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Underground > Temple >

To Practice or not to Practice

  
  

Page: 12(3)

 
 
Papess
13:22 / 05.06.07
If there is no other way? No other way to stroll outside for two minutes and make a discrete salutation to the actual Sun?

When I was working nights till 3 am and sleeping during the daytime, I never saw the sun, especially in winter with daylight savings. I could understand the possibility of not having sun-time, but it doesn't seem to be Brother's case. However, I do not know the rest of brother's situation. I really can't comment further. Perhaps there may have been a better choice for hir, but I still find their determination most commmendable.

archabyss: 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.

Understood. A good point, archabyss. I have a belief that part of my good practice is not comparing my practice to others or other people's practice to mine. I cannot judge what is good for others, or what works for others. Mkaing the assumption that what works for another should work for me, or what works for me should work for another, is folly. There is also the fact that we are all at different places on the path(s) to realization, self-awareness, enlightenment - what have you. Who am I to judge? I have to only judge my practice in relation to whether it is working for me or not. It all depends on what I am working on.

In relation to that: I do not necessarily think I can judge my practice based on material wealth, or how well my son behaves, or if people around me are happy or not. Material wealth isn't part of everyone's path. In fact, I believe that living in poverty would be a damn fine lesson for everyone, IMHO. other people have their own lessons and issues. I may be of some help if my practice is good, but kids are kids, and people are troubled.

I see a lot of people equating successful practice with all sorts of outer, worldly manifestations. It is almost like there is an equation between "good karma" and "good magick". In my tradition, I know that these two things are not necessarily coinciding.
 
 
Papess
13:30 / 05.06.07
Let me add to that: I have seen successful people who do not practice magick or spirituality of any sort. They may even have well behaved kids. I have also seen extrodinarily good practitioners have to get their legs removed due to medical complications. Are they a terrible practioner?

I knew a guy who worked for Nortel who is an awesome practioner, dedicated like very few I have ever seen. Is it because his practice was not strong enough that the company went under?
 
 
brother george
14:19 / 05.06.07
The initial point I was trying to make was that its preferable to modify your practice to suit the challenges of each day rather than not doing it at all. or start skipping days. This does not make your practice a "deformed and twisted mutant version" but builds your improvisational skill (Yes! even ceremonial magicians have one!). The 'quick solar adoration' sentence was in this vein.

Or Her. ;D
:-)
 
 
EvskiG
14:23 / 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.

There are a few interesting issues here.

First, I'll readily admit that over the years I've done Resh outside, in bedrooms, bathrooms, offices, airplanes, and God knows where else. And until recently (June 14, 2006, it seems) it didn't register that a solar adoration should involve looking at the damned sun.

So I'm dense. Go figure.

But . . .

There's more to, say, Liber Resh than saying hi to the big glowy thing in the sky.

I have relatives who say prayers on waking up in the morning, on going to bed for the night, when washing their hands, before eating, before drinking (different prayer), before wearing new clothes, upon lighting candles, upon seeing a rainbow, before performing any mitzvah (good deed), and even, believe it or not, after using the toilet.

(In case you're curious, here's the prayer for the bathroom: "Blessed are you who formed us with wisdom and created within us many openings and many cavities. If but one of them were open that should be blocked or blocked that should be open it would be impossible to stand before You. Blessed is the Lord, who creates all flesh to act wondrously.")

The woman in the office next to mine is a young but devout Orthodox Jew. And I presume she says that brucha in the toilet several times a day.

Seems to me that one purpose of Liber Resh, or any devotional prayer, is to take a moment out from the everyday mundane world and create and reside in a brief sacred space. And that can be done in a toilet as well as anyplace else. The sun in Liber Resh is to some extent an internal sun.

As kids sometimes say, "if God is everywhere, is he in the toilet?"

Yes.

If you believe in that sort of thing.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:28 / 05.06.07
There's more to, say, Liber Resh than saying hi to the big glowy thing in the sky.

I really don't think that there is.
 
