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Any of you here ever went through periods where you questioned your sanity?

  
 
--
04:05 / 03.04.03
Just wondering, sometimes I can't help wondering how sane this whole magic thing is. Seems ever since I got into the Invisibles a little over a year ago my whole life has become very odd, all these weird mind-warping books (both magic books and fiction/no-fiction). I mean, I just wonder sometimes. Like that whole Pan invocation thing I did last summer. My family was at the beach, it was a sunny day out, birds chirping, and there I was in my bedroom spinning around naked, dancing wildly, screaming, rubbing leaves on my body while industrial music blared... looking back now the whole thing seems unreal. I remember going to my job afterwards bagging groceries and I wondered if the customers had any idea what I had been doing earlier. I mean, do regular people do things like this? Do regular people use magic spells on their cars or computers to get them to work right, or go to websites to read about creating Shoggoths (okay, that was just for a laugh) or look for the hidden magic propaganda in Super Mario Bros. games, or talk to crows? I mean, it doesn't seem that weird to me, but to other people, I dunno. All my life I've been interested in magic, ever since the second grade when I took a book out of the library called "Black magic/White magic" and my parents thought I was becoming a Satanist (at like 7 years old!) What such a book was doing in a kid's school I have no clue. Anyway, it's only in the last year or so I've gotten the courage to try magic and I have had some results, nothing that big. Sometimes I wonder why I got into it. To be different? Because I like weird things? To spice up my dull life? Or just to explore and experiment?

I haven't done any magic recently because I've been depressed about many things: worrying about my health (I'm a hypochondriac when it comes to that) depressed about being single and seeing no boyfriend oppurtunities anytime soon, school trouble, etc. I'm afraid if I do magic i'll just become further isolated in my own little world, but at the same time I want to try it out more and keep exploring. I thought magicians were supposed to have no hang-ups or were able to get past problems they have, but I still can't. Ah well, at least my writer's block is gone. I mean, it's not like I see things or that I've summoned demons or that I hear voices in my head or anything, and I don't do drugs. But I know I can't be crazy because a lot of people here (I presume) have done similiar things, and have probably seen much stranger things then I have. Hell, I've never done dreamwork or astral travels or OEBs or anything of that nature.

I keep noticing weird syncronicities: like one week where the same Nirvana song was playing when I got into my car at the same time each day at the same part of the song for 3 days in a row. Or one night where my brothers and I each spent 23 minutes logged on to the internet. Or today, where in my writing class someone had a notebook sketch of Jesus hanging on a cross, looking exactly like the one in the Current 93 "Dogs Blood Rising", and someone else had a poem called "Jesus Wept", which is a song title off that album. Weird...

This year I turn 23 in the year 2003 (2 and 3, hah!) and I was born on June 17, and when you add 6 plus 17 you get 23. I have to smile at how often that number crops up.
 
 
sanity
05:35 / 03.04.03
no.
 
 
mixmage
07:17 / 03.04.03
Yup... but not nearly as much as others question my sanity.

Like you said, talking to birds, animals or entities-unseen may be considered "odd" by ya general populace, but it makes perfect, rational sense to me. I think they'd start questioning their own sanity if they could pick up on the cues that spatter my life like subtitles in a foreign movie...

"No... really, there are coded messages being sent thru mass media..."

"yes... of course there are. Now just swallow this... gooood. I'll wake you for pm meds and dinner..."

Didn't we do this whole "mad" thing this time last year?
heh... yes. ahhh, the nostalgia
 
 
eye landed
10:33 / 03.04.03
From a recent report I wrote:

"Paranoia may represent an ability to see links between events that escape the notice of the non-paranoid. Similar to visual hallucinations, which often consist of patterns arising from seemingly random visual “noise,” paranoia may represent the cognitive imposition of patterns onto a collection of unconnected social events. Paranoia and hallucinations are both most common among schizophrenics; perhaps they are linked by some further psychological mechanism. The ability to see patterns is usually not a liability, in fact it is one of the primary skills taught in schools from kindergarten to college. We are taught to organize numbers and letters, then to analyze ideas and themes, then to synthesize models and theories. A mental disorder only arises when we lose the capacity to differentiate between imagination and reality. (Mathematician John Nash is a good example.) Paranoia can be useful, as threats against the person really do exist, and over-preparation for danger is often wiser than under-preparation. Paranoia may also be present in an individual who does not blindly trust authority, which is indicative of an independent, creative mind."

