Taomeow

Yes, I'm glad you remember Mal's tornado too! Cool idea with using sympathetic magic alongside some high/low pressure science, very much like some of the creative shamans go about these things -- or a cat presented with a box: if I fits, I sits. I remember doing some preparatory reading on ayahuasca before undertaking the trip, and coming across an account by an entheogens science guy who suggested to the indigenous shaman, based on his (scientist's) knowledge of biochemistry, that he could add this and that plant to enhance the effect of chacruna (which prevents the breakdown of ayahuasca's DMT in the gut). He expected a stern rebuff even as he was speaking. The shaman took the plant he was suggesting, examined it, sniffed it, then proclaimed, "What an excellent idea!" and threw it into the pot where he was cooking his ayahuasca-chacruna concoction without further ado. It changed nothing, as it later became clear. But there's no harm in trying if there's trust, right? No, I'm not familiar with that series of books, thanks for the reference, I'll look into that. About Jesus who knew how to make super-dense water (normally encountered in the Solar system only on some of the moons of Jupiter) -- a very interesting bit of information! -- the technology is actually natural, it's just that the application on Earth asks for some kind of know-how that is bound to look supernatural... as Arthur C. Clarke put it, "any sufficiently high technology is indistinguishable from magic." In the case of the hurricane, I used the technology I know -- wuxing negotiations coupled with ayahuasca's rain-specific 4 hour long crash course. It is absolutely natural to someone with a background in taoist empiricism. I don't know of course if it worked or I merely witnessed two coincidences with Mal's tornado and hurricane Irene. (And Wang Liping's audience with the Moscow Dragon I wrote about at some point too... another coincidence perhaps...) As a general approach though I try not to jump to the "coincidence" conclusion without sufficient proof -- the burden of which I place fully on the party proclaiming "just a coincidence." I'm not a coincidence theorist. After all, those square hats coincidence theorists wear upon graduation were invented by taoists to symbolize a square earth... Coincidence?..

Thank you. I read Mircea Eliade of course, and Joseph Campbell, and some (not enough) of Joseph Needham, and scores (probably over a hundred in each language I know well enough) of other books great and small that touch on shamanism or are directly concerned with it, it's just that I didn't collect them all, since many were borrowings and also because I practice minimalism and donate books as soon as my storage capacity starts overflowing. Yes, it's true that one is better off not dabbling in shamanic practices without a modicum of caution (to put it mildly) -- one thing I noticed though was that the OP's initial post referenced Jerry Alan Johnson who is no dabbler by any stretch of imagination, and another thing is... about Jung -- methinks he drags his "collective unconscious" which is a familiar stomping ground for him into matters that he hasn't the foggiest about. In other words, he is being a dabbler and ought to have been a lot more cautious.

Jung was pretty out of the loop. Here's a few books randomly off my shelf that I would recommend on the subject:

I participated. It was my second attempt at hurricane management. The first one I was actually smack in the middle of -- Irene -- when 2.5 million people got evacuation orders and Manhattan was expected to share the fate of Atlantis and so on and nothing much wound up happening. The night everybody was bracing for the landfall I was in a hotel that had no power and was inhabited by a stranded Canadian hockey team and no one else -- the personnel chose to flee. Those guys rolled all the chairs on castors they could find out into the corridor and raced each other riding those chairs, lit by candles and lightnings and glowing cigarettes, and there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary life about the whole scene, the wind and rain picking up and suddenly I was transported back to the rain forest where I got my crash course in rain management. So I stepped outside and stood in the rain and spent a good hour diffusing the hurricane -- no, I don't have scientific proof, or any other kind. And, no, I can't manipulate the climate -- just what I was taught, extreme rainy weather threatening life and limb, nothing else. And no, I can't undrought a drought or turn Africa into Seattle or London.

The source of this may be the Plum Blossom Oracle method, although it is different -- at least the variety I've been taught, which combines the traditional yarrow or coins toss with observing the situation at hand, paying particular attention to certain features -- e.g. particular birds, dreams, weather phenomena, etc. Whether that's what TC had in mind I don't know.

