Of all the occult books I've assimilated, I'd have to say one of the most crucial was Nema's "Maat Magick". In particular I was fascinated with her chapter on constructing an astral temple and using said temple as a sort of gateway to other realms, be they astral, ontic, abstract, or so on. I had come across such concepts before, but this was the first time in which they were explained in a clear manner (I couldn't help but recall Hannibal Lector's "Memory Palaces" in the book "Hannibal").
For some time now I've been building up such a space in my mind. It began as just a sketch and floor plans on a piece of paper before I began visualizing it in my head, and after awhile it began to take shape and now it's definetly become something tangible, heavily detailed, with numerous rooms, furniture, and so on. In fact, it's not uncommon to encounter odd creatures there, some of which have taken up residence in the Temple and begun to serve functions (security, maintenance, and so on). At first it was just a three-story temple, but now it has a massive backyard area with steps and fountains (modeled after a certain Kenneth Anger film from the 50's) and giant statues of various gods and spirits close to me.
However, the key room of the temple is the gateway room, located at the top of the temple. It's a small room with a gigantic black mirror and a small video game system in front of it I've dubbed the AES (Astral Entertainment System, inspired by the classic Nintendo console). When I want to go somewhere I visualize myself placing a cartridge in the system, powering it up, then jumping through the portal (for example, if I want to go to Binah I'd place the QABALAH cartridge into the system, go to the stage select screen, type in Binah's password, and the mirror would turn into the color appropriate towards that sephiroth).
At the moment I've mostly been using the AES room to explore the sephiroth. I didn't really know much about the qabalah before this, other then the basic attributes and correspondences. When I explore another realm in this method I just close my eyes, go into a state between awareness and sleep and "Gnostic Daydream", to nick a term from Bertiaux. When the exploration is done I carefully write everything down, do sketches of what I saw or what types of spirits/creatures I encounter, then compare it to other sources on the Qabalah and see how my experinece compares with such sources and where the two connect (for awhile I would explore a sephiroth, then read the revelant issue of "Promethea": Sometimes the similarities between the two were uncanny). It would appear that certain images are archetypal and products of the collective unconsciouness, yet many of the other images have been of a primarily personal nature that would not be meaningful to anyone but the pathwalker (myself, in this case).
I guess this is some type of pathworking, but I think it's important that the images just come to one unforced and not premeditated. Even non-magicians seem to do things like this: I read an interview with David Lynch where he says he likes to sit back, close his eyes, and just let the images come through him like a door opening in his mind). I'll be blunt: These little excursions of mine have really gotten me interested in the occult again after a long dry spell and some of the things I've seen have just been the most amazing things I've ever witnessed. I'm fairly creative but some of it really does seem like images from some type of higher source. It's really helped me to appreciate the Qabalah more, I think, whereas before to me it was a primarily abstract topic.
What are your astral temple(s) like? Have you encountered any notable entities in such structures? Do you feel they serve as good projection points to other/inner worlds? Have these experiences, though primarily of a mental nature, been some of the most vivid occult experiences you've ever had? |
