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Underground > Temple >

To Practice or not to Practice

  
  

Page: 1(2)3

 
 
EvskiG
14:51 / 04.06.07
I know I keep going on about this but the more I think about it the more I reckon we urgently need to get away from writing that assumes a middle-class, able-bodied magician with few responsibilities and no dependents--and probably a mum or a wife to keep the household running while he communes with the Infinite.

This really is a fascinating issue, and one I wish someone (TTS?) would write an article or a book about.

The two times I had a truly demanding and comprehensive magical and/or yoga practice (two hours or so a day) were (1) when I was a college student and between girlfriends, and (2) when I was working a menial post-college job and involved with a woman who lived on the other side of the country.

In other words, when I had tons and tons of free time and the ability to prance around my bedroom deosil and say silly words without getting funny looks.

But, even so, it's not too tricky to do (say) Liber Resh four times a day, the LBRP twice a day, and a bit of magical reading. Just get five minutes alone for the LBRP, close the office or bathroom door for Resh, and read on the subway. Or do five minutes of yoga on rising and half an hour after getting home.

BUT . . . there's something about the stresses and demands of modern life that can be painfully draining, and can make it a chore to take even that half hour or so a day. Especially when Heroes is on in fifteen minutes . . .
 
 
brother george
16:04 / 04.06.07
Besides, quick solar adorations in corporate toilets is the norm these days.
 
 
Papess
16:07 / 04.06.07
I know I keep going on about this but the more I think about it the more I reckon we urgently need to get away from writing that assumes a middle-class, able-bodied magician with few responsibilities and no dependants--and probably a mum or a wife to keep the household running while he communes with the Infinate... - TtS

Exactly! I am glad I am not the only who feels that way. We are much more aware of the different functionality and circumstances of different people, nowadays, in other arenas. Why not magick too? There are some very good examples of those issues, and also good examples of how to deal with them. Making a respectable practic which also takes into account the century one is living in, and the political and social responsibilities that implies. A lot of would-be magi who are parents (speaking from experience) probably are rushed in their mornings and just want to collapse from exhaustion at night. Practicing three times a day, which is the suggested practice in many traditions I can think of, just isn't making the priority list.

So, having kids and runing a household and taking care of your family, and yourself, trying to hold down a job, maybe two, or managing a career, plus trying to keep a practice that measures up to the practices demonstrated in books about monks who leave their families in despair to attain their liberation.

Now, throw in that mix, a physical, emotional or mental disorder or condition, and I think it is no wonder there is a need to change the way we practice, or what is acceptable as practice.

Apophenia: What you said about guidanc is a very good point. You know, to get a bit personal here, I have a Root Guru, who I would have benefitted greatly from having their guidance. Due to childhood traumas, I had no chance of ever developing a relationship whit anyone, much less a larger-than-life being who could see into my very nature of exsistence. That is part of the obstacles I need to remove in myself, though, if I am to progress at all. Simply, if the obstacles are in someone's heart, or mind, it may be a bit harder to understand them as a casual observer. Even though I have the opportunity, my fears and trust issues hold me back. I am working on it however, and I think I might just email Him. I gots to confront, it, I suppose.

When it comes to kids, especially one's own kids, they can be included in some practices. For example, my son likes to open the shrine with me and his role is to make the incense offering - with my supervision, of course. Actually, my son's interest rather sparks my own. So, even though I have to wear earplugs sometimes while I do tongla and meditation, there are benefits from my interaction with my son, too. *more smiley faces*

So making a realistic practice is key to keeping our committment to it. Managing our time and the demands of daily life with practice almost requires me to make the most of the moments during my daily life, to imbue them with magickal or spiritual intention to try and make up for what I cannot do in the traditional sense of practice. Or possibly, just to get the most out of my opportunity to practice. These are lovely examples...

archabyss: On my daily walk to the bus stop in the evenings, which is roughly a 40 minute trot, I do a walking mediation. Now, I think that is great. Does it do what it is suppose to for you, archabyss? Does it feel like you are not doing enough sometimes? Like you need to do more to live up to a certain standard of practice? I ask those questions to everyone who posted an alternative method, that sort of "background method", mentioned by Nytemuse, here: Depending on your intent, there are several magical-attunement exercises that can be done in the background of your day, after an initial period of getting used to it. Feri tradition has a kind of balancing exercise for yourself that, once you get used to it, can be done just taking a walk down the street or even while in a meeting

Now, here I have to ask, is this enough to do, to constitute practice? If the only practice one does ends up being not actually "practice", but technically application, does that count? Or is what I am saying imcomprehensible foolishness?

