The Ontological Reality of Deities, Spirits, and otherworld beings

 

Thanks to the polytheism vs pop culture magic debate that has been going on I've been thinking a lot about my own interactions with deities, demons, spirits, etc. Galina Krassakova posts her own views about her experiences and why she doesn't need theories to define her relationships with her deities on Pagan Square and though it might surprise her and the other polythiests, I'm actually in agreement with her argument that theory ultimately distracts from doing the actual work. Theories are at best tools, but even as tools they should be used carefully lest they overshadow the actual work.  My latest article on Pagansquare discusses theory and its role in magic further, but for this post I thought I'd focus on my experiences with Deity, spirits, and other assorted spiritual beings I've worked with. That phrase "work with" is likely where I and the polytheists differ and we'll get to why that is later.

My journey with the spirits has taken me on some interesting paths, and some of those paths have been theory oriented.  I've explored archetypal theory for example and applied it to my practice. My book Pop Culture Magick is a prime example of the application of archetypes to magical work and to be honest I still use some of that in my practice, particularly with identity magic. And working with the concepts of archetypes has lead me to some interesting conclusions about deities, demons, etc., based less on theory and moreso on observation, practice, and experience with said beings. I don't feel that these realizations take away from the reality of the spirits, so much as provide some additional forms of engagement that ultimately can lead to a more primal experience of spirit. I liken it removing a mask and uncovering what's really underneath the mask, and realizing that the mask was used in order to provide a particular space where spirit and human could meet for the comfort of the human.

Yet the removal of the mask was also the removal of theory. Instead of focusing on the attributes and behaviors, the trappings as it were, I encountered the deeper ontological reality of the spiritual beings I was and do connect with. And instead of trying to get them to fit my agenda or needs, I allowed and do allow myself to be moved by them, to fully experience them as they are instead of through an interpretation based on theory. The irony is, that by allowing myself to be so moved, I've been moved as well by the pop culture spirits I've worked with, the ones that are supposedly not real. In my article on pop culture on pagan square I mentioned how I had a long relationship with Thiede. Thiede is a character in Storm Constantine's Wraeththu series, a fantasy series, and yet for me Thiede has been and is real. Thiede is the guardian of Space, the revealer of the ley lines between planets and stars, a dehara, and so much more to me. Reading about him in a book was only the start of my connection to him, and it was a connection, from the start, that moved me deeply.

When I say the phrase "move me" I'm not talking about being emotionally moved to tears. I'm talking about encountering a spiritual force that has deeply affected me, changed me and pointed my life and spiritual practice in a different direction than it might have gone otherwise. And that experience isn't something you can just slap a theory on. It defies theory because theory is ultimately an intellectual process used to categorize and define something into a neat little box that you can store away until you need it. I've had an encounter with something fundamentally different from me and that experience has changed who I am. It has changed my identity.

And this is not an isolated incident. Each year I work with a different elemental force and part of that process involves working with a spirit guide that provides a "face" through which I can interact with that elemental force. The elemental balancing work is an intense process of change that is brought by interacting with the element. There is no theory for it, but simply the engagement of practice and the recognition that I need to work with a given elemental force in my life. The various entities I've worked with during the balancing rituals haven't been archetypes...far from it. They are collection of beings that even today are in my life. They are not something I believe in...they are something I experience. That's an important distinction to make because in my opinion belief is just another theory, another tool. The experience of them in my life is something else. To me, the spirits I work with, traditional or pop culture, are real. There is an ontological essence of being, of identity that is objective, beyond any categorization I could give it, and it is sustained not merely by my own experience, but also by the experiences of others, independent of my own.

My work with my spirits has some form of devotion and offering attached to it. Some of the tattoos on my body, for example, are devotional offerings of my skin made to a particular element as a way of recognizing the significant role the element has played in my life. I also make offerings to particular spirits in the form of writing or through painting. But the work I do with them is nonetheless geared more toward the advancement of my work with magic than anything else. They play an important role in my life, but they are not central to it, so much as they help me focus on what is central. Thus I work with them, and this likely is different from how the polytheists approach such matters.

Just because some of my spirits aren't tied to a particular religion or culture of old doesn't invalidate their existence. And while it might be said that such spirits were created by an author or artist, I'd argue that perhaps they weren't created, so much as channeled and experienced. Whether anyone agrees with me or not on that issue isn't important. What's important in the end is that I am doing the work I am called to do. I'm getting out of my own way and letting it happen, letting myself be moved and inspired, so that I can do what I need to do. And really, isn't that the point?

Is there Sacrifice in Magic?

Jack wrote an exasperated (but justified) response to the above meme, which has been circulating the magical and pagan blogs of late (evidently). The caption that is supposed to go with this picture is "All magic comes with a price, dearie!" Jack's point is that none of us are being asked to sacrifice our first born children to magic, to get what we want, which in the show is something that Rumple expects from the various people he helps. All we are ever asked to sacrifice is the time we spend learning magic, practicing it and discovering who we are in the process. To my mind that's not much of a sacrifice at all, but then I love studying and practicing magic.

But I think that Jack, and others miss perhaps a more subtle message that is implicit in that statement of magic coming at a price. It's a negative message, a negative belief about magic and what it costs. If you watch Once Upon a Time, magic is treated as this corrupting force, this power that can't really be controlled, which makes the people who practice it become complete asses to everyone. I don't buy it, don't really agree with it, but I see it as an example of mainstream culture using pop culture to comment on magic, to paint it in a very specific light (ironically in the process just making it more attractive). All magic comes with a price...and that price is the sacrifice of your child or something else you don't want to give, but that you'll willingly give for something you prize more. when magic is looked at that way it becomes both something tragic and malicious...pity the magician who has fallen sway to the forces of darkness, while recognizing all over again that magic is something a person shouldn't dabble in.

Given the source, Disney, we shouldn't really be surprised. Look at any of what's been produced and magic is always treated as some force a person can never control, something that will corrupt the person who uses it. But that belief isn't something Disney just cooked up. It's something that was cooked up by the Christians, there way of demonizing the spiritual practices of the religions that weren't Christian.

I don't think there's sacrifice in magic, unless you choose to make a sacrifice (and sometimes that can be appropriate). I think, if you're doing it right, the price is your time and effort, or whatever you agree upon. Certainly I haven't sold my soul to any capricious spirit for the dark delights of magic. Whatever agreements are made are ones that don't demand a pound of flesh or an ounce of soul. It all boils down to this: You decide what you want to give and do...but don't automatically assume there's price. There's only a price if you make it about a price.

The Role of Magic in Solving Problems

Jason made a recent post about problems and solutions and magic. I think that sometimes people buy into a myth that if you're a magician you can use magic to solve your problems and everything will be a-ok. Then they get upset when they discover that magic doesn't automatically solve problems and that sometimes it even enhances them. What isn't recognized is that magic doesn't solve problems for you. Only you can solve problems for you and while magic may be one means of solving a problem it's not always the best way to solve the problem or may be only part of the solution you employ.

I have found that if I look at the various problems in my life, there is one thing all of those problems in common: Me. So problem solving really needs to start from within, which means that a contemplative awareness of my choices and actions can help me recognize how I am contributing to a problem in my life. I may not be solely responsible for the problem, but I always have some responsibility for it and recognizing that responsibility can help me start the process of solving the problem.

