BaguaKicksAss

This is what I was thinking from that quote, but not as eloquently as you put it .

Crap, hit my TTBs saturation point reading this thread first today... lol

.

The most awesome one I have seen was made out of meteorite!! Could have bought a house for that price...

*jealous* lol

My weeds are doing tremendously well, thanks for asking .

Actually compared with many the other forums online, this one is pretty tame regarding insults and such!

Dharma Wheel likely doesn't have the proxy thing figured out like we do . Though I likely just lost merit points encouraging someone to get back onto an online forum .

That's the same size Bagua sword I have . Typhonian dyke ROFL.

Nah that was my reply to the post above, the person commenting about he feels the whole same gender sex thing isn't his personal preference for a spiritual system method .

If you feel a post is out of line, report the post. Moderators can get warnings and suspensions too. Moderators (and in this case Stewards) are people too though, and they do get to post on the board like everyone else, but do have to behave a little better, to set an example and such.

Actually it was more disgust than fear... I had not heard of religion until I was 12 years old, then I found this halloween mask, and asked my parents what it was. It was the devil apparently. So I got a brief 5 minute synopsis on god and the devil. Didn't hear about religion again until I was 15... when the completely and totally insane christians in my city would scream that I was the devil, or possessed or a demon. Apparently heavy metal tshirts terrified these poor pathetic folks! That definitely didn't give me the best impression of them; I figured mean and crazy lol. Remember the whole satanic panic of the 80's? Yeah that. My other experience with them has been them knocking at my door trying to sell me something (their religion) so I viewed the like I do every door to door salesman.... Anyways, fortunately in my 30's I met some really nice and grounded christians who actually followed their path. This definitely changed my view on the whole thing. Though I was still a little annoyed at the whole witch trials thing. I figured going to church would be a good exercise; I'd never been to one. I found it quite boring actually, some guy just lecturing at you, no actual spiritual work during the service??? Perhaps I should have gone to catholic mass, I hear they are much ore interesting . Now about the whole you have to have same sex relations for a particular degree in the order... sounds pretty fishy to me! Less fishy if Crowley didn't get anything out of it. Anyways, no one should ever have to do sexual practices they are uncomfortable with, imo, especially in the name of spirituality. I think they call that a cult or something. Now if the person is fine with it and feels it would help them, then by all means... but requirement? I feel that's just as bad as religions and groups who state no sex. controlling diet and sex are 2 of the primary things on the "is this a cult" checklist.

For jewelry classes it works out to $3 per classroom hour for full time training and $10 per hour for courses around town. I guess spirituality costs more than learning to work with precious metals and gemstones!

I would say instead attend a workshop by a legit teacher of it. One workshop is safe enough, none of that odd cult like stuff ZOOM is worried about, then also there is the compare a. with b. sort of thing, from direct experience..

Yes that is easy enough on most people. But why? I'm arrogant enough to feel that someone should like me already, for how awesome I am, without coercion . Though I'm one of the few who doesn't wear padded bras either (so hard to find non-padded ones in the stores, holy hell!)

Sure you can convert your interest in spirituality into a career; if you have enough experience and ability in it. Nearly every person who has a strong interest in their spiritual path wants to do this, so you have to have something special to offer. Have you been at it 10 times longer than most? Can pull more off than most? Or very importantly, are your self promotional skills better than the others? Also like any self employment, as long as you don't mind working 60 hours per week at first. What I find is that when people think of it as a job they don't think of it as work, or tiring after a long day, or something with challenges. Generally folks just think of that excitement and the nifty feelings one gets from the practice. Knowing some really famous authors in this genre, I would say that if you take up writing, don't quit your day job, just perhaps find a day job in the field . Most people who write about their travels and experiences are self funded at first. Publishers don't pay up front generally unless you are already known, then still not much. Don't let this reply get you pessimistic though, there is hope..... it's not really about how spiritual you are, or suited you are for the work, it really is more about self promo. Look at the various newage teachers if you doubt this . I have found that during the first at least 5 years, your 40-60 hour per week job consists of self promo for about 40 hours per week of that. Get one social media, get known.... Now the awesome part of making your spiritual path and your full time job as one is... well you get to practice 4-6 hours per day, on top of your regular practice. (the rest is doing all the mundane stuff to keep the job going). Also you may want to start out by doing some local research, in your area. Each and every area has a wealth of info and history and people who practice and have stories....

I think maybe, if the lama or whoever is any good, it is not them teaching you, but a Deity, through them.

OK so last night I made a talisman from an old grimoire, to get rid of flies. It was a fun group project where we all made talismans. It was a simple version of the actual talisman since I used fimo "clay" . However I can't resist a good experiment. It is summer afterall, and we don't use screens on our windows. So today I saw some flies in my room, got it out and they left. Well nothing odd about that, could just be chance. So I brought it with me into the kitchen for lunch. I was having a steak for lunch and didn't want the little buggers landing on it. In this hot weather you sometimes have to shoo them away over and over again. They left my steak alone . There were about 3 in the kitchen when I walked in. While I was eating, I looked around and only saw one way across the room and heard another but could not find it. Well it was worth making the talisman just to have my lunch in peace. I got full before I had finished the steak, so it was time for the ultimate test! I left the room for a bit to see if there would be some all over it when I came back. Amazingly enough there weren't any . There was one in the kitchen, but it was flying *around* the steak giving it a wide berth. I checked a couple of times. Anything more important than seeing if I can reduce flies in the kitchen in summer, I don't post in public, but thought this experiment might be interesting .

