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Fiction and random gods.

  
  

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Iniquisitive
09:07 / 05.05.04
I've never been a very religious or spiritual person, and my interest in all things magical has been mostly intellectual - I read a lot of books, but never really *did* very much (besides chatting with invisible people, but that's a different kettle of fish entirely). My passions are writing and roleplaying, and the worldbuilding associated with those. Recently, I was making some notes when I suddenly changed direction and started writing about a trio of gods that might make an appearance in another story. Nothing too unusual here, random tangents are my specialty.

However, after I wrote down the names, symbols and attributes of the gods, I went into a weird sort of state and started fiddling around with things. Eventually I realized I was making a charm or fetish connected to one of the gods I had been writing about. I used the charm in a manner that seemed appropriate, and it worked quite well. I stopped right there, because things had gotten a little bit strange for me. I've often felt that the things I'm writing about are real in another universe, or whatever you want to call it. That's why I'm a bit tetchy on this issue.

I googled the gods' names out of curiosity, but nothing could be found there.

So, any thoughts or advice on this strangeness?
 
 
ciarconn
13:14 / 05.05.04
Related but not the same...
I´ve role played for long time, and one of the experiences that scared me the most was role playing Vecna (as a gamesmaster) from the D&D campaign... he seemed to take control ad make me feel filthy... Heck, I´ve role played Lucifer twice and He didn´t make me feel that way...
 
 
Charlie's Horse
17:34 / 05.05.04
I've often felt that the things I'm writing about are real in another universe, or whatever you want to call it.

Sounds like you're making these gods 'real' in our universe as well. As you already know, all it takes is some imagination and willpower - with enough of that, you can make any deity as real as the store-bought variety. As Crowley once said, if you do certain things, you get certain results. Just don't attribute objective reality to your experiences - don't assume that this is 'really real,' keep a sense of humor about the whole affair, and you should be fine.

I've had a similiar experience - it's always kind of a surprise when it works just like you've read, eh? So what's the reason you stopped? Did you just not really expect it to work? Or did your home-made god start misbehaving?
 
 
Iniquisitive
08:36 / 06.05.04
Heh, I try to keep a sense of humor and perspective about everything, including 'really real' reality.

It's just a little freaky to me when something so odd works exactly as I've written it (another strange little thing - the notes I've made have dissapeared). That's the reason I stopped, because it was working too well. I suppose that's a little silly - if it works, it works, right? But I have a very ambivalent view of divinity, including the fictional kind.

About the roleplaying stuff: I gamesmaster a fair bit, and am notorious about getting very into character; I've not portrayed any gods, though. That's an interesting experience.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
11:25 / 06.05.04
As you already know, all it takes is some imagination and willpower - with enough of that, you can make any deity as real as the store-bought variety.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: You can come up with a cool idea for a potential God, and then create a kind of servitor with those attributes - but without, say, a thousand years of worship with hundreds of thousands of people pouring their devotion, heart and soul into that personality - the miniature entity you've birthed will not function in the same manner or with the same level of self awareness as a God/dess who has been formed in this way.

That's what differentiates a GOD from a servitor or lesser spirit. If you could just think up a GOD in the same sense that you could think up a character in a roleplaying game, there would be no reason to make a distinction. And there is a distinction.
 
 
EvskiG
13:30 / 06.05.04
Gypsy Lantern, I'm curious -- what's your basis for asserting that a genuine god with "a thousand years of worship with hundreds of thousands of people pouring their devotion, heart and soul into that personality" functions better or differently than a self-created god?

It seems to me that a god that has been worshiped by lots of people over a long time is more likely to have better-developed mythology and iconography. There's also an argument that a genuine god, by attracting worshippers and standing the test of time, is more likely to have developed some sort of archetypal significance which somehow resonates with the human psyche. Also, if you were raised in the faith of a particular god, I also can see how that god could have much more power for you, since it's associated with a lifetime of conditioning.

But it seems to me that a personally-created god is more likely to have deep significance, and much more of a connection to its sole worshipper, than a previously existing god.

It also seems to me that there are cultural figures such as Superman or Elvis who have the same sort of archetypal attributes that would make them effective in magical work. For plenty of people living today these figures have as much or more significance -- and more of a psychic charge -- than essentially dead gods like Odin or Ra or even living gods (so to speak) such as Jesus or Kali.

