Taomeow

Brian, wiggling one's ears is exactly like that too! The ears themselves have no moving parts. You move your awareness and it moves your auricularis muscles and they move your ears. Now the next level is to move your arms with your ears... and then someone else's...

Link, you were playing -- and what do you think I was doing, chopping liver? I just played along. I'm sure there's many boxes -- probably billions -- in garages and under beds and in closets and in storage sheds stuffed with no one knows what that don't contain any entities. I know most photographs are just that, pieces of the soul of the person they were snapped (snatched) from (at least all indigenous people used to believe that, and Carlos Castaneda too, and look at all the celebrities -- what chaos and pathology all the lives that have been subjected so mercilessly to relentless image-taking of them -- from them!) -- yes, most photographs are merely that, not possessed by anything... rather, something someone was dispossessed of. But haunted castles are never bright and airy and open and clean and uncluttered. There's always cobwebs and bat-infested crypts and screechy doors and things falling apart, decaying, broken, and in all the corners, those dust bunnies that the Chinese don't call bunnies. They call them "grey mice of despair."

Good question! I say, try to find out, don't take anyone's word for anything, don't trust your own thoughts (for they may have been compromised at the very source), don't trust your own feelings (ditto), much less anyone else's. Just do the work. What work? There's only one job description that suits this particular quest: co-creation. Start building a world to your own specs. If you're going to move into a new house, you will want to have a plan -- where do I put the sofa, do I need this table there, what color do I paint the walls, and so on. Do this with the world you want to inhabit. Don't rent it from a landlord... from an overlord... from Our Lord... from any which bigger boss. Don't buy someone else's, they built it to suit them, it may not suit you at all. Build your own. This world we live in -- someone made it this way. Whoever likes this model, is welcome to stay. But whoever is looking to move out must be aware that a realtor's shiny brochure in the mail advertizing a "future home in heaven," "next life," "cessation of reincarnations," or whatever else house pre-designed for you by someone else will effectively be buying a glass beads necklace and giving up Manhattan for it. I know I can build bigger than Manhattan, and differently. So if they try to talk me into giving up that project for a handful of trinkets, I'll tell them where to shove that bead necklace. That's my solution. I don't only want to cultivate myself, for however successful I might be with the project, where's the world that can accommodate that improved, tao-embodying ideal me?.. So, I have to cultivate that world too. I have to look at the as-is world the same way I look at myself -- not with resentment, but with the buyer's eye. Am I buying this? If it's a world that is being planned for an eternity, or at least for a couple billion years (a modest age for a world) -- am I buying what we have right here right now as a good long term investment? It is a sincere question I ask every day about everything. Am I buying this for an eternity? Guess what -- I have encountered some phenomena, not many, about which the answer was, yes. But I've also, in this world, encountered millions of phenomena about which it's, no, no, no thanks, thanks but no, thanks, no way, no way in hell!! So, I have to create it. If I can't buy it, I have to make it. Now that's where taoist cultivation comes into the picture. It is nothing if not a set of tools. You want to build a world, you need tools. E.g., you need to be a god or goddess, they usually know how to create assorted worlds. Does taoism offer tools for that? Surprisingly, it does. But maybe it's not the best set of tools. Maybe a sage creates a better world -- they are said to "roam the root of heaven and earth," so, maybe I want to build this kind of a world, suitable for roaming by a sage? Maybe. And so on. So, I'm exploring the tools... Taoist tools are not the only ones. But they are the most ergonomically designed, far as I'm concerned. I didn't expect to answer your short question in so many words. But it happened.

I'm pretty sure the classics that asserted that "in the human world, tao has been destroyed" are, unfortunately, correct (locally, for our particular stretch of spacetime of perhaps about 15,000 years, give or take), but that's an old conversation... I agree though that quite a few practices are part of the symptomatology of the disease rather than the cure. I see the quest for the ones that are not as legit... and worth it. But it may indeed be safer to assume tao is not lost than to seek it in all the wrong places. I don't know. Perhaps depends on quite a few factors. I have this thirst for "the real thing," and nothing quenches it but the real thing. I want no Pepsi, even if the label says it's part of tao. Maybe. I have to taste it to believe it. And when I taste chemicals, my mind knows it's "also tao," but my heart says, "are you out of your mind?" Yes, I am -- it's someone else's mind that wrote that label. To be out of my mind means taking someone's word for the state of tao. I don't have to. I know... My heart-mind knows for sure -- whenever I'm not out of it and in someone else's... Some practices helped develop this skill.

