First, the link:
https://mega.nz/#F!AE5yjIqB!y7Vdxdb5pbNsi2O3zyq9KQ
Last thread we started talking about 'belief' but I was too occupied to post the following, extracts from an academic paper called “Medical Anthropology and the Problem of Belief” by Byron Good. It best illustrates my position of “belief” as an irrelevant factor in the face of occult or mystical praxis and shows one of the themes I like to talk about, the anthropologist who awakens to spiritual forces in the field. This likely won't answer any 'skeptical' queries but may at least offer new ground to start from because there's bits in these three pages that's fundamentally important to our discussion of belief.
*
…
I begin with an intuition that there is a close relationship between science, including medicine, and religious fundamentalism that turns, in part, on our concept of “belief”...Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a comparative historian of religion and theologian, argues that the fundamentalist conception of belief is a recent Christian heresy.
…
A central issue in the rationality debate has been discussion of the problem of “apparently irrational beliefs”. How do we make sense of cultural views of the world that are not in accord with contemporary natural science, it is often asked. Do we argue that members of traditional cultures live in wholly different worlds, and not ours, or even that they cannot be translated intelligibly into our language? Advocates of the typical rationalist position hold that such relativism is essentially incoherent...arguing...that seemingly rational statements must be understood symbolically rather than literally or that they represent “proto-science”….
>>17799605
For much of this debate, Evans-Pritchard's “Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande” serves as the primary source...arguably still the most important modernist text in medical anthropology. It has enduring influence because of the wealth of ethnography and the richness of interpretation of witchcraft… “Every Zande knows that termites eat the support of granaries in course of time and that even the hardest woods decay with years of service. But why should these particular people have been sitting under this particular granary when it collapsed?” Thus...the Azande turn to witchcraft to answer the “why me?” [rather than the question of already known causal factors] to find an underlying cause in the moral universe and a response that is both socially embedded and morally satisfying. Pritchard continues: “It is an inevitable conclusion from Zande descriptions of witchcraft that it is not an objective reality. The physiological condition which is said to be the seat of witchcraft, and which I believe to be nothing more than food passing through the small intestine, is an objective condition but the qualities they attribute and the rest of their beliefs are mystical. Witches, as the Azande conceive of them, cannot exist.”
He goes on to immediately argue that although mistaken, Zande views serve as a natural philosophy and embrace a system of values which regulate human conduct….
>>17799607
Not altogether obvious in Prtichard's text is his juxtaposition of “belief” and “knowledge”. The book is devoted largely to Zande mystical notions...One chapter, however, entitled “Leechcraft” is devoted to the common-sense notions of sickness. The language here mirrors this distinction. The book begins: “Azande BELIEVE that some people are witches and can injure them in virtue of an inherent quality...they BELIEVE (in) sorcerers...performing magic rites with bad medicines...against both they employ diviners, oracles, and medicine…...Azande KNOW diseases by their major symptoms, the very fact of naming diseases and differentiating between them shows observation and common sense inferences.”
…
Jeanne Favret-Saada's “Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage” is the classic post-modern ethnography on the topic (of witchcraft)...in the first few months of her work, villagers referred her to a few well known healers who were often interviewed by the local press, but the peasants themselves refused to discuss the matter with her. Witchcraft? Only fools believe that!
“Take the ethnographer, she has spent more than thirty months studying witchcraft...'tell us more about the witches' she is asked when she gets back to the city. Just as one might say: tell us tales about ogres, etc., frighten us, but make it clear that it's only a story; or that they're just peasants: credulous, backward, marginal...no wonder that country people in the West are not in any hurry to step forward to be taken for idiots in the way that public opinion would have them be.”
…
>>17799611
She was taken ill, beset with accidents, and sough the aid of a healer in the region, an unwitcher. She began to interview the man and his family whom she had met when the man was a patient in a mental hospital. As they told her the details of his illness and who they suspected might be responsible, and realized that they saw her as a fellow healer and now expected her to act on their behalf. Why else would she ask about these matters so explicitly? Only the powerful dare ask such questions. Simply by asking about their difficulties she was seen to be entering their struggle with their enemy wishing them harm, a life and death struggle in which she was now an advocate for their interests. Witchcraft, she came to see, was a battle of powerful wills, a fight to the death, a fight through the medium of spoken words. One could only talk about witchcraft from an engaged position – as one bewitched, as a suspected witch, or as one willing to serve as an unwitcher. To engage in discourse is to enter the struggle.
…
Science for Favret-Saada is not the arbiter between the empirically real and the mystical, but one of several “official theories of misfortune” backed by powerful social agents: The school, the church, the American Medical Association. Language is not a set of neutral propositions about the world...but the medium through which vicious and life-threatening power struggles are engaged.
…
>>17799616
Steedly, an anthropologist who worked in Sumatra, retells how she was often asked a question which she interpreted to mean “do you believe in spirits”?...after stumbling to answer the question for months, she discovered her questioners were rather asking “Do you TRUST spirits? Do you believe what they say? Do you maintain a relationship with them?” Any sensible person believes in their existence; that isn't even a meaningful question, the only real question is in how one relates to them….how is it that “belief” has has come to be the language through which we discuss such matters? Why does the West give such importance to beliefs, such that wars in Christendom were fought over belief, and church schisms/prosecutions revolve around correct belief?
…
Smith...sets out not to compare beliefs among themselves, but to examine the place of belief in and of itself in Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, and Christian history. Through careful historical and linguistic analysis, he comes to the startling conclusion that “The idea that believing is religiously important turns out to be a modern idea”…. “The affirmation 'I believe in God' used to mean: Given the reality of God as a fact of the universe, I hereby pledge to Him my heart and soul, I committedly opt to live in loyalty to Him, and offer my life to be judged by Him trusting His mercy.” Today, the statement may be taken by some as meaning: “Given the uncertainty as to whether there be a God or not, as a fact of modern life, I announce that my opinion is 'yes.', I judge God to be existent.”
…
Smith goes on to argue that our failure to recognize this shift in meaning has led to mistranslation of texts in the Christian tradition and ultimately to “the heresy of believing”, the deeply mistaken view that belief in this modern sense is the essence of religious life rather than faith.
…
>>17799630
In a discussion of “propositions” about the nature of reasoning cross culturally, Goddenough provides an example of a German ethnographer being lectured by a Microneasian navigator to illustrate the “reasonableness” of folk-ideology: “I am well aware of the foreigner's claim that the earth moves and the sun stands still, as someone once told us; but this we cannot believe, for how else could it happen that in the morning and evening the sun burns less hot than in day? It must be because the sun has been cooled when it emerges from the waters and toward setting it again approaches the waters. And, furthermore, how can it be possible that the sun remains still when we are yet able to observe that in the course of the year it changes position in relation to the stars?”…...quite reasonable, with rational and sound logic based on observation, even if mistaken. This is how the beliefs of others seem to be.
…
>>17799637
Surprisingly, there seems to be little analysis on the history of the concept of belief in anthropology, when it seems such a Wittgenstenian “odd job word”, but often used with little self consciousness. The juxtaposition of belief and knowledge to connote counter-factual assertions has a history in the discipline, but is contrary to what may be expected of the discipline, because our primary goal has been to make understandable other societies in a non-judgemental way….Belief is most closely associated with cultural accounts either of unknowable or of mistaken understandings of the “natural world” where science can distinguish between knowledge and belief.
…
Finally, a variety of more technical analyses of belief suggest problems with the empiricist program, challenging the utility of “belief” as even a useful analytic category, let alone the existence in other societies of “beliefs” as we understand the word. A view of culture as neutral-propositional, mentalistic, voluntaristic, and individualistic is an elaboration of Western folk-psychology, and such a view reproduces an ideology of individualism that matches poorly with much of what we know about the natural world.
Any opinions about McMurtry AA branch of Frater Orpheus?
First point, a personal one. I love this story: >>17799616
People often ask me why "educated" anthropologists "cast aside" "rationalist belief" and truck with "ignorant unscientific beliefs."
Well, it's REALLY fuckin' easy to ramble about how you're a STRONG EMPIRICAL RATIONALIST WHO DON'T NEED NO FAIRY TALES until YOU are the ignorant, backward, and incompetent outsider who can't even divine his own food or water, identify healing plants, or cast charms of protection against assault sorcery.
Second:
>>17799630
>Any sensible person believes in their existence; that isn't even a meaningful question, the only real question is in how one relates to them….
>The idea that believing is religiously important turns out to be a modern idea”…. “The affirmation 'I believe in God' used to mean: Given the reality of God as a fact of the universe, I hereby pledge to Him my heart and soul, I committedly opt to live in loyalty to Him, and offer my life to be judged by Him trusting His mercy.”
