GrandmasterP

Ben Jonson has that scene in his 'The Alchemist' MAM. A certain touch, or air, That sparkles a divinity, beyond An earthly beauty! DOL. O, you play the courtier. MAM. Good lady, give me leave -- DOL. In faith, I may not, To mock me, sir. MAM. To burn in this sweet flame; The phoenix never knew a nobler death. DOL. Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy What you would build. This art, sir, in your words, Calls your whole faith in question. MAM. By my soul -- DOL. Nay, oaths are made of the same air, sir. MAM. Nature Never bestow'd upon mortality A more unblamed, a more harmonious feature; She play'd the step-dame in all faces else: Sweet Madam, let me be particular -- DOL. Particular, sir! I pray you know your distance. MAM. In no ill sense, sweet lady; but to ask How your fair graces pass the hours? I see You are lodged here, in the house of a rare man, An excellent artist; but what's that to you? DOL. Yes, sir; I study here the mathematics, And distillation. MAM. O, I cry your pardon. He's a divine instructor! can extract The souls of all things by his art; call all The virtues, and the miracles of the sun, Into a temperate furnace; teach dull nature What her own forces are. A man, the emperor Has courted above Kelly; sent his medals And chains, to invite him. DOL. Ay, and for his physic, sir -- MAM. Above the art of Aesculapius, That drew the envy of the thunderer! I know all this, and more. DOL. Troth, I am taken, sir, Whole with these studies, that contemplate nature. MAM. It is a noble humour...... I kinda agree with old Ben that it is a noble humour indeed to be ataken with the Hermeticals.

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HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams W.B. Yeats

Kant.... Our minds may attempt to correlate in useful ways, perhaps even closely accurate ways, with the structure and order of the various aspects of the universe, but cannot know these "things-in-themselves" (noumena) directly. Rather, we must infer the extent to which thoughts correspond with things-in-themselves by our observations of the manifestations of those things that can be sensed, that is, of phenomena.

He's not the Messiah, he's just a very naughty boy. (Monty Python's Life of Brian)

Sorry Cat, the OP threw me back there. I am buttoning my coat as I type. :-)

OIC This sorta thing.... http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Open-Secret-by-Tony-Parson.pdf

....... Saturday 12th January our next gig. See Forthcoming events. :-)

.... Cracking metaphor K ( and a super fitness regimen too).

No disrespect Cat but if you look at the bookshelves in any English supermarket about one fifth of the paperback offer will be hermetic, occult, Templars themed and suchlike tales. People are fascinated by it, always have been. Fair enough very few get past that initial interest in a good yarn, but a few do in every generation hence it carries on. Ebbs and flows occur as in most interests. Possibly there were more working hermeticists around before the first world war than afterwards, a blip in the late sixties ( you're likely too young to remember the Pyramid 'craze' and what stemmed from that) but there's a substrate of hermetic-practice continuity sometimes more to the fore in the public imagination than at other times.

....... All good suggestions on here Mike so good luck with those. Coming at it from another angle and just a suggestion... Have you had a go at MCO? Might be worth a try if you fancy it. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Kud8GMKqbbw#/watch?v=Kud8GMKqbbw

Impeccable ally 'Critical friend' maybe?

So too, the experiences that Freemasonry is designed to evoke are beyond language. Those experiences are symbolized by the objects, actions, and legends of Freemasonry, but they cannot be expressed adequately and directly in words. Masonic secrets are symbols of what cannot be expressed—the Masonic spiritual experience. Masonic secrets are symbolic substitutes for the real experiences that await the Freemason in the course of the inner initiations that are the real content of Masonry. Same goes for ritual wear and objects in other traditions too I expect.

It's a part of our history, who doesn't like magic?

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=zxm9GGUDYCM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dzxm9GGUDYCM&gl=GB HTH Thing with QiGong is learning a form until it becomes second nature and sticking with it every day . It is a very slow process but persistence pays dividends. That standing 8 strands form is good but there are plenty more out there. Good Luck and best wishes to you.

DVDs and the like are only ever second best because they cannot correct or encourage 'there and then' whilst you are actually cultivating but if you can't get to a teacher...... Thing with QiGong is that learning a short set is pretty straightforward, that 8 strands form is deceptively simple but as you cultivate and maybe get deeper into what's happening , why and how; then things become interesting.

Nearly 46 years now since I began having to do paid work and I have yet to get to like it. Only chose teaching as soon as I got that chance cos we get good long hols. Those jobs that do combine cultivation and work such as monking I could never ever do even in the Ashram where you would think it was easy enough there were so many petty rules and squabbles. If anything it was harder to maintain any sort of spirituality there.

This is a nice QiGong set to start off with but there are lots of forms out there and if you can get to a teacher so much the better however, those tend to be few and far between in some parts of the world. http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=zxm9GGUDYCM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dzxm9GGUDYCM&gl=GB Best wishes and good luck to you.

Serious guys wearing suits cause a lot of trouble in the world. Nobody wearing a clown hat ever started a war as far as I know. OP wise I suppose my cultivation is separate from a lot that I do in the day as far as actual doing QiGong goes but I can get in the zone by weeding or even mucking out the horse on a good day. Anything I can do more or less mechanically is fine but at work where I have to think and talk to people, that's hard going, but then again they don't pay me to cultivate on their time.

...... Daily Mail is not for reading it is for fuming over. Always good to know what the enemy has planned so we take it. Also Mrs GMP likes the Sudoku.

I really enjoyed the movies when they came out but they have all been on TV a good few times now. We set off watching that one tonight but gave up after an hour. Mrs GMP wanted to watch some romance schlock about the Duchess of Devonshire or some such so I retreated to my batcave and have been here ever since. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sword-Shannara-Trilogy-Terry-Brooks/dp/1841492876/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1356823615&sr=8-3 Terry Brooks Sword of Shannara trilogy fairly cracks along. It's a bit of a rip off of Lord of the Rings in some ways , swords and sorcery and a mystic quest and all that but I really enjoyed reading it.

Had a look up that Co Mason Eastern Order , here in England it's very small and they meet in Theosophical Halls they also have links on their site to Theosophical sites so it's possibly an offshoot of that.

I have to stick to a routine otherwise I'd not cultivate at all some days due to laziness.

Focused is good. Those who are focused on a single goal have more chance of getting there sooner than butterflies ( self included).