A Confession

I have a confession to make.  I'm not really a magician. I realized this the other day, when in the process of decluttering my house, I decided to take my Golden Dawn and Crowley books, as well as copy of Agrippa's Three Books of the Occult into Powells to trade them in for credit. I'd read the books and done the practices years ago, even re-read Book 4 by Crowley recently and the most profound thought I had was, "This is taking up a lot of space and gathering a lot of dust." So when I turned those books in, which could be considered classics of western occultism, I realized my focus about magic had changed. I realized I'd become someone who happens to do magic, and uses it when appropriate as opposed to being someone who is defined as a magician. Of course I still have plenty of occult books that, as far as I can tell, I probably won't get rid of. I've got my William G. Gray, my Franz Bardon, my Pascal Beverly Randolph, my various books on alchemy, Taoist practices etc...but I've also been gradually filling those bookshelves with books on NLP, communication techniques, semiotics, cultural studies, multimodality, Neuroscience, physics and other areas of interest that are relevant to my spiritual practice.

It's not even so much that I no longer have books by Crowley or the Golden Dawn that doesn't make me a magician. Those are just books. They don't confer status, beyond what meaning people read into them. It's the change in focus, the change in attitude, the realization that my spiritual path has grown to include a wider range of studies and interests than traditional ceremonial magic could offer. Instead of limiting myself to one particular paradigm for how life should be lived, I'm interested in discovering the variety of paradigms available and have been for a long time.

I explored the paradigm of Crowleyian and Golden Dawn Western Ceremonial magic a long time ago. I got stuff out of it, but I moved on to other paradigms of western ceremonial magic that I found more useful (and still do to this day). And I continued moving on, but when I reread Crowley and his fervent desire to rehabilitate magic, I realized I wasn't a magician, because the result of his attempted rehabilitation of magic hasn't even remotely occurred, and yet it seems that so many people still operate on that current. I'm just not one of them. I haven't been for a long, long time, so why continue pretending to be something I don't feel fits me?

I happen to practice magic, along with a lot of other practices. I think that works as a better descriptor of the place of magic in my life and the current I'm exploring.

I like to tell stories

I was hiking the mirror lake trail by Mt. Hood today. It's a beautiful trail, with decent exercise potential, and when you get to the top, you get to see this lake, nestled between mountains. It's quite a site. As I and my wife hiked around the lake, we came across a yellow oblong shaped plant and my wife wondered what it was or what it would like once it blossomed. I told her I knew all about it (I didn't though). As we hiked a little further, we saw a version of the oblong yellow plant open with lots of little bulbous protuberances. I told her if we got too close it'd shoot spikes as us to paralyze so it could then suck our vital life forces out of us. She laughed, fairly amused, because we both knew that this wasn't really true. I like to tell stories though. I like to imagine what something could be, even if it really isn't what I imagined it to be. Stories are magical, to me. Sometimes they end up manifesting real events and sometimes they depict alternate realities, and even when they don't do any of that they entertain, inform, horrify, and communicate, all of which can be quite magical. One of my favorite authors, William S. Burroughs, used cutup to not only tell stories, but splice them and recombine, developing bizarre strains of word virii, by which he'd infect and liberate those who read.

I like stories, because stories present something different, and yet like many magic ritual, they have a formula by which the story creates an environment, tells and shows what is happening within it, and then comes to a conclusion. A good story, makes you feel like you are part of that reality, even if in fact, you aren't. The formula for a story can be useful for creating pathworking meditations (Nick Farrell's Magical Pathworking book demonstrates this rather well), as well as providing a structure you can use to create rituals.

I tell stories, because there are so many stories to be told. It's a kind of magic, and sometimes those stories come true .

Ethics and the Development of Will

"The Will" is an important component of Western Magic, if often ill-defined in practice and discussion. I have defined it as a personal coherence, wherein ones self is so unified that its directives and activities produce clear results - be that in magic or other activities. I consider it essentially the same as "Te" in Chinese culture, the Self of Jungian psychology, or the Freudian ideal where an aware Ego replaces incoherent Id and mechanical Superego.

Building Will, exploring Will, etc. is of course something important to a Magician - that quality is what lets us achieve results as well as personal well-being. There are meditations, exercises, goal-directings, banishing of demons internal and external, etc. that people apply to clear their minds and develop that curious, important quality.

One technique I find useful in developing the Will, is ethical self-analysis and adaption of ethical stances.

