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Modern Magick - Lesson One

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Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

17:51 / 03.07.02

I have to say that even though I am not participating in this exercise, it's facisnating to hear you all describe your attempts and successes.

solid~liquid onwards

21:49 / 05.07.02

:P

i ust feel like i should make a post, cos although ive been reading most of whats gong on here in magic, i havent posted for a bit...im working like a bitch 5 days a week, 11 hours a day, and sleepig the other 2 days so i havent even read the first page of modern magic (but somehow i managed to watch all of "love hina")

Boy in a Suitcase

23:23 / 05.07.02

How's everybody else doing? Has anybody been doing it every day?

23:28 / 05.07.02

I've been doing it pretty much every day. I missed one day because I had a headache and yesterday I kind of did the rituals pretty quickly since it's really hard to concentrate on what you're doing when you're sweating buckets.

17:07 / 06.07.02

Mostly every day... I've been more consistent with the Tarot contemplation than I have been with my yoga and regular meditation, have only skipped one day with my deck. (and have only run into one repeat since I bitched about it - ask and ye shall receive?) I've been giving myself one day a week off from the yoga and meditation, but am starting to find that I miss it about halfway through the day. (However, I don't miss it enough to overcome the morning whine of "I just don' wanna!! And I'm entitled to take this morning off, I said so!")

I'm going to dig into Chapter Two on Monday or Tuesday. Anybody else forging ahead?

19:44 / 06.07.02

I'm re-reading the second lesson. I'm gonna start on the LBRP on Monday.

Has anybody actually made one of those Tau robes Kraig mentions towards the end of lesson one?

02:05 / 07.07.02

I made a customized version for a friend of mine who was doing work in a mystery school, but I have no intention of making something like that for myself - they're pretty lame-looking. Their only virtue is simplicity.

I like the idea of ritual clothing in general and have jewelry that I wear specifically for making magick (putting on my magician's skin). This started me thinking about what I might want my ceremonial robes to look like, and it rapidly got very silly - Ming the Merciless on the set of Babylon 5 or Farscape.... I guess simplicity is a major virtue!

13:42 / 07.07.02

just thought it'd report in so you know i'm still alive. Due to work commitments i'm still on lesson one, have been keeping a dream diary and practicing first ritual for a little while. This week i'm gonna build the altar out of plywood, my thinking is if i'm gonna do this i might as well do it throughly

14:31 / 07.07.02

I'd make one, but my sewing skills are below par. I'd probably end up making something that looked like a straight jacket.

I'd really like to make an altar, do everything by the book, but even if I had the money for materials, I just don't have the room. I'm just going to have to use a stand-in. Oh well, so I don't do everything completely by the book, it's not like I had planned on following the book exactly.

15:54 / 08.07.02

Does the altar count as Lesson One or Lesson Two?

I'm planning on using my guitar amp with effects pedals. Delay for Air, Distortion for Earth, Tremolo for Water and... well, I'm thinking just a cable (electric) for Fire, but I'm not sure.

Garb I'm not sure about. It ain't gonna be a robe, though. Possibly a HAT.

16:08 / 08.07.02

The construction of the altar is first mentioned in Lesson One. Skimming through the book, I haven't seen anything you absolutely need an altar for. If something comes up and I do need an altar, I'll just pull out the old He-Man TV tray.

17:56 / 08.07.02

I'm a little confused by DMK's attitude towards ritual trappings, to be honest. He seems to insist that you need the robe/altar/dedicated space, and in the next sentence mentions that you can do the LBRP in a bathroom stall if need be. I'm tempted to skip it all, but then part of the point of working with DMK for me right now is doing all the ceremonial stuff I normally twist or skip over.

The hat idea is lovely, grant. If I had the money, I'd like to invest in ritual glasses (putting on your magick vision, as it were) but given my wretched finances, I'm going to have to think about this more. Maybe a pair of cheap shades...

I probably won't be moving ahead until the start of August - the last two weeks of July are a major work crunch for me, and I'm sure that my daily routine will suffer as a result.

14:47 / 09.07.02

I'm pretty skeptical about the need for a robe. Ever since I escaped from the world of corporate banking and three-piece suits close to twenty years ago, I've been a firm subscriber to Thoreau's dictum that one should be wary of any enterprises that require new clothing.

On the subject of altars, I've recently put together a (typically idiosyncratic) portable "altar" that I've been carrying along with me.

Air: Gerber boot dagger
Water: bronze "bowl gong" (about 3" diameter)
Earth: two polished quartz crystals
Fire: hand-turned lignum vitae* "dorje"

I keep it all wrapped up in a black felt cloth, held closed with a string of beads I made from a rosary I picked up during a week at a Trappist monastery (you can see them under the "cup"...)