For that matter, there are essentially abstract entities such as "the city" or even "television" that probably could be used as surrogate deities with interesting results.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
13:33 / 06.05.04
The above is of course in my opinion and based on my own experiences of working with Gods, Spirits and entities.

I'd modify that statement slightly to say that there also seems to be a phenomena whereby new "fictional" entities behave as masks for the older self-aware personalities to wear, like a new fiction suit for an old power.

Often these apparently "new" entities are essentially an older power approached using a different name and more modernised attributes. New "fictional" Goddesses of Love, for example, often share various attributes and similarities with other more established Goddesses of Love. Same with Messenger Gods, War Gods, etc... When devising these new masks with which to approach and understand aspects of out reality, we tend to use a lot of the same symbol systems, and perhaps it might be the same essential power manifesting through a different cultural lens. For instance, Superman has all the attributes of a Solar entity, but in working with Superman in this sense, to what extent would you actually be working with the Ancient Greek God Apollo manifesting himself to you through a Superman filter.

This could possibly account for the many "versions" of existing Gods that have been recorded throughout history, which appear to be the same core persona modified by different local and cultural factors. Maybe.

At any rate, I think there's more interesting and complex stuff going on with all of this, than just inventing a character and filling it with will and imagination to make a God.

To my mind, the main qualities that suggest an entity is a God rather than a servitor or lesser spirit, are self awareness, independence and a seperate agenda from the magician, large amounts of clout, and a sense of them being far far bigger and more mysterious than you could plausible wrap your head around in a lifetime of communications with them. I don't think you get that with something you just made up last friday for a laugh and will probably forget about in a couple of months.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:17 / 06.05.04
Gypsy Lantern, I'm curious -- what's your basis for asserting that a genuine god with "a thousand years of worship with hundreds of thousands of people pouring their devotion, heart and soul into that personality" functions better or differently than a self-created god?

Personal experience of working closely with entities, of various types, over the course of several years, nothing more nothing less. I’m equally curious what the basis is for your own line of thinking.

From my experiences of them, God/desses who have been around for thousands of years behave differently from ones you just made up last week. Entities seem to ‘learn’ from interaction with people who contact them. The longer they have been doing that, the better they seem to become at functioning at that level. Vague parallels could be made with artificial intelligence. Fully-fledged Gods are alive and more than just the sum of their parts. They can put the fear of God/dess into you. They can wake you at 4am with urgent messages from beyond. They can chill your soul and lift your heart. They are not dry academic Jungian archetypes to be understood only at an intellectual or metaphorical level. If you can’t have a very real two-way conversation with an entity, or don’t get a sense that it is as conscious and self-aware as you are, then you are probably not dealing with a God/dess. Working with God/desses is about relationships. If you invent Jeff the God of Biscuits and ask him to score you a packet of digestives a couple of times, that is not the same as having a lifelong deeply personal relationship with Hecate or Kali.

It seems to me that a god that has been worshiped by lots of people over a long time is more likely to have better-developed mythology and iconography. There's also an argument that a genuine god, by attracting worshippers and standing the test of time, is more likely to have developed some sort of archetypal significance which somehow resonates with the human psyche.

I’m not talking about “better developed iconography” or “archetypal significance”. I’m talking about an entities self-awareness and ability to function as something larger, scarier and more mysterious than, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Mickey Mouse. You seem to be approaching this as if God/desses are nothing more than Jungian archetypes, or metaphors for elements of the psyche, or whatever. I think that’s a nice pop-science friendly method of rationalising something that is otherwise a bit mad, but I also think its way off the mark. Working with entities IS a bit mad, strange things do happen, and I don’t have a theory that neatly explains any of it.

It also seems to me that there are cultural figures such as Superman or Elvis who have the same sort of archetypal attributes that would make them effective in magical work.

Yeah, if you accept the notion that a God/dess is just an archetypal cultural figure. Which I don’t. If you haven’t had personal experiences that scarily and repeatedly counter that assumption, then you’re not likely to agree with my position, and rightly so.

For that matter, there are essentially abstract entities such as "the city" or even "television" that probably could be used as surrogate deities with interesting results.

Absolutely. I tend towards the perspective that “City” and “Motor Car” are spirits in the same sense that “Wolf” and “Owl” are spirits. Each individual City also seems to manifest its own shamanic personality, as does each region of the city, or each street, house, television, remote control, and battery. I think that entities of this nature seem to function slightly differently from more anthropomorphised God/desses and “fictional” entities. Essentially I think that the history of these intelligences is a conditioning factor on how they behave. The personality of an area such as Whitechapel is likely to function differently from a street in Milton Keynes, due to the history and shaping factors that have gone into forming it.
 
