Thunder_Gooch

Most practices don't do anything. Most people don't put in the effort required to get anything out of the practice even if it did do anything. We are a culture of ADHD, morons who can't focus on any one thing for more than 10 minutes. This is why practices which require no effort on the part of the practitioner are so popular.

Gurdjieff's teachings don't produce the results I am looking for. If I am still going to die, and I am still going to be reborn, then there is no point in wasting my time with a practice that can't help me with that core problem. But different strokes for different folks. If you like his teachings and feel they have benefited you, more power to you.

I am aware of Gurdjeff, as well as one of his students P. D. Ouspensky who shares my same theory of a 6 dimensional spacetime. Here is the thing though, Gurdjeff, and Ouspensky, and virtually 99.99999% of the rest of theologians, and philosophers, occultists and metaphysical scholars, etc. are all talk. Oh great! So you uncovered something truly meaningful and profound in your 40 years of studies, reflection and contemplation??? Guess what? You still get to die, and your spirit is reborn, and you get to start this whole thing over again from square one. Fun times... Worldwide there are a handful of people like John Chang, beings becoming something more than a flesh and blood body that will rot at death, and a spirit that will lay incoherent till it's reborn again. The people like Chang who actually walk the walk are actually doing something meaningful, not waving wands in the air pretending to do be doing something meaningful, therein lays the difference. 99.999999999% of all teachings everywhere are BS, that lead nowhere for anyone who practices them. The few that are not BS are like trying to find needles in a near infinite hay stack. As to mish mashing, I couldn't care less. What I am interested in is results. I listen to teachers who get results, and I flush the rest down the drain.

So I asked him what is enlightenment. I am paraphrasing. What is enlightenment? "It's what you were before you were born, and will be after you die." So if I didn't exist then, how could I be enlightened? "You can't be enlightened, it isn't possible to exist and be enlightened." So if enlightenment is truth, and I can't exist and be enlightened, then... "You exist because you are delusional and think you exist when in fact you don't exist." So what exists then? "Nothing exists." What am I seeing right now? "Delusion." So how do I find any truth if everything I can see is delusion? "Your teacup is full, pour it out. You can see empty space can't you?" Yes but what does that have to do with enlightenment? "You are empty space, enlightenment is emptiness, I am empty, you are empty, everyone is empty. We are all one thing and it is the emptiness" So what am I seeing in the mirror if I am empty? "There is no one there to look at a mirror, just emptiness." Is this really the truth? "Yes it is really the truth"

To become a corporeal spirit which does not reincarnate.

Question: If magick is purely subjective, is it even possible to practice magick incorrectly? If so how and why?

You might soil your armor!

You will need to know your name, your quest, your favorite color, and the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow (both African and European). It might also be wise to brush up on your studies of coconut migration patterns.

You must fight the bunnies before you gain entrance to the cave of the elixir.

Weird question.... Is it possible to do magick wrong? If so how, and why?

So basically what you are wanting is science to prove that supernatural abilities and powers exist when they don't, instead we discover rational and logical explanations and new natural phenomenon we were previously unaware of. My argument is there is no supernatural anything anywhere. This universe is purely natural, and everything contained by it is purely natural. Chang refers to himself as a metaphysical scientist, and nothing he is able to do is any more supernatural than what an electric eel does. Storing and releasing yang energy in the body to heat it up isn't supernatural either. Generating huge bio-magnetic fields, nope that's not supernatural either. Positive thinking when applied for long periods of time can build up a good momentum, as well as negative thinking over time can make someone sick. Placebo and psychosomatic effects can be observed. Psyching yourself out everyday for the rest of your life that you can fly, isn't going to make it so though.

lol ok, you ask for studies, I give you studies, your response is they are just hype, a response I can hardly fathom from someone who even bothered to examine what was presented. I really need to quit wasting my time on this forum.

Things documented in that thread: Tummo (inner fire meditation) that deals with accumulating yang chi at the naval chakra. Tummo master wim hof breaking numerous world records for cold endurance, and having his metabolic responses measured by medical doctors, in conditions that would kill most people from hypothermia. Tummo master wim hof, using tummo meditation to control his immune system under medical observation. Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard medical, documenting tummo monks in the Himalayas raise the temperature of their fingers by 17 degrees and dry wet sheets wrapped around their naked bodies on the coldest nights of the year., and sleep outside in the snow all night without even shivering. A book that lists all the major Chinese research on qi during the 80's, in terms of electrostatic, electromagnetic, infrared, infrasonic, and other anomalies during external qi emission. Studies listed on pubmed.gov that document electromagnetic field anomalies emanating from the body during qigong meditation, or from the hands during external qi emission. Not to mention the "too good to be true" videos of Chang everyone loves to hate.

What hype?

Then you just glanced over it, and didn't really examine any of it.

