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The Elusive Ordeal

19:34 / 15.02.06

It seems to come up in a lot of the literature of the occult; the importance of the ordeal. The event which begins to loose the floorboards of everything taken for granted before that point.

Thing is, in my workings and development, I've found it to be a slower process, kind of like a prolonged 'ordeal' of new thoughts and ways of thinking encroaching on a more pragmatic worldview. So I feel as though I'm having many mini-ordeals, or preception-crisis events, if that makes sense.

Am I deluding myself in my own workings, missing a key element? Or is it more dependant on the magical traditions you're following?

00:00 / 16.02.06

I don't know. My personal experience was a BIG shattering first, and then a succession of small ones.

It probably depends on each person. I think that the first big one is unavoidable, something like taking the red pill.

My view is that you've been brought up, acultured and imprinted quite randomly (Leary eight circuits model there). This create a 'scaffolding', a first build of the ego. Most people stay there, and are happy with only minor corrections and improvement to this first build.

But like Tyler said: "Self improvement is masturbation. Now self destruction might be the answer". And once you've destroyed as much as you can, you're ready to rebuild on firm ground, from scratch, something better. Goes much faster and is way easier each time you do it. The really difficult and painful thing is the destruction. Drugs helps, Hyatt style tantra is great, but nothing beats gently asking Eris for some fun.

Each time you're through, you gain fluidity of the ego. The deeper you're destroyed, the more 'control' the next build gives you. The hazard is of course insanity.

Pray to your favorite Gods that everything will work out fine in the end, ask them to put you through what you need, and take the plunge. I have the feeling that if you've survived the first ordeal, you should be mostly fine after that, if you don't go looking for real trouble. But maybe you should go seek REAL trouble just for once. Ah, I don't know.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

08:45 / 16.02.06

I think the big shattering change in one's worldveiw is less a prerequisite than an inevitability. You are going to go into this stuff with certain preconceptions because... well, you just are, everyone does. And as time goes on you are going to lose those, to be replaced by new theories and ideas. Most of the time this will be a slow process of erosion and sedimentation; at others, you'll have the world-turned-upside-down thing. You can certainly try and invite this process into your life, perhaps as suggested above, but there's nothing wrong with letting it happen organically either.

10:31 / 16.02.06

i agree with all of the above.
it's a shattering of your worldview, your view of yourself etc.

11:21 / 16.02.06

According to Carlos Casteñeda: yes. I mean, you wouldn't feel like "challenging the unknown" if you're confortable in your own pre-set ways, would you?

Of course, if your own pre-set ways already include occultism, then "no".

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

11:39 / 16.02.06

Actually, as I recall, Castaneda said that Don Juan told him he needed his wordview shattered because he was such a dunderhead.

Some of the other initiates were not even taking the power-plants, because they intuitively grasped the Mysteries without them.

So, short answer : it depends.

12:06 / 16.02.06

I think that growth as a magician is always characterised by crisis, challenge and ordeal. These ordeals can take a variety of forms, from minor challenges to your world view, to difficult and challenging magical experiences, to full dissolution of everything you hold dear and immersion in the Abyss. It isn't a one-time only deal, it's a continual process of crisis and equilibrium, which I think is the real meaning behind the cliché "initiation never ends". It doesn't. There's always further to go. Always more challenges and ordeals up the road. If you aren't finding magic challenging and difficult, then your practice has likely grown static and comfortable, and needs a bit of a shake-up for further growth to take place. However, to actively go looking for such a crisis or ordeal - rather than letting it happen organically out of your practice - is possibly missing the whole point of these experiences, their meaning and value.

15:05 / 16.02.06

i'm really really glad that someone else said that. i thought it was just me and i was a nut. i somehow assumed that other occultists had a kind of perfect buddhalike condition of absolute equilibrium

15:11 / 16.02.06

i've been through countless such experiences now..... i think i figured it should have been a big one time deal and then everything would be heavenly bliss or something. and that the fact that i kept having them must have meant that i'd failed in some way the last time i had one.

i also always find that..... although you do come through them.. they're always that bit much harder and always endure that bit much longer than you thought. they can come on & you feel them & you think - cool, i'm going to go with this, and it's exciting for a while and challenging and new, full of anticipation yet frightening -

then you're right in the middle of the maelstrom & it shows no signs of abating. and there's always that moment when you feel.... i am out of my depth here... but it's the survival instinct combined with your rationality that sees you through to the other side.

a quote from winston churchill courtesy of Call of Duty 2 - when you are going through hell, keep going.

