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This thread might be a bit of a tangle of thoughts, but lets face facts, that’s what we all love about Barbelith. Where else can I sound off at length about obscure topics like this, and be guaranteed to get an intelligent response?
Anyway, I was thinking recently about a few of the first practices I tried, and I’d like to ask others some questions about them to see what people’s experiences have been – I thought maybe we could spin this out into a thread on the difference between theory and practice. It might be helpful for people starting out and it’s just good to share experience anyway.
What I was thinking about specifically was Raja Yoga, I was first put on to this after being inspired by Crowley’s accounts in Book 4 and 8 Lectures in Yoga. Raja Yoga, as I understand it, is simply visualising geometric shapes and holding concentration on same. Anyone who has tried this will know it’s fiendishly difficult – the shapes seem to stutter and flicker all over the place, mind wanders off on all sorts of tangents etc etc. Crowley states that if you master this concentration, eventually you experience the fusion of subject and object – that which is concentrated on fuse with that which is concentrating. This experience produces samadhi, experience of the godhead, enlightenment etc.
Well, this never happened to me! Not surprising either – seems a bit of a tall order. plus I didn’t stick with it enough – my ability to concentrate and hold images improved but it’s by no means perfect. It seems from reading Regardie’s biography of him that Crowley did have this experience, he wasn’t lying as I wondered but he did take it too extremes of austerity, extremes I can’t replicate in my own life. That’s what initially prompted this line of thought – I wondered if anyone out there has had any interesting experiences arising from this sort of practice?
Next line of though – I think a lot of beginning practices are really badly written about (including the first descriptions of meditation etc that I encountered). There’s a real magickal work ethic, a real “you must suffer” tone in a lot of books. For instance, a real pet hate of mine is are the meditation instructions in Liber Null & Psychonaut, Liber MMM - I think these are possibly the worst instruction for meditation ever written – all that stuff about “extremes of morbid concentration” etc It seems evident to me now – though it wasn’t when I first attempted things - that you’ll never succeed with stuff like this unless you can pursue it in a relaxed manner with a minimum of guilt. I was talking about this with another Barbaperson on Saturday. Seems to me that a lot of our conditioning ie the work ethci, or machismo (as I’ve observed in some cases) can pass over into our magickal work unquestioned. Any thoughts?
Furthermore, I think there’s a huge gulf between our conceptions of a practice and what will actually happen if we bother to do it. No surprises here, the word sunset doesn’t equate with seeing one, the map is not the territory blah blah blah. There’s a way of talking about magick which implies if we’ll do the same thing we’ll all have the same experiences. I think this is false Magick is an uncertain science at best and probes a lot of unexplored areas of our psyches and bodies – all being different, it stands to reason, we’ll all have different results – including that old favourite, “nothing at all”.
So I thought this might be a useful thread to share experiences, questions or anecdotes – ie what was the first thing you tried? What happened (including “nothing”)? How did this differ from your preconceptions? What do you think is best way to approach practice etc etc. Are there any assumptions common in magicakal circles (including this board) that you think need challenging? Please get stuck in and feel free to go off on as many tangents as I have above. |
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