Zhongyongdaoist

Yes, I would be happy to enlarge on these comments and in the process make clear why I chose the Golden Dawn techniques over those of Bardon and others, such as Crowley. The first stop on that will be a discussion of a real hermetic author, Mouni Sadhu and how I learned from him what real Golden Dawn magic is about and how the founders and early adepts of the Golden Dawn thought about and practiced it. ZYD

I had seen a topic on Rasmus' teaching a month or so ago and looked at it, and based on what I could determine from the descriptions it looks like it moved in the direction I was moving before I actually had the Golden Dawn material, which I bought in early October of 1970. The Golden Dawn material is like a treasure casket of mysteries that as you search deeper into it, the more valuable things you discover, it makes anything that Bardon has to say seem trivial by comparison, however you do have to work at it to get to that level of understanding. It also prepared me to understand the Daoist Ritual Tan ( 坛 ) as represented in works such as those of Saso, and that was very important to me also. There is more to the formal structure of such systems than meets the eye at first acquaintance, and it is very well worth knowing. ZYD

I finally have some time to reply to my own topic, my attention having be waylaid by other matters. I'm glad to see that it has had some good responses which bring up some of my favorite topics, a list of which would be "incomplete" without Kurt Goedel and some others which I will address as I continue to post here on various aspects of the subject, but first I want to address the subject of Quantum Mechanics and consciousness which I have brought up in several past posts such as this: One of my earlier explorations of quantum consciousness was in the early days of quantum computing, in the first few years of he new Millennium, in order to examine the question of whether a quantum computer could explain consciousness as a computer better than an ordinary computer model could, my answer at the time was no, that consciousness could not be explained away in a mechanical fashion, even a quantum mechanical one. I hope to have more time for the many topics which this thread opens up to my far to copious mind and imagination. ZYD

Here is an interesting article on Quantum Mechanics and how it is reshaping the view of physics and the nature of reality. Why More Physicists Are Starting to Think Space and Time Are ‘Illusions’ I hope people find this "enlightening". ZYD

Bardon's system and the Golden Dawn System are not mutually exclusive, particularly when you realize how dependent Bardon is on Aleister Crowley's version of it. While Bardon calls his system Hermetic in the text, its English title adds the Hermetic to it, the original German Der Weg Zum Wahren Adepten obviously doesn't mention Hermetics at all and it is also a purely modern work which has precious little to do with the historical Hermetic tradition, but seems to be a very creative, expansion of ideas derived from reading Crowley and Alexandra David-Neel, whose works were originally published in French and Bardon could have read them in French or they may have been translated into German, a quick search did give evidence of that, but not enough to substantiate a significant number of translations at an early enough date to have been an influence on Bardon, as Crowley's books were, having been translated into translated into German by the Swiss OTO. That said Bardon's system, is safe and practical, though hardly Hermetic in any traditional sense of the word, and it is shaped by and limited to the perspective of the magical revival of the Nineteenth Century, which threw out many "healthy babies" with the bath water because it did not understand them. Back in the late sixties I was interested in and practiced together Bardon and Golden Dawn techniques, I was also interested in the qigong aspects of Taiji Chuan and its possible uses in magic, a subject I have dealt with in other posts on Dao Bums. I eventually dropped Bardon for a qigong approach after analyzing Bardon's system, at least as it is in the first Book and deciding the qigong would be better for my purposes. As for the advice about psychoanalysis, while I agree that a lot of people have gone totally bonkers by ill conceived and worse executed explorations of magic in its Golden Dawn form, there are ways that one can prevent such unfortunate results if one is actually sensible and careful, but few people who are interested in magic are either. I can expound further on any of this if you are interested, but this is all I have time for now. I hope this is helpful. ZYD

You will be pleased to know that your post has already solved an important question raised by some of the posts from the women. I don't have time now to put this in context, but this is a very important data point: To paraphrase Mr. Rogers, "Can you say succubus?" I will have more to say as all this develops, and once again thanks for your post. ZYD

Hello CheqiGuy, thank you so much for your detailed response. I just got up a little while ago and need to plan my day, so I can't say much more now. One thing I am thinking of doing is starting a topic in my PPD where some of these matters can be dealt with more privately. I am trying to understand the dynamics of this group, and why it was structured the way it was, which seems so bizarre to me. This may seem cold and uncaring, but I have to turn off my feelings in order to understand and figure out how to help those who were damaged by this group. So far it seems that, at least the women who have come here have come out of this well, and I am happy and encouraged by that, but it seems that you are still dealing with the after effects of this pathological enterprise, which I need to understand, in order to help where and how I can. ZYD