Since reality is our own construction, it should be our responsibility to know what we can do with it. The only way to do this is to test it until it tears.

The "best" way to define madness is by your ability to communicate. If you can perform a ritual, then talk to your buddies at the bar thirty minutes later, you're probably fine. If you are lost in your own mind (www.timecube.com), then I think you can be called insane. But in most cases, I think insanity is fine as long as you don't mind dealing with the label and all the imprisonment and medication that comes with it.

Regarding your other question, I think "regular" people do use magic, but they aren't as aware of it. After all, what is magic but focusing the will? Doing that is as simple as wishing, concentrating, or verbalizing. The goal of the magician, I think, is to modify the threshold of conscious awareness in order to gain greater control.
 
 
*
11:04 / 03.04.03
Since reality is our own construction, it should be our responsibility to know what we can do with it. The only way to do this is to test it until it tears.

Thank you, substatique. That was lovely. It reminds me of the instructions on Reality brand female condoms, which have an illuminating quality all their own.

Incidentally I am quite mad, but so far I've fooled everyone who might have the authority to put me away, even my parents. I'm rather proud of that. However, it is also my Discordian Year this year, so that may change as the amount of Chaos in my life soars to near-intolerable levels.

My general feeling about madness is that it's unavoidable, since no one's reality meshes perfectly with the larger consensus reality, if there even is such a thing. If one is willing to allow that one may be wrong about anything and everything, then I consider that one functionally pretty okay (that's a technical term from my high school psych class). Unfortunately that means the entire Christian Fundamentalist movement consists of dangerous psychotics who need to be locked up for the public good. Maybe my definition of insanity is flawed. I suppose I must be mad.

Incidentally, if madness is unavoidable, isn't it incumbent upon us to be mad in interesting ways? I don't know; I'll probably change my mind about all of this in the next five minutes.
 
 
Quantum
11:45 / 03.04.03
'Madness' is an index of your deviation from the norm in a way, how different you are to the accepted consensual view of what people should be.
FIRSTLY you don't know what is normal (and neither does anyone else) you only know what YOU think is normal, then project that on society as an expectation
SECONDLY Nobody is normal, in the same way nobody has 2.4 children
THIRDLY Madness as a manifestation of psychophysical disorders is a lot stranger and more serious. What you are talking about is unusual behaviour, not madness.

'You don't have to be mad to work here but it helps' kind of madness is not the same as 'My body is a prison and everybody is lying to me' kind of madness. Go to an asylum and speak to some doctors, they'll send you home and tell you not to worry so much.
 
 
mixmage
11:56 / 03.04.03
"Society classifies as disturbed that which it finds disturbing"

Thanks, Mum! I knew you'd understand.
 
 
FatherDog
15:12 / 03.04.03
"It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious."
-- Oscar Wilde

To paraphrase, it is absurd to divide people into "mad" and "sane". People are either functional or non-functional.

Are you holding down a job? Can you relate and interact with people that aren't magically inclined? Are you having difficulty distinguishing between consensual reality and your own? Are you having serious emotional difficulties?

If you're all right on these issues, you're functional. Leave questions of "mad" and "sane" to psychiatristy majors.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:13 / 03.04.03
Oh, I should just shrug the madness off if I was you. It doesn't matter how odd your actions are if you're having some fun, not doing particular harm to anyone else (who hasn't harmed you) and you're happy with it all. I don't tend to tell the normals what I do, it isn't seemly, wouldn't want them to run scared.

Of course you should question what you're doing a little bit. We should all question what we do, damn poor- that's what we'd be if we didn't, this magick thingumy seems insane to me all the time but, hey, it's not as crazy as what you read in the newspapers everyday!
 
 
--
15:30 / 03.04.03
I dunno, sometimes it seems like I am trapped in my own little world, but only because it's so much more interesting then what's going on "out there". Sometimes it seems like writing or the act of creation is my only escape from a dull reality. It would help if I knew other magicians in real life I could talk to, but I don't know any magicians at all. Even my friends, who I see less and less of these days, are all very normal people involved in normal relationships (of course, if you're a Christian Fundamentalist you might view lesbian relationships as abnormal). Having said that I think everyone is weird in some way, they just don't know about it.