If I employ magic into the mix, I do so because I feel that it will help me solve the problem by providing me access to resources I'm not otherwise getting or help me discover a solution from an unusual angle. However I also know that the responsibility of solving the problem is on me. Magic can provide possible solutions, but I have to follow through on those solutions. And I think that if more magicians recognized this then they might not even be so quick to draw on magic. What I've observed both of myself and other magicians is that a lot of magic use is reactive, done as a response to a problem to try and make it go away. And sometimes that occurs, but then the problem resurfaces in a different format, because what hasn't been resolved is the magician's place in that problem and until that is resolved the problem will continue to surface.

So I think first look to your own role and make appropriate changes, then look to magic and other means of solving the problem and employ whatever measures are necessary. And then solve it and move on. Don't let the problem define you...define it, and let it go. One example of how I solved a problem via magic was dealing with an inability to let go of anger and hurt that I felt toward certain people from my past.  I realized one day that those people didn't care and that the only getting effected by this problem was me. I took responsibility, then I developed a banishing ritual where I evoked my feelings about those people and then did a ritual to banish them and let them go. Now I don't think of those people, I'm happier, and magic has helped me solve that problem in a way that wasn't so much reactive as it was done with conscious awareness of how I could free myself from what I'd been feeling.

Book Review: The Miracle Tree by R. J. Stewart

This is a solid book on quabala that provides useful exercises to help you explore quabala from a Western esoteric tradition. I like how the author marries quabala to planetary magic and shows how the reader can use the system to do both meaningful internal work as well as connect to cosmic and underworld energies. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the topic, but don't just read the book. Do the exercises and you will get a lot from the content as it applies to your magical work and life.

Process of Magic Round 6 starting July 3

 

Round 6 of the Process of Magic class is starting on July 3rd.

Magic is a process. Regardless of what magical type of magical working you do, you are using a process to shape and define reality as well as yourself. In this 24 lesson class, we will explore what the process of magic is and how it applies to your magical work. The end result will be a dynamic reshaping of your magical practice into a personalized system that you will be able to use to consistently generate results for the betterment of your life. You will learn:

• How to develop your own definition of magic and why its important to have your own definition.
• Explore a process oriented approach to magical practices, that will help you optimize their usage in your life.
• How to personalize your magical system to improve its efficacy in your life.
• Why its important to do internal work and how that internal work can help you improve your magical work.
• Understand how to fix mistakes in your magical workings
• Achieve a new understanding of magic and its place in your life and work.

Whether you are just learning about magic or have been practicing for years the Process of Magic course focuses on what really matters: Learning how to use magic to proactively improve your life. This course will teach you a different perspective and approach to magic that will help you evaluate it and apply it to improve the quality of your life. When you take the Process of Magic Correspondence course you will get the following:

• Access to an e-list that is specifically for this class, with feedback from other students (Value $5 a month).
• 24 written lessons sent out each week on Wednesday which includes exercises to help you develop and refine your process of magic (Value $400).
• Free Teleconferences every other month to discuss the material directly with me! (Value $45 per teleconference)
• Free MP3 Recordings of previous conferences (Value $45 per recording)
• A Free E-book copy of Creating Magical Entities (Value $20).
• The value of this course is around $800, but you’ll get it for the low cost of $100.

If you’ve always wanted to develop your own personalized system for magical work or just wanted to understand how magic works and can be used to improve your life this class is for you. To sign up for this class or learn more contact me.

Magical Enhancements of your body

The other day I read an interesting post by Mr. Black on human enhancement. I've always been fascinated by how a person can enhance his/her body using magic since I first started practicing magic. In my book Inner Alchemy, I described some of my work toward that purpose, but there's a lot I also haven't shared, so below is some of the other enhancement work I've done with my body and thoughts on how you can apply this to your own work.

1. Enhance your muscles. When I was in college, one of the jobs I worked at was a package factory (similar to UPS). You'd work for four hours packing boxes (50 - 100 Ibs) onto trucks. It's hard work and you get sore quickly. It's a job that has high turn over as well, with up to 50% quitting in the first 2 weeks. When I worked there, one of my solutions was to temporarily enhance my muscles, both in terms of strength and healing. What I did before the shift was to run my hands over my legs and arms, putting energy into the muscles so that I could warm them up ahead of time, as well as help them heal. This allowed me to condition my muscles during the first couple of weeks so that I wasn't as sore as I would've been otherwise. Additionally, the work was easier because I'd enhanced my strength during that time. To this day I still use this working when I need to do physical labor. All you need to do is your own energy to your muscles. Basically you are using your chi to enhance your muscles.

2. Enhance healing by communicating with cells. When I get tattoos, I tend to heal fairly quick because what I do is communicate with my cells and direct energy toward the metabolism functions in order to improve the speed of healing. I've also used this for other injuries. While it doesn't provide instantaneous healing, I have noticed that healing occurs quicker than it normally would. With tattoos the healing time usually takes 3 weeks to a month, but I've been able to heal in a week. To do this kind of work you need to learn how to communicate with your cells, which I've covered in Inner Alchemy.

3. Eye sight enhancement. I have 20/20 vision. Neither of my parents or their parents had 20/20 vision, but I've always had it. One of the activities I do on a regular basis are eye exercises, which include bringing my sight into and out of focus as well as rolling my eyes and looking up or down or to the side for more than a second. Doing these exercises help to enhance my sight, but I've also done some inner alchemical work with the rods and cones as well as the natural chemicals in my eyes, focusing on cell regeneration, so that I can keep my eyesight at its current performance. Thus far it seems to have worked, but time will tell if what I'm doing is working.

These are just a few examples of how I've experimented with enhancement of the human body. I am continuing my exploration of the body, because I feel that learning how to work with the body is an integral key to enhancing and even prolonging life.

Explore related entries in the Library

• Physical Tower Spread
• Working with Body Spirits
• Support the Collapse Body Inquiry
• Health and Body Dowsing Protocol

Money and its relationship to value and experience

I recently read a post on pagansquare where the author discussed whether or not it was ethical to charge money for magical services. He didn't really seem to take one side or another in his post and his response to my comment was equally muddled, but it did get me thinking about barter vs money. As readers of this blog know I'm writing a book on wealth magic and as such I've been doing a lot of work and thinking around money as one component of wealth. I've also done a lot of thinking about bartering, especially because, in one of my businesses, I've engaged in bartering. Here's what I've discovered about bartering: You rarely get the value you were hoping to get from the barter. I certainly haven't in my bartering situations and its because bartering isn't attached to a fixed value in the way that money is. So its much easier to be disappointed with bartering and its why I no longer barter for services or products.

Here's the magic behind money: With money you have a fixed, artificial value attached to a service or product. I say artificial because the truth is that the money you pay for anything is actually the smallest value, if the service or product is done right, but what makes money effective is that value is established to a number and that number provides reassurance on both sides of the transaction that value is being exchanged. But like I said if its done right the money paid is the least value you get from a service or product. What a service or product should do is provide an experience where the value easily exceeds the amount of money you've paid. For example when I buy a video game I'm not just buying the software. I'm also buying the enjoyment I get from the game, the hours I spend playing it and the experiences I have. As such the money I pay is a small price, if I enjoy the game. Personally I feel cheated if I haven't replayed a game at least twice before returning it...that's the least amount of value I want to get for a given game.