Most occultists/people in these threads are absolutely of this category. Asking us if we actually believe the stuff is borderline nonesensical. We're talking about doing it, right? The only debate inside the community is how these are related to: As psychological phenomena, as of yet undiscovered natural forces, or as forces from beyond the pale of natural reality. We've already noticed the existence of 'mystical forces' and their concrete action's simply a fact of reality, but HOW THAT FACT FITS IN is the question most of us spend our time on (hence why you see so much aggression between the psychological and supernatural/spirit models).
>>17799668
>Frater Orpheus
As in Roberto Flores? I'd no idea Jerry C. authorized a new pylon for his line.
Probably spurious, Jerry C. mangles the grade system and likely has no serious lineal pedigree given McMurtry's relationship with the A.'.A.'....that said, the articles on the McMurtry line main page through Jerry C. are sensible and in some cases bretty good.
Satyr (iirc) has had some unflattering encounters with Jerry C.
>>17799668
>McMurtry
>A.'.A.'.
I've heard from people that there is evidence of this, however I've yet to see it with my own eyes, and therefore, disbelieve. A claim of 9=2 one A.'.A.'. does not make.
>>17799673
>you see so much aggression between the psychological and supernatural/spirit models
I haven't noticed much aggression tbqh. It's mostly that the supernatural models are represented by uneducated people who aren't in a position to evaluate data within the framework we actually live in the West.
>>17799693
>93
Pic related :^)
>>17799699
>spirit hypnothesis yuelds better results in practice
That's well known, it's because supernatural beliefs naturally bypass the critical faculty (i.e. screw with the functions of the neocortex), thus allowing for deeper hypnotic/ liminal states to occur.
Belief is a powerful tool, however it's also important to keep things in context.
There's a very neat self-hypnotic method of trying to do something impossible (like opening a door Jedi-style) while giving yourself suggestions in the form of questions ("What am I like when I'm successful?", until the answer arises from the automatic (subconscious) mind.
It's also well known that the deepest hypnotic phenomena can be manifested via belief in the supernatural alone, as evidenced by faith healing, for example, which in a more scientific context requires long inductions and tests in order to verify the state is correct.
>>17799657
If I experience a spontaneous telepathy, precognition or synchronistic event without wizard antics; that's an example of "paranormal" phenomenon without magic.
If I do the wizard antics to accomplish non-paranormal X, and non-paranormal X happens as I willed it to happen, with no bells or whistles; that's an example of magic without "paranormal" phenomenon.
I myself find it quite a clear issue.
That said, "telepathy, precognition or synchronicity" I'm only using as examples here, I'm not entirely certain whether they are paranormal or not, nor do I care that much.
>>17799710
>>17799699
http://homepage.univie.ac.at/andreas.hergovich/php/Field_dependence.pdf
>>17799714
I think you're conflating magic with magick. Magic is by definition paranormal, magick, as used by Crowley, isn't.
>>17799611
Sauce on pic? *__*
>>17799722
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/kill-six-billion-demons-chapter-1/
((Also I just found a cache of more Sloane manuscripts))
>>17799684
I don´t know if authorized by Cornelius or not.
I like the tripartite grades but I´m not sure of Lover being pre and post K&C at the same time, imo. I´d need more info about his reasons for this, I´m only judging by his web material. That said, seems pretty clear that Cornelius knows the stuff, that´s right.
>>17799693
I´ve also heard about that evidences and seems plausible, but it´s a complex thing, for sure.
>>17799717
You're probably right about that, but I find it very hard to give credence to insistent use of custom ortographies.
If I did, I'd have to give a special status to those who spell Anarquía (Anarchy) as Anarkía, or those who want to say Khaos instead of Chaos, or Ek-sistenz instead of Eksistenz, or Womyn instead of Women... or just to anyone who decided to spell anything important for them using Xtreme Kool Letterz.
It would also mean that we might need to consider whether Magik, Majic, Majik, or Majick each point to a different thing.
Alternative ortographies are used to push political, personal and aesthetical statements, I'm okay with people being insistent about them if it's important for them, but I'm not into that kind of thing.
This thread is not about "prestidigitation", we all know what kind of magic we're talking about in here, appended K or not. And please, don't construe this as looking down upon what I just called "prestidigitation", I was simply trying to use an unambiguous word.
>>17799741
Oh hey, a comic I didn't know about!
I'm going to read the shit out of that. Thanks, sempai.
>>17799793
>we all know what kind of magic we're talking about in here
I don't. Do you?
Could you explain what you mean by magic?
https://vimeo.com/75863902
This was first posted by other senpai, i just want to talk some more about it.
>Trungpa Rinpoche was dissapointed about how shallow Alan was about practice and Dharma
Well, come now, Watts said A NUMBER OF TIMES, that he wasn't actually even a Buddhist, and was just an entertainer making a buck. Sure it seems like a good safety clause for being called out, but i think he was pretty honest about it.
And here comes the guy who is brought up in the tradition and is basically an ordained cleric of the religion, with life's worth cultural baggage mixed in.
I'm just sayin, cmon.
I think Watts following Jung was right, in the sense that it's not beneficial to take up more cultural aspects of whatever thing you're doing too much.
That story about Rinpoche excorcising Alan Watts, while being very funny and sort of sweet, is excatly what i'm talking about.
Nigga this ain't Tibet, people are taking up Zen exactly to get away from the "spooki ghost" thing, whatchu talking about.
>>17799616
I can't really draw a solid conclusion from this text, but that doesn't bother me and I still find it an interesting collection of reflections on the issue of belief.
The parts I found the most interesting:
>One could only talk about witchcraft from an engaged position
>To engage in discourse is to enter the struggle.
>The affirmation 'I believe in God' used to mean:...
VS
>Today, the statement may be taken by some as meaning:...
The "shift of meaning" thing reminds me of how my Political Philosophy always insisted that there was a shift in the meaning of the word "democracy" during the French Revolution, and how what we call modern democracies are actually "parliamentary regimes" and not democracies at all.
>until YOU are the ignorant, backward, and incompetent outsider
Also, "belief as trust" vs "belief as affirmation of existence"
>>17799796
Doing the wizard antics.
>>17799714
>synchronistic event without wizard antics
Fratello, how is synchronicity related to "wizard antics", you can triggger that thing by smoking some weed and watching a special kind of movie. Or meditating.
It's just how the world is. Whole, only you get to see further degrees of removal.
>>17799811
Which is?
>>17799802
Pussy.
>~t. saivist
>>17799806
The conclusion is simply that "belief" as the common poorly educated fedorabeard on /r/atheism understands the word is entirely irrelevant to ANYTHING we're doing.
>>17799812
>It's just how the world is. Whole, only you get to see further degrees of removal.
>>17799607
>“Every Zande knows that termites eat the support of granaries in course of time and that even the hardest woods decay with years of service. But why should these particular people have been sitting under this particular granary when it collapsed?” Thus...the Azande turn to witchcraft to answer the “why me?” [rather than the question of already known causal factors] to find an underlying cause in the moral universe and a response that is both socially embedded and morally satisfying.
>>17799673
>First point, a personal one. I love this story
Nice one.
I have a Nigerian friend, well-educated and an evangelical Christian, who told me, once, his older brother was quite ill and a half-dozen doctors can't find the problem. His mother owns and runs a clinic, so there was no question that he was getting adequate care. He explained it was obvious that one of his father's other wives had a hex placed on his brother.
I suggested they take him to a witchdoctor. This fellow said, yes, that is what they intended to do. His father was apparently absolutely livid, that his money had paid someone to hex is son and now he'd have to pay another to have it removed.
Of course it worked and he's fine.
>Second:
Harumpf!
>>17799684
>Satyr (iirc) has had some unflattering encounters with Jerry C.
Funny thing, no, we have never laid eyes on each other, even though our time in the Grey Area overlapped by a year, at least. I didn't need to see the snake to know the sumbitch was there. He proved to be even worse news than I thought, much worse.
Flores seems well-meaning, at the very least, and a great guy. Probably harmless, at worst.
>>17799693
>A claim of 9=2 one A.'.A.'. does not make.
Indeed. The Dirge agrees, as you've likely observed.
>>17799699
Sweet.
>>17799710
>That's well known
But not understood. There's a big difference. As for >>17799717, read Crowley carefully. Magick ultimately leaves it to the student to determine whether the shit is real or not, and, if it's real, then we study it as best we can. I ride you about it because you sometimes seem to trivialize a question that is part of the Great Work.
>>17799770
>hat said, seems pretty clear that Cornelius knows the stuff, that´s right.
I think that's assuming facts not in evidence.
>>17799812
I really can't see what you're objecting to here, I didn't put forth any thesis about wizard antics being strongly related synchronicity.
