Zhongyongdaoist

Because the universal or rather external chi in taoist theory drives and forms the whole universe, but people usually don't directly experience this external chi that drives everything, they just experience the supposed results. Therefore I consider it to be a rather abstract concept. Is there external chi at all? Is there even an external world? Who knows. The internal chi which is directly experienced in chi cultivation is certainly not just an abstraction as it is experienced directly and concretely over the senses. Thank you, explained this way it is certainly a clear enough distinction.

In regard to its scientific equivalent, this is my current opinion: (Emphasis added, ZYD) The closest modern conception to qi in this sense of “primary substance” would be the “energy of the vacuum”, though I personally like to think of it as a four dimensional “substance” that underlies Space/Time, Matter/Energy and to extend it to a biological context Consciousness/Body. This is based on simple Special Relativity and doesn't even involve us with “quantum weirdness” . . . Which brings us to this for more traditional Western correspondences: Aether would be closer to the Buddhist element of space/void, or the Hindu element of Akasha: While Aether has a long pre-history in Greek, the use of Aether as “fifth” element is specifically Aristotelian, and has to do with his theory of natural motion and in particular the natural motion of the “celestial spheres” which was a circular motion, so that the notion of circular motion is essential to the definition of Aether from Hellenistic times through the Nineteenth Century, where it survived because of such demonstrations of a naturally occurring circular motion that arises in magnetic and optical experiments, as the “ether” through which Maxwell's electromagnetic waves were supposed to propagate. This circular motion was discovered by the great experimental physicist Michael Faraday and first demonstrated in his: Faraday's Homopolar motor The Faraday Effect Its association with “void” and akasha is an artifact of late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth century speculation by Occultists influenced by the Theosophical Society. It is not necessary to skip forward to the Eighteenth Century, because Patristic Christianity, the shared basis of both modern Roman and Orthodox Christianity did not stamp out Hellenistic Philosophy, but assimilated it, as I have outlined in my discussion on Agrippa and the religious views of his time here: and in subsequent posts in that thread, which is a short enough thread that people can read the whole thing in an hour or less. The notion of “spirit” is an important part of Agrippa's explanation of and defense of magic as I have dealt with here: He chose “spirit” because it was an important part of the worldview of the time and not some obscure esoteric doctrine which might inspire the suspicion, and thus possible animosity, of his readers. first Christianity, and then later, post-Enlightenment scientific materialism: It should be clear from my further posts on Agrippa cited above, that pre-Reformation Christianity was not hostile to "pagan" learning, but on the contrary maintained and preserved it. Even early Protestantism had a side of it which preserved aspects of the traditional worldview through the Seventeenth and into the early Eighteenth Century. It was the reintroduction and revival of Epicureanism into European thought, starting circa 1600, which is the root of what became "post-Elightentmant scientific materialism", which is a long story in itself. Well this is a long post, but it at least outlines the various traditional Western correspondences to qi, from the hylo-morphism of Aristotle, where qi is primordial substance and thus part of everything, to its meaning of "vital force" or bio-energy, even its related senses of emotion are somewhat covered in this "spirited" discussion and into possible modern "scientific" correspondences.

I wish people with no knowledge about written Chinese would stop speculating about what “qi” is in Western terms. I am by no means fluent in Chinese, but I do know that individual characters are more like syllables and Chinese is not a language made up of monosyllabic words. While single syllables can have well defined meanings in Western languages, such as hot and cold, even these depending on context have very different meanings, “Don't touch that, it is hot, you'll burn yourself”, is very different from, “I know you really like Hip Hop, but it just leaves me cold”, someone not familiar with English usage might wonder if “Hip Hop” is a brand of air conditioner, though to an English speaker the metaphorical extension of the meaning of cold is made very clear by the context. In Chinese the basic character 气, qì, has a meaning set that forms around such disparate ideas as “gas / air / smell / weather / to make angry / to annoy / to get angry / vital energy / qi”, of which the first and last are almost funny, the first in the sense in which I have read acupuncture texts in English published by Chinese publishers in which “qi” is routinely translated as “gas”, and then the funny notion that “qi”, a Western neologism for “vital energy” is a translation of “qi”, which in one sense of “qi” it is, but as should be clear “qi”, has many other meanings and there is a large vocabulary of Chinese words that include “qi” in them which have little to do with “vital energy” at all. If the character "qi" occurs by itself its context will contribute to its interpretation, but as I said before there are a large number of multi-character Chinese terms which are basically as single words and which could correspond to traditional Western concepts and even some modern scientific ones. I'll have more to say about that in a subsequent post. Yes, depending on how you are going to define it, it is all over the place. Maybe in the circles in which you travel, but to many involved in biology, this would be quite incredible, and of course to anyone who is a doctrinaire materialist, which includes most biologists at this time, and to the few materialists around here, it would be impossible.

