Zhongyongdaoist

This has been posted and examined in considerable detail before: http://thetaobums.com/topic/17756-common-misconceptions-concerning-daoism-taoism/?hl=%2Blouis+%2Bkomjathy Is there a need to hash this out again? The question is rhetorical, if you want to go through this again, go right ahead. Posted in memory of Stigweard.

Apparently no one has been reading their Jerry Alan Johnson. On page 448 in a section titled 'Using Blood Magic for Training Plant Spirits' of Daoist Mineral, Plant and Animal Magic, he describes the technique in some detail and includes a picture. Eating eggs is only the training period, which takes ten years total. When mature it wants a chicken a week and will leave nothing but feathers. If you don't feed it regularly it will turn against you. Plant magic gone awry is the theme of one of my favorite movies of all time 'A Chinese Ghost Story'. Sit back and enjoy the ride: http://youtu.be/Q5ACbxt6F0Q I may have more to say about this another time. Edit: Rushed again, I forgot to put in the title of the book. Second edit: Rats! I just noticed there are no subtitles. Rushed again. Oh well. I'll see if I can find one with subs to post, but it will have to wait, no time now. Watch it a bit you'll get the idea anyway. Third edit: Ok, I just had to take the time. This one is in parts, but has subtitles:

I came not to praise Sedenborg, but to bury him. Blake is well known for burning tigers at both ends.

Stefos, The movement to which you are referring as 'Christian Theosophy', I prefer to call 'Protestant Illuminism', because it is fundamentally Protestant and owes its whole impetus to the Reformation need to find an interpretive context for the Bible and thus a guide to Protestant thinking.. One of its inception points is surely Paracelsus, and its most influential form is undoubtedly the 'Rosicrucian' Manifestos. The general ideas is that Qabalah will provide an interpretation that ties in with the inner truth of the Bible and Alchemy will confirm it as the governing principle of nature. It included such luminaries as Robert Fludd, and such very Protestant members of the 'Scientific Revolution' as Newton and Boyle, whose vaunted chemical skepticism extended to Aristotle's four elements, but not to Paracelsus' Hermetic amulets to expel mice and for other purposes. Probably its last significant public representative was Emanuel Swedenborg, about whom you can read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg A Church founded on his teaching is still active and you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Church They are perhaps the only group still interested in and practicing a more or less pure form of what you mention. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries such ideas influenced many of the founding thinkers of German Romanticism and you may find this book: http://www.amazon.com/Hegel-Hermetic-Tradition-Glenn-Alexander/dp/0801474507 An interesting read in that regard. However ideas such as this: It hardly need be mentioned that if long established creeds and confessions of faith, were not acceptable, then Qabalah and Alchemy were hardly to be considered. Together with this: Were to eventually make any form of Protestant esotericism extremely suspect in the eyes of the average believer and the shepherds who tend them. Thus the 'Christian Theosophy' in which you are interested became became more or less extinct in the general population, while at the same time becoming the intellectual inspiration for the occult revival of the Nineteenth Century. However, it became more and more irrelevant in the eyes of occultist in the late Nineteenth Century and as the Twentieth Century developed. As you have noted, Steiner's Anthroposophy is certainly not in the tradition which interests you and the post Blavatsky attempt by Annie Besant and 'Bishop' Leadbeater to coopt Christianity by a Theosophical interpretation in the form of the Liberal Catholic Church, is hardly relevant to your concerns either. I wish I had better news, but I hope this is helpful anyway.

I applaud your initiative Apech. Good old Basil Wilby, who as you know wrote under the name Gareth Knight wisely said, somewhere, that Occultists compare childhood impressions of Christianity with adult impressions of Buddhism. There is a great deal of interest even in orthodox opinion. The British occultists of the last century, I am thinking of some statements of Dion Fortune in particular, might have benefited from a closer examination of Roman Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, it is staggeringly more profound than the Anglican one which they used for their Christian mysticism, and something which any alchemist, internal or external, might wish to contemplate, but like many Scholastic formulations a little understanding of Aristotle goes a long way to appreciating it. It will be interesting to see what happens here. I hope that our happy friend 'Protector', who seems to been chomping at the bit to say something nice about Christian mysticism, will do so, from what I gather would be a Russian Orthodox perspective. In so far as I am allowed by time and circumstance, I will try to add something here and there.