In my businesses, which are more service oriented, I need to continually provide value that shows my clients why investing money is worth their while. If I can't clearly establish the value of what I offer continually they'll eventually move on. So with the Process of Magic class for example, you don't just get 24 lessons, or a free pdf, but a chance to talk with via a teleconference every other month, plus a dedicated forum to interact with me and the other students. And you better believe that I make it a point to respond to emails regularly when I receive them. I want my students to feel acknowledged, taken care of and appreciated. I want to give them real value because I know that the price of the class should be the furthest thing from their mind if I'm doing it right.

See how this relates to wealth magic? If you want to do wealth magic for your business then one of the first factors you need to consider is how much wealth (value) you are bringing into the lives of your clients. After all, if you want them to bring wealth into your life, you need to be willing to give wealth (value) that justifies their choice to spend money on you. And part of giving that value involves establishing a relationship with your client where s/he feels valued and acknowledged. To do that you've got to think of ways to provide a return on investment that exceeds the artificial value of what you've been paid. You need to give in order to get. Money is the lowest value of what you get and give, but it sets up the initial value and challenges you to improve on it.

Some of my current pop culture magic workings

There's a lot of conversation going on right now about the validity of pop culture magic and spirituality in the blogosphere. If you want to see my response to it, go here. But I figure for this post I'll talk about some of my current work with pop culture magic. While my magical practice isn't as focused on pop culture anymore, it's still a significant component of how I practice magic. I'm pleased that more and more people are integrating pop culture into magic, as it is necessary for the evolution of magic. So below are a few case studies of what I've been up to.

Nathan Drake: Discoverer of lost items

At the beginning of this year I discovered the Uncharted video game series. While the first game was a bit lackluster in my opinion, the second and third game are amazing. You feel like you're in a movie. Even the musical score supports this feeling. In playing the game I felt like I got to make a connection with the main character and there were three traits I felt were useful: His ability to find artifacts that were lost (you collect them throughout the game), his problem solving abilities, and his luck. So I figured if I ever needed to I could call on his help for finding something I've lost. I've had three occasions where I've needed his help. Once was to find my phone (I'd left it in a restaurant) and the other two times were to find keys. Now I imagine that all of you know how frustrating it is to lose something and not be able to find it, especially when you need it. In each case, I started humming the theme song of Uncharted to evoke Nathan. Then I asked him to find the objects in question and show me a map of how to find them. Each time I did this, within a couple minutes I got a map that showed me where to go and each time I found the item in question.

I figure if I'm stumped about a problem I can also call on Nathan to help me discover possibilities for solving the problem. I haven't had to as of yet, but I'm sure I'll need to. And he's lucky...he's fighting scores of goons and who know's what else and he always comes out on top, so that's something else I figure I can draw on.

Kratos: Time and Time Again

If you're familiar with the God of War series then you know of Kratos. What's fascinating about Kratos isn't just the fact that he's the archetype of rage and vengeance (as well as the God of War), but the fact that in most of the games time is an element that he uses to his advantage. The most recent game, for example, allows the character to construct or deconstruct items, while in other games he is able to slow down time. Pretty nifty skills. While I already have some Time Dilation techniques I can use, I'm never one not to experiment or explore an idea that's presented in a different way. So in the case of Kratos its involved actually calling on him to slow or speed time up for me, which has been useful for reaching several business appointments. I could do it myself, but the point was to see what he could do. When he does it, he projects a cone of greenish energy that is used to either speed up or slow down time. It's projected into the environment, but doesn't effect me. And as with Nathan I hummed the theme music to evoke Kratos.

Those are examples of working with pop culture entities and I used them to show how such entities can be used to effect events as opposed to just personality traits. But I'd be remiss in not including a practical pop culture oriented technique that the magician could do him/herself.

Sharing Images

Something I've noticed with blogs is that if you include a picture its more likely to grab the attention of people and get them to go and read your blog. There's nothing inherently magical in that, but it's occurred to me that one way you can charge sigils is to simply share a picture of the sigil on social media. You can even embed the sigil into a picture if you'e got the right skills and then people can charge it up for you. Each sharing of the sigil fires it off while also charging it with the attention of the people who look at it, like it and comment on it.

So those are a few pop culture magic workings I've been working on. There's a few I haven't shared either and those will have to wait until I write the next Pop Culture Magic book. There's a lot to explore with pop culture magic if you have an open mind.

Some thoughts on Applying Process to Meditation

I've just finished reading Working on Yourself Alone By Arnold Mindell (See Review below). He takes an interesting approach to meditation, breaking it down into a process and actually showing different types of meditation processes that a person can work with. What I like best is that he shows how to achieve meditative states of awareness using different channels of experience. This is not something usually addressed in works on meditation because the focus is on teaching meditation within a specific cultural context, but the value of this kind of approach is that meditation is approached as a process with specific steps that can be followed and broken down as needed, in order to determine what works or doesn't work.

Meditation as a process isn't confined to one way of doing meditation. There are different types of meditation and different results. Pathworking, for example, doesn't work with the body in the same way that a breathing meditation would work. Perhaps what most interest me with this book is that the author claims that its not pain that motivates people to change but rather a mixture of love, self-discipline, and enlightenment. I think there's some truth to that, but I think that pain can be a good motivator toward change. Certainly it causes us to be aware of who we are and how we experience life. However, I'd say that following through on sustained change is where discipline, love, and enlightenment come into play. These keep us on track, while also informing us of the progress we've made with our work, and even in meditation there is a need to see some kind of result (though how that result manifests is something that can only be experienced as opposed to predicted or defined).

Meditation as a process does, for the most part seem to be applied around the body. What this means is that the body is an essential element of the process. The body needs to be factored in as an essential element of meditation that be examined to understand what is stopping someone from effectively meditating. I think that the mental chatter should also be included in that examination as a symptom that can be explored to discover root issues that the person needs to work on. I've used mental chatter or monkey mind in my meditations to discover or explore issues that are stopping me from being fully present in my meditation and this in turn has lead to internal work that has allowed me to process and heal from those issues. Some of that work has also involved movement, which the author touches on at some length. Movement is an overlooked component of the meditation process because of the usual stereotypes associated with meditation, but even in those stereotypes movement is a component that has relevance to meditation and its effectiveness or lack thereof.

I like to apply process to everything I do, because understanding the activity flow and components helps you understand what works or what needs to be changed. A given technique becomes much easier to change or replicate once you understand how it works and what components define it. You can strip away the non essentials and still get something significant to happen because you understand the underlying principles that inform how the process works.

Book Review: Working on Yourself Alone by Arnold Mindell

The author applies a process perspective to meditation, explaining how different meditation techniques work and how to achieve meditation by switching techniques. I found it to be a useful book, especially as he demonstrates it through his own practice. He shows how to switch to different meditation modalities and also shows how to strip the technique of cultural context. One downside of this is that he is stripping away certain contextual information that might be useful for the meditation practice. Nonetheless the author does a good job of exploring how meditation works and what can be done to more effectively meditate.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Movement month 7

4-24-13 I had a dream this morning. I was on a road trip with Jim Nadenicek, a friend I knew in my State College days. We were driving through Pittsburgh and just happened to be going by my old elementary school, so I asked him if we could stop in. We did stop and I saw a few teachers I vaguely recognized and read into a woman I knew as a kid. She gave me advice about how to conduct myself around other people. Then I went outside and Jim had this jeep. My car had broken down and we needed to go to the auto repair shop to see what was wrong. An interesting dream that I'm still processing, but I see certain themes in it that are consistent with internal work I'm doing right now. My dreams have become more vivid since I've been doing Zhine meditation regularly.