I am begining to spin. There is more I think I want to say. But I also think I may have just made a point that I need to ponder. I will come back with more.
 
 
Papess
16:39 / 04.06.07
BTW, brother george, you are quite tenacious and resourceful. Good work!

Ev G: BUT . . . there's something about the stresses and demands of modern life that can be painfully draining, and can make it a chore to take even that half hour or so a day.

Right. Not only are we pushed and pulled by our responsibilities, but we are also sucked into wasting time with all those delightful and mind-numbingly seductive distractions. *glazes over*

Especially when Heroes is on in fifteen minutes . . .

Recently listening to some online teachings, and one of them said something like, When you die, you never wished you watched just one more TV show.

Not to be preachy, at all. I am as guilty as the next person of wasting time watching TV when I could be doing something else, a little more productive or beneficial. Although, I have sat and watched the news and have done mantras for victims of tradgedy, many times. Still, the trappings of modern life are just as much an obstacle. I think this points to a neccessity for magicians and the like to be able to manage their resources accordingly. I'm just not certain how, exactly! Working on it.
 
 
brother george
17:10 / 04.06.07
BTW, brother george, you are quite tenacious and resourceful. Good work!

Thanks, finishing that year without skipping a lot of days meant a lot to me. Attrition kicked in rather early too, I strained a couple of psychic knuckles, but lots of wonderful (and terrible) things happened :-)

As far as the everyday life, I think that, if what you do esoterically is productive, then you will not have much trouble in the other aspects of your life. Things will tend to fall into place. Meanings and direction will arise, your environment will start to cooperate with your aspirations,etc. If what you do esoterically is not productive, or simply does not work, you seem to wallow forever in states of limbo, floating in a big sea upon pieces of plastic.


On the other hand, I am of the opinion that one cannot devote his life in a career and be at the same time a successful occultist. This is a choice most of the people that study the occult have to make sooner or later.
 
 
This Sunday
17:52 / 04.06.07
I was quite hesitant to post, as this is the sort of topic I think I just end up annoying people with. But, caution, wind, done and here we are: I don't have daily practices, even if I have things I do, for ostensibly spiritual or religious reasons, daily. I don't set out to be putting aside coffee or food for the dead, for spirits, for whatever, on the basis of doing it X times a day, but I do do it more if I'm particularly hungry or thirsty. Not sharing your drink when you're really thirsty may not make you any more of an ass, but it certainly feels like it to me, so a bit more spilled under those circumstances. If I even suspect it'd be a decent thing for me to X because of Y, yeah, paranoia about 'am I reading into this too much' and 'sign, sign, everywhere another freaky sign' included, I'll do my part.

No daily regulated honoring or addressing to anybody in particular, but I do quite a bit of that during the course of nearly any day. May be a difference between having gods and having people, perhaps, but that's a suspect assertion and I'm pretty sure I'm missing some awareness of the other end of the table.

I think I just came into this differently then some of y'all. I couldn't get the young, somebody else to handle you're dailies, focus all on magick practice and studies gig, because as a kid, even, my chores were magickally/spiritually based. Ugh! Sounds inane, I know, but seriously, lots of plant identification, lots of what does what and who to call on for this sort of favor or that sort of work, what goes together for a healing of that, how do you put up for a curse or this particular effect vs that one. What's polite to ask for, what songs are sung when you're killing something or cutting it up, burning the hair off, and so. Even cleaning a sluice gate, sweeping the floor, walking to the corner store or carrying stuff through the woods to a grandma's house were all likely to have moral and spiritual lessons attached, despite appearing, as a kid, to be mind-numbingly pointless a lot of the time.

I guess I kinda thought lots of other folks got this sort of thing from a Christian or Buddhist bent. Did nobody ever get you up at six a.m. to kneel and pray and take the body of Christ or anything? This waters got special properties because it has these things put into it and somebody says this stuff over it and now here wash your forehead? Perhaps it just hasn't the same affect.

I assume a lot, and one thing I tend to assume is that our childhood training sets up how we deal with later focus-requiring activities. If I have to set up a contract requiring me to X so many times a day or Y for threee nights or three weeks, so it is. I'll fulfill the contract, but a lifelong contract would require dedication towards a particular set, be it a single entity or a perspective or whatever, and then when you're hip deep in the stuff, what if you want out? You'd have to allow for the other end to relinquish whatever was contracted as soon as you're backing out of the deal. What if part of that contract were someone else's life, or some massively good or protection styled thing?