 
EvskiG
14:49 / 06.05.04
Looks like we've hit the classic question of whether a god is an entity external to the magician or an aspect of the magician's own mind or consciousness. I take the second view. You seem to take the first.

It seems to me that an encounter with one's own unconscious mind (or "higher self" or daemon or Holy Guardian Angel) could seem like encountering a self-aware, independent, powerful entity bigger than one's self with an entirely separate agenda. It also seems to me that invoking or otherwise working with a deity -- classical or otherwise -- might be seen as using an archetypal key to tune into that portion of the unconscious mind.

This also could explain how new entities could be seen as "masks" for older entities. On one hand, you could say that Zeus and Jupiter and Jove and Jehovah are all masks used by the same sky/father god. On the other hand, you could say that humans are instinctually or hard-wired to understand the concept of "daddy" and use these various god-forms to manifest and access that archetype.

I'll readily admit, however, that to at least some extent I'm talking out of my ass, since I don't believe in gods and I've never really practiced invocation. As you've deduced, my own background is a bit more Jungian. Perhaps it's time to dust off Liber Astarte Vel Berylli and seek a bit more personal experience.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:42 / 06.05.04
Coming up with theories about what entities may or may not be, without having had personal experience of interaction with them, is a bit like talking about sex without ever actually having had any, or talking about music without ever having heard any.

Obviously you're only going to be able to get your head around this stuff in terms of Jungian pop psychology, because that sounds like an intellectually plausible frame of reference, and its the only one you have for it.

Unless you actively engage with this sort of work, (and to put it a bit bluntly, put your money where your mouth is) you're not going to stand much chance of experiencing anything that sufficiently challenges or contradicts your non-experiential assumption.

I'm just going to sound like a crazy person, and you're going to dismiss my perspective because other second-hand models are easier to digest. But just because the Jungian interpretation is neat & tidy and easy to swallow, doesn't neccessarily mean it's accurate.
 
 
EvskiG
16:41 / 06.05.04
Why would you think I'll dismiss your perspective or think you're a crazy person? And why would you make assumptions about the frames of reference I have or the models I find easy to digest?

Personally, I'm a big fan of Crowley's famous admonition from Liber O:

"In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth, and the Paths, of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether they exist or not. By doing certain things certain results follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them."

I don't know what you mean by "Jungian pop psychology," but I used to work at the Jung Foundation in NYC, went to a Jungian therapist for a while, and have read a fair amount of the Collected Works over the years. (For whatever that's worth.) As a result, a Jungian perspective comes easily to me.

But I'm willing to consider alternatives. For example, I'm open to the possiblity that working with old-school deities can create intuitive, non-rational certainty that the deity objectively exists. I also suspect that dervish dancing, fasting, and even self-mutilation can have similarly interesting results. Even so, I think it's a fallacy to say that unless you've tried each of those practices you can't hypothesize about them.

Natually, though, actual practice lends a certain informed perspective. And I'm quite willing to give the whole bhakti yoga thing a try. Why not?

Any recommendations for practices?

And I'll try to keep in mind another admonition from Crowley's Liber Astarte:

"It may occur that owing to the tremendous power of the Samadhi, overcoming all other memories as it should and does do, that the mind of the devotee may be obsessed, so that he declare his particular Deity to be sole God and Lord. This error has been the foundation of all dogmatic religions, and so the cause of more misery than all other errors combined. . . . [F]rom the nature of th[is] Method [the magician] cannot remain sceptical; he must for the time believe in his particular Deity. But let him (1) consider that this belief is only a weapon in his hands, [and] (2) affirm sufficiently that his Deity is but an emanation or reflection or eidolon of a Being beyond him . . . . Therefore, after Success, let him not delight overmuch in his Deity, but rather busy himself with his other work, not permitting that which is but a step to become a goal."
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
17:50 / 06.05.04
Apologies if I seemed to be putting words into your mouth. My point is that the very popular Jungian concept of “what entities are” is a lot easier for people in general to accept, than any of the seemingly non-rational alternative models. It is fairly easy for a person to get their head around in a linear rational sense. However, I don’t think it’s too uncommon for people working with entities to have experiences that undermine the Jungian model during entity work, and would suggest that it is essentially just another model with its own limitations and shortcomings, not the whole story.

