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"Stupid" magick, religion and spirituality questions

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17:45 / 13.03.06

And Quantum, I'm pretty sure there's a native Brazilian legend that includes eels. I'll have to look it up, though. More on that later

Actually, I just looked it up and I found I was mistaking the poraquê (the native name for the eletric eel) with the pirarucu (another big fish, but not an eel), so, I got nothing. Sorry

18:06 / 13.03.06

Oh, and I asked that question not Quantum! Not to worry though Dead Megatron and thanks.

And as it's now stranded on the previous page I'm going to link back to my question here.
Link

18:15 / 13.03.06

Sorry about that, you all look the same to me

16:25 / 16.03.06

I have a question about the I CHing, which I'm beggining to study now. I just got the Richard Wilheim version and I was reading the introduction, concerning the ritual. It states that one must be facing south, being the the direction of the sun, the light. I understand the ritual is somewhat optional, but the thing is: I live in the South Hemisphere, which means that the direction of the sul/light is actually the north down here. Would it be a good idea to invert the position and face north?

18:47 / 16.03.06

Megatron: Really, what you have to do is stand on your head with one foot in a bucket of water.

More sensibly, I think it's a complete waste of time to concern yourself with irrelvancies like that, if they are removed from your immediate expereince. If an act of magick has you calculating bizarro details, and you're not clear on the purpose, don't bother.

19:14 / 16.03.06

Which foot? The bucket should be metal or plastic?

Seriously now

If an act of magick has you calculating bizarro details, and you're not clear on the purpose, don't bother

My kung fu master says pretty much the same thing. Yeah, I'll just follow my gut in this. Thanks for bothering, though

19:22 / 17.03.06

Whats an exact definition of a festish?

14:19 / 18.03.06

The term is usually used as a derivation from Freud's use of the word, meaning an irrational or abnormal sexual response to either something inanimate or a part of a body (rather than the whole person).

This use, however, derives from West African fetishes, which are small figurines imbued with spiritual power & personality.

This is a very simplified explanation; I'd toss in some links, but I have a 3-year-old in my lap complaining about batteries right now.

trouser the trouserian

14:23 / 18.03.06

sn00p

try the Fetish thread.

14:28 / 18.03.06

Grant: Does your three year old run on batteries? Is this more ecomomical than food?

19:57 / 18.03.06

No, she puts them in a sock and hits me with them until I give her Coca Cola.

All Acting Regiment

14:06 / 19.03.06

So I've just munched through a BBQ chicken and I want to keep the bones for purposes. I need to the residual meat and fat off them and keep 'em clean and not smelly. How? Boil them?

16:57 / 19.03.06

Yes. At least it works fine in taxidermy to get a clean mouse skull, If I remember my freshmen as a bio-grad well

16:00 / 20.03.06

Who was it in mythology who hung upside for a significant amount of time?
Answers on a post card to the usual adresse thank ya kindly.

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:12 / 20.03.06

Um. Odin hung for a significant length of time. Judas is portrayed sometimes as hanging by his feet....

16:13 / 20.03.06

Who was it in mythology who hung upside for a significant amount of time?
Answers on a post card to the usual adresse thank ya kindly.

rising and revolving

16:16 / 20.03.06

Snoop : Odin hung on the world tree in exchange for knowledge, so they say. For anything more detailed than that, I'd suggest speaking with Mr Carnival - the resident Barb-expert on everything Norse mythic.

17:07 / 20.03.06

Thank you, that'll do find.
I thought it was odin.
I think im goning to try it for myself.

17:38 / 20.03.06

Some people find inverted positions uncomfortable or worse, so you might want to gradually work your way up to spending a "significant amount of time" upside down.

A good start is viparita kirani, with instructions here:

http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/690_1.cfm

Or you can simply lie on a slantboard with your head lower than your feet.