I'm not making any eternal promises, but I'm not asking anything to make any eternal promises to me. Most of the time, I'm not even interested in dealing in short-term promises. I may be the devil's advocate, but I'll never play devil's advocate if I can help it.
 
 
Papess
18:18 / 04.06.07
I guess I kinda thought lots of other folks got this sort of thing from a Christian or Buddhist bent. Did nobody ever get you up at six a.m. to kneel and pray and take the body of Christ or anything?

Gosh, Decadent. The only thing I got from Catholicism was a guilty conscience and my purse stolen from the pews. I think I would have given an eyeball to have parental guidance, or adult guidance, anyway, in magick as a child. What great foundations for you!
 
 
NyteMuse
19:04 / 04.06.07
Now, here I have to ask, is this enough to do, to constitute practice? If the only practice one does ends up being not actually "practice", but technically application, does that count? Or is what I am saying imcomprehensible foolishness?

Ah, but it all depends on the method. It's very Karate Kid-esque, where Miyagi-sensei had Daniel painting the fence and sanding the wood in a very specific way only to have him discover later that his muscles now had the memory of the motion necessary to use in martial arts. That balancing exercise I referred to has MANY uses in the trad, so it becomes applicable. The practice, the running it in the background, is like learning the lines, so that when you DO need to use or apply it, it's right at hand and ready to go. I've used that balancing tool to keep myself grounded, stay focused on a task, charge a talisman, get into trance, do some self-diagnosis and therapy, and many other uses. Additionally, all that practice running that energy makes later exercises much easier.

But perhaps I'm not understanding your comment about practice v. application. The daily practice I do is to help get me prepared for the trickier stuff later on, and to help keep me connected to the magical current. So I'm not sure how practice could be less practice if it becomes something applicable? What is your goal of practice?
 
 
Papess
19:28 / 04.06.07
It's funny, sanding is something I did once for a monastary. Maybe I should've stuck to carpentary.

So I'm not sure how practice could be less practice if it becomes something applicable?

That is my point. I don't believe so either.
 
 
illmatic
19:51 / 04.06.07
I am of the opinion that one cannot devote his life in a career and be at the same time a successful occultist.

I don't agree with this. I know several people who I'd consider to be very "successful" at both. To be sure, there's a tension between the two, but I don't think this it's the case, at all, that you reject one over the other. A lot of my practice currently is about challenges and difficulties I face in my career - I don't see them as being in opposition. Also, if you look at the spiritual practices of those outside the tiny Western occult bubble - there's a whole heap of practitioners running occult or spiritual practices alongside their everyday lives.

Interesting post, Decadent: but seriously, lots of plant identification, lots of what does what and who to call on for this sort of favor or that sort of work, what goes together for a healing of that, how do you put up for a curse or this particular effect vs that one. What's polite to ask for, what songs are sung when you're killing something or cutting it up, burning the hair off, and so.

I'd say that all that learning is (or was) practice in the sense a lot of people are talking about here. You being "lucky" enough to have all that around you in your childhood environment, the difference in cultural background, has given you a different perspective on it maybe.
 
 
This Sunday
20:09 / 04.06.07
Justrix, it reads like you're certainly trying for some spiritual/religious guidance for your son in ways. Probably in ways more useful than guilt. Although, if I picked up anything at boarding school, it was a strong suspicion that guilt was the foundation of Catholicism.

TTS, I'm really glad you've brought up the socio-economic dynamics of magickal practice. One thing that's kept me treating a lot of Euro-derived magick texts as something for study or thieving the occasional technique, but never quite signing on is this weird assumption that nobody ever has to cook, run an errand, or even just pick up an extra shift some night. Nobody who could have an interest or any use for magick, that is.

It's one thing if it's written two hundred years ago and directly addressing a certain class of white men, but from 1997? I keep thinking we're supposed to have stopped isolating real people from just meaning white men of a certain class, even if we are all living in a Euro-derived patriarchal cultural matrix.

One thing I like in the Koran is that there's a deliberate out for any practice or requirement in it. There are provisions for when somebody has to miss a prayer or skip a ceremony because grannie has to go to doctor, that help smooth over what I consider the faults of the thing (book and practice). Lots of practices have a 'feed the starving stranger' bit, but it's always nice to see one that says 'feed them even during times you're not meant to handle/work food.'

NyteMuse, it may amuse you that my brother's favored coping method through childhood learning-through-chores was to convince himself it was exactly like Karate Kid and he'd one day be sent off for honorable and entertaining revenge, maybe get declared the Shogun of Harlem.