>>17799815
Any and all of a staggering number of practices - traditional, constructed, eclectic or improvised - found throughout the world along all of history, which usually have fingers in at least some of the following pies, closeness of ties varying with context:
-Arts, craftmanship and performance
-Empirical thinking
-Physical conditioning
-Psychological conditioning
-Religion
-Speculative thinking
-Symbology
-Unexplained phenomena
And their related bodies of lore.
I'm gonna have a beer outside, be back later for some more logomachy.
>>17799802
>Well, come now, Watts said A NUMBER OF TIMES, that he wasn't actually even a Buddhist, and was just an entertainer making a buck. Sure it seems like a good safety clause for being called out, but i think he was pretty honest about it.
Yep. He was a showman and said so. When he was sufficiently sober, his shows were rather awesome. I never considered him as really Zen, either. Gia Fu Feng knew him fairly well and claimed him as a fellow Taoist. I suspect he was right.
When Zen came to San Francisco, Shunryu Suzuki knew, and talked about, how what was taking root was something different than the old stock now dying in Japan. Criticizing Western Zen for insufficient fidelity to the original is not as insightful as it seems.
>>17799819
>Pussy
Now, now! We mustn't allow our devotion to degenerate into pride. You're a hot little star and are bound to burn brighter.
>The conclusion is simply that "belief" as the common poorly educated fedorabeard on /r/atheism understands the word is entirely irrelevant to ANYTHING we're doing.
Yep. Belief is like a hat. Different hats for different occasions. Sometimes no hat at all is best.
>>17799852
Well I´m not saying that he (Cornelius) is pure gold, I specially like his emphasis in the system as a coordinate system where to situate one´s initiation, that I think it´s the very essence of the system as created from the beginning, and an important thing to make clear in a AA branch. But it´s true that from that point, he deviates and start saying nonsense like that of "the AA conceived by Crowley was old-aeonic" and such. He tries to be syncretic about the system, and have great points (I find that of evaluate essays written by the aspirant a good idea, quintaessential of the typical Magickal Record evaluation), but on the other hand, he have other points somewhat arbitrary...
Do you find evidence that Cornelius stuff is wrong or nonsense?
>>17799892
>You're a hot little star and are bound to burn brighter
Mostly just leftover FUNposting that was sublimated into today as I was too busy to participate in the last round of it in the previous thread :^)
Dirge's being MUCH more helpful than K418, talking to him now about Behenian fixed stars and Enochiana, I may try to take some cracks at testing the Throne attributions soonish.
How do you guys perceive chakral work as working into magical/magickal practices? Are these natural parts of your various bodies to be potentiated, build-it yourself thoughtforms ala chaos magick, or a combination of both. I think the psychological aspect of chakral practice is usually most evident and accepted, the ability of chakras to act as nodes for various aspects of ourselves and our experiences, but I'm asking about the magical-mechanical legitimacy of chakras.
I partly ask because I have combined the chakras with the Jungian archetypes before with what seems to be a good amount of success.
>>17800011
http://www.tantrikstudies.org/blog/2016/2/5/the-real-story-on-the-chakras
>>17799886
I did forget "medicine and pharmaceuticals"
Are there any farting based schools of magic?
alchemy is best magick all other magick is tragic.
>>17799886
So basically every single person in the world is a wizard because they do, by this definition, magic.
Good job, you just said nothing.
>>17800037
There's a farting-based school of Zen, as it happens
https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Farting-Reepah-Gud-Wan/dp/1583940855
>>17800039
Then perhaps you'd like the alchemy folder with both psychological, chemical, and sexual approaches.
>>17800040
Pic related.
>>17800044
I knew it
know monkey based organism can resist creating a school of thought revolving around farts
>>17799958
>Do you find evidence that Cornelius stuff is wrong or nonsense?
No, but then I've studiously ignored him. His account of what happened to Thelema Lodge was a self-serving lie. That's the only thing of his I've ever read or intend to read.
What I know is that he apparently picked K418 out of the gutter, told him he could be a first-rate occultist and still be perfectly normal, and K's been an annoying, do nothing but bitch fuckstick ever since.
>>17799972
>Dirge's being MUCH more helpful than K418, talking to him now about Behenian fixed stars and Enochiana, I may try to take some cracks at testing the Throne attributions soonish.
Glad to hear it. I should honestly expect no less from him. He impresses as much or more, today, than he ever has.
>>17800011
>How do you guys perceive chakral work as working into magical/magickal practices?
For me, it all came in one package. Opening your heart chakra, while hugging a Vth, was lots of fun.
>>17800049
i'd like to look at the folder
>On a dark night, kindled in love with yearnings - oh, happy chance!- I went forth without being observed, my house now being at rest.
>In darkness and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised - oh, happy chance! - in darkness and in concealment, my house now at rest.
>In the happy night, in secret, when none saw me, nor I beheld aught, without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart
>This light guided me more surely than the light of noonday, to the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me - a place where none appeared.
>Oh, night that guided me, oh, night more lovely than the dawn, oho night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!
>Upon my flowery breast, kept wholly for himself alone, there he stayed and I caressed him, and the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
>The breeze blew from the turret as I parted his locks; With his gentle hand he wounded my neck and caused all my senses to be suspended.
>I remained, lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the Beloved. All ceased and I abandoned myself, leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
> - St. John of the Cross (c.1578)
>>17800053
Who is K418???
>>17800061
>open link in OP
>click the folder marked "alchemy"
>???
>Azoth
>>17800095
http://sekhetmaat.com/wiki/Keith_S_Schuerholz
I've never seen someone complain so hard about so many things while offering zero solutions.
He hates how uneducated poor people are but refuses to offer his time educating them because they're not worth it. He hates how undisciplined the community is but whines rather than exhibiting the discipline of other high ranking Thelemites. He has admitted on multiple occasions to simply lying to score intellectual points in debate without concern for Truth. He says it's a shame that people don't follow through on practices, but can't be bothered to read the books he claims, falsely, have no disciplinary devotional praxes.
Dude's a textbook case of Ascended Master Syndrome and an example of ideology being the slow heat-death of Gnosis.
>>17800040
I am under no obligation to satisfy you, or anyone for that matter; with my views on anything, much less about magic.
You kept pressing for answers I don't necessarily have or even need. I told you what I've got, you don't like it? Well, okay.
What do you expect me to do? Tremble in fear of my worldview crumbling? Be struck by a thunderclap of anamnesis by your socratic method? Be bummed that someone doesn't agree with me? Keep trying and trying to satisfy you just because you keep asking without putting forth anything of your own?
If all you want to do with people's words is construing them in a dismissive and uncooperative way, there's no stopping you.
It's cool that your opinion doesn't get swayed by what some internet user posts - but don't expect mine to do so, either.
You can spell magic with a C, with a K, with both, with a Q or with an R for all I care.
Let's talk about alchemy if it pleases the court
All I really know about alchemy is the red and white king/queen and the turning of mercury into gold as well as the principle of "becoming" and the scripts that begot our structures, like genetic codes or tax codes or laws man made or in nature. And of course as above, so below.
I'm pretty familiar with the order side of alchemy, looking to expand my knowledge of the chaotic side. Will take order material also though.
Wisdom begins with submission to the gods.
>>17800111
Sounds like a Secret Chief, indeed!!
>>17800133
I just figure, if you can't understand chaos, how can you maintain order, amirite?
>>17800133
>>17800146
I think of alchemy as a type of philosophy which incorporates as many fundamental truths about the nature of reality as possible. Whether those truths be relationships and laws or otherwise.
>>17800133
Your implication of Red/White Essence tells me you may wind up interested in Crowley's late OTO degree papers and that other paper that's in the Wet Way section of the Alchemy folder.
>Chaos Alchemy
Wew laddeh.
Folders:
>Chaos>Hine
All of his early tantrik articles. May also be something in Octavo/Apophenion by Carroll but it's been forever. Black Ship in the main Chaos also touches on it iirc (I'm not always right, this library's fuckhuge).
>>17800111
Can I ask where to follow such passionate discussions between that K418 and the Dirge guy?? Facebook???
>>17800166
>>17800053
Ayyyy, how we standing on the paperwork thing?
I have a question for you: Are human molars used for any kind of spells or rituals?
>>17800275
Child or adult? It makes all the difference.
SCP-2776.
George Washington is a robot.
That is all.
>>17801045
> le misteerius spooki poast
How do I into the A.A? It's already quite a drive to the nearest OTO and they aren't even a full lodge. I'm really more in it for the meeting of like minds, but even then I feel like I could do more with you glorious faggots.
