Aeran

Yeah you're right, most magicians (the traditional types, and those who were influenced by them even moreso - wiccans, chaotes, thelemites, etc) don't do much etheric stuff, but it isn't entirely missing from western magic. The Middle Pillar is a staple of Golden Dawn (and offshoots) training, and the energy involved in that is primarily etheric. It's also an essential part of Bardon's IIH (probably because of his heavy Eastern influence) syllabus - where he teaches working with the vital force and condensing the elemental/electric & magnetic fluids down to an etheric/physical level. And I don't really have a martial arts background heh, Less than two years of doing qi gong on and off out of books/videos is about it (other than working up to a blue belt in karate back in primary school). Although I would like to change that.

I've always thought of visualization being top down, mental > astral > etheric > physical (loosely speaking, I'm fairly sure you can start to skip steps when you've developed enough and go directly from mental > etheric), whereas going off movement/breathing/sensation is bottom up, physical > etheric > astral > mental. As above so below and all that. I don't think one method is inherently better, it depends entirely on what you're trying to do imo. Although it bears mentioning that even in the western/hermetic stuff I do, there's no "pure" visualization. It's a large part of many exercises, but always combined with intent, tactile sensation and often breathing or movement.

Goes without saying - the longer you live, the more you can do of everything you want to do. These two tie together from what I understand, one being the consequence of the other, but I don't claim to have a perfect knowledge of such thing. It's not something I stress too much, but I'm definitely interested in such abilities, not just personally developing them (although I want to do so - especially the capability to heal) but in understanding how and why they work. I think such abilities have a lot to teach us about how the universe works, not to mention that they serve as an immediate and undeniable refutation to the reductionist-materialist view of the universe which has infected our society. Depending on how you define it. Like enlightenment, it seems to be one of those things which everyone understands differently - but I want to achieve greater understanding and greater happiness. Although I would word it as 'reaching my full potential, becoming everything I have the capability to be.' Physically, Intellectually, Spiritually, Energetically. This is a bit iffy philosophically, just because my understanding of such things is far from complete, but I want to understand the ultimate purpose of our existence and to move towards it. These two go together as well, imo. I've had enough health problems in my life that I want to do whatever I can to reduce their frequency in the future - for myself and for others around me. It seems like one of the easiest, simplest ways to both directly and indirectly improve myself and the universe. Absolutely. I want to understand the universe, how it works and why it works. A grand theory of everything might be a bit ambitious, but damnit I'm going to try

Haha. It actually does work much better that way. Oh well, cbf editing it back.

Ugh, that was a typo. Was supposed to be 'isn't' :/

What point are you trying to make? It's pretty obvious Chang isn't the only one out there.

The idea that anyone knows what the 'whole point' of the system is is silly. For all anyone knows, the fact that the system (allegedly, whatever other evidence there might be for the system, there's absolutely none for the claims about immortality) confers spiritual immortality to the practitioner is a complete accident. Or it could be the same for the energetic and martial power. Unless there's some kind of surviving manuscript from those who originally created the system, then it's kind of silly to argue over what it's 'point' is. There's quite a bit of irony in my last post with that considered, so allow me to rephrase it as: But isn't it the case that Mo Pai allows power to be obtained without spiritual achievement?

But isn't the whole point of Mo Pai that it allows power to be obtained without spiritual achievement?

For the sake of this discussion, yes, I'm assuming reincarnation is a fact, because this is a discussion about reincarnation. Without assuming reincarnation to be true, at least as a hypothetical for the sake of the debate, then any discussion about the specifics of reincarnation are meaningless. In the wider scheme of things, I figure reincarnation is the most likely option, but honestly for the most part I don't think there's a whole lot of point in speculating about the afterlife, there's just no way to be sure, and whatever will happen will happen regardless of how much speculation is done. So yeah, If it makes you feel better, insert 'If reincarnation is true...' before everything I said. But all this is just a distraction from my main point, which is that, if reincarnation is true, there's absolutely no reason to assume that whatever surviving portion of an individuals essence, being, consciousness, intelligent, identity, spirit, soul, higher self or whatever other term you want to use for it, will have the same view of reality as the individual has while being incarnated, it seems self evident that at that phase of existence a vastly different perspective on the universe would exist.

Who cares? What difference does it make whether his teacher can fart bigger lightning bolts than John Chang can?

Exactly. The other problem is that it's very easy to fool yourself with visualization, especially if you haven't trained your tactile imagination as well, the visualization leads the energy as a part of the combo of visual imagination/tactile imagination/intent, but a lot of people don't understand that, so they construct the image by itself in their head and mistake that for the actual energy.

I imagine it depends on the exercise you're doing. If you're practicing qi gong based on movement/breathing, then visualizing, especially without a trained mind, is likely to just complicate things and screw them up, because the mind won't be working in unison with the body and you'll end up trying to direct energy all over the place. But that isn't the same as saying 'visualization is useless for moving energy.'

It's still semantics. My point is (which your argument seems to support) that whatever part of a person exists between incarnations would not have the same view of things as someone currently incarnated into a physical body.

They must believe in some part of the consciousness which survives death, it's a prerequisite for reincarnation after all. The rest is just semantics.

Sounds like it would just make things worse to me :/ But I'm not the one stuck trying to moderate this place, heh.

But doesn't that assume that our 'soul' has the same d preferences, the same outlook and goals, as a living person? Seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

Oh god, those voiceovers are terrible

I don't know, I find visualization/intent works as well as the breathing/posture/movement once you develop it a bit. The Middle Pillar, for example, is more or less entirely visual (well, with sound thrown in), and I found it far more intense than any qi gong I've ever tried in terms of the sheer quantity of energy involved. The flip side is that it seems to take more practice to learn to interact with energy that way, you have to learn to maintain the visuals and the intent, whereas with the movement/breath you can just do it.

I still think you should just make one big thread for all the MP(G) discussion and call it a day

My teacher could beat both your teachers in a spelling bee, so there

Do you really think MPG needs goading to launch off an the Mo Pai superiority crusade?

He thinks everything is roleplay unless it's been claimed by a greek man speaking through a translator to an indonesian man who can set newspapers on fire, then it's (and this is a quote) "scripture."

Let's establish something up front here: do you actually have any experience interacting with hermetic adepts, or are you just talking out of your ass? I know of 2 who have (although in complement to other training), and 3 more who claim to have but who personally I'm not so sure about, so they are out there. But yes, generally speaking, it is extremely hard for most people to do that kind of training by themselves.

Meeting people the same age as me who not only completely outstripped me in terms of knowledge and development, but who outstrip people twice my age whom I considered 'authorities.' Made me realize not only how much work I had to go, but also how much could be achieved if I put my mind to it.

Incidentally, door to door sales is a great way to meet women Tons of late teen/early 20's 'I'm still figuring out what I wanna do with my life but in the meantime I'm gonna party a ton' types working in that environment. I did door to door charity subscriptions for a while and it was a ton of fun at 19.