Thanks for your post. It's interesting to see a male perspective and also the timing perspective perspective is is also interesting because of what seem to be changes in what is taught, and I am interested in how his curriculum developed. The women who have posted have mostly talked about qigong cultivation, while you mention the availability of Enochian material and I wonder if this was because he offered such teaching to men, but not to women, or if he had dropped it from his curriculum entirely after you left. You were in for two years and have been out for some time (3-5 years?) with bad long term effects which it seems you have gotten over enough to be interested in returning to meditative and other practices, in which case there is a lot here to look at for a new direction. One quick note about Enochian, it is a complex and advanced magical system, which investigated in the proper way is a good system, but the context in which it would have been used by SOTG would have corrupted it. In any case, congratulations on leaving LMP and welcome to the Dao Bums. I hope that it is a happy and rewarding experience for you. ZYD

Thank you! I look forward to your findings Thank you for posting this. I am proceeding with my analysis and also planning what I will write about with due Prudence. I was a Moderator here for almost four years and know how to do things, but I have contacted one moderator and shared some of my findings with him, in particular what I mention here: Which he agreed was a strong case and with my permission, which he was gracious enough to ask for, shared my findings about the issue with the rest of the Staff, and he told me that in his opinion it I proceed with due care there would probably be no problems, but that others on staff might have different ideas about how far I could go. I am thinking about approaching Trunk, the Admin, and see what he thinks directly, but I have not had time to proceed with that because I am busy and I only heard back from the other moderator late last night. I will be able to say more in a few days. ZYD

I recently learned of accusations of sexual impropriety, or worse, by someone in a position of authority. The details aren’t clear yet and the victims are hesitant to come forward for fear of retribution. When I met this person several years ago they were funny, engaging, and empathetic but there was this underlying current I could feel that was disturbing. Nothing I could define clearly and I never would have picked up on it if we hadn’t interacted in person. Such people are truly masters. Masters of manipulation, misdirection, and subterfuge. Their true powers are engendering trust and hiding in plain sight. This is how they become successful at their game. They’re very good at it and often hard to recognize. They know how to make us feel good and take advantage of that, we’ve all heard the word grooming. It’s likely that SOTG didn’t change all that much but, as he set his hooks in people, dropped some of the artifice and began showing his true face, his deeper desires and motives. When followers begin to see through the nice guy routine they resort to fear and intimidation. Sure, power over others, attention and adoration can seem to change a person but I think it’s more of an unveiling of what’s already there than a real change in most cases. PS - I don't claim expertise in the subject but I know and have known both victims and perpetrators of a cult as well as victims and perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault and have heard and observed some of their experiences and behavior directly. Few of us are invulnerable to such predators. This is an excellent discussion Steve, an accolade which I seldom have the pleasure of giving to Dao Bums post. ZYD

I'm sorry to hear that you think so little of yourself: If I had anything of value to offer I wouldn't need the demon's help! You are a good person and you have your soul, which is worth more than anything thing that a demon might offer. Read this and find hope in your heart: The path of the Magician is to go from this: But if thou lockest up thy soul within thy body, and dost debase it, saying: I nothing know; I nothing can; I fear the sea; I cannot scale the sky; I know not who I was, who I shall be to this: Make, [then,] thyself to grow to the same stature as the Greatness which transcends all measure; leap forth from every body; transcend all Time; become Eternity; and [thus] shalt thou know God. Conceiving nothing is impossible unto thyself, think thyself deathless and able to know all. As one grows in ones apprehension of True Divinity, one can embody it in any name system one may wish and even create new ones to serve ones needs, for such names are merely tools which the magician uses. Those who fear any egregore will never know true magic, in so far as egregores are useful, they serve the magician, the magician does not serve them. I hope that you find inspiration in the above and rise to the challenge before you. ZYD

Thank you for posting this. I have copied everything that you and AbrelosOjos have posted for a more detailed analysis when I have time to devote to it. I already have a few observations, but I will have more in a few days. I don't know whether to post them here, or perhaps create a section in my PPD to deal post them so that my analysis and others responses can be kept more private. All the best to you two and to Zanshin also. I am glad that you all found the strength to leave, and admire your determination to spread the truth about SOTG's group. ZYD