I think my problem deals mostly with my fear of getting a disease and dying. This all started over 5 years ago, the summer before I went to college. That summer was also the summer I had my test to get my driver's license, so naturally I was under a lot of stress. One night I was having bad chest pains, so bad I could not lie down and I feared I was having a heart attack. After many medical tests and talking to many doctors they found out that I didn't have any heart problems, but what was causing the chest pains was chronic acid reflux (aka bad heartburn). So they gave me medicine for it and the heartburn pretty much went away, but for awhile I let it run my life, I avoided foods I used to like, things like that. I'm not as obsessed over it as I used to be, but I still cannot sleep in a bed. Everytime I lie down my chest tightens up and my breathing gets faster, until I'm forced to sit up again, so I've been sleeping in a chair for over 5 years now. The one exception was one time when I went on a trip with my friends to a gay college student group convention, there were no chairs in the hotel room so I was forced to sleep in bed, though I did prop myself up a bit. I managed to fall asleep in a bed for 2 nights in a row. When I got back home I should have continued trying to sleep in bed, but instead I went back to the chair again. Recently I was reading a book by Stanislav Grof called "Psychology of the Future" where he talks about codexes, or something like that, which are basically events (especially painful ones) that get stuck in your memory and resurface when similiar events occur, bringing back painful memories. Maybe that's what my fear of sleeping in a bed is, fear of that one night when I was having a heart attack. If so, if I know what it is you'd think it would go away, but maybe my conditioning is too centered now to break out of it?

Another big fear I have is worrying that, by obsessing over something, I bring it into existence. For example, I never really noticed my stomach, then one day I noticed how it was the one part of my body that weighed more then the other parts (I"m only 138 pounds). Now whenever I look at myself in the mirror all I can see is my stomach, and it seems bigger sometimes, which is nonsense of course. Or, I never really was bothered over the thought of penis size, until a gay on-lin friend of mine asked me how long mines could get. He told me his was seven inches erect. So, out of curiosity I measured mine and I found it was only 5 erect, an inch below average. Now whenever I look at my penis it seems way smaller then it was before, which I know makes me sound insane, and indeed it sounds very silly (yeah yeah, too much information, but after giving details of that Pan thing I have no pride). I mean, penis size is pretty trivial as far as I'm concerened, but I wonder about what would others think. By obsessing over these things I'm probably creating psychosomatic disorders or something. What was that thing Jung said "If you think black thoughts often enough, black thoughts will gather around you"? Sometimes I worry that by constantly thinking I have cancer or a brain tumor such a disease will actually manifest in my body.

If I could just find a way to stop obsessing over my health I'm sure my outlook on life would be a little less gloomy. Well, losing my virginity would definetly help too, though maybe part of the reason I haven't had sex is because I'm subconciously afraid of it, due to body insecurities and fear of the unknown, etc. Obviously my deconditioning still needs a lot of work.
 
 
penitentvandal
17:11 / 03.04.03
Well, you're halfway there in that I think you've diagnosed the problem; but as you observe, just knowing what's wrong with you on an intellectual level won't help you get rid of it. You need to purge that fear of death, ritually or otherwise; and you need to get laid too, from the sound of it. If I was still on my rigid Carrollian trip I'd probably say something about how that would help you know Thanateros in hir entirety and make your magick more powerful; which would actually be true, really. Work on it one thing at a time, though - take the bed thing first, then move out from there. Etc.

I used to question my sanity all the time. Then I took a look at everyone else and thought...Nah. I still sometimes find it hard to believe what I get up to, but that's normal. Ish. I think.

And don't worry about the penis thing. Size queens are boring.
 
 
John Adlin
17:37 / 03.04.03
One of my freinds has spent a few mnths in a mental instituition. So he has first hand experice of "madness". Straight from his mouth. He's not a practising Magician but he's a big Comic Book/Sic Fi-Head.
He knows sevral magaicians-one which he met while "away". Nowadays he's pretty level headed but suffers from occasinal depression.

So to paraphase his words.
"Do magic but do other stuff as well."
 
