tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12392081607534530782024-03-13T13:17:46.645+01:00my occult circleFrater Acher's explorations on making the serpent bite its tailFrater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-48106827205110944202012-02-09T17:04:00.002+01:002012-02-09T17:04:54.427+01:00THIS BLOG HAS A NEW HOME.Yes, it was time to relocate indeed...<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/blog">www.myoccultcircle.com/blog</a></b></div>
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Actually the trigger to move didn't come from this place - but from my webpage on <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/">www.myoccultcircle.com</a>. Both, the webpage and this blog are now available under one URL - allowing much easier navigation and lot's of space for expansion in the future.</div>
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A bit of background... During recent months I just struggled making the growing amount of online content available on <a href="http://myoccultcircle.com/">myoccultcircle.com</a> in a way that was still structured and simple enough to allow for easy navigation. Unfortunately the software platform I was based on didn't provide the necessary features. Without drop down menus and sidebars it just became cumbersome and confusing to explore new and existing content... </div>
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Thus I decided to find a more scalable solution. After some soul-searching about my lack of CSS skills and the very limited time budget I am running all my magical and web presence activities on I settled with <a href="http://squarespace.com/">squarespace.com</a>. --- Fast forward one week of vacation, a unhealthy doses of shoulder-pain, coffee and square eyes - and ready is the new home.</div>
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Well, but just like with all real moves excitement and stress are keeping a fine balance still. So please take my apologies in advance for all links I couldn't fix yet or any other hiccups that still hide on the new pages... It is still a place for slow and organic growth just like it used to be before. </div>
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Finally, many of you had provided feedback that while black and grey are nice colors they don't make for a very good online reading experience? I heard you. Thus 'white' has turned into the new 'black' and the new webpage should be as bright and reader-friendly as it gets. - Please keep your constructive feedback coming!</div>
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Now, with all the technical work of the relocation done and dusted I can return to the actual point of being here - i.e. to do real magic and share experience, setbacks and learnings. So here is a preview at the stuff that I will tackle to get online over the forthcoming weeks...</div>
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<li>The first chapter of my study on the <b>Holy Guardian Angel</b> in various cultures is finally finished. The initial chapter will examine the Chaldeans and what they thought about spirit guardians and personal demons...</li>
<li>After sharing the book review of <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/blog/book-review-josephine-mccarthy-magical-knowledge-i-foundatio.html" target="_blank">Josephine's Magical Knowledge I</a> I started to explore and practice the actual techniques from the book in more detail. While some of the experiences made are too personal for sharing publicly, I am still set to follow up with another post on <b>Opening the Contacts in the Four Quarters</b> as well as the presence of the <b>Underworld Goddess</b>.</li>
<li>Finally, coming back from a short vacation last week I had the chance to meet some more of my ancestors in the Inner Realms - quite unexpectedly actually. This time I had a chat with <b>a very old Celtic statue</b> and the spirit that still resides in it. Fascinating to say the least! </li>
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So, I hope to see you all soon on the other side of the web. For now this will be the last post shared here on blogspot.com.</div>
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LVX,</div>
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Frater Acher</div>
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-29341910447075443482012-01-21T14:05:00.001+01:002012-01-21T14:19:41.019+01:00Demon Drones - on the mediums of the Magical Current of Nazism - part 2<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2012/01/demon-drones-on-mediums-of-magical.html" target="_blank">first post of this series</a> we spoke about connecting the dots between the knowledge gained in the Inner Library and historical facts and events. Both sides of the mirror - inner and outer realms - hold one half of the truth. Only if we join them together can we understand how a current of energy unfolds all the way from Kether to Malkuth.</div>
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We then turned to look at two principle catalysts of the magical current of Nazism who are still little known outside of rightwing esoteric or runic circles today, Guido von List and Adolf Lanz. While their work and lives had major influences on the later mythology of Nazism I am convinced that they - like many others who followed - were much more instruments than active protagonists in the magical events that unfolded from 1933 onwards...</div>
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In order to conclude this highly abbreviated list of 'gates' for this destructive current to come through let's take a look at two further people...</div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;"><b>Karl Maria Wiligut (1866-1946):</b> Wiligut has been dubbed as the <i>'Rasputin of Himmler'</i> - a rather lurid title that still paints a fair impression of the strong and continuos influence he had on Himmler. Interestingly by the time Wiligut was introduced to Himmler in 1933 he had already completed most of his working life. At this point Wiligut was 67 of age and had been retired from a highly decorated military career in Austria for 14 years. It was only after his retirement that he intensified his occult studies and became a member of Lanz' previously mentioned '<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_Novi_Templi#Theozoology" target="_blank">Ordo Novi Templi</a>'. The interesting aspect about Wiligut - or 'Weisthor' as was his chosen name once he joined the SS - is that he claimed to have direct access to the ancestral memories of his ancient family, the <i>Wiligotis</i>. Thus Weisthor didn't had the need to research any of his claims about primeval events on the Germanic land but directly accessed them in trance via his blood-memory. Well, luckily Wiligut - because such a feature comes handy if no scientific proves at all can be found for your claims: e.g. that Germans didn't descend from apes but from ethereal spiritual beings that descended upon Earth high in the North, that natural disasters led to a destruction of their ancient civilization which in turn forced these pure 'Ur-Race' to migrate South and East where they helped to create the civilizations of Ancient India, Egypt, the Greek and later on the Roman empire... Really? However, marking Wiligut as a complete fraud would oversimplify things and not do justice to the records we can still access today about his activities. E.g. we know about an event when he fell into trance sitting in the back of an SS-car right next to Heinrich Himmler. The car was forced to stop at roadside and Wiligut jumped out still deep in trace. He ran off into the fields, Himmler and the other SS-men right behind him. At a remote point in the middle of nowhere he stopped and started to dig up the ground with his hands. An archeological dig was ordered at this point and indeed relicts of an ancient settlement were found underground... It were events like these that gained Wiligut significant influence over Himmler and made him the person to not only be allowed to design the death-head-ring of the SS but also to be closely linked to the annexation and rebuilding of the Wewelsburg into a formal education and ritual castle of the black SS order. Until today Wiligut remains one of the most arcane persons that deeply influenced the mythology of Nazism. Facts like his committal and incapacitation into an Austrian mental home for several years in Austria stand in stark contrast to the significant role he played in later years as Himmler's personal consultant and a high ranking SS officer. </li>
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I titled this post series 'demon drones' - aiming at a better understanding of the demonic forces that drove the current of Nazism as well as the role some of the leading occult protagonists played in setting it free. In a hive a drone's main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen. Maybe there is something we can learn from drones about the main function of the four people described above? Maybe <i>their</i> purpose was to <i>fertilize</i> a current that was ready to come through, to emerge from the inner realms and disrupt and destroy what had been established before. Maybe their individual actions were small to the extent of being meaningless - like burying bottles in the shape of a swastika in the ashes of a fire... Yet all of them had a place, a single mark to leave for others to follow - until the rivulet turned into a river and the river into a stream. Maybe they all added one drop of water but the stream buried 50 to 70 million people who all had their own dreams of marriage, of children and leading a happy life.<br />
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So let's not fool ourselves. Wether we add a single drop or unscrew a whole fire hoarse we all have a choice. Always. We know it from the bold people who resisted the Nazis, who died in revolt and Hitler's failed assassination attempts. It is what sets us apart from all other beings: we are given the power to believe and now we must struggle to control it. Himmler and his occult entourage followed their own faith - until it had completely swallowed them, eaten them alive and only left their walking bodies, their empty shells - unable to recognize the true impact of their actions, numbed icons of fascism.<br />
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So if we all have a drop of water to add - which current do we chose?</div>
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-44220884223372944122012-01-15T18:04:00.004+01:002012-01-21T14:17:24.128+01:00Demon Drones - on the mediums of the Magical Current of Nazism - part 1<div style="text-align: justify;">
Since I began to study the magical roots of the Nazis in the Inner Library a lot of understanding and insight has come through. Earlier I tried to summarize the essential flow and the unfolding of demonic energy from Malkuth to Kether in my report '<a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/TheBridge.html" target="_blank">The Bridge</a>'.</div>
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What I learned since then, however, is how to align this inner perspective with historical facts. Where the Inner Library holds the wisdom, the inner patterns or essence of history it is our job as humans to reconnect this inner wisdom with the actual events that took place on the material realm... In the inner realms we are given keys to doors that patiently wait for us on the outer realms. It is our job to bridge these worlds and bring both together again. Only then can we look into the mirror from both sides.</div>
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For the magical current of the Nazis that means identifying the actual people and places who acted as catalysts or mediums for the demonic energies to come through and materialize. Who was it that threw the first stone and started the (magical) avalanche whose path of destruction we still can see on the German lands today? Whose work provided the dry straw waiting silently for the first sparks to fall and let the world go up in flames?</div>
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Well, I guess we all will argue that unfolding an avalanche like WWII takes a lot of stones to be thrown - or a lot of preconditions to align. That is certainly true. There are many European currents of the 19th and even 18th century that lead up to the events emerging around 1900 in Austria and Germany: industrialization, urbanization, democratization and individualization to name just a few. The rise of science and the decline of the church, the emergence of political parties, the fear of communism and rulership of the mob amongst broad layers of society as well as the loss of collective myths, traditions and belief system in exchange for enlightenment, rationale insights and urban 'modern' lifestyles... </div>
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Goodrick-Clarke's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0814730604/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d8_g14_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=0A0FD1KEVEG4NYSATQ3F&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938811&pf_rd_i=507846" target="_blank">'The Occult Roots of Nazism'</a> paints the full picture of the time and trends that laid the fundament for the Nazis to emerge and build on it. Overflowing with details and quotes I can only recommend his book to anyone interested - as well as Rüdiger Sünner's <a href="http://www.amazon.de/Schwarze-Sonne-mit-Filmdokumentation-auf/dp/3927369446/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326642529&sr=8-1" target="_blank">'Schwarze Sonne'</a> for all German speakers which is slightly more accessible. </div>
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However, even with all these broad currents carrying entire nations towards WWI and WWII a few people stand out from a magical perspective. Interestingly enough these people tend to be relatively unknown still. Even many Germans - who all spend several years in history classes during elementary school and college to go through the horrors of the Nazi regime repeatedly - wouldn't know these names. And if the occult roots of Nazism have been kept under a blanket of silence for many decades we will understand why once we took a closer look at them: It is so much easier to perceive Nazis as merciless monsters that emerged from the dark of time and were thrown back into it after 1945 than to perceive them as human beings with hearts and minds and hopes like all of us, but who were completely led astray by something much bigger and more concealed than all their magical efforts.<br />
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If anything these people acted as 'demon drones' - thinking of themselves as protagonists in a giant play to unfold - where in reality the currents they released was riptides carrying others and themselves like leaves and out into the open sea...</div>
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<li><b>Guido von List (1848–1919): </b>From what I know it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_von_list" target="_blank">Guido von List</a> and his works where we first come across the living pulse of what should turn into the mythology of Nazism during later years. What is most interesting is that von List's occult studies all started with a deep appreciation and passion for remote nature: What was supposed to lay the fundament for the mass destruction of entire nations and cities was first encountered in the open forests and fields of Austria... Far from civilization and cities, irrespective of sunshine or rain, snow or storm, on every occasion von List is roaming through the deep forests of Austria in search of forgotten cult places, ancient ruins and mystical contact with his supposedly Germanic ancestors. It's only over time that his remote excursions extend into ritual gatherings joined by friends and like-minded. During a rite at the pagan ruins of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnuntum" target="_blank">Carnuntum</a> wine bottles are buried in the form of a swastika below the ashes of a fire - evoking the 'fire curl' of the god Mundelföri. And von List summons the old gods to return from Valhalla once new wars are raising against the abhorred Romans... It is von List who also publishes the book 'Secret of the Runes' that should become a highly influential source of so called runic and Germanic lore. Just shortly before his death von List frighteningly augurs a new leader to arise even before 1932: <i>"The powerful one from above (...), a divine-mental power source whose onset will be like a spring storm after all the horrors of the present day which we have to experience and which will chase away all the bleak demonic clouds of winter." (Sünner, p.16, transl. by Acher)</i></li>
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<li><b>Adolf Lanz (1874-1954):</b> A friend of Guido von List and equally convinced about a so called 'Aryan-Germanic' reincarnation the Austrian mystic Adolf Lanz plays another key role in contributing both to the body of thought as well as the emerging organization of Aryan occult and racist currents in Austria and Germany. After a short stint as a monk he starts publishing as a freelance '<i>Mythenforscher</i>' (myth researcher) under the name of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Lanz_von_Liebenfels" target="_blank">Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels</a>. Just like with von List we find a stark tendency in his writings to reduce multidimensional, complex mythical narrations to a superficial yet artificially clear meaning. Deep fractures towards historic as well as scientific facts are naively neglected and overlooked in order to force a molding of ideas, pseudo-historic events and painfully reduced mythical structures to comply and support a preconceived vision of Aryan domination in ancient times. And just as von List's later works Lanz' writings are quickly moving from a resurgence of ancient Germanic gods towards a call to war against the perceived enemies that are blamed to have deformed and ultimately buried the old traditions in the first place. What started as an evocation of gods long asleep increasingly turns into a cry of war - for hate and rage seem to be the seals of the currents awoken... In 1907 Lanz purchases a castle at the river Donau and founds the <i>'Orden des Neuen Tempel'</i> (order of the new temple). The central theme around which this newly founded temple revolves is the one of King Arthur and the search for the holy grail. And it's here on castle <a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg_Werfenstein" target="_blank">Werfenstein</a> that in a specially prepared temple room self-written rituals are performed, formulas of conjuration are recited and the old gods are invoked in order to wipe out all inferior peoples and enemies... And even though WWII and the founding of the Nazi party is still years away in Lanz' writings form his magazine 'Ostara' we can already find frightening details about how this 'divine wipe out' should best happen: the reader comes across suggestions for forced deportations, castrations, sterilizations, incinerations as well as 'Zuchtmutterklöster' (breeding-mother-monasteries') - all of which should be turned into deadly reality by the Nazis two decades later. </li>
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:: <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2012/01/demon-drones-on-mediums-of-magical_21.html" target="_blank">continue with part 2</a> ::</div>
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-31067023104435064412012-01-06T13:45:00.002+01:002012-01-06T13:47:04.618+01:00Book Review - Josephine McCarthy: Magical Knowledge I, Foundations<br />
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There is a significant difference between ritual and visionary magic. Unfortunately it is so significant, so essential in nature that for people who have practiced ritual magic for years it's quite hard to get their heads around it. It's actually not unlike trying to solve a creative thinking puzzle. It bends your brain until it hurts - or someone shows you the solution (at least in my case that is).</div>
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To fully understand the impact <a href="http://www.mandrake.uk.net/josephinemccarthy.htm" target="_blank">Josephine McCarthy's Magical Knowledge I</a> can make on traditional ritual magic it is important to better understand this puzzle first. Well, here is my take on it in a nutshell... </div>
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In ritual magic the essential goal is to summon spirits. In most cases they are either summoned into a triangle or a black mirror. And in most cases it is their voices heard by the magician that are proof of their presence. In rare cases success might go beyond this and the spirits appear visibly on a surface or in a fleeting body made of shadows or smoke. The one stable condition in all these cases is that the spirit is summoned <i>to the place where the magician resides</i>. And as this place is always somewhere on the material realm ritual magic forces spirits to come through in a realm that is different to the one they naturally dwell in. So far so good.</div>
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The only problem is that the spirits actually very rarely 'come through' fully. Most magical rituals work much more like a phone call. The carefully created sigil together with the name of the spirit work as the telephone number, the circle, altar and paraphernalia make up the telephone booth and by use of evocations, suffumigations and barbarous names we hook ourselves into the power network... </div>
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And that's exactly where things have gone wrong in ritual magic - at least for the last three centuries. Most of us - speaking as ritual magician myself - have adopted exactly this concept at the core of our practice: these days our 'Arte' revolves around trying to make the best phone calls. We treat the process of reading out telephone numbers like arcane secrets and apply anal rigor and discipline in learning international, country and local area codes by heart - just to dial into spirit country and waiting for someone on the other line to pick up the receiver... Funny enough, more often than not it seems to work.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">A set of great telephone<br />
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Yet, if you approach things thoroughly learning how to make your first proper phone call will take years. It requires studying ancient magical telephone books (i.e. Grimoires), redialing dead numbers that worked a hundred years ago as tenants have long moved, as well as learning the traditional ways of touching the dial plate - right index finger only! - and learning welcome and goodbye messages from the Middle Ages by heart...</div>
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And while we are all so incredibly busy with reading, interpreting, re-enacting the modes of telephone rituals, we have forgotten one truly essential thing. And that is to put down the receiver, to unplug the phone, to get our valleys out of the cupboard, pocket a loaf of bread, some cheese and a knife, put a note on the fridge - and leave the damn house.</div>
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And <i>that's</i> the difference between ritual and visionary magic. In visionary magic the practitioner of the Arte is taught how to travel where the spirits reside. Instead of dialing them up, you go out and explore the land, the living energies and currents, the pathways and temples of the spirits themselves. </div>
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Now, <a href="http://www.mandrake.uk.net/josephinemccarthy.htm" target="_blank">Magical Knowledge I</a> is <i>not</i> a textbook on visionary magic. It actually goes well beyond that. It's goal - in my eyes - is to help us bringing these two worlds back together again. In its core it is a book that teaches how to create and open <i>doors</i> between the spirit and the material realms. In order to do so it strips down the ritual magical process to its bare bones: a room, a candle, a bowl of water or a stone and complete silence. From there onwards it's all about the magician traveling out into the realms of the spirit and bringing back contacts, their influence and presence into the material realm. Essential, raw, hard and beautiful work.</div>
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So instead of summoning gatekeepers this book teaches you how to become one. The most essential ingredients on this journey, however, aren't the magical skills you are taught in most occult orders or training books. Your ability to create, open and watch these doors between realms depends on very different things - and certainly not on a lionskin-belt or a carved ivory wand. What will define, cripple or expand your skills and works as a magician are the natural interfaces through which we all continuously communicate with the spirit realm - without training or telephone calls that is. These interfaces are your true intent, your heart's emotions as well as your everyday state of mind. </div>