>>17801247
>mfw would be cool to talk this shit face to face with someone
>mfw not willing to join Das Spookie Society Ov Majiqs for shit
>>17801265
I'm actually more likely to just go eastern as it's closer and comes with the highest recommendations. Tantra is white hot wherever our third president hung his hat and thumped his dick.
>>17801247
Prepare to meet a bunch of losers in imitation egyptian clothing
>>17801282
>go eastern
elaborate
>Tantra is white hot wherever our third president hung his hat and thumped his dick.
. . . u
>>17801287
That must be such a turn-off... I guess?
Unless you're really into egyptian shit.
They cosplay Anubis and chant among incense clouds and such activity makes their genitalia diamonds?
>>17801300
It's much easier where I am to find a zen center or a theravada monastery or a legitimate tantric master of the highest quality than it is spooky jew magic. There's that perfect blend of north and south, universities older than the country itself and absolutely pristine fucking nothing that makes for a nexus of academic weeaboo practicioners.
>>17801300
Egyptian garb doesnt show up until late in the lovers triad OTO and Liber Cadaveris A.'.A.'.
>>17801310
How do you know it's quality and not bullshit?
Honest question, I guess the answer must be something along the line of "you gotta know your shit bub" but still, I sincerely wonder.
>>17801313
And what do they dress up as beforehand, sempai? Any examples?
You know, aesthetics are actually a huge factor, legitimately.
>>17801338
Im practicing a grimoire that uses the term "aesthesis" a lot.
0 degree's streetclothes. 1 is black robe. 2 adds triangle. 3 adds triple tau. 4 adds letters. 5 offers regalia while you start to see officers with uraeus crowns and different color robes.
AA robes vary by lineage. Basic form is described in most volumes of the old equinox. Cadaveris adds some Egyptian stuff but regialias more Abramelin than anything.
>>17801338
Game recognize game, nigga. But really, it is a matter of over a decade of practice and shitting around living life that has given me a sense, however weak, of who knows their shit. That his name comes up not only in a number of books in the library, but also two written by him that are of superior quality should be enough. I know from experience that what is taught works and have enough good faith to at least find out how he or anyone at his institute works as a guru for me personally.
It's all a matter of practicing what they say on your own and getting good word of mouth from others you respect. Also fuck india, fuck tibet, fuck thailand, fuck nam, fuck japan, fuck china, fuck the west coast; if you can't find someone of merit within an hour by car, you aren't trying very hard.
>>17801360
>grimoire that uses the term "aesthesis" a lot.
What does it mean within that context? For me it'd mean sensorial/sensual perception and *maybe* appreciation but I'm not familiar with that particular form. I'm more or less familiar with the semantic field - aesthetics, cosmos noetós/cosmos aisthetós (can't really greek, sorry)
>robes
Well the costumes sound like fun. Do they go all shady-eyed "you can't see my face nao" when they don them? about how many people get dressed up like this at once? (a very rough estimate is enough)
>>17801367
>Game recognize game, nigga.
>if you can't find someone of merit within an hour by car
Quite fair. Of the OP library stuff, would you recommend any book or text to get a first theoretical grip on the subject? Assume I know nothing about the subject, because I don't.
>>17801360
>robes
kek
I've done the vast majority of my work in streetclothes/naked, and it works fine. In fact, an interesting anecdote from when I was starting Aethyrs and I asked... Gabriel I think it was, whether I should go the full mile for getting the temple and robes and arms and stuff. The answer was basically a very sarcastic "bro please".
That said, I can see how they could be useful if my mindset was more inclined towards magical thinking.
>>17801455
No I mostly go skyclad these days myself.
Ritual bath complete, time to worship Sirius as the heptadic heart of the Dragon.
>>17801416
I liked Hine's Oven Ready Chaos, but I'd already been into this shit for a long time. Dune, El Topo, the introductory crowley books, the first 50 pages of the black brick, the shit in the beginner folder, actual fucking sciences or at least something attempting to be the science of the field like hypnosis and psychology.
Wonders of the Natural Mind is sexy white hot as far as an experience report goes in the introduction and the Lamp of Mahamudra makes for a decent introduction to samatha and vipasana, which is the root of just about anything you're going to do.
Getting a theoretical grip is a gradual process with a lot of mistakes. This and the last thread covered it well enough. There are practices that lead to certain mental states and results. Practice and experience is more of a focus than belief and knowledge. What people call magic is a more active method of understanding by experiment as opposed to passively observing, though both are equally important.
>>17801455
>Gabriel
>"bro please"
bahahaha dats breddy kool
>That said, I can see how they could be useful if my mindset was more inclined towards magical thinking.
Well I certainly see the appeal of wizardly robes (or equivalents) and other trappings, but they only mean shit if they jive with you, if they don't, they must be a huge metaphorical boner killer
>>17801461
best wishes on your wizard antics
>>17801471
>Chaos
I've read most stuff by Hine and Carroll. Some Spare too. I have actually used the fear mantra from Dune IRL (although it was a kind of bastardized version mixing both movie and book, in spanish). I haven't watched El Topo but I'm deep into other Jodo shit (Metabarons, Incal, biography, other comics). Everybody tells me El Topo stinks big time.
I don't know what the black brick is, I read some Crowley back in the day but can't really remember what.
For mental sciences, I'm more into cognitive sciences / neuropsychology. I have an interest in psychology as far as you can put it to use.
Have you read anything by Julian May? It's still fictional, but it's a great exploration of metapsychics, even if only in concept.
>Wonders of the Natural Mind
>Lamp of Mahamudra
That's what really sounds like the answer to my question, which was specifically pertaining to the "going oriental" part.
Lamp of Mahamudra already rings a bell from last two threads, but you can understand that discussion on any subject can get to a "what kind of auxiliary movement devices did R2-D2 have" level of geekiness that makes zero sense to outsiders.
>Getting a theoretical grip is a gradual process with a lot of mistakes.
I understand this, I was asking about total rookie introductory stuff on useful oriental shit, but usually I need a first theoretical step, for everything.
>practices that lead to certain mental states and results.
Entirely agreeable
>Practice and experience is more of a focus than belief and knowledge, etc.
Completely with you on this from the ground up
>>17801547
> neuro
Google: Crowley Ethyl Oxide
>>17801552
>Google: Crowley Ethyl Oxide
v. interesting
>4. He should already be expert in Mantra Yoga to the point when, having gone to sleep repeating his mantra, it should spring instantly to consciousness on awakening (either naturally or if disturbed) without any effort of recollection.
What should spring to consciousness on awakening? The mantra?
I've always been doing a bit of work and reflection in the consciousness/asleep/dreaming and transitions between, but purely on my own and haphazardly.
>>17801547
I thought you were talking about occultism in general. As far as eastern works go, Tantra Illuminated gives you Shaivism in about the simplest and most straightforward form you could hope for. . Buddhism is a whole microcosm of works that can range from being shaivist with the shiva filed off to entirely its own thing. Chogyam Trungpa's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism is a very westernized presentation of mahamudra and only tangentially buddhist. Hinduism as a whole doesn't exist and is a whole cosmos of conflicting philosophies and practices.
As an overview, anything worth mentioning and related to the thread is some form of mystic practice focused on achieving unity between consciousness and the manifest reality with an emphasis on practice. If you want to be dramatic, every action becomes an act of devotion towards the Divine and works to dispel the illusion you have built to separate yourself from Yourself in a divine play. If you don't, there's hundreds of thousands of pages of dense philosophy and phenomenology to wade asshole deep in. I hated poetry when I started, but I hate trying to tie together myriad treatises with no translational unity in vocabulary that actually suits the meaning of the terms being translated, so it's all one taste now.
>>17801608
Suppose I can't give a rat's ass about gods except one or two in entirely different pantheons that I think of as "thematically endearing".
What would be a good entry point to meditate my timetable into shape.
>>17801628
You posit that everything is shiva and go from there. Or take it as consciousness and manifestation, which are actually one. Or work on your relationship with the child of the manifest which keeps the gates and blocks you from Her glory stepping on your face.
It's all tools and metaphors. You don't believe so much as posit and test, though not being able to believe anything at a moment's notice isn't something to brag about.
>>17801648
I'll go with it if I need to or think it's meaningful, but I really rather like to avoid god stuff.
Consciousness and manifestation is very much okay, I just don't like consorting with Ultimate Overlords of Existence - mostly because they want to be regarded as such, and I'm never in the mood of humoring them.
>>17799630
>The idea that believing is religiously important turns out to be a modern idea”
You don't honor through belief, you honor through action, you honor a god by following his rules
Is there any magic I could use to go back in time? Or at least just send my conscience back?
>>17802101
I did a very vivid exoerience with meditating while using 40hz Gamma Waves. I know a lot of people look down upon it, but it was out of this world.