 
EE
18:14 / 03.04.03
The best way I've found to overcome my fear of insanity is to ask myself if I still have empathy for other people's pain. That's all that's really important.
 
 
cusm
18:34 / 03.04.03
Sypha,

BREATHE!

The best advice I can give is wise words from the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo:

you worry too much
you'll make yourself sad
you can't change fate
so don't feel so bad
enjoy it while you can
its just like the weather
so quit complaining brother
NO ONE LIVEs FOREVER!



That being done, do try to relax. Practice meditation and centering, to let your fears slowly seep out of you until they cease to matter. You really need to relax a bit, or you'll convince yourself that you're insane when your only fault is being a bit high strung. Many have walked the ways you are looking into before, and come out ok. Just take your time and you'll be fine. Don't do more than you can swallow at a time, give yourself ample grounding time between workings to digest, and you're psyche will hold up. Its the fear that will undo you, not the magick.
 
 
Salamander
18:45 / 03.04.03
oh yeah, just take a break for a while
 
 
illmatic
18:47 / 03.04.03
Well, I can empathise with the "fear of madness" thing, I think worrying about it is quite common - I didn't have it exactly the same way, it was more huge crushing self-doubt, about everything I was doing, who I was etc. I divined (as usual), dreamt about it, tried to relax and followed the advice of a friend - "take one day at a time". Seemed to work after a while.

Not that I'm sorted now by the way. Not by a long shot. I think the only time we stop being in process is when we die. That's why I didn't agree with this:

I thought magicians were supposed to have no hang-ups or were able to get past problems they have, but I still can't.

Well, maybe you will at some point. Maybe all this is part of it, thinking out loud. As VV says, sounds like you've got a good grasp on your problems anyway. Sometimes you don't even need to "deal" with stuff, just remain still for a while, let life wash over you a bit, and see how you feel. I enjoy reading your posts, btw.

To digress a second, maybe what you've said is behind why I don't like the phrase "magician" - implies too much kind of power and perfection, too much glamour. "Person interested in their own process" isn't as snappy though, is it? Some people might try and project an image of having no hang ups, but this is just a load of bullshit at the end of the day - we're all flawed. That's one of the reasons I like Crowley, the most cursory reading of his life and you get all his character flaws up front, it's impossible to turn the man into a saint.

And sanity ... hmmm. A lot of what goes on every day lacks this quality to me. Look at this fucking war. Is that sane? Are those fuckers George Bush and Donald fucking Rumsield sane? If those fucking corrupt evil shitbags are sane, lock me up now. Sorry, starting to rant a bit - had to vent.

(Oh and final bit of threadrot- Welcome back Mixmage!!!)
 
 
Kobol Strom
21:02 / 03.04.03
sanity is a coat you wear twice a year
 
 
eye landed
01:23 / 04.04.03
SN: I think this message board is not the best place for you to work out your feelings of sexual inadequacy and fear of death. There are "regular" people who specialize in that kind of thing, since you seem to be saying they are doing more harm than good to your way of life, it might be an idea to see one of these "therapists." Not because you are "mad," but because you have some problems in your life that you are having trouble dealing with by yourself. This doesn't make you a bad magician; a good magician will use all resources available to achieve hir ends.

On the other hand, if you can change your attitude slightly, the issues you are struggling with can become a valuable learning experience. Think of your problems as a vacation: once they are gone, all that will remain is a memory, and I can bet you won't have explored fully every nook and cranny while you were visiting. So test the boundaries of your fears. If they break, then you win. If you break, it's likely that you can be mended.

As for a fear of death, I bet you had a fear of birth while you were in the womb.

If you want to get laid, you have three options, really. First is to hire a prostitute. This will "break the ice" between you and sex, and it won't intimidate you so much. Second is to get really drunk and find somebody unattractive and desperate (this is how I lost my virginity, except that I was on the receiving end). This has the same effect as the first one. Third, the hardest method, especially when you're looking for same-sex sex, is to forget your obsession with sex and make as many friends as you can. Spend a lot of time with these friends until you feel the time is right. When you do, don't second-guess yourself: just go for it. (If they call the anti-fag squad, leave town or something.)

I am not a psychiatrist. I just play one on the internet. (And not very well, at that.)
 