Thank you for your continued interest. The simple truth is that this thread offers some interesting directions to pursue, not the least of which is the one which you mention and I have been thinking about how and whether I care to address them.. For example in my post above I bolded the phrase, "What is fundamentally at stake are theories of causality", because I thought I might return to questions of causality, because some of the arguments against astrology voiced earlier, were based on a view of the universe that is largely obsolete. In and of themselves, at this time they cannot be used to argue against astrology. Also, I came up with a test of mathematics which in formal structure mirrors the one for astrologers and which because of the complexity of the systems involved mathematicians would fail to pass, and I have wondered, if I wished to open that can of worms, since it is likely to lead to several more posts and I don't know if I will have time to follow through. Then there is numerology itself, which as far as I am concerned is much larger subject then it seems on the surface, opening historical, mathematical and philosophical questions that go way outside, but illuminate in fundamental ways, the subject of your original questions: The quick answers to your questions are: . . . have you also done research on numerology? Yes. Do the modern interpretations of numerology shine light on on personality . . .? They seem to, but the information provided, while interesting and suggestive is not completely convincing to me. . . . has this science been lost, in your opinion? Yes and no. Those are the quick answers, though I could hardly blame anyone if they were not very satisfied with them. That is all I can spare time for now.

This seems to be a dangerous place to hang out, literally or figuratively, are you sure anyone should be here at all?

It has been a long time since I have thought about either Grant or Beriiaux, I remembered in at least one book that Grant mentioned Bertiaux, as I note below: This drew the reply: Are you referring to Kenneth Grant's Nightside of Eden above? The 'he' is kind of a 'pronoun without a country' you might say. This got me thinking and I could remember Outside the Circles of Time talking about Bertiaux. Thinking about Bertiux, got me thinking about how much I dislike his appropriation of Voodoo and also about his teacher, whom I remembered after some churning of old memories was named Lucien Francois Jean-Maine. I wanted to check that out and did a search under Lucien Jean-Maine because I was not sure of the Francois. Bertiaux's Wikipedia article came up, so I knew I had something right on his teacher's name and when I read it I was reminded of Cults of the Shadow as well. However, the article notes that: I used to have all of these except Hecate's Fountain. I am not able at this time to know whether Wikipedia is right or not about Nightside of Eden mentioning Bertiaux, but it seems unlikely that if he was mentioned in Cults of the Shadow, that Bertiaux would not be mentioned in Nightside of Eden. I think I remember something about Bertiaux and his concept of voltigers (spelling?), practitioners who leapt from sphere to sphere, being in Nightside of Eden, but it has been a long time since I have read any of this, over 30 years, so while I definitely remember the concept in Grant, I am not sure where Grant may have mentioned it. As a final note, I would like to make it perfectly clear, that I do not recommend the work of either Grant or Bertiaux. Grants first too books The Magical Revival and Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God, were interesting, but not of any great merit, after them he seemed to go from eccentric, to unbalanced, to crazy. As for Michael Bertiaux, I can't think of a single polite thing to say about him.

Just happened to check on when you posted. The reference is to Nightside of Eden by Kenneth Grant, the last part of his 'Typhonian Trilogy'. He originated the term and it does refer to qlippoth and other aspects which he developed, such as Cthulhu mythos and also a considerable amount of reference to Michael Bertiaux. All of which is rather 'messy' stuff.

I saw this just as I was finishing my above post. I have used up my Tao Bums time for today. If I can I will address the matter of numerology another time.

Thank you Sloppy Zhang, I had been thinking of posting that material, but you beat me to it. I was also thinking about the following: I have taken out a few lines that refer to its context within the original thread, but are not necessary for otherwise understanding the material. And also this one, from the same thread, which continues the topic: Gosh I'm long-winded! I hope that this helps to clarify some of the issues. ZYD

I don't have time now to enter into a long discussion about astrology, but the precession of the equinoxes one is a straw man. The Western "zodiac" is not based on stars and the constellations, it is and has been since Hellenistic times, based on the dividing the ecliptic into twelve divisions. The ecliptic is defined by the times when the sun's apparent path intersects the plane of the equator going either north or south. This happens regularly and defines the seasons. About 2,000 years ago the star positions of the Constellations coincided with the positions defined by the ecliptic, the Zodiac defined by the ecliptic is called the Tropical Zodiac, that defined by the Constellations is called the Sidereal. Western astrology uses the ecliptic defined Tropical Zodiac, Indian astrology uses the constellation defined Sidereal Zodiac. Summary, Since Western astrology uses the Tropical Zodiac, which, being defined by dividing the ecliptic, not by the positions of the stars, is not affected by the precession, any criticism made of Western astrology based on the precession is of the equinoxes is bogus and made by a person who knows next to nothing about the matter. There is obviously more to the subject than this, but since the question was about the precession specifically and you wanted an expert opinion, you have it.