I got full holographic experience on a place i last visited a little more than 20 years ago. Some deep stuff, man.
Memory, as consciousness, as the world itself, is holographic by nature. Isolate even the tiniest part and you will get the whole shebang.
>>17802597
Can you elaborate more on how I'd go about doing this?
Magic still isn't real.
>>17802678
Well, just look up 40hz frequencies on YouTube, and try meditating or falling asleep to them. I reccomend using the Isochronic variation, they're a bit more full, in my opinion.
Pick up "Prometheus Rising" from Ape/K's wonderful library and look up the first set of excercises, it has to deal with entry-level synchronicity to speed things up.
Also, Hyatt's energized meditaions are good for unleashing all sorts of gunked up psychological and memory blocks.
Also i reccomend this book, it's not in the library, but seek it out nontheless, it will help to clear things up a bit.
>>17800111
>He has admitted on multiple occasions to simply lying to score intellectual points in debate without concern for Truth.
I have at least one independent report of him lying his ass off.
The truth is I spent a lot of time with Keith, back in the bad old days, and loved him like a brother. It's been kind of heartbreaking, and deeply confusing, to see what he's become.
>>17800166
>the Wet Way section
kek
>>17800220
Yeah, facebook, but I get the feeling the Dirge may be trying to get away from it, again.
>>17800257
>Ayyyy, how we standing on the paperwork thing?
I'm sorry. "Paperwork thing"?
>>17801247
>How do I into the A.A?
First, you would have to pick a lineage. It's more complicated than it has any right to be, to be honest.
>I feel like I could do more with you glorious faggots.
I'm in the Astrum Argentium group on facebook and it makes me want to claw my fucking eyes out. I actually kind of like it here. Sure, OP is always a faggot. Half the threads will give you cancer and the rest are made of AIDS and fail, but we already know that and aren't pretending otherwise.
>>17801455
>>17801461
I do pretty much all my solo work buck naked. Always have.
Besides, I think the standard tau robe is ugly. The robe I never wear is black, made of raw silk, has very full sleeves with a matching mourning hood.
>>17801547
>I don't know what the black brick is
Probably, Regardie's, The Golden Dawn, in paperback. That or his, Gems from the Equinox.
>>17802930
>Also, Hyatt's energized meditaions are good for unleashing all sorts of gunked up psychological and memory blocks.
Yep. Very powerful shit.
>>17799605
so think my eyes open can help me? test me?
>>17802848
That's not the issue (o:
>>17803231
You just failed, desu.
>>17802974
How does one pick a lineage?
>>17803466
Depends on what you seek. If you want a valid lineage, then that would be one depending from C F Russell. I don't see compelling arguments for the others, to be honest. If that's not important, look at the people in those lineages. See what appeals to you, who's making sense.
>>17803562
Paperwork as in, K was supposed to send some documents so I can sign under someone through you guys, because my last instructor kinda went batshit.
>>17803567
He's still waiting on paper from me. Patience, padawan.
>patience
It's been almost half a year now.
>>17804250
I think you've made rather wise use of those six months and have something to show for them. See your point, but all is not lost and you're far from forgotten.
>>17804315
While I do agree with you, I do feel this is an opportune time to get back to the core of the process that I'd started with Probation. The issue is, I need *something* to go on; at this point the last year has changed my perspective to such a point that I have a really hard time even performing ritual, because it's simply not a part of my worldview anymore.
It's the most bizarre predicament.
>>17804329
Personally, I think its coming. I have a feel for where you're at. But I can't rush this.
>>17804329
>>17804342
FWIW I think the current alignment of our dispositions is auspicious in a roundabout way. We're looking more like a chain.
Priest, may I humbly suggest picking a few more advanced practices while Z hammers out his shit? I've been working DBoE as a component of gradework and needing:
>something to go on
Moreover, you'd been wanting some hypnotic synopses of DB...remember, I still have a couple months to go and have identified a few central themes that one could spiral out of...but again I can only work so many months ahead particularly with the Phoneix/Azh'ra'il operations bearing down.
Also, Priest, take notice that you've developed an incredibly hard won skill; the ability to visualize whole routines fairly completely - it's a 4=7 feature that AC used to work Samekh on horseback and whilst golfing.
The only issue is needing to figure out how to push through into undifferentiated rather than local astral space/at least get the OBE factor going.
>>17804361
>picking a few more advanced practices
Anything more specific for me to go on? I don't exactly know what you're getting at.
>you'd been wanting some hypnotic synopses of DB
Aye. I'm thinking I could reduce the timeframe significantly by getting an idea of what internal states are required in what order, and then causing them in a framework of personal mythos.
I figure about 15-20 hypnosis sessions all in all, although could be shorter if we can merge things down into components.
>>17804385
>Also, Priest, take notice that you've developed an incredibly hard won skill; the ability to visualize whole routines fairly completely - it's a 4=7 feature that AC used to work Samekh on horseback and whilst golfing.
Uh what. I was quite certain that's something all people do naturally when they actually *study* the material?
>The only issue is needing to figure out how to push through into undifferentiated rather than local astral space/at least get the OBE factor going.
That's something I still can't get my head around. I've been having weird quasi-telepathic experiences today, however I can't rule out analogue communication at work. Any routines you'd recommend for me to actually develop this ability in a way which absolutely rules out that it's happening in my head?
>>17804415
Hold up. Are you talking about decoupling tantric gnosticism from it's aesthetic trappings and giving a template for personal aesthesis? Fuck, I'm still like 6 months out from building my own by outright theft.
>>17804879
Yup he sees the value of the DBoE but I seem to be the only one willing to go full autism to pull the threads apart which im doing.
Surgo, I made a somewhat bold suggestion to Sigma. Well see how he feels about it. Not exactly public discussion and im trying to parse two heptadic crowns plus the Black Claw of Faithful Hound.
>>17804914
It does have the best bullshit to effect ratio of just about anything out of the west. I'm still trying to crack azöetia.
>>17804962
Hmm someone posted this and I'm not sure what to make of it? Could I be suffering from cognitive dissonance?
What occult/magic "method" would you use to see your path clearly?
I know how dumb and "pls spoonfeed" that may sound, but I want to change my life, I know I can do "anything", but despites my efforts trying to think how I could do it, there's this kind of fog in my head.
My only lead at the moment is third eye, but there's so many methods and so many "open your third eye in 3 mn with this music!" things that I'm not sure how to start.
Any other means, even totally unrelated, are welcome.
>>17805037
Practice is probably the best method.
>>17805037
Depends. Are you lazy or motivated? Would you rather dissolve into the all or become God of your own reality? Do you choose submission or pride? Do you pursue the right hand path ot the left hand path?
>>17805037
>>17805037
Life is witnessed, not possessed. Just be patient.
>>17805108
If you're talking about third eye, yes, but what if you don't know the way to practice? I've been doing basic meditation for about a year now, but I don't know how to go further.
>>17805112
>Are you lazy or motivated?
Motivated. But I don't know how to use my energy. There's too many path I'd love to take as a living, and that is the problem, that is why I needed some kind of guidance.
>Would you rather dissolve into the all or become God of your own reality?
It doesn't matter, I'm tempted to say the later, but actually I just need to know where to direct my energy.
> Do you choose submission or pride?
Pride.
> Do you pursue the right hand path ot the left hand path?
Deep inside I feel that I'm more a right hand guy, but I don't care about the means now. I want change and I probably can't have it if I don't experience new things.
>>17805115
I kinda get what you mean, but I still need to take actions. I know the time of patience is over, for many reasons.
PS : sorry for my terrible english.
>>17805133
Patience comes in many forms. Make good decisions and think before you do act. There's no path that isn't good without your intervention. Those who deny the struggle the triumphant will overcome.
Don't deny the struggle and learn that you're witnessing life, not possessing it. Be quiet and listen and watch closely, and you'll find yourself with the knowledge of what to do using your perspective and direct understanding of your situation.
>>17804879
Basically.
The beauty of hypnosis as it's scientifically studied is that it's entirely fine and workable on its own. This means that once you have a good frame, a process which you can replicate reliably in easily understood language, without the trappings of esotericism, you can use the same language within a reference frame of entirely anything.
Hell, you can do serious, hardcore therapy My Little Pony style if you want.
>>17805037
Do drugs, study neurosci, look into Zen.
>third eye
Uhuh. Might want to look into the functions of the pre-frontal lobe.
>>17805133
Okay. Completely serious?
Set a goal you want to achieve, and do a proper SMART analysis on it. Yes, some do say it's deprecated, but really sit down and analyze EVERY. LITTLE. BIT. of it. See what holds you back, see what's helping you.
This includes circumstance, environment, social contacts, finances, and your own personal resources and character traits. If the goal appeals to you enough, you'll change naturally while pursuing it.