My bro's actually a pretty good example of how I'm looking at magick practices: He's now a short-order cook, part time painter, and raising two kids (third on the way), and there's no way I could presume his spiritual/magicky devotion was any less or more than my own if for no other reason than that he has two kids who don't cry or scream throughout a movie in a theatre, but sit and watch and drink their drinks. Strong magick. He takes a lot of other people to ceremonies he typically wouldn't be required or expected to be at or participate in, just because somebody needs the ride. He's very open about detrimental decisions he made in his younger youth, and does a lot of work with kids about appreciating the world and doing their part to improve their own and other peoples' situations.

I'm not going to say my lackadaisacal walking around town trying to only focus on external stimuli as that, or putting a bit of food to the side, is any more or less magickal or beneficial than a number of alternate methods. I'm satisfied with my methods, and haven't been convinced another set it more functional, so I stick with what I stick with. However, I like that there are people in the world who can dedicate themselves in a way that requires daily honoring of this deity or nightly recognition of aspect X. As a non-academic who has to work with lots of academics regularly, I really appreciate the work it takes to manage a course of study or perpetual not-for-grade/promotion research and analyses that isn't entirely dilettantish.
 
 
brother george
20:48 / 04.06.07
I don't agree with this. I know several people who I'd consider to be very "successful" at both

Oh I`m sorry. I was pointing to people that dropped entirely their occult work while favoring their career, by the false assumption that most of their problems could be solved with more money. We all work occult practices through our everyday lives.

I also believe that your occult work is what supports you, not your job, or your career, or the money earned. It is your productive esoteric life.
 
 
EvskiG
21:04 / 04.06.07
Several times over the years people on this board have compared magical practice to practice of a musical instrument.

The comparison raises all sorts of interesting questions:

If you're just learning to play the guitar, should you do basic exercises over and over again, pick up the instrument and learn as you go, or a little (or lot) of both?

Should an experienced guitarist still practice basic exercises, or should he or she expect to get all of his or her practice through playing?

Should you learn the compositions of the masters, write your own songs, or simply noodle around and jam with others? Is there something to be said for each?

If you simply want to make beautiful music, once you know the basics do you need to practice at all?
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
21:49 / 04.06.07
Well, I don't know about that comparison, I play guitar, piano and bass and have played clarinet and different approaches have worked differently for different instruments.

However, I do think you've written down the learning, "compositions of the masters, write your own songs or just jam" thing in order, most useful first. Jamming by itself with no education leads to annoying rubbish. Writing your own songs almost always yields writing the same song as someone else's but not as good, unless you're a genius or very naturally talented.

I'm not sure these things are true for magic, though. Music is to be played for and heard by other people, magic doesn't necessarily have to be done for anyone other than the practitioner, and I think this difference affects things. If you're writing a song that only you will ever listen to it can sound however you like and if you think it's beautiful, it is. I don't know if that's true of magic.

One thing I do think crosses over though, is the idea of a difference between well-trained people and naturally gifted people. Some people can just pick up an instrument and start playing it. Similarly, I think some people have a natural talent for ritual magic.
 
 
EvskiG
23:44 / 04.06.07
However, I do think you've written down the learning, "compositions of the masters, write your own songs or just jam" thing in order, most useful first. Jamming by itself with no education leads to annoying rubbish. Writing your own songs almost always yields writing the same song as someone else's but not as good, unless you're a genius or very naturally talented.

I'm not sure these things are true for magic, though.

I wonder.

Seems to me that doing ritual work like the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram is playing a composition of a master. It's often the most useful, especially for a beginner.

Doing rituals you've written yourself is, of course, playing a song you've written yourself. As you noted, it "almost always yields writing the same [thing] as someone else's but not as good, unless you're a genius or very naturally talented."

Hence the three thousand variations of the LBRP, most of which simply substitute one holy name or magical entity with another. (E.g., replace Gabriel with Wilma Flintstone.)

(Crowley was guilty of this too, as in the Star Ruby.)

Finally, freeform ritual work like, say, "sending positive energy" to everyone you see on the street is the equivalent of jamming. And, as you said, "[j]amming by itself with no education leads to annoying rubbish."
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
00:28 / 05.06.07
There are also life-events that can leave anyone with severely diminished energy and concentration. What if you've just got divorced? What if your best mate's just died? What if you develop a chronic lung disease? What if you lose a leg? What if you have a four hour strap-hanging commute every day? What if your new baby isn't sleeping through the night yet? Don't tell me that none of this stuff would have the slightest impact on a person's magical practice.