 
EvskiG
14:36 / 05.06.07
From that earlier thread:

Crowley, the ritual's author, said that the purpose of Liber Resh is "firstly to remind the aspirant at regular intervals of the Great Work; secondly, to bring him into conscious personal relation with the centre of our system [the solar principle]; and thirdly; for advanced students, to make actual magical contact with the spiritual energy of the sun and thus draw actual force for him."

Of course, authorial intent doesn't count for everything.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
15:22 / 05.06.07
I don't see anything in that quote that should suggest the Sun itself is not the central focus of communion in that ritual as AC envisioned it. I really don't think you are actually performing Liber Resh in its fullest sense if you are not standing in direct view of the Sun and having some experience of union with it, and all that it means. How can a leaf hope to draw sustenance from the Sun's rays if it doesn't directly see them. That soaking up and absorbtion of the Sun's rays is what Resh is ultimately all about, as far as I can tell, and to practice it behind closed doors or in a toilet is like having a house on the beach and doing loads of rituals for watery deities without ever thinking about going out into the sea to do it.

Nature IS magic. There is no seperation between the actual things and the magical symbolism of those things. I know I'm sounding a bit overly aggressive about this, but it's only because it really pains in some odd sense to think of people not grasping that full communion with an element of nature in the context of this sort of magic. That's when Resh started to really come alive for me, when I took it out and used it as a basis for developing a really instinctive living connection to the glowing orb itself, and an understanding of my place in relation to it both physically in space and magically. To not have the actual Sun directly involved is like your Orthodox girl saying her brucha for going to the toilet when she's just visualising herself going to the toilet in her mind, rather than actually making sacred the physical function.

Also, we're talking about stepping outside for under two minutes to get a bit of direct Sun involved in your salutations to the Sun. I don't understand how this could inconvenience anyone who has full mobility (or isn't locked in a cupboard or on the nightshift, as noted above). I'm passionate about this because getting up and greeting the Sun on a morning (and at other times through the day, but especially on a morning) is absolutely fucking great and I love it to bits. Just that simple acknowledgment of being alive, right here and now, on the planet Earth that is part of a larger system circling this unfathomably gigantic glowing star that literally gives life to all things. Then taking that within and recognising the same macrocosmic process at work in your own being, understanding how the centre of your self is akin to the Sun within your organism, as above, so below, etc. I think the whole thing is so diminished if you don't behold the Sun itself when you do it, and by-and-large, the Sun is generally quite a visible and accessible facet of Nature for most people. Liber Resh is not a theoretical or conceptual thing for me at all, it's really physical and nourishing, and that's why I do it.

To bring this back on topic a bit, I think the key thing you have to ask of any practice is: why do you do it? What do you get out of it? What does it do for you? I do Liber Resh because it feels amazing and energising, as if all the living cells of my body are being fed. If I did it in the corporate toilets, that simply wouldn't happen and it would be a theoretical meditation on the idea of the Sun, as opposed to something I now see as fundamental to my organism as getting good food, clean air and fresh water.
 
 
Papess
15:43 / 05.06.07
To not have the actual Sun directly involved is like your Orthodox girl saying her brucha for going to the toilet when she's just visualising herself going to the toilet in her mind, rather than actually making sacred the physical function.

Yeah, that makes sense. It is like denying yourself the very point of the practice. Or at least a point of a particular practice.

Also, we're talking about stepping outside for under two minutes to get a bit of direct Sun involved in your salutations to the Sun.

I guess it would have to be under two minutes in sunny ol' England then, eh?
 
 
NyteMuse
15:48 / 05.06.07
To bring this back on topic a bit, I think the key thing you have to ask of any practice is: why do you do it? What do you get out of it? What does it do for you? I do Liber Resh because it feels amazing and energising, as if all the living cells of my body are being fed. If I did it in the corporate toilets, that simply wouldn't happen and it would be a theoretical meditation on the idea of the Sun, as opposed to something I now see as fundamental to my organism as getting good food, clean air and fresh water.

