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"Stupid" magick, religion and spirituality questions

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00:24 / 29.12.05

To clarify: It can speak, but it only has that one line. If it has a name, it's not telling me.

Ask it, in exactly these words:

"Is the reason that you do not speak more than that one line to me because of something I've done to you?"

agent darkbootie

03:34 / 29.12.05

I'm not really talking about that level of non-motivation. I'm talking about being so inert I can't even do the fun stuff.

That sounds miserable. I can really relate.

I'm currently in a therapy group for people who who were abused as children. Childhood abuse can be a big source of depresion later in life. Not saying that's you necessarily, but it's worth thinking about.

One of the techniques we use is to take a piece of paper and write from our conscious mind with our right hand, and answer from a more buried part with our left. Yeah, it sounds kind of "woo-woo," I know, but then this is exactly the sort of crowd that might be open to it.

You can use this technique to talk to the abused child still living inside... Or in your case you could use it to talk to your depression. Question it and challenge it. Write from your highest self with your right hand and see what it says.

If your depression says, "You will never be anything of worth, it's all hopeless," answer back with, "I've done plenty of worth while things and made all kinds of progress in my life, why do you say it's all hopeless?"

Write down the dialogue and see if you learn anything or feel any better. It's worth a shot.

agent darkbootie

03:39 / 29.12.05

On another subject, I have a question I'd classify as stupid:

Are ouija boards useful? And if so, what's the best way of working with one?

Reason I ask is a guy I know found a ouija board at a thrift store and wants to bust it out at a gathering this weekend. I figured I know a little bit more than your average citizen about this sort of thing, but not enough.

Anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, warnings or techniques?

Unconditional Love

11:03 / 29.12.05

I am in a similar situation agent dark, just learning to deal with all the masks i have been wearing for so long to hide myself.

On the ouija board, i made one not so long ago from a bread board and can use a small wine glass as a plantiff, i am still too scared to approach it so it lays against a book case.

I am looking for a therapy group at the moment close to me, so far it looks as if i am going to be shelling out a huge amount for train fares each week, but i am guessing the contact is worth more than the money.

11:15 / 04.01.06

there's a meditation online somewhere, i tried to find the link when i read this but i couldn't. so i'll paraphrase it & add stuff from other sources & experience etc.

this kind of thing is associated with working with Babalon & is fundamentally a good thing if taken as an opportunity.

the trick is to be able to feel our pain, anger etc, as much as possible dissociating it from the events that gave rise to it.

the phrase given in the meditation is that the events are gone, past, they are just images, but the emotions remain. the more one can achieve this separation, the less one becomes emeshed in the past which is a good beginning.

i think so much of it is about examining our own behaviours and perhaps examining the ways in which we act in self-harmful ways.. and then being more and more willing to drop anger, resentment, hostility etc etc.

it takes time

i didn't think it was important to find a job per se, i do think it's important that throughout this process we can do things, no matter what they are, which affirm that we intend to go on living & doing things, if we're feeling suicidal.

a lot of it comes down to the sheer will to survive through this dark night of the soul. more means & methods come in time.

it's about being willing to experience our feelings but without identifying with them. thus the meditation is often given "I am not my feelings, i am not my thoughts, i am pure consciousness/the observer". moving to a centre above all of these manifestations, not shutting them out but being able to experience them without being identified with them.

so that basically in the first instance we have the option of not having our actions excessively influenced and dominated by negative stuff. a lot of the time you will feel a certain way but you may have to act in exactly the opposite way.

the more this is achieved, the more we start to feel greater security amidst all the chaos and terror. it becomes up to us to manifest our own ideas of stability.

it takes an honest but compassionate look at ourselves.

it often comes down to things as simple as looking at the ways in which we could let healing & love into our lives but we, in the grip of darker emotions, shut it out & thus deny ourselves the very things that we're seeking

etc etc

11:17 / 04.01.06

the focus is more on self in this because it's realising that we can't control others and change their behaviours, but we can change ourselves, our behaviours attitudes .. get over our reactions and give intelligent responses to situations which are in line with.. our true will.. or what we really want in our lives.

situations with others change in any case very often in reflection of the ways in which we've changed. but it does help to cease to preoccupy with what we can't control and to focus on what we can, ie ourselves

taken the right way, and with the attitude of endurance & the will to survive, the whole thing can be a great opportunity to find higher awareness.

Unconditional Love

12:37 / 04.01.06

I agree with you on everything Anth except one point, which ive found key to my own experiences, but it may well differ for you.

Disassociation from the past is part of my own problems, i am finding in order to be healed i have to literally become the sick images inside of me, i have to feel it all again, be the child, but from the point of view of a man who is now old enough to deal with and care for the child in me and protect him.