>>17805140
Hey. How you doing good buddy?
>>17805144
Doing well, nice dubs
>>17805154
Aye. Still doing the whole QNA/Heru-Seth/Balalaika thing?
>>17805140
I kinda see where you're going. Thank you, it's actually useful.
>>17805144
Thanks for your ideas.
I'll avoid drugs tho, they just doesn't work well with me anymore.
>>17805163
Somewhat. Lately I've just been working on removing elements of the temple that are unfit for work (avoiding getting too angry, or allowing myself to cloud my own logic with emotion).
>>17805166
>allowing myself to cloud my own logic with emotion
Emotion is entirely logical though.
>>17805169
It's more neurotic emotion than anything.
>>17805170
Self-hypnosis, find the cause of the neurosis, reframe, understand, it's gone, proceed.
I'm drunk as a skunk jumping on a bunk inside a trunk!
Sempaaaaaai, are U saiyan that self-hypnosis be more like engineering than like science?
more emphasis on techné than episteme
>>17799673
I'm not sure if I mentioned this book before:
http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/51/
>>17799793
How do spell this word: fairy?
As in those etheric beings.
Is it possible to become possessed through ritualistic music?
What incantation would you recite to an alcoholic beverage to better exploit it's good effects and roll with/sidestep it's negative effects.
>>17805472
Yes.
>>17805501
"You sit there tight good boy, not tonight".
>>17805516
Even if it's through headphones? Like from a youtube video?
Will you be conscious of it?
>>17805523
>Even if it's through headphones? Like from a youtube video?
...yes, that's kinda the point of music. You know how sometimes you hear a song and you just feel like dancing/ singing along?
>Will you be conscious of it?
Durr, of course you're conscious. YOU are doing the "being possessed by music" thing.
>>17805531
>...yes, that's kinda the point of music.
I was just wondering if it being live music (like with drums) made any difference.
>You know how sometimes you hear a song and you just feel like dancing/ singing along?
Yeah.
>Durr, of course you're conscious. YOU are doing the "being possessed by music" thing.
No I mean will you be conscious even if something possesses you? Or is it like blacking out?
>>17805540
>something possesses you
No such thing.
>>17805546
So it's just a mode of animalistic emotion? I was under the impression a spirit could possess you. Or some kind of thoughtform.
>>17805557
A thoughtform that possesses you is *your own thoughts* being guided by subconscious (automatic) reactions.
Literally the same thing as a very minor case of DID, without the dissociation blacking you out (generally).
>>17805567
>A thoughtform that possesses you is *your own thoughts* being guided by subconscious (automatic) reactions.
Hm. So, hypothetically speaking, could the thoughtform be a kind of (non conscious) dark tulpa, and you possess yourself into a state of animalistic emotion, using the ritual music as a medium?
>>17805577
Tulpas also work on the same principle, yes.
>>17805578
That's very interesting. I've experienced this before.
Thanks for the info. Is there anywhere I could read more into this kind of thing in detail?
>>17805588
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BwLJ8mj-ZuoGc0NKUEtoLTBmQXc&usp=sharing
Once you're done with this, start on JSTOR.
>>17805608
Many thanks, friend.
Anyone here have had experience with annoying OTO people who take Thelema as a "religion" (sic) and starts talking to you like small town priests or something?? What to do with them, apart from Apo pantos kakodaimonos???
>>17799605
got anything workable on the Canaanite religion?
>>17805037
>What occult/magic "method" would you use to see your path clearly?
Sometimes simple fasting can do the trick. After not eating for three days, you'll likely have a pretty good idea of what your next step might be.
>>17806127
>What to do with them, apart from Apo pantos kakodaimonos???
Point and laugh?
Tell them, no thanks, Puritanism just doesn't agree with me?
>>17806576
Fasting sounds like a good idea, unfortunately I can't do it for more than a day in general because I have muay thai training every 2 days, and I feel like I'll break something if I don't eat before one. Well, I'll take a day off and try it. Water allowed?
>>17806127
kekekekekekekekekekek
Slow thread.
What are your views/knowledge about masturbation in whatever kind of occult you're interested in? Using energy, nofap, etc?
>>17807258
Make it faster.
>>17807039
Yes, stay well hydrated.
>>17807302
Thanks. I asked the question because I linked it to those yogi guys that don't even drink water. Was curious about those and how maybe we could could push our body further that what we actually believe. But they probably trained before and it's special case, with deep meditation or something.
>>17807328
Dehydration can be dangerous. I doubt any benefit would outweigh the risks.
>>17807359
>>17807328
Minor dehydration's only good for a small fraction of tribal or shamanic initiations.
Otherwise avoid like hell.
>>17808387
Rebump.
By Lateralus you meant the Tool thing?
Never was a fan of them.
Beyond that, got into drawing. If all goes well, I might just make this into an Enochian practice, drawing from visions, rather than doing writing.
>>17808472
IJS the tonality between those tunes I mentioned's good for producing OBE vibrations.
>>17808477
Aye. Also interesting conversation I had today. Apparently there's fools who think that occult praxis is an easier path to learning self-hypnosis than learning self-hypnosis.
Like, mind blown.
>>17808508
It can certainly be more personally effective, given expectations. Initially at least.
>>17808532
Honestly? No. It requires an exponentially higher investment of time, and it relies on certain assumptions which aren't necessarily true.
>>17808538
Some people are superstitious as all fuck. They also tend to hate anything remotely related to psychology and dismiss it the way you do everything that isn't shit you like.
>>17808548
Misleading/ misinforming people is one of my no-nos.
Dabbling in esotericism without proper education can, and often does, lead to lasting mental damage.
>>17808557
It was worth it.
>>17808557
It can also lead to a worldview and outlook on life that's at once more stable and more flexible
Which book out of this link do you think would be best to start with if i have absolutely no knowledge of the occult?
Does anyone know if there is a way to buy scans from HathiTrust?
>>17810218
haaya.org/uploads/neuropsychology.pdf
Well, i only read a couple of chapters of Kapleau's "Three Pillars" and now i'm starting to blank out the oberving self and just perceive.
But i know it won't last.
Damn my fickle and malleable (in the wrong places) mind.
>>17810576
There are better and more well researched and practiced ways to start. View and path need a strong foundation for practice to work and most of the occult glosses it down into a chapter instead of a library.
>>17808557
What would you call proper education?
Granted, Hermeticism is a hell of a drug, but most of the books forewarn about the potential problems.
>>17810666
>What would you call proper education?
Start with basic neurosci, move into neuropsychology, then study hypnosis and hypnotherapy to get a good idea of what's possible.
Only once you have those things down, you can approach occultism from a perspective which allows you to distinguish paranormal phenomena from ones in your own head.
And of course, the practice of self-hypnosis naturally complements ritual, as in both you're required to be in particular mindstates.
>>17810669
Where would Jung stand between neuroscience and the occult?
>>17810670
Jung is worthless, and most of the things he claims have little to no import, nor evidential support for what we do in modern times.
Archetypes? Sure, nice story. Too bad it doesn't work very well.
>bullshit occultism - the thread
you have no idea what real magic is, fucking cancerous pricks
>>17810676
Jung's archetypes always make me think of bhavas.
>>17810687
What is real magic?
>>17810692
How do you draw the connection?
>>17810511
I opened a random page of the book and started reading about frontal lobe damage.
How can a soul work without a physical body? It's like having a projector light without the movie to see the images.
>>17810692
I mean admittedly if you want to look into making archetypes useful, you might want to look into Parts Therapy. Roy Hunter has a wonderful book on that.
>>17810698
>soul
The soul is nothing but the sum total of your memory.
If we want to get metaphysical, then we'll need to talk about transcendence, and thus differentiate between classes of people, ones who have developed enough neural potential to exist without a body (see "Crossing the Abyss" and 8=3 A.'.A.'.), and ones who haven't.
>>17808548
>Some people are superstitious as all fuck.
Which obviously has nothing necessarily to do with the subject at hand.
>>17808775
>It can also lead to a worldview and outlook on life that's at once more stable and more flexible
Yep.
You're not going to make an omelet without breaking some eggs. It might well be possible, but all the folks I've known who got very far up the tree had to get dirty and weird in the process. They had to leave their old comfortable notions of reality behind and cope with the new.
>>17810218
Robert Anton Wilson's, Prometheus Rising, is decent start.
>>17810576
Your mind has just started playing tricks on you. There will be plenty more, I suspect. It doesn't like being tamed.
>>17810599
>There are better and more well researched and practiced ways to start.
Probably not.
>>17810666
>What would you call proper education?
Nice trips. Crowley's AA reading list represents one "proper education":
http://hermetic.com/crowley/book-4/app1.html
It's one of his greater contributions to the field.
