handle a situation. It becomes a conscious agreement with the universe about the pathv a person is taking through the universe, and becomes less of a stumbling around in the dark.
Of course that's my take on magic, in large part generated by very specific and targeted changes in my life, lifestyle choices, and overall focus. The change in my identity has so far been one of the most involved experiments I've done and has pretty much involved challenging every single assumption I've held about not only magic but all the other facets of my life. The uprooting it's caused in my life has been significant and yet that significance is based far more in taking such a proactive approach to identity, by recognizing what no longer worked and actively focusing on changing it, while discovering what definitely works and enhancing it.
When I finally get around to writing my next solo book, it will be interesting to see what I do with it...but I'm in no hurry on this one. I've already got so much going on and it's far more exciting to be living it.
Time Experiments, Ethics part 2
On Friday, my group and I did some work with time magic. The first two experiments we did were based off of Jean Houston's book The Possible Human. We did one experiment, where we would experience our consciousness as a unit of time, such as a second, minute, year, 100 years etc. Eventually you lose track of the units of time and enter into a non-linear state of experience with time. Each of us who did this exercise experienced a very similar state of mind.
The second experiment was one where we worked with three segments of time on a yardstick, as it were, but altered which segment of time (past, present, or future) was more prevalent during the meditation. It was an interesting experiment, again because of the state of mind it put us in, moving us out of a linear state of mind and into a non-linear state of mind.
Both of these exercises are useful ones to do, to put you into a very receptive state of mind for doing time magic. They don't take very long to do, but they condition your mind to push itself outside of the constraints of linear time.
The final exercise was done with the Goetic Daimon Purson. In the mythology I've created around my own use of time magic, Purson is a guide on the silver strands of time. I introduced him to my group last night, partially as a way of thanking him for his services and patronage and partially as a way of helping the people I work with learn a bit more about my own approaches to time magic. We used the tesseract board to evoke him and my experience with was of two trees twisted together. I thought that rather odd until late that evening, I came across Ipos, another Goetic Daemon of time...so I'll be contacting him soon.
So an update on the Ethics book. I've started working on chapter one and it's coming together nicely. I got some responses on the first post, both from commenters on this blog and from a blog entry by Augogeides along the lines of arguing that magic is a technology and puzzlement that there's a need to write about ethics as it pertains to occult culture. It was also argued that ethics as they applied to magic boiled down to being able to determine if an action was ethical or not, regardless of whether it was a magical action or a non-magical action. That's the gist of it, or at least what I got from what was said.
When I talk about ethics and magic, I'm talking about taking a proactive approach to ethics, which incorporates practical magical techniques into how one approaches ethics in his/her life. However, I don't think merely determining if an action is ethical or non-ethical, and then making your choice to follow through on that action or not, is really ethics...or rather I think of that as reactive or cover your ass ethics, ethics utilized as a way of making sure you aren't doing anything wrong (or aren't getting caught). I don't really think of that as a useful approach to integrating ethics into one's life because it doesn't make ethics part of your life process and growth. Instead it's just a convenient code to check on occasionally to make sure you are in the clear. I have a lot more to say about this, but I'll save it for the book. Suffice to say my and Vince's approach and outlook on ethics and their role/integration in magic is decidely different from what I've usually encountered in the occult community.
Book Review: The Evolving Self by Mihayli Csikzentmihayli
I wish I could say this book really represented an evolution in psychology or how we conceive of the self, but the truth is, it really doesn't. If you read this author's other works, then this work can be thought of as half a step beyond those works. At times the author is judgmental, condescending, and whiny, and he doesn't offer much in the way of a concrete definition of self. The final few chapters predictably focus on flow, but don't provide anything significantly new to the theory that he hasn't offered anywhere else.
Two out of five
Further thoughts on clothing and magic
Since my earlier post on clothing and magic, I've been doing some further thinking about it, and considering just how much the act of getting ready for the day can be incorporated into a purposeful ritual that allows a person to invoke a persona that enables him/her to go into the day's encounters and succeed. I've mentioned clothing of course, but even other acts such as putting on makeup, or deodorant, or shaving, tying hair back or otherwise prepping for the day can be construed as part of the magical act of creating the persona. Each action can be perceived as putting on part of the costume or ritual garb, which allows the person to assume the persona of a business person, entrepreneur, or whatever it is s/he needs to be in the moment.
For myself the various activities I do to get ready for my day have become ritualized. Putting on the business shirt and buttoning it, and then tucking it it into the business slacks and tying m hair back, before putting on the business coat and shoes and socks has become a ritual I use to put myself into the right mindset I need for public speaking, visiting with a client, and otherwise assuming the persona or godform of the successful entrepreneur. It's lead to some other results as well, which has been useful on other levels of my life.
