Zhongyongdaoist

You're welcome.

An excellent recommendation spacester: I had this too say about Master Liao and his book a while back: I haven't read the later editions and it is possible that he has improved it in the intervening years, but even almost forty years ago it was an informative and well written book.

Adam Mizner used to be a member here, and you can find his member profile here: Adam Mizner If you are interested you can use search for him, for example, searching under taiji produced this: Good hunting.

. . . what's the proof of theosis? People who talked about it unfortunately tend to die as mere mortals... . . . "Saint" is a title attributed by the church after the physical death of the guy to make use of his life as an example of christian behaviour. In christian doctrine, everyone has an indestructible soul and one day Jesus will resurrect corpses as well. In Christianity people assume to be already immortals. When you speak about immortality in the christian tradition, you mean the real thing: living eternally in your physical body. There are no accounts of such a thing apart from Jesus' story, but he was god himself, you know... In Daoist tradition, there are stories of people who never physically died. There are no parallels in Christianity. I don't have time to sit around and debate what type of “stories” constitute the type of “anecdotal evidence” which you will find satisfactory. Christians who wish to dismiss Daoism will dismiss Daoist stories and Daoists who wish to dismiss Christians will dismiss Daoist stories. if necessary both will invent all kinds of subtle distinctions to prove that their positions are the right true and correct ones. In either case it will be to support their own prior commitments that are usually based on nothing more than the wish of the participants to believe in one set of beliefs rather than another. Someone wanting to provide Christian counter examples would cite both Enoch and Elijah, who were taken up by God and thus never died, which would constitute and a rough equivalence to the Daoist immortal “rising to heaven in broad daylight”, and continue with other aspects of Christian doctrine such as the "Harrowing of Hell", and the need to “imitate Christ in his passion” as reasons for the apparent limitations on “immortality” which you cite. And finally to make things abundantly clear, I am not a Christian, but I am a person who in the process of investigating the history of Western religion gained more respect for it than I would have ever thought possible when, as a preteen raised in the “the School of hard Knox”, I rejected Christianity, basically as nonsense. In that investigation, spurred by the need to understand Christianity's influence on Western thought and its relation to my esoteric interests, Christianity, mostly in its Patristic form and largely because that study revealed it to be a Hellenistic synthesis of Jewish revelation and Pagan Philosophy, managed to earn some begrudging respect. Though I don't have time to enter into it in any detail now, some idea of the scope of that research, including a final post on this very idea of Theosis, can be found in a series of posts that I did related to Renaissance Christianity and Cornelius Agrippa, the Christian neo-Platonist and "Hermetic" magician: Christianity in the Renaissance and Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy And someone who doesn't think that this influence of Plato doesn't goes back into and influence the "Gospels" them selves, should read this: Plato's Gorgias and Matthew's cheekiness Edit: I accidentally hit post when I only wanted to preview, and as I suspected the link for Enoch above does not work, but that to Elijah does, and from there it is an easy search to Enoch. Otherwise even though I might have made changes had it not been posted prematurely I will leave it as it is. Edit 2: Checking links I discovered that the link to Renaissance Christianity etc. led to the general section on Agrippa, but not the the thread which has my posts in it. I also Italicized Three Books of Occult Philosophy.

I'm sorry, you are leaving out the whole tradition of Christian saints, about whom there is a large literature of anecdotal evidence, and Christian saints have a roughly similar status to mortals who have achieved immortality in Religious Daoism. As for Theosis itself, it owes more to pagan traditions and to the very successful attempt of the Abrahamic traditions to assimilate pagan philosophy, especially Platonism, as can be clearly seen in the work of Philo of Alexandria, whose life spanned the time of period of the lifespan of Jesus and the Apostles, whose whole work needs to be considered in the context of Hellenized Judaism, to make any real sense.

Welcome to the Dao Bums. What you are describing sounds like what Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) would describe as "Rising Heat in the Gallbladder Channel", and it is possible that some acupressure might help control the symptoms, but would not alleviate them completely. You might want to do an internet search, on the Gall Bladder meridian in general and in particular the point Gall Bladder 1, which is located on the face to the outer side of the eye. Messaging this point can sometimes be useful to help control this type of thing. Many "supplements" available based on Western Pharmacology are not good from a TCM perspective because they unbalance the system, often over heating it, and for that reason can have bad long term consequences. This area is primarily for welcoming you to the Dao Bums and not for addressing problems such as you mention, you might try posting in the Newcomer Corner, where we are at least supposed to be a little nicer to people new to the Dao Bums, or in Healing Circle. Either way you might get more attention to your problem. Good Luck ZYD

Interesting totem. What's it do? It is the most efficacious talisman for banishing sewer snoids.

Rex, and other interest parties, In regard to uncrossing you might find my post here of interest: Uncrossing using a seal from The Greater Key of Solomon There is also a link in it to a post of mine on the wider meaning and uses of uncrossing.