Informative too.

First of all the story in the original post is not well written, and rather misleading, Brian posted some links taken from it here: Which I am glad to see that everyone who has commented since then has followed and read. Oh, I'm sorry, it doesn't look like anyone who has commented so far has read any of them, otherwise they might have come across: Seeds induced to germinate rapidly by mentally projected 'qi energy' are apparently genetically altered where they would have read the following: Taken from a paper published in The American Journal of Chinese Medicine archived at another of the links which Brian gives here: Paper archived at PubMed.gov Which, kind of, puts the matter in a different context. Anyone who wishes to continue to make comments like those above is certainly welcome to do so, but serious discussion of the real issues raised is certainly welcome.

I don't think I would call a person like this an adept, maybe a master, in particular it sounds a lot like a “Master of the Temple”. I prefer a more functional definition based on the old craft training system of apprentice, journeyman and master, in which an “adept” would correspond to a journeyman, someone who having finished his apprenticeship is able to practice on his own and is a good, reliable craftsman, able to undertake any task required by his craft with confidence. I quite agree with this, and I am reminded of this:

The quick answer is that Daoist recognize and practice “Tulpa-like” phenomena. That of course, is hardly much of an answer is it? First let's clarify what I mean by “Tulpa-like”. At is most basic level this is only bio-energy infused with intent. The most general name being “thought form”, whether you call it qi or prana, spirit, odic force or whatever it is basically the same energy and the same energy with similar practices. On the Buddhist side, it goes back to Indian Buddhism and yogic practices. In China there certainly does seem to be a native tradition and it makes sense within the overall context of Chinese physiology and cosmology going back to ancient times. I say Chinese because both Daoists and Confucians are rooted in the same cosmology and likely to use such practices. On the practical side Jerry Alan Johnson describes the creation and use of “thought forms” of various complexity for a variety of uses in both his qigong healing and Daoist magic books. There may be other sources, but I am very familiar with these books, where "thought forms" very much a part of the teaching and are used in both healing and magic. I could have said all this a week ago, but I have been busy and also the question stimulated a certain curiosity about the subject and its Chinese background. I know a lot about magic East and West, and while Dr. Johnson's treatment seems very strongly grounded in Chinese beliefs and practices, I always feel a little better if I can find a Chinese name for something, so I wanted to look a little deeper, and went to this site: Spirit Possession on Magic SEA Underground which I discovered a few years ago and is really interesting and informative, though you do have to have a good background in order to make any practical use of it. The particular link above is one of the results of my search for “thought form”, which shows that at least in contemporary discussion the term is used among native practitioners, at least when writing in English, however, that really was not good enough for me, so I dug a little deeper and went to his Chinese section where “thought form” came up with this: 思想的形状 (Thought Form) on SEA Rojak Talk I took 思想的形状 to my standard online Chinese-English dictionary, MDBG and came to the conclusion that 思想的形状 was a modern translation into Chinese of “thought form” and thus had no bearing on traditional usage, however I was able to dig deeper into the page thanks to Google Translate, which, by the way, has really improved a lot since I first tried using it, and came up with this: Which is almost an intelligible translation! I have bolded the key phrae, poly gas refining shape, which is a translation of 聚气炼形, in which 聚气, is translated as "poly gas", but in this context would be better translated as "condensing qi". The character 炼, "refining", is used a lot in Daoist discussion, meaning to refine or smelt, as in metallurgy, and has references to alchemy. Among other things metal ores were purified or refined before they were molded into a shape (形). So here we have a traditional phrase associated with Daoist practice and which could have been taken from a "Thought Forms 101" course. I hope this is helpful Edit: Minor word usage, changed "of" to "and" somewhere above.

Consider it an optimistic appraisal based on insufficient information, but I prefer to encourage people to continue with a practice rather than stop, unless I have a very good reason. I don't have time to watch your linked video, so I am basing my opinion on my own experiences with exercises of the same name beginning forty+ years ago. Maybe there is something odd about this version which makes it harmful, but something like this is pretty standardized, and there shouldn't be harmful versions out there. As for the video you reference about the Carpal Tunnel acupressure/massage, well I don't have time to look at that either, but unless it is done by people who know nothing, then something like that should be beneficial too. Coming back here for your reply, I noticed that you were located in Northern Eu, which I assume is short for Northern Europe, if so then your Carpal Tunnel condition could be cold induced, in which case the heat you are feeling is probably not pathogenic, but rather your bodies Weiqi, defensive qi, becoming active to expel pathogenic cold. This is, of course, being positive about it again. So the question is, "Does heat help relieve your Carpal Tunnel symptoms?" If so then you probably have cold induced Carpal Tunnel and things that warm your hands, wrists and forearms are likely to be good for this process also, though applying them before you begin would be called for. I don't want to say that most Western anti-inflammatory drugs will not be good for this, but, ooops, it slipped out anyway. This is because they are "cold inducing" which works wonders for heat excess inflammation, but only makes the Weiqi more determined to push the cold out, which in turn makes the inflammation worse. I probably shouldn't compound the problem by saying that, since the Chinese discovered the principles of Cold Induced disorders almost 2,000 years ago they have some great herbal preparations for dealing with them, but what harm can it do, since everyone here at the Dao Bums avoids using Chinese herbs, just like their Western trained doctor would want them to. Remember all of the above is general comments based on insufficient information, so you pay attention to it at your own risk. By the way, I love your little feline avatar. ZYD