Yo Rene , thanks for your thoughts. Perhaps people occasionally confuse a drive for self-improvement with self-rejection experienced "until" and "unless" certain criteria are met -- I know you're not one of them, but I'm not one of them either. And even if the seeds (carefully planted by society every day) were there, some of my practices specifically make sure they can't grow into any "weeds" of self-rejection. It's most explicit in taiji sparring, e.g., where if you start losing patience and acceptance -- doesn't matter with/of your opponent or yourself -- you lose to a skillful opponent who did not. My teacher laughs in my face the moment he feels that I move in a way that spells frustration. Oh, you're getting angry! -- and I get pushed and fly. I'm dumb that way, you have to smack me to get a point across, words don't cut it for me. Quite a few of my practices are like that. I not only don't reject myself in the process of mastering them, I always experience a setback if I get self-critical. It's something very primordial, to just do the work. It's like, I dunno, foraging for mushrooms in the forest. You can't possibly do it any other way than just do it. But you want mushrooms, you do the work. If you don't do the work, they won't run toward you. Uncontacted tribes (the few still remaining) are cultivators all of them, without any policing or self-policing of the process of acquiring skills. You acquire them by doing what you and the circumstances decide you need to do. In our society, the basis for such decisions can be quite healthy or it can be very neurotic. In a healthy scenario, it's just obvious what needs to be done, what needs to be left alone, and it doesn't occur to you to waste your effort by doing the unnecessary. In an unhealthy scenario, both doing and not-doing can be fubar. The doing can be a counterphobic mess, the outcome of most unhealthy conditioning, any which brainwashed BS -- while the not-doing can be an avoidance mess predicated on deep trauma, running away from experiences, from feeling, from changing, whatever. So by themselves the doing and the not-doing tell little about what lies beneath... Methinks.

I think the wording of the poll might have been, "Do you admire yourself enough to never want to change anything about yourself?" For that's what cultivation/no cultivation really boils down to. It's not "energy work" in many cases and not even close in some. It's work on becoming what you admire. If you already are that, then no work is needed. If not, and you choose to do such work, you're a cultivator. Someone who transforms herself by consciously and deliberately working on developing a skill, trait, art, science, practice, and ultimately the kind of self one is for whatever reason more into than the as-is version. We all have many potential versions of who we are, can be, might be, would have been if... and so on. To choose one that is different from whichever of these versions you are currently living, and consciously apply work to creating a version that is not as random, a version of you in which you have some say, is what it's about. So many people and forces have a say in who we become. Parents, doctors, teachers, preachers, politicians, the media, law enforcement agencies, peers, bosses, spouses, food manufacturers, fashion and fad dispensers, technology developers... the list is almost inexhaustible. Where am I, me, on this list?.. Why should I be excluded from the party of shaping ME?.. What energy work?.. I've come to party! Ah but who are you? Who is this you who came to party? I want at least some say in that. I want me to be shaped by me a bit. Or a lot. Or entirely. That's what cultivation is.

It is very misunderstood quite often. But so is every other kind of communication, right?

Overshielding to the point of invisibility is a very useful skill in some situations... not at the restaurant when you're hungry and hope to get a meal though. I had a few experiences with overshielding too. When I practiced Kunlun for a while, Max suggested to play music in the background, something I normally never do with any of my practices, and I followed his suggestion, putting on a CD with my favorite classical Han music from the 11th-14th centuries. The CD was brand new -- I bought it specifically for the practice, didn't want any music that I already listened to in different contexts, this was meant to be a Kunlun soundtrack. A few of the pieces on that CD were positively sublime, and one, just about the most beautiful melody I'd ever heard. So, I began the practice, but, ever-cautious, of course I preinstalled the shields and also did a very thorough erasing routine in the end, for any "spirits, entities and energies that may have dropped by, you are hereby removed -- go back to your permanent places of residence." The next day, to my chagrin, I discovered that I erased most of the CD with this, and my favorite track, without a trace -- complete nothing. Aw, drats...