(*Lignum vitae--"living stone"--is an extremely hard wood. You need to be careful of the dust when turning it on a lathe, it can be quite toxic....)

Here's a photo I snapped of it all this morning...

Boy in a Suitcase

20:12 / 09.07.02

Ahh that altar looks neat!
I love the guitar pedals idea, too!
I guess my altar is pretty boring in comparison. Mine's made with a small filing cabinet, about 3' x 1' x 1' or something, wrapped with a freshly wrapped blue sheet I dug out of somebody's trash the other day and tied up with string so it doesn't hang loose. On the altar top I represented the elements with yellow, red, blue, green candles I swiped from the altar I was using for Bertiaux work. In the center is a large "Holy Guardian Angel" candle for Catholics (available for 99¢ in supermarkets when you live this close to Mexico!) which provides lighting. Wand is a small plastic thing with liquid & purple stars & glitter inside.
For a robe I've just been using a special green jacket.

23:04 / 10.07.02

Some notes and variations on the LBRP can be found here, here, here (a Greek version), and here (an "Ouranian" version)...

15:31 / 12.07.02

Two observations:
1. the least interesting part of the diary has raised my eyebrow - the "physical" part of the ritual diary. Man, I'm a lot more run down/tired/stressed/weary than I gave myself credit for. Gotta take better care.
2. I dream a hell of a lot about a. being at my old college or a school, and b. oceans, lakes, floods, seaside cliffs.

Very odd.

13:03 / 17.07.02

A good paper on "the essential skills of magick", which also discusses the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram in some detail, can be found here. There's also a PDF version downloadable. Benjamin Rowe, the author, writes a lot of very worthwhile stuff on magickal topics. The Stone Mirror says, "Check it out".

13:21 / 19.07.02

Some more notes on the LBRP...

The Return Of Rothkoid

07:40 / 28.07.02

I've fallen behind over the past couple of weeks, so I'm starting this shebang again. Still going!

15:27 / 02.08.02

I think I've made a horrible mistake in switching to the Rider-Waite deck for the Tarot contemplation exercises. I'm very accustomed to the Thoth deck, and I really, really dislike the artwork on the Rider deck. As a result, I don't feel like I'm getting much out of the tarot ritual, since I'm constantly distracted by thoughts like "geez, that's ugly. What is that lump on the side of that thing? A wart?".

So now I'm debating between switching decks or trying to find a decent theory book that will help me get over my distaste for the Rider deck. Thoughts?

15:42 / 02.08.02

Rather than throwing good money after bad, I'd simply go back to the Thoth deck. Do you have Book of Thoth or some other book on the symbolism in the Crowley deck?

The Rider-Waite artwork is pretty crappy, but that's most Tarot decks, unfortunately.

15:50 / 02.08.02

If you don't have a copy of the Book of Thoth , you can download a copy here .

When I first got the Rider-Waite deck, I thought it looked horrible. Now? Now, I think it's kind of quaint. Ugly, but quaint.

17:28 / 02.08.02

Yeah, I picked up the Book of Thoth about 8-9 years ago, when I first got the Thoth deck. I think I'm going to try rereading the Thoth book while keeping up with the Rider cards for at least another week - maybe that'll help me find a balance between the two.

19:46 / 05.11.02

Well?

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:36 / 05.11.02

Right. I'm starting again. Clean slate. Moving and stuff has fucked me up for continuity, so I'm going back to the beginning. Whether it's *now* or when I move out (maybe a couple of weeks) I don't know, but I wish I'd kept up. So if anyone wants to start again - join me...

00:07 / 06.11.02

The only thing I've kept up is the dream diary, although I know my way through the LBRP pretty well now.
The dream diary is rather useful.

Meaning I'd be up for joining you.

01:08 / 06.11.02

Sounds like a good excuse for me to stop procrastinating, start up again... (kind of got bogged down slogging through Air, of all things!)

00:54 / 13.11.02

So far, it looks like there are three of us who are publicly committing to start up again. (sometime...)

Anybody else out there??

02:55 / 13.11.02

I've been doing the LBRP and Middle Pillar regularly. I haven't had much luck with the dream diary, sadly, after an initial few successes. I haven't really gotten much into the elemental exercises, either, but count me in, by all means.

08:21 / 13.11.02

When I was working through Kraig's material one of the biggest problems I had with the ceremonial elemental exercises was the fact that it really seems to be a long winded Victorian method of connecting to the elements, which seems somehow divorced from nature and therefore a little counterproductive.

I couldn't help but think that in this particular instance, the same results could be acheived far more effectively through shamanic means. Why spend a month making a complicated elemental pentagram to represent Earth on your altar, when you can use a bowl of actual Earth and meditate on that as your elemental focus? I understand that the exercises involve working with the elements in a more abstract 'refined' sense, but surely its more practical to begin with the condensed real world MALKUTH elements and experience the 'spiritual refinement' as a living process.