 
--
04:46 / 04.04.03
Purging the fear of death? What was that line in "The Invisibles"? "Fear of death is the signpost that ego has reached it's limit: you are not even born yet". Actually, I finished the "Illuminatus" trilogy today and there was one line, something like how fear of death was the start of slavery or something along those lines. It made me think of this thread of course. Perhaps my fear of it has enslaved me and prevents me from doing what I really want to do. It probably doesn't help that I have a grandfather who is slowy dying and going mad, or that my beloved cat of 13 years was put down months ago. Then again, now we have a new cat I absolutely adore, so the process repeats itself.

As for feeling empathy for other people's pain, well of course I still do, especially for animals and insects. I don't think about myself on a 24 hour basis, I usually go out of the way to help other people.

Regarding meditation, I tried that months ago with little result, whenever I would close my eyes and try not to think I always get a numbing cobwebbish feeling in my head that distracts me from relaxing. I think this has to do with a excessive wax buildup in my ear that needs to be removed every few months. Though once I was at the school library and I meditated and afterwards I felt very calm and tranquil for hours afterwards. That only happened once though.

And Illmatic, I was actually being sarcastic when I put that comment about magicians being flawless, I just forget to put the tongue smiley at the end. I don't think anyone is flawless, but some magic books paint the competent magician as someone who can rise past their flaws. I should point out that I have been taking a break from magic for a month now, doing only small spells for trivial banal things.

Finally, sub, it's not so much a matter of working out my feelings (as I've been over them in my head quite a bit for years now) and I don't expect answers, I'm just one of those people who post whatever is on their mind, and I have to tell someone just to get it off my chest. It's not the kind of thing my friends or parents would understand at all. Therapists, maybe, but I doubt that's the answer. You may be on to something with that fear of birth thing (Grof's "Basic Perinatal Matrix" theory in that book I mentioned). I'm not sure I agree with your 3 options for losing virginity: I doubt I could sneak a prostitute into my parent's house and besides, I'd rather not risk getting an STD (not that all prostitutes have STDs, I know). Getting drunk is out of the question as alcohol is a huge no-no for people with bad heartburn. And I have enormous trouble making friends, all my current friends are lesbians. When I do have sex with someone I want it to be with someone I love, which sounds overly sentimental and optimistic. Otherwise I'd feel like a character in a Dennis Cooper novel or something. For some reason it seems that the few gay guys I ever meet that seem perfect for me are always hooked up with someone else, so I'm always out of luck, but I've been over this topic before in my misleading dream message thread so I'll try not to repeat myself.

A few months ago I was at a CD/comic book store one night (I rarely ever go there at night as the traffic is wretched) and I purchased a Jim O'Rourke CD and a Filth comic book. The cashier who checked them out told me that he was a big fan of Jim O'Rourke's music. Then when he saw the comic I was buying he told me that he loved Grant Morrison's work, especially "The Invisibles", so we had a short conversation about that (it's not often I get to talk to a person of such tastes). After he cashed me out he told me that he had enjoyed our conversation, I agreed and left after that. I had developed an instant crush. Of course, I never followed up on it. After all, all I knew about him was his name, some of his interests and what he looked like, and I had no clue about his sexual orientation. I saw him again recently at the CD store, I guess he just works night shifts. I was going to walk over and say hi to him but obviously by this point he's forgotten who I am, but I still remember him. How can you hit on someone when they're at their job? Maybe if he was stocking CDs, but he's usually at the register. If only I knew him outside of work, or if he worked at my store. At one point they had a job opening at the night shift, and I planned on applying, but then I thought it would be foolish to quit my current job and get a new one simply because I had crush on a cashier there (not to mention the longer drive!). And besides, what if I found out he wasn't even gay or bi, or that he was with someone already. Thankfully common sense overuled hormones in this case. This example pretty much sums up how all my crushes never seem to go anywhere.

Damn, I'm typing whatever's on my mind again. Ah well, you should be used to it by now.
 
 
angel
11:34 / 04.04.03
Woah, Sypha! So much is going on for you. Please don't take this the wrong way, but this journey you are on is going to take the rest of your life (and possibly then some) to complete. You are only just beginning and aiming for perfection is an ideal ideal, but it is just that. An ideal, a concept, a thing to strive for but to not necessarily ever reach. Just don't be too hard on yourself, you have managed what you can, when you can. And that is more than good enough.