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The book is the first in a trilogy and its subtitle is called 'foundations'. I guess, that's a pretty accurate description of the point one should have reached on their magical and general life's path to start the type of work laid out in it... Before any foundations can be build a single fixed point is needed. The very first step in building any temple of the ancients was to find the place where it should come through. Often this place was shown to the priests by the gods. In our case it won't be that easy. We need to find out ourselves if and when we are ready to commit, to lay the first stone of our own foundation in working with the inner contacts. </div>
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Each door opened, each ritual conducted in a contacted way comes with no uncertain level of personal responsibility. It's the responsibility for one's own intent, for one's body and mind that will be affected in no ambiguous terms, but also for the contacts we work with and the land and the others we affect in this work. The time has to be right for you to embark on this journey.</div>
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Personally I have made telephone calls for the last 15 years. I am still continuing to do so in my <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Circles.html" target="_blank">Arbatel Experience</a>. It's a wonderful way of learning and exploring. And most of the time it is done by listening to what the spirits on the other end of the line actually have to tell me. Many magicians have come a long way using this approach. Just look at the impressive results a liminal magician like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/scarletimprint#p/c/FE55916949D8CCAA/0/m_8Fh7gMkXM" target="_blank">Jake Stratton-Kent</a> is able to produce with his classic approach based on the old Grimoires - yet not abused as telephone books but brought back to life again through the spirits that once helped to write them. </div>
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<a href="http://www.mandrake.uk.net/josephinemccarthy.htm" target="_blank">Magical Knowledge I</a> is essentially different from this in two important ways. As discussed above it stops performing magic form telephone booths - but rather teaches how to cut a door into the wall for the magician to step through into the inner realms and encounter the spirits face to face. Yet, it also lays the foundation for a completely different level of magical work. One where the focus of the work isn't on the wishes and desires of the mage, one where magic isn't used as a delivery service for the magician's needs. But one where the magician steps back into the ancient chain of beings - connecting spirits, demons, angels and humans alike - and starts to work unconditionally in supporting <i>not his work but the work that has to be done.</i></div>
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So this book will be a precious gift to you if you are ready to let go of your own magical agenda. If you are ready to ultimately turn into a magical tool on the altar of some larger beings than we can image, if you are ready to trust. If you aren't ready, however, take your time. 'Cause otherwise its techniques could give you a smooth ride on a road along the coast of the spirit realms - that leads right down to self-ruin.</div>
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I am well aware that I haven't spoken in detail about the actual content, chapters and exercises shared in the book. For this review I felt it was more important to look at the place of this important publication in light of the modern Grimoire Revival as well as the classic approaches to teaching ritual magic in the West. </div>
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Now that we know where this road will take us it's time to kick into action. So for a closer look at the actual exercises of the book I invite you to join me on future posts to come - where we will take some of the exercises from theory into action and look at the results they yield in practice. Quite astonishing results that is as I can tell from the practice I conducted so far. Yet as this type of magical work falls under the category of <i>'magic with gloves off'</i> we better brace ourselves - and chose if we are ready to pay the full price before we make the first step. </div>
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</div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-36161844404517699732011-12-30T09:54:00.001+01:002012-01-15T18:11:55.826+01:00Abusing Saturn - A Study on the Magical Current of the Nazis<div style="text-align: justify;">
Recently I shared some thoughts about the disproportionally strong <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/11/saturnian-vs-venusian-magic.html" target="_blank">Saturnian influence on German Magic</a> over the last century. In particular I stumbled across the realization how severely the Second WorldWar and the Nazi philosophy had influenced not only the German approach to magic but also the German land itself. </div>
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In essence it was a single thought that continuously came back to me...</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>"Just think of the photos from the bombed cities in Dresden, Munich, Berlin, etc. What if on a spiritual level the rebuilding has never been completed - and all the darkness of these years is still stuck within the land? How much further healing work will it take to restore this country back to the beauty it deserves? "</i></span></div>
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So over recent weeks I set out to learn more about the state of the German land from a magical perspective. While this work is still ongoing - and will be for a longer while - I also dug in to better understand what exactly had happened during WWII from a magical point of view...</div>
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With the kind help of <a href="http://www.theinnerlibrary.org/" target="_blank">Josephine's works</a> I managed to study on the subject in the Inner Library. That was an intense experience, quite unexpected as so often when we travel outside of our own time and realm... On return I followed up with a Tarot reading and managed to understand the flow the actual energies at work took from from being an initial spark, a raw idea to becoming fully materialized in the horrors we all know about.</div>
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After some consideration I decided to make all the knowledge I received public. Of course it may very well be that it is of personal use to myself only - in which case I hope the account can still inspire your own magical investigations. At the same time, however, it might be that some of this information is relevant beyond my personal realm. In which case I hope it can help to deepen our joint understanding as magicians of the forces we can unleash - while miserably failing at understanding their true dynamic and nature.</div>
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I called this account '<a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/TheBridge.html" target="_blank">The Bridge</a>'. Because this is what the magical current of the Nazis essentially established. A bridge between two realms that just worked slightly different from what they had hoped for. As so often in life and magic - the devil is in the detail.</div>
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Note: as with all the new pages on <a href="http://myoccultcircle.com/">myoccultcircle.com</a> you can also download the article as a PDF for more convenient offline reading.</div>
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-25832456573543759362011-12-26T07:39:00.000+01:002011-12-26T07:40:14.585+01:00ARS LEGENDI - a few thoughts on the art of reading<div style="text-align: justify;">
Recently I received help to find access to the in the Inner Library. I can't share much about this work at this point. But I can share what happened afterwards. A few days later I was in deep meditation and in communion with my HGA. Without any context he suddenly said: 'Every book holds a light.' Like it does in rare moments of insights, my mind lit up like a firework when I heard his words. Let me try to explain...</div>
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The best point to start this possibly is the term of the 'armchair magician'. When most people use this term it is in a pretty derogative way. Derogative in a sense that the armchair magician doesn't seem to be 'in action' but simply sitting there, taking in information and showing very little output.</div>
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I guess it was mainly through magic I learned that observing without judgement comes as a handy skill. It is actually a skill without which very little will be achieved, both in magic and in life... So let's take a closer look at our magician, seemingly sitting passively in his armchair, reading and turning pages quietly. Let's zoom in and try to see the things actually going on in this very moment...</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original 1986 version of Frick's <br />
'Das Reich Satans' - beautifully bound <br />
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The first thing that comes to my mind is that I realize there is physical contact between our mage and the book in his hands. The book can feel cheap and feeble or heavy, clothed in leather with a strong, solid spine. Or a million different feelings in between. It might be cold due to the long time it spend on the dark shelves or warm from his touch already. The way the book feels might not matter to the information contained on its pages, yet it matter to our hands. In fact its their very own way to 'read' this book... Blind as they are they learn about the book by way of its surface and skin. </div>
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Consider this: When we stroke our child or lover at night how much of a difference does a bruise make on their skins? How many images and flashes of ideas come up once our fingers touch the bruise yet our eyes don't see...? </div>
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Books aren't lovers. Or are they? The word 'erotic' stems from the Greek word 'eros' which can be translated as 'desire'. When we are with our lover our senses desire to touch, to smell, to create physical contact as closely as possible... It's our senses' desire that we realize in these moments - to feel more, to smell more, to taste more, to see more. And it's only our mind that distinguishes between a lover and a book. Our senses are blind to social norms and attributed functions; they involve themselves completely each time they reach out and take something in, each time they fill themselves with the touch of a surface, a smell, a look, a taste of a fruit. Our fingers don't see wether we stroke the skin of a lover or the skin of a book.</div>
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I guess our senses go blind and numb when we think of ebooks? Between a kindle epub and a hardback, fine leather-bound edition of <a href="http://www.scarletimprint.com/" target="_blank">Scarlet Imprint</a> our senses can see worlds divided by oceans that will always remain unknown to our logical mind... It's our subconscious that opens different doors for the information searching for entrance behind our eyes, looking for a place to rest and to connect with - depending on what our other senses say about the nature of the book we are holding in our hands.</div>
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But there is more to be observed about our magician sitting in his armchair. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">... our fingers speak when reading<br />
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His fingers aren't holding dead skin, but a living one indeed. A <a href="http://willisnightwood.blogspot.com/2008/12/creation-of-liber-angelos.html" target="_blank">Liber Spiritus</a> is just <i>one</i> extremely powerful form of bringing texts and images to life. Each text printed is vibrant with force, some too subtle to feel, some so raw and imminent that humans decided to burn or hide them away. Each book is a living being, waiting to be released by our consciousness. And it's not <i>one</i> story waiting on their pages to be read but it is a thousand different stories, a new one for every single reader, for every different time its pages are picked up and opened again...</div>
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<i>Each book holds a light.</i> It is this light we are setting free, we are connecting with and bringing to shine on reading its pages. If every human being is a star, then every sleeping book is a spark. </div>
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I look at my library with different eyes now. I look at the rows of books as sleeping friends. Spirits waiting on shelves to be brought to life. By my hand and their embrace, by my eyes and my breath descending on their pages for hours. Quite simply, by my desire.</div>
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What I have come to understand is that setting these lights free is a form of art in itself. It is a craft that has to be gained. Just like performing a ritual, like deep meditation, like communing with the spirits so is reading a magical book a form of art. Wether we write a poem or bring it to life again through reading, wether we create a spirit and put it to rest on pages of paper or wether we pull it out of its sleep and unite it with our mind and heart. Every touch is erotic. </div>
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One of my managers once explained to me the 80/20 rule in a slightly different way... She said whenever making a decision one should ensure to pursue new information, new perspective and context for 80% of the time and then dedicate 20% of the time only for executing the actual decision. This boss took some of the finest, most counter-intuitive decisions I ever experienced in business. She is a genuine artist and would never think of herself as one. But what a wonderful rule of thumb: 80% assimilation, 20% action. What a powerful way to ensure we don't waste our lives in action?</div>
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I am currently reading Josephine McCarthy's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magical-Knowledge-Book-Foundations-Practitioner/dp/1906958440/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324800232&sr=1-3" target="_blank">Magical Knowledge I</a>. This book holds a lot of lights indeed. Some I found already, others are still waiting for me. Yet, I cannot read faster than my slow senses allow... Because if I tried to I would lose all sense of touching, of hearing and smelling and seeing. I would go numb. And I would start processing information like a machine. Without desire.</div>
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Yesterday night, after I had finished this post I continued my research on the Crooked Path from the little literature I own about it. I ended up lying on the couch deep at night and reading - just like the armchair magician observed above. I read in Scarlet Imprint's wonderful '<a href="http://www.scarletimprint.com/diabolical.htm" target="_blank">Diabolical</a>'. Almost at the very end it contains a short essay by Mark Smith. He went out into the woods at night and performed an incredible simple yet powerful rite of self-initiation into the Sabbatic Craft... just by reading out loud Chumbley's 72 verse poem <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_D._Chumbley#Qutub:_The_Point" target="_blank">Qutub</a> against the light of a candle and his wandering shadow in the brush-woods. -- <i>Every book holds a light.</i> </div>
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-66787489933013938822011-12-18T15:30:00.001+01:002012-01-15T18:12:21.674+01:00The Arbatel Experience - Ritual of PHALEG<div style="text-align: justify;">
Well, I guess some people simply are slower than others? In the same time it takes me to perform and go through the repercussions of a single rite I see other magicians working through an entire Grimoire, publishing a new book and engaging in countless discussions online...</div>
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Since I embarked on this journey it has taken me three months on average to plan for each rite, perform it and integrate its impact into my daily life. In doing so I always tried to follow through each step of the <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Spirit_Contact_Cycle_1.html" target="_blank">Spirit Contact Cycle</a> as consciously as possible. Clearly that slows things down. Incredibly so.</div>
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Here is but one example: When I set out to perform the entire Arbatel cycle I stopped drinking alcohol, stopped smoking and became more strict on not eating any meat. All of this happened under the assumption I would be much quicker than it turns out I am. My somewhat naive assumption was I could perform all seven rites within four to six months maximum - and be back to my occasional fag and a glass of wine by spring 2011.</div>
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Well, clearly that wasn't quite the case. Here I am more than a year later completing the fifth of all seven rites. But boy, do I enjoy the journey! I know now it was one of the best decisions of my life to tackle this magic mountain... And so each time I am reminded of my slow pace of performing and integrating these rites I end up recalling that I will do each rite only once in a life-time. </div>
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What I realize now is that the way I approached my 'Arbatel Experience' a year ago and still do today is exactly the same as I approached previous liminal experience and retreats. Never worry about time. There is more than enough of it. The really scarce good is <i>mindfulness</i>. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--oxf0VeGZMU/Tu32jr40JCI/AAAAAAAAASI/ukUkVBaQkPA/s1600/PHALEG.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--oxf0VeGZMU/Tu32jr40JCI/AAAAAAAAASI/ukUkVBaQkPA/s200/PHALEG.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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So when I present the fifth ritual account of the Arbatel Experience - <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Arbatel_-_Phaleg.html" target="_blank">this time of the Olympic Spirit of PHALEG</a> - it's still with the same intent as a year ago. To share the entire journey with you, from start to finish, from stepping out into the lunar realm until we reach the spheres of Saturn some day. Feel free to join me or drop out whenever you wish. I guess, one of the privileges of the lone practitioner is that you can do everything just in your very own time.</div>
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Lou Reed never gets tired to mention in interviews that his latest album is the best he ever released. You might disagree, but who knows his standards? What I know for the Arbatel rites is that same is true for me: When I look at the ritual communions I had the chance to experience thus far I am utterly humbled. </div>
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When I was a young teenager and set out on my occult path I always hoped - but never dared to assume - I could encounter magical experiences like these. They might be small to the degree of irrelevance compared to other practitioner's achievements these days. That's okay; it doesn't actually matter. Because we all know what matters: It's never how we compare to others. But how we enrich our own lives and the ones of others through the magic we are given.</div>
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I hope you enjoy the read. Here is the full account of the <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Arbatel_-_Phaleg.html" target="_blank">fifth ritual of the Arbatel, Concerning the Magic of the Ancients, the rite for the Olympic Spirit of Phaleg</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-65337956880433413172011-12-10T08:38:00.001+01:002011-12-10T09:57:46.490+01:00Killing the ghosts - or smile while you can<br />
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Over the course of the last weeks a friend of mine lost their job and relationship on a single day, our best friend couple split up after six years living and building a life together and a distant friend of mine lost a baby in her family. </div>
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This made think about all the things we take for granted - and all the time we waste? We carry life around like a spark in a lamp through the dark - and forget so easily that every moment is a blessing, every encounter is grace and every second can bring the end. </div>
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I guess we all have been given the highest good - and now just need to use it: The ability to use our powers for giving instead of taking. To put all our strength to the test of how much good it can create over a lifetime - rather than how high it can elevate us above others.</div>
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I once learned there are four feedback filters built into all of our minds from birth or at least from very early days. Once we can open up these filters, stop them from narrowing our perception of reality life will change dramatically to the good. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ESuWEn_z_yQ/TuMboGGJ6XI/AAAAAAAAAR8/dLFtt1qkki8/s1600/screen-capture.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="319" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ESuWEn_z_yQ/TuMboGGJ6XI/AAAAAAAAAR8/dLFtt1qkki8/s320/screen-capture.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Killing the ghosts - of all the things<br />
we try to be for others</td></tr>
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These four feedback filters are that we all strive to...</div>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">be right,</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">be in control,</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">look good and</span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;">be liked.</span></li>
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Because here is the thing: How many new things can you learn if you always have to be right? How many surprises can you encounter when your priority is to control? How much fun can you experience if your hair always needs to look perfect? And how few true emotions will you be able to express if you always need to be liked?</div>
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Well, so how do we stop worrying about us and start to really engage with the people around us? Not sure I have <i>the</i> answer. But I guess it all starts by being okay with being naked.</div>
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Here is a wonderful image Martin Buber used to describe what happens if we continously shy away from being naked - or keep our feedback filters up and running:</div>
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<i>"Imagine two people sitting next to each other and talking with each other. Let's call them Peter and Paul. And let's count the shapes that come to play in this conversation: First of all there are Peter how he would like to appear to Paul and Paul how he would like to appear to Peter. Thereafter there is Peter how he truly appears to Paul. That is Paul's image of Peter - which in most cases will not at all align to the one desired by Peter - and vice versa. In addition there is Peter how he appears to himself and Paul how he appears to himself. In the end there is the physical Peter and the physical Paul. Two physical beings and six ghostly deceptive figures who engage in their conversation in various ways... Where if any would there remain space for the authenticity of true contact? Whatever truth may mean in other fields of studies, in the field of interpersonal contact it means that people communicate to each other as for what they truly are."</i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">(Martin Buber, Elemente des Zwischenmenschlichen)</span></div>
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My friends, life is just so very short. And while we on our short path through it many bad things will happen. We will grow and evolve because of them, many scars will heal but their experience will be unpleasant still. So let's not add to them. Let's not make them more than they need to be anyway. Instead, let's give up give up on the three Evil C's... Let's give up on Comparing, on Competing and most of all on Conquering. </div>
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Looking back into the last weeks I realized it's time to take off the clothes - just like we do in our magical circle - and to stand naked. Because how many moments do we have left to waste? </div>