Our initial ethical stances and beliefs do not come to us by choice, of course. If we are lucky our parents, peers, and culture provided us a useful ethical system and encouraged us to analyze, understand, and improve our stances. Or if we're unlucky, we get something, to put it charitably, that is less than ideal and is more pure imprinting than anything else.

Unfortunately I think a lot of us aren't overly fortunate in our ethical upbringing and experiences. Ethical situations and issues can be unpleasant, constricting, and confusing because of our pasts and our culture. Trying to imagine a sane discussion of ethical issues on American News, for instance, is something I put in the realm of "extremely unlikely".

So, let's work on our own ethics. When one examines ethical situations and choices, when one decides ones stances and decides on ones codes, one can actually have very profound experiences:

• To understand why one holds beliefs is very informative - even if at times one discovers unpleasant truths.
• To confront unpleasant situations and analyze ones beliefs and actions is informative and strengthens one's resolve.
• To make conscious decisions as to how one can and will behave - and why - is to take responsibility for oneself, providing freedom from unconscious imprinting and making choices conscious.
• To understand how ones magical system(s) affect and recommend ethics helps one connect themselves to that paradigm.
• The exploration of ethics allows the exposure of deep psychological structures so they may be leveraged, addressed, or healed.
• Exercising and developing one's ethics also lets one be "inoculated" against surprises in the future where one can be paralyzed by an unexpected ethical conflict.

I myself find a good sit-down with ethically stimulating literature to be great for personal growth - a little Confucius, a book of classic tales and legends, etc. can provide wonderful fodder for consideration and analysis.

Working actively on my ethical development and contemplation has been helpful to my magical work, especially that of a psychological nature and in my energy work (obviously). I'm more comfortable with myself, more sure of my choices, and better able to rally my resources, and feel more 'in place' in the magical systems I work within. In short, it helps develop my Will.

So next time, before that meditation or work at banishing that personal demon, consider a read of a good classic on ethics or similar.

Energy Work update

I've recently been working with Mantak Chia's Cosmic Fusion energy technique, which builds off the elemental fusion work. I've so far done two of the trigrams, and I'm going to add the third tonight with the breath work I'm doing. The benefits I'm noticing are a stronger cleaning out of the energetic and physical body, but also a condensing of the energy being recycled...so basically it enhances the elemental fusion work. I have to say that the Taoist system of energy work is probably the most thorough one I've worked with so far, especially because the emphasis is on integrating the energy work into the body. I feel the effects and my health has improved because of doing the energy work. It's much easier to maintain my energetic reserves as well. I'll post updates as I continue with integrating it into my life.

A methodical approach to magic

I tend to be a generalist when it comes to magic, which is to say I don't specialize in a particular area or discipline of magic. I prefer to learn as much as possible about a wide variety of topics (most of them not even overtly magical). I admire people who can focus on tarot or a particular type of ceremonial magic to the exclusion of much else, but I don't find that ever works for me. I actually recall once being called on that by another magician. This person asked me what the benefit was of taking such a general approach, as opposed to specializing in something. My argument was that I was finding the connections between all those general areas and tying them together. I still feel I achieve a decent depth as it were in my studies, because inevitably what I'm studying in one area, intersects with another area of interest.

In fact, the method to my madness is a very methodical approach to magic and other areas of interest, where I find and start exploring as much as I can about diverse areas of interest...and yet still stay focused on those areas. I'm not bouncing around all over the place with what I'm reading or doing...I like to stay relatively on topic, really get into the heart of the territory I'm exploring. And that's where a method comes into play, because even if you're a generalist such as myself, you still want to devote enough time and energy toward learning about an interest in-depth, especially if you plan on applying it to your life on any practical level.

I know as a generalist, I can't learn everything there is to know (supposedly the last time that could be done was with Aristotle, but I don't buy that he knew everything there was to know in his time period), but I can still learn a lot, about a variety of interests and get something meaningful out of it, as well as offer something meaningful to others.

I admire the people I know who can really focus in on a given topic. I'm awed by what they do and where it takes them. Being a specialist definitely has it's perks.

And yet, it's a generalist's path for me! And heck, I've found a few others as well, so I'm in good company.