Here's recommendations for this year's FS "medicines" from a FS master from Hong Kong Maureen Chu: Born in Rat Year meet incoming Yang Metal Rat year is OFFENDING the Tai Shui Rat. Need to wear Ox Pendant to attract away the incoming Rat year. 出生子鼠年見子鼠流年是犯太歲。需要帶丑牛吊飾去合走子鼠流年。 Born in Horse Year meet incoming Yang Metal Rat year is CLASH. Need to wear Ox Pendant to attract away the incoming Rat year. 出生午馬年見子鼠流年是冲太歳。 需要帶丑牛吊飾去合走子鼠流年。 Born in Rabbit Year meet incoming Yang Metal Rat year is 2 Penalty. Need to wear Ox Pendant to attract away the incoming Rat year. 出生卯兔年見子鼠流年是二刑。需要帶丑牛吊飾去合走子鼠流年。 **** Special attention: Not only the Rat, Rabbit and Horse Year need to wear Ox pendant. Rabbit and Horse Month, Day and Hour also need to wear Ox pendant. ***** 特別注意： 不單是子，卯，午年需要帶丑牛吊飾。 卯和午月，日，時也需要配帶丑牛吊飾。 ***** ****Note for Yang Earth Tiger Month**** If you have Monkey in your Four Pillars, Tiger will Clash with Monkey. Wear Pig pendant to attract away the Tiger. ***** 戊寅月特別留意***** 如果八字有申𤠣會冲寅虎月，要帶亥豬吊飾合走寅虎流月。 The flying star chart for Metal Rat Year 1 in NE 2 sickness star in S hang 6 metallic coins 5 misfortune star in E hang metallic wind chime 3 robbery conflict star in N place red carpet/ red Lai see 7 scandal star in Center place 3 bamboo shoots in glass vase with water 庚子流年飛星分佈圖 1 在東北 2 黑病位在南掛6個銅錢 5 黃凶位在東掛銅風鈴 3 盜劫是非位在北放紅地毯/紅利是封 7 醜聞位在正中放3枝水養富貴竹在玻璃瓶 The flying star chart for Yang Earth Tiger month 1 in W 2 sickness star in NE hang 6 metallic coins 5 misfortune star in SW hang metallic wind chime 3 robbery conflict star in S place red carpet/red Lai see packet 7 scandal star in SE place 3 bamboo shoots in glass vase with water 戊寅月飛星分佈圖 1 在西 2 黑病位在東北掛6個銅錢 5 黃凶位在西南掛金屬風鈴 3 盗劫是非位在南放紅地毯/紅利是封 7 醜聞位在東南放3枝水養富貴竹在玻璃瓶

Mighty harsh, but that's pretty common when anyone in the position of making decisions about what people should and shouldn't eat reinforces the message by all manner of scary scenarios that non-compliance is supposed to bring. In other dietary laws laid down by other authorities there's similar passages regarding pork and shrimp and lobsters and eel, and then there's other systems forbidding the consumption of the sacred animals or else promoting it (took the Japanese a harsh emperor's edict to start eating beef), and Colonel Johnson had to eat a tomato on the steps of the Congress in front of a crowd of spectators to convince Americans that tomatoes are not poisonous, and in Russia there were massive potato riots when the czar Peter the Great tried to get the peasants to plant this crop (devil's seed to the pious), and the Chinese used to refer to things like cheese, yogurt and butter as "rotten milk of the rotten barbarians," and taoists and taoist influencers of Zen proved without a shadow of a doubt that the consumption of grains feeds the "three worms" (aka "three corpses" or "three monsters") in the human body and causes many sins to appear which the same monsters then proceed to report to the Jade Emperor (classic entrapment). And then there's King James-invented war on tobacco ("the habit of the barbarian races offensive to God and pleasing the Devil") and the German kaisers' war on coffee (in favor of beer), and a failed attempt by that Turkish sultan who ordered all sacks containing the country's entire supplies of coffee ("hated by Allah") to be drowned in the Bosphorus Strait (causing a rebellion and winding up being stuffed in a sack and drowned in the Bosphorus Strait himself) and and and... ...so, yeah. If someone was to listen to all dietary prohibitions from all religious authorities all at once, the pious would starve, or else eat nothing but junk food -- there's never been any prohibitions on eating petroleum-derived chemicals, so I guess those must be the way to go in order to avoid all those demon kings et al.