>>17810676
>Jung is worthless
kek
Looks like we have a live one.
The Gestalt folks are even closer to what it is we do.
>>17810696
>What is real magic?
The kind that affects real change.
>>17810703
>(see "Crossing the Abyss" and 8=3 A.'.A.'.)
And when did you cross?
>>17810764
>The Gestalt folks are even closer to what it is we do.
Absolutely. The issue I have with Jung is mostly a linguistic one.
>And when did you cross?
Don't need to cross in order to draw conclusions based on an 8=3's writing.
To be perfectly honest, I don't believe a shred of that, but it does appear to be the case given my current reading into psychotronics.
>>17810769
>Don't need to cross in order to draw conclusions based on an 8=3's writing.
You must if you expect any sane person to take anything you have to say about it seriously.
>>17810776
I don't expect any sane person to take anything I say seriously, especially in these threads.
>>17810777
And when someone who has crossed confronts your ideas, how will you react?
>>17810779
Not take them seriously, but consider whether what they say makes sense. If it does, I might take them seriously. If not, I'll have some laughs. It's really that simple.
>>17810783
>Not take them seriously, but consider whether what they say makes sense.
If you're expecting things across the Abyss to make sense, you're already pretty lost.
>>17810764
>http://hermetic.com/crowley/book-4/app1.html
>Dracula, by Bram Stoker. Valuable for its account of legends concerning vampires.
Are we being serious hier?
>>17810812
decent piece of trashy fiction influenced by some interesting folklore. Nobody's saying it's true. Also, from a 21st century perspective it's a nice look at the fears and fantasies of late victorian britain.
>>17810764
>http://hermetic.com/crowley/book-4/app1.html
>The Golden Ass, by Apuleius. Valuable for those who have wit to understand it.
can someone with the wit to understand it explain it's value? I thought it was just a funny story about a bunch of shitty things happening to an ass(hole)
>>17810889
It's up there near Rabelais. I'm not going to overplay it, but to live the lessons learned is sublime. It is just a funny story, but the value is when you see that it always parallels your own actions. Most lack the humility and sense of humor to do that to themselves.
>>17810930
>humility
I've yet to understand what that word means.
It's the most bizarre thing.
>>17810934
It's on the other side of the spectrum from narcissistic envy and embarrassment. Essentially the same thing, but it feels good. You keep swimming, but you no longer fight the tide, so to speak.
I had the brief image pop up of viewing your life as a story and realizing you don't like the main character. You can justify and sympathize, or learn from it. Bitterness is okay in moderation, but like IPA, you cant have nothing but it.
Can the Great Work help the development of empathy? I'm a mild psychopath, at least in the "I feel nothing about the suffering of others" sense. I also have immense problems to read the mood of people; only obvious face contortions tell me something. And even in this case, it's more knowing than "feeling together".
Would magic help me to achieve humankindness?
>>17810980
Done properly, it would seem the overarching goal is an attempt at a cure for autism. Done wrong, it just makes you better at what you do.
>>17810950
>It's on the other side of the spectrum from narcissistic envy and embarrassment.
So basically taking things as they are and then putting a layer of "meh" on top of them?
Meh.
>>17810980
Look into Michael Perez's (sp?) "Neuron Code". He does great things in that direction.
>>17811029
>Done wrong, it just makes you better at what you do.
Sounds like "better at what you do" isn't kinda the point here.
>>17811058
Do you get mad at the ocean for fucking you up? Don't answer that. Normal people who don't have diddling or tiger moms in their past are humbled by the experience. Being humbled is game recognizing game. It's a beautiful thing to behold. Should you not even recognize game, your game is shit.
>>17810812
"Alice Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll. Valuable to those who understand the Qabalah."
Huh?
>>17810812
>Are we being serious hier?
Indeed we are. Read the prefatory remarks.
>>17810879
Yeah, it's not a bad read.
>>17810930
Chuang Tzu can be hilarious as well. He's serious about his subject just the same.
>>17811029
kek
>>17811077
>Should you not even recognize game, your game is shit.
This whole comment is great. The ocean is one example. I think looking up at a cold and clear night sky, away from light pollution, is one of the most humbling experiences you can have. Feels like my heart wants to leap out of my chest.
>>17811131
Not as instructive, I think, as, "The Hunting of the Snark", to be honest.
Do you guys have things you can't do no matter how hard you try, even though you are allowed to and are physically, mentally, spiritually or technically able to?
How do you deal with such things?
>>17811172
I will never be able to set foot on another planet. So what? There are lots on things all of us will never do; there are limits to what can be done.
>>17811172
>How do you deal with such things?
There's obviously a blockage. Explore it. Look for a way to break or get around it.
>>17811140
>I think looking up at a cold and clear night sky, away from light pollution, is one of the most humbling experiences you can have.
Hm. I would call that awe, to be frank. Maybe I haven't experienced humility yet?
>>17811140
Seeing as how most of that is quoting me, I'll just roll it all together.
I think that the only way to truly become something is to be humbled by it. It takes awe to be drawn into an object. You can be envious, but even that is a recognition that there is a thing greater than yourself. Whether you aspire or turn away is what matters. Humor, that is scrutiny and a sense of irony over your own actions is the fundament of development. The most powerful and affirmative voices along the path are serious as a fart. Truth, being what it is, cannot be diminished, and irreverence is a pure form of worship of it. It doesn't bend away and propose the opposite. It doesn't make the inevitable funerary and deny it life. It celebrates it.
>>17799684
>>17799668
pretty sure Cornelius sperg'd out on Flores and he split as a Practicus.
in any case, Flores was acknowledged by his teacher to have attained K&C in 2009 latest, and is now claiming 7=4.
Flores considers himself Seckler's student more than McMurtry's anyway.
Is there any magic to get/boost intelligence/pick up a subject easily? I want the shortcut to becoming amazing at math. My degree and life dreams depend on it. And my pride. Im game for whatever.
Seriously, any anons know of intelligence magic?
>>17811309
>boost intelligence/pick up a subject easily
Learn in hypnosis. It boosts neuroplasticity and memory formation, as well as recall (provided you don't mess up too badly).
>>17811291
>pretty sure Cornelius sperg'd out on Flores and he split as a Practicus.
Huh, I'd never heard that'n before.
>Flores considers himself Seckler's student more than McMurtry's anyway.
?
Did Flores know Seckler? How did Jerry C. react to their relationship? I know Jerry C. respects Seckler but was under the impression that he thought her to be a bit...off, as per McMurtry's late opinion and why there's even a line branching from him in the first place.
Just seems odd.
Where are Flores' received texts and thesis? I'd like to look through them if ol' boy's claiming Exemption.
>>17811223
Humility is accepting exactly where you stand. Not that you can't move from that position, but that you are where you are because you are and that significance is entirely what you make it. Moving from a peasant child to a soldier to a prominent commander with the third daughter of a minor noble is both big and nothing. In the occult, unity with the fundament of the subject of awe is the goal, the rest are only fringe benefits.
Humility is cultivated. Look at the town and country divide. They're still dumb yokels, but they come from a place where you can see the sky and have to work the land and be nice to everyone or you will fucking die. City types live in anonymity and are jaded to their place in the world. They live in a way where you can fuck people over to get by and it's expected. They don't know where anything comes from, they dont know their neighbors. They know other things that are very humbling. The peaks of human endeavour, the value of working smart.
Basically, being humbled is letting go of egotistic assumptions. It's letting go. It's dealing with the fact that you aren't as smart or as lazy or as strong or as miserable as you thought and moving on without being bitter about it. That bitterness is but a transient experience and should stay that way. Like I said earlier, it makes for good fuel, but can't be the core of what drives you.
This needs more analogies, but I'm not at a real computer so this will have to do for now.
>>17811337
Meh.
>>17811337
Humility is a deep and abiding gratefulness for all circumstances no matter your standing. It's unconcerned with social status. It's not a product of diadic command/subordinate relationships.
Humility is both found and not found in the peasant and the king, depending on temperament.
>unity...the rest if fringe
Agreed entirely.
>cultivated
Eh....maybe? Ever see that lecture about discipline the Dalai Lama gave where he joked about casually slapping kids around? Cultivation methods differ, and not every outcome is of humility. Make sure your shit does what it says on the label.
You appear to have a heavily schematized understanding of rural/urban. You can talk all day long about averages, but groups are simply linguistic fictions in the face of individual experience.
>ego
After a certain point I really don't even know what this fucking word is even supposed to mean in new age currents. If you're talking 'gimmie gimmie', then fine. If you're talking personality structures, the only person losing that shit is a complete renunciate ascetic...as ego is an after the fact construction of vague social mores reflecting on the personalities of those in the environment, and even the highest attained monk still has to ring the bell and lead prayer in a building full of people.