Some thoughts on time

After reading Evola's article on precognition and time in Introduction to Magic, and in particular two passages, I've been musing further about the illusory nature of time and how much a sense of time is derived moreso from routines than we might think. The passages in question is: "The overwhelming majority of people are so enslaved to habits, craving, instincts, and fixed reactions, they are such slaves to things and to their selves, that it would truly be surprising not to be able to forecast their future. Knowing the so-called 'character' of a person, we can already know in an approximate way what he or she will do in certain circumstances" (Evola and the Ur Group 2001, p. 310).

and

"Wherever the basic condition of 'desire' is overcome, and thereby the object is purified from an object of desire into an object of contemplation, the overcoming of the temporal condition ensues naturally. I am referring here to the liberation of the self and of the object and thus to the possibility of capturing in a synthetic way what ordinary consciousness would regard as events analytically arranged along a temporal series, as a mere sequence of 'facts' or events more or less endured" (Evola and the UR Group 2001, p. 313).

A lot of what Evola writes about in terms of habits, cravings, etc is is quite true. Contemporary studies in neuroscience show the people act more so on emotions and cravings and desires and then after that initial impulse end up rationalizing their choices. Given that the amount of neural connections that go from the emotional systems to the rational sections of the brain is substantially more than the connections going from the rational systems to the emotional systems, it's fair to say that the emotions have a significant impact on our choices (no matter how we might like to conceive of ourselves as rational thinkers). Add in the fact, that in sales it's recognized that you sell the feeling in order to hook a potential buyer, and you have people who do in fact plan on the future likelihood that a person will react in an expected manner.

A conversation with my neighbor tonight yielded another insight, which is that if a person feels really good about the lifestyle s/he has, s/he may be perfectly content with the predictability of hir routines. This then brings into question what the motivation for change needs to be to shake up that routine...point is though that time becomes more of a reality through the predictable routines we use to navigate life. In fact time can be conceived as a measurement of those routines. this is most noticeable in the eight hour workday, where time is used to measure how long a person has to stay at work. But it can also be seen in other activities...Calculating the commute for instance.

An astute reader will note that I mentioned time's nature is illusory, but might wonder if that's really the case, given what I just wrote above. But what I wrote above amply demonstrates the illusory nature of time in the sense that time is used as a predictor and measurement of activities...when they should occur, when they could occur, etc....We use time as a measurement to determine and predict when something happens, and create routines out of that prediction.

The second passage of Evola's is intriguing to me, mainly because I've experienced it...i.e. the alignment of events and occurrences that cause a situation to manifest favorably for me. And I think he hits on a key point, that the overcoming of desire greatly enhances the potential of the events aligning in a person's favor. The reason is because you're no longer engaged in specific routines that you believe will get you what you want. We use routines to provide us comfort as well as to fulfill desires, but those same routines are predictive of the actions we'll take, and can limit the possibilities/opportunities a person could manifest.

The choice to overcome the basic condition of desire is really the choice of being able to perceive the desired outcome in a dispassionate manner...to no longer want it, and thus to no longer need your fixed routines that you'd normally use to get it. Unsurprisingly the result of this is that a person is much more open to possibilities or opportunities that are unconventional, yet still lead to the same outcome. A personal example I'd use is my deliberate choice to not concern myself about the out come of my most recent job hunt. Instead of worrying about when I'd get a job, I focused instead on other matters that I cared about. I did of course still do some job hunting, but ultimately the job I ended up with came through a different venue than what I'd normally have found. Everything came together at at exactly the right time.

It occurs to me that linear time is really another means of measuring desire, measuring how much effort you will put into getting something...whereas non-linear time  is an acceptance that the desire isn't essential, and consequently this opens up new vectors which can bring that desire into fruition...the act of not wanting it causes it to occur. Sounds contradictory, but the more desire we emotionally feel, the more invested we are in attempting to obtain something, and as Evola notes and I have noted myself, both from personal experience and from reading a variety of texts on the subject, the feeling of desire can trap us into particular routines, while blinding us to different perspectives that may not be as based in desire (or linear time), but are based on being open to the random opportunities that cause reality to align and manifest what the person was seeking. It's exactly when you give up desire on an emotional level, that you open up to non-linear time and allow what you wanted to come to you through unconventional methods.

Paradox...

Midsummer issue of Rending the Veil is out

The midsummer issue of Rending the Veil is now available. Features articles, by myself, Lupa, Gerald Del Campo, Donald Tyson, Patrick Dunn, and many more.

Review of Introduction to Magic by Julius Evola and the UR Group

Introduction to Magic by Julius Evola

The title of this book could be a bit misleading, as it's fair to say that the majority of the articles in this book are not intended for people who are just coming into magical practice. The articles requires at least an intermediate knowledge in Hermeticism, Alchemy, or Buddhist Meditation techniques, for the most part. With that said, I definitely recommend this book for anyone who is interested in reading and practicing the different techniques described and discussed in this book.