The Eight Pieces is a classic qigong form and of itself should not cause you problems, however, since you have Carpal Tunnel you may be experiencing some of the pathogenic heat coming to the surface to disperse, this would be part of a healing process, and so just based on what I know from what you have said here, you should probably continue with it and your Carpal Tunnel may clear up. It is useful to know the meridians and acupuncture points, as these may help you to control and and alleviate the heat symptoms you are describing and clear the condition up. Years ago I had pathogenic fire exit from one of the small intestine points on my upper forearm, it felt like a jet of flame several inches long was shooting out from the point and my skin at the point and for several inches down my forearm discolored for "no apparent reason", this lasted for two or three weeks then stopped. ZYD

I hope that I am correct in assuming that this, is in relation to this: While there is little doubt in my mind that recitation of Psalms was an important part of earlier magical practice, it is only a matter of how one practices magic and not the more important aspect of theory which determines what and how you practice, and it is the fundamental flaws in Western magical theory as it developed into what I call neo-magic in the Nineteenth Century that are of primary concern to me. The theoretical structure which was lost in the period from 1600 to 1800 is basically that which Cornelius Agrippa expounds at great length in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy. I have often compared these three books to a three volume textbook of magical engineering, in which just about every aspect of the theory of magic is dealt with, and in so far as possible, illustrated with examples. This theoretical structure is applicable to any magical practices from any culture or time, and can contribute an understanding of the whys and wherefores of any type of magical practice, and allow one to understand and work successfully with the practical, magical aspects of anything from shamanism to Tibetan Buddhism, and of course my personal favorite, Ritual Daoism. I don't have time now to enter into a long discussion of why I say this, but again I have posted in great length about Agrippa and the deficiencies of neo-magic on the Dao Bums. A simple search of my posts using the name “Agrippa” will produce a lot of information as well as searching my posts for rational and ratonalism, because I consider Agrippa's theoretical structure to a rational theory of magic, and there are many posts that explain why. What happened from 1800 on, was a reduction of magical theory, particularly in the Nineteenth Century, it was all a matter of the will power and imagination of the magical practitioner. During the Twentieth, particularly under the influence of Aleister Crowley, mental and emotional states, particularly ecstatic ones became gained in importance, to a certain extent replacing will. These changes threw out many babies as well as the soap with the bathwater. Again searching my posts for reductionism and reduction will produce a lot of information on my arguments against these changes. As for practice, I brought up the topic of the Golden Dawn. I consider the Golden Dawn to be the high point of neo-magical thought and practice. It is practically the only aspect of Western magic in the last two hundreds years that I consider worthy of deep study. In this regard what I said here is relevant: I approached the Golden Dawn Temple and its ritual system as if I were retro-engineering a complex circuit board, and in the process I learned a great deal about the structure of magic and its practice. On many levels it was well worth doing. People who wish to dismiss the Golden Dawn are welcome to do so. It is their loss, not mine. You don't need to join a "Golden Dawn" organization to study this material, all of my study of this was in the 70s with Regardie's first treatment of the Golden Dawn tradition. It does, of course, require a lot of thought and reading in related literature to understand it, but it is worth the effort.

Well, at least you have lot o' bull, oh, excuse me, laudable, ambitions.