The main thoughts that come to me from reading your posts are "Cut yourself some slack babe!" It is important to aim high in life, but if that just grinds you down, then find another road that will get you down the path but with less damage. And also "Breathe!". I think someone said this earlier, but keep on breathing. It will help to ground you and prevent you from spinning yourself into knots, which I think is one of the many things happening to you right now.

I really empathise with some of what you say as regarding questions of "sanity" and "normality". Somedays I can handle being left of centre, and even feel happy, content and joyous about my lack of abilty to fit into "normalised society". Somedays however, it is really hard and I feel really alone and vulnerable. I find it helps when you are in the thick of it to remember that the feelings will pass and that sometimes you just have to "ride the snake" of life and accept the experiences life wants to throw at you.

As others have said, sanity is a consensual construct. Living outside of that construct means that we are seen as "insane" by others who do not share our world views. I agree with the advice you have been given by others on this. As long as you can function in both worlds, then you're actually doing just fine.

If sitting meditation doesn't suit you, then maybe you should look at more active forms such as Tai Chi or Yoga. Believe it or not, these too are forms of meditation (resulting in mind calm) just in different form. Sitting meditation doesn't really suit me at all, but Yoga does - it's just the way I am. There are usually classes to be found at Gyms, alternative therapies shops/practices, community centres, etc.

The other thing I have noticed, is I cam reach a meditative state only by NOT actively clearing my mind. If I TRY to do it then I am assulted by thought forms and concepts even more strongly than usual. However, if I calm down and let my mind come to it's own resting place, that I find it all works much better.

In my experience, there is nothing wrong with asking questions about your sanity. It's all part of our questing and investigation of life itself.

As to Barbelith being a place to explore yourself and your insecurities I disagree with whoever said they thought this was not the place to do it. If anything I think this is a great place to explore yourself in, it's certainly going to be one of the more supportive places around. And remember that in a place like this you will learn just as much from watching and listening as you will from active participation.

So take a deep breath, and keep on going. You're doing just fine.
 
 
eye landed
12:40 / 04.04.03
As to Barbelith being a place to explore yourself and your insecurities I disagree with whoever said they thought this was not the place to do it.

Probably better than pretty much anywhere else online, but I think faceless communication is a barrier to trust, which is important for therapy. It isn't impossible to get shrunk by Barbelith, just more difficult.

SN: I could defend my three options, but I won't bother. You seem to be doing pretty well, judging by the number of smilies in your post, so I'll leave you as you are for now.

"Hey...remember me? We had a chat a while ago about Grant Morrison...?"
"Oh yeah...what's up?"
"I was wondering if you'd be interested in screaming along to industrial music while rubbing my naked body with leaves."
"..."

Sorry, couldn't resist.
 
 
Quantum
13:36 / 04.04.03
Just had to endorse EE's post "The best way I've found to overcome my fear of insanity is to ask myself if I still have empathy for other people's pain. That's all that's really important."
If you still have empathy then you should be fine.
Also an off the cuff value judgement- you worry too much, and possibly spend too much time on the internet. If you spent the energy on pulling that you do on posting, you'd be a studmuffin in a week.
Don't take it the wrong way, I love to read your posts, but you shopuld follow Maxi Jazz's example; "I thought about it, I got up, and I did it" Less analysis, more action.
And at the danger of repeating stuff, you're not mad, don't worry about it.
 
 
gravitybitch
14:58 / 04.04.03
There's lots of good advice here, so I won't repeat any of it. I do want to extend my sympathies to you for the loss of your cat (my two are 14 and not doing that well) and your grandfather's failing health. PM me if you want...

As far as meditation goes, the most helpful thing I've found is something called a "body scan." Basically, you find a quiet place, sit upright, and then start paying attention to your breath. Feel it in your nostrils, down the back of your throat; feel your belly and chest expand and how your shirt shifts on your skin... Do this for a little bit, until you're quiet and centered, then start at one foot. What are the sensations in your little toe? Put all your awareness right there, but don't move that toe. Don't move at all, except for your breathing. If you can't pick out any sensations from that toe, it's ok. Move on to the next toe, pay attention to it. Slowly work your way up your foot - the top, the ball, the arch, the heel; up your leg to your hip...and then do the other side. Then start in on your torso - it's a matter of personal preference as to whether you start fresh at the base of your spine and work your way up, or if you just slide your awareness over from your hip and then start upwards. Don't ignore your genitals or anus, or the muscular tension you're using to stay upright - pay attention to everything. I generally finish this by moving my attention from my neck up the back of my head, over my scalp and forward, and ending by feeling the breath in my nose and mouth.