These articles were written in the late 1920's by a group of experimental magicians called the UR group, lead by Julius Evola. This book presents a fascinating glimpse into ceremonial magical work being done in that time by magicians who weren't overtly associated with magical orders such as the OTO or Golden Dawn. The articles are detail oriented, but all of the writers manage to discuss the concepts with enough brevity to explain what needs to be done and how to do it, without unnecessarily waxing poetic about it.

One article I particularly liked was what I would suggest was the first article ever written on space/time magic...but rather apt for what it suggests about the nature of time and how a person interacts with it. This is definitely a book I will read again and again and get more out of each time I read it. I recommend it to any person who wants to either get a better historical perspective of magical practices or wants to continue honing his/her practices.

Explore related entries in the Library

• Magickal Connections: Creating a Lasting and Healthy Spiritual Group

My interview with Occult Sentinel

Occult Sentinel We discussed Taoism, Space/Time magic, Tarot, and my magical philosophy.

A slight change in title

You might notice that the title of this blog is now: The Experiments of Magicians While I plan to continue posting here, I thought it might be neat to get a few other people to post about their own experiments with magic, as well as the culture of the occult.

I've invited Vince Stevens, a contributor to Manifesting Prosperity, and Innowen, another experimental magician to post about some of their ongoing works. Vince's first post, on Role Models in the Occult, was posted earlier tonight. I may be adding a couple more people as time goes on, so be on the lookout for posts about experiments that other magicians are engaged in!

Magic and Role Models

The Occult and Role Models Humans are social creatures, and we inevitably seek people to model our behavior off of. Magicians and mystics are no different.

My experience with the occult, from some early Robert Anton Wilson, Jung, and general mysticism, has largely been from Taoist sources. Interested in meditation, Chi work, and philosophy, it was a natural for me - and Taoist lore has a rich source of colorful tales, characters, and practitioners. My experiences, thus, are a mixture of Western psychology, and an Eastern mysticism containing everything from mental exercises to tales of drunken poets.

Taoism of course provides a lot of fascinating role models, from legendary to more contemporary figures - writers, magicians, scribes, humor writers, and more. There's an emphasis on people who pass on teachings, advise others, find teachers, and so on. Role models are, in short, a part of it's tradition, from the mystics to the doctrinaire religious teachings.

However, this influence on me was not something I noticed until lately, and considering how I would look at legendary figures and modern translators as role models led to me asking the question about role models for other occultists.

At least in my experience, I find little consideration given to role models in occultism. People certainly have them, as noted it's human nature, but I rarely see it discussed. However occult practice involves creating change, it involves symbol and association, and thus I'd say the role models an occultism choses are of paramount importance to what one achieves.

As discussed here on this blog, not everyone is exactly thrilled with Aleister Crowley. I give him his due, but I do consider him to be overrated merely because his reputation seems to be far more than deserved. However, I'd ask another question - how many people is he a role model to, and is he a good choice? I'd say he was smart - but I wouldn't want to be a copy of him.

Or for that matter other mystics - Phil Hine, Grant Morrison, David Lee, Isaac Bonnewitz, and so on - how many people out there are basing their lives on them? How many, for that matter, know it?

If you're an occultist, ask yourself who your role model is - and you can be sure you probably have one or two or more, even if you don't like to think you do. Why did you pick them? Are they a good choice? Are you living up to them? Are you exceeding them?

Examining one's occult role models lets you understand yourself, your choices, and what you become.

That, of course, is a major part of magic.

- Vince Stevens

Facial Action Coding and Posism

Something Bill Whitcomb turned me on to recently is Facial Action Coding (FACS). It's a coding system that attempts to taxonimize human facial expressions (just imagine the correspondence charts with that!). For me this is interesting, because I see some related threads in the neuroscience works I've been reading in terms of how facial expressions have been used in experiments with emotions. Add in, what I consider to be some potential for magical work via the usage of facial expressions, in terms of invocations or for identity work and FACS could have some pretty cool applications. Now what's really interesting though is when you can combine posture and gesture into something like FACS. To some degree we do this already on an automatic level, but of course my interest is on a conscious level...and we can thank Pascal Beverly Randolph for some suggestions toward that. In his book Sexual Magic, he discusses a concept called Posism, which is a method where you use body language, gestures, and postures as a way of embodying a concept or emotion you want to work with magically. You can see some of his stage magician background with this technique, but I'd be interested in finding out if he was influenced by 18th century rhetoric schools which taught rhetoricians poses and gestures that could be used to evoke emotional responses from their audiences.

