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roger: Thank you for sharing your experience. It sounds like TM really connected for you. From my experience with the mantra, I definitely felt some effects. My only skepticism is that I would be feeling an effect from any type of concentration meditation, and there is nothing special about saying a mantra. There are varying opinions on this, and the only way I can really know is to experiment. And then an issue is there's so many other methods out there, and I only have a limited amount of time so I can't try them all since it takes time to settle into a practice to see if it really works for me or not. I feel very restless, constantly worrying if I have the method that suits me the best. What if I wasted all that time on one method, when I could have been spending time with another method that I would have resonated much more with? I guess that's where faith comes in. At this rate I will be jumping between practices for the rest of my life, never spending enough time to get deep enough. And that's the worst possible outcome, the most illogical thing I could do.. Thank you for the detailed post, Steve. I see some logic in how you view the chakras. Of course, there is always doubt. Such as, why hasn't there been measurable evidence of the heart, or the stomach, or the sexual organ's roles in our emotions? But maybe there has been. I don't know. It doesn't matter, I don't fully trust scientific studies either after reading so many reports of all the flawed studies out there. Like you said, the experience is what matters. I like the 5 warrior syllables because honestly they sound kind of fun. I've never done a practice that is based around chanting or humming before. I'm not an articulate person so it's kind of nice to work out my vocal cords. I will take your advice to ease into it and see how it feels after a while.

Thank you for all the responses. I feel like I have this constant urge to bounce between practices. The grass is always greener syndrome. No doubt this is a symptom that I need to address through meditation and daily conduct. But... when I think about this logically, perhaps these paths are not for me. Perhaps, because of my skeptical mind, the only meditation I can do is breath meditation. The only issue with that is ... well, chakras and lights and gurus and internal channels and shamanistic goddesses sounds so much funner. But due to how I have been raised, my faith is lacking. Steve: I have also taken a skim of Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoches's dream yoga book, if that is the dream yoga book you are referring to. I found the explanation of the relation of dreams to waking life to be quite fascinating, but I did not do the exercises because I decided to do the western approach of lucid dreaming instead. Right now I am just keeping a dream journal and doing reality checks throughout the day, but still no luck with lucid dreaming. I'd love if you could describe how your process with the dream yoga techniques went. The warrior seed syllables are enticing to me, but I am constantly wondering how they really work. I have still felt no concrete evidence that I have chakras, so there is constant doubt about the practice. Obviously this will hinder the practice, and I don't do this intentionally, but in my subconscious there is doubt. I am wondering if you have a more secular explanation for the benefit of this practice that might ease my mind a bit?

I recently came across this book by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche about using the 5 seed syllables as a way to clear our 5 chakras. I took a read through the book, as well as the practices at the end which has pranayama-like exercises with visualization to further clear obstructions to the chakra. I thought the practice looked like something that could really benefit me, but I am discouraged because it appears to have a steep learning curve. I would have to visualize images and lights in addition to singing the syllables in addition to fixing my attention to a chakra. And that is not counting the pranayama exercises where I have to visualize the 3 main channels as I inhale and exhale air into them! That is the part that kind of scared me off a bit. I thought back about how I used to practice AYP and how it was great because it has such simple methods that build upon each other. But I also got a bit scared off after reading through all the posts on this forum about how awful AYP apparently is. What I am looking for is just a supplementary chakra practice to supplement my mindfulness and concentration meditation. I am just wondering which techniques you guys would pick or recommend? I tried qigong too but, again, learning the movements felt too complicated. So for the reason that I place a greater value on a practice that has an easier learning curve in addition to being powerful, I am really leaning towards AYP. I guess I just want to ask, then, is AYP really that bad?