Sure here you go: http://thetaobums.com/topic/24534-empirical-data/

Meroe, Magick is vastly more popular as a practice than neigong. The occult/magickal community is filled with thousands of times more dedicated practitioners and seekers. Yet for all the people chasing it, I've seen absolutely no hard evidence for it. Even supposed "masters" of the practice have nothing to show for their effort, at least nothing tangible that I have ever heard of. When this point is raised it's usually countered with, a smug retort like: "hmmmphh obviously you know nothing of magick or you would know it doesn't work like that" The point about "my little pony magick" is, that to me it doesn't matter what the practice is or how absurd or bizarre, like drinking water with the penis, or drinking urine through the nose, or sticking crystals in your ears to contact inter-dimensional aliens that look like grasshoppers. Sure I am open to the fact that any bizarre and absurd practice I have ever heard of might be valid, but I am not going give any of the be it "pony magick" or "urine nose gurgling" a second thought until I have a compelling reason to do so. That seems like a pretty down to earth and reasonable way of thinking. Personally I don't see any difference in using a plastic my little pony wand vs a wand made of twigs found in the forest, or using Justin Bieber music to induce altered states of awareness vs chanting mantras/incantations naked around a camp fire. If me saying that offends you, ask yourself why it offends you. If there really were Justin Beiber, my little pony magick practitioners here to evangelize the benefits of their practice, what would your reaction to them be? Would you tell them their practice was just made up nonsense, or would you tell them it stands on equal footing with practices from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn? How do we really know what is real and valid, and what is made up nonsense if neither camp can produce any objective evidence/results? If all of this is just subjectively validated by each individual practitioner then anything goes right? The whole point of this thread was to answer the question what is the point of ritual magick, well as far as I can tell the point is entertainment because there is no good evidence it does anything else besides that. I didn't intend to offend or upset anyone, just give my honest opinion.

Theurgy, Please don't try to paint me as close minded. I am most definitely open to the possibility there are some genuine masters of the western occult/magick traditions that would stand on equal ground with eastern masters. I just haven't heard of any yet. I am most certainly open to the possibility that they do exist. A person only lives so long, and can only invest their energies in so many different things. I try to prioritize my research based on the best evidence I have available to me. As new evidence arises I'll research and practice different things I am sure, if I do find good evidence for western magick, you can bet your last dollar I will be here eating crow. I spent many years as a staunch atheist, until I was proven wrong beyond any possible doubt. I will always remain skeptical of any and all practices until I find good evidence to support them, and then investigate them myself.

I guess there are other options like sitting in the dirt outside in a tent to keep mosquitos off of you. Synthetic materials / electrical insulators block the flow of yin chi, if you are indoors unless you have a concrete basement there really aren't a lot of other options besides a grounding wire.

Seth, I am open to the possibility that there are some "masters" of western magick traditions worth studying under, it's just I haven't heard of any yet. I am not sure what more can be said? Sorry I've found no good objective evidence for magick, but I have for eastern practices like tummo, neigong, and qigong? I am not saying my way is the only way, only that I am only interested in practices and teachers that have shown tangible results from their practices, which seems very down to earth and rational to me. We can chat more in private if you like about everything else in your post, if you desire.

Let's say some newage author invents a new magickal practice. It involves using plastic my little pony shaped wands, live action role play, and justin beiber music. Practitioners listen to Justin Beiber music till they are in a trance state, and take out their my little pony wands, and invoke the names of the great my little ponies, pinkie pie, twilight sparkle, rarity and fluttershy, and princess Celestia, and call upon their power to perform their magick, where they act out all kinds of silly make believe scenarios, which somehow will subtly effect reality, and bend it to their will, influencing the outcome of events to coincide with their deepest desires. I would probably put as much faith in the Justin beiber, pony, larp, magick as I do any other brand of magick. I think it's more a form of entertainment than anything.

Casting a money spell and a getting a check in the mail, or casting a love spell and meeting your spouse, doing a rain dance and it raining, aren't really what I am looking for in a practice. I will concede that there may indeed be some school of western magick that gets results that would interest me and I am just ignorant of it, that is indeed possible. I hope that is the case. But to the best of my knowledge, no western occult/magick "masters" I have ever heard about have ever achieved anything I consider even slightly meaningful. If you consider things famous magick users have accomplished as being meaningful we can agree to disagree, based on our subjective definitions of what is meaningful and important and what isn't. Fair enough?

I am looking for systems that can establish repeatable causual relationships. If I do this, then this will happen as a result... Direct cause and effect, stimulus and responce, feedback loops. Magick as I understand it does not provide this, and as such I am not interested in it. If other people enjoy and and get use out of it, more power to them

Sort of reminds me of a discussion with an occult friend friend of mine. (who by the way lives in his parents basement, and is convinced this next spell will let him win the lottery, and hollow out a mountain and fill it with sex slaves) I asked him what powers Aleister Crowley had, supposedly he was able to make another person trip if he walked behind them mirroring their rhythm, as he walked. I asked my friend, the most famous magick user of our time? And that was the extent of his abilities!? I think most people get into magick with the hopes of developing eastern style abilities from practice, and wind up more with trying to subtly affect their reality via memetics, and psychology, and trying to influence their luck/karma with lots of ritual practice. Hey and if they enjoy it more power to them. It's just not my cup of tea.

Something along these lines: http://thetaobums.com/topic/24534-empirical-data/