Bingo! That's the real question to ask when someone says "Is that practice enough/sufficient for you?" Magical practice should really not stress you out, nor is it likely to be effective if it is regarded as a chore. I do purification and balancing exercises in the morning to align myself with the Will of myself and the cosmos, I do reiki in the morning to open me up to the various subtle signals and forces I might otherwise miss (and also to make sure I'm starting or facing the day in the best possible state). I do trancework and prayers/meditations to the Deities or other spirits to strengthen my connection with the Divine or do further work on my morning exercises that I might not have had time to do in the morning (I is NOT morning person). And even though it sometimes ends up taking 2 hours or more, it's the high point of my day most of the time.
 
 
EvskiG
16:12 / 05.06.07
That's when Resh started to really come alive for me, when I took it out and used it as a basis for developing a really instinctive living connection to the glowing orb itself, and an understanding of my place in relation to it both physically in space and magically.

It's interesting to see that Resh is part of your practice.

If you don't mind my asking, when did you start? And what, if anything, do you say in connection with each salutation?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:24 / 05.06.07
I have also seen extrodinarily good practitioners have to get their legs removed due to medical complications. Are they a terrible practioner?

I knew a guy who worked for Nortel who is an awesome practioner, dedicated like very few I have ever seen. Is it because his practice was not strong enough that the company went under?

No and no. Look, my take on it is that if TPTB/our True Wills/whatever had wanted us to have these perfect lives with no suffering and no hardship, we wouldn't be living embodied lives. It doesn't make us shit mages or bad people if things go tits up now and again. It's just life.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
18:59 / 05.06.07
"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 was one of the things that Chaos Magick was supposed to encourage, yes?

And to echo the others, I for one, would love to see a thread on "Magic for the non-middle class white guy with lots of free time and a massive support network."
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:21 / 05.06.07
It was supposed to, yeah, but what tends to happen instead is this JSA-budget version of the aristo poncemage outlined above, practicing basically the same rituals but with Buffy characters instead of angels.
 
 
EvskiG
20:25 / 05.06.07
As long as we're on the subject, might as well note that the recent book Yoga for Magick actually ties Liber Resh together with the yoga exercise known as the sun salutation.

Clever, and I'm a bit embarrassed I never made the connection before.

In light of our discussion above, it's interesting that the yogic sun salutation (which probably was created around the same time as Liber Resh) is both an appreciation of the sun and, "in essence, a humble adoration of the light and insight of the self."
 
 
Papess
02:30 / 06.06.07
As long as we're on the subject, might as well note that the recent book Yoga for Magick actually ties Liber Resh together with the yoga exercise known as the sun salutation.

Well that answers that question! Thanks, Ev.

No and no. Look, my take on it is that if TPTB/our True Wills/whatever had wanted us to have these perfect lives with no suffering and no hardship, we wouldn't be living embodied lives. It doesn't make us shit mages or bad people if things go tits up now and again. It's just life.

Thank you for addressing this, TtS. You see, I wonder, if we attribute when things going well in our life to good practice, then I am only trying to undertstand all of what that implies. Does it mean that when they go bad it is because of bad practice? Or no practice? It just seems to be the logial flipside to that. Thinking too dualistically, perhaps?

From looking at all the different situations that could possibly inhibit one from practicing, we are pretty lucky to even have the chance to practice at all. I do admire the determination and devotion many people here give their practice. And I wonder why people chose not to practice, even myself. I like the egg timer or fifteen minute rule TtS reccommends. That is very helpful. I haven't quite found the right egg timer to use. I have been fussing about for one that has the perfect *ding* for an alert. They come in all sorts of shapes, too. I'll find the right one.

But I have to agree, even if you do get points for tenacity, brother george, it certainly was a bit, uh...strange. We all have our moments, though. I once opened my altar, half asleep in the morning, by unintentionally saying, "By the power of Greyskull!" I just burst out laughing. I didn't mean to say that at all. But it was a great way to start the day! Gosh, it still gives me giggles.
 
 
brother george
07:00 / 06.06.07

ut I have to agree, even if you do get points for tenacity, brother george, it certainly was a bit, uh...strange.