Even so, I think it's a fallacy to say that unless you've tried each of those practices you can't hypothesize about them.

I think you can hypothesise all you like about the experiences of whirling dervish practice or fasting or entity work, but that’s all it is. Empty hypothesis. Unless you have personally experienced these things yourself, and are speaking from that experience, you can only make vague guesses at what those experiences might actually be like, and where they might take you. How can you presume to know anything about the state of consciousness that a whirling dervish taps into without having accessed it yourself? It’s like someone who has never taken a psychedelic drug hypothesising about the differing effects of LSD or DMT. There’s a huge experiential gap that makes dialogue become pretty meaningless beyond a certain level.
 
 
EvskiG
20:38 / 06.05.04
Of course, as the above quotes show, Crowley was someone with vast experience in "entity work" who nevertheless was comfortable with what you call the Jungian model. At the very least, he seemed to be agnostic about the matter.

As I've repeatedly noted above, I'm quite willing to gain some personal experience. So again I'll ask: what would you recommend to someone interested in practical "entity work"? Liber Astarte? Something else?

And at what point does practice and personal experience make one worthy to comment on the subject, in your eyes? A day? A month? A year? A lifetime? Once one achieves a startling result of some kind? And what if that never happens?

And, since you seem to characterize the experiences at issue as non-rational and intuitive, how can you ever know whether another person's experiences with "entity work" even remotely resemble yours?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
12:02 / 07.05.04
Of course, as the above quotes show, Crowley was someone with vast experience in "entity work" who nevertheless was comfortable with what you call the Jungian model. At the very least, he seemed to be agnostic about the matter.

I don’t particularly rate Crowley as much of an authority on entity work, but that’s probably a separate discussion. However, all of Crowley’s writing on magick really has to be understood in terms of the time and place in which he was writing and conditioned by his own background and personality. Crowley was raised a member of the Plymouth Brethren and his over-reaction to that puritanical brand of religion is fairly evident throughout his work, hence “The Great Beast”. He has his blind spots as a writer as much as anyone else does, and one of those blind spots is an over-zealous distrust of anything approaching religion. Secondly, he was a product of the modernist era as much as Joyce or Eliot. Therefore, the modernist concerns of relativism and then current ideas from psychoanalysis permeate his work as much as quantum mechanics and chaos theory permeate Peter Carroll’s. That’s not to say any of these models are a complete and accurate map of the territory, or should be considered as such without personal investigation.

Note that when Crowley did encounter Aiwass, a seemingly living entity that proceeded to engage in a two-way dialogue with him - the circumstances surrounding which significantly challenged his notions of these things as sterile Jungian archetypes – he got shit scared of what was happening and put the channelled material away for ten years. Eventually bringing it back out and proclaiming himself Prophet of the new era of Crowleyanity. Go figure.

As I've repeatedly noted above, I'm quite willing to gain some personal experience. So again I'll ask: what would you recommend to someone interested in practical "entity work"? Liber Astarte? Something else?

Work it out for yourself. Do a search for old threads on the subject on barbelith. Make a bit of an effort.

And at what point does practice and personal experience make one worthy to comment on the subject, in your eyes? A day? A month? A year? A lifetime? Once one achieves a startling result of some kind? And what if that never happens?

Well… any experience at all is better than none. At least then you will have something tangible to base your theories and hypothesis on, rather than just gabbling confidently on the net about something you’ve seemingly never bothered to invest the time and effort in experiencing for yourself. What is so difficult to understand about my point that speculation based on book learning is not equivalent to speculation based on personal experience?

And, since you seem to characterize the experiences at issue as non-rational and intuitive, how can you ever know whether another person's experiences with "entity work" even remotely resemble yours?

By, wait for it, talking to them. I’m often quite surprised at how closely other people’s experiences of relationships with entities resemble my own. I was actually having a conversation with someone last night who works with a very different group of entities and within a very different cultural tradition, but the common strands were there. The same sort of mechanisms were in place, our experiences were similar and our speculations were comparable. You’d be surprised at how similar reports of full-on entity work often tend to be. There’s commonality between these experiences, so much so that you can often tell in the first five minutes whether someone is speaking from personal experience or not. Whether it’s Philip K Dick communicating with VALIS, Grant Morrison being abducted by aliens in Kathmandu, Crowley receiving the Book of the Law in Cairo, St Paul on the road to Damascus, or Jack Cunningham sniffing glue and talking to Spirits through his haunted magnifying glass in a bedsit in Lewisham. There will be things there that are undeniably similar, the cultural filter may be extremely different, but the essential experience often seems to follow a similar pattern. One aspect of it is having experiences that make you go…Gah!…what the fuck! When your experiences start to undermine the safe and comfy psychological model you had built around them.
 