>deal with the fact
Agreed on this point.
7/10 for effort, you came close.
>>17811348
I knew a dude who said meh all the time back in the day. I really liked him but after I stuck it in his butt, he showed his true colors and those were the colors of an asshole who couldn't appreciate anything. The consolation prize was him becoming anorexic and shacking up with a faggot from Florida that looked exactly like me.
>>17799802
Senpai has been (((noticed))) ^_^_^_^
>with life's worth cultural baggage mixed in.
True, but his ability to work with our culture was impressive considering the background. More than an ordained cleric, btw
>Well, come now, Watts said A NUMBER OF TIMES, that he wasn't actually even a Buddhist, and was just an entertainer making a buck. Sure it seems like a good safety clause for being called out, but i think he was pretty honest about it.
This is true but people could be misled by his talks to think that there's no place for practice
>>17811360
>7/10
I passed the class.
Yeah I was just using whatever example came to mind, and what came to mind was urbanization vs being able to see stars and die of being a shithead.
I have no idea what ego means. It usually makes sense in context so I don't bother. In this case I meant the former, although the latter still applies in the sense of unifying your sense of yourself with whatever we consider reality. Ego is like a really shitty good friend. He has your interests in mind but Jesus fucking Christ you have to get him to stop acting like a child with a whip. Being chained together and all, it's in both of your interests to work together.
>>17811325
That Cornelius/Flores affair appears in the Cornelius website. It´s, of course, Cornelius most probably very biased point of view.
>>17811325
if he's claiming Exemption I imagine he's writing his thesis now. it's the task of 7=4, not the attainment of it, as per One Star In Sight.
Seckler was the first Thelemite that Flores ever (knowingly) met.
>>17811386
disregarding probable bias, Flores has made no comment in response to the affair. i can't say i would've said anything either, were i in his place. if you see someone throwing a tantrum, best to let them tire themselves out.
>>17811412
Fair enough w/r/t theses.
But when you start making bold grade claims I wanna see if your jello's stiff.
>>17811412
Flores did the right thing making no comment, seeing Cornelius attitude, and most probably did the right thing leaving on writing, in that context. Life and Initiation are not so easy and literal, and no "master" can dictate what is or not, more specially when that "master" is most probably the very responsable of the ordeal itself. It´s simply dishonest.
>>17811535
>that "master" is most probably the very responsable of the ordeal itself.
That's ten pounds of Wisdom in a five pound Dragon Vessel right there.
>>17811535
we don't have a resignation letter from Flores though. just belligerent accusations from Cornelius.
>>17811562
Just went to redflame and I'm not seeing a letter explicitly about Flores unless it's about the Fallen or the guy who oathed to the Abyss.
Wait, is Flores the dude with the weed dui?
>>17811579
Ok, I'm seeing a shitload of piss and vinegar here; "Koyote"? Some other Aztec group?
>Members of the Order are each entitled to found Orders dependent on themselves on the lines of the R. C. and G. D. orders, to cover types of emancipation and illumination not contemplated by the original (or main) system. All such orders must, however, be constituted in harmony with the A∴A∴ as regards the essential principles.
^One Star in Sight.
Unless he was Ordo SS, he's right to get disciplined for forming internal orders either antagonistic to or deeply deviated from core A.'.A.'. doctrines, which it appears he wasn't.
Other than that Jerry C's flipping his shit Motta style here with a LOT of cray cray accusations, unless all this talk of "slaying" is metaphorical.
>>17811606
that's a different Flores.
Cornelius had correspondence between himself and Robert Flores (who I will from here on refer to as Fr. Orpheus to avoid confusion) posted on the website a while ago, i think. but not seeing it now. his website is kind of hard to navigate.
Ricardo Flores and some other dude were expelled at the same time on the lines you described, and their expulsion notices have been made publicly available.
>>17811579
It´s here: http://www.cornelius93.com/ClerkHouse-AumHaOrpheusFlores.html
>>17811579
http://www.cornelius93.com/EpistleOathoftheAbyss-2.html
>>17811723
yeah, he conveniently leaves no stone unturned in his drama-infused keening, save for the resignation itself, which he "will not post"
>>17811723
>whining about whiners
Jesus tittyfucking Christ I see where Keith gets it now.
Teach me about alchemy and how to do real magick
>>17811723
What a gigantic pile of putrid shit, glorious.
>>17811807
Round two:
>open the alchemy folder
>read and practice
>???
>Azoth
It ain't a hard procedure, mate and if you can't nail this one, I highly doubt you'll be able to synthesize projection powder.
>>17811723
This doesn't read anything like crossing the abyss in Silence.
Tell me the Truth
>>17811847
You think you have something to say, but you only highlight your own ignorance.
>>17811847
You'll get nowhere without educating yourself.
So, I read in some book that the "etheric level is experienced through a different set of senses, more or less paralleling ordinary sight and touch."
So, let's see. If there's a level resembling something like another dimension from science fiction, that is the etheric one. I thought you perceived it indirectly through the astral level. Is it possible to "turn on etheric vision"?
>>17812335
Sounds like Bardon to me.
The shorty answer is, in fact, yes.
The long answer's stop reading Bardon and start practicing ritual more.
>>17811803
Oh, yeah. He really wasn't like this til Fr Gollum got his claws in him.
>>17811822
>projection powder
Tell me what to read on that. DO IT.
>>17812452
Usually it's a mild hallucinogen or dissociative, something dmt-like, and something that makes you feel like you're going to die. I'm sure there's a hypnotic variant you can mix up.
>>17811870
That's pretty much the case with me too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QereR0CViMY
>>17812544
>hypnotics
lolno
I ain't doing Ambien, Ativan, or Restoril.
That said, DXM sounds perfect as far as this description goes.
>>17812697
I meant mimicking the effects through hard work and self hypnosis. Dxm is for retards and not even close to what happens.
>>17812716
Hm. Let me give it a try, and report back.
>>17812720
Unless I'm confusing projection powder with some south american shaman shit you snort through a finger bone.
>>17812720
Well then. I got nowhere, but I did take some time to just chill out a bit. Eh. kinda disappointed.
>>17812335
I remember once in a dream being struck by this notion that I had another set of senses
I tried to tune in to them but it was all black
when I stopped doing that, it was like some time had happened in the dream.
also sometimes spontaneous closed-eye visions kinda superimpose on regular vision? With a tunnel effect?
(no meditation or drugs involved, anecdotal experiences without enhancements - although trying to meditate has produced that sort of vision a couple of times)
Bump because I'm avoiding praxes because there's only so much I can bleed into a decorative Japanese vase in a single fucking day.
>>17811530
>But when you start making bold grade claims I wanna see if your jello's stiff.
Only a matter of time before I steal this.
>>17813265
#wizardinainteasy
Is there any way I can leverage occultism or magick to change my body beyond normal means?
If possible, and if it's not to spoonfeedy, a push in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
>>17814206
meditation
Is AMORC a meme? What other organizations are memes? Or uh, which organizations AREN'T memes? This last question probably has a shorter answer than the one before it.
>>17814502
>Or uh, which organizations AREN'T memes?
Cultus Sabbatti
A.'.A.'. (although many branches are indeed memes)
AMOOKOS
Masonry (although it depends on location)
Enochia (although I would personally say it's synonymous to the non-meme A.'.A.'. branches)
>>17814546
AMORC
>Enochia (although I would personally say it's synonymous to the non-meme A.'.A.'. branches)
Not quite an organization as such, but an interesting suggestion.
>>17812386
>The long answer's stop reading Bardon and start practicing ritual more.
Explain why spooky rituals are better than practical energetic/spiritual development.
>>17812335
Open your third eye. The easiest methods are vibrating mantras and literally breathing energy into the eye.
>>17814898
Because his contemplative exercises are built on incomplete information (see his comments on tattvas compared to pic related). They're bare-bones methods that can be found in almost any other practical manual in both fluff and serious traditions. He displays systemic Kabbalistic and historical ignorance when compared against rites like Samekh, or ThROA, or Cadaveris, or even the core grimoire traditions the above were constructed from.
Here is Flores branch website: http://www.astrumargenteum.org/
Is there a higher purpose to evocation/the occult rather than achieving your own means?
I don't believe so.
>>17815037
>core grimoire traditions
Ugh. As if those things are to be celebrated or practiced
>>17815135
>Bardon's IHH is gr8
>ignore all previous hermetic work pls
>>17815160
>>17815131
>I don't believe so.
And your evidence is...?
Are we just going to ignore the whole Abramelin/Spiritual Guide of Molinos aspect here? What about Saivist gnosis of the fusion of primordial godforms?