What was strange exactly? Doing planetary rituals in the bathroom? Sometimes a man needs a little privacy you know?
:-p
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
08:55 / 06.06.07
I have been fussing about for one that has the perfect *ding* for an alert. They come in all sorts of shapes, too. I'll find the right one.

The main thing is to just get one and get used to using it. Don't let perfectionism hold you up. Just get the cheapest timer for now--you can worry about the perfect one later on. I have two at home myself (because they came free with packets of spaghetti) and I use'em both.

Another thing one can do is 3 or 4 songs' worth of work. 4 songs is about 15 mins, give or take.
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
09:14 / 06.06.07
I guess it would have to be under two minutes in sunny ol' England then, eh?

That's possibly why I'm so keen on getting the actual Sun into my practice of Liber Resh, rather than a theoretical notion of the Sun. Because the presence of the Sun actually is largely theoretical in England a lot of the time.

If you don't mind my asking, when did you start? And what, if anything, do you say in connection with each salutation?

I've been doing it for years, off and on, I think since 2000 or so, but I think I only really started to actually grasp it magically a couple of years ago. Now it feels as natural and organic an aspect of my life as any other element of my practice. I think I could distill the whole of my magical practice down to: consciousness communing with universe via the senses. So daily interaction with the Sun via Liber Resh is really not all that far removed from, say, communion with the Sea via service to Yemaya on the beach at midnight.

My favourite translation of the word "Voodoo" is "introspection into the Mysteries", and that's what the core of my practice is about - living confrontation with the Powers of Nature and the Universe, Sun, Moon, Sea, Earth, the Planets, the Forest, Fire, Iron, the River, and so on. Comprehending how these forces impact on your life and existence constantly, in a way that you are largely oblivious to most of the time and totally take for granted, and developing very real instinctive and animistic relationships with these things. For instance, I think your earliest magician - your hypothetical stone age shaman - had a very different relationship with Fire, Stone, Sea, Moon, Sun than your average 21st century City dweller does, and a lot of my practice is about getting back to that very immediate and instinctive set of responses to Nature (Nature being everything perceived by the perceiver) - because I think that is the fundamental mode of consciousness that what we call "magic" operates from.

With Resh, I've gone through various permutations on the form of the salutations, but recently I've actually gone back to just doing the Crowley form of it. If I'm at home, I'll stroll out into the garden and do it out loud with crazy hand gestures and everything - because I enjoy just being able to throw my hands up and give open praise to something so pivotal to existence. But if I'm out and about, I have a sliding scale of discretion depending on what I reckon I can get away with easily, but I'm cool with just closing my eyes, turning my head towards the Sun and giving my salutation quietly under my breath. Same difference.

I use the Crowley version for a couple of reasons, but primarily because the external form really isn't especially important to what I'm actually doing. The core of Resh, for me, doesn't really have much to do with language and gesture, it is purely instinctive communion between consciousness and Sun. It's almost that the external form of the ritual just keeps the conscious parts of me occupied and busy with something, while the deeper parts of me - the inner magician - does the actual magic while the rest of me is looking in the other direction, if that makes sense?

So instead of getting hung up on reworking the words of Resh, I just use the original form as a kind of nod to Crowley and his whole deal. My magic is all about place and ancestors, and a fair chunk of what we know as "the western ceremonial tradition" was developed in the City where I live by the generations of London magicians that went before. So that's the angle that I come at western magic from. I'm reclaiming ancestral magic from the City and acknowledging all of these people and their lives and practices, by picking up these threads and running with them. So the choice to use Crowley's version, despite the questionable Egyptology, is an acknowledgement and a tip of the hat to the magician that wrote that particular sketch. I'm using some of Crowley's magic there, something that's been imparted, and that has meaning for me and exists in a wider context of how I feel about AC and his role in shaping the landscape of contemporary magic within which I find myself operating.
 
 
Quantum
09:17 / 06.06.07
...or you could practice for the length of a He-Man episode every day. "By the power of Greyskull!"
 