Well, I might go see a hole in the wall place where the acupuncturist is an older asian lady who doesn't have very good english. She does not have any marketing at all though, but her yelp page has 46 reviews with a 5 stars rating average. Pictures of her place shows a very cramped room stacked up with boxes of raw herbs. Reviews of her raves about how kind hearted she is and how she genuinely cares about her work. Her price is also very low compared to other acupuncturist. I don't know how much that translates into how much skill she has in terms of acupuncture, but I guess I'm just taking a chance since the price is so low and I'll see how it goes. I don't know. Has anyone taken a chance on a place like this and gotten a fantastic acupuncturist?

In my practices and daily life, I am suffering from muscle tension that is somewhat uncomfortable in the same spot on the right side of my chest. I don't know if this is some kind of qi blockage or just muscle memory habit. I want to try an acupuncturist, and I'm wondering if you guys know how I would approach finding a good practitioner? I am just using google and yelp to search through acupuncturists near my area, and it's quite difficult to tell who is legit and who isn't just by random people's reviews. I am in the bay area(east bay to be exact) by the way, so there are plenty of acupuncturists especially in the san francisco and oakland area. But I've always had this gut feeling, not sure how valid it is, that there are a bunch of people in this field who aren't particularly skilled, yet still are able to receive many positive feedbacks due to the power of the placebo effect. How can I find someone truly good? If anyone has a recommendation, I would appreciate it greatly.

Kasper, I found a pdf of Secrets of NAP and skimmed through it a bit. Didn't find any summoning rituals yet, but it talks a lot about how to manifest your beliefs and desires into reality... magick, basically. Why not just follow Thelemite/Crowley systems? What makes NAP's system more special to you?

Basically, if that type of neurotic(and somewhat common) behavior is enough to cause a person to be infested with entities, then entity possession would be pretty common in this world and would be the cause of many mental illnesses that promote those behaviors further. I suppose it is my interpretation, but I don't think it's such a crazy leap of logic that Spotless was saying it was.

No, just interpreting exactly what you said . Here, I will copy paste it since you seem to have forgotten. "So here is an easy stupid way to have entities jump in your body like popcorn: Don't eat well, don't have much protein, take in lots of sugar (alcohol) and coffee and don't sleep much - try to leave your body and feel horrible about yourself and scare your body by doing stupid things. Listen to hate radio constantly or outrage radio, read all the headlines - even better - read only the Fox "News" headlines. Have lots of opinions - the harsher the better - rip people apart in your head - judge everything. Within less than a week you should be pretty well infested and beside yourself - and pretty close to 3/4 the world population."

Spotless: So are you saying people with mental illnesses like bipolar or depression are all being affected by entities? I suppose it's possible, but I'm not sure that's what I'm looking for. I used to deal with huge anxiety and depression issues, but I never saw entities as the cause, and I still don't. And if I put myself in that state of mind once again, 'll just feel the familiar feeling of depression but I still won't see entities as the cause... Seth Ananda: I think I read one of your posts, where you say that entities manifest in your life with real physical effects. That was one of the reasons why I made this thread. Is the method you described all it took you to summon an entity? If so, then you are spiritually advanced. Your faith and belief and concentration are conductive enough to allow entities to manifest through those methods. At this point in time, it would be unlikely that the same method would work for me. Still, I'll keep trying. Hopefully someday in the future, I can experience what you have.

Spotless: If you have a way for me to make entities into tangible beings in my reality, do let me know. I have asked and I have tried to make myself genuinely believe in the presence of entities, and I never receive anything concrete. Perhaps it's as simple as asking for you and others, but for me, my worldview is too grounded into realist materialism. So if you know some foolproof way to summon an entity for a person like me, you will be doing me a great service if you would inform me. No negative entity experience can compare to living life with a purely materialistic worldview and being a puppet to my fears and desires. Nungali: Yeah. I'm getting deeper into cosmic trigger, and RAW definitely went through some experiences. I'm at the point where I'm starting to question if his intention was just bullshitting his readers lol because a lot of them are very far fetched. And at the same time, I would love to experience the things he did. It sounds amazing. The issue is I have no access to psychedelics that I could trust is pure, and I don't really feel like doing them either. I hope to develop the discipline to meditate for hours a day to make up for my lack of psychedelics. As for your concerns about my methods, I'm going to try joining a local Thelema group. The teachers are members of the official A'.'A'.' so perhaps their classes could give me some guidance on reaching my goals.