It just strikes me as received knowledge to not even attempt a close physical interaction with the actual physical manifestation of the elements, and I can't remember the author ever giving much of an explanation of his choice of methods. It's been awhile since I read it, so maybe I'm being a bit harsh in my criticism.

I do think Modern Magick is a very good book containing a lot of very useful information in one place, and if I'd had access to this kind of quality material when I was 12 I would be lot better versed than I am today. However, in general I think that a lot of the ceremonial stuff does seem to suffer from the 'genre categorisation' problem common to a lot of traditions, and can probably be enriched by approaching it from a more eclectic perspective. Not so much mixing traditions but approaching the ceremonial gear in the light of other systems of thought and being able to recognise what its strengths and weakness are as a magickal path.

10:12 / 13.11.02

You know, I don't feel so bad now. Here I am stuck somwhere around lesson four thinking, "Well, everybody else is probably on lesson six or seven. I'm so pathetic".

Honestly, I haven't kept up with much of anything. I do the LBRP and middle pillar when I can, but my ritual diary is woefully outdated. The dream diary is basically page after page of "I did not choose to remember my dreams" even though I did remember them.

I'm up for giving it another go.

14:22 / 13.11.02

Middle Pillar is a really effective exercise, and the LBRP is a useful thing to have in the bag of tricks - but I was wondering what peoples thoughts are on how well these exercises compare to alternative methods of 'energy regulation' (for want of a better word) such as Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Yoga or Runic Stances.

It seems to me that whilst each of these practices have certain things in common, they all operate differently and have subtely different effects beyond the simple differences in cultural flavour. Anybody got any thoughts on this? Does anyone here utilise (for instance) both daily LBRP and Middle Pillar alongside regular Tai Chi or Chi Kung practice? and if so, what are your opinions on how the two systems interact, compliment, or conflict with one another?

14:44 / 13.11.02

GL: Interesting comments on the elemental exercises. Not read the book so not best informed but it doesn't suprie me. The intellectual, Golden Dawn based tradition in Western magick doesn't have much room for contact with nature as a rule. Phil Hine has commented that the Western Trad. has a very "indoors feel". I can't think of any examples where that contradict this - maybe some modern stuff, but nothing older than 10-15 years - anyone else?

With regard to constructing elemental pantacles or what have you, it seems definitely the case that real contact with the element concerned has got to be an advantage. THis might be the advantage toward behind the traditonal construction of the elemental weapons, even though it could be pretty arduous - constructing a pentacle with clay you've actually dug up with your own hands has got to be a worthwhile exercise. The same goes with learning some carpentry or metalwork skills to make wands or swords. I don't think this is in anyway nessacery to work with the elements successfully but I would admire the BALLS or anyone who bothered to get stuck in and do something like this.

The Return Of Rothkoid

09:45 / 09.02.03

Well, I move out next weekend. So how about we start up again a week after that?

Devil's Avocado

13:11 / 10.02.03

how well these exercises compare to alternative methods of 'energy regulation' (for want of a better word) such as Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Yoga or Runic Stances.

Well I've been doing all of the above (apart from Runic Stances) for a while now.
I haven't come across anything in Tai Chi, Chi Gung or Yoga that is as specific as the LBRP. Having said that Tai Chi as a whole in effect works to equilibriate energy focussing through the DanTien/internal centre and cirular, or spiral external movements. This feels very similar to the LBRP which places the operator at the centre and precedes to balance the elemental energy around a circle. Motivation for practicing Tai Chi is not to banish or invoke, but it can be used for both. Of cousre ther are many higher levels of Tai Chi which, again in my experience, place it far beyond the range of the LBRP.

The Middle pillar utilises the central channel which closely ties with Sushumna channel utilized in Kundalini and Sahaja yoga
Chi Gung also focusses on the central channel, particularly in some movements of the Badua Jin. My experience of the differences is that the Middle pillar is of a 'higher order', especially when vibrating the godnames, (as I have been practicing Tai Chi/Chi Gung/Yoga a *lot* longer than the MP, I don't think it's a case of me being 'better' at the MP). I feel this is because of the other main difference; the MP draws energy down through the crown rather than a raising up of energy to the crown. As such it is drawing down an influx of celestial energy through the crown, rather than raising internal energy to the crown. Whilst this is an oversimplification I feel it can be compared to the difference between invoking and evoking. As such the practices don't conflict for me at all. It's only when I consider the philosphy/scrpitures of the systems that I run into conflict (the Magick vs Mysticism debate).

I've got lots more on this, (and don't really feel I've explained my points very well above) but don't have the time to go into it here. Would love to share in person at some point though GL.

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