Never invert yourself if you have serious eye problems, like glaucoma. And I wouldn't recommend HANGING upside down at all, unless you use some nice, safe gravity boots or other props and have a friend watch you the entire time.

I've fallen from an improperly-secured chin-up bar (doing chin-ups, no less) and I shudder to think of the damage you could do to yourself from a fall while hanging upside down.

Just my two cents.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:41 / 20.03.06

Um. I'm really not an expert, just kind of a fanboy. Pinch of salt ect.

Yeah, I think you mean Odin. I don't know about the upside-down part, but Odin is said to have hanged Himself upon Yggdrasil, the world tree, to gain knowledge of the runes. Here's the relevant bit of the Hávamál:

Wounded I hung on a wind-swept gallows
For nine long nights,
Pierced by a spear, pledged to Odhinn,
Offered, myself to myself
The wisest know not from whence spring
The roots of that ancient rood

They gave me no bread,
They gave me no mead,
I looked down;
with a loud cry
I took up runes;
from that tree I fell.

17:45 / 20.03.06

Are you sure? Hanging from a tree for nine days and nights, getting stabbed, plucking out your own eye? You can get a copy of 'Futhark' by Edredsson from many fine occult bookshops for about a tenner, the runes are open source now you know.

Unless the point is self-mortification, in which case you could try that Sioux ritual from 'A Man Called Horse' the Vow of the Sun ritual, which involves standing in the sun for two days and getting hung by ropes through prongs piercing your chest

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:04 / 20.03.06

Nine days and nights without food or water, so, y'know, good luck with that.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:22 / 20.03.06

All pisstaking aside, various forms of physical ordeal have a long history in magic and spirituality, including suspension. However suspension is not something for an amateur to mess around with--it's risky on a lot of levels. I'd like to give it a shot myself one day but I wouldn't go near it without a skilled ground crew.

If you're serious, then maybe hanging around a few fetish comms and asking some respectful questions would be a way to start?

21:16 / 20.03.06

Not to be mistaken with the West African... oh, nevermind.

Genuine question: Is Odin the *only* one what hung upside down?

I've never heard that about Judas, although I have heard about inverted crucifixions with a few martyrs (and, I think, St. Peter his own self). But earlier than that -- aren't there any subcontinental types or Native American characters who hung from a tree? I don't mean sun-dancers, I mean the mythological figures they may or may not be emulating.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

20:50 / 23.03.06

I have a question regarding experience.

There are certain things, songs I can hear, or books I can read, that feel like the resonate with me. The first time I do something (sex comes to mind as the most immediate example, stealing is also on the list) I feel like I am being shaken. I could never describe the feeling until I leaned against a base speaker at a rave for 20 minutes or so. The way my body vibrated with the beat felt the same way as what I am trying to describe. My head feels light, and I start thinking differently, making connections where there arent any, and after a while my limbs get very heavy.

I am asking this now because, foolish as it seems, I have been reading The Invisibles on my computer at work, and having just finished volumes 1 and 2 in sequential days sitting at my desk the feeling is there.

I know Grant Morrison has said that the idea of the Invisibles was to create a hyper sigil in the hopes of initiating people on a grand scale, and I am just curious if I am just being moved by the text to the point of physical reaction, or if something is actually happening to my head causing me to feel like this.

Honestly, Im not just talking shit here, every time I read any of the volumes all the way through this has happened, and I was nearly weeping when I read volume three all the way through for the first time.

Any input would be helpfull, and I am sure interesting considering where I am asking.

23:05 / 23.03.06

Some people resonate for me; oddly, whether they resonate or not has little correlation with whether or not we become friends. Some people also anti-resonate with me, and in one case I built a friendship with such a person, only to have it explode when we were too different to get along.

Some places also resonate with me, although this might be more an issue of pollution than anything else. Los Angeles has a negative sort of resonance, and I've grown to loathe the city; San Francisco, on the other hand, has positive vibes for me, and Portland, Oregon is practically glowing.

