HoldorFold

I've got He Shou Wu extract, Goji berry extract and Rehmannia extract. All Yin Jing tonics and I'm going to mix them together. I've read somewhere that you want to add something yang in there to help the transportation around the body. Any ideas what that could be? I was thinking maybe powdered ginger.

Placenta is known as "ze he che" for instance. Anyone know what animal testicles that are used in TCM are called?

In astrology, there's something called the 'planetary hours' where every day has a day time planetary ruler which starts at sunrise and a night time planetary ruler which starts at sunset. Friday starts out under the rulership of Venus, the goddess of beauty, lightheardness and fun. After sunset on Friday, Mars takes over rulership, the God of action and war, bringing excitement and recklessness. Tuesday night, from a planetary hour perspective, is the most depressing nights of the week as it's ruled by Saturn which brings heaviness, melancholy and seriousness. At night, Saturn's negative qualities are magnified since Saturn doesn't do well in darkness, which is why Tuesday night often feels dull, depressed and like it drags on for so long. The day time on Saturday is actually ruled by Saturn as well. but Saturn likes the day. During the day it's positive qualities are available making the daytime on Saturday good for planning, structure, fixing things etc.

I'd say it's pretty legit, like how you can have a legitimate enlightenment experience during an NDE. The experience you have is enlightenment, but due to the trigger, i.e a substance or death, it's more temporary and harder to fully integrate when the substance leaves your system or you're brought back to life in a hospital.

Yeah quite an intense video, I watched about up to half way through. Pretty legit enlightenment experience but it does turn out he was on psychedelics at the time. He later unpacks and explains his experience and the implications in this vid:

I've also done Gary Clyman's main condensing breathing exercise quite a bit where you condense into the center line of the head, torso, arms and legs but not necessarily the bone marrow itself. Apparently the results are quite similar to condensing into the marrow. I've had powerful effects from this. I've tried condensing into the actual marrow of my legs before and it was great, the qi seems better at staying inside on the exhale. I'd love to do this for my whole body but honestly I'm a bit weary of condensing qi into my spine.

I've had many episodes of sleep paralysis, probably about 100 or so, and on a few occasions it has led to out of body experiences. I don't get them much anymore though. In the beginning, I remember waking up and not being able to move and I had a loud buzzing sound in my head. I used all my will to move my arm and eventually I heard a ripping sound, like velcro and managed to get my hand infront of my face. But I was suprised to see that there was no actual hand there at all, just a wavy field kind of like heatwaves you see on tarmac on a hot day, in the outline of my hand. On another occasion, I was asleep on my stomach and I again woke up in sleep paralysis, and tried really hard to hold my head up and again I heard the ripping velcro sound. And eventually, after much effort, I managed to be upright facing the wall. I could see everything perfectly, but I realised that this position should be impossible since I was facing the wall yet lying on my stomach, so I was at a 90 degree angle which would mean my spine would have had to have broken to be at that angle. This happened many more times and some of those times I managed to pop completely out of my body and have an astral projection.

I tried Mantak Chia's Dantian Qigong and didn't really like the results. On the positive side it gave me qi pressure in a large area of the lower belly and resulted in a feeling of more light energy, but I didn't feel it was targeting the actual dantian enough and the energy wasn't solid or powerful enough (jing like) for my preferences. I've had pretty good results with Gary Clyman's layered condensing technique which gave me the more powerful jing feeling that I was looking for. You basically inhale qi into the dantian and while you inhale, you condense/shrink it into a very small point. On the next inhale you layer the qi around the point and at the same time condense it all down further into a small point again... basically like the layers of an onion, getting more and more condensed into the center on each inhale.

Depends on the particular herbs to a large extent. If you were to choose a random herb out of all the herbs in existence, then that of course would be dangerous. But I could go to my kitchen and brew myself a green tea or chew on some ginger, for example, without much worry. So I think a healthy dose of common sense mixed with light research, experimentation, intuition and an awareness of the effects on one's body is generally a safe approach in regards to commonly used herbs.

Cheers, I'll definitely try and get some Fu Ling and perhaps research some other herbs for the spleen/draining although I'd prefer to stay away from licorice root due to the negative effect is has on testosterone.

Excellent advice, thanks very much. I like the sound of Fu Ling. The Yin Jing herbs I have are all 10:1 concentrated extractions of prepared He Shou Wu, prepared Rehmannia and Goji Berry. Do you know what the recommended ratio of non-concentrated Fu Ling to the above herbs might be? I'll probably be taking about just 3 grams of the concentrated Jing herbs per day, consisting of 1 gram of each of the 3.