I think that depends on what sort of magical practice one has; such times are where the ability to meditate and calm ones thoughts, not just by setting aside time and adopting an asana posistion but rather practically in any waking momment, comes in real handy. They also give prime motivation to affect change, or appreciate the kinds of change that have been affected, provided that one has the ability to do so.

To quote Quantum from the stupid magic questions thread, "magicians go the lightning bolt path touching all the bases so they know everything" and everything includes the Qlippoth; whilst most people may want to leave these forces alone, insight may still be gained from them.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
08:54 / 05.06.07
I think that depends on what sort of magical practice one has

That's pretty much what I'm getting at, yeah. I'd like to see texts that encouraged the reader to seek creative solutions and workarounds for a busy life, rather than assuming bags of free time and someone to pick up your dirty socks.

such times are where the ability to meditate and calm ones thoughts, not just by setting aside time and adopting an asana posistion but rather practically in any waking momment, comes in real handy.

Again, I agree. I'd encourage people to get to the stage where they can meditate sitting in the middle of a railway station at rush hour.

They also give prime motivation to affect change, or appreciate the kinds of change that have been affected, provided that one has the ability to do so.

Not always, no. No-one's resources are infinate, and what might spur one person on to greater efforts may crush another. This isn't a matter of being "strong" or "weak" btw--everyone's got their own areas of potency and weakness, their strong suits and their Achillies' heels.

everything includes the Qlippoth; whilst most people may want to leave these forces alone, insight may still be gained from them.

Don't understand this bit at all. I'm really not sure what the Qlippoth are doing in here (how is a new baby Qlippothic?). I'm talking about normal life-events as experienced by a huge percentage of modern Westerners. Sure, my ego might have been stroked if back when I had a 4-hour round trip to get to work had I convinced myself that I was exploring the Nightside of the Tree of Life thereby, but I'm not sure that kind of personal mythologising really constitutes "magical practice." Looking for the sacred Mysteries in everything you do throughout the day: magic. Convincing yourself that having a shitty job for a bit is equivalent to traversing the Tunnels of Set or Crossing the Abyss: wanker.
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
09:15 / 05.06.07
Convincing yourself that having a shitty job for a bit is equivalent to traversing the Tunnels of Set or Crossing the Abyss: wanker.

Does being a night shift receptionist in an Accident and Emergency Unit for 5 years count?

If not, dang. There was me thinking I had teh Abyss(TM)covered.

TBH, if it's not a proper dark abyss type *place* with hideous *real* creatures waving enthusiastic tentacles I think it's basically a pretend abyss. You actually have to go sort of mad, methinks. Is it not the effect of crossing the abyss, upon the mind (whether HP Lovesauce stylee or no), that is important, however, whether pretend or not? What *does* count as crossing the abyss?

Perhaps this is a different thread.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:24 / 05.06.07
The first rule of Ipsissimus club is: you do not talk about Ipsissimus club.
 
 
This Sunday
09:42 / 05.06.07
Sibelian's got me wondering: does the abyss, if your system has one, or beyond that any kind of eternal suffering misery place, motivate anything in how you go about your days and nights? I don't think I'd like an abyss much, really, and don't believe at all that suffering makes anybody a better person. Not a great fan of suffering or hardship; just makes you sore, hungry, and mad at yourself and the world - and then you go back to sleep and wake up the next day.

I've known Christians who insisted if their beliefs were suddenly proven irrefutably wrong, they'd be bad people just because the rules would be off. A bit short-sighted, I'd think, but that they were motivated to be decent or kind, even in small ways, by basically the Devil and Jesus sort of made me go 'Wow!'

And then there seems to be an inordinate number of young restless urban manly-men mages rushing to the abyss to see if they can hang around the limn and seduce women with NLP trickery while they're distracted by the giant gaping maw of doomy collapse called the abyss.

So those of you whom this qualifies to, do you find yourself actually acting to get to, away, or through these places/states? Enough that it structures your daily activities or continual spiritual practices?
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
09:46 / 05.06.07
close the office or bathroom door for Resh

And

Besides, quick solar adorations in corporate toilets is the norm these days.

Sorry, just have to interject here and say: It's about the SUN! The fucking SUN! Big glowing thing in the sky outside. Can't miss it. Go outside and salute the actual Sun, up there, silently and without funny arm gestures if you have to, but go and commune with the bloody Sun in the Sky, shining in all of its majestic glory and giving life to all things. It is yours. It is there for you. Go and see it.