So in the practices I currently do, the real/good stuff is not in the books. It is oral tradition, not written, and most definitely not shared with any random teenager who walks into a bookstore sort of thing. This includes the martial arts. Are Buddhist practices/books like this as well? There's something going on with the teachings, the specific meditations work better when being taught in the group of about a dozen people. I would sum it up as energetic stuff, but looks like no one in this particular thread would agree with me .

Fortunately the last event I went to was $150 for the entire week of training, including an empowerment, several talks, a TSOK (offering) ceremony and etc. However, I was pretty set on doing retreats years back. My customer base are far from rich, so the idea was to do it as low cost as possible. I figured out the costs for camping options, and for cabin or hotel room options. So after paying for the person leading the retreat airfare and hotel/cabin and food, then the insurance cost (in case an attendee gets hurt or something), any equipment rental, and hopefully one spends all their free time advertising instead of paying for it or paying someone else to do it.... It's rather difficult to get the cost down. I did run one event which was extremely low cost $120 for the 3 days. It was a camping event. All I had to pay for was some really cheap land, the porta potties, and water. Yep had to have water carted in. That was a large event though, would have to charge a lot more if there weren't a couple hundred folks attending. I think the event came out making about $150. We had about 15 vendors, so that helped. That is $150 for about 300 hours I put in, the many hours the dozen or so volunteer put in, and the main speaker giving me half price for their already low fee. Fortunately the main speaker was willing to fly the lowest cost flight I could find . However these days, if you were born with amazing superpowers and are really interesting to talk to, and help me with errands in trade, I'll teach you for free. Otherwise, I charge, a lot .

Someone having crossed the abyss, and gotten past most of their ego in less than 10 years? Not from what I have ever seen in the few hundred ceremonial magickians I have met over the years. I beleive that most orders rush people through the grades far too quickly and give them a much higher level/rank than they have achieved. I have mostly seen no indication of letting go of most of the ego by that time in most unfortunately. In all actuality about that time period it usually seems quite enhanced (in a bad way). Yes I mean folks with teachers in lodges. Also the tree of life map, is from start to finish (enlightenment, godhead, or such), kether being finish.. would logically take a lifetime to get there. The average magician would spend 50-60 years at this. So if getting up to Binah in 10.... making it most of the way there with that little practice, even if done daily (most don't do more than half an hour to an hour per day, if even daily), I'm very very highly doubtful of. There are some folks who beleive you can't get to binah in your physical body... while I wouldn't go quite that far, I don't feel you can make binah as a regular centered in thoughts and ego still having most control, state. There are some folks I've met who have been at it over 40 years, and if they use that particular map, I would say they have made it that far. Though now I'm sort of curious, and I'm going to ask some golden dawn folks I know, and discuss my thoughts on it .

Have there been any works about people who have accomplished the not eating at all for a decent period of time thing? Friend of mine, his roomate was striving towards this. Was down to living on juice 40% of the time, fasting on nothing 40% of the time, then raw food 20% of the time. He would get pretty emotionally messed up when doing the crazy long fasts, unfortunately. Something really felt off with his approach though. Perhaps there was some energetic practices counterpart missing or something. Or perhaps some meditational or spiritual practices counterpart which would have helped. The Paleo folks put out an awesome book about the paleo diet for when you are doing a lot of physical training (think it was the paleo diet for athletes one), which I used for ideas when marathon training. You really do need carbs when you are running many hours each week. All hail the mighty sweet potato! Interesting stuff.

I just re-read the topic title, and realized I had no answered the OP's question. I would say complete change (for the better) within myself many times, over the years. Oh some might say you don't need magic for that... well.... I would say that most people rarely change at all whatsoever over their lifetime, unfortunately. On a side note, the things which Taoists and Buddhists and etc. do are pretty much the same things magicians practice, but with different packaging. (IMO) Well then there is also the money spells, the incense and oils I make where complete mundanes are asking me wttf?! lol, the experiences which I have had, with other people around to witness at times, which most would call supernatural (because they just haven't had them happen enough times to count them as natural is all). Then there is the spellwork for others where the situation was enhanced manyfold, quite obviously; those are always fun . To the OP, it depends though, what do you want out of magic? Everyone goes into it for a different reason. I feel we all go into it to learn more about ourselves and our reality and universe, and etc., but there is always the initial ego reason (I call 99% of those "to help others" folks full of it).

Thanks. I hit burnout awhile back and quit. TTBs is much much more enjoyable now. You have no idea how nice it is to read posts and not have to check IPs on every suspicious one!