RedKooga

Well... families undergo change from outside influences. My argument would be that the OTO and others unnecessarily cut themselves off from the outside. Sometimes such isolation is a good thing, for example: to preserve something delicate and valuable that would be destroyed if exposed. I know many OTO initiates feel their secrets are valuable yet from what I've seen that particular family suffers from cultural stagnation and inbreeding due to their treasured ways. The same goes for most Magick cliques I've come across. I would go as far as to say the hidden agenda of most Magick groups is to set up an environment where a shared fantasy can be artificially brought to life, a kind of simulated reality where people gain supernatural powers, spiritual attainment and great importance (but only within the bounds of their self-created world). Role playing was not the reason I became interested in Magick and thus I am a little bitter about all that! That's the hook that got me reeled in! If you read, listen to and talk with individuals all is well. Magick is great stuff, no doubt about that. Join a group and things can get a bit out of hand though. It depends what someone is looking for. I would rather be Nietzsche's Ubermensch than a law-abiding citizen of State Thelema. I have never been nor expect to be a team player unless it temporarily suits my own 'hidden agenda'! On beliefs and their power you were beginning to touch on something rather HUGE at the end there. I'll make a mess of this but what the hell: When I was going on about enchantment before... Well I also said Magick groups create simulated realities to indulge their fantasies (which is typically harsh of me.) One way to be a magician is to use other people's fantasies and imagination to make yourself into something. We all do this all the time and are subject to illusion ourselves but don't usually realise how intrinsic to our perceived world it is. In fact, we also make ourselves into something by using our own fantasies and imagination BUT the 'something' is Samsara. You gotta remember your true face, that all forms are empty! Yep I made a mess of that

I've got this book. I quite like the experimental approach it has. 'Living Midnight' is a great term for the shamanic take on the Mysterious Pass too

It seems to me that sexual energy is naturally transformed if you just practice and don't have anything to do with sex. The problem is environment! When I first really got into Chi Kung my circumstances were such that I could go for weeks without anything resembling social contact. When I did go into town to shop around or whatever just the sight of a woman between 15 and 50 could make my Chi jump meridians into the more familiar me-so-horny 'configuration'. I had to be focused not to let that happen. When I went to University it was impossible! I gave up. If you're thinking of going celibate permanently unless its a decision you can make so completely that you can be around whomever you might desire without getting too hot and bothered you'll have to contend with a lot of inner turmoil. If that isn't resolved then yeah, health annoyances might dog you. If you just can't be bothered with the whole thing i.e. not hung up about it, then I'd be surprised if you suffer any health defects. I've known a few religious celebates who lived in ordinary society (two of them I see around at the moment). Half seem to be obsessed with sex as a vulgar thing, they just can't stop talking about it, while the others are just so into their practice that any attractions they have to someone are dropped pretty quickly. One guy I talk to often is a hermit who lives in the woodlands around here. He's got a problem in that whenever a pretty female traveller comes to live in the woods near him he usually has to move away because he just can't stop thinking about them. It doesn't help that for an old man he's very attractive. On the subject of Monks and Nuns, from what I've read from interviews and books as well as talking about it with the few I've met, as well as just being alone or amongst people who aren't likely to inspire sexual desire Monks and Nuns are just too busy with their practice to think about sex. If they grew up in a monastery then the lack of anything sexual going on would mean their minds weren't wired to get preoccupied with sex much at all. All that energy just goes into their practice. Vidiami what are your circumstances i.e. why are you considering going celebate for ever?

The imagery is great, no question about that. It is just that importance thing. One of the clearest signs someone has gone off the deep end is when the grandeur of their claims are excessive and are personally verified in such a way that others cannot repeat or even understand their proofs. I think this person is a victim of one of the downsides of Magick. There is a tradition in Magick of claiming secret knowledge that only initiates can understand. Initiation as I've experienced it often involves a lot of brain washing. The further in you go the more divorced from non-initiates you become until you're willing to believe things without the need for verification from the world outside of the group you've been initiated into. It can really feel as though others are blind to the truth since they don't have the relevant experience. The gap would be too huge to fill without them going through initiation themselves and so things just don't get questioned. Now, to quote from that website:- What could've inspired a person to feel there was so much potential merit in a simple line of text that they'd spend over thirty years to produce a set of diagrams that include no worked examples of their use? The earnestness of such an individual needn't be questioned; there is diligent, beautiful work here. Yet, a hypothesis is just that until it has substantial proofs. And in this case the hypothesis itself is based upon faith in ideas that are highly dubious to begin with e.g. religious beliefs revolving around Thelema and the relationship between the I Ching and DNA/RNA. There is a very old definition of Magick: The use of glamour to enchant and delude others. Without realising it initiates come under the spell of the group they've joined. You don't even need to be an initiate, you just need to be enchanted by the glamour of Magick enough to practice it without questioning whats really going on. Then you can start to feel that your making progress along a path to enlightenment when what you're involved in most of all is learning the very tricks and games that seduced you into believing there was a path offered to you in the first place! Thus, the illusion is self perpetuating. It's a circus of pawns and few who get in manage to break the spell that binds them. For me, a helpful way out of the OTO (not just to leave, to release Thelema's grip on me) was to deliberately and publicly break every single one of my oaths repeatedly and to provoke those who threatened to use their Magick against me to do just that. In 'theory' all sorts of terrible things should've happened to me. In 'practice' there was nothing more than a marked improvement in my health and a great deal of laughter. After that the reality of what 90% of Magick was about hit me: Perpetuating religious beliefs, not science and art.