Part of my fascination with this topic is born out of my recent decision to dive back into ceremonial magic further, albeit my own brand of ceremonial magic. If I can use my flair for outfits and fashion choices as magical act, it turns that into another tool and/or medium to exert my presence on a metaphysical front, as well as physical and mental front.
I'm even fascinated of late with the jewelry that one can wear. Putting a ring on can have symbolic importance, but having gotten some finger talons recently, it's been quite fascinating to not only feel a physical difference when wearing them, but to also note the change in mindset while wearing them. It speaks to a subtle shift that I think occurs far more often than many of us might realize, when it comes to what we wear and how it prepares us for social situations, but also how we can proactively utilize principles of magical invocation to create personas, which can adeptly navigate those social situations and create more favorable situations in the future.
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I'll actually be attending a talk by Thorn later this week at the Sekhem Maat lodge, on embracing the I am of selfhood, so this review is timely. Should be interesting.
Book Review: Kissing the Limitless by T. Thorn Coyle
This is one of those rare reviews where I would have to say that this book is an essential read for today's occultist. Taking a mystic's perspective to magic and it's integration into our lives, Coyle provides a model of attaining mindful awareness that isn't newagey and is something the occult culture sorely needs. She explores in depth the value of internal work and provides exercises that the reader can use to get in touch with his/her higher self. This book is a guide to internal work and what is refreshing about it is that it's written from a Western tradition of magical practice. Definitely put this book on your must read list this year.
five mystic sages out of five
Ethics and magic Pt the one
I've recently started work on another co-written book project, since the project with Bill W is temporarily at a lull and I've been meaning to get started on this new project for a while anyway. This new project is an interesting one for me as it deals primarily with ethics and magic. I'm working on the first chapter and poring over the very few books I know of that deal with questions of ethics and magic (including your work Gerald) to any degree of length. It's rather odd to realize just how few books there are on ethics and magic, and to note as well that most of what I have come across is rooted from a Wiccan perspective on ethics. I've found a couple other works that deal with ethics and magic from other perspectives, but the majority of western occult texts mainly seem to deal with practical applications of magic, with little concern as to the ethical ramifications of said practices. Chaos magic tends to take a fuck off attitude to ethics and magic, and a lot of ceremonial magic seems to be far more concerned with pomp and pageantry than examining the ethical underpinnings of what's being done by who. Even where I have found some focus on ethics, it's been written in a rather vague way, which speaks to a decision to abstract the issues, as opposed to dealing with them concretely. It confirms quite a bit to me, in terms of some of the concerns I have about the occult subculture and where it is or rather isn't going in terms of evolving.
Is there such a thing as ethical magic? That's a rhetorical question by the way. I actually think there is such a thing as ethical magic...but how to define it or explain what it is...well that's the subject of a co-written book I and Vince Stevens are working on. Stay tuned for more information, as I'm sure I'll be posting more details and considerations as I continue this work.
Clothing magic
In Multi-Media Magic, I wrote about clothing and magic, but in a conversation with a friend, earlier tonight, I actually ended up talking a bit about my own approach to clothing in more depth. See I have specific outfits or clothing choices I make, when it comes to activating specific persona or role choices. For example, tonight Lupa and I went to a fet event at the conservatory. I was in a subby mood, so I got dressed in black harem pants and a black poets blouse, which perfectly evoked for that subby persona. If I'm in a toppish mood and feeling somewhat masculine, slashed up pants and a t-shirt will work or if I'm feeling more feminine in my gender choice, a mesh shirt, vest, and hakama pants will help.
Naturally I extend this kind of work outside of my fetish interests. When I meet with a client, I'm dressed in a business suit. I do make sure the pants are comfortable, and the shirt is colorful, and I always wear one of my trademark hats. I use the clothing to help me get into the role I need to perform. Something which really interested me is that my business persona changed as I added new apparel to it. The sports jacket, the black socks, etc, all created changes in the persona, to help it fit more into what I needed it to be.
Recently I bought a purple shirt and pants and that also has it's own association and role. In fact every outfit I have has specific purposes for creating and sustaining specific roles I need to be in. Each outfit is used to create a kind of space and place for the roles I want to inhabit. The clothing becomes ritual gear. When it is put on, I assume specific roles. The clothing acts as a trigger point, a way of assuming a specific mantle and preparing myself for specific types of interactions.
I've always treated clothing in that way. The clothes become the ritual costumes, by which I change myself into whatever I need to be for given situations.
What do you think of...
when you think of magic? Is it some witchy person, complete with warts transforming people into frogs?
or some teenage kid wearing a pentagram and black so s/he can look cool?
or some hippie looking person who rants about the system?