Ack! This can happen. Maybe burning without a warning was too sudden. Might not be a negs problem, might be communication problem?.. The first reaction is nearly always resistance if a near and dear is not on the same wavelength before you start. I hope you work things out!

Perhaps this is for a different thread. I just wanted to point out that "energy is energy" which is an idea surfacing here and there throughout the thread, and "it all depends on the receiver" is not a taoist view of the impact of all kinds of qi. We look at the overall context, it is all-important. Far as I'm concerned, what is meant as a healing is an assault if the context is "I didn't give permission." And a severe push is healing in the context, e.g., of a teacher showing a student (who gave explicit prior consent!!) how to deflect a particular qi attack we call fajin. I had to fly a couple of times today from such pushes, and I got a bruise, and I got the technique. It made me very happy. Invitation, consent, rules of engagement -- are everything IMO. I was just trying to address your doubts that these are among taoist values. They most definitely are.

Taoists make a very clear distinction between various types of qi -- e.g. shen qi' and sha' qi, "beneficial qi" and "killer qi," respectively. Whether energy can or cannot be good or bad is irrelevant, because qi is not energy, contrary to popular belief. (Also, chakras are not part of the taoist system. We have dantiens and they function not at all like that.) Sha' qi, "killer qi," is an outcome of many possible scenarios -- energy used in a particular way and imbued with particular meaning (e.g., when yi, intent, directs qi toward an outcome that depends on the nature of the intent; when zhi, the will of destiny, guides yi -- of which the person may be unaware; and so on); or space configuration which might "cut" or "entangle" "good" qi resulting in "bad" -- think a room where you might put so many items of furniture that none of them can function -- they are not bad by themselves, but the way they are thrown together, forcing out free space and entangling all passages, turns the whole arrangement into a -- well, even a death trap in a particular configuration. And so on.

An aside: shielding is a skill that you improve like any other -- by learning and practicing consistently. Shields can and should be customized. Don't use one kind of shield against "all" weapons. What works against a sword does not work against a bullet. What works against a bullet does not work against an atom bomb. Keep that in mind, and keep diversifying. My taiji teacher came the closest to ever getting angry with me just once in many years, when I told him I'm "sensitive to energies" in the sense, they can interfere, disrupt, influence me, etc.. I was specifically talking about electromagnetic pollution (which I personally perceive as a violent occult attack, much worse than a random human being is capable of instigating, and I have reasons to believe that the source, the origin of this assault is entirely not human yet very sentient, and very... but I digress.) He said that I must learn to protect myself every which way. Taoist arts of self-defense are a skill that must grow as you work hard on it (that's what gongfu is), not a staged "for show" set-up where what you can protect yourself against is carefully pre-planned by the organizers of the event like in sports. You need to be ready for the unexpected. For successful psychic self-defense you need the same kind of calm confidence that's a prerequisite for successful self-defense in taiji. You don't counterattack peripherally, you counterattack from your center -- an impossibility if you don't have it, so you must develop it. What it is and where it is is up to you, but you have to have that and it has to be inviolable. This is a kind of shield installed internally, so you don't have to worry that much about peripheral "violations" in the form of any intrusions and transgressions against you, because they are not going to penetrate there and do any real harm. Also, the "ward off," "redirect," etc. technique used by someone who has this center is very dangerous for the intruding/attacking party. Very. It's, like, you think you grabbed me -- nope, you grabbed a bait on a fishing hook attached to a fishing line attached to the fishing rod I control and you're at the mercy of now. As soon as you attack and grab that bait, I have you, welcome to the frying pan. You grabbed me you think? Nope, you grabbed a qinna lock and placed yourself under arrest. You will now be prosecuted and punished to the full extent of my imagination. Those "things," "forces," etc. we're trying to avoid are a network too. They have their own grapevine, they have an internet of their own, so to speak... the word will spread around once you teach them who they're dealing with. Be confident and be courageous. They prey on cowardice. Don't be reckless though. Don't imagine you're invincible. But develop your spiritual strength consciously and place your center there, and you'll be approached with much caution by any "accidental tourists" from the subtle realms.