Learning to protect myself from lifes many disablers and abusers, the abused who have become abusers is my current concern, but mainly learning to heal.

Perhaps after, giving protection and care to others who have suffered in similar fashions.

I think you right its a great opportunity for higher awareness and also self awareness but id have to emphasise that self healing must take place first and foremost. I think you have to be your wounded sick self before you can truly heal, i know disassociation does not work for me in my situation.

10:52 / 05.01.06

absolutely agree.
for me it just reached a point where i thought that i was endlessly regurgitating the past to the point where it had outlived its usefulness, and that the issues that had provoked such extreme feelings in me were in the present and to be resolved there in actions. no doubt at all that thorough self-healing & facing the repressions is a huge deal with it all & i apologise if i made it sound otherwise.

Unconditional Love

12:42 / 05.01.06

No apology needed mate, useful to have other view points.

18:16 / 09.01.06

I'm going to pre-empt my question with a "Too Much Information" warning, as it deals with something decidedly personal. I've only recently (4-5 months) reintroduced myself to magic, and have taken an interest in sigil magic. As we're probably all well aware, sex of some kind is a pretty good way, not to mention a fun one, of charging up said sigils. However, and here comes the too much information, I've recently had that operation that makes most men cross their legs and prohibits me from procreating any more. Given that such an operation does not allow semen, only seminal fluid, during ejaculation, does anyone think this decreases the power one wields when using sexual magic? Does the physical bit count for as much, or is it more the act itself?

(I'm totally sorry if that's an inappropriate question, but it's something that's been on my mind.)

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

18:23 / 09.01.06

Um, I believe it is the temporary, fleeting dissolution of self at the point of climax, allowing access to the higher self/unconscious, rather than the protein content of the byproduct, which gives the ritual its alleged power.

You wank away, now. Or shag, you lucky old dog, you.

20:30 / 09.01.06

I'd thought that too, but one text I read referred to not only the dissolution of oneself, but also of a bodily "sacrifice" of sorts. I was concerned that my sacrifice wouldn't be up to snuff.

But, as I'm feeling a little embarassed, enough about my bodily fluids....

Next question?

11:33 / 11.01.06

Why, but there are so many other completely non-embarassing ways of sigil-charging! Like painting them under your feet and then dance them away. [delete]In the streets. Naked.[/delete]
Or bake them into cookies and eat them [delete]at work, telling your boss you're just performing a mystical magical act[/delete].
You could also climb on a high hill and then charge them in a little ritual on top of that mountain, while your mind is blissfully tilt by all the exhaustion [delete]and a large touring party is standing around, watching you[/delete].
Aaah, the fun of it!

20:19 / 17.01.06

If you`ve tried opening/widening chakras are unpleasant physical side effects a good thing or a sign you`ve screwed things up? (OK results are results..but I`m not a big fan of pain)

If it helps you help me... sacral chakra caused bad lower back pain (for about a day) and throat chakra gave me really bad wild shites within 10 mins.

At first I tried traditional approaches. Then I got a little creative and welded together a few things that have got me results in the past. ( relaxation by tensing and then relaxing, note difference, relax more...meditation, watch own conciousness for a while, shut down any long threads...visualisation, like reading in a really good book and not noticing your surroundings or writing a story or being an interactive storyteller where the people you are interacting with are bits of yourself)

Not enough time has passed to see if the results I wanted have happened..but if things have gone tits up then I`d like to deal with them sooner rather than later.

20:48 / 17.01.06

If you`ve tried opening/widening chakras are unpleasant physical side effects a good thing or a sign you`ve screwed things up? (OK results are results..but I`m not a big fan of pain)

Well, I'm not really a believer in "chakras" as a discrete set of objects in the "body" that you can just plug into (see the Kundalini thread for more details). I'd rather just think of whatever it is you're doing as something that's impacting on your body and it's tensions somehow. I think all the baggage and mysticism that goes with chakras can get in the way of your actual experience.

I find Wilhem Reich's model of armouring very useful. Armouring in his sense of the word means habitual tensions that we've become used to, that underpin our personalities. Reich's work shows that relaxing these tensions can indeed have very powerful adverse effects, that in the long term, can be good for you.... however, everyone is different, and the internet is a rather crap way of addressing what's occuring with someone else's body. I'd take it gently and easily if I were you. In particular, I would be enormously careful of doing anything that buggers up your back.

In summary, gentle and easy is the way to go, adverse effects - esp. emotional outpouring - are not necessairily a bad thing, but only you can really be the judge.

22:59 / 17.01.06

before anyone repplies to this question, please bear in mind the title of the thread!

So, my question:

Where do I start?

23:08 / 17.01.06

At the beginning.

Research around for a while, get a feel for what it is that seems right to you. But always question what you learn.