Scurrying away furtively into a tiny corporate toilet in an office block to perform your Solar adoration is just ridiculous. On your way to work, lunchbreak, when you leave the office, before you go to sleep. There is no way you can't find 30 seconds to salute the actual Sun in the sky at four points during the day. If you get distracted and miss one, it's not a problem, you don't lose points. It's not about passing a test. Aleister Crowley is not standing at the sidelines with a note book keeping score. It should be a single personal moment of communion between you and the giant life giving orb at the centre of our Solar System. You should enjoy it. Feel it filling you up and nourishing you. Bask in it. Take it all in. Understand in that instant that you are of the same nature and it burns at your centre, as it does at the centre of all.

I think that performing this most precious and central of communions with nature, secluded away in the toilet like you were sneaking away with a porn mag, is just symptomatic of the pernicious social conditioning that makes us somehow terrified and emmbarassed to simply "be" on the planet. What could be more natural than standing on the Earth and communing with the Sun? What affliction has twisted the human animal to the point that this is such a perceived transgression that it has to be performed behind closed doors in a toilet cubical for fear of what exactly? Ridicule? Scorn? For me, a silent prayer under the breath with my head turned upwards to the Sun for a moment each day - even if I only do it once on a morning - is infinitely, infinitely more valuable than any amount of gestures performed furtively in the toilet.
 
 
brother george
09:56 / 05.06.07
I do not think that the qabbalistic Abyss has something to do with a very scary place, full of slime and tentacles.
Its suppose to be the perceptual chasm between human dualistic worldview and thought, and the Supernal region where every opposite is reconciled and unity is all there is.

On the other hand, that might seem scary for some people and obviously crossing that threshold isn't a stroll in the park. But scary monsters with tentacles? Whats next, jewish rabbis wearing IHVH Megaman silicon suits? Come on!
 
 
illmatic
09:56 / 05.06.07
Aleister Crowley is not standing at the sidelines with a note book keeping score.

B-B-But what do you mean?He appeared to me on the astral a-and everything! First the tooth fairy now this...


Old qliplop thread here - bit wary of discussing this because it can all turn a bit ungrounded and unexperiential....
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
10:09 / 05.06.07
Not always, no. No-one's resources are infinate, and what might spur one person on to greater efforts may crush another. This isn't a matter of being "strong" or "weak" btw--everyone's got their own areas of potency and weakness, their strong suits and their Achillies' heels.

True, but magical practice can be a refuge from things that might normally crush someone, a buffer zone of techniques or routines that help alleviate the stress or pain that they're going through. Sometimes those events prevent aspects of a practice, such as how personal injury can prevent one from practicing martial arts, however other aspects may be taken up in their place and can be necessary to get over that loss.

I'm really not sure what the Qlippoth are doing in here (how is new baby Qlippothic?)

Sleepless nights and worries about the childs health are little tastes of hell, just as the childs smile is a little taste of heaven. I'm talking about normal life events as well, as normal life events are part of the tree of life; thankfully they're usually not as intense as pure sefirah, however there is a little bit of sefirah in all things i.e binah's power of love in helping out a stranger, golab self destruction in feeding an addiction.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:16 / 05.06.07
I think the sneak-into-the-corporate-toilet model is sort of what was inevitably going to happen when people try and take Unkle Al's gear out of its social and historical context (maids, cooks and nannies, time and space to dress up in weird clothes and wave your arms around) and translate it into ours. You end up creating this deformed and twisted mutant version of the rituals, when what needs to happen is for people to look at what's going on underneath the handwaving and gestures and see how that can be blended with everyday life.

This is another reason I get so tetchy with the "8 hours work, 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours magic" model. Trying to put everything into these little sealed Tupperware boxes, like leftover food...
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
10:16 / 05.06.07
Not a great fan of suffering or hardship; just makes you sore, hungry, and mad at yourself and the world - and then you go back to sleep and wake up the next day.

Though it does tend to make one a little more compassionate for those that know suffering.
 
 
Sibelian 2.0
10:19 / 05.06.07
TEH ABYSS IS TEH SUXXORS.

My A&E stint was pretty bad but if that wasn't enough, DURING it, whilst I was also studying photography as mature student in an expensive and poverty making way, my flatmate's brother turned badly shizophrenic and started coming round to our house demanding to do freaky magic at us and refusing to believe we were who we said we were. Then one of my best friends, who shared a flat with the brother also went unpleasantly, heartbreakingly and schizophrenically mad and escaped from a maximum security loony bin and disappeared, with all the contingent fallout from his other friends, who all rushed to me for emotional support (thanks guys). He was one of the groups's pillars of spontaneity and fun. We've all basically just decided, in our hearts, that he's dead. But we'll never know. No funeral, of course.