Oh my god, this is brilliant! The biblical guys -- the real characters behind the (mighty skewed) narrative at least -- did practice a marital art based on pretty much the same principles as taijiquan. It survives to this day (though it was kept secret for many generations, just like taiji and other gongfu arts) and its practitioners still get the jobs they had for close to two thousand years -- as bodyguards to Middle Eastern rulers. I've seen a video. They practice dressed in biblical clothes -- otherwise the similarities with taiji are striking, in both the slow practice routine and the lightning-fast fighting applications. I'll try to look it up. I agree with much of what you told Jeff about the nature of shielding, by the way, except the part that it is always circular. Not always. Taoist shields can be shaped as one of the primordial wuxing patterns, i.e. circular if you use Metal for protection, triangular/pyramidal if you use Fire, square if you root your shields into the Earth, wavy for Water, and what Jeff describes -- that's Wood based protection. Which of course won't work against anything but Earth based assaults.

Since we're starting (correctly, IMO) with simple remedies anyone can use, which are however pretty efficient against many "intrusions," I will add to our self-defense library-in-the-making a few of these for a warm-up. Salt, proposed by OldChi, is universal, versatile, and very useful. The Russian folk tradition is to always keep it around in an open container, not a shaker, specifically for dissipating unwelcome forces. If such forces become noticeable, not one but several such containers are placed around the house. Choose either natural rock salt or natural sea salt, because other varieties have "anti-caking" chemicals that will interfere with their activity. Smudging with sage works very well. Ringing out with a good quality bell (mine is of the same make and model as Tibetan singing bowls), paying particular attention to all the corners, all the hard-to-reach dark places (behind furniture, under beds, etc.) is very good. A few drops of essential oils mixed into spring water in a spray bottle will be a good way to follow up on any such treatment. The oils to choose are frankincense, myrrh, camphor, sandalwood, e.g., and the goal is to spray "everything" but in a very fine mist, don't ruin your furniture. Shake well before using. Drink a cup of coffee if you feel under a psychic attack. Not Starbucks. Strong, and prepared by you, and encoded with a message: "don't mess with me." No sugar. Many unruly entities behave as someone who is drunk rather than malicious in a focused way -- confused, agitated, rather chaotic. This state they're in has an impact on the state of energies in and around you. Coffee will help sober you up. (If you are not used to strong coffee, be conservative, don't drink a lot all at once, take a sip, watch what's happening, proceed with caution.) Clean and declutter your living premises. Entities and energies that hide in clutter, in boxes with unidentified objects kept in storage (or undiscarded empty ones), in broken electrical devices and in piles of crumpled clothes, etc., are very unlikely to take residence in a place that is not a good hiding place. Some exorcists suggest removing all objects that have a face from the premises. I'd reserve this measure for later and do it only if all else fails. By a "face" they mean not just human faces (photographs, figurines, sculptures, paintings) but animals as well, including cute ones, toys, cartoons, even abstract smiley faces. Don't make it easier for things that seek incarnation to incarnate. A face is like an invitation to some of them, Dorian Grey style receptacle of evil (in case there's indeed evil seeping through from an amorphous source, it's easier to get rid of it while it's still amorphous, not let it condense). These are some of the "good housekeeping" rules of spiritual self-defense. I would most definitely start there before moving on to anything more involved.