16:42 / 16.02.06

If you aren't finding magic challenging and difficult, then your practice has likely grown static and comfortable, and needs a bit of a shake-up for further growth to take place. However, to actively go looking for such a crisis or ordeal - rather than letting it happen organically out of your practice - is possibly missing the whole point of these experiences, their meaning and value.

You're damn right. I'm at a comfortable and static plateau, things are working just fine. I can usually get what I want without too much effort because I've got a set of magical techniques that are dependable.

I can't believe it: it looks like I'm ready to launch a new current: Consumerism Magic! Get what you want out of the universe, Or Your Money Back!

Sssh. I know that there is an Abyss just around the corner, waiting for me*.

I know I've got to evolve further, in fact I want and I need to. But in my case it won't comes out of my regular practice. It simply can't, because for now my practice only involves getting things to happen without too much fuss. In short I'm stalled spiritually wise, I have been caught in the siddhis.

To be frank, I'm afraid. And perhaps a bit burned out too, since I've had my fair share of shattering in the recent years. The fear is a good thing, I know it. The burn out not so much.

So the only option left for me now is: One of those Friday, when I'll be bored of it all, and feel I'm ready for a shake up, I'll just go out and joyously partake of an hot dog.

Maybe I should start a religious devotional practice with some God. I realize now that we're talking, that I'm missing the full blown awe of a direct contact with the unknown. Again, I don't know, and am all ears to any kind advice you may have.

Thanks a lot to all for the input, especially Gipsy, that was very valuable. It helped me ascertain and clarify where I am now.

* (In fact I've even saw it rear its head, blink and then look fixedly at me a few times.)

16:49 / 16.02.06

Anth, I totally sympathize with what you are saying. Nothing beats having your back against the wall in term of growth and experience.

16:47 / 18.02.06

cheers

i used to practice mystical prayer when i used to have the time. i'd definitely say all in all that it was a very beneficial experience. recently i've fallen out with all conceptions of god to be honest and i think it's possibly a destructive thing to have done so. to have awakened the current so strongly yet not to have a firm focus of that devotional energy is very well maybe a road to ruin.

i notice the ferocious strength of my remaining attatchments. i'm exhausted with the fluctuations between feeling incredibly powerful, like nothing in life could possibly defeat my spirit, and then feeling so utterly vulnerable and helpless and overwhelmed. the moments where you feel that the route ahead is clear & then it's all turbulence.

the turmoil i think comes from the world. i think it's the nature of life on earth to be turmoil and that peace and love in its greatest sense are only to be found in the Spirit. in the "things of the world" you can have little moments of them perhaps but they can't endure here. and how tempting it is and how no doubt we have all been led to try to create heaven here and ended up with the worst hell we could have imagined.

i'm glad of the reassurances and of seeing the notion there of having a conception of god. i did used to be i think much more stable, much calmer, much more detatched from the painful stuff and much more effective in my everyday life when i meditated daily.

so i'd say - yeah. pray. plead your heart out. don't necessarily expect instant answers and solutions but if it preserves the balance of your sanity you'd be a fool to deny it.

02:49 / 19.02.06

it doesnt have to smash everything you beliv ein into bits... but it probely will. If it doesnt your eprobely just e to well prepared

Thre isnt such a thing as the ABCs of stuff you "have" to go trough. Its just a big chanse o fthat it will but its not a "must". I think it sprobely better not to hav eth eBig bang experiece but take it all in slowly, i guess its better for youre metal health.

12:41 / 19.02.06

i think you're right

yeah there are ways of catalysing things but - do it at your own peril and it's very very far from safe. i wouldn't totally dismiss the guy's point out of hand. sometimes we can feel like everything is stagnant & things need shaking up & i think it's fine to do that - if you're prepared for the hefty consequences of getting what your wish. and if you're prepared to make the changes that Life is going to require you to make.

13:02 / 20.02.06

* (In fact I've even saw it rear its head, blink and then look fixedly at me a few times.)

Hahaha! I guess it's about time for you again then.

If it is, I'm sure you'll be fine once things start moving again. You seem like you pretty much understand your situation, so that's a big advantage. It's when you don't know what the fuck is going on before it starts that the ride is usually a lot crazier, and yeah, I guess that that corresponds with the first big shattering, because there's usually not much idea of what to build when the structure has been ripped away. Then of course, as you go on, you just start building again, with more and more things at your disposal.