We were all starting to think that schizophrenia was contagious. Then someone had a hideous back injury, then the best friend's girlfriend collapsed into depression and drunkenness, his remaining flatmate lost his last job and has never worked again, blah, blah. And that was just the beginning... during all that I was still working in the Casualty with heroin addicts threatening to kill me and policeman getting pissed off with me for not giving out personal details of rape victims and all the nurses thinking I was weird because I thought Clause 28 should be repealed... yadda yadda.

The Abyss is so BORING.

So, warg. During this period, I met someone who looked like Kali in a dream. In the dream, she had agents all over the world who were basically the Outer Church but nastier, kidnapping my friends and torturing them at me down the phone, which isn't that much like Kali, so maybe it wasn't her. It were all pretty freaky.

Do I have a daily routine left over from that period? Yes. Anything psychic walking into my head telling me that it was good for me or made me stronger gets a metaphysical punch in the face, and that *does* happen, pretty much daily. Sometimes I let them finish a sentence and then say: "How interesting. But, actually, I don't CARE whether or not it made me a better person. I'm still going to punch you." BIFF.

The Kali-thing took up residence in my head and called herself Shetek. She then set about using my deadjournal to cast a series of pretty muscular curses at people. Which seem to have worked (trust me, the receiving end is Most Deserving). She's stopped posting now and basically doesn't do anything. I've been thinking for some time of writing a story that features her transforming into something else, so she's basically ready to go.

Anyway, the Abyss is CRAP. It's only useful as soil for planting new things in. There's nothing THERE, dude.

Mostly.
 
 
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10:19 / 05.06.07
Several times over the years people on this board have compared magical practice to practice of a musical instrument.

The comparison raises all sorts of interesting questions:

Agreed, it does, totally.

If you're just learning to play the guitar, should you do basic exercises over and over again, pick up the instrument and learn as you go, or a little (or lot) of both?

It differs depending on the type of person you are and how you want to go about it, as far as I know. But when it comes to music and magic, there's a big difference between going the wrong way about learning the instrument (the wrong way for yourself, with each person being again, different in how they can learn best.) and learning slower, and going the wrong way around it and causing yourself some pretty fucked up problems, obviously..

Should an experienced guitarist still practice basic exercises, or should he or she expect to get all of his or her practice through playing?

As you progress learning an instrument, I think it gets to the point where you vary the things you play, so that in simply playing the music you want to do and mixing things up, the basics are covered as you go. So I'd lean to the answer that through playing a lot of this is done. This is for a properly experienced musician though.

Should you learn the compositions of the masters, write your own songs, or simply noodle around and jam with others? Is there something to be said for each?

If you simply want to make beautiful music, once you know the basics do you need to practice at all?

Again it's different for each person, and the way they're naturally going to go about it. As for making beautiful music, I guess it comes down to what type of beautiful really, doesn't it? It can be very, very simple or crazily complex when it comes to playing what you define as beautiful, and there'll always be a mixture of the two as far as I can see, which reflects the same aspects in magic and life itself.

Jamming by itself with no education leads to annoying rubbish.

I think you meant that a lot of the time it does? If not, I can't agree with you there, sorry.

Writing your own songs almost always yields writing the same song as someone else's but not as good, unless you're a genius or very naturally talented.

Yeah I suppose this kind of links in with the previous part, but a lot of it comes down to practising in whatever way you want to, be it jamming by yourself, jamming along with tunes or with others, the amount of time you've played the instrument, and your range of influences; the spectrum or range of styles that you're going to add into the piece you write, that'll result in how good the finished music is. I'm also of the opinion that practise (a lot of it.) can often bring you level with genius and very naturally talented, because if you work and work at it, you're going to get experience and results, as you seperate the good from the bad, or what you personally define as good or bad, and then your style is gradually uncovered, probably a lot like your own magic.

I'm not sure these things are true for magic, though. Music is to be played for and heard by other people, magic doesn't necessarily have to be done for anyone other than the practitioner, and I think this difference affects things. If you're writing a song that only you will ever listen to it can sound however you like and if you think it's beautiful, it is. I don't know if that's true of magic.