For Posism to work the magician creates a mental state which s/he associates with the gesture. The idea is that the gesture then creates the thought, which in turn acts as an influence on both the magician and the environment around hir. Sounds an awful lot like NLP anchoring, doesn't it? Actually you can probably base some of the influence of ritual poses in Western Magic on Yoga, but also PBR's Posism techniques.

In anycase, Posism, combined with NLP techniques and FAC  might provide some intriguing possibilities in terms of creating different emotional states and other altered states of consciousness through the use of body posture, gesture, facial expression, and of course anchoring. I don't know enough about FACS yet, but I've started using Posism and NLP for certain engagements and it's proving helpful...so when I learn more I'll be sure to update.

At One

I do meditation each day, part of both my morning and evening regime of practices to keep my mind sharp and my spiritual muscles well exercised. Lately, I've been having a really interesting experience that has happened a few times before. I get into a really deep state of altered consciousness and my body feels as if it's melting into everything else. I notice that the lights intensify and it feels like I've become light, like I'm floating in a sea of light. I can feel myself shifting, moving, flowing into eddys, etc. When I have a meditation experience like this, it also seems that the layers of reality have parted to show me what lies between. All the possibilities of the universe are available. I could flow into any of them at a given moment.

I hope to continue working with this particular level of meditation in more depth. I have experienced it the most when I've been able to live on my own schedule, and I think that is a factor in experiencing it because, if you're not on someone else's schedule you do have more time to relax, which in my experience, has always enhanced meditation.

Follow up Post to the time to Get over Crowley post

In her latest post on the Crowley movie, Psyche says: "Ellwood seemed pleased the movie received a terrible review because he hates Crowley...I hear this sentiment [She's quoting my post where I mention his claim to fame is publishing the GD rites and also his showmanship] a fair bit from people who have not actually read much Crowley and are therefore unfamiliar or unaware of the influence he’s had on magickal thought and practice - “hero-worship” rather misses the point."

In point of fact, I don't actually hate Crowley. I just don't think what he's put out there is nearly as impressive as other people seem to think it is. I'm actually quite familiar with Crowley's work, having read Gems From the Equinox, The Book of the Law, Book Four (Parts 1 - 4), Moonchild, Liber 777, Magick in Theory and Practice, and The Book of Lies. And even after reading all of that I'm just not as impressed as others are with his work (As is evidenced by my post where I showed the problems in his definition of magic). Do I think he has valuable things to say? Certainly. I also think he's been dead for a long time, and other people have written works that are equally as valuable but often ignored or not known about, because in Western ceremonial magic, the buck seems to stop at Crowley. A good example would be Pascal Beverly Randolph who's work, as I mentioned in my post about the movie review, was essentially plagiarized by Crowley with no reference back to his work (and yes I have heard actual Thelemites, and ex-Thelemites admit that this was the case).

I don't hate Crowley. What I do hate is the often uncritical acceptance of him, and unwillingness to look at other works by other authors. What I hate is how so much focus is put on Crowley and how he did so much for magic, and how much other people and their contributions have been ignored because OMG Crowley!!! There are some people who even try to emulate his practices and life as much as possible, instead of developing their own practices. And this is where, yes there is hero-worship. Some people get so focused on what Crowley did and how wonderful they think his writings are, etc, etc...and I begin to wonder if they have original thoughts of their own, or have done anything with their practice which isn't just an emulation of what Crowley did.

I know some people argue that Crowley defined magic and that no one can surpass his accomplishments, and that bothers me as well, because if seventies years after the death of someone, you haven't seen genuine progress in a discipline, or people haven't come along and offered something substantive that continues to push that discipline in new directions, then that discipline is dead. At that point, why bother doing anything new? And that's what I hate...that people venerate him to such a degree that the potential for genuine progress is that much lessened...because hey if so and so is such a bad ass magician, I'll never compare to him. They shouldn't be comparing themselves to him in the first place. What they should be doing is getting what they can out of his works and ALSO reading and practicing what others did, while also developing their own practices.

I think Crowley was a person much like anyone else who has his share of experiences and occult adventures. I think he had a lot of courage to write what he did in the era that he wrote in. I also think that he did some questionable practices, such as plagiarizing the work of others. And in the end, I think that while it's important to acknowledge that he's had some influence on Western magic, and continues to this very day, it's also time to start focusing on what others have done and written and learn from their works and experiences. Crowley was just one person, and unlike others I disagree that he's defined magic or set an unsurpassable record. He's offered a perspective on magic, but there are others. He did some impressive magical work, but if you're doing it right than so have you.