These allium vegetables are actually believed (quite correctly) to mildly increase libido in men (by releasing nitric oxide from S-nitrosoglutathione and prolonging relaxation of aortic rings, both of which facilitate and improve erectile function), not give one gas. What does give the monks and lay folks alike gas is usually beans, fresh bread etc., which are not forbidden. Being gassy is not thought of as an impediment to enlightenment, being horny is.

Ah, OK. Thanks for the clarification, I read the OP a few days ago and forgot the wording. This probably means you are addressing the question to "researchers" or "scholars," not practicing daoists themselves. The latter know first hand only the initiation procedure they themselves went through. First hand I only know the initiation procedure of my own schools -- both in daoism and in my taijiquan lineage which is also a daoist lineage and also may (or may not) involve an initiation at a certain point, at teacher's discretion. If I present other schools' procedures "from the outside looking in," from hearsay or "studies," I will violate some core principles of mine. If I reveal the core initiation procedures of mine, ditto. A conundrum, eh?

I would have to understand where the term "lay Daoists" comes from and who gets to interpret who it is applicable to. Far as I know, professional daoists (daogong 道公), or non-celibate priests, masters of civil altars (wentan 文壇), as well as Ritual Masters (shigong 師公), masters of military altars (wutan 武壇), are not "lay Daoists" at all -- they are professional daoists, usually fully employed as such in the service of the community. Who do you mean when you say "lay Daoists?"

Who hasn't dreamt of a Jade Destiny jian! Even Japanese emperors included one in their Three Treasures regalia.

Yes, jade will be fine. (I love it!)

Hmm, got me thinking. The next year after this, 2021, will be Yin Metal Ox. The Ox was actually first in line to start the new cycle, but the Rat talked her (it's a she, a cow in fact, when it's yin) into giving him a ride -- and just as they were arriving, jumped off the cow's back and ran forward, making it to the deadline first to be Number One. (The cow didn't hold it against the rat though and they remained friends. I am a Taurus in my Western zodiac, so the cow/ox roughly coincides with the Chinese sequence in this case -- and that makes Aries a rat. The overlap is not complete though because in the Western system the dates of the zodiacal sequence are fixed -- which makes little sense to me -- and in the Xia calendar, lunisolar-movable. So it depends on the year.) Anyway, back from digression: so, Metal Ox ought to be fine, and this means actual metal or any precious or semiprecious stone (also dominated by the Metal phase). Another option is Earth -- clay, terra cotta. Rat has Water in it, and Earth Controls it. So, you can go with either stone or metal pendant or figurine, preferably of the Earth color (yellow, tan, khaki, brown, terra cotta) or with a clay or terra cotta one. As for the wife's support -- you have two animals that are compatible to begin with, Ox and Rat, so you can count on the usual amount of support from that direction.

There's more traditional schools that assert the main "animal" -- that aspect of one's qi that manifests as psychophysical traits -- is that of the month, not the year, so "I'm a Rat" would mean "born in the Month of the Rat" to those schools. But in general "I am this and that animal" is pop feng shui -- the real one looks at the four animals (Year, Month, Day, Hour) and their interactions, or six (adding Conception and Life animals), and they are generally tangential to the main reading. For purposes of the year's chart interacting with one's natal one, we look for that particular animal appearing anywhere, as a year, month, day or hour animal, and take it that everything that concerns someone born in the year of the Rat applies to everyone who has a Rat anywhere in the chart -- in the month, day, or hour. (It's true for all 12 animals of course.) Like all taoist art-science-practices, it's not something that can be learned with any depth from any one books, it is a tremendously involved course of study, and getting the basics right is a prerequisite but nothing more. Since I was a beginner once and started "somewhere," I can only recommend the books from my own experience of being a beginner (and I did have to sift through a ton of trash before zeroing in on the really useful and accurate entry level sources) -- Elizabeth Moran/Joseph Yu ("The complete idiot's guide to feng shui," and nevermind the idiotic title) and Ted Kaptchuk ("The web that has no weaver" -- this one is about TCM but the two, in conjunction, were supportive of my understanding and complemented each other.) And the Ta Chuan for the fundamentals (which of course has its own prerequisite, the I Ching.)

We responded simultaneously. Yes -- see my entry above.