 
Quantum
09:20 / 06.06.07
Spectacular interpost there.
 
 
Papess
12:05 / 06.06.07
My favourite translation of the word "Voodoo" is "introspection into the Mysteries", and that's what the core of my practice is about - living confrontation with the Powers of Nature and the Universe, Sun, Moon, Sea, Earth, the Planets, the Forest, Fire, Iron, the River, and so on. Comprehending how these forces impact on your life and existence constantly, in a way that you are largely oblivious to most of the time and totally take for granted, and developing very real instinctive and animistic relationships with these things.

Great post. They need you over at the Summit meeting, GL. No joke. I think they could use a little Voodoo lesson. A little, "living confrontation with the Powers of Nature"

Don't let perfectionism hold you up.

TtS: Like walking into 100km winds, type of "holding me up". I will just get one today when I go grocery shopping. Bah, I am a basketcase, sometimes.

It is a good point and good advice, for certain, though. I suppose there has to be a balance as well, between that perfectionist state and letting things slide to an barely recognizable parody of the working. Or just letting it go completely.

Another thing one can do is 3 or 4 songs' worth of work. 4 songs is about 15 mins, give or take.

Hmmm, that seems quite familiar! *grin*

brother george: heh. Cute.
 
 
EvskiG
15:57 / 06.06.07
Just wanted to note a clever article on the subject of magical practice (by someone named Mordant Carnival) here.

Again, a very nice mix of the theoretical and practical.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
09:50 / 07.06.07
Never heard of him.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
10:38 / 07.06.07
I wonder, if we attribute when things going well in our life to good practice, then I am only trying to undertstand all of what that implies. Does it mean that when they go bad it is because of bad practice?

That's something I think about a lot too. How can I dismiss crappy events as "just life" if I'm attributing happier events to my practice? My take on it is this:

I think it's less about good or bad events and more about the patterns to these events. If you're doing a lot of work around, say, Money, and you have a run of positive wealth-related events, then it's not unreasonable to attribute those to your work. If on the other hand you have a piece of good fortune not directly related to Money (you make a new friend, you luck into the perfect accomodation, you spontaneously recover from a disease, etc) that event is less attributable.

Similarly, if you have something bad happen it's more likely to be an artifact of living an embodied life than it is to be a result of bad practice, unless it's part of a run of related incidents. Sometimes a run of ostensible bad luck can be the Universe's way of getting your attention. The thing to do then is to look for a common theme, at what ties the events together. Were they mostly health related? Transport related? Money related? What's missing from your practice that would account for this specific area of life becoming a hot spot?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:32 / 08.06.07
Off on yet another tangent, but this has been stewing in my brane for a while now...

There is one major thing that can mean drastic changes to your regular magical practice which has not been deal with here, and it's having a regular magical practice. Sure, you might maintain some basic regimen analogous to cleanse-tone-exfoliate which you pursue with minor tweaks for decades, but if you're really in the game in any meaningful way, expect change. New stuff is going to crop up and you're going to need to be adaptable to deal with it. My own practice has changed unrecognisably over the years; I've completely abandoned some aspects and embraced new elements and concepts that at one time I would have dismissed out of hand. Sometimes this has occured slowly, sometimes literally overnight as the result of some new insight or some series of events that failed to fit into an existing model.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
17:46 / 08.06.07
I've completely abandoned some aspects and embraced new elements and concepts that at one time I would have dismissed out of hand.

In light of this, do you give much thought to the elements and concepts that you have dismissed out of hand?
 
 
Ticker
17:56 / 08.06.07
There is one major thing that can mean drastic changes to your regular magical practice which has not been deal with here, and it's having a regular magical practice.

which if we filter through:

living confrontation with the Powers of Nature and the Universe, Sun, Moon, Sea, Earth, the Planets, the Forest, Fire, Iron, the River, and so on. Comprehending how these forces impact on your life and existence constantly, in a way that you are largely oblivious to most of the time and totally take for granted, and developing very real instinctive and animistic relationships with these things.