Or are those just expressions of a subculture?
When I think of magic now, I don't really think of it in terms of subculutres, and I realize just how much thinking of it in those terms has previously limited my realization of what it could be...and it makes me wonder how, in an effort, to categorize and/or associate it with certain subcultures, we actually lose out on what it could be.
I haven't done a lot of rituals lately, or experiments. I've been continuing my meditation, but right now a lot of my magical work is focused in Malkuth, in making a lot happen right now with my business, and with some of my other passions...and it's not that ritual doesn't have a place...or that breaking out the ceremonial gear can't be useful, but it is realizing that magic can be found in any moment, in any person, in any circumstance. We only limit our perceptions of it when we try to categorize it.
Some thoughts on Sex Magic
I got into an interesting discussion today with an acquaintance I met about sex magic. I was telling her about my approach to sex magic, in terms of how I identify myself when it comes to the polarity issue. In hetero sex magic, the masculine principle is usually perceived of as the active energy, while the female principles is usually perceived of as the passive energy. But I've never really agreed with that model, and my work with Babalon has only made it more apparent to me that the trad model of sex magic, in ceremonial magic, doesn't really work for me. When it comes to sex magic, and even sex in general, I tend to be a re-active principle, which is to say that my energy doesn't get active until it has something to re-act to, and even then I prefer that my energy be directed by my partner.
Or to put it a different way, instead of being the beast which carries Babalon, I am the beast ridden by Babalon...My energy responds to her and she directs it. And I'm comfortable with that as a sex magician.
But it didn't really, fully click until today that this was the case, because so much of what I've read has always insisted on the male principle being the active energy. And I wonder how many other male magicians, who practice sex magic, might respond if they realized that the masculine principle doesn't always need to be active, and sometimes just may not be at all.
An experiment in Magical Economic Activism
As you might recall, I'd written a post a little while back on here about economic activism. For a good definition of economic activism, see my article here. Of course, being me, I also wanted to turn this into a magical experiment, and so I have, along with some other people I work with on a regular basis. The working isn't fully finished, but tonight was a major step. Several weeks ago we agreed we'd focus on creating an entity that helps people with networking. We then took sometime to list what the entity does and what it doesn't do.
Tonight, Bill W took over for the part of the experiment where we'd determine the name of the entity. We also spent a lot of time figuring out the elevator speech, essential for networking purposes. Once we'd done that, I invoked Purson, the goetic demon of divination to help with the working, while Cobalt and M also did their own workings to feed energy into the creation of the entity. Purson had me shuffling a tarot deck a lot of the time and ended up creating a divinatory enchantment for the networking entity that emphasized it's focus on making connections, providing a balance of power in the networking and other essential skills for successful networking.
While all that was happening, M did some I-Ching readings, and Bill W used a pendulum with mercury to first determine the number of syllables and names for the entity we were creating. Then he used the pendulum to determine the letters for the name. It was an interesting process to observe, and a bit different from how I've created entities, so I definitely felt like I learned quite a bit from watching him, but also want to actually learn how to do the technique, by doing it.
We did come up with a name for the entity, but we still have some more work to do in the creation process. Look for future updates here!
Review: Flow: The psychology of optimal experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
This book explains what optimal experiences are and how they relate to the psychology of happiness. This book also provides some intriguing definitions for consciousness, attention, and intention, which I think are useful in reconsidering how to purposely use such elements of our behavior to prompt flow. It's a good book overall, with the author providing some excellent examples of how people have used flow states to overcome adversity as well as create works of genius. It also presents some psychological theory which isn't rooted in Freud, Jung, or the eight circuit model, which is refreshing to read, and much needed in order to better appreciate psychology as a discipline and how that discipline can be related to one's spirituality.
If there's one area where this book suffers, it's that the author is sometimes too wordy and overly repetitious. While I enjoyed this book, there were times, I felt the author was repeating himself too much, in order to get a point across. That said, it's definitely worth picking up, to broaden your understanding of psychology and optimal states of experience. 4 out of 5 psychologists
Further work with Elephant
Today I finally got around to doing further work with Elephant. I hadn't meant to delay it, but between the emptiness working and also some focus on other projects, it took a little while, but elephant stayed persistent with me, and seeing as I was home for today, he insisted I do some work with him. I found him on a plain and he told me to follow him. I started to walk, and then was picked up by another elephant and put on its back. We rode to a place, where I saw elephants of the present and also the past...He wanted me to see the elephants that exist now, but also the ancestors and I aksed him why. He said, it might give me some perspective on elephant and on animals in general. He then asked why I'd never done much in the way of animal magic. I answered that it never really occurred to me and he seemed to nod and said, "That's a typical human response. Your so caught up in yourselves, you forget about us, yet you've had a link to me for all of your life, and never thought to explore it until now."