Ah yes, that was 3 years ago. I didn't get that book in the end. I've been doing some qigong by Bruce Frantzis which has helped immensely and those issues were resolved quite some time ago now.

Thanks for the replies, sounds like alcohol, ginger or ginseng could be a good addition. I'll try and experiment with all 3 to see how they compare. As an aside, I just received some deer placenta capsules in the post and took one about an hour ago. It's insanely powerful, I could feel the effects start within minutes. It's a familiar feeling I get from he shou wu / goji berries etc., but feels 50x stronger. I've also got some black ant powder that I'm going to try tomorrow to gauge the effects and then some sheep placenta arriving in a couple of weeks to see how it compares with the deer.

I'm taking Ho Shou Wu, Goji Berries and am going to start taking Rehmannia, Shilajit and black tahini/black-beans. All good for increasing Yin Jing. I haven't heard anything about excessive Yin Jing, it's always about it being depleted. Anyone know what, if any, are the drawbacks of taking lots of Yin Jing tonics over a long period of time?

I've always thought of Yin as descending and Yang as ascending. This is intuitive in terms of cold air/water etc. descends and hot-air/fire etc. rises. And qigong water methods in general focus on descending qi and fire methods focus in general rising. This concept is consistent with the microcosmic orbit, where Yin descends in the conception vessel and Yang ascends the governor channel. However, I've just started getting into the 12 primary meridians, i.e. the 6 Yin organ meridians and their 6 Yang organ pairs. With these, the Yin meridians ascend and the Yang meridians descend. For instance, the kidney meridian, a Yin meridian, has an ascending flow but it's paired Yang meridian, the bladder, has a descending flow. And so it is with each Yin/Yang organ pair. This is counter-intuitive to my usual understanding of Yin/Yang ascending/descending flow. Anyone understand why this is?

Sure, I had been practicing the https://lonerwolf.com/shadow-self/ http://www.williammistele.com/shadow.html

Ah yes, I've also heard of the MCO running in the opposite direction, although I've never tried it myself. For me, I've often felt hot qi running up my back into my head and I've spent a lot of time working on bringing it down the front. Downward qi flow makes me feel more relaxed and yin, but then it does eventually make me feel more physically powerful and grounded. I suppose that is still in keeping with yin though, as it's jing like. I'm looking at experimenting with the 12 meridians by meditating on them and directing my consciousness on them in the direction of their flow like one would do in the MCO. I was partly inspired by William Mistele (a hermeticist) who wrote about this in an essay of his. Quote: "...in many Taoist practices, meditating on the meridians is used as a means for becoming conscious of and connecting the energy flows of vitality through the body. Dr. Stephen Thomas Chang in his book, The Complete Book of Acupuncture, Celestial Arts, 1976, gives a brief description, p. 48, of The Around the World Massage, "Using the bulb of the thumb or index and middle fingers, gently massage the entire length of each of the main meridians in the direction of the energy flow along the meridian." [The sequence is lung, large intestine, stomach, spleen-pancreas, heart, small intestine, bladder, kidney, heart constrictor, triple heater, gall bladder, and liver.] After becoming competent in the previous exercise, he suggests meditating on the meridians. "...focus all your attention on the lung meridian. Trace the path of the lung meridian with your index and middle finger paying close attention to the concurrent subjective feelings that arise as a result of this procedure. Mentally follow the flow of energy as it descends along the lung meridian and then repeat the same procedure along the large intestine meridian which has an ascending flow of energy. Massaging the entire length of all twelve of the main meridians will eventually enable one to sense the most minute energy fluctuation along the meridian circuit. Ultimately, one will be able to willfully direct the energy flow along any one of the meridians. Becoming consciously aware of the circulation of energy within the body will confer longevity of life, for this ability will enable one to maintain a state of energy balance under any and all circumstances." Source: http://www.williammistele.com/physical2b.html