Unconditional Love

13:46 / 20.02.06

Self creation, self preservsation (clinging, attachments, emotionally charged habits.)self destruction. Its a self or ego cycle if you like, and it gets quicker and quicker the more you learn that its a great big pile of deception pooh.

What you want is the creation preservation and destruction all in one moment so the temporal spacial perception of self explodes on a continual basis, ie bliss. A continual big bang.

Plenty of options to achieve that.

14:36 / 20.02.06

i agree with the dude above. not to build, solidify, crystalise anything.

18:38 / 20.02.06

Self creation, self preservsation (clinging, attachments, emotionally charged habits.)self destruction. Its a self or ego cycle if you like, and it gets quicker and quicker the more you learn that its a great big pile of deception pooh.

Agreed. Didn't felt it quickening very much though, and I just can't manage to avoid having the ego grow back, no matter how much I destroy it.

What you want is the creation preservation and destruction all in one moment so the temporal spacial perception of self explodes on a continual basis, ie bliss. A continual big bang.

Mmmm. Bliss. Now we're talking

.

So, you mean that you have to hasten this cycle so much that it's more or less constant, a bit like the persistence of vision effect, to use a metaphor ?

Plenty of options to achieve that.

Care to share a few? I'm eager to learn about that!

19:00 / 20.02.06

how you define destroying the ego? and what are you defining as ego, exactly? i think that's a good thing to clarify from the outset. we need to have ego. what we need to do is to ensure that the "little self" doesn't get in the way of us being our true selves, doing our true will. it's not about destruction. it may possibly be about transcendence - we are more likely to achieve this though by self-acceptance rather than self-destruction.

also - i really really wouldn't get too attatched to the notion of bliss. that per se could be misleading and could lead to attitudes of ungrounded escapism.

well i'm prepared to say....... you could for instance do a bit of research about tantra.

10:36 / 21.02.06

I think I mean by destroying the ego what everybody does?

Have you read 'Undoing Yourself' by Hyatt? Like someone said in the related thread, it's crap, BUT there are some awesome exercises in there. He serves the same ones in his 'Western Tantra' from page 64 on, go read that on amazon.com if you haven't yet. (Or pm me, I'll be glad to send them to you)

Tell me if it has any link to what you call 'tantra'. What others said, it was more like reichian exercises. Anyway, the effects are incredible. They act on your body, and in turn this act on your mind, in a very profound way.

The first time it started working for me, I had an incredible rush of energy, and my mentation was very different, kind like if I had broken from the usual bonds that were keeping me meek. After a while doing them, I had a very deep experience, where I hallucinated a Scorpio tail inside of me, which was attacking me. Dark, olds parts of my self were crumbling under the attack, very scary to feel yourself falling apart like that. Never felt so good afterwards.

Now, I'm doing it on a regular basis, but the first time was like I flushed out all the 'ego-shit' that had accumulated over the years.

Of course, this grows back, and I think it's natural, too. When it grows back, I can sort of mold it in to what I want, becoming more or less someone else. Very much less than more, because it's difficult to destroy the very deep core of yourself. In my case, it needs destroying, because it's pretty badly put together and it hampers me. This may not be the case for everyone.

That's why I need external chaos unleashed on me, that's the only thing that could change me deep enough (Just think Lost, the TV show).

10:46 / 21.02.06

Seconded on the Hyatt exercises. Hyatt was trained by Israel Regardie, who worked as a Reichian therapist and chiropracter. Not sure where Regardie actually trained, and what degree of contact he had with Reich (if any) but that's where the exercises derieve from.

12:43 / 24.02.06

i don't think you really need external chaos unleashed on you, to be honest with you. i do think ... maybe the fact you said that is a sign that you feel that some areas of your life are stagnant & you feel bored & stuck. what could you do to change them, reawaken them? how could you move forward in your life? are there problems, issues beneath the surface.... scabs that you're not willing to pick? i wouldn't blandly risk destabilising everything - externally - just for the sake of it. you could well wake up afterwards & find out that good things that could have & should have - didn't survive the little apocalypse.

as for tantra........ there's a vast amount of material available on the web. the basics are simple. the practice takes discipline & will, yeah, shake things up a little or a lot ....... for good or for bad...........the responsibility with that lies with the practitioner.