As one of them, I submit translators don't always appreciate, and occasionally abuse on purpose, the power they wield. A whole generation was raised in fear and hate due to a mistranslation (which is what a literal dictionary translation always is if it does not take into account the context, both the local context of the overall text and the wider context of the foreign cultural backdrop) of what Khrushchev said that was rendered as "we will bury you." For a more recent example, it has been widely reported that Putin has called Trump "brilliant." This may scare a whole bunch of potential pro-Trump voters into the arms of Hillary (from the frying pan into the fire) -- look, turns out Trump and Putin are buddies in a mutual admiration club, if we choose Trump, he will get in bed with Russia!.. The term Putin really used that was translated as "brilliant," яркий, might mean that -- if you are talking of the color of a gemstone, or someone's pretty eyes... but it means something entirely different when applied to a person. Depending on the context, it may mean anything in fact, from a compliment to his good looks to an acknowledgement of his ability to draw attention to himself (without specifying how exactly, by making sense or by wearing a circus clown's wig), to a sarcastic put-down, and is best translated as "colorful." Putin called Trump "colorful," not "brilliant." Quite a different set of connotations, right? But translators made sure that yet another urban legend with no basis in reality is born. By the way, I own Wieger's "Chinese Characters" monumental treatise that can elucidate the origin of a key term like 'impure" (which sadly is encountered in countless translations of countless texts, by far not just this one or I wouldn't mention it, and perhaps means what I suspect it means in every taoist school influenced by every non-taoist ideology to a significant extent) -- will look it up when I have a moment. Still, I doubt a dictionary is ever enough to understand the "connotations..."

If by "we" you mean "everybody," I agree. Negative connotations. Just like when we call someone "a fucking idiot," we may merely mean "a person in a pristine state of mind suitable for engaging in sexual relations with." Why would anyone be bothered by the negative connotations when called that? Just reinterpret it to mean not what it says and it becomes completely acceptable.

I use all kinds, extensively. 1. Written talismans -- taoist. These usually address a specific problem, or are used for protection. 2. Medicine bundles, paket kongos and feng shui "wealth" vases. These, for storing power, safekeeping wrath, and material well-being, respectively. They are not "used." They are provided for destiny to use as she sees fit. 3. Jewelry items and talismans for home -- these are mostly classical feng shui. The protective pendant for the year is a figurine of an animal that is either friends with the ruling year animal or something the ruling animal fears. These are only worn when the animal of the year threatens my own. This year I wear a snake pendant -- this one (the hand is not mine): Besides the seasonal ones, I wear a triple charged tiger's tooth (I didn't condone the killing of the tiger, of course, and wouldn't buy it if the Tibetan lama I bought it from didn't swear that it's very very old, from the time when tigers were not endangered. I have no way of verifying this, but the doubt is not strong or nagging, so I choose to believe the lama.) This I would love to wear every day because it gives me all kinds of wonderful vibes, but I don't because it attracts too much attention. 4. I use Stone Warriors around my taoist altar, for protection. 5. I use items made of jade around electrical devices, to protect the Kidneys. There's a jade bracelet I hardly ever take off. The rest can vary. 6. I have a stone with the character "tao" carved into it, I hold it in my hand when I feel the need to improve my strength or stability or endurance. 7. I have souvenir trinkets on my key chain which my teacher sometimes brings from his travels when he teaches abroad. For the love of the art and the teacher's qi vibe. The list is partial and not everything on the list is used continuously, of course -- I might go for a long time only wearing the protective pendant and then I can dedicate a month to installing a lot of stuff, it varies. In my defense, I don't play with modern toys -- haven't seen a video game since the original Super Mario. I like my own playgrounds.