I think on some levels it will be, and on others it'll depend on the type of magic you're actually doing. I mean, you can think something is beautiful magic-wise, but if you're affecting others with the magic you do, then the consequences are altogether different, which is a given, surely.

One thing I do think crosses over though, is the idea of a difference between well-trained people and naturally gifted people. Some people can just pick up an instrument and start playing it. Similarly, I think some people have a natural talent for ritual magic.

Yeah agreed with this aswell. With playing the guitar being one of the things I love the most, and one of the only things that I actually do every day at the moment, some of the similarities can be amazing. Especially as you develop and you get those hints of your own style coming through, and how it teaches you something completely new about yourself and who you are. I get the feeling that it's a skill that teaches you about yourself in a marginally similar way that a martial art would, but in this case you pick up and learn a lot about the way you make the sounds and energies that you resonate with, as opposed to how your body will move/defend itself, and resonate with energies of a different type.
 
 
brother george
10:39 / 05.06.07

You end up creating this deformed and twisted mutant version of the rituals, when what needs to happen is for people to look at what's going on underneath the handwaving and gestures and see how that can be blended with everyday life.

But the only way to see whats underneath all this, is to practice these very things!. I have observed that most people here have a view of people that practice ceremonial magic. Most of you here are offended when someone uses a blanket statement but have no problem whatsoever using stereotypes to make your point.
I do not understand the "8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of magic" model, if there is one to start with.

Just because one after work, settles for 1 hour in his decorated bedroom to practice handwaving with his wand and to bark hebrew, that doesn't mean for him, that magic doesn't happen the rest 23 hours. Maybe it can be so, in his first naive steps, but afterwards there is no excuse.

Doing a practice in full setup, may signify for him a formality that some works require, but not others.

And please, no-one wants to worship the Sun inside a bathroom (especially if you are in the Mediterranean!). But if there is no other way, you must be able to do it as if you were standing directly in front of Him.
 
 
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11:18 / 05.06.07
you must be able to do it as if you were standing directly in front of Him.

Or Her. ;D
 
 
Katherine
11:31 / 05.06.07
In part when I had read the 8 hours working etc.. thing, at first I thought the writer was a bit of idiot, what about all the other stuff I do in a day? Then I realised that instead of throwing the page away there was something there, I thought about it and well, I had lots of 'dead' time in my day.

I walk each day to that bus stop, what would I do at that time? Nothing, just walk along, it is dead effectively as I didn't do anything with it. So that paragraph regardless of what I first thought of it when I read it has been extremely useful in the way my practice has evolved.

archabyss: On my daily walk to the bus stop in the evenings, which is roughly a 40 minute trot, I do a walking mediation. Now, I think that is great. Does it do what it is suppose to for you, archabyss? Does it feel like you are not doing enough sometimes? Like you need to do more to live up to a certain standard of practice?

After a inital period of working at it I now can drop into a mediation along the walk which works well for me. It is easier for me to do mediation whilst walking or even sewing than just sitting or lying down. So it does what it says on the tin. However sometimes I do feel that I'm not living up to a standard, I did awhile ago put in a resolutions thread that I wanted to stop measuring myself against other people's practices. It had a bad effect on my practice as I felt whatever I did it just wasn't enough. I guess it's a trap that alot of people fall into especially if they are on their own rather than being in a group as you have no-one to say you're doing well.

I barely have space for my books and bed let alone trying to casting a big circle with candles at the quarters. I can guarentee I would have at least one cat playing with one of the candles and have to put out the flames with the chalice of water. The descriptions in these books are good and I have learnt alot from adapting the rituals, somethings can be changed whilst others can not.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:44 / 05.06.07
Most of you here are offended when someone uses a blanket statement but have no problem whatsoever using stereotypes to make your point.

Yes. Those generalisations are terrible, aren't they? As such, examples, please.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
12:00 / 05.06.07
And please, no-one wants to worship the Sun inside a bathroom (especially if you are in the Mediterranean!). But if there is no other way, you must be able to do it as if you were standing directly in front of Him.

If there is no other way? No other way to stroll outside for two minutes and make a discrete salutation to the actual Sun? Quietly under your breath and with no dramatic hand gestures, but actually in direct view of the Sun itself, is infinitely better than causing a big fuss in the bathroom without being able to see the object of your adorations. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.
 
 
illmatic
12:19 / 05.06.07
Well, possibly someone might have locked you in the closet for a year. Like R Kelly, who is the solar phallic snake spermotoza personified.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
12:25 / 05.06.07
The "R" in R Kelly standing for Resh, obviously.
 
  

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