 
EvskiG
14:51 / 07.05.04
I think we're starting to repeat ourselves.

Obviously, speculation based on anything other than personal experience is not equivalent to speculation based on personal experience. I acknowledge that. At the same time, I don't think one needs to re-write Don Quixote to reasonably comment on or critique Don Quixote, or to fight in combat in Iraq to reasonably comment on or critique the war in Iraq. For that matter, I don't think someone needs to have been insane or even neurotic to be a psychologist. Perhaps you disagree.

You've acknowledged that the experiences you've had with "entities" can be discussed in language. I assume, then, that these experiences can be conveyed even to people without personal experience in the matter. To the extent that's possible, it seems to me that even such people should be able to comment on the experiences that you, Crowley, and hundreds of others have had and reported. Perhaps even to offer their thoughts and perspectives about such experiences. Particularly if they have extensive experience in other aspects of practical magical work. Again, perhaps you disagree.

Crowley not much of an authority on entity work? From Liber Astarte, the Bornless Ritual, his comments on the Goetia, and other examples I thought he was one of the leading authorities on the subject in the Western Esoteric Tradition. Of course he was a product of his time and personal neuroses, but later commentators like Regardie and Lon Milo Duquette -- who also seem to have had a fair amount of experience with entity work -- seem at least as open to the "Jungian Model" as he did.

As far as practical work, of course I could build a practice myself. I simply asked for your recommendations. You don't seem interested in sharing. I'm not really sure why -- particularly since you're willing to engage in this long discussion -- but that's certainly your right.

And I must point out that I think you've been a bit rude throughout this discussion. I don't really understand why.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
16:06 / 07.05.04
I don't think one needs to re-write Don Quixote to reasonably comment on or critique Don Quixote, or to fight in combat in Iraq to reasonably comment on or critique the war in Iraq.

Agreed, but it’s difficult enough to try and speculate about the essential nature of entities (objective, subjective, or something in-between) if you have had lots of first hand experience of working with them, let alone none at all. I might speculate about the war in Iraq, but I’d be a bit circumspect in airing my second-hand views about actually fighting in Iraq to a bunch of squaddies who had just returned from the front line. I might speculate about the nature of DMT, but I’ve never taken it myself, so I wouldn’t feel comfortable participating in a discussion with regular DMT users at anything more than a superficial level. You can comment all you like, but unless you’re speaking from experience I’m unlikely to attribute too much weight to your opinions in this particular matter. We may have to agree to disagree on that.

I simply asked for your recommendations. You don't seem interested in sharing. I'm not really sure why -- particularly since you're willing to engage in this long discussion -- but that's certainly your right.

Well it’s pretty personal to me, and I tend not to talk about the specifics of my own practice on a public forum, or at all. I enjoy talking about the broad dynamics of magical practice rather than what I happen to work with. Having said that, I can probably make a few broad suggestions that would get you started, and will try and sort that out for you over the weekend.

And I must point out that I think you've been a bit rude throughout this discussion. I don't really understand why.

No harm meant. I’m feeling more than a bit cranky and argumentative at the moment, and tend to enjoy a good heated debate on magic at the best of times. Apologies if I’ve come off as rude. One of my particular bugbears at the moment is people making sweeping assertions about magic that aren’t based on their own personal experiences. Too many stale ideas get passed from book to book, website to website, forum to forum, without being picked apart or challenged. I see the Jungian archetypes model as a major offender in that regard, and when people reel it out as if it were somehow “the truth about entities” without having explored for themselves the equally subjective nature of that statement – it can press certain buttons and I can get a bit argumentative.
 
 
darth daddy
00:17 / 20.02.08
I understand that the Barbelith Elders are sick to their back teeth of these issues, and are seeking higher ground. They have forgotten more occult knowledge than I likely will accumulate in this lifetime. However, I have been experimenting with several pop magick type practices, with some degree of success, and advocate same. Please excuse wholesale stealing from my chaos magick elders.

First precept. All religious dogma is fiction in the best of ways. It engages the imagination.

Second precept. Imagination can be used to augment conventional reality.