Could you talk a bit more about this? I think i know what you're saying but i wanna be sure The important thing to remember about holding the breath, is not to close the throat and relax the muscles, but to hold the breath by muscle control: I am assuming that it is this that you are interested in. Most people when holding the breath will close off their throat and relax the muscles of the chest and abdomen, that they used for the in breath or out breath, like they are stopping a bottle with a cork, only using their throat to hold the breath in or out. The point is to hold the breath by stopping the muscles of the chest and abdomen and holding them still so that the throat remains open, this is what I mean by "holding the breath by muscle control". I can remember literally decades ago when I first learned this, that the closing of the throat is difficult to stop, but you can test it by taking a short breath after the in breath and making sure that it is an easy continuation of the in breath and requires no action in the throat like the "unstopping" of a bottle, and that the breath is completely controlled by the use of the muscles of the chest and abdomen. If it was about timing the breaths by the heartbeats then all one does is count heartbeats while breathing and for example count four heartbeats to breath in, four heartbeats to hold, four heartbeats to exhale, and four heartbeats to hold. I hope this makes the matter clearer.

I just posted in another thread on the chat room, this quotes the important aspects of it: in subsequent discussion the specific extension was criticized, but it may need further examination. The link in the quote from dawei goes to the discussion of an extension to the site software that has been under consideration, and I believe other options are being explored also. Making changes to the site software are not something to be undertaken lightly, because they can have unexpected consequences, but the possibility of expanding to multiple chat rooms or their equivalent is being looked into.

There was some public discussion about "groups", and extension to the site software, awhile back, it starts here: in subsequent discussion the specific extension was criticized, but it may need further examination.

I would appreciate further elaboration. Well, the short answer is electrical grounding. More than likely the Faraday cage is grounded, meaning it is connected to a circuit that guides it into the earth itself, and is acting like a lightning rod, which would do under the circumstances, because the real purpose of the Faraday cage is to block electromagnetic radiation in the "radio" frequencies, but a lightning rod wouldn't seem quite as dramatic would it? If the young woman were grounded and the cage not grounded, the electrical discharge would go to her. Now martial artists may already be thinking about grounding and rooting, and the Daoist use in psychic shielding is an extension of these ideas, but I can't take the time right now to say more about this and if I do decide to start a thread, I will need to think about whether to bring in some illustrations and other things like that. Edit: Changed spacing of lines in quote, cut out unneeded lines.

I agree with this which is why I objected to splitting out the aspects dealing with shielding in this thread, and shielding should be a part of this thread, especially in the case of energies that just won't take no for an answer, but also having to search through a thread like this just to get information about shielding, would be time consuming, thus my offer of a thread on it, though I can't turn it into a course in psychic protection, only a discussion of some techniques and I especially liked the idea of explaining the Faraday cage and how ideas like it have been used in Daoism.

It just occurred to me that some people may have missed or forgotten this: I very dramatic illustration, and perhaps more apropos than some realize. Ah, I see that dawei has already addressed the matter to a certain extent, but picture is worth a thousand links! If people really want I can start a thread, which I may extend to a certain extent to address some of the reasons why shielding may fail.

Personally, I think the posts on protection and shielding should remain here and have contributed to the discussion. Because of this aspect of the discussion I was thinking about sarting a thread on shielding and protection, and even explaining the physics of the Faraday cage and how it is used in some Daoist protection protection systems.

A good exercise is not merely to count the breaths, but the length of each part of the breath cycle, inhale, hold, exhale, hold, this prevents boredom because your mind is following a task and also gives one something to strive for since the point is to lengthen the cycles without stress to the system, also as ones breath slows down the mind does also. The important thing to remember about holding the breath, is not to close the throat and relax the muscles, but to hold the breath by muscle control, and this is the same for holding it after inhale or exhale. It can be useful to time this according to heartbeats because again if one is listening to ones heart, one isn't thinking. Thus one could start with a fourfold count, in for a count of four, hold for four, exhale for four, and finally hold for four and start the cycle again. The count is lengthened as one gets comfortable and one can lengthen different part of is also, to achieve different goals.

This is an interesting suggestion, and for those who want to know more about "The Socratic Method", without buying a book, this site is virtually on online book on its history and uses: The Socratic Method Research Portal It is very well written, and useful resource for understanding what is really at the root of Western Philosophy. Though people might still object to chat being taken up in a such a single issue way for long periods of time, so maybe this is another good reason to investigate the possibility of multiple chat rooms.