4-26-13 20 years ago in April I started practicing magic. It's hard to believe that 20 years have passed. I feel proud of myself as a magician when I look at those years and everything I've done and explored and I feel excited about the rest of my journey and I'm grateful that barring anything unexpected, I should have a long time to explore my spiritual journey and implement it in this life. How fortunate I am...

4-27-13 I've been doing some further reading of the Post Infidelity Stress Disorder book and one of the realizations I've had is that until I really explored these problems they would have continued to show up in my relationships. The author makes a good point that a person is attracted to someone who reminds them of their parents or themselves. I see that in my relationship choices. Most of the women I've been attracted to have in one way or another reminded me of the strictness of my step mom. Kat's pretty much the exception and who she is similar to is me. Recognizing these patterns of attraction helps me also see how the behavior has been set up to undermine the relationships. I feel sad about it, but in a weird kind of way also relieved because I have a much better understanding of my issues. And through understanding comes change.

4-30-13 There are days I really don't want to meditate or exercise. I feel extremely busy or like I have too much on my plate. And yet I know that if I don't exercise or meditate I am cheating myself of so much. So today was one of those days and I made myself exercise. I feel better for doing it, and I also know it reinforces the discipline I believe is essential. Keeping yourself on track isn't easy all the time, but the true test is to choose and do something when you don't feel like doing it, but know you need to.

5-01-13 I got an email from Weiser books today about the Wealth Magic book. They want to look at more chapters of the book. I'm not sure how I feel. Part of me feels happy,  vindicated, acknowledged, but another part of me isn't sure if I really want to go with a big publisher. I have mixed feelings on all of this. I feel conflicted, not sure what choice I'll make, but Kat and I will discuss it together and then I'll make a decision about where to go next.

5-02-13 I sent the rest of the manuscript in. I figure I owe myself the opportunity to see what will come of this particular opportunity. Worst they can say is no and if they do say yes, then it's bargaining time, because I definitely want some say in what happens with the book and how I can use it to promote myself to a larger audience.

5-07-13 Something I've come to recognize about myself is that I can be brittle. Kat says I like order, and there is truth in that. I like things in my life and universe to be orderly, to follow certain conventions and to be easy to find. And this is where it can lead to brittleness because sometimes I cling so much to the order that I don't adapt to what really needs to be changed. My work with movement is helping me realize this brittleness about my personality, and with some work I think I can be more flexible even when my sense of order isn't as I'd like it to be.

5-15-13 Sometimes I go through periods where I have little to write. This is one of those periods. I've learned to accept these moments when they occur as I figure it is just a period of gestation and deeper thought. You can't rush magic and you can't rush writing.

5-19-13 Movement is about boundaries as much as anything else. Today I had to tell someone my boundaries around a specific topic. It wasn't easy to do it, but I realized that I didn't need to be moved to the head space that I felt moved to when discussing the topic with that person. So setting up that boundary was really a healthy action taken. There are some memories you don't want to revisit, especially if you are an abuse survivor of any type. Those memories can put you in a space of being a victim and while it is important to work through those memories, it should be done in a way that is empowering to the person.

I've been thinking lately about my role in my household. I am not the chief bread winner. Kat is the chief bread winner of the house hold and I am comfortable with that. Nonetheless I also contribute in my own way. I clean and cook, I take care of the cats and the kids as needed. I take care of Kat and support her in what she is doing. And I do bring in some income with my businesses and that income is increasing. We both work hard to make sure our household is a stable one. I feel lucky to be with such a wonderful person who is dedicated to me and to the spiritual work we do.

5-21-13 Kat and  I got a Synastry reading over the weekend, basically an astrological comparison of her and I's chart. It was helpful and confirmed certain patterns of behavior and ongoing life changes for both of us, as well as showing each of us how we could support each other through those changes. One of the issues it reminded me of was the importance of letting go of needing to be in control and instead continuing to accept that I don't have control over everything, but I do have control over how I work with it. In April I started a particular Pluto conjunction, which is a dark night of the soul and I'd have to say that I've certainly seen evidence of it in my life in little ways, but instead of letting it control me or feeling helpless, I've chosen to roll with it, accept that I don't have control over everything, but also ask myself what I do have control over. And what I've found is that by letting go in some cases and acknowledging that I don't have control, I can actually discover choices that provide me a way to resolve the situation in my favor. And there's a key realization about movement here: Choosing to move with something you can't control allows you to find control through the movement. You accept you can't control the situation as it is, but you learn to move with the situation until you discover the options that provide opportunities for you.

A Magical Life now available

 

My newest book, a Magical Life has just been published by Immanion Press. A Magical Life is the collected blog posts of this website from 2008 to 2010, which comes out to roughly 250 pages (pretty amazing, eh?). In this book I candidly share my life journey as a magician, demonstrating that magic isn't just something you do, but something you live. You'll read about various experiments, some successful, some not, as well as the intensive personal work that I've been engaged in during those years. A Magical Life is a snapshot of the life of a magician, my mistakes and successes, and my on-going work to know myself better, so that I can become a better person. It is also an exploration of magic that shows how magic shows up in the life of a magician.

I'm pretty pleased to be putting this out, because while it is essentially a journal collection  there are a lot of ideas and experiments I worked on in this pages, including some I'd forgotten about. If you wish to order a copy, go here.

Pagan Intolerance: nothing new under the sun

I came across a couple articles decrying the rise of intolerance in the Pagan community. Joseph Nichter discusses his own experiences with intolerance in the Pagan community, while Peter Dybing notes the rise of intolerance in the Pagan community in the last few years. The sad truth is though that this intolerance has been around a lot longer than the last few years. Perhaps, if anything, the internet with its continued evolution has just made it much easier to see the not so pleasant truth of the Pagan community: there is a fair amount of intolerance when it comes to a variety of topics including the practice of one's spirituality, experimentation in magical work, whether magic is even part of Paganism anymore, as well as cultural issues surrounding how Paganism is accepted by mainstream cultures. As someone who has been labeled a fluffy bunny from well before I began professionally writing in 2003, I can tell you that Pagans can be pretty opinionated. I write that tongue in cheek, because I must come off as pretty opinionated in this blog post.

But the reality is that this isn't any different from any other religious community. Christianity has its sects as well, which disagree on matters of doctrine and culture. At least we haven't, as of yet, started calling each other heretics and engaging in more violent activities. Instead it's just online flame wars, and people getting their @$$es handed to them for expressing opinions. I'll probably get some flak for this but I'm used to it. I wish I wasn't though. I wish the Pagan community really was better and not so intolerant. But I learned in the 90's that wasn't the case. I actually went on a hiatus from the community because I was disgusted with the amount of negativity and intolerance being expressed. And in the years since it hasn't changed...This is nothing new under the sun, nothing sudden that has just occurred.

That doesn't mean we just should sit back and not do something about it. However to change it we need to explore what that change would look like. I think a better appreciation for diversity would be a good start. Instead of labeling people as fluffy bunnies or decrying what they choose to do spirituality, we need to accept that even if we don't agree with someone's spiritual choices it doesn't make him/her a fluffy bunny or anything else. Agree to disagree and leave it at that. And if you feel the need to get in a debate ask yourself exactly what that debate is supposed to accomplish. Most like its just you venting hot air because you don't like what someone is saying or doing, but do you really want to invest your time and energy in that way?