I don't hate Crowley. I just hate his influence. I hate that it discourages genuine progress. I hate that people are so wrapped in what he did that they can't look at his work in a balanced manner, and they don't look at the works of other people, because they think that nothing else that anyone wrote had value compared to Crowley. And they don't try to do anything on their own, because they don't think it has value, unless what they're doing is what Crowley did. And that's why it's time to get over the hero worship.

When sickness strikes, opportunity occurs

I'm not sick, but my wife is. She has strep throat. I took her to the hospital last night and we got her the appropriate anti-biotics to combat it. But she's still infectious, so there's the potential chance I could get sick. I actually had felt a bit of soreness in my throat earlier that day and it'd been a bit more irritating when she was diagnosed. It occurred to me that the sore throat was a symptom of my body already trying to fight off potential sickness. So I decided to help my body. The sore throat was a warning and given that I didn't want to get sick or deal with strep throat, I immediately began to work with the throat. I visualized little nanobots going in and rounding up the strep and getting rid of it with lasers. Afterwards the nanobots administered healing reagents to my sore throat. Within an hour of doing this visualization, the soreness in my throat was gone. I decided to have the nanobots patrol my throat until the infection period is finished.

So with sickness (not my own thankfully), the opportunity to come up with a defense occurred. And my body has been duly grateful afterwards. So sometimes something like this can be an opportunity for a person to experiment

Emotions and circuits

I'm reading The Emotional Brain by Joseph LeDoux. It's a fascinating book, which so far has mainly looked at how psychologists and neuroscientists have tried to explain the role of emotions and where emotions reside in the brain. What I find rather interesting is that LeDoux argues that the notion that the emotions are based in the Limbic portion of the brain is inaccurate...and the reason I find this interesting is because if this was true it would torpedo the Leary-Wilson eight circuit model of psychology that many an occultist refers to, which is at least partially based on the idea that the Limbic portion of the brain controls the emotions. In fact, where you get your reptilian brain, mammalian brain etc is from that concept that the emotions reside in the limbic portion of the brain. So if LeDoux is correct (and I imagine as a neuroscientist who has spent a good portion of his career focused on exploring the role of emotions in neuroscience that he might at least have an inkling of what he is talking about) the eight circuit model might be in need of revision. And this is not such a bad thing really, because the eight circuit model is as much a sacred cow for some occultists as Crowley is for others and challenging that sacred cow is much needed.

One of the many reasons I decided to start reading up on neuroscience was to get a better idea of how contemporary science understands the workings of the brain. I've never found the eight-circuit model wholly satisfying, particularly because it seems to compartmentalized and rigid for my tastes. While I think it can offer a better model for understanding the psychology of one's internal workings than say Freud, it still seems to overly mechanize how it all fits together.

And what I've found looking into neuroscience IS fascinating because it provides a unique view of the universe that is a human body, and offers aspiring magicians a different medium to explore magic in. When combined with psychology it can also explain some of the mental disorders people can experience, as well as offer a potential way to heal or mitigate those disorders via medication, but also I think through magical practice (as I've discussed in some depth in Inner Alchemy).

Of course a lot of the thrill is what still can't be explained...mysteries abound, and where there's mystery, there's magic.

Anyway back to the eight circuit model...a lot of it is based on neatly compartmentalizing what part of the brain is the Reptilian brain and what part is the mammalian brain etc. In fact there's a lot of categorization that occurs with the end result being behaviors mapped out like correspondence tables to the different circuit types. And y'know on the one hand that is an awfully handy system, when you can say "That behavior is the first circuit acting out" It has its uses to be sure...and it can provide a useful model for diagnosing behaviors, though not necessarily a model for changing said behaviors. And while knowledge can be good, application of that knowledge is essential to making it useful when it comes to manifesting significant changes in behavior. And that's where the other hand comes down, because the eight circuit model is just one model among many and yet curiously those other models are seemingly ignored much of the time (though NLP and memetics are becoming increasingly popular models for the occult movement). I think if we can balance the eight circuit model with other ways of knowing...make it one among many, it'll still shine, and in fact might prove a better model when it can be intermixed with other models and consequently practically applied (something which Antero Alli does).

As I continue to read up on neuroscience and apply my magical practices to it, I've increasingly become convinced that the psychological models that are used in occultism need some substantial revision, partially on a bio-genetic level, and partially just to keep up with the current studies in psychology and related disciplines. I've some half-baked ideas of where some of this revision needs to occur (for instance considering the role of identity in magical acts), but as I continue to explore, experiment, and research I will post more about where I think some of those revisions could be applied. Certainly it's proving to be an interesting journey so far in terms of considering just how much we have yet to experience the miracle of our own bodies, let alone what else is out there.