CNN agrees with you: Enjoying nature may lessen need for some medications, study finds and I agree with both of you. ZYD

Thank you both, without your own contributions to this thread my own contributions would have make no sense to anyone here. When I read the original report of SOTG's "passing" real or feigned, I was afraid it was a disguised recruiting ploy and thought of posting some of what I have said here about SOTG could and probably would have been dismissed by people who have no idea what is really going on with parasitic egregore cults who naturally come to places like Dao Bums to recruit cultivators as sources of energy. This one is not the only one that has been here recruiting, there was another one that was the source of considerable contention here for a long time. Fortunately they don't seem to be active here now. ZYD

I posted the long quote below in a topic that has for all intents and purposes been erased as the OP didn't seem to getting the response that he wanted. Unfortunately for him he erased everything and probably left the forum before having a chance to read it. I am posting it here in response to this: I don't know what he achieved except create a long running energy equivalent of a Ponzi scheme masquerading as an esoteric "lineage". The person mentioned above also thought that SOTG had achieved some great synthesis of East and West, that it was not should be evident from some o the posts above where both of the former women members talk about the "vampireism" that was part of the teachings and its fundamentally exploitative nature: and more explicetly here: The whole point of these phony lineages, like a Ponzi scheme, is to keep things going so that they demons who are running it can keep being fed, a little bit goes to keep the "minions" happy, but most goes to the evil spirits at the top of the food chain. This is particularly interesting: Parasitic egregores like this can be very stable, among other things it does no good to try to end them by working on individuals, the egregore will protect is food source, but if for some reason the egregore is being pushed past a certain point, it will no longer be able to hold together and disintegrate. That is really the only way that you can get rid of these things, is to overload them to the point where they can no longer hold the feeding chain together, and Sa To Ga had to go and was replaced by something much more sinister. A real lineage is run like a good mutual fund and everyone genuinely benefits, unlike a ponzi scheme where they are deceived and exploited. So what exactly did this guy achieve that makes him so wonderful? Everyday thought that his synthesis of East and West was great, this was my reply to him. He probably never read it and it is effectively almost unreachable, so I am going to repeat it here so it will be more easily available for those who are interested: What he had worked on was dangerous and unnecessary in terms of practice, there are safe and very effective ways to combine Chinese and Western traditions. As for this: I started working to bridge the gap a long time ago: This is from my PPD where I talk some about various aspects of the two subjects, unfortunately non Dao Bums cannot access this area of Dao Bums. There are more post there that you might find interesting, and there are more of my posts on Dao Bums, such as my discussions of Cornelius Agrippa and his work in Agrippa Textual Study, which are available to non Dao Bums who may be reading this. Zhongyongdaoist ZYD