Start trying to see the world in a new way. Magic is always there, you just need to know what to look/feel for.

Don't be afraid to take it slow and not get in over your head, but at the same time try not to come to a standstill.

I'll let some of the more informed members of the board fill in the rest, I mostly just wanted to say that first line...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

08:56 / 18.01.06

I would say start by learning some method of divination. This is a vital part of any magician's toolkit. As to which method out of all the many and varied ones out there, well, that's largely up to you.

I favour Tarot myself but that's as much from familiarity as anything. The Tarot has the advantage of being reasonably easy to grasp in a shallow way, giving you a useful starting-point whilst repaying further and deeper study as you learn more.

The I Ching is an awesome oracle which I can't use. You really need to engage with it in a very deep way, I think. It lacks the plug-and-play accessibility of the Tarot, but I think it may be more subtle and possibly more powerful, if one were to devote a sufficient portion of one's life to understanding it.

The runes are fantastic, being useful for both divination and for the practice of magic. However if you use them regularly and really engage with them you will eventually end up dealing with the One-Eyed Bastard and His various and several drinking buddies, on some level at least. If you're okay with that then have at it by all means, but do read up on the associated pantheon before getting involved. Oh, and you'll need to make your own runeset because storebought runes are for fluffbunnies.

Have fun!

09:03 / 18.01.06

Oh, and you'll need to make your own runeset because storebought runes are for fluffbunnies

Does the material you make them from matter? Or is it one of those personal choice affairs? Anyone experimented in this area?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

09:15 / 18.01.06

According to Tacitus' contemporary writings, runestocks were generally made from a branch of a fruit-bearing tree*. It's generally recommended that one use natural materials such as wood, stone or clay. I have heard that glass is also a good material but I have never seen glass runes.

I haven't experimented with different materials much myself. My first set of runes was made from the white cardboard used to pack a shirt, and was very variable as to accuracy! I've used a storebought clay set (not my own) and it simply didn't work for me at all.

My current set was made from elder and with some rigmarole (there's a thread around here somewhere in which I went into more detail--a search on "Runes" will pick it up). It packs far more of a wallop than I expected. I don't use it much for divination, except for questions regarding my spirit-work.

*At least, we think Tacitus is talking about runestocks.

09:20 / 18.01.06

I think as far as materials for making items such as runes go, its all about the "direct contact" with whatever you're working with. These aren't decisions you should make yourself in any conscious sort of way, or get out of a book. The decision to shape your rune set (or whatever) out of, say, ash wood or pebbles found on the beach, should evolve out of your engagement with whatever it is you're doing. There should be a sense of a very real two way dialogue going on between yourself and something else (which could be framed as Spirits, Deities, the Universe, the unconscious mind, or whatever your working model of "the stuff behind magic" might be). There should be something on the other end of your practice that gives you the nods and the guidance along the road. A good sign that you are ready to make a rune set, or other magical tool, is when you have an implicit understanding of how it should be made, what materials should be used, and importantly - why. In a sense, magical tools are a physical representation of an internal process that has taken place and will continue to take place after you have constructed the items. The tools represent your relationship with that "something else" and by working with them you deepen that nascent relationship that you have shaped.

13:29 / 18.01.06

However if you use them regularly and really engage with them you will eventually end up dealing with the One-Eyed Bastard and His various and several drinking buddies, on some level at least.

I get the impression this is supposed to be a risky thing. Could someone explain why please? I presume the Norse pantheon isn't exactly user-friendly if legend is anything to go by.

13:44 / 18.01.06

Risky in that you might not necessarily be prepared for an otherwise simple divinatory experiment to dovetail into the business of deity work and the attendant complexity it brings, both in terms of the practicalities of managing complex relationships with "invisible intelligences", and the raft of conflicting ideas around what those invisible intelligences may or may not be. Deity work, when fully engaged with, can lead you into some pretty challenging and demanding places. The runes are implicitly connected with Odin and the Norse pantheon, so if you really want to explore the runes and get to grips with what they are about, you have to prepared to take on deity work and all that entails as a part of the process.

13:54 / 18.01.06

Surely you could use runes for a fair while without getting into this though? I'm sure many people spend their whole "careers" with runes without doing so. I used them myself for a number of years without any deep engagement with their cultural background.

13:55 / 18.01.06

To clarify: I'ms sure most popular takes on runes don't go into this side of their usage, and I don't necessarily think they are any worse for that.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:05 / 18.01.06

Hrrm. That's complicated. I wouldn't say that runework was necessarily very risky per se, at least no more so than magic in general.

A lot depends on your approach, and how deeply you engage with the work. However, using a system like the runes which is intimately tied to a particular pantheon can occasionally take a person into strange new territory, maybe challenging your beliefs and demanding a very different approach than the one you started out with.