I suspect you end up with the big simple tips/directives of Awareness, Attention, and Kindness.( I think the Awareness/Attention parts have been clearly covered it's the Kindness aspect most people overlook until you point out it's often inherent in the way folks talk about having relationships with their World. )

It's a stimulation loop and by participating in it, it being mindful awareness of your life, the practice promotes mindful awareness of your life.

For me it's been about adding more moments in, choosing to pray and be mindful more often. I've discovered as I need them more tools are given to me and like great tools do, they simplify the task while making it more effective.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:08 / 08.06.07
I've completely abandoned some aspects and embraced new elements and concepts that at one time I would have dismissed out of hand.

In light of this, do you give much thought to the elements and concepts that you have dismissed out of hand?

But I haven't dismissed those elements out of hand. I gave them a fair shot, some of them for years. They either don't work, don't work anymore, or are redundant now because I have other elements that work better. By "dismissed out of hand, I mean "considered and tested very briefly, if at all, and then ditched."
 
 
This Sunday
21:03 / 08.06.07
The TTS/Mako 'dismissed out of hand'/'considered and tested very briefly' exchange has me wondering. I don't get the 'you have to try it to know' insistence on direct experiential awareness thing (or, similarly, the insistence some have on remaining open to all practices at all times). Neither Mako nor TTS are making that claim (and TTS' article, linked above, seems to make a pretty decent claim in the opposing direction), to be clear, it's just similar territory, and jumpstarted my wondering.

In general, sure trying new things is a good idea, but really, there are some elements, some options, which you're just not going to go in for. The idea that practicing magick implies one to be necessarily invasive or transgressive, that you have to go about touching or exploring everything, any and all avenues and aspects, has always seemed to be an Eastern Hemisphere trope based in imperialism.

We should be open to witnessing or acknowledging all sorts of things, yes, but clearly there have to be times when we just note that others have done X and it turned out really rotten and it was an asshole thing to do anyway, and then we don't do it. Right? Like putting on a pie plate and trying to get a rise out of every third person in the bar, with amazing invasive psychick powerz. Or, hell, pointing at an airplane up in the sky and willing it to crash.

Following a sun honoring with 'By the power of Greyskull!' might be worth a go once or twice, or deciding to go back and try anagrams as magickal tools, et cet. I'm digging sun rituals in the restroom at the moment, because it's got that inner-star push going on. Worth a shot. But me doing a banishing ritual, even a basic one? Not worth it to me. Still feels like you're staking out total claim on a space/aspect; magickal imperialism. Or testing the waters of, say, trading other people's lives, luck, or happiness, for your own benefit. There are practices, and I'm sure some people get something out of it, but y'know, it's like anything some people would consider not-magick, in that, you don't need to pull the trigger just to find out what blowing someone's face out the back of their skull would be like. Or kick the legs out from under a small children and tell them a boojum did it.

Has someone suddenly declaring 'I think I shall become a trickster' and poking around really done anybody any good? Or taking the stern but loving parent routine? Neither side of that, taken alone, has ever appealed to me even in actual human beings in real child/parent situations, but to dress yourself up in them seems awful full of presumptions.

While I may wonder about the gain, I am unlikely to try wrapping the facade around my shoulders, pulling down the mask and jumping out from behind bushes, trying to scare/anger someone, before taking off that facade for the parental one beneath, to do a 'oh, see, I scared the bad monster off, everything's fine.' Some people may base their entire practice around that, but really, if I'm not seeing the use, and the detriment is an actual detriment, what's the point in remaining open to it as viable?

Not everything is worth doing just because you get an effect. That's why we're capable of observing. And analysing. Right?
 
 
Pyewacket The Elder
21:46 / 08.06.07
Just a quick return to the Liber Resh Thingummy. I do not totally agree with the absolutism of Gypsy's statement however I concur that the situation of sun contact is preferable. Where I differ, from experience and research, is that it is essentially 'just' an adoration of the sun.