This thread has already developed quite a bit and there are now two women who are basically refugees from this so called lineage here and refugees need first aid before things can go further. Back in the Summer of 2017 a member started a topic on exorcism to which I contributed. The following is the beginning of my posts on some exorcistic self help that should be safe and effective, here is the first post for first aid as part of a self exorcism: There is a good discussion of him here: The Heavenly Lord of Supreme Oneness and Salvation from Misery for those not familiar with the site if is a great online reference which, while it doesn't seem to be active anymore is maintaining an excellent reference for all things related to what I prefer to call Ritual Daoism. There are several reasons for starting with the Heavenly Lord Taiyi, first of all he can and will be helpful in himself, secondly you can use him to help you connect with other aspects of the Daoist Pantheon in a safe manner. I don't want to take up to much time here posting warnings, qicat has already done a lot of this, but if someone is in trouble and does not have access to good guidance you can't at least through them a life jacket. So, the beginning practice is to print out the picture of the Heavenly Lord Taiyi and to frame or mount it in a suitable way. You need some nice sandalwood incense, Nippon Kodo's Morning Star brand being a good one and generally readily locally and definitely online. Sandalwood is used because of its good clean “energy signature”, and I will explain more about that type of thing as we go along. The first practice involves a simple mantra which I created as a simple means of connecting with the Heavenly Lord Taiyi. It goes like this: Heavenly Lord Taiyi who rescues from distress, Bless, Heal and Protect me, Help me to realize my Heavenly Nature, To transform my Earthly Existence. Now to explain this, why do I call him the refer to him as rescuing from distress, rather than saving from misery? That is because in John Lagerwey's excellent book, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History, which I read, and deeply studied about thirty year's ago, describes him as “saving from distress” and I in time in my own usage became "rescues from distress", and so it remains my usage. If you want to use “who saves from misery” that is up to you. The original Chinese will support either translation. The request to “Bless, Heal and Protect” is to be as helpful as possible. Blessing in this case should be taken to mean, expand my possibilities and potential and open new way to advance. Heal intended as physical and emotional and also to maintain health by healing imbalances that may not even have manifested as symptoms yet, and protect is pretty obvious from the context of this post, but means protect in every way, physical, emotional, spiritually and from spirits. The request for help to “Realize my Heavenly Nature”, is a kind of poetic, but traditional way of saying realize the reciters full human potential. In writing this I particularly had in mind one of the most important concept in Chinese philosophy, that of 仁 rén, which is usually translated as benevolent or humane, and while these are satisfactory in a worldly sense, it leaves out the notion of “Human Potential”, which is to rise above the animal levels from which we start and become a Zhenren, an authentic person. These ideas are inherent in one very important interpretation of the character rén, which I will enlarge to show detail: 仁 the left side is considered to be derived from the ordinary character for person 人 rén and two horizontal lines, the top one is associated with Heaven and the Bottom one Earth and and is taken to be a symbol for the Human Potential to form a trinity with Heaven and Earth in which one ultimately becomes a Sage on Earth and a Shen in Heaven. Thus the request for help to realize one's Heavenly Nature to transform ones Earthly existence. Look as the Heavenly Lord Taiyi's picture, burn incense and repeat the Mantra for Ten to Twenty minutes and then clear the mind as much as possible and focus on your breath. This should be at least as long as the incense is burning and longer if you it feels appropriate. ZYD Believe me, if you have been working with the stuff that SOTG teaches, you need the equivalent of spiritual disinfection to get out of it. The "Tunnels of Set" with which SOTG works is the equivalent of the cosmic sewer system and you need to wash it all away and get cleaned up before you can really be free of its influence. The instructions started there are continued in several following posts. Good Luck getting cleaned up. ZYD

Thanks for posting the above. I am glad that someone had the courage to go post details like this. I don't have time to post more now, but I will post more soon. I thought Son of the Gods a negative influence here pretty much from the beginning, which really started in an earlier account that he set up under another name. I will post the information on that when I post again. ZYD

I do not understand why it needs to be pierced and what exactly does the piercing proves? https://dakinitranslations.com/2022/09/25/practice-given-by-guru-padmasambhava-to-king-trisong-detsen-for-his-minister-who-accidentally-killed-his-parents-the-treasure-tradition-of-phowa-introduction-to-the-treasure-phowa-tradition-its-hist/ It is surprising that you would visit Wikipedia for Kusha grass and not simple check out the entry for Phowa which explains the practice in detail. Simple summary, the whole in the top of the head is so that the practitioner can leave the body at the time of death, the point of putting the grass in the whole is to acknowledge success at the practice and show that you are a truly holely Buddhist (bad pun is intentional and not merely "sic" humor). I hope that clears up the confusion. I could say more about Lopsang Rampa, but why bother? ZYD

I often posted critically in response to Son of the Gods, and it doesn't surprise me at all that: What he had worked on was dangerous and unnecessary in terms of practice, there are safe and very effective ways to combine Chinese and Western traditions. As for this: I started working to bridge the gap a long time ago: This is from my PPD where I talk some about various aspects of the two subjects, unfortunately non Dao Bums cannot access this area of Dao Bums. There are more post there that you might find interesting, and there are more of my posts on Dao Bums, such as my discussions of Cornelius Agrippa and his work in Agrippa Textual Study, which are available to non Dao Bums who may be reading this. Zhongyongdaoist