And if there are issues to debate let us debate them civilly, with agreed on rules of interaction and dialogue that foster a space of collaboration and cooperation. There are any number of resources that can be explored and used to help accomplish this. The book Dialogue Gap by Peter Nixon, is one such resource. And perhaps most important. Don't let the people who are being intolerant win. Keep doing what you know is right and keep speaking up. I once was interviewed by the Pagan Centered Podcast. Everyone on there was hostile toward my work. It was a great example of Pagan intolerance, but after the interview was over I didn't let it stop me. They could call me names, tell me I was fluffy and hand my @$$ to me, but what they couldn't do was stop me. If anything their intolerance inspired me to continue speaking because I realized that if I did stop speaking up or writing, I'd just be letting them have the final word, and in the process glorify the intolerance that they advocated for. In any given community there will always be those people who are intolerant and have a loud bark. Ignore them and keep doing what you need to do. There will always be intolerance, always be people who will sit in judgement, arguing that they and they alone know best. They are wrong, but you can't change their mind, so focus on your work and make the world a better place. Speak out against the intolerance, as needed, but don't expect to change it, unless they are willing to actually accept that there can be other perspectives in the world that are as valid as their own.

Dark Sun Radio recently posted the interview they did with me late last year. You can listen to it here.

Filtered Reality and the Importance of magical work

Lately I've noticed several acquaintances going on a media diet. They recognize that they are putting too much time into media and saturating themselves with a lot of needless information. I've gone on my own media diets in the past, and still continue to, to this day. For example I don't have Cable, and I don't ever plan on having it. I don't want to watch all the commercials just to see a show, especially when I can watch the same show on netflix without all of the commercials. But my media diet has also extended to the news for the most part. I don't get a newspaper and I don't listen to the radio for news. I do read yahoo news, but I realize I need to cut down on that. Recently I was asked the following question:

Do you think that as the world gets more crowded and people become more busy with work, entertainment, technology etc. that finding this space/time becomes more difficult than say 100 years ago? And if so does that make magical practice all the more important?

The person asked the question in relationship to a status update I made about the importance of making sacred space and time for your magical work. And my answer is that I think all the different forms of entertainment can create a filtered reality, where what is filtered out is a person's awareness of self and the need to make sacred time and space. As much as I am a proponent of pop culture magic and using media for magical purposes, I also recognize that the saturation of media provides so much information, so much other things to focus on that it can be really hard to be present with anything that isn't media related. I certainly see this to some extent with people around me. Everyone is obsessed with having the latest smart phone, tablet, ipad, etc, and most of the time their eyes are on the screen fixated on whatever they are working on or playing (the irony is that right now my eyes are fixated on this screen as I write this). People are so caught up in observing what's going on around them that they are forgetting how to act, how to be present right here and right now.

I think magical practice is more important than ever because it teaches us to act, to rip out the filters and actually explore reality instead of just observe it. Magic is about creating space and time, about engaging reality and what you want to change about reality. The magician knows that a filtered reality is just a reality that has been fed to us as a way of directing what we think and see. All the technology we have doesn't intrinsically improve our lives so much as it filters our lives, distracts us, and otherwise just causes us to ignore our own reality. While I can and do appreciate being able to check email on a phone or write a book on a tablet, I nonetheless also recognize that all the media devices provide a lot of distractions and a way for people to disengage. Magic is about engagement, about being in a specific space and time and using that space and time to interact with reality.

All of the media we have does present us with a lot of information and used just right that information can be helpful for magical work. I enjoy employing pop culture magic when its appropriate, but even then it's about getting rid of the filters and engaging reality directly. And that's really the point of magic. It brings us to the here and now, shows us what could be and allows us to mediate reality instead of just observing it go by. So get off the phone and the ipad and video games and create some sacred space and time for you. Be here now.

Astrology, Divination, and Pattern Recognition

A little while back I got a reading done by my friend Erik Roth. He does shamanic astrology, and I highly recommend his services. I've gotten my astrological reading done in the past, and each time what has struck me about the readings has been the accuracy of the description of patterns in my life. It's not so much that the person has read my future but rather has shown me some existing patterns as well as other ones to be aware of. I've found the same to be true with Tarot readings and other forms of divination. What is being read are patterns of information and behavior and from that a person can get a good idea of what s/he needs to anticipate in the future.

Pattern recognition is the recognition of certain patterns of influence in your life. Those patterns of influence originate from both within you and the environment around you. One of the reasons I'm willing to consider the validity of Astrology is that I do think we are effected by the cycles of the planets around Earth. If nothing else there is a gravitational effect of some type and who is to say that doesn't have some influence on us? Even if that isn't the case, being able to look at your life in relationship to specific patterns can be enlightening in terms of what it helps you work on. For example, I've just entered into a cycle with Pluto, which astrologically speaking is the dark night of the soul for me. The recognition of this pattern allows me to prepare for it. The Pluto cycle is about breaking things down, but this doesn't have to be a negative experience. Instead it can be a positive experience, where I plan for and use the cycle of Plutonian energy to my benefit.

The same applies to a Tarot reading. Someone does a reading for you and what it supplies you is an awareness of patterns of information. The cards don't reveal the future but they show you what to look out for. Of course the only problem with this approach is that when you are looking at specific patterns you may not be aware of others. Pattern recognition helps you to be aware patterns, but it also acts as a filter so that you may only see those patterns. This is why although getting a divinatory reading can be helpful, sometimes it can be just as helpful to leave yourself open to experience to see what happens.

I think that what I found most helpful about the astrological reading is that it gave me a general sense of what to be aware of and provided some focus on key areas of my life that may need some work. All of it was accurate and how I knew that was because even without the reading I was already working on the issues and patterns the reading described. In that sense it affirmed my current work and showed I am on the right path. Never hurts to get some confirmation...though as always keep yourself open to whatever comes your way. The obvious perspective can box you in and cause you to miss out on other opportunities.

A Wealth Magic Entity Experiment

In February I decided to create a wealth magic entity, specifically a sales magic entity. I was feeling frustrated with my lack of sales for my day business and I felt that what I needed was some help getting those sales. I realized I was too close to the situation so I created the sales entity (picture above) in order to help me improve my sales. The entity was supposed to help me find my ideal prospects and then help me close sales. I fueled him initially with the stress, frustration, and anger I was feeling about not having enough sales, and then tied it also to any sales activities I did. I finished the creation of him at the end of February. I have since done a variety of sales activities including cold calling, offering classes, and offering free coaching sessions. It's now mid April and since the creation of this entity there has been more activity in my business. From mid March to Mid April I've seen a rise in prospects with me having meetings with 3-5 new prospects each week. These prospects have come from classes I've offered, but have also been referrals and in one case even a person who wanted to connect via Linkedin. The prospects ranged from being solopreneurs to having employees, and some of them are very successful while others are struggling. All of them have needed an outside consultant. Thus far I've had one yes and quite a few no's (which often means not right now).

I'm not ready to rule out that this entity is a success because if you read enough sales books one of the realizations you quickly have is that you hear no quite a lot. In fact, one of my favorite sales books is titled Go for No, which posits that you will hear no a lot more often than you will hear yes. Also this entity has only been in existence for a short while and I recognize that all of my activity is teaching it how it can help me. However, I also see the need to tweak the entity in order to improve its performance. I'm going to focus on improving its prospect finding.

When you create an entity like this one, you can learn a lot from its early performance and use that as an indicator of what to work on or help it improve.  If you expect the entity to be perfect from the get go, you will be disappointed. There is always room for improvement, and if you recognize this, then you can examine the initial actions of the entity and refine what it does so that it produces better results. So that's what I'll do, based off what I've learned so far. It works, but it needs improvement.