If there's muscular tension, be aware of it, but don't do anything with it - this is an exercise in awareness and being present in your body.

Enjoy!
 
 
kid entropy
17:21 / 04.04.03
hey sypha,i'm new but a few parralells popped up in reading your posts.at 15 i fell ill with bad viral infections,and for a while my breathing dipped down to 58%,needless to say,this sped my heart up bad and fear of death was all pervasive.i was convinced i was finished.yes,it got twice as bad after lying down for a kip.when the health tried to clear up,i'd already learned to hold my chest all tight with fear.i wouldn't entertain the thought that any of it was psychological.i latched on to a dying boy persona.first a snarling naysaying punk,then a wilting keatsian angel,blush...went on for years ,always expecting an early grave.anyway,i travelled around the world,had loves and slowly i realized what i created.old habits died hard.i had to realize that my problems weren't cosmic doom and just ordinary kid terror.i started reichian 3 weeks ago.no extreme breakthroughs get.but i feel my body softening,fears squeezing out.it'll take a while to disperse 7 years of accumulated bullshit and defenses.i'm also putting up less of a front with others,open communication helps.one more thing,i blamed the health collapse as the only cause,but it just helped already existent fears,gradiosity,narcissism,misanthropy,you name it,it just helped all that bloom.and you half to laugh a bit at how badly we can fuck ourselves over,ease up on yourself.i saw the joke in everything for year's and i'm just finally seeing the lovely joke that i am.i've never written on message boards before this week,boys and girls so my apologies for the melodramatic writng style,it'll take a while to get my normal charming conversational self to translate properly into text.
 
 
penitentvandal
21:14 / 04.04.03
I move that we henceforth abandon the term 'magician' in favour of illmatic's 'Person Interested in My Process'. Or, PIMP for short.

Really good 'magi' (of the hipsolympus variety, i.e. Grant & Alan) may henceforth be known as Magian Avatars of Cosmic Knowledge Divined Actively Directly Due to Yoga, or...

Sorry. Being puckish and unserious @ the mo'.

Personally I think the screaming along to industrial music while rubbing body with leaves line sounds like a classic. I shall enedeavour to use it in toon 2moro, in the least appropriate context possible...
 
 
LVX23
22:37 / 04.04.03
SN, keep in mind the simple facts of biology and development as well. I'm guessing from a few clues in your posts that you're somewhere in the range of 17 to 19 years of age. You body is going through a lot of shit on its own right now. Bones are shifting, hormones are flying all about, neural processes are still plastic and malleable and highly susceptible to influence. There's a lot of chemistry going on independent of what's happening in your head. Or rather, what's happening in your head is, to a degree, influenced by what's going on in your body right now.

You've got to ride this out and really try to identify the things about existence that make you happy, then reinforce these things as often as possible. The more secure you feel about who you are, the more others like yourself will be drawn to you.
 
 
eye landed
00:28 / 05.04.03
I'm guessing from a few clues in your posts that you're somewhere in the range of 17 to 19 years of age.

You missed the clue where SN said he is 22 until June 17. Assuming that is who you are talking about.

Nonetheless, what LVX23 says is probably true to some extent.
 
 
LVX23
01:16 / 05.04.03
Ah, oops. I thought he mentioned somewhere that he was in high school...

No offense meant.
 
 
Sebastian
01:25 / 05.04.03
I-just-can-nn't-ref-refff-refrain-maself.

Sypha wrote: Regarding meditation, I tried that months ago with little result, whenever I would close my eyes and try not to think I always get a numbing cobwebbish feeling in my head that distracts me from relaxing. I think this has to do with a excessive wax buildup in my ear that needs to be removed every few months.