Politics, "Current Events", provides a huge whole additional topic area to get into intense conflict about. (Sometimes it's smooth sailing, other times not.) Staff decided to make the whole area invisible to members by default, so members can focus on what this site is about: internal arts cultivation. If it were "read only" then all the political posts would still show up in everyone's "unread content" list. This way is much cleaner. Actually it was specifically my idea and was hidden for this reason: I even came up with the name Off Grid to emphasis that it was off the internet Grid. It was created because the 2016 Presidential election was living nightmare for us on Staff, and we collectively hoped that things would cool down after the election and that mere two months suspentions for one of the worst offenders would help, frankly I had pushed for a permanent ban, but was outvoted. When he returned early in January 2017 he came back with Pizza Gate, which resulted in his being suspended for sixth months, I still couldn't get him banned, and those people with long enough memories may remember how roundly criticized we were for the six months that he got. Off Grid was my idea for at least keeping such junk as Pizza Gate from attracting trolls to Dao Bums with the idea of using it to promote such nonsense in spiritual circles using Dao Buns as a platform. When he returned from his ban he started in again with posts that I now recognize as proto Qanon, posts of a type which began with Pizza Gate. Except for one post on the astrology of an Eclipse cycle, the only reason I read, or posted anything in Off Grid were when my moderator duties required it. I was particularly disappointed with the direction Off Grid took, and none of us on staff were at all happy with it, But Dawei and I were particularly concerned since its toxicity was spreading out into Dao Bums and continuously talked about what we could do, but felt hamstrung by Sean's stated policies, something which Sean even mentions in his first return post. Dawei pleaded with Sean for two years to come and take a look at what was happening, when he finally did his response, while extreme, was merited by the circumstances, much like the emergency amputation of a gangrenous limb which endangers the whole body. I hope that clarifies things a bit. ZYD

I have just finished the first major weather spell in what I hope will relieve the Drought and excess heat in the Southwest of the United States. I hope I will not have made a fool of myself by posting on this here, but I have had success breaking droughts before and doing some weather magic on a smaller scale, and I hope that success can be scaled up for the sake of the lives of millions of people who will otherwise suffer terribly. ZYD

The Way a Daoist mystic knows is outlined in various chapters of the Dao De Jing, here is Chapter 21 from the Taoist Text Project: The Translation is that of James Legge and is a bit dated, but basically reliable. Knowledge is also developed in other chapters. I hope this is helpful. ZYD

Really Taoist Texts? This is a new low: But there is no such expression in the original which just says 神 'shen' (spirit) which is something quite different.) In a section titled "Technical Terminology", Roth takes a little over a page to explain the reason why he translates:shen as numen: Roth's explanation continues on to page 44. I can post the rest of this if anyone cares to see it, but a simple bit of investigation on your part, such as checking out the Wikipedia article on Numen, where you could have read, 'Cicero writes of a "divine mind" (divina mens), a god "whose numen everything obeys,"' right in the first paragraph and you might spared yourself some embarrassment. It's gaffs like this that make me question your competence. Comparing the Numen article to the Shen article reveals a lot of conceptual similarity which to my mind strongly reinforces the aptness of Roth's translation, which had already been adequately explained in his own discussion. I have other things to do and was taking a little break from this discussion, I will probably not post in it, or reply to posts, until sometime next week. ZYD

It was classed as Legalist after the Sui dynasty (581-617). This one is funny. The chinese say it is legalist but the westerners know better and insist it is "Daoist". And qi is always "the vital breath" to them. They are like that kid with a hammer to whom everything is a nail. To those forever impressed by the great qigong craze of the 20th century every qi is qigong. This is a misquotation, which is a sign of either incompetence or an attempt to deceive. Either accidentally or conveniently you left this out: So it seems that it is the Chinese who were originally confused about whether it was Daoist or Legalist. The interesting question is why was it relabeled as Legalist during the Tang , and further what effect would that change have on the text and its audience and interpretation afterwards? Since you are quick enough to mock it, and have a laugh over it, it makes the notion that you were purposefully misquoting me, seem more likely, though I leave it to others to decide. This is simply a grotesque oversimplification with too many matters to address: thats ironic . a forgotten and never quoted ancient work is a source of a fake 'practice' made up 20 years ago for western consumption under a fake name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neigong#In_popular_culture ahahaha;) who even writes these wiki articles, sounds exact like any old typical taobum thread It would be nice if it really was as simple and as easily dismissed as you would like to make it seem, but it isn't, and it would take up too much time now to unravel this and address each issue, and get some straight answers from you. ZYD

I wrote the above quickly and as I thought I thought about it, I realized that while I have not problems with the book that is translated, I do have problems with Charles Luk's introduction which I believe caused some real misunderstanding and misdirection by spending so much time on time on the "microcosmic orbit". The real key is right in the first paragraph of the text and without achieving that you're wasting your time and may injure yourself. ZYD