Elemental Balancing Ritual Movement Month 6

3-20-13 Last night Kat and I got into a conversation about how I really don't let people get me things. It's a behavior she's observed before, and it's one that has played out numerous times in my life. She asked me where it came from and I dug in deep and found this old wound from my childhood (where else, right?). I remembered being giving gifts by my step mom and dad, only to have those gifts taken away in order to punish me. For example, I remember getting a Nintendo with some games. On a routine basis the Nintendo was taken from me for anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months at a given time to punish me...and even when I did have access to it, I was told I should be playing outside and thus my time was minimized on it. When I moved from my dad's I wasn't even allowed to take it, even though it had been given to me as a gift. And that wasn't the only they took away from me on a regular basis as a way of punishing me. While this particular approach to parenting wasn't the worst thing that they did to me, it definitely left some scars and wounds, right up to including not trusting that what someone gives me is really mine.

Later on when I lived with my mom, one of the worse things she ever did was box up my books in order to force me to be more social with people. Same lesson which illustrated to me that if something was mine, my possession of it wouldn't be respected. Not a surprise then that I learned to sneak around, and that I wouldn't always be open about what I wanted, or even what I bought. I learned not to trust people. But I know it's different with Kat and as I sat with the pain of my younger self and really felt this wound that I hadn't even realized was there, I also felt this loosening up of a block. Later I had a dream which helped me recognize how my own experiences of being parented influence me on a subtle level, when it comes to my step kids. I dreamed I was driving them to school, and I drove past this yield sign and got stuck at a stop sign. I felt blocked and I realized that it represented how the parental values from my past sometimes block me from having a genuine connections with my step kids. This is why doing the internal work is so important.

4-1-13 Last week was Spring Break, which involved a trip to Bend, and other such things. But it also involved some internal work, including Kat getting rid of some magical constructs within me, left by an ex, who had less than noble designs on me. I feel different with the constructs gone I hadn't even realized that they'd been placed within me, and while they aren't responsible for my behavior (only I am), there was some influencing going on. It highlights to me just how vulnerable you can be, and just how much trust is involved when you are with someone on a romantic, sexual, and spiritual level.  say that with awareness that I have sometimes been the person who has had less than noble designs. In fact, I'd never claim that I am ever just a victim. I am a very fallible person, and I've made share of mistakes and bad choices. Fortunately I've also made some good choices.

A lot of the work around movement has actually involved knowing when not to move. An example: When I'm in a conversation and there is a lot of emotional content attached to the conversation, knowing when to listen (not move) is just as important as knowing when to speak (movement). In a way non movement is a preparation for movement. It's not standing still so much as getting ready to move. It's a subtle distinction, but one I'm really paying conscious attention to. Recognizing when to not move can be quite useful in working with movement as an element.

4-2-13 Two things of note today. I found myself really wanting to buy books even though I have plenty. I recognized that this was a feeling of wanting to be distracted. And later when I was holding Kat, I felt this resistance or reaction to the idea of her giving me pleasure or making me happy and I realized that this part of me felt like it always had to put other people's pleasure in front of my own and that I alone have to be responsible for my pleasure, which ties right back in, I think, to the desire to buy the books. As I was telling Kat this, I felt part of myself crack open, and I allowed myself to feel her love and desire to please me. It was a little frightening, but also empowering.

4-8-13 Movement is a recognition of change, the application of change to your life, on a certain level. Movement isn't just a change of the scenery, but a shift in your mind, a shift of space and awareness and context. I was thinking of this today as I did my movements through the day. Movement to a client was a different perspective than movement to home or my coach, or to be with Kat. Movement creates a contextual awareness of what you are moving from and to, what you embody and what you will become.

4-12-13 I've written a bit about my move from polyamory to monogamy before, but it is a journey that has been a bit of an adjustment for me. The truth is that I never really practiced good polyamory, and I'm not sure I ever really knew what good polyamory looked like. And perhaps most importantly, I've come to realize how much that type of relationship could allow me to avoid facing certain behaviors, emotions, and issues from my past. The last year in particular has really forced me to see certain patterns that I ignored before. So I've become monogamous, and that has been a challenge as well, because in doing so I'm facing these issues head on and no longer ignoring them or providing them outlets. At the same time, I have a very supportive partner with Kat and this has given me strength to face those issues, as well as helping me learn how to really love myself instead of relying on others to fill me up.

4-16-13 One of the books Kat and I are reading right now is about Post Infidelity Stress Disorder. It's an interesting book, and what it is doing for me is helping me explore the history of infidelity in my life, both in terms of when I haven't been faithful and in terms of when it has happened to me. The book is bringing up a lot of reactions, especially as I realize that polyamory was a decision made because I didn't believe that I could be faithful to just one person, based on the fact that my father was never faithful. He was my model for sexual behavior and romantic behavior, although I doubt he ever knew that. I certainly never told him. But I recognize how much HIS infidelity has been a trauma in my life, and how it has provided an excuse for my own behavior, and justification for being polyamorous in the past (If I know I'd cheat otherwise, better to be this way). As I said above I've never been good at polyamory. I have made some bad choices, I have cheated (even in that context), and I haven't really, truly ever looked at infidelity as it has showed up in my life as much as this book is providing me a chance to.

One of the reasons I became monogamous with Kat is that I realized that I've never had good relationship boundaries in my life. She's the first person to really speak up consistently about the need for those boundaries and to call me on my behavior. But she's also realized that there are root causes for the behavior and so we're reading a lot of books on relationships and love as a way of proactively  addressing the behaviors so that they don't hurt us or our relationship. And where mistakes have been made, we are taking a hard look at both of our roles in those mistakes and helping each other heal. At the beginning of my relationship with Kat, and even a few times since, I made a few mistakes that really hurt her. I was acting out behavior without really examining it. She was hurt and upset, but she also called me out on it, and helped me recognize how it was hurtful to her. That in turn really allowed me to look at my life choices and make some changes, including becoming monogamous. Kat and I had been in a closed relationship since the very beginning, and all along we've explored what love and this relationship means to us. We've actually been monogamous since April of 2012 (when we decided that it was what was best for our relationship), but I haven't written much about it because it's been an adjustment, and there's been a part of me that has felt that I failed at being poly and shouldn't discuss it...but I'm realizing that I haven't failed so much as I've recognized a need to change and grow. For me growing involves being in a relationship with some very defined boundaries, as well as recognizing how previous relationship dynamics and behaviors have caused pain as opposed to bring bliss. And I find that monogamy brings a level of stability I never had before. I feel safe. I feel wanted. I feel focused, not just on my partner, but also on my projects. Monogamy works for me, and has helped me become much more honest with myself than my previous relationship dynamic did.

Having someone who wants to be so involved in the internal work is a new development, and something I'm still adjusting too. I'm being much more open with her than I ever was with anyone else, letting her in on what I'm working on and how I'm working on it. I'm realizing in this work how much poly really didn't help me, because what it allowed me to do was act out behaviors I learned instead of really confronting how those behaviors were impacting my life and others. So am I failing polyamory by recognizing that monogamy works for me? Maybe, maybe not. My choice, afterall, is just my choice. It's not a judgment of other people and their choices. It's a recognition that what seemed to work at one time wasn't really working, and that all it was really doing was enabling destructive behaviors that have hurt myself and others. I've made a change and that change, that choice is a better one for me and my partner.