Thank you for your clarification. I actually had a “friend” back in the mid 70s who made this mistake and was quite surprised when I clarified the matter for him. I am glad to hear that you did not make the same mistake. In the early 70s I also started to study qigong, which at the time I could only do through a handful of books, though I must have done something right, because by the time I actually did find a teacher, he was quite surprised by the amount of qi I actually had at the time. Circa 1976 I read Michael Saso's Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, which was my introduction to what I prefer to Ritual Daoism, rather than Religious Daoism, and I set out to study that, but all of this gets into a very long story and this is not the place for it. There are two protectors, one is the natural development of weiqi (卫气, wèiqì), the protective or defensive energy, which is more than just the “immune system”, though that is a physiological aspect of it, which should develop with ones progress in qigong. There are exercises, acupuncture “prescriptions”, that is certain acupuncture points for message or other stimulation, and herbs that one can take to improve this, though it should get stronger as one practices anyway, a little extra work directed to it won't hurt. Extra defensive “bubbles” are necessary sometimes, but like other forms of “armor”, are an art in and of themselves, just like body armor is, and if your weiqi is not strong enough to begin with, will not protect you much anyway, but again all of this is a long story too. The other protector is Wisdom. Fear never enters the heart of a Wise Man (or Woman), but they are prudent as prudence is Wisdom in action. Fools are often fearless or quivering in terror, in either case, usually about things of no real importance. The OP and others reading this need to ask what they are trying to achieve with this strong “energy field”, if they intend to achieve and maintain health and well being, then ordinary qigong from a reliable source will do. If they are thinking about some heavy duty esoteric stuff, they need to be prepared for a long hard road, which may not take them where they think it will. These “higher” attainments are a matter of vocation as much as anything else, and a person who pursues them because they fancy being a “magician”, or a top level martial artist, when they don't really have what it takes to be one, are more likely to be unhappy than anything else.

Rakiet is not talking about giving himself a title, he is talking about "earning one", based on the claims made by Quareia. I hope he is speaking facetiously.

This looks very interesting dawei and would certain change the Dao Bums landscape, kind of like solar powered steam punk.

You seem to be saying that you did nothing but the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, I hope that I am either misreading you or you have not said enough about your practice. Whatever you were doing, pardon me if I take the liberty of explaining a little about how one should work with this type of material. The Banish Ritual of the Pentagram is only part of a larger system, all banishing should be followed by invocation, and one should be doing the Middle Pillar exercise on a regular basis also. One should work up to a facility in practicing all the ritual parts together. To make an analogy to kata, each ritual sequence is like a specific block, throw, and/or punch combination, and they are to be worked together into larger structures, a typical example would be to set up a regular system in which one started with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, followed it with the Lesser or Greater Invocations of the Pentagram, performed the Rose Cross Ritual and then proceed to the the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram and then the Greater Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram, for each day of the week following the pattern of the Planets, combined then with some invocations of the Planetary Archangels and Angels, and this would only be like a beginning kata for learning the basics while making connections between your Microcosmic energy and the Macrocosmic Powers. Also these techniques originated in the Golden Dawn, though they are often taught outside of that context, but they need to be studied within the context of the Golden Dawn Temple and its structure, just like a mantra exists within the context of a Mandala. For example, it is only by understanding the structure of the Golden Dawn Temple that one will realize the fundamental importance of the Rose Cross Ritual. There are a lot of ways to "get a strong energy field", Western Ceremonial magic is certainly one of them. I learned all of this in the late Sixties and Early Seventies, and expanded into a lot of other interesting areas thanks to it, but dabbling in this stuff in particular, can get you into a lot of trouble. For those interested in it, I would still recommend Don Kraig's Modern Magick, all the internet "wunder kids" learned from it and it is still an excellent introduction to the subject, though through all of my years of study and practice, I do consider Western magic as practiced post 1800 to be fundamentally flawed in terms of theory and aspects of its practice. I have discussed this elsewhere on the Dao Bums in considerable detail. I hope this is helpful. Edit: Minor change to spelling, added an is up there somewhere.

Yeah, forums are so outdated that they are like internet steampunk. Hold it, steampunk is really cool!

Both, in fact. I hope Brian won't mind me spilling the beans about his biopic. Edit: Last sentence was originally written as "I don't think Brian would mind . . . ", hastily edited just before post to "I hope Brian would mind . . . ", "would" of course should have been changed also. When I came back to look, I noticed the mistake, so I corrected it to "I hope Brian won't mind . . . "., which is what was intended.

