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Negative expericnces in Magic

Madman in the ruins.

18:55 / 10.12.04

Apologies if this has been done before I used the search function so Mods feel free to merge this thread.

So i've been reading about Magic for about 20 years. But seriosly practising it for a few months, and apart from my Odin expericence its been pretty good so far.....except.

Nothing physcial but sometimes my sleep patterns are all over the place, even with meditation I find deep restfull sleep almost impossible.

Nightmares, not mine, my middle child's who used to see two "ghosts" in our house.

Depression, again not mine my my wife has just enterd a mild depression (Someting I dont want to elabrate on on a open fourm but feel free to PM me)

So anyone else suffred "negative" experices in their searc for the greater good?

Unconditional Love

21:41 / 10.12.04

one word.

Banish.

i never used to think it was necessary, it is.

find something that suits you, perhaps you already do, i used to suffer some negative effects, i found effective banishing to be my best ally at the beginning and end of all operations.

Jake, Colossus of Clout

03:50 / 11.12.04

Wolfangel, do you have any suggestions for banishings? I'm a relative newcomer to magic, too, and I've been getting some unpleasant shit creeping in around the edges of my life lately. My workings are effective, but I'm starting to get some backlash, and I haven't found a banishing technique that feels right for me.

rising and revolving

04:15 / 11.12.04

Just wanted to say that for me, personally, magic has involved a fair amount of emotional ups and downs. Banishing / centering or not, it's part of the biz, as far as I'm concerned. It's all "good" stuff - but definately working through various parts of my self, excising some of the bad and keeping some of the good has not been necessarily easy, or helpful in terms of providing an even temperment.

That said, this sounds like different stuff - definately a warning sign when stuff is leaking into other peoples lives. Banishing at the start and end of each operation is a good way to delineate your magical space, and I agree with wolfangel - it should definately help the situation.

As for specific method, I can't really make any recommendations. I personally use the LBRP, but then I'm a ceremonial magician, which puts me in a different paradigm to most around here. I don't much recommend it from outside the CM paradigm, either - at least not in its straight up form.

That said - sage and salt are always good standbys. As is a nice ritual house cleaning. Even breaking out the vacuum cleaner and singing a litte ditty[1] while you do the house should help. Physical cleaning often helps with emotional/magical/energetic cleaning - and things that seem simple can be easily raised to the level of magic purely through intent.

[1] You know, something like "Out with the bad mojo, In with the luuuurve"

11:53 / 11.12.04

Try and adopt a positive mental attitude. Banish often so you can easilly access that resource state again and again. Get into herbs or homoepathy. I don't have good sleep patterns myself but you can access a good deal of creativity. Unless you want to get into the psychological side of it. Charging water is good and if your visualisation is good then you can literally visualise negativity and possible other things getting banished with extreme prejudice. Watch out for the Boomerang.

00:28 / 12.12.04

I frequently flush out the energy of my home for that reason. When you are doing work, all manner of things can show up, out of curiosity, or energy-desire. The advice above is good advice, as you can't get a handle on whether it's your magick that's causing the problem unless you clean your surroundings properly. One thing that needs to be said, IMO, is that the things that you describe could be caused by things other than your magick. Still, if you don't banish, it's almost impossible to tell. I moved in with a magickal worker recently who hadn't been banishing, and there were a number of unpleasant things lurking around. It's important to realize that magickal work can DRAW things.

That having been said, it is true that magickal work sometimes puts you through hell. That's the nature of things. We all have repressed material, and magick has a tendency to bring that up and throw it in one's face. When that happens, one can radiate some pretty negative info that can effect the people around them. The key to avoidance of that situation is awareness. If you are aware of what's going on inside of you, you are aware of what you are potentially leaking out.

13:54 / 12.12.04

Dittos on the need for PMA and to honestly deal with what's come up for you, John. Magic can be a signal to the Universe that one is ready to learn, and the lessons aren't always fun. I'll step out on a shaky limb here and recommend LBRP to you. Someone here (and speak up if it was you) once described it as "swatting a fly with a sledgehammer", but hey, nothing succeeds like excess! Seriously tho, I've found it a good daily exercise, and it keeps my "space" real clean.

Take a look.

If nothing else, give this a once-over and tweak it until it belongs to you.

Hope everything comes round right for you.

15:46 / 12.12.04

Peach!

Thanks loads electric monk. I've been given the task of sussing out the LBRP myself and it's great to know that I have those pronouncations there, that's a great help.

John : This is part of the whole process, and negative experiences are something that you often have to go through in order to learn more about yourself/the universe/magick. If you've just started it kind of explains the current problems you have. Maybe it's best to take it easy, seek out forms of protection, like the LBRP and try and focus on some positive things to re-balance your energies. Main thing : don't let this dwell on your mind too much, the lessons your learning might take a while to be learned, but if you keep at it, you'll understand and be alright.