In the case of the runes, a person who starts out with a plakky Elder Futhark, a Llewellyn paperback, and a gods-as-archetypes mindset might go on for years without any interference at all, performing reasonable divination and the odd spell but not really getting into the heavy stuff. Or ze might decide that to make progress, ze wants to approach the pantheon for further instruction (or just suddenly find that they've attracted the attention of one or more of Team Norse), which will certainly take things into a different category.

As to risk: a lot depends who you approach for training (or who decides to take your case). All gods are risky, but some are riskier and more demanding than others. Odin is the great-granddaddy of the runes, the one credited with their discovery,and so in one sense is the obvious guy to ask about them; but Odin isn't just a God of runes and magic, He's a God of war, death, and assorted scary stuff, and is notoriously demanding of those who approach Him for aid. (Read some of the stories about Odin. I don't call Him the One Eyed Bastard for nothin'.) A person might decide that the benefits are worth the risks involved, but it would be stupid to ignore those risks.

This might all sound very tinfoil beanie, but it's my experience that dealing with gods--even gods-as-godforms, gods-as-archetypes--will impact on your life in a very real way. Sometimes the effects are subtle and beneficial, sometimes they're dramatic and catastrophic.

Just my take on things based on experience and discussions with others. Someone else might regard this as pure scaremongering; as with everything in magic, YMMV.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:12 / 18.01.06

Illmatic: Surely you could use runes for a fair while without getting into this though?

Many people won't, except in the most indirect and unconscious way. Most rune texts don't really get into the Gods side of things in a big way. You could go your entire life accomplishing sterling work, and never get into that angle at all.

It's just that some people I've encountered have suddenly discovered that their runeset came with a twelve-pack of Norse deities and no health-warning. I might sound over the top, but it does seem worth mentioning.

14:46 / 18.01.06

Mordant: Oh, and you'll need to make your own runeset because storebought runes are for fluffbunnies

why do you need to make your own runes, but buying tarot ready-made is acceptable?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:51 / 18.01.06

Because runes consist of a few simple lines which anyone can reproduce regardless of artistic skill, whereas if I tried to duplicate (say) the Thoth deck, I'd be here all life.

14:57 / 18.01.06

but if you DID spend some time and create a tarot pack yourself would it be INHERENTLY more powerful as you seem to be intimating that a hand-made rune set would be?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:04 / 18.01.06

I couldn't say for sure (since I haven't actually tried), but yes, it might well be. A stronger connection to the cartomancer, a deeper kind of mutual understanding, to put it metaphorically.

Normally you own a Tarot deck by use; regular contact, regular engagement, stands in for the processes involved in creating something from scratch. My current deck is grubby, fraying a little at the corners, stained with wax from spells, and has far more wallop than it did when I bought it a few years back. A handmade deck might pack the same kind of punch right from the getgo.

I'm very big on making one's own kit. Can you guys tell?

15:55 / 18.01.06

one more (very, I would imagine) stupid question then:

What do you people actually use divination for? I mean, what sort of questions do you ask?

16:51 / 18.01.06

Any question you can ask! Serious. It can be as mundane as "Will I be fired from my job tomorrow?", or as esoteric as "What is the best way to contact [entity]?" I tend to think of divination as a way of getting information I normally wouldn't be privvy to. Also, (and perhaps most importantly) it's always a good idea to do a divination before magickal workings, asking things like, "Am I going about this properly?", "Am I adequately prepared for this working?", etc.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:23 / 18.01.06

The reason you need divination as a magician is less for general predictions and more to examine the feisibility, wisdom and/or general rightness of a working before you get stuck in. I find the Tarot is great at pointing up potential hazards (not to mention times when my enthusiasm has temporarily sat on my conscience).

17:27 / 18.01.06

I don't think a beginner should be starting with runes of all divination-systems. Personally, I've been getting out of their way for years, feeling I just wasn't ready for their power. And when they nevertheless started to cross my way, I instantly learned that you can't play around with them, as you can with a tarot-deck or the I Ching. But as other people don't seem to be affected by runes in this way, perhaps it's something between me and them.

We're on good terms, now, but I never use them for divination, only for other magical jobs. I feel they have a very own and straightforward power, which doesn't really seem to relate to the Norse pantheon. But maybe that will change, if I get even deeper into that kind of work.

When I started divination I chose the tarot. Back then I used the Rider-Waite deck, which is easy for beginners, as the images mostly speak for themselves. Playing around with them and studying their meanings is like a little introduction to western magic in itself, because you also learn about the elements, archetypes and other symbols and how they relate to each other.

If you start divination, any question will do, as every session will teach you more about the meaning of the cards. When you proceed, you'll probably find out that clarifying your present situation is much more rewarding than asking questions about your future. But I guess that's advanced stuff, already.

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