The completion stage of Tibetan Tantra points toward the powerful use of imagination. Especially in regard to bodywork. Replace your head with a white lighted deity, (I use Dainichi in honor of my idol, Michael Bertiaux. I think of this as analogous of the fool card in Tarot ). Replace your heart with the Virgin Mary, in honor of my catholic upbringing. Replace your “special parts” with the devil from the Southpark movie.

This has worked towards a merging of multiplicity of self. And is fun.

Treating occult literature as fiction allows the use of fiction as occult literature. Tom Robbin’s novels further the ideas of Robert Anton Wilson and Terrance McKenna.

Goddess Bless.
 
 
Papess
01:13 / 20.02.08
The completion stage of Tibetan Tantra points toward the powerful use of imagination.

You are thinking of the generation stage.

Completion stage is attainment of Buddhahood and the body of a Buddha. It is the transformation of the blood, bone, marrow, skin, and white drops, (the gross body) to the subtle body by learning to dissolve all the winds into the central channel. In essence, one will then become deathless. In other words, a Buddha.

Other than that, I have no idea what you are attempting.
 
 
darth daddy
01:29 / 20.02.08
Sorry, you're right... I've been experimenting with using generation stage technology with fictional characters that appeal to my aims. It recently has occurred to me (slow learner) that in generation stage you are actually placing your chosen deity in specific places in your body. Through long experimentation with the descriptions of traditional Tibetan gods with limited effects, I have had better results using "fictional" characters to accomplish similar ends.

My completion stage efforts using tummo meditation have generated an awareness of "emptiness", though no mind blowing changes.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
05:05 / 20.02.08
We have been over this sort of territory a few times, but that doesn't mean there's nothing profitable to explore.

First precept. All religious dogma is fiction in the best of ways. It engages the imagination.

This has emotive appeal and sounds very inviting, but can I ask what you're basing it on? Is this something you've put together from written sources, a conclusion you've arrived at as a result of your practice, or a jumping-on point you've selected to get you going?

I'd also flag your use of the expression "religious dogma" here, not because it's wrong or bad or offensive, but because it suggests to me that you've got certain baggage around deistic models that you might profit from unpacking.

Through long experimentation with the descriptions of traditional Tibetan gods with limited effects, I have had better results using "fictional" characters to accomplish similar ends.

That sounds really interesting and I'd love to hear more about what you've done with this. When you say "long," you mean a couple of years? Longer? What were you doing? Have you made much of a study of the cultural mis-en-scene that produced the Tibetan deities you've experimented with? I wonder sometimes if one reason that young Western mages report better results with pop-cultural figures is that these figures can stand in for certain sets of Mysteries in a more immediately accessible way than deities from another, very different, culture. It's easier to relate to, say, the Star Wars or Sandman "pantheons" than to Gods from otehr cultures because the former were concocted by, with and for modern Westerners. My theory is that one might be able to get over this with sufficient understanding of the cultural background of the deities in question; if one were to really get under the skin of these relatively alien Gods, understand what mysteries They embody and how they are veiwed in Their native environs, one might find the work more rewarding. Just an idea.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
06:41 / 20.02.08
Some other threads on the topic that you might get a kick out of (more recent first):

Pop Culture vs. Old Culture

Gods vs Superheroes: talking about entity work
 
 
darth daddy
11:00 / 20.02.08
It is easier to visualize clearly, for me, pop icons in my culture than icons from a foreign culture, such as Tibet. For example, the fool icon (dainichi) in my head resembles the Sean Penn character in the Fast Times in Ridgemont High movie. I have been practicing these yogas for approximately seven years with great difficulty picturing the described dieties. I suppose the images of wrathful and peaceful deities used by Tibetan masters in their meditation are easier from them to use due to the cultural significance. Similarly, an icon of Mary is easier for me to use due to my upbringing and association with a mother's love.

The next project I am contemplating is to re-attempt tummo meditation replacing the Tibetan letters with sigils of my own design.

I use the term dogma to mean traditional teaching. Simply put, my magical imagination does better with icons and symbols I can more easily visualize.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:43 / 20.02.08
I'm not very well up on the kinds of meditation you're describing. Most of the debate we've had in the past around issues of home-made deities and pop-culture figures versus Big Gods has been grounded in direct-contact deity work, whereas you're describing something different. Would you like to lay out the basics as you see them for non-practitioners?
 