I remember googling things like 'Psychic self defense' 'Psychic defense' 'Psychic shields' 'Magickal shields' 'Magickal protection' 'Banishing' things like that before I properly started getting into it, and it helped a lot. I still have the stuff I printed out in the back of one of my Magick note pads, and it's good to know that they are there in times of need, because they can be a great help.

10:06 / 13.12.04

All a bit narcisistic to attribute other people's nightmares and depression to the fall out from your magical practice isnt it? Before you know it, you'll be the messiah of the new aeon and everything happening on the news will have been caused by a sigil you did last March.

10:40 / 13.12.04

GL that just had me laughing quite a bit. It instantly reminded me of some crazier delusions I had some years back when I was new to all of this, on too much Amphetamines and some dangerously impure E's.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:47 / 13.12.04

Hmmm... all the banishing, sheilding ect. advice is good, but I'm kind of with GL on this one. I don't think you're necessarily being narcissistic, it's just that when you're new to practicing magick it can be very easy to think "Ooops! That wasn't me, was it?" when the people around you experience difficulties. It's good that you're concerned but you mustn't automatically blame yourself for these things.

You say you've only started practicing in the last few months after studying for 20 years. Can you think of a reason why? What promted you to move from theory to practice? I ask because this kind of big change doesn't happen in isolation. There are usually other factors involved, other big life events that have caused a shift in one's outlook. Maybe such an event has caused the problems that your wife and children are suffering.

It's sad, but people do just become depressed. Clinical depression, which is what I assume you're talking about here, affects many people and can seem to appear quite randomly. And children do have nightmares (I had some doozies as a kid, with no ritual magick being performed in the house by anyone). As to the ghosts... we-e-e-ll, I hate to say it but sometimes kids make stuff up for attention, you know? And sometimes you just get visitors, dropping by or hanging on. Go into the room where your children saw the ghosts and ask them, politely but firmly, to stop what they're doing because they're scaring the children. That might work.

Unconditional Love

13:10 / 13.12.04

i remeber as a kid needing something to keep the nastiness away, i dont think your intervention will do much, but its worth a try, i think thou if you ask your children, child what would protect them they will know, and then get that for them, for me it was a glow plug, which is a thing for elderly people who need to navigate at night, i used to stick it in the wall and it would glow orange, and then the force field was up, nothing could get me, i still have it.

its really about what they think will protect them not so much as what you can do, being a parent youll want to protect them, but i think its what gives them a sense of power as children rather than say turning to an adult to sort it for them, although that is all so a part of the process of coming to terms with night terrors.

its quite common for kids to experience this kind of thing, an object that fits into there world, there dreams there power, can help them well.

16:45 / 13.12.04

John, I agree with wolfangel about asking your child what would help keep the ghosts away. That is what will keep them away.

I also agree that you should not blame yourself or your use of magic for the misfortune of people close to you. On the other hand, banishing is a good habit to get into. I use the LBRP, but there are so many different methods.

03:58 / 14.12.04

What is the physical range of effectiveness of the LBRP? I assume there's both an inner psychic banishing and an external one as well, but do the effects only manifest inside the traced circle, or is there some kind of sphere of influence? Does the banishing only cleanse the ritual space, or does the magician "carry it around" for a bit until it "wears off"?

(Sorry if I'm not making sense, I'm long overdue for bed).

trouser the trouserian

04:21 / 14.12.04

I wonder what magicians 'did' before Mathers & his Golden Dawn gang came up with this whole notion of "banishing"? Or for that matter, this whole notion that if you don't banish, somefink nasty can crawl out from under the bed and stitch you right up!

rising and revolving

04:48 / 14.12.04

I think there's a couple of parts to the situation.

First, "getting rid of bad stuff" existed long before the GD. I'd be surprised to see an esoteric trad *without* some form of exorcism/purification rituals/techniques. Although I'm more than willing to be disabused of the notion.

Then, you get to the "defining a sacred space" mechanics - which is (as I see it) more the point of the LBRP and reasoning behind the "start and end every ritual with an LBRP" logic that pervades the occult scenes. I absolutely don't think you need to banish before and after every operation - but I do think that defining a sacred space is helpful, and common throughout many traditions again.

How specifically do you define 'banishing' so as to have it start with Mathers?