Thank you Dr_D, these are both interesting and useful responses.

http://www.amazon.com/Taoist-Ritual-Chinese-Society-History/dp/0028964802 Actually the nine stars, though the trigrams are an important aspect of the star's symbolism and also the twelve earthly branches. I used a description of a practice of Master Chuang in Saso's book and material from Lagerway's and came up with a ritual of my own which turns out to be a close relative of a Maoshan Thunder Magic technique Jerry Alan Johnson describes in Daoist Magical Incantations, Hand Seals, and Star Stepping on pgs. of 136-137 the 2006 edition and pgs. 268-269 of the 2012 final edition. I adapted the material so that my version is close to, but not exactly the same as that given by Professor Johnson. I had a version for personal use and one that could be used for cleansing and exorcising people, places and things. I did a lot of creative adaptation of material from Saso, Lagerway and Livia Kohn. They seemed to work quite well. The 3 X 3 magic square is the core of Doaist Meditation and Magic. I don't believe that they use the other squares in their practices, though they may. They were certainly aware of them in mathematics. The rest of my exploration of magic squares was in the context of Western magic, or higher levels of Mathematical magic that are not part of any tradition, but part of the potential for magic that exists in many types of mathematics. Edit: Corrected spelling of exactly in 'but not exactly' above.

The mysterious frog has disappeared, no doubt the invisible hand of the illuminati. So to give this whole unpleasant business some redeeming ending I am posting this enlightening discussion: Naturally it has some distant relation to the peach of immortality, but exactly what I cannot say, except within the cone of silence. Edit replaced 'invisible had' with invisible hand.

Very good OldChi, that about puts it in a nut case, ...., oooops, I mean nut shell. And yes, Abdul Alhazred did walk in North America. The real Cthulhu cultists are hiding in plain site. I can't say anything more. Well alright, it may have something to do with that pesky Meergeist business, you know, wink, wink, nod, nod, the Grosser und Gewaltiger one.

Following an adolescent interest in expanding the type of mathematics used in esotericism, which I was later to put under the general topic 'Mathematical Philosophy' following the categories of occult philosophy of Cornelius Agrippa, I did a lot of work with magic squares which I have characterized as 'sacred linear algebra' in the following post: I was replying to one of our members who is fond of asking questions, some very good and others, such as the ones he was asking in this case, not very edifying. The thread ended at this point and I have not had time to return to the topic until now, and the reason why I bring it up now is that, had I continued with the above thread, I would have cited this Yi Jing astrology as just such an example of the application of the formal system embodied in the he/luo diagrams. The technique of the astrology is hardly the type used to solve a set of linear equations, being simple arithmetic, but it does show that interesting and useful information lies in the most unexpected places and only waits for the right analytic system to bring it shining forth. Occasionally there is talk on the Tao Bums about Sacred Geometry, Sacred Linear Algebra anyone? Since you had relocate the thread which I reference in the above quote, I thought pulling this up would be useful and interesting as illustrating one application. Most of my work would take us well outside the area of purely Daoist Magic and is highly technical anyway, but basically it is possible to create magic squares of just about any size and to represent just about any complex magical system on them. Regarding uses within Daoist Magic, years ago I took the material in Saso and Lagerway (a less well known academic authority on Daoist ritual who covers much the same ground) and let my fingers do the walking, creating a basis for Daoist ritual in which one has 'the whole world', if not exactly in one's hand, at least on one's fingers. While I was reading some of Jerry Alan Johnson's material years later, I was amused to discover that this is a Maoshan Thunder Magic technique.

I did google him, well actually I yahooed him, but the result came out pretty much the same. According to Dr. Cibik's webpage he is a basically of the same school as Dr_D, since he lists himself as a graduate of Jerry Alan Johnson's International Institute of Medical Qigong. Good luck with your studies.

I don't know, the look in its eye (the one you can see that is), the hands over his tummy . . . Maybe he ate something he didn't like. It just seems to me to be an odd position for a frog to be in. I know everyone will hate me for saying that, but I have to do something to change the topic, otherwise the secret of the Grosse und Gewaltige Meergeist may be revealed.

Remember Capricorn is the Sea Goat: In a sense already amphibian. Great mysteries hiding here. We need to be careful what is posted on an open forum.