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Here is what I have been reminded of: Life needs to be stroked gently. Like the shell of an egg, like the fur of a cat, like the hair of a lover. Because all this power was given to us to learn how to stroke not to learn how to strike.</div>
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-50912755409954313352011-11-26T07:58:00.001+01:002012-01-15T18:11:33.117+01:00Saturnian vs. Venusian Magic<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Looking back into 2011 there is a single unexpected realization that stands out for me. It is the stark contrast in most basic approaches to magic between German and British magic over the last century at least. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Having been brought up in the tradition of German magic it took me more than a decade to realize this simple fact: Where much of British magic revolves around a central pole of workings on the inner realms and bringing through of inner contacts we almost find a complete absence of this concept in the German language tradition.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Let me illustrate this point more clearly: within the works of Dion Fortune, W.G. Gray, Gareth Knight, Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and certainly Josephine McCarthy we find a concentration on inner works that is nowhere to be encountered in German magic during the last 100 years. What represents at least one of the core elements in one culture's magical tradition is completely absent in the other. Where in British magic the actual physical ritual only seems to be an expression of inner magic which requires manifestation on the outer realms - it is the most basic physical building block in the world where I come from. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Mistaking the physical ritual for the actual work you set out to do as a magician is no small mistake to make. And clearly German magicians didn't get caught in this trap entirely. Just like in the British magic literature from 1900 until today we also find in German books long and elaborated explanations of the physical, astral and mental realms (or whichever names the author chose to give them) and how the work of the mage can take effect on and influence all three levels.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">However, traveling and working on the inner realms <i>in the language of the inner realms</i> is nothing I ever came across in German magic. Even Pathworking never really made it into the educational books of the tradition I come from. Instead building up your tratak skills, bending candle flames by willpower, torturing your eyes until you see a glimmering hint of an aura and spending countless hours painting pentagrams into the dark of a room with the brush of your index finger are the bricks and mortar laid by a solid German Zelator instead... </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KqRNm-YFXg0/TtM8kmoOBuI/AAAAAAAAARs/Hc_Uf_1jSmQ/s1600/IMG_0396.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KqRNm-YFXg0/TtM8kmoOBuI/AAAAAAAAARs/Hc_Uf_1jSmQ/s320/IMG_0396.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where is the magic - in controlling the solid <br />
or evoking the subtle?</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">While all the latter exercises are great - and very common Golden Dawn related - training for an aspiring magician they run an essential risk if learned in isolation. And that is to mistake the tracks you are hunting for the actual animal. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The risk is to become so self-obsessed with the actual training, with the skills you gain, the mental power they yield and the (self-)control you continuously expand that you start to mistake these powers for the goal of magic itself. The risk is to become so self-absorbed with these early yet important stages of magic that you never move on. Because at some point all the hours you sat quietly in your asana, all the magical techniques you taught yourself, all the mechanisms of astral control you perfected, they turn into metal plates on the armor you created for yourself - which now keep from interacting with the living. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>"The magician uses his faith like the surgeon his scalpel."</i> Many German fellow magicians will have grown up with this (in)famous axiom just like yours truly. Positioning total conscious control as the ultimate goal of the magical process seemed like the only possible road ahead... However, this short saying speaks volumes about the technical approach German magic takes on working with spiritual beings still today. The inner or spiritual realm has been degraded to a hidden bypass for affecting changes on the material realm. It has lost any value or interest in itself, becoming nothing but a medium to change matter in accordance with one's will. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">To me - having been brought up in this tradition magically - there is no difference to the way the scientists treat a monkey in a box, molecules in matter or brain waves of a patient from the way such Saturnian mages treat beings on the inner realms. They thrive of and are driven by a scientific and highly analytical desire for knowledge and control over power. The danger, however, is that this type of magic easily turns into the equivalent of genetic engineering: Both spirits and matter lose their souls, their dignitiy as living beings and the basic right to self-determine their course of actions and way of lives. As magicians of this type we will constantly expand our knowledge and power, and yet always remain utterly isolated. (And no wonder we will need some proper sex magick in the higher degrees to come back to life...)</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But let's return to the initial question. Why is it that the magic that emerged from the German circles of Mussallam, Quintscher, Bardon, Gregorius, Spießberger, Duval and ultimately Frater U.D. almost completely lost its inner sight and contact? Why exactly is it that the extensive corpus of German language magic - unpublished even in German still in large parts - is of such an extraordinary technical or <i>Saturnian</i> approach to ritual magic? </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Well, let's use our thinking like a scalpel - or sawed off shotgun to be more honest - and throw out a few hypothesis: </span></span></div>
<ul>
<li style="font: 16.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It's not only since Goethe that the story of <b>Faust</b> represents the archetype of any magician in German collective consciousness. The uncompromising, relentless strive for knowledge and insight stands as the central motive of the father figure of many German magicians who followed Faust.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 16.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">1928 Eugen Grosche (Gregor A. Gregorius) founded the most influential German speaking magical lodge to this date, <b>Fraternitas Saturnis</b>. Still going mostly unrecognized and overshadowed by the O.T.O in English speaking countries this lodge became the home and breeding ground for most of the German magical literature to be published in the decades to come. As the name of the lodge indicates its members are united by a strictly Saturnian approach to magic (even though the planet Saturn finds its own interpretation and occult analysis in their works).</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 16.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Since the early late 19th century we can see an unbroken chain of important women in English magic. However, here is a distinct and embarrassing <b>absence of woman</b> in the German language magical tradition. In the entire era before the 1970s there is not a single native woman to be found who would have left a mark on magic in Germany, Austria or Switzerland.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 16.0px 'Trebuchet MS'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">From a spiritual point of view the <b>Second World War</b> left Germany as destroyed and concaved on the inner realms as its bombed cities on the surface. Not only was the German Jewish tradition completely irrecoverably and utterly destroyed but so were most of the occult currents that had flown openly in the short period from the late 19th century to the 1930s. It's not unlikely that many inner contacts retreated from the land after this devastating experience. </span></span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Clearly there are many more elements that could be called out here. Just think of the general reputation of Germans as engineers. Maybe we just carried on with what we knew best when entering the inner realms? </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">May this as it be; it is the last of the bullet point above that gives me the creeps... Just think of the photos from the bombed cities in Dresden, Munich, Berlin, etc. What if on a spiritual level the rebuilding has never been completed - and all the darkness of these years is still stuck within the land? How much further healing work will it take to restore this country back to the beauty it deserves? </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Well, I always like to close on a positive note. So maybe a first small step away from an entirely Saturnian approach to magic could look like this? Each time we engage in magic we have a choice. We can continue to take a <i>Saturnian</i> approach - just like we might be used to as German magicians. Or we can do something new and chose its opposite; for lack of a better word let's call it <i>Venusian</i>. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">As so often in life it's the bridge between these two poles that will allow new and living forces to come through...</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-45800687236249542292011-11-19T18:03:00.001+01:002011-11-20T14:35:21.825+01:00Simplify your Magic - or how to make dreams come true (part 2)<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">:: (<a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/11/simplify-your-magic-or-how-to-make.html">Continued from part 1</a>) ::</span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">3) Clear out your altar. </span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><b>I</b>n magic every piece of natural substance is a vessel of spiritual force. In a world that delivers almost any spiritual artefact, substance or rare ingredient right in front of our doorsteps 24/7 our altars and homes can easily turn into Egyptian tombs filled with all sorts of dwellings of power... </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">The difference though is that in Ancient Egypt every vessel was there for a reason, assigned to a specific deity, clearly confined in its dwelling and arranged in harmony with the objects around it. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">If you are skilled enough to achieve such a supreme level of inner consistency and spiritual harmony on your altar please disregard this tip. All others might want to consider to clear out their altars and homes of open and unguarded spirit vessels. Because if you don’t confine and assign them to specific beings they are an open invitation to whatever astral worms happen to crawl by looking for a place to feed of... </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><u>Suggestion:</u> In order to simplify your magic every object on your altar needs to be an expression of clear and present intend. Check your own skill level and determine how many vessels of present living force you can hold in your mind at the same time? Then get rid of all others. Bin them or wrap them in pure silk and store them away until it’s time for them to be filled and harvested. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">4) Allow time to work for you. </span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><b>I</b>n magic time can be perceived as a force that constantly creates patterns. These patterns can either be left to organize themselves or they can be leveraged as boundaries to our magical work. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Time patterns are essentially cyclical. They tend to be organized around a central pole or theme. The season of the year revolve around the sun, the signs of the zodiac and the phases of the moon revolve around the earth and even a song revolves around a central theme... </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">We can use these patterns of time to our advantage in magic. Our ancestors can teach us a lot about them... The first step, however, is to find out around which pole the patterns of your magical life revolve right now? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Consciously leveraging cyclical patterns of time on your journey can be hugely beneficial: Significant power will flow from attuning your body and mind to a <i>specific</i> <i>rhythm of actions</i>. P</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">erform a small devotional rite, a gesture or exercise each morning at the same time, then close the circle by repeating it at night. When successful, expand the rhythm to embrace a whole week. Open the week with one exercise and close it again seven days later. Then go on to embrace a month, a season and finally a year or whole period of your life.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><u>Suggestion:</u> In order to simplify your magic start working actively with the patterns of time. Establishing a central theme or pole around which a period of time can revolve around will allow nature to actively support your workings. Living in tune with the tides of time is both an act of passive devotion as well as of active engagement.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"> Thus attuning your magic to a rhythm of cyclical works can become a significant catalyst to your work. </span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">5) Train your patience.</span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><b>I</b>n magic we all remain students for a lifetime. That's why there is absolutely no need to rush through things. Remember the length of your journey as well as the fact that you encounter many experiences and rites only once on your path. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">How often is it that only looking backwards we realize how significant certain moments in the past were for who we became since then? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Taking the time to be present and to allow the moment to last until it is truly over seems to have become a rare skill among adepts - myself included. Still, there is an intimate relationship between us and every moment of magic we experience. Someone once said to me: Maybe we are afraid to stay in the present moment because it would be both risky and erotic? If we only allowed it to it would capture all our senses like a lover and start engaging with us like a living being... </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">One way of developing this crucial skill can be to keep a list of all the wonderful ideas, sparks and innovations about your magic to come. Yet not to allow them to distract yourself from the work you are already involved in. Some might capture such a list at the end of their magical diaries. Others might write each idea down, then put it in an envelope and send it to themselves in order to be stored away until the time is right.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><u>Suggestion:</u> in order to simplify your magic allow yourself to be patient with the work you are carrying out. In magic just in life things will go downhill once we try to speed up the harvest. Just look at all the chemical fertilizers that pollute our land... Considering the length of your lives journey the moments where it takes true powerful magic to be performed will be special and rare. Seed these moments with patience and care. Then wait for them to unfold and help the seedlings to turn into trees.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Well, I thought about one more thing for this post. Yet, rather than another way to simplify magic it seems to be more of an underlying principle that holds true for all 5 steps above?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">If I had to give it a name I'd call it: <b><i>Safe energy. Avoid standbys.</i> </b>Actually it is just the same principle we are already being told over and over again by the green eco-movement: When leaving the house ensure the heater is off, the radio is out, the lights are switched off and - most important of all - all electronic devices with a standby button are fully unplugged. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Standby clearly is one of the most stupid ideas ever invented in technology - looking simple and clean on the surface yet swallowing huge amount of resources in the background. However, just as we often fail to recognize this when dealing with technical devices we often miss that the same principle doesn't get any better if we apply it to our everyday lives...</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Once we have set a magical act into motion it deserves to be finished. At all costs. Every circle opened deserves to be closed. If we think we can put this process on standby we might be surprised to find that in magic things tend to take on a life of its own if left to themselves... In which case the line of a circle might become the beginning of a maze - or even worse - the strap around your neck.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">May the serpent always bite its tail. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-65251402341734252662011-11-15T19:31:00.001+01:002011-11-20T14:35:36.608+01:00Simplify your Magic - or how to make dreams come true (part 1)<br />
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For a start let's consider this: each new thing we chose to buy is a new friend we invite to live with us. A new friend who moves in with us and for whom we should care. Each thing we acquire has a right to lead a life of its own. It will dwell with us in our house and be around us for years - wether its a pair of shoes, new cutlery, a DVD or a book. Each choice comes with a commitment: to take ownership, to be present and to provide support. </div>
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I guess in the long run consumption can turn out to be much more work than we think? If we don't watch it closely at some point it will lead to a house full of friends... and with almost no space left for ourselves. </div>
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Earlier this year I shared a post about <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/less-creation-more-integration.html">Less Creation, more Integration</a>. The last months came with some very interesting and pretty painful lessons. Yet they taught me how to simplify my magic.</div>
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Here is the basic choice: if you dream small you will be okay with doing a lot of small things at the same time. Small things have the tendency to be okay with other small things around them. It might get a bit messy in your living room or life at some point. But then small things are quick to clean up or to throw away, to finish off or to start afresh... </div>
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If, however, you tend to dream big you will either a) have a lot of big dreams at the same time and achieve none or b) painfully learn how to focus your energy, attention and creativity. </div>
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This as well as the following posts in this small series is written for all magicians who fall under the latter category. Or to be more precise, for all the ones who <i>think</i> they fall under the latter, but on close observation aren't really quite there yet... like yours truly. </div>
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The beauty as well as the challenge with big dreams is that it takes a lot of work to turn them into reality. Nothing more but also nothing less: solid, pure, raw, hard work. Everything is possible if we can concentrate our energy long enough. Actually, this is how we get the most from the energy that will be given to us over a life-time: purely by focussing it, by simplifying everything else around it and by keeping it concentrated on the next adjacent big goal on our life's journey. For as long as it takes.</div>
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At the end of the day we have all the freedom we can imagine. Everything is and can be possible. As long as we can concentrate our energy, attention and creativity long enough. And keep it focussed until our dream or magic is fulfilled.</div>
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Here are a few things that can take some of the pain out of this learning process. Consider it a 'blister pad' on your life's journey towards your own pure, raw and beautiful form of magic. It could be much more than that - but the reality is we only turn so much into action of what we read on blogs in a day... Either way, some big magical dreams might come true from it eventually. Chances are high they won't without...</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999; font-size: large;"><b>:: SIMPLIFY YOUR MAGIC ::</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><b>1) Focus your devotion.</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">In magic the power source of all our actions is limited: it is the determined intend with </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">which we untertake our rites. In a world where everything promises instant access and gratification the word commitment sounds old-fashioned and is something we easily get unused to... So let me take the opposite view: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">If you approach your magical life like a series of one night stands how much commitment will that evoke in the the spirits you work with? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Even if for a short period of our lives only - a series of months, a series of weeks - every magical rite deserves to be fueled by our complete devotion at that particular point in time. Just like</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> a woman can only be pregnant with one father’s child at any point in time. When we set out to work with the land, the ancestors, a certain rank of spirits they all equally deserve our full devotion. Our intent is the womb and our body is the athanor through which our magical offsprings are born. It's our choice that decides how 'intact' they will enter this world. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><i><u>Suggestion:</u> In order to simplify your magic focussing your devotion can be a great first step. </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><i>If your heart’s intend was a compass where does its needle point towards - and how stable will it be once you set in motion to get there?</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><b>2) Plan with the end in mind.</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">In magic a lot has been said and written about our True Will. The compass needle of our heart’s intend is just another word for it. If you are advanced enough on your journey, if your inner listening skills have developed sufficiently this point to simplify your magic will be of little use to you. For all others like me it is crucial. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Despite all the talking about our True Will little has been written on how to actually discover it - practically and hands-on I mean. For me I discovered it on my journey almost by accident and - like with a broken radio - still lose the signal ever so often. The voice I hear is crackling and fades in and out all the times, different speakers overlap... But at least I know where to find the radio and am learning how to tune it. Finding it, however, was a pure by-product of the rites I undertook. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">So until you have found and learned to listen to it you need something else that helps you identify the right course of action... Why? Because to start with we all need to cut a path through the fickle voices of our everyday desires, our ego-wishes, our dreams of power and public prominence and the barricades and barriers put up by our own guardians of the threshold. The blade that cuts through all of this is called <i>determination</i>. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">I guess that's the paradox every learner has to experience themselves: until you find that place where your heart speaks in truth you cannot trust your inner voices. So to escape the maze of inner voices you will need to set a clear path - and then simply follow it. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;"><i><u>Suggestion:</u> In order to simplify your magic planning with the end in mind is hugely helpful. Once you have set your course be determined to work through all steps necessary, one by one, come what might to get to your goal. Just like in life in magic you are entitled to nothing until you have earned it.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">:: to be continued ::</span></div>