Unconditional Love

11:34 / 14.12.04

banishing is often externalised or at least it appears that way, but i think and this is only my opinion that it probably originates from what was mentioned above personal purification rites, which as far as i can tell have exsisted in pretty much alot of cultures, i am guessing the idea is not to cloud a piece of work, healing ,with any dirty spirits so to speak, it seems quite common for there to be austerities associated with people who deal with spirits.

another factor may well be the banishing of self in order for possession to take place, the self needs to be set aside,so to speak, the spirits may need to enter the healers body to perform the healing, and then be directed into an object say a stone which will also need to be cleansed of dirty spirits,negative energies, demons, whatever.

perhaps as banishing reaches the golden dawn et al it takes on a different face, the onus comes on the performance in some respects, perhaps influenced by masonry, perhaps the spirits involved need alot more flamboyance and pomp ceremony and general levels of cash thrown at them.

clearing space seems to be quite a common factor in many cultures, as the culture becomes more ahem civilised so the clearing becomes more complex and grand, heh.

another thing that comes to mind to help deal with any of this john odin is laying on of hands of some kind, perhaps reiki which seems to be a common resurfacing of this practice would help. prolonged practice of tai chi will also develope the skill if taught with an instructor that teaches about chi and its flow.

(note to self must stop pushing martial arts down other peoples throats)

trouser the trouserian

11:44 / 14.12.04

Janus
How specifically do you define 'banishing' so as to have it start with Mathers?

I was thinking purely in the sense that the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, as far as I know, doesn't show up in European magic until the era of the G.D. Admittedly, its been a few years since I read the earlier texts - Levi, Barrett & so forth, but I'm pretty sure none of them mention the LBRP as such.

The issue of what constitutes "sacred space" is perhaps more interesting. In contemporary Western magic, there seems to be a common perception that 'space' needs to be made sacred, implying to my mind, that it somehow isn't ordinarily. It seems to me that this is perhaps okay when one's restricted to doing rituals indoors, but its' always struck me as rather nonsensical when people move this thinking "outdoors" as it were.

In some South Asian approaches to magic, for example, all space is believed to be 'sacred' and ritual acts to 'condense' that sacrality. Which is not to say that there are not purification (or more appropriately 'making the body divine') sequences - as these can be quite extensive, but the focus is on the practitioner rather than the space around them.

14:17 / 14.12.04

About 7 years ago before I was into magic I had a strange experiance.

Whilst I was sleeping I started to say some word I dont remember or understand (different language), as I was saying it I began to wake up fast shot up in bed and opened my eyes, still saying the word my eyes hurt (felt like burning), when I finished saying it my eyes where alright. It was dawn and bright enough to see things in the room, but I wouldnt say it would have hurt them. Then I went back to sleep.

17:43 / 14.12.04

Trouser wrote:
...there seems to be a common perception that 'space' needs to be made sacred, implying to my mind, that it somehow isn't ordinarily.

Well, it is always sacred, but you can't separate inner space from outer space. Banishing rituals (in whatever form) serve in part to bring the mind in line with the sacred. Just as much as you're clearing a space of foreign or disruptive energies, you're also clearing your head of the material distractions and concerns that prevent us from acknowledging the sacred in the first place. It's a process of clearing out and drawing in.

Madman in the ruins.

19:04 / 14.12.04

Damm. Just typed out a long drawn out answer to you and then t'intenet goes and dumps it in the back hole of cyberspace.

I guess I need to do my banishings more. do them daily insted of weekly (and before and after rituals) and maybe stop worrying about what I can and can't be blamed for.

19:30 / 14.12.04

A couple of years ago we created a servitor, quite a powerful one. It was, in fact, so powerful that I saw a physical manifestation of it in the temple. We had planned and worked for ages with the ritual and the intent, and everything seemed to be working well, we banished properly and efficiently and were all happy with the results - until severl of the group members' families and SOs started haveing really wierd dreams and experiences and all of us started noticing our servitor not quite doing what he was supposed to. For one thing, his libido was growing way out of hand, and the energy he supplied started making us all horny as hell all the time.

So our great hermetic magician did an extremely powerful disassembly and banished all partss of our little oversexual friend back to the nothingness, and lo and behold, our symtoms stopped.

The point of the story is that sometimes it doesn't help however much you banish and plan in advance - sometimes you actually have to go back and kill what you did. Magick is serious business, serious psychological work and as such should be treated with caution.

02:03 / 15.12.04

Seems to me you missed an obvious opportunity. A servitor that makes people horny -> big bucks.

Seriously though, although such a thing might work, I would still be very worried if something I cooked up sarted acting on its own. So, probably the right thing to do anyway.

I haven't experienced any of the things you talk about, but then I'm only just getting started. I did have some weird things happen once. I was doing an experiment with the time compression servitor, Fotamecus, which floats around the internet. The following day I had several strange occurances related to time: I showed up an hour early to a class, despite having checked my schedule several times and at work both me and my coworker both thought the other had covered the early shift, and showed up late. Neither of these thing have happened before or after.

Jake, Colossus of Clout

03:54 / 16.12.04

Gosh, you guys really know your stuff. I feel like a high school psychology student who wandered into a PhD class ;-)

Lots of good advice and info here. Thank you all very much. I can see that there is a lot to learn here, and smart people to learn from.