As I have mentioned Agrippa's work has a general structure in which the first chapter introduces a topic and subsequent chapters develop it, thus the section on Occult Virtues: First I would like to quote from Thomas Kuhn, the man whose book, The Structure of Scienfific Revolutions, introduced the concept of the paradigms and their shifts: After finishing his discussion of the elements with a discussion of the Virtues dependent upon the elements in Chapter 9, Agrippa introduces the Occult Virtues in the following way: to attract Iron: the attraction of iron to a lodestone was one of the primary illustrations of occult virtues, while we now explain this in a certain way, there is no rational reason why considering it also a manifestation of the "virtues" or "powers" inherent in lodestone and iron is not valid and an example of looking at things in the context of a different paradigm. these vertues are a sequell of the species, and form of this or that thing: Though I was not completely familiar with Aristotle's Four Causes at this time, I was reading texts in alchemy in which Aristotelian terminology was used and in which the medicinal "virtue" of an herb could be viewed as the result of extracting its "form" through "spirit of wine", i.e. alcohol. I will examine the most important of these texts as I go along and this idea will make more sense after the second post in this series. these vertues having much form, and litle matter, can do very much: It is a matter of learning to extract the virtue or power or to enhance the activity of the virtue through appropriate action. Again more in the next post. they are called occult qualities, because their Causes lie hid, and mans intellect cannot in any way reach, and find them out. Wherefore Philosophers have attained to the greatest part of them by long experience, rather then by the search of reason: They are "occult" because hidden and unlike elemental virtues, which can be deduced from the qualities of the elements and the proportion of their compound, the occult or "hidden" virtues must be found out by experience. Those who were following my discussion of Aristotle's Four causes may now realize why in a humorous response to Descartes criticism of Formal Causes I said: Agrippa outlines the cosmological setting for this in Chapter 11: Platonists say that all inferiour bodies are exemplified by the superiour Ideas: At the top is "God" or "The One", depending on ones ontological commitments, the ideas as conceived of by Plato, are rooted in this one and then they exert an influence all the way down, through the forms as envisioned by Aristotle and into our world, where they manifest as the occult virtues or "hidden powers" of natural things. Ideas in this sense are active and creative powers, not mere abstractions present in our consciousness. they define an Idea to be a form, above bodies, souls, minds, and to be one, simple, pure, immutable, indivisible, incorporeal, and eternall: On the highest level they are simple, but as they descend they mix with each other and become more complex. they place Idea's in the first place in very goodness it self (i.e.) God: While Agrippa my mean God in a circa 1500 Roman Catholic sense, this is not to be confused with god as thought of by your local neighborhood fundamentalist yahoo and it can also be separated from any taint of Abrahamic revelation by being conceived of as Plotinus' One, or even the Dao. In the second place, they place them in the very intelligible it self (i.e.) in the Soul of the world: Here they are on a lower level and are a part of the animating power of the Universe. It must be remembered that a Platonic world is a living soul, filled with souls, not a mechanical universe consisting of dead matter. They place them in nature, as certain small seed of forms infused by the Idea's: Here we start to get closer to our own world and this idea of a seed of forms was to prove “fruitful” as I began to look at them as “seeds of power” which the Platonic Magician learned to cultivate, both in him or herself, but also in the external world. For Idea's are not only essential causes of every species, but are also the causes of every vertue: This simply reaffirms what I said before, the causal efficacy of the “ideas” is manifest all the way down to our world, where they manifest as “power” that can be harvested and harnessed. This cosmological structure going from ideas in the “Mind of God” to their manifestations as physical objects here on earth, is called “the Great Chain of Being" and was the fundamental idea of how the Cosmos functioned from the Hellenistic period to about 1800. Its History and development have been admirably chronicled by A. O. Lovejoy in his book of the same name, The Great Chain of Being. For the moment skipping over chapter 12, we will quote from Chapter 13, where the Great Chain of Being is further examined: Therefore Plato, and his Schollers [scholars] attribute these vertues to Idea's, the formers of things.: Again affirming the causal power of the ideas. The Form therefore, and Vertue of things comes first from the Idea's: The form in the Aristotelian sense is the idea manifesting as a "formal" cause. There is therefore no other cause of the necessity of effects, then the connexion [connection] of all things with the first Cause, and their correspondency with those Divine patterns, and eternall Idea's, whence every thing hath its determinate, and particular place in the exemplary world: Again the Great Chain of Being. At the top is the One, which differentiates on down the Hierarchy to manifest in our world. And every vertue of Hearbs [herbs], Stones, Metals, Animals, Words, and Speeches: It is noteworthy that Agrippa includes words and speeches as a potential manifestation of “hidden powers”. He ends his First Book on the subject of "Words, and Speeches" and then expands on it in later books. These two sections are Agrippa's basic exposition of a cosmological structure that occurs in other places in the Three Books and is an important part of his “theory of the practice”, the base cosmic circuit board, you might say, of Platonic Engineering. All cited references to Agrippa's Occult Philosophy are from Joseph Peterson's Twilight Grotto, a very useful site. Edit: Changed humerous to humorous, the spelling being something of a bone of contention.