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</div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-81828371057834722742011-10-25T09:53:00.000+02:002011-10-25T09:53:09.550+02:00The Work of the Hierophant - The Foolishness of the Neophyte<br />
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Last week I read Josephine McCarthy’s ‘<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Work-Hierophant-Josephine-McCarthy/dp/1933993944/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319521854&sr=8-1">The Work of the Hierophant</a>’. The book explains in great detail how to set up and run a magical lodge. A lodge that is well connected to the inner realms and balanced by the two currents of divine and chthonic energies emerging from the veil beyond and the depths within the Abyss. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.theinnerlibrary.org/the-work-of-the-hierophant.html">...enter the adventure here.</a></td></tr>
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I guess there aren't many books out there who go on to explain this process in such clarity and transparency, step by step, chapter by chapter? To be honest, I actually don't think there is any other book out there that even touches on what happens in the inner realms when forming or re-awakening a magical lodge with such a precision? And this is what makes this book exactly the type of literature you want to keep away from magicians who are still inexperienced in working actively in the inner realms. Magicians who still life their lives according to the simple principle of <i>'stay hungry, stay foolish'. </i>Magicians who believe that nothing bad can happen to them as long as they remain curious, full of positive intent and empowered by their love for all things living... That's right: magicians like me. </div>
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If you don't, though, and hand this book over to magicians who are really Neophytes of the Inner Realms a couple of interesting things will happen. Well to be frank, more accurately we can call these events for what they really are: painful mistakes. Here are few that happened to me...</div>
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<b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">First mistake:</span></u></b> I guess we all have come across books that feel so real while reading them that we actually think we are doing the work described while swallowing the words that describe it. Big mistake. We are not doing the work until we do it. At some point we all have to learn that there is a <i>painfully real difference between inspiration and skill, between commitment and competence</i>.</div>
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Holding a great book in our hands that takes our mind on a journey hidden in its pages can easily blur the line between experience and imagination. It might evoke the impression as if the work described in it is taking place in this very moment. I guess this is the natural effect all movies and novels feed off? Yet it is clearly not real: Imaging the inner realms is different from acting in them. It's different like the echo from the spoken word, like the living form from the image in a mirror, like the pleasure of a fire-side story from the fear of the present moment. An experienced crime-novel reader doesn't make a good detective necessarily. </div>
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Many before me have called this the difference between an armchair-magician and the price of real field studies... But let's consider this: When encountering a book like Josephine's we can utterly enjoy it as magical theory only. We can enjoy it as what it is: stories of other people's experiences handed on to us. We don't need to strive to make these <i>our</i> experiences. Unless we want to - and unless we are ready to pay the price. If you read the 'Bourne Identity' as a recipe for a successful life it's pretty clear what you will get. If you read a book like Josephine's as instructions for your own magical practice the road ahead is equally open and clear... it will take a toll.</div>
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What I am trying to say is - '<a href="http://www.theinnerlibrary.org/the-work-of-the-hierophant.html">The Work of the Hierophant</a>' shows us a hidden path through the maze of how to set up and run a magical lodge in the inner realms, how to build the astral fundament, the chapels and altars of the inner temple, how to form the vessel of the egregore and how to use angelic beings to construct forms and shapes that are both living and sheltering life. I guess many of us have searched for this knowledge for a long time... Yet, the fact that fate opened the window shutter to a forbidden room doesn't mean we are ready to open its door and walk right in. We always have a choice.</div>
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<b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Second mistake:</span></u></b> Let's assume the above was unknown to a magician like yours truly. What's next? Well, if you don't get the difference between commitment and competence you will assume that the love for riding a bike will make you instantly able to do so. Unfortunately working in the inner realms isn't exactly like riding a bike. Or maybe it is? But it kind of hurts more if you fall...</div>
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Having read through two thirds of the book I sat down and went into the inner realms. If Josephine's instruction kit on how to create temples on the inner realms really worked there must be plenty of temples around to visit? That's right - I had visited the physical remains of the ancient temples in Greece, Turkey, Persia and the Roman Empire. Why not visit what was left of their astral power-houses on the other side? So I set out and roamed through the desert that stretches between the Abyss and the River of Death. After a while I found a temple buried under sand. Only a small entrance at the very top had remained open - and I jumped right in.</div>
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What I found underneath during two subsequent visits was impressive. Huge dark halls arranged around a central eight-sided pyramid, containers of energy that glistened like gold, shining surfaces that were covered in moving sigils, walls that were build from a strange organic substance and a 'discussion hall' that contained an oversized harp which could be played by moving your body through it... Until I evoked the temple guardian and he kicked me out.</div>
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Some of you might have read my earlier post about the first journey to the city of the ziggurat? The story where I take over the body of one of my ancestors and just possess her? Well, I am getting familiar to the fact my manners in the astral realm aren't what they should be. They actually really suck.</div>
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Being thrown out by the temple guardian was a strange thing to experience. First of all I had never encountered any being so huge like this one. The difference between theory and practice, between inspiration and skill became painfully real at this point. He grabbed my astral form - I was shielded by the body of my angel - and in a blast of energy blew me out of the central tunnel through which I had accessed the temple. For a moment I was dancing on top of the beam of energy, like a drop on top of a fountain of water...</div>
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It was only later that day the tides turned and the related emotions were released into my body, like ice melting into water... I was laying in bed for hours that night, looking at strange visions behind closed eyes, painfully nervous for no obvious reason. The force of the energy blast had remained with me and now took its toll on my nerves: all my inner senses were irritated and tried to shield themselves against a thread that had long withdrawn into the depth of the temple under the sand. And quite successfully the guardian ensured that I wouldn't return and disturb the silence of the temple and shining walls and the instrument that played melodies on being touched by light... You wouldn't want to share such a space with strangers, would you?</div>
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<b><u><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">Third mistake:</span></u></b> As all of this has happened quite recently only I cannot give you much more at this point. Except for one thing that dawned on me when I got up this morning. Once you have opened the door and failed, once you have fallen off your bike and bruised your knees, the only reasonable thing to do is to get back on your bike right away. Well, maybe to get some more help first and then get back on your bike... </div>
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Having run into two obvious mistakes after reading Josephine's wonderful book I still have a chance to avoid this third one: Assuming that the difference between commitment and competence can be closed in a single attempt. Cause here is what will hold true always - wether we work on the inner realms, try to learn how to ride a bike or build a romantic relationship that actually lasts: the difference between inspiration and skill is called <i>'try again'</i>. The only thing that lies between a magician and a fool is time as well as the continuous courage to keep on learning...</div>
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Once I heard someone express exactly this in a wonderful sentence about what he called <i>'development courage'</i>. I looked it up again and here it is... Isn't it wonderful how the same rules apply wether we roam the outer or inner realms? If we manage not to be afraid of our own fears, if we only manage not to be afraid to lose, to change and to transition life will be such a wonderful journey.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000;"><i>"Someone with Developmental Courage values learning more than comfort. </i><i>That means they are willing to risk public failure, deep frustration, and the repeated hopelessness of being at wit’s end all in the name of building new skills, awareness and knowledge."</i></span></div>
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-19823710598339576672011-10-08T12:33:00.000+02:002011-10-08T12:33:12.876+02:00The Spirit Contact Cycle - or what makes magic an 'Afterwissenschaft'<div style="text-align: justify;">
I guess reading this blog entry will take you about 10 min give or take. That is enough to hear <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj1w0vxCC2w">this wonderful tune</a> at least twice in the background if you like... At the end of the day wonderful Mrs Feist and I are saying just the same. She obviously in much nicer words. </div>
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The <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Spirit_Contact_Cycle_1.html">Spirit Contact Cycle</a> originally came to life as a model to illustrate how humans engage with each other and their environment in the 1970s. Its core value lies in the fact that it describes all conscious and subconscious stages that need to be passed through in order to create vibrant and satisfying contact. Derived from that it also was a great model to explain all sort of things that can - and tend to - go wrong while we pass through these stages... Since its creation by Zinker in the 1970s it thus became one of the key models in Gestalt Therapy - and this is also where I got to know it from. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Click here for the full article on<br /><a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Spirit_Contact_Cycle_1.html">'The Spirit Contact Cycle'</a></td></tr>
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But why do I share this here - or went through the work to write in length about it on <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Circles.html">myoccultcircle.com</a>? Well, this has two reasons essentially. One personal and one, well how do call it best?, maybe <i>epistemological</i>... </div>
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As I know this will be easier let's start with the latter: Ludwig Blau in his seminal work on ancient Jewish magic "Jüdisches Zauberwesen" (1898) used the term '<i>Afterwissenschaft</i>' (anus-science) to refer to magic and sorcery in a highly derogative way. Wether we like it or not, he probably had a point there? What Blau criticized with this term were two ideas mainly: </div>
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<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><i>First of all it was the fact that the fundamental approach of magic is to create connection between ideas and objects by use of 'sympathetic means', i.e. analogies and correspondences. As the identification of these analogies doesn't follow any scientific standards (but mythical and spiritual principles at best) it is a deeply flawed approach from a scientific perspective.</i></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><i>Secondly, since it very early days magic has the tendency to absorb and amalgamate ideas, practices and artifacts from various cultures, times and fields of study into their very much bastard-born approaches. While this might be considered the pinnacle of pragmatism it also needs to be considered highly unscientific again. </i></span></li>
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It was in light of these points that Blau - and many other scholars after him - termed magic an '<i>Afterwissenschaft</i>'. Well, let's call that fair enough. Because the real point is that no practicing magician would argue against that. Call it whatever you want - being agnostic about where things come from and focussing on the results they can produce together - that sounds like an awful good approach to me? Tearing down the paper-walls between school of thoughts and paradigms, sciences and arts as well as ancient cultures and today's spiritual practices might create a mess in your living room. It might look like a bomb exploded or a your children had another party in your favorite study room. Yet it keeps everyone involved from becoming anal - and it would have never born the poisonous idea of 'purity' of concepts, school of thoughts and races ultimately... </div>
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So what does that have to do with the Spirit Contact Cycle? Well, this model is exactly the type of bastard that has always earned the scorn of anal scholars and scientists alike: It's mother Gestalt Therapy, it's father a Ritual Magician. They met at night and lay on a bed of grass when the child was conceived; and a few months later it was born behind a barn in the fields. The mother was horrified by its look - so much not like her - turned away and left it alone. The father was never to be seen, busily working in the barn that he had converted into a temple, no time for his former lover or any offsprings... So let's find a home for this little thing and bring it back to where it belongs: right in the middle between humans and spirits.</div>
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I also mentioned there was a personal reason to share this lovely bastard child of my two favorite passions. This reason, however, is not so lovely after all.</div>
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When I first learned about the Contact Cycle in a Gestalt context I learned that every contact starts with becoming aware of an unconscious sensual impulse. This can be as simple as realizing that we actually are hungry, angry, sad, tired - anything - before this impulse builds up unconsciously and erupts in uncontrolled emotions or actions. The starting point and fundament for any healthy contact - I learned - was to be open, sensitive and aware to what is going on within us <i>right now</i>. Not to what we think or want to go on, but what is actually happening in our bodies, hearts and minds without our conscious interference right now...</div>
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It immediately dawned on me that I had spent the better part of the last decade to develop the magical equivalent of this ability: the skill to become more sensitive and aware to the things that were going on in the inner or astral realms around me. Like many of us I had spent years practicing asanas, meditations, trataka exercises, rituals and kabbalistic prayers - all aimed to increase my spiritual awareness and ability to determine what was going on around me<i> in the invisible realm right now</i>.</div>
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Over these years I had made some progress. While I clearly didn't land where I had hoped to - or where Bardon and alike suggested I <i>should</i> land - after more than 10 years I could now at least hear spirits when they were standing right in front of me screaming at me in full voice. I could also feel a slight itching when they slapped me in the face or - more appropriately - a growling nervousness in my stomach when they kicked me in the guts for weeks. So after all the spirits and I were in contact and started to have nice conversations. <i>'Nice'</i> in the sense of a Caspar Hauser-like idiot stepping out into the sunlight for the very first time and inviting the first run-down pedophile he met on the streets for an afternoon tea... Not very smart but at least unafraid to get hurt.</div>
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That part, however, was the part I was okay with. What was not okay with me was when I realized that I had spent all these years training my astral senses to become more subtle and aware. But in doing so I had completely fucked up my physical senses to become better trained in things that happened around me on a plain social level...</div>
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While I considered myself a Neophyte at training my astral senses I had run into the completely wrong direction on a physical level for years. On an interpersonal level I wasn't in the vestibule of the temple, I was in a completely different part of the city! </div>
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To be quite honest, this painful insight only dawned on my during recent weeks. Only then did I realize how often I get defensive or aggressive still in front of loved ones. Not because they or the conversations deserve it, but because I don't take care of myself well enough. And the reason why I don't is simply because I haven't learned how to do it... being so occupied with magic, rituals and astral ascension didn't leave me enough time to realize when I am hungry, sad, tired or simply incredibly exhausted.</div>
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This is clearly not the person, not the lover or magician I set out to become. And it was the <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Spirit_Contact_Cycle_1.html">Spirit Contact Cycle</a> that helped me realize this truth. </div>
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This is why I have written and am sharing this article with you. To share what has and is helping me and hopefully to contribute another little bit of waste to our wonderful '<i>Afterwissenschaft</i>'.</div>
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What a wonderful life - when we have both musicians and spirits accompanying us, always finding the right words for what we are trying to say...</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Secret heart</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>What are you made of</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>What are you so afraid of</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Could it be</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Three simple words</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Or the fear of being overheard</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>What's wrong</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Let em' in on your secret heart</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Secret Heart</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Why so mysterious</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Why so sacred</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Why so serious</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Maybe you're</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Just acting tough</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Maybe you're just not man enough</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>What's wrong</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Let em' in on your secret heart</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This very secret</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>That you're trying to conceal</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Is the very same one</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>That You're dying to reveal</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Go tell them how you feel</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Secret heart come out and share it</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This loneliness, few can bear it</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Could it have something to do with</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Admitting that you just can't go through it alone?</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Let em' in on your secret heart</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This very secret</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>That you're trying to conceal</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Is the very same one</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>That you're dying to reveal</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Go tell them how you feel</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This very secret heart</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Go out and share it</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>This very secret heart</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Feist - Secret Hearts</b></span></div>
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Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-70102731058849057912011-09-24T14:59:00.000+02:002011-09-24T15:10:02.848+02:00Allowing magic to do its magic - or learning through absence<div style="text-align: justify;">
These days I am still learning a lot of lessons on the nature of Tiphareth and the Olympic Spirit of Och (Sun). After conducting the Arbatel Ritual for Och in July I shared some thoughts on the <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/07/beast-that-almost-got-me-or-ochs.html">direct aftermaths in a post back in August</a>. Overall it has been three months now during which I have been working through the impact of that single rite - emotionally, mentally and on the material realm. </div>
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As I am getting closer to integrating the forces of Tiphareth into my daily life and setting out to prepare for the next Arbatel Ritual I want to share something that turned out to be a major learning while going through this experience.<br />
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It's an insight into how the spirits or planetary forces I engage with teach me about their actual nature and mode of action. Maybe this is just the way it works for me or maybe it is something that turns out to be helpful in your own practice? Either way, the question is: If we look at live outside of our temples what is nature's way to integrate new spiritual forces into our life and consciousness?<br />
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Here are the two cents experience taught me: <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">a new and yet unconscious force is best taught through experiencing its opposite. That means the modus operandi of any force we haven't come to consciously recognize yet is best taught by its complete absence. </span></i></div>
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Only when we are hungry do we understand the essential nature of food. And once we are lonely and isolated, we immediately understand the nature of companionship and partnership. Many of us only when they are at war do understand the value of peace. And only once our spouse has left us for good do we recognize the true value and beauty of the relationship we have lost... </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eZZ13UTxRJQ/Tn3TtssUKvI/AAAAAAAAAQM/MjW9858xu0I/s1600/IMG_1067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eZZ13UTxRJQ/Tn3TtssUKvI/AAAAAAAAAQM/MjW9858xu0I/s320/IMG_1067.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A spirit teacher I found on a wall in <br />