It's back to Hogwort's for you Apech! You obviously need some serious review time. Purely pedantic rusty Latinist's note: Is Frogulus frogularum to be interpreted like Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Frog of Frog's? And also since us have used the masculine 'us' ending for frogul, shouldn't be the Latin masculine possesive 'orum' rather than the feminine possessive 'arum' or is some esoteric gender bending to be implied here like, Lady of Lords, Queen of Kings and finally, I regret I don't know off hand what the female of frogs would such that one could say vixen as in the case of foxes, so I will just say Frogess of Frogs? In any case my Latin is 35 years rusty and I may be completely misunderstanding the whole business. As always your true fan even if you do need to go back to Hogwarts and possibly brush up on your Latin. Second Note: Sorry, you see what rust and haste can do for you, or against you for that matter. I made the mistake of unwittingly importing Germanic/English place oriented grammer into my translation of Frogulus Frogularum, which in Latin where meaning is based on changing the endings rather then position of the sentence, would be Frog of Frogesses, which might explain his interest in and apparent success with the ladies. Still forgetting the reversal spell is pretty unforgivable and success with the ladies could have been accomplished in other ways. So, it's still back to Hogwart's for you and maybe we both need to review our Latin. Edit: added 'Purely Pedantic note etc. . . .'. People who liked this before are free to unlike after this change if they so desire. Second edit: added second note above. Again people who liked this before are invited to unlike it after this edit also.

Overall an excellent post Steve and what I have bolded above is well worth remembering. Though I may interpret it in a slightly different way than some people. I may have more to say about this in the historical context of the Neiye, the emergence of early Chinese 'naturalism', Huanglao Daoism and the Zhuangzi at some future point, but I do not have time now.

I think I've posted here before that I've met daoist hermits in China who don't practice chanting or formal religious rites, but still call themselves daoists: But does that mean that they were practicing 'philosophical' Daoism as generally conceived by Westerners including Western Sinologists up to the 1970s? The introduction to Arthur Waley's The Way and its Power was one of the first works by a Western sinologist to a start to examine what the Daodejing actually meant to the ancient Chinese. Written in the 1930s, it is still worth a read even today. Among other things it is one of the first books to bring the Guanzi and the Neiye into the picture. Waley's contention that the ancient Daoists were actually doing meditation was groundbreaking at the time. I took a quick look at Kirkland's essay, while I agree with its general conclusion, he is way off in his understanding of the Western historical movements which he describes, you cannot run Protestantism, Enlightenment, and Romanticism together the way he does. Romanticism is a rejection of the Enlightenment and the Enlightenment is more the work of people reacting against Christianity in general, but Roman Catholicism in particular. Even his understanding of Confucianism is incorrect because the ideal of the Sage and the achievement of Sagehood is explicitly put forward by Mencius, the second most important thinker of the Confucian school and is certainly implied even in the Analects. It is possible to name names, to talk about Diderot and Holbach, to separate the Deist Voltaire from his Atheist companions, to explain why the French Freemasons would accept atheists and why the English and American ones didn't and still won't to this day. It is possible to see the beginnings of the revolt against the Enlightenment in Rousseau and how the German Romanticist Philosophers took Kant's attempt to stop the Atheism that was being promulgated through the French Encyclopedie, and used it as the philosophical basis for their own ideas and how that resonates down through Walden pond and into the hands of the Hippie movement of the 1960s, which replaced the black and white Zen of the Beats with the technicolor of 'Taoism', largely through such pop cultural phenomena as 'Mr. Natural' and, the, 'the title says it all', book, The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment. In short Kirkland's historical sense is defective, but I'm not sure anyone here at the Tao Bums wants to hear the details and for now I don't have the time to write them anyway. However, he does realize that the modern and especially American interpretation of Daoism, which may as well be called Taoism, is a fundamentally Romanticist interpretation and way off from how a Daoist in China would have interpreted it at anytime in the past. By the way, there may be nothing wrong with American Romanticist Taoism as a way of approaching spirituality, as long as it is realized that while an ancient Chinese work is its inspiration, it has next to nothing to do with Daoism as conceived of and practiced by the Chinese, including its purported author, Laozi. A recommendation of Waley's translation and his insightful introduction was implicit in what I said before. Here is an easy way to follow it up: http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Its-Power-representative/dp/0802150853 Also an excellent overview of all of Warring States philosophy is, Disputers of the Tao by A. C. Graham. You can find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Disputers-Tao-Philosophical-Argument-Ancient/dp/0812690885 I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in what was going on at the time the Daodejing was written and who wishes to see it in historical context and not the context of The Wind in the Willows.

A very insightful quote rex, thank you for sharing it.

A well taken point. The card the Hermit as linked to Virgo is a good card for understanding oneself better. In some ways it goes back to what I have said about uncrossing in the thread on spells that work.