I said in my previous post that I wanted to deal with some aspects of it in my post on Chapter xvi, well it's that time. The aspects that I wished to deal with here were mostly the examples given in Chapter xivi for the operation of the property of the Soul that extends itself into other things. Now remember first of all that the agency of this extension is the Spirit of the World and that the Spirit of the World will be the agency by which the “Vertues pass from one thing to another” in the this discussion of Chapter xvi, but first let me remind you of what I said above about the example given in Chapter xiv: Just to clarify, Gilbert is not attributing to Della Porta the mistake of thinking that diamonds hinder loadstones, but rather the discovery that it is false. It is rather the false idea that one can rub iron or steel on diamonds and magnetize them that Gilbert is accusing Della Porta of doing. Della Porta is possibly confusing the static electrical attraction that can develop from rubbing certain things on stones, such as amber, with a true magnetic attraction, the differences between which, were only being clarified in the Seventeenth Century. And now on to Chapter xvi: First I wish to emphasize the principle here which is that "souls" as the forms of things manifest "Occult Virtues" by which, ". . . they not only work upon all things that are neer them, by their Vertue . . . “, but also they, “. . . infuse into them a like power, through which by the same Vertue they also work upon other things . . .". So that whereas the previous chapter had spoken about a virtue of the diamond extend through the Spirit of the World interfering with the power of a loadstone to attract iron, this one puts forward another possibility founded in the Spirit of the World, that the virtue of one thing can be communicated to and infused into another thing, so that the second one now has the same power as the first, which is primarily illustrated by, “. . . the Loadstone, which Stone indeed doth not only draw Iron Rings, but also infuseth a Vertue into the Rings themselves . . .”. A very important pricinple for the practice of magic, and on that is called the “principle of contagion”, a principle mostly used as a means of connecting with someone or something that was once connected with them, to influence them, but as seen here can also be used to create an independent object with a power like that of the originating object. This is a perfect place to remind people of what I said here: So, bearing in mind what I said about the false doctrine of the diamond hindering the loadstone, let's look at Agrippa's “outlandish” supporting illustration for this chapter: This illustration, with its recommendation of wearing a prostitutes panties, and its implications of kinky cross-dressing, is about as outlandish as it gets! And of course it is open to all sorts of modern and purely reductionist psychological interpretations. The more conservative recommendation to use the mirror of a prostitute, also has psychological interpretations, but as an illustration of something becoming charged up, albeit unconsciously by the prostitute, would be far more in line with even Nineteenth Century theories involving objects being charged with animal magnetism. However, one needs to look at all of the illustrations and ask, what do these things have in common and how are they illustrative of the principles, what does a prostitutes panties have in common with, “. . . the halter wherewith a man was hanged . . ”, which would give either of them, “. . . certain wonderfull properties . . .”? Oh, and in case you are wondering "halter" in this case means the hangman's noose, and not another stylish garment with an implication of cross-dressing. Why did Agrippa chose these as illustrations of the principle that: Which, unlike the illustration of the diamond and the loadstone, is still an accepted part of science, though given a very different interpretation. A fact which needs careful consideration of another sort, such as, while it is obvious that it is a good illustration of the principle which Agrippa is putting forth, how would it be understood in terms of the worldview that Agrippa is assuming, and within that worldview, how would other aspects of it be understood, such as, “why don't copper rings become magnetized?”, or “is the fact that modern science explains the phenomena in a certain way fundamentally incompatible with Agrippa's worldview?”. It is only by asking yourself and answering questions like this, about those oddities of ancient learning that Agrippa uses to illustrate his principles, that you will be like Agrippa's judicious bee: And can also receive "no little profit, and much pleasure".

Duty is far more of a Confucian concept than a "Taoist" one, though by "Taoist", I don't necessarily mean Daoist. The Western Inscription of Zhang Zai is a beautiful statement of this duty and its ontological roots: I'll bet you didn't think that Confucians had that type of stuff in them, did you? And what is Professor David Maon's San-Shin Site about? Well, in his own words it's: Some people here may find it an interesting place to visit.