I might be wrong, but this may actually be an indication of relaxation. You see, a lot of autonomic -automatic- bodily responses occur while meditating, not orchestrated by the "sympatic" nervous system which is for "alert", but rather from the "parasympatic", which is for relaxation. Its the same system which becomes over-active when we fall asleep, and incidentally it is the same system that produces bronchial constriction in asthmatics (crisis usually exacerbate by night), and in non-asthmtic people also, but of course they don't notice. I mention this last bit, because it causes the respiratory mucosa to become thicker, and this is the same mucosa that covers your ears, which probably "thickens" while you enter meditation-relaxation and you get "numbness". Other parasymatic responses may be flushes of blood all over the face for example, indicating vasodilation, in the hands, which feel heavier and warmer, and so on.

And Sypha, your time will come. Guaranteed.
 
 
Sebastian
01:49 / 05.04.03
Well, I've just decided your time Is Now.

... he told me that he loved Grant Morrison's work, especially "The Invisibles", so we had a short conversation about that [...] I was going to walk over and say hi to him but obviously by this point he's forgotten who I am, but I still remember him.

Dead Wrong. The percentage of inividuals of the world's population who can identify fucking Morrison is ridiculously small and finite. Not to speak that 95% of conversations this guy is usually exposed to are about the last TV episode of shitty Friends, job, salary, mommy, Monica Lewinsky's show. I am thinking also it would be strange enough he hadn't yet hit on Barbelith, but lets leave speculation here.

and I had no clue about his sexual orientation [...] what if I found out he wasn't even gay or bi, or that he was with someone already.

This is not the matter at hand. First you get to approach him, and talk, and talk, and talk. While you talk, you get to check whatever he does with his body: he may either obviuosly reject you, stay indifferent, or approach you with comfort, regardless of sexual orientation which I insist is out of the question. But go check. You first develop a customer relation. And even if he is not bi or gay then chances are he knows or moves in circles where they also move comfortably, meaning that if he reads fucking Morrison he is fairly open minded and receptive.

How can you hit on someone when they're at their job?

You are going to play this game, there's no other way, you wouldn't be asking, you wouldn't had even figured you can actually hit on someone at their job.
 
 
--
02:53 / 05.04.03
Wow, this thread's really gone in unexpected directions. Then again, so did my dream thread a few weeks back. Forgive me if I get too personal at times, it comes from reading too many Anne Sexton poems. Actually, it's probably because I'm an intovert in real life but an extreme extrovert on-line. I'll definetly look into some of the tips on meditation mentioned here.

Actually, I'm fairly comfortable being a non-conformist, I just wish I knew more non-conformist. I know more interesting people on-line then I do in real life, sadly. Having said that, I value the opinions of many people on this board as you all seem to be a little more with it and can usually anser my occult based questions. Actually, I don't spend that long on-line, maybe about an hour and a half each day, if that.

And yes, I am 23, at the end of the first post I was ruminating on how my birth month and date add up to 23, and how I'm turning 23 this year, in 2003, etc.

As for rubbing myself with leaves, I'm not quite sure why the leaves were there. I had gone outside to grab some nature stuff to decorate my room with so I grabbed sticks and grass and leaves, not knowing what I'd be using them for. I had no clue I'd be rubbing them over my body, I guess I got caught up in the moment. Thank god it wasn't poison ivy. I can inagine it would be a fun ritual for two. The most important part of it was I lost my sense of ego and identity for a brief bit, which freed me up considerably.

As for that guy I had a crush on, I was HOPING he'd be on Barbelith. There was a reason I posted that "Does anyone here live in Rhode Island?" thread in the community section months ago, I was hoping that maybe he came here. No dice there I guess...

"You are going to play this game, there's no other way, you wouldn't be asking, you wouldn't had even figured you can actually hit on someone at their job."

If I'm playing a game it's a slow game: I've only seen him three times in the last few months and the last time I talked to him was late October. Obviously were I to have a conversation with him it would be better were he going around the store tidying up the CDs rather then were he at the cash register (where, y'know, there are people in line waiting and stuff). Of course, everytime I've seen him there it's been on a Friday night. H'mm. Usually I have a pretty good eye for figuring out sexual orientation, but this case is tricky. I'm not sure what I should say to him. Maybe I should wait till "The Filth" #10 comes out. Just kidding...
 
  
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