There's a post on a yoga forum where someone had great difficulties with a similar condition. You can read it here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3296 Quote: "Many, if not most, kundalini awakening problems stem from a block in the front channel. The front channel is the pathway by which energy drains from the head down the front of the body to the root/perineum. If this channel is blocked when kundalini shoots up the back, the result will be an uncomfortable pooling of energy in the head (at ajna, crown, and/or top of the neck), which is unable to drain down. ... ** feeling of trapped energy in head, headache, pressure between the brows or at crown ** weakened appetite and longer time required to digest (i.e. general cooling of the digestive fires) ** "upward" spinal breathing/pranayama is much easier than "downward" ** TMJ (pain in the jaw socket, sometimes radiating elsewhere in the head...this is from energy pooled in the jaw, unable to descend) ** feeling spacey and ungrounded ** water retention ** high blood pressure hard to explain by genetics, diet, and lifestyle ** sleep apnea ** difficulty (or, at least, mild aversion) with forward-bending asanas (which you perhaps have always chalked up to tight hamstrings)" He then goes on to describe his experiences with this and how he dealt with it. I've had something similar but not as acute. For me, like yourself, most remedies were only temporary and the qi would ascend back into my head creating a heavy pulsating feeling in my brow. I fairly good effects with working with my nose, as the qi would tend to drop down through my nose and down my body, but then eventually it would pool back in my head. Grounding with the added sensation of cold, e.g. imagining the coldness of the earth and grounding down into it really helped as well. But often the symptoms would return sometime later. Funnily enough, the most permanent relief I had from this was after doing intense shadow work, i.e. looking for and loving/accepting the darkest parts of myself. It turns out that by perusing spiritual work over the years I had been pushing shadow aspects of myself away and they must have created a blockage somewhere down in my body which stopped the smooth flow of downward qi and created the blockage in the head. After I found dark parts of my psyche which I had neglected over the years, i.e. lusts, urge to dominate, materialism etc. and embraced those parts of myself in a loving way, the qi started flowing and the head block cleared up.

Interesting this topic has spontaneously revived itself as I had just started taking cordyceps again as of two days ago. I've read that cordyceps nourishes both yin and yang and is considered balanced by some, are they misguided?

Discovered this by experimenting the other day and maybe it could help someone. If you touch the roof of your mouth with your tongue and focus on making your tongue feel cold, like remembering what snow feels like and feeling that sensation in your tongue, then it suddenly very powerfully draws a lot of qi from your head down your throat. This seems like an instant fix for whenever I get a pulsating brow point or too much qi in my head. I want to experiment more with this by using the sensation of cold to emphasize yin locations, but I want to proceed slowly because it seems quite powerful.

I used to be into Hermeticism as practiced by Franz Bardon and modified by William Mistele, and I used to focus a lot on the sensation of heat. It would give me an emotional powerful feeling, a peppery taste in my mouth and raise my body temperature enough so I could be outside in the cold in a t-shirt where I would usually need a thick coat. But in experimenting with heat, I also quickly developed rashes, irritability and in the long term it exasperated qi-rising into my head with it's associated complications. Since then, I have been careful in working with the sensation of temperature because it can be quite powerful. I've been doing the tongue touching the roof of the mouth for a long time and have noticed very subtle results. If my forehead is pulsating with qi, touching my tongue to the roof of my mouth doesn't seem to change much, I usually have to do a lot of work increasing my sense of weight and create a suction feeling from lower in my body, and even then it takes a while. With this cold-tongue technique, the qi immediately and strongly comes down my brow, into my throat and down. I don't even seem to need to reposition my tongue that much, as long as my mouth is closed part of the tongue is touching the roof and the cold-tongue technique works for me. Quite interesting!

Opening the Energy Gates consists of standing meditation with dissolving, cloud hands, 3 pivot sequences and a spinal stretch. The Tao of Letting Go just expands on the dissolving practice. Franzis is very detailed in the books and even though a movement seems simple on the outside, there's a lot that goes into it so it can take some time to learn. From my understanding, Jane mainly practiced the dissolving method and poured her mania into really getting good at it, but it's clear from the book she practiced a fair amount of forms apart from the standing meditation, especially towards the end of her book (but lots of progress seemed to be made from standing/dissolving alone in the beginning).

I'd recommend Bruce Frantzis' books "Tao of Letting Go" and "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body" which are water methods. It was the path Jane Alexander, who is a member of this forum, took to completely 100% heal her bi-polar and schizophrenia. She wrote about it in her book "Possessing Me: A Memoir of Healing", which is a very good read also.

It's widely known in the semen retention circle that when you abstain from pornography, masturbation, sex etc. for a period of time you feel great initially and then you enter a "flatline" where you feel depressed, unmotivated and generally terrible. Personally, during periods of abstience I've felt amazing for about 40 days and then the flatline starts and then it's feeling lethargic, no libido, unmotivated etc. ongoing for a few weeks until I've broken the abstinence. I've heard some accounts of people flatlining for months even over a year. It's quite a mystery why this phenomenon happens, has anyone got any insight on why this occurs? Also, could there be a way around it?