East London (early 2011)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The same principle applies in magic: if we ask to be taught a certain force or create relationship with a spirit being our journey <i>might kick off at the exact opposite end</i>. This opposing experience creates a void of the force we aimed to relate to - and it is this void that is realized by our conscious. It is the void that teaches us about the space and function this force normally holds in our lives. By taking away what we take for granted we dissolve the blind spot and gain consciousness.<br />
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Here is the thing: grey isn't a good teacher to understand the dynamics of light. We need a high contrast of dark against light to truly understand the dimension and dynamics of these polar forces.<br />
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It was in this way that I got to learn about the forces of Hagith (Venus): I was taught the value of life by the experience of illness. The ability to share love as long as we are sustained by the spring of our physical health was taught to me by drying up this well and showing me how fickle the fundament of my love had been built...<br />
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The same principle applied over recent months during my OCH experience: Once you take away any direction or goals in your life all rush and urge to control subsides. What emerged initially was a deeply felt fear of being lost and at the end of my magical tether (i.e. the opposite experience of what people would call Sun-related forces).<br />
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Once I had given this force room for contact and experience, however, what followed was hubris. From one end of the dimension I was lured to the other: moments of grandiosity. Thoughts that once the winds returned I could set my sails completely anew and travel anywhere I wanted, set and achieve any goals I chose freely... (i.e. experience of the force what people <i>would</i> call Sun-related forces, yet still imbalanced or distorted by my Ego).<br />
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It took me a couple of weeks to allow these thoughts to pass through me. I needed to accept them, yet not to identify with them. The only way to do this was not trying to control them, but to welcome them like passing boats on a river, like birds visiting a dovecote or foreign animals passing through the forest of my mind... Non-idenfitifcation.<br />
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After a while a third stage followed. This was when I understood that it is not me at all who sets any goals - neither in life nor in magic. That on entering the Sun, on stepping into the burning fire of continuously new born life I had turned myself into a mean through which forces higher than myself could work. That entering the centre of life hadn't come with more or a new direction of power, but with a request to me for complete service.<br />
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So here I am - deeply humbled by the experience and still stupid but a bit smarter than before. I now know that unfamiliar forces are taught to us by use of their opposites. And I know how much time, patience and openness it takes to move from initial contact to full integration. It's the journey of a lifetime.<br />
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On a final note, I found that my old passion for syncretism was rewarded once again. By not caring about <i>how</i> useful resources had come to me - through friends, books, Gestalt, magic, work or any other open source - I had found a wonderful crutch to support my little brain in understanding what was actually going on with me...<br />
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Take a look at the picture below and take a moment to follow the sequence of steps. What you see is a slightly amended form of Zinker's Contact Cycle. It shows a wonderful model to help us understand how we move from initial sensation to contact and finally integration. While this model had been developed as part of Gestalt Therapy it completely reflects the experience we go through when engaging with and getting to know new spiritual entities.<br />
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Life simply doesn't care wether we go through an encounter with our neighbor next door, with an ancestor from a previous life or with an entitiy high up or low the eternal chain beings. Every encounter is an invitation to adventure.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KcTlxf0GPBQ/Tnmo4qkDGcI/AAAAAAAAAQI/HMVFA8X5FYo/s1600/screen-capture-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="314" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KcTlxf0GPBQ/Tnmo4qkDGcI/AAAAAAAAAQI/HMVFA8X5FYo/s400/screen-capture-1.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
The Gestalt Contact Cycle from Zinker (adopted). Apologies for the <br />
low resolution of the picture. I am working on a full article on this<br />
model to be published on www.myocculticircle.com. <br />
Thank for your patience.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-37133122911425410712011-09-11T15:29:00.000+02:002011-09-11T15:29:23.394+02:00How to enter your Inner Realm - or 3 exercises on elastic awareness<div style="text-align: right;">
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In evocation magic we strive for conscious contact with specific spirits. Sometimes this happens through visible appearance. Other times we allow the spirit to chose the best way to manifest - may it be in our inner realm, in dreams, in inner sight, etc. However, I guess we'll all agree an unsuccessful rite is a rite without <i>any</i> <i>conscious contact</i>.</div>
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In my recent posts on <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/learning-magic-of-my-ancestors-part-1.html">Ancestral Magic</a> I shared some adventures I encountered while exploring a type of magical contact that's new for me. To embark on such a journey the magician needs two keys mainly: </div>
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<ol>
<li style="text-align: left;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">A technique to enter into the inner realm and access the stream of ancestral consciousness and</span></i></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">the ability to maintain what I call an 'elastic awareness' that maintains an unintentional and open state of consciousness.</span></i></li>
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Josephine hands over a great key for the first point <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magical-Knowledge-Book-II-Initiate/dp/1906958068/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315746979&sr=8-1">in her <i>Void</i> exercise</a>. However, it is the second point that will make your journey through the void a successful spirit encounter or just plain daydreaming. So it seems there is something to be said about how we use awareness in magic - may it be in rituals or in expeditions into the inner realms? </div>
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Funny enough, the best teacher on it I found so far is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Perls">Fritz Perls</a>. This man certainly knew a lot about contact, awareness and how to bring these two together in order to travel to places we haven't known before. Perls didn't apply his techniques he created to magic or any type of spirit communion - but to commune with ourselves. </div>
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So let's take a brief look at <i>contact</i> and <i>awareness</i> in Perl's own words: </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">"It emerged that we had to shift the concern of psychiatry from the fetish of the unknown, from the adoration of the 'unconscious', to the problems and phenomenology of awareness: what factors operate in awareness, and how do faculties which can operate successfully only in the state of awareness lose this property?" (Perls, Gestalt Therapy, p.15)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">"<i>Contact</i> as such is possible without awareness, but for awareness contact is indispensable. The crucial question is: with what is one in contact? The spectator of a modern painting may believe that he is in contact with the picture while he is actually in contact with the art critic of his favorite journal." (Perls, p.15)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">"In the struggle for survival the most relevant need becomes figure (or better: Gestalt - ed. Acher) and organizes the behavior of an individual until this need is satisfied, whereupon it recedes into the background (temporary balance) and makes room for the next <i>now</i> most important need. In the healthy organism this change of dominance has the best survival chance. In our society such dominant needs, for example, morals, etc., often become chronic and interfere with the subtle self-regulating of the human organism." (Perls, p.18)</span></div>
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Well, sounds like a lot of psycho-bullshit? I guess Perls would agree pretty much. So let's give it a try and turn it into practical experience...</div>
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<b>Step 1:</b></div>
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As you are reading these lines become aware with what you are in contact already. Scan through your bodily emotions while reading this. What does your stomach tell you? What contacts are your legs and feet picking up? Read this with minimal brain activity and allow your conscious to meander through your body... Can you feel your blood rushing underneath your skin? What type of awareness is present in your chest? What type of awareness is in your mind? </div>
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Perls said: contact can happen without awareness but never the other way around. The first step in exploring our Inner Realm is to create what I called an <i>elastic awareness</i>. An awareness that rather than pursuing it's own intent and direction is open to be approached, to accept and to explore without desire... Our awareness needs to learn to sit still and perceive. Full of contact. Then we will realize how much we have ignored before. And that rather than <i>trying harder</i>, <i>trying not all</i> often can be the key.</div>
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Please don't get me wrong - this has nothing to do with replacing your magical strive with a strive for Nirvana. The goal of this exercise is not emptiness, but fullness. It is to perceive and become aware of the richness, the diversity and multitudes of contacts we are engaged in at any moment. This exercise is a fundament in order to be able to listen to the spirits. Because the spirits are talking to us <i>through the contacts in our bodies</i>.</div>
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<b>Step 2:</b></div>
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When you are in bed and before your fall asleep create contact with your bodily senses again. Walk through your body, limb by limb and pick up the emotions and sensual impressions that are already there. Don't try to create any contacts. Just allow your awareness to flow through your body and discover the things that are present already... Once you have explored your entire body allow your conscious to rest and come to a halt in your chest area. Now all impression merge into a single vibrant perception of your bodily field of contact. Full presence. You feel the energy in your body, undistinguished from your conscious. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IsGCNuEL2AE/Tmy3VwfpilI/AAAAAAAAAQA/sI008jy5IpM/s1600/Johnossi_Mavericks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IsGCNuEL2AE/Tmy3VwfpilI/AAAAAAAAAQA/sI008jy5IpM/s1600/Johnossi_Mavericks.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Did I first listen to this song or <br />first think of this post? Does it matter?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then slowly expand your field of awareness beyond your bodily borders. Allow your senses to expand beyond your skin... I normally do this by listening to the things around me. The wind on the leaves of a tree through the open window, a passing car, the slow breaths of my dog in the room next door. Whatever ambient sounds there are, just allow your senses to merge with them. Your field of awareness expands. And after a short while you will find it has become a sphere of consciousness, expanding beyond the room you are lying in, into the night, including street lamps, concrete and cars... all contacts presently waiting for my conscious to find them.</div>
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Normally I come to pause once the sphere of awareness has grown to roughly 100 feet in diameter. I then rest in the present awareness of all things inside my consciousness now. My body, the body of my wife, the darkness, the body of our dog, the house, the night sky, the streets... It is a wonderful feeling, liberating, without any intent or tension, completely calm. All stress from my workday has disappeared as I myself have vanished. What is left is a glowing sphere of consciousness, allowing the night wind and ambient sounds and wandering cats to pass through it. </div>
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<b>Step 3:</b><br />
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Combine Step 1 and 2 into a single exercise and perform at any moment throughout your normal workday. Make it a habit to discover contacts you were involved in but not aware about. Make it a habit for your senses to expand beyond your body. Feel the grass on the front years behind the window, feel the electric buzz of computers and coffee machines around you, feel the rush of a street car and the energy fields of 40-something people in it passing by... Allow your awareness to become an open system, to become the Linux version of consciousness. </div>
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Once this third step works well for you in random situations you shouldn't have any problems to explore your inner realms. Well, you might have problems at your work place now instead though. Cause sitting in your chair, eyes closed and drooling isn't really the picture of a high performer many bosses have in their mind. But hey - there is a price to be paid for any big achievement!</div>
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Let me close this on a final note that connects back to the journeys into my own Ancestral Magic I had shared before...<br />
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Last week I was at an airport, tired and exhausted, arriving at night, standing on the escalators and watching the commercials passing by. When suddenly I felt Immar's presence within me. This had never happened before - I hadn't even considered the possibility that Immar<i> might contact me on her own initiative</i>! Yet while I was ascending to the next floor I could clear feel her gaze through my eyes. There was a significant amount of surprise and astonishment going on on her end... Maybe that is how I looked to her when I gazed at the ziggurat? She stayed with me on my entire journey through the belly of the airport. Only when I entered the taxi and spoke to the driver I felt her presence withdraw. Probably because I had left the timeless entrails of the airport, these synthetically lid passages of glass and commercials, of silence and polished floors. A space without any intent except for passing through it. An open system, a passage of time.<br />
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When I had entered the taxi my mind had closed again. I started to re-focus on my journey to the hotel, showing the address to the driver, watching passer-bys and starting to think about the day to come...<br />
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I learned it early on in my Arbatel Experience and am still so much working to get it right. My angel told me in no ambiguous language: <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #999999;">"Everything will be good, as long as you don't have a plan."</span></i><br />
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<i>But when he swam out</i></div>
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<i>in this black void of nothing</i></div>
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<i>he was anxious, but excited</i></div>
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<i>and he didn´t know</i></div>
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<i>he wouldn´t come back</i></div>
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<i>to shore again.</i></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcM7lbsnAr4">Johnossi - Maverick</a></div>
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Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-52013727119924291192011-09-04T10:39:00.002+02:002011-09-04T10:39:57.216+02:00Learning the Magic of my Ancestors - part 3<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The third trip to the city of clay started from my actual temple. It was a week of vacation, the sun was shining bright and warm outside, I had finished my standard meditation and left the communion with my angel. At this point my mind and body are charged and radiant with energy yet very quiet and peaceful. It's the perfect mindset to continue an exploration into the unknown, ready to accept anything that might come along...</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I entered the Void through the flames on the altar before which I was sitting. Their fire burned away all outer shapes and pulled me into the darkness I had come to appreciate so much. After a while of getting acquainted to the emptiness within and around me, I raised my right hand in front of my eyes, used a knife to make a deep cut into my palm and saw the stream of blood emerge... Then I sank backwards, just like the two times before, and allowed the stream to carry me through the Void and out into the desert.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NOtKp3sTRBs/TmM4fjp81-I/AAAAAAAAAP4/QHuvcINeKV8/s1600/Vision-Seekers-Memento-Mori-The-Ancestors-of-the-Family-speaking-to-me-%25233.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NOtKp3sTRBs/TmM4fjp81-I/AAAAAAAAAP4/QHuvcINeKV8/s320/Vision-Seekers-Memento-Mori-The-Ancestors-of-the-Family-speaking-to-me-%25233.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.doreenvalenza.com/large-single-view/The%20Vision%20Seekers/207945-1-17221/Mixed%20Media.html">Doreen Valenza</a>: Vision Seekers-Memento Mori-<br />The Ancestors of the Family speaking to me #3</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As the current was carrying me backward I tried to be mindful of the environment and catch glimpses of the shore, the sky and the colors around me. However, all impressions remained blurred and somewhat faint. The only clear sensual impression was my own being in the river, rushing through its waters... I guess traveling through the stream of blood is a journey through time. It makes sense that unless one stops and climbs out of the stream all impressions remain somewhat distant and faint. Otherwise the influx of memories would be huge and completely overwhelming...</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Just like on my two previous visits I got caught in a fish trap after a while. The water was pushing me to the back of the trap and rushing past me. Then the trap got pulled out of the river, it was emptied into another basked fixed to the back of a carrier and we set in motion on our way through the desert. This time, however, the basket didn't have a lid and I could see snippets of scenery and the bright sky above as we were walking towards the city. I also remember the walls of the city looked really colorful... </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Maybe I should share some context here? Since the last journey I had received instructions from an inner contact to research on a specific aspect of the magic of the Arabs, Greek and Chaldeans. My studies had pivoted on the magic of the Chaldeans for several weeks now and I had refreshed a lot of my understanding of their cosmology and spirit realm. One of the things I remembered clearly from the studies was the fact that in Chaldean times the ramparts of rich cities were adored with small, colored domes which were attached horizontally to the walls. Maybe it were these domes that were shining brightly in the sun and creating the colorful view of the city we were approaching? Or maybe my imagination and astral perception simply mingled? Either way, it was a stunning sight and I wondered why I had missed it on previous trips to the city?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Then we approached the huge gate. Again I saw the guarding spirit standing on an elevated post in the shadows under the main arch, staring straight in front of him and chattering his teeth. Once we passed through the gate I was surprised to catch a glimpse of my ancestor: She was approaching from the right side of the gate, walked towards the carrier in whose basket I lay and grabbed me right out of it. Nobody seemed to realize her burglary or at least no one complained... Through dusty streets filled with market stalls Immar carried me back to her hut. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In the small room of her hut Immar puts me down on something she has carved on the floor. I don't get to see it clearly, maybe it is the spirit gate she showed me on my last visit? Then smoke appears and washes over my fish body. Is Immar blowing the smoke over me from a bowl of burning incense? As the smoke covers my body my shape changes and I turn into human form. I am not a naked boy anymore; this time my human form is much closer to my actual shape and age.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Immar is sitting on her bed. I take a seat on the low chair opposite her. Now I can sense her sadness, it's incredibly present and strong. Immar isn't crying yet sitting quietly on the bed of straw. Something inside her seems to be the source of constant pain and grief, but she has become too used to it to complain or cry... I hold out my hand and she puts hers into mine. We sit there quietly for a while holding hands. Now I can feel that it's her heart that's weak.</span></div>
