blackturtlesnake

Sorry for not following the prompt and recommending something I haven't tried yet, but Damo Mitchell recently released a 7 hour MCO lecture orbit completely free on his website, def worthwhile checking out https://damomitchell.com/2020/03/23/microcosmic-orbit/

Love that book! I picked it up when I was fairly new to the idea of magick as a thing and i was still a little too intimidated by it to work with it, but I do think the book does exactly as promised: provide a set of tools, ideas, and historical info for a practitioner to incorporate daoist work into their ritual practices, especially for westerners. It's nowhere near as detailed as you'd get from learning in person by a practitioner and chooses an overview approach instead of a more detailed look into one specific fu talisman work's school of thought, but it still good for people wanting to check out the idea. Also, @bell I didnt know you were on this forum lol. I love your work and I'm gonna sign up for your new Eliphas Levi course this weekend, the first lesson was already great!

I like Damo's work. I looked up Zhongxian Wu cause I didn't know much about him and apparently he does an interview series with Damo, so sounds like you'd be good with either As always, it is best to learn with a teacher though so check in your area. Other than that I'd say stop worrying and start having fun doing some qigong! Edit: I should also add, stick to the intro work if you're gonna try to do this on your own. Mixing practices without knowing what you're doing or trying more advanced practices without being prepared can lead to problems.

Then maybe you would've been better off not starting this thread

Inner work can be dangerous, true, but I do think you're being a tad too cautious. Spend 20 minutes a day simply trying to be aware of your body. Start at the top of the head, try and feel everything there, and when you've got a good sense of what you can and can't feel then move down to the next part of the body. Building awareness won't really "mess" with the energy flows, you're just working on becoming aware of them. And yes, you will come across blockages. Dissolve them, but if the blockage is too tough to dissolve all in one go (and it probably is) don't worry about it and move on for now, you can always dissolve it more later. In general, the work that can be dangerous is "qi packing" work and work that involves moving the energy up through the body. Neither of these are bad practices but you need a qualified teacher making sure you don't fuc those up lol

I listen to way too much Pat Metheny

Mark Rasmus talks about how a martial arts mindset is particularly good for developing higher levels of awareness. I think it's a combination of that and people getting introduced to the whole concept through joining a IMA school

I work with someone who has worked with him. Bruce is a very advanced practitioner of both daoist meditation work and martial arts (which is my background), and so while his center might be a little expensive there is definitely real skill you can learn there. That said, you do need to take what he says with a grain of salt, and I'm not surprised by the one users story of Bruce bragging in front of someone he shouldn't have. Learn what you can from him, which is a lot, but keep a level head and move on. (Also, to the person who's talking about the Gracies and MMA in relation to CMAs, understand that self-defense and sports fighting have a lot more differences than they appear to, which is why the two worlds seem so far apart. If you're interest, check out Rory Miller and Iain Abernathy as good easy-to-find sources on martial art's relationship to self-defense)

Hi all, I'd like to remain semi-anonymous but I am a new user interested in looking where Taoism and Hermetics meet. I have an internal chinese martial arts teacher in NYC and I am reading up on hermetics to understand that side of things. Nice to meet you all!