Yes, this seems to have become a rather dull thread, so I will spice it up a bit, and talk a little about The Greater Key of Solomon, and some uses that I have made of its planetary seals in the past, and how a creative adaptation of their descriptions can be useful. As an example lets take the seventh seal of the Sun: the purpose of which is described as: Most of us don't have much use for this sort of stuff on a daily basis, but some thinking about the nature of the Sun and the idea of being “imprisoned or detained in fetters of iron” and being “immediately delivered and set at liberty”, struck me as having another possible use in what is traditionally called “uncrossing”, a procedure that is usually used in lifting a hexed or cursed condition, but which I quickly found had a lot of other uses as I describe here: Uncrossing as an important part of positive magic in this post I examine how uncrossing can be an important part of what I would call “positive” spell casting, and the reason why I posted about uncrossing in a thread about “spells that always work”, is because uncrossing does almost always work and also, as I point out, often it is the necessary preliminary to a more successful spell then would otherwise be achieved. Because of this effect uncrossing became one of the important sub elements of all my practical magic work. So my advice to the would be magician is learn about “uncrossing” and to paraphrase a chess adage “Uncross early and often”. More if there is interest and as time allows. ZYD Edit: Minor spelling

Thanks Brian, an interesting read. This in particular: hearkens back to what I said here: about circular motion being the "natural motion" of the aether. In modern physics' terminology "the ground state", is the equivalent of natural motion, because it is the point at which a system has found its "natural place". This can be compared to the natural motion of a rock, which "falls" because it is seeking its natural place, or ground state, which in this case is quite literally, on the ground. The notion of circular motion as being a "ground state" of a system is very interesting indeed.

Well, Mod Squad may be copyrighted, but at this point they probably won't bother us about it. Otherwise a hearty welcome back to thelener!

A colorful and informative post Dailuin, but let us not forget the Eclipses that are also affecting things now. This started with the last full moon on August 18 started a pattern that in many ways culminated in the Solar eclipse yesterday, September 2, this will finish off as the moon waxes to full and the final eclipse, on September 16.

I had this exchange in another thread, but I think it is very apropos the original question, especially on the Dao Bums where the background of even our little magic section here is Dao: Think about it in terms of becoming independently wealthy. If you spend your money on this, that or the other thing, you will never be able to achieve enough wealth to be independent. One of the Rothchilds described real wealth as having enough money that one could live on the interest from ones interest, in other words that one had so much of monetary principle that it was never tapped at all, but continued to accrue interest and feed the principle, but that the interest generated by ones interest was what one would have available to spend freely and live a life befitting a Rothchild. When your jing, qi and shen are so developed the that your core energy is not tapped by playing magical tricks for people, you can do them without harming yourself. There are other ways to approach the matter, but this summarizes the situation from the perspective of "body" based cultivation, but basically the key in any case is, to put a cliche in the right order, one should strive to be Wise, Healthy and Wealthy, because a wise man, will preserve his health while he accrues his wealth, whether spiritual or temporal. Modern Western magic is very weak on its health maintenance methods, and any traditional ones, such as Galenic medicine and Hermetic medicine are no longer living traditions, though Western Hermetic practices have undergone a significant revival in the last fifty years. Chinese methods are part of a living tradition of medicine and physiology, as well as a meditative and ritual tradition that again, has been maintained as a living tradition. That is part of the reason why, circa 1970, I started studying the Chinese systems, which wasn't easy then, bearing in mind the paucity of information available. In the long run I have found the Chinese and Western systems complementary, but that is another story, and a long one. I hope this is helpful. Edit: After posting I realized that I had not copied over the introductory paragraph from the word processor that I use to prepare most of my posts. So I added it.

About a week and a half ago dawei invited me to join staff here, and he and I have been discussing the matter since then. Anyone who knows me, knows that I really have no desire to hold a staff position on the Dao Bums and have said so several times. However, I see the unfolding of events the last couple of weeks, as being more than enough reason to override my personal inclinations and accept Dawei's offer. Doing this for several reasons, not the least of which is that I think that dawei has been a good admin, and my acceptance as a vote of confidence, that he will continue to be a good admin. I have no affiliation with the group in question and no wish to be involved with them, so this is hardly a move for someone who wishes to stack the mod staff for a take over, rather I take it as an indication that dawei wishes to have mods who can be fair and impartial in all circumstances to maintain the independence and integrity of the Dao Bums. In our discussions dawei has always shown himself to be open minded and reasonable, and if I didn't believe that was the case I would certainly not be interested in working with him. I hope that on the inside I will be able to find out more clearly what has been going on and then proceed with "malice toward none, and charity to all" to clear the air as much as possible and restore the confidence of the general membership. I had asked dawei for the privilege of announcing this publicly, so that I could say some words about why I would take on "the burden of office" and he said OK, so if the offer of a staff position is still open, I accept it. Zhongyongdaoist

No, too exhausting. Just kidding, an excellent post to rest your mind.

You are thinking in the right direction, but you are thinking on too superficial a level. You need to be aware of things like this: and rather than thinking of qi as some special type of “electrical energy”, widen your framework to think of it as something which allows one to harness and use the laws of electromagnetism themselves to affect plant energy-gathering, metabolism and growth, by among other things, affecting its “information system”, its DNA, which is a fundamental finding of the basic article. To have this type of “global” systemic effect, a special type of “electrical energy” would have to be so special, that there would not be reason to call it electrical energy in the first place, or, to put it in the context of an old story, it would not be some special type of ugly duckling, it would be a very beautiful swan. Edit: Added short title at the top of quoted article.