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<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>Immar</b>: I need water.</i></span></li>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I understand that water to drink will not stop her thirst; it's her heart that has run dry. I open my own heart and allow the waters of my heart to stream into hers. Through the physical connection of our hands I can see a rush of energy pouring into her. Immar's shape changes. As my heart-waters start to fill her heart she turns younger. After a while her skin has become firm and radiant again. She looks much better now, yet I know that we haven't cured the source of her sadness yet... There is something else we need to do.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Immar turns over and lays down on her bed. She seems to be very tired. I get up and stand above her. Without knowing the words that I am saying, I am starting to sing. My words, the melody, everything is flowing out of my heart in its own way and form. I try not to control anything. The melody of the song to washes over Immar's tired body... Then I hold out my hands over her heart area. Immar is lying crouched on her right side, eyes closed, her face turned to the dark clay wall in front of her. I don't know if she is still awake or sleeping? Suddenly I can feel the presence of my angel standing behind me in the small room. His presence is strong and bright, his light shines through my body as if I am made of glass. My glass body bundles his rays into my hands and his light is streaming through my palms over Immar's heart...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">At this point I have become a tool, a spoke in a process that is much larger than myself. My angel is working through me; I don't have to do anything except for remain calm and present and allow his force to use my body as a channel. I can see his light working on Immar's heart. Then something is extracted from Immar's heart. It leaves a hole and my angel fills it up with a shining force or presence I do not know. Like a wound that is filled with healing herbs Immar's heart is filled with a bright, living light. The presence that has been extracted from her heart is held tightly in a ray of energy next to her heart. Looking back I cannot tell whether it was a dark substance or simply a shadow. I know I remember my first thought: ‘It must be a worm.’ Without having prepared anything in advance I know what to do next.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Beside her bed I can see a small stack of green leaves with a dark paste greased upon them. I take the substance or shadow extracted from Immar's heart, pull it out of her body and put it onto the paste of the leaves. Then I roll up the leaves and lash them up with a cord that had been prepared underneath them. I hold the roll of lashed leaves in my hand; they are filled with a vibrant presence I do not know and don't want to know any better... I step outside of the hut and burn the leaves. Their ashes fall down and I catch them in a small clay pot.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For a short moment I am unsure what to do with the ashes. They are not secure yet, they still carry the imprint of the energy caught in the leaves... I look back into the dark room, Immar’s silhouette on the low bed. A moment later it's completely clear what to do with the ashes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I walk out on the street and follow its path to the base of the ziggurat. There, beneath the stairs leading up on the huge building I find large pots of clay that look like immense cauldrons. They are filled with earth. As I come closer and look inside them, I see that it's not earth they are filled with but ashes of multiple shades of grey. I empty the ashes of the leaves into the clay pot. From somewhere I gained a clear understanding of what will happen with them: at certain times priests descend from the temple on top of the ziggurat. They empty the clay pots and carry the ashes to the top of the ziggurat (well, to be precise I guess some slaves will do the carrying for them?). Then they perform rituals over the remains of the ashes, banishing the wicked spirits still caught in them from the city. Planetary beings assist them in these rites.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I walk back to Immar's hut. She is sitting on her bed, looking very happy.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><b>Immar</b>: What can I give you in return?</i></span></li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>Acher: Can you teach me something about your gods?</i></span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">She gets up and stands close to me. In her hands I can see an oblate - or maybe it is a coin? Without hesitation I open my mouth and Immar puts the oblate underneath my tongue. I turn around and look outside. The night sky has changed. Or is it really night or simply a different, darkened visions of my eyes? As if painted with broad brushes I can suddenly see the presence and work of the spirits in the city. They are shining like moving rays in the dark; their predominant color is a silver-white-blueish radiance that is moving over the flat roofs of the city, swirling and working on multiple places. There are so many of them? I can see them rise into the night sky and shoot down into the city again. It’s a busy coming and going. I am thinking: ‘There are probably as many spirits as human beings in this city...` Then I turn back to Immar. To my surprise I find that we are shining as well. Our bodies look like complex nettings of irradiating twigs. It's breathtakingly beautiful! I feel like a walking, shining lamp in the astral realm...</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Finally we depart and leave Immar’s hut. Above the ziggurat I can now see a huge tower of light raising up into the night sky. The massive building of the ziggurat is dwarfed by the sheer size of this shining, vibrant, living tower of spirit presence. Without understanding any of the techniques or details, my heart immediately gets it: all physical objects in this city are potential interfaces between the material and spirit realm, potential focus points of energies. And the tallest building erected by humans is just the base of a much larger manifestation in the astral realm. One building is built upon the other, interconnected, like Yin and Yan, yet existing in two different realms. Is this the nature of every true temple? I have never seen something like this before.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Then I leave the city without turning back. I return to the river in the desert and flow upwards through its current, back into the darkness of the Void.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9ox19OPs4O4/TmM1HQb4xOI/AAAAAAAAAP0/889zpifNawY/s1600/screen-capture-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9ox19OPs4O4/TmM1HQb4xOI/AAAAAAAAAP0/889zpifNawY/s400/screen-capture-1.png" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A ziggurat (also: ziqqurat) is a type of step-pyramid temple first built by the Sumerians 5,000 years ago in southern Mesopotamia, made of sun-dried mud bricks. The peoples of Mesopotamia – the Assyrians and Babylonians continued building ziggurats for thousands of years. (<a href="http://cjewords.blogspot.com/2010/10/ziggurat.html">source</a>)</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">::</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">These experiences are becoming so intense, so intimate maybe I should stop reporting openly about them? I should ask Immar about her opinion on my next visit... Looking backwards now the most striking thing is the way magical teaching seems to work on the inner realms? It seems to be less verbal, less focussed on speech or writing than we know it from the manifest realm. Immar doesn't show me any books and she doesn't give lectures. She just shares experiences. When I am with her everything is alive, fluid and emerging. Nothing can be fixed and all structure evades in light of the living presence of the experience itself... When it comes to teaching on the inner realms words don't seem to matter that much? When I asked her to teach me about her gods, she didn't tell but she showed me her gods. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I wish we could achieve a similar state of instantness, of presence and sharing of vision on the material realm... How would a school, a study group or an occult order look like if we were capable of sharing our visions like Immar does? Well, and maybe without drugs? These seem to be an essential ingredient of her magic so far... </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My experiences in the city of clay also raise questions about the Grimoires and forms of written magical tradition for me: How much magic can we actually share and pass on by writing things down? Doesn't the written word kill or at least confine the living spirit? Is it possible to share anything more than just the 'grammar' of a dead language by passing on written knowledge? And how much arduous work is it for all of us to re-create dead languages from dusty books of grammar - rather than traveling to the places where languages are still alive and spoken by living beings?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I'll leave you with one thought that has come back to me repeatedly since my third visit at Immar's hut: Maybe the whole Western Magical Tradition of the past 2000 years has been dominated way too much by men? Maybe it's a predominantly male trait to look for patterns, structure, grammar and everything that can be fixed and pinned down first and foremost? Weren't it male biologists who traveled the world, hunting for unknown species and drowning them in millions of glasses of pure alcohol? I haven't heard of a lot of woman taking such an approach to exploring the unknown... Maybe it's as simple as that: Less structure and more living. Less science and more art. Less obsession with objectivity. And more experiences in our own inner realms? </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-30228524772315356052011-08-30T20:39:00.000+02:002011-09-04T10:47:21.564+02:00Learning the Magic of my Ancestors - part 2<div style="text-align: justify;">
A few weeks after <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/learning-magic-of-my-ancestors-part-1.html">my first ancestral journey</a> I embarked on the second expedition. Since my return from the city of clay I had been curious to learn more about my ancestor's magic. However, it took a few weeks to integrate all the impulses I had received, to make sense of this new experience and relationship before I felt ready to return and re-engage...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here is my account of what happened during my second visit. This time I was sitting in the small meditation room up on the first floor of our old house. Incense was raising from the Tibetian skull cup in front of me and filling the room. I had just finished my standard meditation, opened my eyes and looked at the cup of water that I had placed next to the incense... I stared at it for a while, closed my eyes and took its picture with me into the dark. The room and all outside world disappeared as I saw myself standing in the water bowl. Finally I had reached the Void again and enjoyed the quietness, the openness and the vast space stretching out around me in all directions...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was clear that I had to follow the exact same path again in order to return to my female ancestor. So I cut my hand open and sank backwards into the stream of blood. After some time I emerged from the Void into the burning sun of the desert and allowed the stream to carry me in its current.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tFyYWQ3GpVw/Tlvbg02LGxI/AAAAAAAAAPU/JKAFWpZPhK4/s1600/sigil.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tFyYWQ3GpVw/Tlvbg02LGxI/AAAAAAAAAPU/JKAFWpZPhK4/s320/sigil.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
Sigil of Immar's spirit gate</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
as carved on her floor</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Before entering on this journey I had drafted somewhat of a strategy on how to better engage with my ancestor. Last time I had taken over her body, not introduced myself and probably violated most unwritten etiquettes of ancestral visits? So this time I needed to do better. My idea was to enter the city in the shape of a fish. That had been the shape I arrived in the fish trap during my first visit and it seemed like a good approach to get through the guarded gates of the city. I would then call on my ancestor and ask her to come to the market and buy me from the fisherman that had brought me there. Once in her home I could take my human form again and we could interact openly and undisturbed from the outside world. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I was flowing in the bloodstream through the desert, a crazy plan on my mind and no idea of where this would take me... It took much longer than before, yet at some point I found myself caught in a fish trap again. The water was rushing over me and I was stuck in a braided basket. Finally a hand pulled the basket out of the water and emptied it into another, larger basket which was fixed to the back of a man. A lid closed above me and I felt how the man set in motion. I was lying in the shade of the basket in my fish form, waiting for the man to arrive in the city...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
After a long travel the lid was opened again. I found myself in a relatively dark room, tamped stairs were leading down into it and all walls as well as the ceiling were made from earth. I had been thrown onto a clay pot full of fish, when suddenly my ancestor was descending over the stairs and picking me up. Without hesitation she wrapped me into a cloth and disappeared again. When I saw the light again we were back in here small hut made from clay.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The loom was still standing to my right. On my left I saw the clay pots on the shelves; in front of me stood a low bed made from straw on which my ancestor was sitting. I am not sure how this happened, but once I looked around in the hut I realized that I had lost my fish form and had taken the shape of a naked young boy. My skin was almost white and I was sitting on a low chair opposite her...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><i>Acher: What is your name?</i></li>
<li><i>Ancestor: (I am not going to share her full name; let's just call her <b>Immar</b> which I consider to be her first name. Her full name consists of six syllables and four words.)</i></li>
<li><i>Acher: I am the one who comes from far away.</i></li>
<li><i><b>Immar</b>: Me too.</i></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I don't recall why anymore, but at this point in our conversation I tried to change my shape. Maybe I started to feel uncomfortable being naked in front of her or maybe just being so much younger? I shifted my shape without intention and immediately turned into an old man.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Suddenly Immar was gone. The entire hut had turned empty from one moment to the next; the loom was gone, only some broken clay pots were left on the shelves... I shifted my shape again and returned to the form of the young boy. Everything was back in the room, Immar still sitting opposite me. A thought struck me... I carefully shifted my age forward, like the dial of a clock. I could see how Immar turned older immediately. For some strange reason the only way for us to communicate with each other at that particular time was in the shapes we had naturally taken: for me as young naked boy and for her as a woman, probably somewhere in her late 30s...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><i>Acher: How do you speak to the spirits?</i></li>
<li><i><b>Immar</b>: I just stand in their space. A physical space that is. Their power is connected to the earth and can be activated. Like this...</i></li>
</ul>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tFyYWQ3GpVw/Tlvbg02LGxI/AAAAAAAAAPU/JKAFWpZPhK4/s1600/sigil.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>
I look on the tamped floor in front of me and see a large sigil carved into the earth. (The closest form my mind could recreate after the expedition is the picture above.) Immar uses this sigil to open the spirit gates; the spirits pass through the earth.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><i>Acher: What can you teach me about your magic?</i></li>
<li><i><b>Immar</b>: I animate substances.</i></li>
<li><i>Acher: How do you do that?</i></li>
<li><i><b>Immar</b>: I use everything that is ready to share. There are potent substances that can grant life to lifeless forms. I search these substances and I use them on others. Thus life is passed on, shared and I can animate things.</i></li>
</ul>
<div>
My view is caught by her underarms. Scars grace her dark skin, in the twilight of the room they look like bracelets covering everything from her wrist up to the elbows. I understand that scorpions play an important role in this, but I don't get to understand why and how she uses the poison to create these scars...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Immar hands me a drink in a dark clay pot. Now I am standing on the sigil on the ground; the drink is sticky and bitter. My body becomes weak. Immar takes back the bowl and hands me a paste of green herbs. I swallow the herbs; they taste dry and even more bitter than the drink. A strange perception is running through my body: I feel how my physical muscles and nerves turn weak and I am close to fainting. At the same time a new force is coming to life in my body, rushing through me, like a spirit in a new house. Something is entering into me.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I have become weak and shiver. I lay down on her bed. Immar approaches the bed and lays down next to me. My body becomes lucid, then transparent. I turn into smoke. I leave her hut through the open clay door into the streets. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I return to the outer ring of walls that protect the city. The huge gate appears in front of me. It doesn't have any wooden doors, or at least I don't see them? Yet, this time I do see the magic it works even clearer: the inside of the gate is covered by a shiny, glistening web. The web is almost as dense as a lucid yet somewhat milky piece of glass. It protects the city from evil. I am flowing through the web and out into the desert. It's night. I return to the stream I had been caught in as a fish... Then I flow upstream like before, a long time, until I enter back into the Void.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
::</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
It was only a couple of days after this second expedition that I realized something important. It was a feeling that had followed me, all the way up the river and through the Void. Immar was <i>sad</i>. Something burdensome and heavy was upon her. She hadn't mentioned it - probably because I hadn't asked for it. For a second time now I had come to her with a clear idea of what I wanted to receive - and yet with nothing to give back? </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sometimes I really do get tired of myself. Mostly that is when I do the same mistakes over and over again. This clearly was one of these cases - going back to my ancestor for the second time and behaving like a small kid. Me, me, me! Well, maybe that was why I had been forced into the shape of a naked young boy?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Pondering about Immar's sadness and the course of our second encounter the strategy for my third visit became clearer: Next time I would return to give something back. </div>
<div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/09/learning-magic-of-my-ancestors-3.html">:: continue with part 3 ::</a></div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-31198584584034830832011-08-29T10:53:00.002+02:002011-08-31T10:43:37.818+02:00Learning the Magic of my Ancestors - part 1<div style="text-align: justify;">So much has been happening - and so little time to wrap things up in writing and share with you. My apologies. But let me try to make up - and share things as they happened, step by step... What we will embark upon together if you like is an expedition into magical workings with my ancestors. More specifically with a female ancestor of mine living in a city built of clay... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Below is the story of how it all began. Since this first encounter I did three further visits which I will share shortly with you. I have learned a lot since then from the lady at the loom. And I guess what started as curiosity about an exercise in a book is slowly coming to life in a relationship across millennia of time... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since reading Josephine's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Magical-Knowledge-Book-II-Initiate/dp/1906958068?ie=UTF8&tag=myocccir-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Magical Knowledge II</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=myocccir-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1906958068" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> I have been fascinated by her approach to magic - and most of all by the types of ancestral workings she explains. So after experimenting with using the Void as a gateway to the inner realms, I started out to explore my own bloodline... Here is the account of the first expedition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">::</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Today I undertook my first ancestral journey through the Void according to Josephine's instruction. Unfortunately I had her book borrowed and so I had to recall the flow of the exercise by heart - which might be a good thing considering this is a journey through the time buried in my own blood.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Anyway, currently staying in the hills of wonderful Liguria I found myself a remote place behind a cemetary in the olive groves. I laid out a circle of small stones, sat myself on the bare ground and placed a small kitchen cup on a flat stone in front of me. I sprinkled water into the four directions ofthe sky and pouered therest into the cup. Finally I anointed the front and the back of my head with the water and sank into meditation.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--iVQ_1O_Rts/TltSzNQdGKI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/8q7-5b2KOiQ/s1600/heart.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--iVQ_1O_Rts/TltSzNQdGKI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/8q7-5b2KOiQ/s320/heart.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My bloodline - some stuff I did with clay <br />
and cherries fallen from a tree after my <br />
first ancestral journey... </td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">After a while I found myself in the Void. I relaxed and enjoyed the darkness and space around me, void of any borders or objects restraining the flow of quiet consciousness. My right hand appeared out of darkness in front of me; I took a knife and made a deep cut into it... Blood immediately poured out, started to cover the ground below me and formed a current that dragged me backwards. I briefly thought that this makes perfect sense as my plan was to flow <i>backwards</i> in time. Then I let go and allowed the stream to carry me with it in its current... After a while I emerged out of the Void in a stream that led through a rough, desert-like scenery. The riverbed was carved deep into the sandstone and the shadows of the cliffs protected it slightly from the piercing sun. </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">At some point I felt the urge to get out of the water. I climbed out of the stream and walked through the desert. Behind some dunes I discovered a tribe of shepherds who sat around a fire that had burned down to a pillar of smoke raising into the sky. I sat next to them and allowed their voices to adjust to my ear. I asked them what my relation was with them. They looked surprised and answered I was just one of them; a shepherd in their tribe. I asked for their priest and they told me to enter a black tent behind them. So I did. Inside I found the contours of a big person wearing a wooden mask and sitting in the back of the dark tent, half covered in cold sand. I asked something I forgot - and got a vision of his mask coming to life and bending towards me in a scream as a reply. I left the tent, walked back to the stream of blood and jumped into it again. Immidiately it carried me further backwards in time....</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">At one point I got caught in a fish trap. Somone took me out of the water and stabbed me into the stomach with a black, triangular knife. Then he put some pounded herbs into my mouth. Both the wound in my stomach and the herbs disappeared at the same time. The men was wearing his hair and beard in the knotted style of the Chaldeans or Assyrians. Through the desert he took me to a town build from clay. We entered the city through a huge portal. Under the arc of the portal on my right I could perceived the ghost of the guardian spirit of the portal. He remained calm and only chattered his teeth... </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">On entering the inner city I immediately realized the huge <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziggurat">ziggurat</a> forming the center of the town. It raised high above the other buildings and most streets seemed to lead directly towards it. So did the one we walked on. The fisherman took me to a small house on one of the main streets. Inside of it was a wooden loom. On entering the house my own shape had changed; I now was a woman whose age seemed to constantly shift between young and beautilful and old and exhausted... I remember me thinking that maybe I had lived for a long time in this house, thus my changing shape might reflect all the years spent living here? </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I sat down in front of the loom and started to work. Immediately a feeling of deep meaning and satisfaction filled me: I could see the colored strands of wool weave together and hear the sound my hands on the wooden loom. To my surprise I realized that weaving on this loom was a purely magical act - my lips were reciting incantations as I created a specific pattern from the strands of wool... </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">On turning around I saw the back wall of the clay hut covered with hollow-ware of all sorts. Some of them contained herbs and incenses, others parts of animals and liquids. I walked to the back, took one of the clay pots and went back to the loom. From inside the pot I smeared a dark-red liquid on my fingers and started to rub it onto the wool on the loom. Again, I knew this was a magical act for a specific purpose. Maybe to bring the patterns in the wool to live? Yet my body did all movements automatically and I didn't have any specific understanding of it. It felt as if I was a guest in this body, silently observing and lost in the deep yet foreign meaning of its actions...