 
EvskiG
15:32 / 20.02.08
Wow, there's a serious blast from the past up there.

Almost four years later, and after some small amount of practice in entity work (far, far less than many people here), I still view deities and other magical entities as otherwise unconscious parts of the mind manifesting to the conscious mind through archetypal images.

(So did Jung, a magician of no small skill who had a bit of experience in the subject himself.)

And the experience of contact with these entities can be numinous, enlightening, and terrifying. The (personal and collective) unconscious mind is a lot deeper, scarier, and more alien than we might suspect.

Of course, I still could be wrong.
 
 
Papess
17:12 / 20.02.08
Ev, you are right in a sense. However, the same could be said of all phenomenon - it is a display of the mind, conscious or unconscious. IME and opinion, both ends of that argument are correct, just as each of us exists within each other's minds.
 
 
Unconditional Love
20:00 / 20.02.08
Why not use Christian iconography? Their are alot of different interpretations, many different ways of approaching it, not all of them dogmatic and some of them very radical in interpretation for example look up the Ranters or the Brethren of the Free Spirit or other Christian anarchists. Just a thought.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
20:01 / 20.02.08
Of course, I still could be wrong.

No ... surely not?
 
 
Olulabelle
20:19 / 20.02.08
Oh do go away Alex. Bored again are you?
 
 
Olulabelle
20:30 / 20.02.08
In fact why don't you just refrain from posting in the Temple since the only things you ever post are fatuous comments?
 
 
darth daddy
01:45 / 21.02.08
Not here.... When I have more time I will get a list of books, but to my limited knowledge... Look for the "Six Yogas of Naropa"...great book.

Basically generation stage yoga is generating an image of yourself and your environment as a buddha being and a buddha multiverse respectively, banishing mundane attachment to your habitual mind and habitual perceptions. Kind of like fake it until you make it.

Simplistically, in completion stage, an example of which is tummo meditation, you place mantric symbols in chakras, starting with about two finger tips down from your navel, up to the heart, to the throat, to the top of your head. Each part has a different symbol based on Tibetan letters. You focus on breathing, like pranyama, holding the breath in the first chakra, and combining energy up from below and down in a kind of kiss. This kiss ignites a fire in the first chakra, which in turn brings energy to the next chakra, and the next, and the next. The fire melts each of these chakras causing "drops" to melt down, and which drops increase bliss and awareness until one is enlightened.

I would love a true scholar to provide a "grand unified theory" of the occult. The more I study the Tantric writings the more sense the OTO stuff makes, and vice versa. The mistake I have made is taking the directions too literally, rather than realizing that these writings are pointing in a direction towards creative change in perceptions. For example, the Adam Kadmon idea in Kaballah seems similar to the generation stage. The kool thing about this to me is not simply imagining that you are Buddha in a Buddhaverse, but placing dieties throughout your body image, and then placing sigils in your body to provide willed change. Another current I am fascinated by is the correlation of the use sexual charge and sexual acts in all of these practices.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
17:19 / 21.02.08
In fact why don't you just refrain from posting in the Temple since the only things you ever post are fatuous comments?

Well, that's a matter of opinion. It's arguably a trait we have in common, though,
 
 
electric monk
18:01 / 21.02.08
That's enough, Alex. I'm putting yr post up for deletion.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:10 / 21.02.08
Ah, I see. So your comment to Ev was not fatuous, but a sincere contribution meant to flag some error on hir part. Perhaps you could flesh out your meaning a bit more--is it your contention that the poster you were addressing is frequently wrong, or that ze was incorrect in some recent instance?

As to Olulabelle "arguably" contributing nothing but fatuous comments to this forum: well, someone might certainly have a stab at such an argument, but that person would have to contend with an appreciable body of evidence to the contrary.

You will of course (as a member in good standing motivated only by the desire to raise standards and challenge sloppy posting, and not in any sense a bored windup merchant with a grudge against certain posters) wish to take your responses to another thread so as to avoid dragging this one off topic.

(The Infinite Dream Syndicate: I'm vetoing that deletion on the grounds that Alex is a member in good standing and his posts should be permitted to remain as a testament to his splendid contribution and laudable attitude.)
 
 
grant
18:25 / 21.02.08
Can we move discussion of Alex's Grandma's laudability to elsewhere?
 
 
electric monk
18:38 / 21.02.08
TtS and grant, it's all good. Have bumped the "Moderating the Temple" thread in case we want to continue.
 
  

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