You weren't wrong, it's about the context of operation of Metal and in some contexts it will be divisive, because concentration of power, value, or violence can indeed be divisive. Think gold -- its concentration in one place divides the whole context into the haves and have-nots. Think an army, the manifestation of the concentrating force of Metal. (Before metal weapons there were no armies.) Think bank vaults, locks and keys, chains, handcuffs. Think scalpels -- they can divide by separating the healthy from the diseased -- or swords or guns that can separate the powerful from the powerless, the living from the dead. So, division is indeed an aspect of concentration.

In the taoist tradition, the meeting of two rats (your own and the Rat of the year) can result in a fight or in cooperation, the clash being more likely in a yang year (which this one is). To protect oneself from a conflict with the big Rat, a lesser Rat is advised to befriend the Ox, who is its ally and protector. This falls into the category of feng shui "medicines," although there's some debate as to whether it's traditional enough, since the "animals" first appear in the known records only 2500 years ago. The "medicine" in this case consists of an image (3D, not a picture) of the ox worn on the body -- as a pendant or in the pocket.

I wrote my very brief predictions for the year in the "Taoist trivia and memorabilia" thread and described the particular nature of this year's Yang Metal sitting on top of Water. A bit more on that: There's different main kinds of Heavenly Stem Metal -- Yang Metal and Yin Metal -- and a few different kinds of Earthly Branch Metal -- contained within certain zodiacal "animals" (aka types of earthly qi), and then there's the combo of the Heavenly Metal with a metallic or non-metallic Earthly Branch, and then the non-metallic ones can be in a productive, destructive or controlling relationship with it, and the metallic ones, friendly or competitive. So, there's a lot of different kinds of Metal -- and this year's one is not the best. (See the referenced thread if interested). However, the inherent direction of Metal qi is inward -- Metal contracts. It has a tendency to pack things tightly and forms tight units of power, value, or (as the case may be) crushing violence, restriction, holding by a containment force. (Metal contracts, Wood expands, Water flows down, Fire rises up, Earth rotates -- those are the wuxing patterns.) Both my "trivia" thread and this post are very generic -- but a serious spirit reader (which I always aspire to be) is not allowed to present probabilities as inevitabilities, and even less to divulge, because it can anger fate and all its agents who like to keep their secrets and guard them against mortals for a reason. (A limited amount of disclosure is permissible provided certain conditions have been met.)

A daoist was planning a trip to Europe, but first he went to see his teacher. -- Sifu, I'm going to Europe, but there's so many beautiful women there. Am I allowed to look at them? -- Yes,-- the teacher replied. -- Really? What about going to the beach? They are nearly naked there... Can I look at them? -- Yes, you can. -- What if I chance upon a nuddist beach? They are stark naked there! -- You can look at them. -- Ai-ya! I'm totally lost! Sifu, then please tell me, what is it that I absolutely shouldn't be looking at? -- Um... Well, I don't know... the welding arc?..

Utilizes force of one ounce to deflect force of one thousand pounds.* _________________________________________ * A classic definition of taijiquan method

Well, what do you know -- you, gendao, may have THE solution to my problem. If you kindly, pretty please, post everything like that in this thread, so that anyone who wants to familiarize themselves with your material can do it of their free will instead of feeling assaulted on their own land by a ruthless invader walking all over their online customs and their native way of thread life like a colonial conquistador, that would be awesome. It would also indicate that you personally practice what you preach. Resistance starts at home... resist the temptation to colonize the thread and we'll have less of that unwelcome vibe in the world!! Do we have a deal?

He had a premonition that it was going to hurt like a bitch. I'm sure he wasn't wrong.

All right, I think I have a choice of a few options. I wanted the thread to be visible and contributable to from the get-go, and that's why I didn't start it in my PPD as originally planned... not many people bother to visit PPDs (even though in some cases that's where all the gems of cultivation can be found). And now I have wonderful and thoughtful people complain that they have to sift through too much garbage to get to the posts worth their bandwidth here. So I'm debating with myself -- what ought to be done about it? I'm considering several scenarios: 1. Screw it, abandon it and let the trolls have their ball. We all exist for their entertainment anyway. You cut one troll's head, three more grow in its place. A losing battle. Choose your battles and give them their daily bread. 2. Take the thread to PPD, delete all trolling/derailing material, clean it up. And screw it once again, because no one will read or contribute and you'll run out of steam carrying on in no time. Talking to myself about Sumer, civilization, all that jazz? I can do that without typing. 3. I don't know what, I need another cup of coffee before I might have another idea.