</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Finally I got up from the loom and stood in the main door of the clay hut. Night had fallen upon the city and I saw lights burning high up on the ziggurat. Above me, pure and bright I saw the stars in all their constellations. Only then I realized that the eyes in this body were different from my eyes today: Everything looked as if shining from within through them, as if these eyes didn't try to distinguish between living and dead substances. Through these eyes every living and dead body seemed to be clothed in a silverfish spirit body, veiled softly and shimmering around it. Even from the stars I saw living lights streaming down into the streets of the town....</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I think it was at this point that the Void started to return. It surrounded myself organically, like mist that raises from the fields... It washed away the lights and colors with darkness. My body had disappeared and I was back flowing in the limitless darkness ofthe Void. I allowed for the cup of water to come forth from the Void and the natural world around me to re-emerge from the water. Then I opened my eyes and drank the water from the white cup.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;">::</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">What I know now on reflection is that the woman on the loom wasn't an earlier incarnation of myself but one of my ancestors. Only now do I understand how important this differentiation is! This explains perfectly why I didn't had any control over her movements and didn't know what she was doing when being inside her body. She simply had allowed me to enter her body. To her I was an ancestral spirit (from the future) visiting her and she willingly had shared her body for a short while with me. When she stepped out of the hut and looked up at the stars, the Void re-appeard - because she had pulled me out of her body...</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Next time I return to the city of the ziggurat I need to be much more respectful of her own individuality and being! And I need to find myself a different body so we can talk face to face. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">I am curious to learn about her magical loom and the type of magic she does with it. And maybe I can be of good service to her? I guess it should all start by introducing myself to her, just like any civilized person would do in any ancient or modern times - rather than taking possession of your body out of nowhere? I guess rudnesses like this only are accepted among ancestors...?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;">::</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Stay with me. A few weeks later I returned to the city of clay. I'll be back posting the second visit shortly... That time my female ancestor told me her name and more about the specific type of magic she is working on.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">:: <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/08/learning-magic-of-my-ancestors-part-2.html">Read on here</a> ::</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-45192934147003677462011-08-21T08:53:00.000+02:002011-08-21T08:53:40.398+02:00The Magician as a Hero - or allowing the wilderness to be wild<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Here is an interesting idea to make magic a little less chauvinistic. But watch out - if you are a somewhat like me it might result in a spark of disillusionment initially... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a newspaper I recently stumbled across an article reflecting on the nature of heroes. The idea and fixed story pattern of a hero obviously is one of the most famous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_topos">Topos</a> in all cultures. However, the author's reflection on these basic pattern of any classical hero story struck me as quite new and compelling. Here is my English translation:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">“From Odysseus to John Wayne the hero has always been the one without a home - or the one who found his way back through a long journey only. His adventures always took place beyond the borders, in the open wild not yet subjugated to any law or civilization. However, open spaces like these have almost completely disappeared in modern times. All seas have been mapped, all mountains have been conquered and all wilderness has been explored before. The classical hero, the one who brought law and order to places that still used to be in a state of raw natural wilderness slowly but surely has become unemployed.”</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, let’s replace the word ‘hero’ with the word 'magician' and make another few adjustments to the quote. And then read it again: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">“From Odysseus to Aleister Crowley the magician has always been the one without a home - or the one who found his way back home through a long journey only. His adventures always took place beyond the borders, in the open wild not yet subjugated to any law or civilization. However, open spaces like these have almost completely disappeared in modern times. All inner realms have been mapped, all demons have been conquered and all magical wilderness has been explored before. The classical magician, the one who discovered keys to places that still used to be in a state of raw natural wilderness slowly but surely has become unemployed.”</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pause for a second and watch your emotional reaction... How does this feel? No spiritual wilderness left to be explored, no new tribes of demons or spirits to be discovered, all magical paths mapped in neatly pocket-sized glossy books for us?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, I can tell you how it feels for me. It's a total nightmare! And I immidiaterly have to admit: I really hadn’t been aware about this. But a big part of my fascination for magic seems to be exactly that: the adventures of the hero passing through the unknown (inner) wilderness.... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let’s think about it: despite the deep sea maybe the inner realms are the last open space left in our sphere of existence? Maybe the worlds we travel and explore as magicians, the relationships we create and the things we bring back home from our quests - maybe that is the closest thing we have left these days to the journeys of Odysseus or Marc O'Polo?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And another thought struck me immidiately: Let's stop trying to bring the 'law' to places that have been beautiful for millennia without us. I guess that's the attitude that started all the trouble we are in today: trying to civilize the wilderness, rather than accepting it for what it is and embracing its mesmerizing ambiguity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But what will it take from us? How does the story of a hero need to change? What type of heroism will it take to traverse the wilderness without trying to change it? Without trying to impose our way of being and fulfillment of our desires, our needs and wishes on the world around us?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, I guess the one quality heroes never really stood for is <i>humility</i>. And that's exactly what it will take. If we want the last spots of wilderness to remain wild, if we want to expand rather than erase the last open spaces on this planet our journey needs to stop revolving around ourselves and our greedy egos... <i>We</i> need to stop trying to write history. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The times of the magician as a hero are over. Our times, however, as keepers of the threshold between confined and open spaces might just about to begin...? Let's read another quote and change it again slightly. Here is what Wikipedia tells us about the term dragoman:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">A dragoman was an interpreter, translator and official guide between Turkish, Arabic, and Persian-speaking countries and polities of the Middle East and European embassies, consulates, vice-consulates and trading posts. A dragoman had to have a knowledge of Arabic, Turkish, and European languages.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">And here is what it could mean for us as magicians:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">A dragoman was an interpreter, translator and official guide between the outer and inner realms, between the spheres of humans, angels and demons keeping various interests in fine balance. A dragoman had to have a knowledge of human, angelic and demonic languages.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Maybe when our journey stops being about us, about our achievements, our fears and wishes, we can restart allover again and achieve something really meaningful. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">::</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Did I ever mention that the wonderful Virignia Satir held the opinion that all conflicts arise from a lack of self-worth? Maybe that does the trick? Once we don't feel challenged by the wilderness in our own self-worth anymore, we can stop trying to change it into something similar to ourselves... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">What I have, what I have</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Is nothing that you want</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">What I lack, what I lack</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Nothing but your love</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">(It's easy)</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Don't try, don't try so hard</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">My love is easy</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Don't be the afterglow</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">These drugs won't leave me</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">All we have, all we have</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Is nothing but our love</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">(It's easy)</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">It's easy, your love is easy</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">And I get more than I deserve</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">I get more than I deserve</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Baby everyone some worth</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">And we get more than we deserve</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Don't try, don't try so hard</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">My love is easy</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Don't be the afterglow</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">These drugs don't leave me</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Don't try so hard</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">My love is easy</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Don't be the afterglow</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Your drugs don't leave me</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">And I get more than I deserve.</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh4etIJx7Oc">Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - Nothing But Our Love</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><br />
Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-58239734046692393692011-08-15T16:35:00.000+02:002011-08-15T16:35:03.426+02:00Less Creation, more Integration!<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Currently I am working on two articles. One of them is related to the history of the concept of the Holy Genius and the Evil Daimon; it seem's I opened a can of worms here and it will certainly take some time until it is ready to be published... Meanwhile I am also writing a new article on a model that I have come to use to consciously integrate the impact subsequent to any magical rites. An aspect of magic that strikes me as heavily underestimated...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So it's this latter paper that has received most of my time these days - and led me to the rant below. I am not quite sure where my strong opinion on the subject came from, but unfortunately I have to admit that this is how I see things... So let me share a few thoughts on why I think creativity is heavily overrated these days - especially in magic. And why what we really need is more integration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">(...) Compared to any previous age of magic our current period is radically different. Information has become instantly accessible all over our planet. The secret keys are not so secret any longer and there are more grimoires out there on the internet than any magician can ever perform in a lifetime... For centuries our ancestors were starving from information shortage. All they wanted to know were the <i>‘What and How’</i> of magic. In stark contrast today we live in an abundance of information. For us the burning question has changed from <i>‘What do I have to do in order to...’ </i>to <i>‘And what’s next?’</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once the doors are opened, once contact is established to the inner realms - where do you go from here? What’s next? Or in other words: now that I have evoked the spirits of the Arbatel or Almadel or Picatrix - why isn’t my life more complete? We are living in a time of consumption and we started to consume magic like most other things in our lives. Yet the aftertaste is flat and for some reason we don’t feel satisfaction kicking in? </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Any good answer is simple; so here are my 2 cents: We don’t get satisfied, we move from one project to the next, because we don’t allow ourselves to rest, to look back - and to connect the dots. We are so obsessed with individuality and creativity, with achievement and output that we forget how to integrate all the living pieces back together again. We are writing a book, a chapter a day, and wonder why all of our stories are so short? We are opening ten new circles a day and have almost lost the knowledge on how to close anyone of them again... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The word Grimoire stems from the root of the old French word grammaire. I guess this really makes my point: We have arrived at a time where the grammar of magic is openly available to everyone. <i>Now it is time to say something meaningful. </i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's time to say something meaningful in the language of magic - not to other people, but to ourselves first and foremost. It’s not good enough anymore to create a mess of our lives in the name of exploration, of recreation of ancient magical systems or occult science. It’s time to take responsibility - for ourselves and for the people around us that matter. It’s time to apply magic and to give back through our practice. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It’s time that this place and we ourselves become a little better - because of magic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;">::</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Ah, but what am I saying? Let's not allow the state of business to get us down. There is help! And it has the wonderful golden shape of a sax.... <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNshQpBdxls">listen to this!</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-6098692200726440182011-08-06T21:33:00.001+02:002011-08-06T22:06:51.224+02:00FREE - A Course in Dream Magic - in three parts<div style="text-align: justify;">I once heard someone saying: '<i>Consciousness is the key to magic.</i>' I guess that's pretty true but also pretty general. If we try to be a bit more concise we will need to admit: Consciousness is not <i>the</i> key but a heavy bunch of keys - just as large as the old prison guard would carry it in an aged black and white movie. And magic isn't a single door either, but a realm as vast and deep as the dark prison the old guard is warding with its hundreds of doors all quietly waiting locked behind thick steel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our consciousness can take hundreds of shapes. And each state of consciousness presents a key to one of these doors. Turning it around, opening the cold, old door something is waiting for us on the other side... A magical encounter, a spirit, a demon, an archangel, a being from another realm. And all these realms are normally inaccessible for our consciousness - unless it changes its shape and turns into the key we need...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The ability to induce a <i>specific</i> state of consciousness that matches the door and lock in front of us - that is the key to magic. What this requires is a simple yet often overlooked competency: <i>The ability to observe and actively change our state of consciousness.</i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2XPGtesZ4g4/Tj2SSxo_qYI/AAAAAAAAAPA/r-ERRuijl_Q/s1600/screen-capture-5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2XPGtesZ4g4/Tj2SSxo_qYI/AAAAAAAAAPA/r-ERRuijl_Q/s320/screen-capture-5.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simple.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zCQlICVr-OY/Tj2SNqezKkI/AAAAAAAAAO8/6pghVZ9-ubo/s1600/screen-capture-4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="303" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zCQlICVr-OY/Tj2SNqezKkI/AAAAAAAAAO8/6pghVZ9-ubo/s320/screen-capture-4.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Actual.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dion Fortune's definition of magic is "<i>the art of changing consciousness at will</i>". I can not think of any better practice for this skill than using it in our dreams. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the last decade I have worked intesely with dreams - my own ones and the ones of clients. Despite all the interesting adventures it taught me and took me through, there are way more experienced practitioner of this art out there. People who can induce lucid dreams instantly by will or who perform full conscious ritual circles while sleeping at night. I am clearly not one of them - and maybe should work harder to get there or at least regret it more than I do? But the type of magic I have learned to perform in and in partnership with my dreams is completely sufficient for my needs. <i>It does the job</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The '<i>job</i>' of all my magic is to lead a happy life. Now, I realized it's most easy to lead a happy life when my consciousness is flexible - to adopt, to change, to emerge and grow - and not stagnant or overly dependent on inner subconscious limitations or urges. Thus freeing my consciousness from limitations in order to resonate and echo livelily, in order to co-create and co-experience my own being and the world around me is the path of my magick.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For everyone interested in this type of co-creation and conscious flexibility I have shared the essential techniques of dream magic in a <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/DreamMagic_part1.html">free Course on Dream Magic</a>. Starting out as a personal working document almost ten years ago, then merging into a series of talks in my former study group and ultimately evolving into an online course in dream magic - the three parts on MyOccultCircle.com bring together all you need to know about working with your dreams successfully. At least for your first decade.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here is an overview on the content of the Course. And a quick note: just in case you are already familiar with dream magic, take a look at chapter <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/DreamMagic_part3.html">VI) Feeding Aggressive Dream Beings</a>; there is some new stuff in there that might surprise...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, there is certainly a lot to read out there and it would be impolite not to recommend at least one good tune appropriate for this ride to the night side of our lives... So let's switch on the magic jukebox again, push the button, watch as the silver arm pulls out the disc, the sound descends... and you can close your eyes for the wonderful <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9yibUR5KNI&feature=related">Alexander Ebert - TRUTH</a>: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><i>The truth is that I never shook my shadow</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Every day it's trying to trick me into doing battle</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Calling out 'faker' only get me rattled</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Wanna pull me back behind the fence with the cattle</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Building your lenses</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Digging your trenches</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Put me on the front line</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Leave me with a dumb mind</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>With no defenses</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>But your defense is</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>If you can't stand to feel the pain then you are senseless</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Since this,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I've grown up some</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Different kinda figther</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>And when the darkness come, let it inside you</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Your darkness is shining</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>My darkness is shining</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Have faith in myself</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Truth.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I've seen a million numbered doors on the horizon</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Now which is the future you choosen before you gone dying</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>I'll tell you about a secret I've been undermining</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Every little lie in this world comes from dividing</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Say you're my lover</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>say you're my homie</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Tilt my chin back, slit my troath</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Take a bath in my blood, get to know me</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>All out of my secrets</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>All my enemies are turning into my teachers</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Because </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Light's blinding</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>No way dividing</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>What's yours or mine when everything's shining</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Your darkness is shining</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>My darkness is shining</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Have faith in ourselves</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Truth.</i></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-80968832811446900152011-07-30T17:27:00.000+02:002012-01-24T08:36:04.071+01:00The beast that almost got me... - or OCH's aftermath<div style="text-align: justify;">
While writing this post the sentence kept coming back to me: <i>"This beast almost got me."</i> And that's the truth. Going through the aftermath of <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/07/arbatel-experience-ritual-of-olympic.html">the ritual of OCH</a> took its tribute and I paid the toll. </div>
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I guess any successful spirit communion will express itself in changes in our lives? So when it comes to determining the impact of a rite it is much less about what happens while we are in the temple than it is about what happens once we leave it behind. The forces of the spirit we work with will take shape and merge into our personality as soon as we allow them to sink into our subconsciousness and become one with who we are underneath our skins... Assimilating the powers of spirits into our everyday lives is similar to the way our body assimilates the nutrition of food - the powers unfold once their taste has vanished in our mouths. </div>