Time to get over the Crowley hero worship

I was pretty dismayed when I found out they were going to make a movie about Crowley. As if he doesn't already have enough hero worship. So I was fairly pleased when I read Dave Evans review of the new movie, in which he states, "For anyone who regards Crowley in a positive light, this is going to be excruciating, and possibly infuriating. For anyone who regards him in a negative light, this appalling falsehood of a film is going to reinforce existing prejudices and add some new ones in people who assume the film is based on something accurate as to Crowley’s behaviour. " And you know what I have to say to that: Good...Fantastic.

Because honestly, if there's one thing I'm tired of hearing in the occult community, it's how Crowley is all that and a bag of chips, and how he's contributed so much to magical thought and practice. You know what: Crowley plagiarized a lot of his work from Pascal Beverly Randolph, and while he wrote some decent material on magic, his writing isn't the best, his theory on how magic works is sloppy, and the fact is other people have written better works since he died. His only two claims to fame is that he published Golden Dawn material that the public wasn't supposed to see and much like LaVey he was able to be a really good showman. I honestly wonder if people would hold him in the same reverence, if he hadn't known how to make such a spectacle of himself.

Time to get over the Crowley hero worship. He isn't all that and a bag of chips and he never was. He was a magician who contributed to the occult knowledge, but there are many others who also contributed to occult knowledge who seem to get thrown to the side because OMG Crowley!!! When I hear how Crowley's writing is poetry, I'd like to point out he's a great imitator of Swinburne and in fact cribbed his poetry style from Swinburne. When I hear how nothing that comes after Crowley is valid, I want to ask the person if s/he has actually read anything other than Crowley (and chances are they haven't). When I hear how great Crowley is and how much he did for magic, I just want to say, "yeah he did a couple things, and there are so many others who have done even more."

And as for the fact that the movie on Crowley might reinforce some falsehoods...guess what they aren't falsehoods...not really. Crowley brought it on himself with all of his activities...He wanted to be bigger than life and notorious and that's part of his legacy. That film just depicts some of the aspects of Crowley that people don't want to see because it takes some of the shine away from him.

Get over the hero worship of Crowley, seriously. It's time to recognize he's just one among many. If you want to recognize what he did, sure take time to appreciate his works and how they've influenced your life, but don't treat him like he's the patron saint of magic. Go read some other works, go do some magic, and stop focusing on just what he did.

Honestly, I'd love to hear people talk about what other authors did in the same tone of reverence they give him. Actually, no I wouldn't. I'd rather people just focus on magic and using it to make their lives better. I think the biggest problem I really have is that people set Crowley up in their minds as some kind of saint of magic they probably never think or even try to go past him, to reach for their own stars, for their own heights...better to look at what he did than actually try and surpass him or simply work magic because you recognize it has value in your life...that's the impression I get so often when it comes to Crowley and how people practically roll over with bellys up when they talk about him.

So yeah get over the hero worship...Crowley's dead and gone and been so for over half a century. He isn't coming back. And his works on magic are ok, but there are others...but really, just stop praising him and start doing some magic and thinking for yourself.

The Wii and magic

We got a Wii recently and already it's sparked some thoughts on how it could be used for magic. While I enjoy the ability to play retro games, by far what I enjoy the most is using the wii mote. I've been fooling around some on the wii sports and something which stood out to me about it was how while the wii mote does give you a visceral experience in using it, it can also give a person an idea of how they think. In this case I'm thinking of bowling, where with a push of a button you can change the direction of the line that you want the bowling ball to go to, factoring in how the ball will curve. I took to using that quite a bit as I got a sense for how the controls picked up my movements in the bowling. And it made me realize that in terms of thinking in lines, I tend to think in curved lines as opposed to straight lines. Straight lines have always represented a kind of linear trap to me, where as a curved line is flexible.  I don't know how much any of that really relates to magic beyond perhaps recognizing how one think influences how a person approaches magic. But I will say that I think there are some applications for the wii..Imagine a program where you could do the ritual movements with the wii mote and see on the screen the flaming pentagram. On one hand you might have the removal of visualization, but on the other hand it does offer that opportunity to riase energy both through your own actions and the actions of the computer avatar...sort like an electronic astral plane...or you could have a program where you create your own temple.