I'm sorry to be so long in posting this, because what I am going to discuss in my next few posts is as important a part of the Doctrine of Occult Virtues as is the background in Aristotle's Four Causes, which I outlined in my opening post and have covered in detail in my posts on Aristotle and Agrippa. This important aspect is “the Spirit of the World”, one of the concepts that was to survive into neo-magical theory as Mesmer's animal magnetism, which was an important aspect of Nineteenth Century magical theory, but has receded into the deep background in the Twentieth. First Agrippa's quote and then a discussion of why it is neglected in the Twentieth Century: As can be seen from the number of passages that have been bolded above, there is a lot to talk about in this chapter and it is one of the key chapters to understanding and putting Classical Magic into practice, I will deal with the most important aspects here and comment on others in later discussions. the vertues of things did depend upon these; because it is the property of the Soul to be from one matter extended into divers things, about which it operates: Agrippa has been recapitulating part of his discussion of the Great Chain of Being, which I dealt with in my first post of this series, and this principle follows directly from what was said just before it, that, “For there is nothing of such transcending vertues, which being destitute of Divine assistance, is content with the nature of it self”, in other words there is a constant outpouring of Virtue from the higher to the lower, as higher levels of Virtue are communicated to lower orders of being which are influenced by them. Remember that in all of this, Virtue means Power in other words the ability to effect or do something or affect something, and, as will become evident as we proceed, this power is conceived of as fundamentally a “generative” power, something which is closely modeled on the “generation” of plants and animals as will be made apparent as we go along. the Soul of one thing went out, and went into another thing, altering it, and hindering the operations of it: I will return to this and the following example of the operation of an Occult Virtue in my post on Chapter xvi, where I will deal with this type of citation in more detail. the Diamond hinders the operation of the Loadstone, that it cannot attract Iron: No of course diamonds don't hinder loadstones as was recognized shortly after Agrippa wrote, "a very old falsehood about the diamond, in speaking of a power contrary to that of the loadstone (WikiSource, On the Magnet, by William Gilbert, Book III. Chap. 13)". Gilbert attributes this discovery to Della Porta, who, however, makes the opposite mistake of making diamonds into something that will magnetize iron, but more about this later as noted above. the Soul is the first thing that is moveable, and as they say, is moved of it self; but the body, or the matter is of it self unable, and unfit for motion, and doth much degenerate from the Soul, therefore they say there is need of a more excellent Medium, viz. Such a one that may be as it were no body, but as it were a Soul, or as it were no Soul, but as it were a body, viz. by which the soul may be joyned to the body: This is an extremely important passage because in the next century Descartes was to create the mind/body dualism which leaves this “medium” out of the picture completely and plagued Western Philosophy from the Seventeenth Century onward with this problematic model, but it has also permeated Western Culture to such an extent that the default worldview of Westerners and any person or society sufficiently influenced by Western thinking, is what I call “Closet Cartesianism”, which is usually stated informally in terms different from Decartes, but not free from the fundamental conception and its problems. It is commonly formulated these days as “a ghost in a machine”. There are two rarer worldviews which developed from this in the Eighteenth Century, the denial of the ghost and the consequent reduction of the world and its to contents to a machine filled with machines, and which developed into hard core materialism or the denial of the machine to preserve the ghost, as represented by Berkeley's “idealism”, which found a home in Romanticism, and the progenitors of “New Age” thinking and is responsible for the “the world is an illusion” idea. they conceive such a medium to be the spirit of the World, viz. that which we call the quintessence: because it is not from the four Elements, but a certain first thing, having its being above, and besides them: This sense of quintessence is fundamentally Aristotelian and should be born in mind, but there is also another sense of a union of the five essences which is derived from alchemy. The Golden Dawn usage of spirit seems to be mostly influenced by the notion of Akasha derived from Indian traditions which was the extended by the alchemical usage, the sense in which Agrippa is using it does not seem to have survived, at least not explicitly in the Golden Dawn. such a kind of spirit required to be, as it were the medium, whereby Celestiall Souls are joyned to gross bodies Note that in the older traditions, spirit as a medium is required, no dichotomy such as Descartes created was allowed, or even conceived of as possible. This spirit is after the same manner in the body of the world, as ours is in the body of man. For as the powers of our soul are communicated to the members of the body by the spirit, so also the Vertue of the Soul of the World is diffused through all things by the quintessence: This is a very simple, but powerfully suggestive application of the Microcosm/Macrocosm and doctrine, and I will say more about it in a moment. nothing found in the whole world, that hath not a spark of the Vertue thereof: In essence this means that there is no such thing as dead matter, as it was later envisioned during the Seventeenth Century. This is very important because a Closet Cartesian always thinks of matter as dead and “inanimate”, that is “soulless” and has a lot of trouble with thinking of Occult Virtues and using them as a real part of magic, but rather only as props for his show, or at best things which he can charge with his “Will Power” and intent, but do not and cannot contribute anything to the efficacy of the magic. By this spirit therefore every occult property is conveyed into Hearbs [herbs], Stones, Metals, and Animals, through the Sun, Moon, Planets, and through Stars higher then the Planets: In the first part it is made clear that it is through this “spirit” that all of the magical powers inherent in the natural world are distributed by the higher powers, and in the second part is an anticipation of the possibility of an Astrological Magic, the Natural Magic aspect of which is developed further in Book One, and other aspects are developed in Book Two. It is this strong integration of the whole subject which is implied in Agrippa's original definition of Magic and is worked out in considerable detail throughout. Now this spirit may be more advantageous to us, if any one knew how to separate it from the Elements: or at least to use those things chiefly, which do most abound with this spirit: To return to my discussion of the passage beginning “This spirit is after the same manner in the body of the world, as ours is in the body of man.”, I asked myself, “what would 'most abound with this spirit”, than the living image of the whole, the very Microcosm itself?” and this was part of my reason for pursing qigong and other forms of Chinese esoteric training. I wasn't all of it of course, I was already interested in and had been for a couple of years before I read Agrippa, because of quote from Dion Fortune, related to ectoplasm and evocation, but this passage certainly reinforced my interest in such practices. Jerry Alan Johnson also employs an ectoplasm theory in his discussions of spirit appearances and even includes pictures in his books which he claims are real ectoplasmic manifestations. Most of his references to ectoplasm can be found in Daoist Magical Transformation Skills (The Temple of the Celestial Cloud, 2012), for example p. 28 on shape-shifting and magic, a discussion of materialization on p.40, and a discussion of qi and ectoplasm on pgs. 67-68, with a picture of a purported spirit manifestation on p. 68. This picture is also shown on p. 61, as part of an account of a magical summoning to "obtain a spirit helper". For these things, in which this spirit is less drowned in a body, and less checked by matter, do more powerfully, and perfectly act, and also more readily generate their like: for in it are all generative, & seminary Vertues: This brings out clearly the “generative, & seminary” of the spirit. Internal alchemy, which I had started to study about year before I read Agrippa in Charles Luk's Taoist Yoga book, deals very much with extracting and harnessing the “generative, & seminary” powers of the body. Its relevance to external alchemy is emphasized in the next excerpt. For which cause the Alchymists [alchemists] endeavour to separate this spirit from Gold, and Silver: In this case the effort is mistaken, but the idea is still there, that this “generative, & seminary” power is even present in the mineral kingdom. Which brings us back to the earlier excerpt, "nothing found in the whole world, that hath not a spark of the Vertue thereof", affirming that the Spirit of the World does indeed animate everything, and the whole world is "alive". if thou shalt afterward project upon any matter of the same kind (i.e.) any Metall, presently will turn it into Gold, or Silver. And we know how to do that, and have seen it done: but we could make no more Gold, then the weight of that was, out of which we extracted the spirit. For seeing that is an extense form, and not intense, it cannot beyond its own bounds change and imperfect body into a perfect: which I deny not, but may be done by another way: Anyone familiar with basic modern chemistry will recognize this as an early description of techniques now used in plating which harness the electromotive force by exploiting what is called the electromotive series, but I can't get into more details on this, however, this extraction “may be done by another way”, but again this is not the place to describe such procedures, aside from noting that they are procedures of laboratory alchemy and involve the use of, and creation of actual substances, some of which I may describe later. Well, that wasn't quite as long as I thought it might be, but it is still longer than I like posts to be, because such posts are a lot to chew on, but I couldn't see a good way to shorten it, however, I will try to expand on many of the points raised here. Edit: Minor spelling