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Entering the sphere of the Sun taught me how it feels to arrive at the spot marked 'X' on my life map: there is no next step to take, no next goal to turn to. Once I allowed the forces of OCH to enter my live it was easy to lose any sense of direction. In an <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/06/arbatel-experience-4-och-approaching.html">earlier post</a> I had mentioned that the Sun is the only place at which a wind emerges into all directions. The solar winds come forth from a single point and expand into all directions. The Sun is the ultimate center of our realm of creation. And measured from its centre every other point seems to be just as far away. No living thing approaches the Sun, yet the solar winds reach out to everything... </div>
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As a human we are not made to live in the Sun, but to live in its orbit. We are not meant to be the centre of our own universe - but to circle around it in spheres. To maintain stability our lives depend on a reference point that is bigger than ourselves, a point that can sustain balance while we go through the transformations we call a living. As a human we are the host of our body and minds. We welcome experiences, strangers that come to visit and to change us. As humans we are constantly becoming by allowing life to work on us. </div>
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The Sun, however, never changes. It <i>is</i> the agent of change itself. The Sun is not a host but the light that shines over every encounter. We need the Sun to shine in our back to look far into the future or close up at a detail. If we come too close to it, if we even allow it to shine behind our own eyes, it will blind us and leave us without a sense of direction.</div>
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Engaging with the spirit of OCH was a wonderful experience. It took me to the centre of everything we know. It kills social and cultural stereotypes about the shining star and replaces them with real life experiences... The spirit of OCH is a wonderful teacher. But he is also unforgiving, relentless, merciless. His light doesn’t mind if it dries tears from our face or burns the last fertile soil in Somalia. More than a rose ever will be, <i>the Sun is the Sun is the Sun.</i></div>
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If we approach the Sun to engage with it, we need to understand that we will be blind for the duration of the encounter: Every other life, every other career, every other relationship will suddenly seem in reach. The power to re-imagine and start afresh will be abundant and the ease to destroy what we have built uncannily alluring. When we encounter the spirit of OCH it take all our willpower and a busload of faith not to burn down the bridges of the live we had created before... Because once we shift identification from the objects we see in the Sun, to sunlight itself no single shape will ever be good enough. Ego and hunger will be infinite.<br />
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Here is the beast that almost got me: As humans we don't belong into the Sun. We carry its seed in our hearts, a single spark instead of a planet of fire. If we re-imagine each day who we are and what we will achieve, we won't achieve anything. And ultimately we will be at the end of everything and nothing.<br />
<br />
From the moment we step into the Sun it will burn us to ashes. It will eat our centers of identity and give way to the illusion that any form and shape out there could be us... This is the illusion we have to face: while we can engage with forces and spirits that are lightyears beyond us, our nature as humans will remain the same. We are the flask that contains all elements, not the fire underneath.<br />
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<br /></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-692134072672843412011-07-11T10:03:00.000+02:002011-07-11T10:03:23.810+02:00Arbatel Experience - The Ritual of the Olympic Spirit of OCH<div style="text-align: justify;">Last week I performed the fourth ritual of the <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Circles.html">seven Arbatel operations</a>. As I am following the sequence of the planets as indicated by the Tree of Life, this was the ritual for the Olympic Spirit of the Och, associated with the Sun or Tiphareth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I started preparing for this ritual in late May. The preparation of the actual paraphernalia, the temple consecrations or the design of the Lamen actually don't take too much time. Yet what does take time for me is to tune into a new field of spirit experience and energy before I feel comfortable approaching its source in a ritual setting. I found this normally takes between six to eight weeks for me. The longest it ever took were 18 months though. This was when I allowed a deity to give my entire life a new makeover...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bex66qxzfQA/ThqryEl54DI/AAAAAAAAAMw/Gu2A_XXT7eQ/s1600/Lamen_OCH.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Bex66qxzfQA/ThqryEl54DI/AAAAAAAAAMw/Gu2A_XXT7eQ/s400/Lamen_OCH.png" width="148" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">Photos from the creation <br />
process of the Lamen of OCH</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The liminal point when I decide to set a date for a new rite is often indicated by a subtle change of qualities and 'ruling' energies in my daily life. In most cases it takes a lot more patience than I normally have to wait for and realize this shift... Anybody working with the influence of the planets or Sephirotic forces on our bodies will be familiar with it: It can be as simple as my appetite changing for things associated with the spirit I am planning to work with. Other times I find myself talking to the spirit in inner dialogues while going through everyday activities. And sometimes I am asking my HGA questions about the spirit. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Most often, however, I am given the opportunity to work in settings during my work or private life that are closely connected to the forces of the spirit I am approaching. For a solar spirit such as Och this could be the opportunity to give presentations or trainings to large groups, the chance to help others achieve higher self-confidence, or simply to invite friends to my house and host them. If several of these incidents culminate over a short period of time, I know that my life is rich with the spirit's energy already. Communing with it in a ritual setting at this point is much easier than trying to tune into its rhythm with a cold start...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can read more about how this worked out for this particular rite - and about the idea of spirits as fields of rhythms - in the <a href="http://www.myoccultcircle.com/opens/Arbatel_-_Och.html">full account of my ritual for the Olympic Spirit of Och</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I tried to be as accurate and open about the experience during the ritual as with the previous three rites - all mistakes and failures included. The simple idea still is to share ritual experiences more openly - and thus help to tear down the traditional border between life inside and outside of our temples. Yet, what is different with Och's ritual account is that I refrained to provide a lengthy interpretation or summary of the findings of the rite. When you read through it you will understand why. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is one more thing, however, that might be interesting to add here. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This morning during communion with my HGA I asked how s/he would define the nature of the Olympic Spirit of Och and what the main difference is between her/him and Och. Here is the answer s/he gave me:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><i>"He is the constant where I can chose to be thou. He is the eternal source, where I am what lives in its spirit. I know the land, the river, the sea. The source knows the beginnings only. I am the full circle of life. I am you as you are I. We hold the privilege of change."</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">May all your magic be filled with life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</i></span></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-7442483713811838202011-06-27T10:39:00.000+02:002011-06-27T10:39:10.601+02:00Life is a Risk Machine - or the trouble with Coaching<div style="text-align: justify;">For almost as long as I have been doing magic have I been working in a context that relies heavily on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemic_coaching#Personal_coaching">personal coaching</a>. Therefore my thoughts on magic and coaching often heavily intertwine... Unfortunately that doesn't help to keep my approach to magick '<i>pure</i>' in a traditional sense. The good thing, however, is that I don't care too much wether my magic comes pure, on ice, shaken or stirred - as long as it works.<br />
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So here are some thoughts on the middle ground between magic and coaching.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">::</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For anyone having drunken the coaching-cool-aid of the late 90s the following snippet will probably sound familiar: <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">So you want to praise an employee and you are concerend it might cause envy with others? Why do you think that might be? If your boss praised your peer instead of yourself, for what reasons might you become envious? Or think of yourself as that envious employee - what thoughts would you have? What would you think about yourself and about your boss? Great. Now that we know what caused the envy, how can you address these causes in an appropriate way? On a scale from 0-10 (10 being best) how trusted is your relationship with the potentially envious employee today? Good, what makes it a four? In the future, what observations would tell you that your relationship improved to a seven? And what is the first small step you can take toward this future today?</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Let me point out that I love coaching. It’s a wonderful and incredibly powerful tool. It was that one thing since the dawn of industrialization that accomplished to create space again for people and their real people’s problems within corporate organisation. But - all praise aside - sometimes coaching just isn’t the way to get things done. Sometimes it’s just a way to look more at yourself rather than the world; sometimes it makes life hugely complex and not plain simple. I guess you can say this happens if it is done badly? Yet, reality is that in the world I am living in coaching often is done badly - including by myself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">From a magical point of view trying to solve problems with a coaching attitude is like walking your magical path with a dagger in your hand only. Having forgotten about the power of the cup, the wand and the pentacle. In order to balance and create true magic we need all four weapons with us: the wand being the fire pillar in the middle of ourselves, the cup being the deep waters of our hearts, the pentacle being the earth we are walking on and the dagger being the blinding forces of our mind.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">If we achieve to merge the intent of our heart, mind and hands in a single act, this is what I call authenticity. The world around us strives on authenticity. Authenticity is the one seed that you bring out on the fields to harvest true relationships a season later. It is what brings the power of our pentacles to life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But here is the challenge with authenticity: It springs to life easily, like a stream that finds its way through the rocks of a mountain, it cannot be held back, if we are truly present in any given moment. Coaching on the other hand requires time and reflection - it requires a time out of engagement - before we chose to re-engage. Once we are ready to re-engage, however, the moment might be gone? Coaching by its very nature disconnects from experience in the present moment. Coaching by its very nature is a safety zone that strives to reduce ambiguity and the requirement to take unprepared risks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An alchemist's way of <br />
creating a risk machine...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Unfortunately - and I hate to say this - life is all about taking risks (and magic even more so)! Life is a risk machine: You put in risk at the top and it spills out more risk at the bottom. In-between, however, while one risk is transformed into another, that’s where life takes place. That’s were love and fear and anger and pleasure and lust are all coiled together in one wonderful body of a machine. Alchemists call this machine an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanor">Athanor</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Remember the recent posts on <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/06/salutogenesis-or-magic-is-medicine.html">Salutogenesis</a>? The same principle applies here: Life simply isn't about what you put in at the top and get out at the bottom. Life is not a P&L. Life is what happens in-between. Salutogenesis tells us that we are always sick and healthy at the same time, our actions are always right and wrong at the same time - but to different degrees.<br />
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I have spent quite a lot of years trying to put ‘<i>the right actions</i>’ into the top of the life-machine and waiting for it to spill out '<i>the right results</i>' at the bottom. You got it - I wasted an awful lot of time. Because while I was standing next to the machine, waiting for it to tell me if my actions where ‘<i>okay</i>’, life was taking place right inside the machine. This is what happens if we don't engage! Real things happen without us being involved... All this time while I was standing next to the machine real emotions were felt inside, people aged, people died, people were born, the world was turning, stars sending their influences down, the sun blowing it’s wind into darkness, new life emerging from the density of the Abyss, old life passing through the gates of death - all happening in this huge risk-machine.<br />
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Here is my take away from all the years I spent waiting: Life is not about the outcome, it is about the experience. You got to jump into the risk machine - turn into a risk yourself - in order to be part of the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, becoming part of the risk machine allowed me shaking off this little fellow: the demon of objectivity. The best way to put yourself next to the risk machine, is to adopt the scientific principle of objectivity for your own life. To confine yourself into a square little cage, to think of yourself as a laboratory rat looking for that one red switch that will deliver happiness in form of more food (i.e. '<i>right actions</i>'). At any moment we can chose to understand: Life begins when we accept that our encounters will always remain subjective. They will be wrong in the eyes of some and right in the eyes of others, they will be painful for some and joyful to others, they will be meaningless for some and significant to others, they will be forgotten by many and remembered by a few.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My manager last week paused in our conversation. She paused and said: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><i>‘You know, just too many of our conversations end up with you criticizing yourself about something that you did. You call this learning, but I call it criticizing. When you and I interact it is not about whether something was right or wrong. It is not about praise or correcting. It simply is about reflecting together on what happened and what we want to happen next. It is about learning from what we observed without judging.’</i></span> And then she said the magic words: <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">‘Work needs to be terribly joyful. Life is too short for it to be different.’</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a world where there is no right and wrong, where the life machine swallows some and spills out more risk, where the serpent bites its tail, what can we use as a guiding principle for our choices?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">To lead a terribly joyful life sounds like a great start... Once I am halfway there I'll try to help others do the same.<br />
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</div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1239208160753453078.post-87963741404971777452011-06-23T00:35:00.000+02:002011-06-23T00:35:04.985+02:00A Fourth Key to Magic - or the Order of Unlearning<div style="text-align: justify;">In a recent series of posts I shared <a href="http://myoccultcircle.blogspot.com/2011/05/three-keys-to-magic-or-why-f-did-this.html">3 Keys to Magic</a> which I consider both help- and powerful in creating a living magic approach: <i>Intention, Technique and Awareness</i>.<br />
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You won't believe what happened since then! Some strange events made me the owner of the collected manuscripts of a secret occult order. It seems so arcane that not even Wikipedia knows it. I studied their documents and came to the conclusion that I had forgotten an essential point in my recent posts, a fourth Key to Magic. So for the first time in history let me openly share the secrets of this unknown order with you - and unveil a fourth Key to Magic...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Let me start by saying that the Order seems to have ceased to exist by now. I could not find any more recent documents since 1970. Before then, however, its members seem to have worked as a community of magicians living siltently among us, unrecognized, unspoken of, truly bringing the fundamental principles of magic to life: <i>to know, to want, to dare, to be silent.</i> The name of the Order changed multiple times over the decades, yet <b>'The Order of Unlearning'</b> appears most often written by hand on top of the manuscripts. From all the pages I revisited here are the few key facts I could extract: Access to the Order was granted on personal recommendation of several members only and its structure followed the Scottish rite of 33 masonic degrees. What seems strange, though, is that every new member joined as 33° <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Rite#Degree_Structure_in_the_United_States_and_Canada">Inspector General</a> straight away?<br />
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Even more astonishing was the discovery that the Order of Unlearning didn't had any teachings... Rather than requiring members to learn new things, it required them to forget. I know this sounds rather suspicious. So let me quote directly from their manifesto:<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">"(...) All the disinformation we were exposed to during childhood, teenage years, college and work life make each one of us a 33° Inspector General of bullshit. What we need is not more knowledge, but less. The map we need is not the treasure map to secret libraries, but the road sign to the next waste dump. All our ideas about science, objectivity, economy, growth and consumption - we take the oath to forget it all. We will leave it to the crows of the trash dump and leave the places of knowledge light as a feather.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Sister, Brother, your mind is a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">Palimpsest</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;">, a vellum that has been used over and over again. Layers of text over layers of text, all on one skin... That is what your mind is. You will never be truly free of all the things that were written upon you. But you can make each letter fade, one by one, until the ink becomes to light to be read. This is the process of Unlearning, the goal of Unknowing. (...)" </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, on joining the Order members started all the way at the top - and the entire work within the Order was about climbing down the stairs of the huge pyramid they found<br />
themselves thrown on top. The first grades (33° - 29°) seem to have been the most sensitive ones. Many new joiners - once they realized the true height of the pyramid they were on top - immediately retreated again into a deep state of bullshitting. Others just threw themselves down from the tip of the pyramid and died. These difficulties seemed to have helped to keep the number of members small over the decades - and the Order itself arcane... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even though the Order of Unlearning didn't had any teachings, it seems they did conduct initiations. Each initiation was planned to make life a little more simple, carve away another layer of thought and theory and ideas. From all the documents I deciphered this rite of an early initiation seems best to illustrate this principle:<br />
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During a normal work day a woman enters your open plan office. She steps out of the elevator and looks completely normal, average dress, average hair, a little plain-Jane yet with a nice teint. She walks through the office and seems to be looking for something. Then she comes over to your cube, coffee cup in her hands. As you get up she approaches you, puts down her coffee on your desk, takes your head in her hands and starts to kiss you. As her lips touch yours, as her tongue touches yours, you realize this is the moment you have been waiting for all your lifetime - being caught in the present moment unintentionally, not holding on to anything, not requesting anything, but finding a space that opens once you forget... The woman tastes like coffee, her fingers touch your neck, your hair, her lips stroke yours. For a moment things around you vanish into void and disappear. For a short moment you cease to exist and give way to something new that takes your place instead: It's the intense feeling on your lips, it's is the strange taste in your mouth... For a moment you have <a href="http://myauz.com/ianr/articles/lect12fritz&%20lauraperls07.pdf">lost your mind and come to your senses</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then the woman lets go abruptly. She puts down an envelope on your desk and picks up her coffee cup. As you grab the envelope the woman already disappears into the elevator at the other side of the room... Inside you find an invoice over 666$ on your name. On the back of it you see a scribbled note: <i>"You could have had this cheaper, stupid. Any day of your life."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Essentially the Order of Unlearning teaches one thing only, the fourth Key to Magic. This is what it says: <i>"All wise men forget." </i><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Here is the complete diagram of the Four Keys to Magic:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHOThO7jeGk/TgAss1WuXdI/AAAAAAAAAMg/RBqtJi6SUxY/s1600/screen-capture-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHOThO7jeGk/TgAss1WuXdI/AAAAAAAAAMg/RBqtJi6SUxY/s400/screen-capture-1.png" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></div></div><br />
<i></i>In case you want to practice your magic in the spirit of the Order today you got to dig deep. There is a lot of bullshit out there. But maybe you'll find the currents and follow the stream that already fed the teachings of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Wilhelm_Quintscher">Rah Omir Quintscher</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Bardon">Franz Bardon</a>: <br />
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<div style="text-align: right;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><i>"If you set out to learn how to learn, then first and foremost learn how to forget. Of the twelve tasks of Hercules the first was to clean the stables of king Augias which he achieved by redirecting a river and allowing it to wash through the stable. Your consciousness, disciplie, is very similar to Augias' stable - full of falsities, prejudices and illusions - into which you need to direct a river or stream - </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethe"><i>Lethe</i></a><i>, the stream of forgetfulness - to sweep away all of them. But do believe me: achieving this will be a true Herculean task as much more difficult than learning is forgetting."</i></span></div></div><div style="text-align: right;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666;"><i>Dr.Mussallam, Der Adept, p.85</i></span><br />
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</div></div>Frater Acherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08460285916136697108noreply@blogger.com6