It appears to me very much an extension of the LBRB and the basic Golden dawn symbolic systems. I have long since stopped considering the LBRP a 'banishing ritual' as such but rather a 'centering' exercise that physically and physically/symbolically calibrates oneself with the larger universe via a meditational movement through dimensions.

The clue to this is seen with the actual GD meditations given in each knowledge lecture "consider a point with no position" "consider a line with infinite length and no breadth" (impossible to do unless one assigns a radiance or light to such).

We can see that the qabbalistic cross defines:
1. a point with no position represented by a uniformly bright white 'sphere' (quick food for thought: if it is uniform of course it could equally be a 3 dimensional hole)

2. A line with no breadth

3. a 2 dimensional plane.

and then BANG into

4. 3 dimensional space with its 4 cardinal directions.

Each cardinal direction is given the mnemonic correspondences of Four ages, Seasons, Human age, and times of day so when we complete the circle (or wheel of life) by holding all this as one concept we have essentially gone 'meta' to our usual concept of time - 5th dimension.

This is affirmed with the 5 pointed star which again represents the base-four concept of elements and, in the terms of systems theory, has the emergent(or underlying) principle of spirit.

Further indicators you will find are the wheel of fortune tarot card, the wheel of elements, the function and symbols of Tyche and Fortuna, the four cherubs and the sphinx they combine into, Yod He Vau He combined with Shin to make the name of Jeheshua etc etc (google will be less verbose than me here).

ANYWAY to get back on track I think Liber Resh is both an adoration of the sun AND a practice for synching the magicians map of reality with the 'macrocosm' by repetition so that it strengthens and complements the LBRP and related rituals.

The over-arching principle is that by aligning and calibrating yourself as a microcosmic wheel you click into sync with the macro cosmic universe thus enabling influence to pass from one to the other. An analogy would be the hypnotist who mirrors, matches and paces their client and can then feed-forward suggestions and lead them in a new direction.

Anyway...anyone up for a new thread on the technical aspects of ritual'....so are those pentagrams windows or just symbols in space?
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
08:05 / 09.06.07
My question above has gotten me wondering about the things I've dismissed and the degree to which my limitations have influenced their dismissal, rather than their own; I'm thinking about starting a diary with sections for things I've dismissed that others think are important, and will probably start it by ripping off some Busshido musing about how if one can be skillful, two can be skillful, so one should not think their skills are absolute.

I think that subdividing it into categories of dismissal will prove helpful i.e dimsissed quickly, dismissed after consideration, dismissed due to time constraints, dismissed due to conflicting beliefs, with the first entry being the Abrahadabra cone of power which I've dismissed because of time constraints.

The point of the diary will be for the occasional revision and rethinking of what I've dismissed, to see if I've changed enough that I can appreciate them a little more or gain new insights into them.
 
 
Lucida Waters
14:46 / 13.06.07
There is the argument that "everything is magickal". So, why should people bother practicing magick? Isn't everything already magic(k)al? What is the point? How does this commitment change anything? And, does not having a daily practice change nothing? How does one go about such commitments? What constitutes a daily practice? What does your practice mean for/to you?

Hi! First post in the temple and happy to be here!

Anyway - to address some of the questions raised in the first post - I practice regularly because if I don't, I get to be kind of an asshole. My practice was purely meditative for about a decade, until I stumbled into all this magic business, and meditation remains the foundation for any other spiritual or magical work that I do. If I don't create space in my day to be still and open, then everything starts to feel crowded and forced, and I start getting snappish and impatient. Also, if I don't carve out that hour in the morning, then my whole day feels like it's about work, which sucks.

Having been a meditator for such a long time, I've also noticed, or learned, or whatever, that it has changed me. New experiences and capacities have opened up. So it's an adventure, as well. I don't know what will happen next, what new door will open, but I do know that daily practice helps the doors open, (or helps me see them, maybe). When I leave off practicing, I feel stagnant. I stop having big dreams and happy coincidences and moments of joy that come out of nowhere (or at least I seem to have them a great deal less often.)
 
  

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