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. Edit: Added quote and final phrase "whether spiritual or temporal"

I'm not completely sure what you mean by this, but if you mean initiation/ordination into "Religious Daoism", this is discussed in more or less detail in several scholarly works, most notable Michael Saso, but Jerry Alan Johnson's book, Magical Tools and the Daoist Altar (The Temple of the Celestial Cloud, 2012), has a very detailed discussion beginning on p. 273, which even includes pictures of ordination certificates, the various grades of instruction and some information on what is studied, etc. The information is too detailed and complex to summarize here, but I hope this lead is helpful.

No details are missing, the Four Masters didn't need to "do" anything to Yao, rather by their very presence they were the "undoing" of Yao.

I don't have time to find out who said that Plato invented Atlantis "as a model for his perfect state", but they are wrong. Plato first introduces Atlantis in the Timaeus, where it is contrasted with and defeated by an ancient Athenian state which supposedly followed the structure which Plato had described in the Republic. This is part of his introduction to the Timaeus and is too long to quote here, but this is from the Wikipedia article: This, by the way is something of a distortion, because in the Timaeus, it was Atlantis that was represented as a tyrannical state which started a war of conquest aimed at the whole Europe and Asia and it is the Virtue of ancient Athens, which in defeating Atlantis, saved everyone, even the ancient Egyptians, from conquest and enslavement, which is the point of the story: All of this, however, is more than likely a complex and masterful allegory, which because of its skillful presentation, has taken on a life of its own. Ernest G. McClain proposes in his book, The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the song itself (Nicolas-Hays 1978), that all of Plato's cities are complex allegories based on ancient musical theory. McClain passed away a few years ago, but it looks like his website is still maintained and you can download The Pythagorean Plato in PDF format here: Musical Adventures in Ancient Mythology and judge his work for yourself. Strictly speaking, from a Platonic point of view, the search for Atlantis focuses on the wrong city, it should be a search for ancient Athens, but in either case it would be a mistake to be looking for ruins of some ancient civilization, or civilizations, based on Plato's discussions of them. Edit: Minor spelling