I read Prometheus Rising many years ago and found it hard to accept. I forgot a lot of it, but the whole 8 circuit thing just seems too shoe horned for me. I'm reading through Cosmic Trigger now and for some reason its resonating much more with me. Maybe because now I am delving into the occult, so I'm more open to the concepts that beliefs can shape reality.

Don't think divination is my thing.. I just straight up don't believe in it. Very strong mental blocks against that kind of thing.. I'll need a lot of magickal experience to loosen up the way I view the world in order for me to clear that skepticism. I can work with tarot cards as points of focus and symbolism. The book is pretty dense, but I'm intrigued and it looks fun and playful, so I think this will work for me. Since the system is so rigorous, it probably makes sense to just spend a couple months getting familiar with it rather than reading up on more tarot books. I'm not too confident about my ability to maintain a consistent visualization of the astral plane, but I suppose this will be good practice to honing my mind. The book doesn't mention whether it's okay to cast spells more than once though. Is it okay to cast the same spell once every week or two weeks? My plan is to just cast spells that have tangible results. Simple stuff, like... I don't know, a man in a yellow cap will initiate a conversation with me, or I will see a raccoon in my backyard. Just cast a bunch of these spells, keep a journal, and if I get results, my belief in the magick will strengthen. From the materials I've read, the results should come. The books I've read say magick isn't just a psychological thing, it has a tangible effect on reality. So, I hope I'll be able to see it for myself.

The issue I have is that you can interpret any situation to fit into a prediction. So tarot predictions and astrology predictions always come true for everyone. But hopefully I'm wrong and skilled practitioners can make pinpoint accurate predictions edit: Reading through the book, wow this is pretty complex and requires some heavy concentration and visualization that I do not currently have. I'll keep at it and try to use it as a motivation to meditate more and practice magick more.

After more reading and contemplating, I've come to the conclusion that what I seek is currently not possible for me. My beliefs are just too skeptical; my mind and heart are too closed for any entity to manifest in a strong way for me. So I will just focus on doing things to open my mind and heart. Right now, that would be putting more hours into meditation, and attempting to learn astral projection. Tarot sounds kind of appealing because even though I've always been skeptical of fortune telling and astrology, it sounds like what your book is about isn't fortune telling, but using the cards as symbols and concepts to work magick through. If there is a logical system for the magick, perhaps that would be a way to get past my skepticism. I don't think I've ever even been physically close to a Tarot deck before though. Completely new territory to me. Anything I should know before diving in? I'm about to just order the Crowley Thoth deck and the book you recommended. Are there any other books on Tarot I should read, based on my current background? edit: I just ordered the Crowley Thoth deck. I read that beginners shouldn't use this deck, but the book says the deck type doesn't matter. So I hope your'e not about to say that I shouldn't have ordered that deck , it's a bit pricy for a bunch of cards.

I just read the first sections of Liber Null which stressed that I must have very strong one pointed concentration to perform successful rituals. I am still working on that.. my concentration isn't the best. So that's what I mean by "beginner". I guess I can just rely on orgasms to achieve momentary one-pointedness .. lol its embarassing to say that. But I basically just discovered magick and I'm trying to do spells/rituals that will dispel my skepticism and make me believe that magick has real and powerful results. Michael, thanks for that book recommendation, I will check it out. Sounds like what I'm looking for. But you said answering my question of whether there is tangible proof is difficult. Does this mean that the spirit that you converse with can be explained away as something like an imaginary friend that children have? That it's plausible that it only exists because some part of your mind strongly believes it does? I have read other posts on this forum of people claiming that their spirits were able to move objects and other physical acts. I have a hard time believing that, and that's why I posted this thread... I want to summon a spirit, and see for myself if something like that is possible.