Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Temple >

Spontaneous knowledge

18:25 / 20.02.06

Have you ever had some kind of spontaneous knowledge arise in you through meditative/trancelike/ritualistic practice? Last night I was attempting to "sort my shit out" and ended up being contacted by some kind of deity (in my paradigm I've pretty much justified her as an expression of my anima) identifying herself as "Hagnes" (I don't make a common practice of this kind of meditation or ritual, the entire thing was pretty spontaneous). I have no knowledge of the root of the word, or of the Greek language, but upon researching the word,it is the feminine form of "pure" or "holy," which just makes too much sense to have been a fluke. Do others have the same kinds of stories/experiences?

20:14 / 20.02.06

I've had an experience of this sort. About two years ago, I was doing some Kabbalah-inspired meditation. One of these was in relation to Yesod, so I had gathered (mentally) various symbols related to this sphere, most importantly the moon.
Long story short, I focused on the Tarot card of The Moon (I was using the Rider-Waite deck then) and suddenly I became absolutely sure that the dogs on either side of the card weren't dogs, but jackals. It wasn't the result of any conscious deduction, it just suddenly made sense.
I made a note of the result and went on with my meditation.

About a year later, I finally get my hands on the Thoth Tarot (this was the first time I'd seen it). I look through the deck and when I get to the moon, lo and behold, there's two jackals. Freaked me out a bit at the time.

Now, it's possible that I might somewhere have picked up this symbolism without remembering it (maybe a note in a book or something), but it's still a bit interesting.

21:07 / 20.02.06

There's an old thread righ here in this forumwith a very interesting story about spontaneous knowledge. It's not from meditation exactly, but, hey, we're talking about a whole language sprouting from "nowhere"...

21:09 / 20.02.06

The link above seem not to be working, so the thread's name is "Old dog learns new trick". Look it up, it's worthy the trouble.

10:09 / 21.02.06

I'd say about 70% of what I know about magic, both in terms of insights/understanding as well as practical skills, formulas and recipes - has come from direct communication with Spirits and Deities. It's business as usual really. The notion of the sorcerer going out into the wilderness and returning with a complete system of magic taught by the Spirits is not an inaccessible fantasy or the sole preserve of mythical shamans in the Amazon basin. It's open to anyone capable of working out where the door handle is and how to turn it. To my mind, this sort of contact should be the bread and butter that magicians use to make their occult sandwiches.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:42 / 21.02.06

I have no knowledge of the root of the word, or of the Greek language, but upon researching the word,it is the feminine form of "pure" or "holy," which just makes too much sense to have been a fluke.

It's a woman's name, in itself, as well - specifically, that of one of the the most famous and revered early Christian martyrs, which is derived from hagnos, hagne, hagnon, meaning pure or chaste. Might be worth having alook at her as well, especially if your entity was one of purity...

Less searchable M0rd4nt

11:02 / 21.02.06

I've got whole chunks of info spontaneously, via meditation, communion ect.; everything from relatively minor hints and tips to fairly sophisticated ritual palaver. Preferred offerings and titles, what to wear, how to make a bit of kit, things like that. I'm trying to learn magic in a trad where all the original magicians have been dead for about a thousand years and some of the big figures jockeying for my attention are down to a couple of sentences in a saga and a rock carving halfway up a mountain in bloody Iceland so I'd be a bit shagged if you couldn't get info that way.

22:45 / 23.02.06

During a particular unpleasent period of my life I was taken on a dream quest by characters from celtic mythology all wearing my own features. They had me initiated by one of their number, who has since become my Patron, in a series of apparent flashbacks to prior lives. In effect I was being taught stuff that I had once known (in once case a form of human sacrifice I had apparently been subjected to).

When I woke up the following day it remained a rather vivid dream even though the specifics were rather vague. However I later found myself arguing with self proclaimed neo-pagan druids who were trying to pass stuff off that they had made up on the bus over as ancient lore (nothing wrong with making stuff up but at least be honest about it) and correcting a fortune teller who insisted that the suit of Swords was elementally aligned with fire rather than air. Stuff that I hadn't known I knew.

Now whenever I put my "magic head" on any relevent information wells up only to fade away once I'm back in the mundane world. This means that most of my workings frequently make little sense to me once the ritual is over and the core of my magical knowledge is unavailable to me most of the time.

However it does mean that I can fire off sigils even before I've gotten around to drawing them. Or have a fully functioning one pop into the front of my head for me to use if the need arises. I've learned to trust my instincts.

PlanetNiles: Where the weather is arboreal

11:25 / 24.02.06

Niles, we generally don't sign our posts around here, and even the three or four that do don't use images (clue: pointless waste of bandwidth).

18:18 / 24.02.06

Understood. I usually sign only once per page anyway but I'll cease and desist retoroactively.

18:35 / 24.02.06

[threadrot]

For some reason, that eye-pic of P.Niles gives me the chills. Have no idea why, though.

[end threadrot]

16:50 / 28.02.06

A number of years ago while meditating I became convinced that an insight had been planted in my consciousness...namely that Garuda, Thoth and Hermes were all aspects of the same intelligence. Thoth and Hermes made perfect sense but Garuda? I googled it and found that Madame Blavatsky had said something similar in one of her jillion page books.

Although I have immersed myself in Tibetan Buddhism for the past couple years, I still feel a very powerful affinity for this idea. Go figure.

04:08 / 01.03.06

Last night I was having a mental discussion with my lemon trees as I watered them on the balcony. They mentioned that they really liked human porn, and found human divided sexuality fascinating. Intrigued I inquired about plant sex, and of course they mentioned flowers. Flowers being and expression of sex, and also a expression of beauty. I was intrigued that I'd never thought of flowers as symbols of sexuality before, love maybe but not sex. That a flowering plant is like a hardcore porno. Spring is a time of orgies for the plant world. The air is filled with floating orgasms searching for genital covered trees and bushes. I'd never thought of it like that. I'd always imagined plantlife as stoic and perhaps a little brutal. To imagine that plantlife has passion, perhaps even awareness of beauty, was quite remarkable.

Of course this was just all made up in my head but it did bring a connection that I'd previously never made.