I'm not sure why it happens, but it sure is interesting.

11:30 / 24.03.06

I think I know the feeling you describe. And yeah, I too felt it after reading the Invisibles straight through over a period of three days. The shaking, the lightheadedness, the thinking of new thoughts. That last is what I've attributed it to in the past. Being subtly forced to think a new thought or make a new connection. But I can't really say for sure.

Have also felt this when confronting old memories and in deep discussion with other people. It's good but it doesn't always feel good, does it?

12:17 / 24.03.06

does anyone know the history/provenance/meaning of kind of double-crucifixes, y'know, the ones with two lateral bars rather than just one? there's a celtic christian link i think, and is the hierophant in the rider-waite deck holding one too? and did the TOPY use it as a symbol for a while? and do they have a less unwieldy name than 'kind of double crucifixes'?

sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, any help much appreciated, ta.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:59 / 24.03.06

I find symbols.com useful for this kind of stuff. They have a graphical search gizmo that's quite a help.

Is this what you're after? From the entry: "A Latin cross with two beams instead of one is known as the cross of Lorraine, the patriarchal cross, the archepiscopal cross."

Also, those aren't strictly crucifixes--they're just crosses. A crucifix is a depiction of the Crucifixion. No dying Jesus, no crucifix.

All Acting Regiment

13:02 / 24.03.06

I think the double crossbar is meant to represent the inscription (INRI). Mainly used by the Eastern Orthodox church and quite possibly called the greek cross, but I'm not sure.

13:16 / 24.03.06

lovely, very helpful, cheers.

05:10 / 26.03.06

Magic question here.

And I'm not a practicing magician or anything here but...I get these dreams, they average maybe once a month where I get these brilliant stories in comic book form. With dialogue and art and everything, better then I could ever do.

Is there some way to use magick to be able to capture that?

Whenever I try and think about it or write it down, a lot of it gets lost and the rest I know will end up getting filtered through me rather then the "pure" story. And I'm willing to try out some rather...unorthodox techniques to get stories that good.

05:56 / 26.03.06

I've had the same thing with seeing really wonderful art, and seeing incredible occult books (I think this type of experience is the origin of the idea of "The Necronomicon")

I think if you wrote them down, you'd find the stories weren't as good as you imagine. Objects and phrases in dreams are loaded with a kind of significance that doesn't always carry over into real life - for instance, I've managed to remember phrases that in a dream made me piss myself with laughter. In waking consciousness they're just not funny. Sometimes, I can understand the connection i.e. some sort of punning that made me laugh, but the intensity doesn't translate into waking consciousness.

Still, there's no reason not to use your dreams as a source of inspiration. Lots of writers and artists have down done the centuries. William Burroughs said he got around 50% of his plots and characters from his dreams. Your first step should be to keep a dream diary. When your recall improves - and it will - try some experiments with lucidity. Do a search - they'll be lots of threads around here somewhere.

06:00 / 26.03.06

I do keep a dream diary, not all that uh...disciplined about it.

But I'm thiking that the application of magick might help me do this. I'm more then willing to try some more unorthodox techniques in my writing process (or whatever might qualify as a process, im not really a process person).

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:10 / 27.03.06

I've got this shirt. It's an old shirt that I hadn't worn since before I left home, which turned up the last time I went back for a visit. Apart from needing a new button and a packet of Dylon (it's white and I don't wear much white anymore) it's pefect, and I need more shirts. Thing is, I used to wear it a lot during a very rough period of my life. Putting it on again would feel like wearing the person I was when those things were happening, if you get me.

The obvious thing to do would be give it away, but the fact that I feel so strongly towards a simple item of clothing makes me think that there's some power tied up in it. I'd like to utilise that power in some way. I thought about destroying it in a freeing-myself-from-the-past way; burn it, chuck in the sea, ect. But that feels like throwing the power away rather than stealing it back and making it work for me.

Thoughts?

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