No, it's due to a tragic tradition in full swing at the time of the writing and still going strong -- the tradition to back up the subjugation of women in a triumphant patriarchal testosterocracy with assorted ideological justifications. If a woman is impure, and the scriptures say she is, you don't have to worry about treating her like shit. It's your birthright, you're pure, see, no matter what you do -- you are a man, therefore pure. Works out nicely for half the human population, and the other half, the dirt underfoot, doesn't matter. Fast forward a couple thousand years and you see the dying Earth, an inevitable practical outcome of this ideology. Earth is dirty. Dirty mother, to be purified by pure fathers. A highway is much cleaner than a forest trail. If someone tells me that the real word is "fertile" rather than "impure," and another real word is "capable of fertilizing" rather than "pure," I'll apologize to the author of the treatise and hold the makers of the dictionaries responsible rather than him. Because that's what the difference really is -- how people manage to accept anyfuckingthing else as the distinction between a man and a woman is mind-boggling. What? You haven't noticed that a woman is fertile and a man is capable of fertilizing her? That's all it really means, in all contexts, yin-yang, pure-impure, clean-muddy, and what not. It's all it really means, always, for all purposes, and to consistently and relentlessly slip in terms that make it seem as something entirely else is part of the great and horrible tragedy of thousands of years... I admire the skill of our translators, but is it possible to take a step back from all the dictionaries and think about what this particular way of phrasing a supposedly abstract idea actually does in the non-abstract world of live human beings?.. Think harder about where an idea might be coming from?.. About why it seems attractive or repugnant to you personally? -- the steady clear gaze turned within at this point?..

The ancient word that is used in the I Ching for bad people literally means "in-no-way."

Look Into The Monsters' Eyes, by Lazarchuck and Uspensky, in Russian. This is in the genre of fantastika (close to my heart since time immemorial) which does not enforce a genre boundary between "science fiction" and "fantasy" and "magical realism" and occult and "alternative" (i.e. more real than official) history and what not. The main protagonist is a fantastika version of a very famous and very talented Russian poet of the Silver Age, the founder of the fruitful Akmeism poetry school, who in "real" history was executed in 1921. In the alternative history of this novel, he has been saved instead by members of a secret and powerful group of shadow rulers, and granted immortality. Like with all (so rare, and getting rarer and farther between) books that excite me and promise much, I read with fear that it might flop -- for there's nothing harder than to tie all the loose ends in a complex, multifocal narrative, and few of the more ambitious ones avoid fizzling out long before they reach "The End." I remember starting and abandoning many (and of late, most) that set an inviting creative landscape at first and then got garbled, forced, tedious, and ultimately outstayed my attention's welcome by the middle or sooner. On the other hand, the ones that don't lose it and keep going strong and stronger and reach the end "with a bang not a whimper" are exceedingly rare. So, I'm hoping this one won't entangle itself in its quirky and fun complexities into a straightjacket of creative chaos. So far so good... haven't read anything this profoundly entertaining (without sacrificing the beauty and power of a true and idiosyncratic literary style which it fortunately possesses) in quite a while. Reminded me of a definition of happiness (one of thousands offered by various experts on happiness) that I used to subscribe to, only partially in jest: "Happiness is a big comfortable chair, a big juicy apple, and The Three Musketeers that never end."

Nassim Haramein's double torus dynamics has been around for a while... to say nothing of the Russian research into torsion fields that went before. Both are predictive of such phenomena. Unfortunately, orthodox science has been dismissive of these "pseudosciences" but now they have no choice but to dip a toe therein, now that it's shining in their face. Torsion fields rock.

Well, I wasn't there, so I am rather unclear on who believes in what and who said/did what and which side if any anyone's on. I remember engaging in a TDB chat years ago, and saying more than I intended to, and regretting it. No one did anything wrong, but I felt compelled to share a lot of private information and the regret was along the lines of, the receptacle was very accidental, and there's levels of intimacy -- it wasn't sexual at all, just intimacy in the sense of being open and by consequence vulnerable -- that were reached that felt inappropriate later. I was pulled into that level of intimacy by the party to the conversation being in dire straits and me wanting to match my own difficult experiences to his/hers (I won't say who it was) in order to support, to be on the same wavelength, and so on. In hind sight I realized that he/she gave me nothing in return, too preoccupied with his/her own struggles to even notice that I went above and beyond into the territory of -- well, a territory reserved for close intimate friends. I felt very lousy after that exchange. I felt cheated, and had no one to blame but myself and the medium of exchange (sic). So, no more chat rooms for me since then. The medium itself is dangerous for me, I am not as worried about people's energies (although caution never hurts) as about wuxing energies (phases of qi), a far more immediate influence on me. I know that rapid electrical Fire is my wuxing anathema, energetically speaking, and the root of this dynamics is my own wuxing makeup and nobody's fault. There's many others in the same boat, only not many consciously try to navigate theirs, or know where it's headed unless they do. They may merely mistake a phase of qi that's detrimental to their own for someone else's doing. Or someone else's doing may amplify and exacerbate the imbalance. There's many scenarios. Wuxing shields (which we call bazi remedies) exist too, by the way, but they don't hold up forever and the traditional approach to dealing with an unfavorable phase of qi is avoidance. Protection works to an extent, for a while, but the influence is constant (lifelong, and stronger in specific years, at specific times) so all shields wear off. Sometimes, therefore, avoidance is best. All in all, I'm grateful I'm not the one who is going to have to make the decision about what to ban and what to allow -- although I do have my opinion. Good luck to those to whom the task falls today.