He's right. I haven't really explroed that link. I have a fascination with elephants, but I don't think I've ever done much in the way of fleshing that fascination out. He pointed out that my memory skills and my ability to always find my way to different places in part was a result of that link and that he could teach me how to consciously draw on elephant as a totem, as well as use those skills better, but if he was going to work with me, he wanted to know what I'd do in return. So he gave me two conditions.
- Spend some time learning about elephants, and what's happening with them in the world.
- Start working with him more regularly.
He also told me that what he could teach me had definite applications across a variety of areas in my life, which I can believe. It does get me thinking how easily we take animals for granted, however. I've never done much in the way of animal magic, despite being married to someoen who is an expert in it, because of my own very human-centric point of view.
Half my life
It's April. Each year, in April, I remember when I first learned about magic, learned that it was real, learned that people practiced it, believed in it, did something with it. I was sixteen at the time. I was a born again Christian who was dissatisfied with the answers I'd gotten to my spiritual questions, as well as the rabid intolerance displayed by the other born agains. And as always I'd turned to my fantasy books, to read about other worlds, other lives, and most importantly the magic. One day, in April, this one kid sat me down in the school library and told me a story about how he'd astral projected and fought a demon. He was trying to freak me out, because he noticed I read fantasy books. So he was really surprised when I calmly told him to bring me books to read about this subject. He blinked, a bit surprised and then told me he'd bring them the next day. And he did. He brought a couple pamphlets about astral projection and magic. I devoured them within a day or so, eager to try out the exercises and begin unlocking the mysteries of the universe and myself. He was surprised at how quickly, how eagerly I took to the material and that weekend took me to the local new age shop, where I bought my first couple of books and started down my long road of magical practice. We became friends, and I kept reading and practicing, desiring both to be the best possible magician I could be, and also wanting to attain a sense of power in my life that I'd never really had before then.
Over time my motivation for practicing magic has changed a lot. Instead of trying to attain power or be the best possible magician I can be, I find myself in a place where I explore the spiritual questions, landscapes, and realities of magic from an experimenter/mystic's perspective...seeking not so much for self-glorification, but rather for increased awareness and appreciation of the connection between myself and reality.
And over time I've experienced a lot of disillusionment about the occult community and the various posturings I see within it, as well as the rather desperate need to be counter cultural and rebellious for the sake of being it, instead of offering any real solutions or efforts toward genuine change. I've become very selective about who I associate with and who I share a lot of my deeper work with. I've also learned that the best magical order you can belong to is the one you create yourself, even as I've also learned that I can be more a team person as it were than I used to be, but I also still prefer a lot of my solitary practices. And I've learned that any measure of success is ultimately subjective, and that the process speaks a lot more to my spirituality than any of my results have ever done. I'm on a journey, and it speaks for itself.
And now...I've practiced magic for half of my life. My practices have changed a lot. They are much more varied and deeper and far more focused on contemporary approaches to practice, as well as other disciplines. But still, each year, in April, I can't help but smile and remember that sixteen year old who discovered magic was real and started out on a journey which has brought him far more spiritual and personal satisfaction than any other prior spiritual exploration had. I've changed a lot, grown in many different directions, but there's still that part of me filled with wonder and excitement about at last discovering that magic was real! And I'm glad, even with some of my disillusionment, I can still find him after all these years.
Integrating concepts into your life through your subconscious
One of the skills I've picked up over the years is one where I integrate magical concepts into my life on a practical basis by imprinting those concepts into my subconscious and then allowing those concepts to integrate into my life via my actions and life occurrences. Sounds really similar to sigils, right? The main difference however, is that instead of focusing on a specific desire, what I'm actually focusing on is a concept that isn't focused on a desire, so much as it's focused on attuning myself to a particular energy or force. William G. Gray wrote about this practice in Magickal Ritual Methods, describing how you could take a ceremonial tool and imprint that tool into your mind so that you would then understand and embody the conceptual force that the tool as a symbol represented.
I've taken that approach and used it lately to integrate the Chinese Element model and classical Planetary energy model into my life. For example, I've worked with the planetary energy of mercury through my networking. By integrating that planetary energy into my subconscious, I'm using it to influence my conscious decisions when it comes to attending networking events. This kind of integration allows me to work with these types of concepts and energies on a deeper level, while also gradually aligning them with my conscious mind, for when I can work with them more overtly. And how I do this? I have a table of correspondences tacked to my wall that I look at each day for a couple minutes in order to imprint those correspondences on my mind. I've found it useful for not just memorizing, but also integrating those correspondences/concepts into my life, so that I'm more open to their influence in my daily activities.