I think there's a lot of that could occur with the wii...in terms of applying it to magic...it'll be fascinating to find out out just what can be developed.

Thinking in lines Straight lines vs curved lines...i.e. wii bowling.

Why are you doing this love work?

I was asked recently why I was doing the year of love work, the year long dedication to the element of love. What did I hope to get out of it, what was I aiming for and why Babalon as opposed to Aphrodite or another love type goddess? I don't really have any set expectation about what I'll get out of this year long work. I can only refer to what I already have gotten, but in that lies the answer also lies why Babalon...Babalon isn't just about lust or desire, though she's commonly depicted as such. She's about strength...some might say strength of will, but if anything she embodies the sacrifice of the will, the sacrifice of the directive force and the submission to the experience. She is about the strength of love, the strength to love and forgive yourself, as well as the strength to face your desires and the consequences of them. Babalon has challenged all of my preconceptions about my own strength and stripped me of them. She has left me at times weak, huddled, scared and yet each time has also challenged me to stand up, to find my own sense of strength, my own ability to discipline myself, to set boundaries for myself, to also recognize my weaknesses. Over a half year in and I am still learning so many lessons from her about love and strength and about my own weaknesses in those areas.

And yet I don't find myself feeling harsh about that. I am forgiving and yet also consciously deciding to embrace my strength by working on not continuing in these patterns of weakness. I no longer have the excuse of "I didn't know" (If I ever had it). Babalon has stripped such excuses from me and her challenge every time is..."And now what will you do with it?

Babalon is really about love in terms of acceptance, total acceptance of yourself...And yeah sex and desire can factor into that pretty heavily, because those are good mediums to explore the acceptance or lack thereof of when it comes to love, but desire and sex aren't the only aspects to Babalon...there's wealth as I mentioned in a previous post and there's also honesty, because Babalon is all about honesty. when you sip from her cup, you taste the truth about yourself, and her. When you lie down to sip from her gate, with her liquids pouring forth, you are tasting the essence of sex and desire and love, but also the truth of yourself and all the lies you've told yourself and others.

I don't know where I'll be a little under half a year from now when this working wraps up in an overt manner. All I really know is that who I used to be even a little over half a year ago has changed so much because of the lady in red. I've sipped her cup, while I've looked into her eyes and been drawn into the abyss, losing so much of what I knew. She looks at me with those eyes, and grips my hands and she says, "You are one of mine, but you are also yours...find your strength. When she kisses me, I am filled with desire and longing, and yet also with knowledge...so this is what desire can do...this is how terrible desire can be, this is how desire can destroy...Do I really have the strength to face my desires, to hold them, to really embrace them and accept them and handle the consequences? That is so much the theme of love in my life. That is Babalon speaking.

headache

I had a headache today. It would not go away, even after I took painkillers. It was in for the long haul. I ate some food and after I cleaned the dishes, I went into the bedroom. I couldn't string together a cohesive thought in words because of the pain. All I could really do was feel the pain. I laid down and decided to meditate on the pain, to be present with the headache instead of trying to deny it. There's a message there, I figured...the headache had something to say. Nothing mystical or spiritually heavy to impart so don't get your hopes up. I wasn't enlightened, I didn't have the heavens open to birth some revelation.  I just meditated on the pain. I felt each throb of the headache and recognized I needed to slow down the blood...so deeper breaths, a message to heart saying "Slow down, relax". The pain diminishes a bit. Next I focus on feeling the passage of the pain...not where the pain is, but how the pain is traveling in my brain. It seems to be traveling from the back of my head, the occipital portion I believe, to the eyes, or vice versa...

So I begin to lightly massage the pain, to open up the circulation, and spread out the energy, because it pretty much is a case of too much visual stimulation, too much energy in traveling in one direction, sorta like I-5 in Seattle...too many cars and you can't go anywhere...so I start redirecting and re-distributing the energy and the pain continues to lessen. It's less intense. I continue this until eventually the pain is gone. There's a faint lingering presence in one eye for a bit, but it's already dissipating, being massaged and moved in different directions, different places...vented and redistributed to balance the whole. The back of my neck on the right side is also bothering me, partially because my muscle in my upper right back is bothering me so that's another potential cause of the headache. I'll work on dissolving the tension on those, but it could take a while...I'll really have to scan and feel my entire back and start on the area with the least tension, gradually moving to the deeper areas of tension, which will get loosened as I do this because the areas with less tension are already loosened...it's a recognition that just focusing on the symptom doesn't really work, especially because the symptom is an expression, but not the cause of the issue.