Perhaps we can create a thread in which people who know good methods of "energetic' protection could share them. (Ralis's suggestion of a Faraday cage might go there. I'm not familiar with this method, but I have my own, as I'm sure many other cultivators do.) So instead of exposing oneself to dangers of unruly and possibly unfriendly forces and entities, people would try to get a bit of an education first as to how to shield themselves from such energies. Of course there's stuff so powerful that a lay practitioner and even a seasoned sorceress can't do much to deflect it (or can but won't, for reasons not of this world thread), but I haven't noticed many of these here at TTB so far -- in fact hardly any, with only three exceptions, some years apart, and even those were possible to dissipate, just not right away. Should one of those too-strong-to-shield-against thingies show up again, I'll warn a few friends and let everyone else live out their own destiny. Barring such nasty extremes, however, the regular spiritual protection methods can be learned and used by anyone who feels insecure about picking up something they didn't bargain for. In fact, for everyone who wants to engage in chat would be my suggestion, just to be on the safe side. How's that for a plan? Energy work in chat rooms for those who show proficiency in self-protection. Safe astral sex 101. Safe deals with the devil... well, no, but let's hope the devil has other things to do besides TDB chats.

Well, not many can moderate the astral plane. The chat room is another matter. About that, I have no opinion. I don't do chat rooms.

Someone please explain to me what the purpose of "astral sex" with strangers might be?.. I'm not questioning its impact, I'm questioning its motivation. Sex can be one of three things energy-wise -- an exchange/modulation/refining, i.e. cultivation; a giving without such refining -- crude as-is offering of whatever the giver has to give; or a taking, with or without the donating party's consent, and usually without understanding, of the same as-is crude energy of the donor. Far as I know, a successful cultivational exchange (on any plane, not just astral) is something possible only between individuals who share more than the sexual interaction, its prerequisite is intimacy -- knowing yourself, caring for your partner. In every other case, it's one-sided -- one takes, the other donates. The energy may be exchanged on the level of shen, but the source tapped into is jing, and jing can only be replenished when sex is intimate, involving -- gasp -- love. Jing can't be replenished bypassing the heart shen, it has no other way to go back, you have to actually go through the fire and place it under water (love under life), otherwise it can't go downward, only up, into dissipation and waste in whatever "higher realms" -- out and up and away from life. You are not dealing with mechanical forces when you're dealing with jing-qi-shen. You are in the realm of meaningful transformations. If the meaning is misunderstood, the energies are damaged. Try plugging a 110v device into a 220v outlet -- that's what you're doing when you know the mechanical act of plugging a device into an outlet but don't know the meaning of the marking that says "110v" and travel to Europe (forget the astral plane) and don't know they use 220v there. Good luck with that hair dryer. The converter of voltage is love, in your case, you are more complex than the hair dryer. If you don't have it handy, don't bother plugging into that outlet. Damo Mitchel seems to be one of those folks who think you want to transform jing to shen. Well, yes, if you want to expedite the ordinary process of jing squandering and dissipation. The sublimation. Going higher. (Higher voltage is always good, right?..) This can be successfully expedited by loveless sex, on any plane and by any method. No problem. But what's the purpose?