4-17-13 I was told, in a reading I received, that I'd be entering into a pluto/neptune phase, both of which demand a level of internal work that is as much about deconstructing images of the self as it is about discovering the core of the person. I think though that I've been on such a long cycle of internal work that this just icing on the cake. Doing internal work demands a level of commitment  and a willingness to dissolve everything you value in order to uncover the real alchemy of your being. The cherished images fall away to reveal the dross, which is calcinated and changed by the internal work. You become forged in the essence of your being and at the same time lose what you've held onto, which is some precious sense of ego.

On another note, I've been thinking about movement and time, and how the experience of movement is really an exploration of time as well. I'd noted this in Magical Identity, but I see it as more evident in light of the work I am doing with movement as an element. Movement draws upon time as the backdrop to support the discovery of possibility and the realization of manifestation. Movement is the actualization of time, the realization of potential, and the becoming of being.

4-22-13 I've been doing some further thinking about my history with infidelity and also my history with women. The majority of relationships I was involved two elements: The women were older than me and there was always a power dynamic at place where the women held the power (or seemed to). Even in the cases where I was with someone younger than myself, there was still something of a power dynamic at work, though in one case it was a reversed dynamic where I seemed to have the power and in the other case the other person seemed to have the power. My step mom and later my mother created the initial history and impression of women. Both women held a role of power in my life and while I never felt attracted to either of them (thank heavens) I nonetheless learned fairly quickly that my role was to serve the household and by extension them, and do my best to make them happy, while hoping all the while to avoid punishment. Not a healthy dynamic, but one that was thoroughly ingrained in me, and one that I've only really begun to chip away at in the last few years, thanks in large part to being with Kat.

On top of that I remember being fascinated with several soft porn and porn movies where the women in the movies seduced the men and then proceeded to take control of whatever money/wealth/power the men had, while seducing the close friends of those men, in order to basically put the powerful men into their place which was as someone who was thoroughly humiliated. The movies fascinated me, and turned me on, not the least because there was this element of infidelity, this power gained by cheating which consequently would destroy the power of the person who was in control, bringing them to a place of humiliation, of weakness, of having no power, while the cheater had the power. I recognize in all of this the seeds of my own experience with infidelity, the motivation to cheat, and how I used it to gain a sense of power over people I felt had power over me. I found women in general to be fascinating and powerful, and one of the skills I endeavored to learn early on was how to become as good a lover as possible so that I could use my sexuality to have power over the women in my life. I figured if I was as good, if not better, than the person I was with, sexually, then that I could make that person crave me and my sexual skills. If this sounds twisted...well it is twisted. I'm not proud to write this or admit this motivation, but I don't think I've ever really been honest about the motivation to cheat or the motivation to feel empowered in a relationship. I always felt that the women in my life were as much enemy as friend. They, to my perception, held the power and not only that, but they could potentially take me for whatever I had. Indeed with a lot of my relationships there was manipulation on both sides of the relationship. I remember several of my older lovers in particular imprinting me both sexually and magically for their own gain, and to have some sense of power over me. I found it attractive, even as I found it threatening. So in turn I did the same thing, but through cheating. I recognize this now and I recognize further how polyamory was more of a front than anything else for this behavior. I chose to be polyamorous because I felt that if I was in a monogamous relationship I couldn't help but cheat, but even in polyamory, what did I do? I cheated...not all the time, but sometimes, because of these motivations I'm only now consciously recognizing.

With Kat, things are different. I think because we are reading these books together and because we are very focused on exploring our respective issues and how they contribute to our relationship, I've been able to drill down to these issues and recognize them in a way I never did before. I am able to see how infidelity has shaped my life, from my family history to my own history. I've never really had a normal relationship with anyone else because my model for relationships was based off a very unhealthy power dynamic and set of beliefs about how to feel empowered. And the result has been a lot of pain for myself and for people I've been involved with. With Kat, I have a healthier relationship, one that is becoming more healthy all the time because we are talking about these issues, recognizing the history as well as the present. She's not out to have power over me (and I am not projecting that belief on her). She wants to be with me for me...not because I'm an author or a magician or any of the other labels I could attach to myself. Not because I'm great in bed. And sex is no longer a weapon or a defense or a way to have power or manipulate. It is simply an expression of love, a choice to really open up and be present with this person I love. A little while back Kat said to me, "I release any claim I have on you, because I see now that claiming you has involved some level (in your mind) of coercion and power. If you want to be mine, I want you to give yourself to me, freely" I've never realized how much, in my mind, there was this association with coercion, but I see it today so clearly, so overtly...and I am able to give myself to my wife without being coerced. I freely give myself to her in perfect love and perfect trust because she sees me for who I am and loves me for all of what I am, without trying to get something from me. I've never given myself permission to give myself to another, not really, but all this internal work is showing me how I can, and how I can liberate myself from my own demons in the process. That is true movement. Praise Eros!

4-23-13 I've been going through my Facebook list of friends and defriending a lot of them lately. It's not anything personal...in fact is the lack of anything personal. I don't know most of the people I am "friended" to and I figure in most cases they've friended me because of my books, but I'd rather they liked the magical experiment fan page, if that's the case. So my de-friending of people has been a good exercise in boundaries because I'm only leaving people on that I know fairly well or want to stay in touch with because I knew them back in the day. I haven't been good at establishing boundaries in the way that I need to do, but I'm learning and this is one step of that recognition.

Further Experiments with Zhine

 

Since my original post about Zhine, I've been continuing to work with the technique and as is often the case I've taken to doing a bit of experimentation with it. My experiments have involved the core technique of maintaining awareness, without actually thinking or analyzing what you are maintaining awareness of. This has been challenging on occasion, as will be evident by how I've chosen to experiment, but it's also been a good discipline tool.

My first experiment has involved focusing my awareness on an object someone else is using. For example, at a networking lunch, I choose to focus my awareness on a fork. Thus I continually maintained awareness of the fork, including not only when it wasn't being used, but also when it was being used. I was able to do this at a networking lunch, although that could be a challenge as well, because I did need to maintain enough awareness of myself to not come off as staring, or being aware of when people were addressing me. Consequently I split my mental focus so that part of me focused on the fork, while the rest of me observed the social niceties around me. I did feel I was able to focus and be aware of the fork, but I'll admit that my zhine experience wasn't as deep as it could be by virtue of needing to maintain a specific level of awareness. I've repeated this exercise a few times and each time while I've been able to achieve a meditative awareness its not as deep as when I'm alone just focusing on an object.

My second experiment involved focusing on a living creature, one of my cats actually. I sat down in the living room and chose one cat to focus on. Whatever he did, wherever he moved, I stayed focused on him, while ignoring the other cats. Maintaining Zhine with a living animal was an interesting experiment because every time I started to get interested in what he was doing, I needed to refocus on the intent of the exercise, which was simply to be aware of the cat as opposed to studying the cat. I didn't find that his movements distracted me per se, but more what he was doing. Still as I continued practicing Zhine with my cat, it gradually became easier. One interesting side effect of this was that this particular cat showed up in my dreams while I was doing Zhine.

My third experiment involved focusing on a leaf outside my window. What was challenging with this experiment was that sometimes the leaf would move and when my eyes tracked it I'd become aware of dust on the window. I'd then need to refocus on the leaf and its movement. Still this exercise has been steadily getting easier as I've continued to do it. However the leaf hasn't shown up in my dreams. I wonder if my emotional attachment to my cat is part of why he shows up in my dreams.