Blimey! Big difference between UK Amazon and US Amazon.

Its a bit far out. Also there are some mighty bold claims there, completely off the scale! Especially since the cursory references to science, philosophy and psychology that he uses as a framework to measure the significance of his work are so minimalist. To be honest he sounds like he's lost the plot. I could be wrong, he may have come across something of immense importance and he just has trouble showing why. For now I suspect its one of the most common things I've seen in Magick, getting lost in the mists of your own imagination. Sorry Sean. I really dig your enthusiasm but I gotta be honest with you on things like that.

Yup, good point. A lot of stuff works like that. When I was given my first set of tarot cards I was told you should never buy your own. Thinking about this a little it was clear it was something to do with the 'oral' tradition, that things should be passed down from someone with experience who could teach directly. At some point the idea that you shouldn't buy your own cards became more important than the principle behind it, and so a superstition arose. The idea that something bad would happen if you bought your own pack of tarot cards, that nature had some law about it, was ridiculous. Knowledge can start off as a set of principles and relations, then it becomes simplified into a symbol for convenience. The symbol only relates to the knowledge in a subjective way. If the original knowledge is lost the meaning of symbols is forgotten or misunderstood and superstition takes the place of what was once profound learning. Working with any symbolic reference its helpful to ask why that particular symbol should be used. If you don't have a clue what it represents, better do some research. If it doesn't seem to fit then I think its ok to change the symbol, as long as you have a real good reason to i.e. have the adequate knowledge and understanding of the principles and relations behind it. Otherwise you'll be a Jack Handy saying, "How come the dove gets to be the peace symbol? How about the pillow? It has more feathers than the dove, and it doesn't have that dangerous beak." Bats in European folklore symbolise dark forces but in Chinese folklore they indicate great fortune. Is this because bats have spiritual powers and are nicer to Chinese people with them than to European people? Unlikely. Its not to do with the nature of bats, its to do with someone at some point using a bat as a metaphor because of a chance similarity with something else. The symbols are changeable.

That's a good test but I'm already committed to something for April. I've done far too many jobs. My intention now is to set myself up as a self employed web developer, but it'll be months before I'm fully into that. What do you do?

Karma is just a model of how things work, like physics or psychology. Its not reality. The truth of anything is only a measure of its usefulness so dismiss Karma if its not a useful model.

I've not had that problem with Firefox. However I noticed that when I installed the latest version of Opera it installed a separate copy of Java which Firefox then starting using instead of the copy which came with it. Perhaps you could try that.

Thanks. You're probably right that sprinting is too hard on the joints. I couldn't find a website that talked about "fox running" or "scout running" specifically but I came across one called Running Barefoot that has lots of articles that seem to support this no heel touching style of running.

What is CC? Clubbells? Circuit training? Lozen there's a type of running that was recommended to me. It doesn't have the type of bad impact all that bouncy jogging can have on the joints. It also prevents the unusual prolonged strain on the heart associated with jogging. Instead of running at a moderate speed you run as fast as you can till you reach exhaustion. Then you walk until you've recovered enough to run again and off you go. Its sometimes taught as a way to get fit very quickly. The only problem I've encountered with it is finding an appropriate place to do it and the way people and animals react to it. I've had people ask me whom I'm running from or if its dark or whatever even start running away from me themselves, horses have reared up and dogs go even more mental than when they see a jogger. ... Personally I just don't see a need for strength training since my build is already heavy as lead. I don't do any hard style martial arts anymore nor do I go to the gym for the weights or machines, its internal stuff and aerobic fitness I work on. I only have so much time to devote towards exercise so it's practical to go about things that way. I love trekking across the moores, cliffs and hills here. I also swim in the sea during the summer and *blush* in the wintertime especially I do a self-stylised form of step aerobics that has been a favourite of mine for about ten years. Add to that the combination of Hatha Yoga's stretchiness plus Chi Kung's more direct internal cultivation and I feel I've got a good thing going on.

Hi Tao1776. Thanks for the poem you left at my blog. It was well liked Sorry to hear things are not so great right now. Peter that's an interesting analogy. I'm not sure how far you could take it though. An equation such as Energy equals Mass times the Speed Of Light squared is so simple students at college level physics use it. You don't need Einstein's understanding of the extremely complex mathematics that got him there to be able to do that. Unfortunately practice is not like physics. We can be given suggested exercises from Einsteins till we're blue in the face but every single one of us needs to do the work of an Einstein to make any use of them. Whether the kind of unequivocal ruthless determination to just get on with it can be cultivated by following your bliss as Yoga suggests, well that's another interesting question. i.e. I don't have a clue!