As always when doing Zhine at a certain point I find that the "reality" of what I am studying shifts and seems to become more real than anything else, myself included. It's as if I'm entering into a dream, which makes sense given that Zhine is supposed to help you achieve dream yoga. Nonetheless I'll admit I find this shift fascinating and I am already thinking of how I can use it for other acts of magic beyond dream work.

Doubt and its role in your magical work

Jason recently posted a fantastic post about doubt and why it is useful for your magical work. I agree with his perspective that doubt is useful and that we shouldn't automatically accept that just because we've gotten a result that it is the actual result we wanted. I think magicians are afraid to admit to doubt, or to be critical of their magical work. After all, admitting that you're magic didn't quite work out can make you wonder if it's in your head, or if you really know what you are doing. But that's a negative perspective about doubt. Admitting doubt can also help you recognize where you can improve your magical work, can help you be critical of your process, and can help you recognize when the magic hasn't worked the way you wanted it to.

One element of doubt he didn't touch on, which is just as important as acknowledging the doubt you feel about your magical work, or acknowledging when your magic hasn't stacked up the way you like, is the crisis of faith that inevitably comes along. You know, when you doubt that magic even exists, or you doubt whether or not you really feel the connection to what you're working with. And just as I agree with Jason that not enough people post about their failures, I also think not enough people really post about their crisis of faith or how they work through it.

One of the reasons I write in this blog is to actually share my on-going work, and that includes the moments I feel doubt, or an experiment doesn't work out, or to just show my very fallible nature. I do this for a couple reasons. One I do it to keep myself humble and to recognize that regardless of what anyone else may think of me, I am not always successful with magic or life. No one is, but I do like to think I learn as much, if not more from my failures, as my successes...and that leads to the second reason. I have always wanted to provide people with examples of both success and lack thereof in my work. I want my readers to recognize that there is a magical process and that part of that process involves finding what isn't working and acknowledging it and working on it. I don't just do this with my blog, but also my books, because I don't think it's authentic to just present your successes to other people. Not only does it set an unrealistic standard, but it encourages a mentality of one-upmanship instead of genuine collaboration and improvement.

There have been times I've struggled with my beliefs around magic. There have been times I felt disconnected and wondered if what was I doing was really making a difference. And I'm glad I've had those moments, because they present an alternative perspective, but also when the magic works out, it really allows me to see that it's not all in my head, that there is something going on, and that what I need to do is not give up. I need to improve what I'm doing, and use the doubt I feel to give me some perspective, so I can ask hard questions. I agree with Jason that more people should share what isn't working, and what doubts they feel. Yes it can make you feel vulnerable, but it can also be liberating, and help others see that they aren't alone and that magic isn't always a success. But doubt can also help us become better magicians if we are willing to use it as an opportunity.

Process of Magic Charity Special

Every so often I run a charity special. From now until Monday April 22nd, if you sign up for The Process of Magic class, I will donate half of the class fee to the New Alexandrian Library, which is a non-profit dedicated to creating a library of Esoteric books. They update their Facebook a bit more frequently than the website, and you can see what they are working on now. The class fee for the Process of Magic course is $80, so 40 of that will be donated to this project if you sign up.

What do you get in return? 24 lessons, one e-mailed each week that explores the process of magic, and helps you personalize your process of magic. You also get access to a dedicated e-list, with other members, a bi-monthly teleconference and a free e-book. If you have questions or wish to sign up, please contact me.

Cutting across the artificial divide of cultures

I've been reading a book on Tibetan dream yoga and another one on quabalistic practices. What fascinates me the most is that both books discuss dreams and how to work with them in a similar fashion, despite the fact that both authors are from different cultures. As far as I can tell neither author has cited the other and neither seems to be culturally appropriating material from the other. They just seem to be discussing dreams and how to work with dreams in remarkably similar ways. And as I read both books and do the practices in both, I find that I'm getting similar results. So it makes me think, in this case, that the cultural trappings are less important, because the foundational techniques seem to be the same, or at least have enough similarity outside of cultural contexts.

I respect cultural contexts, but I do think that its also possible to encounter techniques that come from multiple cultures and yet have enough similarity that the technique can be understood without the cultural context. In other words, I sometimes think there is an artificial divide created within the context of culture that may bar people from recognizing that a technique can occur in multiple cultures and have similar steps.

With that said, I want to make it clear that I'm not dismissing the concerns about cultural appropriation. These are valid concerns, and when a person learns a technique s/he should be mindful of the culture where it comes from. The cultural context does have some impact on the technique, and your experience of it. For example, while I can understand certain aspects of the Tibetan Yogas of Dream and sleep there are other aspects, cultural ones, I don't get, which does effect how I work with the technique. If I were to learn from a lama directly it might be different, but I suspect even then I'd still only have a partial understanding when it comes to the cultural aspects, because I'm not from that culture.

Is there really an artificial divide? Only in the sense that if you can find a technique that is similar across cultures, then perhaps what you are really dealing with is the technique in and of itself, as opposed to the cultural perspective. Recognizing that can be helpful in learning the technique and also understanding that nothing is so original that it can't be found elsewhere.

Sex, Energy, and Magic oh my!

The other day I came across an interesting post, where the author made the argument that a magician should be careful about who s/he has sex with because of the energetic connections that can result, and specifically how the energetic connections can impact the magician. He argued that if a magician is promiscuous s/he can end up cultivating a lot of connections that may be unhealthy and that additionally if s/he is having sex with a person who has lower energy, this can create additional problems. It's an interesting argument.

One of the realizations about sex that I've had is that if you work with someone who has a background in sex and magic, sex can present an opportunity for that person to muck with your internal energetic structures or even to feed off your energy, such as occurs with psychic vampirism. I've had several such incidents occur, and its only been recently that those structures have been uprooted. Sex is an incredibly intimate act, but also an act of vulnerability, where each person is open to each other.

I've been a fairly promiscuous person in my past, and while I take ultimate responsibility for that choice, in examining the energetic structures that were pulled out of my energetic body, I can see how past sexual encounters created and reinforced a drive toward such promiscuity. So I agree with the author of that other post that it's important to be careful about who you sleep with, because whether intentionally or unintentionally you can end up picking up sexual patterns of behavior, which imprint themselves in your energetic and mental layers. Additionally I agree with him that indulging too much in your sexual appetites can lead to a fairly casual and mindless drive for sex. Thus it is very important to be mindful of who you invite into your bed.

Sex isn't just physical pleasure, in my opinion. There is an emotional, mental, and spiritual or energetic connection as well. And that connection occurs even in casual situations. I don't know that you are necessarily connected for life to someone you've had sex with, but I think it is a connection that can make an imprint and last for a while. I remember that one of my first lovers deliberately chose to use sex magic to make an imprint on me that lasted for almost twenty years, even though I'd ultimately been with her for only a few times. That imprint was only dissolved when I did some deeper internal work. And I encountered other structures also left by a couple other people. Those energetic structures provided their own imprint as well. what stood out to me was just how unaware of those structures I was, or how they were influencing some of my choices and behaviors. So I think it is important to be selective about your choice of partners, because it should be someone who really is looking out for you, and who you can trust in that most sacred and vulnerable of spaces that occurs when sex happens. And I think if you are going to do sex magic with someone its also important to remember to respect that person's energetic boundaries. Leaving energetic imprints can be quite damaging and unless you are absolutely certain you will be with the person in a committed relationship (and you have their permission) you should avoid leaving imprints. After all, those imprints can adversely effect a person years and years later.